NATO’s new fear: What makes China the ultimate rival to NATO

THERE IS NO 'PACIFIC' IN NATO

By Alexey Lenkov On Sep 30, 2024

For the West, NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] is often celebrated as “the greatest alliance in the history of mankind.” Yet, from China’s vantage point, it’s perceived as a “war machine sowing chaos.”

Photo credit: MWMMoscow comments on Turkish S-400s and their resale to NATO allies
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On July 26, China accused NATO of persistently trying to “extend its malicious hooks” into the Asia-Pacific region. Notably, Beijing avoids the commonly accepted term “Indo-Pacific” — a concept embraced by most of the world, excluding Russia. Zhang Xiaogang, spokesperson for China’s Ministry of National Defense, accused NATO of stirring conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Ukraine.

China’s sharp criticism of NATO’s rhetoric, which it describes as filled with “lies, prejudices, incitements, and slander,” is understandable. This comes on the heels of NATO’s recent communiqué at the July 10 summit in Washington. The document identifies Beijing as a “significant factor in Russia’s war against Ukraine” and alleges that China presents “systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security.”

Photo credit: Spanish Air Force

Will NATO’s stance on China shift if Beijing, say, ceases its support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict? It doesn’t look likely. NATO’s latest communiqué points out that the challenges posed by China are not solely linked to the situation in Ukraine. There are a host of other concerns outlined in the document.

The communiqué highlights several issues with China’s behavior: “The PRC continues to pose systemic challenges to Euro-Atlantic security. We’ve seen ongoing harmful cyber and hybrid activities, including disinformation campaigns, originating from the PRC. We call on the PRC to honor its commitment to responsible cyberspace behavior. We’re worried about the PRC’s development of space capabilities and activities. We urge the PRC to support global efforts to promote responsible behavior in space. The PRC continues to rapidly expand and diversify its nuclear arsenal with more warheads and advanced delivery systems. We call on the PRC to engage in strategic discussions on risk reduction and promote stability through transparency. We’re open to constructive engagement with the PRC, including building mutual transparency to protect the security interests of the Alliance.”

While NATO places a significant focus on China’s maneuvers, the alliance acknowledges its ongoing commitment to dialogue. Yet, it is also bracing for increased vigilance and fortitude against China’s coercive tactics and divisive strategies within the alliance.

Photo credit: MWM

Recently, NATO has bolstered its discussions and collaborations with partners in the Indo-Pacific, known as the “IP-4” — Australia, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand. NATO contends that the Indo-Pacific area is vital to the alliance since activities there can influence Euro-Atlantic security directly. Moreover, NATO and its partners in the region share mutual values and a collective commitment to preserving a rules-based international order.

Before China and Russia declared their “no-limits partnership” in February 2022 and Russia’s subsequent invasion of Ukraine, there was a deliberate effort to connect the Euro-Atlantic region [NATO’s primary focus] with the Indo-Pacific. Leading this endeavor, the United States, with its unique position as a power in both regions, pioneered the way.

Western strategic elites have long believed that significant conflict initiated by China in the Indo-Pacific would spell disaster for the global economy and European national interests. The European Union’s Indo-Pacific Cooperation Strategy from 2021 underscores how security dynamics in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait could have direct repercussions on European security and prosperity.

Photo credit: MWM

There’s a school of thought suggesting that European involvement in the Indo-Pacific could help NATO distribute the burden of global security management. By aiding the United States in tackling its most significant challenge—China—European NATO partners can underscore their importance as critical allies, thereby strengthening U.S. resolve to continue prioritizing European security interests.

This perspective gains traction, especially as some advocates in the U.S. call for pivoting away from Europe to focus more on China and the Indo-Pacific. By helping the U.S. meet the challenge posed by China, European NATO allies can showcase their enduring value within the Alliance and solidify U.S. commitment to remain attentive to European priorities.

NATO’s role in the Indo-Pacific region has grown significantly, especially following the adoption of the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept at the Madrid summit. This pivotal document underscores “cooperative security” as one of NATO’s three main tasks alongside “deterrence and defense” and “crisis prevention and management.” For the first time, the Strategic Concept pinpoints the importance of the Indo-Pacific, noting that “developments in this region can directly affect Euro-Atlantic security.”

