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Global warming: Sea snot appears on Aegean Sea beaches in Chalkidiki, Greece · Global Voices
Metamorphosis Foundation

This story is based on original coverage by Meta.mk. An edited version is republished here under a content-sharing agreement between Global Voices and Metamorphosis Foundation.
Sea snot on a beach between Chaniotis (Hanioti) and Pefkochori, Chalkidiki, Greece in September 2021. Photo by Meta.mk, CC BY-NC.
A slimy foam called sea snot, also known as marine mucilage, which results from global warming, has been appearing increasingly on Greek beaches during the summer of 2021. Photos of some of the beaches on the Chalkidiki (Halkidiki) peninsula this September show that the Aegean Sea indeed occasionally sprouts such organic foam.
Scientists relate the appearance of sea snot to global warming. The heating of the atmosphere under the greenhouse phenomenon increases the temperature of the oceans and the seas, making them more appropriate for certain microorganisms that thrive in warmer waters, while they also create an environment uninhabitable for other animals and plants.
Sea snot mostly consists of microscopic algae known as phytoplankton. While phytoplankton alone isn’t harmful to the environment, when mixed with rising water temperatures, wastewater, pesticides, and global warming, it flourishes and can reproduce at a harmfully rapid rate, affecting biodiversity, blocking sunlight from entering the water and reducing oxygen levels in the sea.
According to a report by the Poseidon System, a network of scientific-research stations supported by the state and European Union that monitor the Greeks seas, the marine heat wave in the second half of June 2021 increased the average daily temperature of the Aegean Sea to 28 degrees Celsius, which is a whole 4 degrees higher than previous years.
Local inhabitants in seaside town of Pefkochori who spoke to the Meta.mk team said that the folklore explanation for sea snot was that “grandmas say its just soap coming from cleaning of ships.” Locals are generally reluctant to discuss the topic of marine mucilage with foreigners.
Sea snot on a beach between Chaniotis and Pefkochori, Chalkidiki, Greece in September 2021. Photo by Meta.mk, CC BY-NC.
In June, the British newspaper Independent reported that the Greek government initiated an investigation of the sea snot outbreak in the waters near the island of Lemnos.
At the time, Greek newspaper Ekathimerini wrote that the phenomenon is caused by a nutrient overload in algae, resulting from pollution and high temperatures, and is being monitored by the Fisheries Research Institute on behalf of the Greek Environment Ministry.
In a statement for Ekathimerini, Stavros Stathakis, vice president of the association of fishermen on Limnos, warned that the sludge is hampering fishing and also putting off tourists:
It forms every so often but usually dissipates after a while. This is the first time in a decade we have seen so much.
Sea snot on a beach between Chaniotis and Pefkochori, Chalkidiki, Greece in September 2021. Photo by Meta.mk, CC BY-NC.
The increasing of the quantity and frequency of sea snot outbreaks indicates the consequences of climate change caused by humans, by the excretion of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas) and the depositing of waste into the water systems.
The outbreak of sea snot in the Aegean Sea has been much less impactful than the recent overflow of sea snot in the Marmara Sea in neighboring Turkey. As Global Voices reported in June, the Turkish authorities initiated inspections against suspected sources of the mucilage, as well as a massive cleanup effort. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan blamed the sea snot bloom on people and companies dumping waste into the Marmara Sea.

author: Metamorphosis Foundation


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India’s gasoline dilemma: Double burden of rising prices and soaring demand · Global Voices
Anumeha Verma

A busy petrol station in New Delhi, India, in 2008. Image via Flickr by IFPRI. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
Dramatic petrol and diesel price rises have left the Indians uneasy these past few months. Even though the prices had not risen for 11 consecutive days as of September 16, it hardly brought any solace. In Delhi, petrol was priced at 101.19 INR (1.37 USD) per litre, while diesel was 88.62 INR (1.2 USD) per litre on September 18. Mumbai, with the highest rates of fuel among the four metros, recorded petrol prices at 107.26 INR (1.46 USD) and diesel at 96.19 INR (1.31 USD) per litre, as reported by the state-run oil refinery, Indian Oil. From 1990 until the recent spike in 2021, gasoline prices in India averaged 1.04 USD per litre.
Over 80% of crude oil supply to India is sourced by imports from other countries. The major factors that influence fuel prices in India are the cost of crude oil, the cost of freight for import, excise duty and Value Added Tax charged by the government, the rupee vs dollar rates (oil imported is traded in dollars), the cost of processing, and the growing demand for gasoline.
While the government accepts that the fuel price hike has inconvenienced the people, it maintains that the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted public finance and the government is saving funds for public welfare schemes. Indian news channel ANI tweeted a video post of the Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan responding to queries from reporters.
#WATCH | I accept that current fuel prices are problematic for people but be it central/state govt, over Rs 35,000 crores have been being spent on vaccines in a year… In such dire times, we're saving money to spend on welfare schemes: Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan pic.twitter.com/ugObtQYiB6
— ANI (@ANI) June 13, 2021
Fuel prices were volatile during the regime of the previous government too. Between 2004 and 2014, during the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) term, crude oil prices surged in the global markets from 34.16 USD per barrel to 110 USD per barrel, which triggered a steep increase in fuel prices. The UPA increased the price of petrol from 36 INR to 63 INR, and diesel from 23 INR to 38 INR. In the current regime, taxes are being cited as the major reason behind the price hike.
Experts have pointed out that, apart from global trends of fuel price rises, the repeated increase in excise duty and other taxes by the government has resulted in the continued upward curve of gasoline prices. Taxes on diesel and petrol have surged six times since 2013, adding to the retail price and burdening the end-users.
When we consider the demand side, India’s gasoline quagmire is not new, albeit certainly a product of the industrial era. As expected in an expanding, rapidly urbanising economy, India’s demand for gasoline has been growing exponentially for quite a few decades now. The Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell under the ministry of oil and natural gas has predicted a 12.2 percent rise in the demand for petroleum in the current financial year (2021–22). Moody's, a credit rating agency, predicts a rise of 14 percent over the same period. Either way, consumption is bound to rise, which it may force increased imports of crude oil.
While, on one hand, the rising demand for gasoline is being seen as a sign of a reviving economy and makes India an attractive market for global players, on the the hand, it is having a severe impact on people's finances. Several Twitter users and political players across the country have expressed their concern over the rising prices, with some organising protests.
The opposition party, Indian National Congress, held a 10-day-long nationwide protest and a signature campaign in June 2021 demanding a reduction in fuel prices.
The leader of opposition in the state of Karnataka tweeted:
We are not concerned about the price of Petrol & Diesel in other States. We want it to be reduced in our State to help the people of our State.
I urge @BJP4Karnataka govt to reduce the taxes on Petrol & Diesel in our State.#PetrolDieselPriceHike pic.twitter.com/gEqlvvMC1t
— Siddaramaiah (@siddaramaiah) September 13, 2021
When prices fell by 30 paise (4 cents) in September, young political activist Harpreet Singh mocked the supposed respite:
Huge relief! Where are you'll planning to invest your petrol savings?#PetrolDieselPriceHike #FuelPriceHike #FuelPrices #BJPLootingIndia #ModiHaiTohMehngaiHai#ModiHaiToFailureHai #ModiDisasterForIndia #ModiHaiTohJobsNahi #IndiaAgainstBJPLoot pic.twitter.com/RsnRzb3zB2
— Harpreet Singh (@HarpreetIYC) September 15, 2021
A hike in fuel prices is traditionally known to have a ripple effect across already stressed sections of the economy and add to the Wholesale Price Inflation (WPI). The rise in petrol prices has an impact on the transportation costs of various products, which is passed on the consumer.
If the trend continues and retail and food prices go up, the general populace will be severely affected. The COVID-19 pandemic has already been detrimental to the economic status of several families, and job losses in both the organised and unorganised sectors have limited people's purchasing power.
In the wake of rising prices, tax experts and the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council of India have been mulling over whether petrol can be brought under the purview of GST. Including petrol and diesel under GST will mean that a uniform tax is laid on the base price of these commodities across all states instead of separate taxes being levied by the centre and states.
According to a recent survey conducted by community social media platform LocalCircles, 77 percent of citizens want petrol and diesel to be included under GST.
Twitter user Parijat Moitra exposes the reality:
It is just a pipe dream. Inclusion of petroleum products in GST won't reduce the prices. If states and the Union Government are collecting taxes and that too a big amount then why would they reduce it? https://t.co/guKLfi3RYe
— parijaat (@parijatmoitra) September 17, 2021
However, during the 45th GST Council Meeting held at Lucknow on September 17, 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that petrol and diesel would not be included under GST at present.
Twitter user SMEsupport reacted to the decision by the GST Council like this:
Anything which can benefit people is not accepted. Bringing petrol and diesel to #GST has been rejected by @GST_Council. Everybody concern about their revenue not the people of India
— SMEsupport (@EsupportSm) September 18, 2021
Some experts suggest that India should encourage alternatives like ethanol-blended petrol and electric vehicles to deal with the soaring fuel prices.

source: news-globalvoices

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

author: Anumeha Verma


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Retelling indigenous Tamang people’s torment and trauma through sacred seeds, handmade paper and slates · Global Voices
Sanjib Chaudhary

