UN puts 4th century Gaza monastery on endangered site list

By AFP
July 26, 2024

The Saint Hilarion complex dates back to the fourth century 

- Copyright AFP TANG CHHIN Sothy

The Saint Hilarion complex, one of the oldest monasteries in the Middle East, has been put on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites in danger due to the war in Gaza, the body said Friday.

UNESCO said the site, which dates back to the fourth century, had been put on the endangered list at the demand of Palestinian authorities and cited the “imminent threats” it faced.

“It’s the only recourse to protect the site from destruction in the current context,” Lazare Eloundou Assomo, director of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, told AFP, referring to the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel.

In December, the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict decided to grant “provisional enhanced protection” — the highest level of immunity established by the 1954 Hague Convention — to the site.

UNESCO had then said it was “already concerned about the state of conservation of sites, before October 7, due to the lack of adequate policies to protect heritage and culture” in Gaza.

The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 39,175 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.

Pockets of concern: Most at risk youth in the US

ByDr. Tim Sandle
July 26, 2024
DIGITAL JOURNAL

UK government figures show an increase in homeschooling in England

— © ANP/AFP Remko de Waal

With 13 percent of young people in the U.S. neither working nor in school, the personal-finance website WalletHub has been assessing the impact across the nation.

The company has released a report on the States with the Most At-Risk Youth in 2024,to identify the places where more effort is needed to help young adults succeed.

For the data review, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 15 key indicators of youth risk. These data sets range from metrics like the share of disconnected youth to the labour force participation rate among young adults to the overall youth poverty rate.

The outcome reveals the following top ten states with the most at risk youth:

1. Louisiana

2. New Mexico

3. West Virginia

4. Alaska

5. Arkansas

6. Oklahoma

7. Mississippi

8. Montana

9. Wyoming

10. Oregon

Whereas, at the other end of the scale, states with the lowest proportion of at risk youth are:
42. Massachusetts
43. Maryland
44. Hawaii
45. Utah
46. Connecticut
47. Virginia
48. Iowa
49. Illinois
50. New Hampshire
51. New Jersey


Behind these rankings are some interesting variances.

Louisiana has the highest share of disconnected youth, which is 3.4 times higher than in the District of Columbia, the lowest. On another measure, New Mexico has the highest share of youth without a high school diploma, which is 2.1 times higher than in Hawaii, the lowest.

In terms of health, weight is an important measure. With this, West Virginia has the highest share of overweight or obese youth, which is 1.6 times higher than in New Hampshire, the lowest.


Another key metric is with drug abuse. On this level, Vermont has the highest share of youth using drugs in the past month, which is 2.1 times higher than in Alabama, the lowest.

On the subject of being homeless, the data shows that the District of Columbia has the highest share of homeless youth, which is 60 times higher than in the state of Mississippi, the lowest.

SPACE

Spacecraft to swing by Earth, Moon on path to Jupiter


By AFP
July 27, 2024

Long and winding road: The Juice space probe taking the long way to Jupiter and its moons - Copyright NASA/AFP/File NASA
Juliette Collen

A spacecraft launched last year will slingshot back around Earth and the Moon next month in a high-stakes, world-first manoeuvre as it pinballs its way through the Solar System to Jupiter.

The European Space Agency’s Juice probe blasted off in April 2023 on a mission to discover whether Jupiter’s icy moons Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa are capable of hosting extra-terrestrial life in their vast, hidden oceans.

The uncrewed six-tonne spacecraft is currently 10 million kilometres (six million miles) from Earth.

But it will fly back past the Moon then Earth on August 19-20, using their gravity boosts to save fuel on its winding, eight-year odyssey to Jupiter.

Staff at the ESA’s space operations centre in Darmstadt, Germany began preparing for the complicated manoeuvre this week.

Juice is expected to arrive at Jupiter’s system in July 2031.

It will take the scenic route. NASA’s Europa Clipper spacecraft is scheduled to launch this October yet beat Juice to Jupiter’s moons by a year.

