All posts by CPNN Coordinator

About CPNN Coordinator

Dr David Adams is the coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the International Year for the Culture of Peace, proclaimed for the Year 2000 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Defending Humanity Against the Elite Coup

. DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION .

Excerpts from a long article by Robert J. Burrows

. . . Evidence has been published pointing at an elite coup with governments around the world introducing draconian measures severely curtailing human rights and freedoms (including those involving the internet) and destroying national economies. . . .

[One of the articles] cites the Rockefeller Foundation’s 2010 document ‘Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development’ with its prescient description of what is taking place now: ‘LOCK STEP – A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback’ . . .

[Editor’s note: The Rockefeller document describes four possible scenarios:
LOCK STEP – A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback
CLEVER TOGETHER – A world in which highly coordinated and successful strategies emerge for addressing both urgent and entrenched worldwide issues
HACK ATTACK – An economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge
SMART SCRAMBLE – An economically depressed world in which individuals and communities develop localized, makeshift solutions to a growing set of priorities.]

In this article I would like to outline a strategic response to prevent this takeover before we find ourselves moving from a version of the dystopian society described in the novel Brave New World to that outlined in the novel 1984 that many of us read as students. . . .

I have outlined this nonviolent strategy, identifying its political purpose – obviously ‘To defend humanity against a political/military coup conducted by the global elite’ – and I have set out a basic list of 26 strategic goals, of which eleven are as follows:

1. To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by wearing a global symbol of human solidarity, such as an image of several people of different genders .. races .. religions .. abilities .. classes holding hands.

2. To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting all corporate media outlets (television, radio, newspapers, Facebook, Twitter…) and by seeking news from progressive news outlets committed to telling the truth.

3. To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by withdrawing all funds from the corporate banks that are supporting the coup and to deposit their money in local community banks or credit unions.

4. [Note: The editor is skeptical about claims in some of the references provided to justify a fourth item that proposes refusal to submit to vaccinations: ‘COVID-19 – The Fight for a Cure: One Gigantic Western Pharma Rip-Off’, ‘The National Plan to Vaccinate Every American’ and ‘A Serious Warning about the Toxicity of Aluminum-Adjuvanted Vaccines – Especially for Infants and the Elderly’]

5. To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by boycotting corporate supermarkets and by supporting small and family businesses, and local markets.

(continued in right column)

Question related to this article:
 
How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

(continued from left column).

6. To cause people and groups all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in other locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For this item and many subsequent, see the list of possible nonviolent actions in the document ‘198 Tactics of Nonviolent Action’.

7. To cause the workers in trade unions or labor organizations . .. all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include withdrawing labor from an elite-controlled bank, media, pharmaceutical or other corporation operating in your country.

8. To cause the small farmers and farmworkers in organizations . . . all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include distributing farm produce through (existing or created) grassroots networks to small and family businesses as well as local markets rather than through corporate supply chains.

9. To cause the indigenous peoples . . . all around the world to join the resistance strategy by participating in locally relevant nonviolent action(s)/campaign(s) and/or constructive program activities. For example, this might include utilizing indigenous knowledge to improve local self-reliance in food production and in other ways.

10. To cause the soldiers and military police in army units . . . wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

11. To cause the police . . . wherever stationed around the world, to refuse to obey orders from the global elite and its agents to arrest, assault, torture and shoot nonviolent activists and the other citizens of [your country].

. . . Conclusion

Humanity is at a crossroads it has never before faced. . ..

the vast bulk of government handouts are going to wealthy corporations. See ‘The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security, CARES Act Is Business Giveaway, “Handout” to Monied Interests’.

If you lack the inclination or courage to do the research to understand the nature and depth of this crisis and/or to join the struggle to resist the elite takeover of our world, you are encouraged to support those who do have the inclination and courage. If you simply believe that the ‘COVID-19 crisis’ will pass and everything will revert to how it was, it might be worth reading some political history (focusing on life in those countries that suffered or still suffer under dictatorship or occupation) or simply checking out what Israel is doing now. See ‘Americans Beware: Trump Could Emulate Netanyahu’s Coronavirus Coup’. We are already so far beyond the possibility of ‘a return to how it was’ that the only realistic question worth asking now is ‘How bad will it be?’

In short, this struggle to restore our rights, economic well-being and freedoms will not be won easily. And it will come at significant cost. But it is only if enough people are willing to risk paying that cost, and apply their energy strategically, that this struggle for our humanity can actually be won.

I intend to do everything I can to ensure that we succeed. I hope that you will too.

About the Author: Robert J. Burrowes resides in Australia and has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence. He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981.

DEMOCRATIC PARTICIPATION, global

“Education Nobel”, Global Teachers’ Prize includes three Brazilian teachers.

… EDUCATION FOR PEACE …

An article by Débora Garofalo on the website of Universo Online

Despite the alarming news of the last few days, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we received excellent news last week: three Brazilian teachers, are on the list of the TOP 50 of the biggest award for teachers in the world and considered the “Nobel of Education”, it is the Global Teacher Prize, announced by the Varkey Foundation, organizer/sponsor of the UNESCO partnership award.


