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POST #4 (Oct 22, 2019) Thousands of barrels of oil are contaminating Brazil’s pristine coastline

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POST #4 (Oct 22, 2019) Thousands of barrels of oil are contaminating Brazil’s pristine coastline

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Vice President Hamilton Mourão said the government had recovered 600 tons of oil along the coast of Brazil. Officials voiced that they thought it had been “dumped there criminally.” Then Salles said it was “very likely from Venezuela,” a Brazilian adversary, adding that a foreign ship may have caused the spill. Bolsonaro also said that it might have been a “criminal action” to sabotage a massive oil auction in November for deep-sea deposits.

There were clearly many speculations for the cause of this oil, but no real answer thus far. This could be related to environmental globalization. If the cause of the oil was related to sabotage or a criminal action, it would have been a result of some sort of power struggle between nations. This in turn, made the environment suffer.

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Brazilians rallied to clean up the largest spill in the country's history after oil coated shores in early September. The spill's origin is still unknown. (Video: The Washington Post)

RIO DE JANEIRO - It washed ashore in early September, thick globs of oil that appeared from out of nowhere and defied explanation. In the weeks since, the mysterious sludge, the largest spill in Brazil's history, has tarred more than 1,000 miles of shoreline, polluted some of the country's most beautiful beaches and killed all sorts of marine life.

But despite the time that has passed - and the damage done - the most important questions remain unanswered. Where is the oil coming from? And how can it be stopped?

The Brazilian government's apparent inability to answer even these fundamental questions has drawn more scrutiny to the environmental policies of President Jair Bolsonaro, who struggled this summer to contain the fires raging in the Amazon and the international outrage they sparked.

Now, fury is mounting again. Municipalities have resorted to imploring volunteers to help with the cleanup. Videos of the rudimentary efforts - volunteers simply rolling up oil slicks and plopping them into trash bags - are going viral. And the environmental minister, Ricardo Salles, is picking fights online with a prominent nongovernmental organization.

"Greenpeace 'explained' why it can't help clean up the beaches in the northeast," he said. "Ahhh, okay."

This Brazilian island wants to show the way to a green future. Businesses, backed by Bolsonaro, see the next Cozumel.

On Monday, Vice President Hamilton Mourão said the government had recovered 600 tons of oil - nearly 4,300 barrels. Mourão, a retired army general, said he would send 5,000 troops to northeastern Brazil to give "more visibility" to government efforts to control the situation.

"This oil that is arriving now," he said, "is the second wave of attack ... This accident is unprecedented in the world."

Analysts say the most essential piece of the response remains missing: determining the source of the oil.

"Think about in your life, if you spill a gallon of paint while painting, the first thing you do is pick up the can of paint before it empties and ends up on the carpet," said Doug Helton, an official with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who has studied mysterious oil spills. "So if we don't know the source, you're picking up oil on the shore but don't know how much more is out there."

In the early days of the spill, Bolsonaro said it was "dumped there criminally." Then Salles said it was "very likely from Venezuela," a Brazilian adversary, adding that a foreign ship may have caused the spill. A molecular analysis by IBAMA, the country's environmental agency, showed the oil had not been produced in Brazil. Petrobras, the state-run oil conglomerate, said it wasn't responsible.

Why the Amazon is burning, and what it means for climate change

Bolsonaro speculated, without offering any evidence, that it might have been a "criminal action" to sabotage a massive oil auction in November for deep-sea deposits that's expected to generate $50 billion in licensing fees for Brazil.

"I wonder, we have to be very responsible about what we say - could it have been a criminal act to harm this auction?" Bolsonaro said. "It's a question that's out there."

Mystery oil floats throughout the oceans. It may arise naturally, from seeps in the ocean floor. Or from ships that leak. Tiny bits and pieces may glom onto bigger bits and pieces, forming tar balls. Some are as small as a fingernail, others as large as a soccer ball.

Some spills remain mysterious for a long time. In 2002, for example, the cause of a spill that had killed thousands of seabirds off the coast of San Francisco was found to be a ship that sank in 1953. Another mystery spill recently hit the Chicago River. But the Brazil spill is different.