Video screenshot

In recent years, NATO has ramped up its collaboration with IP-4 partners, and this cooperation was highlighted by the participation of IP-4 leaders in the 2022 NATO summit in Madrid. During this event, NATO and IP-4 laid out an “Agenda to Address Shared Security Challenges,” focusing on deepening cooperation in areas such as cyber defense, technology, countering hybrid threats, maritime security, and the security impacts of climate change.

Fast forward to July 2023, IP-4 leaders once again attended a NATO summit, this time in Vilnius. More recently, at the third summit in Washington, practical cooperation between NATO allies and IP-4 partners was further cemented through new flagship projects. These include military healthcare support for Ukraine, cyber defense initiatives, counter-disinformation efforts, and the use of cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence.

Beyond these summits, there’s been a spate of high-level meetings between NATO and its Indo-Pacific allies in recent years. Their foreign ministers have joined several NATO meetings since 2020, coupled with regular North Atlantic Council sessions and military-format meetings such as the NATO Military Committee sessions with defense chiefs. The latest foreign ministers’ meeting happened in April this year.

Photo credit: Twitter

Moreover, NATO has frequently engaged bilaterally with key Indo-Pacific nations. For instance, on June 26, 2024, NATO hosted military staff talks with Japan at its Brussels headquarters, focusing on ongoing partnerships, security issues, resilience-building, and future cooperation opportunities. A similar meeting with South Korea took place on May 14, 2024.
Japan and Australia have deeply integrated within NATO’s operational framework. Under the AUKUS agreement, the UK announced that Australian submariners would train aboard Astute-class submarines. Earlier this year, Australia chose the UK’s BAE Systems to construct its fleet of nuclear submarines. This is part of an extraordinary pact where Australia will purchase up to five U.S. nuclear submarines by the early 2030s.

New Zealand benefits greatly from its partnership with NATO. This relationship enhances interoperability, bolsters the capabilities of its armed forces, and plays a key role in global security while adhering to a rules-based order.

Photo credit: Ukroboronprom

Leading European NATO members, such as France, Germany, and the UK, maintain robust bilateral security ties and arms trade with major Indo-Pacific powers like India, Singapore, and the Philippines. These nations, foundational pillars of NATO, understand the Indo-Pacific’s growing significance to their security.

While NATO’s approach to China grows more assertive, member nations remain divided. Under President Emmanuel Macron, France has resisted escalating tensions with China. Macron notably vetoed a proposal to open a NATO liaison office in Tokyo. Germany faces a domestic debate over balancing its Indo-Pacific security commitments with its vital economic ties to China, its largest trading partner for the past eight years, with annual trade reaching €250 billion [$274 billion].

Smaller NATO nations like Hungary have strengthened their ties with China, collaborating in areas like law enforcement and security, and boosting trade and investment relationships.

Photo credit: PLAAF

These growing alliances question NATO’s capacity to project significant power beyond Europe to counteract China’s expanding influence. While the U.S., as NATO’s clear leader, advocates for a more proactive NATO stance in the Indo-Pacific, many European members may hesitate to go beyond symbolic military exercises designed to uphold freedom of navigation and airspace security in the region. Nonetheless, this stance could shift dramatically if China were to launch an attack on Taiwan.

***

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From Protests to Power: Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s Journey as Sri Lanka’s First Leftist President

It is more than two years since the Aragalaya Protests shook Sri Lanka to the core. Aragalaya means Struggle in the Sinhala language.

The imagery of people storming the Presidential Palace and hoisting the Sri Lankan national flag, amid slogans of ‘Gota Go Home’, is fresh in the minds of many, in this island nation of 23 million people. Gota is the nickname of the then President, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He fled the country in the wake of the Aragalaya Protests, and, resigned afterwards.

Cut to 2024.

The Aragalaya sweeps a bearded, 55-year-old son of a labourer into power.

Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a self-avowed Marxist. The leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna or People’s Liberation Front and the Jathika Jana Balawegaya, an alliance of political parties and trade unions. Dissanayake was born on 24 November 1968. A.K.D., as he is popularly known, has humble origins. He went to a Government-funded school. Got a degree in physics. Worked as a tuition teacher. Sold toffee and cigarettes on trains. Became a student-leader. (He counts Che Guevara among his heroes.) Got elected to the J.V.P.’s central committee in 1997; became a lawmaker in 2000; and served as agriculture minister between 2004 and 2005 in a coalition government headed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga. Dissanayake became the leader of J.V.P. in 2014. He contested for President in 2019, when he finished third with only 3 per cent votes.

