Online transactions and E-commerce have become a key part of people’s life in Asia and the Pacific. Credit: Unsplash/Rupixen
BANGKOK, Thailand, Aug 12 2024 (IPS) – The rapid growth of digitalization has fundamentally altered commerce, impacting production and facilitating the movement of goods. The 2023 Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report (APTIR), has pointed out that although digital trade revenues of Asia and the Pacific account for a significant share of global trade, this growth is uneven, with trade concentrated in a few areas, leading to disparities across the region.
Different policy measures to establish an inclusive digital trade and e-commerce landscape have been used across the region. For example, research on internet courts in China showed how such public and digitized judicial systems benefit smaller and medium-sized firms compared to private dispute resolution mechanisms, which are highly costly.
Indonesia’s introduction of single submission for freight transport applications and its impact on sustainability in supply chains was another case study. This policy instrument has had significant impacts across multiple domains, such as increasing time effectiveness, reducing costs, and increasing transparency in shipping and port clearances.
Lessons learned and the way forward
There is a need to understand the specific digital trade policy instruments that promote sustainable development. It is critical to acknowledge key differences and similarities between trade and digital trade policy to strategically leverage their interlinkage to achieve the SDGs. Social development works in tandem with economic progress.
A key concern is the lack of data on cross-border e-commerce in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions, which hinders the implementation and evaluation of programs designed to promote the participation and productivity of small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
More concerted efforts to improve data measurement through private-public partnerships could be a possible policy intervention to address this issue. States should establish effective monitoring systems by improving the availability of economic statistics and third-party evaluations for measuring the progress and impact of SME support programs.
However, given the diversity in operations of SMEs across sectors, it is essential to devise and tailor policies that cater to their specific needs and realities.
There is also a need for sharing real-world examples of successful government initiatives and SME support programs so neighboring countries can draw lessons from them. There are doubts about the long-term usefulness of stand-alone Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) due to the lack of stringent legal provisions for possible breaches, unlike market-access free trade agreements (FTAs).
Lastly, the United States, which has played a pivotal role in advocating for an open global trade environment, gradually step back from its position, it is time to rethink the leadership that would guide the establishment of digital trade provisions in the future.
This involves showcasing how digital trade rules will be established and enforced moving forward. Who will provide such public goods for digital trade is a major question facing the global economy.
Given its rapid digital-economy growth, significant market size, and increasing influence in global digital trade, should that leadership come from the Asia-Pacific region?
Witada Anukoonwattaka is Economic Affairs Officer, Trade Investment and Innovation Division, ESCAP; Preety Bhogal is Consultant, Trade Investment and Innovation Division, ESCAP.
The journalists gather in front of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital to commemorate their friends, Al Jazeera reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Rifi, who lost their lives in Israeli army attack on a moving vehicle in the Al-Shati refugee camp, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza on July 31, 2024. Source: Middle East Monitor. Credit: Ashraf Amra, Anadolu Agency
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 12 2024 (IPS) – The growing number of killings of Palestinian journalists in Gaza has triggered a demand for a cut-off in US arms supplies to Israel.
Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), told IPS despite pleas of the international community to suspend arms to Israel in the face of its unprecedented atrocities against Palestinians in Gaza, including the killing of over 165 Palestinian journalists, it beggars the imagination that Biden is now seeking to sell Israel new weaponry to facilitate even more slaughter.
On August 9, the U.S. State Department officially notified Congress of its intent to proceed with a new authorization for weapons to Israel, including 6,500 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs) guidance kits to Israel, despite extensive evidence documenting the Israel Defense Force’s (IDF) use of U.S. weapons to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity, said DAWN, in a press release Friday.
This “is a slap in the face of humanity and all the values we hold dear,” Whitson said.
According to Cable News Network (CNN) last June, two key congressional Democrats have given their approval to allow the Biden administration to proceed with what is believed to be the biggest ever weapons package for Israel, expected to be worth more than $18 billion and include some 50 F-15 fighter jets.
Blinken also announced his decision not to sanction the IDF’s notorious Netzah Yehuda battalion, despite credible evidence of its systematic and gross human rights violations in the occupied West Bank, in violation of strict U.S. laws requiring the imposition of such sanctions.
