‘We can’t pay our bills with magic’: Disney World unions reject contract proposal

BYMIKE SCHNEIDER AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 4, 2023 

People visit Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, in April 2022.
TED SHAFFREY, FILE—AP PHOTO

Union members voted down a contract proposal covering tens of thousands of Walt Disney World service workers, saying it didn’t go far enough toward helping employees face cost-of-living hikes in housing and other expenses in central Florida.

The unions said that 13,650 out of 14,263 members who voted on the contract on Friday rejected the proposal from Disney, sending negotiators back to the bargaining table for another round of talks that have been ongoing since August. The contract covers around 45,000 service workers at the Disney theme park resort outside Orlando.

Disney World service workers who are in the six unions that make up the Service Trades Council Union coalition had been demanding a starting minimum wage jump to at least $18 an hour in the first year of the contract, up from the starting minimum wage of $15 an hour won in the previous contract.

The proposal rejected on Friday would have raised the starting minimum wage to $20 an hour for all service workers by the last year of the five-year contract, an increase of $1 each year for a majority of the workers it covered. Certain positions, like housekeepers, bus drivers and culinary jobs, would start immediately at a minimum of $20 under the proposal.

“Housekeepers work extremely hard to bring the magic to Disney, but we can’t pay our bills with magic,” said Vilane Raphael, who works as a housekeeper at the Disney Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa.

The company said that the proposal had offered a quarter of those covered by the contract an hourly wage of $20 in its first year, eight weeks of paid time off for a new child, maintenance of a pension and the introduction of a 401K plan.

“Our strong offer provides more than 30,000 Cast Members a nearly 10% on average raise immediately, as well as retroactive increased pay in their paychecks, and we are disappointed that those increases are now delayed,” Disney spokesperson Andrea Finger said in a statement.

The contract stalemate comes as the Florida Legislature is prepared to convene next week to complete a state takeover of Disney World’s self-governing district. With the support of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the GOP-controlled Statehouse last April approved legislation to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District by June 2023, beginning a closely watched process that would determine the structure of government that controls Disney World’s sprawling property.

The contract with the service workers covers the costumed character performers who perform as Mickey Mouse, bus drivers, culinary workers, lifeguards, theatrical workers and hotel housekeepers, representing more than half of the 70,000-plus workforce at Disney World. The contract approved five years ago made Disney the first major employer in central Florida to agree to a minimum hourly wage of $15, setting the trend for other workers in the hospitality industry-heavy region.

A report commissioned last year by one of the unions in the coalition, Unite Here Local 737, said that an adult worker with no dependents would need to earn $18.19 an hour to make a living wage in central Florida, while a family with two children would need both parents earning $23.91 an hour for a living wage.

While a wage of $15 an hour was enough for the last contract, “with skyrocketing rent, food, and gas prices in the last three years, it’s no longer possible to survive with those wages,” the report said.

Before the pandemic, workers with families in the $15 to $16.50 an hour wage bracket could pay their bills. But with inflation causing the price of food and gas to shoot up, an employee earning $15 an hour full time currently makes $530 less than the worker would need to pay for rent, food and gas each month, the report said.

Last month, food service and concessions workers at the Orange County Convention Center voted to approve a contract that will increase all nontipped workers’ wages to $18 an hour by August, making them the first hospitality workers in Orlando to reach that pay rate.

‘It’s about damn time’: College workers organize amid nationwide labor unrest

After fearing the National Labor Relations Board under President Donald Trump would roll back graduate students' power to unionize, campus organizers are energized under President Joe Biden.


Union academic workers and supporters march and picket at the UCLA campus amid a statewide strike by nearly 48,000 University of California unionized workers on November 15, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. | Mario Tama/Getty Images


By BIANCA QUILANTAN and BLAKE JONES

02/04/2023 

Frustrated by low wages and new laws limiting what they can teach — and buoyed by President Joe Biden’s pro-union bent — campus workers across the country are moving with new urgency to organize.

A historic strike at the University of California kicked things off in November. And the six-week standoff among 48,000 campus workers, a broader surge in labor strikes across industries, a depleted pandemic workforce and a friendlier atmosphere in Washington has culminated in a wave of uprisings.

University of Illinois-Chicago faculty went on strike for four days last month. Hundreds of graduate students at Temple University in Philadelphia took to picket lines earlier this week. And the University of Washington averted a scheduled walkout by librarians and other campus employees in December just three hours before staff planned to hit the streets.

Workers are demanding increased wages, better health benefits, more job security and improved working conditions, and so far colleges are scrambling to meet them.

“We have seen the past two to three years a lot of interest from higher ed workers organizing in states that do not necessarily have the collective bargaining rights or the ability to bargain with their employer on their wages and benefits,” said Enida Shuku, an organizer with United Campus Workers who said the group is in discussions with several institutions about joining UCW.

Even in Southern states, including Tennessee, Arizona and Mississippi, organizers are pressing school leaders about pay and fights over free speech on college campuses.

“We’re all seeing it and experiencing it … and it’s about damn time,” Shuku said.

Graduate students typically double as employees for their institutions, teaching general education classes and working as lab assistants while pursuing their degrees. Many workers say they make below a living wage. At Temple, for example, the average graduate student worker can expect to make around $19,500 a year.

With union-friendly Biden in the White House, campus workers feel they have the extra leverage they need to unionize and strike.

Under President Donald Trump, campus organizers feared the Republican-majority on the National Labor Relations Board would use their cases to overturn a precedent that allowed graduate students at private universities to unionize, said Mark Gaston Pearce, who chaired the board under President Barack Obama.

“Anything that required having to go through the board processes was avoided because they did not want to put the board in the position to weigh in relative to that question,” said Pearce, who is now the executive director of the Workers’ Rights Institute at Georgetown University. “Now — that no longer being an obstacle — it’s not surprising that there is a flurry of organizing going on.”

In fact, Biden has been stocking the NLRB with commissioners who favor unionization among graduate students, something Trump administration appointees once considered banning altogether.

Boston University graduate students had backed off a unionization drive during the Trump administration, fearing a rejection from the board. But workers regrouped last fall, encouraged by a Democratic majority on the NLRB, and eventually voted to unionize in December.

“With the shift in political landscape more recently, it kind of lightened the stressors of whether or not we’d be able to unionize to begin with and allowed us to have another go at it,” said Alex Lion, a PhD candidate and organizer at the university.

UIC faculty almost went on strike in 2019, but the night before they were set to stop work, they agreed on a contract. Following “exhausting” semesters of online instruction, months of inflation chipping away at workers’ earnings and a surge in labor action nationwide, faculty vacated lecture halls in January for four days before agreeing to a contract that will raise the lowest-paid employees’ wages by $9,000.

“Across the nation, faculty and students everywhere are pretty exhausted,” said Charitianne Williams, a UIC English professor and a member of the union’s bargaining team. “I think that whether you’re faculty union at UIC or in a union at Starbucks, that’s a really difficult space to live in.”

Campus workers at the University of California got tens of thousands of dollars in raises, larger child care stipends and commuter benefits after weeks on the picket line. University of Washington’s union was able to secure salary boosts and academic freedom protections in January, negating reason to strike.

Conservative critics, though, argue the successful labor wave could spread universities’ resources thinner — forcing them to slash student worker positions or make other cuts — to afford the raises won during bargaining.

