“Eating dogs is inappropriate, inhumane, and only heartless blood-suckers encourage it for their benefit,” said a man holding a picture of a cute dog in his hand in front of the Blue House Presidential Office in Seoul, South Korea. He also had several placards, one in his other hand, and others dispersed around him, hand-written almost the same message requesting the president to push a bill against the habit of consuming dog meat in South Korea.

He seemed left alone trying so hard on his own to make every passenger in the street to participate by starting a semi-debate conversation with them. I believe he wanted to encourage pedestrians to realize that their actions could make a difference if they joined with him in trying to make a change.

Eating Dog Meat Was Normal in South Korea Until Recently

Eating dog meat is an old habit in East Asian communities. It was just recently in the past several decades that cats and dogs became popular as pets partly due to individualism and Western cultural influences. We need to consider that habit of consuming dog meat in old south Korea was not meant or considered savagery, nor was immoral.

It was an available source of nutrients. For what it’s worth, there are all different tastes of food and ingredients all around the world. For example, Lechón (a Spanish word referring to a roasted baby piglet which was still fed by suckling its mother’s milk) and Khash (or kalle-pache, a dish of boiled cow or sheep parts, which might include the head, feet, and stomach) are two dishes that seem disgusting to many modern people but are famous in their regions.

We need to take historical and geographical circumstances into account to understand the eating of dog meat. The very same animal can be considered an ordinary animal, food, pet, friend, or even a deity due to these circumstances. Rabbit, in my case, being a dish had never been an option, and I always considered bunnies as the cutest animal pets; or as cows for Hindus, animals may not only be removed from some menus but also respected as in animism.

The Dog Meat Debate

The contradiction of treating this type of canine as a pet or as a dish became a hot topic among some Koreans only recently; and here I am, a West Asian in Korea, graduated in Cultural Studies and interested in cultural differences and, of course, in anyone who is protesting against the government. I was looking at the protesting man with interest in finding out what had made him so committed to his cause. I changed where I was going and walked over to him.

“I feel hugely responsible for eliminating this bad habit,” he said and explained that it was his routine to protest every weekend and sometimes stay overnight in his small tent. He is ashamed of dog meat still being consumed despite the dramatic modernization of the country.

“How come we could change so many things to be better, but still there are many people who eat dogs like barbarians? Why can’t we get modernized in this country?” he said.

It seemed like he has repeated the sentence a hundred times before, and he found himself confident with this statement.. However, probably unlike the common responses that he was expecting, I came up with a different one. I pointed to a fluffy dog with a red shirt that happened to pass by near us and told him:

“So is your request for the sake of modernization being fulfilled or for the sake of justice being pursued for dogs, these lovely animals?” He answered, “I want them to be treated fairly and with respect.”

“Why do you expect the president to bring up a law that guarantees fair treatment for dogs but not for other animals?” I asked. To his surprise, I added: “Isn’t it the time to stop excluding dogs from dozens of other animals who are suffering? Including those who are suffering from our imbalance privilege for dogs? I mean if we care about being fair, we may want to broaden our list. Shouldn’t we add all current edible farm animals to come in a presidential law bill? if we care about nature, we should ask for a bill that stops us from having pets at all because we are changing their lifestyle and also ruining nature’s life cycle by protecting from one species? and if we care about…”

Blah, blah, blah, I listed all perspectives I could find and didn’t find any logical one that justifies excluding dogs, and he said his reasons, again I told mine. It was a long talk that I wouldn’t have the length to list it all, but I’ll share some things that I saw from his perspective and some from mine.

Dogs as Pets in South Korea

Dogs are everywhere in South Korea. Several shops only provide services and items for pet dogs: dog clothes, different types of food and dog hotels, dog kindergarten, dog barbershop, dog photo shoots, dog swimming pools, and dog taxis are just a few businesses affiliated with dogs in this country.

The industry is also expanding with thousands of dog products like smart pet trackers or nonalcoholic pet beers. This industry focuses on its product as a cute, intelligent, and kind animals (which they indeed are) that we need to “take care of” or as a widespread motto in South Korea puts it: “have them as a family member.” Billions of dollars are funneled into this idea. The South Korean pet industry was worth $864.9 million USD in 2018 and around seventy percent of it was for dogs.

‘Your Dog Deserves to Live Like a Human’

“Your dog deserves to live like a human.”

It was written in a dog accessory shop in Seoul. We already know what that lifestyle looks like as humans speedily use up the world’s resources. As the pet industry statistics show us, this industry, like every other business, is based on consumption (the more we use, the more they produce), though responsible for a significant portion of South Korea’s unsustainable way of life. Dog owners spend around $100 USD per month on their pets in this country.

The pet population in Korea has been steadily increasing over the last decade. The country’s aging, the increased single-member households, and rising incomes have helped support this trend. As just for the pet food market, it was worth more than $870 million in 2019.

Increasing Opposition to Dog Meat

However, unlike the pet industry, dog meat is moving in the other direction. Western media and animal activists have written many articles on it. “Hell for dogs” and “Barbaric” are just some of the words they have used to introduce the issue. Their miserable way of breeding and the cruel and uncivilized practice of eating a smart and cute animal are some of the reasons mentioned by the media against dog meat. But not only are these approaches very selective and even specie-favoritism in an animal context, but it’s also not even scientific and reasonable.

