Orchestra from Rio's violent slum crosses Atlantic to play for pope

29 July 2023 - BY CATARINA DEMONY AND MIGUEL PEREIRA

Born in one of the most violent slums in Rio de Janeiro, Caué Santos could have never imagined that one day he would cross the Atlantic to perform in Lisbon at an event attended by Pope Francis. For him, it is a dream come true.

Santos, 16, is a violinist in an orchestra made up of young musicians from the sprawling Mare “favela”, home to more than 140,000 people, where violent police raids and clashes between drug gangs are commonplace

“If it wasn't for the orchestra, which certainly saved a lot of people ... many of us would not be here now,” Santos said before an early performance at a central Lisbon viewpoint ahead of the August 2 to 6 visit by the pontiff to Portugal. Francis will attend the World Youth Day gathering of young Catholics.

Created in 2010, the “Mare do Amanha” orchestra is the brainchild of Carlos Prazeres and his father, Armando, a musical conductor who was kidnapped and killed in 1999. His bloodstained car was found in Mare.

Instead of turning his grief into hatred, Prazeres decided to use music to get children off the streets and away from drug dealing. Mare do Amanha has taught 3,500 children.

“It's something wonderful to feel fulfilled, seeing where we came from and where we are now,” said Santos, who joined the project as a nine-year-old, and is the student of Ana Beatriz Sousa, also a violinist from Mare, who is 24.

Sousa, who also studies theology at university, said inspiring other young people to follow in the orchestra's footsteps keeps her going. "(It's good) to realise that I can go further, I can be more than what society says I am.”

In Portugal, they are putting on several concerts and flash mobs to mark the Catholic event, which will bring together more than a million pilgrims.

“I really want him (Francis) to bless these kids because they will go back to Brazil to teach music amid shootings and God's protection must be with them,” Prazeres said. 

Handcuffed and grieving: Rohingya in India face arbitrary detentions

Amid growing anti-refugee rhetoric by right-wing groups, Muslims from Myanmar are being arrested and thrown in detention centres without legal services.

ASTHA SAVYASACHI


TRT WORLD
Rohingya children studying at a local madrasa in Nuh, Haryana. Photo: Astha Savyasachi / Photo: TRT World


Nomina Khatoon’s heartrending cries pierced the night air as the Rohingya woman walked behind the janaza – funeral procession – of her five-month-old boy.


She was in handcuffs, a team of policemen half-dragging her through the streets of Jammu, a city in North India about 600 km from the capital New Delhi.


Like Khatoon, in her thirties, her baby was also under detention at a jail, designated as a “holding centre” for an estimated 270 Rohingya who had sought refuge in India after being forced to flee persecution in neighbouring Myanmar.


Khatoon delivered the baby in the camp after her detention on March 5, 2021, along with other refugees.


Forced to live in inhumane conditions and allegedly facing a severe food shortage and other essentials, the refugees tried to break out of the camp on January 18.


Security forces allegedly fired live bullets and tear gas shells to subdue the angry refugees, injuring several people, according to the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative (ROHRIngya), an independent rights group.


Khatoon’s baby allegedly suffocated after inhaling tear gas fumes. A video tweeted by the group shows a chained Khatoon among a group of mourners.


“There are many more injured who are on their deathbeds. They are going to die,” ROHRIngya tweeted. “Authorities beat several almost to death. Five refugees were arrested, two women and three men. They also suffered custodial violence.”


Koushal Kumar, the official in charge of the ‘holding centre’, denies that any infant had died in the incident.


“The police had to intervene to rescue three staff members who were being held hostage by the detainees,” he tells TRT World. “Some policemen were also injured in stone-pelting by Rohingyas.”


According to the Indian government’s estimates, about 40,000 Rohingya live in different states in India, which shares a 1,643 km (1,021 miles) international border with Myanmar. However, Human Rights Watch says that only 20,000-odd are registered with the UNHCR. Most of the refugees from Myanmar entered India between 2012-2016.


The Hindu right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is accused of arbitrarily arresting Muslim Rohingya refugees and detaining them without access to legal aid.


Recent developments appear to corroborate the allegations.


On July 24, the anti-terrorist unit of police in Uttar Pradesh state arrested 74 Rohingya during a crackdown across six districts. A top police official, Prashant Kumar, said the arrested included 16 women and five children.


It was not known where these Rohingyas were being detained.

Fuelling hatred


India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which lays down the rights of refugees and the responsibilities of countries to protect them.


Activists say that growing rhetoric against Rohingya from right-wing groups aligned with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of PM Modi is fuelling anti-Rohingya sentiments in many places.


And in Jammu, a Hindu-majority region of Jammu and Kashmir, right-wing groups have been at “war” with the refugees for a few years now.


In February 2017, a lawyer and member of a J&K BJP unit, ironically called the Human Rights Cell, approached the court seeking directions to the government to shift all “illegal immigrants” from Myanmar and Bangladesh to other places.


The anti-Rohingya sentiment was exacerbated in Jammu — home to an estimated 7,000 refugees — as various Hindu right-wing groups spearheaded a campaign to forcibly expel the Rohingyas.