“The money has to come from somewhere,” said Timothy Snowball, a civil rights attorney at the Freedom Foundation, a nonprofit organization that challenges labor unions, “and I think this is when ideology kind of comes up hard against basic economics.”

He said the UC strike will have unintended consequences across the system.

“The best way to view this in my eyes is not really the strikers versus the administration of the UC system,” Snowball said an interview. “The undergrads are the ones who suffered the most, for a public service that the population of California had already paid for.”

Graduate students laid the groundwork for labor action in 2022. Students at the University of Southern California, Northwestern University in Chicago, Yale University in Connecticut, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, among others, moved to unionize that year.

At the California State University system, graduate student workers union president Lark Winner said the UC strike will “absolutely” add to her unit’s leverage as it heads into contract negotiations in the coming weeks.

“Bargaining does not happen in a vacuum,” Winner said. “All of us were paying attention to what happened at UC, and we need to make those same critical wins that our UC folks did.”

Labor action is bubbling in right-to-work states in the South too, especially as statehouses move to pass legislation that restricts how educators can discuss “divisive concepts” related to race and gender.

Bills introduced in 2022 targeted higher education more so than in the previous year, according to PEN America. The free speech advocacy group found that 39 percent of bills in 2022 targeted higher education, compared to 30 percent in 2021. At least four bills were passed in Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota and Tennessee.

United Campus Workers started about 20 years ago in Tennessee over fair pay and wages at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. When Tennessee’s S.B. 2290 — which outlines how to discuss race and gender at public universities — was signed into law last year, professors began to organize against the law’s restrictions.

Sarah Eldridge, associate professor of German at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, said while state laws do not allow collective bargaining, the union that represents all campus workers has managed to boost non-tenure track faculty pay by about $9,000 in the last six years. Their graduate student union committee also recently won a fight to waive administrative fees that were being imposed on their stipends.

But when the bill took effect, the union got fired up again.

Some tenured professors are looking to continue to protest the law each semester, despite pushback from state legislators. The union is now urging the university to increase campus minimum wage to $20 an hour immediately, and to $25 an hour by 2025.

While campus workers can’t officially go on strike in the state and don’t have immediate plans to do so, Eldridge said: “Never say never.”

Mackenzie Wilkes contributed to this story.

Japan PM sacks top aide over anti-LGBT comments

Xinhua, February 5, 2023

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Saturday that he has fired Masayoshi Arai as secretary to him over discriminatory remarks against sexual minorities.

Kishida, who has recently expressed caution over legalizing same-sex marriage, told reporters that he took the issue "very seriously" and that Arai's successor has already been decided.

"Executive secretary Arai's remarks totally contradict the government's policy and are inexcusable," said the prime minister.

Arai, an elite bureaucrat from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) who serves as an executive secretary to the prime minister, said during an off-the-record conversation with reporters the previous day that he would "not want to live next door" to an LGBT couple and that he would "hate even to see them."

Arai also said that if same-sex marriage is introduced in Japan, it would "change the way society is" and that "there are quite a few people who would abandon this country."

Arai quickly retracted the comments on Friday after they were made public by the media and apologized, adding that the remarks did not reflect Kishida's own thinking.

Arai, 55-year-old, was appointed an executive secretary to the prime minister in October 2021, when the Kishida administration took office, from his post as director-general of the commerce and information policy bureau at the METI. 

PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

El Salvador opens 40,000-person prison as arrests soar in gang crackdown

El Salvador opens one of Latin America's largest prisons

The 40,000-capacity Terrorism Confinement Center was inaugurated as President Nayib Bukele's crackdown on criminal gangs has caused the prison population to soar.

A general view shows the Terrorism Confinement Center in Tecoluca, El Salvador in a handout distributed to Reuters on February 1, 2023. Secretaria de Prensa de la Presidencia/Handout via REUTERS

President Nayib Bukele, center, visits a newly inaugurated prison in an isolated rural area in a valley near Tecoluca, El Salvador, on Wednesday.El Salvador's Presidency Press Office/AFP via Getty Images


Feb. 2, 2023, 
By Reuters

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — Authorities in El Salvador have opened one of Latin America’s largest prisons, more than doubling the country’s incarceration capacity, as a government crackdown on criminal gangs is causing the prison population to soar.

The 40,000-capacity Terrorism Confinement Center was inaugurated on Tuesday to help relieve some of the overpopulation in the country’s prison system.

Since President Nayib Bukele asked the country’s congress to approve a state of exception in March, the police and army have arrested more than 62,000 suspected gang members and their collaborators.

A newly inaugurated prison near Tecoluca, El Salvador, on Wednesday. 

El Salvador's Presidency Press Office/AFP via Getty Images

Under the measure some constitutional rights have been suspended, including allowing authorities to make arrests without a warrant and giving the government access to citizens’ communication.

With nearly two percent of its adult population behind bars, El Salvador has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The rising inmate population as a result of the anti-gang measures, which the vast majority of the population supports, has stretched the country’s already overwhelmed prison system. El Salvador’s largest prison, La Esperanza, currently holds 33,000 people despite having a capacity of 10,000.

Recommended

El Salvador’s Prisons Director Osiris Luna said the new prison will span over 410 acres, while 600 troops and 250 police officers will secure it.

“All those home boys, those terrorists in the organization that made our beloved Salvadoran people suffer, will be house and subjected to a severe regimen,” Luna said on state television.

By 2021, El Salvador’s prison system had 20 penal centers with a capacity for 30,000 holding 35,976 prisoners.

A Remedy for El Salvador’s Prison Fever



Detainees are moved to a prison by police officers as more than 37,000 people were detained during the state of emergency, according to the Ministry of Justice and Public Security, in San Salvador, El Salvador, June 7, 2022. REUTERS / Jose Cabezas

REPORT 96 / LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN

05 OCTOBER 2022

Following a spate of murders, the Salvadoran government ordered mass roundups of suspected criminal gang members, throwing more than 53,000 in jail. The clampdown is popular but unsustainable. Authorities should develop a path out of gang life that members can choose.

GENDER AND CONFLICT
EL SALVADOR


What’s new? A sudden uptick of violence in March, caused by the breakdown of talks between the government and criminal gangs, has sparked a ruthless six-month law enforcement campaign in El Salvador, anchored in unprecedented mass arrests and restriction of legal rights.

Why does it matter? Fed up with gang violence, most Salvadorans have applauded the crackdown. But it has also drawn criticism from human rights organisations and could boomerang. Having more than doubled the prison population, the country is headed for a humanitarian crisis in its jails, while gangs, though now in disarray, could strike back.

What should be done? Rather than commit to strong-arm tactics for the long term, the government should provide an off-ramp for the thousands of gang members willing to build new lives in law-abiding society. The country’s main foreign partners should support these efforts and revive their cooperation with San Salvador.

Executive Summary

To a chorus of popular support, El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele has embarked on the largest dragnet of suspected gang members ever seen in Central America. Under a “state of exception” declared in March, the government has lengthened the period of detention without charge and lowered the age of prosecution to twelve. Police and troops have mounted checkpoints around and raids on poor districts overrun by gangs. Some 53,000 alleged criminals have been jailed on the basis of often dubious proof, many in overcrowded, unhygienic and dangerous conditions. The prison population now stands proportionally as the world’s highest, prompting authorities to break ground for a massive new facility. But although murder rates are touching new lows, with many gang members either jailed or on the run, the draconian policy raises other concerns that require attention. Gangs could regroup to retaliate while a humanitarian and human rights crisis festers in the country’s jails. For the country’s long-term benefit, authorities should develop a way for gang members to return to society as law-abiding citizens.

