After Two Years Of Military Coup Myanmar Heads Nowhere – OpEd

 February 12, 2023 

By Nava Thakuria

The large section of people in Myanmar (known as Burma and Brahmadesh) observed a silent protest on 1 February marking two years of the military coup and subsequent public resistance movement against the military junta across the south-east Asian nation. The international media (if not the government-controlled newspaper and news channels) reflected the deserted urban and rural areas of Myanmar highlighting the continued opposition to the Min Aung Hlaing military brigade.

“Commemorating the two-year anniversary of the people’s resistance against the illegal failed coup, cities and towns nationwide participated in the silent strike. Many roads and streets were deserted including in Yangon, Mandalay, Monywa, Dawei, and others despite being threatened by the junta. The shops and street vendors in Yangon were ordered by the junta-controlled municipalities to open on 1 February, but they did not obey it even though their licenses may be revoked,” said a civil rights activist.

Speaking to this writer from Yangon (formerly Rangoon), the activist, who wanted anonymity also added that the military rulers have lately extended the state of emergency for another six months (till July 2023). It shows the failure and desperation of Min Aung Hlaing and his armed forces (popularly known as Tatmadaw) while taking full control of the poverty-stricken country of 55 million population. They are facing armed opposition from People’s Defence Forces, Ethnic Revolutionary Organizations and others in various localities, added the activist.

Lately the junta has imposed martial law in townships of Sagaing, Magwe, Tanintharyi along with Yangon and Bago region as well as Karen, Karenni, Mon and Chin States. Most of these localities are still under the control of resistance forces. The imposition of martial law may pave the way for military personnel to continue targeting members of revolutionary forces and also civilians in more brutal ways. Needless to say, the junta has used airstrikes on a number of villages to teach the agitating residents a lesson.

Since 1 February 2021, 2,940 civilians have been killed by the Burmese authorities and 17,572 arrested among whom 13,763 are still behind the bars. Over a hundred media personnel were also detained by the Min Aung Hlaing led military council and more than 25 are still inside various jails of the country of Pagodas. Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, who leads the National League for Democracy, has been imprisoned for over 30 years by the military controlled courts following motivated allegations raised by the dictators.

While a large section of people in Thailand, Philippines, Korea, Japan, etc organized protest demonstrations on 1 February showing solidarity with the resilient people of Myanmar. Many nations like Australia, Canada, UK, USA, etc imposed heavy sanctions against the junta, but its neighbours namely China, Thailand, Bangladesh and India remain undecisive over it as their respective governments have geopolitical and economic interests in Myanmar. Nonetheless, the junta still can rely on the supply of arms from Russia and China.

Recently the foreign ministers of south-east Asia, while meeting in Jakarta of Indonesia, urged the military rulers of Myanmar to reduce violence and allow unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid to pave the way for a national dialogue aimed at ending the country’s worsening crisis. The meeting under the initiatives of Association of Southeast Asian Nations even avoided inviting the Myanmar foreign minister, even though it’s an ASEAN member, as the military regime failed to fulfill many promises made to the forum.

Nava Thakuria is a Guwahati (Assam, Northeast India) based journalist

Members of Myanmar's Tatmadaw military. Photo Credit: Mehr News Agency

Comparison Of India And Pakistan Defence Budgets – OpEd

Military truck carrying intermediate-range ballistic missile of Pakistani army, November 27, 2008 (Courtesy SyedNaqvi90)

 February 12, 2023  Eurasia Review  

By Talha Imran

South Asia is a volatile political entity. India and Pakistan share a long and complex history. Both countries have fought multiple wars over the years, resulting in hostile bilateral relations and mutual mistrust and as a result, a significant portion of their budgets has been allocated towards defense and security.

In recent years, India has emerged as one of the largest military spenders in the world. The country’s defense budget for the financial year 2021-2022 is estimated to be around $71.1 billion, which accounts for 2.2% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP). India’s defense budget has consistently increased over the years, and the government has taken various steps to modernize its military forces, including the acquisition of advanced weaponry, strengthening its cybersecurity infrastructure, and increasing the number of personnel thus creating a destabilizing effect in the region. India has unilaterally started an arms race in South Asia.

Pakistan, on the other hand, has a smaller defense budget compared to India. The country’s defense budget for the financial year 2021-2022 is estimated to be around $11 billion, which accounts for approximately 3.6% of its GDP. The country’s army has been actively involved in the fight against terrorism, and its security forces have focused on eliminating terrorist networks all while being cognizant of nefarious Indian designs.

When it comes to the allocation of funds for the army, both India and Pakistan allocate a substantial portion of their defense budgets towards this sector. In India, the army accounts for a significant portion of the country’s defense budget, and the government has taken various steps to modernize the armed forces. The country has acquired advanced weaponry, such as the BrahMos cruise missile, and has invested in the development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). 

India and Pakistan allocate a substantial portion of their budgets towards national defense and security. While India has a larger defense budget and has made significant investments in modernizing its military forces primarily focusing on acquiring offensive military capabilities to undermine Pakistan. Indian spending on defense is counterproductive for regional stability and security. 

Indian actions create a ripple effect by increasing hostility. Its decision to engage in arms race only serves to destroy the fickle regional peace and balance of security. It forces Pakistan and other regional states to embark on securitization. The anarchic nature of international politics demands nations to be proactive in responding to perceived threats. The acquisition of offensive power only creates more insecurity. The start of arms race in never ending cycle which only serves to create perpetual hostile regional security apparatus which is conducive for regional growth and development.

