Greene County Democrat

Category: World News

  • Leaked UN report faults sanitation at Haiti bases at time of cholera outbreak

    By: Joe Sandler Clarke and Ed Pilkington, Guardian

    UN Peacekeepers in Haiti

    UN Peacekeepers in Haiti

    The United Nations uncovered serious sanitation failures in its Haiti peacekeeping mission just a month after a deadly cholera outbreak erupted in the country, killing thousands, a leaked report has revealed. The UN has consistently refused to accept that it is responsible for compensating victims of the disaster. But the report, which was commissioned a month into the cholera crisis in November 2010, found a series of alarming problems in several UN peacekeeping bases including sewage being dumped in the open as well as a lack of toilets and soap.
    The authors of the review alerted the UN leadership that the failure to dispose of sewage safely at a time when the cholera epidemic was raging “will potentially damage the reputation of the mission”.
    They also warned that the way the UN stabilisation mission in Haiti (Minustah) had managed waste disposal “and the poor oversight of contractors carrying out this work has left the mission vulnerable to allegations of disease propagation and environmental contamination”.
    The existence of the internal UN review, which has been seen by the Guardian, will add to pressure on the world body to face up to the role it played as the source of the cholera epidemic. The UN is currently facing a lawsuit from 1,500 Haitians who blame the world organisation for negligently allowing peacekeepers from Nepal to carry the disease into the country, months after Haiti was devastated by an earthquake.
    Until the epidemic started in October 2010, Haiti had been free of cholera for at least 150 years. Mounting evidence suggests that the Asian strain of cholera was unwittingly imported by the peacekeepers from Nepal when they were relocated to Haiti to help with emergency work in the aftermath of the earthquake.
    In the lawsuit, the plaintiffs allege that the UN failed to screen peacekeepers from Nepal for cholera, where the disease is common, and that a private contractor hired by the UN failed to ensure sanitary conditions and adequate infrastructure at the UN military camp in Mirebalais. They allege that this led to sewage and other waste being pumped straight into the Meille river, a tributary of Haiti’s biggest river, the Artibonite.
    Despite clear evidence, the UN continues to refuse to accept any responsibility for the disaster, claiming immunity from any claims for compensation. The former head of Minustah, Edmond Mulet, has repeatedly stated that UN peacekeepers were not responsible for the outbreak.
    The UN’s controversial position looks increasingly awkward now that the world body’s own internal review exposing dire sanitation problems at its camps has come to light. In the leaked report, UN researchers led by the former chief of special support services at the department of field support, Melva Crouch, gave their immediate assessment of the state of sanitation in the peacekeeping bases in Haiti just weeks after the epidemic broke out.
    In the most devastating finding, Crouch’s team found that a month after the cholera outbreak, more than one in 10 of the UN camps were still disposing of sewage – known as “black water” – “directly into local environment”. In addition, more than seven in 10 of the camps disposed of their “grey water” – that is water from showers and kitchens – into the “local environment”.
    Some camps were found to have open drains with “grey water” running right through them, while several camps flooded due to “inadequate drainage after rains”. “Most disposal sites” where private contractors were paid by the UN to take away the sewage and dirty water from the camps were found to be “too close to water sources and/or population centres and without adequate fencing”.
    To add insult to injury, the leaked review, titled the Minustah Environmental Health Assessment Report, notes that the UN mission owned five self-contained waste-water treatment plants that were on site in Haiti and could have been used to make sure the peacekeepers’ camps were sanitary and safe. Two of them were found to be faulty, and as for the other three “the mission had intended to install these plants in the current financial year, however due to competing priorities none of them have yet been installed”.
    A study by Médecins sans Frontières published this month in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases found that the official count of about 9,000 deaths from Haiti’s cholera epidemic is likely to be a gross understatement. The researchers pointed out that most of the official fatalities were recorded through hospitals and medical centers, thus ignoring thousands of deaths that occurred in rural areas miles away from any formal medical provision.
    In March, the Guardian revealed that the secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, had been personally chastised by UN’s own human rights experts for the organisation’s failure to compensate Haitian victims of the cholera outbreak.
    In a letter addressed to Ban, five special rapporteurs said the UN’s handling of the cholera epidemic “undermines the reputation of the United Nations, calls into question the ethical framework within which its peace-keeping forces operate, and challenges the credibility of the organization as an entity that respects human rights”.
    The leaked report reveals the relatively tiny amount of money the UN could have spent to clean up its camps and prevent sewage disposal into the river. The officials estimated that an investment of just $3.15m would have covered most of the sanitation issues they had identified.
    Now that cholera has taken hold in Haiti, a program to eradicate the disease is estimated to cost well over $2bn.

