Hamza Ali

As the death toll has risen to over four hundred thousand with almost 3000 cases being reported daily, there is a need to strictly follow SOPs though WHO says Pakistan is among countries from whom the international community should learn how to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic.

The second wave is more lethal despite the nation displayed unity and civic sense but there is a dire need to curtail social exposure; the shortage of ICU beds, ventilators and even oxygen may cause severe damage to government’s efforts. Rapid increase in positive cases requires urgent steps to save lives and livelihoods; citizens should help in implementing safety guidelines in public places.

The virus has infected nearly 67 million people and killed close to 1.6 million. “Today marks an overdue and much-needed moment of reckoning. None of us could have imagined, this time last year, what was to come,” said General Assembly president Volkan Bozkir. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said, “it is time to reset”, the global response to crises like this. “As we build a strong recovery, we must seize the opportunity for change”.

Pakistan PM Imran Khan while describing the Covid-19 pandemic as “the most serious global crisis since WWII, presented a 10-point agenda for urgent action before the UN GA, underlying the measures the world community needs to take to defeat the pandemic. The first item on his list is a request for debt suspension till the end of the pandemic for low-income and most affected countries. He suggested cancellation of debt of least developed countries that are no longer in a position to repay their loans. Other items on the agenda include: restructuring of the public sector debt of other developing countries under an agreed inclusive multilateral framework; a general allocation of special drawing rights of &500 billion; expanded concessional financing to lower income countries through multilateral development banks; and creation of a new ‘liquidity and sustainability facility’, which should provide short-term loans at lower costs. The agenda also includes a reminder to rich nations to fulfill 0.7 percent of their official development assistance commitments and mobilizing the required $1.5 trillion annual investment in sustainable infrastructure. He also urged the world to help meet the agreed target of mobilizing $100 billion per year for climate action in developing countries. He called for immediate action to stop massive illicit financial outflows from developing countries to rich countries, to offshore tax havens. He also suggested immediate return of assets stolen by corrupt politicians and criminals back to these countries.

On the other hand, various countries have taken strict measures to live with the coronavirus. Take example of Tokyo; the Japanese government committee chairman has said that it takes at least one and a half years for the vaccine to be fully developed and officially put into use. Since the enemy cannot be completely eliminated, it is necessary to learn to coexist with the virus. “Only by following the new rules of life can we live in peace with the corona virus for a long time. In fact, most of the methods have been implemented in China.

The Japanese government while deciding to coexist with the demon, announced the “new life model” calling the people to be prepared to follow this model for an extended period of time and learn to live and work with the virus. Looking closely at these new life models, it can be seen that the Japanese government established these very practical set of SOPs using principles of rationality, science, and risk assessment. There are three basic points: keep a distance between people; wear a mask; and wash hands frequently.

Specific requirements urge people to keep a distance of two meters; play as much as possible outdoors; try to avoid being face to face direct facing when speaking to other people; go home and wash your face and clothes immediately; wash as soon as you touch someone’s hand; try online shopping and electronic settlement; supermarket shopping is best for 1 person, to choose time there are less people; try not to touch commodity samples; don’t talk on public transportation; go to work by bike or on foot; it is best to use electronic business cards; try to use video conference when meeting; to control the number of people in meetings, wear masks and open windows for ventilation; work at home or commute at off peak time; do not go to countries or places where the virus is endemic; try not to return home to visit relatives and travel, and control business trips; when you have symptoms, remember where you went and who you met; eat meals with others not face to face, preferably side by side; do not use large bowls and large pots to share food, implement a divided individual portion system; chat less at meal, eat more vegetables; try not to have too many people gathering at meal together as possible; avoid closed spaces, dense crowd flow, intimate contact; self-test body temperature every morning to strengthen health management; cover the lid when flushing the toilet; don’t stay too long in a narrow space; when walking and running, the number of people should be small, when meet each other stagger the distance.

Unfortunately, amidst the second wave of coronavirus, which is spreading at intense pace, due to which more than 50 deaths are being recorded daily, the public gatherings and rallies by PDM are continuing to hold. They may not accept it because it’s against their political ego, but they must realize that the common sense directly relates to the lives of innocent people. Their gathering in large numbers will put the people’s life at risk of death as the resurge of coronavirus is already playing havoc. This is like going insane to fulfilling venomous objectives. Playing with people’s life is a deliberate attempt to obliterate masses – for the sake of no return. If PDM continues doing so, the cases of coronavirus contract increase manifold.

It is predicted that the coronavirus increase will die down soon, our National Disaster Management department is doing well in this direction, but many opine that it would stay even longer than expected. So, Pakistan needs to adopt measures like that of Japan and the political parties must shun the path of dragging people to risk of life only for fulfilling their political agendas.