Whether Pakistan should be spending more on its army and security forces considering its volatile border situation is a matter of debate and ultimately depends on several factors.

On one hand, the volatile border situation with India, as well as the ongoing threat of terrorism and extremism, highlights the need for a strong and well-equipped military and security force. A strong army and security force can help deter potential threats, respond to crises, and maintain stability in the country. Increasing the budget allocation for these forces could help improve their capabilities and ensure their readiness to deal with any security challenges that may arise.

On the other hand, it’s also important to consider the country’s overall economic situation and its ability to allocate additional funds towards its military and security forces. Pakistan has been facing numerous economic challenges in recent years, including high levels of debt, inflation, and unemployment, which have impacted its ability to allocate more funds towards its military and security forces. In such circumstances, increasing the budget allocation for the army and security forces demand strategic reforms that would allow further spending space without leading to further economic difficulties and potentially harm the country’s overall development prospects.

Ultimately, the decision on whether to increase spending on the army and security forces should be based on a careful analysis of the country’s security needs and its ability to allocate the necessary funds. The government should weigh the benefits and costs of increasing spending on these forces, taking into account the country’s overall security situation and economic prospects. 

Ultimately, the decision on whether to increase spending on the army and security forces should be based on a careful analysis of the country’s security needs and its ability to allocate the necessary funds. The government should weigh the benefits and costs of increasing spending on these forces, taking into account the country’s overall security situation and economic prospects. 

Ultimately, the decision on whether to increase spending on the army and security forces should be based on a careful analysis of the country’s security needs and its ability to allocate the necessary funds. The government should weigh the benefits and costs of increasing spending on these forces, taking into account the country’s overall security situation and economic prospects. 

Talha Imran is a social sciences graduate from Bahria University and works as an independent researcher besides teaching as visiting faculty at National University of Modern Languages (NUML), Islamabad, Pakistan. 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

He was born without a hand - so his classmates built one for him

Kyle Melnick, Feb 12 2023

KELLY FLOOD
Sergio Peralta, right, received a prosthetic hand by way of a class assignment from high school teacher Jeff Wilkins.

For his entire life, Sergio Peralta dreamed about playing catch.

When he was born, Peralta said, his right hand didn't fully develop. Instead, he grew tiny fingers at the end of his arm. So he learned to do everyday activities – writing, eating, carrying books – with one hand.

Over the years, the 15-year-old American lost hope that would change.

But after Peralta enroled at a new high school in August, engineering students there built him a prosthetic hand – a gesture the sophomore said has changed his life. Now, Peralta can not only toss a ball but also carry water bottles, cups and food with his right hand.

READ MORE:
* Taranaki man uses 3D printers to make face shields for health workers
* Taranaki teen building a prosthetic hand to help his brother ride a bike
* Little girl born without a hand gets Disney Frozen themed prosthetic arm

"I've started to feel more happy, more excited," Peralta told The Washington Post. "I wanted to do a lot of stuff with my right hand. Now I can do more."

After Peralta moved from Madison, Tennessee, US, to nearby Hendersonville last summer, he said he hid his right hand in his sleeve at Hendersonville High. Ever since he was a child, Peralta said classmates have asked about his hand, and some teased him.

A few weeks into the school year, computer science teacher Jeff Wilkins noticed Peralta was the only student who moved his mouse to the left side of his keyboard. He then saw Peralta didn't have a right hand. Peralta said he had never tried prosthetics because he had become comfortable using his left hand for most activities.

Wilkins, 43, had started an engineering programme at Hendersonville in 2018 so students could take on projects to improve their community. He tried to create a wheelchair for a paralysed student in Indiana around 2010, but he said he didn't possess the equipment and skills to complete it. He still regretted that.

After he learned about Peralta's hand, Wilkins remembered a video he'd seen years earlier from Enabling the Future, a volunteer group that makes 3D-printed prosthetic hands.

KELLY FLOOD
Peralta, second from left, with the engineering students who created his prosthetic hand.

When Wilkins approached Peralta and his mother about a prosthetic hand, they expressed interest but knew building one could be challenging for a high school class. In early November, Wilkins secretly assigned three of his students to the project. They bought 3D printing equipment on Amazon and found a model image of a prosthetic hand on some design software.

"I didn't want to get his hopes up," Wilkins said. "I'd rather under-promise and over-deliver than overpromise and under-deliver on something like this."

They used polylactic acid, a common plastic filament material in 3D printing that's also used to make electronic devices, as the hand's main fabric. They applied thermoplastic polyurethanes, an elastic plastic commonly found in phone and laptop cases, so the fingers could flex and squeeze objects. They added fishing line and Velcro so Peralta could easily strap the hand to his forearm.

The group did so while keeping their progress a secret. They measured classmates' hands to gauge Peralta's ideal fit.

After working on the hand for about a week, the students used the school's LulzBot 3D printer to create a prototype. Students said they worried Peralta wouldn't like or use the hand, but as soon as he put on the prototype in mid-November, he could flex his fingers.

Peralta said he was stunned. Then Wilkins tossed him a yellow rubber ball. While Peralta failed to catch the first few throws, students yelled in elation when he finally caught the ball.

"I was just so excited," Peralta said.

