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China-funded Kaliwa dam in the Philippines flagged for irregularities · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Environmentalists and advocates of Indigenous People's rights protest against the China-funded Kaliwa Dam in the Philippines. Source: Facebook
The Philippine government’s Commission on Audit (COA) has flagged the controversial China-funded Kaliwa Dam project for review, noting that its proponent, the Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System (MWSS), has failed to submit proof that it is implementing measures to protect the environment.
The COA is an independent constitutional body mandated to audit the government's financial transactions. MWSS is the government agency in charge of the dam project.
The Kaliwa Dam is part of the New Centennial Water Source program that promises to deliver 600 million liters of water per day to Manila's Metro area, the country’s capital region.
It is the flagship project of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program. In 2019, the Duterte government secured a 283.2 million US dollar loan deal from China in order to build the Kaliwa Dam. A Chinese contractor, China Energy Engineering Corporation Limited, was selected to build the dam.
China's participation in the project reflects the Chinese government's commitment to supporting Duterte's infrastructure program through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This was confirmed in a BRI primer released by the Chinese embassy in the Philippines
Infrastructure is one of the key areas of cooperation. China attaches great importance to the Philippines’ “Build, Build, Build” Plan. The Philippines and China have agreed to cooperate on infrastructure for the next ten years to boost economic development and improve their investment environment.
But China's investments have attracted suspicion from many sectors because of its military buildup in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea). China-funded projects like the Kaliwa Dam are tagged for potentially undermining the country's sovereignty. The COA report has revived controversies surrounding the dam project.
For example, the dam was widely opposed because of its potential environmental threats and because it would displace an estimated 1,465 families of the Dumagat-Remontado indigenous peoples (IPs) in Rizal and Quezon provinces.
When the contract documents about the dam were released in 2019, civil society groups warned that they contained provisions that favor China. For example, one provision states that Chinese laws will be used to resolve potential disputes that may arise regarding the dam project. A former legislator also criticized that a Chinese contractor was hired for the project:
No surprise, it is a Chinese contractor – China Energy Engineering Corporation Limited. This is a violation of our procurement laws, as well as violation of the Constitution that mandates a preference for Filipino contractors and workers who are equally if not more than qualified.
Numerous Catholic bishops in the Philipines issued a statement expressing concern that the project will mainly benefit Chinese investors instead of the local population:
The bishops stressed that the Church is not against development as long as it does not sacrifice the “common good” in the name of progress.
They (IPs) should not be sacrificed on the altar of development aggression, which would just benefit big businesses and Chinese investors.
The Philippines has a predominantly Catholic population and bishops.
Joan Jaime of the Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas said in a media interview that the dam will destroy the way of life of indigenous peoples whose ancestral domain was designated as the site of the dam project:
All things are given a monetary value and profited from. This is contrary to the needs of the people, the needs of the indigenous communities, and the idea that land should be used for the common good.
Environmentalists have warned that the Kaliwa Dam will destroy the habitats of several endangered species in Rizal and Quezon provinces. Source: Facebook
Protests have been organized since 2019 against the dam. Activists have marched in front of the country’s environment department, Chinese consulate, and Congress to raise their opposition against the dam. Environmentalists have listed the Kaliwa Dam as proof of the destructive legacy of the Duterte government.
Duterte acknowledged the right of IPs to protest although he said he is ready to use the “extraordinary powers” of his office to complete the project.
Environment group Haribon offers an alternative instead of building the controversial dam:
The restoration and conservation of forests in existing watersheds like Angat and La Mesa is not only more cost-effective but will ensure continued water supply for Metro Manila and nearby provinces for years to come. The group also urges the Government to rehabilitate existing water reservoirs and strengthen the implementation of efficient water distribution systems and facilities.
The government has defended the Kaliwa Dam by describing it as the solution to Metro Manila’s looming water crisis. MWSS insisted that the dam’s environmental impact is only minimal:
The social and environmental impacts of the stand alone Kaliwa Dam Project is minimal. Even as there are risks which is usual to any construction project, mitigation measures and safeguards have been put in place.
Chinese Embassy Spokesperson’s Comment on the Kaliwa Dam Project pic.twitter.com/ICdzZsgyNs
— ChineseEmbassyManila (@Chinaembmanila) January 13, 2020
Even the China embassy has issued a statement to clarify that the dam represents a strong bond between two equal partners:
The project is one of the great achievements in helping the Philippines with more livelihood projects through China-Philippines mutually beneficial infrastructure cooperation within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative and the Build, Build, Build plan.
In the spirit of amity, mutual trust and results-oriented cooperation, China and the Philippines agreed that the project would be funded by the preferential loans from the Export-Import Bank of China. The loan agreement was reached by both sides through consultation on equal and voluntary basis. The terms and conditions of the agreement are general and standardized requirements in accordance with both international practice and Philippine laws.
In a separate interview, Chinese Ambassador Huang Xilian wrote that the BRI project in the Philippines has become a key “cargo lifeline” and “bond of solidarity” during the pandemic.
Despite the controversies surrounding the project, construction has continued and the dam is expected to be completed in 2023.
This story is part of a Civic Media Observatory investigation into competing narratives about China’s Belt and Road Initiative and explores how societies and communities hold differing perceptions of potential benefits and harms of Chinese-led development. To learn more about this project and its methods, click here.

author: Mong Palatino


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Chinese soft power in Kyrgyzstan grows through culture and language · Global Voices
Aizat Shailoobek kyzy

The entrance of the Confucius Institute at the Balasagyn Kyrgyz National University in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Photo by Aizat Shailoobek kyzy, used with permission.
Long isolated culturally and linguistically from each other, Kyrgyzstan and China are now increasing their economic integration as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The economic presence of Chinese investors has triggered Sinophobic attitudes among the people of Kyrgyzstan. In recent years, however, the teaching of Mandarin and the greater opportunities to study in China have mitigated the negative views of the neighbor to the east.
Crucial to this soft power strategy is the increasingly widespread presence of Confucius Institutes across Kyrgyzstan. With more than 500 offices around the world, the institutes are hubs for Chinese culture and language. The work of the branches in Kyrgyzstan also contributes to creating a positive image of China among Kyrgyzstani youth.
The Chinese government has provided students with free scholarships to study in China and also helped them to learn Mandarin, which has motivated students to become familiar with Chinese language and culture in an effort to find well-paid jobs.
Globally the first Confucius Institutes were established in 2004. For Kyrgyzstan, a first significant milestone was set in August 2007, when former Chinese president Hu Jintao visited the capital Bishkek and signed a declaration of cooperation which included strengthening education exchanges between the two countries. Consequently, several Confucius Institutes were opened, including one at the Bishkek State University and one at the Kyrgyz National University.
Thousands of students have sat in the Confucius Institute's classrooms in Kyrgyzstan in the 14 years since they opened. One prominent center of learning is Bishkek’s public middle school N. 95, built with Beijing’s assistance, which provides intensive Mandarin classes for children. The school opened in September 2017 and enrolls over 1,000 students every year.
The Chinese language is also becoming increasingly popular in Kyrgyzstan. In 2017, at the Bishkek State University and at the Kyrgyz National University there were around 2,000 university-level students registered to study Mandarin. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were more than 7,000 students studying at Confucius Institutes in Kyrgyzstan.
In 2019, before his visit to Kyrgyzstan, China’s President Xi Jinping wrote an op-ed in which he noted the importance of the relationship between the countries in the context of the BRI. He also provided figures on the educational programs linking both countries: in 2018, more than 70,000 people traveled between Kyrgyzstan and China, and over 4,600 Kyrgyz students were studying in China. In 2020, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan announced that more than 4,000 students from Kyrgyzstan were studying in China.
Comparatively, only about 1,000 Kyrgyz students are enrolled in Turkish universities.
These figures, however, pale in comparison to the high number of students from Kyrgyzstan in Russia. In 2021, former minister of education of Kyrgyzstan, Almazbek Beishenaliev, said that around 16,000 Kyrgyz students are currently enrolled in Russia.
Global Voices spoke to several Kyrgyz citizens who learned Chinese, either in Kyrgyzstan or during educational exchanges in China.
Nurayim Kudayar kyzy, a 26-year-old translator, said that, today, knowing Mandarin is highly valued, because the BRI offers employment opportunities that require some level of Chinese. The company where she works, highly linked to BRI projects, mostly hires workers from China, but also local engineers, road builders, accountants, translators, and other specialists.
Cholpon Asylbek kyzy, who used to work as a translator at the Kara-Balta oil refinery, mentioned that knowing Mandarin helped her to negotiate a higher salary. She added that some of her friends and acquaintances often go to China to work as guides and translators for Russian speaking tourists.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the tourism sector around the globe, Aisuluu Sirazhidinova used to work as a guide and translator in a Chinese tourism company.
Learning Chinese is a unique opportunity for Kyrgyzstani students, who gain language skills and life experience in China. Some students study and work at the same time to help their relatives. In this regard, China has created good conditions for young students from Kyrgyzstan.
Winning a scholarship to study in China is not always easy, students said. Corruption between local students and teachers hinders access even for those who study in the local Confucius Institutes and have a good command of the language.
It's not all good though: An informant who spoke on conditions of anonymity shared her negative experience with teachers in Confucius Institute.
A few years ago, local and Chinese teachers at the Confucius Institute where I studied asked for bribes to select students to go to China. I was told that the fee to pay was between 1,000 and 5,000 USD depending on which city I wanted to go. Despite not paying the bribe, I managed to collect all necessary documents and enrol in a university in Beijing.
Despite the enduring anti-Chinese mood in Kyrgyzstan, it seems that the number of Sinophiles among young Kyrgyzstanis is increasing.
This story is part of a Civic Media Observatory investigation into competing narratives about China’s Belt and Road Initiative and explores how societies and communities hold differing perceptions of potential benefits and harms of Chinese-led development. To learn more about this project and its methods, click here.

source: news-globalvoices

license: Creative Commons - Attribution - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

author: Aizat Shailoobek kyzy


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Dalit erasure, or how Rolling Stone India failed to demonstrate diligent storytelling · Global Voices
Keerthana Ram

