Australia to end sexual harassment exemption for politicians

PM says legislators, judges and public servants will no longer be exempt from rules against sexual harassment in the workplace.

Australia’s politicians and judges will no longer be exempt from rules against sexual harassment at work, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced, as he tried to quell public anger over his conservative government’s handling of a series of sexual abuse scandals.

Speaking to reporters in the Australian capital on Thursday, Morrison said his government would overhaul the country’s sexual discrimination laws to make members of parliament, judges and public servants accountable for harassing colleagues in the workplace.

“Sexual harassment is unacceptable,” Morrison said in Canberra.

“It’s not only immoral and despicable and even criminal, but … it denies Australians, especially women, not just their personal security but their economic security by not being safe at work.”

At present, legislators, judges and public servants are exempt from complaints about workplace gender discrimination, as are some employers of volunteers, because of a legal loophole that means they are technically not the complainant’s employer.

However, they can still face criminal prosecution for sexual assault.

Morrison said the legal change proposed on Thursday was “about getting everyone on as much of a playing field as possible”.

He said employers will also now be required to take a proactive approach to stop gender discrimination, while complainants will get a longer period of time to lodge their complaint.

The moves were in response to a “Respect@Work” report – handed down more than a year ago following a national inquiry into sexual harassment – and came just weeks after sexual abuse allegations rocked Australia’s halls of power.

In February, a female former staffer in Morrison’s Liberal Party went public with allegations she was raped by a colleague in parliament in 2019, while in March, the country’s then-attorney general identified himself as the subject of an unrelated historical rape allegation in 1988, which he has strongly denied.

Critics said the cases, and the government’s apparent initial reluctance to act, have highlighted a “toxic” and sexist culture in Australia’s Parliament.

Nationwide protests

Attorney General Michaelia Cash – who last week replaced the rape accused minister in the government’s top legal role – said other proposed legislative changes would include classifying sexual harassment at work as “serious misconduct” and making it valid grounds for dismissal.

The government also plans to extend the period in which a victim can report an incident from six months to two years, she added.

The Respect@Work report was drawn up by the government’s sex discrimination commissioner, Kate Jenkins, and Morrison has been under growing criticism for failing to act on its recommendations since it was first submitted in January 2020.

The prime minister rejected the criticism on Thursday, saying he will adopt all 55 of the commissioner’s recommendations which include a blanket ban on workplace gender discrimination, mandatory training of company directors and reporting by listed companies, as well as improved coordination between complaint-handling agencies.

Protesters attend a rally against sexual violence and gender inequality in Australia’s capital city Canberra on March 15, 2021 [File: Saeed Khan/AFP]

Morrison said his government has already committed to funding several recommendations it felt were a high priority.

“Last year, we were very focused on those very urgent needs to protect women at a time when they were very vulnerable during COVID,” he said. “We put the additional resources in and now we’re in a position to address these more systemic and longer-term issues which are very important and I’m pleased we’re able to do that today.”

The government says it hopes to introduce the amended legislation to parliament by June.

Zali Steggall, an independent member of parliament who has advocated for reforms to sexual harassment laws, said the move was “a win for everyone who has been calling on the government to act on sexual harassment”.

The rape allegations had sparked nationwide protests, with tens of thousands of women taking to the streets to call for gender equality and an end to sexual violence.

Morrison has at least a year left in his current term but has seen the crisis erode some popularity garnered from Australia’s solid handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

In recent weeks, the prime minister’s coalition government has been rocked by a litany of new sexual abuse and harassment complaints – from a staff member photographed masturbating on a female politician’s desk, to a state legislator being accused of raping a sex worker, to another legislator apologising for harassing women online.

Morrison has since demoted the attorney general accused of rape, as well as the minister accused of mishandling the alleged rape in the ministerial office.

He has also reprimanded the legislator who bullied constituents and ordered a probe into parliament’s workplace culture.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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Ghana/KOICA/UNICEF celebrate achievements under Better Life for Girls

Ghana, Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), have celebrated the positive outcomes of the 5.

