Here is a fast take on what the international community has been up to this past week, as seen from the United Nations perch.

Sudan’s generals agree to guidelines on allowing humanitarian aid and protection

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed Thursday’s signing by Sudan’s warring parties of a declaration of commitment to protect civilians and guarantee the safe passage of humanitarian aid in the country. The negotiations took place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. However, a cease-fire remained beyond reach. More than 700,000 Sudanese have fled their homes since the violence broke out April 15, and hundreds more have been killed and wounded.

Sudan’s Warring Sides Sign Commitment to Secure Humanitarian Aid

In Geneva on Thursday, the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted a resolution at an emergency session condemning the human rights violations committed after the October 25, 2021, military coup in Sudan and the conflict that erupted in April. The resolution calls for the U.N.-designated expert on human rights in Sudan to monitor and document all allegations of human rights abuses since the 2021 military takeover.

UN Experts Urge Accountability for Atrocities Against Sudanese

Black Sea grain deal could expire May 18

The United Nations says it has no backup plan if Russia pulls out of the deal that allows Ukraine to export grain to international markets and helps facilitate Moscow’s grain and fertilizer exports. Russia has repeatedly threatened to withdraw from the Black Sea Grain Initiative on May 18, claiming it is not benefiting enough, which U.S. officials say is “farcical.” The United Nations says the 10-month-old deal has helped bring global food prices down and allowed grain and other foodstuffs to reach developing nations.

UN: No Plan B if Russia Withdraws from Grain Deal

Record number of internally displaced persons worldwide

The number of internally displaced people globally hit a record 71.1 million at the end of last year, according to a report released Thursday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center — a 20% increase from 2021. Nearly three-quarters of internally displaced people around the world were in 10 countries: Syria, Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ukraine, Colombia, Ethiopia, Yemen, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan.

Number of Internally Displaced People Hits Record High

In brief

— The United Nations Children’s Fund said Thursday that violence in Haiti is driving up severe acute malnutrition in children. This year, more than 115,000 Haitian children are expected to suffer from the deadliest form of malnutrition, also known as severe wasting, compared to 87,000 last year. Gang violence has made moving about the Caribbean Island nation extremely dangerous — the U.N. says more than 600 people were killed in April alone — making it difficult for families to access food and health care. The children’s agency is appealing for $17 million to scale up its operations in Haiti.

— The U.N. Human Rights office said in a new report Friday that “there are strong indications” that more than 500 people were killed — most summarily executed — by Malian troops and foreign military personnel during a five-day military operation in the village of Moura in the Mopti region of central Mali in March 2022. U.N. investigators were denied access to Moura by Malian officials during the months-long investigation. The U.N. team documented at least 238 victims and said at least 58 women and girls were raped. Read the full report in French.

— Floods and landslides in the Congo’s South Kivu Kalehe Territory have killed at least 420 people and local authorities say as many as 5,000 more could be missing. At least 3,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed. The U.N. and partners have mobilized emergency teams to support the government’s response efforts. The World Health Organization and UNICEF have provided medical supplies, equipment, clean water and sanitation kits. The World Food Program began distributing eight tons of food on Wednesday. Humanitarians say access is challenging as the main road leading to the area is damaged from the floods.

— The U.N. Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration called Friday for “a collaborative approach” to better respond to the movement of refugees and migrants throughout the Americas. Their joint statement comes as the United States lifted coronavirus restrictions on asylum seekers. Title 42, as it is known, allowed the U.S. to turn back migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border since 2020 under the auspices of protecting public health. UNHCR and IOM expressed concern that new U.S. restrictions on access for asylum-seekers who arrive irregularly after transiting through another country is incompatible with principles of international refugee law. The agencies said, “returns should only be conducted following due process and necessary safeguards, and in accordance with States’ obligations under international law.”

UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi was at the State Department on Thursday to discuss the Sudan crisis, forced displacement and other issues with Richard Verman, deputy secretary for management and resources.

— The cash-strapped WFP said Thursday that it will have to end food assistance to 200,000 Palestinians by June. Without a funding infusion, the agency says by August it will be forced to completely suspend operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. WFP is appealing for $51 million to continue its food and cash assistance for Palestinians until the end of the year. The appeal comes as Israel and the Palestinians are in yet another cycle of violence. The U.N. Security Council met in a closed meeting Wednesday to discuss the latest deadly Israeli air strikes on Gaza and a raid on the West Bank town of Nablus as well as Palestinian rocket fire at Israel.

— Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict Virginia Gamba traveled to Ukraine on Wednesday through May 13, to meet with government officials to discuss the impact of the war on children, including how to enhance the protection of boys and girls in Ukraine and prevent grave violations.

Quote of note

“Peace must never be underestimated or taken for granted. We must work to make peace and to keep it, every day, tirelessly. In a world that is tearing itself apart, we must heal divisions, prevent escalation, and listen to grievances. Instead of bullets, we need diplomatic arsenals.”

— Secretary-General Guterres in his acceptance speech of the Carlos V European Award on May 9 at the Yuste Monastery in Spain. The award is given to people, organizations, or initiatives that have contributed to the general knowledge and the enhancement of Europe’s cultural and historical values or EU integration.

What we are watching next week

The Black Sea Grain Initiative could expire on May 18 if Russia withdraws from the deal. An earlier brief suspension on Moscow’s part in late October was essentially ignored by Ukraine, Turkey and the United Nations. But it remains to be seen if Russia will make it impossible to allow ships to pass safely through the Black Sea to the Bosporus Straits if it unilaterally decides the deal should end.
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The Midwestern state of Illinois is one of the top producers of corn and soybeans in the United States, and it’s where Wendell Shauman farms land that his family has owned for several generations near the city of Galesburg.

While planting crops this spring, he’s been worried about Chinese investors purchasing farmland like his.  

Between 2019 and 2020, companies with shareholders connected to China increased their overall U.S. land holdings by nearly 30%, according to the U.S. Agriculture Department.

“It’s uncomfortable having your major competitor — an outfit that is shaking their saber at you all the time — to own land here. That makes you nervous,” Shauman told VOA. 

But he acknowledges he doesn’t know of any farms nearby connected to China. 

“I don’t know of any in this area,” he said.

In Jacksonville, Illinois, Luke Worrell’s company manages land transactions throughout the region. 

“In 15 years, I’ve never even had communication with an investment group that I’ve known to be Chinese,” he says. 

Most of the transactions he’s involved with stay local. 

“In my 15-year career, I’ve never sold a farm to any international buyer.”

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst, a Republican, is among a bipartisan group of lawmakers calling Chinese ownership of American farms a threat.  

“If you add up all of the acres of Chinese-owned farmland, it is nearly the size of my home state of Iowa,” she told reporters during a press conference on Capitol Hill in March. “The Chinese are everywhere,” she said, “and we need to be wary of what they are doing here in the United States.”

While lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle consider legislation aimed to curb sales of U.S. agricultural land to some foreign entities, China ranks 18th out of 109 countries with investment in U.S. land.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports Chinese-connected investors own less than 162,000 total hectares (400,000 acres) of land in the U.S. — only a fraction of which is farmland. That is 1.12% of the total area of Iowa.

“China owns almost no farmland in the United States,” said Bruce Sherrick, professor of agriculture and consumer economics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

Of the millions of hectares of U.S. agricultural lands owned by foreign entities, Sherrick says Chinese ownership barely registers.

Recent efforts by Chinese-connected investors to buy land near military installations in Texas and North Dakota have fueled concerns about national security risks. But Sherrick says foreign-owned properties are typically managed or tended to by local entities, often American farmers.

“The land producing things doesn’t know who owns it,” Sherrick said to VOA during a recent interview in his campus office. “So, I think as a matter of agriculture policy, it’s probably not a big deal who owns it.”

Sherrick says farmland remains an attractive investment for any potential buyer. 

“It’s positively correlated returns with inflation no matter how we parse up the data through time. A very high average returns through time, and very low systemic risk.”

In Streator, Illinois, farmer David Isermann also doesn’t know of any land near him owned by foreign investors.

“For me, it’s a nonissue,” he says. 

While he’d prefer local ownership over Chinese investment, Isermann doesn’t see a need for new legislation.

“I think the whole issue is made to make us feel good. You know, it’s something that both sides of the aisle can agree on,” he said.

Shauman has no plans to sell any of his land, which will one day become his granddaughter’s, as she helps him manage the farming business. He welcomes legislation curbing Chinese land acquisitions in the U.S.