Screenshot from the music video “Enjoy Enjaami” by Dhee ft. Arivu via YouTube. Fair use.
Pop culture magazine Rolling Stone India and music platform Maajja launched a special cover in August 2021 titled ‘Back to the Roots,’ carrying in-depth interviews of Sri Lankan Tamil singer Dhee (Dheekshitha Venkadeshan) and Tamil Canadian recording artist Shan Vincent de Paul as part of their reportage on Tamil indie musicians blurring local and global borders — the same spotlight was denied to Indian Tamil rapper Arivu (Arivarasu Kalainesan), known for his anti-caste lyrics and for anchoring the hugely popular tracks ‘Enjoy Enjaami‘ and ‘Neeye Oli,’ which were part of the story. This stirred controversy and widespread displeasure, forcing those in charge to hastily make reparations.
In India, when a song reaches the radios that play in corner tea shops, it’s hit the masses. Enjoy Enjaami did just that. Conceived by a group of independent Tamil musicians (Arivu, and Dhee amongst others), the groovy song weaved together incendiary words, and incorporated hip hop elements of R&B and oppari, a folk music style from Tamil Nadu. Arivu also wrote the lyrics, which bring his trademark radical words layered with bold political commentary from the streets. They are inspired by events of colonial India, talking about civilizations and natural resources, and are a homage to Tamil culture and people. Arivu described the song as an evocative tribute to his grandmother Valliammal and their ancestors.
Valliammal and her family are descended from a large group of forgotten landless Tamil labourers who migrated to Sri Lanka in the 18th and 19th centuries in search of better livelihoods. They navigated oppression and disenfranchisement and retraced their steps to South India, only to be treated as outsiders there too. Arivu’s grandmother and others like her faced this head-on and survived, reclaiming joy and pride one middling day at a time.
This is the emotion, wisdom and soul that Arivu poignantly blends and celebrates. Sample these words:
“Naan anju maram valarthen… Azhagana thottam vachchen… Thottam sezhithaalum en thonda nanaiyalaye.a”
I planted five trees… and nurtured a beautiful garden…. though the garden is flourishing, my throat remains dry.
However, the release was not without its fair share of discomfort. As soon as it was released, the video was declared feudal, unsavoury and contrary to the politics that the lyrics stood for. It drew heavily on African symbolism which, apart from not being culturally related to Dalit, Bahujan (a Pali word that means “the many”), and Adivasi (indigenous tribe) aesthetics, felt gimmicky and forced. The video foregrounded Dhee and sidelined Arivu, almost relegating him to a prop meant to garner some woke tokens.
This was not a popular opinion, though. The song went on to become a resounding global success and gained phenomenal mileage. With 30 million views on YouTube, in less than two weeks, it was curated in 11 Spotify playlists, including 2 international ones, a first for a Tamil single.
Dhee soon landed the opportunity to remix the song with French Algerian record producer DJ Snake as a part of Spotify's new global music singles. Prominent billboards in New York’s Times Square showcased the duo to the world as part of promotional campaigns for the streaming platform. Arivu was visibly missing. Whispers started brewing about the possible appropriation of heritage and more.
An irked Sankul Sonawane tweeted:
Enjoy Enjaami is a song written by Dalit rapper Arivu about his grandma who was a plantation worker. Brahmin singer Dhee appropriates the song, now DJ Snake collabs with her. Arivu is totally erased from his own song by everyone. This is how UCs have historically stolen Dalit art pic.twitter.com/o5UK5W4Du1
— Sankul Sonawane (@Sankul333) June 26, 2021
A few months down the line, Maajja (the music house behind the single) chose to launch Dhee and Shan Vincent De Paul, a singer with Jaffna Tamil roots from Canada, in their upcoming releases. This led to a cover and long-form interview with Rolling Stone India in August 2021. Arivu was absent again, despite the article focussing on two songs directly related to his art — Neeye Oli (written by Arivu) and Enjoy Enjaami (written and performed by Arivu).
.@talktodhee and @shanvdp appear on our August 2021 cover. The triumphant South Asian artists have been at the front of erasing border lines with songs like “Enjoy Enjaami” and “Neeye Oli” respectively, released via platform and label @joinmaajja
Cover story by @anuragtagat pic.twitter.com/OJgstNLWRA
— Rolling Stone India (@RollingStoneIN) August 20, 2021
Arivu was therefore again reduced to a footnote and effectively denied ownership of his labour. This time the outrage was more palpable. #WhereIsArivu started trending and social media imploded, questioning the exclusion. Pa. Ranjith (a celebrated Tamil film director with fiery Dalit and Bahujan perspectives) and others slammed this in strongly-worded tweets.
@TherukuralArivu, the lyricist of #Neeyaoli and singer as well as lyricist of #enjoyenjami has once again been invisiblised. @RollingStoneIN and @joinmaajja is it so difficult to understand that the lyrics of both songs challenges this erasure of public acknowledgement? https://t.co/jqLjfS9nwY
— pa.ranjith (@beemji) August 22, 2021
The central question that this incident raises is around the ethos of an industry that should be rooted in ethics that safeguard the interests of marginalised communities and their right to be present in art that hopes, aspirations and stories. When the art is borrowing its core from their unique lived experiences, marginalised folks should be allowed to shape the entire creative journey on their terms. What should have been Arivu’s story to tell, share and distribute, unfairly, became Dhee’s ticket for her foray into the international music scene.
It is important to remember also that Dhee and Arivu were not on an equal footing from the start, since Dhee is well established (her stepfather is Santhosh Narayanan, a well-known Tamil music composer), and has diaspora privilege. However, this is hardly the first time Dalit art and culture has been stolen and appropriated — Black musicians and artists have been treated the same way historically. Shalin Maria Lawrence, a writer and activist from the community summarises this in a deeply analytical thread:
Thread//
When #enjoyenjaami was released I first thought it was Arivu's independent single and it had Dhee supporting him as he was an independent artist. He wrote the lyrics ,sang .The song was his idea.Nobody can deny it. But the title said “Dhee ft Arivu”.
— Shalin Maria Lawrence (@TheBluePen25) August 22, 2021
Reactions were disappointing. Kiruba Munusami, a researcher and advocate practising at the Supreme Court Of India scathingly opines:
Why only blame @RollingStoneIN and @joinmaajja for invisiblising @TherukuralArivu from erasing the global boundaries? @talktodhee could have stepped back crediting @TherukuralArivu for his politics, lyrics & voice. This privilege is why I have been criticising Savarna women for. pic.twitter.com/EWAcrQDt7s
— Kiruba Munusamy (@kirubamunusamy) August 23, 2021
Dhee and Maajja maintained radio silence despite being complicit in the systematic erasure of Arivu and his contributions. Funnily enough, the production house was formulated by industry giants including A. R. Rahman, to amplify and represent disadvantaged musicians. Shan chose to not publicly stand up for his fellow performer.
Rolling Stone India then featured Arivu in their digital issue cover as a response to the widespread anger. While this satisfied some, sections of Arivu’s admirers and supporters stood steadfast in solidarity. Some emerged with their own versions of cover art, crafting Arivu in his elements. Multiple voices echo the need for Dalit and Bahujan artists to create their own platforms separate from the mainstream. Beyond enabling them to occupy space and thrive, this will also encourage storytelling centred on justice and equity and permanently challenge non-inclusive representation.

author: Keerthana Ram


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Diverging narratives on the Belt and Road Initiative in Greece and China · Global Voices
Andreas Bloom

