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UN Security Council unanimously condemns Taliban's crackdown on women's rights

Issued on: 28/04/2023 - 

Afghan women shout slogans during a rally to protest against what the protesters say is Taliban restrictions on women, in Kabul, Afghanistan, December 28, 2021. © Ali Khara, Reuters

Text by:NEWS WIRES

The UN Security Council unanimously condemned on Thursday a Taliban administration ban on Afghan women working for the United Nations in Afghanistan and called on Taliban leaders to "swiftly reverse" a crackdown on the rights of women and girls.

The resolution - drafted by the United Arab Emirates and Japan - describes the ban as "unprecedented in the history of the United Nations," asserts "the indispensable role of women in Afghan society" and says the ban on Afghan women working for the UN "undermines human rights and humanitarian principles."

UAE UN Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh said more than 90 countries co-sponsored the resolution "from Afghanistan's immediate neighbourhood, from the Muslim world and from all corners of the earth."

"This ... support makes our fundamental message today even more significant - the world will not sit by silently as women in Afghanistan are erased from society," she told the council.

The Security Council vote came days before a planned international meeting in Doha on May 1-2 on Afghanistan. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will convene behind closed doors special envoys on Afghanistan from various countries to work on a unified approach to dealing with the Taliban.

"We will not stand for the Taliban's repression of women and girls," Deputy US Ambassador to the United Nations, Robert Wood, told the council. "These decisions are indefensible. They are not seen anywhere else in the world."

"The Taliban edicts are causing irreparable damage to Afghanistan."

Earlier this month the Taliban began enforcing the ban on Afghan women working for the UN after stopping most women working for humanitarian aid groups in December. Since toppling the Western-backed government in 2021, they have also tightened controls on women's access to public life, including barring women from university and closing girls' high schools.

The Taliban says it respects women's rights in accordance with its strict interpretation of Islamic law. Taliban officials said decisions on female aid workers are an "internal issue."

The Security Council resolution also recognizes the need to address substantial challenges facing Afghanistan's economy, including through using assets belonging to Afghanistan's Central Bank for the benefit of the Afghan people.

The United States froze billions of the bank's reserves held in the US and later transferred half of the money to a trust fund in Switzerland overseen by US, Swiss and Afghan trustees.

"As of today, what we have seen is only that assets have been transferred from one account to another, but not a single penny returned to the Afghan people," China's Deputy UN Ambassador Geng Shuang told the council.

Russia's UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia also called for the return of the Afghan Central Bank assets.

(REUTERS)

Paraguay election build-up dominated by corruption and Taiwan

By Lucinda Elliott, Daniela Desantis

ASUNCION (Reuters) - In the heart of Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, a tropical city close to the Argentine border, voters are gearing up for election day on Sunday, with the economy, corruption and Taiwan on their minds.

The farming nation of just under 7 million people will go to the polls to vote in what is expected to be a close contest between the slick, 44-year-old economist Santiago Pena representing the incumbent conservative Colorado Party and the 60-year-old political veteran Efrain Alegre leading a broad center-left coalition and pledging a foreign policy shake-up.

Pollsters see a tight race, even a technical tie. The ruling Colorado Party has dominated Paraguayan politics for the last three-quarters of a century, in power for all but five years. But persistent corruption allegations have led to cracks appearing in their support.

“We never talked about politics before, because a win for the Colorado Party was a done deal,” 40-year-old bank worker Gustavo Vera told Reuters in the capital. “There’s an air of change, the people have woken up.”

At the bustling Mercado 4 street market in Asuncion, most cited the tough economic situation. The fiscal deficit ballooned to 3% of GDP last year, average annual growth in the last four years dipped to 0.7%, and extreme poverty has risen.

“We’re going backwards, that is how I feel,” said Nicolas Ortigoza, 32, as he served chicken skewers at his stall. “There’s more corruption in Paraguay than work... All I know is we have to work much harder to make ends meet.”

Whoever takes over the presidency in August is likely to come under pressure from the newly-elected legislature to reduce spending after a splurge to ease the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine. Alegre has pledged to cut energy bills and Pena has promised to create more jobs.

“Whoever wins is going to have to limit public spending because debt cannot continue to grow,” economist and former finance minister Cesar Barreto told Reuters, adding it was a “complex” moment for any new government.

In political newscasts and columns, talk has centered on the debate about whether to end long-term diplomatic relations with Taiwan in favor of China, and a string of graft allegations against key Colorado Party leaders.

The U.S. Treasury earlier this year imposed sanctions on party chief Horacio Cartes and Vice President Hugo Velazquez, citing “rampant corruption.” They both deny the charges.

But the noise is swaying some voters.

“We’ve lived for too long with corruption, with poverty, with hidden drug trafficking and negligent healthcare,” said student Eiden Malky, 19, who is voting for the first time.

“There is a lot of opposition to the Colorados... Not that the next politicians will be better, but we will vote (for them) because they offer something different.”

Alegre, on his third presidential campaign, has pulled together a broad alliance of independent parties to challenge the powerful Colorado political machine. But he has come under fire from some quarters for indicating he would end nearly 70 years of diplomatic ties with Taiwan in a push to open up China’s huge markets for Paraguayan soy and beef.

Back in the Asuncion street market, fish seller Candida Britez, 59, said her sales were weak and falling, and she was keen to have a new political leader to improve things.

“Customers before would buy three or five kilos, now maybe just one kilo. I can barely make enough to buy bread, sugar and milk,” she said, adding that after the market closes she travels door-to-door selling what she can.

“Those of us who don’t have much want to see prices fall, better schools, and more affordable electricity with our next president,” said Britez.

