VIVE CUBA LIBRE
Cuba reopens but faces challenge wooing back tourists

Issued on: 20/11/2020 - 21:18

A receptionist sanitizes her hands at the Melia Habana Hotel in Havana -- Cuba is reopening its doors to foreign tourists after months of coronavirus-related closures, but will travelers return?  YAMIL LAGE AFP

Havana (AFP)

Cuba is reopening its doors to foreign tourists after an eight-month shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the cash-strapped country faces an uphill struggle to woo back wary travelers.

Tourism chiefs are banking on the island's track record of keeping the virus in check to win back holidaymakers.
"This is a major challenge," said Francisco Camps, deputy general manager of Melia, a Spanish hotel chain that currently is operating only 10 of its 34 locations in Cuba.ADVERTISING


The industry is pinning its hopes for the November-April high season on the capital Havana, the country's main tourist draw, which opened its international airport last weekend.

With its old fashioned Caribbean charm, the UNESCO World Heritage city attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year.

"Havana is important because it has regular flights, which allows connections with Europe," says Camps.

"It also allows a flow of visitors who do not only come to see the city but also do tours" -- bringing more tourist dollars than mere beachgoers.

The rest of the country's six international airports reopened last month to charter flights.

Tourism was worth $2.6 billion to Cuba in 2019. Deprived of that revenue this year, the island had to drastically reduce imports -- the source of 80 percent of its food.

Across the country, lines outside supermarkets are getting longer, with shortages of basics like coffee, milk and even toilet paper increasingly common.

"The shortages we are experiencing are quite significant -- I think it's the worst since the 1990s," said economist Ricardo Torres of the University of Havana.

That decade was dominated by a period of extreme austerity known as the Special Period, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

- 'Safe destination' -

Torres said tourism "is the sector that really managed to pull Cuba out of its worst economic crisis," after that period.

But these days, opening the country's doors to international visitors is not risk-free.

Several cases of coronavirus have been detected on flights of British and Russian tourists who have recently come to visit the island's beaches, forcing dozens of travelers into isolation.

"This is undoubtedly a great risk," said Francisco Duran, chief epidemiologist at Cuba's health ministry.

"I think our population needs to be aware of this, so that they can protect themselves as well as the people who arrive."

Case numbers here are among the lowest in the Americas, with just over 7,700 infections in a population of 11.2 million.

"Cuba, a safe destination" has been adopted as a slogan designed to reassure travellers.

Cuba's protocols require new arrivals to take a PCR test costing $30 on arrival and limit their movements until results are made available 24 hours later.

Every hotel will have a permanent medical team in place, due to a national health network that boasts 82 doctors per 10,000 inhabitants -- compared with 32 in France and 26 in the United States.

"Cuba's very successful strategy in controlling the epidemic is also an asset when it comes to opening up," said Torres, "because the tourists in the coming months will be looking for safe destinations from a health perspective."

"So, yes, we have to protect people's lives, but we also need to revive our economy, which is in a downward spiral," he said.

- Teleworking from Cuba? -

Cuba hosted a seminar for a group of 150 German travel agents earlier this month. Such is the importance of the German market that Prime Minister Manuel Marrero went to meet them.

But several European countries such as France are still not allowing citizens to travel abroad for pure tourism due to a second wave of the pandemic.

Canada, Cuba's biggest tourist market, is imposing a quarantine on people returning from the island.

The World Tourism Organization does not foresee a rebound in the industry before the end of 2021 -- hence the need for Cubans to be creative.

Melia now offers long stays -- of two to three months -- to Canadian "snowbirds" seeking to escape the harsh northern winter.

The industry is also seeking to exploit the new trend of teleworking, but that poses a challenge in a country where internet connections are often slow and unstable.

"One thing that is obviously important is the need to ensure connectivity," said Camps.

"So, for each of the five pilot hotels selected, we have acquired a gigabyte of bandwidth."

But Melia will keep a third of its Cuban hotels closed in 2021, believing a return to normal is unlikely for at least two years.

© 2020 AFP 

How To Make A Classic Cuba Libre Cocktail
Written by 
Colleen Graham
Updated 09/09/19

 

Nutritional Guidelines (per serving)141 Calories
0g Fat
4g Carbs
0g Protein

See Full Nutritional Guidelines
(Nutrition information is calculated using an ingredient database and should be considered an estimate.)

The Cuba Libre recipe is an easy and popular mixed drink that you will find very familiar. Translated from Spanish, the name means “Free Cuba,” a phrase that was popularized around the end of the Spanish-American War and used to celebrate that Cuba was freed from Spanish rule.


This simple mixed drink is similar to a rum and Coke, but the addition of fresh lime juice lightens up the mix and cuts through the sweetness of the cola. The lime is the single element that defines the Cuba Libre as a separate drink and it should be fresh (not from a bottle) to keep the drink authentic.


Ingredients

1/2 lime (juiced)
2 ounces light rum
4 ounces cola (Coca-Cola)

Steps to Make It

Gather the ingredients.

Squeeze the juice of half a lime into a collins glass or highball glass.

Add ice cubes and pour the rum into the glass.

Fill with cola and stir well.

Serve and enjoy!


Tips

If you want to make a more complex drink, after squeezing the lime, drop it into the serving glass and muddle it to release the citrus oil from the rind. Remove the fruit before adding the other ingredients.

A collins glass is taller and narrower than a highball glass, so it would maintain the carbonation of the cola longer. However, you can make a Cuba Libre at home in any tall glass you have handy.

If you can source some Mexican Coca-Cola that is sweetened with cane sugar, it will be more authentic than the American Coca-Cola sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). You can use other brands of cola or artisanal colas as you prefer.

Light rum is usually chosen for the Cuba Libre, and to be traditional you should use a Cuban-style rum. 

HAVANA CLUB AMBER

However, if you like dark rum, you can give that a try in your cocktail.