“In rural America, I think there would be a lot of support for this,” he says. “I just as soon not have China come in and throw money around and who knows doing whatever else.  I’m not a fan of China.”

In addition to Congress, a number of state legislatures are also considering new restrictions on foreign ownership of U.S. land.
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A California peace activist who has worked to remove land mines from war-torn regions and replace them with grape vines, fruit trees and vegetables was named the 2023 World Food Prize laureate Thursday at a ceremony in Washington.

The Des Moines, Iowa-based foundation awarded its annual prize to Heidi Kuhn, founder of Roots of Peace. Since founding her nonprofit in the basement of her San Rafael, California, home in 1997, Kuhn’s organization has helped remove thousands of mines and assist farmers in more than a half-dozen countries. The group recently signed an initial agreement to begin work in Ukraine.

Kuhn, 65, said she formed the idea of starting her group after hosting an event at her home for dignitaries advocating for the eradication of land mines.

“Looking back on it, perhaps it was a vision of turning blood into wine, killing fields into vineyards and hatred into love,” Kuhn said in an interview last week.

Kuhn was named the winner of the prize, which carries a $250,000 award, at an event featuring Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Terry Branstad, the World Food Prize Foundation president and former U.S. ambassador to China. Kuhn, who was visiting minefields in Azerbaijan when the award was announced, will be formally given the prize at an event in October in Des Moines.

“Her work shows the world the vital role that agriculture must have in the resilient recovery from conflict to restoration of peace,” Branstad said during the announcement. “For making her mission to turn mines to vines, I am so pleased to announce that the 2023 World Food Prize laureate is Heidi Kuhn.”

‘I will do something special’

Kuhn said she created her nonprofit after becoming sick with cancer at age 30 while heading a TV production company and raising three children, ages 1, 3 and 5.

“My little prayer was, ‘Dear God, grant me the gift of life and I will do something special with it,'” said Kuhn, who survived the cancer and had another child.

After learning about the world’s estimated 60 million land mines, and in part inspired by Princess Diana’s efforts to ban the explosives, Kuhn said she met with vintners in California’s Napa Valley and began a fledgling effort that has steadily grown over the decades.

Roots of Peace started in Croatia and then went on to establish programs in Afghanistan, Angola, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Israel, Iraq, Palestinian areas, and Vietnam.

Besides lining up crews to remove mines, Roots of Peace completes market assessments to help determine how farmers can make a living off the newly cleared land. In Vietnam, for example, the group helped plant more than a million pepper trees that resulted in a harvest of high-grade pepper that is now sent to the U.S.

‘Off to a mine field’

While her organization has become established with funding from a variety of government and private sources, Kuhn said, her transition from raising four young children to heading an international mine-clearing organization still can seem strange, even to her.

“It is rather bizarre to be raising four kids, and then their mother is going off to a mine field,” Kuhn said. “It is unusual.”

Norman Borlaug, an Iowa native who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for his work to alleviate hunger through wheat research and other efforts, established the World Food Prize in 1986. The award has been given to 52 people in honor of their achievements in improving the quality, quantity and availability of the world’s food supply.
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The Biden administration proposed new limits Thursday on greenhouse gas emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants, its most ambitious effort yet to roll back planet-warming pollution from the nation’s second-largest contributor to climate change.

A rule unveiled by the Environmental Protection Agency could force power plants to capture smokestack emissions using a technology that has long been promised but is not in widespread use in the U.S.

“This administration is committed to meeting the urgency of the climate crisis and taking the necessary actions required,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said during Thursday’s announcement.

The new rule will “significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-fired power plants, protecting health and protecting our planet,” Regan said. The plan would not only “improve air quality nationwide, but it will bring substantial health benefits to communities all across the country, especially our frontline communities … that have unjustly borne the burden of pollution for decades,” Regan said in a speech at the University of Maryland.

If finalized, the proposed regulation would mark the first time the federal government has restricted carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, which generate about 25% of U.S. greenhouse gas pollution, second only to the transportation sector. The rule also would apply to future electric plants and would avoid up to 617 million metric tons of carbon dioxide through 2042, equivalent to annual emissions of 137 million passenger vehicles, the EPA said.

Almost all the coal plants — along with large, frequently used gas-fired power plants — would have to cut or capture nearly all their carbon dioxide emissions by 2038, the EPA said. Plants that cannot meet the new standards would be forced to retire.

