TRANSHUMANISM BY ANY OTHER NAME

NATO Releases First International Strategy On Biotechnology And Human Enhancement Technologies

 April 13, 2024  

By Eurasia Review

NATO Allies broke new ground by adopting the first international strategy to govern the responsible development and use of biotechnologies and human enhancement technologies at a meeting of Allied Defence Ministers in February. On Friday (12 April 2024), NATO released a public version of the strategy. 

Faced with the exponential growth of biotech breakthroughs and their anticipated impact on defence and security, NATO has positioned itself as an ethical leader on biotech and human enhancement technologies by adopting an informed, value-based and gender-aware strategy. 

The aim is to embrace these emerging solutions lawfully and responsibly, while developing a trusted relationship with innovators and the public and protecting the Alliance against misuse of these technologies by strategic competitors and potential adversaries. Implementation of the strategy will be carried out in full respect of international law and existing protocols and practices, especially for bioethics. Application of biotech-related solutions will be in line with NATO’s defensive nature. It can range from the possible use of biosensors to enhance the detection of biological and chemical threats; to the development of health tech wearables; and other biomaterials that can help protect and heal servicemen and women. 

Expert research on opportunities and challenges linked to such an application will start in the months to come.

Biotechnology and Human Enhancement technologies were identified as a priority emerging, disruptive technology in 2019. 

Congo-Cameroon: Sustainable Solutions to the Human-Elephant Conflict? (English)


ENGLISH

Project
Human and Wildlife Conflicts in Central Africa
READ MORE ABOUT THIS PROJECT

Country:
CONGO (BRAZZAVILLE) CAMEROON

Author:


Jean Pierre Ndinga
CONGO BASIN RJF GRANTEE


An English summary of this report is below. The original report, published in French in Africa News, follows.

In Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon, as in many other countries in the Congo Basin, the cohabitation of humans and elephants is anything but peaceful. NGOs and public authorities are now working together to find effective and, above all, sustainable solutions.
A solitary male in the Conkouati-Douli National Park. Image courtesy of Africa News.

Devastation of crops, attacks on humans... In Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon, as in many countries of the Congo Basin, cohabitation between humans and elephants is anything but peaceful coexistence. NGOs and public authorities are now selling their jobs in search of effective, but above all sustainable, solutions.

In Cameroon, the problem arises in the localities of Campo, in the south of the country bordering Equatorial Guinea, and Messok-Ngoyla in the east. In recent years, these areas have been seen as epicenters of this conflictual coexistence between humans and wild beasts.

This is due to the animals of the Campo Ma'an and Nki National Parks, which abandon their natural areas to enter villages in search of food, destroying fields and plantations and sometimes even attacking humans.




As a not-for-profit journalism organization, we depend on your support to fund journalism that covers under-reported stories around the world. Donate today, no matter the amount, to become a Pulitzer Center Champion and get exclusive benefits!

Among the animals implicated are elephants, rodents including hedgehogs and primates including gorillas and guenons. As if the leaves and wild fruits were not enough, these animals, in order to meet their colossal needs for food, attack the crops of humans: bananas, cassava, cocoa trees, pistachios,....Almost all crops now end up in their voluminous stomachs.

Several factors are mentioned. The case of the increase in the animal population, the result of "successful" conservation, according to Nkouom Metchio Cyrus, municipal councillor of Ngoyla and the proximity to the parks. "This would push the animals out of the boundaries of protected areas to go elsewhere, especially in peasant plantations," says the local elected official.

Congo-PNCD: Noah or the ark of the new insurance?


The situation is the same in the Conkouati-Douli National Park (PNCD), in the department of Kouilou, in the extreme south-west of Congo-Brazzaville.

Here, the 30 or so villages in the districts of Madingo-Kayes and Nzambi struggle to live together with wild animals, including elephants. With an estimated population of nearly 1,000 individuals, pachyderms make incursions into human environments by ravaging their farms.

Attacks on humans have also been reported, such as the accident recorded last August in the village of Sialivakou (Nzambi district) where a female elephant disemboweled the hunter Ngoma-Loemba. Other attacks have claimed the lives of humans.

But the lines seem to be moving. In particular, thanks to protected agricultural areas (ZAP). Initiated by the French NGO Noé, the program consists of grouping households within a perimeter protected by an electric barrier. The first experiment was launched last December.