Dog farms are more or less the same type of miserable as other farms for around 9 billion chickens, 33 million cows, and 113 million pigs raised and slaughtered brutally every year — small cages, dirty and smelly atmosphere with lifespan suffering through the same painful process. However, one critical fact is usually not considered: the amount of dog meat has declined from one million dogs to 20,000 per year in South Korea. It consists of less than 8% of consumed meat worldwide, while other meat consumption had increased, as FAO reported: “Pork is the most widely-eaten meat in the world accounting for over 36% of the world meat intake. It is followed by poultry and beef with about 35% and 22%, respectively.”

Other Animals are Also Cute

Being cute is also not exclusive for dogs as rabbits, lambs, and chickens are extremely cute in my opinion. Dogs are usually smart, but so are pigs. You probably need to read about the research on pigs that confirmed they are wise enough to play a video game! Pigs are also super social and can learn very fast. For the last argument on barbaric habit, I suggest to stop seeing the world from Europe and remind how millions of Hindus would feel about others who are eating cow’s meat.

The consuming way of life advertised by media uses natural resources for dogs and burns forests to raise cows. Instead of pointing at the significant issues, eating dogs has become the focus of “animal activists” and ignorant celebrities that want to push themselves as authorities on the subject. Dog meat is one of the most comfortable and accessible options for them, as it is exotic, and there is a vast hatred against this declining business around the world, including in South Korea. Simultaneously, the meat and pet industry is rising as it has never been recorded in history, which indirectly resulted in severe damage to other animals.

Ecological and Wildlife Devastation

Earth has lost half of its wildlife in around the past 40 years, mostly because of our way of life. We need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain the current consumption rate. Instead of a widespread action to save animals worldwide, we have limited ourselves to a few overpopulated and well-loved domesticated animals like dogs. Just last year, near 800,000 new pet dogs were registered in South Korea.

Thanks to thousands of shallow but accessible reports and quotes about dogs, the bigger picture usually misses the point. It’s perfectly common for an “animal lover” to bring a pet dog home and make it consume human products and call it “protecting animals.”

The UK has one of the worst reputations to its overusing the world’s resources, and it’s been calculated that we would need 2,5 Earths to match UK consumption levels extrapolated into the future. However, a British Instagram star can come to Korea and “rescue” a dog from a cage and fly it back to the UK. Then he can post pictures of dogs playing on the grass, and he obviously feels cool to rescue an animal that was supposed to be a meal for an allegedly cruel people. After taking all the pictures he enjoys a bacon sandwich at the same time.

American skier Gus Kenworthy is one example who could get thousands of Instagram likes by merely “flying” a dog from a cage in Korea to his yard in the USA and take a shortcut to getting tons of likes online. The pictures of the dog, buying him a “dog cake” for a birthday gift, added to his continually posting photos of his consuming lifestyle in a country that is the second globally in overusing world resources.

‘A Cultured Country Does Not Allow its People to Eat Dogs’

“Cows are grown to be eaten; dogs are not.” This non-scientific and sentimental words came from a French actress Brigitte Bardot who, thanks to her movies, gets attention to her terms about animals. “I accept that many people eat beef, but a cultured country does not allow its people to eat dogs.” She concluded. France is number 19 in the mentioned list of world over-consumption, and according to UC Davis university: “livestock are responsible for 14.5 percent of global greenhouse gases.”

I personally have never eaten dog meat, and I try to avoid other kinds of meat in general. But as someone who thinks a lot about the environment, I don’t understand why dogs should have so much privilege above other animals. I also don’t get why “activists” feed this bias if not because of their ignorance of the bigger picture they play in it.

Back to the Debate

“We should start from somewhere. We should stop producing red meat in general, but we can start from dogs as there is more public agreement on it,” the man wanted to conclude, unable to convince me with his previous reasons.

“But why should we start from a business that is already declining while the bigger issue that’s spreading is left more or less in silence?” I asked.

“Anyway, people are different. We don’t all have to think the same,” he answered.

He didn’t want to hear more of me. He slowly raised a cute picture of the dog and tried to change the mood with his fake smile. Did I make him consider the issue from a new angle? I’m not sure.

How many other dogs did I see on my way back home? How many of their owners call themselves animal activists or animal lovers? And how many of these animal activists or animal lovers think about the 41,415 species that are currently in danger of extinction?

Edited by Alireza Soltani Koupaei

L'articolo After All, It’s Just a Slice of Meat – This One From a Dog! proviene da InsideOver.

Sudan is struggling to contain heavy rains and floods that have left a trail of unprecedented devastation.

Sudan State of Emergency: Over 100 Dead

The floods, which have disrupted almost all services and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, have so far killed over 100 Sudanese nationals and injured hundreds of others, according to the Sudanese Ministry of the Interior which manages the police force.

They have come to compound the challenges Sudanese authorities face because of the coronavirus and the tough economic conditions of their country.