History

While the origins of the Cuba Libre and the rum and Coke claim to come from the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, that is doubtful. Coca-Cola did not arrive in Cuba until 1900. If there was a Cuba Libre before 1900, it was made with rum, water, and brown sugar.


A Bacardi advertising executive claims he was in Havana in 1900 when the drink was first mixed with Bacardi Rum and Coca-Cola. A competing story is that the Cuba Libre was first mixed at La Florida restaurant in Havana in 1902 on the anniversary of Cuban independence.


Iced drinks had been popular in Cuba since the 1800s. Although Cuba didn't make its own ice in those days, they had plenty of ice because it was imported by ice entrepreneur Frederic Tudor to the Caribbean islands in the early 1800s.


The popularity of rum and Coke spread to the U.S. and during Prohibition, Coca-Cola was useful in hiding the flavor of low-quality booze. When the U.S. placed an embargo on Coca-Cola imports to Cuba in 1960, Cubans began making Cuba Libres with TuKola instead.


How Strong Is a Cuba Libre?


The Cuba Libre is a rather mild mixed drink. Its actual alcohol content will vary depending on the strength of your rum and the amount of cola you end up pouring. On average, though, it will mix up to just 11 percent ABV (22 proof). It's perfectly normal for highball drinks and about as strong as a glass of wine.

ALTERNATE RECIPE 

THE NOSEY CHEF

Cuba Libre

Ingredients

60ml Havana Club Especial rum (this is not the place for white Bacardi, people)

7.5ml freshly squeezed lime juice

2 dashes Angostura bitters

150ml Coca-Cola

BESIDES WE WOULD NEVER USE A REACTIONARY ANTI CUBA  BACARDI

 SPACE WARS

FRANCE PLANS FOR SPACE LASERS

Satellite to track rising seas as climate warms

Issued on: 20/11/2020 - 

Sentinel-6 is set to be hoisted into a low-Earth 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) orbit by a Space X Falcon 9 rocket from California on Saturday - EUROPEAN SPACE AGENCY/AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

An Earth-observation satellite developed by European and US space agencies set to lift off Saturday will measure sea level rise, tracking changes threatening to disrupt tens of millions of lives within a generation.

If all goes according to plan, the payload will be hoisted into a low-Earth 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) orbit by a Space X Falcon 9 rocket, with lift-off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 17:17 GMT.

Sentinel-6a will be the first of two identical satellites -- the second to be launched in five years -- that will provide measurements of unprecedented precision until at least 2030.

Each Sentinel-6 probe carries a radar altimeter, which measures the time it takes for radar pulses to travel to Earth’s surface and back again.

The satellites will circle the planet in the same orbit as earlier missions that supplied sea-surface height data over the last three decades, mapping 95 percent of Earth’s ice-free ocean every ten days.

Accelerating sea level rise is arguably the climate change impact that will affect the largest number of people over the next three decades.

Nearly 800 million people live within five metres of sea level, and even an increase in sea level of a few centimetres can translate into vastly more damage from high tides and storm surges.

- Sea level rise accelerating -

Already today, there are more than 100 million people living below high tide levels.

"Extreme sea level events that are historically rare -- once per century in the recent past -- are projected to occur frequently, at least once per year, at many locations by 2050," especially in the tropics, the UN climate science advisory panel, the IPCC, concluded in a major report last year.

Satellites tracking the world's oceans since 1993 show that global mean sea level has risen, on average, by over three millimetres (more than a tenth of an inch) annually.

More recently, that rate has increased to 5 mm per year.

"It is crucial that we are able to see these accelerations," said Alain Ratier, outgoing Director-General of Europe’s meteorological satellite agency, EUMETSAT.

China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are home to the greatest number of people who today live on land that could be threatened by permanent inundation by 2100.

The IPCC forecasts an increase in global sea level rise of up to 1.1 metres (43 inches) by the end of the century.

The Copernicus Sentinel-6 mission is a collaboration of the European Commission, the European Space Agency (ESA), EUMETSAT, NASA and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The Sentinel satellites are each about the size and shape of a large minivan topped with slanted solar panels, and weigh nearly 1,200 kilos (2,600 pounds), including rocket fuel.

They are designed to last for five-and-a-half years, but could provide data for far longer.

© 2020 AFP

Antimicrobial resistance as dangerous as pandemic: WHO

Issued on: 20/11/2020 - 

Intensive animal farming can be a petri dish for antibiotic-resistant bacteria to develop

 STR AFP/File


Geneva (AFP)

The World Health Organization warned Friday that growing antimicrobial resistance was every bit as dangerous as the coronavirus pandemic -- and threatened to reverse a century of medical progress.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called the issue "one of the greatest health threats of our time".

Antibiotic resistance happens when bugs become immune to existing drugs, rendering minor injuries and common infections potentially deadly.

Resistance has grown in recent years due to overuse in humans, but also in farm animals.

"Antimicrobial resistance may not seem as urgent as a pandemic but it is just as dangerous," Tedros told a virtual press conference.

"It threatens to unwind a century of medical progress and leave us defenceless against infections that today can be treated easily," he said.

The WHO said antimicrobial resistance was endangering food security, economic development and the planet's ability to fight diseases.

Resistance has led to increased health care costs, hospital admissions, treatment failures, severe illnesses and deaths, the UN health agency said.

The WHO joined forces with the Food and Agriculture Organization and with the World Organisation for Animal Health to launch a new group to advocate for urgent action to combat the threat.

The One Health Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance will bring together heads of government, company chief executives and civil society leaders.

The group is co-chaired by Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh and Mia Mottley of Barbados.

The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said superbugs that are resistant to existing antibiotics were already taking an heavy toll.

"About 700,000 people globally die each year due to antimicrobial resistance. Without strong action to ensure appropriate use of existing antibiotics, as well as new and better treatments, that figure could rise to 10 million by 2050," the IFPMA said in a statement welcoming the new group.