Reporting by Lucinda Elliott and Daniela Desantis; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Rosalba O’Brien

Paraguay Gears Up For Tight Presidential Election

By Nina NEGRON

April 27, 2023

Paraguayans go the polls Sunday for the South American country's closest presidential race in many years, with a center-leftist coalition hoping to end an almost unbroken, seven-decade run for the ruling right-wing Colorado party.

The vote comes at a difficult time for the party that has governed almost continually since the 1950s -- through a dictatorship and since the return of democracy in 1989 -- with several of its leaders recently sanctioned for graft by the United States.


This has complicated the position of the party's presidential candidate Santiago Pena, a 44-year-old economist and former finance minister whose political mentor, ex-president Horacio Cartes, is among those under suspicion.

Pena faces 60-year-old lawyer Efrain Alegre of the Concertacion coalition of center-left parties, who is leading narrowly in opinion polls amid a recent anti-incumbency trend in Latin American elections.

"They (the Colorado party) know that we will win, so they feel nervous," Alegre told AFP this week.

In the last election in 2018, President Mario Abdo Benitez took victory for the Colorado party by a slim margin of less than four percentage points.

Opinion polls indicate this year's race is even closer in a country that only allows a president to serve one term.

Polling group AtlasIntel has placed Alegre in a slight lead with 34.3 percent of voter intention compared to 32.8 percent for Pena. An anti-establishment right-wing party is in third place with 23 percent.

"You don't win with surveys, you don't win with resumes," Pena told AFP.

"You win with the popular vote that manifests itself on election day. I feel very calm, very peaceful knowing that I have given everything humanly possible," he said.

Though they differ on economic policy, the two frontrunners are both socially conservative, holding strong anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage stances in the overwhelmingly Catholic nation.

Paraguayan presidential elections are determined in a single, winner-takes-all round.

Some 4.8 million of the country's 7.5 million inhabitants are eligible to take part in the election, which will also decide the next legislature and choose 17 governors.

The composition of the 45-member Senate will ultimately decide whether the Colorado Party can effectively remain in power -- and whether it can hold onto it with the party split between backers of Cartes and those of Abdo.

"The worst opposition Pena will have, if he wins, will be within his party, not outside it," Paraguayan political analyst Sebastian Acha told AFP.

Apart from corruption, which has angered the population, other issues that are key in the election include an escalating crime problem, poverty and social inequality.

Paraguay's GDP is expected to grow 4.8 percent in 2023, according to the central bank, and 4.5 percent according to the IMF -- one of the highest rates in Latin America.

But poverty affects about a quarter of the population.

"The great problem of Paraguay is not having achieved greater balance in the distribution of income to achieve greater equity," economist Ruben Ramirez of the Trade and Investment Paraguay consultancy in Asuncion told AFP.

Paraguay's Indigenous minority feels especially neglected.

"Paraguay, although it is among the economies that least felt the impact of the pandemic... does not escape being a country where economic inequality continues to exist in its population," added economist Stan Canova.

Many have lost faith in the system.

"I am not interested. We're not going to vote," said Albino Cubas, who shares a ramshackle wooden hut with his wife and three children in the capital's Tacumbu slum.

"I have not seen a serious proposal for the poor," said Cubas.

"We are five minutes from the center (of the capital), from Congress, from the government, and they do not see what is happening here. People without electricity, children loitering... our needs can surely be seen with the naked eye?"

Crime is also a concern, with an anti-mafia prosecutor and a crime-fighting mayor killed in recent months as smuggling cartels settle scores.

Experts say landlocked Paraguay -- nestled between Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina -- has become an important launchpad for drugs headed for Europe.


On the international front, an Alegre win could see Paraguay -- one of Taiwan's 13 remaining diplomatic allies -- shift allegiance to China.

"Relations with Taiwan mean the loss of one of the largest markets, which is China," he told AFP.


nn/mlr/sst


The Barron's news department was not involved in the creation of the content above. This story was produced by AFP. For more information go to AFP.com.

‘Lifesaving’: US family flees Texas to transgender 'refuge' Minnesota

Issued on: 28/04/2023 

03:16

‘Lifesaving’: US family flees Texas to transgender 'refuge' Minnesota 

(2023) © AFP / France 24

Video by: Juliette MONTILLY

Jasper, 16, relocated from Texas to Minnesota with their parents to escape from the alarming increase in bills targeting transgender youth. "I feel like this is much, much safer," says Mary, the mother of Jasper. Like them, many US families with transgender children are fleeing to this northern state bordering Canada. Minnesota recently passed a "trans refuge" law that would guarantee legal protection for trans people coming from elsewhere to access medical care.

Washington, Minnesota protect access to abortion, gender-affirming care

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed five bills on Thursday from the campus of the University of Washington in Seattle to protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care. 

Image courtesy of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee/Release


April 27 (UPI) -- The Democratic governors of Washington and Minnesota on Thursday signed legislation to protect access to abortion and gender-affirming care in their states as their Republican counterparts the nation over seek to restrict and ban the medical procedures.

The move comes as both medical treatments have come under attack by Republican-led states, resulting in more than a dozen to ban abortion following last summer's U.S. Supreme Court decision to repeal federal protections for the procedure.

More than 15 states have also banned gender-affirming care for minors, according to the Movement Advancement Project, despite most major medical associations supporting such treatment while calling on politicians to leave medical decisions to patients and their doctors.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed House Bill 1469 to prohibit compliance with out-of-state subpoenas related to abortion and gender-affirming-care services and abortion- and gender-affirming care-related extradition requests as well as prevent cooperation with related out-of-state investigations while protecting providers in-state from harassment.