This campaign was fueled by assertions from a local association of traders who stigmatised the Rohingyas as “criminals and drug traffickers disowned by their own country”.


They even threatened a campaign to “identify and kill” Rohingya if the government fails to deport them.

Jammu and India-administered Kashmir was one state till it was stripped of its special status in 2019 and placed directly underly the federal government in Delhi.


In 2017, the federal government asked all state governments to identify and repatriate all “illegal immigrants”, including Rohingya refugees. “Illegal migrants are more vulnerable to getting recruited by terrorist organisations,” the federal government claimed, an argument reiterated by BJP leaders for many years now.


TRT WORLD
Sophica and her son in Nuh, Haryana. Photo: Astha Savyasachi


In February 2021, a court directed the government to file a response within a month on measures it is taking or proposes to take to identify and take proper action regarding the “illegal immigrants”.


The following month, about 170 Rohingya – including women and children – were detained by J&K police and later sent to the detention camp in Jammu. Many others were picked up from other places and sent to the camp.


Murshid Alam, a Rohingya living in a separate settlement in Jammu, says there have been arbitrary arrests and detentions over the years.


“There are many cases where infants were left alone in the camps, and their parents were taken away by the police. Or children were taken, and parents were left alone. There are cases where one of the spouses is taken away, or old parents left without any earning member of the house,” Alam tells TRT World over the phone.


Living a nightmare


At a Rohingya settlement in Nuh in Haryana state bordering Delhi, Hasan is distraught as he speaks about his fellow Rohingyas detained in the Jammu camp.


“It has been more than two years now, and our people never returned…(since then) around 10-12 refugees have died in detention, and four are missing,” says Hasan, who gave only his first name.


According to a ROHRIngya report, more refugees were unlawfully jailed in 2021-2022.


Sophica, another Rohingya in Nuh who also identified herself by her first name, is on the verge of tears as she describes the inhumane treatment of her relatives detained in Jammu.

India tiger number tops 3,600, more than 75% of world's big cat population

Tiger numbers in the Asian country fell to an all-time low of 1,411 in 2006, but their population have since risen steadily due to better conservation effforts.



AFP

India is currently home to 75 percent of the world's tigers. Photo: AFP file


India's wild tiger population is estimated to now exceed 3,600, according to new government figures that vindicate conservation efforts for the endangered species.


Tigers once roamed throughout central, eastern and southern Asia, but have lost nearly 95 percent of their historical range in the past century.


India is currently home to 75 percent of the world's tigers, and the country declared its population of the big cats had risen to 3,167 in April after a camera-based survey.


Further analysis of the same survey data by the Wildlife Institute of India found that average tiger numbers were better estimated at 3,682 across the country, the government said in a press release on Saturday.

The numbers reflected "a commendable annual growth rate of 6.1 percent per annum", it said.

"Continued efforts to protect tiger habitats and corridors are crucial for securing the future of India's tigers and their ecosystems for generations to come."


India is believed to have had a tiger population of around 40,000 at the time of independence from Britain in 1947.


That fell over subsequent decades to about 3,700 in 2002, then to an all-time low of 1,411 four years later, but numbers have since risen steadily.


Deforestation, poaching and human encroachment on habitats have devastated tiger populations across Asia.


But Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in April that India had been able to increase its numbers thanks to "people's participation" and the country's "culture of conservation".

Young Chinese opt out of the rat race and pressures at home to pursue global nomad lifestyle

July 29, 2023

BANGKOK (AP) – Shortly after China opened its borders with the end of “zero-COVID,” Zhang Chuannan lost her job as an accountant at a cosmetic firm in Shanghai and decided to explore the world.

“The cosmetics business was bleak,” said Zhang, 34, who explained everyone wore face masks during the pandemic. After being laid off, she paid USD1,400 for an online Thai course, got an education visa and moved to the scenic northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.

Zhang is among a growing number of young Chinese moving overseas not necessarily because of ideological reasons but to escape the country’s ultra-competitive work culture, family pressures and limited opportunities after living in the country under the strict pandemic policies for three years.

Southeast Asia has become a popular destination given its proximity, relatively inexpensive cost of living and tropical scenery.

There is no exact data on the number of young Chinese moving overseas since the country ended pandemic restrictions and reopened its borders. But on the popular Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu, hundreds of people have discussed their decisions to relocate to Thailand.

Many get a visa to study Thai while figuring out their next steps. At Payap University in Chiang Mai, around 500 Chinese began an online Thai course early this year.

Royce Heng, owner of Duke Language School, a private language institute in Bangkok, said around 180 Chinese inquire each month about visa information and courses.

The hunt for opportunities far from home is partly motivated by China’s unemployment rate for people ages 16 to 24, which rose to a record high of 21.3 per cent in June. The scarcity of good jobs increases pressure to work long hours.

Opting out is an increasingly popular way for younger workers to cope with a time of downward mobility, said Beverly Yuen Thompson, a sociology professor at Siena College in Albany, New York.

