Monday, November 27, 2023

Myanmar Civil War: China Calls For An Immediate Ceasefire

Myanmar is currently embroiled in a civil war with numerous armed ethnic and pro-democracy factions fighting the military junta which threw an elected government out of power in a sudden coup in 2021.

Chinese President Xi Jinping AP


Outlook Web Desk

UPDATED: 27 NOV 2023 1:25 PM

Beijing has called for an immediate ceasefire in Myanmar's escalating civil conflict. This comes after a group of armed people, including the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Arakan Army (AA), and Ta'ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), took control of an important trading spot between the two countries over the weekend.

Myanmar, a South-East Asian nation of 54 million people, is currently embroiled in a civil war with numerous armed ethnic and pro-democracy factions fighting the military junta which threw an elected government out of power in a sudden coup in 2021.

The armed alliance's offensive against the Aung Min Hlaing-led junta has resulted in the rebels gaining control of numerous military positions and a strategically significant town for trade with China. The junta government has acknowledged losing at least three towns, posing the toughest armed challenge to the junta since its ascent to power three years ago.

In response, China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) expressed determination to safeguard border security in an editorial published on Sunday by PLA Daily, the news website of the Chinese military.

“Maintaining the security and stability of the China-Myanmar border is the common aspiration and well-being of the two peoples,” it said.

“China pays close attention to the relevant conflicts in northern Myanmar and urges relevant parties to immediately cease fire and engage in peaceful dialogue to avoid escalation of the situation.”

There have been confirmed Chinese casualties and reports of damage on the Chinese side of the border since the conflict broke out in October.

China does not officially recognise the junta government but has maintained good relations with the administration and repeatedly insisted that it would not interfere in Myanmar’s internal affairs.

AFC Cup tie moved after Australia denies Myanmar team visas

The match between Shan United and Macarthur will now be played in Thailand.

AFP - 

Football Australia did not explain why the visas for Shan United had been denied. (AFP pic)

SYDNEY: An AFC Cup match between teams from Australia and Myanmar has been moved to a neutral venue in Thailand after Canberra refused to grant visas to the visiting side, Football Australia said today.

Shan United were scheduled to play Australian club side Macarthur in Sydney on Thursday as part of the second-rung regional club competition.

But Football Australia said there was “no viable way of playing the game on Australian soil” after officials refused to grant visas to the touring Myanmar side.

The match “has been moved to BG Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand”, it added.

Football Australia did not explain why the visas had been denied, and Australia’s home affairs department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Human rights groups have previously raised concerns about alleged links between Shan United and Myanmar’s military junta.

The Macarthur side was criticised in October after travelling to play in Myanmar against official government advice.


Myanmar's spiraling violence spawns

strategic risks for India

Northeastern border instability, possible Chinese inroads worry analysts

People who fled Myanmar carry their belongings across a bridge to the border village of Zokhawthar, in India's northeastern state of Mizoram, on Nov. 15. 
 © Reuters

KIRAN SHARMA, 
Nikkei staff writer
November 27, 2023 


NEW DELHI -- Fierce fighting in Myanmar has raised "deep concern" in India, which is closely monitoring security along the countries' shared border while bracing for an influx of refugees.

The military regime that seized power in Myanmar in February 2021, ousting the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, is facing arguably its biggest test yet in the form of a coordinated armed resistance. The renewed instability has raised alarm in countries that border the troubled Southeast Asian state, including rival powers India and China.

Operation 1027 -- as the resistance offensive is named, after the date it started in late October -- "has shaken the military" in Myanmar, observed Udai Bhanu Singh, a strategic analyst formerly with the New Delhi-based Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses.

He said that Myanmar's strategic location has always made it a high priority for Indian policymakers, but that "certain developments have escalated the pace of events in Myanmar, and as a consequence the response from India needs to be appropriate and swift."

"Ironically, it is China that is demanding border security from the Myanmar regime even as Myanmar handed over thousands of telecom fraud suspects to China recently. It is clear that the Myanmar regime is no longer in control over large swaths of its territory and that includes the border with India and the border with China."

India shares a 1,643 kilometer border with Myanmar, which should give it a gateway to the economies of Southeast Asia. Myanmar is integral to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Act East" policy, aimed at promoting economic cooperation and cultural ties as well as developing strategic relationships with the ASEAN bloc and other countries in the Indo-Pacific region.

The neighbors also share a 725 km boundary in the Bay of Bengal. There, India's goal is to boost maritime security cooperation with ASEAN as part of a broader effort under the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad -- a grouping with the U.S., Japan and Australia that, analysts say, is designed to contain Chinese influence.


The reality on the ground in Myanmar, however, seriously complicates India's strategic objectives, while creating other headaches for the government.

Last week, New Delhi issued a travel advisory, telling Indian nationals to avoid nonessential visits to Myanmar. "Those already living in Myanmar are advised to take precaution and avoid travel to the regions affected by violence," warned the Ministry of External Affairs, which asked Indians in Myanmar to register with its mission in Yangon.