Dissanayaka’s party, the J.V.P., was formed in 1965. It led two rebellions, in 1971, and, 1987. In fact, he was a student-leader at the time of the second, armed, insurrection. This was around the time of the 1987 India – Sri Lanka Peace Accord. The two revolts left more than 80-thousand people dead. The J.V.P. has since claimed to have renounced violence. The party entered democratic politics in 1994. Dissanayake apologised for the violence unleashed by the party.

The J.V.P. was a peripheral player in Sri Lanka’s politics for the longest time. It won only four per cent of the votes in the 2020 parliamentary election. The party has only three lawmakers in the 2 hundred and 25-member legislature. But Dissanayake’s and the J.V.P.’s popularity soared in the wake of the Aragalaya Protests.

There are many firsts here. It was the first presidential election since the 2022 economic crisis. Dissanayake is Sri Lanka’s first Leftist President. Dissanayake is the first President to win the lowest number of votes. Just over 42 per cent. That led to the counting of people’s second preference votes. Consequently, it was the first time a second round of counting took place. Dissanayake is also the first political leader who does not belong to the political elite or a dynasty. Many see his win as a breath of fresh air in Sri Lankan politics. A fresh start. A new beginning. After years of political and economic tumult. Someone who can restore public faith in politics.

Dissanayake has sought to temper expectations from him though. He says he does not have a magic solution to problems. He says he is as common a citizen as any other Sri Lankan, with strengths and limitations. There are things he knows and things he doesn’t. And he says that his responsibility is to be part of a collective effort to end this crisis.

“There is one dream our people see every new day the sun rises. That is ‘tomorrow will be better than today!’ However, you and I have both learned for many years that this is just a dream. Opportunism, the greed for power, and authoritarianism have hindered our country’s progress. But now we have our final opportunity which cannot be missed. Let us unite to create a thriving and beautiful country that embraces diversity,” he says.

Dissanayake retains the common touch. He has ordered the police to re-open two roads – the Sir Baron Jayathilake Mawatha and Janadhipathi Mawatha, near the President’s House, to the public. He has increased the fertiliser subsidy for paddy farmers from 50 dollars to 84 dollars with the effect from 1 October, for the September 2024 to March 2025 period. And he has promised to cut taxes, fight corruption and reduce the cost of living.

In a televised address on 25 September, Dissanayake spoke about his plans for resuming talks with the International Monetary Fund to advance Sri Lanka’s 2.9 billion-dollar bailout programme. Sri Lanka declared bankruptcy in 2022. It suspended repayments on 83 billion dollars in domestic and foreign loans. A severe shortfall of dollars spun the country’s economy into a deep financial crisis. The foreign-exchange crisis led to a shortage of essential commodities such as food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas. Inflation soared, to a high of 70 per cent in September 2022.

Bhavani Fonseka, a lawyer and human rights activist, says that the economic crisis and what led to the people’s movement are key indicators that people wanted a change. “That message was very much articulated in 2022 in wanting to see a change in political culture, culture which kind of saw high corruption and nepotism. And that seems to have been captured in the messages and the manifestos of the N.P.P. (National People’s Power) and the Anura Kumara Disssanayake campaign slogans. So really, it’s kind of tapping into what people were feeling in 2022, and really capturing the people’s imagination that change is possible with this new formation that is the N.P.P.”

Dissanayake has softened some of his policies in the past few years. For instance, his N.P.P. alliance espouses a middle ground. He believes in an open economy, and, is not totally opposed to privatisation. He has vowed to press ahead with the I.M.F. rescue-package, but, modify its terms in order to deliver tax-cuts to his people.

Fonseka says, “(The) international community is looking to this new president as to how he governs, what is his foreign policy. But considering the economic crisis, considering we are dependent on international assistance, I can’t see the N.P.P. and the president being able to take sides. So, he will be taking a very pragmatic approach, at least for the next couple of months. How things play out in 2025 and beyond is to be seen. But I think at the most immediate he is going to take a very practical approach.”

Dissanayake’s priorities are to renegotiate the bailout agreement with the I.M.F. and make austerity measures more bearable for the poor. He faces a number of key challenges, though. First and foremost, economy and growth. Dissanayake will have to ensure the economy returns to sustainable and inclusive growth. He will have to re-assure local and international markets. He has to attract investors. He also has to help a quarter of Sri Lanka’s 23 million population climb out of poverty. Then there are the issues of I.M.F. programme and taxation. Dissanayake has to hold discussions with the I.M.F to reduce taxes and free up public revenue for tax relief and investment.