“In their 20s and early 30s, they can go to Thailand, take selfies and work on the beach for a few years and feel like they have a great quality of life,” Thomson said.

“If those nomads had the same opportunities they hoped for in their home countries, they could just travel on vacation.”

During the pandemic in China, Zhang was cooped up in her Shanghai apartment for weeks at a time. Even when lockdowns were lifted, she feared another COVID-19 outbreak would prevent her from moving around within the country.

“I now value freedom more,” Zhang said.

A generous severance package helped finance her time in Thailand and she is seeking ways to stay abroad long-term, perhaps by teaching Chinese language online.
Moving to Chiang Mai means waking up in the mornings to bird songs and a more relaxed pace of life. Unlike in China, she has time to practice yoga and meditation, shop for vintage clothes and attend dance classes.

Armonio Liang left the western Chinese city of Chengdu in landlocked Sichuan province for the Indonesian island of Bali, a popular digital nomad destination. His Web3 social media startup was limited by Chinese government restrictions while his use of cryptocurrency exchange apps drew police harassment.

Moving to Bali gave the 38-year-old greater freedom and a middle-class lifestyle with what might be barely enough money to live on back home.

“This is what I cannot get in China,” said Liang, referring to working on his laptop on the beach and brainstorming with expatriates from around the world. “Thousands of ideas just sprouted up in my mind. I had never been so creative before.” He also has enjoyed being greeted with smiles.

“In Chengdu, everyone is so stressed. If I smiled at a stranger, they would think I am an idiot,” he said.

Life overseas is not all beach chats and friendly neighbors, though. For most young workers, such stays will be interludes in their lives, Thompson said.

“They can’t have kids, because kids have to go to school,” Thompson said. “They cannot fulfill their responsibilities to their parents. What if their aging parents need help? They eventually will get a full-time job back home and get called back home because of one of those things.”

Zhang said she faces pressure to get married. Liang wants his parents to move to Bali with him.

“It’s a big problem,” Liang said. “They worry they will be lonely after moving out of China and worry about medical resources here.”

Huang Wanxiong, 32, was stranded on Bohol Island in the Philippines for seven months in 2020 when air travel halted during the pandemic, and he spent his time learning free diving, which involves diving to great depths without oxygen tanks.

He eventually flew home to the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, but lost his job at a private tutoring company after the government cracked down on the industry in 2021. His next gig was driving more than 16 hours a day for a ride-hailing business.

“I felt like a machine during those days,” Huang said. “I can accept a stable and unchanging life but I cannot accept not having any hope, not trying to improve the situation and surrendering to fate.”

Huang returned to the Philippines in February, escaping family pressures to get a better job and find a girlfriend in China. He renewed his Bohol Island friendships and qualified as a dive instructor.

But without Chinese tourists to teach and no income, he flew home again in June.
He still hopes to make a living as a diver, possibly back in Southeast Asia, though he also may agree to his parents’ proposal to emigrate to Peru to work in a family-run supermarket.

Huang recalled he once surfaced too quickly from a 40-metre dive and his hands trembled from a dangerous lack of oxygen, known as hypoxia.

The lesson he took was to avoid rushing and maintain a steady climb. Until his next move, he plans to use that free diver discipline to counter the anxieties of living in China.

“I will apply the calm I learned from the sea surrounding that island to my real life,” Huang said. “I will maintain my own pace.”

 

Scotiabank Faces Pressure to Divest from Israeli Arms Maker

by M.Y | DOP

 

 July 30, 2023

 

in News, Solidarity Acts

 

Scotiabank, one of Canada’s largest banks, is facing criticism from human rights groups over its investment in Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer that has been linked to violations of international law in Palestine.

According to a report by The Intercept, Scotiabank holds the largest foreign share of Elbit Systems, estimated to be about $500 million. Elbit Systems is Israel’s premier defense contractor, producing drones, missiles, surveillance systems, and other military equipment that are used by the Israeli army in its occupation of Palestinian territories.

At a shareholder meeting, a representative of the ethical investing activist group Eko delivered a petition on behalf of 12,000 signatories calling on Scotiabank to divest from Elbit Systems. The petition cited the company’s involvement in human rights abuses, such as providing technology for Israel’s illegal separation wall, supplying weapons that have caused civilian casualties in Gaza, and profiting from Israeli settlements that are considered illegal under international law.

The representative of Scotiabank at the meeting did not address the concerns raised by the petition, but said that all fund decisions are driven by “the interests of shareholders”.

The investment in Elbit Systems comes through Scotiabank’s asset management arm, 1832 Asset Management, and a particular subdivision known as Dynamic Funds, several of whose funds are run by a fund manager and executive named David Fingold. Fingold is a prolific investor in controversial Israeli firms, including Mizrahi-Tefahot Bank and Strauss Group, which are also on a United Nations list of companies that benefit from Israeli settlements.

Scotiabank’s stake in Elbit Systems is much larger than that of its two main domestic competitors, TD Bank and Royal Bank of Canada, which hold around $3 million in shares, combined, in the company.