KELLY FLOOD
Leslie Jaramillo displays the design software she and her classmates used to create Peralta's prosthetic hand.

Leslie Jaramillo, a senior who helped make the hand, said she didn't expect the class project to change another student's life.

"This just showed me a different way to help the community," said Jaramillo, 17. "Even by using skills that I learn at school."

In the following weeks, Peralta worked with Jaramillo and other student engineers as they upgraded three hand models. In early December, Peralta wore the final device home - and the students aced their assignment.

Peralta said he only removes the prosthetic hand when he sleeps. He uses it to pick up cups and bottles of water, he said, and wants to learn to write with it.

While Peralta and his classmates didn't enter the school year with much engineering experience, they're set on studying the subject in college and hope to work on other influential products.

"It's been cool to see [the hand] being kind of a part of who he is now," Wilkins said of Peralta. "I want to teach them that products don't have to be about making money. They can be about making someone else have a more fruitful life."

GLOBALIZATION

Singapore-registered container vessel collides with Bahamian ship in Vietnam waters

Singapore vessel Wan Hai 288 collided with another vessel while sailing along the Long Tau river in Vietnam. 

PHOTO: SALVAGE_AND_WRECK/INSTAGRAM

Sarah Koh

A Singapore-registered container ship collided with a Bahamian vessel on Saturday morning while sailing along the Long Tau river in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The Singaporean vessel, Wan Hai 288, was sailing towards a port in Ho Chi Minh City when it collided with Bahamian vessel Resurgence, which was going in the opposite direction, according to a report by Vietnamese newspaper VnExpress.

A spokesman from the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) confirmed that the incident happened at around 5.40am (Singapore time) on Saturday.

“There were no reports of injury or pollution,” MPA spokesman told The Straits Times. “Both vessels are in stable condition. Wan Hai 288 is currently safely moored at Lan Tau No 6 buoy.”

MPA is in contact with the company and will investigate the incident.

According to vessel tracking website FleetMon, the bow - or the front - of the Resurgence struck Wan Hai 288 in the cargo deck area, which caused the latter to be stuck in a nearby river bank.

The Wan Hai 288 was carrying around 1,400 containers, while the Resurgence was carrying about 600 containers at the time of the incident.

A spokesman from the Ho Chi Minh City’s maritime administration said that the Resurgence vessel was moved to Cat Lai Port in Ho Chi Minh City.

According to ship tracking website MarineTraffic, Wan Hai 288 was built in 2021 and belongs to Taiwanese shipping company Wan Hai Lines, which has several offices worldwide.Additional reporting by Michelle Chin

Bulgaria Abuzz With Online Rumors About 'EU Plot' To Make Everyone Eat Insects

February 12, 2023 

By Georgi A. Angelov

Tiziana di Costanzo, co-founder of Horizon Insects, holds 

up a slice of pizza made with cricket powder, in her London kitchen. (file photo)


SOFIA -- He's a fringe politician and social media influencer in Bulgaria who claims he's on a crusade to save the nation. Georgi Georgiev Gotti recently posted on Facebook that the European Commission wants to "give cancer" to his compatriots.

How?

EU bureaucrats will allow food producers to add powdered insects to a list of foods, the combination of which, according to Gotti, will create carcinogens.

With no science to back his bogus claim, the Facebook post has gone viral, shared more than 1,000 times and generating hundreds of reactions, many of them seething.

As the disinformation spread, the rumor mutated, with some social media posters adding further nefarious EU intentions to force people to consume insects. They claimed powdered insects would be added to many foods, including bread, but it would all be shrouded in secrecy, with no labeling required.

While it is hard to prove the rumors are part of an orchestrated Kremlin campaign, social media posts on the topic spiked after one of Russia's most powerful media figures, Dmitry Kiselyov, mentioned it on his popular show on state TV in late January. Russia regularly spreads disinformation in Europe, with the aim of sowing mistrust and doubt of EU institutions.

Milena Yakimova, a sociology professor at Sofia University who also monitors Russian propaganda efforts in Bulgaria, said this latest disinformation campaign aims, in part, to "show us that Europe is foreign to us."

Tiziana di Costanzo holds up a cup of dried crickets to be ground up and added to pizza dough.

The current campaign appears to be largely waged by individuals and organizations who are at least sympathetic to Russia. Bulgaria has witnessed similar campaigns. The Balkan country suffered the EU's highest COVID-19 fatalities, in part due to low vaccinations rates as medical misinformation turned many into skeptics.

Recently, social media was abuzz with false claims about an imminent military mobilization that would end with Bulgarian men being sent to Ukraine to fight against invading Russian troops.

The insect rumors do have a sprinkling of truth. The European Commission -- the EU's top executive body -- has recently approved more insects as so-called novel foods after the EU's food safety regulator, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), gave its stamp of approval.

Insects are part of the daily diet for about one-quarter of the globe. It's thought that eating more bugs and less meat and poultry could be good not for only human health but the environment. Research by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization shows that crickets require six times less feed than cattle to create the same amount of protein.

In October 2014, the EFSA said its research found that houseflies, crickets, and silkworms can be safe, nutritious, and more environmentally friendly alternatives to chicken, beef, or pork. The EFSA analysis said the farming of insects could lead to lower emissions of greenhouse gases and ammonia than cattle or pigs and higher efficiency in converting feed to protein.

