Czech Fears Escalation with Russia

By: Caroline James

Produced & Edited By: Megan Laird 

Intricate architecture and eighteen bridges cross over the Vlatava River that cuts through the middle of Prague. Lauded as one of the most beautiful sites in the world, the ornate Charles Bridge gives a view of the ‘City of 100 Spires’ and one of the most historical sites in Europe. However, when Prague was accidentally bombed in 1945 by an American air raid, the sights from the Charles Bridge filled with smoke and flame. 

© Courtesy of Caroline James

After German occupation in World War II, the Czech Republic shed its communist government and now holds claim to the highest standard of living of any former Soviet block country. It’s capital city, Prague, has the highest GDP of any European Union member, with the exception of Luxemburg. 

But the Prague Post says that war is still in the minds of Czech citizens. In a poll released by the Median agency in August of 2014, it stated that 46 percent of Czech citizens fear that armed conflicts may escalate and threaten the Czech Republic. The poll also found that citizens consider the Russia/Ukraine conflict to be the biggest current risk to the Czech Republic.

In the aftermath of the Ukrainian Revolution of 2014, conflict erupted with demonstrations and riots by pro-Russian and anti-United Nations groups. Russia attempted to annex Crimea and deployed troops to the area. Conflicts in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces have since led to an armed separatist movement. In response to these insurgents, the Ukrainian government launched a military counter-offensive that has resulted in the current War in Donbass.

In an article by České Noviny, Czech Foreign Minister, Lubomir Zaoralek, and Polish Foreign Minister, Grzegorz Schetyna, announced that sanctions against Russia for their actions with Ukraine are necessary.

"We will actively stand up against all the violations of international commitments by Russia,” Schetyna said. Vanesa Šandová, Head of the Press office for the Government of the Czech Republic, said the conflict in Ukraine can only be solved through political processes and that a military solution cannot be viable. 

The Czech government is also seeking to improve political and economic relations with Russia despite recent disputes.

“Regrettably, in recent months Russia has not been acting as a responsible and reliable partner.” Šandová said.  “It is up to Russia to open the way for a political solution to the crisis in Ukraine without further loss of lives and damage caused to Russia's position in the international community.”

© Courtesy of Caroline James

Because the Czech Republic belongs to the European Union it has to function under the rules and regulations that have been set forth by the many western countries. Czech citizens have felt both the benefits and drawbacks to being part of the international organization.

“I absolutely resent the EU's expansionist policy they've been practicing for quite a while now, which has put us into the spotlight in this matter.” Pavel, a resident of Prague, said.

The Czech Republic also faces economic concerns with the conflict in Ukraine because of the natural gas and fuel supplies it receives from Russia, the pipelines of which are routed through Ukraine. Recently, the Temelin nuclear plant has reported that, if cut off from Russian resources, the already stocked fuel would last one year. 

Kynčl Miroslav of the Ministry of Industry and Trade said that scenarios for loss of fuel from Russia have already been planned out. Other liquid fuels, such as oil, that are supplied to the Czech market via Russia, can be fully supplied from other sources; however, this is not the case with natural gas.

“In case of total interruption of natural gas supplies there are a capacity of underground storages in the Czech Republic available,” Miroslav said. “However, it will be necessary to apply limiting regulatory levels, including purchase of natural gas from non-Russian sources.”

Petr Poláček, an Olomouc Resident believes that even with alternative sources, the loss of Russian resources would have a large negative impact on Czech citizens.

“[Alternative sources] would take time to negotiate, the transport would be extremely slow and the prices would skyrocket,” Poláček said. “The impact on our economy would be devastating.” 

© Courtesy of Caroline James

However some citizens doubt the likelihood of Russia cutting off fuel supply. Pavel said that the Russian economy depends too much on exporting their resources for this tactic to be a viable option. “This is something Russia simply cannot afford to do.” Pavel said. 

The Czech Government recently promised to increase military spending to 1.4% by 2020. While some people think that this increase is a result of the conflict in Ukraine, Šandová says that this increase is meant to comply with NATO commitments of maintaining an adequate level of defense spending.

“The purpose of this move is to stabilize the defense budget and secure favorable conditions for further development of Czech armed forces so that the Czech Republic is also in the future able to fulfill its commitments within the NATO,” Šandová said.

While Šandová says that energy security is one of the priorities for the Czech Republic, the Czech citizen’s concern over war with Russia is split. “People around me express their fear for the Muslim terrorism, ISIS etc. not Russia,” Pavel said.

Some Czechs resent the way NATO seems to be influencing their country’s foreign policy.

“Personally I am convinced there will be war and it won't be Russia who starts it,” Poláček said. “Unless NATO starts playing Kick the Rancor with, say, ISIS rather than Russia, it will only be a matter of time.”