Illustration by Giovana Fleck, used with permission
Greece is a critical Mediterranean stop for China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The Chinese state-owned shipping conglomerate COSCO now controls the Greek port of Piraeus, one of the largest in the Mediterranean. Greek and Chinese business interests have also had significant collaborations in the energy and telecommunication industries over the past two decades. But there are tensions and setbacks in this relationship, and the two countries’ media tend to narrate events quite differently.
A March 2021 report by a Greek think-tank tried to map this discrepancy. “Sino-Greek Relations in Greek and Chinese Media, 2020”, released by the Institute of International Economic Relations (IIER) is a comparative analysis of media in Greece and China in 2020 and early 2021, based on about 600 media items. The material was drawn from a range of prominent Greek media outlets (in English and Greek), and English-language Chinese media outlets such as Xinhua, China Daily, and Global Times. To a lesser extent, the report also engaged with social media content.
Unsurprisingly, most references to China in Greek media in 2020 are related to COVID-19, and they rarely mention Sino–Greek relations. However, 90 percent of news items on Sino–Greek relations in the Greek media, which made up around a third of total China-related news in Greece, were about COSCO's involvement with Piraeus. This makes sense: COSCO's investment is arguably the most critical part of the BRI in Greece. Despite Greek government support for a continued relationship, this investment is also a source of occasional tension in Sino–Greek relations.
The Chinese shipping giant owns 51 percent of the Piraeus Port Authority, the company managing the Greek port. During the Greek debt crisis of the 2010s, COSCO was seen favourably by successive Greek governments who were keen to show that they could successfully attract foreign investment. Chinese officials, on the other hand, were (and likely still are) eager to signal internationally that, in Greece, they have a reliable business partner in the European Union.
Broadly speaking, there are currently two sources of tension regarding COSCO's involvement in Greece. The first is that it hasn't managed to live up to its contractual obligations to deliver investments. These obligations were due in August 2021 and would have allowed COSCO to acquire an additional 16 percent stake in the port. The Chinese company is however expecting to receive that 16 percent anyway. Following an agreement with Greece's privatization fund that involves COSCO providing some form of guarantees, the company will likely get its additional stake this year, pending approval by the Greek parliament. The second issue surrounding COSCO's presence in Greece is that many—including labour unions, opposition parliamentarians, local politicians, environmental groups, and businesses—disagree with its policies in Piraeus.
The IIER report argues that Greek outlets both friendly to and critical of the government tend to accurately describe these tensions. While anti-COSCO rhetoric may be more pronounced in opposition-affiliated media in Greece, pro-government outlets may also openly criticize the company. An article in liberal.gr, for instance, claims that even if COSCO were to acquire 100 percent of the company managing the port, issues with the “the broader business community of Piraeus” (Global Voices translation) would persist.
Developments in Piraeus have also been covered in a positive light by the Greek media, giving voice to COSCO's perspective, which is that Greek bureaucracy is at the source of delays. But the IIER report says there is “no reference to friction in the Chinese media,” as it would be “an ‘irritant’ that affects negatively the Piraeus ‘success story’, which was built meticulously over the past decade or so.”
In reality, there are some references in Chinese-language Chinese media to some of the difficulties in Piraeus, but they are very rare. Plamen Tonchev, the author of the IIER study, told Global Voices that there was not enough time to delve into Chinese-language media, but insisted that it is really the English-language media that would be more pertinent to understanding a global Chinese communication strategy. “Through these [publications] China can promote a ridiculous impression that Greece and China are long-lost first cousins enjoying a happy reunion several millennia later, thus concealing some of the thornier issues in the relationship,” he said.
In early April 2021, China's ambassador to Greece Zhang Qiyue announced that she was returning to China. This event does not appear to have made it into the Greek press or mainstream broadcast media, but there are several references to it in lesser-known online outlets, including in an article by Tonchev himself.
While there is no indication as to why Zhang left Greece, and ambassadors can leave their posts for a number of reasons, Tonchev believes that she was recalled. He told Global Voices that significant tensions came about from a lack of progress in implementing COSCO's mandatory investments in Piraeus, in conjunction with other indications of worsening Sino–Greek relations. “Events like these in Piraeus may be the trigger,” Tonchev said. “But there are several issues, including the exclusion of Chinese companies from tenders in energy investment and Greece turning down a Chinese request to host the 17+1 summit in 2022.” None of these issues, he added, have been addressed in the official Chinese media, which are intent on promoting an image of harmonious collaboration with Greece.
Another subject that does not appear in the Chinese media surveyed is that of the Greek Golden Visa Program, which grants a residence permit to a non-EU national who has made a purchase of over 250 thousand euros in real estate. Beneficiaries of the program have been overwhelmingly Chinese. Greek media did publish negative reports on Chinese applicants who were scammed by middlemen or who faced bureaucratic obstacles in completing their purchases. A Vice investigation also discussed this at length, though it was not cited in the IIER report. But, according to that report, the issue was not reported at all in the Chinese media. The author elaborates:
A possible explanation for this obvious discrepancy would be that a growing number of Chinese applicants for Golden Visas in Greece and other EU member states are effectively abandoning their country, and this points to an emerging trend in Chinese society that national authorities may not be comfortable to discuss in public.
The IIER report points out that Greek media outlets have no correspondents in China. Chinese media, meanwhile, only report on the positive side of Sino–Greek relations. When Global Voices asked whether this could result in blind spots for policymakers in Greece, Tonchev said that decision makers in Greece and China do not only rely on media reports.
“But it cannot be precluded that Greek decision makers may be influenced to a certain extent by the invariably positive Xinhua stories republished by Kathimerini more than once a week,” he said. “These reports in English-language Greek media have raised many an eyebrow in foreign embassies in Athens.”
Tonchev estimates that, if the Greek parliament ratifies the new agreement with COSCO over the next few days, China is likely to immediately name its new ambassador, in time for the launch of the Greece-China Year of Culture and Tourism. This event was scheduled to start in May 2021 but was pushed to September. Incidentally, the IIER report also finds that only 1.39 percent of Greek coverage on Sino–Greek relations touches on cultural ties.
“Trade is growing between the two countries, but there are fewer prospects for collaboration in fields other than shipping and energy,” Tonchev says. “From now on Chinese state-owned companies are not likely to get large contracts of the Piraeus scale,” he adds. “In this context, cultural activities, an easy and cheaper form of cultivating ties, will become more important over the coming years.”
This story is part of a Civic Media Observatory investigation into competing narratives about China’s Belt and Road Initiative and explores how societies and communities hold differing perceptions of potential benefits and harms of Chinese-led development. To learn more about this project and its methods, click here.

author: Andreas Bloom


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In Georgia, a taxi service for women by women · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

A woman in the front seat of a car. “ILO photo e11263″ by ILO PHOTOS NEWS is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
A new women-only taxi service in Georgia called TaxiWoman is promising safe journeys for its clientele, by providing only women drivers behind the wheel. The group is the latest to tackle the global issue of transportation gaps, in an effort to provide safe and accessible travel options for women.
According to the TaxiWoman Facebook page, the service will operate through an app, which the creators behind the project said was still being developed. “As you will recall, we are a brand new start-up company, the app takes time, but it's in progress,” explained one post on Facebook. Until then, the service will be available through an operator.
Another post on the TaxiWoman page explains that the service is “designed for women and adults under 16.”
This was my little dream. I am very hesitant to even order taxi at night. Stopping taxi in the street is always out of question. This will make life easier for so many women. Hope they will succeed. https://t.co/Qp9FqWg4R1
— Mariam Nikuradze (@mari_nikuradze) September 13, 2021
According to OC Media, a similar service was launched in Georgia in 2012 under a brand called “Pink Taxi.” But the group stopped its services after the company began hiring more male drivers and offering services to male customers too.
Elsewhere across the world, taxi services catering to women customers only, are also common. In Egypt, a similar service was launched in 2015.  In an interview with The Guardian, its founder Reem Fawzi told the news platform at the time, that the service operated exclusively for women, by women drivers. For security reasons, customers were required to send a scan of their ID. Each ride, was recorded via internal camera and customers of the service had access to “a so-called ‘kill’ button to remotely stop the car if needed,” reported The Guardian.
In Turkey, a similar service was introduced in the province of Sivas in 2016. Pakistan, India, and Mexico city are among other locations where similar services were reportedly launched in recent years. In New York City, a taxi service called “SheTaxis-SheRides” was launched in 2014.
According to a report released last year, by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), “As transport providers women are widely underrepresented and as passengers they face persistent and global challenges in terms of accessibility, affordability, and safety. This has large-scale implications both in terms of women’s freedom of movement and in access to jobs and markets: the International Labour Organization (ILO 2017) has written that transport gaps reduce women’s labor force participation by more than 15 percentage points.” IFC conducted a study across six countries for the purpose of this report, and found out that 20 percent of women said, “the lack of women drivers limits the number of trips they take, and 44 percent said, they would be more likely to use the service if they had the option of selecting a woman driver.”
Gender-segregated transportation (GS) in ride-hailing is a service, with various models according to the IFC report because “no single model defines emerging GST services.” However chief among these models is “women-exclusive” services, similar to TaxiWoman.
Operational models for gender-segregated transport services, IFC report, June 2020.
While demand for women-only taxi services is not exclusive to Georgia, it does raise questions about the employment of women drivers who are underrepresented in the transport industry according to IFC research.
According to the National Statistics Office of Georgia, only 14 percent (30,648) of women in Georgia have driver's licenses and 16 percent (190,674) own cars.
Although TaxiWoman is just launching, it may do both — provide safe journeys to its customers and boost employment opportunities for women drivers in Georgia.

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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Russia blocks popular website for worker complaints · Global Voices
openDemocracy Russia

Antijob, run by members of an anarcho-libertarian group, has been operating in Russia for nearly 20 years. Photo courtesy of Antijob.
This article by Thomas Rowley appeared on Open Democracy on September 13, 2021. It is republished as part of a content-sharing partnership and has been edited to fit the GV style.
Russian authorities have blocked a leading website for employee complaints following a successful legal case by a Moscow real estate firm – the latest internet block by the country’s communications regulator.
Antijob, the site in question, has been in operation for 17 years, and hosts thousands of anonymous complaints about Russian employers. Complaints made on the website range from long hours and deceptive management practices to abusive working conditions and wage delays.
Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications regulator, blocked Antijob on September 11 after an online real estate broker, PIK Broker, won a defamation case against seven websites, including Antijob, that hosted complaints allegedly written by former employees. Under Russian defamation law, websites, including individual web pages, can be blocked for defamatory content.
The alleged former employees of the company, a subsidiary of leading Moscow property developer PIK, had left reviews that included claims about “unprofessional” conduct by management and mass firing of employees.
PIK Broker stated in its legal claim that this information was defamatory of the company. In its decision on May 4 2021, the Moscow Arbitration Court found that the alleged reviews of PIK Broker were “false”, “defamed [the company’s] business reputation” and were thus banned from circulation in the Russian Federation.
In a comment to openDemocracy, PIK Broker said that it had “taken all possible measures to regulate this dispute outside of court”, but had been “compelled” to defend its reputation in court.
“Russian legislation does not forbid persons from expressing their opinion on working for any organisation,” the company said, “but if that information is false and harms the organisation’s business reputation, then its legal rights and interests should be defended.”
Speaking to openDemocracy, Antijob stated that it faces legal claims by companies mentioned on the website “quite regularly”, but that it “only reacts to direct requests by Roskomnadzor”.
“We get blocked every year or two,” Antijob said. “But this time we launched a mirror site [a replica of a website at a different address].”
“We also get DDoS attacks, poor quality traffic to lower our rating on search engines, apparently, and we also get direct threats of being located by our IP addresses and ‘disappeared’.”
Antijob received 4.5 million views online in 2020 and published 11,000 new complaints about Russian employers. The project was originally set up by members of a Russian anarcho-libertarian activist group, Autonomous Action, and aims to “give a voice to those who are often deprived of it.”
“From the very beginning, we’re on the side of workers in their conflicts with employers.”
“It’s rare that someone hears the opinions of current or would-be employees at a company – and only if a really bad situation has occurred,” the project told openDemocracy. “Employers often have lawyers working for them, lots of resources, paid articles in the media and advertising. This is why we collect these reviews […] so that people who are thinking about working for this or that company can see the real situation inside the firm immediately.”
While Antijob says it “cannot guarantee that every review is true,” the project notes that it does operate a system of confirming user identity, and options for uploading evidence of employee claims. “From the very beginning, we’re on the side of workers in their conflicts with employers,” the project said.
The website said that it does not participate in legal cases for financial and security reasons: the identities of project members are not published, and the team said it was “more important to spend its resources on developing the website.”
The alleged reviews of PIK Broker have since been deleted from the Antijob website, but will, the project said, be returned to the website if their users choose to re-upload them with edits.
The blocking of political and media websites has become common practice in Russia over the past decade. Ahead of this month’s parliamentary elections, for example, the Russian authorities have sought to block access to websites controlled by the team of opposition figure Alexey Navalny. Navalny operates an online tactical voting system that recommends voting for a single candidate in order to possibly defeat a candidate allied with the Putin regime.
According to Antijob, the project’s main website should be unblocked in a few days – after it reports to Roskomnadzor that it has deleted the information opposed by PIK Broker.
“This was great PR for the company,” Antijob said. “If they hadn’t sued, then less than 500 users would have found out.”

