It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Saturday, July 13, 2024
SHOPLIFTING IS CONSUMPTION
Shoplifting is illegal in San Francisco, contrary to online claims
Theft is among several reasons retail chains are closing stores in the US city of San Francisco, but social media posts sharing an image of a sign implying stealing merchandise worth up to $950 will go unpunished are false. Shoplifting is a crime in the state of California, and the municipality did not authorize the notice circulating online.
A July 3, 2024 Facebook post appears to show a sign outside a Louis Vuitton store in San Francisco that says: "Stolen goods must remain under $950."
The post caption blames such crimes on Democrat Gavin Newsom, former mayor and current California governor.
"The only business going 'gangbusters' in SF is the THEFT BUSINESS because it only has one regulation," says another post alluding to the city's ongoing battle with organized retail theft rings.
Despite media coverage of brazen thefts in San Francisco, stealing is illegal in the city and across the state.
"Theft of any amount of merchandise is a crime in California," David Sklansky, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center (archived here), previously told AFP.
Why $950?
The figure on the sign refers to a threshold established under Proposition 47, which state voters approved in 2014 (archived here).
The law made shoplifting a misdemeanor offense, defined as "entering a commercial establishment with intent to commit larceny while that establishment is open during regular business hours" (archived here).
When the amount stolen is less than $950, California's criminal code says it "is punishable by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, or both" (archived here).
The law's aim was to focus prison spending on violent crimes. But a decade later, California politicians continue to fight over whether to amend or scrap the law.
"Proposition 47 made retail theft of under $950 worth of merchandise a misdemeanor instead of a felony," Sklansky said. "There are bills, which I believe are still pending, that would lower the threshold for felony theft from $950 to $400. But all of this has to do with when theft is a felony and when it is a misdemeanor -- not whether it's a crime."
The posts also fail to distinguish between petty theft, when someone takes something for personal gain, and organized retail crime, when a group coordinates to steal merchandise "for the purpose of reselling items on the black market for financial gain," according to the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice (archived here).
A 2020 survey by the US National Retail Federation found organized retail crime "costs retailers an average of $719,548 per $1 billion dollars in sales" (archived here).
The office of state Attorney General Rob Bonta says online that organized retail crime is a felony and will not be prosecuted as petty theft or shoplifting (archived here).
In 2023, Newsom announced the state would send $267 million to 55 cities and counties in the "largest-ever single investment to combat organized retail crime in California" (archived here).
Unofficial sign
AFP was unable to determine the origin of the sign. Officials said retailers reported them, but city crews did not find any on the streets.
Rachel Gordon, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Department of Public Works (archived here), said the notice pictured in the posts "was not a sign installed by the city."
This is not the first time unofficial notices have appeared around town.
In 2015, tourists were fooled by signs announcing "no technology zones." In July 2023, local media reported on prank placards criticizing a new bike lane.
Google Maps Street View confirms the photo in the posts could have been taken outside the Louis Vuitton store in Union Square, but the San Francisco mayor's office said it could not locate any such signs in the neighborhood.
"If found, they would have been removed immediately," the office said in a July 3, 2024 statement to AFP.
Local media report nearly half of the stores in the city's Union Square shopping district have closed since 2019. But crime is just one factor cited for the exodus, along with shifts toward online shopping and decreased foot traffic with the rise of remote work.
While crime spiked from September 2021 to April 2022, the Council on Criminal Justice found San Francisco has returned to pre-pandemic levels of reported incidents (archived here).
AFP has previously fact-checked false claims about penalties for shoplifting in California.
Paris wants the Olympics to shine. Where does that leave its homeless people?
Telmo Pinto/SOPA Images/Reuters Officers block young migrants from reaching a camp under Pont Marie that was evicted by police in Paris, March 6, 2024, ahead of the Olympic Games.
When Alseny left Guinea for a better life in Paris, he never thought he’d end up living on the street. But this spring, victim of a constellation of circumstances, he found himself sleeping under the Pont Marie bridge, along a stretch of the Seine frequented by tourists for its views of the Eiffel Tower.
Then on March 6, police came to remove Alseny and 400 other migrants, busing them to a nearby gymnasium. That’s when he got wind that Paris authorities were planning to send them to one of 10 new temporary shelters in rural France ahead of this summer’s Olympic Games. It was tempting but also a risk: If he left Paris, he’d have to start his request for residency as a minor all over again. (Alseny chose not to share his last name.)
Frustrated by their plight, Alseny and 150 underage migrants took over a Paris cultural center. “The city says they don’t want to see tents and homeless people on the streets during the Olympics, but we’re not delinquents,” Alseny says. “They want to send us away to clean up Paris, but what will we do in the countryside? It’s not a solution.”
With the Paris Olympics set to start soon, the city’s homeless people are being shunted out of sight. Will Paris break the Olympic tradition of failing to improve the lot of the host city’s most vulnerable residents?
