HIP CAPITALI$M

Music catalog fund Hipgnosis sold to Blackstone

New York (AFP) – Shareholders of Hipgnosis Songs Fund, which in recent years made waves by helping popularize music rights as an asset class, have voted to accept a $1.6 billion takeover from US private equity firm Blackstone, filings showed Tuesday.


Issued on: 10/07/2024 

Hipgnosis executive Merck Mercuriadis (L) and co-founder Nile Rodgers attend the Songwriters Hall of Fame 2024 induction and awards gala in New York on June 13, 2024 © ANGELA WEISS / AFP/File


A regulatory filing showed shareholders overwhelmingly voted to approve the deal, which caps a tumultuous year for the British firm, including a bidding war that followed investor concerns over the fund's tumbling share price.

Its outspoken chief, Merck Mercuriadis, last week had announced he would leave as chairman of Hipgnosis Song Management once the Blackstone acquisition of the fund was final.

Hipgnosis Songs Fund is listed as an investment trust on the London Stock Exchange, where it went public six years ago. Its portfolio includes tens of thousands of tracks.

Mercuriadis had been running the separate management company, which in 2021 Blackstone invested $1 billion to partner with.

Hipgnosis played a large role in hyping the spike in sales of lucrative music portfolios, dropping staggering sums on catalogs including those of Neil Young, Justin Bieber and Shakira.

Mercuriadis, a longtime industry executive who at times managed careers of stars like Elton John and Beyonce, pitched that music was an asset whose revenues would operate outside of regular market swings.

He co-founded Hipgnosis with guitarist and producer Nile Rodgers.

But as a music catalog buying frenzy saw several years of blockbuster sales, some in the industry grumbled that Hipgnosis was overpaying and driving prices up.

Concerns last year over the company's share price as well as asset valuations prompted demands for structural change and a search for an outside buyer.

American independent music company Concord had reached a tentative deal to acquire the fund for $1.4 billion, but Blackstone's higher offer won out in the end.

In announcing his decision to step down last week, Mercuriadis said "this is a timely opportunity for me to undertake a strategic shift of focus, and to spend more time advocating on behalf of songwriters to ensure that they are properly compensated for their work."

© 2024 AFP

Colombian mosquito factory fights dengue and disinformation

Medellín (Colombia) (AFP) – The jars of larvae in stagnant water and thick clouds of mosquitoes at a Colombian lab may seem like the stuff of nightmares. They are in fact crucial to a project to fight the spread of dengue fever.


Issued on: 10/07/2024 -

Mosquitoes are bred infected with a bacteria that reduces the spread of dengue in the wild © JAIME SALDARRIAGA / AFP


For nearly ten years, the World Mosquito Program (WMP) has been replacing local populations of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with biologically modified insects to prevent the spread of a virus that has killed over 4,500 in Latin America and the Caribbean so far this year.

Rather than deploying harmful insecticides, "this technology is designed so that a living bacterium, within a mosquito -- an organism that is also alive -- can be released to continue preserving life," said biologist Nelson Grisales.

The project, supported by American multi-billionaire Bill Gates, has achieved promising results: dengue cases have fallen 95 percent in the northwestern Antioquia department, health authorities say.

Gates is a popular target of conspiracy theories and the mosquito project is no different, with viral rumors "that the mosquitoes we release are equipped with Bill Gates' mind control chips, that they can make people homosexual or that they transmit stronger diseases," said Grisales.

A scientist holds up a mosquito at the laboratory of the World Mosquito Program in Medellin © JAIME SALDARRIAGA / AFP

Rather, scientists are producing mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia, a bacteria common in other insect and mosquito species, hoping the Aedes aegypti will spread it in the wild.

Wolbachia works in two ways: it boosts a mosquito's immune system, making it less likely to contract dengue.

But if the mosquito does get infected, Wolbachia makes it harder for the virus to grow inside the insect and be transmitted to humans.

"This is not a genetic modification," said another biologist at the WMP, Beatriz Giraldo.

"The bacteria enters the mosquito cell and makes a biological modification."

As planet warms, dengue spreads

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are shown during an event aimed at preventing tropical diseases © JOAQUIN SARMIENTO / AFP

People will still suffer an annoying mosquito bite, but will be spared dengue fever, which causes joint and bone pain, earning it the nickname "breakbone fever."

The virus can provoke hemorrhagic fever in severe cases, and even death.

Dengue cases have soared in recent decades, and Latin America experienced its worst outbreak on record in the first months of 2024, attributed to a muggy summer intensified by the El Nino weather phenomenon.

The European Union's health agency has warned of rising cases in Europe as climate change creates warmer conditions perfect for mosquito breeding.

In Colombia, the modified mosquitoes are brought in jars to areas hard-hit by the virus and released into the wild to breed with, and slowly replace, local populations.

Wolbachia's dengue-fighting abilities were discovered by scientists in Australia, where the first trials were held in 2011.

In Colombia, the first infected mosquitoes were introduced in the city of Medellin in 2015, and the project was later taken to the city of Cali.

The same experiment has been conducted in Indonesia and Brazil and will soon be implemented in El Salvador.

The program "has accelerated at the same time as the dengue problem has grown," said Grisales.

Modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are released in the Colombian city of Cali in June 

© JOAQUIN SARMIENTO / AFP

For now, the project operates as a private initiative authorized by local authorities, but Grisales hopes it will soon become "public policy."

In Cali, where Wolbachia mosquitoes have been flying since 2019, "many people did not like the initial impact of the mosquito releases," said resident Albency Orozco.

"But as the monitoring and proper explanations were carried out, people accepted it."