"The magnitude of this is extremely rare," said David Valentine, a marine science researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

The dog is one of the world's most destructive mammals. Brazil proves it.

Christopher Reddy, a researcher at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, has been trying to crack the mystery. Some Brazilian colleagues recently contacted him to help determine the source of the oil, and he's now analyzing 14 samples with the hopes of determining the molecular structure of the oil by the end of the week.

"The reason oil is fascinating is that it's very complex, and they all have different personalties," he said. "It's investigating a sample to try to figure out its source and how long it's been around."

The Bolsonaro administration's response reinforced the perception among some that Brazil, long a stalwart defender of the environment, is now neglecting that role.

"The current federal government's inaction is indeed a puzzle," said Marcus André Melo, a political scientist at the Federal University of Pernambuco. He said it was possible the government had been preoccupied with other tasks - or hadn't moved on the crisis for political gain.

"It was probably waiting for smoking-gun evidence about Venezuela's involvement in the spill, make a big fuss about it, and finally intervene," he said. "The bigger the crisis, the higher the benefits.

"This strategy backfired."

Why Brazilian farmers are burning the rainforest - and why it's so hard for Bolsonaro to stop them

Two percent of the world's North Atlantic right whales died over two months

Arsonists are torching the Amazon. This elite team of firefighters stands in their way.

Alberta, Canada: Rat-free for 70 years!

Today's coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news

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Thousands of barrels of oil are contaminating Brazil's pristine coastline. Authorities don't know where it's coming from.

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RIO DE JANEIRO - It washed ashore in early September, thick globs of oil that appeared from out of nowhere and defied explanation. In the weeks since, the mysterious sludge, the largest spill in Brazil's history, has tarred more than 1,000 miles of shoreline, polluted some of the country's most beautiful beaches and killed all sorts of marine life.

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POST #3 (November/December issue 2019) Nowhere to Go 

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POST #3 (November/December issue 2019) Nowhere to Go 

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The article discusses the crisis involving people fleeing from their homes due to political, economical issues, and just a safe place to live. It says how in 2015 over 1.2 asylum seekers came to Europe. Now, the same thing is happening on the western hemisphere. The author talks about the U.S. policy makers making the same mistakes that Europe did when allowing/not allowing people to come in.

This article relates directly to political and economical globalization that we talked about in class. This countries in the global south cannot compete with the ones in global north and in turn is forcing people to have to leave their homes and seek asylum. This of course is among many other reasons.

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In 2015, over 1.2 million asylum seekers arrived in the European Union. They were fleeing war zones in Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Syria; economic deprivation in Nigeria and Pakistan; and political instability in Somalia. The largest group came across the Aegean Sea; many of them reached European territory in Greece and then made their way to Germany. Others crossed the Mediterranean on rickety, overloaded boats or traversed the Bosporus, the Dardanelles, or the Gibraltar strait. Politicians and journalists labeled the situation a "crisis" to reflect its unprecedented scale. But this was not a crisis of numbers. It was a crisis of politics. European leaders initially resorted to unilateral, quick-fix solutions. German Chancellor Angela Merkel implemented a short-lived open-border policy. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban built a razor-wire fence. Other countries sought to accommodate, sequester, or cast out the migrants-mostly to no avail. The human consequences were devastating: over 10,000 people have drowned while crossing the Mediterranean since 2015. Those who made it were greeted not as survivors but as usurpers, free riders, or covert extremists; they soon became scapegoats for the radical right. The political consequences changed Europe forever.

The Western Hemisphere now faces a migration crisis on a similar scale, with consequences that will likely be just as far-reaching. So far, this crisis has received a piecemeal treatment. Central American migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexican border, Venezuelans crossing dry plains into Colombia, Bolivians seeking work in Argentina and Chile-these are treated as separate phenomena but are in fact part of the same underlying set of problems. To avoid the kind of human and political toll that the migration crisis produced in Europe, political leaders and policymakers must treat this new situation holistically and learn from past examples. Already, policymakers in the United States and elsewhere in the Americas are repeating European mistakes.

When it comes to migration, there are limits to unilateralism and bilateralism.

