Monthly Archives: May 2017

Brazil

New scandal erupts that threatens to force out Brazilian President Temer


Demonstrators protest against Brazilian President Michel Temer along Paulista Avenue in Sao Paulo, Brazil on May 18 2017. (Nelson Almeida/AFP/Getty Images)
By Marina Lopes and Nick Miroff May 18 at 3:07 PM
BRASILIA —  Brazilian President Michel Temer defied calls for his resignation Thursday, a day after a bombshell report alleged that he had been secretly recorded discussing bribe payments during an investigation into a sprawling corruption probe that has shredded the country’s political class.
Speculation that Temer would step down intensified throughout the day, with Brazil’s highest court ordering an investigation and two members of Temer’s cabinet abruptly quitting. Prominent leaders of Temer’s centrist PMDB party also distanced themselves from him, leaving the unpopular leader looking more and more isolated.But Temer refused to fold. Speaking on national television, he insisted that he had done nothing wrong and would not step down. “In no moment did I authorize a payment to anyone for their silence,” he said. “I have nothing to hide.”In a brief statement, Temer said his government had just started pulling Brazil out of its prolonged economic slump, the worst in 80 years. “We cannot throw so much progress into the bin of history,” he said.

But with Temer girding for a fight and the possibility that explosive new allegations could surface at any time, the chances of a return to economic and political stability looked even more remote for South America’s largest nation, which was rocked less than a year ago by the impeachment of the previous president in a ­different scandal.

President Michel Temer delivers a statement on May 18, 2017 in Brasilia, Brazil. (Igo Estrela/Getty Images)

Brazil’s financial markets plunged Thursday amid concerns that the political crisis would derail economic reforms that Temer had championed to boost the economy. The country’s currency, the real, closed down 8 percent, erasing its gains this year, and the Brazilian stock market fell 9 percent, its worst daily loss in nine years. State-controlled companies lost about 20 percent of their value.

“I don’t see how Temer survives more than a few weeks,” said Brian Winter, a Brazil expert and the editor of the New York-based Americas Quarterly journal, adding that Temer appears to be “in denial,” given the evidence against him and his evaporating political support.

Through plea bargains, in which defendants provided prosecutors with information in exchange for more-lenient sentences, authorities have been able to trace a major kickback scheme from a Brasilia carwash to the highest echelons of the ­government.

Temer had managed to mostly avoid being tainted by the probe. But the spotlight fell on him Wednesday, after Brazil’s O Globo reported that Temer had been the target of a police sting operation in which he was allegedly recorded condoning a hush-money payment by a Brazilian business tycoon to the jailed former leader of congress, Eduardo Cuhna, who is serving a 15-year term for negotiating millions in bribes.

Cunha had been one of the country’s most powerful men, and is believed to have compromising information on several top politicians who have not been formally accused.

 When the executive told Temer that he was paying the former politician a monthly stipend to keep him quiet, the president allegedly said, “You need to keep that up, okay?” according to the newspaper, citing the recording. The recording was made public by O Globo late Thursday.

Temer has acknowledged meeting with the executive who is the alleged source of the recordings, meatpacking tycoon Joesley Batista. But the president insisted Thursday he hadn’t broken the law and the investigation would exonerate him.

Opposition lawmakers attempted Thursday to open impeachment proceedings against Temer, which may increase pressure on authorities to release the allegedly incriminating tapes.

A new impeachment push would come less than a year after the last president, Dilma Rousseff, was forced out on charges of violating budget laws, bringing Temer to power through a process that many Brazilians view as ­politicized

Temer’s ministers of culture and city planning resigned Thursday, but the president was reportedly encouraged to hold onto power by his closest allies and key members of his inner circle.

Continue reading New scandal erupts that threatens to force out Brazilian President Temer →

Kenya, Sustainable Development, Water

Kenya arrests suspects in shooting of conservationist

World News – REUTERS| Mon Apr 24, 2017 | 10:20am EDT

Italian-born conservationist Gallmann poses for a photograph during the Highland Games in Laikipia Kenya
Italian-born conservationist Kuki Gallmann poses for a photograph during the Highland Games in Laikipia, Kenya, September 22, 2012. REUTERS/Stringer.