Artist Subas Tamang uses the seeds of the tree of Damocles, considered sacred by many indigenous peoples in Nepal, as his canvas. Photo by Sanjib Chaudhary. Used with permission.
Translucent seeds of the tree of Damocles (Oroxylum indicum), meticulously glued together, form Nepali artist Subas Tamang's canvas. The round seeds, known for their medicinal values, are considered pure and sacred since they are enclosed in sword-shaped pods — far from the touch of bumblebees and other insects. In a nod to the seeds’ potential to grow into trees, Subas Tamang tells the stories of discrimination and oppression meted out to indigenous Tamang people by the State — the Rana rulers in particular.
“Called ko ko mhendo or heart flower in Tamang language, these seeds are ingrained in Tamang culture and rituals,” said Subas, talking to Global Voices. “The Tamangs attach these seeds to invitations sent out on auspicious occasions. They have become symbols of Tamang identity.”
That’s why Subas chose the sacred seeds to tell the stories, called Kaiten in the Tamang language. Kaiten is the Tamang oral story of origins of human life, culture and tradition, usually told by an elder storyteller, called Tamba. Like shamans using the seeds to heal sick people, Subas uses them as a medium to heal wounds of the past, the wounds of torment and trauma.
Also read: Art series sheds light on the marginalization of indigenous Tharus in Nepal
The Tamang men were reduced to mere porters, palanquin carriers, hookah and umbrella bearers, and construction labour. The Tamang women, likewise, would work as nursemaids and wet nurses, while also singing, dancing and entertaining the rulers.
Pipa I, artwork by Subas Tamang, shows the fate of Tamang people reduced to menial labourers. Photo by Subas Tamang. Used with permission.
The Tamangs were barred from joining the British Army. The only rank for them in the Nepal Army was that of the pipa, the menial workers at the lowest rungs of the army. They could never rise up the ranks. Subas illustrates this through his artwork Pipa I, showing four men carrying doko, wicker baskets, on their backs.
His woodcut print on ko ko mhendo titled Gole Kaila features the protagonist Tularam Tamang aka Gole Kaila who was martyred in 1950 in Biratnagar, a city in eastern Nepal. Though he died fighting against the Rana regime to establish democracy, he was never accorded the status of a martyr.
Gole Kaila, woodcut on ko ko mhendo, portrays the protagonist Tularam Tamang who was never accorded the status of a martyr despite his sacrifice. Photo by Sanjib Chaudhary. Used with permission.
Another medium Subas chooses for his artworks is lokta, handmade Nepali paper, the same paper that his kinsmen produced from the bark of the Nepali paper plant and carried to palaces in the capital city Kathmandu as corvée (forced unpaid labour in lieu of taxes). The same paper carried orders and laws that would torment them further. But Subas retells the story of his community’s anguish through the same paper. His artworks Kagaji Rakam, Kagaji Rakam I and Baigani Rakam show men in traditional attire but with their heads covered by, respectively, a bouquet of lokta flowers, a sheet of handmade paper and a bunch of mangoes.
The artworks Kagaji Rakam, Kagaji Rakam I and Baigani Rakam show how Tamangs were made to work as corvée labour. Photo by Subas Tamang. Used with permission.
Expanding on his work, Subas said:
“In order to pay taxes, Tamangs had to work for free for the State. The Tamangs from Bumtang of Nuwakot District had to collect lokta barks, process them into paper and carry those papers to the palace. Each household would need to produce 200 sheets of paper. Likewise, Tamangs had to work in fruit orchards and carry the fruit, especially mangoes to the palaces in Kathmandu. They had to leave Kathmandu the same day after dropping the fruit.”
Also read: ‘Opposite Dreams: The Politics of Local’: Art raises awareness around social issues in Nepal
Subas doesn’t stop here. In his artwork Hami aafai aafno pahichan lekhnnechhau (we will write our identity ourselves), a series of five slates, he carves excerpts from problematic and judgemental texts about the Tamangs, then erases it with sandpaper and leaves a blank slate.
In his artwork Hami aafai aafno pahichan lekhnechhau, Subas portrays the judgemental text prevalent even in the study materials based on the curriculum of the Public Service Commission. Photo by Sanjib Chaudhary. Used with permission
“Even a social  studies material said to be based on the new curriculum of Public Service Commission wrongly portrays Tamangs as people willing to sell their daughters and daughters-in-law, and even themselves just for a good meal,” said Subas. “I want to say why we should rely on the story written by others. We will write our own story.”
The exhibition “Kaiten: History, memory, identity” is running at the Siddhartha Art Gallery, Baber Mahal Revisited in Kathmandu until 28 September 2021.

author: Sanjib Chaudhary


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Belarusian authorities rule to liquidate domestic violence shelter · Global Voices
Transitions Online

Women chatting on a park bench in Brest, Belarus. Photo by Adam Jones via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0.
This article by Nicole Ely appeared on Transitions Online on September 15, 2021. It is republished as part of a content-sharing partnership and has been edited to fit the GV style.
Belarusian authorities are planning to liquidate Radislava, a non-governmental organization in Minsk that specializes in helping victims of domestic violence.
Radislava is a Belarusian NGO that was established in 2002 by women who had suffered from violence. In 2004, they set up their first shelter in a two-bedroom apartment in Minsk and have since helped hundreds of women. Now the authorities are shuttering the organization.
The liquidation is part of an ongoing crackdown on NGOs, independent media, and activists that intensified this summer. President Alyaksandr Lukashenka defended the purge, saying that many of these organizations were foreign agents or “gangsters” and this activity was “harmful to the state.”
In addition to providing shelter for those suffering from physical, emotional, economic, and sexual abuse, Radislava also provides psychological support and legal counseling. From 2016 to 2019, the organization housed 451 women from all socioeconomic backgrounds, and offered services to more than 700 women a year. Some women stay in the shelter for as long as two years.
Radislava has been a crucial service to women in Belarus, where every second woman experiences some sort of domestic violence, according to a 2018 study by the Institute of Sociology of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2019, it was one of only two organizations that operated shelters for domestic violence victims in Minsk.
Radislava’s support was an alternative to the police, many of whom would refuse to take action in such cases, and to the courts, where Belarusian judges would often suggest that couples try to reconcile. Despite the need, Belarus doesn’t have any legal regulations against domestic violence. When a draft of a law criminalizing such acts was introduced in 2018, Lukashenka axed it, calling it “nonsense taken primarily from the West.”
In September 2021, the Belarusian parliament finally passed a domestic violence bill on the first reading, aimed at prevention rather than punishment, the state broadcaster Belteleradio reported. Ahead of the second reading, lawmakers held a roundtable on September 7 with law enforcement officials and experts in health care, education, and social protection.
While the court that issued the decision is not required to give a reason for Radislava’s liquidation, the official reason wouldn’t make a difference, says Hanna Liubakova, a Belarusian journalist who has previously written about Radislava.
“An official reason doesn’t really matter as it has nothing to do with reality,” she said. “The regime is destroying every organization and civil society structure to make sure there’s no room for activities and opposition in Belarus.”

author: Transitions Online


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Chinese firms in Nigeria face widespread labour abuse allegations, tainting bilateral relationship · Global Voices
Nwachukwu Egbunike