RELATED Polling reveals views on abortion vary by age, race, geography

He also signed House Bill 1340, which protects healthcare providers from disciplinary actions, and the so-called My Health, My Data Act, which state Democrats call a "historic and first-in-the-nation solution" to protect the personal health information collected by websites, smartphone apps and health tracking devices, with intent to protect those who visit the state for abortion or gender-affirming care.

Senate Bill 5242, which increases access to abortion care by eliminating cost-sharing abortions, and Senate Bill 5768, which protects access to abortion-inducting medication mifepristone amid Republican-led litigation to end its use, were also signed Thursday.

"The right of choice is an issue of freedom," Inslee said in a statement. "Healthcare must remain the providence of individual Washingtonians. These laws will keep the tentacles of oppressive and overreaching states out of Washington."

RELATED Justice Department challenges Tennessee's law banning youth transgender care

The signings were met with cheers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, which described the state as demonstrating that it's a leader in protecting and improving access to both reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare.

"These bills are important steps toward defending and expanding abortion and gender-affirming care access, here and through their example, across the country," Leah Rutman, healthcare and liberty policy counsel at the ACLU of Washington, said in a statement.

In Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz signed a pair of bills that protect people traveling from out-of-state for abortion and gender-affirming care with a third measure signed to ban conversion therapy, making the Midwestern state the 21st to do so, according to the Movement Advancement Project.

RELATED Missouri judge delays emergency rule restricting gender-affirming healthcare

"In Minnesota, we're protecting rights -- not taking them away," he tweeted.

State Rep. Leigh Rinke, Minnesota's first transgender lawmaker, called Thursday "an amazing, celebratory day in the movement for a more just future."

 

Cosmetic to critical: Blue states help trans health coverage

By CLAIRE RUSH

April 26, 2023

Blue states bolster trans health coverage

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — For most of her life in New Mexico, Christina Wood felt like she had to hide her identity as a transgender woman. So six years ago she moved to Oregon, where she had readier access to the gender-affirming health care she needed to live as her authentic self.

Once there, Wood, 49, was able to receive certain surgeries that helped her transition, but electrolysis, or permanent hair removal, wasn’t fully covered under the state’s Medicaid plan for low-income residents. Paying out-of-pocket ate up nearly half her monthly income, but it was critical for Wood’s mental health.

“Having this facial hair or this body hair, it doesn’t make me feel feminine. I still look in the mirror and I see that masculine person,” she said. “It’s stressful. It causes anxiety and PTSD when you’re having to live in this body that you don’t feel like you should be in.”

Christina Wood shaves before work in her home. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

That is likely about to change. Oregon lawmakers are expected to pass a bill that would further expand insurance coverage for gender-affirming care to include things like facial hair removal and Adam’s apple reduction surgery, procedures currently considered cosmetic by insurers but seen as critical to the mental health of transitioning women.

The wide-ranging bill is part of a wave of legislation this year in Democratic-led states intended to carve out safe havens amid a conservative movement that seeks to ban or limit gender-affirming care elsewhere, eliminate some rights and protections for transgender people and even bar discussion of their existence in settings such as classrooms.

RELATED COVERAGE

:– For transgender kids, a frantic rush for treatment amid bans

– Michigan adds LGBTQ protections to anti-discrimination law

More than a half-dozen states, from New Jersey to Vermont to Colorado, have passed or are considering bills or executive orders around transgender health care, civil rights and other legal protections. In Michigan, for example, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last month signed a bill outlawing discrimination on the basis of gender identity and sexual orientation for the first time in her state.

“Trans people are just being used as a political punching bag,” said Rose Saxe, deputy director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and HIV Project. “Denying this health care doesn’t make them not trans. It just makes their lives much harder.”

Gender-affirming care includes a wide range of social and medical interventions, such as hormone treatments, counseling, puberty blockers and surgery.

Oregon’s bill would bar insurers and the state’s Medicaid plan from defining procedures like electrolysis as cosmetic when they are prescribed as medically necessary for treating gender dysphoria. It also would shield providers and patients from lawsuits originating in states where such procedures are restricted.

“We’re actually very committed to accessibility of coverage. Because you can say something is legal, but if it’s not truly affordable or accessible, that is not a full promise,” said Democratic state Rep. Andrea Valderrama, the bill’s chief sponsor.

Access to procedures such as electrolysis is also necessary as a matter of public safety, said Blair Stenvick, communications manager for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Basic Rights Oregon.

“Facial hair can be a trigger for harassment,” Stenvick said, and being able to present as a woman “helps folks to not get targeted and identified as a trans person and then attacked.”

The bill has sparked fervent debate, with hundreds of people submitting written testimony both for and against it and an emotionally charged public hearing at the Capitol in Salem last month that went on for several hours. The Democratic-controlled House is expected to vote on the bill Monday over Republican opposition before it heads to the Senate, which is also dominated by Democrats.

Oregon’s measure mirrors a nationwide trend in Democratic-led states.

Shield protections similar to what is being proposed in Oregon have been enacted this year in Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and New Mexico, and other bills are awaiting the signatures of Govs. Jay Inslee in Washington and Tim Walz in Minnesota. California, Massachusetts and Connecticut passed their own measures last year. They largely bar authorities from complying with subpoenas, arrest warrants or extradition requests from states that have banned gender-affirming treatments.

Meanwhile a measure passed last month by lawmakers in Maryland would expand the list of procedures covered by Medicaid, and Democratic Gov. Wes Moore has said he plans to sign it.

And lawmakers in Nevada’s Democratic-held Legislature are also pushing to expand gender-affirming health care and develop policies regarding the treatment of transgender prisoners, among other things.

