Portraits of pain: smuggled Palestinian art shows trauma of Gaza

 
By AFP
November 10, 2024


Mohammad Shaqdih of the Darat al-Funun gallery: the paintings "depict the daily realities of war" - Copyright AFP Khalil MAZRAAWI

Kamal Taha

When war erupted in Gaza, Palestinian artists had only one way to share their work expressing the harrowing reality of the conflict: having it smuggled out of the besieged territory.

For six months, they handed over paintings and other artworks to people leaving Gaza through its Rafah border crossing with Egypt until Israeli ground forces closed it in May when they took control of the frontier.

“The paintings document the brutality of war and massacres… carrying pain and sorrow, but also embodying an unwavering resolve,” said Mohammad Shaqdih.

He is deputy director of Darat al-Funun, an art gallery in the Jordanian capital Amman exhibiting pieces that were smuggled out in a show entitled “Under Fire”.

While the works themselves managed to escape the war-torn territory, the four artists who created them — Basel al-Maqousi, Raed Issa, Majed Shala and Suhail Salem — were not so lucky.

They remain trapped within the narrow coastal strip where Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 43,500 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, and created a humanitarian disaster.

The artworks “depict the daily realities of war and the hardship these artists endure, who have been displaced and lost their homes”, said Shaqdih.

He said the gallery was already familiar with the artists on display before the war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel.



– ‘Nightmares’ –



That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

“The language of art is universal. Through these paintings, we are trying to convey our voices, our cries, our tears and the nightmares we witness daily to the outside world,” said Maqousi, 53, speaking to AFP by phone from Gaza.

The exhibition features 79 artworks crafted from improvised materials including medicine wrappers, and using natural pigments made from hibiscus, pomegranate and tea.

The drawings show people under bombardment, displaced families on donkey-drawn carts, makeshift tents, weary and frightened faces, emaciated children clinging to their mothers and blindfolded men surrounded by military vehicles.

“I can’t paint with colours and expensive pigments because there are more pressing priorities here in Gaza, like food, drink and finding safety for myself and my family” reads a text by Suhail Salem next to his sketches drawn in school notebooks with ballpoint pens.

In a letter displayed alongside his work, Majed Shala describes how he was displaced to the southern city of Deir al-Balah. His house, studio and 30 years of artworks were completely destroyed.

“When the war first started, I felt completely paralysed, unable to create or even think about making art,” he wrote.

– ‘Far more devastating’ –

As time passed, “I started to document the real-life scenes of displacement and exile that have affected every part of our daily lives,” he added.

His words are displayed next to a painting of a man embracing his wife amid a scene of destruction.

“These scenes remind me of the stories our elders told us about the 1948 Nakba,” or “catastrophe”, he wrote, referring to the exodus of around 760,000 Palestinians during the war that led to the creation of Israel.

“But what we’re living through now feels far more devastating, far worse than what people endured back then.”

Exhibition visitor Victoria Dabdoub, a 37-year-old engineer, said she was moved by the artwork.

“It is important that works like these are shared worldwide so that people can feel the pain, sorrow, and suffering of the people of Gaza,” she told AFP.

On the wall nearby is posted a message from artist Raed Issa: “We assure you: if you’re asking how we are, we are far from all right! Constant bombing and terror, day and night! Gaza is in mourning, waiting for relief from God!

How doodles got a Russian art teacher locked up for 20 years


By AFP
November 10, 2024


Art teacher Danill Klyuka, who has been jailed in Russia for 20 years - Copyright AFP Wojtek RADWANSKI
Romain COLAS

Art teacher Daniil Klyuka believes the headmistress of the provincial Russian school where he worked reported him for doodling horns on pictures of officials in a newspaper.

The 28-year-old was later sentenced to 20 years in jail.

His case illustrates the severity of the crackdown on dissent — both real and imagined — in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine.

And how ordinary Russians are again living under the shadow of denunciation, the old Soviet practice of informing on colleagues, neighbours, friends and even family.

Until last winter, Klyuka lived a quiet life in Dankov, a town 300 kilometres (190 miles) south of Moscow, whose chief claim to fame is that the renowned novelist Leo Tolstoy died at a railway station nearby.

On the website of the state school where he worked, there are still photos of the classroom where he taught, decorated with posters of famous paintings, including a self-portrait by Van Gogh.

But Klyuka’s life took a nightmarish turn one day in February 2023 when he was arrested by masked members of Russia’s feared FSB security service.

He was accused of sending 135,000 rubles (around $1,380) in cryptocurrency to Ukraine’s ultranationalist Azov brigade, classified as “terrorist” in Russia — a charge he denies.

Klyuka believes all this happened because he idly scribbled moustaches, horns and beards onto photos of officials in a pro-Kremlin newspaper that staff at his school were expected to read.

AFP has been able to piece together his descent into the depths of the Russian penal system, where prisoners can sometimes disappear without a trace, through letters he has exchanged with a Russian anti-war activist exiled in Italy.



– Hunt for ‘traitors’ –



Antonina Polishchuk, 43, gradually learned what had happened to him after responding last year to an appeal to write to Russian political prisoners, some of whom have the right to receive letters.

She decided to write to Klyuka because of a shared love of architecture and anime.

“I’m interested in architecture and my daughter is interested in anime, so I thought we could write to him together,” she told AFP.

Through the letters they exchanged on an official government platform, she found out Klyuka was being prosecuted for “treason” and “financing a terrorist organisation” — charges often used by Russia to crush opposition to the war in Ukraine.

Klyuka believes his headteacher secretly informed on him.

Contacted on social media, Irina Kuzicheva did not reply to AFP’s requests for comment.

A wave of denunciations has swept the country since March 2022 when President Vladimir Putin called for “traitors” to be hunted and for “society to purge itself”, after the invasion of Ukraine.

Groups such as “Veterans of Russia”, led by Ildar Rezyapov, have denounced hundreds of people to prosecutors, including actors and artists.

Civil servants as well as ordinary Russians have also taken it upon themselves to report neighbours and colleagues — some driven by greed, ambition or envy, others by the desire to remove an adversary.



– ‘Tortured by FSB’ –



Klyuka’s mistake was to leave the newspaper he had doodled on behind at work.

“I would sometimes write ‘demon’ on the foreheads of some of the government representatives” in the photos, he wrote in one letter.

Klyuka said FSB agents searched his home, confiscated his phone and then tortured him “in a cellar”.

The agents said they found suspicious money transfers on the phone.

The teacher said he was tortured into confessing that he had donated to the Ukrainian military, before insisting he had sent money to a Ukrainian cousin whose family had fled the invasion.

The cousin, Mykyta Laptiev, confirmed to AFP that he received the money and had used it to take care of his sick father, Klyuka’s uncle.

It was impossible to verify the prisoner’s other claims since the case was classified as secret by the FSB and lawyers can be jailed for discussing it.