– Long and winding road –

Juice is taking the long way round in part because the Ariane 5 rocket used to launch the mission was not powerful enough for a straight shot to Jupiter, which is roughly 800 million kilometres away.

Without an enormous rocket, sending Juice straight to Jupiter would require 60 tonnes of onboard propellant — and Juice has just three tonnes, according to the ESA.

“The only solution is to use gravitational assists,” Arnaud Boutonnet, the ESA’s head of analysis for the mission, told AFP.

By flying close to planets, spacecrafts can take advantage of their gravitational pull, which can change its course, speed it up or slow it down.

Many other space missions have used planets for gravity boosts, but next month’s Earth-Moon flyby will be a “world first”, the ESA said.

It will be the first “double gravity assist manoeuvre” using boosts from two worlds in succession, the agency said.

Juice will cross 750 kilometres above the Moon on August 19, before shooting past our home planet the following day.

The probe will leave Earth at a speed of “3.3 kilometres a second — instead of three kilometres if we had not added the Moon”, Boutonnet said.

As Juice whizzes past Earth and the Moon, it will use the opportunity to snap photos and test out its many instruments.

Down on Earth, some will be taking photos right back. Some lucky amateur sky gazers, armed with telescopes or powerful binoculars, may even be able to spot Juice as it passes over Southeast Asia.

– ‘Plate of spaghetti’ –

The move has been carefully calculated for years, but it will be no walk in the park.

“We are aiming for a mouse hole,” Boutonnet emphasised.

The slightest error during its slingshot around the Moon would be amplified by Earth’s gravity, potentially creating a small risk that the spacecraft could enter and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

The team on the ground will be closely observing the spacecraft — and have 12-18 hours to calculate and adjust its trajectory if needed, Boutonnet said.

He mostly feared a scenario in which the amount of course corrections needed would erase the gains from the double-world slingshot, meaning they would be “doing all this for nothing”.

If all goes well, Juice will head back out into interplanetary space — for a little while at least.

It will first head to Venus for another boost in 2025.

Juice will even fly past Earth twice more — once in 2026, then a final time in 2029 before finally setting off towards Jupiter.

Then comes the really tricky part.

Once Juice arrives at Jupiter, it will use a whopping 35 gravitational assists as its bounces around the planet’s ocean moons.

During this phase, the probe’s trajectory looks like “a real plate of spaghetti”, Boutonnet said.

“What we’re doing with the Earth-Moon system is a joke in comparison,” he added.

Japan’s Sado mines added to World Heritage list

By AFP
July 27, 2024

The Sado gold and silver mines, now a popular tourist attraction, are believed to have started operating as early as the 12th century and produced until after World War II - Copyright AFP/File Charly TRIBALLEAU

A network of mines on a Japanese island infamous for using conscripted wartime labour was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage register Saturday after South Korea dropped earlier objections to its listing.

The Sado gold and silver mines, now a popular tourist attraction, are believed to have started operating as early as the 12th century and produced until after World War II.

Japan had put a case for World Heritage listing because of their lengthy history and the artisanal mining techniques used there at a time when European mines had turned to mechanisation.

The proposal was opposed by Seoul when it was first put because of the use of involuntary Korean labour during World War II, when Japan occupied the Korean peninsula.

UNESCO confirmed the listing of the mines at its ongoing committee meeting in New Delhi on Saturday after a bid highlighting its archaeological preservation of “mining activities and social and labour organisation”.

“I would like to wholeheartedly welcome the inscription… and pay sincere tribute to the long-standing efforts of the local people which made this possible,” Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa said in a statement.

The World Heritage effort was years in the making, inspired in part by the successful recognition of a silver mine in western Japan’s Shimane region.

South Korea’s foreign ministry said it had agreed to the listing “on the condition that Japan faithfully implements the recommendation… to reflect the ‘full history’ at the Sado Gold Mine site and takes proactive measures to that end.”

Historians have argued that recruitment conditions at the mine effectively amounted to forced labour, and that Korean workers faced significantly harsher conditions than their Japanese counterparts.