The series of bills face an uncertain fate under Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, who has shied away from the anti-transgender rhetoric and policy proposals that fellow GOP officeholders and candidates across the country have embraced. Lawmakers have just over a month to vote on them before the legislative session ends in June. But regardless of their outcome, an open debate over transgender health care protections in the important swing state promises to further heighten national attention on the issue.

“They know that this is not a political stunt,” state Sen. Melanie Scheible, the bill’s sponsor and member of Nevada’s newly formed LGBTQ+ Caucus, said of the governor’s office. “I’m not trying to give them a bill to veto just so I can complain about it later.”

Some opponents of gender-affirming health care say they’re concerned that young people may undergo certain physical transition procedures that are irreversible or transition socially in settings such as schools without their parents’ knowledge.

Christina Wood applies makeup and gets ready before going to work in her home in Salem, Ore.

 (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

Advocates for gender-affirming health procedures counter that they can be, literally, a matter of life or death.

Kevin Wang, medical director for the LGBTQI+ Program at Swedish Health Services in Seattle, said such care alleviates the depression, anxiety and self-harm seen in patients with gender dysphoria. Studies show that transgender people, particularly youth, consider and attempt suicide at higher rates than the general population.

“These are not aesthetic procedures,” Wang said. “Accessing these services can be absolutely life-saving because we’re preventing future harm.”

Some legal experts, however, warn that laws that protect gender-affirming care but lack strong enforcement mechanisms or funding to investigate violations may not result in meaningful change.

For example, Oregon already bars insurance companies from discrimination on the basis of gender identity. And the state agency overseeing health insurance rules already requires companies to cover procedures deemed medically necessary by a doctor to treat gender dysphoria and bars them from defining them as cosmetic.

But insurers have rarely faced major consequences for violations, said Ezra Young, a civil rights attorney and visiting assistant professor of law at Cornell Law School.

“Where’s the task force that’s going to enforce the law?” Young said. “Where are the lawyers that are going to do this? Where is the funding to educate insurance adjusters that they can’t do this?”

“If you’re leaving it to relatively poor transgender people to litigate a case in court … that’s not a meaningful remedy.”

Christina Wood stands on the porch of her home in Salem, Ore. 

(AP Photo/Amanda Loman)

Christina Wood, the transplant to Oregon, said she was lucky to have had the resources and ability to move to a state where she could more easily complete her transition, compared with other states that have fewer protections.

“It’s scary to live in this world right now. But ... I’m not going to back down, and I’m going to advocate for people in my situation,” Wood said.

“I never had a voice when I was younger. Christopher never had a voice. Christina has a voice. And so that’s what I plan to do.”

___

Associated Press writers Gabe Stern in Carson City, Nevada, Joey Cappellitti in Lansing, Michigan, and Brian Witte in Baltimore contributed to this report.

___

Rush and Stern are corps members for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

Quack 'aphrodisiac' from lizard a hit in Pakistan

In a clamorous bazaar, hot-blooded Pakistani men seek a cold-blooded cure for their sexual ills—freshly rendered lizard fat, marinated in scorpion oil and garnished with filaments of a fiery red spice

Unsurprisingly, the black market balm known as "sanda tael"—cola-colored, with the whiff of burnt frying pan—has absolutely no scientific backing.

It also relies on poaching the reclusive Hardwicke's spiny-tailed lizard, which is cruelly butchered on the pavement before its innards are cooked on a crude gas hob.

"You just apply five drops over the affected area and massage," said Yasir Ali, one of four vendors in Rawalpindi's Raja Bazaar.

"It does magic in terms of promoting sexual stamina," the 40-year-old told AFP.

As he speaks, a lounge of paralyzed lizards is spread out on his tarpaulin sheet cluttered with glass vials.

Ali entices a gaggle of customers perusing his potions by telling them it is "a solution to bring joy and happiness" which will make them "strong like steel".

"It will make your wife happy," he promises with a glint in his eye. "Buy it and try it."

Sultan Mehmood, 62, a user for three decades says it "works like a miracle", as he launches into a vivid description of his sexual performance.

Chasing tail

The meek lizards—measuring up to 60 centimeters (24 inches) as adults—are plucked from the plains of Punjab and Sindh provinces as they peep out of their burrows to sunbathe.

As night fades, Muhammad Nasir, 25, lays a web of fishing wire snares on the arid plateaus surrounding the village of Adiala, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Islamabad. Within hours he has caught more than a dozen.

"We break the lizards' back after capturing them," the fourth-generation poacher said. "This is done to make sure they don't run away, because the animal moves with the speed of a bullet."

"Sometimes it's quite painful to hunt these lizards and deprive them of their right to live in a natural habitat, but this is how we make a living."

In a nation where social pressure dictates couples produce sprawling families, infertility is deeply stigmatized and Viagra is outlawed, the quack remedy for sexual impotence remains popular.

But Islamabad clinician Ahmad Shahab says the trade is capitalizing on naivety stemming from the taboo of sexuality in deeply conservative Pakistan.

"It is absolutely rubbish and there is no truth in claims that the oil helps," Shahab said.

"Sex is a subject people are quite curious about and these quacks are making fools out of them," he added.

"We have to change the mindset of our people and to educate them."

'Great human desire'

WWF senior research and conservation manager Jamshed Iqbal Chaudhry agreed claims of healing properties are "totally false and devoid of any truth".

The International Union for Conservation of Nature classes the spiny-tailed lizards as "vulnerable".

"The over-exploitation of lizards will lead them to the verge of extinction," Chaudhry warned.

