It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, November 08, 2022
Norway princess quits royal duties for alternative medicine
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IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES
Image caption,
Princess Märtha Louise of Norway and her fiancé, self-professed shaman Durek Verrett,
arrive at a celebration in Oslo
By Oliver Slow
BBC News
Norway's Princess Märtha Louise has relinquished her royal duties to focus on her alternative medicine business with her fiancé, a self-styled shaman.
The Princess will keep her title, but is surrendering official duties to "create a clearer dividing line" between her private and royal role.
Her fiancé, Durek Verrett, has promoted unfounded medical practices, including suggesting cancer is a choice.
The American also claims to have influenced Gwyneth Paltrow.
Princess Märtha Louise is "relinquishing her patronage role" as she and Mr Verrett seek to "distinguish more clearly between their activities and the Royal House of Norway", the palace said in a statement. It added that King Harald V had decided she would keep her title.
"She has performed her duties with warmth, care and deep commitment," the statement said.
Despite the announcement, King Harald described Mr Verrett as a "a great guy and very funny to be with".
"He has a lot of humour, and we laugh a lot, even in this difficult time. I think both we and he have gained a greater understanding of what this is about, and we've agreed to disagree," King Harald told Norwegian reporters.
In a separate statement, Princess Märtha Louise said she was "aware of the importance of research-based knowledge", but that she believed alternative medicine can be "an important supplement to help from the conventional medical establishment".
She added that it was important to "distinguish between myself as a private person on the one hand and as a member of the Royal Family on the other".
The Princess, 51, has attracted controversy in Norway for decades for her involvement in alternative treatments, including starting a school that aimed to help people "get in touch with their angels". She has been accused of using her royal title for competitive gain.
In 2002, she married Norwegian writer and artist Ari Behn and the couple had three daughters. They divorced in 2017 and Mr Behn - who had discussed suffering from depression - died by suicide on Christmas Day 2019.
In June, Princess Märtha Louise became engaged to Mr Verrett. She announced the relationship in a 2019 Instagram post, pre-empting potential criticism.
In the post, she said: "To those of you who feel the need to criticise: Hold your horses. It is not up to you to choose for me or to judge me. Shaman Durek is merely a man I love spending my time with and who fulfils me."
Despite that post, the couple have attracted considerable criticism among many in Norway, with Mr Verrett variously being described as "a charlatan", a conman and a conspiracy theorist.
Former Prime Minister Erna Solberg described his views as "very strange" and "not based on facts", adding that his ideas promoted conspiracy theories.
Mr Durek - an African-American who describes himself as a "6th Generation Shaman" - has claimed to have risen from the dead and to have predicted the 9/11 attacks in the United States two years before they took place.
He has said the criticism he faces is due to racism, saying he has "never experienced as much racism" as when he came to Norway. He has also compared himself to the likes of Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison, claiming they were "geniuses" and "misunderstood".
On his website, he describes himself as a "visionary for the 'Now Age'" who "demystifies spirituality". He said his work had influenced actresses Gwyneth Paltrow and Nina Dobrev.
A survey published in September found that just 13% of Norwegians thought Princess Märtha Louise should represent the Royal Family in official duties.
A royal biographer told local media: "I think this is more about the occult phenomenon she's been associated with, than the princess as a person."
Eager beaver: dams improve quality of river water hit by climate change
Jenny VAUGHAN Tue, 8 November 2022
Hotter, drier weather means beaver populations are spreading in the western United States, and their dams are helping to mitigate the negative impacts of climate change on river water quality, according to a new study on Tuesday.
The findings -- discovered almost by accident -- offered a "rare bright spot" in an otherwise bleak landscape of climate change news, the lead author told AFP.
Stanford University scientists and colleagues conducted the research over three years on the East River, a main tributary of the Colorado River in the US state of Colorado.
It has long been known that beaver dams can improve the quality of river water by filtering out contaminants.
But what came as a surprise is what the Stanford team described as a virtuous climate change-induced "feedback" loop.
It works like this: hotter, drier spells linked to a warming world often reduce water quality, mainly because less water leads to a higher concentration of contaminants such as nitrate, a form of nitrogen.
At the same time, a changing climate has increased the range of industrious buck-toothed beavers, and widened the impact of their dams, thus helping to dilute the negative impact of global warming.
"In building more dams, they mitigate that degradation in water quality that's caused by climate change," lead author Christian Dewey told AFP.
When the beavers' dams raise water levels upstream, water is diverted into surrounding soils and secondary waterways, collectively called a riparian zone.
"These zones act like filters, straining out excess nutrients and contaminants before water re-enters the main channel downstream," according to a press release about the study, published in Nature Communications.
- 'Rare bright spot' -
The same contaminants -- potentially harmful to humans, animals or plants in river water -- are thus dispersed with little or no negative impact in soils.