City Hall says that the March evictions were prompted by a risk of flooding along the Seine, and that the shelters have been created to take the pressure off the capital. But for several months French nonprofits have denounced what they call a marked increase in evictions of those experiencing homelessness and a “sanitization” of the city ahead of the Games.
Olympic host cities have, in the past, typically found it hard to make a noticeable and lasting difference when it comes to homelessness. Though the Games provide an opportunity for the host city to show off its prosperity and modernity, they also reveal to the world its ability to tackle complicated social issues. And in two weeks, it will be Paris’s turn.
“The Olympics create a window onto a city and it’s all about giving a positive image, which does not include people living on the street,” says Thibaut Besozzi, a sociologist at the Regional Institute of Social Work in the Lorraine region who specializes in homelessness. “But you can’t just send people away and expect the issue [of homelessness] to go away. The question isn’t necessarily what we do with homeless people. It’s how we do things.”
Colette Davidson Around 150 migrants occupied the Maison des Métallos cultural venue in Paris on April 6, in protest against the city's attempt to evict them from tent camps and send them out of the city ahead of the Olympic Games. Aspirations vs. realities
When Athens held the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, the event was all about sports. But increasingly, it focuses on city marketing and legacy, say observers.
“The Olympics have always been a way to reflect the dominant aspirations of a society,” says Jacqueline Kennelly, a sociologist at Carleton University in Ottawa, who spent five years studying the effects of the London and Vancouver Olympics on homeless people. “But more and more, Western cities use the Olympics to show themselves as prestigious and tolerant, certainly not places where homeless people get displaced. But also not places where homelessness happens.”
Ahead of the Paris Games, the organizing committee signed a charter of social commitments, which focused on inclusivity, paying fair wages, and reducing carbon emissions. The city also poured millions into creating an Olympic Village in the Paris suburbs that is intended to provide nearly 3,000 housing units to the local community post-Games.
But previous Olympic hosts have been largely unsuccessful in keeping their social commitments.
Ahead of the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver authorities created a network of temporary shelters; they were heavily criticized for the way they kept the homeless out of sight. And one year later, those people were back on the street, says Dr. Kennelly. Apartments constructed for the Olympic Village, intended to provide affordable housing post-Games, have since become too expensive for low-income renters. London experienced a similar fate in 2012 with its East London revamp and its own Olympic Village, whose low-income ambitions have not been realized.
“There is this naivete on the part of authorities, that we can build more housing and somehow it will magically work out,” says Paul Watt, a visiting professor in the department of sociology at the London School of Economics. “But it’s just spinning politics.” Aurelien Morissard/AP People use their smartphones near the Eiffel Tower, adorned with the Olympic rings, in Paris, June 7, 2024.
Signs of hope?
In Paris, the challenges have been finding both temporary and long-term housing for the swell of migrants in recent years, and removing makeshift tent camps in a humane manner. The city has also struggled to handle the growing number of people who use crack, of whom 1 in 4 are estimated to be homeless or living precariously.
“People on the streets are very eclectic,” says Alexandre Wasieczko, coordinator for the Île-de-France region at Doctors Without Borders. “Some are minors or migrants, some are drug addicts. We shouldn’t be focusing on that, but instead on the fact that living on the street destroys your life.”
Housing advocates say that at the core of Paris’s homelessness issue is simply an extreme lack of housing. An estimated 300,000 people in France are living without permanent accommodation, according to the French Observatory for Inequality, and between 6,000 and 12,000 are sleeping on the streets.
But there are hopes that Paris might offer a new model for dealing with homelessness in the future.
Since 2023, the “Revers de la Medaille” coalition of nongovernmental organizations has been working to make sure the Paris Games leave a positive legacy. They work closely with the Paris Organizing Committee and city officials, advocating initiatives to fight homelessness, and volunteers also assist with police-led evacuations to make sure they go smoothly.
An independent study by a research institute at the University of Limoges found that the Paris Olympics could generate up to €11 billion ($12 billion) in net economic benefits by 2034. If some of that money is allocated to housing, it could have an impact that other Olympic hosts have not yet seen.
In March, a delegation from Los Angeles City Hall visited Paris to examine the city’s homelessness initiatives, as the California city gets ready to be the 2028 Olympic host. But only time will tell whether Paris should be held up as an example, observers say.
“Cities need to ask themselves, if this much public money is going to the Olympics, why is there no accountability as to whether the legacy commitments have been met?” says Dr. Kennelly. “We need to think about why a two-week sporting event gets to take precedence over all other problems.”
Can the Darien Gap be Sealed to Block Migrants?
Migrants on their journey through the Darién Gap. Photo: EFE/Archive
A political plan to stop migration in the Isthmus of Panama raises concerns about potential humanitarian impacts.
