UXBRIDGE, Canada, Sep 26, 2011 (IPS) – Government policies are seldom lauded, yet Rwanda’s forest policy has resulted in a 37-percent increase in forest cover on a continent better known for deforestation and desertification.

Rwanda’s National Forest Policy has also resulted in reduced erosion, improved local water supplies and livelihoods, while helping ensure peace in a country still recovering from the 1994 genocide.

Now Rwanda can also be known as the winner of the prestigious Future Policy Award for 2011.

“Rwanda has sought not only to make its forests a national priority, but has also used them as a platform to revolutionise its stances on women’s rights and creating a healthy environment,” said Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and founder of the Green Belt Movement.

She issued a statement for the award ceremony in New York City last week just days before her death from cancer in Nairobi Monday at the age of 71. “Rwanda has been a very divided country since the 1994 genocide but this policy is helping to bring peace and value to the people,” said Alexandra Wandel, director of the World Future Council, which administers the Future Policy Awards.

The World Future Council is an international policy research organisation based in Hamburg, Germany that provides decision-makers with effective policy solutions.

“Our aim is to inspire other countries to adapt these successful policies to their individual needs.” said Wandel told IPS.

This year’s award celebrates the UN Year of the Forest and highlights the critical importance of forests around the world – and especially for the 1.6 billion people who directly depend on them, she said.

Some 20 forest-related policies were submitted this year. Rwanda’s National Forest Policy was awarded the gold while The Gambia’s Community Forest Policy and the U.S. Lacey Act and 2008 amendment received the Silver Awards. An international panel of experts selected the winners based on policies that were the most effective in the conservation and sustainable development of forests for the benefit of current and future generations.

The evaluation criteria for the best forest policies are wide-ranging, including delivering essential benefits to local people now and in the long term, said Jan McAlpine, director of the UN Forum on Forests Secretariat and one of the judges.

“The panel (of experts) receives a detailed analysis of the effectiveness of the policies that has been ‘peer-reviewed’ by NGOs, and others,” McAlpine told IPS. “It’s rare that a country gets complimented for doing something good.”

The biggest threats to forests are oil palm, cattle and agriculture such as soy production, she said. Forest policies in most countries need to be changed usually because they are focussed on timber production or on conservation and don’t consider forests as key part of the ecological, social and economic landscape, she said.

There is “huge interest in looking at good policies that are replicable”, she said. “It is very impressive what the World Future Council is doing.”

This year, Rwanda’s forest policy was the hands’ down winner. “It’s quite stunning what they’ve accomplished,” said McAlpine.

Despite enormous land pressures from a growing population, Rwanda was able to increase forest cover 37 percent since 1990. Massive reforestation and planting activities that promoted indigenous species and involved the local population were undertaken, and new measures such as agro-forestry and education about forest management.

Rwanda’s forest policy has brought a range of benefits, including a better water supply, reduction in erosion, improved livelihoods and better quality of life overall. The goal is to cover 30 percent of the country in forest by 2020.

“There was a strong consensus in selecting Rwanda’s National Forest Policy in a continent where the prospects for forests are generally bad,” said Wandel. “The jury was also impressed by Rwanda’s land tenure reforms, including giving women equal rights to inherit land.” Rwanda’s success gives hope for other countries, she said.

Africa’s The Gambia won silver for its innovative policy of handing control of forests to the communities that use them. Despite being one of the world’s poorest countries, Gambia’s Community Forest Policy has reduced illegal logging and resulted in a net 8.5 percent more forest cover while reducing poverty.

“The policy has led to the development of new markets for dead branch wood and other forest products which benefit women and rural populations economically,” Wandel said.

The other silver went to the U.S. for its criminally-enforceable ban on importation of illegal timber, called the Lacey Act. The U.S. is the first country to address the major global problem of illegal logging that results in corruption and environmental damage, and costs producer countries billions of dollars in lost revenue.

The Lacey Act and its 2008 amendments have forced importers to take responsibility for their wood products. That helps to reduce illegal logging by withdrawing the huge rewards received by illegal loggers from the international market.