Arindam Bagchi, spokesperson for the ministry, confirmed to reporters on Nov. 16 that "there has been movement of Myanmar nationals to the Indian side" as a result of fighting in the Rikhawdar area of Myanmar's Chin state, opposite Zokhawthar in India's northeastern state of Mizoram.

Apart from Mizoram, three other northeast Indian states -- Arunachal Pradesh, strife-torn Manipur and Nagaland -- share boundaries with Myanmar.

"We are deeply concerned with such incidents close to our border," Bagchi said, adding that New Delhi wanted "cessation of the violence and resolution of the situation through constructive dialogue."

"We reiterate our call for return of peace, stability and democracy in Myanmar," he said, noting that since 2021 "a large number of Myanmar citizens have been taking refuge" in India. He did not give an exact figure.

In a report from Zokhawthar on Nov. 18, Indian news agency ANI said that many women and children were among 5,000 Myanmar refugees who had taken shelter in six camps in the area. The report said the Mizoram government was providing them with food, clothes and medical attention. A couple of days later, ANI quoted the top state police officer, Anil Shukla, as saying that around 75 Myanmar army personnel who fled resistance attacks on their camps were "rescued" and repatriated.

Indian authorities "have been handling the situation appropriately on humanitarian grounds," Bagchi said.

Singh, the strategic analyst, views the current situation as "doubly troubling" for India.

"First, a weak Myanmar strengthens China's role in the region. Second, India's northeast is in turmoil as the Meitei-Kuki conflict in Manipur has not yet subsided and is beginning to have its impact on peaceful Mizoram as well."

Common ethnic links across the border also mean that the turmoil in northeast India and unrest in Myanmar "are threatening to have a compounding impact on India," he said.

India "has to be prepared for a change were it to happen after a prolonged struggle in Myanmar," Singh added. "But, the bigger danger is that Myanmar could get splintered before things settle down. And China could profit by it."
Myanmar's Khawmawi village, as seen from the Indian village of Zokhawthar on Nov. 14. © Reuters

China and India are locked in their own tense border dispute, which sparked a deadly clash in 2020, as well as competition for influence across South Asia.

Singh noted that China has vital economic as well as strategic interests in Myanmar. "China is closely monitoring the situation [in Myanmar] and keeping its channels of communication open with the military regime on the one hand and the rebels on the other." China said it would begin "combat training activities" on its side of the border after a supply convoy bound for Myanmar went up in flames.

Meanwhile, despite its calls for restoration of democracy, India has also maintained some ties with the Myanmar regime. A United Nations report released in May estimated that Indian entities had shipped $51 million worth of military-related exports to Myanmar since the military leadership took power.

To a question on these exports, Bagchi said that the two countries, as neighbors, engage and cooperate on various issues. "Whatever actions we take are in the light of our interests," he said. "We are certainly cognizant of our responsibilities, and we keep in mind all factors."

Depending on how the conflict in Myanmar progresses, analysts see more complications for India ahead.

Raj Kumar Sharma, a senior research fellow at NatStrat, an independent think tank working on India's national security and foreign policy, said it would be difficult for India if resistance forces control border posts and trade routes with India. Ongoing instability in Myanmar, he added, could further delay Indian infrastructure projects in Myanmar aimed at boosting connectivity with Southeast Asia, in particular the Kaladan Multi-Modal transit-transport facility between the two countries, and a trilateral highway stretching into Thailand.

"The situation in Myanmar is complex and fluid," he said. "India would need some policy modifications in case the rebels make some [more] serious gains on the ground."
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"There are no Armenians left in NK, though Russians have taken to defending them". Opinion about reasons




Russia’s role in the Armenian exodus

“Russia’s role in ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh indicates a weakening of its influence in the region,” says Rasmus Kanback, a Swedish anthropologist and expert on the Karabakh conflict. His article on Russia’s role in the exodus of almost the entire Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh was published by Insider.

We publish the expert’s opinion on Russia’s role, its position in the region in recent years and the resulting situation – with slight cuts.

The story of a betrayal: Why Russia acquiesced in the ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh

The images of Russian military vehicles being transported by train from Azerbaijan are circulating on social media. Formally, the Russian military states that the vehicles are to be repaired in Russia. In practice, most observers of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh understand that these vehicles are not needed there.

Russia’s presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, or in Azerbaijan for that matter, was shorter-lived than anyone could have anticipated when a trilateral ceasefire agreement was signed between Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia three years ago. On paper, Russia was to have a five-year mandate with a clause for extension, deploying 1,960 troops to Nagorno-Karabakh.

The mission was intended to monitor the ceasefire, guarantee the safety of the local population, and ensure passage between the Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.

