US military’s humanitarian activities in Africa

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The U.S. is trying to win a war for the hearts and minds of Africa, a war zone about which most Americans are completely unaware.

However, a Pentagon investigation suggests that these various humanitarian projects in Djibouti or Ethiopia or Kenya or Tanzania may well be orphaned, ill-planned, and undocumented failures-in-the-making.  This evidence of failure has an eerie resonance for previous efforts to use humanitarian aid and infrastructure projects to sway local populations in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan.  In each case, the operations failed in spectacular ways, but were only fully acknowledged after years of futility and billions of dollars in waste.

In Africa, the sums and scale involved are smaller than the Mideast or Southeast Asia, but U.S. military humanitarian assistance — from medical care to infrastructure projects — is a form of “security cooperation.”  According to the latest edition published earlier this year: “When these activities are used to defeat an insurgency, they are part of a counterinsurgency operation. While not all security cooperation activities are in support of counterinsurgency, security cooperation can be an effective counterinsurgency tool.  These activities help the U.S. and the host nation gain credibility and help the host nation build legitimacy. These efforts can help prevent insurgencies…”

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and its subordinate command, Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) based at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, have spent years engaged in such humanitarian projects.  These have been touted in news releases at their websites in lieu of candid information on the true scale and scope of AFRICOM’s operations.      Read more on the subject

[Excerpt of article by Nick Turse, managing editor of TomDispatch.com]

Humanitarian aid from Iran delivered to Iraqi Kurds

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Iran’s second consignment of humanitarian aid has been delivered to the people of Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, an official with the Iranian Red Crescent Society said.

The consignment weighs 260 tons and consists of food, blankets, tents, etc, the Tasnim news agency quoted the official as saying.
He said Iran’s humanitarian aid is being distributed among the Kurdish refugees who have fled from areas invaded by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) terrorist group.
[Tehran Times]

Mounting death tolls from Asian monsoons

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At least 137 people have died in the last few days from flooding caused by intense monsoon-season rains that have been lashing parts of Asia for weeks, according to government and media accounts.

Pakistan’s government reported Friday that up to a foot of rain (313 mm) in eastern parts of the country Thursday caused heavy flooding that left at least 56 people dead and 68 injured.

In Indian-administered Kashmir, 50 people died when a bus carrying a wedding party overturned in a flash flood. They were among 70 killed in Jammu and Indian-administered Kashmir as a result of flooding, Indian officials reported according to CNN sister network CNN-IBN.

In Thailand, the state-run MCOT news agency reported that authorities have urged residents along waterways in the country’s central region to move to higher ground. The government had deployed more than 600 soldiers to aid in flood prevention work, the Bangkok Post reported.

On Wednesday, China’s state-run CCTV reported 11 people had died and 39,000 had been evacuated in the southwestern city of Chongqing after heavy rains there. More than 2,200 homes collapsed in the deluge, CCTV said.

Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal were also hard-hit in August. South Korea and Japan have also seen flooding.

[CNN]

Humanitarian refugees flee eastern Ukraine

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According to the United Nations, more than one million people have been displaced by the fighting in eastern Ukraine. Some 800,000 Ukrainians have fled to Russia, another 260,000 are displaced inside Ukraine.

Ole Solvang, senior emergency researcher for Human Rights Watch, returned from eastern Ukraine and reports how both Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels are contributing to the rising death toll in the besieged city of Luhansk, where many residents have not had electricity, gas and running water for weeks, and where food and fuel are running low. Solvang reports:

“Luhansk is a city held by the separatist forces that has been under siege by the Ukrainian army for several weeks now. But perhaps the biggest challenge for people living there is the ongoing shelling, killing and injuring civilians. A morgue doctor there had registered more than 300 civilians who had been killed in Luhansk city alone since the military operations started in May.

“Who is responsible? In many cases, it’s difficult to determine with certainty. I think there is, logically, if you look at the situation—the separatists are holding the city, the Ukrainian army is trying to retake the city, so, logically, I think that there is an assumption that rockets, artillery shells that fall within the city come from the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian government is claiming that these are rebels firing into their own areas. There might be cases of that, but in most of the cases we looked at, the evidence pointed to the Ukrainian army.

“As to the vast number of refugees leaving Ukraine, they cite the difficult humanitarian situation in Luhansk, in particular, but most of them said that the determining factor for them was the increased shelling in their neighborhoods.”

[Excerpted from Democracy Now interview with Ole Solvang, senior emergency researcher for Human Rights Watch]

Humanitarian aid workers targets of attack

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More and more, during the course of helping suffering populations, humanitarian aid workers have become targets of attack by extremist groups.

2013 saw the highest number of aid workers killed compared to all other years, as reported by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Of 460 incidences of violence reported against aid workers in 2013, 155 have been fatal. This was said to have triple the number over the last 10 years. The leading offenders are reportedly found in Afghanistan, Syrian Arab Republic, South Sudan, Pakistan and The Sudan.

Without sufficient numbers of workers on the ground, service delivery to displaced people is hampered. And with more needy situations, not to speak of these attacks on humanitarian aid workers, there is need for an increase in the number of aid workers who have the courage and commitment to respond to increasingly various complex situations around the world.

Oxfam nudging big food companies to do right

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Oxfam America thinks that it can force the world’s biggest food companies to save the environment and make life better for millions of farm workers.

A campaign called Behind the Brands, led by Oxfam International, an advocacy organization dedicated to fighting poverty, is trying to make the inner workings of the 10 biggest food companies in the world more visible.