"For the time being, the fields of this ZAP are spared, since elephants no longer enter this space," says Alphonse Makosso, secretary general of this coastal locality. And Noé intends to extend the experiment to other villages "especially if it continues to produce these positive results", promises Modeste Makani, head of community development at the NGO installed in 2021 after the departure three years ago of the American WCS.
Congo-Odzala-Kokoua: the best-shared experience in Central Africa

In the Odzala-Kokoua National Park, the experiment with electric barriers through the "Élanga" project implemented by the American NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is already starting to produce encouraging results. In the village of Bomassa, for example, 59 families now enjoy this anti-elephant fortress. "Before, we suffered for our plantations, which were often devastated by elephants. With the arrival of the Elanga project, today in the village of Bomassa we have cassava, groundnuts, bananas and many other fruit trees...", says Louise Ngouengué, a mother in her late sixties.

Bomassa's initiative has been taken up in other localities of the Park such as Ntokou-Pikounda. At the level of the Central African sub-region, at the meeting of the three protected areas of Lobeké in Cameroon, Dzanga-Sangha in the Central African Republic and Nouabale Ndoki in Congo, held from 7 to 11 June 2022 in Bayanga (CAR), it was recommended that Bomassa's experience should be documented and then shared with other protected areas so that they too can see how they could, depending on their context, apply it.

Already at the level of the TRI-National Sangha (TNS), the process is underway. "We always receive calls and emails from friends of Djanga-Sangha with whom we share information about the Bomassa model, about the design we are developing here. We get a lot of calls and messages," says Cisquet.

This work was carried out with the support of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

First attempt to catch orphaned orca calf in Canadian lagoon is unsuccessful





The Ehattesaht First Nation deployed a canoe and other resources to try and rescue an orphaned orca, but were unsuccessful, at a lagoon near Zeballos, British Columbia, Friday, April 12, 2024. (Chad Hipolito/The Canadian Press via AP)

April 12, 2024


ZEBALLOS, British Columbia (AP) — An orphaned killer whale stranded in a remote Vancouver Island lagoon is proving difficult for rescuers to catch, an official at the site said Friday.

Ehattesaht First Nation Chief Simon John said the capture operation is in the “demobilization stage” after an unsuccessful attempt to rescue the 2-year-old orca that began before dawn.

He said they plan to try again in a couple of days, and that rescuers were “standing down.”

The 2-year-old calf has been alone in Little Espinosa Inlet for about three weeks after its pregnant mother was beached at low tide and died on March 23.

The pair got into the lagoon by swimming through a narrow and fast-moving channel connecting it to the ocean.

The First Nation said earlier that the rescue was launched at 5 a.m. because of favorable weather conditions.

The rescue plan involves trying to corral the female calf into a shallow part of the 3-kilometer lagoon, using boats, divers and a net, before she would be placed in a large fabric sling and hoisted onto a transport vehicle.

 

Can The US And Iraq Move Beyond Military Ties? – Analysis

Iraq's Mohammed Al-Sudani. Photo Credit: Mehr News Agency

 April 13, 2024  

By James Durso

Twenty-one years ago, the U.S. and its allies invaded Iraq in the erroneous belief that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction and was allied with al-Qaida, the terror group responsible for the 9/11 attacks. 

The U.S. created an occupation authority, but failed to restore order and helped spawn the insurgency that bedeviled it by dismissing the entire Iraqi military and the most experienced civil servants. Coalition troops fought a losing battle, regained their footing with the 2007 troop surge, and finally departed in 2011. U.S. troops returned in 2014 to fight the Islamic State and they remain there to this day, though ISIS was largely eliminated by 2019.

In January 2020, Iraq’s parliament voted on a nonbinding measure to remove the U.S. troops from Iraq, but the Americans remain at the request of the Iraqi government. However, in response to the parliament’s 2020 vote, Iraq and the International Coalition changed the mission of the troops from a combat mission to one of advisory and training.

Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia’ Al Sudani, will meet U.S. President Joe Biden on April 15, primarily to discuss the U.S. troop presence. 