Nigeria is a key destination for numerous Chinese manufacturing firms, with clusters located in the southwestern cities of Lagos, Ogun, and Benin City, in the oil-rich Niger-Delta region.
President Muhammadu Buhari with Wang Yi, Chinese foreign minister, in Abuja, Nigeria. Image from Aso Rock [Nigeria Presidential] Villa Facebook page, Jan 5, 2021.
However, these Chinese companies too often mistreat, exploit, and abuse their Nigerian staff, who have been subjected to what the Nigerian lawmaker Ndudi Elumelu described as  “slavish conditions.” Over the years, allegations of racism, physical abuses, sexual violation, injuries and even death of local workers due to the negligence or explicit approval of Chinese bosses have made front page news. There have been few repercussions for these alleged acts.
The Global Voices Civic Media Observatory research on China’s Belt and Road Initiative identified two major categories of infractions by Chinese companies in Nigeria: industrial accidents caused by lack of safety standards, and forced labour. These stories and allegations, shared in Nigerian newspapers and on social media by reporters, witnesses, and others, together build a narrative that paints Chinese factory owners and businesspeople in Nigeria as abusive and indifferent to the health and rights of their employees. While not every allegation has been proven, together they degrade the image of China in Nigeria as a fair employer and benevolent partner.
George Ofosu and David Sarpong, scholars from Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, Germany and Brunel University London, United Kingdom in their qualitative analysis of existing peer-reviewed ‘Chinese-labour-focused’ literature on Africa assert that “Chinese firms’ labour practices engender abuse via casualisation of labour, low remuneration, and a general lack of adherence to occupational safety.”
The silence of Nigeria’s federal government in response to these alleged infractions by Chinese business owners of the country’s labour laws and international labour covenants points to the asymmetrical relationship between the two countries.
Onyinye in an ambulance after the fire incident (graphic content, viewer discretion advised).
#justiceforonyi#justiceforonyiand4others
The media is our voice since we don't have who will fight for us we are using the media to call on our government to come to our aid we can't be losing our colleague's (AFLAN)to the hands of careless Chinese pic.twitter.com/85xDbsKOoD
— Maurice Monday (@MauriceMonday) July 20, 2021
Onyinye [Onyi] Onwuegbusi, a translator with Wihu Limited, a Chinese factory located located along the Lagos-Ibadan expressway in Isheri, Ogun State was burnt to death on July 9, 2021, due to alleged negligence by her Chinese employees. The fire also claimed the lives of three other Nigerian staff.
Chinese companies in Nigeria care less of their staff, treat workers like animals and don't take safety precautions in the field of work. Their carelessness led to death of 4 innocent Nigerian citizens who worked to make a living.#justiceforonyi#chinesecompaniesaredeathtraps
— David Sweet? (@Davidsw28401109) July 19, 2021
Sola Akinsehinwa, a board member of the Association of Foreign Language Translators of Nigeria (AFLAN) who spoke to Global Voices via WhatsApp and email, asserts that “the ladies sensed the smell of gas” discovered that the Chinese company had installed a gas pipe that passed through the kitchen of the dormitory where the victims were cooking. A fly catcher spark caused the explosion.
Large gas cylinder in the Chinese Wihi company in Lagos. Image provided by Sola Akinsehinwa and used with his permission
The Wihu Factory had neither fire extinguishers nor an ambulance, according to one Twitter user. Due to an ongoing strike by Nigerian doctors, the victims did not receive prompt medical attention, which eventually led to the death of Onyi and three others.
The delegates of the AFLAN, of which Onyi was a member, were threatened and denied access to the management of the Chinese factory. “It was after the incident that they [Wihu Limited] went to buy fire extinguishers, as said by the workers that bought them. They did this, trying to cover up their tracks,” Akinsehinwa told Global Voices.
Global Voices reached out to Markus, a manager in Wihu who did not provide his last name by telephone on September 10, 2021 to get the company's side of the story. The manager agreed to respond to questions via WhatsApp but had not done so by the publication date.
In a similar case, in February 2018, the government of Lagos State, Nigeria’s economic capital, held the management of a Chinese firm, Hongxing Steel Company Limited responsible for an accident that deformed Chris Abiodiun, a contract worker. Abiodun sustained burns in the face and most parts of his upper limbs when molten metal erupted on him on October 1, 2017. The company had refused to adequately compensate him for injuries he sustained during the incident.
The outspoken reactions from the Lagos State government, the House of Representatives, Nigeria’s lower house and the Ogun State parliament to Chinese firms’ labour infractions, is a clear contrast to the federal government’s silence. This may be due to the independence of these tiers and levels of government from direct involvement in the execution of Nigeria’s diplomacy and foreign policy objectives with China, which is the exclusive preserve of the federal government.
In March 2020, at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, PslamB, a Twitter user, claimed in a series of tweets that Hufua Plastics Industry Company Limited had blatantly flaunted the COVID-19 lockdown directives of the Nigerian government. Hufua Plastic, forcibly held over three hundred Nigerian employees within their factory in Ibafo, Ogun State, the Twitter user wrote.
They weren’t satisfied, now they are forcing workers to work(either you come to work or get sacked) saying government hasn’t contacted them personally cause they are private organization, these people ain’t even concern about the fact the whole issue originated from them…
— PsalmB??? (@Psalm_B) March 26, 2020
The company allegedly threatened to sack staff who resisted the forced labour, and required them to live at the factory in order to keep working. The company also failed to adhere to COVID-19 protocols in the facility, to the detriment of the health of their Nigerian staff.
Similarly inhumane treatments were experienced by Nigerian staff of Chinese-owned Goodwill Ceramics, Ogun Guangdong Free Trade Zone Igbesa, in southwestern Nigeria in April 2020. The workers, who were “held inside the company for 14 days of the lockdown without proper feeding,” were asked to leave without adequate compensation, according to SaharaReporters, an online newspaper.
In July 2020, the Nigerian police arrested a Chinese couple in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital for allegedly locking up their eight Nigerian domestic employees in their apartment for four months during the COVID-19 lockdown. The Chinese couple were arrested following a tip-off from a resident who alerted the police, Nigerian newspaper The Punch reported. But they have not yet been convicted of a crime, which is common in these cases.
A month after, in August 2020, Inner Galaxy Steel Co, Abia State, southeastern Nigeria was described as “a Chinese modern day slave camp, right inside Nigeria,” in a series of tweets by a person who claimed to witness the conditions, using the Twitter name @Truthfully83.  The witness also alleged racism and sexual assault of Nigerian staff by Chinese managers: “Every Nigerian in that company is mandated to call their Chinese employers MASTER or MISTRESS” and that “male Nigerian workers are physically assaulted, while their female counterparts are sexually assaulted. … Chinese MASTERS will boast of killing you and getting away with it.”
Nothing came out of this case. @truthfully83 claimed that either a “soft landing” was negotiated for the company “in exchange for bribes” or “others are simply following instructions from some quarters to avoid a backlash from the Chinese government.” Solicitors of the Inner Galaxy company dismissed the allegations as “false, unsubstantiated, damaging and incredulous” attacks on the company.
A Chinese shop in Lagos Island, Nigeria. Image by Kaizen photography via Wikimedia Commons, 27 March 2016.
The Nigerian Labour Act and the Employee’s Compensation Act, 2010 protects wages, guarantees adequate compensation, and criminalizes forced labour and discrimination of any kind, with specific punishments when infractions are established by a court ruling.
The inability to apply the laws to errant Chinese migrants doing business in Nigeria “brings into focus the poor and non-implemented labour laws that exist in many African countries,” writes Socrates Mbamalu, a Nigerian journalist. Consequently, “the ultimate responsibility for protecting the rights of workers falls on the Federal Government and state authorities to enforce labour codes,” Eric Olander, managing editor of The China Africa Project told The African Report.
Labour law infractions by Chinese firms in the country are likely to continue because, among other reasons, bribery by the Chinese of Nigerian law enforcement officials is commonplace. In addition, the Nigerian government seems to prefer to remain silent, despite the media spotlight on these issues, in order not to compromise Chinese interests in the country.
“China is a major financier of large projects in Nigeria. An estimate puts the current cost of Chinese projects at $47 billion. Many of these are financed by Chinese loans. It will be difficult for a country that relies so much on China to take action against Beijing,” argues Abdul-Gafar Tobi Oshodi, a political scientist in Nigeria’s University of Lagos. This is why Wang Yi, Chinese foreign minister’s admonition to Chinese firms to abide by Nigerian labour laws has had little impact.
Oreva Olakpe, a research fellow at Ryerson University’s Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration, asserts that “China’s diplomacy hypes ideals of mutualism, equality and respect…  Nigeria’s high dependence on China means that Nigeria will remain limited in how much initiative it can take in Sino-Nigerian relations.” The abuses by Chinese companies in Nigeria will persist until the power dynamics between both countries become mutual in reality.

author: Nwachukwu Egbunike


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An investment in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s future: Compensating survivors of wartime sexual violence · Global Voices
Balkan Diskurs

Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was subject to a brutal siege from 1992 to 1996. Photo from 2019 by Filip Stojanovski/Global Voices, (CC-BYY 4.0)
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.
“The topic [of compensating survivors] is still young and there are many things that have to be discussed, improved, and written on paper. The good thing is that something is happening now, and it is not something that will stop.”  – Alma Taso Deljkovic, Head of the Witness Support Office of the Court of BiH
The sexual violence endured by women and men during the Bosnian War has had a concrete and lasting impact on survivors. One of the ways this manifests itself is economically. Whether because of physical disability, psychological trauma or community stigmatization, many survivors face barriers to earning a living, which, unfortunately, may lead to a permanent reduction in their quality of life. Granting survivors reparations for what they have suffered helps them reclaim their past and build a better future, a necessary step in overcoming the legacy of conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV). But economically empowering survivors is not the only crucial function of reparations. As outlined by the International Center of Transitional Justice, granting reparations to survivors expresses “to victims and society more generally that the state is committed to addressing the root causes of past violations and ensuring they do not happen again.”
However, despite the clear need for reparations, the complicated practices of courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) often prevent survivors from obtaining compensation.
Ostensibly, there are laws that entitle survivors of sexual violence to monetary compensation across BiH, particularly the national Law on Protection of Civilian Victims of War, which was an important first step that shouldn’t be overlooked. With that said, this law is applied unevenly across the different entities of BiH. For example, unlike the Federation of BiH, Republika Srpska does not recognize survivors of sexual violence as a separate category within the umbrella status of civilian victims of war, and the application deadline for those seeking reparation was in 2007. These barriers and numerous others across the entities, including inconsistent requirements for medical certificates and proof of physical damage, have led the UN Committee against Torture to order BiH to “establish an effective reparation scheme at the national level.” Unfortunately, today there is still no such law in place.
The final step for survivors seeking reparations is going through court proceedings. However, pursuing this option in BiH has been extremely difficult and discouraging for survivors, with many giving up and not seeking reparations at all. The main problem lies in how compensation claims are dealt with by courts. According to a report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), many courts have been reluctant to grant such claims, instead referring survivors of CRSV to civil proceedings following the conclusion of the criminal trial. This practice has had devastating consequences for survivors; most give up on pursuing reparations to avoid the trauma of re-testifying and losing the privacy granted by protective measures in criminal proceedings. Essentially, survivors are forced to choose between their privacy and their right to claim non-material damages.
Notwithstanding these obstacles, progress has been made in recent years. Alma Taso Deljkovic, head of the Witness Support Office of the Court of BiH, explained during a July 6 interview that a crucial turning point in Bosnia came via a 2015 decision of the Court of BiH that granted compensation to a CRSV survivor during a criminal proceeding for the first time. Since then, courts have increasingly discussed compensation claims in criminal proceedings, only referring survivors to civil proceedings when evidence is insufficient. However, according to Deljkovic, there is room for improvement.
With the issue finally in the spotlight, it is likely that improvements can continue in the coming years, thanks to joint efforts between the relevant authorities and civil society organizations (CSOs). For instance, CSOs like Trial International are working in the country to inform survivors of what their rights are and what they can do to obtain reparations. Lejla Heremić, director of Social Pedagogy at the survivor-supporting organization Medica Zenica, said in an interview that the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy has granted the organization the ability to issue survivors’ certificates that maintain their “civilian victim of war” status. This, she said, has encouraged many survivors to come forward to Medica Zenica, receive a certificate, and pursue monetary reparations after.
Work is being done on an international level, as well. The Global Survivors Fund (GSF) is a new, but outstanding Geneva-based organization which, as explained by their Communications Advisor Maud Scelo, emerged in 2018 from the work of Dr. Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, who received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to end CRSV in 2018. The Global Reparations Study, a project that the GSF is currently undertaking, focuses on the status of reparations for survivors of CRSV in over 20 countries, including BiH.
As Scelo explained, securing reparations is an extremely complicated ordeal for survivors, who often have to deal with the unwillingness of states to grant judicial reparations, and excruciatingly long wait times. Moreover, no universal solution exists; reparations take different forms depending on the specific context, country, culture and gender of the survivor. Indeed, compensating survivors is just one of many forms of reparations.
In addition to the recognition of non-material damages before courts, economic reparations can also come in the form of a monthly salary, physical and psychological rehabilitation, education funding for the children of survivors, the coverage of health care costs, and more. The GSF’s purpose is to step in when states are unable or unwilling to provide survivors with effective reparations. Vitally, their initiatives utilize survivor-centered approaches, including understanding and mapping survivors’ real-life needs, providing interim reparative measures when legal reparations are lacking, guiding CSOs and national authorities, and advocacy campaigns aimed at national and international authorities that ensure that reparations stay at the top of the political agenda.
Nonetheless, in a country such as BiH, shared historical truth can be hard to come by, especially in politics, making broader collective reparation policies an uphill battle. Thus, investing economically in the future of CRSV survivors is imperative if the state is to acknowledge their responsibility and repair past damage to the extent that it is possible. Finally, compensating those who have suffered can build trust in the government, which is critical if BiH is to heal the broken relationship between CRSV survivors and the state—for a democracy that casts one group aside fails all of its people.