Ali, the vendor, says he has been arrested "many times" by wildlife protection officers, but after fines no larger than 10,000 rupees ($35) he was freed to continue his trade.

Ali cuts the sand-colored lizards' necks while they are immobilized but alive—ending their 15-year lifespan—and melts down the fat inside their plump bellies.

He says the unction is infused with saffron—an exorbitantly expensive spice—but given the oil sells for between 600 and 1,200 rupees ($2 to $4) that seems unlikely.

He also claims its miracle properties include healing joint aches, back pain, sciatica and hair loss.

"I have regular customers from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Sharjah, Malaysia and several African countries," he boasts.

Muhammad Azam, 65, remains unconvinced.

"It's nothing but a fraudulent activity," he said. "I used this medicine but found it useless. It's full of germs and bacteria."

Still, Ali's fellow vendor Muhammad Rafiq, 40, says others turn to the oil "to satisfy their wives and to have children".

"This is a great human desire which is undeniable," he said.

© 2023 AFP

In Texas, two lizards battle for territory

Women Take On Japan's Political Gender Gap For 'True Democracy'

By Natsuko FUKUE

April 27, 2023

Women are a rare sight in Japanese politics, but 20-year-old Rinka Saito is determined to run for office one day because "you can't have true democracy without diversity".

She is one of a small group of young women being offered mentoring and money to help them break into a political scene that remains utterly dominated by men.

Once elected, female leaders in Japan face a tough environment, describing sexual harassment, chauvinist habits and ingrained views of government as a man's world.

Even so, Saito, the youngest participant of the scheme run by the Murakami Family Foundation, told AFP the part-time programme had brought her "a step closer to my dream".

There are only two women in Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's 19-member cabinet, and parliament's powerful 465-member lower chamber is 90 percent male.

The Tokyo-based foundation has organised a series of seminars by leading politicians for 20 women aged under 40 in a bid to address that imbalance.

The participants, chosen from 200 applicants, also receive a grant of one million yen ($7,400).

"I became interested in becoming a politician because I thought I could give hope to people with disabilities," said Saito, who has had surgery for hearing loss.

High-profile examples of discrimination in Japan, such as the forced sterilisation of disabled people under a now-defunct eugenics law, strengthened her resolve.

Saito, a social sciences student, initially didn't know where to begin.

She said the foundation has helped her build a network and better understand the "good and bad aspects of the political world".

Foundation chair Rei Murakami Frenzel, 28, was surprised so many people applied for the first programme, which ran from November to March.

"We had assumed that women didn't want to be politicians, but in fact, there just wasn't enough support," she said.

Japan's "homogenous" power base -- even the parliament's less powerful upper house is 75 percent male -- means lawmakers are "not tackling diverse social issues", said Murakami Frenzel, whose father is a renowned activist investor.

Japan has never had a woman prime minister and that must change, said lawmaker Seiko Noda. She ran against Kishida in the ruling party's last leadership race and is a lecturer for the programme.

"Even well-educated people have the entrenched view of politics as a male domain," said the former internal affairs minister and women's empowerment minister.

Noda, 62, told AFP she "couldn't even find the women's bathroom" when she started her political career in parliament's lower house three decades ago.

And while she believes the situation is slowly improving, Noda is keen to encourage women to enter the field given the "overwhelming lack of young female politicians".

A nursery was available during the seminars for those with children, and remote access was also an option.

Natsuki Shinobori "felt responsible for my country" after having two boys and joined the scheme with the hope of becoming a local politician.

"I want to solve social issues by starting small," said 36-year-old Shinobori, who lives in Nagano in central Japan.

Unequal attitudes towards female politicians endure, however, and Shinobori said she worries about the burden on her children.

In Japan, "wives will support their husband if he's running a campaign, but... we feel like women shouldn't cause trouble to their family", she said.

A record 489 women stood for office at local elections this month, still just 16 percent of the candidates.

Umeko Saito, a 75-year-old politician in Niseko, a small ski-resort town in Hokkaido, wants to see more women in local assemblies.

But, as the only woman in the 10-member local government for the past 12 years, she has first-hand experience of how tough the job can be.

"One of them told me he wanted to see me naked," she said. "I was in utter shock."

As well as facing sexual harassment, "when I speak in the assembly, other members insult me so I cannot continue, or they tell me my questions are too strange".

Saito fought to end a tradition of hiring "companions" -- women in their early 20s who serve drinks and chat with guests -- for political events.

Her efforts were successful and the custom has stopped. But Saito still feels that others view her as "an alien" in the political system and acknowledges that "many female politicians cannot speak up about harassment".

Some people have advised Saito to quit. "But I won't," she said.

"If I quit now, I don't know what I'm in politics for."

LET THE PUNISHMENT FIT THE CRIME

China rehabilitation scheme makes morticians of murderers

Matthew WALSH
Thu, April 27, 2023


Once jailed for murder, Cao Yongsheng now makes a living caring for the dead, benefitting from a bold rehabilitation scheme that's giving some of China's most serious criminals a second life as funeral workers.

It is a rare campaign to help former prisoners, many of whom say a lack of reform programmes, a resultant skills shortage and deep-seated discrimination push them towards reoffending.

Cao served 17 years behind bars for killing one person and severely injuring two others. He said working as a mortician allows him to "give comfort to the deceased... and atone for my crimes".

"It's a kind of spiritual absolution for me," the 56-year-old told AFP, glancing around his funeral home in the northeastern city of Shenyang. Its shelves bulged with caskets, incense and stacks of paper money burned at Chinese funerals.

China is home to about 1.7 million prisoners, according to data compiled by the University of London's World Prison Brief -- the most of any country apart from the United States -- but Beijing does not regularly disclose how many of them commit more crimes after leaving jail.