The crackdown’s severity is all the more startling in light of Bukele’s reported overtures to the criminal gangs that have tormented El Salvador for over two decades. Elected in 2019 as an outsider intent on supplanting a discredited two-party system, the extroverted young president boosted public services in places plagued by poverty and violence, where gangs find many of their recruits. According to media reports and first-hand testimony gathered by Crisis Group, his government also entered discreet talks with jailed and free gang leaders, spurring a steep reduction in homicide rates. In return, the authorities reportedly granted these leaders a number of concessions, including expedited release for some of them. During this period, the police and military reported fewer clashes with gangs and arrests of their members.

A shocking killing spree late in March, including the murder of 62 people on one day – the bloodiest 24 hours in recent Salvadoran history – provided the backdrop for Bukele’s abrupt change of tack. Yet even before this flare-up, there were reasons to doubt the government’s commitment to a negotiated demobilisation of gangs. The president has always denied that talks with gangs were happening, suggesting that negotiation was unlikely to be a pathway to a permanent settlement. As soon as his party won an absolute majority of seats in the legislature in 2021 elections, he worked with deputies to bury any evidence of talks by replacing the attorney general and shelving his predecessor’s investigation into the reported negotiations. The MS-13 gang has suggested it carried out the March killings because it felt betrayed by the government’s disavowal of the previous engagement, hinting that the president’s interest even in secretive talks had waned by then.
Bukele’s government has turned to heavy-handed tactics to respond to surges of gang violence in the past, but none compares to the present crackdown.

Bukele’s government has turned to heavy-handed tactics to respond to surges of gang violence in the past, but none compares to the present crackdown in either intensity or duration. With public support for the state of exception sky-high, Bukele seems convinced he is sounding the death knell for the country’s three main gangs. He fiercely rejects criticism of his methods.

But there are grounds for wondering whether Bukele will succeed. Although murder rates have reached historical lows, clashes between gangs and security personnel are on the rise. Gangs have leaked statements threatening to hit back harder if the government does not return to dialogue. The campaign to arrest anyone who has, has had or may have had a link with gangs could force former members back into crime if they see no hope of anything else. Mass arrests of former gang members who have converted to Christianity in order to quit gang life are troubling. Dire overcrowding, combined with the government’s refusal to take responsibility for what has gone wrong – from custodial deaths to wrongful arrests – could fuel tensions in jails, leading to mutinies and escapes. El Salvador’s experience in 2015 after its gang truce broke down, when the murder rate rose to the world’s highest, hints at the risks that may lie ahead. Adverse financial conditions, the threat of debt default and strained ties with the West make it all the more vital that Bukele shift to a security policy that is resilient, durable and internationally reputable.

El Salvador needs a more humane and sustainable approach to solving its gang problem. A crucial plank of such a policy would be the creation of a clear pathway out of gang life for jailed and free members. Even as they seek to profit politically from fighting crime, Bukele and his senior officials should be mindful of the innate dangers of a huge prison population, which must be fed and housed, and begin looking for ways to release jailed suspects and convicts subject to their monitored participation in rehabilitation programs. Various bills to create a national rehabilitation scheme have been tabled in the country’s Legislative Assembly over recent years, but none has prospered; these should be revived. A rehabilitation and reintegration initiative should include measures that promote employment for former gang members, with support from churches and civil society. To help communities accept the gang members who may come to live among them, San Salvador should also promote restorative justice for victims of violence. Support from large donors, including the U.S. and European Union, will likely be key to making this initiative a reality.

Bukele has so far shown little interest in slowing his pursuit of gangs’ unconditional surrender. But the humanitarian and reputational costs as well as the risks of a return to extremes of lethal violence make it imperative that the government prepare an alternative way out for the jailed population. Force may put the gangs on the run for a period of time, but it will take much more to begin dismantling them for good.

KEEP READING

A Remedy for El Salvador’s Prison Fever | Crisis Group

PDF DOWNLOAD

A Remedy for El Salvador’s Prison Fever (crisisgroup.org)

MEANWHILE IN PRISON NATION U$A

Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 

2022 | Prison Policy Initiative

Can it really be true that most people in jail are legally innocent? How much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs, or the profit motives of private prisons? How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed decisions about how people are punished when they break the law? These essential questions are harder to answer than you might expect. The various government agencies involved in the criminal legal system collect a lot of data, but very little is designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. As public support for criminal justice reform continues to build — and as the pandemic raises the stakes higher — it’s more important than ever that we get the facts straight and understand the big picture.

Further complicating matters is the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have one “criminal justice system;” instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. 

This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some modern myths to focus attention on the real drivers of mass incarceration and overlooked issues that call for reform.

How China becomes a strong buttress to UN

(Xinhua) February 05, 2023

Photo taken on Sept. 14, 2020 shows the outside view of the United Nations

 headquarters in New York, the United States. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)

BEIJING, Feb. 4 (Xinhua) -- "A strong buttress to the blue flag (of the UN)" was how Csaba Korosi, president of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), depicted China in late September last year.

The UN official, who took the occasion of the 73rd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China back then to acknowledge the country's contribution to promoting development and prosperity, gave credit to China's strong support of the United Nations one more time on Thursday.

China is an important partner of the United Nations, Korosi said as he is visiting the country from Wednesday to Saturday at the invitation of Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

There are good reasons for Korosi's comments. China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the first country to put its signature on the UN Charter, has been firmly supporting the UN-centered international system and the international order underpinned by international law, and helping build a more peaceful and better world with its wisdom and solutions.

KEY FORCE FOR WORLD PEACE

Founded at the end of World War II, the United Nations bears the expectation of all for permanent peace. Sharing its vision of maintaining peace and stability, China believes that peace is the most precious, and has practiced "harmony without uniformity" since antiquity.

Since the founding of the United Nations, China has actively participated in the political settlement of major regional hotspot issues, including the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue, the Iran nuclear issue, Afghanistan, Myanmar, and the Palestine-Israel issue.

It has been upholding the authority and unity of the UN Security Council, and supporting UN mediation in accordance with its mandate. It has also played an active role in the international arms control and disarmament process, and has acceded to dozens of international arms control treaties and mechanisms, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

In response to mounting conflicts and security challenges in today's world, Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed the Global Security Initiative (GSI) at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022.

The GSI has won wide recognition from the international community, including the United Nations. The initiative advocates that humanity is an indivisible security community. It offers Chinese wisdom to bridge the peace deficit of mankind, and contributes Chinese solutions to address global security challenges.

Regarding the ongoing Ukraine crisis, China decides its position and policy based on the merits of the matter concerned, upholds objectivity and fairness, and actively promotes peace talks.

"China's idea of being a builder of world peace, contributor to global development, defender of the international order and provider of public goods are consistent with the ideals of the UN Charter," former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said.



ENGINE OF GLOBAL GROWTH

"Facing the severe shocks of COVID-19, we need to work together to steer global development toward a new stage of balanced, coordinated and inclusive growth. To this end, I would like to propose a Global Development Initiative (GDI)," Xi put forward this idea for the first time at the general debate of the 76th session of the UNGA in September 2021.