So far this year, the U.S. Border Patrol has apprehended over 800,000 people at the southern border-the highest number in over a decade. The previous peak in apprehensions occurred in 2000 and resulted mainly from "pull" factors, namely, the high demand for cheap labor. Today's migrants, in contrast, are responding to "push" factors, including many of the same things that inspired masses of people to flee to Europe four years ago: failed or fragile states, violence, and economic insecurity. To contend with the new arrivals, the United States is weighing many of the same approaches that European countries have tried but ultimately found wanting. From border walls to bilateral deals linking immigration to trade and aid, Washington has borrowed directly from a playbook that fell short abroad. For instance, U.S. President Donald Trump's " Remain in Mexico " policy, requiring migrants hoping to gain asylum in the United States to have their claims assessed while they wait in Mexico, mirrors the EU's long-standing failed attempts to set up similar systems in Libya and elsewhere.

Despite some differences between the two cases, there are a few strategies that the New World could draw on from the Old World. The key lesson from the European experience of 2015 is that when it comes to migration, there are limits to unilateralism and bilateralism. The sense of crisis began to abate only when the EU adopted a multipronged approach grounded in cooperation among the migrants' countries of origin, transit, and destination.

SEEING DOUBLE

The European and American crises are alike in a number of ways. The total number of people apprehended at the U.S. border or deemed inadmissible at a U.S. port of entry since October 2018 is now nearly the same as the number of asylum seekers who arrived in Europe in the whole of 2015. Observers on both sides of the Atlantic have also stumbled on eerily similar scenes. The widely published photograph of the bodies of Óscar Martínez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, who drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande in June, resembles the picture of Alan Kurdi, a Syrian toddler who drowned while trying to cross the Mediterranean in 2015. Both images have come to symbolize the awful toll of transnational migration in a world of closed borders.

Over four million people have fled Venezuela, making this the second-largest displacement crisis in the world.

The effects of migration on the European and American political systems are likewise comparable. The rhetoric of xenophobic right-wing figures in the United States echoes-and, in some cases, draws on-the pronouncements of their European counterparts. In Europe, such rhetoric fueled anti-immigrant sentiment and encouraged support for right-wing parties. It has had similar effects in the United States, where rising xenophobia has underwritten the Trump administration's punitive approach to migrants.

There are more parallels between the two crises when it comes to their causes, their consequences, and governments' responses. Both crises resulted from state collapse. In Europe, the immediate trigger was the Syrian civil war. State fragility in Afghanistan and Iraq also contributed to mass displacement, and the chaos in Libya created a transit option and haven for smugglers facilitating movement from sub-Saharan Africa across the Mediterranean. In the Americas, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have grown highly unstable in recent years. Guatemala appears on the "high warning" list of the Fragile States Index; Honduras is just one grade below. In these states, governing capacity is low, corruption is high, and organized crime dominates business, politics, and society. Since the summer of 2018, all three countries have experienced severe drought. Crop failure rates have reached higher than 80 percent; as a result, food insecurity has become a major cause of outmigration. On the opposite side of the Caribbean, Venezuela has crumbled under its president and would-be strongman, Nicolás Maduro. Over four million people have fled the country, the majority bound for Colombia, Ecuador, or Peru, making this the second-largest displacement crisis in the world.

The Americas are also witnessing a human tragedy as dramatic as the one that engulfed Europe in 2015, when more than 3,700 people drowned while crossing the Mediterranean. The number of those dying at the U.S.-Mexican border is considerably smaller- around 400 in the first eight months of this year-but the figure is still significant. What is more, that statistic does not account for the thousands of people who have been subjected to inhumane conditions or have suffered injuries on the journey north. Meanwhile, the fact that the richest country in the world has resorted to indefinitely detaining migrant children signals a lapse in the application of human rights standards similar to what Europe witnessed in 2015.

Europe's initial response to the crisis was characterized by unilateralism rather than international cooperation. In 2015, the 28 EU states struggled to agree on a common response. Merkel's plea for open borders fell on deaf ears, as Austria and Hungary quickly shut their doors. A major source of frustration for northern European states was the sense that southern European states were largely indifferent to the problem, simply waving migrants through in the hope that they would move northward. The Mexican government also stood by when migrant caravans originating in Central America crossed Mexico en route to the United States in late 2018. And just as richer northern European countries were unable to force their southern neighbors to take more responsibility for the problem, Washington's unilateral efforts to bully or bribe Mexico to respond more energetically have come to naught.