This is good news in the area where the research was conducted, as the Colorado River provides drinking water and supports livelihoods for some 40 million people, according to the US government.
Nitrogen in particular promotes algae overgrowth, which starves water of oxygen needed to support diverse animal life and a healthy ecosystem.
The study found that the benefits provided by the beaver dams improved water quality in both high- and low-water conditions linked to climate change -- whether hot and dry spells, or heavy rainfall and snowmelt.
In both cases, "the beaver dam pushed more water and nitrate into surrounding soil than did either seasonal extreme, leading to vastly more removal of nitrate", Dewey said.
He said he did not set out to study beaver dams initially, but one cropped up on the river he was testing for seasonal changes in hydrology.
"It was incredibly lucky," he said.
He cautioned that the feedback dynamic may be unique to the particular conditions in western United States, and thus may not be found elsewhere.
But the findings are still "a rare bright spot in climate news", and perhaps an example of nature restoring balance.
"We push too far, and then (there's) sort of a swinging back in the other direction, at least in the case of beavers."
jv/mh/gil
Macron tells France's heavy polluters to cut emissions, pledges aid
PARIS (Reuters) - President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday told France's biggest polluters they should cut their greenhouse gas emissions by half over the next decade and said there would be more public money available to help decarbonise the economy if they acted quickly. Oil and gas group TotalEnergies, cement-maker Holcim and steelmaker ArcelorMittal were among those invited to the Elysee Palace to listen to Macron, who wants France to be a leader in cleaner industry. The country aims to become carbon neutral by 2050.
Addressing executives whose companies operate France's 50 most polluting industrial sites, Macron said that if they alone reduced their emissions at these plants by half the country's greenhouse gas output would drop by 5%.
"We're going to fight to have more public and private investment to accompany this," Macron told the executives.
Related video: French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the COP27 conference Let's go to our environmental correspondent Valerie de Camp in Sharm Duration 4:16 View on Watch
Industry accounts for just 10% of jobs in France but 20% of national greenhouse gas emissions, according to official data. The 50 dirtiest industrial sites accounted for half of those emissions - equivalent to the emissions of roughly 4 million people in France.
Macron said the government would double the 5 billion euros hitherto budgeted for helping decarbonise industry if the executives presented plans to cut emissions within 18 months.
He said he could not discuss greening-up French industry without making reference to the United States' Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) law.
Paris, Berlin and other European capitals fear the IRA, which among other incentives provides tax credits for eligible components produced in a U.S. factory as well as a tax credit on the cost of new or upgraded factories that build renewable energy components, will take investment away from Europe.
"I don't think it's in line with World Trade Organization rules. I don't think it's friendly," Macron said, adding he would raise the issue when he visits Washington next month.
Macron on Monday said at the COP27 climate conference in Egypt that while the world was distracted by a confluence of global crises, it was important not to sacrifice national commitments to fight climate change.
During Macron's tenure, the state has twice been fined by France's highest administrative court for failing to improve air quality in major cities and ordered by another court to do more to fight climate change.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Writing by Richard Lough; Editing by David Gregorio)
Qatar World Cup ambassador said being gay is 'damage in the mind' in a tense TV interview amid mounting criticism of the hosts
An ambassador for the soccer World Cup being held in Qatar made homophobic comments in TV interview.
Khalid Salman described being gay as "damage in the mind" while speaking to German TV. Homosexuality is illegal under Qatar's strict Islamic laws.
Weeks before soccer's World Cup in Qatar, an ambassador for the host country claimed homosexuality is "damage in the mind."
In an interview with Germany's ZDF public broadcaster, Khalid Salman said that homosexuality "is haram [forbidden]. You know what haram means?," he said, according to Reuters.
When asked why it was haram, Salman said: "I am not a strict Muslim but why is it haram? Because it is damage in the mind."
The interview was then immediately stopped by an accompanying official.
Here is a clip of the exchange, dubbed in German, published by ZDF on Tuesday:
Related video: Germany condemns Qatar World Cup ambassador who says homosexuality is 'damage in the mind'
Salman is an official representative for the much-criticized Qatar cup, and a former member of the Qatar national soccer team.
His comments are likely to fuel additional concerns over the rights of fans travelling to the tournament, which is due to start on November 20.
Homosexuality remains illegal in the conservative Muslim country.
"They have to accept our rules here," Salman said of the more than one million visitors expected to travel to the country for the World Cup, according to Reuters.
Qatar's World Cup organizers declined to comment on the episode when asked by Reuters.
It is the latest controversy surrounding the tournament, which is the first time a soccer World Cup is being held in the Middle East.
However, the multi-year build up to the tournament has been marred by accusations of human rights abuses towards the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers, mainly from India and Nepal, drafted in to build the stadiums.