(The writer is freelance columnist)

Farooq Alay

How long shall this brutal massacre, rape and arson continue in the India occupied Kashmir? Isn’t there an end to repression, over one and a half years long curfew, arrests, tortures, sieges and abductions? There is a long list of Indian atrocities; may I present here for record?

There are recorded incidents of massacre, mass graves, extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence, suicide and psychological problems, disappearances and human rights violations. In Gawakadal massacre, on 21 January 1990, 51 civilians were killed by Indian troopers during protests against earlier raids in which wanton arrests and molestation of women were conducted. On January 25, 1990, two BSF patrolling parties in Handwara indiscriminately fired at peaceful protesters and killed 25 people. Indian forces killed 33 protesters and injured 47 on 1 March 1990 at Zakoora Crossing and Tengpora Bypass Road in Srinagar. At the funeral of Mirwaiz Muhammad Farooq on May 21, 1990 over 60 civilians were killed by paramilitary forces and hundreds injured in the indiscriminate firing on the funeral procession. On 6 January 1993 Indian troops killed 55 civilians in the town of Sopore and set many homes and buildings on fire. On 22 October 1993 the Indian Army killed 51 civilians during protests over the siege of the Hazratbal Mosque. 25 of those killed were students. On 27 January 1994 the Indian Army killed 27 civilians, mainly traders, in Kupwara district. Survivors say that the soldiers carried out the massacre to punish people for observing shutdown on January 26.

Mass Graves: a state HRC inquiry in 2011 confirmed there were thousands of bullet-ridden bodies buried in unmarked graves in IOK. Out of 2730 bodies, uncovered in 4 of the 14 districts, 574 bodies were identified as the missing. Total number of unmarked graves was more than 6,000.Likewise, extrajudicial killings at the hands of Indian security personnel were recorded by AI in its 1995 report,that hundreds of civilians had been victims of extrajudicial killings, which were often claimed by officers as occurring during “encounters” or “cross-fire”.95,623 brave Kashmiris were killed between January 1989 and June 2020, and 11,207 women gang raped or molested, according to the J&K Coalition of Civil Society.In October 2002, 300-500 people were killed during the election campaign.

Sexual violence and Torture: In Imroz’s study sample of 50 villages, more than 2,000 extreme cases of torture by army and paramilitaries were practiced since 1989. The frequent rape of Kashmiri women routinely goes unpunished. HR groups state that 150 Indian officers of the rank of major or above participated in sexual violence. One of the most horrific incidents is of gendered violence mass rapes committed by ISF in 1991; they raped 150 women and tortured nearly 200 men, during CASO in the region is the Kunan Poshpura.

According to a survey in 2012, 17,000 people, mostly women, have committed suicide during the past 20 years in the Valley. Sexual violence has been routinely perpetrated on Kashmiri women, with 11.6% of respondents saying they were victims of sexual abuse.” Due to the impact of the conflict, a number of people in the valley suffer from various psychological problems like stress, anxiety, mood and post-traumatic disorders. In 2016, the hospital is said to have been overcrowded with more than 100,000 patients.

Disappearances: As per local rights bodies, there are over 8,000 Kashmiri youth, who were killed in custody and were later buried in unmarked graves in these graveyards. In occupied Kashmir, boys aged 14 and 16 are held under dreaded Public Safety Act and sent to jails in India or bring them in the areas near the Line of Control and martyred them in fake encounters. Scratch a little deeper and the wounds of decades of conflict sweeping across the region open up when its 1500-odd widows and ‘half widows’ describe the pain of losing their husbands in course of the ongoing freedom fight. In June 2018, the United Nations, in its first-ever human rights report on Kashmir, wrote that there is also almost total impunity for enforced or involuntary disappearances, with little movement towards credibly investigating complaints, including into alleged sites of mass graves in Kashmir. According to APDP report, people are being detained under the mechanisms of a plethora of existing laws as well as many are held outside the purview of law, in order to suppress any form of political expression by the Kashmiri people.

HR Violations After Article 370 and 35A Abbrogation: Since the unrelenting military siege and crippling lockdown imposed by the fascist Modi on August 5, 2019, Indian troops have martyred 235 Kashmiri, at least 1321 people were critically injured. Indians damaged over 2940 houses and structures and molested 74 women during 2001 CASOs and arrested 13562 across the occupied territory. The Indians in quite violation of the international laws, started a new practice of burying the bodies of the martyred youth secretly, without religious funeral, at distant locations places in unmarked graves in the territory. World HR organizations like Amnesty International, International Committee of the Red Cross and Asia Watch to take notice of the plight of illegally detained innocent youth, lodged in various jails of India and Kashmir. As per local rights bodies, there are over 6,000 Kashmiri youth, who were killed in custody and were later buried in unmarked graves in these graveyards.

