The Weekly Lift - May 4, 2023

This week's selection of headlines and articles:

International Relations: Sudan’s Warring Generals Agree To Weeklong Truce, Says South Sudan

The New York Times (US) reports that "the two rival generals fighting in Sudan have agreed to a seven-day truce starting on Thursday and will name representatives to peace talks, according to the foreign ministry of South Sudan, which has been working with other neighboring countries to negotiate an end to a conflict that has sent more than 100,000 refugees pouring across their borders in a few weeks.

There was no immediate public confirmation, however, that an agreement had been reached from either side in the conflict between the Sudanese Army, led by?Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary?Rapid Support Forces, led by?Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan. And no date has been set yet for negotiations to begin, South Sudan’s foreign ministry added in a statement.

The United Nations has also been pressing for peace talks, and a spokesman, Farhan Haq, was cautious about South Sudan’s statement on Tuesday. Mr. Haq, deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, said at a briefing: “We would certainly welcome any lasting meaningful truce. First, of course, we will have to see whether this is accepted by all the parties and whether it is implemented by the forces on the ground.”

The fighting has?persisted despite previous cease-fires?and threatens to undermine regional stability. More than 300,000 people have been internally displaced, in addition to the more than 100,000 who have fled, mostly into Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia and the Central African Republic, according to figures released by United Nations agencies on Tuesday.

The U.N. refugee agency also warned that more than 800,000 people could try to escape Sudan by the end of this year to the seven nations bordering the northeastern African country — many of them already?reeling from a multitude of their own economic, political and refugee crises. More than 500 people have died and over 4,000 have been injured in the latest conflict in Sudan, according to the World Health Organization.

Neighboring South Sudan was one of the first countries to offer to arbitrate between the two warring sides, with President Salva Kiir offering to host along with his Egyptian counterpart, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. South Sudan is part of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, an eight-nation regional bloc that includes Sudan. And Sudanese political factions have in the past?convened in South Sudan?for talks on sharing power and ending the longstanding conflict in Darfur and other regions.

On Tuesday, the regional bloc said in a statement that it was “particularly happy” to see that both General al-Burhan and General Hamdan “are persuaded that dialogue is the best and only option to address grievances and not war.”

The outbreak of violence in Sudan has dashed whatever hopes residents had of achieving a transition to civilian democratic rule, which was scuttled by?a military coup?in 2021.

On Tuesday morning, residents in parts of the capital, Khartoum, reported intense clashes and heavy shelling throughout the night before. Many residents are without electricity and worried about dwindling food and water. Given the deteriorating situation, the United Nations said it was preparing for a mass exodus from Sudan, a nation of more than 45 million people that was already facing dire humanitarian crises before the latest fighting.

“We hope it doesn’t come to that,” Filippo Grandi, the high commissioner for the U.N. refugee agency,?said in a statement, “but if violence doesn’t stop, we will see more people forced to flee Sudan seeking safety.”

More than 334,000 people were also?internally displaced?in 14 of Sudan’s 18 states, the International Organization for Migration said on Tuesday.

The U.N. predictions that more than 800,000 could flee over the rest of this year were published after consultations with the governments of the seven nations surrounding Sudan — the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Libya and South Sudan.

So far, more than 30,000 people have arrived in Chad, which was already hosting 400,000 refugees from Sudan,?many of whom fled fighting in the western region of Darfur. More than 20,000 people have also arrived in South Sudan, said Raouf Mazou, the assistant high commissioner for operations at the U.N. refugee agency. Egypt had also taken in about 14,000 people since the fighting began on April 15, Mr. Mazou said.

The fighting has been most intense in major cities like Khartoum and Omdurman but has also spread to Darfur. Many Sudanese worry that the clashes will intensify in major cities?as foreign governments finalize evacuation plans?for their citizens and diplomatic staff.

Sudan was hosting 1.3 million refugees from several neighboring countries, as well as Syria, before the latest violence broke out. Many were gravitating to major towns and cities seeking work and help from aid agencies. But a prolonged fight means aid agencies will be forced to halt or limit those operations.