This has led to calls to boycott the tournament.
Last month, Human Rights Watch reported that Qatari security forces arbitrarily arrested lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and subjected them to ill-treatment in detention.
The NGO documented six cases of severe and repeated beatings and five of sexual harassment in police custody between 2019 and 2022. As a requirement for release, it said, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored facility.
In an interview with Sky News on Monday, Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al Thani, described negative media coverage of the upcoming tournament as "misinformation". When asked about LGBTQ supporters travelling to Qatar, he said that public displays of affection were banned between all people, not just same-sex couples.
World Cup: Gay fans 'will feel safe'
Sky News
Oct 13, 2022
World Cup chief Nasser Al Khater told Sky News gay fans will be welcome to display affection and rainbow flags.
Watch out for 'terrifying' poster with rules that World Cup visitors must follow in Qatar
FRANCE 24 English
Oct 11, 2022
The already controversial Qatar World Cup is just 40 days away. Users are sharing a poster online, allegedly published by the official FIFA organization in Qatar, where they ask World Cup visitors to refrain from drinking alcohol, homosexuality, immodesty, profanity and even, dating, amongst others. We explain these World Cup 'restrictions' in this edition of Truth or Fake.
#Qatar #WorldCup #restrictions
World 'burning up faster' than it can recover: Pakistan PM
Rich nations have fallen short on delivering climate finance, said Pakistan's Shehbaz Sharif
Agence France-Press November 8, 2022 — Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt) (AFP)
Climate change is outpacing the capacity of developing nations to cope with its devastating impacts, the Pakistani premier told COP27 on Tuesday, as his country reels from historic floods.
Talks at the UN climate conference in Egypt have been dominated by calls for wealthier nations to fulfil pledges to financially help poorer nations green their economies and build resilience.
"The world is burning up faster than our capacity for recovery," Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif warned in his speech before the summit in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
"The current financing gap is too high to sustain any real recovery needs of those on the frontlines of climate catastrophe."
Sharif argued Pakistan exemplifies the extreme vulnerability of nations in the developing world struggling to grow their economies while confronting a perfect storm of inflation, soaring debt and energy shortages -- all compounded by global warming.
Catastrophic floods in Pakistan in August coming on the heels of a crippling two-month heat wave earlier in the year upended the lives of 33 million people and inundated a third of the country, he said.
"Raging torrents" from melting glaciers in northern Pakistan ripped up thousands of kilometres (miles) of roads and railway tracks, Sharif added.
The floods, which also swamped vast areas of key farmland, incurred damages exceeding $30 billion, according to the World Bank.
- 'Gigantic task' -
Pakistan, already facing a cost-of-living crisis, a nose-diving rupee and dwindling foreign exchange reserves, saw inflation surge after the floods.
"We have redirected our meagre resources to meet basic needs of millions of households affected by these devastating floods," Sharif said. "And this all happened despite our very low carbon footprint."
Rich nations historically responsible for rising temperatures have fallen short on delivering climate finance on several fronts, the prime minister said.
A 12-year old pledge made at COP15 to provide $100 billion a year to poorer countries by 2020 has still not been met and is $17 billion short.
A lightening-rod issue at COP27 is whether or not wealthy nations should commit to a separate financial facility for unavoidable impacts -- from storms, heat waves and sea level rise, for example -- known as "loss and damage".
"How on earth can one expect from us that we will undertake this gigantic task on our own?" Sharif said.
At a Monday meeting with Sharif, UN chief Antonio Guterres said the world needs to rethink the international financial system to provide debt relief to countries battered by climate impacts.
"Pakistan deserves massive support directly from the international community," Guterres said.
Colombia, Venezuela launch COP27 call to save Amazon
The presidents of Colombia and Venezuela, Gustavo Petro and Nicolas Maduro, launched a call Tuesday at the COP27 climate summit for a wide-ranging alliance to protect the Amazon, the planet's biggest tropical forest.
"We are determined to revitalise the Amazon rainforest... (in order) to offer humanity a significant victory in the battle against climate change," Petro said at the UN summit in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.
"If we, in the South Americas, carry a responsibility, it is to stop the destruction of the Amazon and put in place a coordinated process of recovery," Maduro said, speaking alongside Petro and the president of Suriname, Chan Santokhi.
Key to any such revival plan will be the newly elected Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, widely known as Lula, who will take up his post on January 1 and is expected to attend COP27 next week.
The participation of Brazil in such a planned alliance will be "absolutely strategic", Petro said.
Leftist Lula faces an immense challenge in putting a brake on Amazon deforestation, a phenomenon that rapidly proliferated under his right-wing predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
Petro, architect of the proposed new alliance, has called for the US to collaborate, noting that it is "the country that pollutes the most" on the American continent, while the south of the landmass is "the sponge that absorbs the most carbon dioxide on the continent".
