When oligarchs go shopping…

CP 20 juillet 2016_EN

“IT IS a worldwide trend. From Turkey and Russia to China and India, new media empires are emerging, usually with governmental blessing. Their owners comply with capitalist laws of supply and demand and the need for technological development. But, at the same time, they take strict control of news coverage or replace journalistic content with entertainment.”

In its latest report, “When Oligarchs Go Shopping,” Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontieres) looks at this curious, dangerous phenomenon. Excerpts from the report follow:

IMAGINE a world in which the mass media were the exclusive property of a handful of people, all business tycoons. Many people think that world has already arrived. Businessmen of every kind have been seized by the disturbing desire to buy up large numbers of major newspapers, TV channels and radio stations around the globe. No country, no continent – neither India, China, the United States nor Europe – seems to escape the appetite of these new oligarchs for media acquisitions.

Their latest feats include Jack Ma’s purchase of the South China Morning Post, one of the last champions of the free press in Hong Kong, a newspaper that did not hesitate to criticize the government in Beijing. Ma is the owner of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.

Where will these new media owners stop? Their ambition often matches their financial resources, which are limitless. In a recent book, Indian historian Nalin Mehta said his country, “the world’s biggest democracy,” has around 800 TV channels but all those that provide news coverage are owned by shadowy billionaires – including real estate barons, politicians and captains of industry – and that some of these channels are used to blackmail, promote personal interests and even launder money. “There is a coup underway in India,” writer and journalist Manu Joseph says. “Some people who are inconvenienced by democracy have taken over nearly all the country’s television news channels.”

Some of these billionaire businessmen boast of being able to make and unmake governments. Others enter into alliances with governments, offering them mass media support in return for economic favours. In all cases, their financial power combined with their control of media flagships gives them almost limitless influence, one far removed from the journalistic principles that their employees sometimes try to defend.

The victims of such unholy alliances include Turkey’s leading media, which are subjected to censorship that is much more insidious and sophisticated than the government’s usual repressive methods, censorship in which the oligarchs are accomplices.

“While the world is focused on the issue of jailed journalists in Turkey — almost all of whom are Kurds — the kiss of death to our profession has been bestowed by owners who consciously destroy editorial independence, fire journalists who voice scepticism and dissent and block investigative reporting3,” Yavuz Baydar wrote in 2013, while ombudsman of the daily Sabah after holding the same position with Milliyet.

Along with dozens of other journalists, he was fired for being too critical of the Erdogan government, which did not need to intervene because the media owners anticipated its wishes.

These new media oligarchs have prospered under Prime Minister and now President Erdogan, who anointed them and to whom they have remained loyal. “The problem is simple: one need only follow the money,” Baydar says. As in so many other countries, the leading media in Turkey have wound up in the pockets of businessmen active in such strategic sectors as telecommunications, banking and public works, a sector described by Baydar as a “fertile ground for carrot-and-stick policies.”

Media owners who support government policy can count on being rewarded with state contracts, licences, advertising and even tax concessions. The critical ones are silenced slowly and quietly. President Erdogan’s current “best friends” include such oligarchs as Ferit F. ?ahenk, the head of the very powerful Dogus Group (which controls NTV), Turgay Ciner, an energy sector billionaire who owns Haberturk TV and the Haberturk newspaper, and Yildirim Demirören, the CEO of an oil, gas, tourism and public works conglomerate who bought the prestigious big-circulation daily Milliyet in 2012.

Other media outlets have been bought up by pro-government oligarchs with disastrous consequences for media freedom. “Editorial content is strictly controlled by media bosses who have other business interests and are submissive to the government,” said Baydar. “With, or more often without, any direct government intervention, they impose self-censorship on a daily basis and silence colleagues who defend basic journalistic ethics.”

Furious with the way Milliyet “grovelled” before the government after it was taken over, the newspaper’s star columnist, Hasan Cemal, stormed out in 2013. The same year, thousands of Turks took to the street in protest against the government’s growing authoritarianism.

Dubbed “Occupy Gezi” after the Istanbul park that became its symbol, the protest movement held the international media spellbound for several weeks until forcibly crushed by the police. While all this was unfolding, Turkey’s leading TV channels contented themselves with broadcasting animal documentaries or debates on completely unrelated subjects. Their owners must have had other things on their minds.

