Old Year's Resolutions

vernment in Pakistan inaugurated the country’s fourth nuclear power plant Chashma III this month as the desperate quest for electricity in the energy-starved nation continues.

The government has plans for at least three more nuclear power plants namely Chashma IV nuclear power plant, which will be completed by 2017, and Karachi Nuclear Power Projects K-2 and K-3 that would add a total of 8,800 megawatts by 2030 as envisaged by the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (AEE). The power projects are joint collaboration between the Pakistan and China.

The push for nuclear energy at a time when rest of the world is striving for the renewable energy has naturally caused concerns. Civil society groups in Pakistan have been opposing the government’s ambitious plans for nuclear energy, particularly expansion of nuclear reactors along the coast in the country’s biggest Karachi city.

Critics argue the government is enticed to proceed with construction of two additional 1,100 MW nuclear power plants of untested design, which are China’s first export of reactors to another country, because of the $ 6.8 billion soft loan offered by Beijing.

No doubt the country’s electricity crisis is of acute nature, but nuclear energy can never be a viable option in the longer run. Considering the poor standards of safety in Pakistan, and the fact that fuel for the nuclear power plants would be imported all the way from China means lives of millions of people is at risk, particularly the poor fishermen living near these plants.

Pervez Hoodbhoy, a leading nuclear physicist in the country, has been among the leading campaigners against the nuclear plants. He has time and again argued that instead of chasing outmoded and dangerous 20th-century technology, it is time for Pakistan to follow the world into a cleaner, safer

21st century, but the Pakistani government remains reluctant.

This is ironic considering the fact that Pakistan can generate more than 500, 000 megawatts of electricity from solar, wind and hydropower, which is many times more than the country can consume.

The United Nations Security Council may have managed to push through a historic resolution on Israel/Palestine before the Christmas break, but they failed to approve a resolution that would have imposed an arms embargo on South Sudan and placed a travel ban and asset freeze on three senior South Sudanese leaders.

The measure failed to gain the nine votes needed to pass, with seven in favor and eight abstentions.

“South Sudanese civilians had a reasonable expectation that the Security Council would make good on its long-standing threat to impose an arms embargo and extend sanctions to some of the senior leaders who have been responsible for grave human rights abuses” said John Prendergast, founding director at the Enough Project. “I can only imagine their frustration with today’s vote.”

Amnesty International, Control Arms, Enough Project, Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect, Humanity United, Human Rights Watch, and PAX issued the statement jointly.

African Union and UN investigators have documented war crimes, including killings and rape of civilians, and forced recruitment of children by the warring parties in South Sudan since the conflict began on December 15, 2013. In the last few months there has been an increase in incitement to violence, hate speech by senior leaders, and targeting of civilians, sometimes based on ethnicity, in parts of the country that were previously untouched by the civil war.

“The Security Council had an opportunity to show that it stands with the civilian victims of this conflict,” said Akshaya Kumar, deputy United Nations director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead, this failure gives the warring parties in South Sudan a green light to buy more weapons and materiel that will end up being used against civilians.”

The coalition is especially concerned that the Security Council was unable to come together and take action recommended by the UN’s senior leadership, including the secretary-general and his adviser on genocide prevention. “Once again, we are seeing civilians in dire need of protection being abandoned by the Security Council,” said Dr. Simon Adams, executive director of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. “We hope this effort can be revived in January when we have a new Security Council, with five new members.”

The coalition noted that some Security Council members cited President Salva Kiir’s December 2016 announcement of an inclusive national dialogue as a reason for not supporting the resolution. However, given the very limited role that nongovernmental groups, faith leaders, and women had in the process leading up to the August 2015 peace agreement, and the severe restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly in South Sudan, these assurances need to be tested.

Angola was already a tough country for journalists, ranking 123rd out of 180 in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, but it is just about to become even more difficult and precarious for press professionals.

A recently passed new media law restricts the right to freedom of speech and gives the government and the ruling political party the power to interfere with the work of journalists and thereby preventing reports on corruption or human rights abuses. “Angola’s new media law is the latest threat to free expression and access to information in the country” said Daniel Bekele, senior Africa advocacy director at Human Rights Watch (HRW).