“Discrimination did exist,” Toyomi Asano, a professor of history of Japanese politics at Tokyo’s Waseda University, told AFP in 2022.

“Their working conditions were very bad and dangerous. The most dangerous jobs were allocated to them.”

Also added to the list on Saturday was the Beijing Central Axis, a collection of former imperial palaces and gardens in the Chinese capital.

The UNESCO committee meeting runs until Wednesday.

Bearded fireworm stalks shallows as Mediterranean warms


By AFP
July 27, 2024

Fireworms are native to the Mediterranean, but they used to be fewer in number and only spotted off Sicily in summer - Copyright AFP Filippo MONTEFORTE
Ella IDE

The fish in Alfonso Barone’s net are hauled aboard off Sicily half- eaten, ravaged by bearded fireworms, a voracious predator flourishing in the increasingly warm Mediterranean sea.

The centipede-like creatures, around 15 to 30 centimetres (6-12 inches) long, devour everything from coral to the dying or dead catch in fishing nets — and rising sea temperatures caused by climate change are drastically boosting their numbers.

Barone pulls a long, wriggling red worm off a headless mackerel in his boat. Its venomous white bristles come off at the slightest touch and the 34-year-old says he has been stung several times, once even in the eye.

The fish are attacked as soon as they get caught in the net.

“They eat the head, the whole body, they gut it,” Barone said as he pulled up a mangled sea bream while fishing off the village of Marzamemi, on the southeastern tip of Sicily.

Fireworms are native to the Mediterranean but used to be fewer in number and spotted only off Sicily in summer.

“With global warming the waters are heating up and becoming an ideal habitat for them, and they are growing in number, year on year… the whole year round,” said Barone, who has fished since boyhood.

Gnawed fish cannot be sold, so fishermen reduce the time the nets are down in a bid to stop a feeding frenzy — resulting in a smaller catch, bits of which come adorned anyway with brown, green or red fireworms.

“They used to eat around 30 percent of the catch… Now that’s gone up to 70 percent,” Barone said.

– Scavenger and predator –

The worms are also migrating north. Francesco Tiralongo, a zoologist who heads a University of Catania project to study the fireworm, has recorded cases in Calabria, southern Italy.

The bearded fireworm “is an opportunistic species that behaves both as predator and scavenger” and “there are impressive quantities of them… in very shallow waters,” Tiralongo told AFP.

On Marzamemi’s beach, many nervous bathers don masks or water shoes before diving in.

Fabiana Davanzo, a 56-year-old tourist from Milan, said she refused to “let it ruin my holiday, but I do always go in with my mask on so I can see the sea floor”.

As he gingerly dipped his toes in the water, holidaymaker Salvatore Lazzaro, 51, said he was stung by an unidentified creature the previous day, but was braving the water once more under a sweltering sun.

Spooked swimmers and frustrated fishers are not the only problem.

“Climate warming is provoking several changes in the Mediterranean which will probably be exacerbated in the coming years,” according to Federico Betti, an expert in invasive species at the University of Genoa.

The average temperature of the Mediterranean has increased by around 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.2 degrees Fahrenheit) in the last 40 years, he said.

– ‘Profound changes’ –

Warmer seas mean fewer seasonal variations in species, damage to deep water communities and loss of habitat, leading to more homogeneous environments unable to support rich and diverse ecosystems.

The heat can also provoke mass mortality events in which vast numbers of a certain species die, Betti said.

Other species relish it: There has been an increase in tropical, non-native species in the Mediterranean that “cause profound changes in marine ecosystems”, Tiralongo said.

Those include the blue crab, which is devastating shellfish production in the Po delta in northern Italy.

The crabs have no natural predators, though Italians are attempting to turn them into a resource by harvesting them to eat.

But bearded fireworm spaghetti is not an option. And while more research needs to be done into possible solutions, Tiralongo has already made a disconcerting discovery.

“You can’t kill a fireworm by cutting it in half, it has excellent regeneration capabilities,” he said.