“It is mind-boggling that despite the overwhelming evidence of the IDF’s unprecedented crimes in Gaza that has shocked the conscience of the entire world, the Biden administration is greenlighting the transfer of additional lethal weapons to Israel,” said Whitson.
“It is hard to comprehend how the Biden administration can justify rewarding Israel with new weapons, despite Israel’s persistent defiance of every single plea the Biden administration has made urging a modicum of restraint, and despite the very apparent fact that such sales violate black letter U.S. laws prohibiting weapons to gross abusers like Israel,” she pointed out.
Meanwhile, as of August 9, 2024, preliminary investigations by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) showed at least 113 journalists and media workers were among the more than 40,000 killed since the war began, making it the deadliest period for journalists since CPJ began gathering data in 1992.
Journalists in Gaza face particularly high risks as they try to cover the conflict during the Israeli ground assault, including devastating Israeli airstrikes, disrupted communications, supply shortages, and extensive power outages, CPJ said.
This has meant that it is becoming increasingly hard to document the situation, and CPJ is investigating almost 350 additional cases of potential killings, arrests and injuries.
Dr Ramzy Baroud, a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle, told IPS Israel has killed, as of last week, 168 Palestinian journalists, the same way it has killed over 200 aid workers, hundreds of doctors, medics and people from every category and background. None of this is coincidental.
A simple proof that Israel deliberately targets journalists is the fact that it habitually produces and promotes stories that justify their murder, often accusing them of terrorism. Israel is yet to provide a single set of credible evidence against any of the killed journalists, he said.
On October 11, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog had said “there are no innocent civilians in Gaza”. This disturbing Israeli logic applies to all Palestinians in the Strip, including journalists.
“Israel must be held accountable to its ongoing murder of journalists. But a huge responsibility falls on the shoulders of journalists and media organizations around the world, who often ignore the very murder of their colleagues in Gaza, let alone circulate Israeli’s unfounded accusations often without questioning its credibility or merit,” he said.
The fact that Gazans continue to report on their own genocide by Israel is heroic beyond words. But they must not be disowned, and must not continue to report and die alone without a true international solidarity that could hold their murderers to account, said Dr. Baroud, who is also a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA).
Dr. James Jennings, President, Conscience International, told IPS the heroic martyrs of the free press in Gaza deserve to be honored by all humanity, at the very least with the Nobel Peace Prize. Standing under the bombs, reporting the truth, then paying with your life is a superhuman act of courage.
The job of journalists is simply to journal–to shine a light on the truth by writing down or telling what they see on the battlefield. Killing the messengers is a sign that the perpetrators fear them and their influence, he pointed out.
Deception and lies are major part of war. How else could people slaughter myriads of others and do it with impunity?, he asked.
But truth has two sides–sending and receiving. Refusing to credit honest reporters means that we really don’t want to hear what they are saying anyway. Choosing to believe lies because we want them to be true is what enables wars to continue.
“Even worse than lying to the enemy is lying to yourself. Attempting to cover the plain truth by denying facts or looking the other way is tantamount to insanity. When will Americans stop lying to themselves and start believing their own ideals?”, asked Dr Jennings.
Ibrahim Hooper, National Communication Director at the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, said: “The only thing that can explain the shocking silence of American and international media professionals about the mass killing of their Palestinian colleagues is the decades-long and systematic dehumanization of the Palestinian people, in which the lives of Palestinians have lesser or no value. Journalists worldwide must begin to speak out about these killings and about the Israeli genocide in Gaza.”
In a press release last week, the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said it is monitoring attacks and threats against journalists.
The agency noted that in recent months, multiple journalists covering protests in different parts of the world have been subjected to various forms of attacks, including killings, injuries, arbitrary detentions, and confiscation of their equipment, while exercising their rightful duties as journalists.
UNESCO recalls “that all authorities concerned have the duty and responsibility to ensure the safety of journalists covering protests around the world, in accordance with international norms and human rights obligations”.
In a joint statement, five UN special rapporteurs declared: “We have received disturbing reports that, despite being clearly identifiable in jackets and helmets marked “press” or traveling in well-marked press vehicles, journalists have come under attack, which would seem to indicate that the killings, injury, and detention are a deliberate strategy by Israeli forces to obstruct the media and silence critical reporting.”
