🔎Picks of the Week — September 25
🔎Picks of the Week — September 25
Bolivia President Withdraws, Beirut Campuses Rebuild, World Misses Climate Targets, Taliban Goldmines, China Internment Camps and El Salvador Woman Freed
Hello! Happy Friday and welcome to another Picks of the Week where we’ll dissect the most interesting and important news from around the world from the past week. Today we’ll travel to Bolivia whose president has resigned just weeks before next month’s presidential election, to Lebanon where the rebuild has started for Beirut’s universities after last month’s explosion, we’ll look at the latest biodiversity report that shows how 190 countries failed to meet a single target to stem the climate emergency, we’ll visit Afghanistan where the Taliban have amassed a mining portfolio that could secure its future for years to come, to China where hundreds more internment camps for its Uyghar Muslims have been found, and to El Salvador where a woman has been freed from prison after six years for having a miscarriage. Before we get into it, we have job deadlines approaching… 👇
Job Corner
More than 30 deadlines coming up for jobs in the U.S., UK and Canada at the likes of CBC, the Federal Reserve Bank, Reach Plc, the San Diego Union-Tribune, The Guardian, Bell Media and The Times of London. Don’t miss out, subscribe below. 👇
Data Corner
Time for a new feature where I’ll list a selection of datasets used in each newsletter, available for public download. 🔢
Uyghar Muslims: Location of Chinese internment camps
Afghan Exports: Trade data for Afghanistan and other countries
Aichi Biodiversity: Individual reports for each national government
Bolivia President Withdraws
We start off in Bolivia whose interim President has withdrawn from the country’s presidential election due to be held on October 18. Jeanine Áñez’s decision was heavily influenced by low polling numbers after a large poll suggested she would win just 11 percent of the vote, well behind former President Carlos Mesa and favourite Luis Arce. Arce is the candidate for Movement for Socialism, the party of former President Evo Morales, who resigned in November after almost 14 years in power amid mass protests over disputed election results. Morales currently lives in exile in Argentina and has accused the U.S. of orchestrating a coup to take advantage of Bolivia’s lithium resources. Bolivia holds the second-largest volume of the mineral used to power electric cars.
Beirut Campuses Rebuild
Moving to Lebanon next where six weeks after the horrific explosion that rocked Beirut and killed more than 200 people, the city’s education sector is beginning the long hard rebuild of its universities. Fadlo Khuri, president of the American University of Beirut, said the sector had suffered between $150-200/£115-154 million worth of physical damage, and that doesn’t even account for the millions due to be lost in tuition fees, of which Khuri predicts to be around $30/£25.5 million in the coming year. Lebanon’s universities were struggling prior to the blast, and the country’s economic crisis forced AUB to cut 650 staff, and Khuri said he anticipates between 10 to 12 percent of his faculty will either take leave or leave their posts.
Previous Picks of the Week
🔎 Picks of the Week — September 18
🔎 Picks of the Week — September 11
🔎 Picks of the Week — September 4
🔎 Picks of the Week — August 28
World Misses Climate Targets
The world has failed to meet a single Aichi target set 10 years ago to at least halve the loss of natural habitats by 2020, a new UN report has found. The 20 targets (listed below) are broken down into 60 separate elements to monitor overall progress and, of those, just seven have been achieved, 38 have shown progress and 13 have shown no progress. There are two elements whose progress remains unknown. One of the many reasons why the targets haven’t been met has been because of government subsidies to companies causing environmental damage, of which $500/£388 billion haven’t been scrapped. Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the UN’s biodiversity head, said humanity is at a crossroads.
Source: Convention on Biological Diversity
Taliban Gold
We move to Afghanistan now where violence continues amid ongoing peace talks between the Taliban and Afghan government. Meanwhile the Taliban have developed a mining portfolio of copper, iron ore, gemstones and gold that’s worth around $400/£310 million a year. As the country continues to rebuild its economy during the endless war involving the U.S., the Taliban knows how important its mining revenue is to negotiations with the Afghan government. The group has issued mining licenses, arranged labor, and controls the roads from the mines to residential areas, according to a new report by the UN Development Program. The CIA estimates the Afghan government generated $2.2/£1.7 billion in taxes and other revenue in 2017, while the Taliban generated a total of $1.5/£1.2 billion, according to the U.N. Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team.
China Internment Camps
Moving to China next where 380 internment camps have been built in Xinjiang, used to detain and “re-educate” more than one million Uyghar Muslims and other minorities, with construction happening for dozens more, despite Chinese authorities insisting the network is winding down and most of the detainees have “returned to society”. According to research of the latest satellite imagery by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, the centers have been established since 2017, with the camps ranging from low security to full on fortified prisons, and are often located within or near factories where forced labour has implicated Western companies including H&M. The Chinese Communist Party insists no human rights abuses are taking place.
Source: The Guardian
El Salvador Woman Freed
We finish on some good news this week in El Salvador where a woman has been freed from prison after six years of a 30-year sentence that was later reduced to 10 years. After having a miscarriage in a shopping mall bathroom, Cindy Erazo was charged with aggravated homicide in a country where abortion has been illegal since 1998. Erazo is among several women to be released in recent years, but more than 18 are understood to still be in prison for abortion-related crimes, according to The Guardian. El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, took office last year and pledged to legalise abortion when a women’s life is at risk. That’s all for today, see you next week!
Cindy Erazo cleared of homicide over stillborn baby