© 2024 AFP

Five things to know about Cyprus

Paris (AFP) – The eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since Turkish troops invaded its northern third in 1974.

Issued on: 10/07/2024

The Mediterranean island of Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines for the past 50 years

 © Iakovos Hatzistavrou / AFP/File


The internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, which controls the Greek Cypriot southern two-thirds of the island, is a member of the European Union.

Here are five things to know about Cyprus:

Aphrodite and empires

Cyprus is the mythical birthplace of the Greek goddess of love Aphrodite, who, legend has it, rose out of the foam near the ancient city of Paphos.

The island's strategic location at the crossroads between east and west has made it a target for a succession of empires from the Assyrians and early Greek settlers to the British.

It was given by Roman general Mark Anthony to his Egyptian lover Cleopatra and used by England's King Richard the Lionheart as a staging post during the Crusades.

For 300 years, it was part of the Ottoman Empire before the British took control in 1878. After an insurgency by fighters seeking union with Greece, the British granted Cyprus independence in 1960.

50 years of division

The UN-controlled Green Line in Nicosia separates the Turkish-occupied north of Cyprus from the southern Greek Cypriot side © Hasan MROUE / AFP/File

Turkish troops invaded and occupied the northern third of the island in 1974 in response to a coup sponsored by the military junta that ruled Greece at the time.

Ankara's intervention followed a decade of intercommunal tension and violence between the Greek majority and the Turkish minority and the deployment of UN peacekeepers.

Cyprus joined the European Union in 2004 still a divided island. Greek Cypriot voters had rejected a UN reunification plan that was approved by Turkish Cypriots in a simultaneous referendum.

A new UN-backed peace push was launched in 2008 but collapsed in 2017.

Holiday island

With its year-round sunshine, sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters, Cyprus has long been a holiday destination.

With its sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters Cyprus has long been a tourist destination © Etienne TORBEY / AFP/File

Around 3.8 million tourists visited in 2023.

Before the division, the international jet set graced the beaches of Famagusta on the east coast. Actress Sophia Loren owned a house there, and it was a favourite of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

On the south coast, the largest casino resort in Europe opened in July 2023, with the authorities hoping it will attract an extra 300,000, high-spending tourists annually.

Russian money

Cyprus is home to a large Russian diaspora, especially Limassol on the south coast, nicknamed "Moscow on the Med".

It has faced allegations that it has been a hub for Russian money-laundering enabling oligarchs to bypass Western sanctions.

It has cracked down on those named by the United States and Britain for allegedly helping Russians to evade sanctions imposed over the Ukraine war.
Influx of asylum-seekers

Varosha, in the fenced off area of Famagusta, in the Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus © Amir MAKAR / AFP/File

As the EU's easternmost member, Cyprus has been heavily affected by the exodus of refugees from Syria since civil war erupted in 2011.

EU figures show Cyprus has the highest number of first-time asylum applications relative to population in the 27-member bloc.

Five percent of the 915,000 people living in the south are asylum seekers.

© 2024 AFP

Hope and resignation as Cypriots mark 50 years of division



By AFP
July 9, 2024

Cyprus marks a half-century of division this month - Copyright AFP/File Amir MAKAR
Daniel Capurro and Benoit Finck

Cyprus marks a half-century of division this month, with the unresolved conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots branded on the landscape in a UN-patrolled buffer zone that cuts across the island.

Ghost villages, watchtowers and streets blocked off by concrete-filled oil drums offer a daily reminder of the brief but seismic events of 1974 that split the country in two.

As Cypriots contemplate the five decades since their communities were torn apart, many see little reason for optimism after witnessing round after round of abortive reunification talks, the most recent in 2017.

Demetris Toumazis had been due to finish his military service in the Greek Cypriot National Guard on July 20, 1974. Instead, he found himself fighting an invading Turkish army.

Taken to Turkey as a prisoner, he returned three months later to a divided homeland.

“Nobody expected things to turn out the way they did, and it’s 50 years now and there’s still no solution, and there’s no hope,” Toumazis said.

George Fialas, a fellow Greek Cypriot veteran of the conflict, told AFP that reunification was “a lost cause”.

“I don’t believe that we will be back (reunified),” he said.

Fialas too was performing his military service that summer. Like Toumazis, he was posted close to his family home in Varosha, a suburb of the costal city of Famagusta that was then the island’s premier beach resort.

He described chaotic scenes during the invasion with little information available, deadly air strikes and no news of his family just a few kilometres away.

“I didn’t know where they went, and they didn’t know where I was… there was no communication,” Fialas said. It would be months before he saw them again.



– Intercommunal violence –



The invasion was the culmination of a fractious period in the island’s history.

A British colony since 1878, Cyprus became independent in 1960, but only after a bloody four-year insurgency by Greek Cypriots seeking union with Greece.

Instead, Britain, Greece, Turkey and Cypriot leaders negotiated for the island to become independent under a delicately balanced constitution.

This guaranteed representation for the Turkish Cypriots, who then made up around 18 percent of the population, and forbade both union with Greece or Turkey and partition.

That system collapsed in intercommunal violence in late 1963 that prompted Turkish Cypriots to retreat into enclaves before international peacekeepers deployed.

An uneasy status quo lasted a decade, before the military junta in Athens instigated a coup on July 15, 1974 seeking to unite the island with Greece.

Turkey responded by landing troops on the island’s north coast.

It was during the invasion that Toumazis and his mortar unit were captured outside Nicosia when Turkish tanks burst through National Guard lines and surrounded them.

“The whole line was broken,” he said. “We were behind factories — we had no idea what was happening and so we were stuck there.”

He was eventually taken to Turkey, only returning to Cyprus in October, by which time most of his family had fled abroad.