During all the CASO’s a common practice can be seen that Indian troops forcibly enter the houses, harass the inmates, arrest the youth and ransack their properties. It can be seen that after the abrogation of article 35A and 370, there was increase in the number of injured youth by pallet bullets and other deadly means. By injuring the youth with irreversible damages ISF are creating a whole generation of crippled and paralyzed Kashmiriswith lots of mental health crisis, who want be productive for their society. A 2010 US State Departmentreport cited extrajudicial killings by security forces in areas of conflict such as Kashmir as a major human rights problem in India. Christ of Heyns, a special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, has warned India that “all of these draconian laws had no place in a functioning democracy and should be scrapped.” On 14 June 2018 for the first time ever UNHRC released a report of 49 pages on human rights violations in Kashmir and accused India on the issue. Secretary General of AI Kumi Naidoo urged the Indian government to act in accordance with international human rights law and standards towards the people living in occupied Kashmir.

New British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab told the House of Commons that the human rights situation in IHK following the lockdown of the region by the Modi government is “an international issue”. Antonio Guterres: “I go on with a clear opinion that human rights must be fully respected in the territory. Dialogue between India and Pakistan is an absolutely essential element for the solution of the Kashmir”.Geneva spokesperson OHCHR, Rupert Colville Tuesday 29th October 2019 says: “We are extremely concerned that the population of IHK continues to be deprived of a wide range of Human Rights and we urge the Indian authorities to unlock the situation and fully restore the rights that are currently being denied.” Likewise, UAE Ambassador Hamad Obaid Ibrahim Al Zaabi said that 177-day lockdown in occupied Kashmir is complete violation of human rights and the Indian Army’s atrocities have caused serious concerns.

(The writer is freelance columnist)

SPECIAL TO ISLAMABAD POST

Viladimir Norov

December 11 is International Mountain Day established by the UN General Assembly in 1992 and adopted by Agenda 21 during the UN Conference on Environment and Development.

The main purpose of this holiday was to educate the general public about the need to effectively use and protect mountain ecosystems and biodiversity in order to solve global environmental problems in mountain areas and rural development besides to strengthen the achievements of mankind in this sphere.

International Mountain Day is celebrated in many countries around the world, where people care about mountainous areas. Each year is dedicated to a new theme. The theme for this year’s celebration is mountain biodiversity. On this day the UN General Assembly encourages the world community to organize conferences, seminars, round tables, and other events at all levels.

Mountains, including mountain ranges and mountain systems, occupy nearly one-fourth of the planet. It includes a huge part of the world’s freshwater reserves and endangered species of fauna and flora. Mountains are also a popular destination for hiking and mountain climbing.

Half of the world’s biodiversity areas are located in mountains and mountainous areas, where more than 15% of the world’s population lives. About half of the world’s population depends on the water, food, and energy resources that mountains contain.

Most of the people of the Earth inhabiting mountain valleys live below the poverty line, constantly suffering from natural disasters. In the absence of developed infrastructure, they are at risk of food security and employment opportunities, as well as has no access to adequate health care, education, and quality public services.

As a rule, the inhabitants of these areas, feeling their insecurity in the face of modern challenges, are forced to migrate to the cities.There is a decline of agriculture, degradation of arable land and loss of cultural diversity, knowledge, and dying national traditions and historical heritage.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization fully supports the celebration of International Mountain Day. With the continued degradation of life-sustaining natural resources of mountains: water, land, biological, mineral, recreational, and others, their protection and rational use are at the forefront of the national security system of the SCO countries.

Undoubtedly, mountain systems in the SCO area are an invaluable source of water, energy, and biological diversity. Our countries contain vast uplands, the main mountain systems of the Earth, where large glaciers are located.

In recent decades, there is an increasing trend of melting of mountain glaciers and their catastrophic reduction, which may lead to their disappearance in many areas of the world. The melting of glaciers has become particularly noticeable in the Tibetan Plateau. Glaciers in the Himalayas are losing up to 8 billion tons of ice annually, and the rate of melting is increasing at an alarming rate.

The glaciers of the Tien Shan mountain system, which stretches from east to west across China, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, have lost about 27% of their mass and more than 18% of their area in the last half-century. Of the 8,200 glaciers in the Tien Shan, more than 2,000 have melted in the recent past. The international experts using the newest methods of climate forecasting have pointed the fact that half of the ice cap of Tien Shan will melt by 2050.