Although South American countries have been far more receptive to Venezuelan migrants than their northern neighbors have been to those fleeing Central America, they have similarly struggled to develop standardized responses or mechanisms for regional collaboration. The distribution of migrants across the region is highly uneven: by the end of 2018, there were around 1.3 million in Colombia, 768,000 in Peru, 288,000 in Chile, 263,000 in Ecuador, 168,000 in Brazil, and 130,000 in Argentina. Each of these countries handles work permits, public services, and refugee status differently. In light of the xenophobic backlash in several countries, some governments have put in place deterrence measures similar to those that European states used back in 2015; Ecuador, for instance, has introduced a policy requiring Venezuelans to present their criminal records at the border in response to an upsurge in anti-immigrant violence in late 2018.

DITCH THE DICTIONARY

The crisis in the Americas-like the European one before it-has raised questions about the usefulness of conventional categories such as "refugees" and "economic migrants." The UN's 1951 Refugee Convention defined a refugee as someone who has "a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion." In the 1980 Refugee Act, the U.S. Congress enshrined that description in U.S. law, as well. But the 1951 definition was written to address the upheavals of the early Cold War, especially the emigration of Soviet dissidents. Today, most migrants are not fleeing powerful regimes that are out to get them. Nor are they simply seeking better economic opportunities. Rather, they are running from states that have failed or that are so fragile that life has become difficult to bear for their citizens. What Europe saw in 2015 and what the Americas are witnessing today are not simply refugee flows or market-driven population movements but rather "survival migration"-a term I initially coined to describe the exodus of Zimbabweans from Robert Mugabe's regime in the early years of this century. Between 2003 and 2010, around two million Zimbabweans fled to South Africa and other neighboring states. Most of them wanted to escape hyperinflation, banditry, and food insecurity-the economic consequences of the underlying political situation-rather than political persecution per se. Because the majority of these migrants could not be described as either refugees or economic migrants, humanitarian action around the crisis stalled.

Many of the migrants who arrived in Europe in 2015, notably those from Syria, were clearly refugees under the 1951 convention. Others-including some Albanians and Kosovars who used the Balkan routes toward Germany alongside the Syrians-were plainly economic migrants. But significant numbers of those crossing the Aegean were fleeing fragile states such as Afghanistan and Iraq. European governments were, by and large, unsure of how to label these migrants. In the first quarter of this year, 46 percent of Iraqi asylum seekers received recognition in Germany, compared with 13 percent in the United Kingdom. Petitioners from failed or fragile Middle Eastern or sub-Saharan African countries faced-and still face-a sort of recognition lottery whose outcome depends on whether judges and bureaucrats are prepared to shoehorn today's circumstances into Cold War categories. But few European governments wanted to abandon the old terminology and categories. Governments led by right-of-center parties did not want to open themselves up to possibly greater obligations; those led by left-of-center parties did not want to risk jeopardizing the 1951 convention.

A similar dynamic seems to be at work in the Americas today, where outdated notions obscure the reality of survival migration. Nowhere is this truer than in Central America. In the first eight months of this year, around 508,000 people left the so-called Northern Triangle region, which consists of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, bound for the United States. This represents almost double the number who made that trip in any single year since 2014, an increase that has played a major role in the dramatic spike in U.S. border apprehensions. Meanwhile, in the past six years, there has been a more than tenfold increase in the number of U.S. asylum applications from these three countries.

The reasons Central American migrants have for emigrating are often complex. Poverty levels are high across the Northern Triangle. Drought has contributed to large-scale crop failure, undermining livelihoods and food security in these predominantly agricultural societies. The UN has suggested that climate change is in part to blame. Meanwhile, weak governance contributes to pervasive corruption and violence in the absence of public services.

