A new underwater device has been tested to count king crab in the Barents Sea

King crab caught in the Barents Sea. Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina

The new method will help make the counting process more efficient and environmentally friendly, Norwegian researchers say.

By Elizaveta Vereykina
August 23, 2024

BARENTS OBSERVER


A self-propelled underwater vehicle called Triton has been used in Norway’s Porsangerfjord to count the number of king crabs in the area, the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research reports on its website. Getting the count right will be crucial later this year when the Norwegian government sets the annual quotas for fishermen.


Until now, Norwegian researchers have mostly used the traditional method, which involves a large research vessel cruising the Barents waters and lowering a video camera to the bottom of the sea. The researchers sit in the control room and count the crustaceans by hand. The researchers then pull some of the crabs up to examine them.

Self-propelled underwater vehicle Triton. Photo: Jörn Patrick Meyer /Norwegian Institute of Marine Research

As the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research reports, Triton, which takes three pictures per second, has advantages:

“Now we don’t have to pick up all the crabs, even though a few of them still will have to be caught to get information about gender and other things, - marine scientist Cecilie Broms is quoted as saying. - Triton takes pictures of the crabs as they live on the bottom, so we will gain better knowledge of their distribution. In addition, we know exactly how large the area the cameras cover is and can improve the calculations of how much crab there is in the area”.

Researcher Ann Merete Hjelset counting king crabs in the control room of a ship. 

Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina

The device is designed to reduce the cost and carbon footprint of crab counting in the future, the Institute reports. While a research vessel is monitoring crabs in one area, the sonar-equipped device could be doing the same a little further away, greatly expanding the area of crab counting.

King crab at the bottom of the Barents Sea. Photo: Elizaveta Vereykina



“And then the goal is for the autonomous vessels to go more and more by themselves”, says Cecilie Broms, “By using sonar, we also can now cover a larger area on the bottom”, Broms added.

The king crab is originally from the Pacific Ocean and was once introduced into the Barents waters of the Soviet Union in Arctic Russia. Since then the invasive species has spread to Norway’s Barents Sea and a multi-million dollar industry has sprung up around it.

The harbor in the Arctic town of Kirkenes, where thousands of king crabs are caught each autumn and winter. Photo: Henry Patton

Procedural Barriers and the ‘Right to Seek’ Asylum in the Biden Era

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23.08.24 | 


[Philip Collins is a US-based immigration attorney and a PhD Researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway, Ireland, where he also holds a Master’s Degree in International Human Rights Law.]

On June 5, 2024, President Biden’s ‘Proclamation on Securing the Border’ went into full effect, with the stated purpose of suspending and limiting ‘[t]he entry of any noncitizen into the United States across the southern border’. According to the Proclamation, and with limited exceptions, the limitation and suspension of US/Mexico border entries is only to be lifted two weeks after average border encounters of migrants reach a ‘7-consecutive-calendar-day average of less than 1,500’. The limitation and suspension would then kick in again anytime there ‘has been a 7-consecutive-calendar-day average of 2,500 encounters or more.’ With the average number of border encounters rising well over 150-250,000 in recent months, the Proclamation is poised to bring about drastic change on traditional reception and asylum procedure at the southern border.

This move is yet another regulation among the patchwork of executive actions in the past year from the Biden administration that seek to control high migrant encounter rates at the southern border which are seen as a huge political liability in an election year. The Proclamation joins the post-Title-42 ‘Asylum Transit Ban’ regulation (known officially as the ‘Circumvention of Lawful Pathways’ rule) which began in May of 2023, and an additional ‘Application of Certain Mandatory Bars in Fear Screenings’ rule still pending final publication. Together these regulations have formed a restrictive border regime drastically limiting asylum eligibility for many would-be seekers.

The increasingly high procedural burden placed on asylum-seeking migrants who fear persecution in their countries of origin perfectly encapsulate the century-old debate about the right of individuals to seek asylum vs. the state’s power to control who can and cannot enter into its territory. While the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives all the ‘right to seek…asylum from persecution’ (language that was first introduced by the U.S. delegation), it purposely leaves the act of granting asylum up to each state of refuge. Over time, and especially within the last decade in the US, this interplay between the rights of asylum-seekers and state sovereignty has generally worked against asylum-seekers. These regulations continue that trend and also signal a significant shift in U.S. asylum procedure that, if left unchallenged, will establish a new paradigm for U.S. border control.

Specifically, through these highly technical, procedurally burdensome reception mechanisms, the onus is placed squarely on the shoulders of asylum-seeking migrants to prove they are the ‘right’ kind of seekers through official, pre-approved pathways. Yet these ‘pathways’ carry with them few accommodations for migrants fleeing persecution who won’t have the means or capacity to comply with each and every procedural checkpoint, inevitably leading to refoulement for many and the denial of the procedural right to seek asylum for most. In other words, by manipulating what it looks like to ‘seek’ asylum, the U.S can thinly maintain that it upholds the ‘right’ for migrants to seek asylum while bypassing the reality that thousands upon thousands of asylum-seekers will be shut out from that right, even after gaining access to U.S. territory.

In order to better illustrate the cascading procedural burdens places on asylum-seeking migrants in the US, it is worth taking a moment to list the numerous, invisible barriers placed in their path on their journey toward refuge. These include, for example, navigating through daily ‘metering’ limits on asylum claims, successfully manifesting fear of persecution with the ‘shout test’, and meeting several shifting burdens of proving their fear of persecution. Thus, where it was once enough to arrive in or at the frontiers of U.S. territory in order to access an asylum procedure, the Biden regulations now combine create the following labyrinthine set of procedural obstacles:

1. Barriers Prior to Arrival at the Southern Border

First, even prior to arriving at the U.S. border, asylum-seeking migrants are required to have applied for —and have been denied— asylum in any country they transited through. Those who haven’t and who later seek asylum in the U.S. will be working against a presumption of ineligibility for asylum. With limited exceptions, this presumption of ineligibility will be applied to all who can’t otherwise show they suffer an ‘acute’ medical emergency, are facing ‘imminent and extreme danger’, or are victim to a ‘severe form’ of human trafficking. These descriptive terms highlight the high-level of urgency and proof that asylum-seeking migrants are required to show in order to overcome this bar.