2 million dollar Better Life for Girls (BLG) programme.

A statement issued by UNICEF copied to the Ghana News Agency said the BLG programme, a partnership between the Government of Ghana, UNICEF and KOICA, had ended with a call to sustain and scale up interventions for adolescent girls in Ghana.

This, it said would contribute to continued progress towards the country’s attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals and the implementation of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

It noted that the partners reviewed progress and celebrated the results achieved under the BLG in Ghana programme.

It said the partners also shared best practices, lessons learnt and the significant potential to sustain and scale up the interventions.

The statement said the event also provided a platform to adolescent girls and young people to share their perspectives on the impact of the various integrated activities across all sectors, including health and nutrition, water, sanitation and hygiene, education, protection and empowerment.

Mr Moon Heon Kong, the Country Director of KOICA, expressed his gratitude to the Government of Ghana and to UNICEF for the success of the BLG project and outlined the achievements in the recent years.

“KOICA Ghana has consistently demonstrated support to strengthening Ghana’s education sector by expanding opportunities for improved basic and tertiary education as well as technical and vocational education and training along with support to policy development and advocacy for increased national ownership,” he said.

“Beyond the BLG project, KOICA is supporting the education sector with the provision of a new grant in collaboration with Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service, for the ‘Promotion of Girls’ Competency in Mathematics and Science with Gender-Responsive Pedagogy’ project, which aims to improve the academic performance and transition rates of girls in selected districts within the Central and Eastern regions.

“The project will start in the latter quarters of this year 2021 and will address improvement in math and science education and mentorship for Junior High School Girls in Ghana’s public schools.”

Madam Anne-Claire Dufay, the UNICEF Representative in Ghana, congratulated and thanked the Government of Ghana and KOICA for this strategic partnership, which has been making a real difference in the lives of thousands of adolescent girls in Ghana.

“The Better Life for Girls programme has enabled many vulnerable adolescent girls to stay in school through targeted interventions, including facilitating the re-entry to school of young mothers after childbirth,” she said.

“Together, we have also empowered adolescent girls through vocational, entrepreneurial and life skills training as a measure to combat child marriage.

“As the UNICEF Executive Director, Henrietta Fore said, “Adolescent girls are a tremendous engine of progress. They drive economies. They transform communities. And they lead change around the world. But only if we give them that chance.”

Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education, said: “It is interesting to note that with the advent of the free Senior High School, parents don’t have to make a choice between sending the boy to school instead of the girl.”

He noted that consequently, the gross enrolment ratio for girls at the secondary level has grown during the last four years.

“The best Senior High School based on the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) is a girls’ school. We know that as we support girls, they will achieve, and they will make the country proud. They will also lay a strong foundation for us to realize the nexus between education and socio-economic transformation,” he said.

“We will do everything possible to ensure that education plays its rightful role in the socio-economic transformation process, especially when it comes to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)– we want to make sure we grow these numbers and as we grow them we are not going to leave the girls behind,” the Minister added.

The BLG programme has demonstrated strong results which have the potential to be scaled nationwide.

The Government of Ghana, UNICEF and KOICA will continue in their efforts to support and empower adolescent girls to reach their highest potential.

The implementation of $5.2 million BLG project was funded by the KOICA Ghana Office and in partnership with the UNICEF Ghana with the aim to equip adolescent girls in Ghana with knowledge, skills and an enabling environment to make informed decisions.

The BLG Project which commenced in May 2017 till March 2021 primarily targeted girls in the Northern, Savannah, North-East, Oti and Volta Regions to increase their access to learning and skills development opportunities.

It further ensured that communities and institutions discussed pressing issues related to adolescent girls, including child marriage, teenage pregnancy and gender-based violence.

GNA

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US warns China over ‘aggressive’ moves on Philippines, Taiwan

US State Department raises concerns over presence of Chinese vessels near Philippines and entry of Beijing’s jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone.