The volunteer-run project offers training and financial support so former prisoners can start new careers as undertakers, a novel way to keep them on the straight and narrow.

The group, known as "Mama Waves You Off to Heaven", says it is the only such initiative in China focused on reforming serious offenders, usually defined as those who have served a decade or more in jail.

Cao, one of the earliest participants, said the scheme helped him trade unstable work and bleak prospects for a stable income, a happy marriage and deep roots in his community.

"It was a great turning point in my life," he said as his business partner -- another ex-convict -- bustled around the store.

"Without this platform, perhaps I wouldn't be here today."

- 'I had nothing' -

More than 50 former prisoners have retrained as morticians under the scheme since it was set up five years ago, according to organisers.

It pairs them with other inmates and supplies vocational training as well as an initial cash injection to get their businesses off the ground.

The work is frequently intense, with undertakers often called in the middle of the night to visit bereaved families, wash and dress the deceased, and transport them to the crematorium -- the final resting place for most people in China.

Participants say they are just happy to have a steady job.

Sun Fengjun said he had a hard time after his release in 2013.

In jail for two decades for assault, he emerged blinking into a society transformed by a rapid economic boom.

"I couldn't even work a phone," the 52-year-old said in his cramped funeral home outside a major hospital. "I had no family, nothing -- and no confidence."

That was compounded when many prospective employers demanded proof he had never broken the law.

Background checks are common in many industries in China, where convictions are listed permanently on criminal records, and effectively put him out of the running.

"In this society... we can't do most jobs. We need the right certificate, but how are we supposed to get it?" said Sun.

- Long path back -

Chinese law says jails should remould offenders into law-abiding citizens through "a combination of punishment and reform, education and labour".

Inmates are commonly put to work in manufacturing and other sectors but seldom learn skills necessary for life back on the outside, campaigners say.

While the funeral business is a comparatively accessible industry for former prisoners, traditional taboos around death mean it lacks social status.

But the low barriers to entry make the work "well-suited" to a group of people already accustomed to feeling ostracised, according to Fu Guangrong, the scheme's founder.

"Through hard work and (good) service, they can earn the approval of other people and enjoy human dignity," the sprightly 69-year-old lawyer told AFP.

Better known in China as "Mama Fu", she is a longtime advocate for improving prisoners' conditions and is treated as a surrogate mother by many ex-convicts.

Volunteers find other jobs for those who prefer not to work in the industry, said Fu, who even sometimes acts as a matchmaker.

Mortician Li Shuang, 45, said the scheme has helped him earn enough money to support his family while also "cleansing the soul".

Li was freed in 2012 after serving more than 14 years for offences including assault and armed robbery.

"We were young and made mistakes... Our paths in life were bent in the middle," he said.

"Now that we've fought our way back, I hope society won't look down on us."

mjw/je/pbt/cwl

Libya green group battles to save remaining forests

by Jihad Dorgham

Khalifa Ramadan, the leader of the "Friends of the Tree" group who work to raise awareness about green areas around Tripoli, plants a tree at his farm in Tajura.

War-ravaged Libya is better known for its oil wealth than its forests, but environmentalists hope to save its remaining green spaces from logging, development and the impacts of climate change.

The "Friends of the Tree" group works to raise awareness about green areas around the capital Tripoli that are quickly disappearing because of drought, human activity and desertification.

"Man has destroyed forests" and much of the vegetation, said the group's leader Khalifa Ramadan, who has been working in agriculture and gardening for 40 years.

At his farm in Tajura, an eastern suburb of Tripoli, Ramadan has planted eucalyptus, palm and laurel trees, which the group plans to replant around the capital.

The group meets weekly to launch media campaigns and carry out activities to confront "the dangers facing Tripoli and other coastal cities", said Ramadan.

Rainfall is scarce in the largely desert country, which is only starting to recover from the years of bloody conflict that followed the 2011 uprising which toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi.

The group, which includes dozens of agronomists, horticulturists and volunteers, ultimately would like to revive a "green belt" project from the 1950s and '60s that has withered during decades of dictatorship, war and turmoil.

The Friends of the Tree group meets weekly to launch media campaigns and carry out activities.

Back then, Libyan authorities dipped into the country's wealth to plant forests across an area stretching from Tripoli to the port city of Misrata, 200 kilometers (125 miles) to the east.

Strict laws at the time aimed to control urban expansion and soil erosion and to stop the desert from sweeping into Tripoli, while also opening new areas for agriculture.
'Criminal acts'

Today Libyan state institutions, weakened by rivalries and continued insecurity, have struggled to bring stable governance, including on protecting the environment.

In recent years, at least 1,700 criminal cases have been identified involving activities such as unauthorized logging and illegal construction, says the agricultural police.

In Garabulli, a coastal area east of Tripoli—famed for its pristine white sands and its centuries-old eucalyptus trees, acacias and wild mimosas—tree trunks litter the ground next to some illegal constructions, recently demolished on judicial instruction.

Members of the Agricultural Police: in recent years, at least 1,700 criminal cases have been identified involving activities such as unauthorised logging and illegal construction, the police say.

"The green belt has become the target of numerous violations over the past few years," said General Fawzi Abugualia, spokesman for the agriculture police.

The police unit is ill-equipped to deal with all these challenges, but has nevertheless managed to score some points, he said.

With help from other security services, the agriculture police "have put a stop to these criminal acts", he said, referring to the destruction at Garabulli.

They have managed to seize back more than 8,000 hectares (20,000 acres) of land in the area that had been misappropriated by builders to construct private homes or seaside resorts.