Sudan’s Security and Defense Council has declared a state of emergency throughout the country because of the floods which have hit 17 out of the nation’s 18 states.

The state of emergency will last for three months, designating Sudan as a country with a national disaster.

Untold Loss

In addition to the human toll from the heavy rains, the flooding has caused economic losses between $3 and $4 billion, according to preliminary estimates.

This adds to the economic woes of Sudan which declared a state of economic emergency earlier this month due to a sharp fall in the exchange rate of its national currency, the Sudanese pound.

The Sudanese economy has been suffering for years now, with deteriorating economic conditions standing behind the political upheavals hitting the country. The same upheavals opened the door for the downfall of the regime of longstanding president Omar Hassan al-Bashir in April last year.

Bashir’s removal from power could not improve Sudan’s economic conditions, causing his political opponents to quickly realize that fixing the economy would require more than just the ouster of a corrupt president.

Devastation Everywhere

The enormity of the devastation caused by the flooding is manifest in the failure of Sudanese authorities to keep up with the needs of those affected.

Photos coming out of Sudan show a country swamped with water wherever one goes. Ordinary people are seen building sandbag walls and pumping water out of homes and important sites, including ancient sites.

Over 100 schools and higher education facilities were either partially or totally destroyed by the flooding. This threw Sudan’s preparations for the new academic year in disarray, especially with most of the schools turning into shelters for those turned homeless.

Apart from the schools, the floods also inundated over 100,000 houses.

Need for Action

Over half a million Sudanese citizens are now in need of humanitarian assistance.

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok described on August 30 the losses to lives and properties caused by the floods as both “catastrophic” and “painful”.

“The water levels of the Nile and its tributaries this year, according to the Irrigation and Water Resources Ministry, are unprecedented since 1912,” he wrote on Twitter.

Hamdok asked his country’s institutions to keep coordinating with each other. He also called for mobilizing all possible material and human resources to reduce the effects of the flooding on citizens.

Apart from the rainfall in Sudan, the floods were also caused by days of heavy rains in neighboring Ethiopia. They caused the level of the Blue Nile to reach a record high of 17.58 meters. Ethiopia accounts for about 80% of the water of the Blue Nile.

The Sudanese capital Khartoum was the hardest hit by the floods. It is the point where the Blue and White Nile rivers meet.

The Blue Nile and River Nile states were equally affected by the floods. The states of Gezira, Gadarif, West Kordofan, and South Darfur also reported damage.

International Response

Arab states Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar sent shipments of humanitarian aid to Sudan. The aid included foodstuffs and medicines needed in the national response to the flooding.

The United States said it would continue to support the Sudanese people. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called Hamdok on September 12 to express his condolences for those who died in the flooding.

Pompeo and Hamdok also discussed needed assistance for Sudan’s response to the disaster.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the flooding had hindered access to clean water in Sudan.

OCHA Spokesman Jens Laerke said the United Nations and its humanitarian partners had the needs of 250,000 people, re-positioned in Sudan, even before the rains started. OCHA called, however, for wider support from the international community, especially with stocks being depleted rapidly.

It said a $1.6 billion humanitarian plan for Sudan is less than 44% funded.

L'articolo Floods Cause Massive Devastation In Sudan proviene da InsideOver.

Works are in progress in the easternmost periphery of the Old Continent to bring to life an ambitious project known as E40. The E40 is a waterway whose aim is to link the Baltic sea with the Black Sea by going through the countries in between the Russian sphere and Western Europe. It would be a modern-day water-woven Iron Curtain. The geopolitical consequences of the E40 are as high as the environmental risks and its eventual construction is set to profoundly shape international relations in Eastern Europe.

What is the E40?

The E40 project has been rumored since the early 2000s but was officially unveiled only in 2013. Specifically, it aims at constructing a 2,000 kilometres-long inland shipping route from Gdansk, Poland to Kherson, Ukraine, linking the Baltic sea and the Black sea via the Dnieper, Pripyat, Bug and Vistula rivers by going through Polesia, Europe’s Amazon. Scarce information is available about the project since little has been said until today, but the establishment of the 3SI, Ukraine’s continuing closeness with the West and the ongoing Belarus-Russia arm wrestling are reviving the debate.

Once completed, the E40 is estimated to permit the transit of 5 to 7 tons of goods annually, an incredible boost to the multilateral trade among the Baltic states, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. Tens of thousands of jobs are expected to be created due to the necessity of a kilometres-long buildup of docks, storage facilities, distribution and sorting centers.

Key Urban Locations Boost Polish and Ukrainian Power

Furthermore, the rivers selected for the water corridor pass by, or in the vicinity of, vital business sites such as Kiev, Warsaw and Gdansk. In short, it is the perfect complement to the Polish dreams of regional hegemony and to the EU-US plans to reduce Russian exposition in the Eastern European nations as much as possible.

Warsaw has shown an increasingly willingness to link the E40 to the 3SI, which would mean access to EU funds, whereas Minsk stopped opposing any regional cooperation projects not contemplating the Russian participation and very recently has shown some interest in the E40 and in other multilateral initiatives with the 3SI members. Aleksandr Lukashenko’s endorsement is the game-changer that could allow the E40 to take form since no serious North-South corridor is thinkable without Minsk.