2. Barriers Upon Arrival at a Designated Port of Entry

Next, asylum-seeking migrants arriving at ports of entry are subjected further restrictions designed to prevent an overwhelming majority from even accessing an asylum screening procedure. Specifically, those who have not created an appointment using the CBP One phone application, which is subject to a daily number of open slots and appointments, are shut out of the process unless they can shoulder the burden of proving that their inability to use the app was due to an ‘ongoing and serious obstacle’. This daily cut-off has been termed as ‘metering’ and previously existed as an official Border Patrol policy in the form of a maximum daily allowance of asylum-seeking entrants at ports of entry. It’s unclear if this ‘serious obstacle’ would include the inability to obtain a phone, the inability to easily charge the phone in migrant shelters, or the constant technical issues with the CBP One application.

If an asylum-seeker at a port of entry manages to meet the above standards, they will then undergo an interview in order to assess their level of fear of persecution on the basis of a convention ground. But where-seekers used to be subjected to low ‘credible fear’ standard, the asylum transit ban now subjects them to a higher ‘reasonable fear’ standard. The heightening of this standard has lowered all claims at this point to roughly a third of what they were before the change. Those whose claims have been rejected may appeal to a judge who will review the interview transcript and perform his or her own ‘reasonable fear’ analysis. Any who can’t make it through these stringent burdens by this point and are unable to meet the ‘withholding of removal’ standard against refoulement are then deported.

3. Barriers Upon Arrival or Crossing Between Designated Ports of Entry

For those who arrive between ports of entry, whether at the frontiers of the territory or by crossing into U.S. between ports of entry and encountering border guards, access to the asylum process and screening for refoulement is extremely restricted. This happens automatically, for example, when the threshold for encounters is reached under the Biden Proclamation, causing migrants to be expelled en masse with limited exceptions for only the most humanitarian of cases. Where the daily average restrictions are not in place, the Asylum Transit Ban still mandates that asylum interview and screening procedures listed above are executed. However, the Biden Proclamation adds another significant burden to this process:

Asylum-seeking migrants between ports of entry are now also required to affirmatively, in an unprompted manner, manifest a fear of persecution upon being returned. This has colloquially been known as the ‘shout test’ —so-called because migrants need to literally shout out their fear of persecution to border officers— and comes with a number of built-in limitations. For example, the Department of Homeland Security only provides that it will give ‘general notice’ regarding the process for seeking asylum, meaning that the rule has little regard for the individual capacity, legal knowledge, language competency, and other factors that can cause individuals to miss their chance to claim asylum altogether and be returned to danger. Moreover, even where a fear is manifested, the ‘shout test’ comes with little oversight and ultimately incentivizes border officers to outright ignore or mistreat migrants on the basis of inconvenience or general disbelief in their claims, a phenomenon that was a notable problem under the COVID-era policy Title 42. Refoulement accordingly becomes part-and-parcel of this process.

Finally, those who manage to manifest a fear and have it recognized by a border officer still need to meet several, shifting burdens of proving their initial claim in order to be safeguarded from refoulement. The new standard of proving a fear of persecution under the Biden Proclamation —higher than that of the ‘reasonable possibility’ under the Asylum Transit Ban, but less than that of a ‘more likely than not’ standard of traditional credible fear interviews— is that of ‘reasonable probability’. Astoundingly, those who meet these burdens under the Biden Proclamation, are still subject to a credible fear interview but are completely cut off from the possibility of ultimately obtaining asylum —due entirely to their failure to claim asylum at a port of entry.

The End Result: An Eroding ‘Right to Seek’

The sum of these procedural barriers is not only convoluted and burdensome on all migrants seeking asylum, but it also leads to a brutal winnowing of all but the most perfect of asylum-seekers who somehow manage to traverse every hurdle thrown up by these regulations. While certain exceptions remain, such as for unaccompanied minor children or those who can show ‘exceptionally compelling circumstances’ requiring safeguards from refoulement, the U.S. is now exercising sovereignty over its jurisdiction in a manner that directly contravenes its obligations under the Refugee Convention’s prohibition against refoulement and the built-in human ‘right to seek’ asylum deriving from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

One can understand the heavy political burden placed on a presidential administration when its opponents are constantly ringing alarm bells and pointing to what it calls an open border crisis or a ‘migrant invasion’. Or when the legislative branch has failed to pass any meaningful immigration legislation in over 30 years that could provide funding for border reception, asylum processing, and immigration judges. But by placing these restrictions like patchwork onto existing asylum law and regulations, the overall effect is to normalize shifting of the burden of safeguarding the ‘right to seek’ asylum and against refoulement off the shoulders of the state almost entirely onto the migrants seeking protection. Under these provisions, the ‘right to seek’ asylum, a cornerstone of human rights for over 75 years, now hangs by a thread.

Palestinian Self-Determination between Sovereignty and Conquest: Exploring Public and Private Power in the recent ICJ’s Advisory Opinion on the Illegality of Israel’s Occupation

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23.08.24 |

[Michelle Burgis-Kasthala is Professor of International Law and Global Governance at the University of Edinburgh Law School. Matilde Masetti Placci is a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh Law School, and her thesis focusses on the history and theory of international law.]

On 19th July, the ICJ handed down its long-awaited advisory opinion examining the legal status of Israel’s occupation across the Palestinian territories of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. While the Court explicitly shelved analysis of Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 2023 (para. 81), its findings undoubtedly contribute to the growing arsenal of jurisprudential analysis that is rupturing the legitimacy of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people. Most simply, the Court held that Israel was in breach of various IHL and IHRL requirements incumbent upon on it as the occupying power. The culmination of these practices was suggestive of sovereign power amounting to conquest over the occupied territories. Such policies constitute a breach of the ius cogens norms relating to the use of force, the acquisition of territory as well as the right to (Palestinian) self-determination. In its analysis of these Israeli practices and policies, the Court offers a fascinating excursion into the nature of sovereign power as realised in the case of Israel and as in abeyance (p. 150) in the case of Palestine. Here, we adopt a feminist-inspired methodology to explore how modes of public and private power inform the making and consecrating of states under international law.

