Month: October 2022

GENEVA — U.N. economists warn the monetary and fiscal policies of advanced economies risk plunging the world into a recession worse than the financial crisis of 2008. UNCTAD, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development has issued its annual Trade and Development Report 2022.

The authors of the report warn the world is teetering on the edge of a recession due to bad policy decisions by advanced economies, combined with cascading crises resulting from climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the war in Ukraine.

They project this year’s global growth rate of 2.5 percent will slow to 2.2 percent in 2023. This, they say, will leave a cumulative shortfall of more than $17 trillion, close to 20 percent of the world’s income.

The report finds the slowdown is hitting countries in all regions, especially developing countries. It says growth rates in the poorer countries are expected to drop below three percent, damaging development and employment prospects.

UNCTAD Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan says middle-income countries in Latin America, as well as low-income countries in Africa, will register some of the sharpest slowdowns this year.

“In Africa, an additional 58 million people will fall into extreme poverty in 2022 adding to the 55 million already pushed into extreme poverty by the COVID-19 pandemic,” Grynspan said.

Grynspan says developing countries are facing alarming levels of debt distress and under investment. She says 46 developing countries are severely exposed to multiple economic shocks. She adds another 48 countries are seriously exposed, heightening the threat of a global debt crisis.

“So, countries that were showing signs of debt distress before COVID are taking some of the biggest hits, with climate shocks further threatening economic stability,” Grynspan said. “This is increasing the threat of a global debt crisis. So, countries urgently need real debt relief.”

Grynspan says there is still time to step back from the edge of recession if countries use available tools to calm inflation and support vulnerable groups.

Among its recommendations, UNCTAD urges a more pragmatic strategy that deploys strategic price controls, windfall taxes, anti-trust measures and tighter regulations on commodities speculation.

Source: Voice of America

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA — At least 20 people were killed in a triple car bombing attack Monday in central Somalia, among them two local government officials. Witnesses said two vehicles loaded with explosives detonated in the morning, and a third in the afternoon.

The three explosions rocked the city of Beledweyne in central Somalia, killing at least 20 people and injuring dozens more.

Beledweyne police commissioner Bishar Hussein Jimale confirmed the attacks and the death of some local officials.

Jimale said the attacks were planned by al-Shabab, killing officials, civilians and soldiers. He said the victims including the deputy commissioner of finance in the Hiran region and MPs and ministers in Hirshabelle.

Jimale added that rescue operations were still in progress, working to find injured people who are trapped as well as to recover bodies.

“We mourn but we do not cry,” he said in Somali, “and we will take revenge against al-Shabab.”

The U.N. office in Somalia said in a tweet it condemned the attack and sent condolences to the families of the victims.

Two of the bomb attacks struck the Lama Galaay military base, which hosts the offices of the regional president and several local government officials.

One car bomb detonated near the entrance gate, then witnesses said a truck rushed toward the headquarters building and exploded. The third car bomb exploded while heading to the same target.

The attacks come barely a day after the Somali government announced the death of a senior al-Shabab commander identified as Abdulkadir Nadir in an airstrike in the Middle Juba region.

Nadir, who served as al-Shabab’s finance chief was touted to replace the group’s leader Ahmed Diriye, or Abu Ubaidah, who is reported to be sick. He had a $3 million bounty on his head from the U.S. government.

The Somali government described Nadir’s killing as a “thorn removed from the Somali nation.”

The Somali government is involved in a major counterterrorism offensive against al-Shabab in the central regions of the country. The operation has gained the support of local tribal militias in Hiran and Galgaduud who have joined forces with federal and state government authorities.

Source: Voice of America

KAMPALA — The government of Uganda and the U.N. Refugee Agency say a surge of refugees fleeing conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo is tearing apart families and stretching aid resources.

The UNHCR says officials were prepared to help some 68,000 Congolese refugees expected in Uganda, but now 150,000 are predicted to arrive by year’s end.

Congolese refugees stream across Uganda’s western border with the DRC to escape nearly a year of fighting between M23 rebels and DRC government troops.

Senjiwuva Gasigwa Phillipe, one of many refugees crossing into Uganda, says people were forced to flee when gunfire woke them in the middle of the night. He was separated from family members as they fled, but recently has been reunited with them.

Other refugees weren’t so lucky.

Amani Gidide lost contact with three of her children, and is now moving from a transit center to a refugee settlement. With God’s love, she says, her children will be found.

The UNHCR says 71,000 refugees have crossed into Uganda from the DRC since January, and that number is expected to more than double by the end of the year.

UNHCR’s Uganda representative Matthew Crentsil says as a result, resources are overstretched.

“If you look at the funding received now compared to the new needs, given the planning figure which has been reviewed, it’s only about 11 percent or so which has been received, which is woefully inadequate to cover the growing needs of these refugees,” Crentsil said.