Several aid agencies have already suspended operations in the country or have left their local staff members running slimmed-down outfits. On Monday, the World Food Program said it would?resume its services?in Sudan, weeks after it halted operations following the killing of three staff members.

The United Nations has predicted that a majority of the refugees fleeing the violence in Sudan would be Sudanese nationals, but more than 200,000 South Sudanese refugees are also expected to return home to even more difficult circumstances, the agency said.

Humanitarian organizations have begun preparing contingency plans to receive refugees in neighboring countries. But aid officials say the locations face significant challenges, including volatile security and difficult supply chains.

As the number of refugees grows, aid agencies will also need increased funding, personnel and relief supplies, said Allison Huggins, the deputy regional director for Africa at Mercy Corps, a nongovernmental organization.

“This conflict would not only have catastrophic consequences for Sudan, but also for neighboring countries,” Ms. Huggins said. “Any prolonged period of insecurity would have far-reaching consequences for the region, impacting the economy and the growing refugee population.”

Ukraine War: Patriotic Ukrainians Are Rushing To Pay Their Taxes

The Economist (UK) reports that "after Russia?invaded in February last year, Ukraine’s finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, braced, logically enough, for government revenues to “plummet”. He says he expected them to fall by roughly as much as economic activity. That did not happen. Although Ukraine’s?GDP?plunged by 29% in 2022, the state pulled in just 14% less than the year before.

The war has led to big drops in tax revenues from imports and tourism. Blackouts caused by Russian attacks on power plants and the grid, which began in earnest in October, disrupt automated reporting of taxable transactions. What, then, is behind the state’s “unique results”, as an official puts it, in wartime revenue collection?

One explanation is that firms and taxpayers, eager to support their country’s defense, are paying more tax than required. According to Ukraine’s finance ministry, in March last year such donations came to 26bn hryvnias ($880m), rising to 28bn in May. These are considerable sums. Estimates vary, but last year Ukraine’s total revenues, excluding donations, perhaps amounted to some $37bn, reckons Maksym Dudnyk, a tax partner at?PwC,?who shuttles between the consultancy’s offices in Warsaw and Kyiv. Widespread thinking, he says, goes like this: if Ukraine wins, you’ve got your country; if Russia wins, thuggish authorities will take your money anyway, so why not help out now?

Many Ukrainians are also paying their taxes early. Constantin Solyar of Asters, a law firm in Kyiv, recounts a meeting with a client shortly after Russia’s onslaught began. When the client asked how his company could go about prepaying taxes, Mr. Solyar was so moved he could “barely hold my tears”. This sort of early payment has since become normal. A year or so on, Mr Dudnyk says that nearly all the 100-odd clients he serves have begun to prepay.

As Illya Sverdlov of Kinstellar, another law firm, points out, doing so is not entirely altruistic: it also generates good?pr, with some companies trumpeting the gesture in the media. But plenty are chipping in quietly, too. The conflict has even led some Ukrainians who have lived abroad for years and who are not public figures to begin paying taxes back home, says Mr Solyar. Efforts to seek loopholes to lower tax bills appear to have decreased.

Perhaps most astonishingly, the State Tax Service of Ukraine continues to receive payments, through its online portal, from occupied territories (albeit not from Crimea, where Russia’s grip is strongest). For people in such areas, the pressure to pay Russian taxes is enormous, says Mr Marchenko, Ukraine’s finance minister.

Lots of local businesses must also grease the palms of Russian commanders and militias to get permission to keep operating. Even so, last year, 2.3m individuals and organizations in occupied areas paid $9.5bn in taxes to Ukraine. They are braving the risk of retribution from Russian “punishers”, who have a fondness for brutality.

Yet patriotism is not the only reason for higher-than-expected tax revenues. Levies on gas production rose early last year. Danil Getmantsev, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s Committee on Finance, Taxation, and Customs Policy, also points to a crackdown on corruption that has included the dismissal of many tax officials. That effort may have something to do with the increased scrutiny of Ukraine’s governance from Western donors. Even in a time of war, the taxman must still do his job".