Kenya has arrested an unspecified number of suspects and recovered a gun linked to the shooting of Italian-born conservationist Kuki Gallmann at her conservation park over the weekend, the interior minister said on Monday.

The 73-year old author of the memoir “I Dreamed of Africa” was shot in the stomach on Sunday in her 100,000-acre (400 square km) ranch and nature conservancy in Laikipia in the north.

Gallmann was recovering in intensive care at a Nairobi hospital, where she underwent a seven-hour operation, after being airlifted from Laikipia, her family said on Monday.

“We have recovered a gun which is now undergoing ballistic tests to confirm whether it was the gun used to shoot Kuki,” Joseph Nkaissery, the interior minister, told a news conference.

He did not say how many suspects the police were holding. He described the attack on Gallmann, who was in a vehicle at the time of the attack, as an “isolated” act of banditry.

A wave of violence has hit Kenya’s drought-stricken Laikipia region in recent months. Armed cattle-herders searching for scarce grazing land have driven tens of thousands of cattle onto private farms and ranches from poor-quality communal land.

At least a dozen civilians and police officers have been killed in the violence.

Kenya dispatched its military to the area last month to help restore calm and disarm communities. The minister said the operation was going as planned.

Many residents of the area accuse local politicians of inciting the violence before elections in August. They say the men are trying to drive out voters who might oppose them and win votes by promising supporters access to private land.

(Reporting by Humphrey Malalo; Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Larry King)

Africa, Nigeria, Terrorism

Nigeria exchanges 82 Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram for prisoners

Reuters: World News | Sun May 7, 2017 | 4:23pm EDT
By Felix Onuah and Ahmed Kingimi | Reuters

FILE PHOTO: Members of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign rally in Nigeria's capital Abuja to mark 1,000 days since over 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped from their secondary school in Chibok by Islamist sect Boko Haram, Nigeria
Members of the #BringBackOurGirls campaign rally in Nigeria’s capital Abuja to mark 1,000 days since over 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped from their secondary school in Chibok by Islamist sect Boko Haram, Nigeria January 8, 2017. (REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde)

ABUJA/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria | Boko Haram militants have released 82 schoolgirls out of a group of more than 200 whom they kidnapped from the northeastern town of Chibok three years ago in exchange for prisoners, the presidency said on Saturday.

Around 270 girls were kidnapped in April 2014 by the Islamist militant group, which has killed 15,000 people and displaced more than two million during a seven-year insurgency aimed at creating an Islamic caliphate in northeastern Nigeria.

Dozens escaped in the initial melee, but more than 200 remained missing for more than two years.

Nigeria thanked Switzerland and the International Committee of the Red Cross for helping secure the release of the 82 girls after “lengthy negotiations,” the presidency said in a statement.

President Muhammadu Buhari will receive the girls on Sunday afternoon in the capital Abuja, it said, without saying how many Boko Haram suspects had been exchanged or disclosing other details.

A military source said the girls were brought on Sunday morning from Banki near the Cameroon border to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state where the insurgency started.

The release of the girls may give a boost to Buhari who has hardly appeared in public since returning from Britain in March for treatment of an unspecified illness.

He made crushing the insurgency a pillar of his election campaign in 2015.

The army has retaken most of the territory initially lost to the militants but attacks and suicide bombings by the group have made it nearly impossible for displaced persons to return to their recaptured hometowns.

“The President directed the security agencies to continue in earnest until all the Chibok girls have been released and reunited with their families,” the presidency said.

INSECURITY
More than 20 girls were released last October in a deal brokered by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Others have escaped or been rescued, but 195 were believed to be still in captivity.

Buhari said last month that the government was in talks to secure the release of the remaining captives.

