Cruelty of Language: Leaked NY Times Memo Reveals Moral Depravity of US Media 

BY RAMZY BAROUD

 APRIL 19, 2024
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Image by Jakayla Toney.

The New York Times coverage of the Israeli carnage in Gaza, like that of other mainstream US media, is a disgrace to journalism.

This assertion should not surprise anyone. US media is driven neither by facts nor morality, but by agendas, calculating and power-hungry. The humanity of 120 thousand dead and wounded Palestinians because of the Israeli genocide in Gaza is simply not part of that agenda.

In a report – based on a leaked memo from the New York Times – the Intercept found out that the so-called US newspaper of record has been feeding its journalists with frequently updated ‘guidelines’ on what words to use, or not use, when describing the horrific Israeli mass slaughter in the Gaza Strip, starting on October 7.

In fact, most of the words used in the paragraph above would not be fit to print in the NYT, according to its ‘guidelines’.

Shockingly, internationally recognized terms and phrases such as ‘genocide’, ‘occupied territory’, ‘ethnic cleansing’ and even ‘refugee camps’, were on the newspaper’s rejection list.

It gets even more cruel. “Words like ‘slaughter’, ‘massacre’ and ‘carnage’ often convey more emotion than information. Think hard before using them in our own voice,” according to the memo, leaked and verified by the Intercept and other independent media.

Though such language control is, according to the NYT, aimed at fairness for ‘all sides’, their application was almost entirely one-sided. For example, a previous Intercept report showed that the American newspaper had, between October 7 and November 14, mentioned the word ‘massacre’ 53 times when it referred to Israelis being killed by Palestinians and only once in reference to Palestinians being killed by Israel.

By that date, thousands of Palestinians had perished, the vast majority of whom were women and children, and most of them were killed inside their own homes, in hospitals, schools or United Nations shelters. Though the Palestinian death toll was often questioned by US government and media, it was later generally accepted as accurate, but with a caveat: attributing the source of the Palestinian number to the “Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza”. That phrasing is, of course, enough to undermine the accuracy of the statistics compiled by healthcare professionals, who had the misfortune of producing such tallies many times in the past.

The Israeli numbers were rarely questioned, if ever, although Israel’s own media later revealed that many Israelis who were supposedly killed by Hamas died in ‘friendly fire’, as in at the hands of the Israeli army.

And even though a large percentage of Israelis killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7 were active, off-duty or military reserve, terms such as ‘massacre’ and ‘slaughter’ were still used in abundance. Little mention was made of the fact that those ‘slaughtered’ by Hamas were, in fact, directly involved in the Israeli siege and previous massacres in Gaza.

Speaking of ‘slaughter’, the term, according to the Intercept, was used to describe those allegedly killed by Palestinian fighters vs those killed by Israel at a ratio of 22 to 1.

I write ‘allegedly’, as the Israeli military and government, unlike the Palestinian Ministry of Health, are yet to allow for independent verification of the numbers they produced, altered and reproduced, once again.

The Palestinian figures are now accepted even by the US government. When asked, on February 29, about how many women and children had been killed in Gaza, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said: “It’s over 25,000”, going even beyond the number provided by the Palestinian Health Ministry at the time.

However, even if the Israeli numbers are to be examined and fully substantiated by truly independent sources, the coverage of the New York Times of the Gaza war continues to point to the non-existing credibility of mainstream American media, regardless of its agendas and ideologies. This generalization can be justified on the basis that NYT is, oddly enough, still relatively fairer than others.

According to this double standard, occupied, oppressed and routinely slaughtered Palestinians are depicted with the language fit for Israel; while a racist, apartheid and murderous entity like Israel is treated as a victim and, despite the Gaza genocide, is, somehow, still in a state of ‘self-defense’.

The New York Times shamelessly and constantly blows its own horn of being an oasis of credibility, balance, accuracy, objectivity and professionalism. Yet, for them, occupied Palestinians are still the villain: the party doing the vast majority of the slaughtering and the massacring.

The same slanted logic applies to the US government, whose daily political discourse on democracy, human rights, fairness and peace continues to intersect with its brazen support of the murder of Palestinians, through dumb bombs, bunker busters and billions of dollars’ worth of other weapons and munitions.