Photos from the site of Global Teacher Prize

In particular, it is a gift for me, since I was the first Brazilian woman and the first South American to arrive as a finalist in 2019, in the TOP 10. It recognized my work of robotics with scrap that consists of collecting garbage from the streets, materials and equipment recyclables in robotics prototypes, a job that ranked me among the best teachers in the world. The award was an incredible experience for me! In this same edition of the prize, we had Professor Jayse Ferreira, from Itambé, Pernambuco, among the TOP 50, with the winner being Professor Peter Tabishi, from Kenya.

This demonstrates the importance of recognizing and valuing teachers. The three finalist Brazilians of the 2020 edition, Doani, Francisco and Lília are public school teachers and their works were selected by an international jury. The work of these teachers has in common the engagement of students, mainly from poor areas with low income, in significant and transformative activities.

Discover the work of the Brazilian finalists

Doani Emanuela Bertan works as a bilingual teacher of Portuguese and Brazilian Sign Language. The school where she teaches is located in Campinas, São Paulo, in a poor area with high dropout rates. Doani and her colleagues started looking for new strategies to optimize learning. She teaches LIBRAS the Brazilian sign language system for her hearing impaired students and started promoting video calls to answer her questions and concerns in daily classes.

These online tutorials have become bilingual video classes, allowing knowledge to spread outside the school environment. In addition to using technology as a tool, they allow flexible learning times and spaces, they support parents and families, and they enable new educational experiences.

All of her classes have been uploaded to a YouTube channel and everyone now has free access. Her school stands out for its high enrollment of students with hearing impairments and teachers who promote LIBRAS as an effective inclusion tool. Doani’s commitment has led her to go beyond formal working hours and take advantage of the opportunities that technology allows.

Francisco Celso de Freitas is a history teacher, specialist in inclusive education and instructor of social mediators. He works at the Educational Center of the Santa María Penitentiary Unit, in the city of Brasília, where young people can attend classes from prison.

Francisco is the founder and coordinator of the RAP Project (Resocialization, Autonomy and Protagonism), that uses the musicality of rap and poetry as an emancipatory pedagogical tool capable of promoting the values ​​of a culture of peace and human rights with historical ties.

The project serves about 150 adolescents (boys and girls), kept in the Unit of the Federal District of Santa Maria, who have had problems with the law, sometimes due to acts of violence, and who may be prone to self-harm and suicide attempts. The project’s young people benefited from socioeconomic education and rehabilitation, recording videos, participating in music and culture festivals and the resources produced by the project, such as music, video clips and e-books, that are put online for free so that others could enjoy benefits.

(Click here for the original article in Portuguese)

Questions for this article:

What is the relation between peace and education?

Francisco has received wide recognition and awards for the RAP project. He has participated in conferences and visited schools to give lectures on the value of this form of social mediation and resocialization, to combat the use and abuse of drugs, and to face various forms of prejudice and the decriminalization of urban culture.

In addition, he accompanies the youth after they complete their period in the Penitentiary Unit, to ensure that they will not return to the same cycle of violence that led them there. Most of the graduates have managed to reintegrate into society and some have dedicated themselves to rap, making presentations, recording albums and video clips with messages about freedom and meeting the demands of young people. Despite the harsh reality, Francisco has been able to inspire and motivate his students so that they understand that education is the path to new opportunities in life.

Lília Melo grew up in a disadvantaged area and since childhood she wanted to contribute to reducing social differences. She found her way in teaching. Lília Melo teaches poor children and young people in a needy and often violent area of ​​Belém, in northern Brazil, where murders, drug trafficking and rape are common.

To help her students deal with the situation, Lília wrote a project entitled “Black youth from the periphery of extermination to protagonism” on improving art at school and in the community. She started offering weekend workshops on drum, capoeira, dance, theater, poetry, some at school, others on the streets and squares, which formed ties with the local community. After Lília wrote in the local media about her students being too poor to have access to Marvel’s “Black Panther” movie, local companies got together and funded 400 tickets so that young people could watch the film.

From the collection of photos and videos that narrated the film’s event, the idea arose to produce a documentary, which received several awards. Lília decided to reinvest the funds received in the purchase of equipment. They bought cameras, lenses and a new production was made by young students at the school.

The debates helped to reinforce the film’s message and reflect on the importance of representation in fiction. Eventually, the students themselves became protagonists as universities, museums and companies became interested and got in touch to listen to students and learn their stories, inviting them to give lectures. Instead of being quiet in an auditorium, students went there to be heard.

All of Lília’s projects were carried out with little infrastructure and little equipment. The school significantly increased enrollment rates, the dropout rate decreased and learning outcomes improved. Many of their students have become leaders in the arts, protagonists of their own history, being an inspiration to their community.