“If you slice it in two, not only does the part with the head regenerate a back half, but the back half manages in about 22 days to regenerate a head.”

AI startups swap independence for Big Tech’s deep pockets


By AFP
July 27, 2024

Big tech companies are increasingly in the spotlight for their appetite to eat up smaller firms, prompting some concerns in Silicon Valley - Copyright AFP/File Patrick T. Fallon
Alex PIGMAN

It’s the case of the vanishing startup: some of Silicon Valley’s most promising names in the fast-developing generative AI space are being gobbled up by or tied to the hip of US tech giants.

Short on funds, in the past few months promising companies like Inflection AI or Adept have seen founders and key executives quietly exit the stage to join the world’s dominant tech companies through discrete transactions.

Critics believe these deals are acquisitions in all but name and have been especially designed by Microsoft or Amazon to avoid the attention of competition regulators, which the companies strenuously deny.

Meanwhile, firms like Character AI are reported to be struggling to raise the cash needed to remain independent, and some, like French startup Mistral, are thought to be especially vulnerable to being bought out by a tech giant.

Even ChatGPT’s creator OpenAI is locked in a relationship with Microsoft, the world’s biggest company by market capitalization.

Microsoft helps guarantee OpenAI’s future with $13 billion in investment in return for exclusive access to the startup’s industry-leading models.

Amazon has its own deal with Anthropic, which makes its own high-performing models.

– ‘Big money’ –

Joining the revolution brought by the era-defining release of ChatGPT requires a supply of cash that only tech behemoths like Microsoft, Amazon or Google can afford.

“The ones with the big money define the rules and design the outcomes that play in their favor,” said Sriram Sundararajan, a tech investor and adjunct faculty member at the Leavey School of Business at Santa Clara University.

Breaking from typical Silicon Valley legend, generative AI won’t be developed out of some founder’s garage.

That type of artificial intelligence, which creates human-like content in just seconds, is a special breed of technology that requires colossal levels of computing from specialized servers.

“Startups have been founded by former research leaders at big tech companies, and they require the resources that only large cloud providers can make available,” said Brendan Burke, AI analyst at Pitchbook, which tracks the venture capital world.

“They’re not following the traditional entrepreneurial journey of doing more with less, they’re really looking to recreate the conditions that they experienced working in a highly funded research lab.”

Many of these founders, including those at Inflection or Adept, came from Google or OpenAI.

Mustafa Suleyman, the former boss of Inflection, was a leader at Google DeepMind — and has now left his startup, with key employees in tow, to head up the consumer AI division at Microsoft.

Inflection still exists on paper but has been stripped of the very assets that gave it value.

Lining up with the big tech companies “makes a lot of sense,” said Abdullah Snobar, executive director at DMZ, a startup incubator in Toronto. Their deep pockets help keep “the wheels greased and things moving forward.”

– ‘Sucking up all the juice’ –

But aligning with established tech behemoths also risks “killing competition,” potentially creating a situation where “these three big tech companies (are) sucking up all the juice” of creativity and innovation, he added.

The burning question in Silicon Valley is whether government regulators will do anything about it.

Big tech companies are increasingly in the spotlight for their appetite to eat up smaller firms.

Israeli cybersecurity company Wiz this week scrapped plans to sell to Google in what would have been the giant’s biggest deal ever — reportedly because the buyout would not have survived competition regulators.

For Inflection, antitrust regulators in the United States, European Union and Britain said they would look closely at its ties with Microsoft. Amazon’s deal with Adept has raised questions with the Federal Trade Commission in Washington.

John Lopatka, professor of law at Penn State University, said “antitrust enforcers would have a difficult time blocking the arrangements” with Inflection and Adept.

However, that “does not mean they won’t try.”

US, European and UK regulators on Tuesday signed a joint statement insisting that they won’t let big tech companies run roughshod over the nascent AI industry.

It’s a sign that “regulation is catching up to AI,” warned Sundararajan.