While the conflict with Russia seems to have the Czech Republic on edge and the citizens wary, the view from the Charles Bridge remains, for the time being, serene. The country seems to be trying to manage the balance between avoiding armed conflict with Russia and honoring their political commitments.

The Displaced Blood, Tears and Sweat

By: Ayleen Cabas Mijares
Produced & Edited By: Megan Laird

© Courtesy of El Pais

“They go to any village and kill around 30 people. Then some of them play soccer with the heads of the murdered while their partners wander around raping women and children. The villagers who stay must pay the price. ‘Give us your land or we’ll negotiate with your widow’ is a catchphrase among these barbarians.”

Professor Martha Gutierrez serenely describes the horrifying experience many victims share in Colombia. After more than 50 years of armed conflict, Colombians are used to these kinds of stories, and Gutierrez knows them well after interviewing hundreds of internally displaced people (IDP) for her research at the Pontifical Javeriana University, in Bogotá.

Forced displacement depicts the humanitarian crisis Colombia currently experiences. According to the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), there are 5.7 million IDPs in the country, which represents almost 85% of the armed conflict victims and more than 10% of Colombia’s population. Moreover, this is the second highest rate of internal displacement in the world, as reported by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

However, there is a group among the IDPs whose particularly intense struggle sets it apart from the rest: Afro Colombians. Their low income and education level, and their dependence on natural resources, make them the most vulnerable community when it comes to forced displacement, according to Jeroen Carrin, an official of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Displaced Afro Colombians deal with unemployment, discrimination and hunger in the cities.

In The Crossfire

Gutierrez explains Colombia’s geography as vast and complex. Therefore, the State has never been able to extend its presence in the whole country. “This lack of control over the territory, the social inequalities that still exist nowadays and the rise of communist armed groups in the 60s were the breeding ground for the armed conflict,” Gutierrez says.

Four armed groups clash to gain political, economic and/or military control over resource-rich lands of many remote regions. The first group are the guerrillas, left-wing groups with political ambitions. The second group is composed of paramilitary forces, presumably connected to some entrepreneurs and government officials who try to protect their lands and wealth from the guerrillas. Drug cartels also own their place in the conflict, and finally the Colombian Army constitutes the only legal organization involved in the conflict.

© Courtesy of ICRC Colombia

Impoverished peasants dwell in the “battlefields” and often become casualties of the conflict. The survivors have two options: escape to other regions or stay and pay fees (what they commonly refer to as “vaccines”) to the armed groups in order to keep their lands —and their lives.

“Three years ago I had to escape from my village. I just knew those men would kill me,” Carlos Mora says. He was a fisherman and, after missing the deadline for one of the vaccines, he fled to Cali with his family. “Many friends of mine were killed in my village. I wasn’t letting that happen to us.”

Mora never identified who terrorized his hometown. According to Gutierrez, it is likely that they were paramilitaries. “They are the cruelest group operating in this conflict. Paramilitaries occupy territories just to keep their criminal way of life going,” she says.

Victimized… Again

Problems continue when people abandon their lands. The dynamics of the cities are diametrically different from those in rural areas. Jeroen Carrin is based in Cali, the city with the third largest displaced population in Colombia and the main host of displaced Afro Colombians. “Their livelihoods are inextricably linked to the land. When forcibly removed from natural resources, they become dependent on aid,” he says.

© Courtesy of ICRC Colombia

Mauricio Castaño, responsible of the Humanitarian Assistance Department of the ICRC in Cali, says it is almost impossible for displaced Afro Colombians to find a job since their abilities do not fit in the city’s occupation market. “Lots of peasants are illiterate and they are not used to the concept of work shifts,” Castaño says.

Additionally, IDPs have to handle with the locals’ prejudices. “I would never hire one of them. They are running for a reason, right? They just bring problems,” Camila Sanchez says. The opinion of this laundry owner from Bogota is shared by many others. “The armed conflict is an alien phenomenon for people in the cities. Some of them believe IDPs are criminals,” Gutierrez avers.

In his first year in Cali, Mora was not able to get a stable job and he lived on a day by day basis. “I did some construction work but I was not agile enough,” Mora remembers. A friend of his informed him about the ICRC occupational programs in which he could complete a bakery course.

ICRC officials also helped Mora find a job in a bakery. “I liked it but the 12 hour shift was too much for me,” he says. Now he works for a company that sells frozen food. “I want to guarantee my children’s education. I do not want them to go through the same things I did.”

No Simple Solution

© Courtesy of ICRC Colombia

Although Colombia developed a widely celebrated legal framework and institutions which defend the victims’ rights, many IDPs have not received adequate aid from the government. The scarcity of human and monetary resources is a problem cited by many government officials, but Castaño adds corruption to the issue. “The money assigned to some municipalities to help IDPs magically disappears,” he says.