Three years later, none of the hundreds of thousands of Armenians that the Russians were supposed to protect remain in Nagorno-Karabakh. It took less than a week for the entire population to flee in horror of Azerbaijani oppression while Russian troops stood quietly on the sidelines.

Azerbaijani authorities say that Armenians voluntarily left their homes in NK. The Armenian government calls the exodus of compatriots “forced resettlement” and believes that Baku has brought its policy of ethnic cleansing to its conclusion. Yerevan says that the safety of Karabakh Armenians’ residence in their homeland could not be guaranteed.

Assessment of the situation by Armenian experts

A recurring theory in Armenian discourse is that the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020 was allowed by Russia. One argument maintains that Armenia, being in several formal alliances with Russia, approached the West, and Russia directly or indirectly lost interest in maintaining the prevailing security balance in the Southern Caucasus.

Another argument holds that Russia, through military presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, advanced its geopolitical ambitions, also against Azerbaijan. As much as the peacekeeping forces were seen as a security function for the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, they also served as a tool of power against both Baku and Yerevan.

With the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh and the withdrawal of the Russian peacekeeping force, a vital part of Moscow’s leverage has disappeared. Russia’s position as a geopolitical actor in the region is weaker today than it was before the 2020 war.

Azerbaijan fills the vacuum after Armenia

But let’s rewind before the question of Russia’s role in the ethnic cleansing is fully answered. As the Armenian relationship, at least diplomatically, deteriorated with Russia, it steadily improved for Azerbaijan. Likelythe country’s president, Ilham Aliyev, quickly understood that the security vacuum left by Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in recent years could be filled by Azerbaijan.

Just prior to Russia’s major invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev met in Moscow to sign a new alliance agreement consisting of 43 points. Particularly interesting for this article are the points on deepened military cooperation and cooperation in the energy sector.

At a meeting in early summer 2022, the leaders of the countries once again emphasized the validity of the agreement. A year later, in May 2023, Ilham Aliyev strengthened the rhetoric, calling Russia not only an informal ally but also one “de jure” – an ally in a legal sense. Note that this happened just a couple of months before Azerbaijan, on September 19–20, launched the final offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh.

The fact that Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev are authoritarian leaders who, to some extent, understand each other in a way that Nikol Pashinyan does not, adds to the course of events.

The weeks before the offensive

The weeks before the ethnic cleansing happened, the Armenian-Russian relationship deteriorated rapidly. The Russian side likely claims that it is due to Armenia’s actions. There are three significant events.

The first was when Armenia sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine on September 7. It was the first time it happened. Additionally, Russia was further irritated when Nikol Pashinyan’s wife, Anna Hakobyan, made a formal state visit to Kyiv. In Moscow, the Armenian ambassador to the Kremlin was summoned not only to present a protest but a sharp warning.

The second event is when Armenia held a ten-day joint military exercise with the United States on September 11. While it wasn’t the first military exercise Armenia conducted with the U.S. or NATO, the Armenian government made a big deal of conveying the exercise to the world. Once again, the Armenian ambassador was called for talks in Moscow, and this time the rhetoric escalated further.

The third event took place on September 13 when Nikol Pashinyan, in a lengthy address to the nation, declared that Armenia can no longer rely on Russia as a security guarantor. He referred to Russia’s war in Ukraine, stating that its presence in the Caucasus has proven unreliable.

As this happened, images and videos of Azerbaijani troop movements were published on pro-Azerbaijani social media channels.

“It’s all Armenia’s fault”

The air raid sirens in the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh, Stepanakert, began sounding around 1:00 PM local time on September 19. 

While EU representatives, lacking physical presence in Nagorno-Karabakh, took a critical stance on what was happening, Russia assumed a considerably more passive position.

In the days before the offensive, Vladimir Putin stated that Armenia had itself to blame for “recognizing” Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. “If Armenia itself recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, what do we have to do with it?”

When the offensive began, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement in a similar vein. Armenia was accused of not only recognizing Azerbaijan’s territory but also of moving closer to Europe rather than maintaining loyalty to Moscow.

According to leaked documents to the Russian news outlet Meduza, the message in Kremlin’s instructions to Russian media is reflected. Russian regime-friendly media were instructed by the Russian leadership to emphasize that it is Armenia’s fault that Azerbaijan has been given the opportunity to attack Nagorno-Karabakh.

This narrative should be seen as an attempt by Vladimir Putin to legitimize an upcoming change in course rather than a truth.

Civil population without Russian protection

Now we’ve come to Russia’s practical part of the ethnic cleansing. On the ground in Nagorno-Karabakh, events unfolded rapidly. After almost ten months of blockade, the Armenian population had run out of almost all necessities. In the weeks before the offensive, there were talks that if nothing changed, the population was heading towards a famine.

Multiple independent testimonies from border villages suggest that the Russian troops, in connection with the Azerbaijani attacks, began to withdraw or stayed quietly on the sidelines.