HAVANA TIMES – The meeting point between South America and Central America is a narrow strip of land called the Isthmus of Panama, which connects to northwestern Colombia. It forms part of the Darien National Park and is covered by impenetrable jungle. In the geography of regional mobility, it has always been a natural barrier to transit between Colombia and Panama; the Pan-American Highway is cut off, and there is no road connection, which is why it is also known as the Darien Gap. Some call it “the route of death”: Until ten years ago, natural dangers and threats from organized crime were insurmountable for most travelers. The migratory flow towards “The North” had to pass through other routes.
But in recent years, since 2021, the area has turned into a sort of migrant highway. In that year, approximately 133,000 migrants crossed the dangerous jungle, the same number that had transited the isthmus over the previous decade. Since then, the number of migrants has grown exponentially: 248,000 in 2022 and more than 520,000 in 2023. The figures so far in 2024 indicate that the trend continues: almost 200,000 people have already crossed, and it is expected that the total number could climb to 800,000 according to UNICEF. This does not mean that the risks have gone away: at least 141 people died in the gap in 2023, probably only a fraction of the real mortality. Survivors tell of bodies stuck in the mud that likely slipped on winding paths and others drowned in treacherous rivers.
This week, the new President of Panama, Jose Raul Mulino, promised to seal the gap, so to speak. Although later, Colombian authorities said that the closure was not agreed upon bilaterally and expressed concern about the humanitarian impacts of this new policy. Mulino’s intention was to stop the migratory flow through the isthmus, a policy that began immediately with barbed wire on three of the main routes.
Perhaps more relevant is the agreement Panama signed with the United States on Monday as Mulino’s first act of government. It detailed the financial and logistical support Panama will receive for its migration operations, especially to deport people to their countries of origin. This is a significant change from Panama’s policy towards migrants until Monday. Before, it was to put them on buses and take them to the Costa Rican border to move on without further complicating the situation in Panama. It is worth emphasizing that migrants are charged for this mandatory service.
Mulino’s announcement was a diplomatic gesture towards the government of Joe Biden, for whom the migration issue has become an electoral nightmare in the presidential campaign. Furthermore, it is part of a regional trend of collaboration (willingly or in response to pressure) with the United States to stop migrants long before they can reach that country’s southern border. This is important in the USA because international law allows people who arrive to request asylum there — although the Trump and Biden administrations have limited this right in various ways. But experts consider it highly unlikely that the proposal — the details of which are still unknown — will be able to stop the migrant wave.
The Route through the Darien Gap: Restrictions and Organized Crime
Each individual has a personal story that pushes them to undertake the dangerous journey to the United States via this route, but the massive trend is due to a combination of factors: efforts by successive US governments to limit migration to its border and the enormous profit opportunities represented by people trying to get there. The growth of transit through the Darien Gap is related precisely to the imposition of visas in several Central American countries for people from countries whose citizens dominated migratory flows, including Venezuelans and Cubans. In many cases, it is not necessarily people who have just left their countries but those who have spent time outside their country and are looking to improve their living conditions.
Visa requirements stopped one way to get to the US: taking a plane to Mexico (or another Central American country) and then advancing to the border. But people who migrate are pushed by political violence, insecurity from organized crime, poverty, climate change, and, often, a combination of several of these factors. In that sense, experts point out that when one route is restricted, the flow, like water, increases in pressure until it finds another. When it comes to migration, alternative routes become progressively more dangerous. This, precisely, is the case of the Darien Gap.
“It has been seen that, when routes are closed, what happens is that people find routes that are often more dangerous and continue moving,” says Maria Jose Espinosa, executive director of the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas in the US, an organization that works on rights and migration issues in the region.
Juan Pappier, deputy director for the Americas at Human Rights Watch, agrees:
“Migration policies have been designed in recent years in the region that seemed to assume that the Darien Gap was impossible or difficult to cross. The Darien Gap was used to try to curb migratory flow, but it ended up pushing people to risk their lives there.” This also happened in the extremely dangerous crossings through the Mediterranean Sea, which were considered impossible. “What was achieved is that people risk their lives and that organized crime made millions and millions of dollars,” he said.
The case of the Darien shows how restrictive policies can fail spectacularly. The growth of the migratory flow in the area created an economic opportunity exploited by organized crime that handles the trafficking of people through the jungle. On the Colombian side, the Gulf Clan has capitalized on all aspects of migrant journeys, like a sinister travel agency. As with legitimate ones, migrants have several route options through the Darien with increasing financial costs to shorten the journey and access better conditions and equipment. The organization is such that these trips are managed through “agents” and migrants receive colored wristbands indicating which group they belong to.