author: openDemocracy Russia


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Chinese higher education programs attract increasing numbers of students from Kazakhstan · Global Voices
Yevgeniya Plakhina

Illustration by Giovana Fleck, used with permission.
China is rarely viewed as winning the minds and hearts of the people in Kazakhstan. Whether due to cultural differences or to Sinophobic attitudes linked to fears that China might seize Kazakhstani land, popular skepticism towards China is widespread in Kazakhstan.
But one area seems to escape negative narratives: overseas higher education. China is one of the top educational destinations for Kazakhstani students. In 2020 alone, 15,000 students from Kazakhstan studied in China — approximately 18 percent of the estimated 85,000 Kazakh students abroad. In 2019 Kazakhstan ranked 9th in the list of countries sending students to China.
The Kazakhstani government also supports its own citizens studying in China via its Bolashak scholarship program.
According to Pang Zhongying, Director of the Institute of Global Studies at Nankai University in China, education and science are, together, one of the three components of the Chinese definition of soft power, along with culture and production systems.
While Kazakhstani parents might not always be enthusiastic about China’s alleged economic and political expansion in their own country, they look favorably on educational opportunities offered by China and push their children to study there.
Different factors drive students towards China. Both the Chinese and the Kazakhstani governments offer study grants and, because salaries remain comparatively low in Kazakhstan and most families cannot afford to pay their children's fees and living expenses, students are encouraged to apply for these grants. Safety and comfort, particularly for girls, is also seen as an advantage, given the low crime rate — at least for foreigners — in China. Finally, the demand for Chinese speakers in Kazakhstan's job market is growing, becoming another motivating factor to study in China.
An Almaty-based family interviewed by Global Voices echoes those choices: the parents of Madina (name changed upon her request) sent her to study in China back in 2006, and she ended up spending nine years there. Madina told Global Voices her conditions in China were outstanding.
I received funding from the Chinese government twice: for my bachelor's and master's studies. Education in China is expensive even for Chinese students, and there is tremendous competition among local students for funding. As foreign students, we have more opportunities.
As part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and programs supported by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Chinese government provides various types of stipends to students from Kazakhstan.
At least 2,500 students received scholarships in 2019. The Chinese government offers students from Kazakhstan a flat-rate monthly stipend depending on the degree level: 800 CNY (124 USD) for either bachelor's degrees or Chinese language courses, 1,100 CNY (170 USD) for master's degrees and 1,400 CNY (217 USD) for PhDs. The scholarships also cover tuition fees, healthcare and accommodation at a dormitory.
The Silk Road Scholarship, given to students from BRI countries offers flat-rate stipends of 2,500 CNY for bachelor's degrees (387 USD), 3,000 CNY for master's degrees (465 USD), and 3,500 CNY for PhDs (698 USD). CNPC, China's major state-owned oil company, also offers a scholarship for engineering degrees. Numerous commercial agencies such as chinese.kz, mychina.kz, pandaedu.kz and uchina.kz (the last supported by China's ministry of education) offer Chinese language courses and assistance in submitting applications to Chinese universities.
Along with funding opportunities, living conditions for foreign students, including the monthly stipend and housing, are better than the conditions for Chinese students. Anatoly Chernoussov, LGBT-rights activist from Kazakhstan and a former Russian-Chinese interpreter who studied in China in 2010–11 on a government scholarship, told Global Voices that foreigners are given double rooms with ensuite bathrooms, while locals live in small rooms with 6-8 beds, without showers.
Chinese media are also keen on profiling positive feedback from Kazakh students who studied in China. Ilona Parker, originally from Almaty, praised the conditions that China offers to foreign students in an interview to state-owned news outlet Silk Road Observer about her studies at Lanzhou University.
Scholarships for foreign students are three times the amount that local Chinese students receive. This scholarship allows for extra money to travel. I have studied and traveled all over China in the past four years with this scholarship.
Similarly, the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan regularly shares stories from alumni of Chinese universities. This article published in November 2017 quotes Ruslan, a graduate of Beijing Language and Culture University, who spoke on behalf of the graduates at the meeting of China-Kazakhstan Overseas Student Association. He thanked the Chinese government for providing scholarships. The experience of studying in China that changed his life, he said.
Free studies, combined with soft political indoctrination, can be quite effective and turn people into not only Mandarin-speakers and lovers of Chinese culture, but also supporters of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ideology who lack any critical views on China. According to Chernoussov:
Indoctrination was very soft. They were sharing with us the official line on culture, history, and geography. You gradually get used to it and it becomes part of you. When we watched a movie about Mao Zedong I cried because I had this sense of belonging. It works!
After completing their studies, some students find themselves culturally closer to the Chinese than the people of their own home country. Madina ,for instance, wanted to stay in China, but her parents convinced her to come back, which she regrets:
Upon my return to Kazakhstan, I worked for Chinese companies, and I still do. I wanted to remain there because the difference in development is colossal! We are under-developed in comparison to China. After leaving China, I can only live in Almaty, though I still find it very small.
Chernoussov said he found himself protecting Chinese business interests during negotiations with Kazakh businessmen, as he felt culturally closer to the Chinese.
It was a professional failure for me. The Kazakh side has hired me as an interpreter, and I switched to the Chinese side and pushed for their interests. The Kazakhs noticed.
He says that it is very hard to realize that students might be indoctrinated, particularly for younger students who go to China. “It took me a while to get rid of my Sinophile mindset when I came back to Kazakhstan,” he says.
While China does offer certain advantages, such as study grants and jobs in business and the oil industry, it is still unclear if it has succeeded in winning a significant number of minds and hearts.
According to Gaini, 25, who was also sent to study in China by his parents but returned to Kazakhstan without finishing his studies, indoctrination has not been a significant factor.
Chinese people are very open and tolerant but I wouldn't say that they are able to create loyalty to China among foreign students. They have not brainwashed us. However, I got acquainted with their culture and mentality.
This story is part of a Civic Media Observatory investigation into competing narratives about China’s Belt and Road Initiative and explores how societies and communities hold differing perceptions of potential benefits and harms of Chinese-led development. To learn more about this project and its methods, click here.

author: Yevgeniya Plakhina


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Constitutional changes and mistrust mark Angola’s election announcement · Global Voices
Global Voices Lusofonia

João Lourenço, president of Angola | Image: Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 2.0
Angola is preparing to elect its next president in August 2022, amid much controversy over pending election regulations. The 2017 winner, current President João Lourenço, is expected to seek re-election next year.
The next election should mark a moment of transition and consolidation, given that João Lourenço became president after more than 30 years of rule by José Eduardo dos Santos — one of the world's longest-ruling presidents.
Dos Santos was known for his harsh authoritarian administration, marked by human rights violations and restrictions on freedoms of speech and press. Many saw a 2016 criminal case where police forces arrested a group of activists and detained them under questionable charges as emblematic of his overall rule. The incident became known as the “15+2″ case,  referencing the pre-trial detention of 15 of the 17 arrested activists.
The 2022 election will be held in August but is already causing debate among Angolans. Among voters, there is mistrust about how the process has been managed and a lack of consensus about recent constitutional amendments concerning the upcoming elections.
The modifications to the 2010 constitution state that foreigners will be able to vote in the next elections, as reported by the Jornal de Negócios.
Additionally, the laws paved the way for local elections, established a specific time period for general elections, and offered the National Bank of Angola independence from partisan oversight.
…esta revisão fica definida, entre outros mecanismos constitucionais, a fiscalização política do executivo pela Assembleia Nacional, e a universalização do direito de voto aos cidadãos angolanos residentes no exterior do país.
…this revision defines, among other constitutional mechanisms, the political oversight of the executive by the National Assembly, and the universalization of the right to vote for Angolan citizens resident outside the country.
But on September 2, opposition parties called on President João Lourenço to reject the ratification of the general elections law and return it to the National Assembly. Representatives of the parliamentary groups of UNITA, CASA-CE, PRS, and Bloco Democrático, as well as independent parliamentarians, called the legislation a “law of electoral fraud and corruption.”
Days before the recent approval, João Lourenço had already guaranteed that the elections would take place, to allay suspicions that they might be annulled for any reason.
Opposition parties have claimed to have been intimidated by authorities, as have activists protesting for electoral transparency, such as the case reported on 30 August:
Jovens manifestantes em Luanda queixam-se de terem sido impedidos pela polícia nacional de se concentrarem hoje defronte à Assembleia Nacional (parlamento), onde pretendiam “exigir justiça e transparência” na discussão das leis de alteração ao pacote eleitoral.
Young protesters in Luanda complained of being prevented by the national police from gathering in front of the National Assembly, where they intended to “demand justice and transparency” in the debate on amending electoral legislation.
On the day of the demonstration, in an interview with Deutsche Welle, the young activists complained of the police's actions:
A polícia está mais uma vez a interditar a nossa marcha, pretendemos chegar até ao portão sul da Assembleia Nacional para podermos efetivar a realização da nossa manifestação que visa exigir aos nossos deputados que votem uma lei justa que possa garantir eleições transparente no nosso país.
The police are once again blocking our march, we intend to reach the southern gate of the National Assembly so that we can hold our demonstration which aims to demand that our deputies vote for a fair law that can guarantee transparent elections in our country.
In terms of strategy, opposition parties are trying to cooperate to form a united front against the 2022 elections, as VOA reported:
O maior partido da oposição, a UNITA, está neste momento a finalizar a formação de uma Frente Patriótica, com o Bloco Democrático e o projecto Pra-Já Servir Angola visando chegar às eleições de 2022 com um bloco unido face ao MPLA.
The largest opposition party, UNITA, is currently finalizing the formation of a Patriotic Front, with Bloco Democrático and the project Pra-Já Servir Angola, aiming to head into the 2022 elections with a united bloc against the MPLA.

author: Global Voices Lusofonia


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In Turkey, first large anti-vaccine rally gets green light from the local government · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

