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Jamaica forced to dump 55,000 doses as COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy persists · Global Voices
Emma Lewis

A close-up of an AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine vial. Photo by John Twohig on Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
At midnight on September 30, the Jamaican government found itself having to do away with 55,000 expired doses of the Astra Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine that had been donated by the United Kingdom on July 30.
The wasting of the precious doses was a particularly bitter pill for Minister of Health and Wellness Christopher Tufton to swallow. He tweeted that there had been a last-minute rush on vaccination sites, with some centres remaining open for extended hours in order to use up as many doses as possible:
Sep. 30th, the last day before expiration of this batch of vaccines there was a rush on sites. Over 17k vaccinated on that day. A week before only 1.5K turned up. Not an issue of sites. The issue is us! #TimeCome pic.twitter.com/srptXJHxIE
— Dr. Chris Tufton (@christufton) October 2, 2021
Minister Tufton also responded sharply to a critical banner headline in the Jamaica Gleaner, instead laying the blame on vaccination-hesitant Jamaicans:
The health team delivered 245k of this batch of vaccines with 2months expir. date. Over 40 VAX sites each day, empty @ times- over 25k people pass their 8week due date – where are they?
At what point do we speak about personal responsibility? Or say get Vax or else…? #TimeCome pic.twitter.com/CO8MNNtGLt
— Dr. Chris Tufton (@christufton) October 2, 2021
Journalist Jovan Johnson shared the health ministry’s vaccination statistics on Twitter. Of a total population of 2.9 million, the government's target for vaccines is 1.9 million; the statistics do not include children under 12, who are not yet vaccinated:
@themohwgovjm:
*Data as at October 3, 2021 pic.twitter.com/gLUcn8aLlA
— Jovan Johnson (@jovanthony) October 6, 2021
Jamaica appears to be slowly emerging from a third wave of COVID-19, with infections gradually falling after a peak on September 6. A series of lockdown days and nightly curfews, which were finally scaled back on September 18, may have had an impact on the number of new cases.
Thus far, over 803,000 vaccines have been administered, with only 292,326 people being fully vaccinated, placing the island at the bottom of the region when it comes to the percentage of citizens who have completed their vaccination schedule, whether single- or double-dose (9.5 per cent). Also, thousands of people have not turned up for their second dose.
Vaccination levels have been increasingly falling short of targets, despite the urgings of state agencies and the private sector. The government aims for 65 per cent of its target population to be fully vaccinated by March 2022. As of October 6, it had reached just over 15 per cent of that goal.
A range of outreach efforts, including webinars, weekly press briefings, social media posts, a new tool to reach “shut-ins,” and the expansion of vaccination sites into communities via a mobile bus and private sector partnerships, have barely moved the needle in recent weeks.
Private-sector efforts, which began in late July, have also fallen short, with just over 20,000 employees being vaccinated over the course of eight weeks.
The Private Sector Vaccination Initiative held a vaccination drive at a major Kingston transportation hub, targeting public sector transport operators, but although the goal was to vaccinate 500 taxi and bus drivers in a day, the uptake was only 200.
Meanwhile, the National COVID-19 Operationalisation Task Force, established to ramp up the vaccination drive within seven months, has faded from the public spotlight.
One political commentator blamed vaccine hesitancy on the persistent misinformation and disinformation being shared on social media:
Blame the ignorance expanding power of Social Media
Before SM those who were uninformed knew they were uninformed
And hence on medical matters listened to informed authority. ie scientists
Now same uninformed listen to two fake news video clips & pronounce themselves experts
— kevin o'brien chang (@kevinobriencha1) October 1, 2021
The influence of evangelical pastors, some of whom have been actively discouraging their congregations from taking the vaccine which they call the “mark of the beast,” has also been cited as a major concern.
Moreover, there have been major logistical challenges. In deep rural communities, most residents do not have quick access to information, and the cost and feasibility of reaching the nearest vaccination site remain problematic. A television report from the eastern side of the island showed empty testing sites and found that rural folks were most likely to rely on home remedies in an attempt to combat the virus. However, one such advocate, the creator of the “Immuno-gizer,” died from COVID-19 recently.
To persuade the vaccine-hesitant, a well-known psychologist, who maintains that “a partially immunised population is a fertile breeding ground for more dangerous viral variants,” suggested:
I am proposing a mass media campaign to administer the ‘psychosocial vaccine’ along with a national webinar training for the ‘ground troops’ to ‘diagnose and treat’ friends and associates. pic.twitter.com/gT94u48J9J
— Leahcim Semaj (@LSemaj) October 4, 2021
The situation has raised the unresolved issue of mandatory vaccination. While a few major companies have announced that their employees must be vaccinated, or submit to regular tests at their personal expense, many employers are still trying to decide on their own policies. As a result, the major private sector organisations issued a statement on October 6, calling for mandatory vaccination in workplaces:
Jamaica is at a critical stage in the execution of the vaccination strategy. With over 500,000 doses currently available, the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) along with the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) and the Jamaica Manufacturers and Exporters Association (JMEA) believe that the time is now for private sector entities to establish policies that require employees to get vaccinated.
With less than 10% of the population fully vaccinated almost two years into the pandemic, Jamaica is being left behind with achieving population immunity and is putting our recovery at risk. The social and economic impact will be devastating, and the ripple effects will continue for years to come.
The Anglican Archbishop of the West Indies, The Most Rev. Howard Gregory, in an article titled “Leadership and the Pursuit of the Common Good,” concluded:
As a fellow citizen who has been fully vaccinated and has been subjected to repeated PCR and Antigen Tests for various reasons, I strongly urge all Jamaicans and those who identify as Christians, in particular, to kindly take the vaccines, as an expression of your duty to care for yourself and your responsibility to your brothers and sisters in Christ, even as I appeal to the government to take the appropriate step and put in place the avenues for mandatory vaccinations for the good of the nation.
Prime Minister Andrew Holness, however, has been taking a cautious approach.
Was Jamaica's public education campaign lacking? At the end of a gloomy thread about the depth of vaccine hesitancy, one member of the diaspora noted:
We messed up, when the collective we decided that we didn't need a public education campaign. We used politics to derail a perfectly good idea.
The time for sweet talking has long passed. Vaccine mandates now. And put out the timeline for when vaccines will no longer be free
— Junior (@ja_cynic) October 7, 2021
Another Twitter user did some hand-wringing over the situation:
Covid might as well buy a house in Jamaica and hol’ a meds. 9.9% vaccination rate….wah dat???? Kmt. Everywhere else in the world will move on and we'll stay lagging, wearing masks and under restrictions.
— Arhazivory (@Arhazivory) October 6, 2021
The issue also appears to have taken a political turn. The prime minister’s wife, Member of Parliament Juliet Holness, strongly criticised her own administration’s vaccination policy, observing at a recent parliamentary committee meeting:
When a policy direction is set it needs to be adhered to because it causes a lot of confusion afterwards.
Holness was especially harsh in her criticism of the Ministry of Health and Wellness for vaccinating adults with the Pfizer vaccine, which had been prioritised for children under 18. Pfizer has turned out to be a much more popular brand than AstraZeneca.
However that situation plays itself out, questions remain. Will more vaccines have to be discarded? What is the way forward?
While listening to a radio interview with a health official, one blogger asked:
Okay. So what lessons learnt from having to discard 50+K vaccine doses at end of Sept? Dr Ennis said more AstraZeneca doses expiring at end of Oct. How many will expire at end of Oct, @themohwgovjm? What is being done differently so none will have 2b discarded? #VaccinateJA
— Susan Goffe (@suezeecue) October 2, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic remains a test of political leadership for the current administration as it struggles with the complexities of the vaccine dilemma, with some commentators suggesting that the government needs to take the bull by the horns and be more decisive. As one radio talk show host put it, “Do what is right, not what is popular.”

author: Emma Lewis


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Why are Czech elites being captured by Beijing narratives?  · Global Voices
David Gardas