Where Does Belarus Stand?

Russian diplomacy seemed to have succeed in convincing Lukashenko to boycott the project so that to limit its geopolitical impact and economic potential, but in the recent months the Belarusian president changed his mind, proving again to the Kremlin that he is an unreliable partner and his double play seems now destined to give in to pressures from the Western flirting diplomacy. In the case Belarus ever decides to formalize its participation, its path to diversification and de-Russification would record an incredible boost in favor of the growing amalgamation with the Poland-centered new regional order.

Last September, Lukashenko said that the participation in the E40 is very important since it may allow Minsk to have access to the Black Sea. The same month, the then-Ukrainian minister of infrastructure, Vladislav Krikli, announced a €354,000 initial allocation to dredge 64.5 kilometres of the Pripyat river. Later that year, in December, officials from Minsk and Kyiv have signed a comprehensive agreement about the E40, as a completion to previous deals for the building of a port on the Dnepr and the joint effort to dredge the Dnieper and Pripyat rivers.

In the meantime, Poland is actively searching for investors. Polish officials aspire to attract at least €20 billion in investments and are even lobbying to the Chinese, trying to convince them of the opportunity to link the E40 to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

What’s Motivating the E40 Project?

E40 is the official name given by the European Union to a waterway designed to increase the inter-dependence among the flyover-states-turned-big players of Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. It is one of the many monumental infrastructure projects which are being set up in recent years as part of the East-focused developmental agenda sponsored by the EU-US axis. One of its main purposes geopolitically is to widen the distance between Eastern Europe and Russia.

Until today, such distance was mainly political. The once Soviet-ruled and historically Russian-influenced countries have been gradually incorporated in the EU and in the NATO and then wisely converted in strongholds of Atlanticism. Russia could do nothing to prevent this Zbigniew Brzezinski-written scenario from taking place due to a series of circumstances and external factors, and now is more encircled than ever before. The likely entry into the EU and NATO in the next future of Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia ⁠— against the background of the E40 ⁠— is going to complete the encirclement.

The once-poor and underdeveloped Poland plays a key-role in this essentially anti-Russian power design by taking the lead in any considerable initiative endowed with the potential of shaping the regional dynamics, from the Visegrad alliance to the Baltic Fund, from the Intermarium-inspired Three Seas Initiative (3SI) to the dream of building a Warsaw-centered energy market covering even the Baltic states and Ukraine. It’s only by having a 360 degree view of the current historical context that it’s possible to understand the true meaning and importance of the E40.

Why the E40 is So Important

The geopolitical potential of the E40 is as high as the economic one. The waterway is designed to inter-connect deeply this post-communist region inhabited by some 90 millions people and whose anti-Russian standing is vital for the Western plans of containment and regional hegemony. Poland’s effort to link the E40 to the 3SI might justify the right to receive EU funds as well as the possibility to use the waterway for security reasons and not only for trade.

The overall outcome would be the official consecration of a new union within the European Union, acting as a modern-day cordon sanitaire capable of crystallizing the West-East divide and of making the post-communist players more amalgamated and cohesive. Russia’s influence over the region would record a tremendous hit from which it would be barely possible to recover in the case of Belarus’ effective participation.

Russia’s Cards to Stop the Project: the Environment and Donbass

The project is as ambitious as it is controversial since the environmental impact could be truly horrific in terms of loss of bio-diversity, destruction of wilderness, and the likely spread until the Baltic Sea of the contaminated waters nearby Chernobyl. The strengthening of this already-used used waterway will imply the construction of dams and locks, the interruption of meanderings, against the background of dredging and extension works to strengthen the river’s flow.

Several civic associations have been established so far to protest against the E40 for environmental reasons: BirdLife, BUEE and Bahna in Belarus, NECU and USPB in Ukraine, and OTOP in Poland. These associations are lobbying to their respective governments, exposing them the risks and the alleged anti-economic cost-benefit ratio emerged from their feasibility studies.

Welcome to Polesia

Polesia — also known as “Europe’s Amazon” — is set to be the most impacted area by the E40 and the repercussions of its artificial alteration are only partly predictable. The eighteen-million-hectares unspoiled region hosts several UNESCO-recognized protected reserves and more than 70 natural areas where dozens of thousands of animal species live and are now at risk of extinction, because some of them are endemic — namely they are based only in Polesia.

Russia is endangered by Belarus’ change of mind but Moscow has two cards to play and both of them are to be played in Ukraine: the environmental impact and the Donbass. In fact, the waterway pass by the Chernobyl exclusion zone — at its closest is only 2.5 kilometres from the nuclear reactor — and as various environmental organizations have pointed out there’s the concrete risk of making the contamination spread and threatening millions of people and animals. Russia’s approach is strengthened by these indisputable elements and it may use the already-existing environmental organizations to increase the bottom-up pressure against the E40.