But questions remain.

— Why is he tight-lipped about his stance on key issues concerning the ethnic Tamil population in the North and East?

— Does he support the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Sri Lankan Constitution?

— The 13th Amendment flows from the India – Sri Lanka Peace Accord of 1987. Among other things, it calls for devolution of police and land powers to the Tamil minority.

— Or will he allow his predominantly Sinhala political base to get the better of him?

— What will be his Government’s foreign policy be towards India?

— And will he allow his ideological moorings to shore up ties with China?

India is Sri Lanka’s biggest neighbor. China is its largest bilateral creditor. Both India and China are competing for influence in Sri Lanka. India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi says he looks forward to working closely with Dissanayake. Dissanayake visited India in February and held talks with India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval. Dissanayake has sought to allay concerns about the J.V.P.’s historical anti-West and anti-India stance. He used his inauguration speech to reject power-divisions in the world, and, pledged to work with all other countries for the benefit of his own.

“Our country needs international support. We expect that whatever the divisions in the international community to deal with countries, we get the best deal. We are not a state that needs to be isolated in the world. We are a nation that must go forward hand in hand with the international community. We will not hesitate to take decisions to achieve this,” says Dissanayake.

Analysts say that Sri Lanka and Dissanayake, can ignore India only at their own peril. The logic of interdependence will ensure that the ties do not go off-kilter. India was quick to bail Sri Lanka out with billions of dollars is assistance. New Delhi’s Neighbourhood First Policy has ensured that India is the first responder in times of crises. India says that it does not expect all its neighbours to necessarily adhere to what India considers as being better for them. In the real world, countries make their own choices, and, they find a way to adjust and work together.

Dissanayake has called a snap, parliamentary, election on 14 November. He hopes to ride the wave of approval, and, consolidate power in the Parliament. The lack of numbers in Parliament has meant that Dissanayake has not been able to name a proper Cabinet. He named Prof. Harini Amarasuriya as Prime Minister with five portfolios.

Vijitha Herath was given charge of six ministries, including foreign affairs. And Dissanayake kept key ministries, such as, finance, defence and energy for himself. Despite his executive powers as the President, fulfilling his pro-poor campaign promises of reducing taxes and freeing-up public revenue for tax-relief and investment will prove difficult without backing from Parliament.

That is not all. Passing a budget will be hard without support in Parliament. But, there’s a catch. If the snap election throws up a verdict similar to the presidential poll, then Sri Lanka will have a co-habitation government, with the President and Prime Minister from different parties. He needs a minimum of 113 seats to gain power in Parliament. For which he will have enlist the support of the minorities, including Tamils.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the president and those around him have heard the loud calls of the people. The call for a system change. Whether they are able to deliver considering the multiple challenges before them is the big question,” says Fonseka.

President Dissanayake has his task cut out for him. Can he deliver? Will he be able to balance ideological compulsions, domestic reforms, and, geopolitical pulls and pressures? We will know in the months ahead.

By: Ramesh Ramachandran (Senior Consulting Editor and presenter with D.D. India)

Investigating How Conflict and War Contribute to Methane Emissions
by Wim Zwijnenburg • September 30, 2024


Illustration: Marcelle Louw for GIJN

How can reporters learn from new tools about specific causes of methane leaks in conflict-affected areas? We have examined some of the recent conflict hotspots across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) — namely Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya — to identify what the major sources of methane release are in the region, as well as to better understand how conflicts around the world could damage existing infrastructure and governance and lead to more emissions.

Methane (CH₄) is the second-largest contributor to the rapid heating of our planet and its contribution to global warming is estimated to be nearly 34-80 times higher than carbon dioxide (CO₂). Methane in the atmosphere also leads to more ozone in the troposphere, while methane oxidation in the stratosphere leads to the formation of water vapor.

Both of these consequences play a significant role in fueling the greenhouse effect that is warming the globe. Nevertheless, methane is a naturally occurring gas, released by animals, wetlands, and the soil — but also from and human industrial processes. And in a vicious cycle, as climate change increases, it results in the greater melting of the world’s permafrost, a frozen layer beneath the earth that is storing large volumes of methane, further accelerating global warming.While the world is rapidly developing policies to counter the release of greenhouse gas emissions, one of the major overlooked factors is the impact of war and conflict on the climate crisis.