In May 2021, the European Commission announced the first insect -- yellow mealworms, the larva form of mealworms -- had been approved as a so-called novel food in the EU. By August 2022, the European Commission said a total of three insects -- yellow mealworms, house crickets, and migratory locusts -- had been authorized as novel foods inside the EU.

A container of yellow mealworms is offered from a food truck at a festival in Antwerp, Belgium. 

In January of this year, the European Commission approved the maggot-like larvae of lesser mealworms -- a type of shiny black beetle -- and house crickets -- this time in powdered form -- as novel food as well.

In both cases, the European Commission approval applies to specific items produced by two companies. It spells out in which types of food products they can be used -- including bread -- and that these items must be labeled.

Following the latest European Commission insect rulings at the start of the year, social media in Bulgaria was abuzz with posts -- including from rabble-rouser Gotti -- mentioning grasshoppers, which are not mentioned in the EU decision. Data from Google in Bulgaria shows searches for grasshoppers and crickets also spiked around the same time, RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service found, peaking on January 30.

Also creeping into other posts were false claims that chitins -- the exoskeletons of crickets and other insects -- would cause cancer in humans.

RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service found that one of the first Facebook posts, from January 26, to spread the poison claims and gain traction came from a Facebook account of an individual identified as Nadia Ivanova.

A check of Ivanova's Facebook page turns up multiple posts praising Russian President Vladimir Putin and several mentioning Nikolai Malinov, a former Bulgarian lawmaker and the head of a pro-Russian lobby group in Bulgaria. In 2019, Malinov traveled to Moscow to personally receive an award from Putin. He is now on trial in Bulgaria on charges of spying for Russia.

Ivanova's January 26 Facebook post was quickly seized on by others on Facebook, including by a person identified as Lisa Miller, who posted it on the page of Varna Without Censorship, a Bulgarian network that accuses mainstream media of an anti-Russian bias, among other things.

Employees sort crickets for size at the Smile cricket farm at Ratchaburi Province, southwest of Bangkok, Thailand.

Miller's profile appears to be fake, the photos taken from a photo bank, a check by RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service indicated. The account often shares many conspiracy theories and fake news.

The topic gained further traction in Bulgaria and elsewhere, after Kiselyov, a firebrand pro-Putin TV host, offered up his musings on his Russian First Channel program on January 29.

"Cultural transformation in Europe has been going on for a long time and certainly has a domestic dimension," began Kiselyov. He continued with a familiar narrative in Russia that people in Europe are asked to do less laundry, use fewer appliances, limit the temperature in their rooms, before adding: "And now they are also advised to eat insects."

"They are persuading Europeans to bathe less often and eat insects," concludes Kiselyov, who is often described as one of the Kremlin's top propagandists.

Kiselyov was not alone in sinisterly spinning the EU decision. In France, right-wing politician Laurent Duplomb also accused EU bureaucrats of nefarious intentions.

While it is hard to prove the rumors are part of an orchestrated Kremlin campaign, social media posts on the topic spiked after one of Russia's most powerful media figures, Dmitry Kiselyov, mentioned it on his popular show on state TV in late January.

"We cannot let the French eat insects without their knowledge," he wrote on Twitter.

A transcript of Kiselyov's January 29 show quickly spread on social media in Bulgaria, shared by Ivanova, Miller, and Gotti.

Sociology professor Yakimova, who is also a researcher at the Sofia-based Foundation for Humanitarian and Social Research, a project that monitors Russian propaganda in Bulgaria, said the "news" on insects for human consumption has flooded the information space in Bulgaria in recent weeks.

Yakimova says that the disinformation is meant to sow fissures within the EU.

"This is an attack on European solidarity and exploits long-standing fears in the West about insects," she said.

Re-Written by correspondent Tony Wesolowsky based largely on reporting by RFE/RL Bulgarian Service's Georgi Angelov

Georgi A. Angelov has been a journalist for RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service since 2022. He started his career 20 years ago at the Smolyan newspaper Otzvuk. He then worked for a number of national newspapers. He was a reporter at Dnevnik, an editor at OFFNews.bg, and a writer and correspondent at the Bulgarian section of Deutsche Welle.

Western Conservative Movements Could Hinder Gender Justice Campaigns in Africa

African feminists and their allies have a steep uphill battle to fight in the culture war waged by Western conservatives.

Representative image. Photo: GPA Photo Archive/Flickr CC BY NC 2.0

Joy Asasira
GENDERWORLD

Last year’s most notable decision affecting gender justice – the overturning of federal protection of the right to abortion in the US – happened more than 6,000 miles from Africa, but its impact was felt here too.

The US Supreme Court’s decision will affect legal, policy and public service spheres on the African continent. It will also intensify the ideological war to control women’s bodies and push LGBTIQ citizens further to the margins.

African states have diverse abortion policies. For example, in Cape Verde and South Africa, abortion is available on demand – in theory if not in practice, especially for poorer women. In Congo-Brazzaville, Egypt and Gabon, however, it is prohibited without any exceptions. Between those two poles are dozens of countries that allow terminations in some circumstances.

Following the US reversal of Roe v Wade, I was among the African gender justice advocates who feared a domino effect on the continent. That hasn’t happened. However, even though we haven’t seen any changes to the law to further restrict abortion access, the US decision has definitely re-energised anti-abortion narratives.