– Secret trial –



After corresponding for six months, Polishchuk realised that Klyuka had no real legal representative — only a state-appointed lawyer who “de facto worked for the government”.

His family could have hired a lawyer themselves, she said, but “they were really intimidated. The FSB scares everybody.”

Finally the banned Memorial rights organisation, which is active in exile, paid for a new lawyer.

Polishchuk also created a Telegram group to support him.

She struggled to find a picture of Klyuka, finally finding a photo taken during an art lesson.

Slim with thick black hair, he is smiling and holding a wooden mannequin used to teach pupils how to draw.

Sergei Davidis, head of the political prisoners’ support programme at Memorial, said it was typical for trials like Klyuka’s to be held in secret to silence the defendant and hide the scale of repressions.

He said “schools are a conservative sphere where particular attention is paid to ideological loyalty,” and that Klyuka would have stood out with his anti-war views.

“Denunciation was the trigger for this prosecution. But such people are also being prosecuted without any denunciations in all of Russia’s regions,” he added.



– Thousands held –



Without access to Klyuka’s case file, Memorial — a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 — is unable to add him to its official list of 778 political prisoners, which it says is the tip of the iceberg.

Memorial estimates at least 10,000 people are being held for some “political” motive in Russia.

Around 7,000 are Ukrainian civilians, according to Kyiv’s Center for Civil Liberties.

One such prisoner, Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, died behind bars in September.

Russia’s OVD-Info organisation, which monitors detentions and courts, said there are around 1,300 people behind bars on political charges, but hundreds or even thousands of other cases involve treason, sabotage and refusing to fight in Ukraine.

Rights groups often only learn of them from chance encounters between prisoners who then pass on information.



– Ukrainian prisoners –



Klyuka, for example, wrote to Polishchuk that he met Alexei Sivokhin, a Russian-Ukrainian dual national who fought in Ukraine and was detained in 2022 while visiting Russia, during a prison transfer.

“He had been in prison for two years, alone in a cell without any other contact. If it wasn’t for Daniil, he would have remained unknown,” said Polishchuk.

Polishchuk is also keen to identify the informers behind these cases, so they can be brought to justice “when this regime falls”.

She blamed the lack of punishment for those who informed on others during Soviet times for the revival in denunciations.

Polishchuk included questions from AFP in a letter sent to Klyuka.

A week later she received a reply from the Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow.

Polishchuk has recently received several letters from Klyuka where his entire message was scrawled out by the censor, but this one was legible.



– Don’t ‘close your eyes’ –



In spidery handwriting, Klyuka said: “The person who denounced me has two brothers directly taking part in combat (in Ukraine). You can see what was going on in their head.”

Russia now is like “a snowball rolling down a mountain”, he wrote, or “a car whose brakes have failed”.

He talked of his love of drawing, which he said allowed him to “see things that have never existed”.

The day after his letter arrived, Klyuka lost his appeal and was finally sentenced to 20 years in a “strict regime” penal colony, able to receive just one visit and one parcel per year.

He will now be taken to the colony. Such transfers are carried out in secret, often taking many weeks, and lawyers and relatives only find out where they are after the prisoner’s arrival.

At the end of his letter, Klyuka wrote that Russians like him who speak out are “persecuted and hated” while “most people closed their eyes and have never opened them again.”

“If the world hears this message, I ask you to not close your eyes,” he added.

He finished on a more upbeat and chatty note, asking Polishchuk about her work and sending her a kiss.

CLIMATE CRISIS

Fourth typhoon in a month hits Philippines


By AFP
November 10, 2024


A roof of corrugated sheet litters a highway in Cagayan province after Typhoon Yinxing struck on November 7 - Copyright AFP/File John DIMAIN

Thousands of villages were ordered to evacuate and ports shut down, officials said Monday, as the disaster-weary Philippines was struck by another typhoon — the fourth in less than a month.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage as Typhoon Toraji hit the nation’s northeast coast near Dilasag town, about 220 kilometres (140 miles) northeast of the capital, Manila, the national weather agency said.

The government ordered 2,500 villages to be evacuated on Sunday, but the national disaster office could not say how many people have taken shelter so far.

Toraji, packing maximum winds of 130 kilometres (80 miles) an hour, came on the heels of three cyclones in less than a month that killed 159 people.

Schools and government offices were shut in areas expected to be hit hardest by the latest typhoon.

The national weather agency warned of severe winds and heavy rainfall across the north of the country, along with a “moderate to high risk of a storm surge” — giant waves threatening the coasts of the main island of Luzon.

Nearly 700 passengers were stranded at ports, according to a coast guard tally on Monday, with the weather service warning that “sea travel is risky for all types or tonnage of vessels”.

“All mariners must remain in port or, if underway, seek shelter or safe harbour as soon as possible until winds and waves subside,” it added.

Toraji was forecast to slice across northern Luzon later Monday, with a tropical depression also potentially striking the region as early as Thursday night, weather forecaster Veronica Torres told AFP.

Tropical Storm Man-yi, currently east of Guam, may also threaten the Philippines next week, she added.

On Thursday, Typhoon Yinxing slammed into the country’s north coast, damaging houses and buildings.

A 12-year-old girl was crushed to death in one incident.

Before that, Severe Tropical Storm Trami and Super Typhoon Kong-rey together left 158 people dead, the national disaster agency said, with most of that tally attributed to Trami.

About 20 big storms and typhoons hit the archipelago nation or its surrounding waters each year.

A recent study showed that storms in the Asia-Pacific region are increasingly forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly and lasting longer over land due to climate change.

COP29 opens with Trump climate withdrawal looming


By AFP
November 11, 2024

COP29 will focus on climate finance for developing countries - Copyright AFP Alexander NEMENOV

Sara Hussein and Ivan Couronne

The COP29 climate talks open Monday in Azerbaijan, under the long shadow cast by the re-election of Donald Trump, who has pledged to row back on the United States’ carbon-cutting commitments.

Countries come to Baku for the main United Nations forum for climate diplomacy after new warnings that 2024 is on track to break temperature records, adding urgency to a fractious debate over climate funding.

But Trump’s return will loom over the discussions, with fears that an imminent US departure from the landmark Paris agreement to limit global warming could mean less ambition around the negotiating table.

“We cannot afford to let the momentum for global action on climate change be derailed,” said Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change and environment.

“This is a shared problem that will not solve itself without international cooperation, and we will continue to make that case to the incoming president of one of the world’s largest polluters.”

Outgoing President Joe Biden is staying away, as are many leaders who have traditionally appeared early in COP talks to lend weight to the proceedings.

Just a handful of leaders from the Group of 20, whose countries account for nearly 80 percent of global emissions, are attending.

Afghanistan will however be sending a delegation for the first time since the Taliban took power. They are expected to have observer status.

Diplomats have insisted that the absences, and Trump’s win, will not detract from the serious work at hand, particularly agreeing a new figure for climate funding to developing countries.