Meanwhile, under international law, the intentional targeting of journalists is considered a war crime. While all governments are bound by international law protecting reporters, U.S. domestic law also prohibits the State Department from providing assistance to units of foreign security forces credibly accused of gross violations of human rights. Israel’s well-documented pattern of extrajudicial executions of journalists is a gross violation of human rights.
The extreme heat adversely affected the milk production of the over 800,000 cattle in Karachi. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
KARACHI, Pakistan, Aug 9 2024 (IPS) – The over 20 million residents of Pakistan’s port city of Karachi, in Sindh province in particular, have been experiencing brutal heat since May. But they are not the only ones bearing the brunt of high temperatures and humidity.
Up to 15,000 cattle died due to scorching heat mixed with high humidity which Shakir Umar Gujjar, president of the Cattle and Dairy Farmers Association, Pakistan, said was “no joke”.
Mubashir Abbas, owner of 170 heads, lost eight cows and five buffaloes to the “extreme heat” in the last week of June, which translates to a loss of Rs 5.5 million (USD 19,800) for him.
“Three more are running high fever and I will have to sell them to cut my losses,” he told IPS over phone from Bhains Colony, in Karachi’s Landhi district. “I will fetch no more than Rs 40,000 (USD 143) a piece, when the market rate for each healthy one is valued between Rs 1.5 and 2 million (USD 5,300–7,000),” he estimated. Every now and then, in the last 23 years, he would lose a few to disease, but he had never “seen a healthy animal dying from heat.”
Livestock, the largest sub-sector in agriculture, contributed 60.84 percent to agriculture and 14.63 percent to the country’s GDP during 2023-2024, according to the Pakistan Economic Survey. More than eight million rural families are engaged in livestock production, accounting for 35-40 percent of their total income.
About 15,000 cattle died due scorching heat mixed with high humidity in Sindh province, Pakistan. Credit: Zofeen Ebrahim/IPS
“From June 23 to 30, Karachi experienced a heatwave with temperatures ranging between 40 and 42 °C. The ‘feel-like’ temperature went up to 54 °C due to high humidity,” said Dr. Sardar Sarfaraz, chief meteorologist at the Pakistan Meteorological Department.
Dr. Nazeer Hussain Kalhoro, director general at the government’s Sindh Institute of Animal Health in the Livestock and Fisheries Department in Karachi, attributed extreme heat to the death of livestock, especially exotic and crossed breeds.
The temperature was still lower than the deadly 2015 heatwave temperature of 44.8 °C that claimed over 2,000 human lives when the feel-like heat index exceeded 60 °C, said Sarfaraz. “A much bigger number of animals died then, and many young animals had to be slaughtered,” said Gujjar.
The heat had adversely affected the milk production of the over 800,000 cattle in Karachi, said Gujjar. “When an animal is in stress and discomfort, due to extreme heat, its intake of regular amount of fodder decreases, which can result in decrease in milk production,” said Kalhoro.
“I was getting between 1,400 and 1,480 kg in a day; it is not more than 960 kg now. I lose 0.11 million rupees (USD 400) daily,” said Abbas.
Communication Gap
The lack of engagement with the farmer by the government was the reason. Gujjar said the communication gap between the ministry of national food security and research at the federal level and the livestock departments at the provincial departments meant the uneducated farmer was on his own.
“The biggest tragedy is that our farmer is not educated and also unaware of how to prepare or protect the animal from the vagaries of climate,” said Gujjar, adding: “They do their own traditional treatment of their animals, which results in even more avoidable deaths.”
Similar is the plight of small farmers who remain in the eye of the climate storm. “They are continuously in a reactive mode,” said Mahmood Nawaz Shah, president of a farmers’ group, the Sindh Abadgar Board, with “government policies not conducive to them”.
Giving examples, Shah said the minimum price of cotton was fixed and notified at Rs 8,500/kg (UAD 30) but growers received Rs 5,200/kg (USD 18); a 50-kilo bag of urea increased from Rs 1,700 to Rs 4,600 (USD 6 to 16) in just three years; and the artificial shortage for the same last year meant the farmer had to pay Rs 5,500 for the same bag from the black market.
“We had recommended to the government to develop a climate endowment fund and compensate small farmers by involving insurance companies as soon as extreme events lead to crop and livestock losses,” said Shah.