While the world is rapidly building policies and mechanisms to counter the release of greenhouse gas emissions to minimize the climate disaster, one of the major overlooked factors is the impact of war and conflict on the climate crisis. Novel methods to monitor conflict-linked environmental degradation, calculate conflict emissions resulting from the war in Ukraine, and calls for transparency over military emissions have led to better insights into this source of global warming.

Helpfully, new sensors being launched into the Earth’s stratosphere can now allow investigators to better understand the drivers of the climate crisis and this includes tracking the release of methane. The latest research quantifying the various emitter sources in the MENA region strongly correlates the governance and fossil fuel industry capacity with the ability to address methane emissions. The results also imply that failed or weak governance, in particular those in conflict-affected areas, could result in a continuation or increase of methane emissions.

Below is an overview using the data maps from both Carbon Mapper and United Nations Environment Programme’s International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO). The CM tool doesn’t give the time period for monitoring worldwide data, while IMEO’s time range is from October 29, 2020 to July 27, 2024 at the time of publication. They both also use a variety of sensor systems, with both tapping the NASA EMIT satellite as a common source to detect methane. The chart below shows the number of methane plumes spotted with remote sensing and the number of possible sources. Some of those sources have emitted what appear to be multiple, large-scale plumes of methane.


1 Data from Oct 29, 2020 – July 27, 2024. Chart: Courtesy of author

The use of existing and planned sensing systems from governments, commercial companies (GHGSat), and nonprofits or scientific coalitions (MethaneSat, which is in orbit but not yet providing data as this story was published, and the Kayrros Methane Map) can provide a wealth of data on various sources of pollution that went hidden for a long time. In addition, researchers are now combining data from Sentinel-2, -3 and -5P satellites for a “tiered observation approach for methane leak monitoring,” while the Dutch TROPOMI sensor on board the Sentinel-5P provides weekly open-access methane plume maps from around the world.

Similarly, the Carbon Mapper Project, funded by, among others, Planet, NASA, and various US universities, is adding more depth to the methane database with its Data Portal, which is providing more insights into sources of methane release. These methods are already paying off, exposing negligence and mismanagement among well-known oil companies from leaking pipelines. GIJN is also adding to the knowledge base with its detailed reporting guide for journalists investigating methane emissions.

Methane plume sites (red dots) detected via Carbon Mapper across Libya, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen from October 2020 to July 2024. Image: Courtesy of author

So what are the main sources of human-made methane emissions? The common denominator these conflicted-affected countries all have is natural resource extraction as part of their economic activities, which is one of the largest contributors to methane release. The fossil fuel industry is a well-known emitter, and routinely suffers from leaking pipelines, outdated refineries, ill-maintained wells, and coal mines that can contribute to release of trapped methane.

Furthermore, we often see a collapse of environmental governance in conflict-affected countries, leading to both a lack of implementation of environmental regulations, including maintenance and monitoring of power plants and factories, and an absence of proper waste management, resulting in the piling up of solid waste in landfills that can be major source of methane.

Below, we will take a deep dive into several country case studies, and provide a short overview of methane sources using Carbon Mapper and IMEAO. In each country ongoing emissions releases can often be directly related to conflict, or are a result of post-conflict weak governance that exacerbates the problems.
Iraq

The fossil fuel industry has long been Iraq’s main source of income, but the country’s multiple wars, insurgencies, and ongoing systematic corruption have negatively impacted the oil infrastructure. In particular in Iraq’s south, the flaring and methane plumes from its Basra oil fields are large sources of emissions. Yet we also see specific methane sources in areas affected by the recent conflicts with ISIS and later taken over by Iraqi army and militias, such as the oil industry sites around Kirkuk and southeast of the Suleimani governorate, areas where ISIS is still active, and methane leaks from pipelines in Anbar province southwest of Baghdad.We often see a collapse of environmental governance in conflict-affected countries.

Though Iraqi Kurdistan boosted its oil sector in the last decade, the lack of methane leaks indicated stricter regulations and monitoring. As a result, almost all the identifiable methane leaks in that region are caused by landfills, including the cities of Erbil, Dohuk, and Suleimani.

The bane of Iraq’s methane emissions remains the oil fields in southern Iraq, with large plumes visible around the refineries and some pipelines in Basra and Missan governorates. Security risks and corruption have resulted in foreign oil companies abandoning the region’s oil fields, leaving little likelihood that any entity will invest in repairing and updating the infrastructure to prevent leaks and put a cap on the wider flaring issues.