He advocated "the opening of a fund" fed by "the contribution of private companies and world nations".
He urged solidarity from international organisations, at a time when the COP has put the issue of compensation for damage caused by global warming on its agenda, despite resistance from developed nations.
"One of the subjects which could bring consensus between us, Africa and part of Asia is (a mechanism for) forgiveness of (national) debt as a means of financing action" against climate change, Petro said.
The International Monetary Fund would have "a role to play" in working with developing countries on this issue, he added.
- 'Buried reserves' -
The "political message (is) very important", but the question "is to know how these intentions will materialise," said Harol Rincon Ipuchima, a representative of Indigenous people in Colombia. According to Amazon Conservation, which tracks deforestation in the region, around 13 percent of the original biomass of the Amazon rainforest has already disappeared
Ipuchima, who is also the co-chair of the Indigenous caucus at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, took President Petro to task for not having spoken more with his community, whom he described as "the masters of the territory".
According to Amazon Conservation, which tracks deforestation in the region, around 13 percent of the original biomass of the Amazon rainforest has already disappeared.
The Amazon basin, which stretches over 7.4 million square kilometres, covers nearly 40 percent of South America and takes in nine countries, with around 34 million -- mostly Indigenous people -- living across this area.
Petro, the first leftist president of Colombia, took office on August 7, with an ambitious environmental plan that targets converting his nation to clean energy and halting exploration for new oil deposits, among other measures.
He has however recognised that the presence of sub-soil hydrocarbon reserves in the Amazon region, beginning with Venezuela, could thwart this plan, but emphasised he is determined to eventually abandon fossil fuels.
Colombia's Environment Minister Susana Muhamad Gonzalez has advocated a "diversification" of economies of countries that possess such resources, urging them to "leave the reserves in the soil".
Ipuchima recalled that "entire territories of the Indigenous people of the Amazon have been destroyed."
"Not only Venezuela, but Colombia too has many oil companies in these territories. Likewise Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador," he added.
President Petro hopes to organise a meeting with the other regional countries in early 2023 to discuss his proposed alliance.
UN demands Egypt release hunger-striking dissident
UN rights chief Volker Turk on Tuesday called on Egypt to immediately release Alaa Abdel Fattah, a jailed dissident on hunger strike, saying his life was at "acute risk".
British-Egyptian Abdel Fattah, 40, was a major figure in the 2011 revolt that toppled longtime president Hosni Mubarak.
After a seven-month hunger strike during which he consumed only "100 calories a day", he has for the past week refused food altogether, and on Sunday he stopped drinking water to coincide with the opening of the COP27 climate summit in Egypt.
"I urge the Egyptian government to immediately release Abdel Fattah from prison and provide him with the necessary medical treatment," Turk said, warning that the activist "is in great danger."
"His dry hunger strike puts his life at acute risk."
"We're very concerned for his health," UN rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, deploring "a lack of transparency as well around his current condition."
She said Turk had raised Abdel Fattah's case with Egyptian authorities on Friday.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had also done so on the COP27 sidelines, UN spokeswoman Alessandra Vellucci told reporters.
Abdel Fattah's case has sparked an outcry at COP27.
- 'Unacceptable insult' -
Abdel Fattah has since late last year been serving a five-year sentence for "broadcasting false news", having already spent much of the past decade behind bars.
According to rights groups, Abdel Fattah is among more than 60,000 prisoners of conscience in Egypt since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power after deposing Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
The UN rights chief noted that the resumption in April 2022 of Egypt's Presidential Pardon Committee "had resulted in numerous individuals being released".
But he called "on the Egyptian authorities to fulfil their human rights obligations and immediately release all those arbitrarily detained, including those in pre-trial detention, as well as those unfairly convicted."
"No one should be detained for exercising their basic human rights or defending those of others."
In a statement received by the UN correspondents' association, Egypt's mission in Geneva slammed Turk's intervention.
"The content of the statement deliberately undermines the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law as an indispensable cornerstone for the protection and promotion of human rights. The characterisation of a judicial decision as 'unfair' is an unacceptable insult," the mission said.
Turk's statement "violates the principles of impartiality and objectivity" and "further erodes both his credibility and that of the institution that he represents", it said.
Egypt urged Turk to "show professionalism" and instead of commenting on cases, he should "focus on the promotion and protection of human rights through cooperation and dialogue".
AFP
Colonists nibble at Gran Chaco, South America's other big forest
by Nina NEGRON
Aerial view of a deforested area of the Gran Chaco forest in northern Argentina near Juan Jose Castelli.
Dwarfed by its more prestigious sibling, the Amazon, South America's second largest forest is a little-known victim of 25 years of gradual invasion by agriculture.