Read RSF’s latest report “When Oligarchs Go Shopping” here.

UN: World population to hit 8.5B in 2030; India may surpass China

THE WORLD’S POPULATION is projected to reach 8.5 billion by 2030, 9.7 billion by 2050, and exceed 11 billion in 2100, according to a new United Nations report.

The report, 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects, the 24th round of official UN population estimates and projections, says India is expected to surpass China as the most populous country in seven years.

Nigeria is also seen to overtake the United States to become the world’s third largest country around 35 years from now.

A UN press advisory noted that the 2015-2050 period, half of the world’s population growth is expected to be concentrated in nine countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Tanzania, the United States, Indonesia, and Uganda.

Wu Hongbo, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, whose department produced the report said that understanding the demographic changes that are likely to unfold over the coming years “is key to the design and implementation of the new development agenda.”

The UN member-states, the advisory said, are currently in the process of crafting a successor agenda to the landmark Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which wrap up at the end of this year.

A new framework, focused on poverty eradication, social inclusion, and preserving the health of the planet, is set to be adopted at a special UN summit, in New York this September.

According to the report’s projections, “most of the projected increase in the world’s population can be attributed to a short list of high-fertility countries, mainly in Africa, or countries with already large populations.”

“At present, China and India remain the two largest countries in the world, each with more than 1 billion people, representing 19 and 18 per cent of the world’s population, respectively, but by 2022, the population of India is expected to surpass that of China, according to the report’s projection,” it added.

“Among the 10 largest countries in the world currently, one is in Africa (Nigeria), five are in Asia (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, and Pakistan), two are in Latin America (Brazil and Mexico), one is in Northern America (US), and one is in
Europe (Russian Federation),” the UN said.

“Of these,Nigeria’s population, currently the seventh largest in the world, is growing the most rapidly,” said the report.

The report also projected that “by 2050, the populations of six countries are expected to exceed 300 million: China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and the United States.”

“And with the highest rate of population growth, Africa is expected to account for more than half of the world’s population growth over the next 35 years,” it added.

During this period, the report said, “the populations of 28 African countries are projected to more than double, and by 2100, 10 African countries are projected to have increased by at least a factor of five: Angola, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Mali, Niger, Somalia, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, and Zambia.”

“The concentration of population growth in the poorest countries presents its own set of challenges, making it more difficult to eradicate poverty and inequality, to combat hunger and malnutrition, and to expand educational enrolment and health systems, all of which are crucial to the success of the new sustainable development agenda,” said John Wilmoth, Director of the UN’s Population Division.

In contrast to the growth projections, the report noted “a significant ageing of the population in the next several decades” for most regions. These include Europe, where 34 per cent of the population is projected to be over 60 years old by 2050. In Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia, “the population will be transformed from having 11 per cent to 12 per cent of people over 60 years old today to more than 25 per cent by 2050.”

Too, the UN report said, “life expectancy at birth has increased significantly in the least developed countries in recent years.”

The six-year average gain in life expectancy among the poorest countries, from 56 years in 2000-2005 to 62 years in 2010-2015, is roughly double the increase recorded for the rest of the world, the report added.

“While significant differences in life expectancy across major areas and income groups are projected to continue, they are expected to diminish significantly by 2045-2050,” the UN said.

A flood of journalist-refugees

JOURNALISTS fleeing from stories and conflict?

It seems almost unthinkable. The common view is, where the action is, the journalists would, or should, be there.

But as the world marked World Refugee Day last week, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has raised concern about the increasing incidence of journalists feeling abroad to escape violence in conflict-torn areas and political crackdown.

In a report, RSF said twice as many journalists fled abroad in 2014 than in 2013 – and the “hemorrhaging” continues this year.

Scores of journalists from Syria, Libya, Ethiopia, and Azerbaijan have fled homes last year to escape violence or state harassment even as “no continent is spared by this trend.”

“It is clear that silencing journalists by forcing them to flee into exile is more than ever part of the repressive arsenal used by the media’s enemies,” RSF said.

RSF said the veritable “crisis” situation spares no continent in the world. “The causes may vary – armed conflict in Libya and Syria, or targeted persecution by governments in Ethiopia and Azerbaijan – but the result is the same. Crises develop, spread and take root.”