“Stethoscope with notebook and syringe and #COVID19 text” by wuestenigel is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Some 3,000 Istanbul residents gathered at a “Great Awakening” rally to protest vaccines, PCR tests, and public mask mandates on September 11.
This was the largest protest by Turkey's relatively small number of anti-vaccine advocates since Turkey reported its first COVID-19 cases back in early 2020. Reports from the scene showed thousands gathering at the Maltepe rally ground in Istanbul, not wearing masks, and not following social distancing rules.
The rally took place at one of Istanbul neighborhoods, Maltepe, and was approved by Istanbul's Governors’ Office. Several well-known vaccine opponents, including doctors, activists, artists, and writers attended the protest. During an on-stage speech, Abdurrahman Dilipak, a conservative columnist for the pro-government newspaper Akit said reports of patients infected and/or dying of COVID-19 were not true and that the goal of sharing these numbers was to scare the citizens. Dilipak listed five demands during the rally, including closing the World Health Organization Ankara office, lifting PRC test requirements, and banning mask mandates.
Those who were unable to attend joined the protest on Twitter under the #HerYerMaltepeHerYerDirenis (everywhere is Maltepe, everywhere is resistance) hashtag:
Herkes bilsin: Köle olmayacağız! #HerYerMaltepeHerYerDireniş pic.twitter.com/cgH231rBeD
— Erkan Trükten ?? (@ErkanTrukten) September 11, 2021
Let everyone know: we won't become slaves!
We will resist until the end ✌
no to mask ❌
No vaccine ❌
No test ❌#Turkey #istanbul #Plandemia #plandemic #HerYerMaltepeHerYerDirenis pic.twitter.com/Usw3lXk60P
— Zeynep (@zeeeata) September 11, 2021
Rally participants were not required to show proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test, which goes against the government's newest health regulations, updated September 6th.
As of last week, the new regulations require proof of vaccination or negative PCR tests for passengers of intercity flights, public transportation, and for those attending large events like concerts or theatre and public spaces as schools and cinemas.
According to the most recent indicators, 48.3 percent of the total population are fully vaccinated, and 61.8 percent have received at least one dose. As September 6 marked the start of the school year when students returned to in-person education, the government lowered the vaccination eligibility age to 12, as it was previously only available to children 15 and over. And yet, the rate of infected patients remains in the range of 20,000 per day. Turkey also entered phase 3 of human trials of its own vaccine, Turkovac. “The inactive vaccine is now at the emergency-use approval phase and Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced last week that its mass production will likely begin in October once it gains approval,” reported the Daily Sabah. Turkovac will first be tested in Kyrgyzstan, according to media reports.
On September 7, Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced that at least two cases of the new Mu variant were recorded in the country. Since its first detection in Colombia in January 2021, the Mu variant has been reported in at least 39 countries.
Back at the rally, attendants were not interested in either the new variants or the speed that the virus was spreading. “They called us bigots and anti-science. They wanted to vaccinate us from afar, like animals. Founded by the Bill Gates Foundation, the pandemic started with a news report of the BBC,” said Dilipak during his speech. Some in the crowd agreed. In an interview with Hurriyet Daily News, one attendant said, “Vaccine is Bill Gates’ game. They started vaccinating people in three months. They will make us robots. They will make people sick.” The crowd also called for the resignation of the Minister of Health.
People just don’t want to be treated as disease vectors, as unclean. Students want to get rid of masks in schools. Fathers and mothers want their children not to be abused with routine testing. It is all about freedom. #HerYerMaltepeHerYerDirenis #NoVaccinePassports #JustSayNo pic.twitter.com/E4BbNBXGJO
— note bot (@mpasse_l) September 11, 2021
Others were there to oppose the new restrictions. “Masks, vaccines, and PCR tests might all become mandatory. We're here to voice our discontent with this,” said Erdem Boz, who attended the rally on September 11.
Health experts have criticized the rally participants and their statements. Ankara University Faculty of Medicine Anesthesiology and Intensive Care Specialist, Professor Necmettin Ünal, said it is one thing to be hesitant about getting vaccinated, but it is another to claim that the vaccination “is a plot to annihilate Turkish race.”
Others questioned how this rally was possible at all. Since last year, street demonstrations — especially against the government — were infrequent and often saw violent police intervention when they did occur. The ruling government of the Justice and Development Party has so far has kept silent regarding the rally.


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Investigative journalism group OCCRP says it will no longer work in Russia · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting project. Courtesy image from occrp.org.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), an international investigative journalism network, has announced it is suspending all of its work inside Russia in order to protect the journalists it collaborates with from state pressure.
Drew Sullivan, OCCRP's co-founder and editor-in-chief, said in a statement published on the organisation's website on September 15 that their work on Russian soil at the moment would do local reporters “more harm than good.”
Это не значит, что мы прекратим писать о масштабной коррупции в этой стране. Просто мы понимаем, что правительство, по своему обыкновению, будет наказывать своих же граждан за сотрудничество с нами.
This does not mean we will stop covering the large-scale corruption in this country. We simply understand that the government, as it has always done, will sanction their citizens for collaborating with us.
OCCRP said in its statement that it has invited its Russian employees and collaborators to move abroad to be able to continue working with the group. Those who declined have been provided with severance pay and assistance with finding a new job.
Earlier this year, Russia's Justice Ministry designated a number of Russian independent media outlets and journalists as “foreign agents” or “undesirable” organisations by Russian officials, including most of OCCRP's partners.
Russian law requires organisations or individuals designated as foreign agents to register with the state or face sanctions. They are also required to regularly report on their activities and indicate their foreign agent status on any materials or content they distribute, including social media posts. For media outlets in particular, being dubbed a foreign agent has led to financial and operational difficulties, forcing some to shut down or move abroad.
Paul Radu, OCCRP's co-founder and director of innovations, said Russian journalists were crucial to the organisation's success.
Они позволили своим соотечественникам получить доступ к объективной журналистике, когда правительство Путина открыто атаковало оставшиеся независимые СМИ.
They have enabled their fellow citizens to have access to objective reporting at a time when [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's government is openly attacking the remaining independent media.
On September 14, OCCRP published an investigative report about Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s alleged “female companion” and her unexplained foreign assets. The report was co-produced with iStories, another Russian investigative media outlet recently branded as a “foreign agent.”
OCCRP's Paul Radu vowed to continue publishing investigations on Russia.
Российское правительство – крупный игрок, который активно распространяет коррупцию и дезинформацию, регионально и на международном уровне, и пытается дестабилизировать другие страны. Мы не будем это замалчивать.
The Russian government is a powerful player that actively disseminates corruption and disinformation on both regional and international level, while attempting to destabilise other countries. We won't keep silent about this.
The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, founded in 2006, is a consortium of investigative centers, media, and journalists operating in over 50 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the Caucasus, Central America – and, since 2021, the U.S. and Canada. The group is best known for its work on projects exposing transnational corruption, money laundering and offshore entities linked to prominent state officials, such as “Panama Papers,” “Paradise Papers” and “Troika Laundromat.” More recently, OCCRP released “Project Pegasus,” focused on the transnational surveillance and spyware industry.

author: Tanya Lokot


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Jamaican activist filmmaker takes on extractive industries in the Caribbean · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

The Alpart JISCO refinery in Nain, St. Elizabeth, Jamaica. which is currently closed. Owned by Jiuquan Iron and Steel Company, the plant closed in 2019 “pending modernisation and expansion”; It's not clear when it will reopen. Photo by Emma Lewis, used with permission.
As its name suggests, the Global Extraction Film Festival (GEFF) 2021—which this year consisted of more than 150 documentaries, shorts, and “urgent shorts” from over 40 countries—focuses on the various destructive impacts of extractive industries, primarily fossil fuels and mining.
Founded in 2020 by Jamaican filmmaker Esther Figueroa (Vagabond Media) and Emiel Martens (Caribbean Creativity), the no-budget festival is put together through voluntary efforts and film partnerships. The 2021 programme included films that are already publicly available, as well as some that are not, covering such topics as water issues in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Dorian's devastation of The Bahamas, huge oil discoveries off the coast of Guyana, the role of women in Haiti's informal economy, a community-led re-wilding project in Trinidad and pesticide poisoning in Martinique. Figueroa's own films highlight, among other things, the ongoing struggle to protect Jamaica's ecologically sensitive Cockpit Country from bauxite mining.
Jamaican filmmaker Esther Figueroa. Photo by Mary-Angela Fatta, used with permission.
Figueroa is a Kingston-born independent filmmaker, writer and educator whose films include “Jamaica for Sale” (2009), an award-winning, feature-length documentary about unsustainable tourism, and “Fly Me To The Moon” (2019), which tells the story of “the metal of modernity”—aluminum—in a way that shows how we are all connected to Planet Earth. In 2013, Figueroa became a Distinguished Writer in Residence at the University of Hawaii's English Department; her environmental novel “Limbo” (2014), was a finalist in the National Indie Excellence Awards for Multicultural Fiction.
I interviewed Esther via email on the eve of the film festival, which ran from September 9-12.
Emma Lewis (EL): What is the most pressing goal of GEFF2021?
Esther Figueroa (EF): I started Global Extraction Festival to bring attention to the social and environmental impacts of all types of extractive industries across the planet, and to celebrate and support the communities across the world who are bravely defending against annihilation, while creating livable futures. In 2020, there was a very popular narrative that the COVID-19 pandemic was saving Planet Earth and that we would come out on the other side of this ‘portal’ and do things differently and better. I created GEFF 2021 to counter this narrative, because it is simply untrue. The crisis we are living in is leading to more destruction, not less.
GEFF seeks to engender solidarity, empathy and generosity, where people in very difficult circumstances can see they are not alone, that their struggles are shared everywhere. GEFF is a resource that provides content from all over the world, helping to inform, educate and make people aware of important issues. In this way, we can all be inspired, energised and act with knowledge, rather than flee into fantasies and escapism. GEFF is part of my normal activism and attempt to support and connect people, to amplify their voices and help strengthen all efforts to stop the deranged political economy and material culture that is destroying the planet and liveable futures for generations to come.
During a field trip to Ridge Red Bank, St. Elizabeth, with Voices for Climate Change in 2019, Figueroa filmed a farmer and young deejay, Donn Gass, as they talked about the impacts of climate change on their rural community which was, at the time, badly affected by a bauxite plant in the valley below. Photo by Emma Lewis, used with permission.
EL: What is the value of “short” and “urgent short” films in environmental advocacy, and what is the difference between them?
EF: Urgent Shorts is a name I came up with for GEFF 2020. Our Global Programme (renamed Global Perspectives in 2021) was primarily feature documentaries. In addition, I selected over 70 shorts—news reportage, short documentaries, activist reports from the ground—and listed them under different types of issues related to extraction.
These shorts were all publicly available on YouTube or Vimeo, and so it was a resource that people could still have access to after the festival. I call them Urgent because they are—we are living in urgent times and we need to act like we are, instead of pretending some magical solution is just around the corner, or will be found in the future.
EL: What do you think is the single most harmful impact of extractive industries in the Caribbean?
EF: Extractive industries are based on ecocide—they destroy the natural world on which we all depend. They are also genocidal; for example, continuing the genocide of Indigenous peoples in Guyana, where gold mining is an existential threat and is destroying rural communities, heritage, food security and local knowledge—as happens in Jamaica with the aluminum industry's 70-plus year assault on rural [communities].
EL: From the gender perspective, women farmers in deep rural areas, who are often heads of households, have particular vulnerabilities. The majority do not own land titles. Are such issues addressed in any of the films?
EF: There are many films in GEFF 2021 that feature women fighting to defend their water, land, quality of life, cultures, futures. I had tried to find a partner to hold a GEFF 2021 Special Virtual Event with a feminist gender focus on extraction, because extraction and the masculinist ideology of conquering nature are fundamental to patriarchal capitalism.
Extraction most negatively impacts girls, women, female/feminine bodies and most economically benefits boys, men, male/masculine bodies, since extractive industries—with the exception of tourism—employ vast majorities of males and masculine bodies. In addition, the consequences of extraction and compulsory modernity, such as the climate crisis and Anthropocene also more adversely affect girls, women, female/feminine bodies. I was unfortunately unable to find a partner to host such a focus, but maybe next time!
The answer is to end patriarchy, end masculinist ideologies of conquest, end political economies based on profit and ownership, and change our value system that devalues nature, the rural, the female and the feminine.
EL: Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?
EF: We aren’t in a tunnel, and darkness and light are necessary for life. Both are required, which is why there is day and night and seasons of darkness and light.
EL: Do you have any new projects in the making that you can tell us about?
EF: I would like to be able to continue the work that inspired me to start GEFF. I would like to continue to work with communities who refuse to accept that this is our only option.