author: Balkan Diskurs


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Behind Chinese Wikipedia user ban: threats, verbal attacks and election canvassing · Global Voices
Oiwan Lam

The Wikimedia Foundation has banned seven users and revoked administrator rights of twelve mainland Chinese administrators following an investigation on alleged infiltration of Wikipedia that may threaten the safety of the platform’s Chinese community.
Wikipedia is the world’s most popular online encyclopedia. The latest controversy concerning Chinese Wikipedia surfaced after Stand News and the Hong Kong Free Press reported on an ‘edit war’ between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong users over entries related to Hong Kong, such as the 2019 anti extradition protests and the Yuen Long subway attack incident on July 21, 2019. Screenshots of a conversation on a mainland Chinese Wikipedia chat group showed some community members discussing reporting Hong Kong Wikipedia users to the national security police.
A screenshot of a conversation where a user suggests reporting Hong Kong Wikimedia users to the national security police. Via HKFP
The Foundation released a statement on September 13 reading:
We have banned seven users and desysopped a further 12 as a result of long and deep investigations into activities around some members of the unrecognized group Wikimedians of Mainland China.
The ‘unrecognized group’ refers to WMC, which has more than 300 members and claims to represent the mainland Chinese Wikipedia community.
The Foundation further explained that the unprecedented steps were taken as ‘some users have been physically harmed’ as a result of the “exposure of personal information to users in mainland China.”
In order to understand the Foundation’s decision and the details of the threats faced by the Chinese Wikipedian community, Global Voices interviewed a veteran editor from mainland China through email. The editor's identity is anonymous due to security concerns.
Oiwan Lam: Several media outlets have described the editing debates between mainland Chinese and Hong Kong Wikipedians as a war. Do you agree with the ‘war’ metaphor?
Mainland Chinese Editor: 这不是香港与中国大陆维基人之间的战争。这次事件的根本原因是社群的某些用户长期违反社群的自治规则，而社群自身又无力解决所导致。而这些肆意妄为的用户又以中國大陸維基人用戶組（WMCUG／WMC）的成员为主（WMCUG总是自称代表中国大陆的维基人，可能是这个给外界一个错误的印象吧）。肆意妄为的事情包括了互相包庇，在社群选举当中拉票、排除异己，对其他用户进行语言暴力而得不到惩罚，甚至即使惩罚也会被包庇的管理员解除掉。
Mainland Chinese Editor: This is not a war between Hong Kong and mainland Chinese Wikipedia users. The incident is caused by a prolonged violation of community rules by some users. And the community has failed to solve the problem internally. These abusive users mostly came from an online chat group WMCUG (Wikimedians of mainland China user group) or WMC (Wikimedians of mainland China). They claimed that they represented Wikimedians in mainland China and gave people a wrong impression. The abusive behaviors include shielding each other in the editing process, election canvassing and excluding those who disagreed with them. As a result, they were not sanctioned when they verbally attacked other Wikimedians or even if they were sanctioned, other administrators would lift the sanction.
OL: Can you point to specific editing incidents that sparked debate? How did the Wikipedian community in your region react to the incident? And what can be done to improve communication?
MCE: 在我看来争议有几种，一种是文化冲突造成的争议，每一个个体都有自己的思想文化体系和价值观，当不同的文化价值观用户遇到一起必然会有冲突。一种则是nerd间的那种争执，比如某句话应该如何表述，到底用哪个词表述更中立…这两种冲突，维基百科都有足够的机制来解决。只是这次一些人抱团且排外，并裹挟了一些人，而与之冲突的则都是一些分散的个体，这就造成了非常不平衡的局面，而且也无人能够调停这个局面。
MCE: There are different types of debates, one caused by cultural conflicts as every individual has their own culture and value systems and conflicts are inevitable. Another type of conflict is among nerds, they usually argue about expressions, particularly on a term's neutrality. These two types of conflicts can be resolved by the current Wikipedia mechanisms. But the debate can be very unfair if a group of people have strong coordination and pressure other community members to support their views while others are participating in the debate as individuals. In such a situation, the conflict cannot be resolved from within.
OL: The national security education in the greater China region has encouraged netizens to report individuals and acts that undermine the authority of the central and regional governments to the National Security Police. Are you worried that someone might report your editing work? What’s the impact of such policies on the Wikipedia community?
MCE: 是的，这是个非常可怕的事情。这种文化对本次事件也有很深的影响。这次被封禁的部分人以及WMCUG其中的另一些成员，除了之前爆出的扬言举报事件外，近几年在我看来，有时在讨论中所暴露出来的姿态，和那些其他网络群体中举报的用户画像非常相像，这也造成了许多大陆维基人，甚至这一两年来的一些香港维基人甚至台湾维基人（毕竟生活工作上很可能与大陆有许多交往）谨小慎微，特别是在政治相关的编辑与讨论上。虽然乐观来看，国家安全部门未必看得上这种争吵，但谁知道这些东西有没有被系统记录下来，未来哪一天说不定这会成为你的罪状之一呢。
MCE: Yes, this is a very terrifying trend and such a political culture has a very grave impact. Among those who were banned by the foundation and some members in the WMCUG, in addition to the screenshot of the conversation to report other users to the national security police, sometimes the attitude or manner reflected in discussions is quite typical of [police] informers. Many Wikimedians from mainland China, and in recent years from Hong Kong and even Taiwan (as they have connections to mainland China) have become extremely careful in editorial discussions, in particular when the topics are related to politics. While the national security authorities may not pay attention to the debates, people would be worried that these discussions would be recorded and used against them in the future.
OL: Have you heard of anyone in the Wikipedian community who have been threatened, interrogated or arrested by police for what they have said or written on Wikipedia?
MCE: 我没有听说过有人因为编辑(said or written)维基百科而遭遇这种事情，但有听说因为做一些与维基百科有关的活动而遭遇这种状况，甚至有商业机构因为与维基百科合作而被约谈。
MCE: I have not heard of anyone being threatened by what they said or wrote on Wikipedia. But I have heard that someone had been threatened for their involvement in Wikipedia related activity. A commercial organization was invited to ‘an interview’ [editor note: interview usually means “interrogation” by police or other authorities in mainland Chinese context] for collaborating with Wikipedia.
OL: Are you concerned about infiltration? Can you explain why or why don’t you think it is a problem?
MCE: ‘infiltration’ 是媒体的误读，因为这个词太多用在政治和国际关系中了。WMF所说的’infiltration'是指不良团体与个人对维基自治社群的破坏，并且造成社群无法自我调解的状况
MCE: The term ‘infiltration’ is a bit misleading as it has been widely used in politics and international relations. The infiltration concern raised by Wikimedia Foundation refers to people or groups that had harmed the Wikimedian self-governance rule to the extent that it could not be resolved internally.
OL: I noticed that there were calls (Xinjiang Plan 2021–2030)  among mainland Chinese Wikipedians to edit pages related to Xinjiang, although the editor (Walter Grassroot) was sanctioned, some are still worried that similar campaigns would eventually turn Wikipedia into a Chinese propaganda branch. How can Wikipedia mitigate similar kinds of calls for political editing?
MCE: 我认为维基百科在目前的框架下根本不需要担心这种问题，类似的呼吁在维基百科来说很常见，不仅仅是政治的，也有其他领域的，比如自然科学、女性、（条目）贫乏的非洲等等（Xinjiang Plan 2021-2030从内容上来看也不是政治性为主的，虽然其目的很可能是政治性的）。需要担心的是，维基百科之外中文内容的劣质才是根本的，而这需要作者、媒体与出版商来解决，而在我看来，至少近期是比较悲观的。而这些都是维基百科编写所要依靠的外部来源，特别是与中华文化圈相关的事物。
MCE: Under the editing principle adopted by Wikipedia, I am not worried about this problem. In fact, it is not unusual to see similar kinds of editing calls on topics related to politics, natural science, women, poverty etc. The contents of Xinjiang Plan 2021–2030 is not entirely political, although the call may be driven by political intention. What I am worried about is the quality of the Chinese content on Wikipedia. We need good writers, media outlets and publications to ensure our quality. But I am quite pessimistic about the trend. Our editing work relies on outside sources, and for Chinese Wikipedia, we rely on quality information sources from the pan-Chinese culture circle.
OL: Do you agree with the Wikipedia Foundation's decision to ban seven users and revoke the admin rights of twelve mainland Chinese administrators?
MCE: 这次事件其实非常复杂，大概除了基金会负责此事的员工，没有人知道事情的全貌。根据基金会的说法，这次事件是在1年多前就已经进行了，而在2017年则已经开始了调查。而如果再回溯的话，则更可以追溯到2013年。许多用户通过不同途径、在不同时间一直在陆陆续续向基金会反映情况，基金会现在做出这个行为，应该是掌握了足够的材料才做出的。
对于基金会的这个做法，我是从两方面看的，首先是大快人心，就像治愈了一场大病的感觉；其次，从维基百科内部来看，基金会对社群自治的干预是否过于激进了？自治社群如何才能避免这种状况发生是需要社群进一步去思考和讨论的
MCE: This is a very complicated issue. Apart from those who are responsible for the investigation, no one has a full picture of what exactly happened. According to the Foundation, the latest disputes surfaced more than one year ago and the Foundation started an investigation [on Chinese Wikipedia] in 2017. The challenges we are facing now can be traced back as far as 2013. Many users have raised the issues to the Foundation and I am sure that the Foundation has adequate evidence to make such a decision.  My feelings are divided. On the one hand, I am thrilled as if a disease has been cured. On the other hand, I am worried if the intervention is too radical that it may affect the self-governance of the Chinese Wikipedia community. On the whole, I think the community has to think about how to address the problem internally and prevent similar harms from occurring in the future.

author: Oiwan Lam


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Shooting in Kazakhstan leaves five dead after financial dispute over real estate · Global Voices
Paolo Sorbello