An extensive definition of defamation opens the door for the authorities to arbitrarily prosecute reporters who write about illegal or incorrect activity by the public administration. The law has been strongly criticised by media activists for violating international obligations to free media and for lacking transparency.

After almost 40 years of independence from its former Portuguese colonisers, the press in Angola is still largely controlled by the MPLA. The second longest-serving president in Africa, José Eduardo dos Santos has been ruling for 37 years. Despite being one of the richest countries in Africa in terms of natural resources, it is still one of the territories with the highest number of its population living below the poverty line. Furthermore, it is measured among the African countries with the greatest level of wealth inequality.

Shockingly, a number of reporters that have investigated corruption among local authorities have been sentenced to jail: Graça Campos was prosecuted in 2008 for publishing articles accusing three former ministers, while Armando Cichoca was sentenced in 2011 for criticising a judge.

Another local journalist and activist, Rafael Marques, has been sent to jail on numerous occasions. Most recently was after revealing torture practices and killings in the country's diamond mining operations. Forbidden in Angola, his book Blood Diamonds was only published in Portugal.

Don't say anything about Trump. Don't say what you think about Orban. Not a word about Duterte. This is the time of the soft-ego. Caress them with laudatory poems, praise them with likes and hearts and smiles, challenge their detractors online - but if you dare say anything negative. Watch out. Those guys, they need love and attention, nothing else. 

This isn't an exaggeration - President Erdogan of Turkey has long-been known to threaten and challenge those who stand against him, even if they merely insult or satirise him, but over the course of the weekend, a cafeteria manager was arrested and his home raided, after he said he would refuse to serve tea to the President. 

Saying he would refuse to serve tea. Şenol Buran, who runs the cafeteria at the opposition paper, Cumhuriyet. The Guardian Reported:

According to court documents obtained by Reuters, Buran has denied using an insulting term, while confirming that he had said he would refuse to serve Erdoğan tea. He also said he had a dispute with the police officer two years ago.

I almost can't believe I'm writing these words - we understood that we were already in a difficult and strange time when it became impossible to freely write something against the State - but to face imprisonment for saying something - that is a real, honest to God challenge to free speech. We often hear about political correctness or inclusive language has destroyed free speech - but these things are being done away with now, with the recent upheavals in the western political spectrum. No, Erdogan's sensitive ego is a vision of the future for all of us, if we don't protect our laws: The death of free speech to save the egos of our rulers. 

Spread of hatred towards immigrants in Europe following the string of blatant terrorist attacks is quite natural. Words and actions in this regard however, need to be carefully used in a bid to ensure we all move towards making this closely linked world even better place than making it worst.

Events unfolding in the heart of Europe following the latest in three such brazen terrorist attacks this year so far are destined to shape the face of the world. In March this year the Belgian capital was rocked with brutal coordinated attacks that claimed more than 30 lives, this was followed by another horrific attack in Nice involving a cargo truck that killed another 86 civilians. And, now this ruthless attack on a peaceful Christmas market in Berlin that took the lives of at least 12 people.

Kudos to the European people in general and to the German nation in particular for their enlightened and tolerate demeanour so far.

Hours after the attack in Berlin, police nabbed a man of Pakistani origin on suspicion but was later released. The young man has been identified as Naveeb Baluch who came to Germany 17 months ago. Naveed is a classic example of a desperate man facing in search for a safe place on the face of earth to escape persecution in his home country. He hails from Pakistan’s poorest Baluchistan province where the law enforcement agencies are waging a strong campaign against separatists and their sympathizers.

He strongly believed in European and German values that is why he risked his life to reach here.

For those backing the rhetoric that why should Germany or Europe for that matter take ‘burden’ of the world, well, because this is the time to substantiate that amid all the hatred and stereotypes there are still people in

the world who would stand by humanity against violence and extremism.

ISIS “inspiring” a refugee to carry out a terrorist attack would be the ultimate way to polarise German society.

This is what German academic Peter Neumann warned in an interview with Monocle magazine last week, explaining that ISIS leaders “want to help extreme right-wing forces to come to power”.

He argued that doing so would fuel division between Germans proud of the Wilkommenskultur displayed as 1 million refugees arrived in Germany last year and those who wish to close borders and turn away migrants.