“The Gulf Clan, on the Colombian side, controls the migrant routes and also the cocaine routes. So, in parallel, they do business with both, of course,” explains Pappier. “The Gulf Clan decides which routes can be used and charges the guides who help people cross. They also charge 20% of the profits from all those who benefit from migration, such as those who sell food. In return, they guarantee security.” In fact, migrants pay for each successive step they take on the migratory route, a series of extortions that leave many without money and even more vulnerable.
This mafia pax — security to guarantee extortion profits and drug trafficking — makes the route relatively safe for migrants.
“They make sure that the migrant routes used are not the same as the cocaine routes. They don’t want a high level of violence; they know it eventually brings the deployment of public forces. So, they maintain a low level of violence to do their business,” says Pappier.
But everything changes when crossing the border into Panama. There, the Gulf Clan stops dominating the situation, and migrants are at the mercy of Panamanian organized crime, which operates violently. Physical abuse to extort is common, including extreme sexual violence against women, such as gang rapes. Doctors Without Borders reported that violence against migrants on the route is increasingly brutal, and they assist an exponential number of victims, including children. Practices include the abuse of women in front of their families and children and the execution of uncooperative people. Humanitarian organizations are concerned about the growing number of minors crossing the Darién: In the first four months of 2024, more than 30,000 children crossed, a 40% increase compared to the same period last year. Almost 2,000 who crossed the jungle this year did so without a family companion.
Blocking Out the Sun with One Hand
Almost no one considers Mulino’s plan can effectively stop migrants from the Darién Gap.
“I honestly think it’s impossible to seal it. The flows are very large, and the gap is a jungle; history shows that other routes are opened,” says Espinosa.
Pappier agrees: “I think anyone who has been to the Darién Gap understands the combination of complex geography, lack of state territorial control, desperation, and the high number of people crossing makes it practically impossible to close it.”
The most likely outcome, they note, is that if such a measure is implemented, it will generate pressure on new, even more dangerous routes in a context that should already be considered a humanitarian crisis due to the number of people trying to cross it.
A Region in Motion
The fact is that the migration issue in the region is played out in relation to diplomacy with the United States, which under successive governments seeks to divert migrants before they can set foot on US territory. Under Donald Trump’s administration, this occurred with explicit pressure around trade policies. Under Biden, efforts have been made to open legal migration routes to prevent vulnerable people from making the journey undocumented. But that has proved not enough for the number of people seeking asylum, nor does it always apply to their particular situations. In the United States, the issue is highly controversial and a weak point for the governing Democratic Party. It is expected that if Trump wins the elections in November, agreements like the one Panama signed this week will increase. The question is, then, what new routes will migrants find?
Efficacy of Egypt’s 100 Million Trees Initiative in Question
People are walking on the Qasr Al Nile Bridge during a sunny day in Cairo, Egypt, on May 16, 2024. (Ahmed Gamal/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
MINA NADER AND JACOB WIRTSCHAFTER 07/12/2024
After the launch of a project meant to improve quality of life and balance Egyptian carbon emissions, residents say that new construction in Cairo is leading to a loss of green spaces
[Cairo] Leading up to the UN’s 2022 Climate Change Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, the Egyptian government introduced the 100 Million Trees initiative, which was meant to enhance air quality in Greater Cairo and counterbalance nationwide carbon emissions. Two years later, some residents of Egypt’s capital still say they see more trees felled than new ones being planted.
Last month, Egypt’s Local Development Ministry reported that 7.6 million trees were planted during the 2022-2023 fiscal year, with a cost of 200 million Egyptian pounds, or about $4 million. An additional 98 million Egyptian pounds (about $2 million) have been allocated to reforestation efforts to plant 3 million trees in Cairo and in 13 of the country’s 27 governorates.
Local media often feature efforts by state-approved nonprofit organizations that work with schoolchildren and corporate employees to plant trees in the capital and its surrounding communities, including Dakahlia, Kafr el-Sheikh, and Beni Suef. The youth environmental initiative Shagrha is one of the leading organizations behind the efforts.
I got the idea when I saw people eating blueberries from a tree in front of my house in Obour. I asked myself, why shouldn’t I plant other trees for people to benefit from? Three days later, I decided to start the initiative and announced it through a page on Facebook.
“I got the idea when I saw people eating blueberries from a tree in front of my house in Obour,” Shagrha’s founder Omar Eldeeb told The Media Line. “I asked myself, why shouldn’t I plant other trees for people to benefit from? Three days later, I decided to start the initiative and announced it through a page on Facebook.”
Since 2016, Shagrha has planted over 350,000 fruit trees across 17 Egyptian governorates. The initiative also transformed over 10,000 balconies and rooftops into gardens, growing vegetables, medicinal plants, and fruit trees.
Yet despite efforts like these, Egypt is facing deforestation. Data from the Alternative Policy Solutions project at the American University in Cairo show a 75% decrease in tree cover between 2010 and 2023. In 2010, Egypt’s tree cover amounted to 143,000 hectares, about 0.15% of the country’s total area. By 2023, only 35,000 hectares of Egypt were wooded.