Diversity: Humza Yousaf, A Scottish Prime Minister Proud Of His Dual Culture

Le Monde (France) reports that "successions of slums in the middle of imposing Victorian buildings: Glasgow does not have the classic beauty of its rival, Edinburgh. But it is a living agglomeration, with a strong workers' and protest tradition and the most diverse of the Scottish "nation". Successive waves of migrants took up residence south of the Clyde River, in the Pollokshields district, in search of a refuge or work in its many factories, now almost all closed: Irish, Italians, Jews fleeing Nazi Germany, Pakistanis from the 1950s, more recently Poles and Romanians...

It is there, between a Sikh temple, a mosque and Asian stalls, in this gentrifying melting pot that Humza Yousaf, 38,, was raised at the end of March, appointed leader of the Scottish National Independence Party (SNP) and Scottish Prime Minister, to replace Nicola Sturgeon.

Of Pakistani origin, this man with a velvet eye and a pepper and salt beard is also the first Muslim leader of a Western nation. His father arrived very young from Punjab with his parents in the 1960s for economic reasons. His mother, whose family also has Punjab origins, was born in Kenya and had to flee in the late 1960s, like thousands of other Asians faced with a climate that has become hostile.

"Even in their wildest dreams, Muhammad Yousaf?[his paternal grandfather], who worked at the Singer sewing machine factory and Rehmat Ali Bhutta?[his maternal grandfather], who stamped the bus tickets of the Glasgow Corporation, would never have imagined that their grandson would become prime minister,"?said Humza Yousaf, moved on March 27, when the announcement of the votes from members of the Scottish National Party.

The next day, this politician with impeccable costumes, a fan of tartan ties and a fan of Celtic Glasgow, a football club with strong Irish Catholic roots, was confirmed?First Minister?by a comfortable majority by the deputies of Holyrood, the Scottish Regional Parliament.

In the stands, his family was complete, radiant: his father, a traditional beard necklace; his mother, wearing a discreet clear veil; his two sisters; his wife, Nadia El-Nakla, SNP city councillor in Dundee (100 kilometers north of Edinburgh), and their 3-year-old daughter, who had a little trouble holding in place. All then spent the evening at Bute House, the beautiful Georgian hotel that became the official residence of Scottish prime ministers in Edinburgh, where the family broke the fast of Ramadan.

M. Yousaf is not the type to hide his origins: he is proud of it and gladly claims his dual culture?"bagpipe?[pipe]?and bhangra?[a Punjab dance]". In 2011, in this same Parliament, just elected SNP MP at only 26, he had already caused a sensation, taking an oath in English and then Urdu, dressed in a kilt and a sherwani, the traditional Pakistani jacket.

With Rishi Sunak, a Hindu of Indian origin who came to power in London in October 2022, recent British political events make a sacred nod to the United Kingdom's colonial past, its main leaders both being from the former Raj (India under British domination, before the partition). The designation of Humza Yousaf is all the more remarkable since Scotland is "whiter" than the rest of the country (at about 96%, compared to 82% in England).

The media and religious leaders reacted rather soberly to this historical fact." Congratulations to Humza Yousaf, first Asian and Muslim leader of Scotland. Mashallah!?["God be praised"]," noted the Muslim Council of Scotland. It must be said that the Scots have other concerns: inequalities are growing, access to care is increasingly difficult, the number of deaths from overdose is the highest in Europe. As for the SNP, it is going through a deep crisis.

In a country where skin color no longer matters too much if you have attended good schools, Mr. Yousaf's journey is first and foremost that of a "model" integration. His parents, a small Glasgovian middle class (his father became an accountant), sent him to Hutchesons' Grammar School, a private college (about 14,000 euros a year) with a reputation for excellence located in the heart of Pollokshields.

With its light brick buildings,?"the school has nothing to do with very select places like Eton?[famous English college for boys], it is an institution for middle-class children, with the objective that they go to university, if possible to become doctors or lawyers,"?explains Andrew Tickell, a lawyer at Caledonian University in Glasgow, who passed through Hutchesons School a year after This private education, in contradiction with the egalitarian discourse of the SNP, has aroused criticism.?"I will never denigrate my parents for sending me to a private school,"?replied Humza Yousaf, while assuring that he would register his daughter in the public.