Falling water tables

But Libya and its forests face other, more long-term challenges—especially water scarcity driven by climate change and population pressures.

Abderrahman Mohamad, a volunteer who works alongside Ramadan, said the groundwater had dropped dramatically, particularly around Tripoli.

Man has 'destroyed forests' said Khalifa Ramadan, who has been working in agriculture and gardening for 40 years.

Map of Libya.

General Fawzi Abugualia, spokesman for the Agriculture Police, says the green belt has become the target of numerous violations.

"A few decades ago, you had just to dig 40 or 60 meters deep to find potable water," said the 65-year-old man. "Now you need to go deeper, to around 100 or 160 meters, to find it."

According to the World Resources Institute, Libya along with the other North African nations of Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, is among the world's 30 most water-stressed countries.

Ramadan remains determined to do what he can to bring change and green more areas of the troubled country.

"We must teach people to preserve trees and encourage them to plant," he said, adding that this serves to "stabilize soils, temper the climate, clean the air and attract rain".

© 2023 AFP

Explore further  Climate change, human activity threaten Libya nature reserve

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA
India arms Hindu village militias to combat Kashmir rebels


Parvaiz BUKHARI
Thu, April 27, 2023


Brandishing a bolt-action rifle, civil servant Sanjeet Kumar is one of 5,000 Kashmir villagers who have joined all-Hindu militia units armed and trained by Indian forces to fight off rebel attacks.

India has more than half a million soldiers permanently stationed in the parts of Muslim-majority Kashmir it controls, as the Hindu nationalist government presses a bid to crush a decades-long insurgency.

Authorities announced the new militias last year, and a deadly rebel assault in Kumar's frontier village in January prompted him to sign up.

"We were totally terrorised by the attack," the 32-year-old municipal worker in the electricity department told AFP.


Wearing a saffron-coloured tilak on his forehead to mark himself as a member of the Hindu faithful, Kumar said he was ready and able to defend his home.

"Anyone who turns a traitor to our nation is my target," he told AFP.

- 'Only one community' -

Kashmir has been disputed between India and Pakistan since both countries achieved independence 75 years ago. Both sides claim the territory in full.

India has fought against rebel groups demanding the territory's independence, or merger with Pakistan, in an insurgency that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

The new militia units, known as Village Defence Guards, were unveiled last year in the wake of a string of murders targeting police officers and Hindu residents of Kashmir.

The scheme has been broadly popular among the region's Hindu residents but Muslim villagers are concerned the militia will only exacerbate Kashmir's woes.

"My worry is about the way weapons are now being distributed among only one community," said one elderly Muslim living in Dhangri, who asked not to be named.

"Now weapons are being brandished around by young ones. This is not good for any one of us," he told AFP. "I sense a growing tension."

- 'I will fight back' -

Many residents of Dhangri, the remote hamlet where Kumar lives, are still grief-stricken by the attack that claimed the lives of seven of their neighbours, which police blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

"With or without the weapons, we're terrorised," said farmer Murari Lal Sharma, 55, as he cradled his loaded .303 calibre rifle.

"But now I will fight back."

One Indian paramilitary officer said the newly armed villagers were on such a constant state of alert that his unit informed them beforehand of their night patrol, so that they were not accidentally mistaken for militants and fired upon.

"The purpose is to create a line of defence, not a line of attack," Kanchan Gupta of India's information ministry told AFP.

India first created a civil militia force in Kashmir in mid-1990s as a first line of defence when the armed rebellion against Indian rule was at its peak.

About 25,000 men and women, including teenagers and some Muslims, were given weapons and organised into village defence committees in Jammu region.

Rights groups accused members of these committees of committing atrocities against civilians.

At least 210 cases of murder, rape and extortion blamed on the militias were prosecuted, official records show -- though less than two percent of defendants were convicted.

Gupta said that these cases were individual acts and there was no record of organised crime by the militias.

"There is always a chance that a few may turn rogue," he said. "It's not possible to control everyone."

Most of the committees became dormant as Indian troops gradually throttled the insurgency and the security situation improved.

- 'Now there are guns' -

This time around, militia members are warned by trainers from the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) that they would be punished for misusing their rifles.

"Alongside training them in firing, maintenance and cleaning of the weapons we also tell them what legal action will be taken for misuse," CRPF spokesman Shivanandan Singh told AFP.

Three people have nonetheless been killed since the new Village Defence Guards were established, including two who died by suicide using weapons issued to the militias.

The wife of another member was killed in January when her husband's rifle accidentally discharged.

But the reservations of some neighbours have not stopped men in the villages around Dhangri from clamouring to get their own arms.

"Now there are guns in houses all around mine," said Ajay Kumar, a flour miller and ex-serviceman, pointing out to AFP the homes of neighbours who had been given arms.

"Whenever needed, I will take full advantage of my weapon."

pzb/gle/ser/qan

'I'd rather die': Syrians in Lebanon fear deportation

Aya Iskandarani and Rouba El Husseini
Thu, April 27, 2023 


Samer and his family thought they had found safety in Lebanon after fleeing Syria's war nearly a decade ago, but amid growing anti-refugee sentiment, Beirut handed his brother to the Syrian army.

Syrians poured into Lebanon after civil war broke out in 2011, with Damascus's brutal suppression of peaceful protests. With the regime now back in control of most of the country, calls have intensified in crisis-hit Lebanon for Syrians to go home.

Samer said Lebanon's army intelligence raided his brother's apartment in a Beirut suburb last week, detaining him, his wife and children and deporting them to Syria.


Like others AFP spoke to, Samer preferred to use an alias, citing security concerns.