Police cordoned off the area of the shooting in Almaty. Screengrab from Radio Azattyk's YouTube video.
On the afternoon of September 20, a man opened fire against police and a bailiff, killing five, in a rare episode of violence in Almaty, the most populous city in Kazakhstan.
Unlike the blind violence that brought an 18-year-old student to shoot and kill several people at his university in Perm, in central Russia, on the same day, the man in Kazakhstan was possibly pushed to such an extreme act by a socioeconomic system that has grown increasingly unfair.
Igor Duzhnov, 54, lived in the Akbulak district in the west of Almaty.
In 2011, Duzhnov and his wife took a loan from Bank CenterCredit, a medium-sized local lender, in an effort to enhance their businesses. By December 2014, a court had ruled that the failure to repay the loan on time would impose a penalty on Duzhnov and his family.
They had listed their home and another commercial property they owned as a collateral for the loan. In 2018, the bank proceeded to auction the properties, re-purchasing one and selling the residential lot to a local buyer. The bank said that the electronic auction in 2014 was run in accordance to the law, and the absence of offers for the initial price triggered the system to decrease the asking price. Thus the collateral of the loan was sold at a discounted price.
Duzhnov and his family continued to live in the house, which they considered theirs, and refused to comply with default notices and court orders asking to vacate the property.
When the bailiff—accompanied by two policemen, the legitimate homeowner, and one of his friends—showed up at Duzhnov's door, Duzhnov took out a hunting rifle and started shooting. All five were killed, and Duzhnov was later apprehended by the police.
Duzhnov could now face between 20 years and life in prison. His wife, Anaid Demirchyan, said Duzhnov was in a state of depression, “he recently said that he was going crazy from despair. does not know what to do next. All these litigations [took a toll on him].”
People in Kazakhstan reacted to this act of violence, essentially condemning the killings, but also justifying Duzhnov's unwillingness to surrender before what was widely perceived as unjust treatment.
Commenting on a YouTube video of the aftermath of the shooting, users expressed their disappointment in the behavior of the bank and the authorities.
Вот так надо защищаться от фашистов-полицаев. (Rada Duma)
That's how you defend yourself from the fascist police. (Rada Duma)
Народ доводят вот и реакция. Судебная система виновата. Людей судьи за людей не считают. Вот и результат. Сейчас начнут все дела по этому дому исправлять чтобы не было косяков. Твари. Мужика жалко. (Edward the Brave)
[The authorities] have driven people to such a reaction. The judicial system is to blame. Judges do not consider people as humans. Here is the result. Now they will begin to fix all the affairs of this house so that there are no snags. Beasts. Sorry for the guy. (Edward the Brave)
Коррупция опутала госорганы, судей, правоохранительные органы .. куда вы загнали народ. (Nauryzkhan B.)
Corruption has seeped through government agencies, judges, law enforcement agencies …  you drove the people [to shoot]. (Nauryzkhan B.)
Лучше бы эти судоисполнители конфискофали все наворованное коррупцией и переправленые за границу деньги и счета’ чем отбирали последнее жилье и доводили до отчаяния семью. (Aisulu D.)
It would be better if these bailiffs were confiscating everything stolen through corruption and [laundered] money, rather than than taking away the last housing and droving a family to despair. (Aisulu D.)
Andrei Linnik, a member of the Majilis, the country's parliament, revived a proposal to introduce individual bankruptcy regulations and tighten the conditions under which banks can seize collateral assets.
The population's massive debt burden is caused, among other things, by the high interest rate [set by] the National Bank. [Among other causes are] the unfairness of court decisions on such disputes and the possible collusion between bailiffs and bank employees. It is necessary to guarantee the basic, vital rights of bankrupt citizens.
Such a measure would ring-fence the banks’ ability to sell collateral to the market before an agreement between the parties is reached.
Banks in Kazakhstan were harshly hit by the global financial crisis of 2007. Several defaulted; others were acquired by the country's largest lenders. The shockwaves of the crisis are still felt in the country, as several families failed to repay their debts—especially those denominated in US dollars—thus further weakening the financial health of the banks.

author: Paolo Sorbello


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China in Ethiopia: Between a savior and an exploiter? · Global Voices
Maria Repnikova

As Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa grows, so are construction and infrastructure projects. Image Source; Simon Davis/DFID licensed under CC BY 2.0
The official Chinese narrative about Sino-Ethiopian relations presents China as an empowering partner, helping Ethiopia accomplish multifaceted development targets. The Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia's social media team regularly promotes messages about the Chinese government providing vaccines to Ethiopia, launches of new Sino-Ethiopian infrastructure projects, and China-led capacity-building programs. But this praise is not shared by everyone in Ethiopia and public opinion can be much more critical of China’s presence in Ethiopia, including Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
Popular narratives about China’s partnership with Ethiopia, however, complicate and challenge the official ones. Although Ethiopian media enjoys relative independence from the state, critical coverage of China remains rare in mainstream media, and the most dynamic space for China discussions remains the internet.
Whereas some online commentaries celebrate China’s help and contributions to Ethiopia, other discussions on Chinese projects tend to emphasize their exploitative features: Chinese enterprises are described as discriminatory when it comes to hiring Ethiopian labor; as extractive of Ethiopia’s natural resources, and as binding Ethiopia into long-term financial dependency. Chinese actors are not solely blamed for this unfair partnership. Some commentaries also implicate Ethiopian politicians.
The positive depictions of China on Ethiopia’s social media platforms either frame China as an optimal choice of partner as opposed the United States or compliment specific projects that China has implemented in Ethiopia.
As for the former, one Facebook post reacts to the US critique of Abiy’s government when it comes to the handling of the Tigray conflict, and argues that Ethiopia should now decouple from the United States and work primarily with China that helped save Ethiopia’s economy and shift the overriding mentality away from dependency on Western donations. “We don’t need America’s wheat and dollars,” it says.
Another Facebook post praises China’s introduction of solar power technology to Ethiopia. It talks about the challenge of living with power shortages and asks:
What would be our fate if China didn’t introduce solar power to us?
Ethiopia does suffer from severe electricity cuts, with only 30 percent of the country having access to electricity, according to some reports. Chinese companies have recently become more actively involved in the solar sector in Ethiopia. In 2020, four off-grid PV (photovoltaic wire) power stations were completed by a Chinese company.
At the same time, grievances about Chinese projects dominate social media narratives. One of the concerns expressed is that Chinese companies bring their own labor and even their own materials. The depiction of the influx of Chinese workers is linked to the perception of China and Chinese firms as self-interested. An editorial in a major Ethiopian newspaper, the “Ethiopian Reporter” notes that the influx of Chinese labor does not help with the unemployment situation in Ethiopia and that even if Ethiopian workers do get jobs at Chinese companies, they tend to be low-pay, while Ethiopians aren’t treated well by their Chinese managers.
Another posting specifically concerning the construction of the Adama Industrial Park notes that a report from the Ethiopian Investment Commission found that Chinese workers engaged in construction work illegally (by law they are not supposed to work in sectors where Ethiopians are unable to get employment). Some online commentaries even go as far as to incite violence against Chinese workers.
China's extraction of Ethiopia’s natural resources is another source of anxiety. This post is concerned about the alleged illegal exports of opal stones to China (as well as India). The commentator, however, primarily blames the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) for using the Chinese industrial zone in Duken as coverage for illegal export, and for underpaying the local labor involved in opal mining. In this post, the Tigray officials are presented as colluding with Chinese companies to the detriment of the Ethiopian people.
Finally, indebtedness to China is a topic of grave concern. China is presented as disproportionately benefitting from the infrastructure projects in Ethiopia and across the BRI, and Ethiopia is burdened with insurmountable debt. A popular report from Ethiopia Wiki-Leaks states:
The infrastructure to be built under the BRI project is to boost China's foreign trade and not to facilitate the country's economic activities. As a result, countries’ interest rates are rising and they would be burdened by loans.
Some discussions also critically unpack China’s promises of loan forgiveness. This post analyzes the promised cancellation of debt following Abiy Ahmed’s visit to Beijing in 2018 and argues that China only canceled interest on a few development projects, with the total amounting to US dollars 25 million — a meager number in the context of Ethiopia’s nearly 14 billion US dollar debt to China.
As with the discussion of natural resource extraction, the critiques of indebtedness to China also implicate Ethiopian officials. In the post introduced above, the author concludes by urging the Ethiopian government to stop spreading misinformation about loan forgiveness, suggesting that it is complicit in misrepresenting the intentions of the Chinese government.
Social media posts also condemn the alleged corruption in assigning projects to Chinese companies in the first place. A discussion of a road construction bid in Bahir Dar, in the Amhara region in Northern Ethiopia suggests that the project was given to a Chinese company without a bid. The proposed explanation behind this favorable treatment of the Chinese company is that city officials are likely given a commission and that Chinese construction companies can finance their projects through Chinese loans. Some commentators refer to TPLF officials as especially corrupt when it comes to making unfair deals with Chinese companies.
Other online discussions about debt to China touch on the threat that China poses to Ethiopian sovereignty. A recent post on the Wazema Radio site, an online media platform launched by two Ethiopian journalists based in the United States directly invokes the possibility of invasion. Here the construction of the Chinese military base in Djibouti is used as evidence of China’s potential military objectives for entire Africa, not only for neighboring Ethiopia.
Some posts also mockingly associate the large-scale presence of the Chinese community in Ethiopia with political leverage. “They would ask for seats in the Ethiopian Parliament,” suggests one of these posts. Others fear that certain infrastructure projects built by China, if not repaid, will eventually be taken over by the Chinese. One post, for instance, notes that the Zambian International Airport has already been taken over by China due to a loan non-repayment and that the Ethiopian railway is likely to face a similar fate.
These popular portrayals of China as deliberately creating dependencies and even as scheming a potential take-over of Ethiopia are not backed by existing research. A recent study by scholars at the School of Oriental and Asian Studies in London that draws on four years of fieldwork in Ethiopia and Angola, for instance, finds that Chinese companies in fact do widely employ local labor. In the case of Ethiopia, 90 percent of employees in companies surveyed were local. Moreover, the study finds that many Chinese companies, especially in manufacturing, carried out extensive skill training in Ethiopia.
When it comes to Chinese debt, Chinese lenders have offered faster and more substantive debt relief to African countries than Western lenders, especially during the pandemic. Even prior to the pandemic (between 2010 and 2019) 16 cases of Chinese debt restructuring worth 7.8 billion US dollars have been documented for 10 African countries. In Ethiopia, far from taking over major infrastructure, such as the Djibouti Railway, the Chinese government has also restructured some of the debt. The repayment for the Djibouti railway, for instance, has been extended by 20 years in 2018. Another post suggests that the Addis Ababa light rail system (an overground metro built by China) is another target of future take-over.
The scientific findings of the localization efforts of Chinese companies and the relatively flexible debt arrangements of Chinese lenders, however, thus far, don’t appear to trickle into popular perceptions of China on the ground. China and its capital are still seen as driven to primarily benefit China, leaving Ethiopians with new infrastructure but few new jobs and dangerous vulnerabilities of long-term financial obligations that the government might not be able to fulfill.
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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In Turkey, environmentalists struggle to preserve the city’s remaining green spaces · Global Voices
Arzu Geybullayeva