Human rights groups have urged Scotiabank to follow the example of other financial institutions that have divested from Elbit Systems or other Israeli companies involved in the occupation, such as AXA, HSBC, Danske Bank, and Nordea. They have also called on the Canadian government to stop providing tax incentives for investments in companies that violate human rights.

'GIFTS' VS REPATRIATIONS

France's Macron announces initiative to preserve primary forests of Papua New Guinea

French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Friday a partnership to "remunerate" Papua New Guinea for its efforts to preserve the primary forest. The first of its kind, the deal is an environmental model that France wants to see reproduced elsewhere.

Issued on: 28/07/2023 -

Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape (L) and 

France's President Emmanuel Macron (C) visit Varirata national park 

forest in Port Moresby on July 28, 2023. 

AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Text by: RFI

The French president was given a tour of Varirata National Park, near Port-Moresby, in the company of Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister James Marape on Friday.

The visit was part of Emmanuel Macron's South Pacific tour that has included stops in New Caledonia and Vanuatu.

Rich in minerals and other natural resources and close to the main maritime routes, Papua New Guinea has become a key issue in the strategic standoff between Western nations and China.

Faced with Beijing's growing influence in the region, the United States is betting on defense cooperation and has signed a security pact with Port-Moresby.

France, unable to compete with these two superpowers militarily, has decided to emphasise the environment, as Macron explained Thursday in Vanuatu by detailing the country's "Indo-Pacific strategy".

"[Primary forests represent]14 percent of the surface of the globe, 75 percent of what we call irrecoverable carbon. That is to say that when we deforest, we burn, we release the carbon and that's taking a huge step backwards," Macron said.

French President Emmanuel Macron receives a present made in wood from Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape after visiting Varirata national park near Port Moresby on July 28, 2023.

 AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Get Private Investment

However, he noted, while the international community is already financing reforestation efforts, "there was absolutely no economic model to help preserve this".

At the One Forest Summit, which Macron organised with Gabon in Libreville in March, the idea of remuneration contracts with countries concerned was announced. The idea is to create a financial incentive in exchange for the preservation and "environmental services that are provided by these primary forests" .Amazon rainforest emitting more C02 than it absorbs, study finds

The first contract of its kind was launched on Thursday with Papua New Guinea, financed to the tune of more than €60 million by the European Union.

Paris hopes to go much further by mobilising other G7 countries on this initiative between now and COP28 in early December and, ultimately, to get the private sector on board too.

Non-governmental organisations, philanthropists like Conservation International, Wildlife Conservation Society or the Bezos Fund are already on board, as well as UN agencies.

Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea James Marape (R) 

and France's President Emmanuel Macron (C) meet

 Managalas people at APEC Haus in Port Moresby on July 28, 2023.

 AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Green economy

France wants to develop this model partnership with other countries affected by the presence of primary forest, concentrated in Southeast Asia, in the Amazon, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo.Why the Congo plays a critical role in saving the world's biodiversity

James Marape thanked the French President for the initiative, saying he had "become the champion of forest nations".

"I am counting on my brother President Emmanuel Macron to speak globally in the world. We cannot talk about climate change without talking about the protection of forests and oceans and the green economy," he said.

The two countries made the most of the visit to sign other agreements. The French Development Agency, which is gaining momentum in the Pacific, particularly on climate issues, has undertaken to finance the rehabilitation of Papua New Guinea's ports with European partners and Australia, to develop a "model of eco-responsibility ".

(with AFP)

Emmett Till Monument Has a Message Some Refuse to Hear
Analysis by Francis Wilkinson | Bloomberg
July 29, 2023 

US President Joe Biden while signing a proclamation to establish the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument in theIndian Treaty Room of the White House with US Vice President Kamala Harris, left, in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, July 25, 2023. Biden signed the proclamation to protect sites connected to the barbaric 1955 killing ofEmmett Tilland the bold efforts by his mother, MamieTill-Mobley, to highlight his death. (Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg)

History has been getting roughed up lately. But it fought back this week, aided by a president who has seen a lot of it.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden announced the creation of the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument. It will honor a 14-year-old boy who was tortured and murdered by racists in 1955, and a mother who courageously displayed her son’s mutilated face to expose a savage society. (The White woman who claimed that Till had accosted her — the ostensible basis for the vigilantism — six decades later said she had lied about the incident. Not that it matters.)

The monument, set to occupy three locations, will establish an observable physical fact, the better to preserve and honor an historical fact. If the message of monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial is, more or less, Behold the great man, the message of the Till monument will be slightly different: It happened. Deal with it.

Millions of Americans emphatically do not want to deal with it. In the days leading up to Biden’s announcement, Republican attorneys general from 13 states sent a letter to the nearly all-White ranks of Fortune 100 CEOs. The Republicans threatened “serious legal consequences” for executives if their companies seek to ameliorate racial disadvantage through programs or philosophies that acknowledge there might be something awry, possibly even systemic, in racial disparities of wealth and power.