Negotiators must increase a $100 billion-a-year target to help developing nations prepare for worsening climate impacts and wean their economies off fossil fuels.

How much will be on offer, who will pay, and who can access the funds are some of the major points of contention.

– ‘It’s hard’ –

“It’s hard. It involves money. When it comes to money, everybody shows their true colours,” Adonia Ayebare, the Ugandan chair of a bloc that groups over 100 mostly developing countries and China, told AFP on Sunday.

Trump, who has repeatedly called climate change a “hoax”, has vowed to pull the United States out of the Paris agreement.

But Ayebare brushed aside the potential consequences of a US withdrawal, noting Trump already took Washington out of the Paris agreement during his first term.

“This has happened before, we will find a way of realigning.”

Developing countries are pushing for trillions of dollars, and insist money should be mostly grants rather than loans.

They warn that without the money they will struggle to offer ambitious updates to their climate goals, which countries are required to submit by early next year.

“Bring some money to the table so that you show your leadership,” said Evans Njewa, chair of the LDC Climate Group, whose members are home to 1.1 billion people.

But the small group of developed countries that currently contributes wants to see the donor pool expanded to include other rich nations and top emitters, including China and the Gulf states.

One Chinese official warned Sunday during a closed-door session that the talks should not aim to “renegotiate” existing agreements.

Liang Pei, an official at China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, urged negotiators to instead address “the climate crisis collectively, constructively.”

– ‘Worth it’ –

The talks come with fresh warnings that the world is far off track to meet the goals of the Paris agreement.

The climate deal commits to keep warming below 2C compared to pre-industrial levels, preferably below 1.5C.

But the world is on track to top that level in 2024, according to the European Union climate monitor.

That would not be an immediate breach of the Paris deal, which measures temperatures over decades, but it suggests much greater climate action is needed.

Earlier this year, the UN warned the world is on track for a catastrophic 3.1C of warming this century based on current actions.

“Everyone knows that these negotiations will not be easy,” said Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

“But they are worth it: each tenth of a degree of warming avoided means fewer crises, less suffering, less displacement.”

More than 51,000 people are expected at the talks, which run November 11-22.

For the second year running the talks will be hosted by a country heavily reliant on fossil fuels, after the United Arab Emirates last year.

Azerbaijan has also been accused of stifling dissent by persecuting political opponents, detaining activists and suffocating independent media.

Why Trump’s 2nd withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will be different

The president-elect could act faster this time.


President-elect Donald Trump is expected to quit the global climate pact after he takes office in January. | Matt Rourke/AP

November 10, 2024 
By Sara Schonhardt

The world is bracing for President-elect Donald Trump to withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement for the second time — only this time, he could move faster and with less restraint.

Trump’s vow to pull out would once again leave the United States as one of the only countries not to be a party to the 2015 pact, in which nearly 200 governments have made non-binding pledges to reduce their planet-warming pollution. His victory in last week’s election threatens to overshadow the COP29 climate summit that begins on Monday in Azerbaijan, where the U.S. and other countries will hash out details related to phasing down fossil fuels and providing climate aid to poorer nations.

The United States’ absence from the deal would put other countries on the hook to make bigger reductions to their climate pollution. But it would also raise inevitable questions from some countries about how much more effort they should put in when the world’s second-largest greenhouse gas polluter is walking away.

“Countries are very committed to Paris, I don’t think there’s any question about that,” said David Waskow, head of the World Resources Institute’s international climate initiative. “What I do think is at risk is whether the world is able to follow through on what it committed to in Paris.”

The Trump campaign told POLITICO in June that the former president would quit the global pact, as he did in 2017 during his first stint in the office. A campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

Trump said as recently as last weekend that climate change is “all a big hoax.”

“We don’t have a global warming problem,” he said at a campaign appearance, in spite of a mountain of data that says otherwise — and projections that 2024 is set to be the warmest year on record, surpassing a milestone set last year.

Once Trump takes office in January, he could file a request to the U.N. to withdraw from the agreement again. It would take a year for that move to take effect under the terms of the pact, not the three years it did previously.

Over that time, the Trump administration could ignore past U.S. climate commitments established by President Joe Biden and refuse to submit any new plans for reducing greater amounts of carbon pollution, according to analysts.

As POLITICO reported in June, some conservatives have also laid the groundwork for Trump to go even further if he chose to. One option would remove the United States from the 1992 U.N. treaty underpinning the entire framework for the annual global climate negotiations, a much more definitive step that could do lasting damage to the effort to limit the Earth’s warming.

Either way, a U.S. withdrawal could leave the country sidelined from international discussions about the expansion of clean energy, allowing China to continue out-competing America on solar panels, electric vehicles and other green technologies, said Jonathan Pershing, a special envoy for climate change during the Obama administration.

“China is the world’s largest trading partner for virtually every country in the world, so their ability to influence is not diminished,” he told reporters Thursday. “If anything, it is increased with U.S. withdrawal.”

He added: “I think we lose when the U.S. is out, and with the U.S. out, China will step up, but in a very different way.”

The U.S. was an architect of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which requires the 195 countries that signed it to submit national plans for cutting greenhouse gas emissions and provide updates about their progress toward hitting those marks. It also calls on wealthier nations to pay for climate projects, but there are no penalties for not adhering to the agreement.

In the nine years since it was established, climate pollution has continued to rise globally — though arguably at a slower rate than without it. Disasters have hit harder from Nepal to North Carolina, inflating the need for climate finance into the trillions of dollars each year.

A second exit

The Paris Agreement was about a year old when Trump announced that he served the people “of Pittsburgh, not Paris” and was withdrawing. The move stirred international shock — and fears that other countries might follow the U.S. out the door.

Now the agreement “is in a different stage in its existence,” said Todd Stern, who helped finalize the Paris deal as the U.S. climate envoy. “I would be very surprised to see countries actually pull out.”

Biden reentered the agreement in 2021 and then announced that the U.S. would slash its emissions in half by 2030 from 2005 levels.

U.S. carbon pollution is falling, but not fast enough to meet Biden’s pledge — and stepped-up action by states, cities and businesses can get only part of the way there in the absence of stronger federal efforts.

The nations that signed the Paris deal are supposed to submit new plans by mid-February. If the world’s biggest economy isn’t contributing, it could send a signal to opponents of stringent climate action in China, India or Europe to do less.

“There are interests in all of these other countries that want to promote continued reliance on fossil fuels and a resistance to climate ambition,” said Alden Meyer, a senior associate at the climate think tank E3G.

A test of how committed other nations are to the Paris Agreement will come at COP29.

They’re expected to set a new target for global climate aid — one that could reach up to $1 trillion a year. Biden administration officials will be at the table. But with a future Trump presidency looming over the talks, other countries might be less inclined to contribute more money.