The regime of belligerent occupation rests on a peculiar and delicate balance between military necessity and protection of the local population. Within such an undemocratic relationship of (un)governance arising from de facto foreign control, sovereignty is elusive. The Occupying Power is forbidden from acquiring title to the territory, but it is permitted to exercise various elements of public power (2024 advisory opinion, para. 109). In its 2004 advisory opinion on the legality of Israel’s wall, the Court had catalogued a series of IHL and IHRL breaches arising from its rule over the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Yet while in 2004 it tended to denote Israel’s settlement enterprise in particular as constitutive of de facto annexation, 20 years later, its language has become far bolder and clearer. Without providing a specific date or detailed territorial parameters (para. 179), the Court characterises Israeli rule as sovereign (paras 158-173).

On which modes of public and private power does Israeli sovereignty arise? How are Palestinian ties to the land instead constitutive of a legitimate – if unfulfilled – sovereign title? First and most significantly, the Court sets up a contest between subsisting public and private Palestinian rights and those of the occupying power which also manifest in public and private registers. The Court is most categorical about the unqualified prohibition against private property confiscation as per Article 46 of the Hague Regulations and finds (para. 123) that Israel has systematically breached this norm both through its proclamation of requestioned property as (public) State lands and their frequent transformation into (privately held) settlements. Later in its consideration of Israeli discriminatory treatment (paras 208-222), the Court also presents Israeli house demolitions as a contest between Israel’s claimed ‘legitimate public aim’ (para. 205) and Palestinian private rights, but also, public rights as these acts of collective punishment limit the realisation of Palestinian self-determination. The Court also identifies subsisting public rights of the Palestinian people through the notion of sovereignty over natural resources (paras 124-133). While there is some room for Israel to use resources for its public claims of military necessity alongside the needs of the Palestinian population, again the practice of using public Palestinian resources for the public and private interests of the Israeli population is found to breach the requirements of occupational usufruct.

Notions of subsisting rights also inform the Court’s reasoning in relation to Israel’s extensive application of its own domestic laws – its public powers – across East Jerusalem and to its settler population in the remainder of the West Bank. In contrast to Israelis subject to domestic civilian laws, ‘Israel has to a large degree substituted its military law for the local [public] law’ (para. 136), placing Palestinians at the mercy of foreign military courts. In examining the discriminatory quality of Israel’s exercise of this public power, detailed accounts of direct state violence against Palestinians as well as extensive failures to rein in (private) settler violence, the Court is also suggesting that the exercise of this public power is illegitimate and corrupt. Here, we see a fundamental tension then between two competing visions of public power – between Israeli attempts to extend its sovereign prerogative across the entirety of historic Palestine versus Palestinian self-determination that is the product of subsisting private and public rights to the territory. While the Court creates a series of dualisms in charactering Palestinian claims, it also underscores how self-determination rests most crucially on territorial, demographic and economic and cultural integrity (para. 238-241). Only where the Palestinian people can decide how to exercise unfragmented public power throughout the territories can they be fulfilling their right to self-determination.

The settler as a legal persona illustrates this fusion of public and private interests as well as its utility when it comes to delineating Israel’s obligation to withdraw immediately and unconditionally. In its short overview of violence against the Palestinians in the occupied territories, the Court distinguishes between settler violence and ‘public’ violence enacted directly by Israeli security forces. It mentions the overlap between the two types of Israeli presence when it notes that Israeli security forces (which include law enforcement and military personnel) often fail to prevent or punish settler violence (para. 154). The nature of the settler’s presence and powers is not clearly delineated or explored. Curiously, the most detailed exploration can be found in Vice President Sebutinde’s dissenting opinion, where she describes the settlers as a heterogenous group comprised of some relatively recent landowners and others who may have acquired land prior to 1948, under Article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine, which promoted the establishment of Jewish settlements in the territory (para. 89). Most importantly, because the settler is a private citizen and landowner, she is understood as separate from the public elements which brought about her presence in the West Bank in the first place. Vice President Sebutinde does away with the question of population transfer (as prohibited under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention) by pointing to the lack of evidence indicating the forcible transfer of Israeli citizens into the West Bank.

Not only is this an unreasonably restrictive reading of the Article – the portions which relate to the transfer of populations into occupied territory do not require the Occupying Power’s coercion or other threats of force – it also overlooks the public dimension of this phenomenon. The 2018 Basic Law is a rare, explicit articulation of Israel’s subjective understanding of what the exercise of the right to self-determination looks like; by describing the establishment of settlements as “a national value”, with the government directed to “encourage and promote [their] establishment and consolidation,” Israel has explicitly extended its public powers to include security and livelihood guarantees to private citizens. The settler is not just any other private individual; she knowingly takes advantage of practices and policies which have been established for her benefit: she is an emanation and constituent of the Israeli ‘public’ in the occupied territories. This implicates her removal within Israel’s general obligation to withdraw totally and unconditionally: understanding her as a mere private citizen removed from the State apparatus is what allows judges Sebutinde and Iwasawa to consider the protection of settlers as one ‘legitimate security interest’ justifying a conditional or partial withdrawal.

Are these considerations of the Court best characterised as a bilateral (private) dispute then or do they directly implicate international law and if so, how? While Vice President Sebutinde argues strongly in favour of the matter as best conceived through the prism of a bilateral dispute, Judge Tladi counters that ‘the depravation of some of the most fundamental rights of a people is an issue which concerns all of humanity’ (para. 11). Characterising the matter as a bilateral dispute would be ‘dangerous’ not only for Palestinians (para. 44), but all those committed to the notion of an ‘international community’ (para. 13), no matter how nascent. Here we see then a contest between containing the matter as a private dispute between two claims to public power over a territory versus a vision of universalised public values that trump particularised governance claims in the interest of justice for all peoples.