Furthermore, land restitution processes demand a lot of effort from the victims. “The displaced have to prove their ownership over their lands so the State restitutes them. Many IDPs have never had property documents or had lost their ownership after trespassing their lands to an armed group,” Gutierrez explains.

Land restitution may not be the solution, though. According to CODHES, almost 80% of the IDPs do not want to return to their hometowns because they feel safer in the cities. The ICRC proposes the development of integral plans that facilitate the social and labor inclusion of victims into Colombian society. “The government should provide access to skills training and employment opportunities,” Carrin opines.

SOS Russian Union of Women

By: Madina Baimagambayev

Produced and edited by: Olivia Harlow

Hundreds of Russian women have felt cornered and violated, with many locked in their own houses by their husbands until they’ve completed tasks such as cooking and washing clothes.  If they don’t complete household chores, they are then physically beaten.  These women are victims of domestic abuse.

Women's associations are increasingly taking the form of socially-oriented NGOs and have become the most responsive, mobile structures, capable of solving significant social issues.  These NGOS help women all over the country, by offering psychological material and legal aid to women struggling specifically with domestic violence and gender inequality.

Today, in every major Russian city, there are dozens of women's organizations – both those officially registered and those not registered. There are around 800 total, with more than 100 of them charities. These organizations first had to fix statutory, structure, and formalize. In the primary analysis of relevant information, database fields attracted the attention to the fact that the traditional area of ​​activity associated with the public opinion of the women's movement, namely, the "women's struggle for equalization of rights with men in the economic, social, political and cultural fields, as well as their participation in the political struggle," is by no means dominant. Of course, a certain group of women's groups affirms the necessity of building equalization of opportunities for women and men at the state level, both in the political and legal sphere. However, many prefer to stick to investing in "small business" in order to gradually overcome negative effects of the reforms that have touched women since the end of the twentieth century.

© Russian Union of Women

Russian Union of Women (RUW), created in November 1990, is a public, all-Russian, non-governmental organization. RUW organizes women's councils, unions, associations, committees and clubs operating in many Russian regions, on a voluntary basis. It also includes four federal organizations: the Women's Union of the Navy, The Russian Union of Public Associations, Russian Public Movement of Russian women, and Russian School Library Association. RUW also collaborates with other NGOs in more than 100 countries around the world, as well as with UN specialized agencies.

The Department of Public Information of the United Nations has a special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) as the holder of an honorary diploma of the United Nations “Messenger of Peace.”

Women in difficult situations can contact the RUW either by phone, written letters, or by visiting one of its branches. If a woman has no place to live, the RUW provides a dorm room in which they can stay for a month, free of charge, with free meals, psychological counseling, medical help, and jurisprudent assistance. The RUW always tries to find ways to help women in need regardless of if they are citizens or not. It is not rare to see RUW helping women from Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, or other countries outside of Russia.

One woman, who hopes to remain anonymous, claims that RUW saved her and her children’s lives from violence in her family in 2013. RUW gave her a place to live, provided a jurist for her case, and offered a psychologist for her and her child. She was a foreigner without Russian residence, so the RUW stepped in to support her family and prevent her deportation to the country where the domestic abuse had taken place. RUW helped the domestically battered immigrant woman earn Russian citizenship, as well as find a job and a place to live.

This union also helps support young families, who don’t yet have an opportunity to buy clothes, household appliances or food. In 2013, RUW provided over 500 families with material aid charity, and by the end of 2014 this number is expected grow by 20 percent.

© Russian Union of Women

In September 2013, a young family from an autonomous republic of Russian Federation, Bashkortastan, applied for financial support for the family. Irina, mother of 2 sons, became pregnant at 17 and did not know where to get help. When she first saw a commercial on Internet for RUW, she did not believe that anyone would help her and her young unemployed fiancé with material support.

“We have a certain image of such organizations.  No one believes that they really can help.  Me personally was thinking that it is another organization where you will wait for help forever and in the end they would ask you to collect thousands of papers and documents you wouldn’t know where to take,” she says.  However, Irina took that chance and later received a call from the Centre for Social Support for Women.

After a couple days, volunteers from RUW contacted Irina and later provided her with clothes, food and vitamins for pregnant women, and even invited her to classes at “University of Maternity”— another branch of the RUW which was established in 2013. That socio-educational program was created to improve conditions of maternal and child health, to give breastfeeding support, and to promote healthy lifestyles that strengthen the family. This program has helped many young families, including Irina and her fiancé Felys to get some critical knowledge for personal development and to acquire necessary parenting skills.