One of the letter’s Republican signatories is Lynn Fitch, attorney general of Mississippi, the state that spawned both Till’s killers and the local jury that blessed their violence. Fitch was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, in 1961, between the killing of Till, in Money, Mississippi, in 1955, and the murder of NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1963. She was 2 years old at the time of the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi, in 1964.

Thankfully, all such traces of unpleasantness have vanished for Fitch, whose wealthy family’s plantation features the home of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general famous for torturing Black Union soldiers and founding the Ku Klux Klan. Fitch’s father paid to move the structure to his property and carefully restore it.

Median household income for Black residents in Mississippi is less than 60% of the median for White residents. With racial equality achieved at home, Fitch is looking elsewhere, wielding the power of the state to combat “overt and pervasive racial discrimination” against the White people who can’t get ahead in corporate America.

There is pathos in these efforts. It was a straightforward matter for the White Citizens Council to extol the virtues of White supremacy and facilitate murder in its sacred honor. White privilege is a trickier game now, requiring the maintenance of racial stratification under the guise of commitment to a colorblind society. Unwilling to acknowledge racism’s reach, yet loath to indulge in stereotypes, Republicans are at a loss to explain the vast disparity between White and Black wealth. What drives this curious phenomenon? Apparently, it’s the residue that remains after systemic disadvantage evaporates.

Conservatives are working hard to reconfigure the past, but they pay a cost. Florida officials, including Governor Ron DeSantis, look awfully dim banning books and defending a hackish public education curriculum asserting that American slaves learned valuable skills in bondage. But minimizing the depravity of slavery, and erasing the long tail of racism, helps preserve the fantasies, and policies, of White innocence that buffer the haves against the aspirations of the have-so-much-less. If you can distort the past, you can gaslight the present.

If the manufacture, finance and consumption of cotton is a foundation of the modern capitalist world and its wealth, the question what is owed can’t help but assert itself. There are children in posh schools in Boston, London and New York whose family fortunes were built on the lacerated backs of slaves whose progeny now live across town. Does that matter? If so, what is to be done about it? If it doesn’t matter, why so much huffing and puffing to bury the truth?

What is owed is not the only, or necessarily even most important, question. And the past is not the only arena. Contemporary racial politics is very much about contemporary public and political space, too. The ultimate affront of Barack Obama’s presidency wasn’t his expansion of access to health care. It was that a Black man took up so very much space, at the center of the public stage.

DeSantis, the 13 attorneys general and their cohorts seek to preserve center stage for those who traditionally occupied it. Yet Blacks, Native Americans, women, LGBTQ Americans and others keep butting into the picture. Donald Trump was mocked for his pathetic affirmation of Frederick Douglass as someone who’s “done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more.” But Trump’s ignorance was a distillation of his creed. Why should Trump know anything about Douglass? Douglass was Black. 

Biden understands that the battle over history is a battle for the future. “At a time when there are those who seek to ban books, bury history, we’re making it clear — crystal, crystal clear — while darkness and denialism can hide much, they erase nothing,” Biden said during a White House event with members of the Till family. The politics of highlighting Mamie Till-Mobley, along with her son, aren’t hard to fathom: Black women are the backbone of the Democratic Party.

A few conservative truth-tellers — evangelical leader Russell Moore is one who comes to mind — seem eager to lead their reluctant brethren to the promised land, where no one mistakes MAGA’s racial aggression for sappy victimhood. Their path leads to places like the National Memorial for Peace and Justice — the lynching memorial — in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Till memorial will likely be another such destination, a place to face the past instead of lie about it. Maybe there, in the silent memory of Emmett Till’s mangled body, we can begin to dispense with another lie — the notion that slavery was the “original sin” of America’s founding. No God imprinted such horror at birth. No human action was foreordained. Every crime was a decision.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering U.S. politics and policy. Previously, he was an editor for the Week, a writer for Rolling Stone, a communications consultant and a political media strategist.

WAGNER TRIFECTA

Niger seeks post-coup alliance with Mali and Burkina Faso in Russia-linked shift

ByThe Rio Times
July 29, 2023

The military junta in Niger, following their coup against President Mohamed Bazoum, has shown interest in cooperating with neighboring countries Mali and Burkina Faso.

These nations are already under military-led governments and have strengthened ties with Russia.

Niger, one of Africa’s poorest countries, was previously France’s main ally in the unstable Sahel region and had maintained a cautious distance from Mali and Burkina Faso.

After the coup, Niger’s junta accused France of landing a military plane at Niamey international airport, despite a declared border closure.

Niger seeks post-coup alliance with Mali and Burkina Faso in Russia-linked shift to Russia. (Photo Internet reproduction)

The junta further warned against any foreign military intervention, amidst speculated presence of French military personnel in Niamey.

The coup unfolds amidst an increasing anti-French sentiment in the Sahel, heightened by Mali and Burkina Faso expelling French forces from their territories.

While Niger did not participate in the Russia-Africa summit held in Saint Petersburg recently, Russian media reported that representatives from Niger had met with the head of the Wagner group of mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The ousted Nigerien President, Mohamed Bazoum, had previously expressed concerns about the influence of Wagner and a potential coup backed by them.