The most visible manifestation of survival migration from the Northern Triangle has been the migrant caravans that have periodically tried to enter the United States through Mexico. A survey by the International Organization for Migration of 800 people in the first caravans of 2019 revealed the complicated motives of the Central Americans who have participated in the northern exodus, with 45 percent of those polled indicating that they had moved mainly for better economic conditions, nine percent because of violence and insecurity, and 45 percent because of a combination of both. Sixty-eight percent also said that they had had to change their residence in their country of origin in the previous year due to violence or insecurity. As Washington has stepped up enforcement and detention, many Central American migrants have opted to surrender to the U.S. Border Patrol in order to claim asylum rather than try to sneak across the border-contributing to a growing backlog of claims at the U.S. border.

AN UNEASY WELCOME

Central America is not the only source of the Western Hemisphere's migrants, and the United States is hardly their only destination. Unrest in Venezuela has also driven massive numbers of people from their homes to seek refuge in many other places in the region. Under Maduro's increasingly authoritarian rule, the country has been beset by violence and economic upheaval since late 2015. Venezuela now has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Ninety percent of the population lives below the poverty line. There was close to 1.7 million percent hyperinflation in 2018.

The exodus ramped up in 2017, when the full weight of the economic crisis came to bear. Since then, up to four million Venezuelans-at least seven percent of the country's population-have left. This is an unprecedented development in the region, arguably surpassed only by the period between 1979 and 1992, when over 25 percent of El Salvador's population fled a civil war.

Venezuela's neighbors have responded in vastly different ways. Colombia's approach has been the most progressive. The country opened its doors to roughly 1.5 million Venezuelans and has granted them the right to work and to receive basic services. It has recognized Venezuelan immigration as a development opportunity, receiving a $31.5 million grant from the World Bank earlier this year, alongside additional concessional finance, to provide jobs and improved social services to the migrants and the communities that host them. But Colombia's government refuses to call these Venezuelans refugees, since doing so might exacerbate a bureaucratic backlog in the asylum system and risk a political backlash in a country where anti-immigrant rhetoric is growing in the border regions.

Other countries have been less welcoming. At first, Peru opened its borders, allowing Venezuelans to apply for short-term stays or for asylum and, from January 2017 until December 2018, offering Venezuelan migrants temporary access to work, education, and banking services. But by the end of 2018, Peru suspended that practice amid concerns that it was creating an incentive for more Venezuelans to come. In 2017, Brazil began offering Venezuelan migrants two-year residency visas and gave all asylum seekers from Venezuela access to work permits and basic services. In 2018, however, the governor of Roraima State appealed to the Supreme Federal Court to close the border until the conditions for " humanitarian reception" were in place. (The court dismissed the case.) Brazil has also tried, with limited success, to carry out an internal relocation scheme, in which around 5,000 Venezuelans in the border area have been transferred to 17 other states across the country. For its part, Ecuador initially welcomed fleeing Venezuelans but eventually introduced stricter border controls in August 2018. In January, the country witnessed a xenophobic backlash after a Venezuelan migrant killed his pregnant Ecuadorian girlfriend; in the face of the resulting anger and violence, many Venezuelans left Ecuador for Colombia.

Meanwhile, international organizations have struggled to even define the crisis in South America, much less deal with it. Until this past spring, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees had only vaguely noted that the region was experiencing a "migrant crisis." But on May 21, under pressure from human right activists, the UNHCR released a statement suggesting that most Venezuelan migrants were actually refugees in need of international protection. The World Bank has characterized the Venezuelan migration as "mainly based on economic reasons but with the characteristics of a refugee situation in terms of the speed of influx and levels of vulnerability."

And yet everyone dealing with the situation on the ground agrees that a humanitarian tragedy is unfolding. On the border in Cúcuta, Colombia, around 50,000 people cross the checkpoint each day at the Simón Bolívar International Bridge. They set out with suitcases, bags, and hand trolleys to collect food and basic provisions that cannot be easily found in Venezuela. They buy and sell in Cúcuta's La Parada market or eat at the soup kitchens run by organizations affiliated with the World Food Program, which serve a total of 8,000 meals per day. Up to 3,000 of those who cross every day wind up staying in Colombia. Those with passports can regularize their status, access public services, and find work. By contrast, those without papers cannot get even the most basic entitlements.