– Changing attitudes –



In 1983, the north unilaterally declared independence as the Turkish Republic of North Cyprus, a state recognised only by Ankara, which keeps thousands of troops on the island.

The United Nations, whose peacekeepers patrol the buffer zone between the two parts of the island, is making a push for new talks, but Stefan Talmon, an expert on Cyprus at the University of Bonn, doubts there will be any breakthrough.

“Any solution would mean that each side has to compromise and has to give up its sole decision-making power for its community. And I don’t think that either side is interested,” he said.

A new UN envoy was appointed this year hoping to rekindle talks, but decades of failure have left little grounds for optimism.

“We have now had at least two or three generations that… never knew a united Cyprus,” Talmon said.

Huseyin Silman, a 40-year-old from Nicosia who works at the Turkish Cypriot Global Policies Center think tank, said the younger generation, who grew up after the opening of crossing points between north and south in 2003, gave him hope for the future.

“When I was in school, the history books were quite one-sided. They were teaching us that it was all the Greek Cypriots’ fault, that Turkey came and saved us, and Greek Cypriots were our enemies and they killed us,” he said.

Younger Cypriots, however, had grown up in an era when crossing between the two sides is as simple as presenting an ID card.

“They’re establishing more and more youth organisations, where Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are participating together,” Silman said.

“Cyprus is too small to be divided.”

Despite the existence of the crossings, the two communities still live apart. The invasion turned Cyprus into an island of displaced people, with more than a third of Cypriots forced from or fleeing their homes in 1974.

The Varosha that Fialas and Toumazis knew is now a ghost town and a symbol both of displacement and decades of failed diplomacy.

Toumazis left Cyprus to study abroad and never moved back. He has no plans to mark the anniversary.

“I don’t see why we should celebrate,” he said.


Key dates in Cyprus’s post-independence history

By AFP
July 9, 2024

Turkish soldiers in Yialia on September 9, 1974 following their invasion of Cyprus following a Greek-backed coup - Copyright AFP/File -

This month marks 50 years since the dramatic events of 1974 left the Mediterranean holiday island of Cyprus divided to this day.

On July 15, 1974, the military junta then in power in Athens engineered a coup in Cyprus seeking to end its independence and unite the island with Greece.

Five days later, Turkish troops landed on the north coast, beginning an invasion that saw them occupy a third of the island, including Turkish Cypriot neighbourhoods of the divided capital Nicosia.

AFP looks at key dates in the island’s history:



– 1960: Independence from Britain –



On August 16, 1960, Cyprus becomes independent from Britain after a guerrilla campaign waged by fighters aiming to unite the island with Greece.

Its constitution guarantees representation for the Turkish Cypriots, who at the time make up around 18 percent of the population, and forbids both union with Greece or Turkey and partition.

In December 1963, violence erupts between the two communities as Greek Cypriot leaders seek to override parts of the constitution. Turkish Cypriots withdraw to enclaves, some of them defended by armed fighters.

In March 1964, a UN peacekeeping force for Cyprus (UNFICYP) is established.

Between 1963 and 1974, around 2,000 people are listed as missing in clashes between the two communities.



– 1974: Coup triggers invasion –



On July 15, 1974, members of the Greek Cypriot National Guard overthrow president Archbishop Makarios in a coup sponsored by the military junta then ruling Greece.

On July 20, Turkey, invoking a 1959 agreement with Greece and Cyprus’s then colonial ruler Britain, invades the north of the island saying its aim is to protect the Turkish Cypriot minority.

Three days later, the collapse of the juntas in both Athens and Nicosia leads to an interim administration and the eventual restoration of Makarios.

On July 30, Turkey, Greece and Britain meet in Geneva and establish a 180-kilometre (112 mile) long Green Line patrolled by UN troops dividing the island.

The Greek Cypriot community says the conflict left 3,000 dead and 1,400 missing. It also led to major population movements affecting around 162,000 Greek Cypriots and 48,000 Turkish Cypriots, according to the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO).



– 1983: Turkish Cypriots break away –



On November 15, 1983, Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktas proclaims a breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the 38 percent of the island controlled by Turkish troops. It is recognised only by Turkey.



– 2003: Crossing the Green Line –



In April 2003, as peace talks falter, Turkish Cypriot authorities allow Greek Cypriots to visit the north and Turkish Cypriots to travel in the other direction across the Green Line for the first time.



– 2004: Greek Cypriot ‘no’ vote –



On April 24, 2004, Greek Cypriot voters overwhelmingly reject a UN reunification plan approved by Turkish Cypriots in a simultaneous referendum.

On May 1, Cyprus joins the European Union still a divided island, with Turkish Cypriots denied the full benefits of membership.



– 2008-2017: Peace talks collapse –



On September 3, 2008, the leaders of the two communities enter intensive UN-sponsored peace talks, which are joined by the three treaty powers Britain, Greece and Turkey before collapsing in 2017.



– 2020: Turkish Cypriots elect nationalist –



In October 2020, Turkish Cypriots elect nationalist Ersin Tatar, an ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as their leader.

Tatar narrowly defeats pro-reunification incumbent Mustafa Akinci, in what is widely seen as a symptom of growing Turkish Cypriot disillusion over the prospects for a deal.

Bare-bones gym breeds Olympians in Philippines boxing capital Bago

Bago City (AFP) – At a bare-bones gym in the central Philippines, children from poor families in torn shoes put on frayed head guards and get to work in pursuit of their Olympic boxing dream -- and a way out of poverty.


Issued on: 10/07/2024 -

Young boxers train at the gym in Bago City under the buzz of old electric fans straining to give some relief from the oppressive tropical heat 

Aged 10-18, the young boxers spar in the Bago city gymnasium after school before sleeping under the ring's canvas at night.