After all, the loudest and most active conservative voices and efforts in Africa are often closely linked to the far right in the US and Europe.

Big wins for US conservatives on the home front will no doubt free up funds to invest in frustrating progress elsewhere, including Africa. In the past, US conservatives have funded efforts in Malawi to dissuade the national parliament from expanding the circumstances in which abortion is permitted.

Looking forward to 2023 and beyond, Africa’s feminist movements will have to reinvest in their own defence of bodily autonomy, in accordance with the Maputo Protocol. Adopted by the African Union in 2003, this treaty obliges countries to legalise medical abortion in cases of sexual assault, rape, incest, and where the pregnancy endangers the health or life of the mother or the foetus isn’t viable. But the ideological war extends beyond the control of pregnant bodies.


The newly elected president of Kenya, William Ruto, is a controversial figure who has branded himself a Christian nationalist and spoken out against homosexuality. His first executive order restricted state recognition of a family to heterosexual couples. This policy has been a priority for conservative Western movements active in Kenya, such as Spain’s CitizenGo.


Kenyan President William Ruto. Photo: US Department of State/Wikimedia Commons

These movements and their powerful allies seek to protect a very colonial understanding of family in Africa over more expansive indigenous definitions of family. But Western conservatives’ ideas are at odds with modern African realities. Increasingly, other forms of family are emerging across the continent in households headed by single women or children, or communal homes shared by queer people ostracised by their birth families.

The emerging forms of families will need feminist movements to continue fighting for their equal recognition and protection under the law. This is especially so because conservative movements will work to tip the balance against them.

These fights are important because so often, they are a matter of life and death for Africa’s gender-oppressed peoples. In the last two years, at least two men are reported to have bludgeoned their wives to death after learning they were using contraception. Meanwhile, a man in Kenya has sued his former partner for denying him the “right” to be on “her pregnancy journey”, claiming that his desire to have children should take precedence over her feelings. LGBTIQ Africans can often be a target, too, as is suspected to have been the case for Kenya’s Sheila Lumumba and Uganda’s Matthew Kinono.

In isolation, these events may seem random but they are directly linked to the extremist conservative Western activism that the US reversal of Roe v Wade emboldened. This activism promotes false claims such as fetal personhood, spreads misinformation about contraceptives, pushes for women to be forced back into gendered family roles and stokes moral panic about LGBTIQ people. Consequently, African feminism is faced with a considerable challenge – pushing African governments to protect their citizens from these dangerous influences.

The role of Big Tech

Meanwhile, the disinformation and misinformation that propels these exclusivist movements is likely to get worse, especially as libertarian billionaires such as Elon Musk take over social media platforms like Twitter. A Mozilla report published ahead of Kenya’s general election in August showed how foreign groups can manipulate a country’s public discourse through Twitter. The report’s case study was CitizenGo’s disinformation campaign against Kenya’s 2020 Reproductive Health Bill, which was eventually defeated in parliament.

The failure and/or disinterest of Big Tech owners to regulate the abuse of their platforms will only embolden such bad faith campaigns, putting women, LGBTIQ and other marginalised communities at risk, just as in the offline world.

A recent report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate noted the increasing number of posts containing slurs since Musk took over at Twitter.

Meanwhile, national governments on the continent are increasingly intolerant of the speech of groups that hold them to account. They are passing laws such as Uganda’s Computer Misuse Amendment Act and arresting critics, as happened repeatedly in Nigeria this year.

Compounding these challenges for Africa’s feminists is the fact that local elites and leaders lean towards conservative policies. In the two years since the Trump administration joined Brazil, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia and Uganda to co-sponsor the notorious Geneva Consensus Declaration (GCD), it has gained further signatories: 36 countries, 17 of them in Africa, now support the aims of the GCD, which declares that “there is no international right to abortion”. 2022 ended with the Ghanaian government seemingly inclined towards a revised version of “the harshest anti-gay law in the world”, which has been linked to US ultra-conservatives.

If the current trends do not decisively spell disaster, they are certainly a clear indication that African feminists and their allies have a steep uphill battle to fight in the culture war waged by Western conservatives.

Joy is an advocate and strategist for gender justice working predominantly in Uganda, and Kenya, with an Africa-wide footprint.

This article was originally published on Progressive International.

‘Business as unusual’: a new era in ties between China and Angola

Beijing was a key player in the African country’s reconstruction after decades of civil war

But the oil-backed loans that drove that recovery are ebbing as both nations look for other partners

Jevans Nyabiage
+ myNEWS
Published: 6:00pm, 12 Feb, 2023

Angola’s dependence on oil leaves the country vulnerable whenever prices fall.

 Photo: AFP

When Angolan President João Lourenço met Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang in Luanda last month, he was all praise for a series of landmark projects – from airports to hydropower stations – funded and built by China.

China had played “an indispensable role in Angola’s post-war reconstruction and economic and social development”, Lourenço said as the two countries marked four decades of diplomatic ties.

“Chinese enterprises have made positive contributions to the improvement of infrastructure and people’s livelihood in Angola.”

But even as the tributes flowed, the Chinese financing boom was already over.

Last year, Angola, which had once been Africa’s top destination for Chinese capital, did not receive any funding from Beijing’s massive infrastructure programme, the Belt and Road Initiative.

The shift is a result of a combination of factors, including commodity prices and changes within China and Angola, observers say.

