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A street art mural in Zimbabwe exposes a divided society

April 5, 2022

The unity between Zimbabwe’s two main ethnic groups is so fragile that even an inspirational street mural can expose it.

The Conversation

The Shona and the Ndebele are Zimbabwe’s two most dominant ethnic groups. Explaining the ever-present tension between them, historian Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni points to the abuse of the post-colonial state by the ruling Shona-dominated government “in its drive to destroy Ndebele particularism”. He explains, “This sets in motion the current Matabeleland politics of alienation, resentment and grievance.”

This continued marginalisation of Matabeleland (a region in southwestern Zimbabwe inhabited mainly by the Ndebele people) by the ZANU-PF-led government has rendered Zimbabwe so fragile a nation that even a street mural can expose its disunity.

The mural in question borrows two historical figures – King Lobengula and Mbuya Nehanda – to express the possibility of unity between the two dominant groups. How the mural was dealt with is the subject of this analysis.

The mural that caused the trouble

Over the weekend of 22 January 2022 a mural appeared at the Corner of Fife Street and 8th Avenue in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second largest city and the main city of Matabeleland. The mural was by Leeroy Spinx Brittain, popularly known as Bow (black or white). By the afternoon of the 24th, the city’s municipality had erased it.

King Lobengula is portrayed with an arm around the shoulders of Mbuya Nehanda, in life-sized images resembling popular archival reproductions of them. In his other hand Lobengula is holding a heart-shaped balloon instead of his usual spear. It’s derivative of UK-based street artist Banksy’s mural Girl With Balloon.

Bulawayo deputy mayor Mlandu Ncube is reported to say that the artist had not applied for permission and creating a mural without the city’s licence could attract a hefty fine or jail time.

The artist was calling on Ndebeles and Shonas to begin a dialogue and unite. But judging from the divisive comments on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, few embraced his message.

According to online comments and news articles some found the mural disrespectful and offensive – because of the contentious matter of the Gukurahundi massacres.

Echoes of Gukurahundi

Gukurahundi refers to an ethnic cleansing atrocity which claimed up to 20,000 lives in Matebeleland and parts of Midlands in the 1980s. It’s described by feminist academic and activist Shereen Essof as the Robert Mugabe regime’s “first, and still unpunished genocide”. British author Hazel Cameron claimed that the massacres were committed under the watchful eye of the British government eager to safeguard its significant economic and strategic interests in Southern Africa.

To this day, Zimbabwe’s leadership refuses to publicly acknowledge and address the massacres, with Mugabe once referring to them as a moment of madeness. I would argue that the unaddressed atrocities have left Zimbabweans failing to collectively embrace and appreciate even a harmless but constructive expression of art. As long as Gukurahundi continues to be ignored by the state, Zimbabweans will not find common ground.

Who were Nehanda and Lobengula?

Mbuya Nehanda is a Zezuru (Shona) ancestral spirit (mhondoro) said to possess different women at different times in history. The Nehanda in the mural is Charwe Nyakasikana. She led the Shona resistance against Cecil John Rhodes’ colonising forces. For her role in the 1896-7 First Chimurenga Uprisings, she was hanged. To emphasise her importance, the ruling regime erected her statue in Harare last year.

A son and successor of King Mzilikazi, founder of the Ndebele Kingdom, King Lobengula ruled the nation from 1868 to the 1890s when his kingdom succumbed to the British. He was never captured. In polarised Zimbabwe, some Shona people blame him for signing the Rudd Concession. This paved the way for the colonisation of the country.

To this day Shonas and Ndebeles identify with these figures, who never met in the flesh.

Public art in Zimbabwe

This is the first major controversy around murals and graffiti in the country in years. Sometimes municipal authorities don’t erase work at all, despite it being created without permission. This is the case with Basil Matsika’s murals in Mbare.

It is the state-sanctioned public art, mostly statues, that tend to attract controversy. Issues of patronage and who commissioned the work are crucial in determining whether it survives a critical and public onslaught. In 2010 people were generally unhappy when the government commissioned the North Koreans for a pair of statues of Joshua Nkomo for Bulawayo and Harare.

Protesters at the Joshua Nkomo statue in Bulawayo.
ZINYANGE AUNTONY/AFP via Getty Images

Nkomo was a nationalist and revolutionary leader of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), which fought alongside (now ruling) ZANU in the country’s liberation struggle. Ndebele people in particular were incensed that Pyongyang had a hand in training the Fifth Brigade, a section of the Zimbabwe National Army responsible for unleashing Gukurahundi. Zimbabweans were also unhappy that no local sculptor was assigned to do the work.

Last year, the government withdrew the first statue of Nehanda after a public outcry. The youthful, large-bottomed depiction of Nehanda went viral on the internet. The artist, David Guy Mutasa, was given a chance to amend his mistakes. The Nkomo and Nehanda statues went ahead because they were political posturing from the government, disguised as cultural revival initiatives.