Thousands of Druze mourn youths killed in Golan rocket attack

ISLAMICIST REACTIONARIES ATTACK GOLAN RESIDENTS; 'HERETIC' DRUZE

By AFP
July 28, 2024

Druze elders, who follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam, gather in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights during the funeral for one of 12 people killed in rocket fire which Israel said came from Lebanon

 - Copyright AFP Jalaa MAREY

Thousands of Druze men and women, many dressed in black, arrived for the funeral Sunday of several of the 12 youths killed in a rocket attack on the Israeli annexed Golan Heights the day before.

The Israeli military said they were struck by an Iranian-made rocket carrying a 50-kilogram warhead that Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group fired at a football field in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams.

Hezbollah has denied responsibility for the strike.

Local authorities said the dead were aged between 10 and 16 years.

Druze follow an offshoot of Shiite Islam. Early on Sunday morning, Druze women gathered around the coffins covered in white shrouds ahead of the funeral.

Several women dressed in black abayas cried as they laid flowers on the caskets, an AFP correspondent reported.

Many held pink flowers, while hundreds of men dressed in traditional Druze attire, including white caps topped with red, arrived for the ceremonies.

“Every night, every day, every minute we are worried. It’s been like this for 10 months,” Laith, a 42-year-old nurse who gave only his first name, told AFP.

“Everybody you see here is worried all the time,” he said. “We are so very sad. We lost children, children playing soccer.”

Under scorching sun, religious leaders led hundreds at a prayer meeting in a local municipal building, with the entire town at a standstill.

Shops closed, and checkpoints were set up at the entrance of every village in the Golan.

Israel’s army called Saturday’s rocket strike “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians” since the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israel that triggered war in Gaza.

In Majdal Shams many residents have not accepted Israeli nationality since Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967.

That October 7 attack resulted in the death of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel’s military retaliation in Gaza has killed 39,324 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.

France honours six African soldiers killed on French army orders during World War II

France has posthumously honoured six African soldiers who were among dozens shot and killed by colonial troops and French gendarmes in Senegal in 1944. The soldiers had been demanding back pay after being repatriated from Germany, where they were held as prisoners of war.

28/07/2024 - 

In this file photo taken on November 20, 2014, people in Thiaroye, Senegal hold a poster reading ''The recognition and memory of the African soldier'' as they prepare an exhibition on a deadly incident in which French troops fired on Senegalese infantrymen on December 1, 1944 following a dispute concerning their earnings. © Seyllou, AFP

By: NEWS WIRES

France has made a key gesture of remembrance for the dozens of African troops shot dead on French army orders in Senegal during World War II, a government official said Sunday, as Paris seeks to ease tensions with former colonies over historical memory.

Six of the African soldiers -- four from Senegal, one from Ivory Coast and one from what is now Burkina Faso -- have been posthumously honoured for having "died for France" ("morts pour la France").

An official from France's veterans and remembrance ministry told AFP that the decision had been taken ahead of the 80th anniversary of the events in Thiaroye in Senegal in 1944.

It was in line with the "desire of President Emmanuel Macron to look history in the face", added the official. "It is now time to look at this history, our history, as it was."

The decision was taken on June 18 just days before the first meeting in Paris between Macron and the new Senegalese President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

Macron has during his seven years in power sought to address the most painful historical scars over France's relationship with Africa, notably relating to the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence and the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi minority in Rwanda.

However critics have often said that the gestures, while welcome, do not go far enough and often stop short of a full apology.

The official described the decision concerning the six African soldiers as an initial one which would be followed up once the "exact identity of the other victims has been established".

Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko reacted sharply to the news.

In a lengthy post on X, formerly Twitter, he said this "tragic story" was not France's to tell alone.

It was not up to Paris to determine how many Africans were "betrayed and murdered" after having fought to save France, nor what reparations they deserved, he wrote.

He signed the post as leader of his party, Pastef, and not as head of the government.
'Big step'

Colonial troops and French gendarmes had on the orders of French army officers shot at the African troops on the morning of December 1, 1944 at the military camp of Thiaroye outside the Senegalese capital Dakar.