Global Forest Watch, a US-based monitoring organization, found that Egypt experienced a small net increase in tree cover between 2000 and 2020.
“Because of the definitions we use, the area of that net tree cover gain is quite small, only about 2,000 hectares,” Mikaela Weisse, director of Global Forest Watch, told The Media Line. She noted that this number wouldn’t account for newly planted trees that are not tall enough to be visible from a satellite.
I can’t conclusively say whether these efforts are effective due to our limited ability to monitor them. However, it’s worth noting that the amount of carbon sequestration from global forest data in Egypt only represents a small portion of the carbon emissions from fossil fuels.
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“I can’t conclusively say whether these efforts are effective due to our limited ability to monitor them,” she continued. “However, it’s worth noting that the amount of carbon sequestration from global forest data in Egypt only represents a small portion of the carbon emissions from fossil fuels.”
Egypt produces 259 million tons of carbon emissions from fossil fuels each year, and the country’s current level of tree cover can capture only about 0.1% of those emissions, Weisse said.
Local activists and environmentalists note that thousands of trees have been removed from parks, streets, and Nile-side areas in Cairo’s upscale Heliopolis and working-class Shubra districts. They describe the tree removal as threatening their neighborhoods and their health.
Last year, a 1.5-acre portion of the historic Merryland Park in Heliopolis was cleared to make room for a monument dedicated to the Army Construction Corps, whose projects are transforming Cairo.
Between August and January 2022, a street expansion project in Cairo resulted in the clearing of 100 acres of green space, Choucri Asmar, chair of the Heliopolis Heritage Foundation board, told The Media Line.
We used to keep track of certain figures, but we had to halt due to a lack of cooperation, which is frustrating. It seems that all the planning revolves around constructing highways to the New Administrative Capital, including building about a dozen new bridges in Heliopolis.
“We used to keep track of certain figures, but we had to halt due to a lack of cooperation, which is frustrating,” Asmar said. “It seems that all the planning revolves around constructing highways to the New Administrative Capital, including building about a dozen new bridges in Heliopolis.”
The construction of one highway resulted in the felling of 546 trees, even though the foundation had originally been told no trees would be affected, Asmar said. He also criticized the highway for being dangerous, noting that 29 people died on the highway in the first month of its opening.
According to a report submitted to Parliament by the opposition Social Democratic Party, Cairo’s paltry green space shrunk from 4.8 square miles in 2017 to 4.3 square miles in 2020. On average, Egyptians enjoy just 6.7 square inches of green space per capita.
In response to the deforestation, Cairo environmental lawyer Ahmed Elseidi drafted a petition asking the state to stop illegal tree removal.
Nine Western embassies, including the US,criticizeda controversial security bill in South Sudan that allows the government to detain people without warrants on Thursday.
The joint statement issued by the Embassies of Canada, the EU, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the US expressed “grave concern” over South Sudan’s passage of the legislation that gives the National Security Service (NSS) the authority to conduct arrests and detentions without warrants. “This would constitute a significant step away from the opening of political and civic space, which is a prerequisite for genuine and peaceful elections to take place. Enactment of the bill into law would be regrettable at any time, but particularly now when it would undermine the transitional government’s assertions that political and civic space exists,” the joint statement said.
In addition to the joint statement, US State Department spokesperson Mathew Miller stated on Wednesday that the US remains gravely concerned by this decision, urging the South Sudanese government “to create an environment in which the South Sudanese people can express their views openly and without fear.”
The amendment bill to the 2015 National Security Service Act was recently passed by the National Legislative Assembly of South Sudan on July 3 and it now waiting for presidential assent. The proposed amendment has been subject to great controversy for granting broad arrest powers to the NSS under “emergency circumstances” and in the case of “crimes against the state.” The NSS allegedly has a history of abusing such broad and ambiguously defined power by conducting prolonged and arbitrary detentions or torturing detainees, often resulting in death, in violation of human rights.
Human rights organizations have been urging South Sudanese President Salva Kiir to take action and reject the bill. The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said on Wednesday that the bill will entrench arbitrary detention and further repression by the NSS, and therefore urged the president to return the bill to legislators for revision, “to align it with South Sudan’s human rights obligations.”
Amnesty International urges President Kiir to send the bill back to parliament for review and significant amendment, to ensure that the bill “conforms to the Constitution and international human rights standards.”
Africans for the Horn of Africa (Af4HA) initiative similarly calls on President Kiir to reject the bill and return it to parliament for revision in line with South Sudan’s constitutional and international human rights obligations, as well as South Sudan’s partners to express their concerns to urge the President not to sign the bill.