The same cannot be said of Bow’s mural as an independent initiative. The artist has worked with advertising company CaliGraph to create murals of other figures like musician Sandra Ndebele and socialite Mbo Mahocs and these have not been removed. This would indicate that the authorities embrace his work as long as it is about aesthetics and not politics.

Alongside the likes of Black Phar-I, Aero5ol, Kombo Chapfika, the Bulawayo-based Bow is part of a new breed of street artists. He is reported saying he was raised by a Ndebele grandmother and a Shona grandfather, which makes it difficult to assign him an ethnic group unless he identifies with one.

This makes him a neutral observer in the socio-political divide. Driven by his desire to see a more united Zimbabwe, Bow promises to do more poster art and murals that call for unity between the Shona and the Ndebele. This will continue challenging the status quo and initiating dialogue around the country’s history.

Freedom of expression

Instead of the mural brewing a fresh tribal storm or creating a bitter debate – as highlighted in articles in The Standard and Okay Africa – I argue that Bow’s piece reminded the nation how polarised it has always been.

And the jail threats of the deputy mayor would certainly deter graffiti artists who desire to address contentious political matters that rattle the state. As long as the government continues to stifle freedom of expression, artists who do street art and graffiti are in danger of limiting their expression to commissions for social campaigns.

Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti, Ph.D. in Art History candidate, Rhodes University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Related

King Lobengula holds Mbuya Nehanda in the mural. Screenshot/Leeroy Spinx Brittain aka Bow

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Frantz Fanon: A love letter to the Philosopher of the colossal mass

March 31, 2022

A tribute and reminder on the imperative need to study and internalise the analysis Fanon shared with the oppressed majority of the earth.

Alieu Bah

It’s the tail end of March 2022, yet the wretched of the earth, the damned of humanity are still here; a social, economic and political anathema writ large at this late hour of history. 

It was the hope that this engineered African misery present at independence will give way to a radiant self determined, developed and in the fullness of time a federated socialist African Nation. But the nobodies caught as it were in the nation state, inaugurated by the National Liberation Struggle are still here, trapped in a thousand many battles with themselves and the world built to keep them in their place. An unforgiving, schizophrenic world whose morbidity racks the body of both state and person in continuous succession — a never-ending necropolitics.

Their fate signed, sealed, and packaged for the consumption of the rich and wealthy few of the earth. Buffets, where the flesh, blood and tears of the poor served to a greedy, barbaric, capitalist horde are ever more sumptuous. In this neocolonial dystopia the rich are not ever eaten as per the dream of a revolutionary project taking over the spoils of profit and surplus; instead they are the ones that feast on the carrion of the nobodies in wild abandon. Their feasting, this satiated few, is the stuff of legend and in their belch a recognition of a satisfied bunch of mobsters who rejoice more in their heist as an art form, a birthright even, than any sort of hopeful self reckoning that will make them stop in their track or ever learn to take stock. The proverbial cocktail party list that was supposed to be forcefully changed at the dawn of decolonisation remains the same even as it is inherited and one or few families holds the reins in a vicious circle of privileged bequest. 

Credit: Dubdem • Música • Design • Sound System: /Flickr/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

(Un)fortunately your book The Wretched of the Earth is still material to us. It was supposed to be an artefact of history, forever to rest in the museums of liberated territories. But fact is, it remains a living document and manifesto to the colonised of the earth. At once a painful reminder and a paean to new worlds being ushered in through direct confrontation with the unrighteous scourge. From the favelas of Brazil, the hood-lands of America, the jungles of Chiapas, from the townships of Johannesburg to the slums of Nairobi, this masterpiece continues to shine the eyes of a new generation. These children, seedlings of the wretched, in beginning to see the reality that you spoke of in your works are rising, honing might and intellect and demanding a refund for their parents who were sold nothing but mere fickle dreams. A Fanonian dialectic now ensues as the neocolony haunts the metropole once again at this dawn of our impending liberation as a people. 

A Fanonian dialectic now ensues as the neocolony haunts the metropole once again at this dawn of our impending liberation as a people.

The shantytown, the medina and the slum still persist. The compartmentalisation of the world continues unabated. However, the divide gets lethal and more cancerous. The line, the border isn’t in the same town or neighbourhood anymore, but between the terrain of the oppressed – the third world, a regional slum and the centre of the oppressor, the colonist. With the ever-increasing globalised configuration of capital, the choke hold of a staggering market, to the expansion of “soft” imperialism in the form of intergovernmental organisations and NGOs from the coloniser, the metropolis has exceeded all expectations of a shared analysis between our generations; the chasm continues to deepen since the die got cast at that ancient unequal Afro-European encounter. 