Illustration by Giovana Fleck. Used with permission
When it comes to Beijing’s ability to co-opt the leadership of countries involved in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Czech Republic provides an interesting case. The Sino-Czech elite capture story illustrates how corporate ambitions are closely intertwined with political relations in the uppermost echelons, and how a small country in the middle of Europe can become a battleground for the narrative about China.
Since its independence in 1993, the Czech Republic has experienced remarkable changes in its official relations with China. The first Czech president, Václav Havel, a dissident turned elected politician, regularly met with the Dalai Lama and openly criticized Beijing for its human rights violations. In stark contrast, current Czech president Miloš Zeman has called for a more pragmatic approach.
This approach has been formed within the narrative of a promising cooperation with China. In all probability, the rendering of this positive picture was also behind the decision of Chinese investments in the Czech media space (the first wave began in 2015, subsequently scaled up in 2020, but was withdrawn in 2021). Unsurprisingly, a 2018 Czech policy paper states that “the transfer of ownership of the media (or part of it) to a Chinese company effectively eliminates any criticism of China.”
China’s unique economic development has created specific types of companies that, while privately owned, can promote Beijing’s economic diplomacy and geopolitical interests. One of those companies is CEFC China Energy (中国华信能源), led by the business tycoon Ye Jianming (叶简明).
Before its foreign expansion, CEFC operated as a local industrial conglomerate focusing primarily on the energy and financial sectors, leveraging party and military connections as well as billions of dollars in loans from state banks to fuel its meteoric rise, according to an investigation by the Chinese media outlet Caixin.
The company hired a number of former military officers, and, between 2003 and 2005, Ye served as deputy secretary of the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC). US congressional researchers later called CAIFC a front for the People’s Liberation Army which performs “dual roles of intelligence collection and conducting People’s Republic of China propaganda.”
In the context of Beijing’s growing importance as an actor in the geopolitical field, CEFC represented an ideal tool for economic diplomacy and covert elite capture.
When President Xi Jinping became the first Chinese leader to visit the Czech Republic in March 2016, he brought along promises of massive Chinese investments — and Ye Jianming as well. In April 2015, Chinese media reported on Ye’s appointment as Zeman's economic advisor, yet the president's spokesperson only notified the public six months later, when CEFC officially began operations in the Czech Republic.
After Xi’s visit, President Zeman hoped the Czech Republic could become “an unsinkable aircraft carrier of Chinese investment expansion.” Zeman’s unwavering support was immediately recycled in pro-Beijing narratives, including in statements from the Chinese Embassy in Prague, which shared Zeman’s claim that “the BRI is the most important project in our modern history” on its Facebook page.
Paradoxically, Zeman's own narrative about cooperation with China has changed markedly across his long political career. In 1996, he is remembered as having shared racist comments about the Chinese publicly, saying that some politicians would even “have their eyes slanted” and “change their skin color” to appeal to Chinese.
CEFC then entered the stage with an acquisition spree, buying shares in a number of companies across diverse industries such as the Lobkowicz Beer Brewery, the Slavia Prague Football Club, and the travel and real estate industries. This process was overseen by another important figure in the ongoing Sino-Czech economic convergence, Jaroslav Tvrdík, the former minister of defense, a well-known lobbyist and at the time the president of CEFC Europe.
Beijing's effort to covertly infiltrate the uppermost echelons of the Czech state apparatus blipped on the radar of the Security Information Service (BIS), the Czech counter-intelligence agency. In its 2015 annual report, BIS reported that “special care” must be taken in contact with subjects which may act as a link between business activities and potential interests of foreign state power, “especially with the activities of their intelligence services (e.g. the Russian Federation or the PRC).”
The importance of this warning became more apparent on November 18, 2017, when Patrick Ho Chi-shi, director of the China Energy Fund Committee, an NGO affiliate of CEFC, was arrested in New York for money laundering and the corruption of high African politicians, namely the president of Chad and the foreign minister of Uganda, Sam Kutesa (who coincidentally also made Ye Jianming his special advisor in 2015).
Still, Zeman referred to Ye as his advisor long after Patrick Ho's corruption scandal broke out in the US and for a time even after Chinese authorities detained and investigated Ye personally in February 2019. The Czech assets of CEFC, which went bankrupt in 2020, were then acquired by a Chinese state bank called CITIC Group.
Captured entities are not limited to politics only; they also include economic elites. While opening the door to Chinese investments, Zeman simultaneously paved the way to China for one of the wealthiest Czechs, Petr Kellner. Before he tragically passed away in a helicopter accident this March, Kellner controlled a majority share in PPF Group, an international investment colossus focusing on financial services, telecommunications, biotechnology, real estate and other fields.
With the support of top-level Czech politicians, Home Credit China acquired a statewide license to provide non-bank credit in 2014. The same year, Zeman boarded PPF’s private plane on his return from a state visit to China. In April 2016, Jiří Šmejc, then CEO and minority shareholder of Home Credit, claimed that:
PPF and Home Credit, and we are proud of that, stood at the birth of the initiative which I think led to the revival of Czech-Chinese relations.
The revival indeed brought immense profit to Home Credit, and within a few years, the company became one of the largest providers of consumer loans in China.
The significance of Home Credit’s influence on Czech foreign policy was not left unnoticed. Sinopsis, an analytical project focusing on China backed by experts from Charles University’s sinology department, critically reported on the company. This, together with the CEFC’s damaging scandal, led the relevant parties to secure their own voice in the battleground for the China-related narrative.
In June 2019, Sinoskop (later renamed Asiaskop) emerged as another China-focused media project. Its official face since has been Vít Vojta, a sinologist, advisor, and interpreter of Czech presidents. Its mission, stated in its founding announcement, was to “join the current polarized debate on China in order to help balance it.”
Despite Sinoskop’s proclaimed noble goal and alleged “funding from own sources,” investigative journalists from the Czech media outlet Aktuálně.cz revealed that Sinoskop was actually related to and received funds from Home Credit. For this purpose, Home Credit employed a company called C&B Reputation Management in order to polish not just the company’s image, but also the overall perception of the PRC in the Czech Republic.
In October 2020, PPF Group acquired Central European Media Enterprises Ltd., which includes the most popular TV channel in the Czech Republic, TV Nova. Interestingly enough, CEFC has also shown interest in TV Nova before.
With Petr Kellner’s unexpected death this March and the end of Zeman's second term in 2023, it is unclear what direction Sino-Czech relationship might take. But one thing is clear. While Beijing and the Czech elites had high hopes to present an attractive image of China, after all their shenanigans, public opinion has gone the opposite direction. As an international survey published in late 2020 shows, 41 percent of respondents saw their views of China worsened in the last three years, making “the Czech Republic one of the most China-negative countries in Europe.”
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: David Gardas


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Indigenous reporters risk death telling stories of community liberation in Colombia · Global Voices
J. Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo

“Micrófono en mano”: A painting on the wall of the indigenous radio station in Corinto, Cauca. Photo by Willian Mavisoy Muchavisoy.
Peace has not yet reached Cauca in southwestern Colombia despite a peace agreement signed five years ago. This year, there were 12 massacres of locals there. Seventeen human rights defenders and 36 former guerrilla members were killed in this province, according to Colombian NGO Indepaz. Indigenous journalists are particularly vulnerable as they report from the field while communities work to free themselves and mother earth.
Cauca's location is an ideal corridor for dealers of cocaine and cannabis. It is the scene for violent disputes between ex-members of the guerrilla, such as FARC and the ELN, paramilitaries that conduct illegal activities, and national and international corporations that want to establish hydropower, mining, logging, extensive cattle, and sugar mill projects.
Indigenous communicators are most in danger. Yet, despite the risks, they continue to develop communication channels and inform locals about land dispossessions, violence, and Indigenous cultures. Nevertheless, Indigenous communicators, who mostly report in their free time and use local radio stations, are often not recognized as journalists, which brings about another set of discriminations.
Since the Spanish invasion in 1492, legal and illegal actors try to dispossess Indigenous lands as native people resist. In 2009, the Constitutional Court of Colombia said that Indigenous people are facing extermination, yet 12 years later, the murders continue.
Indigenous reporters, who for the most part are volunteers, face dangers by reporting on social struggles that seek to “free mother earth.”
Freeing mother earth means getting back Indigenous reserves, collective Indigenous property, and defending the land of their ancestors — in harmony with mother earth —, according to the Indigenous Regional Council of Cauca (CRIC), a social organization that groups several Indigenous peoples from Cauca. For communicators, then, informing from the heart of these liberation processes is critical since the land is tied to their roots.
John Miller, an Indigenous communicator from Renacer Kokonuco radio station, says that his work is important to inform the community with local news and bring national and international awareness, as well as increase knowledge about Indigenous foods and music.
Meanwhile, Eldemir Dagua, another Indigenous communicator from Cauca, told Global Voices: “There are lots of risks that we face, especially because our work denounces and mobilizes people to accompany mingas, community work, and assemblies.” In Colombia, mingas are the ways in which people collectively support social causes.
According to the communicators, businesses — doing legal or illegal activities — dislike their work since they expose what is happening in this province, such as deaths, displacements, and land dispossessions. Not many mainstream journalists visit these territories out of fear for their security, lack of budget, or disinterest.
Yamilk Sánchez, an Indigenous communicator from the Totoro First Nation, states that his job implies risks because they are committed to human rights. For this reason, sometimes they receive threats against the community as a whole. On September 22, Ilia Pilcué, a woman, Indigenous elder, and ancestral authority, was the latest killed in Jambalo, Cauca.
They report from territories not knowing what could happen each time they go out. Dangers are as high as their commitment to people and the truth. Even if they are killed, their relatives face other problems: their public recognition as communicators, not just community members, and to find justice for their murders.
A radio station in Corinto, Cauca, linked to CRIC's program of indigenous communication. Photo by Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo.
Hostility against Indigenous communicators is also expressed in the form of social discrimination. Fabiola León, from Reporters without Borders, told Global Voices: “The first risk lies in the concept of being a journalist. This country has a hard time understanding that communicators communicate and exercise their right to freedom of information. People don't know what it means to inform from the inland and communicators are not legitimized. This puts them at risk.”
She continues by saying that there are hierarchies among media workers. Indigenous reporters, by not having studied journalism and by being in rural communities informing on social struggles, are not always validated as journalists. So, “the Indigenous put up a fight in Cauca by having their own channels of communication,” León added.
Adriana Hurtado, a legal representative of the Colombian Federation of Journalists (Fecolper, for its acronym in Spanish) explains that criminal investigations sometimes don't consider Indigenous communicators as journalists — despite the fact that they are reporting from the field — but as members of communities trying to free Mother Earth. As a result, they are not considered as local reporters killed on the job.
Angela Caro, a lawyer of the Colombian organization Foundation for Press Freedom (FLIP, for its acronym in Spanish) says that “in the investigations put forth by the authorities they don't always relate the aggression to journalistic activity. This is not considered a hypothesis in the investigation. This is because of the lack of awareness of the dangers to the public order in provinces such as Cauca, where the work-related risks increase.”
Cauca does not offer safety but it does not stop Indigenous communicators from reporting. During their recent assembly, CRIC recognized the importance of Indigenous communication, or comunicación propia [a communication of one's own], as they say in Spanish. In a statement from August 2021, CRIC writes:
“The Indigenous communicator contributes to the defense of mother earth, the revitalization of knowledge and cultural practices, and political-organizational empowerment with clarity, awareness and determination. The communication process is in itself a training space that has always strengthened the different territorial dynamics of the indigenous movement.”
First nation reporters are essential to the historic struggle for ancestral land. Armed groups know who they are, and this exposes them to the highest risks. “They told us to stop informing; however, we will continue in resistance from CRIC with our Indigenous communication,” Yamilk Sánchez says.