The E40 is also vulnerable because of the Dnieper’s vicinity to the Donbass, where conflict between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed separatists is still ongoing. Acts of sabotage are relatively easy-to-make via Donetsk- or Lugansk-based fighters, a large-scale Ukraine-Russia war might still break out in the next future — the E40’s inherent geopolitical significance, the Western pressures over Belarus, the NATO question and other factors will influence the Kremlin’s behavior — and they could prove extremely useful to discouraging potential investors from committing to the project’s funding.

It is not possible to predict the future, but one thing is clear as day: the E40 is a modern-day water-woven Iron Curtain, an infrastructure whose eventual construction would profoundly shape international relations in Eastern Europe, and Russia will do anything to stop and/or to hinder its contruction. Even a war. Ukraine and Belarus are warned.

L'articolo E40: the Waterway That Could Change Eastern Europe’s Destiny Forever proviene da InsideOver.

The New Coronavirus (COVID-19), which started in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has spread to more than 28 countries and killed more than 2,000 globally so far since the first case was reported Dec. 31, 2019. New Coronavirus (COVID-9), with the outbreak, started in Wuhan, China, has killed more than 2,000 globally since January. However, more than 21,000 have recovered so far.However, a new study shows that air pollution is more lethal than the outbreak with similar symptoms to those of SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) that killed hundreds in 2002 and 2003.

Despite the frantic headlines about coronavirus, air pollution silently kills 7 million worldwide every year as IQAir CEO Frank Hammes said. He added that 90 percent of the global population breathe unsafe air. IQAir is a Swiss-based air quality data provider.

How is Air Pollution Measured?

The higher Air Quality Index (AQI) is, the worse the pollution level is. There are six chemical elements used to measure air quality in a region; average times of the chemicals ozone (O3), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers (PM/Particulate Matter 2.5), and particles smaller than 10 micrometers (PM10).

Particulate Matter (PM) 2.5 is a tiny air particle with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or smaller. This particle can reduce visibility once the level increases. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the standard limit of PM 2.5 is 25 microgram per meter cubic. Also, the colour of the AQI indicator can tell us about the level of pollution. The colors range from green (healthy) to maroon (hazardous).

Which Cities in the World Are the Most Polluted?

The study revealed that India’s capital New Delhi topped the list of the world’s most polluted cities in 2019. In fact, 21 of out of the 30 most polluted cities in the world are located in India.

The study focuses on the level of PM 2.5 in major urban areas. The index showed that in 2019, New Delhi’s average concentration of PM 2.5 reached 98.6, more than double that of Beijing (42.1), which ranked ninth the most polluted city globally.

Several cities in China made progress in decreasing the concentration level of PM 2.5 around up to 9 percent in 2019. Ninety-eight percent of cities in China have exceeded the WHO standard, and 53 percent of cities there have surpassed the country’s not-too-strict air quality standard.

The Leading Causes of Air Pollution

Numerous factors can cause toxic air, such as forest fires, gas emission from motor vehicles and human industrial activities, and volcanic eruption.

However, research shows that all volcanoes across the globe only emit 0.13 to 0.44 billion tons of CO2 annually. While in 2010, various human activities contributed at least 35 billion tons of CO2 emission to the atmosphere, as Climate.gov noted.

A research conducted by the University of Indonesia stated that motor vehicles’ smoke contributes between 70 percent and 80 percent to air pollution in Jakarta as Indonesia’s newspaper Republika reported. Smoke from motor vehicles is more dangerous as it quickly exposes to other people. 

How Dangerous is Air Pollution to Our Health?

Long-term exposure to PM 2.5 can trigger cardiovascular-related disease, and that can eventually lead to stroke and heart attack, according to a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association.

“Exposure to PM <2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5) over a few hours to weeks can trigger cardiovascular disease-related mortality and nonfatal events; longer-term exposure (e.g., a few years) increases the risk for cardiovascular mortality to an even greater extent than exposures over a few days and reduces life expectancy within more highly exposed segments of the population by several months to a few years.”

The WHO predicts that from 2010 to 2030 there will be an increase in death from lung function failure caused by air pollution, especially in countries with poor transportation management and air pollution control.

As governments around the world are making policies to reduce air pollution, we can do simple things to minimize it by taking public transportation instead of private vehicles, reducing the use of electricity, planting plants that can contain pollutants, and turning to renewable energy.

L'articolo Silent and Deadly: Pollution Kills More People Than Coronavirus proviene da InsideOver.

The two developing superpowers have been disputing territories or resources since the mid-20th century. Both increasing tensions, and de-escalation of the disputes are possible. Will water shortages and political posturing cause tensions to rise between the two leaders of Asia?

There are many, unequally weighted reasons, why China and India have veered on the side of escalating tensions – in the context of their foreign relations.

China’s and India’s histories have been marked with invasions of foreign powers, and a long path to unification. Both countries have seen strong regional divisions in the past, and colonial attitudes from previous superpowers.

These shared experiences could turn the two countries into closest partners. Nevertheless, the same shared experiences make very close foreign relations almost impossible. When the majority of history has been either internal fighting for territory, or defence against foreign invaders (e.g. invaders from the West for India, Mongols for China), giving leeway to neighbours becomes an impossible task.