This woman who sees without being seen, frustrates the colonizer (Frantz Fanon): Credit: Dubdem • Música • Design • Sound System: /Flickr/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)/ IR free dub poster. Design: Dubzaine,

It has gotten graver since you succumbed to the white claws of death in that hospital in Maryland. The rich neighbourhood and the slums today are mostly populated by the same faces, the same race of men and women, those who were once envious of the coloniser, have finally taken their place and now inflicts the old pain on their own people. When I was in Nairobi sometime ago, it reminded me so much of your analysis on the divided, psychotic colonial society. On one side of town is the glimmer and shine of the modern project; on the other side a perverted anatomy of death, a geography of anguish. 

In more ways than one it’s as if your take was about the neocolonial state’s continuous life cycle in those illuminating first chapters of The Wretched of the Earth. The naked violence of it and the wanton disregard for human life makes you a prophetic figure with both rare insight and keen knowing of our unaccounted tomorrows yet to come. But more searing and penetrating of your analysis is to do with the westernised scholars and intellectuals who keep coming home after years of imbibing the “nuances” of the colonial ivory tower. They’re here after all this time, still concerned with particulars, irrelevant intricacies and false Eurocentric moralisms just as you predicted. They do all kinds of gymnastics with the minds of the masses to divert them from the struggle for land, bread, and water. 

Young and old progressive Africans have started studying and propagating your works and see their (colonised intellectuals’) likeness once again

They are being found out, though. Young and old progressive Africans have started studying and propagating your works and see their (colonised intellectuals’) likeness once again. The objective conditions are also giving rise to a newer, more uncompromising context that defies the gravitational pull of bourgeois intellection grown from those barren western soils. These new rebels, ghetto-grown intellectuals, unknown revolutionaries, are at once denouncing these puppets and concretely building again the old-but-known mass organisational model that led to our liberation in times gone by from the clutches of classic colonialism. They have failed many times but their sheer determination to grind the machine to a halt is astounding. I met many of them across the continent. Their win is inevitable. It might take a long time, but when the arc finally bends, I know it will angle towards a free continent that have finally come into its own.

Illustration of Frantz Fanon: Credit: dignidadrebelde/ /Flickr/Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

Your name, as always, continues to raise colonial anxiety. It continues to sound like metal dropping on the soothing silence of the corporate world; a jolt, a scary unwelcome thrust. From Pretoria to Panama, it continues to liberate, to agitate, even, as it brings a tremble and cold shiver to those atrocious men sitting atop the bones and skeletons of the nobodies. You stay plaguing the Towers of Babel even after all this time! It reminds one of the old biblical aphorism that wickedness tarries but a little while, but the works of the righteous lives on forevermore. Your lives and afterlives have clearly shown the truth and precision of that good old saying. Year after year, you resurface in the most unlikeliest of places, but unbeknownst to bourgeois historians, so long as oppression exists and there is a demand for the abject concrete conditions to change, you, the philosopher of the colossal mass, will show face, heart, and mind, and guide the movement even from the grave. 

Your name and your work continues to be appropriated by academe… They have complicated your legacy

But there is trouble now, a slight one, but trouble nonetheless. It’s the scholar once again. Your name and your work continues to be appropriated by academe. You’ve become a career for the well-to-do, the ones who erase. They have complicated your legacy. The colonised intellectual you so much detest has come to be the so-called custodian of your name. I hope you come in the whirlwind and destroy it all. I hope you come into the thunder, into the tsunami, as a cataclysmic force of nature. But in the end, I guess that’s our battle. You have done your part in all fullness and glory. It’s now our turn to honour your name by bringing it home to the oppressed and the wretched of the earth. To reclaim and recenter it in the annals of an ever dynamic liberatory movement. May it be so. 

There is so much to enrich this letter with, but so little time and space. However we who inherited the disinherited, we who took the pledge to raise a billion- strong army, we who know liberation and freedom is a birthright, we who want to end the compartmentalisation of the world — the Manichaeism of the land we are still here honouring your call to “shake off the great mantle of night which has enveloped us, and reach for the light. The new day which is dawning must find us determined, enlightened and resolute. We must abandon our dreams and say farewell to our old beliefs and former friendships. Let us not lose time in useless laments or sickening mimicry”.

Frantz Fanon - The Wretched of the Earth: Photo: Public Domain Mark 1.0/photographymontreal/Flickr/

THE WRETCHED DF THE EARTH - Monoskop

https://monoskop.org › images › Fanon_Frantz_The...

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Frantz Fanon. THE WRETCHED. DF THE EARTH ... nature of the scandal escapes you; for Fanon has nothing in for you at all; ... 36 / The Wretched of the Earth.

FINAL WARNING
South Africa could easily be powered by solar and wind, says UN report – with global emissions peaking by 2025

(Image: iStock)

By Ethan van Diemen

DAILY MAVERICK, ZA
05 Apr 2022 0
Focused on mitigation, the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change catalogues the failures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions but holds out some hope that major, urgent action can put the world on a more sustainable trajectory.