author: J. Fernanda Sánchez Jaramillo


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‘Sindyanna of Galilee’: Extending the olive branch between Arabs and Israelis · Global Voices
Coco Cresswell

Sindyana of Galilee reinvests returns from its locally-produced products back into the community, through empowering Arab women. Image from its website.
In 1996 Hadas Lahav, a Jewish Israeli social activist, had a vision: a future of Arab-Israeli coexistence. That same year, through co-founding Sindyanna of Galilee, a female-led social enterprise producing olive oil and other local products, she began to put this dream into practice.
Situated in Israel's north, the company adopts a ground-up approach to enforce positive change in the Palestine-Israel conflict, the Middle East's most complex crisis dating back to before 1948. Revenue which  Sindyanna generates from selling local products, including it's award-winning extra virgin olive oil which is sold worldwide, is reinvested back into the community, whether in the form of jobs and education for Arab women, or development of sustainable agriculture, or the promotion of collaborative opportunities between Arabs and Israelis.
Coco Cresswell caught up with Hadas to learn more about her mission, and below are her written responses.
HL: We began as a small start-up selling local products (particularly olive oil) in Majd al Krum, an Arab village in upper Galilee. We've grown overtime both professionally and economically. In 2005, we moved to the industrial area of Kafr Kanna. As of today, Sindyanna of Galilee is the only certified Fair-Trade olive oil producer in Israel that operates among the country’s Arab population. This brings deep functional expertise and a practical approach, enabling us to build capabilities and deliver real impact.
HL: Sindyanna of Galilee actively promotes the concepts of ‘social business’ and fair trade in Israel. We achieve this by selling Arab producers’ olive oil and other premium products in the international marketplace according to fair trade principles, and then channeling our profits back into the provision of education for Arab women.
The work we do aims to bridge cultural divides, encourage sustainable agriculture, and support organic farming.
We believe that our multiple international awards prove the possibility of peace and solidarity in the Middle East. Our work as a cohort of Arab and Jewish women is the ultimate response to the recent violence, war, and destruction of Gaza that we have lately experienced. The women of Sindyanna are truly agents of change. Their effort is an example of how we can build back our society on fairer foundations.
HL: We believe that the message of Sindyanna will become stronger and receive more support from our local community as well as the global one. As the COVID-19 pandemic taught us, the thing our world needs more is solidarity, which is the DNA and the RNA of our organization. In the future, we shall thrive to expand our activity to more sustainable agriculture and green environmental projects such as the hydroponic one. There are so many opportunities to grow and become more influential, but at the end of the day, it depends on you and me!
HL: Sindyanna stands out from other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Israel because it has managed to combine an economic model with a unique social and political message.
Our Jewish Arab composition is a sign of our vision, which is to work toward an egalitarian and just society where the interests of all citizens are being cared for. This is also embedded in our fair trade identity:  we work to level the disadvantaged Arab economy in Israel with its Jewish counterpart. We are against taking the relation of these two economies as a Zero-Sum Game, meaning that if one wins the other loses: that works against everyone. It nourishes feelings of bitterness that eventually translate into violence.
CC: How many jobs have Sindyanna help create since 1996? Tell us more about the educational services you provide?
HL: Arab women's employment is a chief strategic objective of Sindyanna of Galilee. Employment is the best long-range tool against personal and communal poverty. Sindyanna took it upon themselves to approach housewives and to introduce them to skills that they can easily receive employment in, such as hydroponic agriculture, catering, and basketry weaving. Three hundred women have been professionally trained by Sindyanna and are now independent. Some of them have even started courses for other women and children in clubs and schools. Nine hundred others, having made the first step of leaving the house to participate in the course, have gained the courage to continue their education and seek jobs.
CC: What have been the greatest challenges that Sindyanna has faced?
HL: The greatest challenge that we face as a non-profit is continuing our goal to become good olive oil producers. Olive oil production is not a simple process. Equally, the women we employ come from a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds, and often have little to no professional experience in olive oil manufacturing. When we started Sindyanna, we decided that we would help all Arab and Israeli women, regardless of the extent of their education. Therefore, empowering them and teaching them how to make good quality products is a huge challenge for us – it takes a lot of awareness and investment to get to where we are today!
CC: Are there any plans for expansion in the products you provide?
HL: We always want to expand and develop our products. We look for local products that are produced locally in the Arab communities but will be attractive to the foreign market. Right now, we are looking to sell carob syrup, honey, halva, table olives, and tahini. A huge determinant in what we make is import costs. Due to globalization, Israeli and Palestinian farmers producing key ingredients, such as the sesame seeds needed for tahini, have been outcompeted by international firms. Therefore, although we produce plenty of products locally, cost still remains an important factor.
CC: How many farmers do you buy olives from? How has this number changed since 1996? What does that say about farmers’ notion of co-existence between Arabs and Israelis?
HL: In 1996, we started with a small group of farmers in Deir Hanna, northern Israel. Now, we purchase olives from 15 large groups of farmers who represent approximately 100 small families. The growing involvement in local communities suggests that more and more people want a future where everyone’s rights are respected. We cannot wait for politicians to find a magical solution. It doesn’t make sense that a Palestinian and an Israeli can live side by side and only one is given an identity card and freedom of movement. The Arab and Israeli women that we help at Sindyanna are only going to continue fighting for coexistence from the ground up.
CC: Has there been any negative reaction or response to the work you do? If so, can you tell us one of these responses and how you reacted to it?
HL: So far, Sindyanna has been appreciated by everyone for what we are trying to do. We have found that some Arab women’s families are resistant to the fact that their daughters and wives are working and considered as employees. However, I think a crucial aspect of the support we receive is because we take a very careful approach to the situation: we spend time carefully explaining what our dream is, meaning that even if certain people do not agree, they admire our work regardless.

author: Coco Cresswell


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Ukraine’s trans-border transplant quandary · Global Voices
Transitions Online