“One of our jurists from Ethiopia said the U.S. law acts like a global enforcement mechanism, helping the weakest countries to reduce their illegal logging,” said Wandel.

The European Union has developed similar legislation.

“We need visionary policies which support a sustainable and just world and protect future generations,” said Wandel.

HAVANA, Sep 26, 2011 (IPS) – This month, the Cuban government eased up on taxes and other legal aspects involved in self-employment. But experts warn that there are serious limitations standing in the way of growth of private enterprise, which is supposed to absorb hundreds of thousands of employees slashed from the public workforce.

“There has been resistance to the changes that (President) Rául (Castro) wants to carry out, and what is happening with self-employment is one example,” an expert who preferred to remain anonymous told IPS.

Nevertheless, the number of officially registered self-employed people – known in Cuba as “cuentapropistas” – climbed from 157,000 in September 2010 to just over 333,000 in August 2011.

Deputy minister of finance Meisi Bolaños, quoted by the Cuban press, said the growth in one year was higher than projected.

But according to specialised sources, around 25 percent of self-employment permits had actually been returned as of July.

“At least in housing and room rentals, people I know have quit this business because they were losing money,” a woman in the quiet residential Havana neighbourhood of El Vedado who rents a room in her house to foreign tourists told IPS.

“My mother and I decided to wait and see if things get better, although if it weren’t for my son, who once in a while sends us some money (from abroad), we would be in trouble,” she said.

She added that this year the number of tourists renting her spare room has plunged, whether it’s because of the global economic crisis or because people have lost interest in Cuba.

She admitted that the latest decrease in the monthly tax paid per rented room “helped, although not enough. The bad thing is that payment of the tax is compulsory, whether or not you have rented out your room,” she complained.

But Ariel García, also from El Vedado, said his experience has been different: “Those of us who accept pesos (instead of hard currency) always have renters; at least that’s the case in my neighbourhood.”

“Maybe that’s because we depend less on foreign tourists,” said García, a former maintenance worker at a Havana hotel.

Economists Omar Everleny Pérez and Pável Vidal reported in a study on the issue that the most popular permits as of the first half of this year were for preparing and selling food, providing transportation, workers hired by other self-employed workers and room rentals.

The first category refers to food take-out businesses, cafeterias and small family-run restaurants, called paladares, a word taken from a popular Brazilian soap opera. Regulations approved earlier this month permit paladares to seat up to 50 people, up from the limit of 12 that existed in the 1990s.

“For now I’m sticking to 15 seats. Things are going well and I’m excited about my little business,” Santiago González, owner of the “Paladar el Lobo”, told IPS. His restaurant is on the centrally-located Paseo del Prado boulevard in Cienfuegos, 254 kilometres from Havana.

González had a video-viewing hall for four years during the 1990s. “With the money I saved, I was able to set up my restaurant,” he said, estimating that within a couple of years he will have recovered his investment.

“The good thing is that I did not have to borrow money from anyone,” he added.

A few months ago, the government approved bank loans for private businesses in agriculture and other areas. It has not worked for the self-employed, though, according to Pérez and Vidal.

“Moreover, the financial system has liquidity problems and the two national currencies (the peso and the CUC, which circulates in the country instead of the U.S. dollar) have limitations on their convertibility into hard currency,” say the experts, who propose as an alternative streamlining and promoting international cooperation in the area of microcredit.

“Although there are no precise data available, everything seems to indicate that remittances (from Cubans abroad) are becoming a source of capital for the new businesses that are opening up, given the absence of nationally-available credit,” the economists say in their article on “self-employment and its limitations for increasing production.”

In that respect, a January 2011 survey by two U.S. academics of 300 people who receive remittances in Cuba found that 34 percent of the respondents were thinking about opening a small business, 23 percent already had, and 43 percent were not interested in the idea.