Both the farmers, Gujjar and Shah, have hit the nail on the head on why Pakistan, one of the most vulnerable to climate crises, is unable to manage it effectively. The disconnect and lack of coordination between different federal and their related provincial government bodies is found across the spectrum and is highlighted in the 2024 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) as a major reason that hampered policy implementation, placing Pakistan on the 30th position among 63 countries and the EU, which collectively account for over 90 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. “Improved cooperation between different levels of government would be a step in the right direction,” it concluded.
Similarly, the 2024 Environmental Performance Index that assesses the progress of effectiveness of 180 countries in mitigating climate change, relying on historical greenhouse gas emissions data, put Pakistan three rungs down at 179th rank this year from the 176th position it held in 2022.
Indifference and Apathy
Both the CCPI and the EPI are a clear giveaway of government’s nonchalance. The latter index has especially pointed to areas like air pollution, wastewater treatment, protected areas management and climate mitigation.
“The country is slipping on most environmental indicators,” agreed former climate change minister, Malik Amin Aslam, pointing to the weak air pollution control measures, non-adherence to the electric vehicles transition and failure to promote renewables. From being a country championing the global green cause in 2022 to now “ignominiously slipping down the environmental performance ladder” should certainly raise alarm bells for our current green policy makers, warned Aslam.
The 2022 floods, which should have acted as a wake-up call for the government, he said, failed to move the government towards preparedness and improving the health of the environment.
Maha Qasim, CEO of Zero-Point Partners, an environmental management and consulting firm, said: “No significant effort had been made in building climate-resilient infrastructure like roads, drainage systems and flood management facilities like levees or reservoirs.
The EPI has pointed towards Pakistan’s use of coal as a driver.
Putting things in perspective, Qasim said that in 2021, only around 14% of Pakistan’s energy mix was based on coal, while it figured 45 percent and 63 percent in India’s and Estonia’s energy mix. But in the last two years, Pakistan’s overall GHG emissions as well as CO2 have declined, due to “Pakistan’s overall performance capita emissions from fossil fuels and industry have declined due to stagnant economic growth,” she said.
Thus, Pakistan is well within its carbon budget and has met its Nationally Determined Contribution commitments to the UNFCCC.
The updated NDCs of 2021 have pledged to reduce emissions by 50%, shifting to renewable energy by 60 percent and 30 percent to electric vehicles by 2030, and a complete ban on importing coal.
Poor transport fuel regulations, old and inefficient vehicles on the road, mass cutting down of trees to make way for rapid urbanization, burning of agricultural residue and poor solid waste management have also been mentioned for Pakistan’s poor score.
Aslam, however, said the index failed to “register or recognize” Pakistan’s efforts on reforestation—the Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, followed by 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme across the country. “The EPI ranking can certainly enhance its acceptability and credibility by improving these areas,” he said.
Weak Governance
Sobia Kapadia, a humanitarian aid practitioner, added factors like “weak governance, turning to fire-fighting and ad-hoc measures” whenever a climate crisis arises, thereby destroying the symbiosis.
“Heat, rain and floods are all connected to the core issue of human-induced development; but blaming heat and humidity on climate change is like blaming the naughtiest child,” said Kapadia, citing resorts being constructed in the mountains by cutting trees.
In yet another recent report that gives insights to investors and helps governments in setting carbon market-friendly policies, Pakistan comes 39th out of 40 countries.
Khalid Waleed, an energy economics expert at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), was quoted by media saying “for the first time in budget history, the government has tagged projects worth Rs53 billion under climate change adaptation and Rs225 billion under climate change mitigation,” referring to the budget presented earlier this month. However, he added that the budget was not climate change project-specific but had been tagged for their climate benefits.
Zia ul Islam finds the budget allocation “rather tricky” to understand as it not only indicates development projects from the Ministry of Planning Development & Special Initiatives, but foreign-funded projects and projects under various ministries and provinces.
Environmental and public policy analyst Dawar Butt, comparing the country’s miniscule environmental spending to India and Bangladesh, said climate did not seem to be a priority. He further added that the climate change allocation has been “cut down by one billion rupees from what finally got approved in this year’s budget.”