A transplant operation underway at the Lviv Transplant Center. Screenshot from a video on UATV English Facebook page.
This article by Hanna Belovolchenko of Zaborona appeared on Transitions Online on September 23, 2021 and was produced with the support of the Russian Language News Exchange. It is republished as part of a content-sharing partnership and has been abridged and edited to fit the GV style.
Since becoming independent, Ukraine has been unable to create its own system for organ transplants. For decades, those in need have been forced to go abroad for life-saving organs. Since the mid-2010s, Belarus has become a sort of organ transplant hub. As a result of the current political situation in Belarus, however, bilateral relations with Ukraine have seriously deteriorated, and diplomatic relations are tense. What do people do now when they need a transplant?
In March 2017, the lives of Olha Kredenets and Vasiliy Vyspyanskiy changed dramatically. Vasiliy, 42, had no vices, was athletic, and had a steady job in the transport industry – but suddenly found himself on dialysis, regularly undergoing a procedure to clean his blood after he was diagnosed with glomerulonephritis, a disease that causes the kidneys to shrink and stop working.
“It’s probably the consequence of a sore throat that he experienced and worked through in 2007,” Olha says. “The disease is very insidious and develops slowly, and we, who rarely in our lives went to the doctor, didn’t even suspect that something like this could happen.”
Over the years, Vasiliy’s health worsened. Olha recalls tearfully:
For a long time, the hospital couldn’t figure out what the problem was. And when they diagnosed him, they said that we needed to find a donor. Without explanation [about how]. And we had no idea how to do that. Are you supposed to go out with a banner in Lviv, or what?
The couple lived in agony for the next six months. They traveled to Krakow in Poland for a second opinion in hopes that the diagnosis wouldn’t be confirmed. But alas, it was. At Lviv medical university, Olha recalls, explanations or practical advice from doctors were hard to come by. They only learned about a national health program to treat Ukrainians abroad from a fellow patient. The state budget will pay for operations in another country, once the patient assembles a thick file of documents. But where to go?
“I had to choose among a lot of options: Poland, Austria, India, Belarus, Turkey,” Olha explains. “In Poland they said we would never get to the head of their line, so they’d give us an organ only as a fifth choice. First their own citizens, then EU citizens, then those who have residency there, [or] a Polish Card [for non-citizens belonging to “the Polish Nation.”] Foreigners get it last, and it’s not guaranteed that the donor and recipient data will match.”
Considering the cost of treatment abroad, the only option remaining was Belarus. Olha chose a hospital in Brest, the city closest to Lviv. She spoke to doctors there herself. The clinic submitted a ready-made package of documents to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. They confirmed that her husband could undergo the procedure, and set out some typical requirements: full prepayment in the amount of around 55,000 euros ($64,500). The funds were transferred in just a couple of days.
“We didn’t have any problems crossing the border. After the elections [in 2020], Belarus began to check very thoroughly, but never forbade transit. We had a great relationship with the hospital. You didn’t have to search out doctors, like here, everything was clean and sterile – there was a feeling that you were in Austria somewhere,” Olha says.
Vasiliy joined the waiting list for kidney transplants in 2018. Every three months, he had to cross the border for his blood serum to be collected. These procedures, costing around 250 euros each time, were paid for out of pocket. But there was no way around it. The serum data provides a basis to say whether the donor matches or not. The serum itself is kept frozen. If a single serum collection appointment is skipped, the patient is removed from the transplant list.
“When we went to Belarus in May of this year, the border guards asked us more questions, demanded that we show them our marriage certificate – which we didn’t have on us. But we were let through in the end. I asked if I needed to bring along the certificate next time. I was told there may not be a next time – without any sort of explanation,” Olha says.
Going abroad for transplants is a common story in Ukraine. If you need bone marrow, transplant lists in Turkey, Israel, Spain, and Germany are open. Need a heart, a liver, kidneys, or lungs? Then you have a straight road to Belarus or India. The cost of an organ transplant isn’t cheap. For example, for a kidney in Belarus today, you’ll have to pay over 62,000 euros, and for a heart, nearly 94,000 euros. In 1992, the Ukrainian government created a program to provide ordinary citizens with assistance in traveling abroad for transplant surgery.
According to data collected by the Center for Social and Economic Research Ukraine (CASE), from 2010 to 2014, the state paid for the treatment of between 14 and 40 people a year. In 2015, 84 patients were treated, while in 2021 the government has earmarked expenditures for the treatment of 450 people, with the average cost of a treatment set at about 75,000 euros. But this isn’t enough.
There are no official counts of how many Ukrainians need transplants, explains Yuriy Andreev, the chairman of the National Movement for Transplants NGO. Based on estimates by doctors around the country, the figure is likely to be around 5,000 operations a year.
India stopped providing transplants to Ukrainians in 2018 after a change of government. According to Andreev, when nationalists came to power there, Indians were given priority for transplants.
“When India stopped conducting these operations, there were 19 Ukrainians on their waiting lists. Eight of them were waiting in India itself. Over three years, six zinc coffins have returned to Ukraine instead of living people. They simply didn’t get their organs in time. Ukraine didn’t get its money back either,” Andreev says.
As a result, for Ukrainians who hope for help from the state to pay for transplants, neighboring Belarus is virtually the only option. Organs can’t wait for a patient forever. For example, a heart needs to be transplanted within four hours – otherwise, it will simply be nonviable. That’s why when recipient and donor data match, automated systems give the organ to whichever recipient is closest. It’s realistic for Ukrainians to reach Belarus by car or by plane in this time frame.
As of June, 342 Ukrainians were on Belarusian waiting lists. Ukraine has paid the medical expenses of 18 of those patients. However, Ukrainian authorities halted air travel between the two countries on 26 May, after Belarus forced a Ryanair plane to land in Minsk, where police arrested opposition journalist Raman Pratasevich. Ukraine was following the EU’s lead, in order to “ensure the safety of flights” and to put pressure on the Lukashenka regime. However, the decision has had its consequences: those who have already left for organ transplants are stuck in Belarus.
Patients are often in critical condition after a transplant, and their lives can be threatened by even the smallest infections. That’s why travel by land-based transport is risky. In order to get home after a liver transplant, Kharkiv resident Anna Kurylova had to turn to specialists in transporting critically ill people because she couldn’t handle the 20-hour bus ride home. She had to look for help from the Kharkiv regional government and local council members.
Ukrainians on the waiting lists still have to travel to Belarus every three months for tests. But it’s an open question whether these people will be allowed across the border, Andreev says.
The Ukrainian government needs to talk to the Belarusian authorities and receive guarantees that people on the waiting list can definitely have their operations, so as to avoid what happened in India. If there are no such guarantees, then it will become necessary to raise the question of bringing the people and the money back to Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Health insists that the money will be returned if the operation isn’t performed or if the person receives an organ in a different country. But Andreev thinks Ukraine should focus on building its own organ transplant system.
Olha and Vasiliy had their hopes pinned on Belarus for a long time. But that situation changed two years ago.
On December 25 2019, a difficult conversation took place in a small regional hospital in the Volyn region, in the town of Kovel. Not long before, a man with a severe, traumatic brain injury was brought in. It wasn’t possible to save him; medical personnel declared him brain dead. Now, the mercy of relatives and the carefully chosen words of doctors would decide whether the deceased man’s organs would be able to save the lives of others.
In Ukraine, when it comes to organ donors, by default, a person is assumed to have not consented to be an organ donor. Only relatives have the right to change that situation. And on Christmas Day in Kovel, they did that. Only four hours after the documents had been signed, the donor’s body lay on an operating table, and three patients received his organs: two received kidneys, one a heart. It was the first heart transplant conducted in Ukraine in 15 years.
This sensational, multiple organ transplant was only possible thanks to the dedication of local doctors. Throughout Ukraine’s history as an independent nation, organ transplants have been something of a fantasy, even though there is no law forbidding them.
“The problem lay in the fact that in the law [adopted in 1999] there was no procedure for transplants,” explains Maksym Ovechko, head of the Transplant Center at Lviv Clinical Emergency Care Hospital. “As a result, any mistake in the patient’s medical history could be interpreted as a violation of this law. This meant doctors faced criminal responsibility, which is why they were scared to do this.”
Yet this team of Kovel medical professionals “were seized with the idea to do something global in a regional hospital.” They wanted to do it – and did, Ovechko says.
In the following five months of 2019, the team carried out nine kidney transplants and two heart transplants. And it got easier still, when in December 2019 President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed into law amendments clarifying the rules for organ transplants.
Most of the medical professionals from that Kovel team now work in Lviv. The city’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, invited them to open a transplant center on the grounds of the emergency hospital. Vasiliy was first on the waiting list the moment Ukraine started performing organ transplants. After a year and a half, he got his new kidney.
“I was amazed at the level of the doctors, their communication skills, their manner,” Olha says, recalling the call they got on the evening of May 31, 2021. “And within an hour we were in an ambulance, and my husband had his operation at one in the morning. The team answered all our questions, they were always smiling – we couldn’t even believe we were in a Ukrainian clinic.”
Today, Vasiliy is undergoing rehabilitation and is on medications so that his body does not reject the donated organ. But thanks to Ukrainian doctors, he’ll live.
The law adopted in 2019 prescribes the procedure for organ transplants. First, doctors have to establish that brain death has occurred with the help of specialized equipment. Then they check the Unified State Information System for Organ and Tissue Transplantation to see if the person had agreed to be an organ donor. If they did, then the transplantation procedure can be carried out. If not, the doctor can ask for consent from the deceased’s relatives, though the doctor isn’t obliged to. These two factors – are seen as potential obstacles to the development of Ukraine’s organ transplant system.
“Eighty percent of hospitals simply do not have access to the equipment that can help confirm brain death. They would need to buy it using local budgets,” Andreev explains, noting that this is often out of reach. The necessary equipment costs anywhere from $7,500 to $11,000.
As for getting a relative’s consent for the transplant, the law states that consent has to be agreed through a transplant coordinator – a medical specialist who not only has to talk to the relatives of the potential donor, but oversee the whole process as well.
“These specialists don’t exist in 90% of hospitals. And in those that do have them, the transplant coordinator often cannot explain all the nuances of the case,” Ovechko says. “But people are suffering from a grave loss in those minutes. Many just refuse, [while] some react aggressively and almost accuse us of selling organs. Our society is not quite ready for organ donation.”
This all adds up to a colossal deficit in organs from posthumous donors, Ovechko continues. The current demand for kidneys is 1,500 a year, but in the first six months of 2021, Ukraine conducted only 120 kidney transplants. There was a need for 500 livers, but only 20 were transplanted. At least 400 hearts were needed, but only a few dozen transplants have been done.
Ukraine could be transplant-independent in five years, Ovechko believes, based on the increasing rate at which hospitals are performing transplants, the growth of specialists in this field, and technological progress.
Thirty hospitals in Ukraine have now been licensed to transplant organs, but in reality, only a dozen actually perform the procedures. By comparison, 30 clinics in Germany specialize just in kidney transplants.
The European Union is working on a system of unified transplant lists, and some European countries already cooperate on exchanging donor information. Andreev believes that Ukraine could sign a similar agreement with its neighbors. However, there are still barriers to overcome. Under these conditions, Ukraine has little choice other than to develop its own organ transplant system. And this can be done if there are trained doctors, a system of organ donation, good financing, and political will.

author: Transitions Online


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Dark tales from Uruguay: How mothers and grandmothers search for victims of the Cold War · Global Voices
Anna-Cat Brigida