After India’s independence and China’s communist revolution, the relations of the two countries became more complex. From one side, the need for internal modernisation and poverty reduction kept the relations between the two countries civil. Disagreements about territorial claims are more of an exception, because of unclear territorial divisions after the modern India and China were founded.

Historically, the two previous empires and largest states in the South-Southeast Asian regions interacted with one another in a manner fitting to the specific historical period.

China has had the largest population in the world since the early common era. India is bound to surpass this achievement in the early 2020s. The growing populations have created increasing domestic demand, and a strong incentive to modernize. This has contributed to both countries moving towards, and competing for the status, of the regional superpower.

The present relations of the two countries are better than they were in the past (particularly during the 1960s). Yet, any bilateral talks are always marked with competition in mind. Territorial competition and claims still haven’t been resolved even after decades of the partnership of two independent nations.

The main issues which are causing the countries to trade jabs (both diplomatic and military) are: environmental, territorial, and those related to the fight for the influence in the region.

Rising tensions because of environmental and territorial issues have long been a problem for China and India. The territorial issues have been a cause for conflict as early as the establishment of the modern China and India.

Environmental issues are a complex factor creating increasing tensions for the two countries. Issues like water scarcity have had a not only negative impact on the relations of China and India. Instead, identical issues experienced by the two Asian countries also act as a push factor for closer cooperation in this sphere.

In contrast, rising tensions because of the fight for the influence in the region, are a newer threat to good relations of the two countries. In the 21st century, both countries, to different degrees, underwent transformations which pushed them to expand their foreign influence.

There are several push and pull factors for rising tensions between China and India.

Water shortages and the steadily growing populations of both countries, present an increasing problem.

Every year, China’s population increases by around 6.5 million, and India’s by 14 million. This wouldn’t be a problem if there wasn’t a dispute surrounding the water-scarce regions of India and China. Most notably, the region of Arunachal Pradesh, and the rising fears related to the possible diversion of the river Brahmaputra.

Solutions to these problems are expensive and hard to deliver. Mostly due to the terrain, and the low infrastructure development of the contested regions of north-eastern India or south-western China.

The historical precedent because of which neither China nor India are ready to give away anything (territory, resources), also slows down any talks for the resolution of this issue. In regions, where military shoot-outs have become commonplace, a step away could be interpreted as defeat. Not only by the opposing side, but also by the citizens of these two countries.

The most powerful pull to lower tensions, and peaceful relations, is trade and economic ties between nations. For the two countries, these ties account for 0.006% of China’s, and 0.006% of India’s GDP. Losing the 7th and 3rd largest trade partners would bring severe negative consequences to both countries.

The consequences of lower amounts of trade can be solved easily if the type of exports can be easily re-oriented to other markets. E.g. trade in electronics or unprocessed food products. For China and India, the largest quantities in exports are commodities and chemicals. An increasing probability of lower trade would see businesses having to solve a difficult problem. Selling products, which can’t be easily re-oriented to export into other markets.

The strategies for trade and economic development, chosen by the two neighbouring countries, also work in favour of closer relations between them. China’s newest economic strategy, presented in 2015, “Made in China 2025”, focuses on developing manufacturing prowess in high tech (e.g. robotics) manufacturing. This means that a re-orientation in the most numerous exports of China can be expected.

India’s top imports include electronic equipment, machinery, and medical or technical equipment. Hence, a push for the production of these tools and machines in China will very likely lead to higher exports of the products into India. With them, closer trade ties between the two countries. After all, the current top imports of India from China already include these products.

India’s newest choice of trade strategy doesn’t favour trade with China at first glance. The statements released by the commerce and industry minister of India, point to an increase in exports towards regions west of India, like the Middle East and Africa.

Nonetheless, India’s orientation of trade into other regions should not be viewed as a movement away from its older, and closer markets. Instead, the hesitant talks about an FTA between China and India, the establishment of Chinese industrial parks in India, and cooperation in fuel trade, show that these two countries can create closer cooperation, even while branching out in foreign relations.

Foreign nations also have influenced the bond between China and India. More so, when the rising tensions meant gains for the allies of either side.

For one, competing regional powers often try to bring neighbouring countries to their side through financial or political incentives. In the case of China and India, the South and Southeast Asian region has long been divided into two opposing factions, supporting a different side in this competition.

Countries supporting the side of China, in the South Asian region, have been Pakistan, Myanmar and Cambodia.

China, more recently, has solidified these relations through the Belt and Road initiative. The scale of investment is large for the region: $62B through the Belt and Road initiative for Pakistan, already nine approved projects through the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, and $7B already invested in Cambodia by 2017.

Although giving out aid to allies against potential regional rivals looks like a good strategy in the short term, it can backfire in the long term. Instead of doubling down on negotiations, or looking for alternative solutions for the management of disputed territories, the spending on allies treats the symptoms, and not the disease. More so, when investments are directed towards countries unfriendly in regards to the competitor.

India has chosen a different path to gain allies and power in Asia. Its foreign aid budget was $1.19B in 2019-2020. Even though the amount of foreign aid given out by India is growing, its size can’t compete with that of China’s – $2.63B in 2019.