A“litany of broken climate promises”. A “file of shame, cataloguing the empty pledges that put us firmly on track towards an unliveable world”. This is how United Nations (UN) secretary-general António Guterres described the most recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on Monday.

The report, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change, released by the IPCC – the authoritative UN body that assesses the science related to climate change – made a number of notable findings, including:

Global GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions are projected to peak between 2020 and before 2025, at the latest, in global modelled pathways that limit warming to 1.5°C;
Net anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased since 2010 across all major sectors globally. An increasing share of emissions can be attributed to urban areas;
Reducing GHG emissions across the full energy sector requires major transitions, including a substantial reduction in overall fossil fuel use, the deployment of low-emission energy sources, switching to alternative energy carriers, and energy efficiency and conservation. The continued installation of unabated fossil fuel infrastructure will “lock in” GHG emissions;
Urban areas can create opportunities to increase resource efficiency and significantly reduce GHG emissions through the systemic transition of infrastructure and urban form through low-emission development pathways towards net-zero emissions; and
There is a strong link between sustainable development, vulnerability and climate risks. Limited economic, social and institutional resources often result in high vulnerability and low adaptive capacity, especially in developing countries.

Monday’s publication was the third in a trio of reports. The first focused on the physical science basis of climate change and assessed that changes to the planet’s climate are being observed in every region of the world and across the entirety of the climate system.

The second report focused on the impacts of climate change in a world already 1.1°C warmer than pre-industrial levels, and that climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and planetary health. That report, released in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, noted that any further delay in “concerted anticipatory global action” on adaptation and mitigation will miss a “brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.”

This most recent report focuses on mitigation, which the IPCC says is “achieved by limiting or preventing greenhouse gas emissions and by enhancing activities that remove these gases from the atmosphere”. Investments in and the development of renewable energy infrastructure and increased adoption of electric vehicles are the most prominent examples of mitigation.

Rapidly reducing GHG emissions is seen as key to keeping the global average temperature increase below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This is the more aspirational “Long Term Global Goal” of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Climatologists say that 1.5°C and 2°C are the thresholds that define “dangerous climate change”.

In this context, it is striking that Monday’s report includes the conclusion that “modelled pathways consistent with the continuation of policies implemented by the end of 2020, GHG emissions continue to rise, leading to global warming of 3.2 [2.2-3.5]°C by 2100”.

The UN chief referred to these climate-induced dangers in his speech on Monday: “Major cities under water. Unprecedented heatwaves. Terrifying storms. Widespread water shortages. The extinction of a million species of plants and animals. This is not fiction or exaggeration. It is what science tells us will result from our current energy policies.”

“High-emitting governments and corporations are not just turning a blind eye, they are adding fuel to the flames. They are choking our planet, based on their vested interests and historic investments in fossil fuels when cheaper, renewable solutions provide green jobs, energy security, and greater price stability.”

Guterres added that investing in new fossil-fuel infrastructure is “moral and economic madness”.

A recent, updated model of limits to fossil fuel extraction, published as an article in the journal Nature, found that “nearly 90% of economically viable global coal reserves must be left in the ground to have even a 50% chance of hitting internationally agreed climate-change goals”.

In South Africa, with its overwhelming dependence on a coal-powered fleet of power plants, energy generation is the single-largest contributor to GHG emissions and the biggest target for mitigation. Eskom’s operations alone accounted for 45% of the country’s GHG emissions in 2020.

A Flourish chart

Guterres’s assertions regarding renewable solutions are supported by the report, with implications for South Africa. One of its main findings is that although the “unit costs of several low-emission technologies have fallen continuously since 2010”, “innovation has lagged in developing countries due to weaker enabling conditions”. Moreover, from 2010 to 2019, there had been “sustained decreases in the unit costs of solar energy (85%), wind energy (55%) and lithium-ion batteries (85%), and large increases in their deployment… varying widely across regions.”

South Africa is attempting a “layered” approach to mitigation in the form of a just transition where decarbonisation is embedded within multiple objectives of policy such as poverty alleviation and job creation. Highlighting the complexities of this task in South Africa, the report explains that “if the transition is not properly managed, this could lead to a loss in revenue of R1.89-trillion, thus compromising the government’s ability to support social spending”.

While the country’s challenges are complex and manifold, the opportunities are substantial. Referring to South Africa specifically, the report says that “long-term mitigation goals could be achieved with accelerated adoption of solar PV and wind generation, if the electricity sector decarbonises by phasing out coal entirely by 2050, even if CCS (carbon capture storage) is not feasible before 2025”.

“Abundant solar PV and wind potential, coupled with land availability, suggests that more than 75% of power generation could ultimately originate from solar PV and wind.”