The Gran Chaco indigenous forest that spans one million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) across Argentina, Paraguay and Bolivia is at the mercy of ravenous soybean and sunflower crops, as well as pasture land.
Comprising a mix of dry thorn shrubland, woodlands and palm savannas, the dense tropical dry forest contains massive scars—vast areas of deforestation gouged out with alarming regularity.
The harm to local fauna and flora is immeasurable.
In some places, as far as the eye can see, carob trees uprooted by heavy machinery lie waiting to be taken away and used as charcoal, tannin, furniture and railway sleepers, for which this dense hardwood is particularly prized.
Here, in Argentina's northeast, some 1,100-kilometers (685 miles) from Buenos Aires, is the country's agriculture frontier.
It is where the agro export industry, so crucial for a country short on foreign currency, advances at the expense various species of fauna and flora, as well as people.
"Practically all of Chaco province used to be covered by forests," agricultural engineer Ines Aguirre from the Chaco Argentina Agroforestry Network told AFP.
"But when the technological package of genetically modified soyabean appeared in the 1990s, the Chaco zone began to be colonized."
Aerial view of a wood factory in Resistencia, in the province of Chaco, northeast Argentina.
'Strong agro pressure'
Two of Argentina's main exports, soybean (30 percent) and genetically-modified corn are, like sunflowers, resistent to dry climates, allowing them to thrive in the semiarid Chaco region.
Deforestation in the region has averaged around 40,000 hectares (154 square miles) a year, peaking at 60,000 on occasions, said Aguirre.
"This shouldn't happen because all forms of deforestation have been suspended in the province," said Noemi Cruz, the forests campaign co-ordinator at Greenpeace, while picking up a handful of dusty earth from a patch of ground cleared of trees.
Without the protection of those trees "water slides on the surface but won't penetrate the ground during the rainy season."
Chaco includes a 128,000 hectare national park called The Impenetrable that is designated a "red zone" and strictly protected by a forestry law. But there are also "yellow" zones where tourism and "soft" agriculture are allowed, and "green" zones that are a free-for-all.
A wasp flies around a sunflower near Juan Jose Castelli in Chaco province, northeast Argentina.
But this law has not proved sufficient to protect the forests.
"There is strong pressure from companies and agricultural producers that want to open up more farmland and there is a permanent international demand for primary materials, especially soyabean and beef," said biologist and researcher Matias Mastrangelo, from the CONICET national scientific and technical research institute.
In the case of illegal logging, a lightly punitive fine "does not discourage clearing and the companies incorporate it as another production cost."
What this means is that deforestation around The Impenetrable park affects the rich fauna living within it, such as anteaters, peccaries, coral snakes, tapir and the continent's largest feline, the jaguar, which is endangered in the region and the subject of an ambitious reintroduction program.
"A forest that becomes a soybean field can no longer provide shelter for the jaguar, nor any of its prey. The destruction is absolute," said biologist Gerardo Ceron, coordinator of the Rewilding Argentina team managing the predator's reintroduction.
Vast swathes of the Gran Chaco forest have been cut down to make way for soybean and corn crops, as well as livestock.
Large mammals at risk
"In the dry Chaco, we are probably facing a very serious effect of losing fauna. We are seeing especially the extinction of large mammals," said Micaela Camino, a biologist at CONICET, citing the giant armadillo and white-lipped peccary as examples.
"When a species is lost, you lose what is unique about the species. But also the nutritional security of local families and all the functions that this species performed in the ecosystem.
"You're losing the ability of this ecosystem to survive, regenerate and be resilient, which is very dangerous in a context of climate change."
It is not just fauna and flora being pushed out but also local indigenous communities, such as the Wichi and Criollo who live in the forest.
"What generally happens is that before the logging, the rights of these families are violated. They are swindled (out of their land) and forced to leave their homes," added Camino.
A Greenpeace protester chained to a bridge in northeast Argentina highlights the deforestation of the Gran Chaco.
Aguirre says there are solutions to regenerate the lost Chaco forest, starting with the replanting of the carob tree.
"The carob tree, which is a legume, produces a reaction between bacteria and the tree's roots that recomposes the nitrogen in the soil. It's amazing, the growth is incredible," she said.
But such programs are for later, for now the priority is "stopping deforestation."
Essequibo – the Guyanese region claimed by Venezuela
AFP November 8, 2022 Kimtse Kimo Castello cleans his equipment at his small barber shop in Port Kaituma, Guyana -
Copyright GETTY IMAGES/AFP GEORGE FREY
Patrick FORT
Hairdresser Kimtse Kimo Castello is adamant that the small town where he lives, near a tropical forest, lies in Guyana and not Venezuela, which claims it.
“It’s not about giving it back. I doubt they (Venezuela) ever owned it, so there’s no question about giving it back, it’s ours!”