The study by Manuel Orozco, senior associate at the Inter-American Dialogue, and Katrin Hansing, associate professor of Black and Hispanic Studies at Baruch College in New York, found that the respondents uninterested in opening a small business listed as their main reasons a lack of resources and start-up capital, little knowledge about running a business or the unstable political and economic context.

The new regulations that seek to make non-state employment more attractive include tax cuts, more flexible rules for housing rentals, authorisation to sell goods and services to state companies or institutions, and permission to hire workers for any of the 181 authorised self-employment trades and activities.

The ability to hire other workers turns the cuentapropistas into small businesses, Pérez and Vidal say, noting that two of the limitations on growth include the lack of authorisation for “the creation of small and medium-sized businesses that can be incorporated into national production on a larger scale, or that can generate products and services for export.”

Another obstacle is the lack of a wholesale market for necessary supplies and inputs, something that will be hard to resolve in the short term given the country’s precarious economic and financial situation. An opening to microcredit with international cooperation, however, would facilitate an inflow of foreign exchange enabling the new micro-enterprise owners to import supplies, the two economists say.

According to Pérez and Vidal, the biggest complication is the low rate of economic growth, which along with the huge increase in unemployed workers makes it difficult to imagine that demand for goods and services on the part of families and state enterprises will rise to the level needed to keep such a large number of self-employed people in business.

Self-employment was introduced in Cuba for some 150 occupations in 1993, at the height of the economic crisis that hit the country in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and East European socialist bloc. It was expanded last year when the government announced massive lay-offs of public employees, which were to potentially affect one million people by the end of 2011.

But the government has slowed down the pace of the reforms, to make them less traumatic. Prior to the slashing of the public payroll, the government employed more than 80 percent of the workforce in Cuba. (END)

Vista desde el Alcazar de Segovia - Julio 2011

TORONTO, Sep 25, 2011 (IPS) – Ottawa’s clampdown on some of the country’s worst criminal offenders by creating a public most-wanted list netted its most recent arrest only days ago, but the system has triggered a debate over the publishing of fugitives’ names and the ethics and feasibility of changing Canadian immigration policy.

A Guyanese national with several criminal convictions in Canada such as violence and weapons-related offences was arrested in Toronto on Sep. 15 due to a tip to the most-wanted website of the Canadian Border Services Agency.

Shameer Allie, who was wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for removal from the country, is the fifth person to be located via the website list of dangerous criminals living illegally in Canada, including war criminals, established by the government earlier this summer.

Yet the success of the fugitive programme has been marred by criticisms of the immigration system itself.

In August, Federal Public Safety Minister Vic Toews slammed the Immigration and Refugee Board’s alleged lax treatment of one of the dangerous individuals who had been caught through a tip line. Walter Guzman of El Salvador, who earned a ranking on the CBSA’s list for trafficking in an illegal substance, assault, breaking and entering, and uttering threats, was released on bail.

The incident sparked Ottawa’s decision to mull changes to immigration legislation. Toews argued the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act leaned toward releasing people on the verge of deportation and challenging the government to prove that those in custody are a public danger.

Since Toews’s announcement in August about reviewing Canadian immigration policies, there is still no definitive decision regarding how the federal government will proceed.

“Min. Toews has asked his officials to investigate possible changes to the legislation to ensure the integrity of our border and our immigration system,” Julie Carmichael, press secretary for Toews, told IPS in an e-mail. “Individuals looking to take advantage of our generous immigration system will find no haven on our shores.”

Some civil society organisations argue that Canadian immigration laws already take into account violent offenders because people can be detained for being a danger to the public.

The Immigration and Refugee Board is charged with balancing individual rights against government evidence of a person’s violent nature, said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees based in Montreal. Anyone who cares about the right to liberty should be concerned about Ottawa’s announcement that it may amend the law to make it easier to detain people, she told IPS.

Legal revisions under consideration seem to “undermine the independence of the judiciary,” Dench noted, “and in a democracy it’s really important that you have a strong and independent judiciary.”

While the courts are responsible for weighing individual cases, “sometimes the results are unfortunate”, she conceded.