Related Coverage

‘Welcome our dear girls’, Nigeria’s Buhari tells freed Chibok girls

Although the Chibok girls are the most high-profile case, Boko Haram has kidnapped thousands of adults and children, many of whose cases have been neglected.

Although the army has retaken much of the territory initially lost to Boko Haram, large parts of the northeast, particularly in Borno state, remain under threat from the militants. Suicide bombings and gun attacks have increased in the region since the end of the rainy season late last year.

Some 4.7 million people in northeast Nigeria depend on food aid, some of which is blocked by militant attacks, some held up by a lack of funding and some, diplomats say, stolen before it can reach those in need.

Millions of Nigerians may soon be in peril if the situation deteriorates, as authorities expect, when the five-month rainy season begins in May and makes farming impossible in areas that are now accessible.

This part of Nigeria is the western edge of an arc of hunger stretching across the breadth of Africa through South Sudan, Somalia and into Yemen on the Arabian peninsula. The United Nations believes as many as 20 million people are in danger in what could become the world’s worst famine for decades.

(Additional reporting by Tife Owolabi and Ulf Laessing; editing by Angus MacSwan and Jason Neely)

Economic Justice, Environment, Food Security, Sustainable Development

Change the Goal – Doughnut Economics

YES Magazine

David Korten

I see a lot of books presuming to explain what’s wrong with the economy and what to do about it. Rarely do I come across one with the consistent new paradigm frame, historical depth, practical sensibility, systemic analysis, and readability of Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth. Especially unique and valuable is her carefully reasoned, illustrated, and documented debunking of the fatally flawed theory behind economic policies that drive financial instability, environmental collapse, poverty, and extreme inequality.

Doughnut Economics opens with the story of an Oxford University student. Recognizing the inseparable connection between the economy and the environmental and social issues of our time, she did what many students with such concerns do. She signed up for an economics major hoping to learn how she might contribute to creating a better world.

What she learned instead is that the theory taught in textbook economics is hopelessly simplistic and largely irrelevant to her concerns—and to those of many of her fellow students. Rather than just shift to a more relevant major, however, she started what has become a spreading global student movement demanding reform of university economics curricula.

On a fast track to becoming one of the world’s most influential economists, Raworth has produced a book that more than validates the reasons for the student revolt. She fills in yawning gaps in current textbook economic theory to make the connections for which these students—and many of the rest of us—are looking. More

human rights, Justice and Peace, Middle East

Christians in Middle East call Pope Francis’s visit to Egypt a blessing

Dale Gavlak |May 2, 2017
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

PAPAL VISIT EGYPT
Pope Francis and Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II, right, attend an ecumenical prayer service at the Church of St. Peter in Cairo April 28. (Credit: Paul Haring/CNS.)

Christian leaders in the region say Pope Francis’s April 28-29 trip to Egypt was a great success. The pope has backed Egypt’s efforts to tackle Islamic militancy, saying the country has a special role to play in forging regional peace as well as in “vanquishing all violence and terrorism.”

AMMAN, Jordan – Pope Francis’s historic, 27-hour visit to Cairo has left a profound mark on Egyptians, Catholic leaders said, as they anticipate increased ties with fellow Orthodox Christians and Muslims.

“The pope’s visit was a big blessing to the Egyptians, both Muslims and Christians. It boosted the morale of the Egyptian people, especially after the Palm Sunday blasts,” Father Rafic Greiche, spokesman for the Egyptian bishops, told Catholic News Service by phone. “He gave a message of love, peace and hope.”

Greiche referred to a pair of terrorist attacks April 9 at two Egyptian churches. The Islamic State group claimed credit for the attacks, which killed at least 45 people, injured more than 100 others and shook the Middle East’s largest Christian community to the core.

“The pope’s visit for Catholics in Egypt was a great happening, very positive,” Jesuit Father Samir Khalil Samir, a noted Egyptian Catholic theologian and Islamic studies scholar, told CNS. The professor teaches at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome and St. Joseph’s University in Beirut.

Even more important, he said, was the historic improvement in ecumenical ties between the Catholic and the Coptic Orthodox churches. Francis and Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II signed a declaration on common baptism.