Handling Climate Change on Piecemeal Basis
But it is not just how the government is handling climate change. Referring to a climate risk awareness survey conducted by GIZ Pakistan, Qasim highlighted that while many organizations are beginning to acknowledge the impact of climate change on their business models, their approach towards dealing with it was “incomplete and fragmented with a focus on climate mitigation” to meet external requirements of clients or regulators rather than on long-term business sustainability.
Due to the funding fatigue, Zia ul Islam suggested the “begging attitude” may be replaced by capacity building of concerned authorities, bringing in necessary improvements in the legal instruments and effective implementation.”
Good News
If Pakistan can somehow link smooth governance with climate finance and showcase to the world that it can fund its own climate solutions, it will give local and international companies the confidence to invest in the country. This year’s Financing Climate Action report by Transparency International states Pakistan has a huge potential to “dollarize climate adaptive and mitigative projects” provided climate governance is improved.
Flood insurance initiatives for farmers, for example, said Qasim, at very low markup rates, have the potential to be “scaled up across the country to increase flood resilience.”
Global Cybercrime Treaty: A delicate balance between security and human rights. Credit: Unsplash/Jefferson Santos Via UN News
Aug 8 2024 (IPS) – A new UN Cybercrime Treaty, which is expected to be adopted by the UN General Assembly later this year, is being denounced by over 100 human rights activists and civil society organizations (CSOs) as a potential tool for government repression.
The treaty is expected to be adopted by a UN Ad Hoc Committee later this week and move to the 193-member General Assembly for final approval.
Deborah Brown, Deputy Director for Technology, Rights, and Investigations at Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IPS governments would then need to sign and ratify the treaty, which means going through national processes.
“We anticipate that as countries move to ratify the treaty it will face considerable scrutiny and pushback from legislators and the public because of the threat it poses to human rights.”
The treaty, she pointed out, would expand government surveillance and create an unprecedented tool for cross-border cooperation between governments on a wide range of crimes, without adequate safeguards to protect people from abuses of power.
“Negotiations are also expected to start on a protocol to accompany the treaty to address additional crimes and further expand the treaty’s reach. We urge governments to reject a cybercrime treaty that undermines rights,” Brown said.
Recognizing the growing dangers of cybercrime, the UN says member states have set about drafting a legally-binding international treaty to counter the threat.
Five years later, negotiations are still ongoing, with parties unable to reach an acceptable consensus, and the latest meeting of the Committee members in February did not conclude with an agreed draft, with countries unable to agree on wording that would balance human rights safeguards with security concerns.
One of the nongovernmental organizations taking part in the negotiations is Access Now, which defends and extends the digital rights of people and communities at risk around the world.
Whilst the February session was still taking place at UN Headquarters, Raman Jit Singh Chima, the Senior International Counsel and Asia Pacific Policy Director for Access Now, spoke to Conor Lennon from UN News, to explain his organization’s concerns.
“This treaty needs to address “core cybercrime”, namely those crimes that are possible only through a computer, that are sometimes called “cyber dependent” crimes, such as hacking into computer systems, and undermining the security of networks”, said Chima.
Clearly, these should be criminalized by states, with clear provisions put in place enabling governments across the world can cooperate with each other.
“If you make the scope of the treaty too broad, it could include political crimes. For example, if someone makes a comment about a head of government, or a head of state, that might end up being penalized under the cybercrime law,” he pointed out.
“When it comes to law enforcement agencies cooperating on this treaty, we need to put strong human rights standards in place, because that provides trust and confidence in the process”.
Also, if you have a broad treaty with no safeguards, every request for cooperation could end up being challenged, not only by human rights advocates and impacted communities, but by governments themselves, he warned.
Meanwhile, the joint statement by CSOs points to critical shortcomings in the current draft of the treaty, which threatens freedom of expression, privacy, and other human rights.
The draft convention contains broad criminal provisions that are weak –- and in some places nonexistent -– human rights safeguards, and provides for excessive cross-border information sharing and cooperation requirements, which could facilitate intrusive surveillance.
“Cybercrime regimes around the world have been misused to target and surveil human rights defenders, journalists, security researchers, and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, in blatant violation of human rights”.
The draft convention’s overbreadth also threatens to undermine its own objectives by diluting efforts to address actual cybercrime while failing to safeguard legitimate security research, leaving people less secure online, the CSOs warn.