According to scientists, global warming will melt the ice caps of all mountains and glaciers in the next hundred years. Scientists note that the melting of many glaciers has accelerated in recent years. For example, the Jacobswan Glacier on Greenland Island has doubled its rate of melting after six years and is now shrinking at a rate of about 12 km per year.  A group of European scientists said that Everest could lose up to 96 percent of its glaciers by 2100. Such scientific research was published in the journal “The Cryosphere”. All this is due to the development of industrialization, the neglect of human nature, expressed by an increase in emissions of harmful substances into the atmosphere, drying up of rivers and reservoirs, as well as deforestation, which is a natural shield against pollution.

Scientists and environmentalists are seriously concerned about these phenomena, since such destruction of the ice cover may contribute to other environmental problems throughout the region, including a significant reduction in freshwater supplies.

It is also worth mentioning that one of the most well-known and at the same time major environmental problems – the drying up of the Aral Sea, which is closely related to this phenomenon. Scientists note that the salt from the bottom of the Aral Sea is carried by wind currents towards mountain ranges and settles on glaciers, thereby accelerating melting of the glaciers. Restoration of the Aral Sea ecosystem is a very difficult task, requiring financial investment and considerable efforts on the part of the world community.

The disappearance of glaciers can completely change the climate of the region, which will have a negative impact on the animal and plant life, as well as on many aspects of the socio-economic life of the population of mountainous areas.

Member States attach great importance to the integrated solution of mountain development problems. In particular, at the plenary session of the UN General Assembly, which was held on December 19, 2019, a resolution “Sustainable Mountain Development” presented by Kyrgyzstan and Italy was adopted. The resolution was also co-sponsored by 80 UN Member States including the SCO countries. The resolution stresses the importance of preventing glacier melting, reducing biodiversity and environmental degradation to ensure and maintain an acceptable standard of living for the residents whose economic activities depend entirely on the natural resources of mountain ecosystems.

The resolution also mentions initiatives of UN Member States to promote sustainable development of mountain areas, such as the proclamation, on the initiative of Kyrgyzstan, of the International Mountain Day in 2003 and the International Year of Mountains in 2002, the establishment of the Group of Friends of Mountain Countries, created in August 2019 in New York.

Considering the need to intensify work on systematic monitoring of mountain glaciers in 2009 at the conference on climate change in Copenhagen, Tajikistan initiated the establishment of the International Fund for the Protection of Glaciers and invited developed countries and international organizations to provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries to monitor and protect glaciers. The importance of this initiative was also noted during the meeting of the Council of Heads of Government (Prime Ministers) of SCO Member States held on November 30, 2020.

It is important for our Organization to comprehensively study the interconnectedness of environmental problems, exchange information and experience between specialized institutions, take conservation and restoration measures, diversify mountain economies, preserve specific mountain ecosystems, conduct scientific environmental research in mountain and hilly areas, and identify vulnerable mountain areas. In this context Kazakhstan’s initiative to make a register of environmental problems in SCO is timely.

An undoubted priority for the preservation of mountain ecosystems and the improvement of the well-being of the local population of mountainous areas is the use of environmentally safe technologies.  The parties are considering Uzbekistan’s initiative, the SCO Green Belt Program, which is designed to unlock our countries’ potential for the use and priority implementation of modern resource-saving and environmentally friendly technologies, exchange experience in manufacturing, installation, operation, and maintenance of modern energy-saving equipment, use of environmentally friendly technologies, creating new jobs, and improving the quality of life of the citizens.

Currently, one of the main normative documents of the Organization is the Concept of Cooperation of SCO Member States in Environmental Protection, which contributes to maintaining the ecological balance, ensuring environmental safety, promoting “green” development, and financing environmental projects and programs.

It should be noted that in 2019, for the first time, the SCO launched a mechanism for the Meeting of Heads of Ministries and Agencies of Shanghai Cooperation Organization Member States Responsible for Environmental Protection

During the meeting held in Moscow on September 27, 2019, the member states discussed a wide range of environmental issues and agreed on the possibility of establishing thematic Expert Groups of SCO Member States in the field of biodiversity conservation, climate change adaptation, and mitigation, waste management. The parties stressed the need to raise the level of environmental education and awareness at all levels, and to carry out environmental research, including in mountainous areas.

The SCO is interested in interacting with the UN Environment Programme to jointly implement the environmental component of sustainable development. The organization will promote integrated management and protection of mountain ecosystems, taking into account the activities of relevant international and regional organizations.

Global climatic changes, widespread warming, are posing a direct threat to the ecosystem of mountains which urgently require the activation of efforts of the world community to adopt a set of socio-political, environmental, economic, and other measures to mitigate the consequences of this phenomenon.

To address these problems, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, together with the international community, will contribute to implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The Writer is the Secretary General of SCO.