Located on the island of Negros, in the sugar-growing region which has some of the country's starkest rich-poor divides, the city of 200,000 calls itself the Philippines "boxing capital".

Eight of the 70 Filipino boxers to have made it to the Olympics got their start at the Bago City gym.

Boxers there work out on peeling punching bags under the buzz of giant old electric fans straining to give some relief from the oppressive tropical heat.
'Life is hard here'

The most recent Bago Olympian, Rio 2016 light-flyweight Roger Ladon, failed to qualify for Paris leaving the city pining for a new poster boy.

"Life is hard here. Job opportunities are limited," said coach Larry Semillano, a Bago native who fought at lightweight in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

His 17 wards are mostly children of farmers, construction workers and tricycle drivers.

Young boxers go through their paces in the heat. "To them, if they excel in it they believe they will have a better life" 

"To them, if they excel in it they believe they will have a better life," said Ignacio Denila, the city government's executive assistant for sports.

"All of them idolise (Manny) Pacquiao," Denila told AFP, referring to the eight-weight world champion, who was also born in poverty, on the southern island of Mindanao.

"I hope to be recruited into the national team in order to join competitions and win medals abroad," AJ Vicente, 17, one of Semillano's current hopefuls, told AFP.

Bago lightweight Leopoldo Cantancio blazed the Olympic trail when he made it to the 1984 Los Angeles Games, reaching the round of 16. He also fought at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Bago fighters have since won one Olympic silver medal and one bronze.

Though Filipino boxers have yet to win gold, eight of the country's 14 Olympic medals so far came from boxing -- three silvers and five bronze.

Young boxers rest at the gym in Bago City under peeling punching bags, some even sleep there at night 

Semillano believes Vicente, a right-handed flyweight who won a bronze at the Philippine national games last year, has a "70 percent" chance of eventually making it to the national team.

But "he needs to consume a lot more rice" before he can be considered for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics or Brisbane in 2032, the coach added.

"The skill is there. What we're trying to develop now is his power," Semillano told AFP.
'Farm work is backbreaking'

AJ's father Jose Vicente, 50, brawled for meagre prize money at village-level Bago tournaments in his youth when he was not cutting and hauling sugar cane for 10 pesos a day (17 US cents).

AJ Vicente, 17, pumps water as he tends to chickens at his home after boxing training. "Farm work is backbreaking. I do not want my son to go through the same thing," says his father Jose 

"Farm work is backbreaking. I do not want my son to go through the same thing," Jose, now a handyman at a provincial hospital, told AFP at the family's small wood and bamboo home among sugar cane fields on the city's outskirts.

"Dad wanted to become a boxer himself. I have decided to fulfil that dream for him," said his son, whose more than a dozen boxing medals hang proudly on the living room wall.

From the age of seven children are welcome to join the training programme, said coach Semillano, who cooks for them while minding his two-year-old daughter Sydney as the young boxers do their laundry in the yard.

Last year, three Bago minors trained by Semillano qualified for the national government's amateur boxing pool, an important next step for their Olympic ambitions.

The Bago city government-funded programme was launched in the mid-1960s by a sports-oriented mayor, Ramon Torres, and bore fruit in 1992 when light-flyweight Roel Velasco won a bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics.

His younger brother Mansueto Velasco went one better with a light-flyweight silver in Atlanta in 1996.

'No other girls to fight'

Schoolgirl Prystine Niche Cantancio is 11 years old, nicknamed Junela and a distant relative of Bago's first Olympic boxer. She also trains at the gym, sparring against 10-year-old boys.

Schoolgirl Prystine Niche Cantancio, 11, plays with her dog at her wood and bamboo home after boxing training. "I want to make my papa proud," she says

"I want to make my papa proud by following in his boxing footsteps," she told AFP, referring to Junel Cantancio, a Philippines team boxer who did not make it to the Olympics.

Junela was seven when she put her collection of teddy bears in a cabinet and first pulled on boxing gloves, said her mother Lovely Christine Cantancio, who takes her daughter to practice sessions.

"She looks happy, except there are no other girls to fight," Lovely said.

Her father retired from boxing and became a full-time soldier following a fight-related injury.

Young boxers perform their morning exercises at Manuel Torres Sports Center in Bago City, Negros Occidental province 

"Not all of them will be Olympians or make the national team," said city sports official Denila.

"For me, what is important is they develop discipline, even if they do not achieve success in life.

"That's really the purpose of sports -- to develop you morally and spiritually."

PHOTOS © JAM STA ROSA / AFP

© 2024 AFP

Tokyo governor Koike sweeps to third term

By AFP
July 7, 2024


Official results showed Yuriko Koike secured a third term as governor of Tokyo - Copyright AFP Yuichi YAMAZAKI
Kyoko HASEGAWA

Tokyo governor Yuriko Koike won a landslide victory to secure a third term, official election results showed Monday, in a rare triumph for a woman in Japan’s male-dominated politics.

The outcome from Sunday’s vote is also a relief to unpopular Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which backed Koike despite her not being a member.

Koike, 71, a former minister and television anchor who has governed one of the world’s biggest cities since 2016, garnered 42.8 percent of votes, results showed.

Her nearest rival was independent candidate Shinji Ishimaru, 41, the former mayor of Akitakata in western Japan, who secured 24.3 percent to pull off a surprise second place.

Koike’s main challenger had been thought to be another woman — former opposition lawmaker, model and TV anchor Renho, 56, who goes by one name — but she garnered just 18.8 percent.

