ANALYSIS: Europe's Migrant Graveyard

Analysis by Matt Carr

MATLOCK, United Kingdom, Oct 10 2014 (IPS) - Since the end of the Cold War, the Mediterranean has become the most lethal of Europe's barriers against irregular migration, having claimed nearly 20,000 migrant lives in the last two decades.

And the first nine months of 2014 indicate that the phenomenon is on the rise, with more migrant deaths than in any previous year.

Last month, a report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that 3,072 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean this year out of a worldwide total of 4,077 deaths worldwide. These figures are almost certainly underestimates, because many migrant deaths in the Mediterranean are not reported.

In the same month, a report from Amnesty International on migrant deaths in the Mediterranean estimated that 2, 200 migrants died between the beginning of June and mid-September alone.

The worst incident in this period took place on Sep 11. when 500 men, women and children, many of them refugees from Syria and Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, drowned after their boat was deliberately rammed by their traffickers in Maltese territorial waters.

This horrendous crime took place less than one year after the horrific events of Oct. 3 last year, when at least 360 migrants drowned when their boat sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa.

At the time, the drownings at Lampedusa prompted an unprecedented outpouring of international anger and sympathy.

Pope Francis, European politicians such as Cecilia Malmstrom (European Commissioner for Home Affairs) and Juan Manuel Barroso (President of the European Commission), and  U.N. Secretary-General  Ban Ki-Moon all joined in the chorus of condemnation and called on Europe and the international community to take action to prevent such tragedies in the future.

Twelve months later, these worthy declarations have yet to be realized.

Following the Lampedusa tragedy, Italy undertook the largest combined naval/coastguard search and rescue operation in its history – known as ‘Operation Mare Nostrum’ – to coincide with Italian occupancy of the Presidency of the Council of the European Union. At a cost of nine million euros per month, the operation has rescued 100,000 people.

Yet despite these efforts, the death toll is already four times higher than it was in the whole of last year.  This increase is partly due to the rise in the numbers of people crossing, primarily as a result of the Syrian civil war and the collapse of the Libyan state. This year, more than 130,000 migrants have crossed the Mediterranean, compared with 60,000 the previous year.

These numbers have tested the resources of Malta and Italy. Some drownings have occurred as a result of a lack of clarity and coordination between the two countries over their mutual search and rescue areas.  In addition, Malta has sometimes been reluctant to rescue migrant boats in distress – a reluctance that some observers attribute to an unwillingness on the part of the authorities to accept them as refugees.

But the European Union has also been conspicuously absent from the unfolding tragedy on its southern maritime borders.

Despite numerous calls from the Italian government for assistance, it was not until August this year that the European Union mandated ‘Frontex’ – the European border agency – to undertake ‘Operation Triton’ in the Mediterranean to complement Italy’s search and rescue operations.

But Frontex is primarily concerned with immigration enforcement rather than search and rescue, and the joint operations that it coordinates are entirely dependent on resources provided by E.U. member states.

Glaring lack of response

It is at this level that the lack of response is most glaring. There are many things that European governments could do to implement to reduce migrant deaths.

They could use their navies to establish the ‘humanitarian corridors’ between North Africa and Europe, as the U.N. refugee agency UNCHR once suggested during the Libyan Civil War. They could facilitate legal entry, so that men, women and children fleeing war and political oppression can reach Europe safely without having to place their lives in the hands of smugglers.

The European Union could also abolish or reform the Dublin Regulation that obliges asylum seekers to make their applications in one country only. This law has placed too much responsibility on European ‘border countries’ like Malta, Italy, Spain and Greece, all of which have experienced surges in irregular migration over the last twenty years.

More generally, Europe could establish an international dialogue with migrant-producing countries to make labor migration safe and mutually beneficial. However, many governments clearly regard ‘Mare Nostrum’ as an essential moat between ‘Fortress Europe’ and its unwanted migrants.

Most migrants who cross the Mediterranean are refugees from nationalities that UNHCR considers to be in need of some form of protection under the terms of the Geneva Convention. But in order to obtain this, they have to reach Europe first and undergo all the risks that these journeys entail.

All this has transformed the Mediterranean into what Amnesty calls a “survival test” for refugees and migrants. Few politicians will openly admit this because such an admission would directly contradict the values that the European Union has set out to uphold since the European project first took shape after World War II.