The Intercept reporting on this issue matters greatly. Aside from the leaked memos, the dishonesty of language used by the New York Times – compassionate towards Israel and indifferent to Palestinian suffering – leaves no doubts that the NYT, like other US mainstream media, continues to stand firmly on Tel Aviv’s side.

As Gaza continues to resist the injustice of the Israeli military occupation and war, the rest of us, concerned about truth, accuracy in reporting and justice for all, should also challenge this model of poor, biased journalism.

We do so when we create our own professional, alternative sources of information, where we use proper language, which expresses the painful reality in war-torn Gaza.

Indeed, what is taking place in Gaza is genocide, a horrific slaughter and daily massacres against innocent peoples, whose only crime is that they are resisting a violent military occupation and a vile apartheid regime.

And, if it happens that these indisputable facts generate an ’emotional’ response, then it is a good thing; maybe real action to end the Israeli carnage of Palestinians would follow. The question remains: why would the New York Times editors find this objectionable?

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons” (Clarity Press, Atlanta). Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA), Istanbul Zaim University (IZU). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

NYT Instructs Journalists to Avoid Terms “Genocide”, “Ethnic cleansing”

April 16, 2024

The New York Times newspaper has instructed its journalists covering Israel’s war on the Gaza enclave to restrict the use of the terms “genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” and to “avoid” using the phrase “occupied territory” when describing Palestinian land, according to a copy of an internal memo obtained by The Intercept.

Many NYT staffers told The American Intercept that some of its contents show evidence of the paper’s deference to Israeli narratives when reporting on the Gaza war.

The memo first distributed to the journalists in November as an outline for maintaining objective journalistic principles in reporting on the Gaza war.

The document which was shared as a guidance collected and expanded on past style directives about the Israeli–Palestinian issues, presents an internal window into the thinking of Times international editors as they have faced upheaval within the newsroom surrounding the paper’s Gaza war coverage.

The memo also instructs reporters not to use the word Palestine “except in very rare cases” and to steer clear of the term “refugee camps” to describe areas of Gaza historically settled by displaced Palestinians who were expelled from other territories of Palestine. The areas are recognized by the United Nations as refugee camps and house hundreds of thousands of registered refugees.

The memo, written by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies, “offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.”

Shortlink for this post: https://daysofpalestine.ps/?p=53189

UBI

A revolution in helping Africa’s poor: Cash with no strings attached


By Katharine Houreld
April 19, 2024 

CHAMBA, Malawi — The cyclone tore through Magret Frank’s village two years ago, ripping apart the thatched mud huts. She dragged her four children from their beds just before the roof beams collapsed, and their chickens and clothes were swept away into the howling night.

“I cried inside. But I am the mother — I have to be strong,” said Frank, who has had three homes that were destroyed by cyclones. “So I told them, as long as we have life, there is a new dawn.”

But now, like her neighbors, she is sleeping through storms in a new brick house with an iron roof. The constellation of new homes is the product of a pioneering program that is Africa’s largest cash giveaway as measured by amount per person. It is part of a project that aims to revolutionize the way that aid is given to the poor: in a lump sum of cash with no strings attached.

The program is run by GiveDirectly, an organization founded by graduates of MIT and Harvard who work with prominent economists to identify the most efficient ways to reduce poverty. Donors include Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes and the founders of the graphic design tool Canva.

Lump sums are the most efficient way to give cash, according to a study of GiveDirectly programs released in December that compared the impact of three methods: in small transfers over 12 years; in small transfers over two years; or in a lump sum. Two years in, recipients of the lump sum have spent more money on health care, and more of their children have scored better on school exams, according to the study by MIT economics professor Abhijit Banerjee and others, including two GiveDirectly directors. The lump-sum recipients were also more likely to start a business and to make more money from their business.

The implications are far-reaching for families like Frank’s.

After the 2022 cyclone destroyed her home, her family slept in a six-foot-square thatched kitchen largely open to the elements. She wove grass mats to sell for 50 cents each, trying to save enough to rebuild. She said she couldn’t even dream of a brick home. It took her weeks of saving to replace her plastic bucket, the lost item she most mourned.