Screenshot of Mariana Zaffaroni and her grandmother Ester Gatti de Islas, on Youtube/Canal 5 Uruguay.
A new book by Uruguayan author Tessa Bridal traces the stories of the women who search for their missing loved ones during a painful time in the country's history: its military dictatorship from 1973 to 1985.
When Tessa Bridal moved to the US in the late 1960s for family reasons, she could feel that Uruguay was entering a turbulent moment. Even people like Bridal, who were not involved in politics or activism, could sense the political shift. But Bridal, who was 20 when she left Uruguay, could not have predicted the cruelty of the incoming dictatorship, which imprisoned, tortured, and disappeared its own citizens.
“When I returned to visit, I could sense that everything was getting worse and worse. People were more and more fearful,” Bridal told Global Voices in a phone interview. “There were more people being arrested arbitrarily.”
The Dark Side of Memory tells the story of Uruguayan mothers and grandmothers’ relentless pursuit for the truth about their disappeared family members. Photo courtesy of Tessa Bridal.
Years later, she returned to that period through her latest book, The Dark Side of Memory: Uruguay's Disappeared Children and the Families that Never Stopped Searching, a story that follows multiple families searching for disappeared relatives and trying to make sense of the country's sinister past. Women, in particular, have relentlessly sought to reunify their families.
As leftist movements began to grow in Latin America in the 1960s, so did the repression against them. In Uruguay, a guerrilla movement known as the Tupamaros emerged and a military junta eventually took control of the country to suppress the guerillas.
In neighboring Argentina and Brazil, and other parts of the region, similar movements had sprung up, only to be quashed by military governments in a period now referred to as Latin America's Dirty Wars. The United States helped these governments to plan and trained them to torture and disappear leftists in what is now known as Operation Condor.
About 220 Uruguayans were disappeared during that time, according to a 2003 truth commission. Most went missing in neighboring Argentina, where total disappearances are estimated at 30,000. About 30 were reported disappeared in Uruguay.
In sheer numbers, Uruguay experienced fewer disappearances than other Latin American countries. Nevertheless, the repression had a chilling effect in the small country, which had a population of 2.8 million at the start of the military dictatorship. “In Uruguay, we have a saying: ‘We're few and we know each other,'” said Bridal.
Two of the disappeared were Emilia Islas Gatti de Zaffaroni and her husband Jorge Zaffaroni Castilla, prominent activists who believed that the Tupamaros could rid Uruguayans of poverty and suffering. They fled to Buenos Aires when their political activity made them targets in Uruguay. They were kidnapped in Argentina in 1976 by a coalition of Argentinian and Uruguayan forces and taken to a torture center in Buenos Aires. Their 18-month-old daughter, Mariana, was taken with them. Emilia was three months pregnant at the time with their second child.
María Emilia Islas Gatti went missing in 1976. Source: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
After Emilia disappeared, her mother Ester Gatti de Islas became part of a group fighting for truth and justice for their disappeared family members, known as the Mothers and Families of Detained Disappeared Uruguayans. Ester needed to know what had become of her daughter and granddaughter, and Bridal chronicles this unrelenting search in her book.
Many missing children were adopted by military families, in some cases the very people who were involved in their parents’ disappearances. A truth commission compiled 40 cases of Uruguayan children who went missing during the Dirty War. In neighboring Argentina, an estimated 500 children were taken from their parents when the military abducted them.
By the time Bridal contacted Ester, she was worn down from decades of searching. “Ester was a warrior for a very long time,” said Bridal. Her years of activism paid off. In 1993, a DNA test identified her granddaughter Mariana, who had been raised by a military family who may have been involved in her parents’ disappearance.
The case has become emblematic in Uruguay of the impact of Cold War terror on families, and how perseverance can eventually uncover the truth and reunite relatives. But these reunifications can raise conflicting emotions, and Bridal explores the nuances of these experiences in her book.
#MayoMesdelaMemoria
Deberíamos recordarle a los jóvenes y no tanto, q hay cosas q no se deben olvidar nunca. Xque después corremos el riesgo de tener fascistas en el gobierno defendiendo a genocidas.
Ella es Mariana Zaffaroni Islas, secuestrada en 1976. Restituida en 1993. pic.twitter.com/2ySN2HSERs
— Rosana Rodríguez (@roxyrm2014) May 12, 2021
#MayMemoryMonth
We should remind the youth and not so young, that there are things that should never be forgotten. Because afterwards we run the risk of having fascists in the government defending genocides.
She is Mariana Zaffaroni Islas, kidnapped in 1976. Restituted in 1993.
Ester's struggle represents that of so many Latin American women, which is part of the reason Bridal was determined to tell it. Women are expected to handle all family matters.  When their families are threatened, it is the women who spring into action.
Author Tessa Bridal fought for two decades for this story to be published. Photo courtesy of Tessa Bridal.
“The reason that I was very drawn to them was, first of all, because they were women and they were so determined and so courageous,” Bridal said. “Very often pursuing the trail of what had happened to their adult children who had disappeared was not always the safest thing to do.”
After the military dictatorship ended and Uruguay transitioned into a democracy, few military officers who had carried out human rights abuse were brought to justice. To this day, most perpetrators of these human rights abuses walk free, and speaking out against these abuses and seeking the truth continues to be dangerous. In 2016, the lab of the Investigation Group of Forensic Archeology in Uruguay, which investigates disappearances, was broken into. The Mothers and Families of Detained Disappeared Uruguayans say that their opponents have launched “attacks on the morale of our members” and campaigns to discredit them.
US officials who developed and participated in Operation Condor didn't find justice either. When Bridal started the research, around the time of September 11, 2001, just mentioning the US government's role in Latin America's human rights abuses was taboo, as patriotism surged after the attacks on the Twin Towers and as the US launched the War on Terror. Editors told her it was not the time to publish a book critical of the US government. It was almost as if they considered it a “betrayal” of the US, said Bridal, who lives in Minnesota.
Even though her publication plans were put on hold for two decades, Bridal never neglected the stories. “I could never forget that book because I had been trusted with stories that were so meaningful,” she said. In Uruguay, the stories of Ester and her granddaughter, and so many others, have helped shed a light on the abuses of the past, and ensure they are not forgotten.
Like the female protagonists of her book, Bridal forged on. The Dark Side of Memory will be published on October 26, 2021. Despite its grim subject matter, Bridal hopes it leaves readers with a sense of optimism and inspiration.
“Their courage is remarkable, and the persistence, how many years they just kept on and on and on,” Bridal said. “They are, to me, such role models of courage.”

author: Anna-Cat Brigida


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China’s reputation challenged by perceptions of low-quality projects and products in Ethiopia · Global Voices
Maria Repnikova

“Sunset on the rising city: Addis Ababa” by jeanotr is licensed under CC BY 2.0 edited by Giovana Fleck/Global Voices
Mahlet Fantahun contributed to this article.
One of the most striking elements of the discourse about China in Ethiopia is how official governmental narratives highlight the impressive scale of Chinese projects, whether major infrastructure construction of roads and railways or the import of essential goods like vaccines, phones, and clothing, while popular narratives often underline the low quality of these projects and products.
The Ethiopian government often says China’s economic involvement in Ethiopia facilitates the country's development. Indeed as of 2019, China remained the largest source of foreign investment in Ethiopia. The Chinese government also accounts for almost half of Ethiopia’s external debt, estimated at about 13.7 billion US dollars. Much of this debt is concentrated in major infrastructure projects which are also symbols of Ethiopia’s development, such as the Addis-Djibouti railway. China-Ethiopia trade has also dramatically increased over the past two decades, with Chinese exports to Ethiopia estimated at US dollars 2.37 billion in 2019.
In contrast to the official praise, the Ethiopian public is often critical about the quality of these projects, as well as Chinese products sold in Ethiopia.
A popular commentary written by a commentator under the pseudonym of Lalibela, for instance, discusses a Chinese road infrastructure project connecting Gashena to the historic city of Lalibela in Amhara region, known for its underground churches. The project started eight years ago, but has yet to be completed. During that period, the road has already required multiple repairs, suggesting substandard construction. The author of the post suggests that officials and the community should not remain silent when the quality of the road construction keeps deteriorating. The author includes photos showing a collapsed bridge that was part of the road project.
Signature Chinese infrastructure projects, such as the Light Rail, an overground metro system launched in Addis Ababa in 2015, have also attracted significant scrutiny. BBN media, an online media outlet, argues that the construction of the Light Rail was rushed for the 2015 national election, and that the quality of services has been deteriorating over the years. in the story, passengers complain about the trains being increasingly out of service, as well as about common service interference from car crashes and power outages. Although the actual services are provided by Ethiopians, the public association of this project is linked to China and Chinese loans.
In a feature story about the Light Rail published by BBC Amharic and widely discussed online, passengers complain about delays up to 45 minutes and abrupt stops on their journeys due to breakdowns. The story highlights the maintenance challenges of Light Rail trains. According to an Ethiopian train driver, only half of the original trains are currently operational due to missing spare parts that are difficult to source from China. In the story, the communication director for the Ethiopian Railways Corporation claims that 20–28 trains are ready for service every day but that not all trains can function at full capacity. He also acknowledges that the provision of spare parts was not part of the original contract signed with the Chinese counterparts.
The famous Addis-Djibouti Railway that links landlocked Ethiopia to Djibouti has also faced some media and public scrutiny. A report by the Fana Broadcasting Corporation, a government-affiliated television station, for instance, features an interview with Awel Wegris, the deputy transport minister of Ethiopia, who said that in the last three years, the train had stopped working 163 times. He also added that 27 people and 875 animals were injured as a result of the train operations. The report also notes that the railway project has lost over 114 million birr in maintenance and compensation costs.
In addition to infrastructure quality, many popular discussions dissect the quality of Chinese products in a satirical tone. For instance, in a recent Twitter post complaining about Chinese shoe quality, Yordanos Odalo writes that when the sun hits the shoes, they stretch from size 37 to size 40  Another writer claims that Chinese shoes have a lifespan of one month and then poses a question: “Do the Chinese use saliva as shoe glue?” While this post was later removed, a gif has been made out of it:
Another commentary written by Fraol Habesha ironically praises Chinese phones; he shares an image of a phone displaying a battery level of 102 percent. While the high battery level is a positive attribute, the unrealistic display hints at faulty representation by the Chinese phone manufacturing company.
Some remarks, such as by Feker Meri, also connect the assumptions about Chinese product quality with the coronavirus pandemic. If Chinese goods are easy to break, the author writes, then “why has coronavirus lasted this long?”
The concerns with Chinese infrastructure and product quality are not unique to Ethiopia.
Public opinion surveys of Africans’ perceptions of China suggest that across the continent citizens associate Chinese products with low quality. These surveys suggest that the quality of Chinese products is the key underlying factor that tarnishes China’s reputation in Africa. Many Africans assume that the higher quality goods are exported to developed markets, whereas Africa serves as the “dumping ground” for cheaper Chinese goods and lower quality infrastructure. The Chinese government has consistently denied the accusations that they provide inferior services and products to Africa, emphasizing the role of pricing in determining the quality of the goods. The analysis of Ethiopia’s social media discussions, however, suggest that African citizens are not convinced. From major projects to individual items, Chinese offerings are not met with gratitude but rather with critique, skepticism and humor.
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: Maria Repnikova