Notably, South Sudan has acceded to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since February 2024. The Covenant protects against arbitrary arrests and detentions, requiring anyone arrested or detained to be brought promptly before a judge
Czech president says Ukraine can only prevail against Russia with help of NATO
Petr Pavel says China needs to see that by supporting Russia it is isolating itself
Ebad Ahmed |12.07.2024 -
PRAGUE, Czech Republic
The Czech Republic president said on Friday that Ukraine can only prevail in its ongoing war against Russia with the help of its NATO allies.
On X, Petr Pavel said this week’s NATO summit in Washington brought a strong response against Russia as the entire NATO alliance – except Hungary – committed to their continued support for Ukraine.
“The NATO summit brought a clear response to Russian aggression in Ukraine. Ukraine can only prevail with our help, and that is why today all countries except Hungary pledged their continued support for the invaded country,” he said on X.
Pavel said that the alliance is united in helping Ukraine on its path to peace, and eventually giving the country full NATO membership.
He said the NATO members have decided to deepen the alliance’s cooperation with its Indo-Pacific partners – Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Japan – in view of sharing responsibility for global security.
“The two-day meeting moved us significantly forward in making our defence capabilities more effective,” he said.
In a speech during the summit, he also said that if China wants to be a truly respected world power, it must reciprocate by respecting the rules the world has been operating under since World War II.
"China should feel that we are united, because without that, it will operate according to the principle of divide and conquer," he said. "China needs to perceive that by supporting Russia, it is isolating itself … (putting itself) on the same side of those who do not shy away from bombing civilian targets, including children's hospitals."
Is Russia A US ‘Adversary’ Or Just A ‘Competitor’? – OpEd
Nicholas K Gvosdev, an expert in Russian Affairs and Professor in National Security in the US Defense College, wrote an article on whether Russia is an US adversary or just a “competitor. He wrote and I quote the world as it is moved Nicholas into the middle decades of the twenty-first century is starting to look more “normal”.
The United States remains the globe’s predominant military and economic power, to be sure, with additional vast reserves of soft and “sticky” power that helps incentivize other countries to align themselves with U.S. preferences. But other countries have resurged or obtained greater wherewithal to push back on U.S. agenda-setting or to insist on agendas of their own.
The United States policy establishment, however, lacks experience and, perhaps confidence with dealing with rivals. In particular, Washington must come to grips with the distinction between a “competitor” and an “adversary.” A competitor seeks advantage, but usually will agree to shared rules of engagement, and does not necessarily see competition as zero-sum or even hostile. We have a tendency, however, to lump competitors as being no different that adversaries, or to assume that the very act of competing with us (in trade, technology or for advantage) must be interpreted as a sign of hostility.
This has, in recent years, created new tensions with long-standing security partners in both Europe and Asia. Getting this distinction right with Russia also matters. Russia has moved from a 1990s position of seeking inclusion with the West into a position of a competitor. Is that competition—for geopolitical influence and geo-economic advantage—manageable within an overall cooperative framework? If it is not, there are implications for U.S. policy—which would require the United States to decide how much of its time, resources and attention should be spent on meeting a Russia challenge (and what other challenges can be spared U.S. attention). It also returns us to the question of whether the as it is moved into the middle decades of the twenty-first century, the world is starting to look more “normal” in terms of the overall patterns of human history.
The United States remains the globe’s predominant military and economic power, to be sure, with additional vast reserves of soft and “sticky” power that helps incentivize other countries to align themselves with U.S. preferences. But other countries have resurged or obtained greater wherewithal to push back on U.S. agenda-setting or to insist on agendas of their own. The United States policy establishment, however, lacks experience and, daresay, comfort, with dealing with rivals. In particular, Washington must come to grips with the distinction between a “competitor” and an “adversary.” A competitor seeks advantage, but usually will agree to shared rules of engagement, and does not necessarily see competition as zero-sum or even hostile. We have a tendency, however, to lump competitors as being no different that adversaries, or to assume that the very act of competing with us (in trade, technology or for advantage) must be interpreted as a sign of hostility. This has, in recent years, created new tensions with long-standing security partners in both Europe and Asia.
Russia Has Moved In Position As Serious Competitor
Getting this distinction right with Russia also matters. Russia has moved from a 1990s position of seeking inclusion with the West into a position of a competitor. Is that competition—for geopolitical influence and geo-economic advantage—manageable within an overall cooperative framework? If it is not, there are implications for U.S. policy—which would require the United States to decide how much of its time, resources and attention should be spent on meeting a Russia challenge (and what other challenges can be spared U.S. attention).