The above information about teachers’ work has been taken from the Global Teacher Prize website.

I think that being in the top 50 is a gift. These teachers were selected from more than 12,000 submissions from 140 countries, and they deserve our full recognition. We will be cheering, because they are deserving of everything they have been doing for Education.

Now, they become part of a group of 300 world ambassador professors, together with the finalists of previous editions of the award, with intense participation and annual meeting in different countries for the expansion and exchange of knowledge.

Being recognized among the best teachers in the world totally changes our conception of the role of teacher and increases our responsibility to continue to strive for quality education and equity for all.

All the teachers who go through this experience continue to serve as an example, among them, we can highlight the teachers Marcio Batista, Rubens Ferronato, Jayse Ferreira, Diego Mahfouz and Valter Pereira and many others who promote difference and are agents of transformation. We need to recognize, value and support our teachers. Congratulations, teachers, for transforming lives!

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Latin America

Venezuela pays tribute to the genius who made music an instrument for liberation, José Antonio Abreu

EDUCATION FOR PEACE .

An article from Venezuela television

The Venezuelan people are paying tribute to the genius who made music an instrument for liberation, José Antonio Abreu, on the second anniversary of his death, according to the President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, in his Twitter social network user @NicolasMaduro.

Abreu was an outstanding Venezuelan musician, who conceived the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela. He was born in the city of Valera, Trujillo state, on May 7, 1939.

(Click here for the original article in Spanish.)

(Article continued in the right column)

Question for this article:

What place does music have in the peace movement?

(Article continued from the left column)

He served as Ambassador for Peace and Goodwill at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) due to the social impact and cultural of his work, especially in those countries determined to lower the levels of poverty, illiteracy, marginality and exclusion in their children and youth population.

Jose Antonio Abreu was also the architect of a model for music education and social inclusion, a model that has been replicated in more than 70 countries on the five continents: Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania, according to a press release from the Simón Bolívar Musical Foundation published on its website.

This new model, created 44 years ago and known as the National System of Youth and Children’s Orchestras and Choirs of Venezuela, involved 1,012,077 boys, girls and young people from low-income social strata.

Through the individual and collective practice of music and the creation of nuclei and academic centers of the country, this cultural organization has become a comprehensive platform to prepare citizens in the concept of a culture of peace and justice.

EDUCATION FOR PEACE, Latin America

IPB Statement: Call to the G20 to Invest in Healthcare Instead of Militarization

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

A press release from the International Peace Bureau

The world’s oldest peace NGO, the Nobel Prize-winning IPB [International Peace Bureau] has called on G20 world leaders who are gathering via virtual means this coming week to send a message of peace and solidarity to the world as they address the global health emergency.

This is a time to open a new page in global relations to put geopolitical tensions to one side, to end proxy wars, for a ceasefire in those many conflicts around the world all of which stand to hamper a global solidarity effort.

We have to lift the shadow of war and military brinkmanship which has blighted global cooperation in recent years and work to ensure that a spirit of peace and solidarity prevails.

The IPB has long drawn the world’s attention to the increasing velocity of the global arms race.

Our communities are paying a high price for an arms race that has diverted resources from the basic health and welfare needs of the people.

We are all paying a heavy price for failed leadership and misplaced market-driven practices that have weakened our means to address this emergency, which has hit the weakest hardest.

Healthcare Stress

We are now seeing the consequences of underinvesting in healthcare infrastructure, hospitals, and staff.

Hospitals are overburdened, nurses are exhausted, materials are scarce, and life and death decisions are made on who can and cannot have access to the scarce number of ventilators available. Doctors and nurses are handicapped by the irresponsibility of past political and economic decision making.

All over the world, health systems are reaching the limits of their strength and heroic front-line staff are under massive pressure.

The coronavirus emergency shows what a weakened state our societies find themselves in to protect the people: a world driven by financialization, shareholder value and austerity have weakened our ability to defend the common good and placed human life in danger on a global scale.

Employees fearful of job and income loss are tempted to go to work sick. Older people are vulnerable and need help. The virus hits the weakest hardest.

Privatization, austerity measures, the neoliberal system have brought the local, regional and national health services to the brink of collapse.

In the last two decades the number of doctors working in the healthcare system has been reduced by a third in Western European countries.

In Italy, the healthcare budget has been cut by 37 billion euros in recent years.

The WHO warns that we are facing a shortage of 18 million healthcare workers by 2030.

Municipalities urgently need support in order to increase numbers of available staff. And now these policies are taking their toll, especially where hospitals have been closed on a massive scale in recent years (or privatized for the benefit of the rich), and in some (particularly rural) regions this has restricted basic care.

We can already draw lessons for the future:

Health is a human right for the young and old, for all people in all parts in the world.

Healthcare and nursing care must never be slashed or subordinated in the pursuit of profit through privatization.

The importance of decent work for all healthcare staff and continued investment in their education and training.

(continued in right column)

(click here for the press release in French and click here for Spanish.)