This points to the bigger picture: Israeli policies and practices in the occupied territories aim not only to strengthen Israeli claims to historical Palestine, but also to weaken and erase Palestinian society and identity. Given the scope and duration of Israeli violations of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, the question becomes: how can this harm be redressed? The Court provides a formulaic answer including ‘full reparation’, compensation and/or restitution of assets (paras 269-271). This approach fails to grasp the key trauma which has been inflicted and which speaks to what the right to self-determination is intended to protect: the ability of a people to determine and enjoy their own collective identity, whatever its emanations and forms. The peremptory right to self-determination is a consequence of the recognition that all collectives are entitled to equality and dignity (Tladi J, para. 11). When Israeli public practices and policies question whether a Palestinian public and attendant identity even exists (which Vice President Sebutinde argues is historically questionable, at para. 9) and systematically destroy Palestinian social and cultural life, we are not witnessing ‘mere’ apartheid; we are witnessing the destruction of an identity so comprehensive that the question of self-determination becomes moot.

This second opinion’s comparative bleakness has been noted. This is unsurprising, as Israel can no longer defend its pervasive and open-ended presence through any extant international norms; we are looking at total domination pending conquest. This goes beyond anything the Court has been faced with: in South West Africa, South Africa did not defend its apartheid policies in reference to security interests, rather, it argued that the supposed inaccuracy of the Ethiopia and Liberia’s submissions was a ‘compelling reason’ for the Court to decline rendering the opinion (pp. 743-745). In Chagos, the UK’s arguments centred around the legality of the Archipelago’s 1965 handover, not the existence of the Chagossians in toto (paras 8.78 et seq). In remaining relatively ambivalent about the nature of the right to self-determination (is it only in cases of foreign domination? This leaves open the question, again, of whether Israel’s presence is ‘foreign’ or simply a counter claim to self-determination, as Vice President Sebutinde would have it) the Court has missed an opportunity to grasp the existential pain and suffering the Palestinian people have been subjected to since at least 1948.

State Responsibility – a regime built from private law principles and transposed to public international law – was never meant to deal with such trauma: the restitution of olive groves and villages pales in the face of a people who, for generations, have been forced to live as refugees in pockets of their own land. Restrictions on movement, meaningful work, and collective expression through protest have hollowed out and warped Palestinian communities – especially women and children ‘unchilded’, who have faced compounded, intersectional harms under occupation (Charlesworth J, sep. op). Indeed, the Court’s narrowly material understanding of self-determination and its redress through the confines of State Responsibility mean that it never considered the Palestinian diaspora, which has only grown as a direct result of Israel’s practices and policies since its 1967 occupation, but more fundamentally, its creation in 1948 during the Nakba. Thus, international law is ill-equipped to comprehend emerging States whose pre-existing components (territory, population) are denied. The recognition and redress of (public) collective and (private) individual trauma would have vindicated the purpose of the right to self-determination: to consecrate a people’s pending claim to identity, expressed, inter alia, as statehood.

ICELAND

Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula has seen its sixth volcanic eruption since December 

Scientists warn ongoing volcanic activity could last decades or centuries

Merve Berker |23.08.2024 - TRT/AA




ANKARA

Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula has seen its sixth volcanic eruption since December 2023, with lava spewing from a new fissure as seismic activity continues, according to press reports on Friday.

In southwest Iceland, the Reykjanes Peninsula experienced the eruption late Thursday night, following a series of earthquakes, the largest recorded at a magnitude of 4.


The eruption began at 9:26 p.m. local time, with lava bursting from a fissure that initially measured 1.4 kilometers (nearly 0.9 miles) but quickly extended to 3.9 kilometers (over 2.42 miles) within 40 minutes, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office (IMO), as reported by the Guardian.

Despite the ongoing volcanic activity, flights to and from Iceland continue to operate normally, according to Isavia, the country’s national airport and air navigation service provider.

The Reykjanes Peninsula, home to nearly 8% of Iceland’s population, has faced repeated volcanic activity since 2021 due to the reactivation of dormant geological systems after 800 years. Scientists have warned that this region could experience continuous eruptions for decades or even centuries.

To protect critical infrastructure, including the Svartsengi power plant and the Blue Lagoon spa, authorities have constructed barriers to redirect lava flows. However, the recent eruption has not posed an immediate threat to the nearby fishing village of Grindavik, where most of the 4,000 residents evacuated in November following earlier eruptions.

Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland, told the Guardian that the current eruption shows less activity near Grindavik compared to previous events, offering some relief to residents. However, he emphasized the need for continued monitoring as the situation evolves.

The IMO had previously warned of the likelihood of another eruption, pointing to signs of magma accumulation under Svartsengi, where the local power plant supplies electricity and water to about 30,000 people on the peninsula. The plant has been largely evacuated and is being operated remotely due to the ongoing volcanic threats.

Iceland, located atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet, is home to 33 active volcano systems—the highest number in Europe. The current wave of eruptions on the Reykjanes Peninsula underscores the persistent geological volatility in this region, posing challenges for the island nation of nearly 400,000 people.

For Sri Lanka, Some Uneasy Parallels In Bangladesh

Bangladesh protest is a reminder of Sri Lanka’s 2022 ‘Aragalaya’ (struggle), especially the departure or escape of the elected leaders amid people’s struggle for sovereignty.

Kusum Wijetilleke
Updated on: 23 August 2024


Island in Crisis: A view of the GotaGoGama camp during Sri Lanka’s economic crisis in 2022 Photo: Getty Images

We find ourselves in a moment where western countries, bastions of laissez-faire capitalism and global free trade, have turned to protectionism, most notably the electric vehicle tariffs recently imposed by the US and the European Union (EU) on Chinese exports.

This is not the first time. The 1974 Multi Fibre Arrangement (MFA) was aimed to protect the textile industries of developed nations, which had a long-lasting impact on some economies of Southeast Asia. In Sri Lanka, it would spawn the famous garment factory project of former President Ranasinghe Premadasa, part of what scholars like Saman Kelegama have called Sri Lanka’s “second wave of liberalisation”. To this day, Sri Lanka’s garment industry remains one of its top foreign exchange earners, a vital pillar of the economy.