The UN secretary-general ended his speech with a plea to the people of the world, saying that a shift to renewables will “mend our broken global energy mix and offer hope to millions of people suffering climate impacts today”.

“Climate promises and plans must be turned into reality and action, now. It is time to stop burning our planet, and start investing in the abundant renewable energy all around us.” OBP/DM

53,000 Palestinian children detained by Israel since 1967

Israeli occupation authorities have arrested more than 53,000 Palestinian children since 1967

April 5, 2022


Israeli occupation authorities have arrested more than 53,000 Palestinian children since 1967, the Commission for Detainees and Ex-Detainees' Affairs said in a statement yesterday.

Abdul-Nasser Farawna, the commission's head of Studies and Documentation Department, said that the Israeli occupation deals with Palestinian children like adults, stating that they are subject to the same torture, investigation and detention conditions.

This number, Ferwana said, includes girls and boys, stressing that Israel does not respect international laws and conventions when it comes to dealing with minors.

About 1,300 Palestinian children were detained in 2021, Ferawna said; a 140 per cent increase in the rate of child detentions compared to the previous year.

Since the start of 2022, Ferawma said, Israel has detained more than 200 children, and there are currently 160 children inside the occupation's jails.

In a report issued to mark Palestinian Child Day today, the Palestinian Prisoners' Club said that Israel detained more than 9,000 Palestinian girls and boys between 2015 and March 2022.

NOT A FAD ANY LONGER

DOD Building Largest 3D-Printed Structures in Western Hemisphere

APRIL 5, 2022 | BY DAVID VERGUN, 

DOD NEWS


The Defense Department, in partnership with the private sector, is building three transient training barracks using advanced 3D printing technology. The project, which is being spearheaded by the Defense Innovation Unit, is expected to be completed within 10 months.



At more than 5,700 square feet each, these barracks will each be the largest 3D-printed structures in the Americas.

"Constructing facilities using this cutting-edge technology saves labor costs, reduces planning time, and increases the speed of construction of future facilities," said Army Lt. Gen. Doug Gabram, commander of U.S. Army Installation Management Command.

"We are looking at other ways to use this innovative technique for rapid construction of other types of facilities beyond barracks," he added.

The barracks will be the first 3D-printed structures that comply with the DOD's newly released Unified Facilities Criteria for additive concrete construction, which provides guidance for DOD construction.

Previously, the Unified Facilities Criteria did not include specifications for 3D-printed concrete wall systems, preventing any companies that used this novel approach to construction from bidding on DOD construction projects and preventing DOD from leveraging the efficiencies gained from this technique.



This change to UFC by DOD's Structural Discipline Working Group further enhances the technology transition led by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center and DIU to leverage commercial innovation and incorporate novel, timesaving manufacturing methods within the DOD.

ICON, a construction technology company based in Austin, Texas, was selected to do the work. The company had previously done 3D construction work with DIU for the Marine Corps.

Spotlight: Engineering in the DOD

Also, in 2021, the Texas Military Department partnered with ICON to design and 3D print an innovative training barracks at the Camp Swift Training Center in Bastrop, Texas.

The material used in the barracks construction is ICON's proprietary Lavacrete, which is a type of high-strength concrete with a compressive strength of 2,000 to 3,500 pounds per square inch, according to ICON.




This material can withstand extreme weather and greatly reduce the impact of natural disasters, while providing maximum efficiency. It can be printed at high speeds while retaining form, enabling structures to be built faster while keeping construction projects on schedule and on budget, according to ICON.

Also, the building material will last longer than traditional construction materials and methods, according to ICON.

"We are proud to collaborate with the U.S. Army and continue our partnership with DIU to see diverse use cases for ICON's technology across the DOD and to deliver resilient, comfortable 3D-printed barracks for soldiers at Fort Bliss, [Texas]," said Brendan O'Donoghue, vice president of public sector at ICON.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

IRELAND
Mary Robinson calls for end to violent acts of ‘impunity’ and war crimes in Ukraine

Mary Robinson. Photo: Niall Carson


Paul Hyland
April 05 2022

Former President Mary Robinson has called for an end to violent acts of “impunity” following the alleged human rights violations which have occurred in parts of Ukraine recently.

Ms Robinson described what is unfolding in Ukraine as the “essence of war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”.

The former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said the crimes have to be proven with “very strict evidence” and that work must now begin.

“I understand about securing the site, about getting as much reporting as possible, about direct contact and then the forensic investigation; all of that has to happen,” she said.

“The International Criminal Court is seized with the matter now. The prosecutor has agreed. It’s been supported by 39 countries including Ireland that they will look at the potential evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“Crimes against humanity is more than an individual war crime which is a murder, or torture or rape of civilians during war, in violation of the laws of war or taking hostages.

“But the crimes against humanity are certain acts that are purposefully taken as part of a widespread of systematic policy directed against civilians and I think Mariupol is a prime example of that.”

Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One, Ms Robinson said the siege of Mariupol and the blocking of aid organisations from entering the city both need to be documented as war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It comes as the justice and human rights’ group known as The Elders, has called for a tribunal to be established to prosecute President Putin for “a potential crime of aggression” according to Ms Robinson.

She said the crime exists under the Rome Statute, but a special tribunal would be needed to bring forward the proceedings.

Meanwhile, regarding yesterday’s “now or never” warning from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Ms Robinson said scientist have “done their” jobs by showing that the world can be saved and now governments and businesses must implement the necessary changes.

“Every sector has options available that will half emissions by 2030,” she said.

“The cost of solar and wind has fallen enormously. Solar by 85pc, electric cars are rolled out 100 times more than they were, and diets make a big difference.

“It’s a can-do situation where in the next eight years, we have to reduce emissions by 43pc. We’re increasing them at the moment.”

Ms Robinsons said it is “moonshot time”, referencing John F Kennedy’s declaration that America would put a man on the moon one day.

She said the same type of ambition is needed to tackle the climate crisis and countries like Ireland should aim to increase their existing commitment to clean energy “six-fold”.

Ms Robinson said despite the rising cost of fossil fuels, it is important to keep the planned Carbon Tax because its ring-fenced funding will help support people who want to retrofit their homes.

“We have to spend our children’s’ money in the crisis that we’re in… We’re spending our children’s money because otherwise they won’t have a liveable future.

“We should never waste a crisis because it’s an opportunity and the opportunity is that fossil fuels are fuelling the war, we know that. We are paying Russia billions out of the oil and gas they are supplying to continue the war.

“We need get out of fossil fuels, but we need to do it without a total disruption of people’s lives. So, in short-term we need to get the oil and gas from elsewhere but in a very transitioned way and then get out of fossil fuel,” she added.

HEALTH

Warning: Climate Crisis Is Now the

Single Biggest Health Threat Facing Humanity

By Baher Kamal

This year’s World Health Day launched a new warning: more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes”. Credit: Bigstock

MADRID, Apr 5 2022 (IPS) - While the world’s top scientists and experts continue their arduous work to finally submit to politicians at the 27th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 27) in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (7-18 November 2022), a new alert now emerges: the climate crisis has already become the single biggest health threat to humankind.

But this new alert should be no surprise: it rather constitutes the logic, expected consequences of the more and more intensive pressure of the life-keeping and life-saving natural resources.

No wonder: there are too many chemicals, lead, mercury, microplastics and a long etcetera, poisoning the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, the oceans, the soil, the forests, the indispensable biodiversity and now also the world’s large reserves of water in both the North and South Poles.

Several of these consequences are visible –though apparently unwanted to be seen: destructive floods, deadly droughts, unprecedented heatwaves, the Earth’s lungs are suffocated, biodiversity is lost. And there is an increased risk of new zoonotic diseases transmitted between animals and humans.

This year’s World Health Day, marked on 7 April, launched the new warning. In fact, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that more than 13 million deaths around the world each year are due to “avoidable environmental causes.”

This includes the climate crisis which is “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.” “The climate crisis is also a health crisis.”

 

The impacts

The world body reminds of the following facts:

• Over 90% of people breathe unhealthy air resulting from burning fossil fuels.
• Polluted Planet increases diseases like cancer, asthma, heart disease.
• A heating world is seeing mosquitoes spread diseases farther and faster than ever before.
• Extreme weather events, land degradation and water scarcity are displacing people and affecting their health.
• Pollution and plastics are found at the bottom of our deepest oceans, the highest mountains, and have made their way into our food chain.
• Systems that produce highly processed, unhealthy foods and beverages are driving a wave of obesity, increasing cancer and heart disease while generating a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Floods can cause poisoning
• Climate change makes wildfires more likely
• Above 40 degrees, heat strokes might happen, causing organ failure and even death
• Wildfires can cause death and injury from suffocation.
• Wildfires can cause trauma impacts on mental health
• Climate change is making floods more dangerous
• Zoonotic diseases – those diseases that can spread between animals and people – continue to have major impacts on human health. Every year, nearly 60.000 people die from rabies, and other zoonotic diseases such as avian influenza, Ebola or Rift Valley fever constitute additional threats.

 

2 billion people lack safe drinking-water globally, and 3.6 billion people lack safe toilets. Credit: Jeffrey Moyo/IPS

Half of humanity already lives in danger zone

In spite of these and other dangers, the world is visibly doing too little, not to say almost nothing. In fact, the goal to limit future warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, highlighted in the Paris Agreement on climate change, and driven home in last November’s COP26, gathering in Glasgow, is now on “life support” and “in intensive care,” the UN chief told the Economist Sustainability Summit on 21 March 2022.

The United Nations’ Secretary-General António Guterres highlighted some of the progress made at COP 26 last year but pointing to “the enormous emissions gap” conceded that “the main problem was not solved – it was not even properly addressed.”