Methane plumes (red squares) caused by conflict impacts, mapped in Iraq using data from Carbon Mapper. Image: Courtesy of author

Syria

Methane emissions in this country increased substantially in the 1980s with the boom in the oil industry, though livestock can also be an important emission source. Recent data shows that the largest methane emissions come from the heavily bombed oil fields in the eastern part of the country around Deir ez Zor. More specifically, around the Jafra oil facility that was bombed by the United States in 2014 and the Tanakh oil refinery that was bombed by Russia. Other large sources of methane plumes are smaller fossil fuel facilities in the regime-controlled areas of Deir ez Zor, around Palmyra, and in the north towards Raqqa. In the Kurdish-controlled northeast, sensors have detected methane releases at the oil and gas fields outside of Hasakah and at Rmelan, where oil infrastructure is still being targeted by Turkish airstrikes.

Methane plumes (red squares) at oil and gas facilities in Syria caused by conflict impacts, mapped using data from Carbon Mapper. Image: Courtesy of author

Yemen

Struggling with a decade of war that caused a major humanitarian crisis, Yemen is also suffering from a wider environmental and climate crisis due to conflict-related pollution and a collapse of governance. With just a small oil and gas industry and a handful of large cities, the methane data is fairly easy to interpret, as the majority of the detected plumes have originated from the oil fields in Marib. Weak regulation, smuggling, and attacks have sped up environmental degradation. The collapse of the nation’s waste management infrastructure has worsened the dumping of garbage, including medical waste, in and around cities and UN-protected nature reserves, such as Socutra, as documented by Yemeni environmental groups and UN agencies. A massive waste mountain northwest of Sanaa has a large, detectable methane plume and is the only other current large source of methane emissions in Yemen.

Two methane leak sites, one from an unmaintained solid waste landfill outside of Sanaa and the other from the damaged oil field in the Marib region, detected by using data from Carbon Mapper. Image: Courtesy of author
Libya

As the nation with Africa’s largest oil and gas reserves, Libya’s fossil fuel industry is also one of the largest methane emitters on the continent. The civil war that broke out in 2014 resulted in the majority of the oil and gas fields being captured by General Haftar’s militias. Libya’s National Oil Company is still responsible for maintenance, yet ongoing disruptions, lack of investments, violent attacks, and mismanagement has continued to degraded the state of its infrastructure.New remote sensing techniques to detect methane are an important tool to monitor how wars and armed conflict can be a driver of or create additional emissions sources.

The majority of these fields are located in the deserts in the southwest and center of Libya, and emissions data clearly shows that almost all methane sources, except one, are either from fossil fuel extraction sites or apparent leaks from pipelines. There is one large solid waste landfill — Sidi Sadaya — south of Tripoli, in the area under control of the UN-recognized Government of National Accord, and this area also has a few large carbon dioxide emitters from the oil and gas industry.


Methane plumes (red squares) at oil and gas facilities in Libya caused by conflict impacts, mapped using data from Carbon Mapper. Image: Courtesy of author
Going Forward

These new remote sensing techniques to detect methane are an important tool to monitor how wars and armed conflict can be a driver of or create additional emissions sources. While many methane sources in the countries discussed were likely present prior to the conflict, the lack of necessary security, reconstruction, and investment has likely resulted in either a continuation of or increase in methane releases. But with the novel platforms listed above, journalists and experts can now investigate, identify, and monitor these critical greenhouse gas emissions in more detail.

Wim Zwijnenburg is a humanitarian disarmament project leader for the Dutch peace organisation PAX. He works on conflict and environment related issues in the Middle East, the use and proliferation of emerging military technologies, and the arms trade. His work is regularly published by Bellingcat.

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How secondhand clothes took Zimbabwe by storm – and hammered retail

The country’s clothes manufacturers are taking a beating from imported ‘preloved’ clothes and a struggling economy.

Customers rake through a pile of secondhand clothes for sale at Mbare market in downtown Harare, Zimbabwe

 [Ish Mafundikwa/Al Jazeera]

By Ish Mafundikwa
Published On 30 Sep 2024

Harare, Zimbabwe – Kimberley Dube takes great care with her appearance. She always looks sharp and fashionable in smart-looking jeans, t-shirts, sweatpants, tops, and designer sneakers.

“I love jeans – can’t get enough of them,” the 35-year-old says.

But while she may give the appearance of someone with money to spend on expensive apparel, the self-employed entrepreneur laughs when she says, “You are wrong! These clothes are inexpensive; I get them from secondhand clothes sellers.”