Ugandan officials say a holding center for refugees has been opened to support the overflowing transit center, which already hosts some 14,000 refugees.

“We are operating two centers at a go,” said Daniel Kisamo, Nyakabande Refugee Transit and Holding Center refugee commandant. “The transit center being for those ones who are ready to move to the settlement. Then the holding center was designated for those ones who still need to make up their mind. Or in case to wait for their family members, because we know what war does.”

The M23 rebels launched attacks on DRC forces in 2012, saying they were fighting for good governance. After being quiet for nearly a decade, the group resumed fighting in late 2021, seizing territory and causing refugees to flee the violence.

Congo has repeatedly accused its smaller central African neighbor Rwanda of backing the M23, a charge Kigali denies.

Meanwhile, Congolese refugees like Gidide wait, hoping to be reunited with family and return home soon.

Source: Voice of America

Farmers in a small town perched on a northern Lebanese mountain have long refused to accept defeat even as the government abandoned them to a life off the grid.

Harf Beit Hasna receives almost no basic services. No water or sewage system, no streetlight or garbage collection. The only public school is closed. The nearest pharmacy is a long drive down a winding mountain road.

“We live on another planet,” said Nazih Sabra, a local farmer. “The state has completely forgotten us, and so have the politicians and municipalities.”

Its around 2,500 residents have gotten by because of an ingenious solution: They dug trenches, lined them with plastic and use them to collect rainwater. For decades, the rainwater enabled them to grow enough crops for themselves, with a surplus to sell.

But where government neglect didn’t kill Harf Beit Hasna, the combination of climate change and economic disaster now threatens to.

In recent years, rainfall in Lebanon has decreased, straining even the most water-rich country in the Middle East. At the same time, the country’s economy has fallen apart the past two and a half years; families whose livelihoods have been wrecked struggle to afford basics as prices spiral.

Harf Beit Hasna, on a remote mountain plateau above steep valleys, has taken pride in making it on its own with its rain-water pools. The town is dotted with them, most of them the size of a backyard swimming pool.

Sabra said he remembers in his childhood how his grandfather and other farmers could raise livestock and sustain a decent living.

But recent years have gotten harder. As rain declined and temperatures warmed, farmers adapted. They grew less of water-demanding produce like tomatoes and cucumbers and planted tobacco, a more drought-resistant plant.

Now they can barely grow enough to get by.

“If there isn’t rain, you use whatever you have left stored and work with a deficit,” Sabra said. “You can’t even afford to farm anymore.”

Sabra’s field is barren and dry, save some tobacco plants and potatoes. He tried to plant a small patch of tomatoes for his family’s use. But to save water, he had to let them die. The rotting tomatoes swarm with pests.

“There’s nothing we can do with them”, Sabra said, before taking a long drag off his cigarette.

He has a small patch of eggplants surrounded by barren, cracking soil. He hopes he can sell them in the nearby city of Tripoli to buy more potable water for his family this month.

“Those eggplants wouldn’t have been there without the ponds,” he says with a smile. His pool, which can hold around 200 cubic meters of water, was only about a quarter full. The water was green, because he’s been drawing on it slowly, trying to ration out what’s left.

From his field, Sabra can see the Mediterranean Sea on the horizon and, below him, a valley where there are freshwater springs. But gasoline is too expensive for him to drive daily to get water from there. He struggles to afford school for his children. His home hasn’t had electricity for weeks because no power comes from the state network, and he can’t afford fuel for his personal generator.

Government services and infrastructure across Lebanon are decrepit and faltering. But Harf Bait Hasna’s situation is particularly bad.

It’s remote and hard to reach. Administratively, it’s caught between two different municipalities, neither of which wants to deal with it. And, residents say, it has no political patron — a crucial need for any community to get anything in Lebanon’s factionalized politics. Sabra and other farmers say politicians for years have ignored their requests for a well or a connection to the state’s water network.

At Harf Beit Hasna, government neglect and climate change have combined to leave “an area very challenged with water security,” said Sammy Kayed, at the American University of Beirut’s Nature Conservation Center.

The disaster in the town is “much more profound (because) you have an entire community that is reliant on rain-fed agriculture” but can no longer rely on rain, he said.

Kayed, the co-founder and managing director of the Conservation Center’s Environment Academy, is trying to find donors to fund a solar-powered well for the town and to draw officials’ attention to get it connected to the state water network.

Across Lebanon, periods of rainfall have shrunk and the number of consecutive days of high temperatures have increased, said Vahakn Kabakian, the U.N. Development Program’s Lebanon climate change adviser.

A recent report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said water scarcity, pollution, and inequitable water usage add to the difficulties of Lebanon’s agricultural communities. The agriculture sector amounts only to a tiny fraction of the country’s economy and so is often overlooked, and it like the rest of Lebanon’s producers and consumers are struggling with skyrocketing costs.

In Lebanon’s breadbasket in the eastern Bekaa Valley, farmers say their work is disrupted by strange weather patterns because of climate change.