For the most part, Dench views negatively the publishing of the country’s most-wanted criminal lists on the CBSA website. The council regards the effort as a “concerted campaign by the government” to associate refugees and immigrants with criminality and abuse when, in fact, government representatives have confirmed only a “tiny proportion” of newcomers commit crimes, she said.

Dench told IPS her organisation has already felt the impact of the government’s move in the form of increased “hate-filled diatribes”, some of which are clearly tied to the publicity surrounding the fugitive lists that “feed into very blatant racism”.

A few weeks ago, Amnesty International Canada also weighed in on the CBSA’s publication of the names of fugitives who committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Canada must ensure that an accused human rights violator, for example from North Korea, is “not sent back to either escape justice or to himself become a victim of torture”, wrote Alex Neve, the secretary- general of Amnesty International Canada, in an Aug. 25 op-ed in the Ottawa Citizen.

A potential bid to reform immigration laws and the creation of lists of criminal offenders underpin a “broader problem” in Canadian society than most realise, argued James Bissett, an adviser to the Centre for Immigration Policy Reform.

A review of the CBSA issued by the Canadian Auditor-General in 2007 found that there were “62,000 warrants for the arrest of failed asylum-seekers, that is, people who come into Canada claiming that they need protection because they are refugees,” Bissett told IPS.

The Immigration and Refugee Board had ordered these individuals to leave Canada after denying the sincerity of their claims, said Bissett, a former ambassador and the former executive director of the Canadian Immigration Service.

He added that none of these asylum-seekers, who generally do not receive an immediate hearing due to the backlog of some 50,000 claims, would have been evaluated on security, health or criminal levels when they entered Canada. For these reasons, Bissett argued, Canada’s refugee asylum system has made it a target for human smuggling.

Traditionally, the federal government has made no attempt to “chase these people down or keep track of them” probably due to a lack of resources, he noted, adding that the current government has decided to make these outstanding warrants a priority by publishing people’s names.

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, the officers reviewing each case determine whether an individual can be released, he said. It may be a violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms if Ottawa goes “beyond those rules”, Bissett argued.

However, in the end, he added, the government may push through stronger regulations diminishing the refugee board’s “discretionary authority to release”.

Read more about us here PROGRAMA ENCUENTRO Comunicación y desarrollo: políticas, redes y tecnologías Santander, del 5 al 7 julio UIMP, 2010

Oral polio vaccine drives in Pakistan have failed to stop a resurgence of the virus. Credit: Fahim Siddiqi/IPS

Caption Corregida: Arroyo en la selva de Chiapas. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

WELLINGTON, New Zealand, Sep 1, 2011 (IPS) – Colombian lawmakers are studying the “Lleras law”, the latest effort by that country to secure a free trade agreement with the United States by submitting to U.S. demands to comply with U.S. intellectual property laws. The bill is currently being fast-tracked with little input or consultation from Colombian citizens.

Under this proposed law, known by the name of his main author, minister of interior and justice Germán Vargas Lleras, anyone who uses the Internet “to share or download music, movies, books, articles, etc. without paying copyright fees could be penalised, even with jail.” This extends also to Internet service providers (ISPs) who facilitate media piracy, requiring them to “to block pages, P2P ports, suspend access to users and even cut off the service.”

Critics of the bill, which was introduced in Congress on Aug. 4, consider it a draconian measure and say it will do little to curb piracy. According to Geraldine Juarez of Global Voices, an international blogger network, the problem of copyright infringement “is not fixed with laws that prosecute pirates, it is fixed by adjusting prices, as well as patterns of production and distribution.”

Similar kinds of copyright laws introduced in France, New Zealand and Mexico have rightly been met with public outrage. They are more than just inefficient; they set a dangerous precedent.

The lack of public debate means that only the interests of copyright owners – including big business – are being considered. While some would like to portray file sharing as mere theft, research by my own organisation, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), on media piracy reveals a much more complex environment where high prices often preclude many from accessing culture, making piracy not just attractive but necessary.