It was in Hutchesons that he became politicized, after the attacks of September 11, 2001, when, in the United Kingdom as elsewhere in the West, many Muslims were asked to explain themselves to the atrocities committed in the name of their faith. Authorized by Tony Blair's Labour government, the United Kingdom's participation in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is another trigger: instead of opting for Labour, the hitherto natural choice of Asian minorities in Scotland, Humza Yousaf joined the SNP, after hearing Alex Salmond, then leader of this independence party, oppose the?"illegal"?conflict in Iraq.

"For many of us, this war was a fatal blow to Labour," recalls Aamer Anwar, a well-known lawyer and anti-racist activist in Glasgow, of Pakistani origin and close to Mr. Yousaf.?But there were also the Blair government's attacks on trade union rights, its restrictive policy on migration. ”

M. Yousaf then studied political science at the University of Glasgow. He was very influenced by Bashir Ahmad, the first deputy of Asian (Pakistani) origin, elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2007, who took this brilliant student under his wing before making him his parliamentary assistant.

The SNP has understood the potential of ethnic minorities ready to engage in politics and numerically able to make a difference in certain constituencies. An integration facilitated by the fact that the nationalism he promotes has little to do with the preservation of folklore, whether it is the Gaelic language or the kilts.?

"He defends a nationalism open to migrants and foreigners. Moreover, the SNP government has given the right to vote to non-British people, even in our regional parliamentary elections, "says Graham Campbell, SNP City Councillor in Glasgow of Caribbean origin, who has been campaigning for years with Humza Yousaf.

This climate of tolerance promoted by the ruling Holyrood party since 2011 may explain the virtual absence of tension around Islam in Scotland. Unlike England, the nation experienced only one attempted attack,?when a car bomb tried to force the entrance to Glasgow airport in 2007,?without causing serious casualties.

When MP Bashir Ahmad died of a heart attack in 2009, Alex Salmond took Humza Yousaf by his side.?"It was clear that Humza had the stuff of a future minister," says Fergus Mutch, former director of communication of the SNP.?He was perfect for television, he worked well on his subjects.?

From then on, his ascent is rapid. In 2011, he was elected to Holyrood. As Early As 2012, Mr. Salmond entrusts him with the external affairs portfolio. Then, in 2016, Nicola Sturgeon -?who led the party and the government after the failed referendum on independence at the end of 2014?- gave him the keys to the Ministry of Transport.

But his career is not devoid of controversy. Thus, when Humza Yousaf recovers the justice portfolio, his bill against?"hate crimes"?arouses strong criticism.?"Then law was accused of going against freedom of speech, he had to partially rewrite it,"?says lawyer Andrew Tickell. In 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Humza Yousaf moves to health, where he inherits the unflattering nickname of "Huma useless" ("Humza that is useless"), because he fails to reduce waiting lists for care in public hospitals. But,?"at least, he has managed to avoid nurses' strikes, which is to be put to his credit,"?says Scottish journalist Mark McLaughlin, who has been following him since his beginnings in the government.

When?Nicola Sturgeon abruptly announced his resignation?from the SNP management on February 15, Mr. Yousaf's candidacy came unsurprisingly. But the campaign against Kate Forbes, the Minister of Finance, is brutal. The latter accuses him of incompetence.

Strangely, Mr. Yousaf's faith is less debated than his opponent's religious convictions: Kate Forbes is a member of the Free Church of Scotland, an ultra branch of the Scottish Reformed Church, anti-homosexual marriage.?"Humaza is a Muslim with secular and progressive social principles,"?says Graham Campbell, Glasgow's SNP advisor.

M. Yousaf still had to face questions about his absence in a crucial vote in favor of marriage for all in Holyrood in 2014." I have always supported marriage for all,"?defended this man who shows his support for the rights of LGBT people and denounces the lack of women in the governing bodies of the Great Mosque of Glasgow.?"He was not there on voting day because he was participating in a meeting concerning a Scottish national, one of my clients risking the death penalty in Pakistan for blasphemy,"?says his friend Aamer Anwar, who sees it as a false controversy.