Greta Thunberg Slams Climate Summit Hosted By Azerbaijan

November 10, 2024 

By RFE/RL's Georgian Service,
Sopio Apriamashvili and
Ilia Ratiani

Dozens turned out in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, to hear a lecture by Greta Thunberg on November 8. The Swedish climate activist met with activists from countries in the region -- Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The latter is due to host the COP29 global climate summit on November 11-12. Thunberg said the event "is whitewashing the crimes and the extremely dangerous things that Azerbaijan is doing." She also called the summit "a greenwash conference," an attribute activists give to publicity stunts they say are only pretending to care about the environment.

Several world leaders shun upcoming COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan •

 FRANCE 24 English

Nearly 200 countries will gather next week for the U.N. climate summit, COP29. Reaching a consensus for a deal among so many can be difficult. However, several world leaders do not plan on attending the event. For an in-depth analysis, FRANCE 24's Gavin Lee interviews Brice Lalonde, former French minister for ecological transition.

 

POOR CUBA

After hurricanes, two earthquakes jolt crisis-hit Cuba


By AFP
November 10, 2024

Residents stood outside their buildings after the earthquakes - Copyright AFP/File Michael Tran

Two powerful earthquakes rocked southern Cuba in quick succession on Sunday, US geologists said, just days after the island was struck by a hurricane that knocked out power nationwide.

The quakes cracked walls and damaged homes, but did not appear to have caused any deaths, according to preliminary reports.

They left many residents running into the streets and badly shaken so soon after the passage of Hurricane Rafael, a category 3 storm, which struck the island last Wednesday.

“It’s the last thing we needed,” Dalia Rodriguez, a housewife from the town of Bayama in southern Cuba, told AFP, adding that a wall of her house had been damaged.

The US Geological Survey measured the second, more powerful tremor on Sunday at a magnitude of 6.8 and 14.6 miles (23.5 kilometers) deep, some 25 miles off the coast of Bartolome Maso, in southern Granma province.

It came just an hour after a first tremor, which the USGS put at a magnitude of 5.9.

The quakes are the latest events in a cycle of emergencies for the Communist-run island following two hurricanes and two major blackouts in the last three weeks.

The island suffered a nation-wide blackout on October 18 when its biggest power plant failed and it was then hit by Hurricane Oscar two days later.

The effects of last week’s Hurricane Rafael have sparked rare protests, with an unspecified number of people arrested, according to authorities.

Cuba has been suffering hours-long power cuts for months and is in the throes of its worst economic crisis since the breakup of key ally the Soviet Union in the early 1990s — marked by soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods.



– ‘People got scared’ –



The state-run newspaper Granma said no deaths had been immediately reported from Sunday’s quakes, but that they had been felt throughout eastern and central provinces of the Caribbean island nation.

“Here people quickly took to the streets because the ground moved very strongly,” Andres Perez, a 65-year-old retiree who lives in downtown Santiago de Cuba, told AFP via telephone of the first quake.

“It felt very strong, really, my wife is a bundle of nerves,” he added.

“There are houses with cracked walls, others had walls falling down and some had their roofs collapsed,” Karen Rodriguez, a 28-year-old hairdresser, told AFP from Caney de las Mercedes, a small town in Bartolome Maso.

Other residents in Bayamo, a city of some 140,000 people, described street poles swaying.

“People got scared, everyone came running out of the houses very scared,” 24-year-old welder Livan Chavez told AFP.

The US tsunami warning system said no tsunami warning had been issued.

Hurricane Rafael left residents in Cuba without power for two days.

With concerns of instability on the rise, President Miguel Diaz-Canel has warned that his government will not tolerate attempts to “disturb public order.”

Local prosecutors said Saturday that an unspecified number of people had been arrested after demonstrations in the wake of Hurricane Rafael.

Around 85 percent of residents of the capital had had their power restored on Sunday, according to the government, while the two worst-hit provinces in the west, Artemisa and Pinar del Rio, remain in the dark.

6.8 magnitude earthquake shakes Cuba after hurricanes and blackouts

Debris from a building damaged by the passage of Hurricane Rafael covers the street in Havana, Cuba, Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariel Ley) 

By Associated Press - Sunday, November 10, 2024

HAVANA — A 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook eastern Cuba on Sunday, after weeks of hurricanes and blackouts that have left many on the island reeling.

The epicenter of the quake was located approximately 25 miles south of Bartolomé Masó, Cuba, according to a report by the United States Geological Survey.

The rumbling was felt across the eastern stretch of Cuba, including in bigger cities like Santiago de Cuba. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.


Residents in Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, were left shaken on Sunday. Yolanda Tabío, 76, said people in the city flocked to the streets and were still nervously sitting in their doorways. She said she felt at least two aftershocks following the quake, but that among friends and family she hadn’t heard of any damages.

“You had to see how everything was moving, the walls, everything,” she told The Associated Press.

The earthquake comes during another tough stretch for Cuba.

On Wednesday, Category 3 Hurricane Rafael ripped through western Cuba, with strong winds knocking out power island-wide, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing evacuations of hundreds of thousands of people. Days after, much of the island was still struggling without power.

Weeks before in October, the island was also hit by a one-two punch. First, it was hit by island-wide blackouts stretching on for days, a product of the island’s energy crisis. Shortly after, it was slapped by a powerful hurricane that struck the eastern part of the island and killed at least six people.

The blackouts and wider discontent among many struggling to get by has stoked small protests across the island.

Copyright © 2024 The Washington Times, LLC.

6.8 magnitude earthquake jolts Cuba

 10 November 2024 

A 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook eastern Cuba on Sunday, after weeks of hurricanes and blackouts that have left many on the island reeling, Azernews reports, citing CBC News.

The epicenter of the quake was located approximately 25 miles south of Bartolomé Masó, Cuba, according to a report by the United States Geological Survey.

The rumbling was felt across the eastern stretch of Cuba, including in bigger cities like Santiago de Cuba. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

Residents in Santiago, Cuba's second-largest city, were left shaken on Sunday.

Yolanda Tabío, 76, said people in the city flocked to the streets and were still nervously sitting in their doorways. She said she felt at least two aftershocks following the quake, but that among friends and family she hadn't heard of any damages.

 

Cuba, Buckle up! Trump Elected US President

by Francisco Domínguez / November 9th, 2024

The people of the United States and most of the rest of the world woke up this week to the last news they wanted to hear.

Not only had Donald J Trump presiding over a proto-fascist Maga mass movement been elected president of the United States, he will enjoy a comfortable Republican majority in the Senate, and he also may have a Republican majority in the House of Representatives.

He obtained about the same number of votes as in 2020, 74 million, and he scored an electoral victory because the Democrat candidate, Kamala Harris, got well over 10 million votes less than Joe Biden in 2020.