Most governments prefer instead to condemn the smugglers and organized criminals who profit from such journeys, and wring their hands whenever a particularly terrible tragedy takes place. Men who sink migrant boats or send them to sea without lifebelts certainly deserve to be condemned.

But, as Amnesty International points out, Europe’s ”woeful response” has also contributed to the death toll.  And it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Mediterranean has become an instrument in a policy of deterrence, in which migrant deaths are tacitly accepted as a form of ‘collateral damage’ in a militarized response to 21st century migration whose overriding objective is to stop people coming.

Until these priorities change, migrants will continue to die, and 2014’s grim record may well be superseded.  Italy has already threatened to stop its search and rescue operations when its presidency of the European Union comes to an end later this year.

Amnesty International has urged European governments to fulfill their humanitarian obligations to save lives in the Mediterranean and warned that “the EU as a whole cannot be indifferent to this suffering.”

So far, there is little sign that anybody is listening.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/10/analysis-europes-migrant-graveyard/.

British royal couples' 2nd child due in April

October 20, 2014

LONDON (AP) — The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have confirmed that their second baby is due in April — the first time they have offered a month for the royal birth.

Kensington Palace also said in a statement Monday that the duchess, who has been sidelined by prolonged morning sickness, continues to improve. There was no word on the baby's gender. The former Kate Middleton and Prince William are scheduled to welcome Singapore President Tony Tan when he arrives on a four-day state visit this week. She is also expected to attend the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2014 award ceremony.

The duchess canceled several engagements after her second pregnancy was announced in September. She also had acute morning sickness during her pregnancy with Prince George, who was born in July 2013.

Submarine hunt sends Cold War chill across Baltic

October 20, 2014

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Sweden's biggest submarine hunt since the dying days of the Soviet Union has put countries around the Baltic Sea on edge.

In a scene reminiscent of the Cold War, Swedish naval ships, helicopters and ground troops combed the Stockholm archipelago for a fourth day Monday for signs of a foreign submarine or smaller underwater craft that officials suspect entered Swedish waters illegally.

While Sweden hasn't linked any country to the suspected intrusion — and Moscow denies involvement — the incident sent a chill through the Baltic Sea region, where Russian forces have been accused of a series of border violations on land, sea and air in recent months.

"Closely following events in the Swedish territorial waters, may become a game changer of the security in the whole Baltic Sea region," Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics wrote on Twitter. Swedish military officials say there have been three sightings of the elusive craft since Friday. On Sunday they released a photograph taken at a distance of what they said could be the mystery vessel — a dark speck surrounded by foaming water.

Military spokesman Jesper Tengroth said more than 200 personnel were involved in the operation, but stressed that unlike Sweden's submarine hunts in the 1980s, the military wasn't using depth charges or other anti-submarine weapons.

The search made headline news in countries across the Baltic region including in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, three former Soviet republics spooked by Russia's intervention in Ukraine. Estonia stepped up surveillance of its territorial waters, with the border guard looking out for "potential anomalies," spokesman Priit Parkna said.

In Lithuania, the events in Sweden sparked concerns over the safety of a floating natural gas import terminal currently being transported on the Baltic Sea to the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda. The terminal will be key to Lithuania's plans to reduce its reliance on Russian energy.

Meanwhile, Russian media suggested the Swedes were overreacting. The Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper even speculated that the submarine hunt could be a ploy staged by the Swedish military to boost its defense budget, which has undergone a series of cuts since the Cold War.

The official government newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta questioned whether there was any submarine at all, noting the Swedes hadn't found anything. "Either Sweden's echo location equipment is working badly or, as the old saying goes, the eyes of fear see danger everywhere," the paper said.

A Defense Ministry official quoted by the Tass news agency pointed fingers at a Dutch submarine that participated in an exercise with the Swedish navy last week. The unidentified official suggested Sweden should save "taxpayers' money" and ask the Netherlands for an explanation.

The Dutch navy said that the submarine left Sweden on Thursday and had been in Estonia since early Friday. In Sweden, Armed Forces spokesman Philip Simon said the Dutch submarine was not what triggered the Swedish search.

In 1981, a Soviet sub carrying nuclear weapons was stranded off Sweden's southeastern coast, causing an 11-day diplomatic standoff before Swedish authorities allowed the submarine to return home.