One of them, a Karabakh-Armenian soldier who fought in the city of Martuni, claimed that the Russian troops had already withdrawn from the frontlines in the morning. If true, this adds to the evidence that the Russian peacekeeping forces were aware of what was about to happen.

In cities and villages at the front, the civilian population tried to seek safety, mostly on foot or with animal transports as fuel had run out during the blockade. Thousands of people flocked to the airport outside Stepanakert, controlled by Russia since November 2020. The Russian troops are said to have urged the fleeing population to leave, causing them to gather in terrible conditions in Stepanakert.

During the critical days before the escape began, the blockade to the west towards Armenia was still active, and Azerbaijani armed forces were approaching from the east.

It was not until Nagorno-Karabakh’s leadership, under Russian surveillance, signed an agreement to dissolve the army two days later, on September 23, that the blockade was lifted.

More than 100,000 Armenians fled the region within a week. Not to forget, already as many as 50,000 Armenians had already been displaced from the war in 2020.

Armenia’s relations with Russia expand in trade sphere

Russia’s role in the South Caucasus is undergoing a shift after the ethnic cleansing. The Russian relevance for the region can be seen through two different filters: one from a military perspective and the other from trade in the region.

The hasty withdrawal of most Russian troops from Nagorno-Karabakh, announced just weeks after the ethnic cleansing, shows how Russia is reducing its physical presence. In contrast to the diplomatic disputes between Armenia and Russia, trade continues to increase between the two countries.

Due to sanctions against Russia, Armenia has become an intermediary for high-tech equipment that Russia lacks. In 2022, Armenia imported 515 percent more circuit chips from the US and the EU than the previous year. Most of these were later exported to Russia. Additionally, trade from Armenia to Russia continues to increase rapidly, despite the political rhetoric.

Azerbaijan’s gas cooperation with Russia grows stronger

A similar trend has been noted from Azerbaijan to Russia, where trade, according to dubious Russian and Azerbaijani sources, is increasing more than in many years, although not as dramatically as in the Armenian case.

What is more interesting is trade from Russia to Europe. Just as the Caucasian states are used to circumvent sanctions against Russia, the detour is also allowed by Europe to circumvent its own sanctions.

The need for gas is so great that the EU overlooks Azerbaijan’s diluting its gas exports with shares of Russian gas and that Russia benefits from the gas trade with Azerbaijan.

In 2015, the same year the European Commission made the final decision to fund a new gas pipeline from Azerbaijan to Europe, Russian Lukoil invested in long-term contracts in Azerbaijan’s gas fields. Today, Lukoil owns 20 percent of Shah Deniz, the largest gas field.

Furthermore, Russia and Azerbaijan signed new short-term gas agreements in the fall of 2022. Formally, they were supposed to expire in the spring, but EU diplomats lack transparent answers about how much of the Azerbaijani gas is actually Russian, which the European Parliament has reacted to.

Russia’s role in the ethnic cleansing

In the end, it is difficult to see what Russia has gained geopolitically from the ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. What can be observed is that while the diplomatic relationship between Azerbaijan and Russia is in better shape today than two months ago, it is significantly worse between Armenia and Russia. However, Russia’s leverage has decreased with both countries.

Azerbaijan has proven to be a more reliable partner for Russia than Armenia, despite public opinion in Azerbaijan being against Russia. The peacekeeping forces that entered Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia are now leaving the region through Azerbaijan. Appropriately, it symbolizes the shift in relations that has occurred in the last three years.

In practice, it can be argued that if Russia had fulfilled the ceasefire agreement from November 2020, the ethnic cleansing would not have taken place in September. Even though Vladimir Putin tries to blame the Armenian leadership for the humanitarian catastrophe, it was, in fact, the Russian troops that were both present in Nagorno-Karabakh and responsible for safety — not Armenian.

The decision to let the Russian troops passively watch as Azerbaijan, an authoritarian state, displaced over a hundred thousand people in flight was made by no one else but Moscow.

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AUSTRALIA
More than 100 arrested as climate protest shuts down world’s largest coal port


Over 3,000 protesters assemble at Newcastle to demonstrate against ‘government inaction’ ahead of COP28

Maroosha Muzaffar


People take to the water as they continue blockade the access to the coal port in protest for climate action at Horseshoe Beach on 26 November 2023 in Newcastle, Australia
(Getty Images)


More than 100 people were arrested as climate protesters refused to leave after a 30-hour blockade of one of the world’s largest coal ports in Australia.

Over 3,000 protesters assembled at the Port of Newcastle on Sunday to demonstrate against the government’s alleged inaction on climate change ahead of the COP28 summit.

The protesters had permission to hold the climate rally for 30 hours, but thousands of climate demonstrators refused to leave the port after the permitted time was up.

At about 4pm local time on Sunday, police swooped in and arrested 109 people, including 49 men and 60 women. Five of them were under 18 years of age, according to Australia’s Nine News. The minors were later released.