“More than 300 Syrian professional and citizen-journalists have fled abroad to escape systematic reprisals since the start of the conflict in Syria,” it said. “At least 43 Libyan journalists fled their country in 2014.”

RSF has also started close monitoring of the situation in Burundi, “where journalists have fled abroad to escape the grave acts of violence against the media that have accompanied the political crisis there.”

RSF said it “tries to assist all journalists who are forced to flee their country, helping these men and women to find a safe refuge or to cope with their most urgent needs because they are the victims of their commitment to freedom of information.”

“And because of the scale of this phenomenon, RSF is working with other international and regional NGOs that defend media freedom and support human rights defenders,” RSF said.

Around 80 percent of the assistance grants allocated by RSF in 2014 went to individuals, many of them journalists who have fled abroad. However, RSF said it also helps independent media and NGOs that continue to provide information despite being exposed to violence and crackdowns.

In its overview of its activities in support of journalists in difficulty in 2014, RSF said its offices in Paris and Berlin that are coordinating the administrative, material and financial support to journalists and media in difficulty,” disbursed 216 assistance grants with a total value of more than €325,000″ in 2014, compared with €163,000 in 2013.

RSF said the amount was disbursed for the following activities:

* Helping journalists who are victims of violence or persecution. Around 100 individual support grants (with an average value of €760) in 2014 was disbursed, RSF said, “to cover immediate needs, or medical or legal bills or to help journalists in danger to find a safe refuge.”

* Support for journalists fleeing chaos.
:In recent months, many journalists have fled the chaos and violence in Libya and Syria, two of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media. The threat of abduction or death drove 43 professional and citizen-journalists to flee Libya in 2014. More than 300 professional and citizen-journalists have fled abroad since the start of the conflict in Syria, where they are targets of systematic reprisals by government henchmen, armed opposition groups or members of Al-Nusra Front, Islamic State and other extremist militias. In 2014, RSF allocated 27 assistance grants to Syrians and 22 to Libyans with the aim of helping them cope with the trials and tribulations of exile.”

* Support for media victims of the civil war in the Central African Republic. “The media have not been spared by the civil war that has devastated the Central African Republic. Targeted in turn by the Seleka and Anti-Balaka, many were vandalized and looted. Journalists were threatened, arrested arbitrarily and held incommunicado. Four were killed in the violence although it has not yet been possible to establish whether they were targeted in connection with their journalistic activities. Others had to go into hiding or flee in 2014. RSF allocated nine grants designed to help ensure the safety of CAR journalists who were in danger.

* Support for media in “Azerbaijan, Europe’s biggest prison for journalists.” According to RSF, “an unprecedented crackdown on independent journalists, bloggers and information activities turned Azerbaijan into Europe’s biggest prison for news providers. The assistance desks of RSF’s international secretariat and German section together allocated 23 grants in 2014 to Azerbaijani journalists who were in exile or in prison, or to their relatives.”

By geographic regions of the world, RSF said 50% of funds to assist journalists in danger went to the MENA or Middle East and Northern Africa region; 14 percent to Afica; 13 percent to Europe and Central Asia; 13 percent to Asia/Pacific; and 3 percent to the Americas.

A flood of journalist-refugees

JOURNALISTS fleeing from stories and conflict?

It seems almost unthinkable. The common view is, where the action is, the journalists would, or should, be there.

But as the world marked World Refugee Day last week, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has raised concern about the increasing incidence of journalists feeling abroad to escape violence in conflict-torn areas and political crackdown.

In a report, RSF said twice as many journalists fled abroad in 2014 than in 2013 – and the “hemorrhaging” continues this year.

Scores of journalists from Syria, Libya, Ethiopia, and Azerbaijan have fled homes last year to escape violence or state harassment even as “no continent is spared by this trend.”

“It is clear that silencing journalists by forcing them to flee into exile is more than ever part of the repressive arsenal used by the media’s enemies,” RSF said.

RSF said the veritable “crisis” situation spares no continent in the world. “The causes may vary – armed conflict in Libya and Syria, or targeted persecution by governments in Ethiopia and Azerbaijan – but the result is the same. Crises develop, spread and take root.”