“This was a big step,” said Father Samir.

“In Egypt, there are a lot of mixed marriages between Catholics and Orthodox,” Samir explained, citing the previous Coptic Orthodox requirement that new members joining the church – including those who had previously been baptized as Catholic – had to be baptized again.

“This was very unhappy,” he said. Now both churches agreed to recognize each other’s sacrament of baptism and pledged to continue working toward greater unity.

“In general, the ecumenical relations with the Coptic Orthodox Church made very good steps and can go further,” Samir predicted, citing a possible reconciliation over the celebration dates of Christmas and Easter.

He also said Francis and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi reached a better understanding. This is important for the country’s Christians, who are among the oldest communities in the Middle East, dating back to the apostle Mark.

“By meeting (el-Sissi) and having a normal, positive relationship, the pope is supporting the only one who can help the Christians,” the theologian said. “Being a very pious Muslim, el-Sissi is also the one trying to protect the Christians against ISIS.”

Francis has backed Egypt’s efforts to tackle Islamic militancy, saying the country has a special role to play in forging regional peace as well as in “vanquishing all violence and terrorism.”

Yet, Greiche said he believes it may be difficult to protect Christians and other Egyptians from growing acts of extremist violence.

“Criminal acts are designed in the heads of terrorists first. You cannot say that Christians are safe or anybody is safe from any terrorist attack. We pray and we ask for our Savior to help us and not to experience more than what we already have,” the priest said.

“We cannot say that Christians will be more safe (due to the pope’s visit), because terrorists are always there,” he added.

However, Francis’s call to expose extremist violence carried out in God’s name impacted Sheik Ahmad el-Tayeb, who heads al-Azhar University in Cairo. He hosted the International Peace Conference attended by Francis, Tawadros and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Although “ISIS will not listen to whatever the pope says,” Francis has now put the Vatican’s relationship with al-Azhar on a stronger footing, said Father Samir.

As the world’s highest authority in Sunni Islam, al-Azhar trains Muslim clerics and scholars from around the world and has the potential to change the discourse.

Critics, including el-Sissi, complain the university is not doing enough to properly challenge Islamist extremists on theological grounds.

However, scholars also point to a dichotomy in the Quran in which Islam’s Prophet Muhammad at times espoused peaceful interactions with Christians and Jews and at other times violence.

By emphasizing nonviolence and that “only peaceful means are acceptable, it will help some Muslims to go along this line – to be nonviolent,” Samir said. “The main thing is change the mentality of Muslims, especially of the teaching of Islam, which is mainly the teaching in al-Azhar. “

Samir also pointed to another challenge.

“In the last five to six years, there is a new element, the militarization of radical Islam,” he said. The scholar blames the United States and some European countries for providing arms to Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which allegedly finance radical Islamic movements.

“The problem is much larger. It’s a question of rethinking Islam,” Father Samir said.

Francis also met with Egyptian seminarians, priests and religious before wrapping up his Cairo visit, leaving a deep impression on them, too.

“He greatly encouraged us to live a life dedicated to Christ, the living hope. And to instill that hope in all we minister to: the disabled, the poor and disadvantaged,” Father Shenouda Andraos, the head of St. Leo Great Coptic Catholic Seminary, told CNS.

Africa, refugees, trafficking

Africa Stands With Refugees

AFJN (summary)

Screen-Shot-2017-04-21-at-4.03.17-PM-848x350 EthiopiaSomalia’s Minister of Health, Mohammed Abdullahi, recognizes Ethiopia’s admirable position of accepting refugees and offering support while other countries are closing their doors to refugees. There are currently over 800,000 refugees in Ethiopia, making it the largest refugee-hosting country in Africa. As of February 28th of this year, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that 246,859 refugees are Somalian and 342,573 are South Sudanese. The primary cause of displacement from Somalia is due to conflict and drought. However, Ethiopia has offered an extended hand to Somalia and is recognized as an instrumental provider in the region as people are treated with dignity and “respect basic human rights.” Uganda has also welcomed 520,000 refugees since July 2016 but has faced great difficult as roughly 3,000 South Sudanese refugees pour into the country each day.