If one adds the strong political identification of the US Supreme Court with Trump’s overall political views, he will enjoy few obstacles from the key institutional structures of the United States to implement his cherished aim, the establishment of a strongly authoritarian government that would endeavour to turn all existing institutions into instruments of his political movement, his ideology and his government plans.

Throughout the election campaign and since he lost the 2020 election, Trump has projected a government programme of wholesale retribution against his political opponents including what he perceives as a hostile media, which he has labelled “the enemy within.”

He also intends to expel millions of — principally Latino — immigrants, who he accuses of “poisoning the blood of the country.”

His strategic plan for the US has been systematised in a 900-page document by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025, which, if fully implemented, will erase most of the existing mechanisms and practices that, despite its gross imperfections, broadly qualify the US as a democracy.

Many have exhaled a premature sigh of relief when Trump in his victory speech promised “no more wars” in his coming administration. However, during his 2016-20 government he conducted a mutually damaging “trade war” against China, a country he harbours a deep hostility to.

Hostility to China is likely to become the centre of his concerns on foreign policy, for which he can escalate the intense cold war and the massive military build-up around the South China Sea, including arming Taiwan, already developed by Biden.

Open US hostility to China began with president Barack Obama’s “Pivot to East Asia” in 2011, which prepared the militarisation of US policy towards the Asian giant. US military build-up 8,000 miles away from the US is stirring trouble in the region.

There ought to be little progress to be expected from the coming Trump government on the Middle East and on Palestine-Gaza. In December 2017, less than a year in office, reversing nearly seven decades of US policy on this sensitive issue, Trump formally recognised Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel and moved the US embassy to Jerusalem. There was worldwide dismay, including in substantial sections of the US Establishment, because it “shattered decades of unwavering US neutrality on Jerusalem.”

About Latin America, the 2016-20 Trump government specifically targeted what his national security adviser, John Bolton, called the “troika of tyranny” — namely, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua — which he also referred to as “a triangle of terror.”

Bolton in outlining Trump’s policy accused the three governments of being “the cause of immense suffering, the impetus of enormous regional instability and the genesis of a sordid cradle of communism.”

In 2018, Trump’s state secretary, Rex Tillerson, affirmed the Monroe Doctrine because it had asserted US “authority” in the western hemisphere, stating that the doctrine is “as relevant today as it was when it was written.” Tillerson’s was a strong message to Latin America that the US would not allow the region to entertain building links with emerging world powers such as China.

It was during Trump’s 2016-20 administration that, after several years of careful and methodical preparations, the US orchestrated and financed the 2018 coup attempt against Nicaragua. It convulsed the small Central American nation for more than six months of vicious levels of violence, leading to wanton destruction of property, massive economic losses, and nearly 200 innocent people killed. The Biden administration, under pressure from cold warriors in the US, has continued its policy of aggression against Nicaragua by applying an array of sanctions.

Trump inflicted hundreds of sanctions on Venezuela with horrible human consequences, since in 2017-18 about 40,000 vulnerable people died unnecessarily. Venezuela’s economy was blockaded to near asphyxiation. Its oil industry was crippled with the double purpose of denying the country’s main revenue earner and preventing oil supplies to Cuba. Trump repeatedly threatened Venezuela with military aggression; Venezuela (2017) was subjected to six months of opposition street violence; an assassination attempt against President Nicolas Maduro (August 2018); Juan Guaido proclaimed himself Venezuela’s “interim president” (January 2019, and he was recognised by the US); the opposition tried to force food through the Venezuela border by military means (February 2019); the State Department offered a reward of $15 million for “information leading to the arrest of President Maduro” (March 2020); a failed coup attempt (May 2019); a mercenary raid (May 2020); and in 2023 Trump publicly admitted that he wanted to overthrow Maduro to have control over Venezuela’s large oil deposits.

Although Cuba has endured the longest comprehensive blockade of a nation in peace time (over six decades, so far), under Trump the pressure was substantially ratcheted up. In 2019 Trump accused the government of Cuba of “controlling Venezuela” and demanded that, on the threat of implementing a “full and complete” blockade, the 20,000 Cuban specialists on health, sports culture, education, communications, agriculture, food, industry, science, energy and transport, who Trump falsely depicted as soldiers, leave.

Due to the tightening of the US blockade, between April 2019 and March 2020, for the first time its annual cost to the island surpassed $5 billion (a 20 per cent increase on the year before).

Furthermore, Trump’s policy of “maximum pressure” against Cuba meant, among other things, that lawsuits under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, were allowed; increased persecution of Cuba’s financial and commercial transactions; a ban on flights from the US to all Cuban provinces (except Havana); persecution and intimidation of companies that send fuel supplies; an intense campaign to discredit Cuban medical co-operation programmes; USAid issued a $97,321 grant to a Florida-based body aimed at depicting Cuban tourism as exploitative; Trump also drastically reduced remittances to the island and severely limited the ability of US citizens to travel to Cuba, deliberately making companies and third countries think twice before doing business with Cuba; and 54 groups received $40 million in US grants to promote unrest in Cuba. Besides, Cuba has had to contend with serious unrest in July 2021 and more recently in March 2024, stoked by US-funded groups in as many cities as they could. The model of unrest is based on what has been perpetrated against Nicaragua and Venezuela.

Trump’s final act of sabotage, just days before Biden’s inauguration, was to return Cuba to the State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list by falsely charging it with having ties to international terrorism. The consequences have been devastating: between March 2022 and February 2023, 130 companies, including 75 from Europe, stopped any dealings with Cuba, affecting transfers for the purchase of food, medicines, fuel, materials, parts and other goods.

Trump, despite being so intemperate and substantially discredited worldwide due to his rhetorical excesses, threats and vulgarities, leads a mass extremist movement, has the presidency, the Senate and counts on the Supreme Court’s explicit complicity, and is, therefore, in a particularly strong position to go wacko about the “troika of tyranny,” especially on Cuba. In short, Trump’s election as president has a historic significance in the worst possible sense of the term.

From his speeches one can surmise he would like to make history and he may entertain the idea of doing so by “finishing the job” on Cuba (but also on Venezuela and Nicaragua). If he does undertake that route, he has already a raft of aggressive policies he implemented during 2016-20. Furthermore, he will enjoy right-wing Republican control over the Senate foreign affairs committee.

Worse, pro-blockade hard-line senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are leading members of this committee and have a fixation with Cuba. Trump got stronger support in Florida, where the anti-Cuban Republicans in Florida bolstered his support and election victory. He also has a global network of communications owned by his ally, billionaire Elon Musk. Furthermore, no matter who the tenant in the White House, the “regime change” machinery is always plotting something nasty on Cuba.

So, buckle up! Turbulent times are coming to Latin America. Our solidarity work must be substantially intensified by explaining the increased threat that a second Trump term represents for all Latin America, but especially for Cuba.FacebooTwitterRedditEmail

Francisco Domínguez is a member of Executive Committee, Venezuela Informatio Centre. Rea other articles by Francisco, or visit Francisco's website.