Following the coup, the self-proclaimed head of the junta, General Abdourahamane Tiani, criticized Bazoum for not cooperating with Burkina Faso and Mali, signaling a potential strengthening of ties with these neighboring nations.

These three countries share an area known as “the three borders,” a vast, dangerous territory currently experiencing a resurgence of jihadist activity.

The region suffers not only from terrorism and political instability but also the impacts of climate change.

According to the UN, 4.3 million people in Niger (from a population of 26 million) rely on humanitarian aid, making it one of the most delicate areas in the world.

Wagner Group: Inside the Russian mercenary machine in Africa - The East African

 Russia's presence in Africa: Weapons, Wagner and energy

Who is General Tchiani, head of Niger's new military government?

Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani, the commander of Niger's presidential guards unit, was appointed head of state on 28 July by a governing council set up by military forces that ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.

Issued on: 29/07/2023 

In this image taken from video provided by ORTN, Gen. Tchiani makes a statement July 28, 2023, in Niamey, Niger. 

Text by :RFI

The 62-year-old general is from Niger’s western region of Tillaberic, close to the border with Mali.

He studied at a military academy in Thiès in Senegal and carried out a number of training missions abroad before occupying posts in Niger including commander of the national gendarmerie.

He was decorated in 1989 for having secured the site of a crash near Bilma in northern Niger after a French flight crashed due to a suitcase bomb explosion. All 170 people on board died. Tchiani was the first officer on site.

A former military attaché at Niger’s embassy in Germany, he also served as head of a battalion in Agadez, once seen as the world’s smuggling capital, and often led military operations in the Niger desert against contraband and drug traffickers.

In 2011, Bazoum’s predecessor, president Mahamadou Issoufou, appointed him to lead the presidential guards – a special unit of around 2,000 soldiers.

Then in 2018, Tchiani was promoted to the rank of general.

In March 2021, he reportedly led the unit that blocked another attempted coup, when a military unit tried to seize the presidential palace a few days before Bazoum was due to be sworn in.

When Bazoum took office 2021, he kept the general as head of the presidential guards.

A few months ago, he was decorated by president Bazoum “for fully taking on all his responsibilities with a spirit of devotion, self-sacrifice, availability and loyalty,” reports RFI correspondent Serge Daniel.

'Too close' to Issoufou

Tchiani remains a close ally of Issoufou. He was linked to a 2015 coup attempt against the ex-president, but denied that in court.

According to Serge Daniel, Tchiani was not chosen unanimously to lead the National Council for the Safeguarding of the Country (CNSP) as the new military government is calling itself.

“Some in the army some think he is too close to ex-president Mahamadou Issoufou,” said a witness to the first 48 hours of discussion following Bazoum's removal on Wednesday.Niger's president held at palace as African Union slams attempted coup

In a statement on state television on Friday, 28 July, Tchiani called on "the technical and financial partners and friends of Niger to understand the specific situation of our country and provide all necessary support to help it overcome the challenges it faces".

Reiterating that soldiers had seized power because of worsening security as the country battles a jihadist insurgency in the Sahel region, Tchiani said: "We cannot continue with the same approaches proposed so far, as it risks witnessing the gradual and inevitable disappearance of our nation."

Critics of Tchiani underline that if the country's security situation has indeed worsened, it has happened under his watch.

Russia-Africa summit ends without grain deal or path to end war in Ukraine

African leaders are leaving two days of meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin with little to show for their requests to resume a deal that kept grain flowing from Ukraine and to find a way of ending the war there.

Issued on: 30/07/2023

Fewer than 20 of Africa’s 54 heads of state or government attended the second Russia-Africa summit in Saint Petersburg on 27/28 July, 2023. 

AFP - ARTEM GEODAKYAN

Text by :RFI

In a press conference late Saturday following the Russia-Africa summit, Putin said Russia’s termination of the grain deal earlier this month caused a rise in grain prices that benefits Russian companies.

He added that Moscow would share some of those revenues with the “poorest nations".

That commitment, with no details, follows Putin’s promise to start shipping 25,000 to 50,000 tons of grain for free to each of six African nations in the next three to four months – an amount dwarfed by the 725,000 tons shipped by the UN World Food Programme to several hungry countries, African and otherwise, under the grain deal.

Russia plans to send the free grain to Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, Eritrea and Central African Republic.

Russia's offer of 'free' grain to African countries not a solution: UN

Fewer than 20 of Africa’s 54 heads of state or government attended the Russia summit, while 43 attended the previous gathering in 2019, reflecting concerns over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine even as Moscow seeks more allies on the African continent of 1.3 billion people.
President Putin, right, shakes hands with Mozambique President Filipe Nyusi at the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, July 28, 2023. AP - Alexei Danichev
Calls to resume grain deal

Putin praised Africa as a rising centre of power in the world, while the Kremlin blamed “outrageous” Western pressure for discouraging some African countries from showing up.

The presidents of Egypt and South Africa were among the most outspoken on the need to resume the grain deal.