Then a stranger arrived with a wild proposition. Each household, including Frank’s, would be given $800 — more than she would usually earn in two years. Like most of her neighbors, she used the money to build a new house.

Now cyclones can’t wreck Frank’s food stores, kill her chickens or ruin her clothes and utensils. Village chief Edna Nikisi said the 2022 cyclone flattened 26 houses. This season, cyclones were strong but they blew down only four homes, all the old-style mud huts.

Global shift to cash

Frank benefited from a global push to distribute more aid in cash. Two decades ago, microfinance was the darling of the aid world. But it attracted predatory lenders and locked recipients into cycles of debt, and recent research has cast doubt over its long-term impact.

Traditionally, aid agencies distributed items such as food, livestock and laptops, but a frequent mismatch between donations and need meant items were often sold, stolen, broken or wasted, various studies found. So donors are increasingly moving to cash. Studies have repeatedly shown that cash is the most efficient form of aid when markets are functioning. New technology like mobile money makes it easy to send cash directly to the world’s poorest. Governments in Togo, Brazil, South Africa and Mexico have all introduced small cash payments for poor families.

Although cash and voucher programs are increasingly popular, growing from $6.6 billion in 2020 to $10 billion in 2022, they still account globally for only about 5 percent of development aid and just under 20 percent of humanitarian aid, according to a 2023 report by the CALP Network, a consortium of 90 aid groups. Such programs typically give out tiny monthly sums. They also sometimes carry conditions — such as school enrollment or vaccinations — and often suffer from “ineffective targeting, unsustainable funding, and irregular payment cycles,” economists Adam Salifu and Kennedy Makafui Kufoalor said in a 2024 study.

Paul Niehaus, co-founder and chairman of GiveDirectly, says cash transfers can’t replace traditional aid to build roads, police forces or hospitals, but they do give recipients more choices. Poor people usually know their needs better than a bureaucrat or aid worker, he said, and lump sums offer opportunities that stipends don’t. Tiny sums, he said, can stave off starvation but not transform a life.

The debate on how to lift people out of poverty is most urgent in Africa. Overall, global wealth has quadrupled in the past 30 years, but a third of the people in Africa still live in extreme poverty — about 100 million more than in 1990, according to the World Bank. That is due partly to rising populations and partly to factors such as war, poor governance and climate change. The ranks of the poor have increased even as money has poured in: Aid to African countries totaled $53.5 billion in 2022 — slightly more than half the $100 billion that the Brookings Institution last year estimated would be needed for direct cash transfers to eradicate extreme poverty globally.

Malawi, where fog-cloaked hills encircle verdant fields, is often called a development puzzle. It is fertile and has never fought a war. Since 2005, wealthy countries have spent $16.5 billion on development assistance to Malawi. But poverty has not decreased, the World Bank says, noting that for every three Malawians who moved out of poverty be­tween 2010 and 2019, four were pushed back in by climate shocks.

Many families remain too poor to take advantage of newly built schools and clinics. Save the Children supports the school that serves Frank’s village, where shrieks of laughter drift among the neem trees. But when cyclones ruined books and uniforms, her children had to drop out because the items were too expensive for Frank to replace. Neither could she afford the bumpy motorbike ride down a long sandy track to a U.N.-supported clinic if her children contracted malaria or pneumonia sleeping outside.

Now, she can use both the school and the clinic.

Physician Alinafe Kachigwali said deaths at Mwima Health Center in Khongoni have fallen significantly since the GiveDirectly disbursement began. Now, women can pay for transportation to the clinic or even to a referral hospital if needed, she said. Double the number of women are coming in for five-month prenatal checkups, hospital records show, meaning complications are being detected sooner.

Lessons learned

GiveDirectly calculates that, including operating costs, it would need nearly $4 billion to give $550 to every adult in Malawi living in extreme poverty. So far, the program has given out $50 million to 160,000 adults there.

At first, GiveDirectly tried to target the poorest villagers by disbursing money only to those living in thatched-roof homes. But now even those with brick houses get cash. That helps reduce potential conflicts or cheating.