They include General Mills, Associated British Foods, Danone, Mars, Coca-Cola, Mondelez, Unilever, PepsiCo, Nestle and Kellogg, companies which collectively control much of what we consume.

Oxfam’s goal is to nudge them by scoring them on a scale of 1 to 10 on a whole host of fronts, from worker rights to climate change.

Chris Jochnick is one of the architects of this campaign and Oxfam America’s director of private sector development. In the following radio spot, he touches on how social media is giving activists more power, why big food companies respond to pressure, and whether corporate executives are his friends or his enemies, as well as some of the tactics he and others have used to influence corporate leaders.

Tactics include speaking up as shareholders at annual meetings or earnings calls, and staging public events, such as the one featured in this YouTube video of activists in Time Square drawing attention to the plight of female cocoa farmers in Africa. These efforts led to agreements with three large chocolate companies — Mars, Mondelez and Nestle — who have committed to doing more to help the female cocoa farmers in their supply chains escape poverty.

Listen to NPR’s Dan Charles and Allison Aubrey talk with Oxfam’s Chris Jochnick

 

UN: Syrian refugee crisis is ‘biggest humanitarian emergency of our era’

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The Syrian civil war has sparked “the biggest humanitarian emergency of our era.”

That’s according to António Guterres, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, who added that while the world’s response to the crisis has been “generous,” it hasn’t met the needs of refugees.

The U.N. agency released new numbers on Friday and the picture they paint is exceedingly grim. A few data points from the report:

  • The total number of Syrian refugees is on the verge of surpassing 3 million people since the conflict began in 2011. (By comparison, Chicago has a population of 2.7 million.)
  • Nearly half of all Syrians have been forced to abandon their homes.
  • One in eight Syrians has fled the country.
  • 6.5 million Syrians are displaced inside the country.

The situation is also growing more acute, according to the report. More than half of the refugees coming into Lebanon, for example, told the agency that they have moved at least once before. One in 10 refugees in Lebanon say they have moved more than three times.

[NPR]

Major surge in humanitarian crises so far this year

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From Syria to Iraq and natural disasters to a deadly virus, 2014 has already been marked by a major surge in humanitarian crises — and there are still four months to go.

A UN report released last week says this year has seen a large increase in the number of people needing aid, up to 102 million from 81 million in December 2013.

“2014 has seen a major surge in humanitarian crises around the world,” said the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, adding that aid agencies need an estimated $17.3 billion US to cover the world’s needs, up from $12.9 billion in 2013.

Among the ongoing problems affecting people around the world:

  • The Syrian conflict.
  • Typhoon Haiyan, which hit last November but is still affecting people in the Philippines.
  • ISIS extremism in Iraq.
  • Violence in the Central African Republic.
  • An outbreak of the Ebola virus.
  • Longstanding violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Darfur and South Sudan.

“We’re having a particularly, it seems, difficult period of time right now,” Rachel Logel Carmichael, a team leader in World Vision’s humanitarian and emergency affairs branch, said in an interview with CBC News.

Fen Hampson, director of the global security and politics program at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, says natural disasters like hurricanes or typhoons are typically one-off events that are damaging, but prolonged conflicts have more lasting effects on people.

The greatest humanitarian crisis of the last century, Hampson said, was due to the First and Second World Wars, “where you had very large-scale civilian casualties going into the tens of millions, and obviously displaced populations as well.”

[CBC]

Gazans launch Rubble Bucket Challenge

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An appeal to garner support for Gaza which imitates the wildly popular ALS Ice Bucket Challenge but uses rubble and dirt instead of cold water is picking up steam on social media.

“I have to do something and to send a message all over the world about Gaza,” said Ayman al Aloul, a journalist who started the so-called Rubble Bucket Challenge on Saturday. (Other hashtags doing the rounds on Facebook and Twitter included #dustbucketchallenge and #remainsbucketchallenge.)

When the 42-year-old discussed the idea with friends, some suggested that he use either a bucket of blood or shrapnel. “It came to my mind that it’s good idea to show the whole picture – how Gaza looks now, rubble, destruction, cement with sand, small rocks,” Aloul said.

Aloul’s aims are modest. “If five famous people in the world like actors or presidents will do the challenge, that means I succeeded in sending the message about Gaza,” he said.

The conflict that has killed more than 2,100 Palestinians and 68 Israelis since July 8 has also leveled swaths of the Palestinian enclave.

Watch on YouTube  

The Rice Bucket Challenge

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More than a million people worldwide have poured buckets of ice water over their heads as part of a fund-raising campaign for ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

But when word of the challenge made its way to India, where more than 100 million people lack access to clean drinking water, locals weren’t exactly eager to drench themselves with the scarce supply. And so, a spinoff was born.

Manju Kalanidhi, a 38-year-old journalist from Hyderabad who reports on the global rice market, put her own twist on the challenge. She calls her version the Rice Bucket Challenge, but don’t worry, no grains of rice went to waste. Instead, they went to the hungry.

Kalanidhi chose to focus on hunger. A third of India’s 1.2 billion people live on less than $1.25 USD a day, and a kilogram of rice, or 2 pounds, costs between 80 cents and a dollar.

That’s why she’s challenging people to give a bucket of rice, cooked or uncooked, to a person in need. Snap a photo, share it online and, just as with the Ice Bucket Challenge, nominate friends to take part, she suggests.

Kalanidhi kicked off the campaign Friday, and posted on her personal Facebook page. Responses poured in by the hundreds, prompting her to create a page for the campaign on Saturday. It received a hundred likes in just five hours. As of today, the number of likes has topped 40,000 in what she calls a “social tsunami.”

[NPR]