author: Emma Lewis


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Asking for a cousin’s friend: The viral load of Nicki Minaj’s vaccine misinformation tweet · Global Voices
Janine Mendes-Franco

Rapper Nicki Minaj. Photo by Eva Rinaldi on Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
Trinidad and Tobago-born rapper Nicki Minaj has received significant backlash over a September 13 tweet, in which she suggested the COVID-19 vaccine caused impotence.
My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied
— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 13, 2021
The tweet followed several others that dealt with COVID-19 vaccination, including one in which Minaj announced she would forego the Met Gala because attendance was contingent on vaccination and she felt she hadn't yet done “enough research” on vaccine options.
When mainstream media pounced on the story, Minaj said that her comments about the Met had been misreported, pointing to a few other tweets she'd posted, where she recommended that people get the vaccine, calling it “the norm” that vaccinated people are better able to ward off the virus.
Even as liberal television commentator Joy Reid chastised Minaj for using her 22 million-strong Twitter platform to spread misinformation, others called the whole debacle “a rare glimpse […] into how the press twists the truth”, supporting Minaj's clap back that Reid was “spread[ing] a false narrative about a [fellow] black woman.” Others suggested Reid's dress-down was hypocritical, considering that she herself sowed seeds of distrust in the COVID-19 vaccine back in 2020 because it was developed under the oversight of the Trump administration.
Amanda Carpenter tweeted mischievously:
Nikki Minaj may not be at The Met tonight but now she is *this close* to being invited to perform at Donald Trump’s reinstatement ceremony so there’s that.
— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) September 14, 2021
Social media was soon in an uproar. New York Times bestselling author Kurt Eichenwald replied to Minaj:
Sorry, this is not a side effect of the vaccine. It is called hydrocele. In adults, the two primary causes are injury or STD (chlamydia or gonorrhea). Probably your cousin's friend was taking one last marriage fling, picked up an STD, & is blaming vaccines. He needs an MD, stat.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 13, 2021
One former fan responded:
Reported for misinformation and unfollowed. I loved you and your music, this is so very disappointing and dangerous
— Stefanie Iris Weiss ? (@EcoSexuality) September 13, 2021
In one judgement-free post, Dr. Raven the Science Maven reposted a rap in which she explained how the vaccines actually work:
Nicki, I made this rap about the vaccine last fall! It talks about the immune system and some of the things that happen with your immune system after u get a vaccine ❤ happy to talk more about it with you. My space is always judgement free! ❤? much luv pic.twitter.com/ElFayiCAwd
— Dr. Raven the Science Maven (@ravenscimaven) September 13, 2021
While some supported Minaj's position, most social media users were not willing to be as tolerant of Minaj's misstep:
Nicki gurl DELETE THIS RIGHT NOW before people DIE from being affaid of this MADE UP BULLSHIT FAKE TWEET!?This is shameful fear mongering & you have No PROOF it wasn't an STD. We’ve got millions of Dead people, we find a cure vaccine, & now you’re encouraging more people to DIE
— Daniel Newmaη (@DanielNewman) September 14, 2021
You understand that because of your celebrity status, your words have weight. Regardless of the fact that you have NO evidence connecting this person’s medical issues to the vaccine, people who are already hesitant (due to misinformation) will choose to not get vaccinated.
— Pale Blue Momma ???? (@PaleBlueMomma) September 15, 2021
Comedian Trevor Noah, while admitting that, for many of Minaj's followers, “that tweet about swollen balls […] will be their research,” was opposed to labelling the star as an anti-vaxxer, since she's saying “she's unsure and she can be convinced”:
If you take Nicki at her word—or anyone who wants more information for that matter—instead of crucifying them to prove how righteous we are, let's show them the research. […]
The good news is that a lot of research has already been done on these vaccines and that research has shown they are overwhelming safe and effective, and their side effects don't come close to the damage that COVID can do to you.
Still, some netizens weren't having any of it:
nikki minaj right now pic.twitter.com/6KKmHmoVQW
— CRT Repairman (@t0ussaint) September 13, 2021
Nikki Minaj has altered her appearance by getting breast implants, Brazillian butt lift where fat was injected into her ass and multiple other surgeries but she won't get vaccinated against covid-19 becauseshe claims she needs to do her own research. GTFOH! pic.twitter.com/472l8y00da
— SistahAsali?? (@SistahAsali) September 14, 2021
Dr. Stella Safo lamented:
Nikki Minaj is on here (purposefully/inadvertently???) sharing misinfo about the vaccine and I’m just so sad for the people who are gonna be harmed from this mess. With 1000+ ppl dying daily from COVID.
I wish, with all my heart, that celebrities used their power responsibly.
— Stella Safo, MD MPH (@AmmahStarr) September 14, 2021
Many social media users responded to the controversial tweet in the same way they felt it should have been received—with humour:
Darling Nikki
Nikki Minaj has become an unlikely right-wing hero. Will they still like her when she starts to grind?
by Maureen DOwd
— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) September 14, 2021
Kinda funny that the Met Gala was both a ball held for charity AND a ball for fancy dress, but the balls held by Nikki Minaj's cousin are the ones Twitter likes best. pic.twitter.com/kbJWUAmeGA
— Josh. Dobbin (@dobbin_joshua) September 14, 2021
A few spared a thought for those also suffering the fallout:
How does he say this with a straight face? https://t.co/kdC0bCumKh
— David Pakman (@dpakman) September 15, 2021
I would make fun of Nikki Minaj's cousin's friend, but I feel like that's low-hanging fruit.
— JS “The Pumpkin Spice Must Flow” Carter Gilson (@JSCarterGilson) September 13, 2021
Just remember that there are always people having a worse day than you…
like Nikki Minaj’s publicist.
— Brienne of Snark?? (@BrienneOfSnark_) September 14, 2021
The majority of Trinidadian netizens, meanwhile, seemed embarrassed:
That's the thing that is KILLING me about all of this.
I keep thinking “we're actually a pretty nice country, but we only show up in the global news for the most bullshit reasons” and then it hits me
— Robert Martinez (@elrobbb) September 15, 2021
On Facebook, Nyssa Pierre wrote:
There are NO WORDS to describe how I wish Onika [Minaj's birth name] would just leave we good name out she mouth. Every single time Ms Starships mentions us is an embarrassment.
…while Dave V Surajdeen was among those who marked themselves safe from the incident:
A Facebook status update by Dave V Surajdeen, which reads, ‘Marked safe from Nicki Minaj's Trini cousin's friend's balls.’ Image shared widely on social media.
Kyle Griffin whittled the whole controversy down to one sentence, to which fellow Twitter user Cali responded:
Well go educate her nicely. Shes ASKING. Instead of jumping on the lets drag her bandwagon. This is the perfect stage to do it.
— Cali (@CALiSFYNEST) September 13, 2021
With Minaj still getting roasted by the blogosphere, the question of whether celebrity misinformation should be countered with education—rather than cancellation—is still being debated.

author: Janine Mendes-Franco


text:
The construction of Chinese patriotic masculinity: ‘sissies will ruin the nation’ · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