Although we are yet to find out who was responsible for Monday night’s horrific attack on the Breitscheidplatz Christmas market in Berlin, some German politicians are already giving ISIS exactly what it wants.

The Bavarian CSU party has used the tragic events to reignite support for its proposed tightening of immigration policy. Meanwhile the far-right Alternative für Deutschland has blamed Angela Merkel personally for the attack.

Today I write to you not only as an editor at fairplanet, but as a team member at Give Something Back to Berlin (GSBTB), a volunteer organisation working with migrants of all kinds in the German capital.

At GSBTB we run projects that aim to welcome and include our city’s newcomers. One of our weekly projects supports women and children living at the refugee shelter in the disused Tempelhof airport.

On Tuesday morning you may have woken up to the news that police had detained a Pakistani man, a possible refugee, suspected of carrying out the Christmas market attack.

But at GSBTB we woke up to the news that the vulnerable people who we work to support had had their home stormed by 250 armed police in the middle of the night, searching for evidence, accomplices, anything relating to the attack.

At Tempelhof airport hundreds of people sleep in each hangar. Or, more accurately, they try to sleep: the noise of so many people is often unbearable and some have taken to sleeping during the day when there are fewer comings and goings.

Having escaped trauma in their home countries, these people now face new kinds of distressing circumstances: the challenges of being housed en masse, with no timeframe for relocation and poor – some have said inhumane – living conditions.

On Monday night these residents had a violent storming of their new home added to the trauma of violence experienced in their home countries.

The next morning one of my teammates received a Whatasapp message from a child living at the camp. "Komm bitte heute. Ich bin nicht terrorist. Wir sind gut." (“Please come today. I'm not a terrorist. We are good”).

No child should have to feel the need to justify themselves this way.

The suspect said to have been living at the Tempelhof refugee shelter has since been released, and the authorities should be applauded for releasing him without delay. It would have been easy to hold him in an attempt to show a job well done when they have clearly failed, at least so far, to apprehend the perpetrators.

Unfortunately, though, in this post-truth era it’s often the news you read first that casts the longest shadow. This is especially true when the information fits an existing narrative, like the one anti-immigrant politicians have long been crafting against refugees.

The refugees living at Tempelhof airport – in fact refugees all over Germany and Europe – live with the tag of terrorist, whether they fit the description or not.

Refugees like the darling women and children who my teammates play with, do knitting with, cook delicious intercultural feasts with, and work to support. These people are so worthy of our compassion and trust.

While we wait to see who might be responsible for Monday’s attack, it’s easy to feel helpless knowing there’s someone out there who wants to see us hurting.

#prayforBerlin hashtags feel inadequate – and Berlin’s hipsters are much too cool for them, anyhow – but I know of something tangible you can do to show your support for Berlin and its most vulnerable residents in this time of uncertainty.

My request is an unorthodox one, but I hope you will see how this action can bring hope to people who struggle to find it in their current circumstances.

Weeks ago – long before this horrific attack became a tragic reality – Give Something Back to Berlin launched a Christmas crowdfunding campaign for the work we do with women and children at the Tempelhof shelter.

We’re currently halfway to our goal which would see us continue to bring hope, purposeful activity and trauma healing to the 100-150 women and children we support at Tempelhof every week.

You can read more about our project and donate on our Betterplace page.

As long as we choose not to give in to fear, there is still plenty to be hopeful for this Christmas.

As the debate rages about immigration control and national identity across Europe, a recently published study by Ipsos Mori has shown that people in Europe overestimate the Muslim population living in their countries.

France is the state with the largest gap between the real and the perceived Muslim population: whilst 7.5% of the residents are Islam followers, French people believe it is 31%. The British treble in their estimations: only 5% of people living in the UK are Muslims, but on average they think it is 15%.

In part a consequence of endless and often sensationalist press coverage, such a distortion in the perception of immigration levels can help understanding the growth in immigration control demands within European countries. At the same time, this misconception is a result of the racist and islamophobic rhetoric that far right wing parties have been spreading across the continent with increasing success.

Connecting all Muslim people with radical fundamentalism, these parties have been instigating fear and hate towards a whole community. In times of economic crisis, they efficiently blamed the weakest link for the lack of employment, ending up demonising all immigrants.