Matti Huuhtanen reported from Helsinki. AP reporters Lynn Berry in Moscow, Toby Sterling in Amsterdam, Rayyan Sabet-Party in Riga, Latvia, Liudas Dapkus in Vilnius, Lithuania, and Jari Tanner in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

Panama's Coral Reefs Ringed with Threats

Panama's Coral Reefs Ringed with Threats

By Emilio Godoy

TABOGA, Panama, Oct 16 2014 (IPS) - Ferm?n G?mez, a 53-year-old Panamanian fisherman, pushes off in his boat, the “Tres Hermanas,” every morning at 06:00 hours to fish in the waters off Taboga island. Five hours later he returns to shore.

Skillfully he removes the heads and scales of his catch of sea bass, snapper, marlin and sawfish. He delivers the cleaned fish to restaurants and hotels, where he is paid four dollars a kilo, a good price for the local area.

“I use baited hooks, because trammel nets drag in everything. That’s why the fishing isn’t so good any more: the nets catch even the young fry,” said this father of three daughters, who spent years working on tuna-fishing vessels.

G?mez lives 200 meters from Taboga island’s only beach, in a town of 1,629 people where the brightly painted houses are roofed with galvanized iron sheets. Located 11.3 nautical miles (21 kilometers) from Panama City, the mainstay of the island is tourism, especially on weekends when dozens of visitors board the ferry that plies between the island and the capital twice a day.

G?mez, who comes from a long line of fishermen, tends to go out fishing at midnight, the best time to catch sea bass. On a good day he might take some 30 kilograms.

“The fishing here is good, but we are dependent on what people on the other islands leave for us,” said G?mez, tanned by the sun and salt water.

The island of Taboga, just 12 square kilometers in area, lies in the Gulf of Panama and is the gateway to the Las Perlas archipelago, one of the most important nodes of coral islands in this Central American country of 3.8 million people.

From the air, they appear as mounds emerging from the turquoise backdrop of the sea, surrounded by what look like dozens of steel sharks, the ships waiting their turn to pass through the Panama Canal.

The isthmus of Panama possesses 290 square kilometers of coral reefs, mostly located on the Atlantic Caribbean coast, which harbor some 70 species. Coral reefs in the Pacific ocean host some 25 different species.

What the fisherfolk do not know is that their future livelihood depends on the health of the coral reefs, which is threatened by rising sea temperatures, maritime traffic, pollution and illegal fishing.

In Coiba National Park, in western Panama, and in the Las Perlas islands, “the diversity of the coral and associated species has been sustained in recent years. We have not detected any bleaching, but a troublesome alga has appeared,” academic José Casas, of the state International Maritime University of Panama (UMIP), told IPS.

“It’s threatening the reef,” said the expert, who is taking part in a project for the study and monitoring of reef communities and key fisheries species in Coiba National Park and the marine-coastal Special Management Zone comprising the Las Perlas Archipelago. The study’s final report is due to be published in November.

Algal growth blocks sunlight and smothers the coral, which cannot survive. Experts have also detected the appearance of algae in Colombia and Mexico.

The project is being carried out by UMIP together with Fundaci?n Natura, Conservation International, the Autonomous University of Baja California, in Mexico, and the Aquatic Resources Authority of Panama (ARAP).

Researchers are monitoring the coral in Coiba and Las Perlas in Panama. They took measurements in March and August, and they will repeat their survey in November.

There are differences between the two study zones. Coiba is little disturbed by human activity; it is a designated natural heritage area and a protection plan is in place, although according to the experts it is not enforced. Moreover, Coiba Park is administered by the National Environmental Authority (ANAM).

A protection program for Las Perlas, to be managed by ARAP, is currently in the pipeline.

Reefs are essential for the development and feeding of large predators like sharks, whales, pelagic fish such as anchovy and herring, and sea turtles, the experts said.

In Panama’s coral reefs, ARAP has identified species of algae, mangroves, sponges, crustaceans, molluscs, conches, starfish, sea cucumber, sea urchin, as well as groupers, snappers, angelfish and butterflyfish.

Fishing generates some 15,000 jobs in Panama and annual production is 131,000 tones, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census.