© 2020 AFP

Protect the living, honour the dead: Ending violence against women in France


Issued on: 20/11/2020 -
By:Mélina HUET

Ahead of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, we bring you a special documentary on the scourge of domestic violence. Every year in France, more than 220,000 women are victims of violence inflicted by a partner or ex-partner. This abuse usually takes place behind closed doors and takes many forms: beatings, rapes, sexual mutilations, kidnappings. Tragically, last year saw more than 150 femicides. FRANCE 24's Mélina Huet followed four women – a policewoman, a lawyer, a gynaecologist and an activist – who are trying to change the status quo.

CSIRO research ship captures the moment a meteor breaks up over Tasmania’s south coast

Erin Cooper
NOV. 19, 2020

The live-stream camera on board the CSIRO’s research vessel Investigator operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but rarely does it pick up a remarkable event.

Just before 9.30pm on Wednesday, crew on board the vessel about 100 kilometres south of Tasmania were treated to the sight of a meteor breaking up over the ocean.

The bright flash of light, which appeared green to the naked eye but was captured on video in black and white, descended from space and disintegrated before their eyes.

Voyage manager John Hooper said capturing the moment was just “a stroke of luck”.

“What we saw on reviewing the live-stream footage astounded us, the size and brightness of the meteor was incredible,” he said.

“It was amazing to watch the footage and we were very fortunate that we captured it all on the ship live-stream.”

Glen Nagle from CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science said while more than 100 tonnes of natural space debris enters Earth’s atmosphere daily, most of it flies over unpopulated areas, making this sighting all the more special

Mr Nagle said friction is what gives meteors their spectacular appearance.

“When a meteor enters the Earth’s atmosphere at high speed, it is the friction of rock with the atmosphere that makes them burn, as their kinetic energy is converted to other forms like heat, light and sound,” he said.

“Many meteors were once asteroids, travelling through space on their own trajectory, but this changes as they pass close to Earth, where they can be affected by its gravitational pull.

“As they enter our atmosphere, they become meteors and their entry can be visually spectacular.”


The RV Investigator crew were undertaking routine seafloor mapping and trialling marine equipment when the extraordinary sight occurred – a sight they don’t think anyone else has managed to get on camera.

“Cameras are everywhere, in our pockets and around our cities, but they have to be pointed in the right place at the right time and RV Investigator was in that place and time,” Mr Nagle said.-ABC

SOUTH AFRICA

White Knight passes blame on ‘ineffective’ hand sanitiser


VIDEO Substandard sanitisers scrutinised

There is growing concern about the safety of hand sanitisers. But, South Africa is reportedly behind the curve in putting in place measures to ensure products are safe. Lise Korsten from the Centre for Excellence in Food Security at the University of Pretoria speaks to Jeremy Maggs on this. Courtesy #DStv403

Cathryn Boyes Social Media Reporter

The company behind a popular sanitiser blasted as “ineffective” by the consumer watchdog has blamed the product’s manufacturer.

On Thursday, consumer watchdog Choice urged Australians not to buy White Knight antibacterial hand sanitiser after it failed independent lab testing.

Choice said customers who had already bought the product from United petrol stations and online should “stop using it immediately”, as it did not contain enough alcohol to be effective.


Senior campaigner Dean Price said the sanitiser claimed to contain 75 per cent alcohol, but lab testing found it was only 52 per cent.

According to Choice, an hand sanitiser must be 60-80 per cent alcohol, depending on the type of alcohol used.
Tweet from @choiceaustralia

The New Daily contacted White Knight to see if the company was aware of the discrepancy between what its product claimed and what was in the bottle.

White Knight responded with a statement blaming the manufacturer of its sanitiser, Teddie Group, and listing the group’s other sanitiser brands.

“The Teddie Group Pty Ltd manufactured the product for White Knight and had given assurances to White Knight of its quality and alcohol percentage,” it said.

“The volumes of ethanol supplied to Teddie Group were also reconciled to the production purchased from them.”
Tweet from @RitaTunstall

According to its website, Teddie Group makes health and beauty products for several brands, including Linea Derma, Lior, Wipe it Now, Nueo and Askmedica.

Mr Price said the amount of alcohol in the White Knight hand sanitiser was “well below” the amount required to be effective against COVID-19 and similar viruses.


“If you’ve bought White Knight sanitiser, we recommend you stop using it immediately,” he said.

The New Daily understands White Knight and United Petroleum have removed the product from shelves, and plan to return it to the manufacturer.
I bought six bottles of this – what now?

Some good news for customers who have stocked up on White Knight sanitiser – the company will refund your purchase.

White Knight said customers should return the product to get refund. They will need to return to their place of purchase, with a receipt.

The New Daily has contacted Teddie Group for comment.

MOZAMBIQUE ISLAMIST WAR BACKGROUNDER

Thousands flee Islamist insurgents in northern Mozambique

LAST WEEK ISLAMIST'S DID A MASS BEHEADING IN A SPORTS STADIUM

 01/08/2020 -

The image on the left shows a scorched home in Cabo Delgado. The image on the right shows people fleeing Mocimboa da Praia, which was attacked by insurgents on June 27. These photos were published by the collaborative media site Pinnacle News.

Since October 2017, an armed Islamist insurrection has been tearing apart the resource-rich province of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique. In 2019, the Islamic State group began claiming responsibility for some of the attacks carried out by this group. In the past few months, the insurgents have led a campaign of brutal and violent attacks on towns and cities in the province, causing thousands of residents to flee.

An armed group known locally as al Shabaab (though it has no links with the better-known Somali Islamist militant group of the same name) has been carrying out attacks in Cabo Delgado, which is rich in gas deposits, since October 2017. Over the past three years, more than 1,400 people have been killed in these attacks, according to the NGO The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (Acled), which is documenting the situation in Cabo Delgado.

