T IM ES O F OM A N
T U E S DAY, JAN UARY 6, 2 0 1 5
A1 3
PERSPEC IVE Of development, disaster, and the natural vagaries HELEN CLARK
Countries like the Philippines continue to demonstrate the benefits of investing in preparedness, especially when done as part of a larger risk-mitigation effort. Typhoon Hagupit is just the latest event to showcase this
W
hen Typhoon Hagupit made landfall in the Philippines on December 6, memories of Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,300 people, were fresh in people’s minds. Some 227,000 families — more than a million people — were evacuated ahead of Hagupit’s arrival, according to the United Nations. The typhoon, one of the strongest of the season, killed some 30 people. All deaths from disasters are a tragedy, but the fact that this number was not much higher attests to the efforts that the Philippines has made to prepare for natural disasters. As Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, I have seen first-hand the devastation and heartbreak caused by disasters around the world. Since the beginning of the century, more than a million people have died in storms like Hagupit and other major disasters, such as the 2010 Haitian earthquake, with economic damage totalling nearly $2 trillion. These losses are tragic, but they are also avoidable. They serve as a reminder that disaster preparedness is not an optional luxury; it is a constant, intensive process that is necessary to save lives, protect infrastructure, and safeguard development. The argument for investing in disaster preparedness is simple. If countries expect to experience natural hazards, such as violent storm seasons or major earthquakes, then investing time and resources in preparing for shocks will save lives and protect communities from other losses. Unfortunately, governments often put different priorities ahead of disaster preparation. Other investments often take precedence, and donors have historically funded emergency relief much more readily than pre-disaster preparedness. The measures that are implemented tend to be stand-alone and piecemeal, rather than part of a larger, systematic risk-reduction plan. That needs to change. Countries like the Philippines continue to demonstrate the benefits of investing in preparedness, especially when done as part of a larger risk-mitigation effort. Typhoon Hagupit is just the latest event to showcase this. The Philippine government’s quick, effective response saved many lives. But it is important to note that its efforts were not simply an overnight
reaction to the oncoming storm. They were part of a national, comprehensive effort that was long in the making. Officials were wise to acknowledge their country’s vulnerabilities and to commit the resources and capital needed to build resilience. The Philippines includes preparedness as a core component in its overall strategy for reducing disaster risk. Over the last decade, the country’s authorities have raised awareness, established and strengthened disaster-management institutions, and worked on recovering from past disasters, including Typhoon Haiyan. National and local disaster plans have been improved, standard operating procedures have been developed, and early warning systems have been put in place. The end result has been nothing short of a transformation of how the Philippines reacts to disasters. The UNDP, and the wider UN system, is supporting governments as they place greater emphasis on disaster-risk reduction, including preparedness, by strengthening their institutional capacity to plan and act when needed. In addition to assisting with emergency relief, it is crucial that the international community help to introduce basic procedures for responding long before disaster strikes. First responders, for example, need training and tools. Emergency shelters and evacuation routes must be planned and established using risk assessments and actual simulations. If communities are to be expected to make use of available resources, they need to be involved in the design and development of emergency plans. Risk reduction, including preparedness, is also, first and foremost, rooted in responsive governance. In March 2015 a new global framework for disaster reduction will be agreed in Sendai, Japan. It is crucial that delegates push for transformational change that enables preparedness and saves lives. Furthermore, risk reduction needs to be integral to sustainable-development strategies. The Philippines can serve as an example. The archipelago will always be in the path of tropical storms. There is little officials can do about that. But what they can do — and have done — is emphasize risk reduction and strengthen preparedness, thereby saving lives and building greater resilience. That is a lesson that all of us must learn. - Project Syndicate
Britain is most landlord-friendly nation ALEX HILTON
I
t doesn’t matter who comes into power at the next election — Britain is the most landlord-friendly nation in Europe. This is a huge problem. What used to be a way for people to make some money from their property has begun to crush an entire generation of young people in the UK. But there is a solution: rent controls. There are many ways to implement rent controls. But one way would be to cap the cost of rent for tenants, preventing landlords from making unethical profits on housing. Additionally, by lowering the price landlords have to pay for a property, the heat will be taken out of the housing market, which will allow first time buyers to escape the exploitation of renting. If you’re unsure about whether this is the right thing to do, then just ask the British public: not only are rent controls necessary and effective, but they’re popular too. A recent poll showed that 59 per cent of people support rent controls and 6.8 per cent of people oppose them. Surprisingly, this overwhelming support for rent control extends to people of all age groups, to homeowners as well as renters and to the supporters of all political parties — including the Conservatives and Ukip.