The soldiers, repatriated after being held as prisoners of war in Germany, had been demanding their back pay.

According to the report drawn up by the French authorities at the time, at least 35 soldiers died on the spot or from their injuries.

The figure remains disputed, with some historians estimating the toll to be much higher. The place of burial of the soldiers is also a matter of debate.

Ending years of denial, former president Francois Hollande 10 years ago became the first French leader to pay tribute to the massacred soldiers.


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African troops from then French colonies played key roles in modern wars including World War I, World War II and the wars of independence of French colonies.

Aissata Seck, head of an association that seeks to keep alive the memory of the African "tirailleurs" who fought for France, praised the move as "a big step".

She said it was now "important" to carry out digging work at the burial grounds "to have the real number of victims".

Read more Thiaroye 44: Investigating a colonial-era massacre in Senegal

(AFP)

In Morocco, cannabis growers come ‘out of the shadows’

By AFP
July 28, 2024

Cannabis cultivation has reached new highs in Morocco after partial legislation - Copyright AFP FADEL SENNA

Kaouthar Oudrhiri

Only two years ago, Abdesselam Ichou began growing cannabis legally as part of Morocco’s legalisation of the plant for medicinal and industrial uses in an impoverished part of the country.

Now, he is among thousands of legal farmers whose area of cultivation has reached new highs and cut into the still-dominant illegal trade in Morocco, the world’s biggest cannabis resin producer, according to the United Nations.

The North African country passed a law in 2021 allowing the cultivation of medical and industrial-use cannabis in areas of Rif, a mountainous region that has long been a major source of illicit hashish — a stronger derivative of cannabis — smuggled to Europe.

“I never imagined that one day I would be able to grow cannabis without the fear and anxiety of being arrested, robbed, or not being able to sell my harvest,” said Ichou, 48.

“Today, we work in broad daylight, in a free and dignified manner,” he added, proudly showing his leafy crops in the commune of Mansoura, in the Chefchaouen region southeast of Tangiers.

Chefchaouen is one of the three provinces where cannabis cultivation is permitted under the 2021 law for non-recreational use.

Morocco’s partial legalisation of cannabis sought to combat drug trafficking and improve the farmers’ livelihoods, supporting up to 120,000 families in the region whose economy relies on cannabis which has been grown there for centuries.

In its first harvest of legal, low-potency cannabis last year, the country reported an output of 296 tonnes, according to ANRAC, Morocco’s cannabis regulating agency.

For Ichou, it was “a record harvest of almost eight tonnes on one hectare (2.5 acres)” that provided him with a steadier income than illegal cultivation.

He said he sold the crop at 80 dirhams ($8) per kilogram to give a gross revenue of $64,000. The Moroccan firm that bought it decided to invest in two more hectares for the next harvest.

– ‘Right path’ –

In 2023, Ichou was the only farmer in his village to legally grow cannabis. This year, he said, there are about 70.

In Chefchaouen, Hoceima, and Taounate — the Rif provinces where non-recreational cannabis cultivation is legal — the number of farmers went from 430 to 3,000 in a year, according to ANRAC.

The surface area of legal cannabis crops increased almost tenfold, according to the agency, going from 286 hectares in 2023 to 2,700 hectares in 2024.

But that hardly compares to the 55,000 hectares which official figures say were grown illegally in 2019.

A crackdown on the underground trade saw annual revenues from illegal cannabis trafficking decrease from around $540 million in the early 2000s to almost $350 million in 2020, according to official figures.

“At first, there was a lot of apprehension,” said Said El Gueddar, 47, another legal cannabis grower, who is expecting his next harvest in October.

“But little by little it waned, because ultimately legalisation is the right path to follow.”

El Gueddar, who belongs to a cooperative, added that he has “a lot of hope, because it can only be better than living in the precariousness of illegality.”

After relying on imported seeds for the legal cultivation, beldia, a local variety of the plant that’s drought-resilient, will be harvested for the first time in August.

With Morocco hit by a six-year drought, “beldia is a major asset for us,” said Ichou.