Of those arrested, 18 were taken to Newcastle, Waratah, and Toronto police stations and 86 people were taken to a nearby port facility.

Hundreds of activists took to the waters, either swimming or using kayaks, to stage a demonstration in the shipping lane of the Newcastle port in Australia in one of the country’s biggest climate protests.

Organisers Rising Tide Australia claimed that the protest halted the export of more than half a million tonnes of coal from the country.

The organisers also stated that after initially continuing to kayak in formation in the channel, the demonstrators eventually complied with law enforcement and boarded police boats.

Rising Tide called on prime minister Anthony Albanese to block new coal projects and tax coal exports at 75 per cent in an attempt to move away from fossil fuels.

“I am doing this for my grandchildren and future generations,” Alan Stuart, 97, said in a statement before his arrest. Mr Stuart, who is also a reverend at the Uniting Church, said: “I am so sorry that they will have to suffer the consequences of our inaction. So, I think it is my duty to do what I can and to stand up for what I know is right.”

His 20-year-old granddaughter and Rising Tide organiser Alexa Stuart said: “I just think of the young people growing up that I knew.

“What sort of world are they going to be in? It’s going to be a much less, what should I say, attractive, than I, than we know.

“People are going to be, they’re going to find it difficult to cope in many, many, many situations and I think the final result in all of this is death.”

The protest was labelled the “biggest act of civil disobedience in Australia’s history” by organisers who aim to send a serious message to the government over its inaction.

Adam Bandt, the leader of the Greens, participated in kayaking along with Cate Faehrmann, a Greens MP from New South Wales.

“I’ve lived in Newcastle my whole life and at first I never thought much about the coal ships I was used to seeing every day on the horizon,” Alex Goodsir, a 17-year-old local from Newcastle told the Guardian. “As a member of this community, I need to be lending my voice to the movement to stop this.”

Mr Albanese last year said Labor would not support a moratorium on fossil fuel projects because it would have a “devastating impact on the Australian economy”.

“If Australia today said we are not going to export any more coal, what you’d see is a lot of jobs lost, you would see a significant loss to our economy, significantly less taxation, revenue for education, health and other services, and that coal wouldn’t lead to a reduction in global emissions, what you would see is a replacement with coal from other countries that’s likely to produce higher emissions … because of the quality of the product,” he had said.

In April, several people associated with Rising Tide were arrested after they climbed aboard a train for the Port of Newcastle, where they proceeded to remove coal from its freight cars.

“This is not the end, this is just a stepping stone. Next year we plan on blockading the coal port for at least twice as long,” Zack Schofield, who helped organise the event said.
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Madagascar's record-breaking heatwaves caused by humans, study finds

For the first time, scientists have conducted a study linking human-induced climate change to prolonged heat waves in sub-Saharan Africa. They studied the exceptionally high temperature recorded in Madagascar in October.

RFI
Issued on: 24/11/2023 - 
Men dig for water in the dry Mandrare river bed, in southern Madagascar, following three straight years of drought, 9 November 2020. 
© AP/Laetitia Bezain

By: Zeenat Hansrod


“I was born here in Antsirabe and it’s the first time I am experiencing such abnormally sweltering heat,” 33-year old Tsiry told RFI.

“The temperature is around 30°C and this has never happened before, even if it is summer in this part of the world.”

The town of Antsirabe is located at an altitude of about 1,500 metres, in the central highlands of Madagascar island. It is known for its cool climate in summer, as opposed to the other cities closer to the coast. It’s also the coldest town in the country.

November is when the rainy season should have hit the Indian Ocean island but there has not been a drop for the past week, added Tsiry.

The scale of the heatwave that hit Madagascar in October is the worst the island has seen since 1950.

It is a consequence of climate change caused by human activity, according to a scientific study published, on 23 November, by the World Weather Attribution (WWA), a global network of scientists that analyses extreme weather events in real-time.


The study, conducted by 19 scientists from Madagascar, South Africa, Denmark, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, said "climate change caused by human activity has raised temperatures by 1 to 2 degrees".

But "a rise of even half a degree can push thousands of people to their physiological limits" and cause deaths, points out Sanyati Sengupta, technical adviser at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre.

“I have the feeling that the sun is pounding on my head,” Tsiry confided from Antsirabe.

Heat peaks are very rarely recorded in Africa, which makes it difficult to accurately study their impact in Madagascar, adds the WWA.Despite climate stress, Africa is in 'unique' position to fight global warming

The 19 scientists collaborated to assess to what extent human-induced climate change altered the likelihood and intensity of hot Octobers in Madagascar.

A high degree of informal settlements and unplanned urbanisation have resulted in large parts of the population becoming particularly vulnerable to heat exposure.

“Most of our houses have roofs made of corrugated metal sheets. It is a nightmare inside,” said Tsiry.