And those with stable living situations are more likely to use the cash to create jobs. A lanky, nearsighted tailor bought glasses and a sewing machine that tripled his income. A shop owner converted a cement room into a raucous nursery for 56 children and now employs three teachers. A farmer bought a solar fridge to sell cold drinks and a solar phone charger that he now rents out.

Sometimes, there are problems, including incidents of fraud and theft by staffers in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. In each case, GiveDirectly said it hired external investigators and changed its systems. Outsiders also try to game the system by moving into qualifying villages, but GiveDirectly says a census conducted beforehand weeds them out.

Malawi’s finance minister, Simplex Chithyola, said the government was coordinating closely with GiveDirectly. “If you dictate and impose a particular service provision, it denies [poor families] the right to a choice,” he said. “The wish is to do as GiveDirectly is doing, but quite a number of people are in need.”

 

Better Incentives Needed to Expand Solar Energy in Cuba

By Luis Brizuela

Solar panels line the rooftop of the home of Cuban entrepreneur Felix Morffi, in the municipality of Regla, Havana. Large consumers in the residential sector could find in the installation of solar panels a way to offset the amount of their energy bill through cogeneration for self-consumption or receive a payment for injecting clean energy into the national power grid. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

HAVANA, Apr 17 2024 (IPS) - With a bolder policy and flexible payment mechanisms, perhaps Alexis Rodríguez would have opted for solar panels for his home, instead of the portable generator that has made it possible for him to weather the frequent blackouts caused by Cuba’s recurrent energy crises.

“It’s a little noisy, the fuel is expensive, but I can tolerate one and solve the other. What is intolerable is for my family and I to spend nights and early mornings without electricity, without rest, suffering the heat and mosquitoes, and with the risk of the food in our fridge spoiling,” the barber, who lives in the eastern city of Holguín, told IPS.

"Solar panels are the best, there is no fuel cost or noise. But they need to be sold with real incentives in order for more people to invest in them." -- Félix Morffi

Rodríguez shelled out 850 dollars a few months ago for a 2500 watt (W) gasoline-powered generator.

Marileydis Pérez, a homemaker in Batabanó south of Havana, received a 900 W generator from her son, who sent it from his home in the United States, “to run the fans, the television and turn on the lights on blackout nights.”

Pérez told IPS that although the government created a system of shifts for the sale of gasoline, “just five liters” for those who have registered generators, “I have only been able to buy it that way once in two years.” As a result, she resorts to the black market for gasoline.

Highly dependent on fuel imports, Cuba consumes more than eight million tons annually, of which almost 40 percent is covered by heavy domestic crude oil with a high sulfur content, used mainly in thermoelectric generation.

During the last five years, along with the deterioration of the domestic economic situation, the fall of the main sources of foreign currency and the tightening of the U.S. embargo, the authorities have faced increasing difficulties in meeting fuel demand.

An update of retail prices in the domestic market led to an increase of more than 400 percent in sales rates since Mar. 1.

The price of a liter of regular gasoline climbed from 25 to 132 Cuban pesos (equivalent to 1.10 dollars at the official rate). The same was true for regular diesel.

On the black market, a liter of regular gasoline costs 250 to 300 pesos, or 0.70 to 0.85 cents on the dollar, taking into account the exchange rate parallel to the government’s.

In this country of 11 million inhabitants, the average monthly salary is equivalent to about 40 dollars, which amounts to around 14 dollars in the informal reference market for a significant number of products, goods and services to which families have access in order to satisfy their basic needs.

The problems facing the energy supply have fuelled the importation of generators, as well as their sale on the black market. Government-owned stores that only take foreign currency also sell them at very high prices, far beyond the reach of most families.

An extension for the non-commercial import of up to two generators that produce more than 900 W has been in place since 2022.

 

A man starts up a gasoline-powered generator in the town of Batabanó, 

Mayabeque province, Cuba. The country’s energy problems have fuelled 

the importation of portable generators in the face of the frequent power

 cuts caused by the energy crisis in this Caribbean island nation. CREDIT: Luis Brizuela / IPS

Barriers

People who spoke to IPS expressed misgivings about the use of generators because they are noisy.

They pointed out that they are not always placed outside the houses or in ventilated rooms so that toxic combustion gases can escape and overheating can be avoided.