India’s allies in the South and Southeast Asian regions are Vietnam, Nepal and Bangladesh. Contrarily to getting allies through mostly monetary means, India is intent on expanding on already existing cultural and military ties. Communications directed at Nepal have emphasized the shared cultural connections. With Bangladesh and Vietnam, India has worked on joint military cooperation.

As long as there is a possibility of conflict escalation, both countries have an incentive to bring neighbouring countries to their side. And for financial or military support, such as provided by loans from China to its allies, the question remains: what will happen when some other country will offer a better deal?

For the foreign relations of China and India, their current disputes have the potential to bring the two countries closer through cooperation, and even similar goals. Nonetheless, the decades-long issues that haven’t been solved, and the increasing environmental issues will add to conflict escalation.

L'articolo Will There be Environmental Conflict Escalation Between China and India? proviene da InsideOver.

Active forest fires in Central Africa are greater than the Amazon fires, and have a potential to be more dangerous, Greenpeace has warned.

Termed “the fire continent” by NASA, Africa is home to at least 70% of fires burning worldwide, during the global fire season between June and September.

The fires, which spread from Angola to Gabon, are close to the Congo Basin, the second-largest tropical rainforest in the globe, which spans the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Cameroon and the Central Africa Republic. Like the Amazon, the Congo Basin absorbs a large percent of the earth’s carbon dioxide, and is responsible for abating the negative effects of climate change.

The Global Forest Watch shows massive fires currently burning in Central and Southern African nations. Fires in both continents are as a result of “slash and burn” farming where land is cleared using fire. The farming method requires natural vegetation to be cut down and burned to clear the land for cultivation. Rainforest Saver describes it as a form of “shifting agriculture” that rapidly leads to poverty, infertile lands, climate change and the destruction of the rainforest, including wildlife. Once farming strips the soil of its nutrients, rendering it infertile, farmers move to a new land area and repeat the process.

The worst of Africa’s fires is contained in Angola, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Madagascar and South Africa. Although fires in Central Africa have not spread to the Congo Basin forest area, fires in South America have spread to the Amazon rainforest, prompting problems for the people and the biodiverse wildlife for whom this is home.

Slash and burn techniques have been criticised by experts. Many, including World Agroforestry and Rainforest Saver, have published environmental alternatives to slash and burn. “The richness of the rainforest is in the trees”, Rainforest Saver has argued. However, with the Amazon rainforest burning, the earth is losing a big part of its richness, including its biodiversity. Despite African forest fires being substantially higher in number, the global focus on the Amazon rainforest stems from a concern that the fires there have not been controlled, unlike African fires.

Working on Fire, under South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs, writes that: “Fires are, and always have been, a part of the South African landscape. They occur as a natural phenomenon in grasslands, woodlands, fynbos, and sometimes in indigenous forests.

“About 70% of the ecosystems covering South Africa are fire-adapted. They need to burn to maintain their ecological integrity. But because of human activity, there is a need to manage fire in a manner that is appropriate for the land-use and land-type while maintaining natural processes and patterns as far as possible.”

Despite similarities in agricultural techniques, fire management in both regions is the difference between safe and unsafe forest fires.

“There are fire management questions in these (African) ecosystems, but fire is part of their ecology,” Sally Archibald, a professor at the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences, at The University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, said.

“In South America, the equivalent non-forest woodlands have been largely converted to soybean agriculture already, but in Africa they are largely untransformed.

“The main message is: yes we have a lot of fire, but it’s not bad and can be very good for the ecology. We don’t know how many deforestation fires we have but the best evidence is that our forests are not decreasing, they are in fact increasing.”

While the slash and burn farming practice was sustainable in the past, rising population makes it impossible to abandon burnt land for two decades while it replenishes its nutrients. Other problems associated with rising population, such as rising temperatures, decreased rain from climate change and industrialised practices create the perfect circumstances for slash and burn fires to burn out of control.

Experts, consequently, are now focused on the Amazon’s forest fires, over Africa’s fires. “The question now is to what extent we can compare,” opined Philippe Verbelen, a Greenpeace forest campaigner.

Last month, French president, Emmanuel Macron, voiced concern that the Central African forest fires were not receiving as much media attention as the Amazon forest fires. In the same month, the G7 nations pledged $20 million to the Amazon fires, sending fire-fighting aircraft and firefighter volunteers.

Bolivian authorities have warned that fires in the Chiquitania forest area have left more than a quarter of the country under “extreme risk from the forest fires”. The fires have also destroyed parts of the Amazon and Bolivia’s Pantanal region which borders Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, who previously rejected international help, has last week, accepted foreign aid efforts.

“Any cooperation is welcome, whether it comes from international organisations, celebrities or from the presidents who offered to help,” he said. He also recently cancel his re-election campaign to join the firefighting efforts.

Data from Brazil’s Space Research Centre (INPE) proves there has been an 83% increase in forest fires in the Amazon since records began in 2013. “The number of forest fires is higher in the Amazon regions most affected by deforestation practices, as fires are one of the main tools used for deforestation, including by farmers,” Greenpeace said.