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How Namadingo is uniting generations of Malawian musicians through Reggae duet mashups · Global Voices
Njeri Wangari

A screenshot of Namadingo's mashup YouTube video featuring Lucius Banda
What happens when musicians from three different generations unite for a musical mashup? Something truly magical is born.
That is what happened in 2020 when Malawian Musician Patience Namadingo went around the country reaching out to its top artists for his Reggae Mashup series. Namadingo is a singer, songwriter, and one of Malawi's top musicians and has a considerable following among the country's youth.
Music is generational. It speaks to, about, and for its time — the present moment. More often than not, older generations of musicians and listeners look down upon new generations and their music with a certain level of disdain. Every generation of music listeners sees their music as richer, more diverse, and filled with greater depth than the new guard. This is why Namadingo's project — collaborating with musicians across generations and genres — was so unique and fascinating.
Namadingo began recording a series of Reggae duet mashups featuring  Jay Jay Cee Mw, Lucius Banda, Billy Kaunda, the Black Missionaries, Miracle Chinga, Steve Spesho, Giddes Chalamanda, and the late Grace Chinga, posting them on YouTube starting in January 2020.
A mashup is a blend of two or more different tracks into one, usually by overlaying the vocal track of one song over the instrumental track of another. Reggae has become synonymous with mashups.
The first in Namadingo's series of Reggae mashup duets featured a young emerging artist called Jay Jay. In the song, they are in a sitting room in a makeshift studio, where they sing selected tracks from some of Namadingo's albums. Although the first video did not receive many views, subsequent efforts, such as a mashup with the Black Missionaries and Lucius Banda, have received over  1.3 million viewers so far.
The YouTube videos have been garnering increasing views, positive reactions, a sense of patriotism among Malawians. They have also gone well beyond Malawi to reach fans across Africa and beyond, with many leaving comments that range from praise for the music to patriotic expressions, Pan-Africanism, and a deep appreciation for Malawian musicians.
The duets have also introduced younger fans to an older generation of musicians, including Giddes Chalamanda, the oldest living legend in Malawian music today. Chalamanda, who recently turned 91 years old, is an acoustic musician whose hits in the 1970s and the 1980s include the song “Buffalo Soldier” — where he sings of his dream of going to America. The American Library of Congress has archived Chalamanda's music as a key representation of Malawi culture.
Recorded in Chalamanda's village south of Malawi, the duet with Namadingo was the young musician's way of reengaging the legend and re-introducing his music to today's youthful listeners whom, Namadingo believed might miss out on this talented artists.
Their 8-minute video was a huge success prompting news coverage, renewed demand for Chalamanda's old music catalog, and a flurry of new covers online. Uploaded in June 2021, the compilation of Chilamanda's greatest hits by Malawi News Updates has elicited a thrill among his newfound fans.
A screenshot of YouTube comments on Chalamanda's music compilation video
Soon after the compilation release, the legend announced his retirement from music. But this hasn't stopped organizations from reaching out for collaborations. In September 2021, the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) commissioned the legend and other Malawian musicians for a campaign song to educate Malawian citizens about the COVID-19 pandemic. Chalamanda can be seen in this video as he sings the opening solo verse which speaks of the need to come together to fight the virus.
Namadingo's latest mashup features songs by Malawi's late gospel music songstress Grace Chinga.
Speaking to Nyasa Times, an online news source in Malawi, The singer said that he enjoyed working with every artist as it gave him a chance to hear their unique stories and experiences as individuals and as musicians:
Working with Lucius was full of stories. It took longer working with him because we had so much funny listening to his stories from the past.
Working with Black Missionary was exciting since it was group sharing a lot of stories. Chalamanda was another thing because I was working with someone in another generation. I had a lot of questions to ask him. He told us a lot of the stories.
While speaking to the media, the acting Director of Music Association of Malawi, Gloria Manong'a, hailed Namadingo for being the first person to bring the mashup concept into the country, for  uniting Malawian musicians, and for bridging the gap between the older and younger musicians:
Mash-up has really helped Namadingo because he has exposed his talent very far and has reached young and old. He has promoted unity among musicians by working together and pass in different messages to people.
Global voices created a playlist highlighting various Malawi reggae artists. Check it out here or below.

author: Njeri Wangari


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Three graphics that explain Portuguese colonialism · Global Voices
Interruptor