Question related to this article:
 
How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

(continued from left column).

Time for a Global Social Contract

As each hour passes, the full scale of the crisis becomes clearer.

This week the ILO reported on the labour market consequences:

A potential loss of 25 million jobs, which is more than those lost during the 2008 financial crisis.

Working poverty is expected to increase significantly, where up to 35 million additional people could be impacted.

Income losses for workers could reach 3.4 trillion dollars.

We support the efforts of the trade union movement globally, regionally and nationally, in their call for a new social contract.

We support their call for economic measures and resources to protect jobs, incomes, public services, and the welfare of people.

This requires a commitment from the business community to keep people in work and the support they are promised to receive from their governments must be conditional on their adhering to the social contract for job security and incomes.

G20: Priority to Disarmament

The world spends 1.8 trillion dollars on military expenditure every year and is scheduled to spend 1 trillion dollars on new nuclear weapons in the next 20 years.

World military exercises cost more than 1 billion dollars each year, and arms production and arms exports are on the increase in the world’s leading economies.

The G20 cannot sweep these facts under the carpet. Military spending is 50 per cent higher today than at the end of the Cold War. It stands at a staggering 1,8 trillion US dollars a year, while NATO is demanding further increases from its members.

The G20 are responsible for 82 per cent of global military spending, account for almost all arms exports, and hold 98 per cent of the world’s nuclear bombs on their collective territory. The G20 is a shared platform that brings together the interests of the main players in the global arms race.

In addition, billions are spent on military research, money which would be better invested in health and human needs and research to help the fight against global climate change.

Militarization is the wrong path for the world to take; it fuels tensions and raises the potential for war and conflict and aggravates already heightened nuclear tensions.

Even so, the policy architecture that was put in place to control nuclear expansion and disarmament is ignored or even weakened.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ 2020 Doomsday Clock published in February stood at 100 seconds to midnight – the closest it has been to midnight in its 70-year history – and this global pandemic has pushed the second hand even closer.

World leaders must put disarmament and peace back in the center of policy making.

Global leaders have to develop a new agenda for disarmament and that includes the banning of nuclear weapons. We call once again for governments to sign on to the TPNW.

Without it, we are handicapping our fight against future health pandemics, to eradicate poverty, hunger, to provide education and healthcare for all, as well as the realization of the SDG 2030 goals.

Disarmament is one of the keys to the great transformation of our economies, to ensure that human beings and not profit are most valued; economies in which ecological challenges – above all the crisis of climate change – will be solved and global social justice will be pursued.

With disarmament the implementation of the SDGs, a global social contract, and a new global green peace deal, we can address the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

We know from the history of our own organization and many of our member organizations that in such crises, democracy must be defended above all else, and it must be defended against increasingly authoritarian states.

We are calling for a culture of peace. A peaceful path means that we need a global strategy, a global social contract, and global cooperation to ensure planet-wide support for people. This will be the human solidarity of the 21st century – for and with the people.

IPB is willing and able to work on establishing this peaceful path – in collaboration with partners all over the world.
That is why we say that an initiative from the G20 to move away from a culture of militarization towards a culture of peace is both urgent and necessary.

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, global, TOLERANCE & SOLIDARITY

UN Secretary-General calls for global ceasefire

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

Transcript of virtual press conference March 23 by the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Our world faces a common enemy: COVID-19.
 
The virus does not care about nationality or ethnicity, faction or faith.  It attacks all, relentlessly.
 
Meanwhile, armed conflict rages on around the world. 


UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

The most vulnerable — women and children, people with disabilities, the marginalized and the displaced — pay the highest price.
 
They are also at the highest risk of suffering devastating losses from COVID-19.
 
Let’s not forget that in war-ravaged countries, health systems have collapsed.
 
Health professionals, already few in number, have often been targeted.
 
Refugees and others displaced by violent conflict are doubly vulnerable.
 
The fury of the virus illustrates the folly of war.

(continued in right column)

Question(s) related to this article:

What is the United Nations doing for a culture of peace?

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

(continued from left column)

That is why today, I am calling for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world.
 
It is time to put armed conflict on lockdown and focus together on the true fight of our lives.
 
To warring parties, I say:
 
Pull back from hostilities. 
 
Put aside mistrust and animosity.
 
Silence the guns; stop the artillery; end the airstrikes.
 
This is crucial…
 
To help create corridors for life-saving aid.
 
To open precious windows for diplomacy.
 
To bring hope to places among the most vulnerable to COVID-19.
 
Let us take inspiration from coalitions and dialogue slowly taking shape among rival parties in some parts to enable joint approaches to COVID-19.  But we need much more.
 
End the sickness of war and fight the disease that is ravaging our world.
 
It starts by stopping the fighting everywhere. Now.
 
That is what our human family needs, now more than ever.

(Note: The call by Guterres for a ceasefire has been applauded by the belligerents in the Yemen war which gives hope for a ceasefire there.)
 

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, United Nations,

Coronavirus: Ministers urged to divert military spending to tackle pandemic

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY .

An article from the Peace Pledge Union

Boris Johnson is facing calls to reallocate “defence” budgets towarsd the NHS, social care and community support for people affected coronavirus and isolation.

The Peace Pledge Union  (PPU) said that bombs and guns cannot defend people from a pandemic.

The PPU has repeatedly accused UK governments of endangering the public by wasting money on preparations for war while doing little to prepare for real threats such as climate change or possible pandemics.

The UK government maintains the seventh highest military budget in the world.

The government’s own National Security Capability Review in 2018 listed major outbreaks of disease as one of the most likely threats facing the UK. The threat of pandemics was also identified by the government’s Strategic Defence and Security Reviews in 2010 and 2015.

While some troops  may be involved with tasks such as food distribution, the PPU pointed out that many other UK troops are about to take part in a large-scale NATO training exercise across Europe, which is one of the few major events not to be cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The PPU insisted that the NATO exercise should be immediately cancelled and the costs and people involved reallocated to helping to tackle the pandemic.

(Article continued on the right column)

Question for this article:
 
Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

How can we work together to overcome this medical and economic crisis?

(Article continued from the left column)

The Peace Pledge Union said that money diverted from military budgets could contribute towards NHS and social care costs as well as initiatives to assist people who are losing their jobs or struggling to pay the rent owing to the coronavirus outbreak, or to support people whose mental health is affected by isolation.

The PPU added that this should mark the beginning of a permanent shift of funding away from armed force and towards measures that really make people safe, tackling problems such as ill-health, poverty and climate change.

Ceri Dare, a Public Health Researcher and member of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), said:

“We could be facing this crisis, which the government’s own assessments told us was coming, with the weapons we truly needed to win: a resilient NHS, local councils funded to fulfil their responsibilities in Public Health, Social Care for disabled and older people. We could have had a society where the people who make our lives possible, the cleaners, the shelf-stackers, the waste collectors, the social care workers, the delivery drivers, were paid and respected for the vital work they do.

“Instead of this, we are armed only with the useless weapons of war. We cannot battle our way out of an pandemic with bombs and guns. The lies of ‘defence’ ring hollow now. We need what we have always needed, to love and care for one another, to work together as neighbours, as communities, as nations, and we need that more than we ever have before.”

Symon Hill, Campaigns Manager of the Peace Pledge Union (PPU), added:

“In this crisis, everyone needs support from others, some especially so. This costs money. The government can still divert funds away from multi-million pound weapons and NATO training exercises. Let’s fund things that will really help to make us safe. You can’t nuke a virus.”

(Thank you to Joe Yannielli, the CPNN reporter for this article.)

DISARMAMENT & SECURITY, Europe

China to Expel New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal Reporters From Country

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

An article by Ken Meyer in Mediaite reprinted according to Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License for non-commercial reproduction with credit to the source site.

The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that they will expel American journalists from three news outlets — the New York Times, Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal — who are stationed to work in the country.

The press release, entitled “China Takes Countermeasures Against US Suppression of Chinese Media Organizations in the United States,” claims that “the US government has placed unwarranted restrictions on Chinese media agencies and personnel in the US, purposely made things difficult for their normal reporting assignments, and subjected them to growing discrimination and politically-motivated oppression.” The announcement goes on to say that the Chinese government will direct a number of retaliatory measures against The New York Times, Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Voice of America and Time Magazine.

(Article continued in the column on the right)

Question related to this article:
 
Free flow of information, How is it important for a culture of peace?

(Article continued from the column on the left)

The first demand was for all five outlets to provide the government “written form information about their staff, finance, operation and real estate in China.” Most notably, the statement goes on by saying American journalists for The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are all ordered to leave China, along with Hong Kong and Macao, in the next 10 days.

“In response to the US slashing the staff size of Chinese media outlets in the US, which is expulsion in all but name, China demands that journalists of US citizenship working with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post whose press credentials are due to expire before the end of 2020 notify the Department of Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs within four calendar days starting from today and hand back their press cards within ten calendar days. They will not be allowed to continue working as journalists in the People’s Republic of China, including its Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions.”

The statement continues by hinting at further “reciprocal measures against American journalists” in response to “discriminatory restrictions” on Chinese journalists.

Last month, China expelled three WSJ journalists over an opinion that called the country “the real sick man of Asia.” The piece focused on China’s failed attempts to stop the coronavirus before it became a global pandemic, and it was decried as “malicious slander” by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman.

East Asia, FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, North America, ,

Federico Mayor pays tribute to Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION

A blog by Federico Mayor (translation by CPNN)

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, former Secretary General of the United Nations (1982-1991), architect, among many other important achievements, of the peace processes in Mozambique, with the Community of Sant’Egidio, that of El Salvador and restart Guatemala. In the last two, I participated actively, following his guidelines as Director-General of UNESCO (1987-1999). His serenity and measure were always accompanied by great firmness and decisive action, with great logistical capacity. He was very demanding in the exercise of democratic multilateralism. He believed in the value and strength of the word, of the encounter, of the outstretched hand.


