Saturday, April 18, 2020

SER 12 (A ) OF X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases) VIRUS WAR: Will Coronavirus slow the World's Conflicts — OR Intensify them? (r)

SOURCE:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/03/24/world/coronavirus-conflicts/#article_history



INDEX
SER 12  (D)  OF X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases) VIRUS WAR

SER 12  (C)  OF X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases) VIRUS WAR


SER 12  (B)  OF X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)  VIRUS WAR
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/04/ser-12-b-of-x-serials-infectious.html

SER 12  (A)  OF X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)  VIRUS WAR

SER  11  OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)

SER 09  OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/04/save-lives-ready-shovels.html

SER 08   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-impossible-ethics-of-pandemic-triage.html

 SER 07   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
 SER 06 ( B )   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)

 SER 06 (A )   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)

SER 05   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)

SER 04 / (C)   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/03/ser-04-c-of-x-serials-infectious_27.html


SER 04 / (B)   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/03/2019-2020-cornavirus-pandemic_26.html

 SER 04 / (A)   OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/03/2019-2020-cornavirus-pandemic.html

 SER 03 OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/03/novel-coronavirus-covid-19.html

 SER 02 OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/03/history-in-crisis-lessons-for-covid-19.html

 SER 01 OF   X SERIALS (Infectious Diseases)
https://bcvasundhra.blogspot.com/2020/03/infectious-diseases-infectious-diseases.html  




 VIRUS WAR

Will Coronavirus slow the World's Conflicts — OR  Intensify them?
            Cronavirus   &   War-torn Syria

     ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU6HReQuqBw )

War-torn Syria is about the one country least able to deal with the coronavirus. But a case was confirmed over the weekend, and Syrians are bracing themselves for a lockdown. A full-blown outbreak would have severe consequences because a decade of civil war has devastated the country's healthcare system



Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces flash the victory sign next to their unfurled flag in the village of Baghouz in Syria's eastern Deir Ezzor province on March 24, 2019, after the Islamic State group's "caliphate" was declared defeated. | AFP-JIJI




WORLD


Will Coronavirus slow the World's Conflicts — OR  Intensify them?


 UNITED NATIONS – Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, the Sahel … with the great powers focused intently on the COVID-19 virus, will armed conflicts across the world decrease in severity or intensify? 

 Experts as well as diplomats at the United Nations say there is a serious risk of the latter.
For guerrilla fighters and extremist groups, “it’s a clear godsend,” said Bertrand Badie, a specialist in international relations at France’s Institute of Political Studies (Sciences Po).

When the “powerful become powerless,” he said, 
one can see
         “the revenge of the weak over the strong.”

In recent days, some 30 Malian soldiers were killed in an attack in northern Mali blamed on jihadis, without drawing any sharp reaction from the Security Council.
In Libya, and Syria’s Idlib region — the object of intense diplomatic attention before the coronavirus stole the spotlight — fighting continues.

Evoking the “potentially devastating impact of #Covid-19 in #Idlib and elsewhere in Syria,” the U.N. undersecretary-general for political affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, called on Twitter for all parties to show restraint.

“If anyone — incredibly — still needed a reason to stop the fighting there,” she added, “this is it.”

Martin Griffiths, the U.N. special envoy for Yemen, issued a similar plea: “At a time when the world is struggling to fight a pandemic, the focus of the parties must shift away from fighting one another to ensuring that the population will not face even graver risks.”
Up to now, these countries have not been afflicted by COVID-19 on the scale seen in China, South Korea or Europe. But the virus carries the potential, once it reaches into poor and conflict-ridden countries, of having a devastating impact.

In the absence of concerted assistance 
from abroad, the U.N. fears “millions” 
could die.

The pandemic will not necessarily favor any particular group of belligerents, one diplomat noted, because the ravaging disease has been “uncontrollable.”

“The pandemic could lead to a worsening of conflicts, with the risk of exacerbating the humanitarian situation and population movements,” he said.

But the pandemic might also sap the will of the belligerents and their ability to fight in coming months, some experts said.

“Throwing their troops into battle will expose both states and violent nonstate groups to contamination, and thus to potentially catastrophic losses of human life,” said Robert Malley, president of the Washington-based International Crisis Group.

He believes that the virus “will very certainly diminish the capacity and will of states and of the international system — the U.N., regional organizations, refugees, peacekeeping forces — to dedicate themselves to the resolution or prevention of conflicts.”

It will also throw up a whole set of new obstacles, he said, complicating access to conflict zones, making it harder to organize negotiations in neutral countries, and diverting financial investments to the fight against the coronavirus.

“What government would want to invest in the pursuit of peace in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, the Sahel or elsewhere when it is facing an economic, social and political crisis almost without precedent?” he asked.

With the news media obsessively focused on COVID-19, Malley said, “these conflicts, however brutal and violent they may be, will for many people become unseen and unheard.”

At the U.N., which has been struggling to respond as best it can, diplomats insist that their efforts to monitor regional crises and conflicts will continue, even if the international organization has sharply curbed its schedule of meetings.

“We intend to ensure that #UNSC plays its vital role in maintaining global peace and security,” Britain’s interim ambassador to the U.N., Jonathan Allen, wrote on Twitter. “COVID-19 is the major global focus, but we have not forgotten about Syria, Libya, Yemen.”

But Richard Gowan, a New York-based specialist in U.N. matters, expressed some doubt.

“Security Council diplomats say that it is hard to get their capitals to focus on U.N. issues,” he said.

Among nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) dealing with human rights issues, like Human Rights Watch, concern is growing that whole areas of action are falling by the wayside.

One example: Diplomats say the much-awaited and repeatedly delayed publication of a U.N. summary report on the bombing of hospitals in Syria — originally due at the beginning of the year — is now not expected before April, at the earliest.



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