Local residents cleaning up the park. Screenshot from Center for Spacial Justice video. September 23, 2021.
Validebağ Grove (Validebağ Korusu) is among the last remaining green spaces in Istanbul. Situated on the Anatolian side of Istanbul, the grove is home to unique species of trees, migratory birds, and several historic buildings. It has been named a Grade 1 Natural and Historic Site. And yet, since 2014, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has been fighting to allow development projects in the grove, much to the ire of community environmentalists. The most recent bid involves the AKP backed local municipality of Üsküdar, which entered the grove on September 21, with construction equipment dumping sand and debris, according to a report by Gazete Duvar. The protestors are calling the most recent attempt a “massacre of the law and of nature.”
But the municipality claims it is simply carrying out the “landscaping and rehabilitation project” launched by the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization and the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) ‘s Üsküdar Municipality.
This is not the first time the grove has become a heated topic of disagreements between the local environmental groups, volunteers, and the ruling party. In 2014, residents held protests and filed a lawsuit after the municipality proposed building a new mosque in the green space. Opponents argued that the area was already home to 26 mosques at the time. Eventually, the municipality ordered construction to halt — but only briefly. The ruling was ultimately lifted following an appeal from the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, according to a Hurriyet Daily News report at the time.
In 2018, a new project, “Nation's Garden,” was proposed for the area. With efforts from the volunteers, the project was stalled. Then in 2020, the Üsküdar Municipal Council allocated 261 thousand square meters of the grove's territory to the municipality for alleged purposes of care and maintenance.
In June 2021, following a visit to the grove, the Minister of Environment and Urbanization Murat Kurum announced plans for the “landscaping and rehabilitation project.” The project involved turfing  88 decares to make way for parking, hiking trails, open-air theaters, and food stalls at the entrances, among other attractions. There were brief victory celebrations after the administrative court issued a decision in July that the project would cause “irrecoverable damages” to the grove. Three months later, the municipality went ahead with the construction plans anyway.
The Validebağ Volunteers and Validebağ Protection groups have been guarding the park and sharing updates via their social media accounts. It was these two groups that informed the public that the municipality had entered the park, dumping debris on September 21.
VALİDEBAĞ ‘A ŞAFAK OPERASYONU !!!!
Üsküdar Belediyesi'nin hukukçu başkanı Hilmi Türkmen polis eşliğinde hukuk ve doğa katliamı yapıyor !
Koruyu çöplük yapan zihniyete geçit vermeyeceğiz
BİZ VARKEN ASLA ! #ÜBValidebağdanDefol pic.twitter.com/BjVelGuEcc
— ValidebağGönüllüleri (@ValidebagKorusu) September 21, 2021
Dawn raid on Validebağ! Üsküdar mayor Hilmi Türkmen, accompanied by police, slaughters nature and the law! We won’t allow the mentality that is turning the grove into a garbage dump. Not on our watch!
Eventually, the municipality removed the equipment from the park. Meanwhile, volunteers continue to call for support. Speaking to Bianet, Arif Belgin from the Validebağ Volunteers said, “We call on everyone who is on the side of nature and green to come here. This is a murder. We expect everyone to defend Validebağ.”
The ruling Justice and Development Party has never prioritized green spaces or environmental policy. The crackdown in 2013 against a group of environmentalists trying to prevent the destruction of yet another green space in Istanbul, Gezi Park, was the litmus test for the ruling government, marking the AKP's anti-environmental turn.
In 2013 it was Gezi Park, in 2021, it is the Validebağ Grove, not to mention all the smaller places and habitats that have been destroyed or damaged in between. But the struggle to preserve the remaining green spaces and the environment continues. The question is, will the government finally start listening?

author: Arzu Geybullayeva


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Life during the pandemic: An interview with former refugee, exiled cartoonist Eaten Fish · Global Voices
Mong Palatino

Ali Dorani working on a cartoon about the majority and minority. Photo used with permission
Iranian cartoonist Ali Dorani, whose pen name is Eaten Fish, was one of the nine cartoonists awarded a work grant by the Norway-based Fritt Ord Foundation in recognition of his work in using satire as a visual expression and medium of criticism in society.
Ali Dorani sought asylum in Australia in 2013 but he was transferred to Manus Island, an offshore detention camp in Papua New Guinea, where he was forced to stay as a refugee for four years before he was allowed to relocate to Norway in December 2017 through the sponsorship of the International Cities of Refuge Network.
His cartoon depicting the struggle of refugees in Manus was widely published. In 2016, the Cartoonists Rights Network International granted him the Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award for his work.
Manus Island, a cartoon by Eaten Fish. Used with permission
In 2018, Global Voices interviewed Ali Dorani about his difficult transition from being a refugee in Manus to his new life in Norway. We caught back up with him to learn about his latest artwork that landed him the grant, his experience during the coronavirus pandemic, and his work the past three years.
I have had many galleries in different cities in Norway and also in other countries such as Germany and Sweden. I've had a huge audience by now. I think over 15,000 people and students have visited my galleries, talks and conversations.
It's unbelievable for people hearing about persecution of human beings inside Australia's borders. Most people know Australia has one of the most free countries in the world and they don't know about immigration centers in Australia and they don't know what the Australian government is doing to hundreds of children by keeping them behind the fences in prisons.
He wrote about how the pandemic has disrupted his life as an exiled artist and former refugee who relies on public events to share his story and artworks:
As a freelance artist the pandemic damaged my work so much because I have to show my drawings to the public and I have to talk to the public and I have to share cartoons with them but the pandemic restricted me so much. So, after the pandemic, I was not able to travel much and I was not able to run galleries. I make my income by doing cartooning and running galleries in selling my cartoons and paintings; (but) the pandemic has stopped everything.
Then, I had to look for a permanent job, (but) because of the pandemic, finding a new job was almost impossible for me.
Minority VS Majority! pic.twitter.com/cQh1rlFy2s
— Eaten Fish (@realEatenFish) July 22, 2021
He was recently informed about a competition organized by The Fritt Ord foundation regarding the theme of majority and minority. He remembered having a hard time understanding the topic:
It is absolutely so difficult really talking about minorities and majorities because for example I don't really know in what context I should translate these two words. Do minorities or majorities exist or do they mean opposite of each other? Do we actually understand these two words? Or do we totally understand what exactly a minority or majority is? It was my first time coming up with such a thing.
He only had two days to work on his submission. He explained how he came up with the symbol of sunflower to represent the human race.
I came up with drawing a sunflower because a sunflower is a flower that has hundreds of seeds inside itself which represents the Society in my cartoon. I drew 7 sunflowers in a cage which represent the different continents and I called them the minority…
And on the other side I draw one sunflower which represents the majority. The black and white sunflower represents a small group who has the power to control the rest of the world and… So you see the black and white sunflower has a key and the rest of the sunflowers in the cage are locked. So because the black and white sunflower has the power I call it the majority and the rest of the sunflowers that don't have the power are being called the minority.
The award inspired him to pursue his unfinished projects:
After this prize I got so motivated to finish my books and publish them.
I have been writing a book about my life and the history I have from the refugee detention centres in Australia and Immigration prison camps in Papua New Guinea and also I'm doing another comic book about my life in Norway and now I'm so motivated to finish these two books.
He has one major piece of advice to fellow artists who are struggling to survive the pandemic:
I would like to tell other fellow (artists) that they should never stop trying, they should never stop searching and they should never be afraid of sharing their opinion, especially cartoonists.

author: Mong Palatino


text:
Syrian migrants fall victims to “human trafficking mafia” in Libyan prisons · Global Voices
عقبة محمد - Mohammed Okba