Image based on a photograph by Bruno Martins (via Unsplash)
This article by Ruth Correia was first published on The Interruptor in Portuguese on May 28, 2021. An English translation has been republished here under a content partnership agreement and has been edited for length and clarity.
Colonialism and imperialism are complex political structures that presuppose domination over other peoples and territories. In the case of European colonialism, which naturally includes the Portuguese, the belief in cultural supremacy over the native population was also explicit.
The Portuguese occupation of overseas territories, as well as their exploration, were not homogeneous events. Colonialist exploitation had periods of greater and lesser intensity, but the constant throughout history was that it was a major engine of the Portuguese economy since the early 1400s.
Until the end of the 19th century, Portugal mainly occupied portions of the coastal strip in territories that today correspond to the countries of Angola and Mozambique, with little control over the interior. It was only in 1885, at the Berlin Conference, that the European colonial powers defined the borders of each territory, dividing among themselves a continent that did not belong to them.
Led by Infante D. Henrique, Portuguese maritime exploration began in the 15th century. This undertaking was justified by the missionary nature of Catholicism, which would also guide the incursions into North Africa in the 15th and 16th centuries. His aim was to see how far Muslim rule extended. The conquest of Ceuta, one of the Spanish port cities on the northern shore of Africa, in 1415 was the official start of hostilities.
Although the Portuguese discovered multiple territories during their expeditions, it is worth distinguishing between discovery and reach. Beyond Cape Bojador, the “discovery” was fundamentally cartographic, since the existence of land beyond that point was already known. The fact that a significant part of the colonized territories was inhabited when the sailors arrived there indicates that this idea of discoveries is a Europeanized narrative—someone already knew that those lands existed, the Europeans had not yet arrived there. In this sense, by way of example, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to set foot in Japan (1542–1543).
In a way, what was truly discovered were new paths.
Portugal was slow to exit the colonized territories. With the exception of territories that were conquered by other colonial powers over the centuries, such as parts of Sri Lanka and Malaysia, this exit began in 1822 with the independence of Brazil and only ended in 1999, when Macau returned to Chinese sovereignty—about 450 years after the Portuguese first arrived at the peninsula. While countries like France and the United Kingdom still maintain the administration of small overseas territories spread across the globe, of all European countries, Portugal took the longest time to recognize the independence of occupied territories.
It is true that slavery already existed both in Portugal and in Africa long before the maritime expansion. There are two characteristics that distinguish the Portuguese operation from other countries: 1) the industrialization of the process through transatlantic trade and 2) the introduction of a biological factor when selecting which people would be turned into merchandise. Skin color came to dictate who was free and who was a slave.
Human trafficking during the expansionist period officially began in 1444, when 235 people were captured in West Africa, brought to Portugal, and sold into slavery in Lagos. Among the colonial powers that emerged over the centuries of European colonialism, Portugal trafficked the most enslaved people.
The idea that Portugal was the first European country to abolish slavery is false, starting with the fact that this abolition was a process rather than an event. The decree of the Marquis of Pombal published in 1761 prohibited only the importation of slaves into the metropolis. The statesman's vision was, however, advanced in the European context at the time. Two years later, by introducing the Lei do Ventre Livre, which dictated that children of slaves be freed at birth, the end of slavery in Portugal was a generation away, at least on paper. Confined to the metropolis, these regulations had little or no effect in the context of the colonial empire, as the route of most abducted people was from Africa to the Americas.
Major legislative upheaval would only come about a century later with an initiative by Bernardo de Sá Nogueira de Figueiredo, better known as Sá da Bandeira. In 1836 he approved the abolition of the slave trade “in the Portuguese colonies south of the Equator.” The real slowdown of the massacre only came in the second half of the 19th century: between 1750 and 1850, Portugal and Brazil trafficked almost four million people.
Despite the clear advances in Sá da Bandeira's laws, the disarticulation of the abolition of slavery with any type of social support meant that the new freedmen kept their socio-economic condition profoundly fragile, as they did not hold property, income or, often, not even personal support networks. Likewise, the introduction of the Lei do Ventre Livre in all territories of the Portuguese monarchy in 1856 led to the forced separation of children from their mothers, who were still considered property. The children of slaves could remain in their mother's custody until the age of seven, but after that, they were left to their fate.
Despite these laws, the forced labor regime lasted until the 20th century in territories colonized by Portugal. The regime was ensured by the native populations and was successively legitimized by the Portuguese State. In 1897, the Indigenous Labor Regulation required enslaved people to “seek to acquire work” and, in the event that this did not happen, it was up to the State to “enforce compliance with them." This was reinforced after the establishment of the republic, in 1914, with the General Regulation of Indigenous Work in the Portuguese Colonies. In this framework, the moral obligation to work could be divided into three types:
In 1929, the Civil and Criminal Political Statute of the Indigenous Peoples of the Colonies of Mozambique and Angola, legitimized the differentiation between settlers and natives, explaining that "Indigenous people could not be assigned rights related to constitutional institutions." This segregation would be reinforced by multiple decrees, throughout the period of the Estado Novo.
In 1953, the Organic Law of the Ultramar removed the term “colonial empire,” but kept forced labor. This document reads that "the State can only compel indigenous people to work in public works of general interest to the community, in occupations whose results belong to them, in the execution of judicial decisions of a criminal nature or to comply with tax obligations."
In the last centuries of its empire, the Portuguese State assumed itself as a benevolent protagonist of colonialism over the African peoples, but it was in the exploitation of labor that the greatest tool of its “civilizing mission” lay. In 1962, after field observations, researcher Perry Anderson stated that “the most notorious aspect of Portuguese colonization in Africa is the systematic use of forced labor."
The exaltation of colonialism as national glory was one of the ideological marks of the Estado Novo. Anchored in Gilberto Freyre's Luso-tropicalism, a theory that, in the words of historian Cláudia Castelo, granted “the Portuguese a special capacity to adapt to the tropics, as a result of their desire for mestizaje, for the interpenetration of cultures and for ecumenism.” Furthermore, he saw in Portuguese colonialism a natural benevolence, derived from its “fraternal Christianity," and attributed to the Portuguese peoples and other colonies (including Brazil) a spirit of cultural unity.
In 1961, an attack claimed by the MPLA on the Luanda prison triggered a series of events that started the colonial war, or war of liberation, for African libertarian movements. The war would last until April 25, 1974, and its end was the main motivation for the military revolt that would overthrow the dictatorship, resulting in the Carnation Revolution. But the Portuguese did not fight alone: between 1961 and 1973, the Portuguese Armed Forces recruited thousands of African soldiers, integrating them into its contingents, and working hard in anti-subversion efforts.
The war effort for Portugal had an impact on multiple levels: About 90 per cent of the young male population was mobilized for war, intensifying a wave of emigration that would only slow down after democracy was implemented. In the occupied territories, the massacres lasted until the end of the war. After the withdrawal of Portuguese troops, several countries plunged into civil wars, but it is important to underline that the liberation struggle of the African peoples against Portuguese colonialism was the greatest catalyst for the end of fascism in Portugal.
The colonial war caused around 10,000 deaths and 20,000 invalids among Portuguese soldiers and over 100,000 victims among African civilians. The trauma lasts until today for thousands of Portuguese, Africans and their descendants. Hence, the space of joint memory of the colonial war is advanced by some specialists, such as Miguel Cardina or Fátima da Cruz Rodrigues, as a field of reconciliation between peoples.

author: Interruptor


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Combatting stereotypes: The need to recognize male victims of wartime sexual violence in Bosnia · Global Voices
Balkan Diskurs

Screenshot from the documentary film Uspomene 677. Photo: Mirko Pincelli/PCRC, used with permission.
This article by Alec Anderson and Chiara Zardoni was originally published on Balkan Diskurs, a project of the Post-Conflict Research Center (PCRC). An edited version is republished by Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.
“It is a difficult moment when you have to say the truth of what you have been carrying inside of you for 18 years. It is hard because we are re-traumatizing ourselves. It is hard to revisit the moments of torture, rape, and sexual violence that you have experienced. It is difficult to continually carry these things inside of you, but you have to keep going. Maybe I am a brave man, or maybe I am a cowardly one. Your opinion is up to you.” –  Presentation of the International PSVI Protocol in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Post-Conflict Research Center
When people in academic circles and the public think of the scourge that was conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) during the Bosnian War, they most often think of the horrible crimes committed against women. However, it is not just women who are survivors of sexual violence in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) today. Despite irrefutable evidence of rampant CRSV perpetrated against men between 1992-1995, many factors still prevent male survivors from receiving effective support, justice and acknowledgment from society.
CRSV against men in the Bosnian War is well documented by Thomas Osorio, who worked for over 20 years in the region of the former Yugoslavia with the United Nations and as a research associate at the University of KU Leuven, where he conducted field research and interviewed male survivors of CRSV. Mr. Osorio draws several critical conclusions in his research: that there is no doubt that sexual violence was a tool of war during the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia; that the violence was systematic and widespread; that CRSV was certainly perpetrated against both women and men, as noted as early as 1993 in reports by UN Special Rapporteur Tadeusz Mazowiecki and later an investigation conducted by a UN commission of experts. Besides the UN, a number of international organizations, like the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the Humanitarian Law Center, have provided evidence that sexual violence was perpetrated against men both as an act of humiliation and as a part of a  policy of “ethnic cleansing.”
As explained by Osorio and in the Final Report of the Commission of Experts Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 780 set out on May 27, 1994, male prisoners of war were often subject to sexual violence when detained in camps. This violence could take the form of different acts: prisoners were forced to rape women; they were subjected to sexual mutilation, castration, and forced incest was very common as well. As Osorio points out, it is important to note that places of detention throughout the Balkan conflicts were mainly secured and guarded by conscripted or volunteer civilian professional prisons guards or former police officers. Many of these individuals, in their new role as military guards or military police, did not differentiate prisoners of war from common criminals. This in no way justifies their actions,  nor does it imply that these behaviors would be acceptable in civilian prisons, but rather illustrates the unfortunate reality that led to such severe war crimes. According to testimony, the systematic scope and nature of the perpetration of CRSV against men demonstrate that the violence was an instrument of ethnic cleansing through the destruction of families and communities.
Men have very rarely come forward to seek justice or other support, some even keeping their experiences from family members. From this standpoint, the post-war context of male and female survivors is completely different. Indeed, despite the application of protective measures in the legal system, communities of small villages often know the identity of female survivors, while most of the male survivors go unknown. This is only one aspect of the gender divide characterizing the way CRSV is addressed in BiH. However, there is progress, such as the Croatian law on compensation to rape victims, which degenderized CRSV survivors and granted a dignified one-off financial compensation—a first in the region.
Legal frameworks in many conflict-affected countries do not recognize men as possible victims of CRSV. Some data from Chris Dolan’s briefing paper on violence against men and boys help paint a clearer picture of the problem. The paper shows that, according to the laws of many countries, 90 per cent of men in conflict-affected countries cannot be identified as victims of sexual violence. Further, 62 countries out of all countries only recognize female victims of rape, 67 states criminalize men who report abuse, and in 28 countries only males are recognized as perpetrators of sexual violence. As such, legal frameworks often constitute insurmountable obstacles in delivering justice to male survivors.
Of course, legal precedents are far from being the sole reason that male survivors are less recognized than female survivors. The largest obstacle is the prevalence of deeply discriminatory and homophobic attitudes towards male victims of CRSV throughout society, as well as perceptions of masculinity that are not unique to BiH. Indeed, as Osorio explains, male survivors are not comfortable coming forward because of this; just three cases of CRSV against men have been dealt with by the Court of BiH since the war ended. Justice cannot be achieved if male survivors don’t feel comfortable speaking out. And as Lamija Grebo, court monitor and Balkan Investigative Reporting Network journalist points out, men in Bosnia have seen the intense suffering that women who spoke out endured. She comments, “I can only imagine what those men think their journey would be if they report it, tell their neighbors and families, or even admit it to themselves.”
The anticipation of homophobic backlash stifles survivors—rightfully so, given that statistical evidence shows that homophobic people are extremely averse to supporting male survivors in any way. Additionally, the creation of organizations dedicated solely to assisting female survivors, for all of the incredibly important work they do, has led to male survivors feeling like they have no one to whom they can tell their stories. The culmination of these social pressures has created an enormous stigma for men to overcome. Grebo continues, “society considers [women being raped] not as acceptable, but as more common…[for men], there comes in a ‘double-shame.’”
This widespread discriminatory culture influences all parts of society, including citizens, social and medical workers, and institutions. Indeed, many medical, social and legal professionals, who usually provide assistance for female survivors, were not able to help male survivors during the war and are still not ready to do so today. An important example of this was provided by Alma Taso-Deljkovic, Head of the Witness Support Office of the Court of BiH. During a July 6, interview, Taso-Deljkovic admitted that her office, which offers significant assistance to female survivors, is ill-equipped to deal with men’s specific needs. Indeed, as men rarely come forward, the Witness Support Office has very little experience with male survivors, and most of its services are designed to support women. However, as Taso-Deljkovic and Osorio note, progress has been made thanks to the Witness Protection Department of the State Investigation and Protection Agency (SIPA) and relevant training provided to police officers and court officials by the United Nations Development Programme in BiH.
Society’s difficulty acknowledging rape against men can be linked to the specific approach of both the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the state courts to prosecute perpetrators under appropriate statutes. Despite rape being defined as a crime against humanity in the Statute of the ICTY, and its judicial definition making no reference to the gender of the victim, these crimes are mainly prosecuted as rape when the survivor is female. Cases in which guards directly raped male victims (as defined by ICTY statute) are more often prosecuted as torture or inhumane treatment rather than sexual assault, according to Osorio, who says that “sexual violence is very rarely adjudicated a single crime, it is always connected to other crimes.” As a result, male witnesses rarely testify and provide a detailed description of facts concerning CRSV before the court.
One case, in particular, shows the gendered approach that the ICTY inadvertently took to prosecuting rape. In Prosecutor vs. Brđanin, a situation is described in which a guard tried to force a male prisoner to have sex with a female prisoner at gunpoint against both of their wills. When the man refused, he was killed. And yet the court found that “the threat of rape constituted a sexual assault vis-à-vis the female detainee.” Andrew Pitt sums up the disturbing way in which the court ignored the sexual violence aimed at the man: “The male victim here is simply made to disappear.”
Unfortunately, this practice was adopted by state courts in Bosnia, as well. Cases such as those against Macić Ibro, Akeljić Minet, Begović Gligor, and countless others, include no indictment of rape, despite clear occurrences of sexual assault being described in court judgments. Obviously, partial justice is far better than no justice, but when a court fails to acknowledge rape against men for what it is, it creates an additional barrier to society-wide recognition of what these men have suffered.
But for all of the immense challenges that exist, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks to the tireless efforts of local organizations and committed journalists, some male survivors are getting to tell their stories. Some examples include documentaries Silent Scream and The Unforgiven. Organizations like Medica Zenica assisted men in attaining civilian victim-of-war status. It is vital that more effort is given to achieving the recognition that men, too, can be raped, and that men, too, have suffered physically and psychologically as a result. This process begins with the dismantling of masculine gender norms that stigmatize male survivors into silence. This is a process that should take place not just in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but all over the world.