“We would like the Black Sea initiative to be implemented and that the Black Sea should be open,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said. “We are not here to plead for donations for the African continent.”France slams Russia's suspension of Black Sea grain deal as 'blackmail'

In Saturday's press conference, Putin said that Russia did not reject talks on Ukraine and that an African peace initiative, as well as a Chinese one, could be a basis for peace.

He also said that it was hard to implement a ceasefire when the Ukrainian army was on the offensive.

The next significant step in peace efforts appears to be a Ukrainian-organised peace summit hosted by Saudi Arabia in August, to which Russia is not invited.African leaders travel to Ukraine and Russia on peace mission

Africa’s nations make up the largest voting bloc at the UN and have been more divided than any other region on General Assembly resolutions criticising Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Delegations at the summit in St. Petersburg roamed exhibits of weapons, a reminder of Russia's role as the African continent's top arms supplier.

Members of delegations examine a weapon exhibition on the sidelines of the Russia-Africa Summit. 

AP - Artyom Geodakyan

Putin in his remarks on Saturday also downplayed his absence from the BRICS economic summit in South Africa next month amid a controversy over an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court.

Putin said his presence there was no more important than his presence "here, in Russia".

(with AP)

Africa’s hunger offers Russia chance to fight isolation by West


SATURDAY JULY 29 2023

Russia President Vladimir Putin speaks at a plenary meeting at the second Russia-Africa Summit in St Petersburg, Russia on July 28, 2023. PHOTO | AFP

Summary

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa was given a “free” helicopter to help him travel around the country.

A deeper look at Russia’s involvement in Africa shows that the summit is mainly a symbolic event to signal the strengthening of ties, and to acknowledge Russia’s presence in the continent.

US Permanent Representative to Nato, labelled Russia among the “two main threats facing the Nato Alliance”.

Putin has not fulfilled the promises he made during the earlier Russia-Africa summit in 2019, where Moscow promised $40 billion worth of investments to the continent.

By AGGREY MUTAMBO

Russian President Vladimir Putin was this week shaking hands with and hugging African leaders, labelling them friends, a partial show of the continent’s ties with Moscow in the wake of Western isolation after invading Ukraine last year.

And the gathering, the second Russia-Africa Summit in four years, came with significant imagery: The ongoing food crisis in Africa, and Russia’s war in Ukraine, seemed like a perfect combination for influence peddling.

On Thursday, Moscow offered free grain to six poor African countries and promised to stabilise supplies to other needy states.

Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, Mali, Somalia, the Central African Republic and Eritrea will receive “free” food from Russia, shipped directly to their borders.

Somalia had their decades-old $684 million debt owed to Moscow forgiven in a deal penned on Wednesday. The money was owed before Somalia collapsed more than three decades ago.

Read: Somalia gets debt relief from Russia-Africa Summit

African leaders press Putin on grain deal, Ukraine War

US urges African leaders to confront Putin on grain disruptions

But the gesture could reflect Russia’s use of every opportunity to cement ties with a restless Africa.

Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who faces a general election in three weeks, was given a “free” helicopter to help him travel around the country.

Back in St Petersburg, President Putin spoke to his guests as “friends” and told them of his intent to improve grain supplies to the continent.

“Russia will always be a responsible international supplier of agricultural products. We will continue to support the countries and regions most in need.

“We will supply them with our grain and other food products, including free of charge and within the framework of the UN World Food Programme,” Mr Putin argued.

Read: Russia to seek deeper alliance with Africa

Mutual ties

At the gala reception hosted in honour of the participants of the second Russia–Africa Summit, President Putin told the leaders that their coming illustrates the mutual desire of Russia and African countries to expand and deepen mutually “beneficial ties and contacts.”

“This is also a real confirmation of our common intentions to take Russia-Africa relations to a new, more advanced level in politics, security, in the economic and social spheres.”

In the past, he argued, the Soviet Union rendered African nations “tangible support in the struggle against colonialism, racism and apartheid…”

Today, he said, Russia and the African countries stand together for the formation of “a just, multipolar world order based on the principles of sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their internal affairs, and respect for peoples’ right to determine their own destiny.”

Putin spoke to the leaders – among them Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Comoros President and African Union chair Azali Assoumani, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Felix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and Evariste Ndayishimiye of Burundi, the current chair of the East African Community, among others.

Read:  Putin hosts African leaders in Russia after grain deal exit

Symbolic event

A deeper look at Russia’s involvement in Africa shows that the summit is mainly a symbolic event to signal the strengthening of ties, and to acknowledge Russia’s presence in the continent.

Dr Angela Muvumba Sellström, senior researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute (NAI), says Russia advocates a multipolar world in which Western democratic ideals are not imposed and the ideological sovereignty of non-Western nations is respected.

The narrative appeals to Africans who have often protested an unjust international order and suits Moscow’s campaign against Western hegemony.

But it is not unique: China, the European Union, the US, and France have held similar meetings.