The United States has warned China against what the Philippines and Taiwan see as increasingly aggressive moves, reminding Beijing of Washington’s obligations to its partners, as the two rival powers step up their naval activities in the South China Sea.

“An armed attack against the Philippines’ armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific, including in the South China Sea, will trigger our obligations under the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters on Wednesday.

“We share the concerns of our Philippine allies regarding the continued reported massing of PRC maritime militia near the Whitsun Reef,” Price said, referring to the People’s Republic of China.

More than 200 Chinese boats were first spotted on March 7 at Whitsun Reef, about 320 kilometres (200 miles) west of Palawan Island and within the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

Since the first reported sighting, the vessels have scattered across a wider area of the South China Sea within Manila’s EEZ as defined by the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

For weeks, Manila has called on Beijing to withdraw the “maritime militia” vessels, saying their incursion into the Philippines’s EEZ is illegal as defined by the International Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

China – which claims almost the entirety of the resource-rich sea – has refused, insisting they are fishing boats sheltering from bad weather and are allowed to be there.

In response, Manila warned that the presence of the vessels could ignite “unwanted hostilities” between the two nations.

Taiwan Relations Act

Tensions have also risen with Taiwan, which Beijing claims as part of China, with the self-governing democracy on Wednesday reporting that 15 more of the mainland’s planes crossed into the island’s air defence zone.

Taipei warned that it would defend itself “to the very last day” if necessary.

On Monday, the Chinese carrier, Liaoning, also led a naval exercise near Taiwan, and Beijing said that such drills will become regular occurrences.

Price, the US spokesman, voiced “concern” about the Chinese moves, saying: “The United States maintains the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardise the security or the social or economic system of the people on Taiwan.”

He was using language from the Taiwan Relations Act, under which the US is obliged to provide the island with the means to defend itself against Beijing.

The US issued the latest statement as Beijing confirmed that it had tracked the USS John McCain destroyer that sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Wednesday.“The US move to send warship to sail through the Taiwan Strait and hype it publicly is an old trick to ‘manipulate’ the cross-Strait situation,” Senior Colonel Zhang Chunhui, the spokesman for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Eastern Theatre Command, said in a statement.

“China is firmly opposed to that,” he said.

The US earlier defended its latest naval activity calling it a “routine” transit.

“The ship’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific. The United States military will continue to fly, sail, and operate anywhere international law allows,” the US Navy said in a statement.

President Joe Biden has pledged to mount a robust defence of its allies and, in a rare point of continuity with his predecessor former President Donald Trump, has supported a strong response against Chinese assertiveness.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Women in Africa (WIA) 54 Programme 2021 for African Women Entrepreneurs.

Application Deadline: May 7th 2021 

Introduced in 2017, the WIA 54 programme promotes women entrepreneurship in Africa. Each year, it endows 54 African women entrepreneurs from 54 African countries with a comprehensive support package consisting of training, communication, and networking. In 2021, WIA rolled out its 2030 plan, which multiplied the number of beneficiaries of the programme by 10!

Requirements

Any African woman entrepreneur whose business is in Africa.

The criteria are as follows:

Business created or led by an African woman

Startup created less than 5 years ago

First traction on the market (sales, number of users, funds raised)

Be part of one of the 8 categories

Applicants can only compete in a category that is their primary business category. For example:

If you produce jams sold exclusively on a website, your category is "Agriculture" not "Digital."

If you offer digital training, your primary category is "Education" and your secondary category is "Digital"

Benefits

Mentoring

The WIA54 mentor network is made up of people selected from the very large WIA community on an international scale.

Click Here to apply: https://bit.ly/3mwJQxZ

Green Talents 2021–International Competition for young researchers in sustainable development. (Fully Funded to Germany)

Application Deadline: May 19th 2021 

Every year, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) hosts the prestigious Green Talents – International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development to promote the international exchange of innovative green ideas within the field of sustainability.