Koike declared victory late Sunday, vowing to strengthen Tokyo’s welfare, economy and natural disaster management, while acknowledging challenges like inflation and Japan’s low birth rate.

“With Tokyoites’ strong support, I was assigned to lead this great city,” Koike told supporters in the megacity of 14 million people.

“I have to upgrade efforts of Tokyo’s reforms, and as I appealed in my election campaign, I will protect Tokyo residents’ lives and livelihoods,” she said.

– Subsidised epidurals –



Japan has never had a woman prime minister and a large majority of lawmakers are men, although Tokyo accounts for a 10th of the national population and a fifth of the economy.

The Tokyo vote comes after new government data showed the birth rate hit a record low of 1.20 last year, with Tokyo’s figure 0.99 — the first Japan region to fall below one.

Koike and her major rivals pledged to expand support for parenting, with the former promising government subsidies for epidurals.

“After having their first child, I hear people say they don’t want to experience that pain again,” Koike said during the election campaign.

“I want people to see childbirth and raising children as a happiness, not a risk,” she said.

A record 56 people were standing in the election, not all of them serious, with one dressing as “The Joker” and calling for polygamy to be legalised.

Others campaigned for more golf, poker — or just to advertise their premises in Tokyo’s red-light district.

The LDP has governed Japan almost uninterrupted since World War II but the party’s popularity rating has sunk to around 20 percent, partly due to a political funds scandal.

Kishida, 66, will face the LDP leadership election later this year before a national vote due by late 2025.

Shadow campaign: Global influence op targets Qatar in wartime


By AFP
July 7, 2024

The sprawling anti-Qatar campaign illustrates the ease with which an entire country can be tarnished in the age of disinformation. - Copyright AFP Chris DELMAS
Anuj CHOPRA

Shady websites calling for a boycott of Qatar, a New York billboard targeting the Gulf state’s rulers, and a Vietnamese outfit floating hundreds of slander-ridden Facebook ads — all elements of a sprawling influence operation vilifying the country as it mediates between Israel and Hamas.

The murky operation, which began late last year and spans multiple countries, is the largest ever to target the wealthy emirate, disinformation researchers say, as the nine-month war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group rages on.

The campaigns, many using Islamophobic and anti-immigrant tropes, involve an anti-Qatar ad that featured at a US gathering of political conservatives attended by Donald Trump and an online change.org petition attributed to a fictitious person and organization.

The online and offline campaigns — which researchers say appear linked in their overlapping distribution, ad sponsoring and web hosting infrastructure — illustrate the ease with which a person or an entire country can be tarnished in the age of disinformation while masking the ultimate perpetrators.

Joining the dots between the various campaigns led researchers and AFP down a rabbit hole to a series of characters — from a Vietnamese hacker-for-hire to an influential educator and a Christian faith leader in the United States, all seemingly obscuring the trail to the brain behind them.

– ‘Radioactive’ –

The campaigns, which look well-resourced, appear designed to rile up sentiment against Qatar across the United States, Britain and European Union.

The apparent goal is to make any “institutional relationship with Qatar radioactive,” said Sohan Dsouza, a London-based researcher formerly with the MIT Media Lab.

It could be taking advantage of the Israel-Hamas conflict to “advance a latent anti-Qatar agenda.”

Among the new websites attacking the emirate in recent months is “Shame on Qatar” –- in English, French and Spanish –- which accuses it of funding terrorists and calls for a boycott of Qatari-owned icons such as Harrods, the Paris Saint-Germain football club and the New York Plaza hotel.

The site featured in an ad at the high-profile Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in February. The ad called for sanctions on Qatar and branded it as a security threat.

CPAC did not comment when asked who placed the ad.

Another site — “It’s in your hands” (IIYH) — targets Qatar’s queen mother, Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, accusing her country of supporting terrorists and criticizing her for failing to secure the release of Israeli hostages held in Hamas-run Gaza.

The queen mother has no official role in the emirate’s mediation efforts.

The IIYH logo also popped up offline, appearing in February in an ad targeting the queen mother at New York’s Times Square.

The billboard that featured the ad belongs to New York ad giant Outfront Media, according to separate open-source analyses by Dsouza and Doha-based disinformation researcher Marc Owen Jones.

Outfront Media did not respond when AFP inquired about the ad’s sponsor.

– Fake petition –

The IIYH website links to a change.org petition targeting Qatar’s queen mother. The petition is attributed to a man named “John Anderson,” identified as the president of an organization called “Citizens of Humans (sic) Lives.”

Both the man and the organization behind the petition — signed by thousands — are entirely made up, researchers said.

Earlier this year, US educator Katrina Lantos Swett tweeted a photo holding a poster of a similar campaign targeting the queen mother at a religious freedom summit in Washington, alongside the fake change.org petition.

A spokeswoman for Swett told AFP she was asked to promote the poster by Johnnie Moore — an American evangelical leader, businessman, and advocate for Israel.

“We don’t know who organized the campaign, nor is Katrina affiliated in any way,” she said.

Moore, who describes himself on LinkedIn as a “peacemaker” known for his work “especially in the Middle East,” may offer clues to the source of the campaign.

Moore initially accepted AFP’s interview request via LinkedIn but stopped responding when confronted with Swett’s claim and probed about his apparent association with the campaign.

– ‘Blocked’ –

With their power rivalries and conflicts, Middle East countries including Qatar are not strangers to information warfare and propaganda campaigns designed to gain an upper hand against perceived enemies.

Highlighting Gulf tensions, Qatar was blockaded from 2017 to 2021 by its neighbors who severed links over its alleged support for the Muslim Brotherhood and claims it was too close to Iran –- accusations that were rejected by Doha.