“National and regional cybercrime laws are regrettably far too often misused to unjustly target journalists and security researchers, suppress dissent and whistleblowers, endanger human rights defenders, limit free expression, and justify unnecessary and disproportionate state surveillance measures”.
Throughout the negotiations over the last two years, civil society groups and other stakeholders have consistently emphasized that the fight against cybercrime must not come at the expense of human rights, gender equality, and the dignity of the people whose lives will be affected by this Convention.
In an oped piece in Foreign Policy in Focus, Tirana Hassan, executive director of Human Rights Watch, says the new treaty, backed by Russia, is aimed to stifle dissent.
She points out that Cybercrime—the malicious hacking of computer networks, systems, and data—threatens people’s rights and livelihoods, and governments need to work together to do more to address it.
But the cybercrime treaty sitting before the United Nations for adoption, could instead facilitate government repression, she noted.
By expanding government surveillance to investigate crimes, the treaty could create an unprecedented tool for cross-border cooperation in connection with a wide range of offenses, without adequate safeguards to protect people from abuses of power.
“It’s no secret that Russia is the driver of this treaty. In its moves to control dissent, the Russian government has in recent years significantly expanded laws and regulations that tighten control over Internet infrastructure, online content, and the privacy of communications,” said Hassan.
But Russia doesn’t have a monopoly on the abuse of cybercrime laws. Human Rights Watch has documented that many governments have introduced cybercrime laws that extend well beyond addressing malicious attacks on computer systems to target people who disagree with them and undermine the rights to freedom of expression and privacy, she pointed out.
For example, in June 2020, a Philippine court convicted Maria Ressa, the Nobel prize-winning journalist and founder and executive editor of the news website Rappler, of “cyber libel” under its Cybercrime Prevention Act.
In Tunisia, authorities have invoked a cybercrime law to detain, charge, or place under investigation journalists, lawyers, students, and other critics for their public statements online or in the media.
In Jordan, the authorities have arrested and harassed scores of people who participated in pro-Palestine protests or engaged in online advocacy since October 2023, bringing charges against some of them under a new, widely criticized cybercrimes law.
Countries in the Middle East-North Africa region have weaponized laws criminalizing same-sex conduct and used cybercrime laws to prosecute online speech.
The treaty has three main problems: its broad scope, its lack of human-rights safeguards, and the risks it poses to children’s rights, said Hassan.
“Instead of limiting the treaty to address crimes committed against computer systems, networks, and data—think hacking or ransomware—the treaty’s title defines cybercrime to include any crime committed by using Information and Communications Technology systems.”
The negotiators are also poised to agree to the immediate drafting of a protocol to the treaty to address “additional criminal offenses as appropriate.”
As a result, when governments pass domestic laws that criminalize any activity that uses the Internet in any way to plan, commit, or carry out a crime, they can point to this treaty’s title and potentially its protocol to justify the enforcement of repressive laws.
In addition to the treaty’s broad definition of cybercrime, it essentially requires governments to surveil people and turn over their data to foreign law enforcement upon request if the requesting government claims they’ve committed any “serious crime” under national law, defined as a crime with a sentence of four years or more, Hassan said.
This would include behavior that is protected under international human rights law but that some countries abusively criminalize, like same-sex conduct, criticizing one’s government, investigative reporting, participating in a protest, or being a whistleblower.
In the last year, a Saudi court sentenced a man to death and a second man to 20 years in prison, both for their peaceful expression online, in an escalation of the country’s ever-worsening crackdown on freedom of expression and other basic rights.
This treaty would compel other governments to assist in and become complicit in the prosecution of such “crimes.”
Moreover, the lack of human rights safeguards, says Hassan, “is disturbing and should worry us all.”
Women in Khardariya village in Dang fetching water from a community well. Credit: Tanka Dhakal/IPS
KATHMANDU, Aug 7 2024 (IPS) – In the rural village of Khardariya in the Dang district of Nepal, access to clean water is a major issue. Villagers depend on one poorly managed well for drinking water, cleaning, and feeding livestock.
Anjana Yadav stood near the well while a neighbor walked toward it to fetch a bucket of water.
“At least seven families and over 400 buffaloes rely on this well; this is the water that sustains the buffaloes, and we drink it too,” she said. “In summer, the water level goes down, and we suffer more,” Anjana told IPS.