The initiative aims to stay committed to development as a priority, to a people-centered approach, to benefits for all, to innovation-driven development, to harmony between man and nature and to results-oriented actions.

The GDI has yielded preliminary results. To date, more than 100 countries and a number of international organizations, including the United Nations, have committed support to the GDI, and close to 70 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the GDI.

A Global Development Promotion Center was created, with 31 countries and regional organizations joining its network. A Global Development Project Pool was set up, with the first list of 50 projects launched. A total of 1,000 human resources training programs have been conducted, including more than 50 member countries of the Group of Friends of the GDI.

Meanwhile, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become a popular international platform to promote the public good and cooperation since it was proposed 10 years ago, covering two thirds of countries and a third of international organizations in the world.

China's development and contributions will benefit many countries as the world's population exceeds 8 billion, said Natalia Kanem, executive director of the UN Population Fund.




MAKING THE WORLD LESS POOR

"China has met the basic living needs of its 1.3 billion-plus people and lifted over 700 million people out of poverty, which is a significant contribution to the global cause of human rights," said Xi in his keynote speech at the UN Office at Geneva in January 2017.

In December 2020, China announced that it has accomplished its poverty alleviation target of the new era as scheduled. During eight years of sustained work, China has lifted its entire rural poor population under the current standard out of poverty.

Poverty is a chronical problem in human society. China is ready to share its experiences with the rest of the world for the global cause of poverty alleviation.

In recent years, China has supported the development of developing countries through "six 100 projects" -- 100 poverty reduction projects, 100 agricultural cooperation projects, 100 aid for trade projects, 100 ecological conservation and climate change response projects, 100 hospitals and clinics, and 100 schools and vocational training centers.

In Asia, China carried out the East Asia Poverty Reduction Demonstration Cooperation Technical Assistance Projects program in the rural communities of Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.

In Africa, China has helped African countries build water conservancy infrastructure, set up demonstration zones for agricultural cooperation, and carried out China-Africa cooperation projects involving a Chinese-invented technology using grass to grow mushrooms.

In the South Pacific region, China has carried out technical cooperation assistance projects in infrastructure construction, agriculture and medical care.

In Latin America, China has built agricultural technology demonstration centers to help local people in recipient countries shake off poverty.

Commenting on China's poverty reduction drive, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said those achievements are "the biggest contribution for dramatical reduction of poverty."



FIGHTING COVID TOGETHER

"People of different countries have come together. With courage, resolve and compassion which lit the dark hour, we have confronted the disaster head on. The virus will be defeated. Humanity will win this battle," Xi said in a statement at the general debate of the 75th session of the UNGA in September 2020, when the world was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, China has been sharing with the world its experience in fighting against the virus in a timely manner, assisting other countries with much-needed supplies, and actively engaging in global anti-pandemic cooperation.

So far, it has provided anti-pandemic supplies to 153 countries and 15 international organizations, and co-hosted more than 300 exchange activities on epidemic prevention and control and medical treatment with over 180 countries and regions and more than 10 international organizations.

China is also the first country to propose COVID-19 vaccines as a global public good, support vaccine intellectual property rights exemption, and champion cooperation on vaccine production with developing countries, which has injected strong impetus into bridging the global immunization gap. Applying Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) for the treatment of COVID-19 infections, the country has introduced TCM techniques to more than 150 countries and regions, and offered ready-for-use TCM to those in need.

Lauding China's help for developing countries in their fight against the pandemic, Romina Sudack, a member of the Study Group on China and Argentina of the National University of Rosario, said China has been implementing the vision of a community with a shared future for mankind with concrete actions.

CHAMPION OF GLOBAL CLIMATE GOVERNANCE

Championing the vision of ecological conservation, China has become a solid contributor to tackling climate change and the betterment of global climate governance.

And the Chinese president has on multiple occasions elaborated on China's propositions on jointly building a clean and beautiful world for all countries.

"Clear waters and green mountains are as good as mountains of gold and silver. We must maintain harmony between man and nature and pursue sustainable development," Xi said at the UN Office at Geneva in 2017.

In the past decade, China made historic contributions to the conclusion and quick implementation of the Paris Agreement, was among the first to adopt and release the country's National Plan on Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and implement the obligations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

China also announced 1+N policies for peaking carbon emissions and achieving carbon neutrality with clear timetables and roadmaps. The country has become a world leading player in renewable energy, and is mounting consistent efforts to tap the potential of a green BRI.

As the largest developing country, China is striving to build a community of life for man and nature with unprecedented ambition and action to help achieve sustainable development worldwide.

UNFCCC Executive Secretary Simon Stiell spoke highly of China's firm and consistent stand on actively tackling climate change, as well as its moves to turn climate commitments into concrete actions.

At a time when the world is facing an energy crisis, China continues to make solid progress in dealing with climate change and plays an important role in advancing the global response to climate change, Stiell said.

(Web editor: Zhang Wenjie, Wu Chaolan)

Chile Wildfires Spread Amid Heat Wave as Death Toll Rises

February 04, 2023 
Associated Press

A woman clears debris from a landscape of charred remains in Santa Ana, Chile, Feb. 4, 2023.

SANTIAGO, CHILE —

Chile extended an emergency declaration to yet another region on Saturday as firefighters struggled to control dozens of raging wildfires that have claimed at least 22 lives amid a scorching heat wave that has broken records.

The government declared a state of catastrophe in the La Araucanía region, which is south of Ñuble and Biobío, two central-southern regions where the emergency declaration had already been issued. The measure allows for greater cooperation with the military.

At least 22 people have died in connection to the fires and 554 have been injured, including 16 in serious condition, according to Interior Minister Carolina Tohá. The death toll is likely to rise as Tohá said there are unconfirmed reports of at least 10 people missing.

Sixteen of the deaths took place in Biobío, five in La Araucanía and one in Ñuble.

The deaths included a Bolivian pilot who died when a helicopter that was helping combat the flames crashed in La Araucanía. A Chilean mechanic also died in the crash.

Over the past week, fires have burned through an area equivalent to what is usually burned in an entire year, Tohá said in a news conference.

The fires come at a time of record high temperatures.

"The thermometer has reached points that we have never known until now," Tohá said.

As of Saturday morning, there were 251 wildfires raging throughout Chile, 151 of which were under control, according to Chile's Senapred disaster agency.

"Seventy-six new fires appeared yesterday," Tohá said Saturday.

The minister also suggested the fires should serve as yet another wake-up call about the effects of climate change.

"The evolution of climate change shows us again and again that this has a centrality and a capacity to cause an impact that we have to internalize much more," Tohá said. "Chile is one of the countries with the highest vulnerability to climate change, and this isn't theory but rather practical experience."

Chile is requesting international cooperation to assist the firefighting efforts.

"We're requesting support from several countries to address the emergency," President Gabriel Boric wrote on social media.

Wildfires across Chile claim at least 13 lives

Heatwave poses challenges in controlling more than 150 fires burning in the country

People visit the beach as a forest fire burns
Associated Press

Feb 04, 2023

At least 13 people were reported dead as a result of the more than 150 wildfires burning across Chile, which have destroyed homes and thousands of hectares of forest.

The South American country is in the midst of a scorching heatwave that is set to continue with high temperatures and strong winds that could make the wildfires more challenging.

Four of the deaths involved two vehicles in the Biobio region, about 560 kilometres south of the capital of Santiago.