An Environmental Agenda for Panama 2014-2019 (Agenda Ambiental Panam? 2014-2019), published by the National Association for the Conservation of Nature (ANCON),

Fundaci?n MarViva, Fundaci?n Natura and the Panama Audubon Society, proposes the passage of a law for wetlands protection, emphasizing mangroves, mudflats, marshes, swamps, peat bogs, rivers, coral reefs and others.

On the Caribbean coast, coral reefs around the nine islands of the Bocas del Toro archipelago, 324 nautical miles (600 kilometers) west of Panama City, are experiencing bleaching caused by high water temperatures.

This was a finding of a study titled “Forecasting decadal changes in sea surface temperatures and coral bleaching within a Caribbean coral reef,” published in May by the U.S. journal Coral Reefs.

Angang Li and Matthew Reidenbach, of the U.S. University of Virginia, predict that by 2084 nearly all the coral reefs they studied will be vulnerable to bleaching-induced mortality.

They simulated water flow patterns and water surface heating scenarios for the present day and projections for 2020, 2050 and 2080. They concluded that reefs bathed by cooler waters will have the greatest chances of future survival.

Bocas del Toro adjoins the Isla Bastimentos National Park, one of 104 protected areas in Panama covering a total of 36,000 square kilometers, equivalent to 39 percent of the national territory.

“Local communities need education in resource management, sustainable use, fisheries zoning and fisherfolk organization,” Casas said.

The next phase of the corals project, financed with 48,000 dollars this year and requiring about 70,000 dollars for 2015, will involve quantifying the value of ecosystem services provided by coral reefs.

G?mez has no plans to change his trade, but he can see that his grandchildren will no longer follow the same occupation. “Fishing is going to be more complicated in future. They will have to think of other ways of earning a living,” he told IPS, gazing nostalgically out to sea.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/10/panamas-coral-reefs-ringed-with-threats/.

Navajo officials mull election amid confusion

October 25, 2014

PHOENIX (AP) — With their presidential election less than two weeks away, Navajo Nation officials are weighing how to proceed with a race that has become increasingly embroiled in confusion amid a debate involving the tribe's language.

Navajo election officials failed to decide Friday whether to follow an order by the tribe's top court to postpone the Nov. 4 election. The board will reconvene Monday at 9 a.m., said Navajo Board of Election Supervisor Lenora Fulton.

According to Fulton, the board wants more legal information in regard to the court's order. "We value and protect the people's right to vote. We have to consider that as well as the order. There are a lot of things involved and we want to ensure we cover all the bases," Fulton said.

The Navajo Board of Election Supervisors meeting came hours after the tribe's council voted to effectively erase a law requiring that candidates for tribal president be fluent in Navajo. Two primary contenders had challenged Chris Deschene under that law, and a lower court disqualified him from the race after he refused to demonstrate whether he is fluent.

On Thursday, the Navajo Supreme Court rejected Deschene's appeal and ordered him off the ballot. The tribal council convened soon after to consider an emergency bill that would let voters decide who is fluent. Council members debated the measure for five hours before voting 11-10 early Friday to approve it.

The legislation is written to apply retroactively to the 2014 election, though it's unclear whether it could undo the Supreme Court's order to remove Deschene from the ballot. The measure now goes to President Ben Shelly, who will have 10 days to sign it. He previously voiced support for the legislation.

If Shelly signs the measure, Deschene will file a motion with the high court based on the new law, Deschene spokeswoman Stacy Pearson said. "Last night was a major victory, not just for this race but for the Navajo people in general," Pearson said.

The presidential race largely has been overshadowed by the debate over the language's role in Navajo culture and tradition. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more people speak Navajo than any other American Indian language. Of the tribe's more than 300,000 members, about 169,000 speak Navajo.

In its decision Thursday, the Supreme Court included a plea to members to protect the language, believed to be handed down by deities. "Because we were colonized through assimilation, we have started losing our language and it has become difficult to speak; we want to keep our Navajo way of life, our language, our prayers and songs, alive," the justices wrote in Navajo, according to a translation. "Even though it seems we have made enemies of one another, we will not lose our ways."

Absentee ballots giving voters a choice between Deschene and former President Joe Shirley Jr. went out earlier this month. On Thursday, an attorney representing a group of Navajos who support Deschene sent a letter to the election board threatening a lawsuit if the election is stopped or the official ballot is changed.