When IPS asked about the possibility of solar panels, Pérez said that “in addition to being very difficult to find outside Havana, they usually come without batteries, and if they are brought in, they cost half a million pesos (about 4200 dollars at the official exchange rate).”

When the public corporation Copextel, in charge of marketing and after-sales services, began to sell them in late 2021, “they were at 55,000 pesos” (2,300 dollars at the official exchange rate at the time), unaffordable for anyone who depends on their wages or on a pension,” said Rodríguez.

The price covered the purchase, transportation, installation and assembly of the panels and inverters by the company’s technicians.

“I spend less than 200 pesos on electricity a month. With what a solar panel costs I can pay for electricity for more than 20 years,” added Rodríguez.

Another hurdle for the expansion of solar power in the residential sector lies in the electricity tariff subsidy, which is charged in a devalued currency.
According to official figures, around six percent of the more than four million households in Cuba consume more than 500 kilowatt hours (kWh) per month. Above that threshold, the electricity tariff was increased by 25 percent since March to eliminate subsidies.

By installing solar panels, this segment of the population could find a way to offset the amount of the bill through cogeneration for self-consumption or receive a payment for injecting clean energy into the national grid.

“Those who have mainly purchased the panels are people with high incomes, especially owners of hostels and rental houses. It makes it possible for them to provide air conditioning in rooms for tourists and other services during the day,” Dunia Ulloa, commercial manager of Copextel’s branch in the Havana municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, told IPS.

Two people use the flashlight of a cell phone during a blackout in Havana.

 The government hopes that, from the current five percent, renewable sources will

 account for around 30 percent of electricity generation by 2030, in order to strengthen

 national energy security. CREDIT: Jorge Luis Baños / IPS

 

Projects and incentives still fall short

About 95 percent of Cuba’s electricity generation relies on fossil fuels, which include the natural gas produced with domestic oil, offshore oil rigs leased from Turkey, as well as diesel and fuel oil based generators and engines.

The government aims for renewables to account for around 30 percent of electricity generation by 2030, up from the current five percent.

With an installed capacity of 260 megawatts (MW), the solar parks insta lled in this Caribbean country represented two percent of annual electricity generation at the end of 2023, according to official data.

On Mar. 14, Minister of Energy and Mines Vicente de la O Levy reported that two contracts had been signed for the installation of 92 solar parks in all provinces, with a potential of 2000 MW.

By May 2025, the first of the 1,000 MW contracts must be fulfilled, and the second by 2028. Each one also has an additional 100 MW of storage capacity, he said.

Since 2014 Cuba has had a Policy for the Development of Renewable Energy Sources and their Efficient Use, and in 2019, Decree Law 345 established regulations to increase the share of renewables in the energy mix and gradually decrease consumption of fossil fuels.

In 2023 the Ministry of Finance and Prices issued Resolution 238 which doubled to six pesos (0.05 cents of a dollar at the official exchange rate) the price per kWh from renewable sources delivered to the national grid by independent producers in residential areas.

In addition, the regulations waive for up to eight years the tax on profits for economic actors that carry out electricity generation projects with renewable energy sources, and the customs tax on the importation of equipment to that end.

The results are not very encouraging, pending more attractive proposals for individuals to invest in green energies, in order to sell surplus electricity to the Cuban State.

The regulations do not exempt the import of these technologies for commercialization from customs duties: the cost is the same for materials or equipment, whether they are beneficial or detrimental to energy consumption.

Related IPS Articles

• Energy Crisis in Cuba Calls for Greater Boost for Renewable Sources

Unlike other countries where people make a living from selling clean energy, in Cuba those who install solar panels essentially seek energy self-sufficiency, that is, to have electric power even during blackouts.

“Solar panels are the best, there is no fuel cost or noise. But they need to be sold with real incentives in order for more people to invest in them,” entrepreneur Félix Morffi, 86, a former mid-level technician in machinery and tool repair and a tenacious advocate of clean energy opportunities, told IPS.

A group of 36 solar panels on the roof of his house provide 10 kWh to support the work of his automotive repair shop, an autonomous enterprise built by Morffi next to his house in the municipality of Regla, in the Cuban capital.

