28 May
News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective
News and Analyses, A Foreign Perspective
English Online International Newspapers
Nearly all of these are English-edition daily newspapers. These sites have interesting editorials and essays, and many have links to other good news sources. We try to limit this list to those sites which are regularly updated, reliable, with a high percentage of “up” time.
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UN refugee agency calls for urgent measures amid spike in arrivals with hundreds dying en route
A Guardia Civil officer checks an inflatable boat left behind by migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean. The Spanish government said the situation is ‘overwhelming’. Photograph: Marcos Moreno/AFP/Getty Images
Spain’s maritime rescue service has rescued hundreds of people trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe this weekend amid growing concerns that the country is struggling to cope with the migration crisis.
The service said its crews had rescued 293 people from nine boats on Saturday. On Sunday, a further 250 migrants were rescued from eight boats, three of which were in poor condition and later sank, they added.
The migrants were from various countries in North and sub-Saharan Africa.
On a single day in August last year, Spanish rescuers saved 593 people from 15 small paddle boats – including 35 children and a baby – after they attempted to cross the seven-mile Strait of Gibraltar.
According to statistics from the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) 21,468 migrants and refugees arrived in Spain by sea in 2017, with 224 people dying on the journey.
The arrival figures showed a threefold increase on 2016, when 6,046 people reached Spain and 128 people died en route.
By early May this year, 4,409 people had reached Spain and 217 people had died in the attempt.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, has already warned that Spain is facing “another very challenging year” when it comes to helping and protecting those arriving on its shores.
“This situation requires urgent measures from the central government, which needs to coordinate with the relevant ministries as well as the Guardia Civil border police, the maritime rescue service, the police and NGOs,” said María Jesús Vega, a spokeswoman for UNHCR Spain.
Vega pointed out that almost as many people had died trying to cross the Mediterranean to Spain in the first five months of 2018 as had died in the whole of 2017.
“Government action is more urgently needed than ever and we need to see proper infrastructure for welcoming, registering and identifying these people,” she added.
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As criminals eye the natural riches of their heavily forested territories, the Ka’apor people refuse to be cowed – even if it means taking the law into their own hands
Ka’apor forest guardians patrol the borders of their resource-rich territory in Brazil’s Maranhão state. Photograph: Lunae Parracho for the Guardian
It was a letter of unity and solidarity. “Our forest, our rivers, our land are sacred to us,” wrote the Ka’apor tribe, from Maranhão in north-eastern Brazil, to the Munduruku, who live hundreds of miles away on the Tapajós river deep in the Amazon rainforest.
Both tribes are under threat from organised criminals who illegally grab land, log trees or prospect for gold. Now, tired of waiting for official protection that often fails to arrive, they are taking law enforcement into their own hands.
In three years, the Ka’apor have seized and torched 105 trucks carrying stolen timber, and closed down 14 illegal roads running through their lands, the tribe says. The Munduruku have delineated their own land in an effort to face down the lawless miners and land grabbers.
Their foes often have ties to politicians and police, which – combined with the absence of federal oversight – has compelled the tribes to strengthen and organise themselves in the face of an unequal struggle, one in which the state often seems an enemy or ally of the aggressors.
The Ka’apor live in the Alto Turiaçu indigenous territory. Since 1982, it has been granted a demarcated constitutional status that protects it for the tribe. But still the heavily forested area in the north of Maranhão has been invaded by illegal loggers, pillaging hardwood.
“A lot of this wood goes to Europe, to China, to other places,” says Gilderlan Silva, a representative of the Indian Missionary Council in Maranhão. “You have an economic power that goes right from the gas station owner, who finances the fuel of the logging truck, to the guy who owns the sawmill, right up to the financing of politicians.
“It is a market that drives a lot of money.”
In 2013, the Ka’apor created a management council based on the tribe’s historic principles. It was a break from their previous system of tribal chiefs, a tradition they say was imposed by Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (Funai).
Ka’apor Indian warriors tie loggers during a jungle expedition in the Alto Turiaçu region. Photograph: Lunae Parracho/Reuters
The Ka’apor drafted an agreement to protect themselves, banning alcoholic drinks and drugs, which had arrived in the 17 villages in the hands of loggers.
Having recovered the illegal roads and deforested areas from invaders, the Ka’apor established seven villages as protected areas, to repel the intruders.
“We protected these areas because we did not want to see the end of our forest,” says Sarapó Ka’apor, one of the founders of the Ywyãhurenda village, a protected area that was previously an entry and exit point for logging trucks. “We got together with the council. We all gathered and took out the loggers. No one waited for Funai, we did it all ourselves.”
Such boldness has been the target of retaliation. Three members of the tribe have been murdered since 2010, in killings the tribe suspects were committed by their enemies. The crimes have not been solved. The tribe have also faced several invasions of their land, most recently in January, when 30 armed men threatened to burn down the houses in one village.
But last July, Michel Temer, the Brazilian president, obtained congressional approval to amend the constitution, legalising more than 2,000 irregular private properties on public lands in a move that was seen as sympathetic to the interests of land grabbers such as those in Maranhão.
Members of the Ka’apor community are seen in a village established by the indigenous leaders. Photograph: Lunae Parracho/Greenpeace
The Ka’apor, meanwhile, say they have the legal right to decision-making powers over government policies that affect them. “According [to] the international conventions that Brazil has signed, indigenous communities should be the authors of the relevant public policy,” said Luís Antônio Pedrosa, a lawyer with the Society of Human Rights in Maranhão.
The Munduruku, likewise, studied strategies to strengthen the protection of their territory and keep the forest intact. For this, they meet other tribes, such as the Ka’apor, 10 times a year. In 2015, they demarcated their own territory in an attempt to keep out illegal miners and loggers. The tribe even has a problem with poachers stealing palmito, the vegetable of the palm tree.
Now, tribe members patrol the edge of their territory, looking for signs of invaders. “The people who are closest to the edge [of the territory] report back on if there has been an invasion,” said Juarez Saw Munduruku, chief of the Sawré Muybu village.
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