Most South American migrants rely on their kith and kin to survive.

Competition and a lack of adequate coordination among UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations is palpable. For example, during my recent visit to the border, some organizations pushed for unrestricted cash assistance to Venezuelans, while others-among them, the Colombian government-strongly counseled that this would merely exacerbate existing tensions between migrants and locals. Several agencies complained that other agencies initiated schemes without consulting relevant partners, despite the existence of an inter-agency coordination platform.

There are, of course, some guiding lights. In beleaguered Cúcuta, a "one-stop shop" border point operated by UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations offers emergency relief and guidance to those who most need it. Here, and at other points along the border, UNICEF provides vaccines to the youngest migrants. And a few reception centers offer overnight housing, but only on a temporary basis. Most migrants, however, rely on their kith and kin to survive.

LESSONS FROM THE PAST

A new approach is needed to handle this situation-one that recognizes the contemporary realities of survival migration and relies on international cooperation rather than unilateralism. In 2016, Europe belatedly began to find solutions by strengthening international cooperation both among and beyond the 28 EU member states. The drop in Mediterranean crossings between 2016 and 2019 is due in part to improvements in the security situation in Syria. But the change has also come from strategic reforms aimed at strengthening internal and external cooperation.

In March 2016, the EU signed an agreement with Turkey, which during the crisis was the last place that millions of migrants passed through on their way to Europe. The EU offered Turkey around two billion euros of assistance in exchange for hosting and integrating refugees while limiting their outward movement. (Although criticized for making some migrant journeys even more dangerous, the deal has reduced Aegean Sea crossings for Greece and supported Turkey's capacity and willingness to host 3.7 million refugees. Unfortunately, due to the growth of anti-immigrant sentiment in Turkey, officials in Ankara have recently started resettling refugees in the Levant.) The EU also created an emergency assistance fund for Africa in late 2015 and dedicated more than four billion euros to support collaboration in the broad area of "migration and development" with African states. Agreements that the EU forged with countries such as Ethiopia and Jordan have created jobs, supported existing enterprises, and provided more sustainable opportunities for refugees and migrants in those countries. Europe's approach has been far from perfect-that much is clear. But it is also undeniable that the crisis ended in part owing to policies that created sustainable development opportunities and removed some of the "push" factors that had caused the migrant surge. If U.S. policymakers are serious about developing more sustainable immigration policies, perhaps they ought to borrow European tactics, creating multilateral deals with countries in Latin America that aim to ensure the safety and economic opportunity of migrants in their countries of origin, transit, and asylum.

The Western Hemisphere could also look to its own past for inspiration. In 1984, the countries of the region issued the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, which extended the definition of "refugee" to include people fleeing "massive violations of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order." This definition aptly describes the circumstances of many of the region's contemporary survival migrants. But until now, nearly all states have refrained from applying this extended definition to the plight of Central Americans or Venezuelans.

Policymakers could also draw lessons from the 1989 International Conference on Central American Refugees ( CIREFCA)-which identified regional solutions for around two million displaced people across the hemisphere, more than half of whom were displaced across borders. CIREFCA is, in short, one of the most successful historical examples of cooperation on refugees anywhere in the world. The conference set standards for recognizing and responding to different categories of migration. And through CIREFCA, countries created sustainable sanctuaries closer to home for the region's migrants.

The impetus behind the conference was just as dramatic as the migration crisis that is troubling the political landscape in the present day. By the end of the 1980s, after a decade of regional conflict that had produced around 160,000 casualties, there were millions of displaced people in Central America. Of these, around 150,000 were recognized as refugees, around 900,000 were displaced across borders but not regarded as refugees, and around 900,000 were considered internally displaced. CIREFCA aimed to remedy this problem as part of the region's peace process at the end of the Cold War. The initiative for the conference came from the UN, working closely with the Contadora Group (Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela) and major donors such as the United States and the EU. As part of the process, the UNHCR and the UN Development Program established a joint secretariat, based in San José, Costa Rica.