“More than 300 Syrian professional and citizen-journalists have fled abroad to escape systematic reprisals since the start of the conflict in Syria,” it said. “At least 43 Libyan journalists fled their country in 2014.”

RSF has also started close monitoring of the situation in Burundi, “where journalists have fled abroad to escape the grave acts of violence against the media that have accompanied the political crisis there.”

RSF said it “tries to assist all journalists who are forced to flee their country, helping these men and women to find a safe refuge or to cope with their most urgent needs because they are the victims of their commitment to freedom of information.”

“And because of the scale of this phenomenon, RSF is working with other international and regional NGOs that defend media freedom and support human rights defenders,” RSF said.

Around 80 percent of the assistance grants allocated by RSF in 2014 went to individuals, many of them journalists who have fled abroad. However, RSF said it also helps independent media and NGOs that continue to provide information despite being exposed to violence and crackdowns.

In its overview of its activities in support of journalists in difficulty in 2014, RSF said its offices in Paris and Berlin that are coordinating the administrative, material and financial support to journalists and media in difficulty,” disbursed 216 assistance grants with a total value of more than €325,000″ in 2014, compared with €163,000 in 2013.

RSF said the amount was disbursed for the following activities:

* Helping journalists who are victims of violence or persecution. Around 100 individual support grants (with an average value of €760) in 2014 was disbursed, RSF said, “to cover immediate needs, or medical or legal bills or to help journalists in danger to find a safe refuge.”

* Support for journalists fleeing chaos.
:In recent months, many journalists have fled the chaos and violence in Libya and Syria, two of the world’s most dangerous countries for the media. The threat of abduction or death drove 43 professional and citizen-journalists to flee Libya in 2014. More than 300 professional and citizen-journalists have fled abroad since the start of the conflict in Syria, where they are targets of systematic reprisals by government henchmen, armed opposition groups or members of Al-Nusra Front, Islamic State and other extremist militias. In 2014, RSF allocated 27 assistance grants to Syrians and 22 to Libyans with the aim of helping them cope with the trials and tribulations of exile.”

* Support for media victims of the civil war in the Central African Republic. “The media have not been spared by the civil war that has devastated the Central African Republic. Targeted in turn by the Seleka and Anti-Balaka, many were vandalized and looted. Journalists were threatened, arrested arbitrarily and held incommunicado. Four were killed in the violence although it has not yet been possible to establish whether they were targeted in connection with their journalistic activities. Others had to go into hiding or flee in 2014. RSF allocated nine grants designed to help ensure the safety of CAR journalists who were in danger.

* Support for media in “Azerbaijan, Europe’s biggest prison for journalists.” According to RSF, “an unprecedented crackdown on independent journalists, bloggers and information activities turned Azerbaijan into Europe’s biggest prison for news providers. The assistance desks of RSF’s international secretariat and German section together allocated 23 grants in 2014 to Azerbaijani journalists who were in exile or in prison, or to their relatives.”

By geographic regions of the world, RSF said 50% of funds to assist journalists in danger went to the MENA or Middle East and Northern Africa region; 14 percent to Afica; 13 percent to Europe and Central Asia; 13 percent to Asia/Pacific; and 3 percent to the Americas.

Apply now to be a SEAPA Fellow!

THE SOUTHEAST ASIAN PRESS ALLIANCE (SEAPA) is now accepting applications to its Annual Journalism Fellowship (SAF) for 2015 focused on the theme “Hunger in the (ASEAN) Community.”

An alliance of independent media organizations from seven countries in the region, SEAPA has selected the theme in the context of the formal launch of the ASEAN Community by the end of 2015.

(The Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, the Center for Media Freedom and responsibility, the Thai Journalists Association, and Indonesia’s Alliance of Independent Journalists and Institute for the Study of Free Flow of Information are SEAPA’s founding members.)

Selected Fellows are expected to critically investigate and report on food security issues in the context of regionalization, including policies, initiatives, and their impact on the population, the environment, and human rights.

As ASEAN formalizes its regional community with a strong emphasis on economic cooperation aspects, SAF 2015 aims to highlight the situation of sections of the ASEAN populations that have been or are likely to be left out.

The Fellows are also expected to critically assess issues of access to information and public participation related to the theme of food security and hunger.