“Rain has declined in its usual period, and we’re seeing our soil dry up and crack. But then we somehow got more rain than usual in June,” Ibrahim Tarchichi, head of the Bekaa Farmers Association told the AP. “We haven’t seen anything like this before in the Bekaa.”

He doesn’t expect anything from Lebanon’s politicians. “Here, you can only expect help from God.”

The government for years has pledged to diversify its economy and invest more in the ailing agriculture sector. But since the economy fell out, the divided ruling clique has hardly been able to formulate any policies, failing to pass a 2022 budget so far and resisting reforms demanded for an International Monetary Fund bailout.

In the meantime, Sabra takes some water from one of his ponds and sighs. He has almost run out of water from the last rainy season in the winter. This is his only lifeline to last until the rains come again.

“There is nothing left for us but the ponds,” he said.

Source: Voice of America                             

The nearly 400-year-old-year Passion play performed by the people of the German alpine village of Oberammergau comes to a close after a nearly five-month run, with viewers saying this year was especially meaningful as the play was delayed by two years by the COVID-19 pandemic. Villagers kept their vow to perform the play every 10 years, made in 1633 to avert the ravages of the plague.

Oberammergau native Christian Stückl has directed the Passion Play for more than 30 years, several times reworking the 100-year-old script, modernizing it, and removing antisemitic references.

“As a spectator you don’t really have to bring anything [in terms of religious understanding], you can just turn up,” Stückl said of the audience that comes from around the world to see the famous production.

“But as a director, if I didn’t have the belief and conviction that there is a certain power behind this story, behind this Jesus, I wouldn’t be able to tell this story,” Stückl said.

Ruth Aspinall traveled from Britain to see the Passion play and said she really liked this year’s production, finding it meaningful in several ways.

“Well, it’s my fifth time of coming and I don’t mean fifth in one year. So, that it explains it all, I would think. Very much so, it’s much simpler. I loved the Resurrection. It’s never been used before. It was just sort of hinted at before. But this time, all the disciples come on and lit candles. Mary was happy. Then everybody sang hallelujah. It ended much more joyful,” said Aspinall.

The play’s deputy director, Abdullah Kenan Karaca, also plays the priest, Nicodemas. Karaca is the son of Turkish immigrants and grew up in Oberammergau, a predominately Catholic village. But the village, too, is becoming reflective of Germany’s increased diversity, taking in refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Ukraine. This is the first time the play has included a leading Muslim actor, Cengiz Gorur. Karaca, a professional theater director, says his first theater experience was performing in the Passion play as a child.

“The motivation why people are in the play is totally different. Some people, because of their faith, they want to fulfill the vow, other ones they just fascinated by the big production we have. Everyone is trying their best and do it really with their heart. This is really beautiful that the Passion play, the story of Jesus, can bring a lot of people together,” he said.

For Oberammergau native Frederik Mayet, one of two actors who plays Jesus, conveying Jesus’ message of love and hope to the audience is important.

“You always have to find the words that reach the people of today. We notice now in this Passion play year, the people are really touched. The power, joy, and enthusiasm we have on stage reaches the people in the auditorium automatically and that’s something special. When the choir is singing, when there are hundreds of persons on stage, sometimes it’s a magical moment,” he said.

Mayet portrayed Jesus for a second time and comes from a family with a long history of participating in the Passion play, starting in 1890. His children, 3 and 8, have also been on stage this year.

Source: Voice of America

The United Nations is calling for an end to discrimination against older people and for recognition of their contributions to society, as it marks the International Day of Older Persons Saturday.

With 1.4 billion people estimated to have reached at least 60 years old by 2030, U.N. officials say that is too many people to ignore and dismiss as inconsequential, especially as older people still make many significant contributions.

At 73, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demonstrates that. In celebration of the day, he commended the accomplishments of older people, whom he called a valuable source of knowledge and experience.

He also praised the resilience of the more than 1 billion older people in facing adversity in a rapidly changing world.

“The past years have witnessed dramatic upheavals and older people often found themselves at the epicenter of crises,” Guterres said. “They are particularly vulnerable to a range of challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the worsening climate crisis, proliferating conflicts, and growing poverty. Yet in the face of these threats, older people have inspired us with their remarkable resilience.”

The World Health Organization says longer life brings opportunities to pursue new activities, such as further education or a new career, depending on a person’s health.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it important for countries to work together to foster healthy aging — an effort that must include older people themselves.

“A collaboration to improve the lives of older people, their families, and their communities,” said Tedros. “In practice that means keeping alert for ageism and supporting older people by engaging them in the community, providing responsive health care, and quality long-term care for those who need it.”

The U.N. says it is important to challenge negative characterizations and misconceptions about the elderly. It calls for an end to age and gender discrimination and for communities to create opportunities for older people who live in them.

Source: Voice of America