“Russia has seized on Africa’s genuine feelings of disenfranchisement in the global economy and global governance, leveraging its own sense of marginalisation from the global stage to exaggerate the tangible benefits it can offer to the continent,” Dr Sellström told The EastAfrican.

In the short-term, against the background of the Russian war in Ukraine, Moscow is using the grain as a tool, especially after it refused to continue with the Black Sea Grain Initiative, she said, but noted that Russia’s strongest partners on the African continent – Mali, Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, and even Uganda – would have to pursue bilateral arrangements to access grain purchases.

“I do not believe there are any viable long-term economic benefits on offer to Africa from Russia. Less than one percent of foreign direct investment in Africa comes from Russia.

That is a lot less than Europe, the US and China. South Africa and Mauritius have more direct investment in the rest of Africa than does Russia. Moscow focuses mostly on getting natural resources and energy out of Africa, and gives very little direct aid,” she said.

Read: Russia's presence in Africa: Weapons, Wagner and energy

Terror accusations

This week, however, Russia came under criticism from Ukraine and the West for pulling out of the Grain Initiative and attacking a Ukrainian port in Odessa, which had been exporting grain.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky said everyone will be impacted by the Russian invasion.

“Everyone is affected by this Russian terror. Everyone in the world should be interested in bringing Russia to justice for its terror,” he said in a Telegram video message on Thursday, after Russian missiles destroyed nearly 60,000 tonnes of grain in a yard in Odessa.

And Julianne Smith, US Permanent Representative to Nato, labelled Russia among the “two main threats facing the Nato Alliance”, the other being terrorism.

“I think those are topics of interest to our partners across Africa as it relates both to Russia’s activities on the African continent and what Africa – what Russia is doing in Ukraine as it relates to this grain deal,” Smith told a group of African journalists in a virtual meeting on Wednesday.

“Russia has violated the foundational principles of the UN Charter itself. The Wagner Group behind the recent coup attempt against Putin’s regime remains a destabilising presence and a threat to the African continent more specifically.

Read:  Inside the Russian mercenary machine in Africa

“And, of course, Russia’s refusal just recently to extend the Black Sea Grain Initiative and its threat to attack commercial vessels carrying grain have led to increased food insecurity across the globe,” she said, adding that the US has established a roadmap on global food security, alongside 100 other countries, worth $4.5 billion for both acute and medium- to long-term food security assistance.

On July 17, Russia withdrew from the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which was scheduled for its fourth renewal, accusing Ukraine of diverting grain from poor recipients. The initiative has been instrumental in facilitating the export of Ukraine’s grain and agricultural products to global markets.

Shortly after the termination of the deal, the Russian Ministry of Defense asserted that it would view any ship heading for Ukraine as a potential carrier of military cargo.

A bulletin by the EUvsDisinfo, a European Union project on Russia’s disinformation, argued Moscow had twisted facts,including a denial of how Ukraine had been the biggest supplier of grain to the World Food Programme.

Yet experts think the West was reactionary.

“The West is already reacting as guessed: Focus on Russia; like the focus on China, which makes other players like African countries appear as voiceless subjects lacking agency,” said Dr Hawa Noor, associate fellow at the Institute for Intercultural and International Studies (InIIS), University of Bremen.

Read: The new scramble for Africa

“Much as Russia is re-positioning itself following the war by courting Southern countries, it should be remembered that these countries have their own agendas too. It’s not all about Russia doing something to African countries.

“There are a lot of bilateral deals as ever despite that tug-of-war between major powers. These countries have their own agendas to push. And, of course for the West, the less support for Russia in Africa, the better,” she told The EastAfrican.

Dr Nasong’o Muliro, a foreign policy and security specialist at the Global Centre for Policy and Strategy in Nairobi, said the St Petersburg Summit may just reflect pragmatism and independence of African countries in their foreign policy in their relations with Russia.

“Every country has an aspect of their interest that they individually wish to fulfil through their relations with Russia. Indeed, Africa has not developed a common position towards Russia, as in holding an extraordinary meeting at the African Union to discuss matters surrounding Russia-Ukraine. So, it is not easy to generalise the strategic interest of African states toward Russia,” Dr Muliro told The EastAfrican.
Moscow strategy

Russia conducts its foreign policy with African states at an elite level, an opaque or unconventional statecraft, which may explain why its close allies in Africa strongmen or leaders of countries are mainly undergoing complex political transitions such as Libya, Mali, Sudan and Guinea. As a result, Dr Muliro argues, Russia has failed to be in touch with the masses or build people-to-people relations on the continent.

Putin has also not fulfilled the promises he made during the earlier Russia-Africa summit in 2019, where Moscow promised $40 billion worth of investments to the continent.

Read: Russia-Africa summit: What Vladmir Putin stands to gain

The politics of food, however, is appealing.

“Russia has done its homework well and found that beyond the supply of arms, the new gateway to Africa is through the supply of grains and fertiliser to mitigate the food crisis occasioned by adverse climate change. Literally get to the head and heart through the stomach. This food insecurity is likely to continue because it is projected that most states especially in East Africa are most likely going to have a poor harvest,” Dr Muliro said.