Requirements

Enrolment in a master’s or PhD programme or a degree (master’s/PhD) completed no more than three years before the end of the application process

Strong focus on sustainable development and an interdisciplinary approach in any field of sustainability research

No more than three years of professional work experience (this excludes professional work experiences gained within the scope of an academic degree)

Proven excellent command of English

Significantly above-average grades

Benefits

The Green Talents Award 2021 includes:

Invitation to a multi-day Virtual Science Forum in October 2021:

“Science Sessions” with leading German sustainability facilities, institutions and companies, which will virtually provide exclusive insights into their leading-edge research and projects,

Virtual appointments with German experts of your choice to discuss possibilities for upcoming joint research and cooperation efforts,

A wide range of workshops dedicated to the SDGs and advancing your scientific career,

Networking opportunities with other Green Talents, participating Green Talents alumni and researchers,

Formal Virtual Award Ceremony with your fellow Green Talents and special guests

A fully funded on-site research stay of up to three months at an institution of your choice in Germany

Exclusive access to the distinguished Green Talents alumni network.

Click Here to apply:https://bit.ly/3wLOvB0

Poor rains bring optimism African locust outbreak will fade

BARAKA, Kenya (AP) — In a convoy of pickup trucks fitted with spray guns, soldiers zoom through Baraka’ s hills leaving a trail of dust and bemused villagers in its wake.

The vehicles brake when the soldiers see the enemy: billions of invading desert locusts that have landed in a twitching swarm where a forested area meets farmland.

The deployment of soldiers among the usual agriculture officials is a testament to the seriousness of the threat as East Africa’s locust outbreak continues well into a second year. The young locusts arrive in waves from breeding grounds in Somalia, where insecurity hampers the response.

It’s the beginning of the planting season in Kenya, but the delayed rains have brought a small amount of optimism in the fight against the locusts, though farmers still worry about their crops.

The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization says the locust swarms have been spotted in the Rift Valley — which produces Kenya’s staple foods of maize, wheat and potatoes.

But the FAO says that as a result of the poor rains in Kenya and neighboring Ethiopia, the swarms in both countries are remaining immature. Their numbers also continue to decline due to ongoing control operations.

Without rainfall, the swarms will not breed, severely limiting the scale and extent of their threat, the FAO says in a recent update.

“For this reason, there is cautious optimism that the current upsurge is winding down in the Horn of Africa, especially if poor rains limit breeding this spring in northern Kenya and southern Ethiopia, followed by equally poor rains during the summer in northeast Ethiopia.”

Last year, authorities managed to contain what was seen as the biggest locust infestation in Kenya in 70 years, largely through coordinated aerial spraying which covered vast territories quickly.

Many of those swarms were in uninhabited areas. This year the swarms have presented a different challenge by landing in more inhabited areas. That means spraying is out of the question because it could adversely affect people and livestock, says Ambrose Nyatich, a livelihood recovery expert with the FAO.

So the delayed rains are a benefit — in part.

Desert locusts pose an unprecedented risk to agriculture-based livelihoods and food security in the already fragile Horn of Africa region amid economic crises, drought and conflict, FAO says.

A typical desert locust swarm can contain up to 150 million locusts per square kilometer, according to the East African regional body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. “An average swarm can destroy as much food crops in a day as is sufficient to feed 2,500 people.”

Farmers like Hannah Nyokabi in the community of Baraka — which means “blessing” in Swahili — find themselves in a difficult situation. Poor rains might lessen the locust threat but will almost certainly mean a poor harvest.

“Things have gone very bad. If you look at the farm there is nothing,” she said. “We have children who are in school, and we were depending on the farm for their fees.”

Another farmer, Anne Wa Mago, 60, called a poor harvest better than nothing.

“We are lucky (the locusts) arrived when we had not planted, otherwise they would have wiped out our produce,” she said, motioning at thousands of the voracious insects crowding a tree branch.