According to government data, only 27 percent of the country’s population has access to pure drinking water. However, the government’s aim is to increase the number of people using safe drinking water to at least 90 percent by 2030, in line with Sustainable Development Goals. But villages like Khardariya are still struggling to access enough water, let alone pure water.
“This water is not drinkable, but we don’t have any other option,” Niramala Yadava (Anjana’s daughter) says while showing the logged water around the well, “We know this water is not safe, but we’re forced to drink it, use it for cleaning, and even in the kitchen. We also have to manage for livestock too.”
Khardariya is one example where access to water is a major problem, and there are other areas where people are facing the same situation. The Department of Water Supply and Sewerage Management claims that 80 percent of people have access to drinking water, but it’s not safe as per standards. Most of them still depend on surface water sources like rivers, ponds, and these sources are not necessarily safe to drink. And often time this water led to health consequences to the community where clean drinking water is not available.
Everyday Struggle
According to the World Health Organization’s Global Health Estimates (WHO GHE), one of the largest declines in the number of deaths is from diarrheal diseases, with global deaths falling from 2.6 million in 2000 to 1.5 million in 2019. But in Nepal even though cases are in decreasing trend, water related diseases are still a major concern, GHE data shows from 2000 to 2019 above 140 thousands of diarrheal cases are recorded per year.
Diarrheal diseases are one of the top ten causes of death in Nepal. According to data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), diarrheal diseases ranked seventh in 2009 and ninth in 2019 in the list of top ten causes of death.
As Anjana Yadav in Dang, Sarita Rana Magar in Solukhumbu is struggling to get drinking water from the spring sourced tap, but it is not certain that the water is clean as per government standards. “We don’t have enough access to drinking water; even to get a couple of buckets of water is hard these days,” Magar says while waiting for her turn to fill water from the community tap in Lausasa village in the Khumbu region, where mountains stand right near her village. “It takes 25-30 minutes to fill one bucket (40-liter bucket) of water, and I need at least three buckets of water every day,” Magar said while keeping her bucket under the running tap.
Problem is Not Prioritizing
Even though the Government of Nepal claims that safe drinking water is a priority issue, the facts do not align with this assertion. In recent years, the budget for safe drinking water has been decreasing while the need is growing.
Madhu Timalsina, Senior Divisional Engineer at the Ministry of Water Supply, says that the government is not keen to expand basic drinking water safety.
“According to the data we have, 73 percent of the population lacks access to safe drinking water. The target is to reach 90 percent of the population with access to safe drinking water by 2030,” Timalsina says. “We don’t have the resources to sustain ongoing programs, and meeting the goal is far from achievable at this point. Water is not a priority for the government. We need resources.”
According to the Ministry, at a time when the demand for safe drinking water is increasing, the budget is shrinking. In the current fiscal year, the Ministry received over 28 billion Nepali rupees (about USD 208 million) as their budget, which was 42 billion (USD 313 million) in the previous fiscal year.
“It seems like in the coming year, it will decrease to 22-23 billion,” Timalsina said, “We have not been able to initiate new programs in recent years due to the lack of budget. Everything is ready, but we lack the resources.”
The Federation of Drinking Water and Sanitation Users Nepal (FDWSUN), which advocates for access to safe and contamination-free water for all, believes that the government is not taking the water issue seriously. “We have been continuously trying to create pressure, but the government is not willing to listen,” said Durga Chapagain, Senior Vice President of the FDWSUN, “The majority of users are still drinking water from open sources, and there is no budget allocated for drinking water projects.”
If the government truly intends to increase access to safe drinking water for up to 90 percent of the population by 2030, the budget should be allocated accordingly, according to Timalsina.
“To meet the target, we need to cover an additional 63 percent of the population within 6 years. The target is set, but we can’t achieve anything without the budget,” he explains. “We lack the resources to meet our needs, which is the primary limitation. Additionally, our springs are drying up, and water scarcity is becoming a major issue. Unfortunately, without resources, it’s not possible to do anything.”
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Aug 7 2024 (IPS) – The International Seabed Authority (ISA) Assembly meeting concluded last week with no mining authorized, an unprecedented number of States calling for a moratorium or precautionary pause and a new Secretary-General elected.