“In one case they were burnt because they were hit by the fire,” Interior Minister Carolina Toha said. In the other case, she said, the victims died in a crash, “probably trying to escape the fire”.

A fifth fatality in the area was a fireman who was run over by a fire engine.

On Friday afternoon, a helicopter that was helping to fight the fires crashed in the Araucania region, killing the Bolivian pilot and a Chilean mechanic.

The national agency responsible for emergencies raised the death toll to 13 on Friday night, without giving details on the latest deaths.

As of midday on Friday, 151 wildfires were burning throughout Chile, including 65 declared under control. The fires had blazed through more than 14,000 hectares.

Most of the wildfires are in Biobio and neighbouring Nuble, where the government has declared states of catastrophe that allows greater co-ordination with the military and the suspension of certain constitutional rights.

President Gabriel Boric, who cut short his holiday to visit the affected areas on Friday, said there was evidence that some of the wildfires were sparked by unauthorised burnings.

“The full force of the state will be deployed to, first of all, fight the fires and to accompany all the victims,” Mr Boric said.

It remained unclear how many homes and other structures had been burnt.

“Families are having a very difficult time,” Ivonne Rivas, the mayor of Tome in Biobio, told local radio. “It’s hell what they are living through, the fire got away from us.”

The wildfires caused the suspension of a highly anticipated announcement by forensic experts who were expected to give the cause of death of Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, winner of a Nobel Prize for literature.

The experts were set to give their view on whether Neruda died of complications from prostate cancer or whether he was poisoned, potentially settling one of the great mysteries of post-coup Chile.

The doctor in charge of delivering the report’s findings was unable to connect to the internet because he is in a region affected by the wildfires, a spokesman for the country’s judiciary said.








 

Day After Tomorrow wind chill felt in North America, record smashed

Tyler Hamilton Meteorologist

Published on Feb. 4, 2023

Saturday morning's wind chill at the Mount Washington Observatory shattered a previous benchmark for the site -- reaching an incomprehensible -78. By all accounts, this is the coldest wind chill ever recorded in the U.S.

In the early hours of Saturday, temperatures at the Mount Washington Observatory tied a record-low value of -44°C.

These values are extreme, but the wind chill shattered a previous benchmark for the site -- reaching an incomprehensible -78. By all accounts, this is the coldest wind chill ever recorded in the U.S.

MUST SEE: Huge temperature rebound coming for Eastern Canada, but there’s a catch



These values are routinely cooler than what’s experienced on Mars, and occurred as a lobe of the stratospheric polar vortex folded across the troposphere, the lowest level of the atmosphere.

You must be wondering what kind of wind speeds must be attained to hit such surreal wind chills. A gust of 204 km/h was recorded as the stratospheric polar vortex slid across the area.
Content continues below

The video of the summit of the observatory was equally as impressive, and what’s even more extraordinary is the summit is permanently staffed by crews who maintain the stations and conduct experiments.




The previous cold snap that brought comparable temperatures occurred in January 2004, when the wind chill fell to -75 at the summit.

Lower elevations certainly weren’t off the hook, with temperatures across Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada falling to levels not experienced in decades in the month of February.



In fact, with such cold winds resulting from a powerful low churning in the Labrador Sea, all-time wind chill values were recorded in Eastern Canada.

HEALTH: THE RISE OF DIABETES IN ASIA

Asit K. Biswas | Kris Hartley

THE CONVERSATION

Published January 29, 2023

Governments in Asia are taxing sugary drinks to curtail their consumption | Mililani

Facing declining markets in Western countries, multinational food companies are targeting Africa, Asia and Latin America as new consumers of packaged foods, in a move that may worsen the global epidemic of chronic illness related to diabetes.

Governments are striking back at obesity risk factors, including unhealthy foods. Singapore, which might have as many as one million residents with diabetes by 2050, now requires soda producers to reduce sugar content. Obesity and other lifestyle-related diseases have now become a “silent” long-term challenge that will cost governments in healthcare liabilities and lost productivity.

But improving public health requires more than piecemeal legislation; governments must promote lifestyle changes through education and improve access to healthy foods.

NOT A ‘RICH-ONLY’ DISEASE

Across Asia, rural populations accustomed to active farming jobs are migrating in increasing numbers to urban areas, where they occupy more sedentary manufacturing or service sector jobs. Due to time constraints and easy availability of affordable high-calorie foods, these migrant populations are also changing their eating habits.

A recently published study of 98,000 adults in China argues that linking obesity only to affluence is simplistic and that geographic variations in China’s “nutritional transition” explain differences in public health.

As the soda market slumps in the West, a bourgeoning market for sugary drinks has emerged in Asia, increasing health risks like diabetes and obesity among Asians and making the governments strike back with sugar taxes

Alarmingly, two out of five adults in the Asia-Pacific region are either overweight or obese. The World Health Organisation (WHO) esimates that roughly half of the world’s share of adults with diabetes live in Asia.

The cost of obesity in the Asia-Pacific region is estimated to be roughly US $166 billion annually. Among Southeast Asian countries, healthcare and productivity losses from obesity are highest in Indonesia ($2 to 4 billion), Malaysia ($1 to 2 billion), and Singapore ($400 million).

In the world’s two most populous countries, China and India, malnutrition has long been a concern but obesity is on the rise.

According to a 2015 New England Journal of Medicine study, the prevalence of obesity in males in India nearly quadrupled between 1980 and 2015. For China, home to 110 million adults with obesity and potentially 150 million by 2040, the prevalence of obesity increased 15 times between 1980 and 2015.

Between 2005 and 2015, yearly national income loss due to heart disease, stroke and diabetes increased more than six-fold in India and sevenfold in China. Statistics about child health point to a grim future. In India, one quarter of urban youth entering middle school are obese and 66 percent of children have an elevated risk for diabetes, while China is home to the world’s largest population of obese children.

Numerous factors could contribute to this trend, including lack of open space for physical activity, the preference among young people for sedentary pastimes, such as computer gaming, and a growing emphasis on time spent preparing for university entrance exams.

TAXING OBESITY

There are many models for how Asia’s governments can confront obesity. Governments in the United States and Europe are introducing taxes on soft drinks and sugary beverages, with proponents arguing that such beverages contribute to obesity by adding excess calories without providing nutritional value. Large local governments implementing sugar taxes include Cook County, Illinois (Chicago) and Philadelphia, while San Francisco and Seattle plan to implement similar taxes in 2018.

Berkeley, California, a city with many high-earning and educated residents, was America’s first to implement a sugary beverage tax in November 2014. According to a study in the journal PLOS Medicine, sales of sugary beverages in Berkeley declined by 10 percent during the first year of the tax and raised roughly $1.4 million in revenue.

The city applies proceeds in part to child nutrition and community health programmes. Although Berkeley is an exceptional case, the spirit of the city’s approach — including the smart use of revenue — can be a guiding principle for Asian cities.

While soda consumption has slumped in the developed West, markets are growing rapidly in Asia.

THE SUGAR FIGHT

Malaysia, which faces a national obesity crisis, is studying Mexico’s tax on sugary beverages as a model for one of its own. Brunei introduced a tax on sugary beverages in April 2017 and the Philippines senate is now debating an excise tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. In Thailand, a tax levy on sugary drinks was instituted in September 2017 and will rise gradually over the next six years.