Castello is talking about Essequibo, a disputed area of 160,000 square kilometers that is administered by Guyana but which Venezuala has long argued is its territory.
The region is home to 125,000 of Guyana’s 800,000 residents. Like the rest of Guyana, they speak English.
The former British colony sees its current borders, established by a court of arbitration in Paris in 1899, as accurate.
But Venezuela insists that the Essequibo river to the east of the region is the more natural border between the two countries, as was the case in 1777.
In 2018, Guyana asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to resolve the dispute and ratify the current borders.
– ‘Kind, welcoming people’ –
“Essequibo is 100 percent Guyanese. We are very clear about where our borders are,” Guyana President Irfaan Ali told AFP.
However, Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro often punctuates speeches with the claim that “the Venezuelan sun rises over Essequibo.”
Although not quite at the level of Argentina’s obsession with the Falkland Islands, the Venezuelan claim to Essequibo is regularly repeated in schools and barracks.
In September, Maduro published a photo of the Kaieteur Falls, the world’s largest single-drop waterfall and Guyana’s main tourist attraction, on social media with a map including Essequibo in Venezuela.
Many Guyanese demanded that Facebook and Twitter remove the “illegal and offensive publications.”
“It’s over, it’s Guyanese. We’ve been speaking English ever since,” said mechanic Andrew Bailey, 33.
“I actually (only) learned Venezuela was claiming it when I finished school,” he added, pointing to the region’s oil reserves as Venezuela’s motivation.
“They will always claim it,” said the hairdresser Castello as he cleaned his electric shavers in his small shop in Port Kaituma.
“I always felt Guyanese, and we are kind people, people that welcome anybody into the area,” he said, adding that explained the large numbers of Venezuelans in the area.
Around 25,000 Venezuelans who fled their country’s economic collapse live in Guyana, according to local authorities. Several thousand of them live in Essequibo.
– ‘Life better than in Venezuela’ –
Ironically, in the past, it was Guyanese, fleeing one of the poorest countries on the planet, who migrated to Venezuela where Caracas automatically bestowed citizenship on those born in Essequibo.
In Port Kaituma, dozens of Venezuelan migrants squat in a three-story building abandoned by a Chinese company.
Anneris Valenzuela, 23, and her husband Tucupita, came from the Amacuro Delta, one of Venezuela’s poorest regions.
“We had nothing. We had nothing to feed our children,” she said.
Tucupita works as a day laborer.
“Life is better than in Venezuela, although it’s pretty tough. There’s no electricity, we use lanterns.”
Running water is intermittent, and when it rains, the building’s inhabitants bring out buckets, saucepans, and other receptacles to collect water.
“It’s a tough situation,” added Alexis Zapata, 47, who lives with seven family members in two rooms in the building, sleeping in hammocks attached to the walls.
“Here, at least we can find something to eat,” adds Zapata, who also left the Amacuro Delta, in August 2021.
He chose Guyana because of ease of access: there were no people smugglers to pay or police to avoid, and he could come on foot.
Zapata unloads boats that arrive at Port Kaituma and insists he is paid “less than the Guyanese” whom he says take advantage of the migrants’ precarious situation.
He insists Essequibo is Venezuelan.
“That’s what I learned and what’s written in the (Venezuelan) books.”
However, the children of most of the Venezuelans living in Essequibo learn the opposite in Guyana schools.
Paul Small, 52, has dual Guyanese-Venezuelan nationality and went to school in both countries.
Born in Guyana, he moved to Venezuela at the age of around six or seven.
He spent most of his life there before returning to Guyana with his wife and children.
An odd-job man, he lives better than most migrants in a small house close to the center of Port Kaituma.
“Life is better here. There is freedom, work, healthcare in hospital, security,” he said.
And for him, “Essequibo belongs to Guyana because it’s been that way since I was born.”
Members of the People Revolution Army (PRA) prepare
homemade weapons in Pale township
Pale – Under an awning in a bamboo thicket in northern Myanmar, an anti-coup fighter following instructions from YouTube welds scavenged steel into crude mortar rounds and shells to be fired at junta troops.
Almost two years after seizing power, the military has been unable to crush local militias that have sprung up to fight the putsch with hit-and-run tactics.
In turn, these People’s Defence Forces (PDF) remain massively outgunned by the military’s artillery strikes, Chinese and Russian-made jets and Israeli-patterned rifles.
Captured weapons and expensive purchases on the black market have provided patchy boosts to PDF firepower, analysts say, but many militias have turned to risky trial-and-error operations to churn out their own rockets, mines and mortars.
“We just learn how to build weapons from the internet or YouTube,” said Nay Min, an anti-coup fighter from the northern Sagaing region.