The group’s last large-scale attack, which occurred on June 27, was claimed by IS-Cap, the Islamic State’s Central Africa Province. On June 27, the insurgents attacked Mocimboa da Praia, a port town with a population of 30,000 that represents "a crucial logistical hub for economic activity and humanitarian relief for the northern part of the province", according to Acled. At least 40 civilians were killed along with eight employees of a South African company contracted by the French company Total. Witnesses told the press that the attackers, who occupied the town for three days, decapitated civilians, such as teachers and members of ruling party Frelimo, who had links to the government.

Mozambique
Video released by @news_pinnacle telegram channel with scenes from MdP pic.twitter.com/3oK0OxMgA4 Jasmine Opperman (@Jasminechic00) July 25, 2020

This video, which was posted on Telegram by the collaborative media outlet Pinnacle News, shows the destruction in Mocímboa da Praia. Jasmine Opperman, an analyst at the NGO Acled, reposted this on Twitter.

Attacks on provincial capitals

This attack, the third against Mocimboa da Praia since 2017, was part of a series of offensives that targeted major towns in Cabo Delgado over the past few months.

On March 23, insurgents took over Mocimboa da Praia. Two days later, they attacked the town of Quissanga, located 200 kilometres to the south, and destroyed a number of important buildings, including one housing the local government, which has since suspended its activities completely. Insurgents wielding an IS group flag posted a video online announcing their intention to impose Islamic law on the region.

In April, insurgents launched several attacks on the district of Muidumbe, targeting both Namacande, the provincial capital, and several villages. According to police, insurgents carried out a massacre in Xitaxi on April 7, slaughtering 52 young men when they refused to join the group. In the village of Nangololo, the insurgents attacked a church, as illustrated by several photos posted on social media.


Mozambique
Aftermath of attack at Nangololo: Catholic missionary church (Muidumbe). Attack was on 09 April
Photo credit: Pinnacle News pic.twitter.com/P1MWNho4PF Jasmine Opperman (@Jasminechic00) April 11, 2020The Mozambican collaborative news site Pinnacle News posted these images after insurgents attacked a church in Nangololo (Muidumbe). Jasmine Opperman, an analyst at the NGO Acled, posted these images on Twitter. You can see another video here.

Assim está parte da aldeia #Muatide em #Muidumbe após ataque desta semana. Que fique claro que eles não só sabotam instituições do Estado, mas também privadas. Na primeira foto podemos ver um centro de cópias incendiado. #CaboDelgado #Mocambique pic.twitter.com/iY1rhCTpHS Alexandre (@AllexandreMZ) April 9, 2020

A journalist from Zitamar News posted photos of the attack on Muatide, a village in Muidumbe. He explained that the insurgents destroyed both government buildings and private property.

On May 28, insurgents led an assault on the town of Macomia, population 29,000, which had already absorbed many refugees who had fled previous attacks on other communities. The town’s health centre was pillaged and staff for medical charity Doctors Without Borders fled. In early June, the organisation suspended its activities in the province.

Aftermath of the insurgent attacking Macomia pic.twitter.com/0v5AJZ0tOM Pinnacle News (@news_pinnacle) May 31, 2020

These shops in Macomia were burned by insurgents, as shown in this video shared by Mozambican collaborative media outlet Pinnacle News. The video was geolocalized here.

Thousands of people have fled their homes in these districts. Since March, the number of internally displaced persons in Cabo Delgado has doubled, reaching 250,000 in July, according to the OCHA, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

CABO DELGADO - Mocimbua
28-6-220
Por causa da intensidade dos combates entre integrantes das FADM e DAESH, população refugia-se para distritos supostamente seguros, usando a via marítima, sem mantimentos e sem certeza sobre o como serão acolhidos, no destino. pic.twitter.com/41iZNdkAY4 Pinnacle News (@news_pinnacle) June 28, 2020

People flee Mocímboa da Praia for Pemba, the capital of the province in these photos shared by the Mozambican collaborative media outlet Pinnacle News.

Before leaving their villages, people who intend to flee the conflict in Cabo Delgado have to get a declaration of residence which is issued by the respective local leader. This document is a confirmation of refugee status. It costs 100 MT (~ USD $1.5) which is costly for many. pic.twitter.com/Wd5DHZSNjZ Pinnacle News (@news_pinnacle) May 26, 2020

Before leaving their villages, people attempting to flee the conflict in Cabo Delgado had to get a residence certificate from local officials, explains the caption of this photo published by Mozambican collaborative media outlet Pinnacle News. "This document is the confirmation of their status as refugees,” explains the media outlet. It costs about $1.50.
"We walked 60 kilometers and spent three days in the forest”

The city of Pemba, which is the capital of Cabo Delgado, is today home to a large number of displaced persons. While some of them arrived shortly after the last attack on Mocimboa da Praia, others have been there for several months, says Miguel Momade, a farmer who fled Quissanga with his family:

"The evildoers arrived in Quissanga the morning of March 25. My family and I hid for an entire night. The next day, we returned to our home and we saw that the house had been burned down. We lost everything. That’s why we left. When we got here, we had to ask for clothing, especially for the children.

We had to walk nearly 60 kilometres and spent three days in the forest before we managed to find a truck to bring us to Pemba. I knew that I could find a place to stay there because my sister lives there. I brought 20 people with me, including several children.

The house where we are staying isn’t big and there isn’t enough food. The children wake up crying because they are hungry. In Quissanga, I had a job so that I could feed my family. Here, I don’t have anything. I’d like to go back there but only when the government of the district has also returned."

Miguel Momade’s family in Pemba. This photo was sent to our team by Georginelta Eurosia Eduardo, who is a member of the "Ukhavihera" movement (see the second part of this article to find out more).