  • A South African leader insists ‘We are not for sale’

    Cyril Ramaphosa

    Cyril Ramaphosa, Deputy President

    Mar. 28, 2016 (GIN) – South Africans are rising up against the outsized influence of corporate entities and wealthy individuals allegedly doling out contracts and jobs within the ANC.
    Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, at a recent event, rebutted the charge, declaring the ANC was not for sale and anyone who wanted to capture the state should “go next door.” Speaking to about 1,500 professionals and academics at the ANC event in Sandton last week, Ramaphosa declared: “Those who want to capture the ANC and influence it to advance personal or corporate interests, you have come to the wrong address. Try next door. We will not be captured.”
    A South Asian family close to the president who allegedly peddled jobs within the government was not the only one exploiting their connections, he added. “There are a number of others as well, and we are saying to all and sundry, stop in your tracks, we will not allow that.”
    But questions continue to be raised including at a seminar last week hosted by the Association of Public Administration and Management. Political influence by corporate entities and wealthy individuals is “at pornographic levels,” said businessman and policy analyst FM Lucky Mathebula. “That is why we hear calls of the removal of the president and regime change.”
    Political analyst professor at the University of Pretoria, Tinyiko Maluleka, said state capture was “insidious,” and became entrenched over time. “The idea that two or three people capture the state in one day is useless,” said Maluleka.
    Former African National Congress Youth League deputy president Ronald Lamola said the problem was not just corruption.
    “This is about democracy where unelected people are able to influence the decision to appoint ministers… “This is kleptocracy,” he added, “where a few elites are able to control and direct the state, a serious subversion of democracy.”
    Last week the group Equal Education released a statement calling state capture by the rich and powerful “a mortal threat to democracy” and pledged to join a “week of outrage” with other movement groups. “When our democratic state is put into the top pocket of a few rich people” then “the working class and the unemployed, the poor and the historically looted – the black majority – are attacked and further looted”.
    Meanwhile, President Zuma’s daughter, Thuthukile Zuma, a recent graduate in anthropology, has been awarded a high profile tender as a supplier to a prominent local company involved in the exploration and production of oil and natural gas. Just prior to this, Thuthukile was the chief of staff in the Dept of Telecommunications and Postal Services.
    At 27, she is the youngest of President Zuma’s four daughters with his ex-wife Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