Governments in Asia have also shown willingness to confront obesity in other ways. India recently instituted a yearly obesity evaluation for all army personnel after a survey found one third to be overweight and China’s army is publicly raising concerns about sugar consumption among recruits.

India’s western Maharashtra state banned so-called “junk food” in school canteens over concerns about childhood obesity, and Hong Kong will soon introduce a labelling scheme for pre-packaged foods in schools.

POLICY IMPLICATIONS

Despite the adoption or consideration of taxes on sugary drinks in many cities around the world, it is not clear whether such taxes positively affect health outcomes. There is cause for some optimism, such as an Asian Development Bank study finding that a 20 percent tax on sugar-sweetened beverages was associated with a three percent reduction in overweight and obesity prevalence, with the greatest effect on young men in rural areas.

From a policy research perspective, long-term studies are needed to determine life-long health impacts and research across cases is needed to determine the sensitivity of consumption to incremental increases in tax rates. Gathering information is an important early step; an example is India’s nutrition atlas, which offers a state-by-state comparison on a variety of public health indicators, including obesity.

Another concern in sugar taxes is socio-economic equity; taxes on cheap, unhealthy foods can impact low-income populations. For example, in 2011, Denmark adopted a far-reaching “fat tax” that covered all products with saturated fats. After only one year, the tax was scrapped, as were plans for a sugar tax, due to concerns about price burdens for consumers.

A further challenge is limited policy control; consumers may simply shift consumption to non-taxed goods that are also high in sugar or find ways to circumvent taxes. Notably, many Danish consumers were simply crossing into Germany for cheaper products.

A narrow focus on easy tax solutions may score quick political points but risks leapfrogging basic public health and development goals. For example, alternatives to sugary drinks may not be available in many Asian cities due to poor-quality tap water.

Taxes on sugary beverages must complement broader initiatives that incentivise healthier lifestyles. A 2016 study of obesity in India argues that related policy must consider nuanced socio-cultural factors over a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

Following Berkeley’s example, governments should apply soda tax revenue to nutrition and physical education programmes, and include information about sugar in school curricula. The approach should consider local conditions, enhance education, and provide access to healthy alternatives. That is the basis for a durable solution to Asia’s obesity epidemic.

Asit K. Biswas is a Visiting Professor at the National University of Singapore.
Kris Hartley is a Lecturer at Cornell University in the US

Republished from The Conversation

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 29th, 2023

Tens of Thousands of Israelis Protest Justice Reform Plans

February 04, 2023 
Reuters

Israelis protest plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government to overhaul the judicial system, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 4, 2023.

JERUSALEM —

Tens of thousands of Israelis braved heavy rain Saturday for a fifth week of protests against judicial reform plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new government that critics say threaten democratic checks on ministers by the courts.

The plans, which the government says are needed to curb overreach by judges, have drawn fierce opposition from groups including lawyers, and raised concerns among business leaders, widening already deep political divisions in Israeli society.

"I'm here tonight protesting against the transition of Israel from a democracy to an autocracy," Dov Levenglick, 48, a software engineer told Reuters in Tel Aviv.

"It's a disgrace, it shall not stand."

Netanyahu has dismissed the protests as a refusal by leftist opponents to accept the results of last November's election, which produced one of the most right-wing governments in Israel's history.

The protesters say Israeli democracy would be undermined if the government succeeds in pushing through the plans, which would tighten political control over judicial appointments and limit the Supreme Court's powers to overturn government decisions or Knesset laws.

"They want to tear up the judiciary system of Israel, they want to tear up Israeli democracy, and we are here every week in every weather ... to fight against it and to fight for Israeli democracy," Hadar Segal, 35, told Reuters in Tel Aviv.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid joined demonstrations in the coastal city of Haifa, where he said protesters "came to save their country, and we came to protest with them."

Rally in Bangladesh protests gas price hike, demand resignation of prime minster

Nearly 100,000 activists, leaders from main opposition party gathered for anti-government demonstration

Md. Kamruzzaman |05.02.2023


DHAKA, Bangladesh

Nearly 100,000 leaders and activists from Bangladesh’s main opposition party rallied Saturday in central Dhaka to protest the hike in gas prices and other commodities and to demand the restoration of an election-time caretaker government.

“This movement is for ensuring people’s right to vote and restoring democracy, ousting the fascist Awami League government,” Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) Secretary-General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir told the crowd.

He alleged that the Awami League captured power through a sham election and turned the country into a state of looters and money launderers.

“Whenever Awami League comes to power, they snatch people’s democratic rights and try to turn the country into a one-party nation as they did in 1975,” said Alamgir.

BNP workers chanted slogans against the hike in gas prices, daily commodities and also human rights violations, including enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings, with protesters rounding their foreheads with the national flag.

Party leaders also claimed that in recent months more than one dozen BNP leaders and activists, who were vocal against the unbearable price hike of daily commodities, have been killed by police under directions by the government while others have been victims of enforced disappearances.

Human Rights Watch Saturday urged authorities on Saturday to investigate recent allegations of enforced disappearances and torture, including by members of the police detective branch.

The UN Committee Against Torture described Bangladesh police as a “state within a state, in a review in July 2019.

Citing the previous two national elections in 2014 and 2018 under the administration of Sheikh Hasina as the worst in the history of Bangladesh, BNP leaders warned that no further election would be allowed without the nonpartisan caretaker government.

They alleged that due to the misrule of the Awami League government, huge money has been laundered abroad, putting the economic condition of the country in danger.

Meanwhile, Ganatantra Mancha, an alliance of seven parties, announced Saturday a march and mass campaign program Feb. 11 for the resignation of the Awami League government and holding elections under a neutral government.

HOW DO KARACHI’S POOR SEE THEMSELVES?

While there exist a broad range of economic and academic metrics by which poverty is measured and defined, such classifications rarely reflect the challenges faced by those who are placed in these categories.

Arif Hasan | Amal Hashim Published January 29, 2023

This article is a result of a study on how the poor view their poverty — unlike most studies where, on the basis of a survey, consultants decide what poverty is.

The most widely accepted definition, that of the World Bank (which has supported this study), looks at poverty only in economic terms (without all its social, political and cultural causes and consequences) and establishes that the poor are those who earn less than $1.90 a day. The United Nations, too, adheres to this definition, along with the poverty statistics that result from its application. According to them, only about 10 percent of the world’s population lived below the poverty line until 2015.

On the other hand, the World Bank’s other, lesser known understanding of poverty encompasses a lack of access to health, education, affordable and clean housing, sanitation and clean water, and political representation. Reconciling this multidimensional definition with the $1.90-a-day definition is difficult, and some studies have pointed out how unfair this economic definition approach is.

For instance, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has defined poverty as “when someone’s material resources are not sufficient for their needs (especially material needs).” Most NGOs agree that poverty is multidimensional and can only be solved if looked at with all relevant factors, holistically.

To discover how various low income groups and those who are considered poor define poverty, and why, is the purpose of the study that we have carried out.