Yet mysteriously, none of the main parties support such a measure. If MPs are wondering why people are turned off by mainstream politics it’s because of their quiet consensus to oppose anything that would make a real, positive difference to people’s lives. Extortionate rental costs might be the norm now, but they haven’t always been. The Private Rented Sector (PRS) used to be a tiny portion of the housing market. Longterm renting was unusual outside of social housing, and the private sector was generally where you stayed while studying or saving up to buy a home. But since the emergence of buy-to-let mortgages 18 years ago, the PRS has ballooned in size to over 10m people, making the laws around renting no longer fit for purpose. While landlords rake in huge returns on low-risk investments, tenants are being squeezed for everything they can pay. Renters have no choice; they can’t get into social housing because so little has been built in the last 30 years. But then there’s rapidly increasing rents and house prices to overcome. Unless you’re privileged enough to have rich and generous parents, this means that saving for a deposit to buy a home is close to impossible.
It’s the simple and depressing fact of renting today: if you need to live near where you work, you’re expected to pay whatever it takes to live comfortably, or pay less and live in awful conditions. The reason for this is simple economics. Landlords can make so much money — not just in rents but also in capital gain — that it’s worthwhile for them to outbid anyone who wants to buy a home. Consequently, it’s no coincidence that 80 per cent of the increase in the national housing stock since 2000 is in the hands of landlords. The unwillingness of the state and the private sector to build new homes means that housing in the UK is a limited resource wherever there are jobs. Not only is this unethical, but it is also fuelling a generational divide. Most people born since the mid-1970s are being fleeced, while many older homeowners are benefiting from the lucrative bubble this creates around their properties. As a renter facing a lifetime of insecurity and exploitation, it no longer matters to me which flavour of government we have while I’m being exploited. And most people born since the mid-1970s will be in the same position until one party — any party — decides to champion rent controls. - The Independent
The blacks in the USA are lesser mortals CHARLES M. BLOW
T
he day after Christmas, a shooter terrorised the streets of a Chattanooga, Tenn., neighbourhood. According to the local newspaper, the shooter was “wearing body armour” and “firing multiple shots out her window at people and cars.” One witness told the paper that the shooter was “holding a gun out of the window.” There’s more: “Officers found two people who said they were at a stop sign when a woman pulled up in a darkcoloured sedan and fired shots into their vehicle, hitting and disabling the radiator. Then more calls reported a woman pointing a firearm at people as she passed them in her car, and that she fired at another vehicle in the same area.” When police officers came upon the shooter, the shooter led them on a chase. The shooter even pointed the gun at a police officer. Surely this was not going to end well. We’ve all seen in recent months what came of people who did far less. Surely in this case officers would have been justified in using whatever force they saw fit. According to the paper, the shooter was “taken into custody without incident or injury.” Who was this shooter anyway? Julia Shields, a 45-year-old white woman. Take a moment and consider this. Take a long moment. It is a good thing that officers took her in “without incident or injury,” of course, but can we imagine that result being universally the case if a shooter looks different? Would this episode have ended this way if the shooter had been male, or black, or both? It’s an unanswerable question, but nevertheless one that deserves pondering. Every case is different. Police officers are human beings making split-second decisions — often informed by fears — about when to use force and the degree of that
People of colour, particularly AfricanAmerican men, have been caught up in a twister of macro aggressions and micro ones. No amount of ignoring can alleviate it