The group said a general election can be postponed before it begins, but not halted once Navajos begin casting ballots. Meanwhile, election officials asked attorneys for clarification on the Supreme Court order, including whether the entire election should be postponed or just the presidential race.

The order requires that the third-place primary finisher be moved up to take Deschene's place. Deschene has said he's proficient in the language. He refused to take a fluency test or answer questions in a deposition and a hearing, saying he was being unfairly singled out.

Brazil's election: 'Ghosts' versus 'Monsters'

October 25, 2014

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazilian voters electing a new president this weekend are being asked to decide what scares them least: the incumbent's warnings about the "ghosts of the past," or her challenger's charges about the "monsters of the present."

The latest polls give left-leaning incumbent Dilma Rousseff a slight edge in Sunday's runoff vote to lead the world's fifth-largest nation. But few people are counting out center-right challenger Aecio Neves after a topsy-turvy campaign that has been the most competitive, divisive and dramatic since Brazil's return to democracy in 1985.

"The country is divided in two, with half feeling that social inclusion and protections are what matter most, and the other half believing that macroeconomic stability is more important," said Carlos Pereira, a political analyst at the Gertulio Vargas Foundation, Brazil's leading think tank. "The candidate who convinces voters he or she is best prepared to combine these two beliefs and make them complementary will win Sunday's election."

The race turned dramatic after Eduardo Campos, a main opposition candidate, was killed when his campaign plane crashed in August. His running mate, renowned environmentalist Marina Silva, was thrust into his spot, and she immediately jumped to a double-digit lead over Rousseff and Neves.

Silva initially tapped into the discontent over poor public services that millions of Brazilians expressed in anti-government protests last year, but her campaign never found its feet and voters drifted away from her within weeks. That opened the gap for Neves to stage his surprisingly strong showing in the Oct. 5 first-round vote, coming in second and forcing Rousseff into a runoff when her first-place finish didn't get an absolute majority.

The campaigns hit fever pitch in the three weeks since, with the Workers' Party that's been in power for 12 years and Neves' Social Democracy Party that last held the presidency in 1995-2003 battling it out with no shortage of verbal jabs and nasty allegations.

Rousseff attacked her rival with campaign ads asking Brazilians to remember the "ghosts of the past" when Neves' party ruled, with much of the nation mired in poverty, unemployment rife, and consumers crippled by hyperinflation. The incumbent has emphasized the deep social gains made under the Workers' Party, whose expansive social welfare programs helped yank millions out of poverty and into the middle class and have kept unemployment at historic lows.

Neves urged voters to look at "monsters of the present," including an economy recession, inflation that's floated above the government's 6.5 percent target, and allegations that the Workers' Party was involved in an apparent decade-long, billion-dollar kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras.

The latest results from Brazil's two most respected polling groups put Rousseff ahead of Neves. A Datafolha survey released Thursday had Rousseff leading Neves 53 percent to 47 percent, with an error margin of two percentage points. An Ibope Institute poll put the president's lead 54-46, with the same error margin.

"I'm voting for Dilma because the Workers' Party has made life easier for the poor. I still live in a slum, but now my home is full of nice, modern things — I've got a TV, a new refrigerator and air conditioning," said Ana Paula Marinho, a nurse who lives in the Pavao-Pavaozinho favela that sits above Copacabana's ornate apartments. "We can see that we've got a better future with Dilma."

But Patricia Botelha, who lives on a leafy street in Rio's wealthy Ipanema neighborhood, said Rousseff's poor management had led Brazil's economy to weak growth and all Brazilians will pay the price if the country doesn't rebound soon. While she voted for the Workers' Party in the last three elections, this year she's casting a ballot for Neves.

"We've never seen social advances among the poor as we've witnessed during the last 12 years. Those are real accomplishments and we're all better off for it," Botelha said. "But we need new ideas on the economy, on how to keep growing, or those gains will be reversed no matter what policies are enacted."

Associated Press writer Stan Lehman in Sao Paulo contributed to this report.

Drought Plagues Brazil’s Richest Metropolis

By Mario Osava

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 10 2014 (IPS) - Agricultural losses are no longer the most visible effect of the drought plaguing Brazil’s most developed region. Now the energy crisis and the threat of water shortages in the city of Sao Paulo are painful reminders of just how dependent Brazilians are on regular rainfall.