Dube, who lives in Harare, is just one of a multitude of Zimbabweans who have turned their backs on home-grown fashion brands, opting for the booming market in secondhand – or “pre-loved” – imports from overseas instead.

“There’s no shop in this country where you can pay as little as $2 for a pair of jeans,” she scoffs.

Dube is particularly drawn to the stylish individuality that buying second-hand clothes affords her. ”Most clothing stores carry mass-produced items, which you’ll see all over town; the stuff here is unique.”

“Here” is a small market next door to a suburban shopping centre in a middle-class neighbourhood, where we are perusing the wares. Dube’s equally trendy friend and fellow millennial, Gamuchirai Mpofu, a huge fan of preloved clothes, has also come along.

“The nice thing about shopping here is that though the clothes are used, they are durable, unlike the Chinese stuff sold in most shops,” she says. Both of them say buying used clothes gives them access to a variety of brands and items they can’t find in Zimbabwean shops. “It’s about uniqueness and individuality,” Mpofu says.

Clothes neatly displayed at a Harare suburban market [Ish Mafundikwa/Al Jazeera]

Winnie Mutsokoti, an effervescent seller at the market, welcomes us with a warm smile. She has four frame tents, each laid out like a section in a clothing store. We head straight to the one in which various styles and sizes of denim wear are neatly displayed on hangers. Some of the merchandise on offer here appears new or hardly worn.

”You will not find anything other than denim in this tent,” she explains. “It’s different from my other tents, where you can find dresses, jumpsuits, shorts, hoodies, jerseys, and other things.” Mutsokoti has been running her secondhand clothes import business for six years now.

Today, all of Mutsokoti’s winter stock is in the end-of-season sale as the weather gets warmer.

Some of her items have store labels and price tags on them. This happens when the clothes come from “broken” size ranges from retailers. A broken size range is a collection in which several sizes have sold out. The remaining items usually sell at a reduced price and end up in bales of used clothes destined for Africa.

Imported used clothing sold in Zimbabwe is, according to the authorities, brought into the country illegally through the porous borders or official border posts with the collusion of customs, immigration and law enforcement officials after it is brought off ships from Europe and North America.

While it is possible to apply for a licence to bring used clothes into the country for re-sale, nobody does this as it is expensive and the import duties are high.

Mutsokoti buys her stock from a “runner”, who in turn buys his stock in Zambia. She pays on delivery so she doesn’t risk losing her money if the runner gets arrested and the clothes are impounded. She pays anything from $150 to more than $250 for a bale of clothes, depending on the quality of the content. “One has a choice as the bales are graded and labelled accordingly.”

Denim galore at Winnie Mutsokoti’s stall in a suburb of Harare [Ish Mafundikwa]

Pile ‘em high, sell ‘em low

In another part of the city, the sprawling markets are busy in Mbare, a poorer, working-class neighbourhood and Harare’s oldest Black residential area, known as Harare African Township during colonial times.

Most of the houses in the oldest parts of Mbare have fallen into disrepair. The hostels, which were home to single men who worked in white-owned factories during colonial times and now house families, are in need of refurbishment or demolition, but nothing has been done about them yet.

In one of the markets here, spread out in a dusty open space between the hostels, business in secondhand clothing is brisk.

Most of the selling takes place in makeshift sheds covered with plastic sheeting, with some clothes laid out on tables or displayed on hangers. Mostly, sellers pile the clothes on plastic sheets on the ground.

Prosper Matenga, the owner of a pile of men’s and women’s clothing, keeps a close eye as prospective customers rummage through it, some of them trying on dresses out in the open. His prices range from $3 to $10 depending on what a customer wants to buy and its quality.

He tells Al Jazeera he has been trading in secondhand clothes, also imported via a runner from overseas, since 2018. “I couldn’t find a job, so I tried this. I am happy I did because I can look after my wife and child,” he says. Like Mutsokoti, his stock also comes from overseas.

Matenga says he makes more than a lot of people in formal employment. ”In the early days of winter, I sometimes made as much as $1,000 a day; now, it’s down to around $200, but I am not complaining; I love being my own boss.” By comparison, in Zimbabwe, civil servants earn about $350 a month.