"There are many more displaced people than have been counted by the government"

Emidio Beula is a journalist and a researcher for the Center for democracy and development (CDD). He says that aid organisations have been overwhelmed by the large increase in the number of displaced people.

"Before, most of the displaced people remained in their home districts, fleeing from one village to another, or heading towards the provincial capital. Many people fled just five or 10 kilometres. But when the insurgents started attacking more villages as well as the provincial capitals in late March, people started fleeing further.

Two districts were abandoned – Quissanga and Mocimboa da Praia. In the town of Metuge, not far from Pemba, the government set up a camp with enough tents to house 10,000. But that only accounts for a small number of displaced people. Others went to stay with friends or family in Pemba, in other neighbouring provinces or in Tanzania.

There are many more displaced people than have been counted by the government. Some, we don’t know how many, are currently surviving in the wilderness with nothing. No roof, no water, no food. A lot of these people are too elderly or too poor to travel elsewhere. Moreover, when Mocimboa da Praia was attacked, many people climbed into overcrowded boats to travel dozens of kilometres by sea to Pemba and we have no idea if they all arrived safely. It’s hard to get information and journalists have very little access to the zones under attack.

This photo, which was published by the Mozambican collaborative media outlet Pinnacle News on Facebook on July 7, shows displaced people in Mueda in Cabo Delgado. According to the original post by Pinnacle News, some people were unable to find shelter there and had to follow the road all the way to Montepuez.

What do we know about the insurrection?

Researcher Eric Morier-Genoud, a professor of African history at Queen’s University in Belfast, says the armed group grew out of a religious cult that has been around "since at least 2007".

"The change occurred around 2016 when they stopped just living outside of society with their own rules and instead adopted a vision of jihad, picking up arms in an attempt to force the society to adopt sharia law [Islamic law],” Morier-Genoud said.

The group carried out their first large scale attack in October 2017 in Mocimboa da Praia. Currently, there are between 500 and 1,000 fighters, most of whom are Mozambican.The cult began before the development of the gas extraction industry in the region and the ruby mine in Montepuez.

Morier-Genoud says the "economic and social transformation in the 2010s surely lead to frustration, especially in terms of the expected benefits of these discoveries [for the local population]”.

In May 2018, a photo showing these combattants brandishing a Islamic State flag circulated widely on social media in Mozambique. But it wasn’t until June 2019 that the Islamic State organisation released a statement about one of the attacks in the province. Initially, Mozambican authorities denied that the organisation had an active presence on their territory. They finally confirmed on June 23, 2020 that the Islamic State organisation had claimed responsibility for the attack in Cabo Delgado, “revealing the presence of an exterior aggression on the part of terrorists".

The insurgents equipped themselves by stealing the weapons belonging to the security forces, and stealing food and other supplies during attacks.

"None of the rumours that they are involved in the illegal trade of wood, precious stones or drugs have been proved," says Eric Morier-Genoud.


Article by Maëva Poulet

SENEGAL

How young Senegalese are making desperate journeys to Spain’s Canary Islands



Issued on: 05/11/2020 -

Several images shared in WhatsApp group in Senegal over the past few months show large numbers of young people leaving Senegal to make a dangerous attempt to reach the Canary Islands by pirogue 

(Screengrab of videos sent to the France 24 Observers team).

Increasing numbers of Africans are attempting to reach Europe by making a dangerous journey by sea to Spain’s Canary Islands, a new wave for a migration route that tens of thousands of people took in the early 2000s. In recent months, numerous groups have set off from coastal towns and cities in Senegal to make the treacherous crossing in traditional long fishing boats called pirogues. Our Observer says that most of the travelers are fisherman, who are suffering the economic impact of a depleted stock, and young people facing unemployment and economic uncertainty caused by the crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic.



Between 2006 and 2008, during a period nicknamed the “Cayucos crisis”, nearly 40,000 people arrived by fishing boat on the shores of the Spanish archipelago, the Canary Islands. During the first year of this crisis alone, more than 31,000 people entered the Canaries in this way. This emotional period left a strong impression on both Spain and Senegal, the country of origin for many of these migrants.

Some of the people who attempted the journey were from Thiaroye-sur-mer, a town not far from Dakar. Unfortunately, numerous sons of the town were lost at sea. Others survived the crossing to the Canaries, only to be sent right back to Senegal. In 2007, locals set up a group called Ajrap, an acronym for the Association of Young Returnees (l’Association des jeunes rapatriés), to raise awareness about the dangers of illegal migration.

"It’s the fisherman from around here who are leaving; there are no more fish”

In the past few weeks, increasing numbers of young people have been attempting the journey, their desperation highlighted by the popular slogan "Barça ou Barsakh" ("Barcelona or death"). Between mid-September and mid-October, the Senegalese national gendarmerie intercepted more than 400 people making the crossing.

Dispositif FRONTEX. La Marine nationale sénégalaise a intercepté hier nuit au large de Mbour 02 pirogues avec 183 candidats à l'immigration clandestine vers l'Espagne. Passagers debarques a 15h00 a la Marine, remis à la Gendarmerie et à la Police pour enquête. pic.twitter.com/c2eFkIWpTt DIRPA (@CHEFDIRPA) October 7, 2020

Tweet (in French) by the Senegalese army press division, DIRPA: “FRONTEX operation. Last night, the Senegalese Navy intercepted two pirogues in the waters off of Mbour, carrying a total of 183 people attempting to illegally migrate to Spain. Passengers disembarked at the base at 3pm and were turned over to the police and gendarmerie for questioning.

These arrests and the videos showing young men aboard traditional pirogues bound for the Canary Islands that have been circulating on WhatsApp make Ajrap President Moustapha Diouf’s heart sink.

On October 21, 580 migrants were rescued south of Grand Canary Island, bringing the total number of people reaching the Canary Islands by boat that week alone to 2,600. That number-- from a single week-- is uncannily equivalent to the total number for the entire year of 2019, when 2,698 migrants were recorded as entering the Canaries in this way.