In Madagascar, less than half of the population has access to electricity and clean water, making common coping strategies in extreme heat inaccessible to a large part of the population.
Workers resting in the streets of Antsirabe, a hub for Madagascar's agriculture and industry (illustration)
 © Pauline Le Troquier / RFI

Brickmaker myth

Elevated temperatures in Madagascar have lead to a decline in labor productivity.

“I am lucky to work in a relatively large office where air circulates but I cannot begin to imagine how people in small spaces are coping,” Tsiry said.

According to the report, Madagascar is ill-equipped to face heat waves, “there are no heat action plans, early actions protocols, or comprehensive early warning systems”.

The scientists recommend investments in extreme heat forecasting, warning, and response capabilities. “They are the most urgent requirements for Madagascar to better adapt to a warming world.”Melting African glaciers an early casualty of global warming, say experts

Tsiry added that there is common belief in Antsirabe that the artisanal mud brickmakers are responsible for the lack of rain.

“Some people blame the brickmakers when there is no rain. They stack piles and piles mud bricks to dry out in the sun. So, the rain is no good to them.”

Brick kilns burn for days, adding to the pollution.

“Unless the world rapidly stops burning fossil fuels, these events [exceptionally high and low temperatures] will become more common in the future,” the scientists warn.
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Andry Rajoelina re-elected Madagascar president: poll body

Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina has won re-election in the first round of a ballot boycotted by nearly all opposition candidates, the electoral commission announced on Saturday.


RFI
Issued on: 25/11/2023 -
Madagascar's President and presidential candidate Andry Rajoelina cast his ballot at a polling station in Ambatobe, Antananarivo, Madagascar, on 16 November 2023. 

Andry Rajoelina, 49, won 58.95 percent of the vote in the first round of balloting on 16 November, it said.

Such a margin of victory would eliminate the need for a runoff election and give him a third term as leader of the Indian Ocean island of 28 million.


The turnout was fairly low after 10 of 12 opposition candidates called for a boycott complaining of an "institutional coup" in favour of the incumbent.

Rajoelina, a former DJ and mayor of the capital, Antananarivo, was president of a post-coup provisional government in 2009-2014.


He was elected president in 2019 and gained a degree of notoriety during the coronavirus pandemic by promoting a herbal drink as a cure for COVID-19.

The lead up to the 16 November election was marked by protests against Rajoelina led by opposition candidates.Madagascar goes to polls with opposition calling for boycott

Security forces fired tear gas grenades at demonstrators, and two opposition candidates sustained minor injuries.

Some polling stations were torched ahead of the election, which was delayed for a week because of the trouble.

'Worrying anomalies'

"What results? What election?" was the joint opposition response to a request for comment on Rajeolina's victory.

"We will not recognise the results of this illegitimate election, riddled with irregularities, and we decline all responsibility for the political and social instability that could ensue", the opponents warned.

One of the two opponents who formally remained in the race, Siteny Randrianasoloniaiko, also denounced "worrying anomalies" which he said "raise legitimate questions about the validity of the results".
The opposition has not yet indicated if it will formally contest the result and has not called for more street demonstrations.

In the weeks leading up to the vote, the opposition -- including two former presidents -- led near-daily, largely unauthorised protests that were regularly dispersed by police using tear gas.

Madagascar has been in turmoil since media reports in June revealed Rajoelina had acquired French nationality in 2014.

Under local law, the president should have lost his Madagascan nationality, and with it, the ability to lead the country, his opponents said.

Opposition candidates complained of an "institutional coup" in favour of the incumbent, accusing government of working to reappoint Rajoelina.

They called for the electoral process to be suspended and for the international community to intervene.

Eight countries and organisations including the European Union and the United States expressed concern about the "disproportionate use of force" to disperse opposition demonstrations.

The results still have to be validated by the High Constitutional Court, the country's highest court, within nine days, during which appeals in the event of a challenge can be lodged.

(with newswires)

Rajoelina, a former DJ

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Albert Londres, unflinching reporter who inspired France's top journalism prize

This year’s Prix Albert Londres, France’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, will be awarded on 27 November. It bears the name of a legendary French journalist who travelled the world reporting – and both fascinated and appalled readers with what he described.

RFI
Issued on: 26/11/2023
The Prix Albert Londres award for journalism, pictured in Paris on 29 October 2019. © AFP / DOMINIQUE FAGET

By: Jessica Phelan

“We stopped counting the blows. They were falling relentlessly. We left the porch and went across the street, a hundred metres away.

“We looked up at the cathedral. Ten minutes later, we saw the first stone fall. It was 19 September 1914, at 7.25 in the morning.”

In fact, by the time the French public was reading those lines, it was two days later.

The great cathedral of Reims was in ruins, and Albert Londres had his first big splash in morning paper Le Matin.