The lawyer prefers to retain the positive sides of the campaign:?"Think of all those who are called Humza or Yousaf and who see someone who looks like them at the head of Scotland, the impact is considerable for minorities.?However, the fight against racism does not stop with his arrival at the head of the government.?The number of racist and Islamophobic attacks that Mr. Yousaf has been suffering on social networks for years is colossal.?"It starts the second he posts something online,"?regrets the lawyer.

Eyes closed, eyebrows frown: a month after his appointment, Humza Yousaf is already marked by responsibilities. He was not entitled to any grace period. Nicola Sturgeon leaves him a party on the verge of implosion, without a strategy for independence, the British government refusing him a second referendum. The police are also investigating the SNP's finances and almost every day bring their share of revelations that Mr. Yousaf seems to discover at the same time as the general public.

A situation that does nothing to correct his image, in rather hostile British media, of a sympathetic but somewhat naive politician. This empathetic man, renowned for working in a team, must urgently reform the governance of the SNP, bail out his finances, give him a horizon, new ideas. Will he turn out to be in this high-risk position? His friend Aamer Anwar wants to believe it:?"What worries his mother is that he is a little sensitive. He has no choice, he will have to harden. ”

Environment: Sweden Plans To Build World’s First Electrified Motorway

The Telegraph (UK) reports that "Sweden has announced plans to build the world’s first electrified motorway, allowing electric cars to charge themselves as they pass along its surface.

The?e-motorway, which is due to be completed in about two years, is part of wider efforts by Sweden to decarbonise the transport sector in response to a new EU law that requires new cars to have?zero CO2 emissions from 2035.

A major benefit of the road could be sparing electric vehicle users the annoyance of having to?locate and wait at charging stations, as in theory the road can provide all the required power.

The announcement was first reported by the Euronews website, which noted that Sweden has piloted similar schemes before, though this one appears to be the most ambitious so far. Sweden’s transport administration plans to convert the E20 motorway, which is in the middle of three major Swedish cities: Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malm?.

“We think the electrification solution is the way forward for decarbonising the transport sector and we are working with a number of solutions,” Jan Pettersson, a director at the Swedish transport administration, told Euronews. Officials have not yet decided which method of charging will be used on the electrified road, though they have three options to pick from.

The first is the catenary system, which uses overhead wires to provide power to cars on the road, which would be most suitable for buses or trams. An inductive system, the second option, buries equipment underneath the road which sends power to coils fitted to the electric vehicle, charging the vehicle as it passes along the road. Thirdly, the road could rely on conductive charging where electricity is sent wirelessly to a metal plate on the electric vehicle, not unlike?charger pads for mobile phones.

Mr Pettersson said a big challenge created by the?shift to electric cars?was that heavy-duty vehicles can be tiresome and impractical to keep charged. “If you are going to have only a static charging full battery solution for heavy-duty vehicles, you will get vehicles with a huge amount of batteries that the vehicles need to carry,” he told Euronews.

Sweden has already led a number of pilot projects in its mission to decarbonise cars and road infrastructure. In 2020, a wireless electric road for trucks and buses was set up in Visby,?on the island of Gotland.

A 2019 report by the Israeli financial newspaper Globes said the road covered a 4.1km (2.5 mile) stretch between the city of Visby and a nearby airport. That electrified road was set up by ElectReon, an Israeli tech firm that specialises in wireless charging for vehicles.

Earlier, in 2018, the Guardian reported that a 2km (1.2 mile) stretch of electric rail was fitted to a public road near Stockholm as part of a similar pilot exploring the effectiveness of roads that can charge cars. The technology appears to still be at a relatively early stage, and it was not immediately clear if Sweden’s latest project would also focus on buses and trucks, or has the more ambitious goal of being suitable for standard cars.

It emerged over the weekend that France is also exploring an electric highway for lorries which aims to be completed by 2026 and will rely on overhead wire charging. The pilot scheme could open the door to a system where trucks rely on a mix of electrified roads and electric batteries stored on board to get them across their routes.