Angola looks at refinancing as it faces higher repayments on Chinese loans
11 Mar 2022

In 2002, as Angola emerged from a 27-year civil war, China was on hand to advance cheap money that the West was reluctant to give in exchange for oil – an approach that became known as the “Angola model”.

Between 2000 and 2020, Chinese lenders had advanced 254 loans worth US$42.6 billion to Angola – more than a quarter of China’s total lending to African countries, according to data compiled by the Boston University Global Development Policy Centre. The result was an infrastructure boom, especially in housing, roads and power plants.

Oil is central to the whole equation, making up 90 per cent of Luanda’s exports. In all, 70 per cent of Angola’s oil is exported to China and those sales are tied directly to debt repayments.

But in recent years, China has been buying more oil from the Middle East and less from Africa. For many years, Angola was neck and neck with Saudi Arabia as the main source of Chinese oil exports, but it has now been overtaken by Russia and Iraq.

Angola’s dependence on oil leaves the country vulnerable whenever prices fall – as they did in 2014, when prices plummeted to below US$50 per barrel from a high of US$115, pushing the economy into recession and a debt crisis from which it is still to emerge.

At the same time, Chinese policy lenders such as the Export-Import Bank of China have become more cautious in general as a growing number of African countries – from Zambia to Kenya – fell into debt troubles.

Dominik Kopinski, an associate professor at the University of Wroclaw in Poland who studies China’s dealings with Africa, said the low oil prices resulted in serious economic imbalances in Angola, weakening the currency, the kwanza, and plunging the country into economic recession.

“Then came Covid-19, China’s growing isolationism, and loans drying up,” he said.

Christoph Nedopil Wang, director of the Green Finance & Development Centre at the Shanghai-based Fudan University’s Fanhai International School of Finance, said Angola used to be one of the main partners in Africa for belt and road engagement, particularly in fossil fuel-related projects.

“[But] with more diversified sources of fossil fuels for China, such as the Middle Eastern countries or Russia, Chinese developers seem to spread these engagements also to other countries,” Wang said.

Why Angola struggles to end its economic dependence on China
8 Nov 2021


Since becoming president in 2017, Lourenço has been trying to diversify the economy away from oil and to reduce Angola’s dependence on China. He has tried wooing investors from the West, especially the United States, which has pledged US$2 billion to build solar energy projects in the country.

Tim Zajontz, Research Fellow, Centre for International and Comparative Politics, Stellenbosch University in South Africa, said Chinese economic presence had waned markedly under Angola’s current government which had actively tried to diversify Angola’s international partnerships.

However, Zajontz said a rebound in Chinese investments in Angola was expected in coming years in strategic sectors, such as energy, transport and information technology. He said that a few weeks ago the Angolan government signed a US$249 million loan for its national broadband internet project with its Chinese counterpart.

Export-Import Bank of China will provide the funding to support the Angolan national broadband network project under a concessional loan framework agreement. It will fund the building of a 2,000km (1,240-mile) terrestrial optical cable in Angola as well as a submarine line connecting the enclave of Cabinda, and an upgrade to the country’s telecommunications network.

The funding is seen as a response to the US, which is backing Africell, an American company, to compete with Huawei for the control of 5G technology in the country.

Kopinski said Gang’s visit in January was meant to reassure Angola that it continued to be a strategic partner of China on the continent. He said the timing was particularly important, as the famous marriage of convenience had “experienced a marital burnout of sorts in the past years”.

“Chinese loans have dried up, Chinese state-owned enterprises switched to a standby mode and many of them left, and the Chinese community has shrunk from 350,000 in the peak time to a mere 20,000-30,000,” Kopinski said.

He said within this “business as unusual”, the visit indicated an emergence of the new normal in the Sino-Angolan ties with a less intrusive role for Chinese state actors backed by credit lines, and a more dominant role for private investors answering to the logic of capitalism rather than state-to-state policy.

Kopinski said Lourenço had signalled that the “Angola model” and heavy dependence on China were not in the country’s best interest – “and rightly so”.

But despite decoupling from China being sometimes depicted as Angola’s new master plan and a calculated shift in foreign affairs, there were various factors at play.

“We need to remember that in October 2018, Lourenço returned from his trip to China disillusioned as his Chinese friends did want to play along and bluntly said no to more loans that he had requested,” he said.

“There is, therefore, a combination of things behind this new development – Angolan internal politics, China’s policy recalibration, and a host of external factors, rather than an elaborately executed plan by Angola – or China for that matter.”

From War Zone to China's Poster Child, to Economic Despair

https://www.orfonline.org › research › from-war-zone-t...

Jan 28, 2021 — Since its independence in 1975, Angola has had a tumultuous journey: from being a war zone, to becoming a poster child for Chinese ...

China's Third World Foreign Policy: The Case of Angola and ...

https://www.cambridge.org › china-quarterly › article

by SF Jackson · 1995 · Cited by 124 — How do the Chinese organize their relations with Third World revolutionary organizations and their post-independence governments? This article

THE NEW OLD RIGHT

A Yale Professor Suggested Mass Suicide for Old People in Japan. What Did He Mean?

Yusuke Narita says he is mainly addressing a growing effort to revamp Japan’s age-based hierarchies. Still, he has pushed the country’s hottest button.

Yusuke Narita, wearing his signature eyeglasses with one round and one square lens. 