SMOKERS’ CORNER: THE NEW MANICHAEANS

Nadeem F. Paracha

Published November 10, 2024

DAWN

Illustration by Abro

Just days before this year’s US presidential election, when I was wrapping up my interviews with a cross-section of voters in some US states for a research project, I was approached by an old white man in Denver, Colorado. The man asked me who I was voting for. I told him I’m not a US citizen so can’t vote. But even before I could complete my sentence, he asked, “Are you voting for Trump?”

He then declared, “Kamala Harris is evil…she is an evil, evil person.”

“Yes,” I replied. “And Trump is an angel.” And that was it. Unable or unwilling to notice the obvious sarcasm in my reply, the gentleman seemed satisfied with my reply and moved on. I had come face-to-face with an example of how ‘Manichaeism’ shapes modern populist politics.

Manichaeism was an ancient religion in Persia. It believed that the universe was dominated by two forces (good and evil) — one represented by light and the other by darkness.



Manichaean dualism, an ancient belief in the eternal struggle between good and evil, shapes many modern populist narratives. This ‘us-versus-them’ mindset, popular in the US and global right-wing politics, fuels dangerous worldviews that can justify violence

Today, the term ‘Manichean’ is used as a disparaging term to describe someone who disregards shades of grey or who adopts a strong ‘us-versus-them’ mindset. According to the American Professor of Ethics William F May, Manichaeism reduces distinctions to a ‘cosmic struggle’ between two rival powers: good and evil. A form of Manichaeism has been particularly strong in American politics, especially among right-wing groups.

Since Manichaeism was a religion, its modern political manifestation retains much of its original metaphysical essence. For example, when politicians posit an ‘us-versus-them’ position, it is not only about formulating ethnic, racial or nationalistic binaries. Added to a valorised race/ethnicity/nation is also a ‘divinely-ordained’ purpose.

So, a valorised people, though striving to achieve political power, come to see themselves a ‘chosen people’, selected by God to fulfil His purpose. Among right-wing political groups in the US in the early 20th century, this ‘purpose’ was to sustain racial segregation to protect the country’s white races, because they were the ‘chosen people.’

Later, the same chosen people were to fight against ‘international communist conspiracies.’ Communism was explained as an ‘evil.’ For right-wing groups, America’s war against communism (during the Cold War) was a war between good and evil. The former US president Ronald Reagan (1981-88) described the erstwhile Soviet Union as an “evil empire.”

Manichaean rhetoric was also present during the rise of Nazism in Germany. The Nazis enthusiastically indulged in pseudo-history and exotic theology to add to their claims of racial superiority a metaphysical dimension. The rise of Nazi Germany was viewed by the Nazis as an outcome of a battle that they were fighting against shadowy evil powers who were out to corrupt and destroy pure Germanic races, through lowly non-white races and wicked ideologies such as liberalism and communism.

Manichaean rhetoric and mindset make secular ideas seem theological/cosmological in nature. The valorised ideas/people in this context become chosen by God and opposing ideas/people are demonised as evil or driven by satanic forces or by Satan himself. Therefore, to a lot of Trump supporters, Harris is evil.

But Manichaeism is present in modern political-theocratic doctrines as well. It is very much present in Christian nationalism, which Trump constantly evokes. It is present in the Hindutva ideology valorised by India’s right-wing ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). It also plays a pivotal role in the rhetoric of Iran’s theocratic regime, especially when addressing the country’s archenemy, the US. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the US has been referred to by the theocracy as ‘the Great Satan’ (Sheytan-i-Buzurg).

In the 1970s, Islamist parties in Pakistan often portrayed the former Pakistani prime minister Z.A. Bhutto and his government as evil because, apparently, he and his ministers were serving Satan by always being drunk and holding wild sexual orgies (‘key parties’).

Such diabolical accusations, often published in right-wing tabloids, became so common that Bhutto once decided to respond to them by announcing to a crowd: “Yes, I drink, but I don’t drink the blood of the people!” Here he was referring to the Islamists who, according to him, were ‘agents’ of rich ‘bloodsucking’ industrialists.

Not all binary thinking in politics is Manichaean, though. Binary thinking in this regard becomes Manichaean only when the ‘us’ begins to describe itself as special people chosen by God to do His work in a wretched world.

This outtake of Manichaeism is present when most populists describe the other side as evil and/or satanic. Pakistani politician Imran Khan and his fans lambasting their opponents as ‘corrupt’ is a classic populist ploy, but it’s not Manichaean as such. However, it does become this when some of his supporters begin to view Khan as an incorruptible messiah, having characteristics of some of Islam’s ancient luminaries.




Binary thinking can stall nuanced political debates. But it becomes far more dangerous when it is used to construct narratives that lead to serious violence. For instance, in the last two decades, Christian nationalists in the West and Islamist militants took Manichaean thinking to an extreme, in a bid to justify terror attacks.

Far-right militants in the West and Islamist terrorists are often swayed by narratives that are largely influenced by Manichaeism — especially by its ‘dualist cosmology’, based on the idea of a primordial conflict between light and darkness, good and evil. Class, ethnicity, nationality or material economic conditions eventually dissolve in this cosmic conflict. But race and faith don’t. The militants in this context explain the conflict as one that has been going on for centuries outside the material realm, and within a spiritual one that the sacred texts supposedly speak of.

In a 2018 essay, the psychologist Karl Umbrasas wrote that terror outfits that kill indiscriminately can be categorised as Manichaeans. According to Umbrasas, such groups operate like “apocalyptic cults” and are not held back by socio-political and moral restraints. They are thus completely unrepentant about targeting even children. To them, the children are also part of the larger problem that they are going to resolve through a ‘cosmic war.’

The moral codes of such terror groups transcend those of the modern world. So, for example, when an Islamist or far-right terrorist kills innocent men, women and children, it is likely they see the victims as part of the ‘evil’ in the cosmic war that they imagine themselves to be fighting. In fact, one can thus suggest that the current government of Israel is also very much Manichaean.

Published in Dawn, EOS, November 10th, 2024

PAKISTAN

Dream of political stability

In their efforts to maintain ‘political stability’, the rulers have bypassed parliamentary integrity.

Muhammad Amir Rana

Published November 10, 2024 

 DAWN

IT is often believed that engineering political stability is the solution to a nation’s economic and security challenges. The idea of this so-called stability is used to justify the suppression of dissent, stifling of political opposition, and the disregard for democratic principles and transparency in societies. Recent developments in Pakistan seem to prove this observation correct.

The ruling elite has a firm grip on power, and has successfully bypassed parliamentary integrity in its attempt to maintain ‘political stability’. The media often portrays serene images and photos and footage of cultural events in major cities, suggesting that all is well. Yet, sceptics argue that addressing the basis of Pakistan’s political turmoil is necessary for this manufactured calm to find its way to true stability.