People from Mauritania and Morocco are also attempting this journey; indeed, the Senegalese don’t actually represent the majority of migrants arriving in the Canaries. Still, Diouf says the growing numbers of departures from Senegal are concerning.

What is happening doesn’t surprise me. For years, I have been telling media outlets from all over the world that, it was just a matter of time before people started leaving on pirogues again because people are just exhausted by the situation here. They’ll do it even if it is more than 1,400 km from Dakar to the Canaries. This isn’t going to stop until there are opportunities for our young people here.

The departures from Thiaroye-sur-mer have been ongoing over the years; they didn’t stop between 2006 and 2019. Many, filled with young people from all across Senegal, were bound for Morocco. What we are seeing now, in 2020, is that most of the people attempting this migration route to the Canaries are fishermen because there are just no more fish to catch. International commercial fishing vessels are operating off of our shores and pillaging our resources. People are poor. I think in the coming months, there will be more departures. And it will be worse because the seas will be less calm [Editor’s note: because of poor weather conditions.]


The Google map shows the distance as the crow flies between Dakar and Grand Canary Island.

Over the past few months, people seeking to migrate have been taking advantage of the relatively calmer seas at this time of year.

In one of the videos that has been circulating on WhatsApp groups in Senegal, a man films the crowded pirogue that he is on. The shoreline in the distance and the red Spanish navy boat following them show that the boat has arrived in the Canaries. One young migrant calls on other young Senegalese to follow suit, showing them “how calm the sea is”.






These are screengrabs of a video circulating on WhatsApp, which the FRANCE 24 Observers team has chosen not to publish in order to protect the identities of those shown on camera. Several sources say that this group left Mbour some time in September or October. One explains that they have almost reached Europe. “Look at the mountains of Spain and the Spanish Navy. Look how calm the sea is. Come and find peace, all you young Senegalese. Out of the whole journey, there is just one dangerous stretch of 50 km."

"You can tell young people to stay, but they will respond, ‘how are we supposed to survive?’”

Diouf’s theory that a shortage in fish has led to increasing numbers of people setting sail for the Canaries is echoed by Mor Mbengue, who runs several organisations representing Senegal’s small-scale fishermen and also runs an organisation in the town of Kayar that helps young people who have returned to Senegal from Spain:

There were more than 100 young people who left Kayar in less than two months. Some were intercepted by the police but they will definitely leave again. We’ve even seen the captains of pirogues make the journey. It’s hard to turn your back on the sea and it was always considered shameful to do so. But today, we have the sea without fish. You can tell young people to stay, but they will respond, ‘How are we supposed to survive?’

The “pillage of the ocean by foreign ships” is the reason that so many young people are leaving for Europe, stated members of the National Union for Small-scale Fishing (l’Union régionale de la pêche artisanale, or URPAS) in the town of Saint Louis in an interview published in the Senegalese media on October 21,

Crisis in the fishing community

The NGO Greenpeace published a report on October 9 condemning the opaque practice of awarding fishing licenses to foreign industrial fishing vessels, who are overfishing and depleting precious stocks off the coast of Senegal.

Abdoulaye Ndiaye, a campaigner at Greenpeace Africa, said that they had also noticed increasing numbers of departures from fishing communities as the report circulated.

“The fishermen are no longer just transporting people to the Canaries,” Ndiaye said. “They have also become passengers in the pirogues leaving Senegal. Some sell their fishing equipment in order to go to the Canary Islands.”

Ndiaye says that, within fishing communities who have seen decreasing returns during the latest fishing seasons, people are losing faith in the authorities. "Lots of fishermen went into debt and had to pool their money to pay for fuel,” he added.

“Furthermore, they are frustrated because they see more and more commercial fishing vessels in operation while, since 2012, the number of pirogues have been limited to protect fish stocks,” Ndiaye added.

Greenpeace is calling on the Senegalese government to publish a list of commercial fishing vehicles authorised to fish in Senegal’s exclusive economic zone. In the meantime, Ndiaye says that the controversy is growing and the videos of the young people journeying to the Canary Islands has added fuel to the fire.


Screengrabs of a video that Moustapha Diouf sent to the FRANCE 24 Observers team on October 21 (the team has decided not to publish the full video to protect the identity of those featured.) Diouf says that this group of young people left Thiaroye-sur-mer around October 16.

It is an accumulation of factors that push people to leave, but Ndiaye say the Covid-19 pandemic has definitely played a role.

"Many sectors have suffered from the effects of the pandemic, not just the fishing industry. Informal employment, including small shops and vendors who sell things in front of their homes, have all slowed down,” said Ameth Ndiaye, the secretary general of the Association of Young Returnees in Thiaroye-sur-mer.

Ameth Ndiaye and the president of the association, Moustapha Diouf, preach that the solution is funding campaigns to raise awareness about the dangers of migration as well as providing job-skills training. In 2019, the association partnered with several organisations including Caritas to train a group of young people in sewing and food processing.

"They need to listen to us and support us,” Diouf said.



These images show workshops organized by the Association of Young Returnees in Thiaroye-sur-mer in 2019. (Ameth Ndiaye sent these photos to our team).

"In Saint Louis, we’ve put in place a number of collaborative projects aimed at building economic and social inclusion for young people"

Petit Ndiaye is a blogger and runs the communication department for the city of Saint Louis, Senegal. He says he wants to stay positive. Even though there have been increasing number of departures, he says he has seen some projects that he believes help address the root causes of this issue:

I am working with a group created by the mayor of Saint Louis bringing together young people to combat Covid-19. We visit different neighborhoods to raise awareness about the disease and how to prevent it. We have also taken the opportunity to organise discussions around the dangers of irregular migration.