author: Balkan Diskurs


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Global Voices seeks researchers to participate in our Civic Media Observatory projects · Global Voices
Alex Esenler

Illustration by Alex Esenler, used with permission.
Global Voices is seeking media ecosystem analysts to work as researchers in our Civic Media Observatory.
We are presently seeking researchers with expertise in the following countries and languages: Bangladesh (Bangla), Afghanistan (Dari, Pashto), Mali (Bambara, French), Turkey (Turkish), Russia (Russian), Nicaragua (Spanish). Researchers should either be based in or have strong knowledge and ongoing access to local information from these countries.
Global Voices’ Civic Media Observatory investigates and decodes how people understand information and create knowledge in complex and seemingly chaotic media ecosystems. Observatory research identifies and tracks key themes and narrative frames that emerge around events, trends and other phenomena, and explains the context and subtext of local, vernacular, and multilingual media. Media items (e.g. Facebook posts, articles, other social media content, videos), are used as examples that assert themes and narrative frames.
Global Voices is a global, virtual media organization with staff, contractors and volunteer contributors on every continent. Our contributors undertake writing, research, advocacy and translation to highlight stories and perspectives from around the world that are underrepresented in international mainstream media.
We are seeking candidates with deep knowledge of local media ecosystems, including mass media, social media platforms, open internet, and offline media sources, analytic and critical skills, local language skills, ability to work in databases, and professional-level spoken and written English.
Researchers work in Airtable, a relational database, to input analysis, and follow Civic Media Observatory methods, in which researchers connect media items, narrative frames, themes, media sources, and people and entities of interest. The result is an impressive constellation of information, shared with partners, the Global Voices community, and the public.
This is a paid research opportunity. Researchers are employed part-time on project-based contracts, and are treated as freelance contractors.
Researchers will work approximately 10 to 20 hours per week, participate in training, regular project calls, and contribute to presentations, newsletters, research reports, and stories.
This slide presentation contains more information about Civic Media Observatory methods.
To see an example of Civic Media Observatory results, see our Ethiopia research and dataset, and our stories about China’s Belt & Road Initiative.
There is no geographic requirement associated with these positions; Global Voices has no office or physical headquarters. Candidates must have consistent, reliable access to broadband internet connectivity, and be comfortable working in a wholly virtual environment.
We strongly welcome candidates from outside North America and Western Europe and encourage people currently contributing to Global Voices to apply.
Email the following items to observatory AT globalvoices DOT org, with the subject line :

author: Alex Esenler


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Prince Charles calls on Australia’s Prime Minister to attend Glasgow global climate change conference · Global Voices
Kevin Rennie

A video Screenshot of BBC News’ Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt interviewing Prince Charles (October 11, 2021)
Prince Charles has urged Australia’s Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, to attend the Glasgow Climate Conference COP26. He referred to the meeting as “the last chance saloon” to address the climate crisis.
Morrison has yet to make a public statement about whether he will represent his government at the conference. He has referenced the 14-day quarantine requirement on his return as one reason for his hesitancy.
When the presenter told Charles of Scott Morrison’s reason for not committing to travelling to Glasgow, the prince seemed surprised.
He stopped walking and looked at the interviewer as he replied: “Is that what he says, is it?”” #auspol https://t.co/0z4CO52tDv
— Jenny Frecklington-Jones; #Vaccinate ????? (@JonesHowdareyou) October 11, 2021
This excuse has not been popular down under:
@ScottMorrisonMP you MUST attend Glasgow meeting! It would be embarrassing for all Australians for you to fail to do so because you don't want to quarantine! This is a once in a generation opportunity for Australia to be on the right side of history.
— Denise Nicholls (@RevDJNicholls) October 11, 2021
However, many believe that he is waiting to see if he can reach an agreement with his junior coalition partner, the National Party, on a plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions. The Conversation's Michelle Grattan has argued that this is essential if the PM is to appear on the world stage:
Morrison needs to be able to commit to net zero emissions by 2050 and to improve the government’s medium term ambition, if he is to keep faith with the expectations of Australia’s allies, the United States and Britain.
The Nationals represent rural and regional areas and are vocal advocates for farming and mining, especially fossil fuel producers. Morrison is a member of the Liberal Party, which is the senior partner in the government.
The PM has been under lots of pressure from world leaders such as US President Joe Biden and UK PM Boris Johnson, to announce a carbon target for 2050.
Australia may see negative economic consequences if it is perceived as not pulling its weight on addressing the climate crisis. The Business Council of Australia is just one of the major economic groups arguing for the net-zero target.
A burst of humor emerged on social media when the prince revealed that he runs his Aston Martin car on fuel made from “cheese and white wine.” He was explaining his attempts to limit his carbon footprint. These tweets were typical:
If I had an Aston Martin I should EXPECT it ran on wine and cheese… and/or unicorn blood.
— Peter Aylan-Parker (@paylanparker) October 11, 2021
It was no surprise that “Prince Charles” topped the Australian Twitter trends with “Aston Martin” not far behind.
Others were critical of the prince’s intervention in politics:
Prince Charles, a man who got his furniture shipped between houses (including his special toilet seat), has countless servants, and lives in palaces is on the radio lecturing about saving the planet again. Abolish the monarchy; that would save *a lot* of carbon.
— Mic Wright (@brokenbottleboy) October 11, 2021
Wow what luck Prince Charles old Aston Martin runs on recycled wine & he only eats meat 5 days a week and Dairy 6 days a week…what a caring heir to the throne we have sparing us his time at he strolls the extensive gardens at his home on The Balmoral Estate
— Barbara (@BarbaraSutton15) October 11, 2021
After the jibes from Britain, reports indicate that Prime Minister Morrison will likely attend COP26. However, government sources have apparently denied that the prince’s remarks may have influenced him. There are plenty of skeptics:
He will probably attend now but deny that that had anything to do with it.
He will probably go on to say that he was always going to attend.
— Peter Kennedy (@northcote_dad) October 12, 2021
As heir to the British crown, Charles will become the King of Australia and Head of State as part of its constitutional monarchy. In that role, political convention would prevent him from making these kinds of public remarks about Australia's government or its leader.

author: Kevin Rennie