After covering his household needs, the surplus electricity he produces goes to the national grid.

“An essential element is to provide credit. Not everyone has the money to buy the equipment. The other is to not get bogged down in red tape, because it scares people off. Banks must have people who deal only with this issue, who are trained, and who want to get things moving. If that happens, you will see how in the neighborhoods more and more people start to put up panels,” said Morffi.

In his view, “those who produce the most should be recognized, perhaps by giving them household appliances, increasing the rates paid to them for surplus energy or covering part of the investment. In the end, it is a gain for the country and reduces fuel expenses.”

 

Japan Begins 5th Discharge of Fukushima Wastewater

Written: 2024-04-19 

Photo : YONHAP News

Japan has begun the fifth discharge of contaminated water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant into the ocean.

According to Japan's Kyodo News on Friday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company(TEPCO) plans to release seven-thousand-800 tons of wastewater through May 7.

On Wednesday, TEPCO said its analysis of samples from water tanks prior to releasing the ALPS-treated water showed that radiation levels have met the permissible standard.

Between last August and March this year, the operator discharged over 31-thousand tons of wastewater into waters off the Fukushima facility in a total of four rounds.

During the 2024 fiscal year, TEPCO is expected to release a total of 54-thousand-600 tons in seven separate rounds.

Laborers and street vendors in Mali find no respite as deadly heat wave surges through West Africa

Street vendors in Mali’s capital of Bamako peddle water sachets, ubiquitous for this part of West Africa during the hottest months

ByBABA AHMED Associated Press and CARLOS MUREITHI Associated Press
April 19, 2024, 


BAMAKO, Mali -- Street vendors in Mali's capital of Bamako peddle water sachets, ubiquitous for this part of West Africa during the hottest months. This year, an unprecedented heat wave has led to a surge in deaths, experts say, warning of more scorching weather ahead as effects of climate change roil the continent.

The heat wave began in late March, as many in this Muslim majority country observed the holy Islamic month of Ramadan with dawn-to-dusk fasting.

On Thursday, temperatures in Bamako reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit) and weather forecasts say it's not letting up anytime soon.

The city's Gabriel-Touré Hospital reported 102 deaths in the first four days of the month, compared to 130 deaths in all of April last year. It's unknown how many of the fatalities were due to the extreme weather as such data cannot be made public under the regulations imposed by the country's military rulers.

Cheikh A Traoré, Mali’s general director for health, said significantly more elderly people have died during this period although there were no statistics available due to the measures.

Mali has experienced two coups since 2020, leading a wave of political instability that has swept across West and Central Africa in recent years. Along with its political troubles, the country is also in the grip of a worsening insurgency by militants linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group.

The Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre says that a lack of data in Mali and other West Africa countries affected by this month's heat wave makes it impossible to know how many heat-related deaths there were but estimated that the death toll was likely in the hundreds if not thousands.

The heat is also endangering already vulnerable children in Mali — 1 million under the age of 5 were at risk of acute malnutrition at the end of 2023 due to protracted violence, internal displacement, and restricted access to humanitarian aid, according to the World Food Program.

Professor Boubacar Togo, head of pediatrics at Gabriel-Touré, told The Associated Press that the hospital has had six cases of meningitis in children in the last week, an unusually high number. He also added that there were many illnesses with diarrhea as a leading symptom. Togo did not elaborate or offer specific data.

To protect children from the worst of the heat, Mali's military rulers have shortened the school day, to end before 1 p.m. instead of at 5.30 p.m. during the heat wave. But on the streets of Bamako, workers say they have no choice but to go out and brave the extreme heat.


“Either I work and risk my health or I stop working for the most of the day and I earn nothing,” said 25-year-old driver Amadou Coulibaly, who offers rides on his motorbike for a small fee.

With the political instability, many foreign investors are leaving Mali. Rolling power cuts and fuel shortages have forced companies to shut doors, exacerbating an already dire economic situation.


Despite the heat, 30-year-old welder Somaila Traoré worked in his shop alongside a dozen employees, urging them to work faster.

“We’ve got to finish the job before the power cuts,” he said.