The quota system imposed by the MFA also benefited Bangladesh, which began its industrialisation process in the early 1980s. Some 40 years later, despite relatively robust post-pandemic growth and macroeconomic stability, the last few weeks have revealed the underlying desperation of the Bangladeshi people, and there are certainly parallels to be drawn with Sri Lanka’s 2022 ‘Aragalaya’ (struggle), especially the departure or escape of democratically elected leaders. In both cases, the consolidated student body was central to the protest movements and over-represented at the sharp end of confrontations with security forces.

Protesters seeking the ouster of the acting president of Sri Lanka,

 Ranil Wickremesinghe, on July 13, 2022 in Colombo Photo: Getty Images


In Sri Lanka, there is a tendency to breakdown the Aragalaya into two distinct phases—an idealistic, non-violent, people-centric, urban-cosmopolitan movement generating open-debate and progressive values; and, random acts of violence encouraged by political parties in an attempt to overthrow the State and take over its institutions. From the 2018 Yellow Vests movement in France to the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, peaceful protest movements can morph into violent uprisings. The fact of a movement devolving into violence should not in itself de-legitimise the movement or its ethos.

India, A Convenient Scapegoat In South Asian Politics


In many ways, there seems to be a more complex set of circumstances that led to the violence witnessed in Bangladesh—a staggering single-day death toll of 97. Compare this with the death toll in Sri Lanka over the 7-8 month period of the protest movement: 10 protestors, one Member of Parliament, one state official and one policeman.

Both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh suffer from an under-diversified and under-developed export sector, with a very low proportion of their respective exports being categorised as ‘high technology’.

The economic reality in Sri Lanka was, however, much worse than Bangladesh. At the peak of the crisis, Sri Lanka had among the top five highest rates of inflation in the world, and was among the top three most acute currency depreciations. Sri Lanka’s debt to GDP was over 125 per cent, external debt to GDP was over 75 per cent.

When the Gotabaya Rajapaksa government took over, Sri Lanka’s treasury had over $7.5 billion in reserves; a significant buffer. From 2019 to the end 2021, Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves collapsed by $6 billion or 79 per cent. In contrast, many regional peers saw increases in their overall reserves during the same period, with Bangladesh being one of the better performers increasing its reserves by 41 per cent.

Bangladesh presents a case study for Sri Lanka on not only how to avoid the pitfalls of late-stage industrialisation, but also reveals the contradictions of the neo-liberal era. Bangladesh is a poster boy for the success of the free trade regime; GDP per capita has grown and the economy has developed as multinationals shifted manufacturing plants to take advantage of lower labour costs. Despite the burgeoning garment sector, like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh also still depends on remittances from its migrant worker population and has an agricultural sector dependent on government subsidies.

Both Sri Lanka and Bangladesh suffer from an under-diversified and under-developed export sector, with a very low proportion of their respective exports being categorised as ‘high technology’. Like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh too suffers from low tax revenues with tax to GDP in single digits at around eight per cent in 2022.

Despite these similarities, the two countries have very different debt profiles. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) review in November 2023 stated that “Bangladesh remains at a low risk of external and overall debt distress”. Critically, Bangladesh has one of the highest rates of extreme poverty in the region—around 10 per cent of the population lives in near destitution, while it also scores poorly on the Multidimensional Poverty Index. A recent report suggested that some 28 per cent of children under five are stunted, indicating chronic under-nutrition. The contributing factors for this situation are rising income inequality, rural-urban divide and the COVID-19 pandemic that exacerbated these dynamics.


Colombo Diary: Unsettled Ease

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have both failed to invest in public services, education, health and social assistance. Even as their economies grew and the per capita GDP increased, the notoriously-elusive ‘trickle-down’ did not materialise.

Among the lower-middle income countries, Sri Lanka is a low spender on social expenditure (health, education and social assistance): at around five per cent of GDP, while Bangladesh spends under three per cent. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh both spend around 0.7 per cent of GDP on social assistance, which is lower than the South Asian average, which is itself lower than the global average. Sri Lanka and Bangladesh are also among the lowest spending countries per student on primary and secondary education.

The Aragalaya was a reaction, not just to the failures of the political class, but also to the lack of accountability. The upcoming cycle of elections will be an opportunity for the Sri Lankan people to demonstrate their frustrations at the political classes through the ballot. The outcome of the election will only add to the post-mortem of Sri Lanka’s mass protest movement. Has the average Sri Lankan voter simply moved on from “systemic change”? The very fact that the Rajapaksa scion, Namal, is contesting the upcoming Presidential election is a statement from a political dynasty that just two years ago needed to flee abroad for their safety.

The elections will also answer questions related to the incumbent president’s handling of the economic crisis, the popularity of Sri Lanka’s Marxist-Leninist Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) party, and whether the people view the main opposition party, the liberal Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB), as a desirable alternative. The main election dynamic might well be a protest vote against the Rajapaksa political dynasty, but it could also reveal dissatisfaction with the political classes as a whole, if the JVP grows its voter base significantly, as some pollsters suggest they might.

The protests in Bangladesh emanated partly from a longstanding quota system for government jobs. Sri Lanka is also undergoing a period of prolonged stagnation alongside a decimation of its middle class.

Power cuts and fuel queues made life unlivable for the middle class, broadening the Aragalaya’s base of support. As the protests intensified, it gave a tacit permission to the upper-middle classes to join in. Soon, it was not uncommon to see CEOs and other industry titans walking the streets of Galle Face Road in Colombo alongside protesters and activists. Indeed, the central streets along the main business district became a sort of symbolic shrine to the movement, a place to mark the people’s struggle. GotaGoGama or GGG was the epicentre of the wider Aragalaya movement, and in many ways, the star attraction.

However, the Aragalaya was not born on the Galle Face Road. Instead, it was the farming community in the far-flung corners of the country that first began protesting en masse as early as in mid-2021 over the government’s organic fertiliser policy. The currency collapse resulting from the free-float of the Rupee saw teachers, nurses and a number of civil servants join the struggle as the cost of living skyrocketed. The coalescing of the working classes, farmers and peasantry—the traditional Mahinda Rajapaksa base—should have been a warning.