“We search how to cook saltpetre (potassium nitrate), how to combine it to get gunpowder, how to build rifles. We haven’t received any training,” he told AFP.
Those with engineering or mechanical backgrounds, like his comrade Nay Myo Win, experiment and come up with prototypes or copies of captured weapons, he said.
Blowtorches in hand, they sweat for hours in makeshift workshops powered by generators that are frequent targets of junta raids.
Nay Myo Win mixes saltpetre to make the gunpowder needed to fire mortar shells filled with lead and scrap metal that he claims have a range of just over two kilometres (1.2 miles).
– Crude armaments –
Laid out on a tarpaulin ahead of a mission in October, the mortars are unimpressive — little more than construction pipes welded to bipods.
The shells require two charges to detonate — one to fire the shell and the other to explode on impact — a method first used at the beginning of the 20th century.
But the damage is substantial, Nay Min said — “around 15 feet from the target it will hit people and they will die or be wounded”.
One batch of shells was made from a telecoms tower owned by a firm close to the military, which was sabotaged by PDF fighters some months ago.
“We just wanted to destroy their business,” Nay Min added.
“But, after we had started making homemade weapons … we needed more stainless steel and we thought of the tower.”
Nay Min’s group is one of dozens of PDF militias in Sagaing making their own weapons in a bid to turn the tide in the fighting.
Many upload footage of successful tests of mortars, rockets or mines to social media, with joyous shouts accompanying each loud bang.
But the work can be deadly.
“It’s more than dangerous,” said Bo Shaung, an anti-coup fighter and rocket maker from another group operating in Sagaing.
“When we cook gunpowder, if we add too much saltpetre, it’s dangerous. If we add too little, it’s also dangerous.”
One video obtained by AFP shows a new mortar being tested. The shell explodes in the barrel, killing the fighter who had just loaded it.
Thu Ya, another anti-coup fighter, said he lost his sight six months ago when the explosive he was handling went off too soon.
“I got injuries on my hands and feet which have recovered now but I… still have blurry vision,” he said.
In the absence of machines like lathes and voltage regulators, each shell is made by hand.
And for all the risk that comes with producing them, the homemade munitions are often more bark than bite.
– ‘Drain on morale’ –
Once a target has been selected, preparing ammunition for an attack can take up to 10 days, Nay Min said.
His group relies on information from locals to gauge troop positions.
To guide their fire they have little more than Google Maps to measure the distance from the target.
“We normally attack them in our own areas and we all know the locations and distance,” he said, insisting that most attacks were accurate.
Assessing the effectiveness of these weapons is “extremely difficult” in the absence of impartial reporting from the field, said Bangkok-based security analyst Anthony Davis.
Both sides regularly inflate or play down their casualty figures, analysts say.
But Davis said the spread of locally made mortars and rockets “indicates that these systems are far from simply window-dressing”.
“They inflict real casualties but perhaps as importantly are a constant drain on the morale of often isolated army units on the receiving end.”
The junta has labelled all PDF groups as “terrorists”. It blames anti-coup fighters for the deaths of more than 4,000 civilians.
Nay Min sees his group’s fight as justified.
“We are satisfied with what we have done,” he said.
But “we need everything. Especially we need weapon."
Myanmar: The DIY weapons factories
arming anti-junta fighters
Militias fighting the military junta in Myanmar have turned to making their own DIY weapons, including rockets and mortars, as they take on a much more heavily armed adversary. But constructing the weapons is dangerous work, with accidents, particularly during testing, claiming the lives of militia members.
Anti-Junta Forces in Myanmar Rely on
Homemade Weapons
This photo by the Tiger People's Defense Force shows some of the
Opposition People’s Defense Forces in Myanmar are battling the ruling junta’s military with locally produced weapons, members of the PDF told VOA in recent weeks.
The PDF members, mostly students and farmers with no previous weapons manufacturing experience, said they figured out how to make the weapons from YouTube and from each other.
Most opposition troops are said to rely on these improvised weapons.
Some opposition armed groups in central Myanmar and in Kayah state, along the country’s eastern border with Thailand, have been producing and using handmade weapons, including rocket launchers, inflicting heavy casualties on junta forces.
The Tiger People’s Defense Force in Sagaing region’s Pale township has produced 15 rockets with a range of around three miles. Initially the group produced rudimentary rifles, bombs and mines, then moved to producing rocket launchers and ammunition within six months.
“We made 100 single-shot rifles and shared them with other groups in Sagaing region and produced 300 rounds for rocket launchers. All of those weapons are being used in battle,” said Bo Than Chaung, head of the Tiger People’s Defense Force information and weapons production team.
Another resistance unit, the Karenni Generation Z, active in Kayah and southern Shan state, has been producing 130 mm, 70 mm and 55 mm mortars since March. Kalay Bo, the unit’s spokesperson said it costs between $50 and $80 to make a mortar.