The plan is likely to be challenged by industry groups and Republican-leaning states, which have accused the Democratic administration of overreach on environmental regulations and warn of a pending reliability crisis for the electric grid. The power plant rule is one of at least a half-dozen EPA rules limiting power plant emissions and wastewater treatment.

“It’s truly an onslaught” of government regulation “designed to shut down the coal fleet prematurely,” Rich Nolan, president and CEO of the National Mining Association, said in an interview before the rule was announced.

In a call with reporters on Wednesday, Regan denied that the power plant rule — or any other regulation — was aimed at shutting down the coal fleet even though he acknowledged, “We will see some coal retirements.”

The proposal “relies on proven, readily available technologies to limit carbon pollution” and builds on industry practices already underway to move toward clean energy, he said.

Coal provides about 20% of U.S. electricity, down from about 45% in 2010. Natural gas provides about 40% of U.S. electricity. The remainder comes from nuclear energy and renewables such as wind, solar and hydropower.

Tom Kuhn, president of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents U.S. investor-owned electric companies, said the group will assess whether the EPA’s proposal aligns with its commitment to provide reliable, clean energy.

Carbon emissions from the U.S. power sector are at the same level as in 1984, while electricity use has climbed 73% since then, Kuhn said.

The EPA rule would not mandate use of equipment to capture and store carbon emissions — a technology that is expensive and still being developed — but instead would set caps on carbon dioxide pollution that plant operators would have to meet. Some natural gas plants could start blending gas with another fuel source such as hydrogen, which does not emit carbon, although specific actions would be left to the industry.

Still, the regulation is expected to lead to greater use of carbon capture equipment, a technology that the EPA said has been “adequately demonstrated” to control pollution.

Jay Duffy, a lawyer for the Boston-based Clean Air Task Force, said the EPA rule is likely to “propel deployment of carbon capture” technology far above current usage. “It’s a way for (fossil fuel) plants to operate in a decarbonized world,” he said before the rule was announced.

“Industry innovates and over-complies,” Duffy said, citing a 1970s EPA rule that required power plants to use sulfur dioxide scrubbers. At the time, there were only three commercial scrubber units operating at U.S. power plants and just one vendor. Within a few years, there were 119 sulfur scrubbers installed and 13 vendors, Duffy said in an essay posted on the group’s website.

More recently, the U.S. power industry exceeded emissions goals set by the Obama administration in its Clean Power Plan, even though the plan was blocked by the courts and never implemented.

Still, the scope of the power plant rule is immense. About 60% of the electricity generated in the U.S. last year came from burning fossil fuels at the nation’s 3,400 coal and gas-fired plants, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

“These rules are a big deal,” said David Doniger, senior strategic director for climate and clean energy at the Natural Resources Defense Council. The power plant rules are crucial to meeting President Joe Biden’s goals to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 and eliminate carbon emissions from the power grid by 2035, he and other advocates said.

“We need to do this to meet the climate crisis,” Doniger said.

The proposal comes weeks after the Biden administration announced strict new tailpipe pollution limits that would require up to two-thirds of new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be electric by 2032 and months after Biden announced rules to curb methane leaks from oil and gas wells.

The rules follow climate action by the 2021 infrastructure law and billions of dollars in tax credits and other incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, approved last year.

While Biden has made fighting global warming a top priority, he has faced sharp criticism from environmentalists — particularly young climate activists — for a recent decision to approve the contentious Willow oil project in Alaska. The massive drilling plan by oil giant ConocoPhillips could produce up to 180,000 barrels of oil a day on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope. Environmental groups call Willow a “carbon bomb” and have mounted a social media #StopWillow campaign.

The new plan comes 14 years after the EPA declared that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health. President Barack Obama tried to set limits on carbon pollution from U.S. power plants, but his 2015 Clean Power Plan was blocked by the Supreme Court and later was rolled back by President Donald Trump.

Last year, the Supreme Court limited how the Clean Air Act can be used to reduce climate-altering emissions from power plants. The 6-3 ruling confirmed the EPA’s authority to regulate carbon emissions from power plants but said it could not force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity.

The EPA said its new rule will give plant operators flexibility to meet the new standards in a method of their choosing. And instead of creating one limit that all power plants must meet, the agency said it will set a range of targets based on the size of the plant, how often it is used and whether it is already scheduled for retirement.
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