Pakistan’s rulers have long lived under the delusion that they can consolidate their grip on power by manipulating parliament and the judiciary; in the process, they often sideline the consent and representation of political parties and rights movements. Such movements and parties are seen as peripheral because they seek certain rights and privileges in exchange for taking part in legislative business. The Balochistan National Party (BNP) of Sardar Akhtar Mengal and the National Party of Dr Abdul Malik are examples of this.

However, the rulers only consider the demands of such parties if their support is crucial for passing laws. The means employed to secure BNP’s votes for the passage of the 26th Constitutional Amendment is one recent example.

Since independence, power politics in Pakistan have always revolved around personalities. This has led to the entrenchment of dynastic politics, which not only weakens political and democratic institutions but is also heavily responsible for failures of governance. These dynasties resist the establishment only when excluded from power; mostly, though, they are not averse to collaborating with each other and sharing power. In this arrangement, the establishment’s influence has grown. Political dynasties remain content as long as their political and business interests are secured.

There is an undeniable nexus between power politics and the economy; power-sharing directly influences economic reforms in all sectors — ranging from agriculture and industry to services. Meanwhile, the challenges faced by marginalised groups and rights movements are linked to internal security, which is often overlooked by the ruling classes. The latter’s illusion of having secured political stability will remain an illusion until voices from the peripheries are accommodated.

Describing these movements and dissenting voices as having been tainted by foreign influence or being traitorous has not addressed the core issues; instead, actions by security institutions driven by such perceptions have compounded the challenges. The economy, particularly in terms of foreign investment, is still very fragile, and can be further affected by deterioration of the security situation.

Political instability in Balochistan and KP’s merged districts has triggered discontent, providing insurgents and terrorists the space to exploit local grievances. Data from the Pak Institute for Peace Studies on recent terrorist activities in the country highlights the concerning expansion of militant influence, especially in KP and Balochistan. In October alone, 100 lives were lost in 48 terrorist attacks — 35 in KP, and nine in Balochistan, and more minor incidents in Sindh and Punjab. These regions have become focal points for militant operations, and reflect a dangerous strategy by these militant groups to destabilise areas where operational freedom may be greater due to geographical or sociopolitical factors. Though less frequent, incidents in Punjab and Sindh signal efforts to expand influence beyond traditional strongholds.

The BLA’s recent vehicle-borne suicide attack targeting Chinese nationals in Karachi exemplifies this tactic, indicating an attempt to disrupt crucial economic partnerships. Similarly, militants from the TTP are reportedly pushing into Balochistan’s Pakhtun belt and parts of Punjab, including districts bordering KP such as Mianwali. This suggests a calculated plan to broaden their reach.

As militants attempt to regroup and to increase their violent tactics in KP, local communities have become very vocal about their fears. Protests have persisted for months since the Taliban’s resurgence in Swat and the surrounding areas. Residents, often supported by social and political groups, have organised rallies, gatherings, and jirgas to express their concern at the re-emergence of militant groups and the rising arc of violence in their areas. They have also been vocal about their distrust of the government and security forces, and have criticised their inability to ensure durable security. This growing disillusionment underscores the urgent need to adopt a more comprehensive approach to counter violence and public grievances.

The PTM’s jirga last month highlighted the growing frustration of marginalised communities with contentious state policies on counterterrorism, resource distribution, and political rights. Similarly, the presence of the Baloch Yakjehti Council is an indicator of the growing concern in Balochistan with the ruling elites’ management of provincial affairs.

Our ruling circles must broaden their political perspective to genuinely include peripheral political and rights movements, including those from Balochistan, KP, and Sindh, in the national discourse.

Many of the rights movements have appeared willing to negotiate and work within the existing political framework if respectfully approached by a government that has genuine intentions. A serious, inclusive dialogue could pave the way for meaningful reforms and reduce discontent. The ruling elite’s commitment to such an approach would signal a shift from superficial gestures to a more sustainable, participatory model of governance.

Given our rulers’ assertion that Pakistan is now on the path of stability and economic growth, there should be no hesitation on the government’s part to engage dissenting voices from Balochistan and KP. Sadly, our history is witness to the fact that whenever Pakistan appears to stabilise, the arrogance of the power elites tends to rise. This pushes the country back onto a slippery slope. The post-9/11 economic growth, for example, eventually dissipated due to Gen Musharraf’s misadventures in Balochistan and the creation of a judicial crisis. Power circles must rethink their approach.

The writer is a security analyst.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2024

Quetta bombing

DAWN
Editorial 

Published November 10, 2024 

THERE appears to be no end to the stream of violent incidents occurring in Balochistan, indicating a clear failure by the state to provide security to this troubled region. Saturday morning’s suicide bombing targeting Quetta railway station is the second major terrorist attack in the province within a span of 10 days.

On Nov 1, terrorists struck Mastung, causing the death of several children, among other victims. According to media reports, security personnel were the main targets of the latest tragedy, though there were also a significant number of civilian victims.

At least 26 people were martyred in the brutal act, which has been claimed by the banned Balochistan Liberation Army. Bombing a public transport hub is a clear act of terrorism, and by employing such deplorable tactics, separatist groups have shown themselves to be just as vicious as other violent non-state actors.

At this time, Balochistan faces threats from violent separatists, as well as religiously inspired outfits. Over the past few months, there have been several high-profile terrorist attacks, but the administration has yet to come up with a solid counterterrorism approach. Apart from Saturday’s bombing and the Mastung atrocity, 21 miners were massacred in Dukki last month. The provincial CTD believes the BLA was involved in the Dukki attack.

Meanwhile, in August, several apparently coordinated attacks rocked the province. There have also been numerous grisly murders targeting labourers, including two separate incidents in Panjgur in September and October. In many of these attacks, workers from Punjab have been murdered by terrorists.

According to the Pips think tank, there were nine terrorist attacks in Balochistan last month — the second highest tally nationally after KP — which resulted in 30 deaths. The organisation says that the banned TTP is also trying to find a foothold in the province’s Pakhtun areas.

The people of Balochistan are caught between various strands of militants who are growing increasingly bloodthirsty, and the heavy-handed response of the state, which often hauls away innocent people in the name of fighting terrorism. They deserve better; mainly, a state CT policy that respects human rights and also succeeds in neutralising the militant threat to the public and security personnel.

Lasting peace can only come to Balochistan through short-term law-enforcement operations and long-term strategies that can address the poor socioeconomic situation in the province that fuels separatist sentiment. Moreover, the province’s popular leaders must be allowed, through an unhindered democratic process, to formulate and execute public policy. The immediate need is to counter the various violent actors causing insecurity. And if foreign elements are involved in fuelling unrest, they must be identified and confronted. The people of Balochistan need to be protected from terrorist groups, and the growing tide of militancy must be checked.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2024

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for BALOCHISTAN

PAKISTAN

An unwanted fifth season; SMOG

Umair Javed 

Published November 11, 2024

PUNJAB’S unwanted fifth season — smog — is currently in full bloom. Air quality in cities like Lahore, poor throughout the year, is at its toxic worst between October and January, with AQI readings well above 500 on most days.