Nine million of the 21 million inhabitants of Greater Sao Paulo are waiting for the completion of the upgrading of the Cantareira system, made up of six reservoirs linked by 48 km of tunnels and canals, which can no longer supply enough water.

For the past four months, the water that has reached the taps of nine million residents of Brazil’s biggest city has come from the “dead” or inactive storage water in the Cantareira system – the water that cannot be drained from a reservoir by gravity and can only be pumped out. These supplies will last until Mar. 15, 2015, according to the state government.

“If rainfall in the [upcoming southern hemisphere] summer is only average, we will have another complicated autumn; and if it rains less it will mean a collapse,” architect Marussia Whately, a water resource specialist with the non-governmental Socioenvironmental Institute (ISA), told Tierramérica.

There is no possible replacement system, she said, because Cantareira supplies water to 45 percent of the metropolitan area, distributed by Sao Paulo’s state water utility Sabesp, while other water sources are also low due to drought and pollution.

Whately said the intensification of extreme weather events, such as this year’s drought in southeast Brazil, preceded by two years of below normal rainfall, is one of the causes of the water crisis in the state.

To that is added poor management, which has mainly sought to increase supply by tapping into distant sources that require infrastructure to transport water long distances, without adequately combating losses and waste, she said. But in her view, the main reason is “the lack of dialogue and social participation” regarding water supply.

Droughts have become more frequent and intense this century. “The first alert came in 2001, when the system was reduced to 11 percent of capacity in August,” said journalist and activist Isabel Raposo, who has lived for 30 years in the Sierra da Cantareira, a forested mountain range north of the city with a huge state park. Water piped in from far away flows through the hills.

“The current crisis could have been avoided” if the large-scale reuse of water had been adopted after the crisis 13 years ago, Ivanildo Hespanhol, a professor of hydraulic engineering at the University of Sao Paulo, told Tierramérica.

The five sewage treatment plants in the metropolitan region provide primary processing of 16,000 liters per second. But with further treatment the wastewater could be prepared for a wide range of uses, and could even be made potable, said the renowned expert.

That could increase the total amount of water available in the city by one-quarter – enough to relieve the pressure on the water sources and make it possible to replenish them, even with lower than normal levels of rainfall.

“Unfortunately decision-makers don’t plan, but only manage the crisis,” said Hespanhol, who is confident that the situation will give a boost to “the concept of water treatment and reuse.”

Industrial companies already use these techniques, reducing their water consumption by up to 80 percent and recuperating their investments in under two years, he said. Political will and a “realistic legal framework” are lacking, as well as a better understanding of the issue by the environmental authorities, he added.

The emergency now requires more urgent measures, said Whately, such as reducing waste, which leads to losses of up to 30 percent according to different institutions; incentives for saving water; and better use of existing water resources.

Given the “failure of the current model of water management,” with regulatory agencies lacking authority and basin committees that are ignored, ISA is trying to identify and mobilize concerned experts and institutions to discuss a diagnosis and solutions for the water crisis, she said.

“More than 90 proposals for short-term measures have been presented,” she added.

The 2001 drought led to a power shortage and blackouts that forced Brazilians to reduce electricity consumption for nine months starting in June of that year. The drop in the water level in rivers hurt the hydropower plants, which produced 90 percent of the electrical energy consumed in Brazil at the time.

As a result, the energy sector was restructured, with an expansion of thermoelectricity, which is more costly and more polluting because it uses fossil fuels, but provides a measure of energy security. Hydropower’s share of the country’s installed capacity thus fell to 67 percent.

For that reason, this year’s drought, even though it has been more severe in many basins, did not create an energy deficit, but drove up the price of electricity due to the full use of thermal power plants, generating insolvency problems for energy distributors, which were bailed out by the government, and exacerbating the difficulties suffered by the most energy-dependent industries.

Even worse, because it affects millions of people, is the water supply problem in Sao Paulo and the surrounding areas. At least 30 cities have implemented mandatory water restrictions in the past few months.

In Itu, a city of 160,000 located 100 km from Sao Paulo, local inhabitants have held demonstrations and occupied the city council building in September, to protest supply problems that were worse than what the local water company had announced.