Javier Pérez de Cuéllar

Working with him was a very sobering experience. His clear vision, his conviction that the solution lies in the encounter, in the dialogue, in the mediation and conciliation constitute a luminous legacy that could clarify many challenges, some potentially irreversible, that confront humanity today.

We are in “… times of doubts and resignations in which noise drowns out words”, as Miquel Martí i Pol so beautifully wrote in 1981 (in “L’ámbit de tots el ámbits)”). As Secretary-General, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar was committed equally to freedom of expression and non-violence, but now the voices of the United Nations and its Institutions have been silenced. Now, more than ever – as between Calvino and Castellio – the principle of the word must be defended against the sword. Silencing “the voice of the world” goes against humanity’s interests, encouraging frustration, exclusion, radicalization.

Tireless on the path of reconciliation and concord, his life followed the common thread of his principles. From his time as Secretary-General, it is important to highlight how he made the orgaization effective, which is not easy given its complexity and the historical moment in which he carried out his responsibility with special dedication and a vision for the future. Despite the achievements made, “the majority of humanity still lives in conditions of poverty … and human excesses threaten the environment on which we all depend … There will be conflicts in the world until human aspirations can be more fully satisfied …”, he writes in the introduction to his book “Pilgrimage for Peace”, published in New York in 1997.

His reflections on the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and the Security Council, relations with the United States and the role of NGOs and civil society could help today to redirect global governance, which is now irresponsibly placed in the hands of plutocratic groups. In the face of deadly invasions based on lies occur, the United Nations System is marginalized and outbreaks of xenophobia, supremacy and racism proliferate, refugee reception is neglected and development cooperation is reduced to shameful minimums.

At the ECOSOC meeting of 7 July 1988 in Geneva on international economic and social policy, I had an opportunity to directly appreciate his unusual ability as the Secretary-General. I participated in the debate with the participation of the United States, the Administrator of UNDP, Greece representing the European Economic Community, the United Kingdom, Germany, Tunisia (on behalf of the Group of 77), Canada, the Executive Director of UNICEF , China, Soviet Union …

(continued in the column on the right)

(Click here for the original Spanish.)

Questions related to this article:

Where in the world can we find good leadership today?

(continued from the column on the left)

Before assuming the United Nations General Secretariat, he had already achieved great successes, such as the one he achieved in 1974 when, as the UN Commissioner, he was able to broker an agreement in Cyprus between the Greek and Turkish leaders.

Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, has left us but he remains, as in the verse by Miguel Hernández, who also became invisible on a fateful day, but is always with us: “I’m leaving, I’m leaving, I’m leaving, but I’m staying… ”

In October 1987, he received the Prince of Asturias Award “for promoting Ibero-American cooperation.” In February 1989, the Nehru Prize “for international understanding”.

On January 19, 2000, I participated in Lima, with the “Discourse on Order”, in the tribute paid to the universities of Lima and Salamanca on their eightieth birthday. In these last twenty years, we have been in constant contact and have supported multiple initiatives in favor of multilateralism.

I end with a verse I dedicated to him in 1989:

“We must all build
in a place that is
in the middle of nowhere,
on the brink of the abyss.
Outside the borders
of the prosperous lands,
in the unknown swamps.
(No, you are not unknown,
the ignored swamps
where our past
sinks
progressively,
each day
before eyes that are
indifferent
and distant,
of the helpless
who cannot,
who don’t know,
of the well-to-do
who don’t hear,
who do not want to …).

To preserve memory,
the footprints of men,
their paths past,
to clarify
their steps tomorrow
we must, my children,
my friends,
you whom I do not know,
we must build everything
next to the abyss,
in the place,
rough and unique,
of our future,
and create only wealth
that can be shared”.

People with such a long journey and unusual attitude leave an imperishable mark. One day, they are absent and they become invisible, but what matters most remains: citizens of the world, continue to illuminate the paths of tomorrow and set new directions for future generations.

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION, global, United Nations,

The Most Successful Air Pollution Treaty You’ve Never Heard Of

. . SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT . .

An article by Elizabeth Moses, Beatriz Cardenas, and Jessica Seddon in the blog of the World Resources Institute

International consensus on cross-border environmental issues has been difficult to achieve, but the 40-year-old Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air-Pollution (or LRTAP as it is known to development professionals) has enjoyed great, if largely unsung, success in the fight against air pollution and climate change. The Convention also led to cleaner air and healthier forests, soils, and lakes in North America, and prevented 600,000 premature deaths annually in Europe.


Scooter-riders with face masks in Hanoi, Vietnam
”

Signed in 1979 by 32 European countries, the United States, and Canada, the agreement initially aimed to tackle acid rain. Over time, it became a model for effective international environmental cooperation, bringing together scientists and policymakers to solve complex transboundary problems. To date, over 51 countries have joined the Convention and a total of 8 protocols or international agreements have been added to address a range of environmental and health problems caused by industrialization, agricultural modernization, and fossil fuel consumption, including ground-level ozone, black carbon, persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals, and particulate matter. These agreements are based on scientific assessment that identifies actions required to improve human health and ecosystems.