Dealing with Russia as a serious competitor—even given its economic size and population endowment—also requires facing up to the challenge of how to compete. A serious competitor has at its disposal the ability both to accept punishment within acceptable losses (which appears to be the tally sheet for the effectiveness of current Western sanctions on Russia) as well as to raise costs (as Russia has done in the Middle East). Russia is able to do this because it possesses, for the near and medium term, sufficient reserves of power that cannot be wished away or for which a strategy of predicting negative trends for Russia after 2050 is not feasible. In meeting that competition, the U.S. political establishment must tackle whether the goal is to try and deter (or compel) Russia to change course, or to push for the removal of Russia as a major power by moving beyond deterrence and compliance to provoke or accelerate factors that would lead to a decline in Russian power.
The former strategy is consistent with dealing with a competitor; the latter for an adversary. It also goes without saying, however, that the latter approach is much costlier and riskier, especially when dealing with a nuclear-armed power.” based particularly on the reality that Russia is one of the few countries which can credibly project power beyond its immediate border, especially military power.
Russia’s near-peer status is based on its population, military-industrial complex and resource endowments, which guarantee that even if Russia faces long-term problems, it will remain a major international actor for the next several U.S. presidential administrations.
Conclusion
President Biden’s administration identifies Russia as a “near-peer competitor. In dealing with near-peer competitors, there are two strategic choices. One is to turn a near-peer competitor into a near-peer partner; the other is to turn a near-peer competitor (and potential adversary) into a non-peer competitor. Again, these are two very different strategic choices which would utilize very different policy tools and, as the Mayflower Group has noted, would carry different sets of costs and consequences.
I steal Jill’s point as my own conclusion: “We need to re-think how we deal with Russia. Confrontation combined with an endless cycle of sanctions isn’t the answer, even if sanctions sometimes are justified. But a “Let’s just be friends” approach won’t do either. For our own security, we need a bi-partisan, sustainable policy based on a realistic definition of why we even care about Russia.”
That means tackling not only what the USA does not like about Russian behavior, but what the USA is prepared to do, and pay for.
Ambassador Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and ambassador of Bangladesh
Collapse of school in northern Nigeria leaves 22 students dead, officials say
13 July 2024
A two-story school collapsed during morning classes Friday in north-central Nigeria, killing 22 students and sending rescuers on a frantic search for more than 100 people trapped in the rubble, Azernews reports.
The Saints Academy college in Plateau state’s Busa Buji community collapsed shortly after students, many of whom were 15 years old or younger, arrived for classes.
A total of 154 students were initially trapped in the rubble, but Plateau police spokesperson Alfred Alabo later said 132 of them had been rescued and were being treated for injuries in various hospitals. He said 22 students died. An earlier report by local media had said at least 12 people were killed.
Dozens of villagers gathered near the school, some weeping and others offering to help, as excavators combed through the debris from the part of the building that had caved in.
One woman was seen wailing and attempting to go closer to the rubble as others held her back.
Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said rescue and health workers as well as security forces had been deployed at the scene immediately after the collapse, launching a search for the trapped students.
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Collapse of school in northern Nigeria leaves more than 20 dead
Issued on: 13/07/2024 -
A two-story school collapsed during morning classes Friday in north-central Nigeria, killing 22 students and sending rescuers on a frantic search for more than 100 people trapped in the rubble, authorities said. The Saints Academy college in Plateau state’s Busa Buji community collapsed shortly after students, many of whom were 15 years old or younger, arrived for classes.
Malala calls for Pakistan to stop deporting undocumented Afghans
London (AFP) – Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai called for Pakistan to stop deporting undocumented Afghans, saying she was especially concerned about the "dark future" awaiting women and girls sent back.
Issued on: 13/07/2024 -
Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai called for Pakistan to 'reverse' its policy of deporting undocumented Afghans
"It is deeply concerning that Pakistan is forcing Afghan refugees based in Pakistan back into Afghanistan, and I'm deeply concerned about the women and girls", the activist, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2014, told AFP in an interview on Friday.
Despite extending leave for Afghan refugees with permits to stay in Pakistan for another year, Islamabad this week said it would remove illegal migrants.
More than 600,000 Afghans have fled Pakistan since Islamabad last year ordered undocumented migrants to leave or face arrest.
Human rights monitors have warned that some sent to Afghanistan faced persecution by the Taliban, who came into power in 2021 and have imposed an austere form of Islam, barring girls from higher education and excluding women and girls from areas of public life.
"A lot of these girls in Pakistan were studying, they were in school, these women were doing work", said Malala, 27, who grew up in Pakistan's Swat valley.
She had to move to the UK after she was shot, aged just 15, for resisting the Pakistan Taliban's then-ban on girls' education in her hometown.
"I hope that Pakistan reverses its policy and that they protect girls and women especially because of the dark future that they would be witnessing in Afghanistan", she added.
'Principled engagement'
Speaking to AFP on her birthday, recognised by the UN as Malala Day, the activist launched into the challenges facing the only country in the world where girls over 12 are barred from school.
"I cannot believe that I'm witnessing a time when girls have been banned from their education for more than three years", she said, adding that while the situation was "shocking", she "admired the resilience of the Afghan activists."