force. But that truth is also the trap. How and why are our fears constructed and activated? The American mind has been poisoned, from this country’s birth, against minority populations. People of colour, particularly African-American men, have been caught up in a twister of macro aggressions and micro ones. No amount of ignoring can alleviate it; no amount of achieving can ameliorate it. And in a few seconds, or fractions of a second, before the conscious mind can catch up to the racing heart, decisions are made that can’t be unmade. Dead is forever. It is no wonder that whites and blacks have such divergent views of treatment by the police. As The Washington Post noted recently about a poll it conducted with ABC News, only about two in 10 blacks “say they are confident that the police treat whites and blacks equally, whether or not they have committed a crime.” In contrast, six in 10 whites “have confidence that police treat both equally.” Michael Brown was unarmed. Eric Garner was unarmed on a Staten Island street. Tamir Rice was 12 years old, walking around a Cleveland park and holding a toy gun that uses nonlethal plastic pellets, but he didn’t shoot at anyone. John Crawford was in Ohio holding, but not shooting, an air rifle he had picked up from a store shelf. The police say Antonio Martin had a gun and pointed it at a police officer in Berkeley, Mo., but didn’t fire it. But none had the privilege of being “arrested without incident or injury.” They were all black, all killed by police officers. Brown was shot through the head. Garner was grabbed around the neck in a chokehold, tossed to the ground and held there, even as he pleaded that he couldn’t breathe; it was all caught on video. Rice was shot within two seconds of the police officers’ arrival on the scene. Crawford, Martin and Reid were also cut down by police bullets. Maybe one could argue that in some of those cases the officers were within their rights to respond with lethal force. Maybe. But shouldn’t the use of force have equal application? Shouldn’t it be colour and gender blind? Shouldn’t more people, in equal measures, be taken in and not taken out? Why weren’t these black men, any of them, the recipients of the same use of force — or lack thereof — as Julia Shields? - The New York Times News Service
Summary of CIA torture report A US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) report calls into question the legal foundation of the CIA’s interrogation techniques on suspected terrorists following Al Qaeda’s attacks on 9/11 2009 On taking office President Obama signs Executive Order 13491, outlawing torture. At same time, SSCI chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein initiates investigation into CIA enhanced interrogation Enhanced interrogation Use of simulated drowning known as waterboarding, sleep deprivation, humiliation and other techniques used against Al Qaeda prisoners Origin of programme Two contract psychologists – with no experience of interrogation methods – devise techniques based on Air Force’s Korean War-era Survival Evasion Resistance Escape programme Oversight Report concludes that CIA’s enhanced interrogation programme began in 2001 and was not approved by US Justice Department until August 2002 Distorted intelligence CIA knowingly misled White House, Congress and Justice Department about effectiveness of programme to justify its use
TODAY IN HISTORY 1066 Harold Godwineson is crowned
Brutality Techniques and conditions were far worse than agency told policymakers
crowned King Harold II – King of England.
1540
Waterboarding CIA reportedly waterboarded Al Qaeda member, Abu Zubaydah,83 times, claiming they extracted intelligence that led to hunting down Osama bin Laden. Principal architect of 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was reportedly waterboarded more than 180 times
Henry VIII of England marries his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves. The marriage will last six months.
1904
Japanese railway authorities in Korea refuse to transport Russian troops.
1918
Conventional intelligence According to Feinstein, it was conventional FBI interrogations of Abu Zubaydah – prior to CIA waterboarding – that led to bin Laden’s whereabouts
Germany acknowledges Finland’s independence.
1937
The United States bans the shipment of arms to war-torn Spain.
1946
Ho Chi Minh wins in the Vietnamese elections.
Conclusion CIA’s use of torture damaged US’s global reputation and came with heavy costs, both monetary and non-monetary Graphic News /
Graphics
FROM OUR ARCHIVES 96 PER CENT OF MEDICAL EQUIPMENT Y2K-READY, SAYS MoH
MUSCAT: Ministry of Health has taken all necessary steps and precautionary measures to ensure that health services are not affected by the millennium bug. According to the Undersecretary of Planning Affairs at the Ministry, work on the Y2K issue has been going on since the last two years. A statistical analysis of all medical equipment has been made and classified according to their ability to conform to the Y2K solution.
Do you think that even medium-scale companies should now be made to pay taxes? Visit timesofoman.com to cast your vote
LAST POLL RESULT Yes
60.4%
No
39.6%
HISTORYNET.COM Source: McClatchy Washington Bureau
OPINION POLL
Should the government of Oman now raise taxes on all luxury items?