Qatar, which has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012 with the blessing of the United States, has recently sought to fend off global criticism over its behind-the-scenes talks on a possible truce in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages.

In a massive operation on Meta-owned Facebook, researchers said, dozens of pages were used to host more than 900 anti-Qatar ads –- many calling for its political isolation and accusing it of promoting terrorism and stoking Muslim migration to Europe.

Meta said the coordinated activity originated in Vietnam and targeted audiences around the world.

“We found and removed this network” nearly two months ago, Margarita Franklin, Meta’s security public affairs director, told AFP, adding that its findings will be posted in its quarterly threat report in August.

“We also blocked links to this campaign’s websites and internet accounts from being shared on our platform.”

– ‘Proxy’ –

But in a sign of their resilience, the ads still had a minimum reach of 41 million, researchers said, citing data from Facebook’s ad library.

The ads — in multiple languages including English, French, and Arabic –- cost up to $270,000, according to a conservative estimate by Jones and Dsouza.

The campaign was also active on X, TikTok, YouTube, Telegram as well as Wikimedia.

Vietnam is a known black market for trading hacked Facebook accounts for running ads, but researchers said it was not the source of the anti-Qatar operation.

“It’s simply a proxy,” Jones said.

Using data from Facebook’s ad library, the researchers traced some of the pages to LT Media, a sketchy Vietnamese marketing outfit.

When contacted by AFP, an LT Media representative identifying himself as Le Van Tinh denied having run or knowing about the campaign, claiming that he sold the pages to unknown customers via Telegram.

He also claimed he himself got hacked and lost access to his Facebook “Business Manager,” a centralized dashboard to manage multiple accounts, despite posting YouTube tutorials about bypassing such restrictions.

“I don’t want to get into trouble,” he wrote in a WhatsApp message.

“I am a middleman.”

Animal crossing: Highway bridge aims to save California’s cougars


By AFP
July 7, 2024

The wildlife crossing, which will be covered by local plants, aims to provide safe passage for the mountain lions - Copyright AFP Tiziana FABI
Paula RAMON

Hollywood stars aren’t the only celebrities who live in the hills around Los Angeles — Southern California’s mountain lions also make their homes there and are sometimes almost as famous.

The animal, also known as a puma or a cougar, is the region’s apex predator, and spotting them is something of a hobby for locals.

A 2013 photograph of the much loved — but unimaginatively named — P-22 in front of the Hollywood sign cemented the creature’s place in the popular imagination.

But the picture also highlighted the difficulties faced by a species whose habitat has been invaded by people, as well as from the growing risks of extreme weather events driven by human-caused climate change.

Mountain lions have “lived here forever, and now we’re building homes and facilities out on their property,” Andy Blue of the San Diego Humane Society’s Ramona Wildlife Center, told AFP.

“So it’s inevitable that there’s going to be interaction between them.”

One of the most ambitious efforts to reduce humanity’s impact on mountain lions is taking shape northwest of Los Angeles: the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing.

The first phase of the project, on track to open in 2025, will see the completion of a bridge for wild animals over 10 lanes of Highway 101, one of the busiest roads in southern California, with over 300,000 daily travelers.

“When the 101 freeway was constructed through this area about 60 years ago, it had the unintended consequence of cutting off all of the Santa Monica Mountains” from another nearby mountain range, said Lauren Gill, the National Wildlife Federation’s deputy director for California.

That separation created what Gill called an “island of habitat, cut off from all of the wild area to the north.”



– ‘Extinction vortex’ –



The consequences of that highway have been significant for the area’s wildlife.

Not only did it diminish the genetic diversity of several native species, it also markedly reduced the mountain lions’ usual habitat for hunting and reproducing, putting the animal at risk of an “extinction vortex,” Gill explained.

The wildlife crossing, which will be covered by local plants, aims to remedy the problem by reconnecting the mountains, providing safe passage for the pumas and other fauna in the region.

“You wouldn’t think that birds would need the help of a wildlife crossing,” Gill said.

“But in fact, we have some smaller birds like [the] wrentit, who are indigenous to this area, and they’re so tiny that the wind currents generated by the freeway make it impossible for them to cross.”

Once completed, the $80 million project will be the largest wildlife crossing in the world, according to organizers.



– Threat from cars –



The need for a protected zone like the crossing is evident at the Ramona Wildlife Center, where all kinds of animals from raccoons to bears are nursed back to strength after falling sick or being orphaned or injured.

Blue said mountain lions come into their care for any number of reasons, but most stem from “human-wildlife conflicts.”

“One to two mountain lions are struck by cars a week in California, and it’s the number one reason for mountain lion deaths in the state,” he said, adding that the public needed to be better educated about how to interact with animals.

In June, an animal that was treated at the center was released back into the mountains near Los Angeles.

Wildlife photographer Johanna Turner, who uses remote cameras to capture animals in their natural habitat, said it does not take much to make the area around Los Angeles safer for mountain lions.

“I just want people to know how lucky they are to have this wildness, and it can go away,” Turner said from a hill overlooking the city’s skyline. “It can end so fast.”

When P-22 died in December 2022 the outpouring of grief ended up being a wake-up call for Los Angeles.

Then last month, as often happens in Tinseltown, a new star was born when a Hollywood Hills resident captured images of another mountain lion before it disappeared into Griffith Park.

“We’re so used to tragic stories about wildlife and having to just give up and say, ‘This is a city… It just can’t be that way here,'” Turner said.

“P-22 showed us it absolutely can.”

Sticky future: climate change hits Nepal’s honey hunters


By AFP
July 8, 2024

Nepali climbers hang from a ladder off a Himalayan mountain cliff to gather highly prized hallucinogenic honey - Copyright AFP Chris Kleponis
Anup OJHA

Hanging from a rope-and-bamboo ladder off a Himalayan mountain cliff, skilled Nepali climbers gather highly prized hallucinogenic honey — an ancient tradition stung by environmental degradation and rapid climate change.