Boats transporting migrants between the coasts of Libya and Europe, and then decommissioned after they sank. Image from the magazine Baynana.
The report was prepared by Okba Muhammad, and published in ‘Baynana‘, an independent online magazine for Syrian immigrants in Spain. The report has been reproduced in accordance with a partnership agreement with Global Voices
Abu Adnan, 55, tried desperately to sell the reserve of firewood he had kept to protect his family from the winter cold in the city of Nawa in Daraa governorate in southern Syria. He urgently needed the money to pay officials in Ghouta al-Shaal prison, west of the Libyan capital Tripoli, to rescue his son Ahmed, who had been arrested by the Libyan coast guard in the Mediterranean.
Ahmed, Abu Adnan’s youngest child at 17, was heading to Italy on July 31 and has been in a prison affiliated with the Government of National Accord (GNA) for three weeks. He had left for Tripoli through Damascus International Airport last May, with the aim of emigrating to Europe, in search of a safer life than the one he was living in Daraa, where assassinations are frequent.
Many young Syrians have left southern Syria since the beginning of 2021, because the region’s instability, and their fear of being dragged into compulsory military service and thrown into the frontlines of the country’s north. Many of them sold their valuables in Syria to get the money needed to pay smugglers in Libya to take them to Italy and Malta by boat across the Mediterranean. But many never completed the journey.
According to the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, over the past four months, the Libyan Coast Guard has arrested 800 Syrian youths as they tried to migrate to Europe via the Mediterranean from Libyan shores. The youngsters are locked up in four prisons across the capital: Al-Zawiya Prison, Abu Salim Prison, Ain Zara Prison, and Ghouta Al-Shaal Prison, where Ahmed is being held.
Mid-sea chase and fire
In a phone call with “Baynana,” Walid described his arrest:
كدنا أن نقترب من السواحل الإيطالية، ثم اقتربت باخرة من القارب الذي كنّا نستقلّه، وبدأوا بالإشارة لنا بأيديهم، قررنا الهرب، لكن قامت الباخرة بإنزال قارب صغير يحمل 6 مسلحين، وقاموا بمطاردتنا ثم أطلقوا النار على محرّك قاربنا حتى تمكنوا من تعطيله، ثم اقتربت الباخرة وقاموا بنقلنا إليها، حيث كان يتواجد فيها قرابة 600 مهاجر آخرين من جنسيات مختلفة.
We were about to reach the Italian coast, when a ship approached the boat we were boarding. They started pointing towards us. We decided to escape, but the ship lowered a small boat carrying 6 armed men, who chased after our boat and then shot its engine, bringing it to a halt. The ship approached us then, and they transferred us to it, where there were about 600 other immigrants of different nationalities.
The coast guard forces on the ship began confiscating the migrants’ belongings, including money, phones, and passports, throwing some of these items into the sea, according to Walid. Then they transferred the migrants to Tripoli prisons, in a journey that took 10 hours.
“Italy helps the Libyan coast guard intercept immigration boats at sea and illegally detains them in detention centers without the slightest supervision, in addition to subjecting migrants to mistreatment, rape, forced labor and human trafficking,” said Ana Gonzalez-Paramo, senior researcher at the Madrid-based PorCausa Foundation.
Gonzalez-Paramo also indicated that the European Border and Coastal Agency, Frontex, is a very active part of this mechanism, as it sends information about the locations of ships in the Mediterranean Sea from its aerial surveillance missions (drones) to the Libyan Coast Guard, which in turn begins to raid the boats and return migrants to detention centers in Tripoli.
Dire prison conditions
In a press statement issued on August 12, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor said that the detainees are living in very poor humanitarian conditions, noting that they are subjected to violations that affect their safety and dignity. The suffering begins from the moment the Libyan Coast Guard intercepts the boats of migrants, beating and humiliating them, until they are placed in detention centers that lack minimum human requirements.
”We eat the food they give us to keep on our feet,” Walid said, adding that the only meal of the day was at ten at night, and was a plate of inedible rice per five people.
He also describes prisons as hangars built of blocks and covered with iron plates, driving up the heat in the place and causing illness among prisoners, adding that “dozens suffered from skin diseases without any health care.”
Walid also said that Mohamed Youssef Barakat, a neighbour of his in his forties from Walid's home village, who was locked up in the same prison, died of hunger and the poor prison conditions. Walid learned of his death hours after leaving the detention centre.
The Euro-Med Monitor's legal researcher, Youssef Salem, held the Libyan government responsible for all the abusive practices that take place inside the prisons and detention centers it runs, according to the statement it issued.
Meanwhile, Baynana did not receive a response to inquiries it sent to Muhammad Hammouda, the official media spokesperson for the GNA in Tripoli, on the detention and torture of migrants.
European cooperation with Libya
In a report issued in July, Amnesty International accused European countries of complicity in these human rights violations, for helping the Libyan Coast Guard intercept people at sea and putting them in detention in Libya, while fully aware of the suffering these migrants face there. The organization called on Europe to end its cooperation with Libya on everything related to the field of migration and border control.
In the July 15 report titled “No one will look for you’: Forcibly returned from sea to abusive detention in Libya,” the organization documented arbitrary arrest, systematic torture, sexual violence for food, forced labor, and exploitation during the first six months of 2021. The report detailed the experiences of 53 refugees and migrants who were detained in centres officially controlled by the Libyan Anti-Illegal Migration Authority.
The researcher Gonzalez-Paramo said:
الاتحاد الأوروبي مسؤول عن همجية ليبيا بشكل مباشر أو من خلال غض النظر عن أفعالها، حيث يتم تمويل الجماعات المسلحة التي تستفيد من المهاجرين، والتواطؤ مع هذه الجرائم يمرّ دون عقاب، بسبب استحالة المطالبة بالمسؤوليات والمساءلة في ديناميات إعادة التوطين أو الاستعانة بمصادر خارجية لمراقبة الهجرة.
The EU is responsible for Libya’s barbarism directly or by turning a blind eye to its actions, as armed groups that profit from migrants are funded, and complicity in these crimes go unpunished, due to the impossibility of claiming responsibilities and accountability in the resettlement dynamics or outsourcing migration control.
Migrant trafficking
For smugglers to release detained migrants from prisons, the prices they charged varied by the prisons they're held in. According to migrants’ testimonies, the price for release from Ghouta al-Shaal Prison, for example, is 1200 USD, while it is 600 USD for Ain Zara Prison, and 800 USD for Abu Salim Prison.
Walid confirmed to Baynana magazine that he and his colleagues paid 850 USD per person to local agents in the prison and those linked to smugglers and prison officials in exchange for their release, describing “the issue as akin to human trafficking mafias.”
As for 17-year-old Ahmed, his father and brother went out of their way to pay the 1200 USD to get him out of prison, and, to this day, he is still receiving treatment in Tripoli to recover from the inhumane conditions he was subjected to during his detention in Libyan prisons.

author: عقبة محمد - Mohammed Okba


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Turkey’s Uyghur dilemma in the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Illustration by Giovana Fleck, used with permission
Turkey has traditionally been an ally of the Uyghurs due to strong linguistic, cultural, and religious ties. Yet Ankara's political and economic alliances with Beijing, including the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), have complicated these historical bonds, divided Turkish public opinion, and reshaped Turkey’s official policy regarding the Uyghurs in the past years.
Having lost their political independence in the 1940s, the nearly 13 million Uyghur people living in western China in Xinjiang province have long considered Turkey a cultural and political haven. Turkey has become a home to Uyghur businessmen and students, as well as dissidents who have sought refuge to escape persecution and life in internment camps. Today, an estimated 50,000 Uyghurs live in Turkey to flee the Beijing-orchestrated deprivation of their most basic human rights, including freedom of religion, of movement and of communicating in their native language.
Until the early 2010s, the Uyghur cause was widely embraced in Turkish political circles. In 2009 Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then prime minister, described the situation in Xinjiang as a “genocide” and sought to shame China internationally.
But following a sharp economic decline in the aftermath of a military coup in July 2016, Erdoğan’s tone changed. The national currency depreciated 29 percent, dealing the economy a major blow, as relations with the US soured and Turkey swapped its parliamentary system for a presidential one in 2018.
The economy has hardly recovered since then. Credit rating agencies currently rank Turkey as a high-risk country. In the last three years, capital outflows have surpassed capital inflows. In other words, foreign investors are leaving the Turkish economy for economic or political reasons. While nearly a quarter of Turkey's government bonds were held by foreign investors in 2013, today it is around 4 percent. Foreign direct investment (FDI) has also dropped. According to the Ministry of Trade, from 2016–2020, total FDI in Turkey dropped from 12.18 billion US dollars to 6.67 billion US dollars. In due course, investors from the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Azerbaijan, and Russia all reduced their investment in the country.
As foreign investors abandoned Turkey, China stepped in as an important player. Shortly after the currency crisis in 2018, China provided Turkey with a loan of 3.6 billion US dollars to be used in the energy and transportation sectors. Since then, the country has loaned an additional 6.6 billion US dollars to strengthen the economic, and commercial ventures between the two countries.
As economic ties strengthened, Turkey's policies on the treatment of Uyghurs in China weakened. Most notably, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu made a statement in 2017 assuring Chinese counterparts that Turkey would not tolerate criticism against China, marking a shift in the ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) policies regarding the Uyghurs.
We absolutely will not allow in Turkey any activities targeting or opposing China. Additionally, we will take measures to eliminate any media reports targeting China.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
The last time Turkish authorities criticized the mistreatment of Uyghurs was in February 2019. In a written statement, Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Hami Aksoy said, “more than one million Uighur Turks incurring arbitrary arrests are subjected to torture and political brainwashing in internment camps and prisons. Uyghurs who are not detained in these camps are under heavy pressure.” The response from the Chinese government was swift. China's Ambassador to Turkey Deng Li “warned” Turkey that such statements disturb Chinese investors and if Turkey continues its criticism, they would inevitably jeopardize bilateral economic relations.
In 2017, Turkey signed an extradition treaty with China during President Erdogan's visit to Beijing. The agreement consists of 22 articles and obligates Turkey to extradite any person wanted on criminal charges to China. Although China ratified the treaty in December 2020, Turkey is yet to do so. The Turkish parliament received the document in 2019. Many have linked the delay in ratifying the treaty with China failing to deliver the promised 100 million doses of China-made COVID-19 vaccines.
But China is notorious for getting what it wants through its economic coercion policy to punish countries who are critical of its policies — and Turkey is no exception. It was not at all surprising then to hear Erdoğan speak fondly of China during his meeting with President Xi Jinping in Beijing in July 2019.
According to the reporting by the Chinese media Erdoğan thanked “China's prosperity” for ensuring “happy lives” of “residents of various ethnicities living in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.” Turkey's president also emphasized Turkey’s opposition to extremism and willingness to increase mutual political trust and strengthen security cooperation with China. He also assured China that Turkey won't allow anti-Chinese activities in Turkey. In response, President Xi expressed China's appreciation of Turkey’s position and thanked Erdoğan for assuring that no power in Turkey would be allowed to take separatist action against China. The final show of this assurance is the exclusion order that Turkey presented to the President of World Uyghur Congress, Dolkun Isa on September 9, 2021. Despite a September 7 court order, indicating Isa should be allowed, Turkey barred Isa from entering the country on September 19.
However, the AKP's U-turn on China is not widely supported. According to a MetroPOLL survey from May 2021, 53.2 percent of respondents said, they did not think the government was responding adequately to China on the treatment of Uyghurs.
In addition to public response, the opposition leaders have too, voiced criticism over the ruling government's silence on Uyghurs — a narrative the ruling party has had a hard time controlling. In April 2021, when Good Party (İYİ Parti) Chairman Meral Akşener tweeted her support for East Turkestan, the Chinese Embassy in Ankara tweeted in response, “The Chinese side resolutely opposes and strongly condemns any challenge by any person or power to China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Chinese side reserves its right to a rightful response.”
Although according to Turkish media, Ankara summoned China’s Ambassador over the tweet, the Turkish Foreign Ministry did not issue a press statement about the summoning. While the ruling party kept it quiet, on Twitter, the response was different.
Journalist Gökhan Özbek, wrote:
Haddinizi biliniz!
Bu ülke sömürge değil.
Ve siz de had bildirecek sömürge valisi değilsiniz!
Siz bu ülkede tek bir yurttaşı üstü kapalı tehdit edemezsiniz!
Diplomatik kurallar içinde kalınız!
Kimseyi Türkiye’de hedef göstermeyiniz!
— Gökhan Özbek (@gokhanozbek) April 6, 2021
Know your place!/This country is not a colony./And you are not the colonial governor to snub! You cannot implicitly threaten a single citizen in this country! Stay within diplomatic rules!/Do not target anyone in Turkey!”
Another Twitter user wrote:
Çin , Uygur Türklerini savunan Meral Akşener ve Mansur Yavaş'ı tehdit edip hedef göstermektedir.
Çin'e nota verilmeli ve Çin Büyükelçiliği çalışanları istenmeyen adam ilan edilmelidir. pic.twitter.com/mK2FGxe6T2
— KABAÇ HATUN (yine Emevi-Arap zihniyetine karşıyız) (@KabacHatun) April 6, 2021
China threatens and targets Meral Akşener and Mansur Yavaş, who defended the Uyghur Turks. A diplomatic note should be given to China and the Chinese Embassy staff should be declared persona non grata.
So far, joining AKP's silence, is its coalition partner, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).
The sudden change in the narrative on the plight of Uyghurs living in Turkey and their treatment in China, in exchange for economic incentives from Beijing, is indicative of the AKP government priorities and willingness to control media discourse to impose the narratives that best suit their political interests of the day.
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: Filip Noubel