  • South African ANC elders fear party is ‘drifting from its ideals

    South Africa

    South African poster for Human Rights Day

    Mar. 21, 2016 (GIN) – The usual celebrations marking Human Rights Day on March 21 were upstaged this year by an epic scandal that has shaken the party at its highest level.  Little else has captured the attention of South Africa’s citizens over the past weeks as much as the story of government job peddling by wealthy friends of the president, Jacob Zuma. The alleged peddling came to light when a deputy in the finance ministry said he was called by the influential Indian-South African Gupta family to a meeting where, without any ANC official present, they offered him the Treasury’s top post, which he declined. The allegation sparked talk of a “state capture” by the business class, divvying up jobs and other contracts and making political decisions based on self-enrichment.
    Veteran anti-apartheid fighters were shocked and dismayed. In an open letter signed by The Oliver and Adelaide Tambo Foundation, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation, they expressed their fears.
    This is a “difficult time in the history of the ANC and our country,” they began. While such periods have been resolved before, they said, “we are deeply concerned about the current course on which our country is headed. We believe this course is contrary to the individual and collective legacy of our Founders.”
    “We hear what ordinary South Africans tell us through our work, and are challenged by friends and comrades who witness cumulative fragmentation of the ANC, a great organization our Founders helped build and sustain over generations… It seems to us that the ANC has significantly drifted away from the ideals to which our Founders and many others dedicated their lives.
    “In the spirit of our Founders, we cannot passively watch these deeply concerning developments unfold and get worse by the day.”
    The letter writers appealed to the National Executive Committee of the ANC to take note of the mood of the people across the country.
    “History will judge the ANC leadership harshly if it fails to take the decisions that will restore the trust and confidence of the people of South Africa,” they warned, adding an invitation to seek their counsel. “Our doors are open!”
    Members of the party’s senior ranks expressed support for the president but offered to investigate Zuma’s relationship with the Guptas and whether it has started a process of “state capture.”
    Meanwhile, President Zuma addressed a full house at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durham on the occasion of Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the Sharpeville massacre, whose theme this year is “South Africans United Against Racism.”

  • The new ‘scramble for Africa’

    BY MICHAEL RUBIN, American Enterprise
    Institute

    chinas-xi-jinping-poses-robert-mugabe-and-jacob-zuma.
    Chinese President Xi Jinping (front L) poses with Zimbabwe’s leader Robert Mugabe (2nd R) and South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma (C) at a summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, December 4, 2015. China is investing heavily in Africa, unlike the U.S.
    SIPHIWE SIBEKO/REUTERS

    As Africa emerges as one of the most dynamic economic success stories of the past decade, it increasingly seems a prize over which outside countries are willing to compete. China has sent hundreds of peacekeepers to southern Sudan, reopened its embassy in Somalia, inked a $12 billion deal to build a railroad in Nigeria , and moved to support and upgrade the African Union. Recently, it has moved to rebuild a port in the strategic (and oil-rich) island nation of São Tomé and Príncipe. Chinese are flooding into the continent, drawn by economic opportunity.
    But China isn’t alone. Both Morocco and Turkey have made outreach to Africa pillars of their foreign policy, and the Islamic Republic of Iran has long cultivated diplomatic support on the continent, especially from African nations which produce uranium or those which serve on prominent international bodies like the United Nations Security Council and International Atomic Energy Agency.
    Meanwhile, India is proving itself to be an economic force with which to be reckoned on the continent. I just returned from the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi which included, among other topics, a panel exploring Asian interest in Africa. The Observer Research Foundation—co-convener of the Dialogue alongside India’s Ministry of External Affairs—has published several reports and monographs detailing India’s rising influence and ambitions in Africa and, in 2015, New Delhi hosted the India-Africa Forum Summit. Any visitor to Africa in recent years will see just how serious India has become about the African side of the Indian Ocean.
    The United States, meanwhile, appears asleep at the switch. U.S.-Africa trade has dwindled under President Barack Obama and, aside from short bursts of attention ahead of rare presidential visits, remains largely ignored by the White House and the mainstream American press. Turn on any American cable network covering world affairs, and there will be any number of stories about Europe, the Middle East, East Asia, and perhaps Latin America, but little if anything about Africa.
    In theory, AFRICOM should suggest a larger U.S. commitment to the continent, but the command is based in Europe rather than Africa and, regardless, the military is only one component of what should be a far more comprehensive approach at which business and investment should be at the center. After more than a dozen debates in the United States, presidential contenders on both sides of the aisle have largely ignored the continent.
    There’s a new “scramble for Africa” ongoing. As in the 19th and early 20th century, it is economic, diplomatic, and strategic; fortunately, it is no longer imperial. There’s a new set of players, each of whom will benefit in proportion to their investment. The only loser at present seems to be the United States, simply because the White House has chosen to forfeit.
    Michael Rubin is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official whose major research areas are the Middle East, Turkey, Iran and diplomacy.