The Convention has delivered concrete results. Emissions of particulate matter and sulphur dropped by 30–80% since 1990 in Europe and 30–40% in North America. In Europe, these measures have extended life expectancy by a year. Nitrogen oxide releases have also been halved and lead pollution levels in UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) countries have been reduced by almost 80% between 1990–2012.

What Cities Can Learn from the Convention

This success is especially relevant for cities. With industrialization and population growth, air pollution is worsening in many developing cities, where pollution levels can be 4–14 times higher than World Health Organization air pollutant health guidelines. Because non-urban sources could also be major contributors to urban air pollution, many cities will be unable to reduce air pollution through local action alone. The Convention provides scientific tools, models, data, monitoring methods, guidance documents, and best practices so that cities can holistically address air pollution at the local level.

Policies Supported by Science

Unlike other environmental or climate change conventions, the Convention puts scientists in the same room as policymakers. This structure ensures that collaborative working groups, which include technical and scientific expertise across different fields, are linked to the political negotiation and decision-making process. This two-way engagement allows scientific information based on model outputs to define outcomes. Outcomes may involve reaching an agreement on pollution reduction levels, while also ensuring political negotiations and international political processes provide input on priorities for scientific research.

Ongoing interaction between policy makers and scientists has spurred informal communication, which has built trust and resulted in a common base of scientific research and knowledge. The Convention has been successful at fostering neutral, uncontroversial scientific results that can be used to foster good decision-making. Other conventions should take note and follow its lead.

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Question for this article:

Despite the vested interests of companies and governments, Can we make progress toward sustainable development?

(Article continued from the left column)

A Multi-Pollutant Approach

The introduction of the critical loads concept, implemented through the use of the RAINS (Regional Acidification Information Simulation) model, helped revolutionize the scientific assessments used to make decisions under the Convention. It was a key reason the Convention was able to move from a substance-to-substance to multi-pollutant strategy used in the Gothenburg Protocol to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground-Level Ozone.

This concept integrates environmental effects of one or more pollutants with emission source data, atmospheric transportation estimates and abatement cost information. As a result, the Convention has created multiple reduction strategy options that are focused on effects instead of specific emission limits. These strategies enable states to focus on different pollutants at different times, and how they affect multiple environmental problems.

This scientific innovation increased state capacity to develop pollution reductions at lower costs and with more flexibility. It also provided states with optimized plans to use in their negotiations and facilitated the ability to secure political and private sector support for emission reduction strategies.

Flexible Enforcement & Transparent Data

The convention’s executive body approaches noncompliance through facilitation and cooperation. The body offers practical suggestions to accelerate emissions reductions. It also makes emission data reported by each party to the Convention publicly available, including historical trends, benchmarks and the strategies and policies they use.

Parties are required to report emissions and projections annually. Countries that haven’t complied with the convention’s emission targets must explain the reasons and problems they faced with implementation. This transparency and access to data has driven progress, strengthened compliance and reinforced incentives to respond to political demands.

Successful International Environmental Cooperation

Many view the Convention as one of the most successful ways of facilitating international environmental cooperation. The convention involves scientific coordination led by the European Monitoring and Evaluation Programme (EMEP). EMEP collects emission data, measures air and precipitation quality and models atmospheric transport and deposition of air pollutants. These data are used to evaluate the quantity and significance of transboundary fluxes (changes to air pollutant composition and concentrations) and any areas that exceed critical loads and threshold levels.

The Convention’s intergovernmental policy collaboration and coordination has simulated broader action on air pollution, including technical and policy ratification support to Eastern European countries. Convention representatives have also engaged with other international and regional agreements and organizations, such as the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, the Minamata Convention on Mercury, the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, regional seas conventions such as HELCOM and OSPAR and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition around the intersectionality of air pollution and other environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss.

What’s Next?

Considering the success of this agreement, deeper engagement with the Convention Executive Body at the UNECE could help other regions and non-member countries apply these lessons and drive momentum for multi-jurisdictional action. After the Convention’s 40th anniversary, the executive body established a forum for collaboration on reducing air pollution. The goal is that this will promote integrated approaches to address air pollution, aimed at achieving multiple benefits to human health, the economy, ecosystems, and efforts across sectors that improve air quality. 

(Thank you to the Good News Agency for calling this article to our attention>)

global, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

A day without us’: What was the National Women’s Strike in Mexico and why did it take place?

. . WOMEN’S EQUALITY . .

An article by Cecilia González in RT.com (Russian television) (translation by CPNN)

Echoing the cry, ‘A day without us’, millions of Mexicans participated Monday March 9 in the National Women’s strike sparked by the wave of outrage over femicides and expanded to a long list of demands of the feminist agenda.