Extremist right wing movements have already won elections (US) and referendums (UK), but they keep threatening to extend their power across Europe, where crucial elections are coming up next year. The risk is not only that these parties are increasingly considered as reliable government alternatives. When their opponents assume some of their radical positions —conservative French candidate François Fillon has accepted Marine Le Pen’s position of controlling immigration and Islam — they are also winning the ideological battle.  

The other day, a friend and I were talking about the year, and about how the dominant media narrative of this year is how miserable it has been. We decided that this narrative is a little flimsy, and more to the point, somewhat self-indulgent, in the same way that the 'first-world-problems' meme was: While purporting to show something negative, it actually displays the overwhelming positives to the object at-hand. When we say 2016 was a total shitter, what we're saying is, upsetting election results and unusual political developments are not what we're used to. We're used to certainty; All this batshit-crazy stuff with Trump and Brexit and Le Pen and all that, man, that doesn't belong in our culture - that belongs over there (wherever that may be). 

Quite. Being accustomed to a mainstream centrist political agenda, that aims to speak a neutral language (if not an inclusive one) and eschews conflict in favour of stability, is not in itself a bad thing. For sure, those centrist governments look 1000x more appealing than Donald Trump's or whatever the hell is happening in the UK right now. But there is only so much moaning one can stomach - let's be clear, we've had a good thing, and now that good thing is changing. The rest of the world doesn't always have a good thing, indeed, the rest of the world often has a bad thing. So let's stop pretending that the world is ending, and do something about the bad thing. 

However, even if the world isn't about to come to an end, and even if there is an opportunity to renew our commitments to political action, the shift in our situation from good to bad thing sets off a series of shifts in our situation - everything that was trivial and silly before looks downright ridiculous now. 

My friend brought up the 100 top footballers list. These lists rate the performance of the world's top footballers, from 1-100. Before 2016, he said, this list might have looked pretty normal, a bit silly, but pretty normal. Now it looks like a kind of crazy overindulgence - fiddling while Rome burns. 

I'm not so sure. I think a total shift from good thing to bad thing doesn't mean that we have to abandon everything enjoyable and trivial in our lives; indeed, these might be the very things which indicate that the good thing is possible. Even if it is predictable enough that Ronaldo and Messi will be at 1 and 2, or 2 and 1, and one of Neymar, Suarez, Griezmann or Bale will be number 3, this may very well indicate that there are good things possible for our cultures. It's becoming too trendy to despair, too easy to say how awful everything is, how corrupt and evil - well, I say try to keep things in proportion: Fight the bad thing, but don't lose the good thing.

The UK authorities have paroled a notorious former Afghan warlord Sarwar Zardad Faryadi whose return has revived memories of the country’s bloody past and has sparked concerns about the future.

Zardad landed in Kabul on December 14 after serving 11 years of a 20-year prison sentence in the UK. The man was symbol of horror in the 1990s as his armed men would abduct, torture and even kill ordinary passengers, government officials and aid workers at various points between the capital Kabul and eastern city Jalal Abad city.

It is not clear yet if the recently inked peace deal between the Afghan government and the Hezb-e-Islami Party with which Zardad was affiliated, has played a role in this development. The Afghan government and the society, however should be very candid in this process of allowing convicted criminals a second chance.

The country’s past is littered with blood and marred with ethnic strife.

It is true that some of Zardad’s compatriots of those dark days got away with their crimes and were even glorified as ‘heroes’ but, the young generation of Afghans needs not to turn back the clock in search of leaders and ideals if they want to build a new nation.

The relative peace, thanks to the international community’s engagement, has given birth to so many new Afghan stars in every corner of the country that should be praised as national icons instead of those who have blood on their hands.

Afghans need not to forget people like Mohammad Jawaz Khan of Khost who hid the death of his daughter on the day of elections so that the villagers can go to vote instead of losing this important opportunity by mourning with him. Young Matiullah Wesa who has opened more than 30 schools in the restive Kandahar province. Lt. Niloofar Rhmani, Afghan Air Force (AAF)’s first woman pilot in more than 30 years. Saber Hussaini of Bamyan who has been on his bike for months, distributing volumes of children's books in villages.

And, young men and women in the capital Kabul associated with the ‘Art Lords’ that is painting murals for social awakening, and changing the face of the Afghan capital.

*All photos courtesy of 'Art Lords'.