At its peak, during its most expansive ideological formation, the Aragalaya came to encapsulate a mood for deep, structural changes in how Sri Lanka is governed. There were strains that called for constitutional reform and the inclusion of a people’s chamber in Sri Lanka’s governance structure. A significant section of the Aragalaya also called for the abolishing of the Executive Presidency.


Sri Lanka: Hope May Be A Firefly But It Has Replaced Darkness Of Last Couple Of Months


The Sri Lankan Aragalaya was not a uniform, singular animal. Like all movements, it was a collection of moving parts, some working in coordination, others dancing to their own tune. It is fascinating that we celebrate the diverse and eclectic nature of the Aragalaya, but find it difficult to reconcile its many faces when they show up bruised and bloodied.

Critics of the Aragalaya insist that it was a fleeting, idealistic but ultimately incoherent movement which devolved into violence, alienating the middle classes. The violence linked the Aragalaya to Leftist political organisations such as the Inter University Students’ Federation (IUSF) and its political arm, the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP). The JVP’s own history of violence linked it to less desirable aspects of the Aragalaya; the attempted insurrections in the 1970s and 1980s still causes the average Sri Lankan to disengage from any form of overt ‘Leftism’.

The wider base of middle and lower-middle classes that were integral to the legitimacy of the movement seemed dismayed by the violence from both sides. By the time Ranil Wickremesinghe was elected President through a Parliamentary vote in July 2022, the wider Aragalaya had been in place for over four months, but the energy was beginning to dissipate. The wider community began to grow suspicious of the more revolutionary streak the movement was starting to display; a brutal crackdown by the Wickremesinghe government also led to some part of the movement going underground.

With regards to violence and dissent, philosopher Noam Chomsky noted in 1967 that “any rational person would agree that violence is not legitimate unless the consequences of such action are to eliminate a still greater evil”. Whereas historian Hannah Arendt viewed violence from the perspective of ‘political legitimacy’, there are nuances that were lost on the wider participants of the Aragalaya who simply sought a return to normalcy.

The protests in Bangladesh emanated partly from a longstanding quota system for government jobs, indicating that the Bangladeshi people perceive a lack of meritocracy in a system that for decades has under-invested in their futures.

Sri Lanka is also undergoing a period of prolonged stagnation alongside a decimation of its middle class. In both countries, protest movements were a direct reaction to the dilution of people’s sovereignty. Due to being Indo-European languages from different branches—with influences from Sanskrit and Pali—Bengali and Sinhalese have many similar sounding words with similar meanings. ‘Jatiya’ in Bengali and ‘Jatika’ in Sinhalese both allude to the word ‘national’; a characteristic of a nation.

The question remains: what good is a nation if it cannot live up to the hopes and dreams of its people?

(Views expressed are personal)

Kusum Wijetilleke is a political commentator and foreign affairs analyst

(This appeared in the print as 'Bruised And Bloodied')

‘Health for All Collective’

Zafar Mirza 

Published August 23, 2024 

DAWN

HEALTH needs to be understood as a holistic and normative concept. ‘Holistic’ would mean covering the physical, mental and social well-being dimensions, while ‘normative’ indicates an independent and normal state of well-being, and not just the absence of disease. This is how the World Health Organisation has defined health in its constitution: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.”

A clear understanding of health has important implications for healthcare. The healthcare system should be so organised as to protect, promote and restore physical, mental and social health and well-being.

This was a prelude to making the real point: for such a huge and growing population as we have and with such a health crisis and such low government spending as ours, what can we expect from Pakistan’s future healthcare system? Despite a huge government health infrastructure in the country, its functioning is far below acceptable levels of access and quality vis-à-vis our burden of disease. What little we are spending as a government is not only lopsided — much less on primary healthcare than on big hospitals — but also fraught with huge inefficiencies. The commercial private health sector is into ruthless profit-making and the not-for-profit private health sector is trying to fill the gaps left by the government’s inadequate health services primarily for the have-nots and those left out.

The not-for-profit health sector in Pakistan has grown to respond to unmet healthcare needs and is driven by a passion for caring, the spirit of giving back, charity, philanthropy and in-kind support in the form of trust hospitals, telemedicine, mobile clinics, health camps and health relief operations during emergencies, which are exacerbated now due to the frequent and unexpected manifestations of climate change. This sector is huge and growing, unquantified and diverse. It operates at various levels and scales.


Right to health should underscore the ‘Health for All Collective’.

The quality of care provided by this sector is variable and the bulk of its work falls in the domain of curative care. It is aimed almost entirely at physical health, ignoring mental health and social well-being. It is generally disjointed rather than in the form of systematic integrated care consisting of preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative services. Most of these initiatives are aimed at improving access to care rather than improving access to quality healthcare. A general observation is also that most of these initiatives, even the big ones operating at a national level, do not have a defined package of health services. Sadly, despite the core intention to serve, these organisations and initiatives are not cooperating with each other.

I am deliberately not naming any organisations though I have visited many of them across the length and breadth of the country in the last three years. On the one hand, I have felt inspired by the service they are providing in difficult circumstances, and on the other, I have always wondered how little they know about each other and how much stronger the sector would be if there was a mechanism for cooperation between them.

I use the word ‘cooperation’ in a larger sense. Some of them admittedly are better than others and a few of them have seriously invested continuously to improve the quality of their services. But there are hardly any cross-learnings. There are best-practice models here and there but they remain isolated. I see this as a huge opportunity loss and an ironic one. Why don’t they cooperate with each other and learn? Not only this, some of them I find to be quite territorial and in competitive mode. This is a question which has made me think about a ‘Health for All Collective’ (HFAC).

How about creating a platform in Pakistan for all healthcare organisations, especially not-for-profits but not necessarily limited to them? A platform where they can share their learnings, best practices, challenges etc. A kind of ‘marketplace’ for healthcare where there are opportunities for learning and collaboration. Where every new organisation or a particular project in health doesn’t have to start from scratch and where potential partners for particular work in healthcare can be found and where basic definitions, concepts and approaches in healthcare can be standardised. Today, even primary healthcare is understood differently by different players in the field.

The right to health should underscore the HFAC. Organisations, projects and even individuals who subscribe to the importance of the idea of collectively working towards realising the right to health and add their voice to this cause can come together under the umbrella of the HFAC.