Video about the demonstration on International Women’s Day, Mexico City, March 8, 2020. Photo: Gustavo Graf / Reuters

Following the massive march on Sunday, in commemoration of International Women’s Day, public and private workers were called to leave offices, banks, supermarkets, restaurants, coffee shops, newspapers, shops and all kinds of work centers. The women who joined will also not perform domestic tasks to make their weight visible in the economy and society and to denounce the multiple aspects of gender violence.

A survey published last week by the newspaper El Financiero revealed that the strike had the support of 67% nationwide and that 57% of women intended to join it, demonstrating the progress of the feminist revolution that is now worldwide and that is writing a separate chapter here in Mexico.

In Mexico, 51% of the population and 52% of the voters are women. And they vote more than men. According to official data, in the 2018 presidential elections, which Andrés Manuel López Obrador won, 66.2% of the voters were women.

10 women killed every day

But inequality persists. A study by the International Observatory of Worthy Wages and the National Minimum Wages Commission estimates that Mexicans do work on a daily basis worth around 3,000 million dollars, but only one third of this is paid.

According to the Observatory of Decent Work of the organization Citizen Action Against Poverty, in the country men earn 16% more than women. The wage gap widens to 30% in the public sector.

Inequality is repeated in other areas. Data from the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Development Policy indicate that there are more women than men in poverty: 27.3 million versus 25 million.

Reports of the Reinserta organization, meanwhile, conclude that the courts impose an average of five years imprisonment more on the Mexican women than on the men.

Violence is rampant. Last year, there were 51,146 complaints of sexual violence against women in the country, an increase of 19.1% compared to 2018. The trend continues to rise. Also in 2019, in Mexico 10 women are killed every day. Three years ago, the average was seven women killed.

That is why femicides became this year’s central theme of public conversation in Mexico and had a full impact on President López Obrador’s political agenda.

The National Women’s strike began to germinate in social networks following the shocking murders of Ingrid Escamilla, a 25-year-old girl who died stabbed and skinned, and Fatima, a seven-year-old girl who was found lying in a bag, with signs of torture.

(article continued in right column)

(Click here for the original article in Spanish or click here for a translation to French)

Questions related to this article:

Protecting women and girls against violence, Is progress being made?

(article continued from left column)

When the crimes occurred, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero was involved in a controversy over his proposal to eliminate the classification “femicide” and replace it with “aggravated homicide.” The intention, according to him, was to improve the investigation and delivery of justice, but feminist organizations warned that this eliminated the gender component in the murder. The president rejected the initiative, but at a press conference he was upset and warned that he did not want to talk only about femicides because he also planned to promote the raffle of the presidential plane.

Critics of the López Obrador government and opportunism of the right

Mobilizations against femicides increased. The president responded with a diatribe against violence to women with inane phrases such as “protect the lives of all human beings”, “it is cowardice to attack women”, “women must be respected” and “punish to the guilty. ” He presented no specific strategies, policies or objectives. He later spoke of “a deep crisis of values,” of “decay” and that “only by being good can we be happy.” He called for “continuing moralizing, purifying public life” and blamed the femicides on neoliberalism.

With each statement he irritated the feminist groups more and more, but the president was even more surprised when he asked them to make their protests peaceful and no longer paint doors and walls of public buildings.

It was at those times that the collective Brujas del Mar reacted to the social unrest and through Twitter called for the Strike on Monday. The adhesion was immediate and massive.

In response, López Obrador denounced the opportunism of his “adversaries”, the “neoliberals”, “the conservatives” and “the right”, who supported and promoted the day only to criticize the government, as the case of the historic and right-wing Party Action National who promoted the Strike, but he continued his rejection of abortion even though it is one of the main feminist demands.

The political opposition tried to sell the idea that the strike was against López Obrador, although feminists are struggling against much more than just the government. Although the president showed some signs of understanding the women’s movement, he continued to make unfortunate responses. He announced, for example, that the presidential plane raffle would be held on March 9, that is, on the same day as the Women’s Strike. There were so many criticisms that he had to change the date.

The president’s reactions could explain, according to a survey published last week by the newspaper El Universal, that women’s support for his government has declined by 24.6% over the past 12 months.

One of the few achievements on the gender agenda that López Obrador can boast is that he is the only president who has appointed a cabinet with gender parity. In fact, in the midst of the political crisis unleashed by femicides, last week these ministers met together for the first time and said that the president does understand feminism and that women’s rights are a priority.

On Friday, however, López Obrador refused to define himself as a feminist. “I am a humanist,” he said.

Beyond the political disputes, the Strike managed to talk about femicides, abortion, inequitable salaries, lack of childcare, cultural pressures, generalized misogyny in the media, in social networks, in homes and harassment in the workplace..

Aggressions against women have been made more visible and discussed more than ever, but it is clear that there is still much work to be done to eradicate gender inequality and violence in the country.

Latin America, WOMEN'S EQUALITY