 

Worsening

According to current national commitments, however, global emissions are set to increase by almost 14 percent during the rest of the decade.  Last year alone, global energy-related CO2 emissions grew by six percent “to their highest levels in history,” Guterres said, as coal emissions surged “to record highs.”

With the planet warming by as much as 1.2 degrees, and where climate disasters have forced 30 million to flee their homes, Guterres warned: “We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe.”

 

“This is madness”

If we do not want to “kiss 1.5 goodbye…we need to go to the source – the G20” (group of leading industrialised nations), the UN chief said.

Noting that developed and emerging G20 economies account for 80 percent of all global emissions, he drew attention to a high dependence on coal but underscored that “our planet can’t afford a climate blame game.”

“Countries could become so consumed by the immediate fossil fuel supply gap that they neglect or knee-cap policies to cut fossil fuel use,” Guterres insisted. “This is madness.”

As fossil fuels reliance continues to put the global economy and energy security at the mercy of geopolitical shocks and crises, “the timeline to cut emissions by 45 percent is extremely tight.”

 

No cure in sight

In spite of all the feasible remedies indicated by the world scientific community –and the visible effects of the ongoing climate emergency– there is no actual cure in sight.

 

See what is at stake:

Politicians subsidise fossil fuel with six trillion dollars in just one year. In fact, they have spent such a huge amount –six trillion US dollars– from taxpayers’ money to subsidise fossil fuels in just one year: 2020. And they are set to increase the figure to nearly seven trillion by 2025.

Moreover, governments will double the production of energy from these very same, highly dangerous, global warming generators.

Carbon dioxide is the single most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, accounting for approximately 66% of the warming effect on the climate, mainly because of fossil fuel combustion and cement production

There are more lethal gases and fewer, weaker sinks

With one million species endangered, the web of life is at risk of extinction

Half world’s population, exposed to floods, storms, tsunamis, by 2030

The “Kidneys of the Earth” Are Disappearing, as Wetlands, which are considered as a natural solution to the global threat of climate change. They absorb carbon dioxide, help slow global heating and reduce pollution, hence they are often referred to as the “Kidneys of the Earth”. Specifically, peatlands alone store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined

Projection indicate that there will be a severe water stress, absolute scarcity for 2 to 4 billion humans by 2025

Meanwhile, the too harmful march of salt and plastics continue unabated on world soils

And there is another major consequence: millions of humans are attempting to escape the devastating impact of the climate crisis, fleeing their homes as migrants and refugees. What would Europe, the US, do with one billion climate refugees?

 

Pandemics fueled by climate change

Should all the above not be enough, please also know that the World Health Organization has just launched a global bug-busting plan to prevent new pandemics, which are feared to be fueled by climate change.

The plan is aimed to stop the spread of common, mosquito-borne diseases – known as “arboviruses” – which threaten more than half the world’s population. And the main target of the initiative is four of the most common arboviruses: Dengue, Yellow fever, Chikungunya, and Zika.

The World Health Organization poses some sound questions: Are we able to reimagine a world where clean air, water and food are available to all? Where economies are focused on health and well-being? Where cities are liveable and people have control over their health and the health of the planet?

Up to you to judge!

French markets wake up to risk of Le Pen

presidency

By Julien Ponthus, Sudip Kar-Gupta

LONDON/PARIS (Reuters) -French stocks and bonds fell on Tuesday as markets started to acknowledge the risk of far-right candidate Marine Le Pen winning this month’s presidential elections against incumbent Emmanuel Macron.

France’s benchmark CAC-40 equity index was down 1.3% by 1215 GMT, underperforming the pan-European STOXX 600 index which was flat.

French government borrowing costs also surged, with yields on 10-year debt up 10 basis points.

The spread between the yield of 10-year French and German government bonds -- essentially the premium demanded by investors to hold French debt -- rose to 54 basis points, levels unseen since the COVID-19 market crash of 2020.

Le Pen, whose presidential campaign has gained momentum in recent days, on Monday captured 48.5% of voter intentions in an opinion poll of a likely runoff against Macron, the highest score she has ever notched.

The Harris Interactive poll for business magazine Challenges said a Macron victory - which pollsters had considered almost a foregone conclusion - was now within the margin of error.

“Markets woke up on Le Pen,” said Jerome Legras, head of research at Axiom Alternative Investments.

French banks Societe Generale, BNP Paribas and Credit Agricole took the biggest hits with losses of 4-6%, far more than the 1.3% fall on a broader European banking index.

One trader said the selloff was particularly notable in stocks seen vulnerable to a Le Pen election.

“Look at Vinci and Eiffage, their underperformance is a casualty of Le Pen risk”, the trader said, pointing to the far-right leader’s plans to nationalise French highway operators.