It was a time when newspapers were still the primary form of mass media, and a dispatch was still worth reading even days after the event.

Londres’ first-person account of the bombing of Reims cathedral by German troops early into World War I would establish him as one of France’s most compelling correspondents.

It launched a career that took him across four continents, brought distant lands and unknown people onto French front pages, changed public policy, and set a new standard for deeply reported, deeply felt journalism that continues to inspire today.

His writing prioritised “the human side of stories”, says Claire Meynial, a correspondent for French magazine Le Point who was drawn to journalism thanks thanks in part to reading Londres as a teenager.

The profession looks very different today, she says. “But I still think there is value in descriptions and humanising stories – I still believe in this.”

From poetry to papers

Londres was six weeks shy of his 30th birthday when he wrote the story about Reims. Born in November 1884 to a middle-class family in Vichy, after high school he moved to the closest big city, Lyon, and started off as an accountant.

But his leanings were more literary and after a couple of years he left for Paris, where he began publishing poetry.

Around the same time, he had a daughter. Her mother died less than a year later.

Perhaps by vocation, perhaps to pay the bills, he began picking up work for as a Paris correspondent for papers in Lyon, before becoming Le Matin’s parliamentary reporter.

Eight years later, a war broke out unlike any before it, and gave Londres his first taste of the field.
Observing the world

It was the right place for him. From Reims he travelled to frontlines throughout Europe, sending back dispatches from Belgium, Serbia, Greece, Turkey, Albania.

Readers were quickly drawn to his immediate, illustrative style: packed with anecdotes and observations, crafted without sounding pompous.

His editors didn’t always agree. One of his bosses at Le Matin told him his articles had introduced “the germ of literature”; it wasn’t a compliment. The paper soon sacked him.
Albert Londres circa 1923. © Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Londres found work elsewhere throughout World War I and after it, roving southern Europe and the Middle East.

He became one of the few outside journalists to report from the newly formed Soviet Union, sketching the gulf between Bolshevik ideals and realities in columns that were quoted by The New York Times.

He travelled to Japan and described the disorientating experience of finding himself a clumsy stranger there. From India, he observed the swelling movement for independence, and in China he met warlords, pirates, traffickers and spies.

But he wasn’t interested in simply painting exotic portraits for his readers back in France.

“I’m going to go and observe, write about everything I see,” Londres would write to his daughter. “There are too many misfortunes in this vast world for us to be content with sitting still.”

Devil’s Island

In 1923 he found a profusion of them on Devil’s Island, a penal colony in French Guiana, on the northern coast of South America.

Conditions in the bagne, as the remote prison was known, shocked even worldly Londres. His indignation blazes through his lengthy reportage, which was published first in a Parisian paper and quickly turned into a book.

“More than 9,000 Frenchmen have washed up on these shores and fallen into the circle of hell. A thousand knew how to crawl and settled on the banks, where it is less hot; the others swarm like beasts at the bottom, with one word left on their lips: misfortune; a single idea: freedom.”

It ends with an open letter to France’s minister of the colonies, calling for urgent reforms.

“I have finished. Now it is the government’s turn to start,” Londres wrote. The colonial minister promptly formed a commission and temporarily halted convicts being shipped to French Guiana.

Londres had gone from reporting the news to making it happen.
A voice for the voiceless

He wrote a flurry of exposés in the years that followed: on other penal colonies in French Algeria, on abusive psychiatric asylums, on trafficked sex workers in Argentina, on an escapee from Devil’s Island who he tracked down in Brazil and helped return to France a pardoned man.

Albert Londres on his investigation into sex trafficking in Argentina, 1927


“I wanted to go down into the pits, where society dumps what threatens it or what it cannot nurture. To look at what no one wants to look at any longer. I thought it would be laudable to give a voice to those who no longer had the right to speak. Did I manage to make them heard?”

In 1928 he spent four months travelling from Senegal to the Congo, where he uncovered grievous and often fatal abuses of African labourers forced to build the Congo-Ocean railway for French colonisers.

The resulting book, Terre d’ébène (“Land of Ebony”), is a haunting work, says Meynial, who has herself reported extensively from West Africa.

“It really stuck with me,” she tells RFI. “When you ride that train, you can see how difficult the terrain is – the trees, the forest, the mud everywhere. And he describes how ‘slaves’ [as Londres referred to them] were working with their bare hands, being beaten by the white colonial bosses.

“And I remember thinking how much time you needed to report correctly on this. Albert Londres’ whole work reflects a bygone era, when it was OK to take time to do good journalism.”
Out of time

Months-long reporting trips – Londres would sometimes go weeks without filing, simply getting a feel for his subject – seem like a dream today.

But even he felt rushed. “Up to the age of 45, I wrote fast, too fast; you had to, that was the job,” he wrote in the early 1930s. “From now on, I want to write like an author: am I up to it?”
Undated portrait of Albert Londres in middle age. © AFP

He would never find out. In 1932 he set out to report on China, where imperial Japanese troops had just invaded Manchuria.