Syrian authorities released the wife and children but arrested his brother, who together with Samer had taken part in anti-government protests more than a decade ago.

He has not heard from him since.

"Our biggest fear is for him to disappear (in regime prisons), never to be heard from again," said Samer, 26.

"We fear we will meet the same fate: deported to Syria, where we could be arrested or disappeared."

Authorities say Lebanon currently hosts around two million Syrians, while more than 800,000 are registered with the United Nations -- the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.

Lebanon has long pushed for Syrians to return home, and has made several repatriation efforts for Syrians that authorities describe as voluntary.

In recent weeks the army has intensified a crackdown on undocumented Syrians, with some 450 arrested and at least 66 deported, a humanitarian source told AFP.

- 'Want a solution' -

Lebanon has seen anti-Syrian sentiment soar recently as some officials seek to blame refugees for the country's woes.

Lebanon has been in the throes of a devastating economic crisis since 2019 that has plunged most of the population into poverty. The local currency has tanked, while the World Bank has blamed authorities for misusing and misspending people's deposits.

Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar recently claimed there were "dangerous demographic changes" under way, warning: "We will become refugees in our own country."

Some municipalities over the years have imposed restrictions on Syrians' movement, while recent social media posts have painted refugees as criminals hungry for United Nations aid.

"They say we receive UN aid in dollars, but it is not true," Samer said, adding he and his family had experienced years of poverty and intimidation.

"We are tired and we want a solution. We don't need money or anything from Lebanon."

The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) told AFP it can only disburse assistance to roughly 43 percent of refugees, paid out in local currency.

"The maximum a vulnerable family of five or more members receives for both cash and food assistance is 8,000,000 Lebanese pounds per month," UNHCR said -- roughly $80.

The agency said authorities had been cracking down on Syrian communities, with at least 13 raids in April alone.

Some of those arrested or expelled were refugees registered with UNHCR, it said, while another humanitarian source said in some cases minors had been separated from their parents.

- 'I'd rather die' -

Amnesty International this week urged Lebanon to "immediately stop deportations", describing them as forced and saying refugees risked "torture or persecution" upon return.

The clampdown has left impoverished Syrians distraught, with many now too scared to go out.

Abu Salim, 32, told AFP he had been sleeping at a warehouse where he works with 20 other people "because we're afraid of getting arrested".

He said he had spent six years in Syrian jails and his worst fear was deportation.

"If I go back to prison, I will never get out," he said.

Ammar, an army deserter, told AFP he had been holed up at home, his eyes glued to the anti-Syrian vitriol spewed on social media.

"Why all this hate? What did we do to deserve this? We only fled to escape death," the 31-year-old said.

In Lebanon since 2014, he said he feared not only for his own life but for his wife and two-month-old child.

"I live in fear that the army will break into my house and deport me," he said, adding that soon he will have to venture out "to work and buy baby milk".

Desperate Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians have been attempting to leave Lebanon for Europe on rickety boats, with some migration bids ending in tragedy.

The government has accused Syrians of entering Lebanon just to take the perilous sea journeys.

Ammar said he would take a boat if he had to.

"In Syria there is no longer any hope," Ammar said. "I'd rather die at sea than return."

aya-rh/lg/fz/leg

UN expert urges Japan to sanction Myanmar junta

Issued on: 28/04/2023 -

Tokyo (AFP) – Japan should sanction Myanmar as it has done for Russia over its Ukraine invasion, a United Nations expert said Thursday, slamming the junta's "barbarism and oppression".

Thomas Andrews, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar, also urged Japan to immediately end a training programme for Myanmar troops, warning it was tarnishing the image of the country's military.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi's government in February 2021, sparking fighting across swathes of the country and tanking the economy.

An air strike on a village in a resistance hotspot this month killed at least 170 people, according to media and locals.

"The human rights situation in Myanmar is horrific and getting worse," Andrews told reporters in Tokyo at the end of a trip to meet Japanese officials and businesses.

"I urge Japan to consider joining all other G7 countries in imposing targeted economic sanctions on the Myanmar military and its key sources of revenue, just as it is doing in response to the crisis in Ukraine," he said.

Sanctions against the junta "would weaken its capacity to attack its people," he added, accusing the military of "barbarism and oppression".

Japan halted new aid projects after the coup, although existing programmes were not affected.

The defence ministry said in September it would not accept new recruits into a programme that trains Myanmar military personnel.

But Andrews criticised the decision to allow soldiers already in the programme to complete their training.

"They are receiving combat training and learning how to be effective soldiers and commanders" and will return "to a military responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes," he said.

"So long as the defence ministry continues to train Myanmar soldiers, Japan's Self-Defense Forces will be linked to a brutal military regime."
'Irreparable harm'

Japan has longstanding ties with Myanmar and was a major provider of aid, as well as a source of investment, before the coup.

Andrews said he had urged Japan to redirect money that would have gone into new aid programmes toward funding food rations for Rohingya refugees in neighbouring Bangladesh.

Around a million Rohingya are in the country, most of them arriving after a 2017 military crackdown by Myanmar that is now subject to a UN genocide investigation.

Food rations were already cut by 17 percent last month, but now face being reduced an additional 20 percent, Andrews said, risking "irreparable harm to Rohingya children".

Some Japanese businesses, including drinks giant Kirin, have exited Myanmar, but Andrews said others continue to cooperate with partners that serve the junta, or have sold operations to junta-linked firms.

The former US congressman and Myanmar campaigner said the international community as a whole was "failing the people of Myanmar".

"The fact is, conditions are deteriorating quickly and it means that we need to reassess our actions."

© 2023 AFP