Wreathed in smoke to drive away defensive clouds of giant bees, 26-year-old Som Ram Gurung dangles dangerously 100 metres (325 feet) off the ground, slicing off dark and dripping hunks of delicious honeycomb.

For as long as anyone can remember in villages of Lamjung district, collecting the honey was worth the risk.

The combs are valued as “mad honey”, sweetness with a sting in its tail that collectors say provides an intoxicating buzz with mild psychoactive properties derived from rhododendron nectar that the bees love.

It was never easy to harvest.

The high-altitude honey comes from the world’s largest honey bee species, Apis laboriosa, which favours inaccessible cliffs.

But the skilled craft is now beset with extra challenges, many driven by the increasing effects of a heating planet.

Honey hunters say shifting weather patterns and environmental threats are impacting their remote forested valleys, 100 kilometres (60 miles) northwest of Kathmandu.

Doodh Bahadur Gurung, 65, who taught his son Som Ram his skills, said hunters had seen a rapid slump in the number of hives and amounts of honey harvested.

“When we were young, there used to be beehives on almost all cliffs because of the abundance of wildflowers and water sources,” said Doodh Bahadur.

“But with each passing year, it’s becoming harder to find hives.”



– Dams, pesticides, wildfire –



He blamed the decline in bees on increasingly irregular rainfall, wildfires, agricultural pesticides and the diversion of rivers due to a surge of hydropower dams and accompanying construction of roads.

“Streams are drying up due to hydro-projects and irregular rainfall,” he said, noting wild bees prefer to nest near water.

“Bees that fly to farms also face the problem of pesticides, which kill them.”

With erratic rain, drier winters and baking heat, bushfires have become more common.

Government data shows Nepal tackled over 4,500 wildfires this year, nearly double the year before.

“Wildfires are more common now,” Doodh Bahadur said. “There aren’t enough young people to douse them in time”.

A decade ago, his village of Taap could harvest 1,000 litres a season.

Today, Doodh Bahadur said they count themselves lucky to get 250 litres.



The hunters’ observations are confirmed by scientists.

They say rising temperatures due to fossil-fuel-driven climate change is a key factor.

“Bees… are highly susceptible to changing temperatures,” said bee specialist Susma Giri, from the Kathmandu Institute of Applied Sciences.

“They are wild creatures and can’t adjust to human movements or noise, which directly affects wild bees.”



– ‘Alarming economic consequences’ –



ICIMOD rang the alarm in May, noting at least 75 percent of Nepal’s crops depend on pollinators such as bees.

“Among the key factors for their decline… are climate change and loss in habitats,” ICIMOD said.

“The reduced pollination that ensues has already had alarming economic consequences.”

A 2022 study, in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, calculated annual losses from reduced pollination in Nepal amounted to as much as $250 per capita — a massive sum in a country where annual average income is $1,400.

Shrinking supplies means the rare honey commands high prices.

A litre that sold for $3.5 per litre two decades ago now sells for $15.

Traders say there is increasing demand from the United States, Europe, and Japan, fuelled by its reported health benefits on social media.

Honey traders in Kathmandu estimate annual exports to be around 10,000 litres, and internationally, a 250-gramme pot of “mad honey” can command prices of $70 online.

“The demand for ‘mad honey’ increases yearly, but quality production has decreased,” said Kathmandu-based honey exporter Rashmi Kandel.



– ‘Losing everything’ –



With honey drying up, fewer young people want to join the traditional month-long mountain hunt.

Across Nepal, young people are leaving rural life, seeking better-paid jobs abroad.

Suk Bahadur Gurung, 56, a local politician and part of the honey hunting team, is gloomy the next generation will follow the trade.

“You need skills and strength,” Suk Bahadur said. “There aren’t many youths who want to do it.”

Som Ram Gurung held out his swollen arms and legs after descending from the cliff.

“Stings cover my body,” he said, adding he is due to take up a factory job in Dubai with a monthly salary of around $320.

His father Doodh Bahadur laments both the dwindling bees and the departing youth.

“We’re losing everything,” he said. “The future is uncertain for everyone.”

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Carlsberg quaffs British soft drinks maker Britvic for £3.3 bn


By AFP
July 8, 2024

Carlsberg's acquisition of Britvic will see it become a distributor of both beer and soft drinks in Britain, inlcuding PepsiCo products - Copyright AFP/File Patricia DE MELO MOREIRA

Danish brewer Carlsberg on Monday said that it had reached a deal to buy British soft drinks manufacturer Britvic for £3.3 billion ($4.2 billion).

The announcement came little more than two weeks after the maker of the fruit drink Robinsons squash rejected a takeover approach worth £3.1 billion from Carlsberg, arguing that it significantly undervalued the firm.

“The boards of the Carlsberg Group and Britvic PLC today announced that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended cash offer… to acquire the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of Britvic,” Carlsberg said in a statement.

Britvic shareholders are being offered a 7.9 percent premium from Friday’s closing price, and 36 percent from the share price one month ago.

Britvic directors were unanimously recommending the offer, which will create a single integrated beverage company to be named Carlsberg Britvic.

Britvic is the main partner for PepsiCo in Britain and Ireland with exclusive rights to manufacture and sell brands including Pepsi, 7UP, and Lipton Ice Tea.

“The Britvic acquisition will also further strengthen Carlsberg’s close relationship with PepsiCo, which currently spans five markets across Western Europe and Asia,” said Carlsberg, which added that PepsiCo had agreed to waive the change of control clause in the bottling arrangements it has with Britvic.