Three weeks of negotiations included intense scrutiny of the ISA’s annual financial management; no Mining Code was agreed; a Head of State attended the meeting to support a moratorium for the first time in the Assembly’s history; and there was the first formal debate ever by the ISA Assembly on the need to adopt an overall policy for the protection of the marine environment.
Momentum to defend the deep increased with 32 states now calling for a precautionary pause or moratorium. The attendance of senior political figures, Indigenous Leaders and youth from across the world added weight to the push to stop mining from proceeding and the election of a new Secretary General opens up a new era for the ISA.
The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC) has been present throughout the negotiations in Kingston and Deep-Sea Mining Moratorium Campaign Lead, Sofia Tsenikli said: “For years the ISA has operated in its own bubble, pressing ahead and resisting the mounting calls for precaution. This Assembly meeting has marked a pivotal shift for the ISA and the moratorium campaign.
The dumbo octopus, which uses its ear-like fins to propel itself off of the seafloor, is one of the many species that call the deep-sea home. Credit: U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Okeanos Explorer Program, 2014 expedition, Gulf of Mexico.
States and communities that are on the front lines of deep-sea mining and its impacts are here in Jamaica to defend their homes and cultures from this destructive activity before it can begin. We applaud the ocean champions spearheading efforts to safeguard our fragile and essential deep sea.”
Malta, Honduras, Tuvalu, Guatemala, and Austria joined the ever-growing wave of countries calling for a precautionary pause to deep-sea mining, citing a lack of scientific knowledge and understanding of the deep sea, the absence of an effective regulatory regime and the high risk to the marine environment.
The ISA Assembly elected Leticia Carvalho as the new Secretary-General of ISA after defeating incumbent Michael Lodge, marking a new chapter for the institution responsible for the effective protection and long-term health of the deep sea.
The DSCC’s co-founder Matthew Gianni congratulated Carvahlo and the government of Brazil on this historic election and noted: “The ISA has an opportunity to champion a new way forward for sound ocean governance that prioritizes the precautionary principle and secures the health of the deep sea and its benefits for future generations.
We urge the new Secretary General to prioritize advancing transparency in the work of the ISA and independent scientific research and capacity building, decoupled from an extractive agenda, to achieve a comprehensive understanding of the deep ocean, its diversity of species and ecosystems, and the role they play in maintaining the health of the planet for all of us.”
For the first time, the ISA Assembly discussed the possibility of a General Policy for the protection and preservation of the marine environment, which could set the necessary conditions to be fulfilled before commercial deep-sea mining exploitation can be considered.
However, no decision was taken, as a group of States, including China, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Uganda and Ghana, refused to engage in any development on a General Policy at this Assembly, despite the support from a large number of States, including Chile, Palau, Vanuatu, Samoa, Switzerland, Brazil and Greece to bring the protection of the marine environment into the heart of ISA’s supreme organ: the Assembly.
We urge the Assembly to open this discussion again next year and to develop a General Policy to safeguard these fragile ecosystems.
DSCC International Legal Adviser Duncan Currie said: “A discussion on the protection of the marine environment is long overdue at the ISA Assembly considering the global outcry of environmental concerns surrounding deep-sea mining.
The ISA Assembly, as the supreme organ of the ISA, has the legal authority under UNCLOS to establish such a general policy. We are disappointed this didn’t happen this year but we look forward to working with states constructively on the establishment of a General Policy for the protection and preservation of the marine environment next year.”
Moreover, a Mining Code remains far from being agreed – a blow to mining companies – and the unrealistic and artificial 2025 Roadmap remains on the table, with over 30 outstanding regulatory matters still unresolved, undecided or undiscussed.
DSCC Policy Officer Emma Wilson said, “With independent scientists pointing to the risks of deep-sea mining, as well as the absence of a robust scientific understanding of these ecosystems, it’s time for States to zoom out from the technicalities of the mining code and instead address one basic question: is it or is it not safe to allow this industry to proceed under the current circumstances? Rushing to adopt a regulatory regime that would open the gates to a highly destructive activity for an area we know little about is beyond reckless and risks irreparably and permanently damaging our ocean and planet.”
Patricia Roy is a senior press officer for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition and Communications INC. She has worked for more than 10 years in art management and communication in the public and private sectors in France, the UK and Spain. Working with Communications INC, she specialises in European and international media strategy, coordination and outreach for environmental and social campaigns designed by international NGOs.