While there exist a broad range of economic and academic metrics by which poverty is measured and defined, such classifications rarely reflect the challenges faced by those who are placed in these categories. How the poor themselves perceive their own circumstances is often remarkably different from how others see them. A study attempts to fill the gap…

The methodology of the study has been: (1) literature review, to find out wider pre-existing notions of poverty; (2) interviews of eminent planners and activists (Dr. Noman Ahmed, Younus Baloch, Farhat Parveen, Zahid Farooque, Mohammad Toheed, Ambar Ali Bai); (3) fifteen in-depth interviews of key respondents living in low-income settlements; (4) a survey of 100 individuals, residents of katchi abadis (Ghaziabad District West, Pahar Ganj District Central, Rehri Goth District Malir, and Umer Colony District East); and (5) 20 persons living on footpaths in different areas of the city.

What the Interviews and Surveys Tell Us: Denial of Poverty

One of the most pertinent findings of both the qualitative interviews and the quantitative surveys of key respondents was the high number of people living on unleased land or unapproved buildings who did not consider themselves to be poor. Fifty-six percent of the survey respondents who do not consider themselves poor think they earn enough to sustain themselves and their families while 23 percent consider themselves to be middle class.

Some of them are entrepreneurs who are a part of the upper middle class in economic terms and increasing in cultural terms as well. And although their relationship with the rest of the population, especially newer residents, is not a friendly one, they continue to live in katchi abadis [informal settlements] for historic reasons.

The most important issue that emerged from the study was related to education. Citizens have several schooling systems to choose from, even though public education is supposed to be free till the age of 16. However, there are a lot of hidden costs that have to be paid, such as books, fees for extracurricular activities, transport, and examination and admission fee, because of which many poor families struggle to send their children to school. According to a UNICEF report, 44 percent of children of school-going age in Pakistan are not attending any type of educational institution.

Parents do not wish to send their children to public schools as their perception is that public schools do not impart quality education. There are private schools in low income settlements which they prefer, even though they may charge anything from 800 to 2000 rupees plus as a monthly fee.

Both professionals and activists highlighted the impact of education on an individual’s ability to lift themselves out of poverty. However, Dr Noman Ahmed was critical about the proposition.

“Contrary to the belief that education is the panacea for all social evils, including poverty, it has been observed that the quality of education in low income settlements is not paving the way for upward social mobility en masse,” he says. “There might be a few success stories from rags to riches, but these are the exceptions to the rule and not the norm, and their enhancement and entrepreneurship ventures are the only way to address issues related to poverty in low income settlements.”

Almost all professionals and community activists emphasise the need for vocational training centres in low-income settlements. However, none of the key respondents brought up this need. One member of the group interviewed at Manzoor Colony, Samiullah Mazari, even went so far as to state that none of his neighbours or peers wanted their children to drop out of school and become mechanics or learn similar skills.

For most respondents, one of the key priorities was the provision of quality education for their children — which, for them, meant private, English-medium education rather than government or religious schools. According to Samiullah Mazari, “Karachi’s schools have been destroyed by political parties. Poor children cannot be educated, since they can only afford government schools.”

According to qualitative interviews, Covid-19 had a major impact on the quality and provision of education in low-income communities. The number of school-going children dropped sharply during the pandemic, as most schools were unable to switch inadequately to online education due to a lack of WiFi, laptops and mobiles. However, because of the need for information technology for educational purposes, mobile phones and laptops have increased.

The choice of settlement is also dictated by the pre-existence of the individual’s ethnic or religious community, since that forms their social and safety net. The sense of security they felt within their own house far surpassed any fear of it being demolished by state authorities.

GOVERNANCE ISSUES

Urban governance in Karachi is poor, and one of its reasons is that it is an Urdu-speaking capital of a Sindhi-speaking province, which results in constant conflict between the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and the leadership of the province as a whole.

A significant source of conflict is the budget of the KMC. Karachi’s annual GDP in 2018 was $164 billion whereas the received KMC budget for the year 2018-2019 was just Rs2.5 billion. This was well below the KMC budget from the time of Naimatullah Khan, former mayor of Karachi, during whose tenure the budget had hovered around Rs5 billion.

Local governments are supposed to generate their own revenue to enhance their fiscal capacities, but much of their functions in Karachi have been taken over by the province and, in some cases, sublet to the private sector.

Residents of informal settlements regularly face problems arising from an increasing privatisation of municipal services and have to pay very high costs (as in the case of electricity provision) or be ignored (as in the case of solid waste management). Charged entry for parks and other recreation spaces and charged parking outside them has resulted in many lower-income families not being able to access spaces of entertainment and recreation.

PROPERTY IS THEFT

Renting and lack of tenure security made respondents poor more than anything else

 | Mohammad Ali Addarsh/White Star

NO PLACE TO LIVE

Housing is a major issue in Karachi, with 62 percent of the city’s population living in katchi abadis. The reason for it is simple. Formal planning has not provided land and infrastructure for the poor. These settlements have developed slowly over time and acquired water, gas and electricity connections by paying bribes to the relevant staff of utility departments and the police.

In addition to this, tens of thousands of built houses have been demolished, especially recently, as a result of the Supreme Court decision of bulldozing those settlements where land had not been “legally” acquired or was required for new and often unnecessary infrastructure. This has added to the homeless population of the city.

Respondents also voiced that Karachi’s growth rate is also affected by internal migration from rural areas, not just from within Sindh but also other provinces.

In 2019, a report by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) reported that about nine percent of the population that they surveyed stated their reason for migrating as “returning home…indicating the role of seasonal and circulating migration.” According to the respondents they do not know of any government policies for accommodating migrants, and nor do the existing institutions have the capacity or capability of managing this.

To accommodate the rising housing demand, single-storey houses in informal settlements, even on plots as small as 40 square metres, are being converted informally near the city centres into multi-storey apartments, and the informal housing market operators are investing in this process. Respondents believe that, as a result, and to their detriment, these apartment complexes are changing not only the physical but also the socio-economic nature of the settlements.

Because of the high densities, the absence of open spaces and walking tracks and the number of persons per room in most low income areas, Covid-related SOPs (standard operating procedures) could not be followed, and people were forced to continue living as they had before.

In addition to the above, there are a large number of persons who sleep on the footpaths and under bridges. Some of the respondents said that they had permanent homes, far away from their work areas in the city, and it was expensive commuting to and from them. So they slept in the streets, took a shower in the nearby mosque or hotel, for which they paid and had their clothes dry cleaned, and went back home on weekends and holidays.

The other group consists of persons who have no homes or are circulating migrants. They also have their clothes dry cleaned and obtain water from nearby hotels or filter plants, and use public or mosque toilets. Many of them go to shrines and temples that provide langar [communal food] free of charge.

In addition there are also footpath hotels which offer a bed, washroom and toilet facilities and bedding at a cost. Their number is increasing rapidly. According to one of the footpath hotel owners, most of the people who use these hotels come to Karachi for business purposes from the rest of Pakistan.

PERCEPTIONS AND REALITIES

Most respondents stated that earning a monthly income between Rs 35,000 and Rs 40,000 was not enough to sustain household expenses, and they had to borrow money from creditors or relatives to be able to finance their expenses, especially during religious festivals and for other rituals. The failure to repay these loans kept them permanently in debt.

Renting and lack of tenure security made them poor more than anything else. In fact, respondents at Manzoor Colony stated that if renting a living space was included as a criterion for being poor, “the number of really poor-poor would increase to at least 50 percent of the population of the settlement.”

Activists also stated that dislocation increases poverty. Dislocation can have many causes, but one that is not often discussed is because families cannot pay their utilities bills. So they move to other areas, where informal means of acquiring electricity and water are available.