text:
Quirky Japanese promo campaign launches new brand of rice, just in time for harvest season · Global Voices
Nevin Thompson

Fields of koshihikari rice near Sakai, Fukui. Photo by Nevin Thompson. License: CC-BY-3.0
The official Japan-wide launch of a new rice brand includes a quirky musical commercial, a social media photo contest, and feelings of anticipation for “new rice” (新米) as the newly harvested crop hits store shelves across the country in September and October.
The rice is called Ichihomare (いちほまれ), and the ad campaign features a mini-musical production with dancing anthropomorphic bags of rice, and a two young women wearing hats shaped like grains of rice. There are also, of course, closeup shots of steaming, mouth-watering bowls of cooked rice, fresh from the fields.
The dancing duo is comprised of sister act Honda Miyu (本田 望結), a popular Japanese figure skater and budding media personality, and her younger sister Sara (本田紗来), also a figure skater. The sisters share a YouTube channel, and are originally from Kyoto prefecture, which borders Fukui in western Japan.
As a brand name, Ichihomare was chosen from 100,000 potential names submitted as part of a contest in 2016. Translated, the “ichi” in Ichihomare means “the best,” as in “the best in Japan,” “the most delicious.” “Homare” can mean “award” in Japan, so a potential translation of Ichihomare is “top honors” for taste.
Rice fields in late July in Sunagare, Tsuruga, in Fukui prefecture. Photo by Nevin Thompson. Image license: CC-BY-3.0
The promotional campaign, including the television spot, was produced by the Fukui Rice Promotion Council (ふくいブランド米推進協議会), a government body, and the local Fukui agriculture cooperative.
Fukui is a small, relatively rural prefecture of 800,000 located on the Japan Sea coast. While being best-known for dinosaurs, being a global player in the eyeglass frame industry, and hosting the largest concentration of nuclear power facilities on the planet, Fukui is also a powerhouse when it comes to rice. Koshihikari, both the most popular cultivar and brand name of short-grain Japonica rice in Japan, and that is now produced all over the world, was originally developed in Fukui prefecture following World War II.
Ripening koshihikari rice in early September in Tsuruga, Fukui. Photo by Nevin Thompson. Image license: CC-BY-3.0
As both a brand and new Japonica cultivar, ichinomare is based on koshihikari. According to the official ichinomare website, the new strain, while intended to appeal to customers across Japan, is also genetically designed to resist pests, require less fertilizer and fewer pesticides, and use less water.
However, the main challenge ichinomare is intended to address is climate change. According to the Sake Guide, over the past 100 years, the mean surface temperature in Japan has increased by 1.15°C — about double the value compared to the rest of the world — and is expected to rise by 2.1 to 4.0°C within the next century. In the same timeframe, rice yields in some parts of Japan are forecasted to decrease by up to 20 percent.
A more immediate problem for Fukui's rice growers is that rice just isn't as popular in Japan as it once was.
Prior to the pandemic, the average Japanese person consumed 82 kg of rice per year. While rice consumption in Japan has actually rebounded over the course of the pandemic — there is speculation that this increase in consumption is because rice is a “comfort food” during the stressful times of COVID-19 — overall people are eating less of it.
Suburban rice plot in May, in Showa-cho, Tsuruga. Photo by Nevin Thompson. Image license: CC-BY-3.0
Declining rice consumption in Japan presents challenges for rural prefectures like Fukui, where suburban and rural land use is often centered around rice production. Across Japan, the sector is generally dominated by small rice farmers, who manage a family plot often as a side business, heavily subsidized by the government.
Challenges selling rice because of declining demand often tempt small farmers to shift to different crops, or give up agriculture altogether. Branding and promotional efforts, such as Fukui's Ichihomare campaign are one way to spark consumer interest and, hopefully boost rice sales across Japan.
The newly launched Ichinomare campaign hopes to change all that. Besides television commercials, in September there was also a photo contest where members of the public were invited to submit snapshots of rice fields from anywhere in Japan, and of any strain of rice (not just Fukui's beloved ichinomare variety).
A post shared by Yuki Mitsutani (@tripadviser_fukui)
It's the season where we anticipate the arrival of new rice (新米) in the stores.
#Fukui prefecture #Katsuyama #Echizen rail line #local trains #train scenes #rice fields
#Ichihomare rice field photo contest
To get a taste of rice fields in Japan during the autumn harvest, follow submissions to the Ichihomare photo contest (submissions were accepted until September 15, 2021) on Instagram and on Twitter. Photo contest winners will be announced on the official Ichinomare website in mid-October.

author: Nevin Thompson


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Reviving the Cree and Ojibwe languages of Manitoba with TikTok · Global Voices
Rising Voices

Screenshot of the @micec.mb TikTok account.
As a child growing up in the Fox Lake Cree Nation in Northern Manitoba, Canada, Sharissa Neault would hear the Ininímowin (Cree) language from her grandparents. However, the language was not passed on her mother and consequently not to Neault either. “As I grew older, I heard less and less Ininímowin until I believed it was lost,” she would recount in an email interview with Rising Voices.
Fast forward to the present day, and Neault has moved to Winnipeg and has started working at the Manitoba Indigenous Cultural Education Centre (MICEC), a nonprofit educational organization that provides programs and services to help raise awareness of Indigenous cultures in the Province of Manitoba. This Canadian Province is located in Cree, Dakota, Dene, Ojibway, and Oji-Cree traditional First Nations territories, and the Métis Nation.
After she began working at the MICEC, Neault saw diverse ways to promote these languages, including social media. She joined forces with Noah Malazdrewicz, actively involved with sharing the Ojibwe language, and they begin creating TikTok videos on the Centre’s account (@micec.mb). Combining humor, everyday language use, and relatable situations, these videos are contributing to making the language accessible, especially during the ongoing pandemic when many people were at home. The results have been gratifying, as Neault shared with the News Site of the University of Winnipeg, where she is currently studying:
“Young people are seeing it and saying “Thank you, I heard my granny say this as a kid,’ ‘I haven’t heard my language in years, thank you,’ or ‘I didn’t know I could still learn my language,’” Neault said. “The comments make it worth it.”
Photo provided by Sharissa Neault and used with permission.
In this short interview with Rising Voices she shares further information about herself, her language, and her digital activism:
Rising Voices (RV): What is the current status of your language both offline and on the internet?
Sharissa Neault (SN): There are 5 dialects of the Cree language, which also vary by community. My family speaks the n dialect (Swampy Cree), and my community’s dialect of Cree will die in the next 10-20 years with our last remaining fluent speakers. In other communities across Manitoba I would estimate that there are less that 500 fluent speakers under 50. When our older fluent speakers pass we will rely on these few young people, and their children to carry the language both online and offline. The n dialect is lacking in language learning resources, however, there are people who are working hard to create them alongside our remaining fluent speakers. The y dialect (Plains Cree) is in much better shape, with a higher number of speakers under 50, and many more online and offline resources.
RV: What have been the biggest challenges for you during your activities to promote your language and culture on the internet? And what are some of the ways that you have been trying to overcome these challenges?
SN: My biggest challenge has been finding the time to create content with other work commitments. I do my best to create content when I can, and in the past have created a collection of videos to post when I cannot record regularly.
RV: What are your main motivations for your language digital activism?
SN: My main motivations are the Indigenous youth who are just like me when I was 15. The Indigenous youth who think their culture and language are lost. I hope that when they see us, and hear us, they can see and hear themselves; I hope I can help at least one person who is like me, to pick up their language again.
RV: What are your hopes and dreams for your language?
SN: I hope that Ininímowin stays with us long enough for my grandchildren, or my great grandchildren, or my great-great grandchildren and so on, to learn the language as their first language, and understand the complex culture that is embedded in every word. That is all I hope for.

author: Rising Voices