Britvic’s non-executive Board Chair Ian Durant said in a statement that the proposed deal “creates an enlarged international group that is well-placed to capture the growth opportunities in multiple drinks sectors”.

Carlsberg chief executive Jacob Aarup-Andersen said the deal would support the brewer’s growth ambitions and would be “immediately earnings accretive and value accretive in year three”.



– ‘Compelling strategic merits’ –



A joint statement said Carlsberg estimated that the deal could deliver annual cost savings and efficiency improvements in the region of £100 million, which it expects to be delivered over the five years following completion of the acquisition.

It said the savings were expected to be realised across a number of areas including direct and indirect procurement, supply chain, administration and overheads across Carlsberg and Britvic’s combined business, but that Carlsberg was also committed to invest in Britvic’s operations.

Britvic’s Durant said that “the Board of Directors believe that the strategic merits of this offer are compelling” and “is unanimously recommending the offer to our shareholders.”

A date for a shareholder meeting to approve the transaction has yet to be set, but the document said the companies expect the transaction, which is also subject to regulatory approvals, to go through in the first quarter of next year.

Richard Hunter, head of markets at Interactive Investor, noted that Britvic shares jumped around five percent after the announcement, but did not hit the offer price.

He said “the market reaction was muddied by an accompanying trading statement from Britvic which showed some revenue weakness.”

That leaves “the door ajar for further developments on the proposed acquisition,” Hunter added.

Britvic also on Monday announced that revenue increased 6.3 percent on a 2.2 percent increase in sales volumes in the April-June quarter.

“Encouragingly, this was achieved despite poor weather this year and a tough comparable from last year when revenue increased 9.9 percent,” the company’s chief executive Simon Litherland said in a statement.

Rwandan troops fought alongside M23 rebels in DR Congo: UN experts


By AFP
July 8, 2024


Civilians flee fighting in North Kivu province in May - Copyright AFP Omar AL-QATTAA
Alexis HUGUET

Some 3,000-4,000 Rwandan soldiers fought alongside M23 rebels in east DR Congo, said a UN expert report seen by AFP Monday, which noted that Kigali had “de facto control” of the group’s operations.

The North Kivu province has been in the grip of the M23 (March 23 Movement) rebellion since the end of 2021, with the group seizing swathes of territory in the region and installing a parallel regime in areas now under its control.

Kinshasa has accused Rwanda of backing the Tutsi-led M23 rebel group. Kigali has never acknowledged its troops were operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

But the report commissioned by the UN Security Council said the Rwandan army’s “de facto control and direction over M23 operations” renders the country “liable for the actions of M23”.

Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) military interventions and operations in the Nyiragongo, Rutshuru and Masisi territories — all in North Kivu — “were critical to the impressive territorial expansion achieved between January and March 2024” by the M23, the report stated.

In response to AFP’s request for comment, Rwandan government spokesperson Yolande Makolo accused the Democratic Republic of Congo of having “consistently threatened war on Rwanda”, and said the country “will continue to defend itself”.

The report’s researchers estimated that at the time of writing in April, the number of Rwandan troops were “matching if not surpassing” the number of M23 soldiers, thought to be at around 3,000.

Until the end of 2023, Rwandan authorities publicly denied that their troops were operating alongside M23 rebels in North Kivu, but has not directly commented since then.

The report contains authenticated photographs, drone footage, video recordings, testimony and intelligence, which it says confirm the RDF’s systematic border incursions.

The footage and photos show rows of armed men in uniform, operating equipment such as artillery and armoured vehicles with radar and anti-aircraft missile systems, as well as trucks to transport troops.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on June 20 on France 24 “we are ready to fight” against the Democratic Republic of Congo if necessary, although he avoided the question of his country’s military presence in the country.

For several months the United States, France, Belgium and the European Union have been calling on Rwanda to withdraw its forces and ground-to-air missiles from Congolese soil and to stop supporting the M23.

The M23 have seized swathes of territory over the past several years, almost completely encircling Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu, killing scores of people and displacing hundreds of thousands more.

There are already 2.8 million displaced people in North Kivu, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.



– Minors recruited –



The report also said that children from the age of 12 have been recruited from “almost all refugee camps in Rwanda” to be sent to training camps in the rebel zone under the supervision of Rwandan soldiers and M23 combatants.

“Recruits aged 15 and above were combat-trained and dispatched to the frontlines to fight,” it said.

It added that the recruitment of minors in Rwanda was generally carried out by intelligence officers “through false promises of remuneration or employment,” and that those “who did not consent were taken forcefully”.

During their offensives the M23 and Rwandan army “specifically targeted localities, predominantly inhabited by Hutus, in areas known to be strongholds of FDLR” – the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda.

The FDLR is a Rwandan rebel group formed by former senior Hutu officials behind the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda in 1994, who have since taken refuge in DR Congo.



– Ugandan support –



The presence of the group in the eastern DR Congo is considered by Kigali as a threat.

The international community has called for an end to foreign intervention in war-riddled DR Congo and also asked Kinshasa to distance itself from the FDLR.

But the UN report noted that the DRC government has used several “North Kivu armed groups, including the FDLR, to fight M23 and RDF”.

This mixture of armed groups fighting alongside the Congolese army is known as the Wazalendo – Swahili for patriots.

The experts who wrote the report accused the Wazalendo of numerous violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

The experts also said they had confirmation of “active support” for the M23 from members of the Ugandan intelligence services.

This comes even though Uganda’s army has been working alongside the Congolese army in its fight against another rebel group affiliated with the Islamic State group, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of the area under the control of the M23.