Africa works diligently to welcome their neighbors in needs of crisis.

The Ethiopian Herald
by Bilal Derso

Ethiopia: Officials Laud Ethiopia’s Refugee Treatment

Health officials of Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan have praised Ethiopia’s role in hosting and supporting refugees.

Plan, Policy and Cooperation Affairs Head with Somalia’s Minister of Health, Mohammed Abdullahi, stated that Ethiopia made an exemplary deed to shelter a large number of Somali refugees who have been displaced due to conflicts and drought.

Abdullahi said: “Somali refugees here are receiving treatment, almost similar to Ethiopians, while other countries are forcing them to leave.”

The head noted that currently the Somali government is repatriating its citizens taking into account the relative peace and stability in the country.

For his part, Plan and Policy Director with Sudan’s Minister of Health, Seid Mohammed, said Sudanese refugees taking shelter in Ethiopia have been receiving the necessary supports. “Ethiopia respects the basic human rights of Sudanese refugees.”

Ethiopia’s refugees treatment deserves recognition, according to the director.

International Health Affairs Director-General with South Sudan’s Minister of Health, Dr. Kediende Chong said South Sudanese refugees consider Ethiopia a second home.

Currently, there are over 800,000 refugees in Ethiopia.

Africa, human rights, South Sudan

Nikki Haley blames Salva Kiir for ‘man-made’ famine

Aljazeera
News: South Sudan 25 April 2017

US ambassador to UN urges Security Council to impose sanctions on South Sudan to end humanitarian crisis caused by war.

South Sudan-Siegfried Modola-Reuters
Women and children wait to be registered prior to a UN food distribution. (Siegfried Modola/Reuters)

The United States has condemned South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir for the state’s “man-made” famine and ongoing conflict, urging him to fulfil a month-old pledge of a unilateral truce by ordering his troops back to their barracks.

“We must see a sign that progress is possible,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) briefing on South Sudan on Tuesday. “We must see that ceasefire implemented.”

South Sudan descended into civil war in 2013 after Kiir fired his deputy, unleashing a conflict that has spawned armed factions often following ethnic lines. A peace deal signed in August 2015 has not stopped the fighting.

UN South Sudan envoy David Shearer told the Security Council, “The political process in South Sudan is not dead, however, it requires significant resuscitation.”

The United Nations has warned of a possible genocide, millions have fled their homes, the oil-producing economy is in a tailspin, crop harvests are devastated because of the worst drought in years and millions face famine.

Some 7.5 million people, two-thirds of the population, require humanitarian assistance.

Around 1.6 million people have fled the country, while a further 1.9 million are displaced internally.

“The famine in South Sudan is man-made. It is the result of ongoing conflict in that country. It is the result of an apparent campaign against the civilian population. It is the result of killing humanitarian workers,” Haley said.

She also blasted deadlock among UNSC members on how to deal with the civil war in the country that gained independence from Sudan in 2011.

Haley said Kiir and his government were benefiting from the council’s division. She urged the council to impose further targeted sanctions and an arms embargo on South Sudan.

“You’re allowing President Kiir to continue to do what he’s doing,” she said. “If you truly care for the people of South Sudan, then we must tell the South Sudanese government that we are not going to put up with this anymore.”

The 15-member Security Council failed in December to get nine votes to adopt a US-drafted resolution to impose an arms embargo and further sanctions on South Sudan despite warnings by UN officials of a possible genocide.

Eight council members, including Russia and China, abstained in the vote.

Deputy Russian UN Ambassador Petr Ilichev told the council that it was unfair to lay all blame on Kiir’s troops for the violence and that Moscow opposed additional sanctions.

“Sound peace in South Sudan will not be brought about by a Security Council arms embargo, but rather by targeted measures to disarm civilians, as well as demobilise and reintegrate combatants,” he said.