The aim of CIREFCA was to address forced displacement through a development-based approach. Conference attendees called for the CIREFCA secretariat to implement 36 initial projects that would require $375 million over a three-year period. Most of the projects aimed to ensure that, rather than having to migrate long distances in search of security and opportunity, migrants could receive protection and achieve prosperity closer to home. For example, through CIREFCA, the Mexican government undertook the development of large parts of the Yucatán Peninsula, including Campeche and Quintana Roo, states that at the time hosted tens of thousands of Guatemalan refugees. The project created agricultural jobs and other opportunities for Guatemalan refugees to build sustainable lives in Mexico, while simultaneously supporting the development of relatively impoverished areas of the peninsula. A number of other CIREFCA projects encouraged self-reliance on the part of refugees, empowering them to access opportunities both at home and in neighboring countries. For example, 62,000 Nicaraguans, 45,000 Guatemalans, and 27,000 Salvadorans returned home because integrated development projects cropped up in their local communities, schemes aimed at improving employment, infrastructure, and social services.

In the end, CIREFCA is estimated to have channeled more than $422 million in additional resources to the region, most of it from the United States and the EU. But CIREFCA was not just a one-off pledging conference: it was an ambitious political undertaking that lasted from 1987 to 1995. It led to sustainable solutions even for those who were not officially refugees, using the term "externally displaced persons" to capture the needs of people in migration situations that the traditional terminology failed to describe. Ultimately, CIREFCA did more than just address a migration crisis: it laid the foundations for two decades of relative peace in Central America.

ANCHORS, NOT WALLS

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In 2015, over 1.2 million asylum seekers arrived in the European Union. They were fleeing war zones in Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Syria; economic deprivation in Nigeria and Pakistan; and political instability in Somalia. The largest group came across the Aegean Sea; many of them reached European territory in Greece and then made their way to Germany.

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POST #2 (October 1, 2019)  The Children in Prison for Stealing Vanilla

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POST #2 (October 1, 2019)  The Children in Prison for Stealing Vanilla

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This article talks about a group of children that have been accused of stealing vanilla in Madagascar. This location has a huge vanilla industry and it is a serious crime to steal vanilla since it so valuable. The children can sometimes go three years without even being given a trial for their accusations.

I think this article relates to what we talked about in class regarding people in poverty not being able to have proper justice just because of their financial situation. Some of these children could potentially be innocent, yet without money for representation they remain powerless and forced to stay in these harsh conditions. Even if they were guilty of the crimes, the reason that they were most likely forced into stealing was measures to make it by or even to survive.

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The children in prison for stealing vanilla

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Children are waiting up to three years for a trial when accused of stealing vanilla in Madagascar.

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POST #1 (Oct 1, 2019) Hong Kong Does Its Best to Spoil China’s Big Anniversary 

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POST #1 (Oct 1, 2019) Hong Kong Does Its Best to Spoil China’s Big Anniversary 

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This articles talks about China’s 70th anniversary of the day Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People’s Republic in Tiannanmen Square in Bejing. The huge military parade and festivities quickly turned in a violent event. The protestors threw petrol bombs at police officials which resulted in law enforcement shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at them.

This article relates to the government vs. people ideas we talked about in class. The people of Bejing are not in support of their rulers grand display of military power and are protesting against their government administration. However, their protests appear to be powerless as the officials use force to stop their actions.

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THIS WAS an important national day for China. October 1st is the 70th anniversary of the day Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People's Republic in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. For Xi Jinping, China's president, it was a chance both to emphasise his claim to Mao's mantle as China's undisputed leader, making a speech from the very same spot, and to flaunt the strength of the country he rules. But as Beijing settled in for an evening of fireworks and song, Hong Kong was counting the cost of yet another day of street battles between protesters and the police, which were extending long into the night.

In Beijing the day's festivities included the biggest military parade China has ever seen, as Mr Xi reviewed 15,000 troops and an imposing array of high-tech weaponry. Designed to make China's enemies tremble, it also served to warn restive parts of China itself that rebellion will not be tolerated. But Hong Kong, an "autonomous region" that for months has been in increasingly violent revolt against the Communist Party's interference there, refused to be cowed. Those in the territory who object to indirect rule by the party relished the chance to show their rebelliousness on such an important day for Mr Xi. Across the territory, protesters, many dressed in black, marched, lit fires (sometimes of Chinese flags), chanted anti-party slogans and goaded the police. The police responded fiercely. In Tsuen Wan, a district on the mainland, an 18-year-old boy was reportedly shot with a live bullet, and is in a critical condition.
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This is the first time a protester has been injured in this way and marks a dangerous escalation for a force which prides itself on its restraint in the face of intense provocation. Sadly, it was not a surprise. At a briefing on September 20th the Hong Kong police told journalists that violence had become so serious that officers' greatest fear was that "they might have to kill someone or that they might be killed themselves".