“Forest fires and climate change operate in a vicious cycle: as the number of fires increase, so do greenhouse gas emissions, increasing the planet’s overall temperature and the occurrence of extreme weather events, such as major droughts,” the NGO continued.

Morales criminalised the slash and burn farming practice last month, despite his very government permitting it in the first place to create revenue from expanding agro-business in Bolivia.

“This month’s devastating fires are the all-too-predictable consequence of the Morales government’s decree authorising new land claims on cleared land”, said Carwil Bjork-James, an anthropology professor at Vanderbilt University.

The Pan-Amazon indigenous organisation COICA has accused Morales and Brazilian president, Jair Bolsorano, of “gutting every environmental and social strategy” designed to protect the Amazon, for the benefit of huge capitalistic profit.

In response to the President Macron’s concerns, President Bolsorano accused the French president of treating the Amazon region “as if it were a colony”.

“We cannot accept that a president, Macron, unleashes unreasonable and gratuitous attacks on the Amazon, nor that he disguises his intentions behind the idea of a G-7 ‘alliance’ to ‘save’ the Amazon, as if we were a colony or a no-man’s-land,” Bolsonaro tweeted.

Western arguments against South America’s governmental policies in the Amazon has led to criticisms of ‘environmental colonialism‘. South American governments are sceptical about environmental aid and advice from Western governments, because of the West’s unethical history with environmentalism.

By prioritising financial gain over global environmental concerns, the United States and Western Europe saw great economic successes in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Under European colonisation, for example, 21.7% of Africa’s tropical rainforest was deforested. Today, US President Trump continues to deny climate change as a real problem, attempting to repeal 84 climate change regulations that stem the profits of ultra-wealthy American businesspersons.

The Amazon forest fires reveal a great global power shift, with the fate of the planet resting on the survival of a continent that the West has historically plundered and destroyed for its benefit. How South America responds to the protection of the Amazon in the future will be a great determining factor in whether we can survive, and even reverse climate change.

L'articolo Forest Fires, Climate Change and Deforestation in South America and Africa proviene da InsideOver.

When Evgeny moved to the village of Starobachaty, next to his home there was a potato field. Nowit has been replaced with a mountains of rubbish, traversed by trucks that kick up a yellow dust along their path. “When the wind blows toward us , we can’t even leave our homes. The dust gets in your mouth and crunches in between your teeth”, tells Evgeny in a shaky voice.

In Kuzbass, the biggest coalfield in Russia, open air mines are popping up everywhere, turning the territory into a lunar landscape. The coal dust, which is highly toxic, spreads into the air, taints the rivers and poisons the crops.

It is not surprising that the life expectancy of the Kuzbass inhabitants is around four years shorter than Russia’s national average. Or that the region holds the record for highest rate of occupational diseases, especially those afflicting the respiratory system. Indeed, the frenzied mining activities have always taken place in spite of safety standard violations. The local environmentalist organisation “Ecozashita” revealed more than fifty violations of the minimum distance requirement – 1 kilometer – that, according to the law, represents what is the mandatory minimum distance between mines and residential areas.

“It would actually be possible at a minimum, the environmental impact of the mines. However extracting the coal in an a more ecological manner is far more costly and the mines’ owners are too stingy” explains a bitter Vladislav Tannagashev, a resident in the village of Chuvashka. The coal companies must bear the huge costs of transporting the coal thousands of kilometers toward the nearest sea ports. This is why, according to the activists, entrepreneurs are cutting back on safety costs.

The spokespeople for the local administration have been restrained in revealing the extent of the mines’ environmental impact. They have stated only that “if there had been irregularities, they would have already been fixed”. However, according to the local activists, there is deep collusion between government authorities and the mining industry. “Governor Tuleev is the chief lobbyist for the coal companies, and so has no interest in imposing sanctions on them” explains Lementuev.

The Kuzbass inhabitants are defenseless against the tyranny of the coal companies, especially due to limited awareness about their civil rights and the instruments available to defend themselves. “People write letters to President Putin or to Governor Tuleev asking for their help, as if they are writing to Santa Claus”, says a dejected Lementuev.

The main victims of this unlawfully expanding industrialization is the indigenous population of the Šori. In the past they used the land to hunt, fish and harvest, today the Šori have been forced to leave their ancestral land, made uninhabitable by the mines. No longer having any bond with the territory, they move to the cities, and as a results their language and traditions are disappearing. “We lived on top of coal. Our ancestors chose to settle in a land filled with riches. This is our curse” acknowledges bitterly Vladimir Bekrenev, a Šori businessman.

After the Paris Agreement, many western countries have begun reducing their coal consumption and are investing in clean energy sources. Nevertheless in the Kuzbass they are continuing to relentlessly extract coal. Most of the inhabitants of the region work in the mining industry or in sectors linked to the industry.

The activists of “Ecozashita” believe that if the Kuzbass does not diversify its exports, in the coming decades the region will be afflicted by a grave economic crisis. “And then, there won’t be jobs for anyone -concludes Lementuev – and there will be nothing left except the craters left by the mining industry.

Pictures of Giovanni Pigni

L'articolo Russia living on the coal proviene da InsideOver.