A screenshot of blogger Feng Xiaoyi's ‘eating a peach’ video. via Zhihu.
Many cultural-political scholars have suggested that nationalism involves active control over a population's biological traits such as health, reproduction, gender, sexuality and more. China's recent campaign against ‘niang pao’ (娘炮), a vulgar and derogatory term which is literally translated in English to a ‘girlie gun’ or more commonly as an ‘effeminate men’ or ‘sissies’, is a classic example of such biopolitical attempts to normalize patriotic manliness.
Some online nationalists have been spreading the discourse ‘Sissies will ruin the nation’ (娘炮誤國) on Chinese social media platforms since 2018, after accusing China Central Television of choosing sissy idols for its advertisements and programs.
The online campaign spread through slogans such as ‘If youths are feminine, the nation will be feminine! Sissies will ruin the nation!’ (少年娘，则国娘！娘炮误国！). Anti-effeminate campaigners labelled sissy idols as one of the four pests that should be eliminated to preserve the nation's strength.
They also argued that ‘sissy-style’ was not part of China's conventional culture but an import from Japanese (e.g. Bishōnen) and South Korean (Kkonminam) cultures, and claimed that all strong countries have embraced masculine cultures.
The nationalists had limited support in its early days, with many critiques publically rebuking their claims. Critiques noted that the Chinese literati tradition has a very strong feminine culture and that many powerful Western countries respect and embrace diverse gender expression and LGBTQ+ rights.
But the campaign eventually had full governmental support. In January 2021, the Ministry of Education revealed its plan to include ‘masculinity education’ in the country’s elementary education in wake of a ‘feminization’ crisis in China's boys. And more recently, China's regulators stepped in to suppress the entertainment industry.
Since August, a number of celebrities have been censored and punished for their ‘immoral acts’. Popular video blogger Feng Xiaoyi was one of the crackdown targets. Feng’s account on Duoyin, the Chinese version of Tiktok was removed after his video, ‘eating a peach’ went viral online, with some users lambasting him for his makeup and facial expression.
The incident triggered a debate and revived discourse about whether ‘sissies will ruin the nation’. Here is one example posted on the Chinese Quora-liked platform Zhihu arguing for increased censorship:
娘炮文化可以存在但是绝对不能成为主流，试想一下当我们的国家男生都想他这样细皮嫩肉天天都在吃个桃桃，我们的国家是否还有战斗力，是否还有民族精神…
Niang Pao culture can exist but can’t be mainstream. Just imagine if all the men in our country are acting like this, with such soft-skin eating a peach in such a manner, can our country have strength in a fight? Can we still retain our national spirit?
Chinese regulators expanded the restrictions on the entertainment industry on September 2 to include a ban on unmasculine portrayals. These restrictions include a ban on ‘sissy idols’ on both television and video streaming sites. The regulatory guideline stresses the need to uphold a moral and aesthetic standard in accordance with the country's official values. The ‘niang pao’ ban states:
坚定文化自信，大力弘扬中华优秀传统文化、革命文化、社会主义先进文化。树立节目正确审美导向，严格把握演员和嘉宾选用、表演风格、服饰妆容等，坚决杜绝“娘炮”等畸形审美。坚决抵制炒作炫富享乐、绯闻隐私、负面热点、低俗“网红”、无底线审丑等泛娱乐化倾向。
Hold firm on the principle of cultural confidence, promote the Chinese conventional culture, the revolutionary culture and progressive socialistic culture. Establish the correct aesthetics in programs and be careful in the selection of actors and guests, the presentation of performance and make-up style. Eliminate ‘Niang pao’ and other abnormal aesthetics. Suppress extravagance lifestyle, celebrities’ privacy scandal, negative hot issues, vulgar ‘online celebrities’, aesthetic absurdity and other forms of debased entertainmentization.
Following the ban, many netizens turned online to support the decision. One commentary published on 163.com blames capitalist consumerism for the popularity of ‘sissy culture':
社会经济发展，女性的消费力飙升，她们更愿意为自己欣赏的男性买单。于是，“娘炮”应运而生。他们阴柔帅气，会唱会跳，妆容精致，让人作呕，却很得“姐姐”们的喜欢…
Women’s consumption power has surged thanks to economic and social development. They are more willing to spend on products represented by the kind of male image that they like. This gives rise to ‘sissy idols’. They are handsome and feminine. They can dance and sing. Their make-up is so darling and disgusting. But they are appealing to the ‘big sisters’ …
One pretext for the clampdown of fandom culture is ‘irrational consumption’. Near the end of August, various online platforms banned fan accounts for K-pop star Park Jimin after his Chinese fans crowdfunded millions of yuan to buy Park birthday advertisements in international news outlets and a South Korean airline. Park has also been flagged as a ‘sissy idol’ in some commentaries as he is a spokesperson for a male make-up brand.
The anti-sissy campaign stresses that the right kind of idols should be those who act on behalf of national interest. A popular opinion leader Luo Ye, for example, wrote on Weibo:
无数的事实证明，一个国家可以没有娘炮、小鲜肉、明星，社会照样发展！但如果没有科学家、军人、科技人员，没有强大的军工国防做后盾，那将会面临落后挨打的境地！
Countless evidence has proven that a country can develop without sissy idols, pretty boys, celebrities. But if the country has no scientists, soldiers, technical experts and military strength, it will be bullied.
The discourse is also attached to conspiracy theories accusing the US of cultural colonialization. For example, ‘Bu-Dao-Kuan-Zhai’, a popular writer on Weibo, wrote:
娘炮文化影响了日本四代人，韩国三代人，美国人殖民的成功，是建立在东亚男人血性的磨灭上面。中国有这个风险吗？有。在一些公知眼里，吴京的战狼精神，成了精神病，大家想想为什么？公知们就希望中国永远不要有吴京这样的演员，全出吴亦凡这样的娘炮！[…] 我们要让阳刚之美成为主流价值观，让男子应有的血性、勇敢、担当、责任回到男人身上
Sissy culture has affected Japan for four generations and South Korea for three generations. The success of the US colonization is built upon the erosion of East Asian men’s masculinity. Does China face the same risk? Yes. Some public intellectuals have turned actor Wu Jing’s wolf warrior spirit into a mental illness. Why? because they want to eliminate Wu Jing kind of masculine image and replace it with a Kris Wu kind of sissy! […] The masculine culture has to be our mainstream value. Man has to be fearless, brave, responsible and dutiful.
In addition to ‘sissy culture’, video games and other modes of entertainment are also considered part of the US cultural imperial agenda. Starting in August, Chinese authorities banned young people under 18 years old from playing online video games on weekdays and restricted access to three hours on weekends.
However, many have continued speaking out against the anti-sissy campaign, claiming citizens should be free to do what they like as long as they don’t hurt or harm others. One pointed out on Weibo:
真正误国的不是所谓娘炮 而是键盘侠误国 是大男子主义的还觉得女人低人一等的普信男误国 每个人都有喜欢不同事物的权利 他们没有威胁伤害到别人就没错
Sissies will not ruin the nation, the keyboard warriors and the male chauvinists who find women inferior will ruin the country. If they have done no harm to others, they have the right to do whatever they like.
Another put forward a simple question:
娘炮誤國？所以那些有能力誤國的人 哪一個是娘炮？
Do sissies ruin the country? Tell me among those who have the power to ruin the country, which of them is a sissy?
Some question how the government is defining a sissy:
既然要说阳刚之气，麻烦定义什么是阳刚很多男生以为阳刚就是，抽烟、打架、怼老师、不写作业、说黄段子、欺负女生、以玩女生为谈资你不这样，你就是娘
If you want to promote masculine style, please begin with a definition. Many males believe that being masculine means smoking, picking fights, arguing with teachers, not handing in homework, making dirty jokes, bullying and cheating on girls. If you do not act like that, you are called a sissy.
Some ridiculed the masculine anxiety hidden in the anti-sissy campaign:
就是因为他们优秀才要封禁啊，一个个看多了明星偶像，谁还能跟他们恋爱结婚？眼瞎吗？
They are banned simply because they are far better. If these idols have become women’s ideal lovers, who would marry them? Unless they are blind.
Prior to the current anti-sissy campaign, the Chinese government suppressed feminist groups in April and LGBTQ groups in July 2021. These widespread campaigns against sexual and gender nonconformity, signal that the values of gender and sexual diversity may be at odds with the leadership's nationalistic vision.

author: Oiwan Lam


text:
Ahead of September elections, Russia tightens grip on remaining online freedoms · Global Voices
Tanya Lokot