He sent back a few dispatches, but informed his editors he was working on a longer investigation. It promised to be “dynamite”, he’s said to have told them.

On 16 May that year, he was sailing back to France when an electrical fault on the liner caused a catastrophic fire. Londres was one of 49 people killed.

People have speculated ever since about the subject of his final story. When two friends with whom he’d discussed his investigation, who managed to escape the burning ship, died in a plane crash a few days later, it only stoked the conspiracy theories.

No record remains. Instead Londres left a different legacy: a prize in his name, awarded each year to a French journalist under 40.

His daughter, Florise, created it months after his death and the first one was announced in 1933. This year will be the 90th time it has been awarded.
Empathy

Meynial won it in 2016 for her reporting on West Africa. The jury told her they appreciated her empathy with the people she interviewed, something she says she took from Londres’ work.

Claire Meynial (right) accepting the Prix Albert Londres on 27 May 2016, alongside fellow winners Sophie Nivelle-Cardinale and Etienne Huver. © AFP / LEON NEAL

“Nothing can ever replace travelling somewhere and talking to people and understanding whether they’re hungry, disappointed, sad, angry,” she says.

“And that’s probably the way I feel close to him: just listening to people, trying to put yourself in their shoes.”

Listen to more on this story on the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 103.

Listen to Claire Meynial on the Spotlight on France podcast:

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PARIS 2024 OLYMPICS

Tahiti village, surfers oppose plans for tower to judge Olympic surf event

Residents and surfers of one of the world's most famous surfing waves, Teahupo’o, in Tahiti, which will host the 2024 Olympic surfing competition, remain opposed to plans to build a judging tower, even after organisers scaled back plans. Opponents say construction will damage coral and put the health of the lagoon at risk.

RFI
Issued on: 27/11/2023 - 
France's Vahine Fierro surfs the Teahupo'o wave in French Polynesia during the World Surfing League's Championship Tour on 19 August 2022. 
© Jerome Brouillet/AFP

Residents, surfers and local environmental groups have been protesting against plans by the Paris 2024 Olympic Games organisers to build a giant aluminium tower in the water for up to 40 people to watch, film and judge the surfing competition in the French overseas territory.

Teahupo’o has long hosted some of the best events of the professional World Surf League's championship tour, with judges on a modest wooden tower on the reef that is dismantled every year.

Last week the president of French Polynesia, Moetai Brotherson, said the surfing events could be moved to Taharuu, on Tahiti's West coast, but organisers said they would keep the event in Teahupo’o, and instead build a "less imposing" tower that would minimise the impact on the environment.

But opponents say the proposal does not adequately address their concerns, as the new tower will need new foundations.

True value of surfing

"For me, it seems impossible to build 12 new foundations without destroying the reef," famed local surfer Matahi Drollet said in a video on social media, asking organisers for evidence existing foundations were not up to code.Tahiti given green light to host 2024 Olympic surfing events

"We are just trying to spread the message that no contest in this world is worth the destruction of nature," Drollet said. "That goes against the true value of surfing and sport in general."

Organisers also said they would work with local experts to reduce the risk to sea life, and even move some corals for their protection during construction.

(with Reuters)
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French Labour Minister on trial for favouritism

French Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt becomes the second sitting minister to go on trial on Monday at the Paris criminal court. He is accused of favouritism when awarding a public contract when he was the mayor of a small town in 2009.

RFI
Issued on: 27/11/2023 
French Labor Minister Olivier Dussopt. © Thibault Camus/AP

Dussopt is accused of having passed on privileged information to the Saur water company bidding for a €5.6 million contract in 2009, when he was mayor of Annonay, in the Ardeche, in southeast of France.

He also allegedly modified the evaluation criteria to favour the company, which had been managing the town's water since 1994, but whose proposal was more expensive than other companies.

Dussopt has denied any wrongdoing, and is going to court “to prove I acted in good faith", he told France 3 public television earlier this month in a rare declaration about the trial, which he has tried to avoid addressing publicly.

The financial crimes prosecutor opened an investigation in 2020, after the investigative website Mediapart looked into links between Dussopt and a local manager of the Saur company during a renegotiation of the contract in 2017.

Appointed labor minister in 2022, Dussopt presented and defended the controversial pension reform that sparked nationwide protests earlier this year.

He and the Saur group’s former director general, Olivier Brousse, will be on trial through Thursday. If convicted, each faces up to two years in prison and a €30,000 fine.

The trial comes as a special court is due to rule on whether Justice Minister Eric Dupont-Moretti used his position to settle personal scores.

His trial before the Court of Justice of the Republic, which tries wrongdoing by members of the government, ended on 17 November.

Dussopt is not facing that court because the alleged favouritism occurred when he was mayor, and not a government minister.

(with newswires)
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