Now on its 14th year, the SAF is a flagship of SEAPA, which has hosted a total of 114 fellows from Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Timor Leste and Vietnam.

The SAF 2015 program will be held between 9 September to 1 October 2015, including orientation, fieldwork and debriefing sessions.

Interested applicants may apply at saf.seapa.org, or email fellowship@seapa.org.

The application deadline is July 24, 2015.

About the SAF 2015 theme:

As the countdown begins for the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community, questions arise as to whether the vision is merely a political construct and to what extent the peoples of Southeast Asia will factor in this community.

At the most basic level is the threat that ASEAN could be a community dominated by hunger and poverty. The 2007-2008 global food crisis hit most societies badly, not least those in Southeast Asia. It is estimated that, in a region of 620 million people, at least 60 million Southeast Asians are currently undernourished.

This is the despite the formulation of the ASEAN Integrated Food Security (AIFS) Framework in response to the crisis and its Strategic Plan of Action on Food Security (SPA-FS) for 2009-2013. It coincided with the first Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly on the aim to reduce hunger and poverty in half by 2015.

Ahead of the MDGs deadline, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the World Food Programme (WFP) released its report “The state of food insecurity in the world 2014).

It said that the prevalence of undernourishment had fallen from 18.7 percent to 11.3 percent at the global level between 1990–92 and 2012–14, with developing countries seeing the problem go down from 23.4 percent to 13.5 percent. Southeast Asian countries recorded a drop of more than 20 percent from a staggering rate of 30.7 percent at the start of the 1990s. Nevertheless, the percentages fail to mask the glaring reality that as many as 850 million people around the world are still chronically undernourished.

Theoretically, food security refers to a concept and practices to fulfil people’s needs for food by considering the dimensions of availability, access, quality, and stability. The ASEAN AIFS can be seen a part of the food security movement that emerged in the 1970s. Many, particularly developing countries, took food security for granted as a way to address hunger and poverty.

On the flip side is the question of who benefits from the policies and practices of food security. Critics say the main beneficiaries are not the people most affected by the threats of hunger and poverty, but big businesses and investors — either from the introduction of large scale agro-industries that lead to land conversions and the use of chemical materials, or the control of supply chains from farming to distribution and marketing. Cases of land grabbing, pollution and environmental disasters, displacement of indigenous peoples and threats to biological diversity are among the negative consequences of food security policies.

In evaluating the success of programs intended for the population, it is also important to assess the indicators used and if adequate information is available on how they impact different groups and individuals differently. There is limited gender disaggregated data in reports and policy documents so far, while critics have pointed out for the need for more social and environmental impact analysis of programs designed to treat hunger and undernourishment.

Journalists reporting on these challenges and malpractices have also come under threat, sometimes from state bodies and corporations in the form of legal threats or censorship, and physical violence by non-state actors associated with either the state or businesses.

The theme encourages journalists in the region to investigate and critically report on the issues surrounding food security policies, initiatives and impact on the population, the environment and other related human rights. Fellows are also encouraged to critically assess questions of access to information and public participation in the context of food security policies and implementation.

Some questions that may be explored are:

* How are the governance and political climate in the country influencing decisions on the food industry and businesses, as well as the management of natural resources?

* How are human rights and gender equality reflected in the formulation and implementation of policies and plans to combat hunger and poverty?

* To what extent is the groups most vulnerable to hunger and poverty involved in policies and the implementation of food security plans?

* What are the experiences of local communities and smallholders in facing the competition with multinational and large businesses?

* How are the national food policy initiatives impacting on the sustainability of the environment and biodiversity?

* How successful and effective is the media in Southeast Asia in reporting on the topic of hunger and poverty and in investigating malpractices and corruption in the context of the food industry?

The Objectives of SAF 2015:

* To generate indepth reports on the regional issue of hunger and food security from the regional perspectives.

* To highlight the challenges of hunger and food security efforts in SEA countries.

* To enhance the capacity of SEA journalists in writing hunger and food security issues through the journalism work experience in neighboring countries.

Expected Results

* Fellows generate journalism work on huger and food-security for publication in their own media outlets and SEAPA’s online spaces.

* Fellows are willing to actively join the network for supporting SEAPA’s campaign initiatives.