Densification is also considered an important indicator of poverty, because space and income for an expanding family are not available and can result in entire families living in one room, which serves as a kitchen as well and up to 20 people can end up using one toilet.

Interviews tell us that it is common that minors who are enrolled as full-time students are also working as domestic servants after coming home from school, so as to supplement their family’s monthly income.

All key respondents complained that they experienced long hours of gas (10-14 hours) and electricity (8-20 hours) ‘load shedding’. Only 24 percent of survey respondents reported K-Electric’s service provision as “good”. All of them also reported that they had to supplement their water needs by buying from private tankers or neighbourhood filter plants every few days. This costs them a significant chunk of their incomes, with per-tanker costs ranging between Rs 1000 to Rs 4000.

In addition, almost all professionals and community activists emphasised on the need for vocational training centres in low-income settlements. However, none of the key respondents brought up this need. Dr Noman Ahmed has defined this as a difference between the old and the new poor, in which the former considered poverty to be their destiny whereas the latter (or younger generations) “are aware of social change…and are making targeted attempts to change their socio-economic position.”

GENTRIFICATION

To accommodate the rising housing demand, single-storey houses are being converted into multi-storey apartments | Mohammad Ali Addarsh/White Star


HEALTH AND NUTRITION

A number of respondents reported that health issues such as skin diseases and stomach problems were prevalent in their settlement. Many key respondents from different low-income settlements stated that the sewerage system in their area was bad as the pipes were old, not maintained properly, or non-existent. Sewage was identified as a major source of disease.

All said that their settlement had only small health clinics, while most of them stated that they did not trust the clinic doctors serving them and considered them to be quacks without qualifications. Government health facilities, including maternity clinics, are at a distance of about five kilometres or more for most of them, making accessibility difficult.

Eighty-eight percent of survey respondents revealed that government health and ambulance services did not exist in their settlements, and they had to rely on other means, even in cases of emergency. As a result, cheap homoeopathic medicine (46 percent of all survey respondents) or going to religious scholars (43 percent of all survey respondents) seems a better option to most.

Children, and particularly girls (according to a gymnastics trainer), had trouble performing in their gymnastics classes because of the low nutritional value of their food. According to her, “the lack of proper food is leading to physical weakness. They’re older now and get periods regularly and that plays heavily into how they perform in school.” She also mentioned that the boys “are sharp” and do not experience the same types of fluctuations in their performance over the course of the month.

URBAN MOBILITY

Transport and its accessibility plays an important role in the lives of people. Seventy-one percent of survey respondents stated that they had chosen their current place of residence on the basis of proximity to their workplace.

The element of transport is so important that one of the key informants mentioned that the settlement’s socio-economic and commercial importance increases if public transport links are available. It is because of these factors that 83 percent of the respondents were in favour of bringing the qingqi [Chinese-manufactured motorbike-pulled vehicle]back, since it was cheap and affordable, but which has been banned by the courts in Sindh since it was considered unsafe for travel. As a result of the ban, Karachi lost over 300,000 transport seats per day.

Among the respondents, there were also those who used public transport to commute to work, despite it being expensive and time-consuming. They often had to change multiple buses or forms of public transport — from bus to rickshaw or walk 20-30 minutes to the bus stop and then change buses multiple times for a one-way commute.

Motorbikes, by virtue of design, usage and tradition, are skewed towards men and, as such, have only recently started to be used by women. Other key respondents also mentioned that they cannot afford to send their children to school or colleges because the cost of public transport is too much for them to afford.

Having no dispensary or government school within their settlement, residents of Manzoor Colony have to spend large sums of money on transport to be able to access health and educational facilities. Because of the heavy concentration of facilities in the city centre, the poor prefer living within or close to the centre. Living on the periphery of the city, therefore, is much more expensive and acquiring space near the city is difficult and expensive, except in a multi-storey katchi abadi.

SECURITY AND COMMUNITY

The choice of settlement is also dictated by the pre-existence of the individual’s ethnic or religious community, since that forms their social and safety net. The sense of security they felt within their own house far surpassed any fear of it being demolished by state authorities.

A resident of Machhar Colony stated that she moved out of renting a pakka house to a katcha house that she and her family had built out of their savings on reclaimed land. They preferred their own home as, here, they would be free from the pressure and bullying of the landlord.

The field work also revealed that all respondents, or at least most of them, preferred to live in a house rather than an apartment. This is because floors can be added to the existing house and this becomes a source of additional income as well as space for an expanding family.

Migrants who have come to Karachi as a result of getting married or for work often live in a very cramped environment, sharing a single room with the rest of their family members, and do not share the same interest in upgrading their living conditions as those who consider Karachi to be their home.

As a result of migrants, non-migrants and different groups living together, traditional community governance systems no longer exist. New community organisations that emerge in their absence deal with specific settlement-related matters, such as water or electricity, and die once their objectives have been met. Participation in this process often requires pooling of financial resources, which means the poorer individuals are inevitably left out of the organisation.

The prevalence of drug use and abuse, domestic violence and child abuse, divorce and a deteriorating law and order situation, resulting in increasing violence, seem to be the common ailments which the respondents have identified. Young girls running away to marry men of their choice, usually of a different ethnicity to their own, or divorce, have been blamed by the respondents on the growing use of smartphones and easy access to the internet.

There are no parks or recreational facilities close to or within most low-income settlements. Recreational activities, usually going to Sea View with the family, are unaffordable, and most struggle to even go once a year.

THE GENDER ISSUE

Depending on the ethnicity of the key respondent as well as their level of education, their attitude towards women and their role in society varied from wanting them to be educated, to ensuring that they did not leave home without a male family member.

Many women respondents reported that their families prefer for them to work in factories and offices in which they are provided with transport. This, it is believed, is to control their movement, since women should only go to work and come back home with no detours and no freedom.

Respondents also reported that there is significant income inequality between the genders, despite the same designations in most cases, and that women’s salaries are often used by male members to finance their drug and alcohol addiction. Where women do get higher education and finally jobs, some respondents believe that they gain confidence, groom themselves and go up in professional lives, since the market today demands girls who can speak English and are good in mathematics, and because of which they can work in departmental stores and money exchange offices.

Family planning methods are usually out of reach of the women respondents. They are either not aware of them or do not use them as a result of social taboos. Control over socialisation and television and mobile use, together with a deteriorating financial situation, results in many problems, which affect the lives of women more than those of men.

After analysing the responses of the respondents, it is felt by the authors that women’s participation in public spaces and the life of the community would change even the internal dynamics of these women. How this can be achieved would require a study similar to this, focused on the younger generation of Pakistani men and women.

It is rumoured that a new master plan for the city is being prepared. It is hoped that the issues that the respondents have identified in this study will be considered, especially those related to gender and poverty.

Without being addressed, an equitable and peaceful city that is desired by the poor, or a “World Class City” as desired by the elite and the World Bank, cannot even begin to be achieved.

Header image: From transport to education to housing, Karachi’s poor are facing a host of issues which prevent their upward mobiltiy | Arif Mahmood/White Star

Arif Hasan is an architect and urban planner.
He can be reached at arifhasan37@gmail.com or www.arifhasan.org

Amal Hashim is a researcher on the tangible and intangible heritage of South Asia and the influence it has on the lived realities of people in the modern world.She can be reached at amal97.hashim@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, January 29th, 2023