The government’s response so far hinges on school closures and the enforcement of location-specific lockdowns. While keeping vulnerable groups, like children, away from public spaces filled with poisonous air is understandable, it is unlikely that air quality will be much cleaner at home.

Protest and despair at poor air quality is now a standard ritual during these months. Since at least 2015, when the onset of smog became sharply apparent in October, environmentalists and other experts have deliberated on what can be done to solve the issue. The answers are wide-ranging, and the absence of government ownership of the problem in the first few years didn’t help.






Almost a decade on, we can claim some clarity on the proximate causes of the air quality crisis. We know, thanks to source apportionment studies, that transport and industrial emissions are a major source of the problem, when averaged out through the year.

On account of further work, by Cambridge- and Oxford-based scientists Abdullah Bajwa and Hassan Sheikh, we know that vehicle fleet age, two-stroke engines in motorcycles and rickshaws, along with fuel quality are significant features of the problem.


Air quality is an issue that cannot be privatised beyond the mere use of air purifiers in private spaces.

We also know that crop burning in East Punjab contributes to the spike in smog levels during these current months, partly because of wind direction and the inversion of temperature that keeps particulate matter suspended in the air for longer.

Knowing all what we know now, the set of solutions available to us is also fairly clear. Changes in fuel quality, enforcement of fitness standards to phase out polluting vehicles, stricter regulations on industrial emissions, and the development of mass transit solutions to reduce the number of private vehicles on the road are all steps adopted by cities that grappled with air quality issues during the 20th century. In the present context, we have the additional option of ensuring public transport doesn’t add to the problem, mainly by inducting New Energy Vehicles.






Similarly, given that emissions do not respect the Radcliffe line, fenced or otherwise, cross-border collaboration between the two Punjabs is a categorical necessity. Domestic standards and interventions mentioned earlier will clear up the air, through the year on average, but spikes during October-November require the two countries to cooperate more closely and forge a collective solution.

Like with many other public policy issues in Pakistan, offering a set of solutions is not necessarily the problem. In fact, many of these interventions have been identified by the government itself, including through its own source apportionment studies carried out in the last few years. The challenge for us is one of state capacity and fiscal resources. It is precisely this challenge that makes one far more pessimistic about the short- and medium-term prospects for cleaner air.

State capacity is the ability of public sector institutions to implement whatever rules, regulations, objectives it sets out to achieve. As sociologist Michael Mann put it, this ability itself is of two types of power — despotic, which usually relies on punitive and coercive capacity; and infrastructural, which relies on cooperation, coordination, and behavioural shifts.






The weakness of infrastructural power among Pakistani public sector organisations is fairly clear. Rules and regulations, when they do exist, are subverted by powerful societal actors, or undermined by state officials themselves. When the state attempts to deliver services itself, it runs into significant resource constraints, or falls prey to various forms of inefficiencies.

These weaknesses are both a cause and a consequence of increased privatisation in every domain. People who can afford to opt out of state delivery in domains such as housing, water, health, education, even energy, have done so. The market caters to all such needs, as long as people can pay. With the rich and powerful no longer reliant on the state, there is even less pressure on officials to cater to the needs of those who have no other option.

Air quality, however, is an issue that cannot be privatised beyond the mere use of air purifiers in private spaces. Given the rate at which the AQI index is climbing, even purifiers won’t be able to solve the issue. Sure, the rich will have access to better healthcare and the luxury of not going out unless absolutely necessary, but that doesn’t offer the same type of insulation that an off-grid solar system or generator does against a failing public sector electricity grid.

There is no option, then, but to address the crisis. All the steps mentioned above require not only great fiscal outlay, but also the state to perform at a level of ability and capacity that it has seldom demonstrated in recent years. Will government departments tasked with monitoring vehicle fitness levels step up and increase monitoring?






Will local administrators who carry the responsibility of shutting down polluting industrial units be given the resources and protection to take on powerful interests? Will narrow national security considerations be set aside, and meaningful cross-border collaboration initiated?

Such steps can only take place once there is a level of clarity within the government about the smog issue being a public health crisis bigger than any encountered in the past. And that it requires explicit and dedicated attention over a long period of time to solve. Praying for a change in weather is not a sound strategy; similarly hoping that people forget about it or get used to it won’t save anyone’s lungs. The capacity required to tackle the problem needs to be built by the state, and the time to do it is right now.

The writer teaches sociology at Lums.

X: @umairjav

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024

Time to deliver

Editorial 

Published November 11, 2024
DAWN

COUNTRIES, big and small, are gathering today in Baku, Azerbaijan, for COP29.

Pakistan’s participation in the climate summit will centre on three daily events at its pavilion, focusing on climate justice, energy transition, and gender-responsive climate policies. We will showcase our commitment to climate adaptation and sustainability with national initiatives such as the Living Indus project and Recharge Pakistan. However, the real challenge lies in securing meaningful financial support for these programmes.

Never has it been more urgent to take climate action. While developed nations are trumpeting a rise in international public adaptation financing from $22bn in 2021 to $28bn in 2022, the truth is it is a meagre increase. For Pakistan alone, the World Bank estimates a need of $348bn by 2030 for climate resilience. Add to this the current pledges to the Loss and Damage Fund, which stands at a mere $770m, and it is clear that global financial commitments are grossly inadequate.

Senator Sherry Rehman’s call for ‘Internationally Determined Contributions’ from developed nations in aid of climate-vulnerable countries deserves serious consideration at COP29. The fact is that countries like Pakistan, which hardly contribute to global emissions, bear disproportionate climate impacts. The devastating floods of 2022, causing $30bn in damage, and this year’s severe cross-border smog in Punjab show our vulnerability to sudden disasters and chronic pollution.

This year’s discussions will focus on creating a new climate finance goal that surpasses the previous $100bn annual commitment set by the Paris Agreement. Developing nations are advocating for climate finance to be provided with major concessions or as grants, instead of the typical loans, to alleviate their growing debt burdens. Azerbaijan’s proposed $1bn Climate Finance Action Fund, funded by fossil fuel producers, aims to support disaster response and community initiatives, offering a fresh approach to financing.

Pakistan’s government seems to be concerned about our participation at the summit. The parliamentary committee on climate change has stressed transparency and measurable outcomes. In the long run, success will require more than just government action. The private sector must be engaged and provincial climate initiatives strengthened.

The Global Climate Finance Framework, already signed by 15 nations, offers Pakistan an opportunity to strengthen its position in climate negotiations. Pakistan must leverage its moral authority as a climate-vulnerable nation while displaying a serious commitment to adaptation and mitigation at home.

Published in Dawn, November 11th, 2024