In Sao Paulo, people in the neighborhoods supplied by the Cantareira system complain that water has been rationed, without any officially announced measures, for several months. Sabesp, the main water supplier throughout the state of Sao Paulo, admitted that it had lowered the water pressure in the pipes at night to prevent leaks and waste.

“We had no water for three or four days in August,” said economist Marcelo Costa Santos, who lives in an 18-story building in Alto Pinheiros, a quiet neighborhood on the west side of Sao Paulo. He told Tierramérica that the low water pressure made it impossible to pump water up to the higher floors.

And climate change threatens to aggravate the situation. A good part of the rain that falls in southeast Brazil comes from the Amazon rainforest, where deforestation has reduced humidity levels.

It can be inferred that Sao Paulo is receiving less water from the Amazon, said Antonio Nobre with the National Institute for Space Research (INPE).

Deforestation, the researcher told Tierramérica, also weakens the “flying rivers” – currents of air that carry water vapor resulting from evapotranspiration in the rainforest to the interior of Brazil. Rainfall in the center and south of the country depends on the Amazon “water pump”.

Another local phenomenon aggravates the situation. The “heat island” formed by the increase in urban temperatures in Greater Sao Paulo attracts rain away from water sources, said Raposo.

Recent studies found that rainfall is generally more intense in the city of S?o Paulo than in the nearby mountains that feed the reservoirs of the Cantareira system. Twofold damage is the consequence: cities suffer constant flooding even though it is raining less than necessary, the activist said.

Source: Inter-Press Service (IPS).
Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/2014/10/drought-plagues-brazils-richest-metropolis/.

Argentine town faces ghosts of its Dirty War

October 20, 2014

OLAVARRIA, Argentina (AP) — Shade trees hide the crumbling farm house outside of Olavarria. Hidden at the end of a dirt path, the white plaster coating is falling away from the brick foundation like scabs peeling off an unhealed wound.

Araceli Gutierrez guards the memories of this place like a fragile keepsake. A voluntary caretaker, the 61-year-old with faded blonde curls watches over the house known as Monte Peloni where, as a young woman, she was tortured and raped by her military captors.

"This is a faithful reflection of the memory," she says, walking through the decaying rooms, her expression lost in time. "If it collapsed, it would be as if the most important part of my life were to collapse."

The events that took place in 1977 now are coming to light, forcing residents of this pastoral community to examine their role in Argentina's Dirty War against those who challenged the military regime.

One secret unearthed this summer already cracked Olavarria's facade of quiet rural life. In August, residents learned an Olavarria music teacher named Ignacio Hurban was, in fact, Guido Montoya Carlotto, the lost grandson of Estela de Carlotta, whose Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo group searches for children taken by the regime.

Now, Olavarria is learning about the secrets of Monte Peloni. Gutierrez is among the witnesses testifying before a judicial panel investigating the detentions of 21 people taken there by military officials.

A hearing set for next year will uncover abuses allegedly committed against 40 other people at Monte Peloni by 70 defendants, including former police officers, prison officials and town leaders who served as advisers to the regime that ruled Argentina from 1976 to 1983.

"With this tribunal, plus the appearance of Guido," Gutierrez said, "Olavarria has woken up." But it has been a difficult awakening. Olavarria, some 220 miles (350 kilometers) southwest of Buenos Aires, is a prosperous farming and industrial town that holds onto tradition. The afternoon siesta is still a part of life for many of the 90,000 residents. The twin steeples of the Catholic church stand over Olavarria's tree-lined central square, right next to city hall.

The process is exposing secrets long buried by Olavarria, where victims and the accused share the same streets and know the same people. Four aging military men could be sent to prison for life as a result of the tribunal that opened Sept. 22 and is expected to conclude before the close of the year.

The four defendants are Omar "Pajaro" Ferreyra, 64, an army sergeant who went on to serve as Olavarria's director of urban control; retired Gen. Ignacio Verdura, 82, who commanded the regiment that controlled the region; former Capt. Walter Grosse, 69; and former Lt. Horacio Leite, 64.

Townspeople old and young crowd into a room at the local state university, or gather outside at the windows, to hear recollections of kidnapping and torture, of being taken to the bathroom of the old farmhouse, where the most sensitive parts of one's body were fastened to electrical cables and shocked.

Tales of Monte Peloni, named for the Swiss family who built the home in the 1800s, long passed from one resident to another like ghost stories. "I had one friend who would tell us that it scared him to walk by there at night," said Facundo Carlucho, an industrial engineering student in Olavarria.