He said his comments about mass suicide and the elderly had been “taken out of context.”

Credit...Bea Oyster for The New York Times

By Motoko Rich and Hikari Hida
Reporting from Tokyo
Feb. 12, 2023,

His pronouncements could hardly sound more drastic.

In interviews and public appearances, Yusuke Narita, an assistant professor of economics at Yale, has taken on the question of how to deal with the burdens of Japan’s rapidly aging society.

“I feel like the only solution is pretty clear,” he said during one online news program in late 2021. “In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass ‘seppuku’ of the elderly?” Seppuku is an act of ritual disembowelment that was a code among dishonored samurai in the 19th century.

Last year, when asked by a school-age boy to elaborate on his mass seppuku theories, Dr. Narita graphically described to a group of assembled students a scene from “Midsommar,” a 2019 horror film in which a Swedish cult sends one of its oldest members to commit suicide by jumping off a cliff.

“Whether that’s a good thing or not, that’s a more difficult question to answer,” Dr. Narita told the questioner as he assiduously scribbled notes. “So if you think that’s good, then maybe you can work hard toward creating a society like that.”

At other times, he has broached the topic of euthanasia. “The possibility of making it mandatory in the future,” he said in one interview, will “come up in discussion.”

Dr. Narita, 37, said that his statements had been “taken out of context,” and that he was mainly addressing a growing effort to push the most senior people out of leadership positions in business and politics — to make room for younger generations. Nevertheless, with his comments on euthanasia and social security, he has pushed the hottest button in Japan.

A nursing home in Japan. The country is grappling with growing numbers of older people who suffer from dementia or die alone.

Credit...Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

While he is virtually unknown even in academic circles in the United States, his extreme positions have helped him gain hundreds of thousands of followers on social media in Japan among frustrated youths who believe their economic progress has been held back by a gerontocratic society.

Appearing frequently on Japanese online shows in T-shirts, hoodies or casual jackets, and wearing signature eyeglasses with one round and one square lens, Dr. Narita leans into his Ivy League pedigree as he fosters a nerdy shock jock impression. He is among a few Japanese provocateurs who have found an eager audience by gleefully breaching social taboos. His Twitter bio: “The things you’re told you’re not allowed to say are usually true.”

Last month, several commenters discovered Dr. Narita’s most incendiary remarks and began spreading them on social media. During a panel discussion on a respected internet talk show with scholars and journalists, Yuki Honda, a University of Tokyo sociologist, described his comments as “hatred toward the vulnerable.”

A growing group of critics warn that Dr. Narita’s popularity could unduly sway public policy and social norms. Given Japan’s low birthrate and the highest public debt in the developed world, policymakers increasingly worry about how to fund Japan’s expanding pension obligations. The country is also grappling with growing numbers of older people who suffer from dementia or die alone.

In written answers to emailed questions, Dr. Narita said he was “primarily concerned with the phenomenon in Japan, where the same tycoons continue to dominate the worlds of politics, traditional industries, and media/entertainment/journalism for many years.”

The phrases “mass suicide” and “mass seppuku,” he wrote, were “an abstract metaphor.”

“I should have been more careful about their potential negative connotations,” he added. “After some self-reflection, I stopped using the words last year.”


A book by Dr. Narita that is being translated into English.

Credit...Bea Oyster for The New York Times

His detractors say his repeated remarks on the subject have already spread dangerous ideas.

“It’s irresponsible,” said Masaki Kubota, a journalist who has written about Dr. Narita. People panicking about the burdens of an aging society “might think, ‘Oh, my grandparents are the ones who are living longer,’” Mr. Kubota said, “‘and we should just get rid of them.’”

Masato Fujisaki, a columnist, argued in Newsweek Japan that the professor’s remarks “should not be easily taken as a ‘metaphor.’” Dr. Narita’s fans, Mr. Fujisaki said, are people “who think that old people should just die already and social welfare should be cut.”

Despite a culture of deference to older generations, ideas about culling them have surfaced in Japan before. A decade ago, Taro Aso — the finance minister at the time and now a power broker in the governing Liberal Democratic Party — suggested that old people should “hurry up and die.”

Last year, “Plan 75,” a dystopian movie by the Japanese filmmaker Chie Hayakawa, imagined cheerful salespeople wooing retirees into government-sponsored euthanasia. In Japanese folklore, families carry older relatives to the top of mountains or remote corners of forests and leave them to die.

Dr. Narita’s language, particularly when he has mentioned “mass suicide,” arouses historical sensitivities in a country where young men were sent to their deaths as kamikaze pilots during World War II and Japanese soldiers ordered thousands of families in Okinawa to commit suicide rather than surrender.

Critics worry that his comments could summon the kinds of sentiments that led Japan to pass a eugenics law in 1948, under which doctors forcibly sterilized thousands of people with intellectual disabilities, mental illness or genetic disorders. In 2016, a man who believed those with disabilities should be euthanized murdered 19 people at a care home outside Tokyo.

In his day job, Dr. Narita conducts technical research of computerized algorithms used in education and health care policy. But as a regular presence across numerous internet platforms and on television in Japan, he has grown increasingly popular, appearing on magazine covers, comedy shows and in an advertisement for energy drinks. He has even spawned an imitator on TikTok.