Though the U.S.-Iraq Higher Military Commission is reviewing the troop presence issue, will the U.S. side stall fearing it may have to agree to a smaller presence and constrained operations? Possibly, so Sudani may want a public commitment from Biden to force the march to a constructive, timely decision.

Aside from the troops issue, Sudani wants to strengthen Baghdad’s ties with Washington, which he considers Iraq’s top bilateral relationship, and to add an economic dimension to Iraq’s ties with America.

When Americans think of Iraq in economic terms it’s all about the oil, but in November 2023 ExxonMobil, America’s biggest oil company, exited Iraq with nothing to show for a decade-long effort. The departure will lower the expectation of other U.S. companies, but Sudani wants to revitalize economic ties, and he will be accompanied by many of the country’s top businessmen.

U.S.-Iraq trade has room for growth. In 2022, the U.S. exported $897 million in goods, the top product being automobiles. Iraq, in turn, exported $10.3 billion in goods, most of it crude oil.

A key economic objective of Iraq is the $17 billion Development Road, an overland road and rail link from the Persian Gulf to Europe via Turkey, that will host free-trade zones along its length.

Biden and Sudani should consider the shape of the future U.S.-Iraq relationship, which has to now been governed by military considerations, and has become the best example of The Meddler’s Trap, “a situation of self-entanglement, whereby a leader inadvertently creates a problem through military intervention, feels they can solve it, and values solving the new problem more because of the initial intervention. …A military intervention causes a feeling of ownership of the foreign territory, triggering the endowment effect.” 

Iraq is the only real democracy in the Arab world, and many young Iraqis want a separation of religion and state, something that should resonate with Americans and, Iraqis hope, cause the U.S. to deal with Iraq as Iraq, not a platform for operations against Syria and Iran, or to support Washington’s Kurdish clients.

Washington damaged itself in Iraq by killing Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020. Baghdad had moved the PMF, once a militia, into the government in 2016 (no doubt with American encouragement), so the killing of Muhandis, then a government official, increased popular support the PMF.

What are some clouds on the horizon for the U.S. and Iraq?

Corruption. Pervasive corruption in Iraq has slowed economic development and subjected Iraqi citizens to ineffective governance. The 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index by Transparency International ranked Iraq 154 of 180, a slight improvement from 2022 when it ranked 157 of 180.

Iraq was previously described by TI as: “Among the worst countries on corruption and governance indicators, with corruption risks exacerbated by lack of experience in the public administration, weak capacity to absorb the influx of aid money, sectarian issues and lack of political will for anti-corruption efforts.”

Sudani has not ignored corruption, calling it one of the country’s greatest challenges and “no less serious than the threat of terrorism.”

Elizabeth Tsurkov. Tsurkov is a Russian-Israeli academic who was kidnapped in 2023 by Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-influenced Iraqi militia. Tsurkov, a doctoral student at Princeton University in the U.S., entered Iraq with her Russian passport and did not disclose that she was an Israeli citizen and Israeli Defense Forces veteran. (A 2022 Iraqi law criminalized any relations with Israel.)

Tsurkov’s family wants the Biden administration to designate Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism for failing to secure her release. Sudani’s office announced an investigation into the matter and the issue may arise when Sudani meets Biden, though the best outcome for Iraq and the U.S. is a Russia-brokered deal between Israel and Iran.

If Biden designates Iraq a state sponsor of terrorism that will irreparably damage the relationship and open the door for China.

China. The U.S. is Iraq’s top relationship, but not its only relationship. China will respond to the ostracism of Baghdad by extending invitations to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS, the latter of which can fund infrastructure projects through the New Development Bank. PetroChina replaced ExxonMobil in West Qurna 1, one of Iraq’s biggest oil fields, and is ideally positioned for further expansion. And Iraq was the “leading beneficiary” of China’s Belt and Road Initiative investment in 2021.

Sudani has said Iraq should not be a cockpit of conflict for the U.S, and Iran, but when Iran is concerned it, in Washington, is always 1979. Though Sudani has many challenges to face, Biden has more: he must reorient his government away from its colonial mentality in West Asia, recognize that Baghdad must reach a modus vivendi with Tehran that may not be to Washington’s pleasure, and not smooth the way for Beijing’s greater penetration of West Asia.