We need to talk about it with the young men who leave but also with their families and their communities because the social pressure is a huge factor. In Saint Louis, we’ve put in place a number of collaborative projects aimed at building economic and social inclusion for young people.

The city is working to help fishermen transition to other sectors including car mechanics, commerce and even agriculture. There are also projects in place for women and recent graduates. These solutions are absolutely essential.



The group of young people in Saint Louis are working with the mayor to raise awareness about how to combat the spread of Covid-19. They also speak to locals about the dangers of irregular migration. Petit Ndiaye sent these photos to the France 24 Observers team.

In response to the economic consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic, Senegalese President Macky Sall launched a €22 billion economic stimulus plan. This “economic attack plan” is supposed to include a series of reforms in key sectors including agriculture, tourism and health.

On October 1, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Amadou Ba spoke to a group of European Union ambassadors. He said that Senegal hopes that paths to legal migration will be encouraged, while at the same time working to fight irregular migration.

Article by Maëva Poulet.

Agriculture as a Source of Authoritarian Power
Noémi Gonda


Land grabbing is one of the lesser-known pillars of Viktor Orbán’s regime in Hungary. Environmental social scientist Noémi Gonda explains how speculation on agricultural land can strengthen authoritarian populist regimes, and how the European Union is complicit in the process.

Green European Journal: In a recent paper you looked at the role of land grabbing in how Viktor Orbán’s regime strengthens its grip on power. What exactly do you mean by land grabbing in this context?

Noémi Gonda: I am researching domestic land grabbing: the transfer of land from smallholder farmers (often families who cultivate the land themselves) to large-scale entities – or, in the case of Hungary, to the Orbán regime’s wealthy supporters. I am particularly interested in how Orbán’s current political regime strategically uses land grabbing and related conflicts to consolidate its grip on political and economic power.

To what extent is this a new phenomenon in Hungary?

Land grabbing has been going on since the 1990s, through “pocket contracts” (contracts on which the date of purchase is deliberately omitted to allow owners to retain the land even if the law is changed) between foreign investors and Hungarian elites. After the end of state socialism, an agrarian reform made it possible for the original owners of the land to repurchase their expropriated land via vouchers. Although the vouchers could in theory only be used by the original owners, a large chunk of the land ended up in the hands of an emerging class of oligarchs and some foreign investors despite them being legally prohibited from owning arable land or natural resources in Hungary until 2014. According to estimates more than 1 million hectares of land were owned by foreigners in the early 2010s.


Land grabbing has been going on since the 1990s, through “pocket contracts” between foreign investors and Hungarian elites.

Nevertheless, smallholders remained present in the country, in part due to fact that much of state-owned land was leased to them through long-term agreements. The land grabbing process has accelerated and is serving more politicised aims and goals since 2015. This was when the Orbán government privatised a large quantity of state-owned land via a “thunderstorm” process that benefitted a set of loyal oligarchs (in 2014, 23 per cent of the country’s total land was still owned by the state).

What exactly is the Orbán government trying to achieve through this?

Situating land grabbing in two different periods can help in understanding the government’s aims: before the 2010 and after the 2014 elections.

In 2010, Orbán’s political party Fidesz used domestic land grabbing and land-related conflicts in Hungary to win the general election. As an opposition party in the late 2000s, Fidesz capitalised on the scandal caused by the revelation of these pocket contracts. The party condemned this and claimed that land should go to Hungarians. If elected, they promised to take care of the fate of the agricultural land still owned by the state. At that time, the party was also developing a hugely progressive rural development strategy with the aim of pleasing rural voters, whose votes they thought necessary to win the election. Their strategy promised to give arable land back to Hungarians, prioritised environmentally sound, landscape-friendly family farming over monocultural mass production, and aimed at revitalising the countryside by attracting young families who could start dynamic, small-scale farms.


Environmental social scientist Balša Lubarda calls this the “chameleonic nature” of authoritarian populist regimes to describe how they use the narrative of emancipation as a means to gain power

The person who played the most important role in developing this strategy was József Ángyán, a university professor and Fidesz politician. Ángyán was well known and respected in agricultural circles, and he was expected to become the next minister of agriculture. His plan was attractive not only to the Hungarian agriculture syndicates and peasant leaders but also to environmentalists. By manipulating the issue of land tenure and land-related conflicts – through denouncing pocket contracts by or for foreigners – Orbán was able to attract more rural voters. Once the elections were over, however, this nice rural development strategy ended up in the bin, and its author, Ángyán, was forced to leave the party.

Emancipatory tools or politics can also be co-opted by authoritarian populist regimes. Environmental social scientist Balša Lubarda calls this the “chameleonic nature” of authoritarian populist regimes to describe how they use the narrative of emancipation as a means to gain power, only to reinforce or maintain the same oppression, exclusion, and elitist system once they have it. This is not only an issue of the far right as it can also be observed in countries run by leftist governments.

After the 2014 elections, Orbán secured the long-term support of economic and political elites by offering them the possibility of owning land and expanding their business in the agricultural sector. This was enabled by a land privatisation process in which the main beneficiaries were politicians, Fidesz supporters, and their family members. Ángyán has investigated many of the auctions that took place, and among the winners he found the names of relatives of politically powerful people. In the meantime, many of the smallholder land leasers have lost the land they had been farming for decades.

What are the benefits of owning all this land?

Hungary has the second largest proportion of agricultural land in relation to its size within the EU: 58 per cent of its 9.3 million hectares are under agricultural cultivation. As part of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the country is receiving 12.4 billion euros in the period from 2014 to 2020 – so there is a lot of money available to please loyal elites.