A possible vision of the HFAC can be a world where all human beings have an equal opportunity to be healthy and equal access to reliable quality healthcare according to their needs and where appropriate public health measures are in place for effectively addressing the social, economic and political determinants of health, risks to health and prevention of diseases, and a well-prepared and resilient health system to deal with health emergencies.

The mission of the HFAC will be to work towards realising this vision through creating a platform for joint action for the following: relevant policy research and advocacy; joint healthcare projects; capacity-building activities; harnessing IT/AI for qPHC and healthcare at large; and establishing a health fund to develop jointly agreed projects among partners.

‘Health for all’ is another name for UHC (universal health coverage) and it is a collective responsibility. It is too important to be left to governments alone. A Health for All Collective for those interested in delivering holistic quality healthcare to fellow citizens would be a great step and would have immense spin-offs. A great place to start this would be among not-for-profit healthcare organisations and those interested in supporting them. Readers are most welcome to provide their views on this idea.

The writer is a former health minister, currently a professor of health systems & population health at Shifa Tameer-i-Millat University.
zedefar@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2024

PAKISTAN

Women in leadership

Hadia Majid 

Published August 23, 2024 

DAWN

ONLY 5.7 per cent of managerial positions are occupied by women in Pakistan. A common argument for explaining this low statistic is that there are just not enough qualified women. True, women on average see lower educational achievement than men. Similarly, women also enter and remain in the labour market at much lower rates. But, labour force participation rates for women with tertiary levels of education are about 32pc. Why then do such low numbers make it to managerial (and higher) positions? Is this really a supply-side problem or are there other factors at play?

Conducting in-depth interviews with women in Lahore shows women opting out of high-pressure jobs and roles. Here, most of the higher-income, highly educated women interviewed cited care burdens, mother’s guilt and a desire to spend more time with family as some of the primary reasons why they have cut back on working hours or passed up on promotions. This ‘motherhood penalty’ has been well-documented within the literature. The high-time poverty faced by such women also means that when given the choice, they would be unwilling to enter and stay in the labour market unless they are well-compensated. Unfortunately, gender wage gaps are pervasive across all labour market sectors.

Using 30 years of the Pakistan Labour Force surveys, we found evidence of wage differences between men and women with similar levels of education who occupy similar positions on the occupation ladder. Can differences in experience help explain these wage gaps? Women on average take more breaks in their career and avail less training opportunities, negatively affecting their on-the-job experience. Besides, higher care work burdens and frequent career breaks translate into less time spent both at work and work-related events. This, in turn, affects the types of social contacts and networks women are able to build. Indeed, women have lower, less diverse networks. This negatively impacts the extent and type of mentoring that they receive as well as the information flows that they can tap into for career advancement. That these differences would then be penalised in the form of lower lifetime earnings relative to men is unsurprising.

Yet, women may also be purposely locked out of opportunities and networks. This gatekeeping is partly driven by the gender-segregated nature of our society and the separation in social activities and circles that this inevitably leads to. But, also by the high incidence of discrimination against women documented for the Pakistani labour market.


Gender wage gaps are pervasive across all labour market sectors.

Careful disaggregation performed on labour market outcomes shows that gender gaps cannot entirely be explained by such characteristics as age, education, experience, etc and that there are unobservables such as biases and sociocultural norms at play. Obvious examples of discrimination include harassment, institutionalised lower wages for women, or prejudice against hiring or promoting women because of stereotyping. More covert examples are seemingly well-meaning policies that perpetuate cycles of disadvantages specific to women and market segmentation where we find women (and men) confined to certain professions based on their gender.

In Pakistan, we typically find women’s concentration in careers that are extensions of their caregiving roles such as teaching and nursing. What is telling here is that not only are female-dominated professions systematically lower paid than male-dominated ones, a difference which cannot be entirely explained by considering observable characteristics, but that even in these female-dominated fields we often find men in more senior positions and at higher pay. Thus, there is an additional layer of discrimination embedded within the already segmented market.

That women are locked out of certain professions, and equally qualified women are paid lower wages than men, goes against the pillars of just remuneration: Employment and equal pay for work of equal value are internationally recognised as fundamental human rights. Yet, aside from speaking to questions of justice, a systemic absence of women at positions of power has wider and deeper consequences.

Women leaders and managers have been shown to have a markedly different set of preferences and behaviours when compared to their male counterparts. Women have been found to have a more transformational leadership style, focusing on motivating their followers, fostering collaboration and emphasising ethical behaviour. In contrast, men have been found to have a more transactional leadership style, which is more task-oriented and based on rewards. This is not to say that one style of leadership is better relative to the other. Rather, the difference means that an organisation can be that much more well-rounded in its approach to various situations when both genders are represented up the ladder.

These differences across men and women continue when we look at responses to crises or even approaches to design because of a higher tendency among women to emphasise communication and empathy. The gendered variations in approaches, style, and preferences become especially relevant when we look at the case of policymaking. Women have been shown to prioritise separate sets of issues, such as those related to health, education, the environment, peace and security and social welfare, when compared to men. Women also tend to advocate at higher rates for marginalised and vulnerable populations.

Moreover, the inclusion of women in governance and policymaking has not only been associated with better policy outcomes but also with more effective governance as well as lower levels of corruption. A dearth of women in leadership and policymaking roles then means under-representation of not just significant areas of intervention but also of specific populations; leaving all of us worse off when we have fewer women in power. Indeed, if we are to make consistent moves towards a just, peaceful, and sustainable world, we must do better to include and champion our women.

The writer is chair of the Department of Economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2024

Deadly fire at South Korea battery maker due to quality failure, police say

The logo of South Korean battery maker Aricell is seen on the facade of its lithium battery factory following a deadly fire, in Hwaseong, South Korea, June 24, 2024.
PHOTO: Reuters file

August 22, 2024 

SEOUL — A fire at a South Korean lithium battery maker in June that killed 23 people occurred as the company raced to produce batteries to meet a deadline without taking action to address signs of dangerous quality failures, police said on Friday (Aug 23).