Worse, blocking file-sharing sites and suspending citizens’ access to the Internet run contrary to human rights principles. Restricting free access without due cause violates Colombian citizens’ rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association. According to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, governments have a responsibility not to interfere with access to the Internet.

Suspending the connections of file-sharers – or worse, putting them in jail – should be a last resort and is an entirely disproportionate punishment for such a minor offence.

Most troubling is the law’s reliance on Internet intermediaries for restricting access to file-sharing sites.

APC is strongly opposed to holding intermediaries liable in this way for what users do on their network. Intermediaries are neither appropriate nor qualified actors to enforce copyright policy. There are many legitimate uses of copyright material such as fair use for news reporting, political satire, and research.

Intermediaries should not be forced to block lawful content. These sorts of laws and legal threats have created a chilling effect on freedom of expression in other countries, such as public Wi-Fi operators shutting down free access for fear of being sued by copyright holders under these kinds of laws. Content blocking and suspending access should be a last resort and should only be enforced by court order.

Julián Casasbuenas, director of a progressive Internet rights organisation, Colnodo, confirms that like ISPs everywhere Colombia’s ISPs will “not necessarily have the ability to assess whether an injunction blocking legal content is valid, because their role is not and should not be to verify whether the content posted by their clients complies with intellectual property rights.”

Such punitive approaches to media piracy are not the answer. We must have an inclusive debate, one that considers all stakeholders and is informed by rigorous research. It is not sufficient to merely transplant traditional copyright laws to the online sphere; there are fundamental differences that must be considered.

Restricting freedom of expression and association are not acceptable means for combating piracy, and intermediaries should never be tasked as the arbiters of our rights.

Rather than commit significant resources towards the enforcement of inappropriate and outdated copyright laws, we need a new paradigm with which to understand and address this complex issue.

* Joy Liddicoat is a lawyer, former New Zealand Human Rights Commissioner and coordinator of the APC Connect Your Rights! campaign to protect and promote human rights on the Internet. The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) is an international network and non-profit organisation founded in 1990 that wants everyone to have access to a free and open Internet to improve lives and create a more just world. (END)

In Vietnam, A Safe Place for Women from IPS Inter Press Service .

Vietnam has about 3 million abortions each year, according to unofficial statistics. While the story of how this affects young women remains largely untold given the stigma attached to unplanned pregnancies and those outside marriage, there are havens like the Gierardo safe house in Ho Chi Minh City that try to make a difference. Producer: Doan Quoc Anh.

WARSAW, Sep 26, 2011 (IPS) – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko is releasing political prisoners in hope of getting loans from the IMF. After the unexpected pardons over recent weeks, only about a dozen political prisoners remain in Belarusian jails. Among them are Lukashenko’s rivals in the December 2010 presidential elections, serving up to six years of hard labour.

Insiders warn that this is not a thaw, just a new step in the regime’s strategy. One of the released dissidents, Alexander Atroshchanko, has said prison authorities were openly calling the inmates “hostages” and “commodities” to be traded for loans.

“Lukashenko hopes to exchange political prisoners for a new credit line from the IMF (International Monetary Fund),” Belarusian economist Yaroslav Romanchuk told IPS. “He urgently needs 6 billion dollars to stabilise the situation. Otherwise he will be forced to sell assets to Russia.”

Belarus, a country of 10 million that became free from Soviet rule in 1991, has been ruled with an iron fist by Lukashenko since 1994. The country is now suffering a debt spiral. The trade deficit has crossed 7 billion dollars, and inflation is expected to reach 100 percent by the end of the year. Following devaluation of the Belarusian rouble, the average monthly salary has decreased from 450 to 200 dollars.

CUM, the largest mall in capital Minsk, is in the eye of a shopping storm – people are buying everything, regardless of whether they need it or not. What today costs 10,000 roubles may tomorrow cost 15,000.