On top of that, these landowning oligarchs are banking on the fact that there is an ongoing infringement procedure by the European Union that would require Hungary to open its land market to foreigners. This is because Hungary is seen as violating the rights of cross-border investors in agricultural land. Once the market is open, they will happily sell their land to people from other European countries who will pay extremely high prices for them. So, the long-term carrot for the elites is speculation, and that of the short term is the CAP subsidy. And in both cases, the European Union is involved: firstly by providing the agricultural subsidies, and secondly by pushing Hungary to open its land market to foreigners. The EU’s involvement allows Orbán to wash his hands of responsibility and claim that it was the EU that pushed him towards this kind of land reform.

It is worth mentioning here that Hungary is not the only country where EU subsidies play a role in domestic land grabbing and keeping loyal elites powerful; the literature has shown a similar trend in Poland and in North Macedonia (a candidate country since 2005).

Would it really be worth it for these landowning oligarchs to sell their new land and give up the CAP subsidies?

The subsidy is 240 euros per hectare. This might not seem like much but if you have a lot of land, it can add up to a tidy sum – especially considering that many of the recipients do not even cultivate their lands, as the conditions for getting the CAP subsidies are not implemented properly.

Additionally, if you look at the difference in price between a hectare of land in the Netherlands (where the land market is open to foreign investors) and that in Hungary, you can see the potential for making money. Today in Hungary a hectare costs about 3300 euros, compared to about 115 000 euros in the Netherlands. So, it is really worth waiting a few years and cashing in on the interest of the foreign investors.

At the 2014 election, Fidesz did not seem to pay a political price for this betrayal of voters in the countryside. Why?

By 2014, the whole electoral system had changed. Fidesz did lose 570 000 votes compared to 2010, but this 8.2 per cent drop in support only cost them 1.3 per cent of the seats. Two other factors came into play. Firstly, the country’s Public Work Scheme had created a system of dependency in which many marginalised groups in the countryside felt too vulnerable to not vote for Fidesz. Secondly, the land privatisation process coincided with the refugee crisis, which allowed Orbán to divert attention from what was happening and instead try to win over the anti-refugee voters of the far-right Jobbik party by discrediting the party’s stance and leadership.

Do you think that there are political parties who manage to appeal to people in the countryside now that Orbán has betrayed them?

I do not think that there are parties speaking to the rural areas, apart from Fidesz. Even in the poorest regions or among the marginalised Romani populations, Fidesz remains the popular choice. The city-centred counter arguments of the opposition win them support mainly in Budapest and some other cities. LMP (Politics Can be Different), which started out as a Green party, is not as clear on its environmental stance as it used to be – and even when it started, it seemed more interested in city dwellers than rural voters. So there is definitely room for a party that truly represents people in the countryside.

It is also worth mentioning the information gap [read more on media capture in Eastern Europe] as an important component in the disconnect between the rural populations and those who aim to challenge the regime. There are no newspapers in the countryside, and no other media which would allow the people to access information that is different from the government’s propaganda. Today it seems as though there are two countries and two realities living side by side – and the reality in the countryside is the one constructed by the government’s media and its fearmongering about refugees. The 2010 rural development strategy with its focus on revitalising the countryside could have helped by bringing in people from the urban middle class to rural areas. These informed and connected people could have helped both in the development of new agricultural concepts and with the spreading of narratives that challenge the government’s.


Today it seems as though there are two countries and two realities living side by side – and the reality in the countryside is the one constructed by the government’s media and its fearmongering about refugees.

This may sound a bit utopian, but more and more people – and not just in Hungary – who are fed up with city life. If you have young children and see how polluted Budapest is, you start longing for a healthier environment. Some people are ready to take the step and start working on farms. I have visited several farms run by young couples in their 30s or 40s, where one of them is still working in the city and the other is taking care of the farm. Very often, the health of their children is what motivates them to take up this lifestyle.

The land grabbing in Kishantos, a small village in central Hungary, was widely covered in Hungarian and international media. Why was it such an important topic?

This relates to the question most environmentalists, scholars, and activists ask themselves: where is the change and the active resistance going to come from? The Kishantos Rural Development Centre was a 452-hectare, organic show farm and educational centre, owned by the state and leased out. It had been running successfully for two decades until 2012 when the government tried to stop the lease contract and hand the land over to its own supporters. Following an auction, the land was awarded to a group of people who, at best, were novices to farming.

Kishantos was a symbolic example of an organic protest that generated widespread support, but the main reason it became such a big issue was that Greenpeace ran a visible campaign around it, and also brought lawsuits against the Hungarian government.


There is a need to scale up existing initiatives and to go beyond just resisting the government’s harmful actions.

There were other important examples, like the government’s attempt in 2015 to privatise protected areas, which they abandoned because nature protection organisations actively fought against it. However, environmentalists fear that the government has only shelved this idea temporarily.

These are just sparks, for now at least. There is a need to scale up existing initiatives and to go beyond just resisting the government’s harmful actions. Kishantos may well be important, but we need to think about structural issues as well: how can we challenge the regime by reconstructing, or constructing, a functioning democracy? How can we think about sustainable rural areas? What about equitable societies in which people in the countryside, in cities, and from different ethnicities live together in harmony? These are some of the questions that the resistance must reflect on.

What can environmental organisations and activists do in this context?

There are many farmer organisations in Hungary. Ángyán recounts how he toured the country to meet all the leaders and most of them supported his rural development strategy. It could be our task to go back to these people; to give them a voice, and to let them speak for themselves. We also need to try to get information out to the countryside. There might be an information divide facilitated by traditional media channels, but we can also think about alternative ways of spreading information.


A serious discussion on how to address this abuse of EU policies without harming the real producers – particularly, the smallholders who still depend on the subsidies – is needed.

Environmental organisations also need to question the European Union. The system as it is today is not only unjust, it is also complicit in the development of Hungary’s current authoritarian regime – and possibly that of other countries too. When we speak with people from the European Commission, they are aware of the problem but say there is not much they can do. A serious discussion on how to address this abuse of EU policies without harming the real producers – particularly, the smallholders who still depend on the subsidies – is needed.