The Malala Fund is campaigning for the UN to formally broaden their definition of crimes against humanity to include "gender apartheid" – a phrase the UN has used to describe the situation in Afghanistan.
Earlier this month, the UN and Taliban sat down for talks in Doha for the first time since the latter came to power but without women in attendance.
Malala said the Doha talks made a "compromise on the future of women and girls", calling for a "principled engagement" with the Taliban.
"World leaders need to realise that when they sit down with the Taliban… and they're excluding women and girls, they are actually doing a Taliban a favour," she said.
"I want to call out those countries as well – that includes Canada and France – who have a feminist foreign policy" to "condemn" conversations like the Doha talks, she added. Gaza schools Malala also called for an "urgent" ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
Afghan refugees arrive from Pakistan in Takhta Pul district of Kandahar province
"It is horrifying how many schools have been bombed in Gaza, even more recently the four schools", she added, referring to four schools that were hit by Israeli air strikes this week.
According to the education ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, 85 percent of educational facilities in the territory are out of service because of the war.
"It is deeply concerning because we know that children do not have a future when they're living under a war, when their schools and homes are destroyed", said Malala.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which coordinates nearly all aid to Gaza, said it used more than half its budget before the war to fund education.
However, it is facing funding woes after several countries including the United States and Britain suspended aid following Israeli accusations that its workers were involved in Hamas's attack against Israel on October 7.
Some countries like Australia and Germany have however resumed funding when evidence could not be found to support Israel's claims.
"When it comes to humanitarian support, all countries should be making no compromise. They should make sure that all the immediate and urgent needs of people are provided, and UNRWA is an example of that", Malala said of countries resuming funding for the group.
"I do hope that all countries are providing aid and support because it's about those innocent people and civilians who need to be protected".
UN chief Guterres calls for funding for Gaza aid agency
Issued on: 13/07/2024 -
The United Nations chief appealed for funding Friday for the beleaguered UN agency helping Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East, accusing Israel of issuing evacuation orders that force Palestinians “to move like human pinballs across a landscape of destruction and death.” UNRWA’s 30,000 staff provide education, primary health care and other development activities to about 6 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Reinaldo Morales, a 68-year-old military veteran, went to a seniors' community center with air conditioning because turning it on at home is too costly.
"We live in a cement jungle," he said.
"It's nice that they have a cooling center like this. But the idea that we can't even afford to cool our home is outrageous," said Morales.
Temperatures soared as high as 95 degrees Fahrenheit (35 degrees Celsius) this week in New York, far from the 118F (48C) that roasted Las Vegas.
But one image here stuck out: a swing bridge linking the Bronx and Manhattan got stuck in the half-open position for hours on Monday as the heat expanded the metal in its hydraulics. Boats pumped water to cool it off.
The Bronx endures problems with poverty, health care and air pollution, and some of its neighborhoods suffered more than others in the heat because of a lack of trees to cool things off.
"We have limited shading so it does get very hot especially when the sun is at its peak," said Sandra Arroyo, program director of Casa Boricua, the seniors' center where Morales went to cool off.
'You are suffocating'
Senior citizens play dominos at a cooling center in the Bronx
Many residents of the Bronx are low-earning Latinos or African Americans, who say the heat-absorbing buildings that line street after street make life -- and even breathing -- difficult in the scorching, muggy New York summer.
"You walk a block and you are suffocating," said Juan Lorenzo, a 72-year-old Dominican.
"You just get really tired," added Stephanie Rodriguez, a 21-year-old cashier watching her two-year-old son play in water spouts at the only large park in all of the borough.
"We need more green spaces," said Arif Ullah, head of a community organization called South Bronx Unite.
All along one bank of the Harlem River in the Bronx stand waste treatment facilities, a power plant and warehouses -- all sources of industry and thus, more heat.
Nearby sits a small shadeless kids park, under a series of highway overpasses.
Ullah said racist urban policies have allowed communities like his to become urban heat islands that lead to health problems.
"And really, it's a matter of life or death," he said.
Neighborhoods like Hunts Point and Mott Haven in the south of the Bronx have above-average rates of emergency room visits for respiratory problems attributable to pollution, according to a report issued in April by the New York city government, its first to address the issue of what is known as environmental justice.
The city says around 350 people in New York die each year because of the heat or health problems made worse by it, and Black residents are hit twice as often as their white counterparts.
The city says aggravating factors include a lack of air conditioning at home, a situation more common in the Bronx than New York's other boroughs.
Matias, 2, plays in a water fountain to beat the heat in the Bronx
Deadly heat waves in major cities in America and elsewhere have become more common because of climate change and things will only get worse, experts say.
People stand outside a corner store during a summer heat wave in the Bronx borough of New York on July 11, 2024 © ANGELA WEISS / AFP