An analysis published Thursday by the World Weather Attribution — an international team of scientists looking at how human-induced climate change impacts extreme weather — said the latest heat wave in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara that suffers from periodic droughts, is more than just a Malian record-breaker.

“Our study found that the extreme temperatures across the region simply wouldn’t have been possible without human-caused warming,” said Clair Barnes, the lead author and a researcher at Imperial College London.

The researchers say climate change has made maximum temperatures in Burkina Faso and Mali hotter by 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) — something that may not have happened “if humans had not warmed the planet by burning fossil fuels.”

With sustained warming temperatures, the trend would continue, with similar events likely once every 20 years, the study said.

“This result is a warning for both the region and the world," Barnes said. "Extreme heat can be incredibly dangerous and will become more of a threat as the world continues to warm.”

___

Mureithi reported from Nairobi.

‘Too early’ to say Philippine communist insurgency defeated, report says

BenarNews staff
2024.04.19
Manila

Members of the New People's Army communist rebels with face painted to conceal their identities, march before a news conference at their guerrilla encampment in the Sierra Madre mountains southeast of Manila, Philippines, Nov. 23, 2016.

It is too early for the Philippine government to declare victory against communist rebels who have been waging a bloody insurgency for decades, a conflict monitoring group said in a report Friday, warning that splinter factions could form across the archipelago.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said that although the rebellion being waged by the New People’s Army (NPA) appeared to be at a low ebb, Manila may be “underestimating the rebels’ resilience.”

“Fighting has fallen in intensity nationwide, but pockets of conflict remain in some of the country’s poorest and most remote areas,” the group said in a new 41-page report.

“Whether the insurgents can survive a further wave of military pressure is uncertain, but for now it is too early to speak of total rebel collapse,” it added.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said early this year that there were “no active NPA guerrilla fronts as of December 2023” and the military had neutralized 1,399 members of communist and local terrorist groups.

While the government has “indisputably weakened” the rebels, the ICG estimated that between 1,200 and 2,000 fighters remain under arms.

“Their elusiveness and residual community support mean that efforts to vanquish the guerrillas on the battlefield will be arduous and prone to spurring new manifestations of armed conflict,” the report said.

“Both sides should look to fresh peace talks, due to begin soon, as the best route to settling the conflict. To overcome the mutual distrust that scuppered previous negotiations, [the] government and rebels should craft steps to reduce violence and build confidence before turning to major points on the agenda.” 

Communist New People’s Army (NPA) rebels hold weapons in formation in the hinterlands of Davao, southern Philippines, on Thursday, Dec. 26, 2013. [AP]

In November last year, rebel leaders and government representatives met in Norway where they agreed to resume peace talks that former President Rodrigo Duterte canceled in 2017.

A month later, the military killed at least nine alleged communist rebels in a clash on Christmas Day in the southern Philippines.

“The announcement of a return to talks, which surprised many, represents an opportunity that should not be missed. To ensure that these talks do not suffer the same fate as the round that collapsed in 2017, Manila and the rebels need to focus from the start on agreeing to concrete steps to reduce violence and build trust,” the ICG said.

It recommended implementing concrete steps to reduce violence and build trust such as guaranteeing freedom of movement for rebel negotiators and local or temporary ceasefires. 

“Progress in these areas could help establish the foundations for discussions about substantive reforms long demanded by the rebels, including thorny issues relating to rural development,” the report said.

The NPA, which is the military wing of the outlawed Communist Party of the Philippines, has been waging Asia’s longest-running rebellion dating back to 1969. 

At its peak in the 1980s it had about 20,000 fighters; its ranks swelling as the military focused on dealing with Mindanao’s Moro secessionist groups and as opposition to the dictatorship of former president Ferdinand Marcos Snr. hardened. But its forces have significantly dwindled over the years. 

The National Security Council early this month said there were only 11 “weakened guerrilla fronts” nationwide with about 1,500 regular fighters seeking to overthrow the government. 

Following the death of 83-year-old self-exiled Philippine communist leader Jose Maria Sison in the Netherlands last year, the government intensified its series of attacks against the rebels.

Jeoffrey Maitem and Jojo Riñoza contributed to this report from Manila