Nine other workers were injured in the fire at battery maker Aricell, majority owned by S-Connect. Calls to Aricell seeking comment following the police announcement were not immediately answered.

Police have been investigating the blaze, which was one of South Korea's deadliest industrial accidents in recent years, over suspected safety violations after ordering a halt of operations.


The company had failed a quality inspection in April for batteries that were intended to be supplied to the country's military and subsequently ramped up production to make up the backlog to meet a deadline, police official Kim Jong-min said.

It hired temporary and unskilled workers, contributing to a jump in product defect rates, including overheating of finished batteries, but did not take action to contain safety risks, Kim told a news conference.

"The accident occurred as the company pushed ahead without taking measures despite problems in various steps in the production process," he said.

The high number of casualties was due to a lack of emergency escape training, Kim said. The workers who were killed had missed a 37-second window to escape, he said.

Security camera footage showed the fire sparking from a stack of batteries and quickly engulfing the factory where 35,000 lithium batteries were stored.


The spread of toxic smoke probably rendered workers unconscious within seconds, fire officials have said.

Seventeen of those who died were Chinese, and one was Laotian. The rest were South Koreans.

Soon after the fire, Aricell CEO Park Soon-kwan had offered condolences to the workers who were killed and apologised to everyone who had been affected by the accident.

Park said at that time the company had complied with all required safety precautions and training, but pledged to take part in the probe and ensure there could be no repeat of such an accident.

Set up in 2020, Aricell has 48 full-time employees and makes lithium primary batteries for sensors and radio communication devices.


The company had supplied batteries to the military for use in some communication and cryptography devices, a spokesperson for South Korea's defence procurement agency has said.

 

Roadside Tesla Semi Fire Where Temperatures Reached 1,000 Degrees Draws in NTSB Investigative Team

By The Associated Press

August 22, 2024

A Tesla logo is shown on Feb. 27, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Chris Carlson)

DETROIT—A crash and large fire along a California freeway involving an electric Tesla Semi has drawn the attention of federal safety investigators.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it’s sending a team of investigators from the Office of Highway Safety mainly to look into fire risks posed by lithium-ion batteries.

The team will work with the California Highway Patrol to “examine the wreckage and gather details about the events leading up to the collision and the subsequent fire response,” the agency said in a statement.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Tesla rig was traveling east on Interstate 80 around 3:15 a.m. Monday near Emigrant Gap, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) northeast of Sacramento, when it went off the road and collided with trees near the right shoulder.

The battery caught fire, spewing toxic fumes and reaching a temperature of 1,000 degrees, forcing firefighters to wait for it to burn out, the Highway Patrol told the newspaper. The Tesla driver walked away from the crash and was taken to a hospital, and the freeway was temporarily closed.

The battery burned into the late afternoon while firefighters tried to cool it down for cleanup, and the freeway didn’t reopen until 7:20 p.m., authorities said.

A message was left Thursday seeking comment on the crash and fire from Tesla.

After an investigation that ended in 2021 the NTSB determined that high-voltage electric vehicle battery fires pose risks to first responders and that guidelines from manufacturers about how to deal with them were inadequate.

The agency, which has no enforcement powers and can only make recommendations, called for manufacturers to write vehicle-specific response guides for fighting battery fires and limiting chemical thermal runaway and reignition. The guidelines also should include information on how to safely store vehicles with damaged lithium-ion batteries, the agency said.

Tesla began delivering the electric Semis in December of 2022, more than three years after CEO Elon Musk said his company would start making the trucks. Musk has said the Semi has a range per charge of 500 miles (800 kilometers) when pulling an 82,000-pound (37,000-kilo) load.

AU CONTRAIRE

Guest Opinion: 

Philippines' actions in Xianbin Jiao waters infringe on China's sovereignty, threaten regional peace


Source: Xinhua
Editor: huaxia
2024-08-23 

by Joseph Matthews

The Philippine coast guard's actions in Xianbin Jiao waters in the South China Sea have not only seriously violated China's territorial sovereignty, but also posed a threat to regional peace.

Since mid-April, the Philippines has anchored its coast guard's BRP Teresa Magbanua (MRRV-9701) in the lagoon of the Xianbin Jiao and is reportedly planning to send a second vessel to anchor in the lagoon.

These moves are part of a broader strategy of the country to challenge China's sovereignty in the South China Sea, alongside the long-disputed Ren'ai Jiao and Huangyan Dao.

I strongly believe that the Philippines is planning to ground a ship on the Xianbin Jiao as it did back in 1999 when the country intentionally grounded a retired warship on Ren'ai Jiao to use it as an outpost.

Philippine President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos's administration is portraying itself as a victim, while at the same time, inviting wolves into the house and willingly acting as their pawns.

In April, the United States moved a mid-range missile system that can fire Standard Missile-6 and Tomahawk missiles to the northern Philippines, on the pretext that the system would be used for military drills.

In my view, the system was brought to challenge China's sovereignty in the South China Sea, which threatened and endangered regional stability.

Ever since taking office, Marcos and his administration have been more assertive and aggressive in its dispute with China.

Apart from the deployment of the missile system, Marcos has also allowed the United States to use nine military bases to store military hardware and equipment, alongside arranging military drills with the United States, Japan, and Australia in the disputed waters.

These moves are indications that the administration is looking for a confrontation over consultation, and conflict instead of dialogue.

The path Marcos's administration has chosen will lead to economic, political, and social instability and high tension not only in the South China Sea, but also in the ASEAN region.

I remember that during Rodrigo Duterte's presidency, the Philippines improved its relations and cooperation with China on various issues, developing stronger and stable ties with the country, as well as a successful code of conduct with China and the rest of ASEAN.

However, relations deteriorated during the presidency of Marcos due to increasing tensions over the South China Sea.

Marcos's administration's provocations in Xianbin Jiao waters have infringed on China's sovereignty and integrity, violated the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and threatened peace in the South China Sea and the entire region.

Therefore, China, which has indisputable sovereignty over the islands and reefs in the area and adjacent waters, is entitled to take resolute action. Enditem

Editor's note: Joseph Matthews is a senior professor at the BELTEI International University in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.