This article was published at Responsible Statecraft

Share

James Durso (@james_durso) is a regular commentator on foreign policy and national security matters. Mr. Durso served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and has worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Central Asia.

 

The Decline Of Extreme Poverty – OpEd

 April 13, 2024  

By Saurav Sarkar

One of the foremost accomplishments of the industrial age is the “immense progress against extreme poverty.” “Extreme poverty” is defined by the World Bank as a person living on less than $2.15 per day using 2017 prices. This figure has seen a sharp decline over the last two centuries—from almost 80 percent of the world’s population living in extreme poverty in 1820 to only about 10 percent living in these conditions by 2019. This is all the more astounding given that the population of the world is about 750 percent higher.

The causes of economic progress are clear. The laborers of past generations around the world—often against their will—gave us industrial revolutions. These industrial economies rely on, and generate, machinery, technology, and other capital goods. These are then deployed in an economy that requires less sacrifice of human labor and can generate more goods and services for the populations of the world, even as populations continue to grow.

Some ideologies, such as socialism, were most effective in fighting extreme poverty. Socialism is defined here as the state control of a national economy with an eye toward the welfare of the masses. Socialist regimes serve to counter and remove extreme poverty. Two regions illustrate this point well and account for billions of people who moved out of extreme poverty in the last century—all of them influenced by or under the rubric of socialism.

In the USSR and Eastern Europe, extreme poverty declined from about 60 percent in 1930 to almost zero in 1970. In China too, extreme poverty has been eliminated to virtually zero today, though there are debates over exactly what produced those gains. Some argue that these gains are the product of capitalist reforms; but even if this were the case, those reforms took advantage of the groundwork laid by the post-1949 socialist economy.

There is also a certain logic to why socialist economies in the 20th century were able to eventually generate massive gains for those at the very bottom of their societies. While not the only ideology that can do so, socialism is particularly good at the kind of state control and support of economies that is required for successful industrialization. Moreover, because socialism sets itself up to be politically evaluated by what it delivers to those at the very bottom, the politics of socialist countries tend to moderate some of the inequality that comes with industrialization in a capitalist world. This makes it markedly different from other varieties of state control like colonialism, imperialism, state capitalism, and fascism.

Socialism’s existence also seems to have pushed forward reductions in poverty in the capitalist sections of the world. The presence of the Soviet Union and internal left movements across the capitalist world put pressure on capitalist regimes to offer more goods and services to their working classes and underclasses. This is evident from several instances throughout the world, such as the role of communists in fighting for civil rights for Black people in the United States.

While there might have been an immense reduction in extreme poverty over the decades, a series of setbacks brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and various ongoing wars across the world have recently made a dire situation worse for those already struggling to make ends meet. According to a 2022 World Bank report, “the pandemic pushed about 70 million people into extreme poverty in 2020, the largest one-year increase since global poverty monitoring began in 1990. As a result, an estimated 719 million people subsisted on less than $2.15 a day by the end of 2020.”

This means that the world is “unlikely” to achieve the UN target of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. Consider what it looks like to live on less than $2.15 per day. It means that you cannot even “afford a tiny space to live, some minimum heating capacity, and food” that will prevent “malnutrition.” As we struggle to meet our goals, the majority of the world population has been forced to live on under $10 a day, while 1.5 percent of the population receives $100 a day or more.

Moreover, a racial analysis is also important to include given that extreme poverty is increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa and parts of South Asia. Poorer countries (which are home to the vast majority of Black and brown populations) are “encouraged” to produce the cheapest and simplest goods for trade rather than developing self-sustaining economies or upgrading their economies and workforces. In fact, they are often pushed to destroy existing economies.

The final rub in any discussion of poverty is that the preexisting solutions to it— industrialization—may not be feasible with the limitations of a warming planet. If sub-Saharan Africa needs to industrialize to eliminate extreme poverty in that region, who will pay for that carbon footprint? Presumably, the countries of the Global North that have the most historical carbon debt ought to, but it is hard to imagine a world in which they will voluntarily do so. After all, they have yet to make reparations for the stolen labor with which their wealth was built in the first place.

• About the author: Saurav Sarkar is a freelance movement writer, editor, and activist living in Long Island, New York. Follow them on Twitter @sauravthewriter and at sauravsarkar.com.
• Source: This article was produced by Globetrotter.