Karenni Generation Z can produce 20 rounds for 130 mm mortars per day. However, it must change locations whenever the junta finds out where it is operating, and it faces raw material and, most importantly, financial issues.
Kayah state, Myanmar
“At first, we were able to produce homemade hunting rifles to fight the military. However, we could not resist with these guns when the junta forces used automatic weapons, long-range artillery, jets and helicopters. That’s why we developed more advanced weapons to fight the military,” Kalay Bo said.
Armed resistance movements erupted across Myanmar shortly after the military cracked down on peaceful protests of last year’s military coup. Since then, the armed People’s Defense Forces have emerged. However, not all the groups are working together under a single command. The opposition National Unity Government has said 257 battalions have been established under the command of the NUG defense ministry and more than 500 PDFs are affiliated with the ministry.
Some PDFs are based in areas in Kachin, Kayah and Karen states in the east and Chin state in the west that are under the control of armed ethnic organizations that have been fighting for autonomy for years. Those units are receiving arms support from the Karen National Union, Kachin Independence Organization, and the Arakan Army – themselves ethnic organizations – as well as the NUG.
However, obtaining weapons for fighters in central Myanmar is difficult because of transportation difficulties and lack of funding. According to the resistance chapters, it costs at least $3,000 for an automatic machine gun on the black market. Because of the lack of weapons and insufficient funds, opposition groups have turned to producing weapons themselves.
One group, the Anti-Dictatorship People’s Revolutionary Army, or DPRA, with nearly 1,000 fighters, which operates mainly in Sagaing but also has launched guerilla attacks in the cities of Yangon and Mandalay, learned the technique for producing rockets from its ally, the Kani Guerrilla Force in Sagaing. Depending on the availability of raw materials, the DPRA said it manufactures 20 rocket launchers, 30 60 mm mortars, 20 roadside bombs and 30 8 mm rifles a month.
“We receive 10 million kyats [$5,000] a month from public donations and most of it is used for weapons production,” Linn Nway, a senior member of the organization, told VOA.
The DPRA estimates production costs at $175 for a roadside bomb, $35 for each 60 mm mortar and 8 mm rifle round, $75 for a rocket with a range of between three and five miles. “It takes three months to produce a rocket,” Linn Nway said.
Some small opposition groups made up of around 50 members are incapable of combat with the junta forces because of a shortage of weapons and manpower. The groups depend heavily on their production of mines for guerrilla warfare against military convoys, bases, banks and buildings.
“Although we cannot fight with the junta forces, they are afraid of entering into the villages. They were ambushed by our group, which inflicted heavy causalities because of landmines we planted,” said Bi Lone, a leader of the Black Wolf Defense Force in Sagaing’s Monywa township.
This photo provided by the Tiger People's Defense Force shows some of the homemade weapons the group is using.
Most of the PDF-produced weapons are rudimentary and insufficient to defeat the well-armed junta forces.
Many groups can only produce single-shot guns that can only be loaded with one bullet.
“Each time we shoot, we have to insert another bullet to shoot again,” Bo Than Chaung said.
Opposition groups say the lack of military-grade raw materials and of arms-making experience has cost lives and caused injuries and loss of materials when manufacturing weapons. In October, some members of Black Wolf Defense Force were seriously injured and a large quantity of raw materials, plus fighters’ property, including uniforms were destroyed in an explosion while making explosive devices, Bi Lone said.
Another issue facing the opposition groups is obtaining raw materials, such as iron pipes, lead, and gunpowder, as the military regime has restricted the transportation of metal, including iron and steel, into Sagaing. Goods coming into Sagaing are subject to strict inspections.
“We can manage to get iron, mostly we face shortage of gunpowder imported from India and the Thai border. We cannot make homemade bombs without it,” said Lin Nway. Under these circumstances, the price of raw materials has tripled, and it costs more than $150 for 35 grams of gunpowder.
Opposition groups say only 10% of their troops can be armed with commercially produced weapons, and the rest rely heavily on locally produced weapons. The groups are heavily dependent on public donations and selling their belongings to raise funds for weapons production, however, production can fulfill less than 50% of requirements. Under these circumstances, the opposition forces all say a lack of financial support is the biggest problem.
“We need at least 10 million kyats [$5,000] per month, however, the donation we normally receive is around 5 million kyats [$2,500],” said Bo Than Chaung. The group is working under the NUG but has not received any support so far.
“I hope, one day we will get weapons from NUG,” he added.
On July 9, the NUG’s defense ministry publicly shared its spending for military affairs. As of May, of the $44 million in military spending, about 63% went for weapons, ammunition and military operations and 22% went for weapons production. The NUG has said it needs at least $10 million a month to support the fighting forces.
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