Along with dozens of other farmers, he created a cooperative dedicated to growing the local variety on more than 200 hectares. “We want to promote it as much as possible,” he said.

– ‘Attractive sector’ –

For industrial cannabis use, ANRAC has issued more than 200 permits, including about 60 in cannabis processing, 20 for seed importation, and around 30 for cannabis export.

Aziz Makhlouf seized the chance by creating Biocannat, a cannabis processing factory employing 24 people in Bab Berred, southeast of Chefchaouen.

“There are quite a few opportunities with cannabis,” said Makhlouf. “It’s an attractive sector.”

Since the start of the year, his factory has transformed around 30 tonnes of cannabis into different products — CBD resin, oil, flour, creams, candies, and food supplements.

But while cannabis regulation helps to “slowly build a reliable and resilient economy”, it remains challenging “to absorb the illegal sector because it has its market”, said Mohamed El Guerroudj, the head of ANRAC.

Legal growers could eventually make a 12-percent turnover compared to four percent on the illegal market, according to official studies.

For now, the kingdom’s priority is to help improve the lives of the population who rely economically on the plant, he told AFP.

Treating “cannabis production as a normal agricultural sector,” Guerroudj said, will enable them to emerge “out of the shadows… towards the light.”

Mali separatists claim major victory over army, Russian allies

By AFP
July 28, 2024

Separatist groups lost control of several districts in 2023 after a military offensive in which junta forces took Kidal

- Copyright AFP Juan BARRETO, Raul ARBOLEDA

A mainly Tuareg separatist coalition on Sunday claimed a major victory over Mali’s army and its Russian allies following three days of intense fighting in a district on the Algerian border.

“Our forces decisively obliterated these enemy columns on Saturday,” said a statement by Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesman for the CSP-DPA alliance.

“A large amount of equipment and weapons were seized or damaged” and prisoners taken, he added.

The statement said seven separatist fighters were killed and 12 wounded in the fighting in Tinzaouatene district.

The West African nation’s military leaders who seized power in a 2020 coup have made it a priority to retake all of the country from separatist and jihadist forces, particularly in Kidal, a pro-independence bastion in the north.

Large-scale fighting broke out Thursday between the army and separatists in Tinzaouatene, after the army announced it had retaken control of several districts. The district is almost entirely surrounded by Algerian territory and has been at the heart of other battles between separatist forces and the national army over the pat decade.

No overall toll was available for the Malian army and its Russian allies, but the separatist spokesman shared videos with AFP showing several bodies lying on the ground believed to be from their side.

In some of the videos, white soldiers are visible among the prisoners.

A local official and a former worker with the UN mission in Kidal told AFP the Malian army had retreated with at least 15 fighters from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group killed or arrested.



– ‘Dozens’ of Wagner fighters killed –



Mossa Ag Inzoma, a member of the separatist movement, claimed that “dozens” of Wagner fighters and soldiers had been killed or taken prisoner.

The Al-Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) in a statement claimed they had attacked a Malian army convoy and Wagner allies south of Tinzaouatene.

That statement was verified by SITE, a US organisation that follows radicalised groups.

JNIM said it killed 50 Russians and 10 Malians, although AFP could not verify the claims. Tuareg rebels denied the group’s involvement and accused it of trying to steal the separatists’ spotlight.

The army said its units that had been on patrol in Tinzaouatene district for three days had begun rearguard action between Friday and Saturday.

The army rarely communicates its losses and pressure from the ruling junta along with armed groups has silenced most independent sources of information in the areas of fighting.

Separatist groups lost control of several districts in 2023 after a military offensive that saw junta forces take Kidal.

There have been several accusations of rights abuses of the civilian population by the army and Wagner forces. Malian authorities have denied the allegations.

Violence by jihadist rebels linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group as well as community self-defence and criminal organisations has also rocked Mali since 2012.

A junta led by Colonel Assimi Goita took power in 2020, citing the civilian government’s inability to stem the unrest, and broke the country’s traditional alliance with former colonial power France in favour of Russia.