Shares in the two infrastructure groups fell around 5% on the day.

The turmoil rekindles memories of the 2017 election when fears of a far-left or far-right win sent French government borrowing costs soaring and pushed stocks sharply lower.

Many investors see Le Pen’s platform, which aims to keep the legal retirement age at 62 years, as generous in terms of public spending. She is also viewed as less business-friendly than Macron.

“Le Pen would likely be seen by markets as less reliable on public spending and economic competitiveness, and an unenthusiastic motor and/or unreliable partner for Germany and NATO at a crucial moment for Europe and the West,” NatWest economist Giovanni Zanni told clients last week.

FRENCH DEBT

Zanni reckons a surprise win for Le Pen could deliver a 50 basis points hit to French 10-year spreads over Germany -- essentially the premium demanded by investors to hold French debt. That would take the spread to a similar level as Spain which has a lower credit rating.

In the run up to the 2017 election, spreads had blown out to nearly 80 bps.

Francois Raynaud, multi-asset fund manager at Edmond de Rothschild Asset Management, said selling French debt -- known as OATs - versus the German Bund through 10-year futures was a good hedge against a surprise election result.

“By default, it seems judicious to us to take up protection by being underweight in terms of French weightings versus other indexes, or via the OAT futures,” Raynaud told Reuters on Monday, before the latest sell-off.

Many investors remain unfazed -- Grace Peters, head of EMEA investment strategy at JP Morgan Private Bank, still favours French stocks, especially luxury and energy which are less vulnerable to the domestic economy.

“A Le Pen victory is the wild card out there which could be disruptive. But the base case is still for Mr Macron,” Peters said.

Others are scanning markets for risks.

The euro fell a quarter percent against the safe-haven Swiss franc on Tuesday to a one-month low but Adam Cole, a strategist at RBC Capital Markets, sees the euro’s risk premium as likely to rise in coming weeks.

“Might financial markets also be showing signs of complacency ahead of the polls? We think that is a significant risk,” he said.


Reporting by Julien Ponthus and Samuel Indykin London, Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris and Danilo Masoni in Milan; Editing by Sujata Rao and Ed Osmond

Germany: 84% Of Refugees From Ukraine Are Women, Survey Reveals

April 5, 2022

© Ilona Lablaika | Dreamstime.com

Around 84 per cent of the total number of people that have reached Germany fleeing the war from Ukraine are women, a systematic survey conducted from March 24 to 20 on behalf of the Federal Ministry of the Interior of Germany (BMI) shows.

The results of a total of 1,936 interviews and surveys conducted in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich and on the BMI websites enable the Ministry to come up with conclusions on the motivations when choosing a flight destination and the most important refugee needs in Germany, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.

According to the survey 84 per cent of the Ukrainian refugees in Germany are women, of whom 58 per cent left Ukraine with their children, and only 17 per cent came unaccompanied.

Meanwhile, the average age of the interviewed refugees is 38.2 years old.

BMI revealed that the most common route of escape was through Poland, which involved about 65 per cent of those who decided to enter the country, while for 82 per cent of respondents, Germany was the main destination.

The German government has also announced that Germany4Ukraine is already being used as an app that expands the digital currency offer for Ukrainian refugees and provides fast mobile access to information and assistance offers.

In a statement issued on April 4, the German government stressed that this application could also be downloaded from app stores such as Google and Apple. According to the government, about 10,000 page views of the app are recorded per day.

“The official, trustworthy and secure point of contact offers arrivals information for their start in Germany in Ukrainian, Russian, English and German. The offer is constantly being further developed and includes up-to-date information on topics such as accommodation, medical care, mobility and job offers and social benefits. The digital residence permit for war refugees will soon be available via the portal,” the statement reads.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also visited the development team at the digitization lab at the East Side Gallery in Berlin.

In this regard, Minister Faeser noted that this cooperation with refugees from Ukraine to provide them with good information is very effective and touching at the same time, claiming that reliable and comprehensive information on medical help, accommodation and registration is vital for these refugees.

“In order to be able to convince refugees to continue travelling to other cities outside the metropolitan areas, we have to know their needs and actively inform them,” she added.

The laboratory format tested by the implementation of the Online Access Act focuses on user-oriented approaches, while the aim is to enable a pragmatic integration of administrative services.

The German government also said that many experts from the administration, designers and technicians are working together with Ukrainian refugees on an interdisciplinary basis to promote innovations in digitalization.

On March 25, Germany accepted the first 134 Ukrainian refugees coming from Moldova and successfully settled in Frankfurt. Later, 117 other Ukrainian refugees arrived from Moldova to Erfurt of Germany, with a second flight.

>> Timeline of Ukrainian Refugees Reaching EU Countries Amid Russian Invasion

Borders & Security March 31, 2022
Denmark Had a Goal of Zero Asylum Seekers Until Ukraine Was Invaded by Russia