Italian Wine Woes for 2014 Sobering

By: Alexandra Rhue

Produced and edited by: Olivia Harlow

  

At first glance, news about the Italian 2014 wine harvest is bleak.  Newspaper and online sites offer estimates of a 15% to 30% shortfall from previous years.  Carlo Giudice, a partner at Col di Corte Winery in eastern Italy, says that he is aware of the shortfall in the 2014 wine harvest, acknowledging that in wine production this year “many companies in Italy have had less.”  In a country that is the world’s leading wine producer, a shortfall of 15% in an annual harvest that usually tops 1 trillion gallons of wine, is a vital economic consideration.

France, Italy’s closest wine production competitor, will move into first place in the world of wine production if the wine harvest shortfall reaches proportions predicted. The ripple effects could extend beyond the economic impact suffered by Italian wineries. Italian wine experts, as well as bottlers, distributors, and owners and managers of nearly 200,000 wineries are keeping a watchful eye on the wine harvest.

Geralyn Brostrom, Italian wine expert, entrepreneur, and educator, points out that “the actual numbers won’t be calculated until sometime after the harvest finishes and producers have been able to assess and report.”

© Col Di Corte Facebook

With the harvest around 50% complete in many areas, it is an intense time in the wineries. Jim Hutchinson, wine importer at Domenico Valentino in New York, says that in areas “like Valdobbiadene-Conegliano where wines are released within months of the harvest, the impact of a severe shortfall will be felt almost immediately.”

Some well-known wine producing areas such as Puglia, Sicily, and Tuscany—all recognized for their vintage wines—are considering scrapping a 2014 vintage altogether.  Large wineries are able to minimize the impact of an unsuccessful year.  Brostrom says that “farmers, whose sole livelihood comes from growing and selling grapes to wineries, will be much more affected than a winery with multiple wines and perhaps even previous vintages to sell.”

Growing up on a farm in Italy, Carmelinda Chilelli, whose parents produced red and white wines, knows the importance of the grape harvest in family businesses.  “Children don’t go to school when it’s time for the harvest.  Everyone helps each other, because there is a lot of work behind it.”

Weather is the culprit for the recent, consistently poor wine harvest. This summer, Italy was cool and wet, a contrast to the country’s regularly warm, dry summers that usually help produce an array of fine Italian wines.  Brostrom reports that producers she has spoken with “have commented on [the weather] as well.”  High rain totals combined with the lower than normal temperatures caused grapes to ripen so slowly that vine disease developed.  Increasing the damage, hail blanketed many of the wine growing regions as storms swept through, decimating grapes already suffering from the cool temperatures and excessive rainfall.

Popular wines, such as the well known Amarone or Ripasso are likely to still be produced.  Mike Veseth, wine expert and writer for The Wine Economist, says that some producers will “omit their top of the line Amarone and divert grapes to other quality levels.”  He remains optimistic that for 2014, “there will be Amarone!”

Italian social media specialist, Federico Maisenti, suggests that “the majority of the population isn’t much aware of the problem,” and notes that he hasn’t heard of any relatives or friends discussing the issue. If, indeed, the harvest shortfall is 15% or greater, Maisenti believes the industry would face serious repercussions both on a local and global scale. “In addition to have less amount of choice personally, the export market would be heavily penalized,” he says.

Other Italians are more aware of the harvest shortfall. Fabio Venturini, an engineer from northern Italy, believes that the average Italian citizen is always concerned about weather and assumes that this year’s harvesting is not optimal.

Pietro Becatti, a young Italian musician, says that he learned of the wine harvest shortfall from newspapers and friends in the agriculture areas.  “I do not think there will be serious consequences. Probably people will use the reserves of the former years,” he says.  “They will get used to a lower quality!”

Hutchinson states, “There are still a significant number of appellations that were not badly impacted by the poor weather.”  While most producers agree that 2014 wasn’t particularly a good year, the impact on wine pricing is less clear all around.

Hutchinson says that if the general quality of wine is considered inferior, prices may go down regardless of the presence of a shortage. Giudice, taking a more optimistic view of the reduced harvest, believes that despite the bad weather, the economic impact is “not a disaster.”

© Shutterstock

Although this is evident issue in most of Italy, a few wine producing areas of the country expect to have a normal or above level and quality of wine production.  The northwest section of Italy, home to several wineries, should be able to bottle some fine vintage wines.  In the Piedmont region of Italy, the Nebbiolo grapes—now ready for harvest—should produce a hearty quality red wine, perhaps even a quality Riserva.

Clearly, the wine industry remains cyclic.  Good weather brings fine wine harvests, while rain and cool temperatures of the past summer result in poorer quality and lesser quantity of grapes. The ability of the Italian wineries to adapt and rebound must not be overlooked.  Brostom points out, “As global warming has affected the wine industry worldwide, savvy producers have also adapted, and a family or company in the wine business for the long haul is also able to adapt.”  He believes that no matter what, Italian wines have been and will remain popular worldwide. Many growers, buyers, and consumers are already looking forward and hoping for a highly successful 2015 vintage.