However, some experts have warned that the pilot schemes in France, Germany and Sweden have already shown that electrified roads could be a very expensive project. According to Les Echos, a French business newspaper, the cost of electrifying around 9,000km (5,500 miles) of the country’s roads would cost around 35 billion euros (￡30 billion)".

Human Rights: Brazil’s Lula Resumes Recognition Of Indigenous Land Areas

The Los Angeles Times (US) reports that "Brazil President?Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva?on Friday granted official recognition of nearly 800 square miles of?Indigenous lands, following through on a campaign promise in a move that also protects critical?Amazon rainforest?from commercial exploitation.

Lula?recognized six ancestral lands, with the largest two in the Amazon, the world’s largest tropical forest and an important carbon sink that helps moderate climate change.?

The land remains under the federal government’s jurisdiction, but the designation grants Indigenous peoples the right to use it in their traditional manner. Mining activities are prohibited, and commercial farming and logging require specific authorizations. Additionally, non-Indigenous individuals are forbidden from engaging in any economic activity on Indigenous lands.

Lula’s action was welcomed?by the Indigenous movement, but not without some frustration that it was limited in size. In January, his government had pledged to create 14 new territories in the short term.

At an annual weeklong encampment of Indigenous people in capital Brasilia, Lula addressed a packed crowd that included workers from the federal government’s Indigenous affairs agency, who chanted and held banners during the ceremony. The encampment itself includes hundreds of tents on the city’s main esplanade with Indigenous people of various ethnicities, gathering to dance, sing, sell handicrafts and hold political demonstrations.

“We are going to legalize Indigenous lands. It is a process that takes a little while, because it has to go through many hands,” Lula said. “I don’t want any Indigenous territory to be left without demarcation during my government. That is the commitment I made to you.”

Kleber Karipuna, executive coordinator at Indigenous people’s organization Apib, called the demarcation a welcome shift after four years of threats and invasions targeting Indigenous territories under Lula’s predecessor Jair Bolsonaro. “For us, it is a very significant process of restarting. Of course, there are still other lands that can be advanced,” he said.

Among lands that missed out was the Barra Velha territory of the Pataxó people in southern Bahia state. Renato Atxuab, a Pataxó leader, said “this government that we supported, that we helped build” must demarcate their land as soon as possible to prevent invasions by outsiders.

Already there are conflicts involving agribusiness and land-grabbers, he said, and drug traffickers have been moving in, too. Atxuab said he has met with the Indigenous Peoples minister — a newly created position under Lula’s government — but has not been given any date for his land’s demarcation.

The largest new area is located in the Amazonas state. The Nad?b people’s Uneiuxi Indigenous Territory has been expanded by 37% to 2,100 square miles of primary rainforest. It is in a remote area — from the main village, it takes four days to travel to the closest city in a low-powered motor boat, the most common mode of transportation in the region.

“The demarcation will make the Nad?b people feel safe and protected within our territory. That is where we live, fish, hunt, and gather fruits. We want to continue there, like our ancestors,” chief Eduardo Castelo, 45, told the Associated Press in a phone interview. “We don’t want the impact of the whites on our territory.”

Indigenous demarcation had been halted since 2018 following Bolsonaro’s promise to the agribusiness sector, which opposes new Indigenous demarcations.

Studies have shown that Indigenous-controlled forests are the best preserved in the Brazilian Amazon. But deforestation grew by 195% between 2019 and 2021 in comparison with the four previous years, according to a recent study published in the?journal Nature.?This destruction has been largely caused by non-Indigenous people, from land-robbers to illegal miners.

The Amazon rainforest covers an area twice the size of India and is a crucial buffer against climate change as it absorbs a significant amount of carbon dioxide. But deforestation in Brazil, which holds two-thirds of the biome, has caused almost half of its carbon emissions. The eastern Amazon’s destruction is so extensive that it has now become a carbon source instead of a carbon sink for the Earth.

Lula, who beat Bolsonaro in the 2022 elections, vowed to resume land demarcations. His government also created the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, responding to a demand from the grassroots movement".

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