  • What difference will Obama’s plan to bring power to Africa make?

    By: BBC Africa News

    Obama at solar expo

    President Obama talks with African solar AFP

    In February US President Barack Obama signed an agreement to bring electricity to 50 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by 2020. Neil Ford asks, even if this is possible, how many will still be left in the dark?
    Perhaps the most remarkable things about the Electrify Africa Act of 2015 are that it commits the US to increased foreign aid at a time of economic uncertainty and cuts through sharp political divisions.The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ed Royce, worked with Democrat Eliot Engel for two years to drive the bill through Congress.
    The act commits the US government to supporting President Obama’s Power Africa initiative. Although headlined as a $50bn scheme, the US authorities will contribute just $7bn.
    Other governments, development agencies and private sector companies are expected to provide the remainder in public-private partnerships.This will be difficult to achieve during a global economic downturn.
    Even if it succeeds in its aim of bringing electricity to 50 million Africans by 2020, more than 10 times that number will still be without power.
    So the Power Africa initiative is not a magic bullet, but it has at least highlighted Africa’s power supply problems.
    It is easy to take electricity for granted. Most African homes lack fridges and electric cookers but even a single electric light bulb can bring security and allow children to do their homework after dark.
    Mobile phones encourage economic growth but the lack of electricity makes recharging them yet another hurdle to be cleared.
    According to the latest World Bank data, 35% of sub-Saharan Africans have no access to electricity.
    This is a far lower figure than in any other region.
    The next lowest rate is 22% for South Asia, while all five North African countries claim 100% coverage.
    Most Africans use wood and kerosene for fuel, causing deforestation and thousands of fatal accidents every year.
    The 35% figure masks huge variations, with electrification rates ranging from 5% in South Sudan up to 100% in Mauritius.
    Connection rates in rural areas are typically worse than 10%. Most of those with electricity at home live in cities, supplied by grids that were developed in colonial times but which have failed to expand with urban growth.
    Even many of those connected to the grid suffer from unreliable supplies. So those who can afford them, buy their own expensive diesel fired generators.
    While South Africa relies on coal-fired plants, most African countries depend on large hydro schemes to generate electricity.
    Yet unreliable rainfall means that hydroelectric production varies even during a good year and is even worse – as at present – during an El Nino event.
    The main problem is a lack of revenue. Most consumers are unable to afford to pay a commercial rate for electricity.
    This prevents power utilities from earning enough money to pay for new generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure; generation capacity to produce electricity; transmission to move it across big distances; and distribution to get it into people’s homes and businesses.
    Either people need to become richer, or power needs to be cheaper.
    Luckily, a solution may be at hand. The price of photovoltaic (PV) solar power panels is falling, while solar cells are becoming more efficient, so PV is becoming a cost-effective option. Such off-grid solutions avoid the need for expensive transmission and distribution infrastructure.
    Power Africa is already supporting very small-scale solar PV. It has awarded part-funding to 28 off-grid projects, along with the technical support that small-scale developers often lack. Many more will now follow suit.
    Most of these projects involve solar PV or biomass, which involves using agricultural waste as a power generation feedstock.
    Power Africa describes the first kWh people gain access to as the “the most valuable” because it provides at least a single source of electric light and the ability to charge mobile phones and radios.
    With its commitment to providing “cleaner power generation”, many of the on-grid ventures backed by Power Africa also involve renewable energy.
    In some cases, it is directly funding generation projects, such as the 152 MW Sarreole wind farm in Senegal. More often, it will supply technical support and dedicated advisors.
    It has already helped Ghana to tap its newly discovered gas reserves for thermal power production by providing regulatory advice.
    New projects will be identified as more of the funding is made available.
    It may be that a single grand scheme cannot solve Africa’s power problems but Power Africa can help provide local solutions, one at a time.