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay. Simplified Pixabay License.
News of blocked websites, fines for social media companies or new internet controls make up the bulk of our reporting on Russia these days. And yet, ahead of this year's parliamentary elections, slated for the weekend of September 17-19, the state's crackdown on individual online freedoms, opposition forces and internet infrastructure has escalated to a fever pitch. We take stock of the state's recent censorship efforts in the run-up to the election.
Multiple opposition groups, non-profits offering legal aid or election monitoring, independent media outlets, and individuals have been labelled as “foreign agents” over the past few months. The designation imposes cumbersome obligations: the “agents” are required to regularly report to the state on their activities and funding sources and label every piece of content posted online with a reference to their status. Other media outlets and civil society organizations whose politics the Kremlin finds inconvenient have been labelled “extremist,” a designation that bars them from virtually any public activity or fundraising in Russia.
As part of the campaign waged by the state against “foreign agents” and “extremist organisations,” censors have also been blocking websites and social media accounts. As opposition groups, including opposition leader Alexey Navalny's projects, rushed to set up mirror websites to maintain an online presence, digital rights activists spotted a worrying new trend. Whereas the existing state blacklist shared with ISPs was publicly available, some of the new blocking has taken place outside of it, with no notification.
Experts say the state is now using newer blocking tools instituted as part of Russia's “sovereign internet” policy. Commonly known as a “technical means of countering threats,” these methods rely on deep-packet inspection technology and are centrally managed by Russia's internet regulatory agency Roskomnadzor, unlike the existing system, which is dependent on ISPs. Centralised control also makes state censorship less transparent, leading initiatives such as GlobalCheck to rely on crowdsourced intelligence to track the targets and the extent of the blocking.
Recent censorship efforts have specifically targeted independent voter information websites, such as Navalny's “Smart Voting” initiative and Mikhail Khodorkovsky’s website “duma.vote.” The websites for both were blocked by Roskomnadzor. In June, the regulator put pressure on Google to take down the “Smart Voting” website, hosted on Google's appspot.com domain, and ultimately managed to block the website, while “duma.vote” was blocked as recently as September 13.
“Smart Voting” also faced trouble earlier this year when a leaked database alleged to be of its users was made available for sale on one of Russia’s online black markets. Multiple users found their information in the database and some later received calls or visits from authorities.
Under pressure, “Smart Voting” directed users to its mobile app, which resulted in state censors requesting that Google and Apple remove the app from Google Play Store and App Store – something the companies have yet to do. Despite this, towards the end of August, users in Russia reported the “Smart Voting” app wasn't able to download updates, indicating blocking was at least partially successful.
The Russian state's relationship with social media companies has long been fraught, as the country adopted new legislation to control networked spaces, personal data and online expression. However, while some internet businesses have complied with data localization laws or takedown requests, most social media giants have chosen to either quietly ignore state demands or to provide the necessary minimum of information requested. Roskomnadzor, it seems, had also been mostly content with making occasional threats or issuing small fines to the likes of Facebook or Google.
The tenor of this relationship seems to have changed in recent months. In July 2021, President Vladimir Putin signed a new law that obliges foreign social media companies with over 500,000 daily views to open branch offices in Russia and register local legal entities. Non-compliant platforms face potential advertising restrictions, fines or blocking.
In August, a Moscow court issued Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp with significant new fines adding up to 36 million rubles, or over $485,000, for continued violations of Russia's data localization requirements.
On September 10, Russia's Foreign Affairs Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador, claiming they had “undeniable proof” of Western interference in the country's internal affairs and accusing Western and U.S.-based technology companies of violating Russia's election laws.
On September 14, Russian courts hit social media companies with more fines for neglecting to delete unspecified “unlawful” content. According to a France 24 news report, Facebook was fined 21 million rubles ($288,000), Telegram was fined 9 million rubles ($123,000), and Twitter was hit with a 5-million ruble ($68,000) fine. It remains unclear whether the companies will agree to pay the fines or contest them. Previously, Roskomnadzor had complained that social media platforms were refusing to take down content related to mass protests.
State censors also threatened Apple and Google with administrative sanctions and fines for failing to remove the “Smart Voting” app from their app marketplaces.
After a Dagestan-based Russian wool manufacturing company, in an act of patent trolling, registered the “Smart Voting” brand in Russia, it asked a Moscow court to prohibit Google and Yandex (Russia's top search engine) from displaying the phrase “umnoe golosovanie” (Russian for “smart vote”) in their search results. Though Yandex initially contested the ruling, days later it removed the “Smart Voting” website and mirror websites from its search results after these links were added to Russia’s state blacklist registry.
On September 15, GlobalCheck reported that some of Russia's largest telecommunications operators began blocking access to Google Docs, concluding that the blocking was likely related to the “Smart Voting” candidate endorsements for the elections published by Navalny's team on the platform earlier that day.
Russian censors also renewed efforts to target circumvention technologies and providers, whose tools have been widely used to get around state-imposed blocks.
On September 3, Russia banned six major virtual private network (VPN) providers including NordVPN and ExpressVPN as well as WireGuard, a popular VPN protocol. Previously, OperaVPN and VyprVPN had also been blocked. In a statement, Roskomnadzor said it only blocked those VPN providers which facilitated access to “unlawful” or banned websites. The censor also said it had polled Russian companies and agencies which rely on VPN protocols for everyday work to form a “whitelist” of VPN connections that could continue working in the country “to avoid disruption of software and applications which do not violate Russian legislation and use VPN for technical reasons.”
On September 8, Roskomnadzor sent official warnings to Apple, Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco, demanding that the companies stop supporting the “Smart Voting” mobile app and website through tools such as CDN- and DNS-services that allow users to bypass Russian state censorship. The regulator accused the companies of engaging in potentially illegal activity, aiding “extremist organisations” that could constitute “foreign interference” in Russia’s elections. None of the companies have responded to the demands as of September 15.
On the same day, Ivan Zhdanov, CEO of Team Navalny, reported evidence of Russian censors trialling the blocking of public DNS servers run by Google and Cloudflare on the networks of Russia’s major telecom operators. On September 13, Telegram channels covering RuNet news reported that Russia's key state-owned provider Rostelecom proposed blocking Google's and Cloudflare's public DNS-servers wholesale. Experts say the tests were likely an attempt to assess the potential fallout from mass blocking of circumvention tools in advance of the election weekend.
According to Cristo Grozev, an investigative journalist working with Bellingcat, the Russian authorities plan to roll out a state accreditation system for hosting providers over the next two years. Those accredited would be expected to share granular data on user activity with state security services, further undermining online anonymity. Hosting providers and websites which fail to receive accreditation could see their speeds reduced to a mere 24 kbps, Grozev says, potentially resulting in reduced quality of access to any parts of the global internet outside of Russia.
Vladislav Zdolnikov, an IT expert and creator of GlobalCheck, told independent website MediaZona that the new censorship efforts are likely to extend beyond the elections:
…политическое пространство в России было практически полностью зачищено, и «докручивание» цензуры в интернете было неизбежно.
Будет хуже, как мы все отлично понимаем.
…Russia's political space was almost completely cleansed, so “tightening” the internet censorship screws was virtually inevitable.
It's going to get worse, as we all very well know.


text:
What did Japanese people really think about the Olympics? · Global Voices
Kazuki Ichida

“Tokyo 2020 Olympics/Paralympic Games.” Image by Dennis Amith, from Flickr. License: CC BY-NC 2.0
After months of “resistance, rebellion, and rage” following a year-long postponement due to the pandemic, Japan finally held the 2020 Summer Olympics from July 23 to August 8 in Tokyo. To gauge public sentiment following the end of the Olympics, Global Voices used the Twitter API to track the online conversation.
The analysis built on Global Voices’ previous research into public sentiment in June 2021, a month before the start of the Games. We found that a majority of Japanese people — at least on Twitter — did not welcome the Tokyo Olympics, mostly because of surging cases of COVID-19 at the time.
To some extent, in the lead-up to the Games, a divide existed in Japan, between those who supported the Olympics, and those who opposed them. For example, the media regularly criticized various problems surrounding the Olympics, such as a perceived lack of measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection.
Opposition parties wondered why the government would not cancel the Games after announcing a pandemic state of emergency in Tokyo. Another negative news story focused on how funds originally intended to help rebuild the remote, rural Tohoku region following a massive earthquake, tidal wave, and nuclear disaster in 2011 had been diverted to the Olympics.
However once the Games began on July 23, the negative national tone in Japan seemed to shift. Instead, many in Japan appeared to turn into Olympic supporters — at least online.
As a commentator in online weekly Diamond Online pointed out:
むしろ、「アンチ五輪」を叩くムードが強まっている。五輪反対を掲げた人がメダリストにお祝いを述べると「ここまで反対していたくせに、メダルを喜ぶな！」と袋叩きにあう。
It's as if there's a rising mood to bash those who are “anti-Olympics.” For example, whenever anyone who had previously been opposed to the Olympics now congratulates a medalist, they get slammed: “You've been against the Olympics this all along! Why are you so happy about  medals now?
However, the buoyant public mood about the long-delayed Olympics appeared to be temporary. For example, following the end of the Tokyo Olympic Games on August 8, public support for the government that had pulled off an apparently successful event started to crater, according to August opinion polls. The government's steep decline in popularity seemed to be due to a worsening COVID-19 pandemic, and perceived government inaction to confront the crisis.
To better gauge the public mood in Japan following the Olympics, on August 10, two days after the Games ended, Global Voices used the Twitter API to collect 673,841 tweets that included the keywords  “五輪” or “オリンピック”, both common Japanese terms for the Olympics.
Of the nearly 674,000 tweets we analyzed, about 75 percent (516,000 tweets) were retweets. As we found in our earlier June 2021 research about Olympic sentiment, a relatively small number of accounts were driving the conversation.
On top of that, as with our June research, we also discovered that an even smaller number of accounts posting original tweets were responsible for almost the entire conversation online. Just 1,000 tweets, when retweeted, accounted for 50 percent of all tweets covering the Olympics:
Olympic-related tweets, July 23–August 10, 2021. Data visualization by Global Voices.
These 1,000 tweets could then be subcategorized into three major topics: COVID-19; “Bach” (the controversial International Olympic Commission chairperson infamous for ignoring COVID-19 restrictions and insensitivity to Japanese history); and, “TV Asahi” (a television broadcaster whose staff also ignored COVID-19 health measures):
In our study of nearly 674,000 tweets, about 50 percent could be categorized in three themes. Data visualization by Global Voices.
About 27 percent of retweets (92,000  tweets) were related to COVID-19. Most of these tweets expressed fears of rising infection rates in July and August.
In turn, just 343 accounts accounted for half of all retweets. These “top 10 accounts,” in terms of most-retweeted, included social media influencers, media personalities, and news organizations:
The second, third, and fifth most-retweeted accounts (above) are news sites that tweeted out links to news stories about how unfair the Olympics were for regular Japanese people, or the threat posed by rising COVID-19 cases in Japan in July and August, during the Games. Account #7, @yatuzo, is a brand account for a retailer.
One of the most highly engaging tweets about COVID-19 overall was retweeted 3,901 times in a day. The tweet pointed out that, while Olympic athletes had ready access to rapid testing, presumably as a way to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, the Japanese government has generally not provided testing to ordinary Japanese citizens.
今朝、TVで五輪で60万回以上検査して、感染者数を抑えることができたって言っていたんですけど、なぜ国民に定期的に一斉検査しないのかという流れにならないのはなぜでしょう？
みんな、政府がおかしいと思わないのかな？
— chocolat viennois ☕ (@la_neige_haruki) August 9, 2021
Regarding IOC President Bach's visit to Ginza, Olympic Minister Marukawa Tamayo said says, “[Bach] can decide for himself if if visiting Ginza is ‘necessary’ or not.” So you mean to tell me I can also judge the necessity of such trips for myself, too?
There were 42,000 retweets (about 12 percent of retweets) critical of broadcaster TV Asahi, whose staff held a drunken party that resulted in injuries, despite COVID-19 health measures. A tweet critical of TV Asahi was retweeted 8,620 times.
【テレ朝社員10人飲食会合、1人が骨折】テレビ朝日のスポーツ局の社員が、東京五輪閉会式が行われた8日夜に、都内の飲食店で10人の飲酒会合を開催し、酔った女性社員が1人が誤って2階から落ちて骨折し、緊急搬送。会合は五輪の打ち上げ名目だった。
もうテレ朝は不要不急の自粛を呼びかけるなよ。 pic.twitter.com/jZSPp3ZdXG
— Mi2 (@mi2_yes) August 10, 2021
On the evening of August 8, the night of the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics, ten employees from TV Asahi's sports desk held a party at a restaurant in Tokyo. One of the female employees, who was inebriated, accidentally fell from the second floor and broke her arm. The meeting was farewell party for Olympics.
Judging from tweets made during the Tokyo Games, people were afraid of the pandemic, and were frustrated by seeming double standards — one set of rules for Japanese people, and another for members of the International Olympic Committee, such as IOC President Thomas Bach.
The online reactions during and after the Olympics indicate that the pandemic is a political event. The next political event in Japan is the election in October, where the Japanese people evaluate the government, including its response to the Olympics and COVID-19 as a political event.

author: Kazuki Ichida