He often appears with Gen X rabble-rousers like Hiroyuki Nishimura, a celebrity entrepreneur and owner of 4chan, the online message board where some of the internet’s most toxic ideas bloom, and Takafumi Horie, a trash-talking entrepreneur who once went to prison for securities fraud.

Hiroyuki Nishimura, center, who owns 4chan. He and Mr. Narita are part of a handful of Japanese provocateurs who seem to enjoy breaching social taboos.

Credit...Ko Sasaki for The New York Times

At times, he has pushed the boundaries of taste. At a panel hosted by Globis, a Japanese graduate business school, Dr. Narita told the audience that “if this can become a Japanese society where people like you all commit seppuku one after another, it wouldn’t be just a social security policy but it would be the best ‘Cool Japan’ policy.” Cool Japan is a government program promoting the country’s cultural products.

Shocking or not, some lawmakers say Dr. Narita’s ideas are opening the door to much-needed political conversations about pension reform and changes to social welfare. “There is criticism that older people are receiving too much pension money and the young people are supporting all the old people, even those who are wealthy,” said Shun Otokita, 39, a member of the upper house of Parliament with Nippon Ishin no Kai, a right-leaning party.

But detractors say Dr. Narita highlights the burdens of an aging population without suggesting realistic policies that could alleviate some of the pressures.

“He’s not focusing on helpful strategies such as better access to day care or broader inclusion of women in the work force or broader inclusion of immigrants,” said Alexis Dudden, a historian at the University of Connecticut who studies modern Japan. “Things that might actually invigorate Japanese society.”

In broaching euthanasia, Dr. Narita has spoken publicly of his mother, who had an aneurysm when he was 19. In an interview with a website where families can search for nursing homes, Dr. Narita described how even with insurance and government financing, his mother’s care cost him 100,000 yen — or about $760 — a month.

Dr. Narita at home in New Haven, Conn. His extreme positions have helped him gain hundreds of thousands of followers on social media in Japan.

Credit...Bea Oyster for The New York Times

Some surveys in Japan have indicated that a majority of the public supports legalizing voluntary euthanasia. But Mr. Narita’s reference to a mandatory practice spooks ethicists. Currently, every country that has legalized the practice only “allows it if the person wants it themselves,” said Fumika Yamamoto, a professor of philosophy at Tokyo City University.

In his emailed responses, Dr. Narita said that “euthanasia (either voluntary or involuntary) is a complex, nuanced issue.”

“I am not advocating its introduction,” he added. “I predict it to be more broadly discussed.”

At Yale, Dr. Narita sticks to courses on probability, statistics, econometrics and education and labor economics.

Neither Tony Smith, the department chair in economics, nor a spokesperson for Yale replied to requests for comment.

Josh Angrist, who has won the Nobel in economic science and was one of Dr. Narita’s doctoral supervisors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said his former student was a “talented scholar” with an “offbeat sense of humor.”

“I would like to see Yusuke continue a very promising career as a scholar,” Dr. Angrist said. “So my main concern in a case like his is that he’s being distracted by other things, and that’s kind of a shame.”

Motoko Rich is the Tokyo bureau chief, where she covers Japanese politics, society, gender and the arts, as well as news and features on the Korean peninsula. She has covered a broad range of beats at The Times, including real estate, the economy, books and education. @motokorich • Facebook

Hikari Hida reports from the Tokyo bureau, where she covers news and features in Japan. She joined The Times in 2020. @hikarimaehida

TNPF MP released on bail after being arrested for protesting visit by Sri Lankan President

SRI  LANKA

TNPF MP Kajendren arrested alongside peaceful protesters

 11 February 2023

Sri Lankan police have arrested Tamil National People’s Front (TNPF), Selvarajah Kajendren, for his involvement in the black flag protests against the Sri Lankan president’s visit to Jaffna.

The senior TNPF MP was forcibly dragged by armed police and shoved into the back of their vehicle. He was arrested alongside 9 other protesters including TNPF media spokesperson kanagaratnam Sugas. The arrests took place at a bus stop in Jaffna.

During the demonstration, police were seen assaulting the peaceful demonstrators.

These demonstrations follow a four-day demonstration calling for an end to the military occupation of the Tamil homeland and for the right of Tamils to self-determination. The demonstrators also called for Sri Lanka to be referred to the International Criminal Court for the genocide it has committed against Eelam Tamils.  

TNPF MP released on bail after being arrested for protesting visit by Sri Lankan President

 12 February 2023

The Tamil National People's Front (TNPF) MP Selvarajah Kajendren was released on bail last night after being arrested for protesting against Ranil Wickremesinghe's visit to Jaffna. 

Kajendren was arrested alongside 17 others, including TNPF lawyer Kanagaratnam Sugash, for holding a black flag protest during the Sri Lankan President's visit to inaugurate the Jaffna Cultural Hall as a part of Sri Lanka's 75th Independence Day. The day is regarded as a 'black day' for the Tamil nation, as it continues to be occupied by the Sri Lankan state. 

Ranil Wickremesinghe alongside EPDP leader Douglas Devananda at Jaffna Cultural Hall's inauguration event yesterday 

Those who were later produced at the Jaffna Magistrate's residence at 11 o'clock last night and were released on bail for 3 lakhs each. 

The police claimed that the 18 were arrested for holding a protest although they had obtained a court order to stop it from going ahead. 

Last weekend, black flag protests took place across the Tamil homeland to mark Sri Lanka's Independence Day.