Groups of school children, some still in uniforms, ran around the farms snatching the locusts from the air or the ground.

To them, the swarm that recently arrived, almost blighting the sun, is a windfall like no other. A kilogram of locusts fetches money from a non-governmental organization that wants to turn the insects into livestock food.

“This is money that has come to our doorstep,” said 16-year-old John Mbithi. Anne Wangari, 12, said she had collected 35 kilograms before leaving for school.

But Nyatich with the FAO warned against using locusts for food because they could have been sprayed with insecticide.

“The initiatives that were being conducted by some organizations to try and use locusts for fish feeds or animal feeds is something that should be looked into in terms of how can we regulate it going forward maybe in the future,” Nyatich said.

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Nepal’s God of Sight eye doctor to expand work beyond border

LUMBINI, Nepal (AP) — Just next to the Mayadevi temple where Buddha was born more than 2,600 years ago, hundreds of people lined up outside a makeshift hospital on a recent hazy day, hoping their fading eyesight could be restored.

A day later, these saffron-robed Buddhist monks, old farmers and housewives were able to see the world again because the nation’s renowned eye surgeon Dr. Sanduk Ruit was there with the innovative and inexpensive cataract surgery that has earned him many awards.

At the visitor center turned into eye temporary hospital in Lumbini, located 288 kilometers (180 miles) southwest of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, the assembly line surgery made it possible for the nearly 400 patients to get Ruit’s surgery in just three days.

“The whole objective, aim and my passion and love is to see there remain no people with unnecessary blindness in this part of the world,” Ruit said, also known as Nepal’s “God of Sight.” “It is important that the people do receive equitable service and not that haves receive and have nots don’t receive it. I want to make sure that everybody receives it.”

Many people in Nepal, most of them poor, have benefited from Ruit’s work where he founded the Tilganga Institute of Ophthalmology in Kathmandu and regularly visits remote villages high in the mountains and low lands of the Himalayan nation, taking with him a team of experts and equipment bringing surgery to their villages.

Ruit has already performed some 130,000 cataract surgeries and is now aiming to expand his work, taking it to as many countries as possible through a foundation he has formed with a British philanthropist Tej Kohli which targets 500,000 surgeries in the next five years.

Ruit said the idea of the Tej Kohli Ruit Foundation is to make cataract surgeries in Nepal affordable and accessible to all.

“We will scale it up globally to other parts of the world where it is needed,” he said.

Ruit began his work in 1984 when the surgery was done by removing the entire cloudy cataract and giving thick glasses. He found that most people would not wear these glasses and chances of complication were very high. So he pioneered a simple technique where he removes the cataract without stitches through small incisions and replaces them with a low-cost artificial lens.

Ruit’s average surgery costs about $100. The surgery is free for those who can’t afford it. Patients rarely have to spend the night at the hospital.

Nepal has limited number of hospitals and health workers and services are out of reach of most people.

Cataracts, which form a white film that cloud the eye’s natural lens, commonly occur in older people but also sometimes affect children or young adults. The condition first causes vision to blur or become foggy because the eye is unable to focus properly. As the cataract grows and matures, it can eventually block out all light. Exposure to harsh ultraviolet radiation, especially at high altitudes as in Nepal, is a major risk factor.

At the surgery camps in Lumbini, patients and family were all praise for the doctor.

Bhola Chai, a 58-year-old office worker, who had to retire because of his fading vision, was thrilled he could finally see again.

“This surgery has changed my life,” Chai said.

Others who have already benefited from Ruit’s cataract surgery likened him to a god.

“The doctor is just not god-sent but he is a god for me who has given me a new life,” said Satindra Nath Tripathi, a farmer who benefited from the surgery. “My world was completely dark, but now I have new life and new sight.”

With his fading eyesight restored, Tripathi is already looking forward to working on his farm, growing rice, wheat and vegetables.

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