“Shops are full, but the constantly rising prices are a serious problem,” Nadzeya Viarbouskaya, a student from Minsk, told IPS.

Month after month it gets harder to make ends meet. “Imported goods like cosmetics are going out of the reach. People now grow vegetables in small gardens, then pickle them for the winter,” Viarbouskaya said.

She speaks with a smile of the silver linings of the hardship: “More and more people turn vegetarian. Our girls are now slim and beautiful.”

In some parts of the country meat is out of stock. Authorities blame the Russians, who come and empty their neighbour’s shops, taking advantage of the favourable exchange rate. The Russians were also reported to be buying cheap Belarusian antibiotics and Viagra, until the Health Ministry in Minsk ordered those medicines to be sold on prescription only.

“The truth is that the state meat plants prefer selling their production to Russia, for the Russian currency,” Andrzej Poczobut, journalist from Grodno near the Polish border, told IPS. “Or to the middlemen, who sell it on the open market at double or triple the price.”

Fearing mass protests, Lukashenko is trying to smoothen the consequences of the crisis, and has promised extra allowances for pensioners and free public transport for students. But only foreign loans can prevent a collapse of the Belarusian economy.

“Last year the IMF granted Minsk 2.3 billion dollars,” said Romanchuk. “European politicians expected fair elections in exchange, but instead Lukashenko rigged them and put all his rivals behind bars. The EU slapped sanctions on the regime. Now Lukashenko is seeking credit from Russia, China, Qatar, even Cuba.”

Earlier this month China brought in 1 billion dollars into Belarus for joint ventures such as construction of a satellite, a paper factory, and a Hotel Beijing in Minsk. “We are grateful for your support on Taiwan and Tibet, as well as so-called human rights,” Wu Bango, Chairman of the Standing Committee of People’s Congress of China said on a visit to Minsk. But such support will not be enough.

In June the Eurasian Economic Community, controlled by Moscow, promised Belarus 3 billion dollars over the next three years. For Lukashenko that would be too late.

Russia could help more promptly and more generously, but relations between Belarus and its big brother are tense. Russians are not philanthropists: they want to purchase key Belarusian companies. Lukashenko is reluctant, knowing that giving away his most valuable assets would weaken his position. He believes that after gaining control of the Belarusian economy, the Russians could remove him from power.

But the most likely scenario remains that Russia gradually buys out Belarus. Belarusian deputy prime minister Sergei Rumas announced earlier this month that the government plans to borrow 1 billion dollars from Russia’s Sberbank, offering it a controlling stake in its largest oil refinery Naftan as security.

Only the West could prevent or at least postpone a Russian takeover. “I believe Lukashenko will release all political prisoners but two or three before the visit of the IMF delegation in October,” Romanchuk told IPS. “He knows well that otherwise he has no chance for loans. After the IMF promises to reopen the credit line, he will pardon the last ones.”

Romanchuk says that freeing Belarusian dissidents has become a matter of honour for the EU. But meeting political conditions will not be all. Head of the IMF mission in Belarus Chris Jarvis says loans can be granted only after “serious and persistent” reforms of the state-controlled economy: liberalisation of prices and exchange rates, and a tightening of fiscal policy.

Would the shock therapy do good to the impoverished people of Belarus? Many opposition parties support liberalisation. And Lukashenko may use this against them.

When releasing prisoners, the President said he was willing to sit at a round table with his political rivals. Commentator Valery Karbalevich believes “the government wants to introduce the reforms and then blame the opposition for its effects.”

It looks like a lose-lose situation. “Democracy? Maybe in 10 years, but this is the optimistic scenario,” Romanchuk said.

“The power of Lukashenko was built on a social deal: the state guarantees a certain standard of living, and the people do not call for freedom,” said Poczobut. “Now this deal has collapsed. People are frustrated, support for the regime is nose-diving.

“But this does not translate into action. Decades of authoritarian rule has wreaked such havoc on people’s minds that they don’t believe that the ruler can lose power. Lukashenko will not be gone without an internal split in his regime.” (END)