Protests, provoked initially by the Hong Kong government's attempt to introduce legislation allowing criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China, have lasted for over four months. Hong Kong's hapless "chief executive", Carrie Lam, appointed by a committee dominated by the party's placemen, has promised to withdraw the extradition bill, but protesters have four further demands. These include an independent investigation into police conduct and democratic reforms, allowing Hong Kong people to elect all the members of their legislature and their chief executive.

Mrs Lam had tried to avert trouble by toning down the celebrations. An annual firework display was cancelled on safety grounds, and the usual flag-raising ceremony was moved behind closed doors. She herself flew to Beijing to lead a delegation of over 240 pro-party dignitaries at the official ceremonies. Rarely seen in public at home, she was filmed shaking hands with passengers on a plane and beaming as she watched the parade.

The city she left was in trouble. At a press conference on September 30th, a police spokesperson warned that the city was "on the verge of extreme danger". Intelligence sources, he said, had exposed "suicidal" plots to murder policemen and members of the public as well as to set fire to petrol stations and bring down helicopters. The police refused an application for a large march on Hong Kong Island but demonstrators there and elsewhere pushed on regardless. Dozens of shopping centres and hundreds of other shops kept their shutters closed. Many stations on the city's Mass Transit Railway (MTR) were closed early.

The march on Hong Kong Island, led by moderate pro-democracy figures, was peaceful and well choreographed. Organisers wanted a day of "mourning"-both for the millions of victims of the Communist revolution since 1949 and for the "death of freedom" in Hong Kong. Many participants wore black and held out an outstretched hand, with fingers splayed, to signify their five demands. The streets were carpeted with fake paper banknotes, the "hell money" used at traditional Chinese funerals.

Policemen watched from overhead walkways but saw no reason to intervene. Even mainland-Chinese institutions, such as the Bank of China headquarters, remained untouched. But once the main march ended, many protesters donned equipment-such as helmets and gas masks-for a more confrontational "front line". Plans to protest outside the central government's representative office in Hong Kong were thwarted by the presence of hundreds of policemen, dozens of police vans and at least two of the force's three water cannon. That was a stark contrast to a night in July when protesters were able to march right up to the building and spatter black paint on a national emblem, infuriating officials in Beijing.

However, between the jewellers and designer-fashion shops of the ritzy Central shopping district, protesters threw bricks and petrol bombs into a shuttered MTR station. Police waiting inside threw some projectiles back and then burst out, firing tear-gas and rubber bullets. In the early evening huge columns of policemen in riot gear swept slowly through the city, retracing the steps the marchers had taken earlier. By the time they cleared a street the protesters had long gone.

Violence continued late into the evening, and the city is braced for further anger. Trust in the police has plummeted and their behaviour has become a factor often blamed by protesters for their own escalating violence. But any suggestion that the police cannot handle the protests increases the chances that the mainland authorities will intervene. Song Ru'an, the foreign ministry's "deputy commissioner" in Hong Kong, told journalists in September: "We believe the [Hong Kong] government has the capability to calm down the current situation."

Nevertheless, an investigation by Reuters, a news agency, found that the number of Chinese troops stationed in Hong Kong from its People's Liberation Army and People's Armed Police, had increased from about 3,000-5,000 to around 10,000-12,000. Many protesters believe, without producing evidence, that some of the Hong Kong police are now mainland soldiers in disguise. National day in Hong Kong was ugly enough; but few think things will get any prettier.

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Hong Kong tries its best to spoil China's big anniversary

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THIS WAS an important national day for China. October 1st is the 70th anniversary of the day Mao Zedong declared the founding of the People's Republic in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.