"I think it's good that justice is being done for what happened in this country. I didn't live through that time but, from what my parents told me, I know enough." Other communities in Argentina launched investigations into their Dirty War-era abuses years ago, but in Olavarria, there was "resistance" by longstanding social groups that continue to hold influence, according to Walter Romero, the prosecutor leading the Monte Peloni tribunal.

"It's a small town with a conservative profile," said Rafael Curtoni, dean of social science faculty at Central University of Buenos Aires province. Curtoni said Olavarria continues to guard "certain secrets of the business sector and of people in power" who cooperated with the dictatorship.

"We all know who they are and where they are," he said. Many in Olavarria were stunned by the story of Hurban, who learned his true identity after volunteering to have his DNA tested. Shortly after his birth in 1978, he was taken from his mother, who died in military captivity, and given to a couple who raised him on a local farm.

Hurban has said his adoptive parents are "an extraordinary couple" who cared for him "with the greatest of love." The Plaza de Mayo group opposes any effort by authorities to question the couple, concerned such an interrogation would discourage other lost children from coming forward.

As many are realizing, examination of the past is a delicate endeavor. Carmelo Vinci, a former Monte Peloni detainee who now heads the Commission for the Memory of Olavarria, says local business owners participated in the repression of dissidents, noting that the people they employed in local factories were among the first to be detained. The tribunal has said it will investigate allegations that local Rotary Club members were given advance knowledge of who the military intended to pick up.

But Oscar Unzaga, president of the city's main Rotary Club, denied that any such collusion occurred. After consulting with the club's oldest members, he told The Associated Press, "we decided not to say anything (about the charge) because that would give importance to an embittered testimony that does not deserve a response."

The whole process of the tribunal, he said, is "a circus where the result is already decided." All of the charges should be dismissed, he said, "because we are suffering attacks" perpetrated by guerrillas.

The airing of Olavarria's secrets has made for uncomfortable encounters, said Vinci, who owns a printing shop in town. A former military officer connected to the regime occasionally passes his store, he said. "Before, he would greet me very cordially. ... But since the hearings began, he is not so friendly."

A confrontation Gutierrez had with Ferreyra while he led the city's urban control department some years ago was recorded by a television program and broadcast nationwide. The camera recorded Gutierrez as she chased him down the corridor of city hall shouting, "Come and tell me that you don't know me."

Ferreyra simply walked away, leaving her demand to hang in silence.

Congo doctor Mukwege wins EU human rights prize

October 21, 2014

STRASBOURG, France (AP) — European lawmakers have awarded their top human rights prize to Congolese gynecologist Denis Mukwege who campaigns against sexual violence targeting women in war.

At Tuesday's plenary session, the legislature made the unanimous decision to pick Mukwege for the Sakharov Prize. Mukwege, 59, set up the Panzi Hospital in eastern Congo's Bukavu in 1998 and still works with victims of sexual violence there.

Previous winners of the Sakharov Prize include Nobel Peace Prize laureates Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela. Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai won last year. Other finalists for this year's award included the Euromaidan demonstrators and activists in Ukraine.

Mozambique vote counting stops amid fraud worries

October 20, 2014

MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) — Mozambique's national elections commission said Monday that vote counting in the country's northwestern province has stopped due to possible fraud with more than 60 percent of votes counted so far.

The commission received more results sheets than there were polling stations in the province, a report released by a watchdog group said. The Center for Public Integrity, a Mozambican anti-corruption organization, said that 234 result sheets were delivered while there were only 178 polling stations in the Tete province's capital Tete City. The increased number of results sheets could mean that some votes were counted twice. A ballot coding system should have prevented this and the commission said it is investigating the possible duplication.

On election day Wednesday in the southeastern African nation, voters burned ballot boxes in the same province, saying they were stuffed with votes marked for the ruling Frelimo party's presidential candidate, Filipe Nyusi.

Provisional results show that Frelimo leads with 62 percent of the vote, while the official opposition Renamo has 32 percent of the vote and the Mozambique Democratic Movement has won just over 10 percent of the votes counted so far.

Also on Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon congratulated Mozambique for a peaceful election after the southeastern African nation maintained stability despite the outbreak of sporadic violence in recent years...