The low overheads are also attractive: “I don’t pay the city council to sell here; I just pay the guy who cleans this space $2 per day and $20 per week for overnight storage.” He shrugs off the notion of paying any sort of vendor fee – mandatory for most legitimate businesses – to the city council with a smile. None of the street vendors selling from downtown Harare’s pavements, outside their homes or from the backs of their trucks or cars, pay a vendor fee.

Prices here are not dissimilar to Mutsokoti’s and those charged by other vendors in the more middle-class areas. However, the Mbare market generally offers more bargains and the emphasis is on durability rather than fashion. Shouts of “Dollar for two” ring across the market; some use bullhorns to attract the attention of potential customers.

Others have different priorities, however. Odera Moyo, in his late 20s, is shopping for clothes at the Mbare market today but draws a line at secondhand clothes for his child. “It’s OK for me and my wife to wear used clothes, but I’ll always buy new stuff for my baby boy,” he says.

Moyo completed high school nine years ago but has never been employed formally since then. “I’d love to have a salary, but jobs are difficult to find because of our country’s economic situation.”

Zimbabwe has been facing economic challenges, including high unemployment rates and inflation for more than 20 years, causing a cost of living crisis for many people. Moyo depends on odd menial jobs and sometimes buys clothing from the market when the prices fall in order to resell them on the street in areas where there are no secondhand clothes markets. “I watch the prices come down to sometimes a dollar for four items and then buy,” he explains

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T-shirts and polos on display at Mbare market in downtown Harare [Ish Mafundikwa]

Tough times for retailers

While consumers are clear winners due to the explosion of the secondhand foreign clothes market, the influx of used clothing sold at low prices has hit Zimbabwean clothing manufacturers and retailers.

Bekithemba Ndebele is chief executive officer of Truworths Zimbabwe, a clothes retail chain founded in 1957 when the country was still a British colony known as Rhodesia.

“We are competing against secondhand clothing that comes into the country without any duties paid and, unlike bricks-and-mortar retail operators, without the overhead costs like occupancy costs, rates, and rents because these people are trading off the street,” he tells Al Jazeera.

“If you compare the selling prices, the informal sector sells at less than the raw material cost – the fabric cost itself.”

While the dysfunctional economy has been a major factor in Truworths’s waning fortunes, Ndebele says the popularity of used clothing has been nothing short of a disaster for the chain, which has three distinct chain brands: Truworths Man, Truworths Ladies – both of which cater to the higher end of the market – and Number 1.

The latter mainly sold clothes in commercial farming areas before Zimbabwe’s fast-track land reform programme launched in 2000.

“We had to close dozens of branches since thousands of farm workers lost their jobs,” Ndebele says. From 53 branches at its peak, Number 1 is now down to a mere six. Over the years, Truworths has closed all but 34 of the 101 stores it operated in the late 1990s.

The difficulties also affected Truworths’s manufacturing division, Harare-based Bravette, which was forced to reduce its 250-person workforce to 80 to cut costs.

Issues such as high unemployment, mass emigration of skilled people to countries like South Africa, Botswana, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom; hyperinflation; and Zimbabwe’s decades-long general economic malaise have also contributed to the industry’s downturn.

A few weeks after Al Jazeera interviewed Ndebele, Truworths filed for bankruptcy protection. He declined to speak to Al Jazeera again about the reasons for this.

People sell preloved and new cheap clothes on the pavement outside a Truworths branch in downtown Harare. Truworths said it could not compete with the secondhand imported clothes market [Ish Mafundikwa/Al Jazeera]

‘Sticking a bandage on a festering wound’

Currency instability has also been a significant problem for struggling businesses. In April, Zimbabwe’s central bank introduced a new currency called the Zimbabwe gold or ZiG to rein in hyperinflation and currency instability. It is the sixth local currency used since the 2009 collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar when hyperinflation hit 231 million percent before the government stopped measuring it.

The ZiG, which the government says is backed by gold reserves, foreign currencies and precious metals, held steady against major currencies, such as the US dollar which is used in some 90 percent of transactions in the country, for a few weeks but has rapidly lost its value against the major currencies over the past several weeks on the parallel or so-called black market.

This stokes inflation, which was officially recorded at 1.4 percent in August. With prices rising still, the September figure is expected to be higher.

However, some experts believe inflation is already much higher than this. Johns Hopkins economics professor Steve Hanke argues the government is massaging the real inflation figure. He claims the real rate is 894 percent, the highest in the world.

The government has dismissed Hanke’s method of calculating inflation as misleading. The South African rand, the Botswana pula, and the British pound are also currencies within the “multi-currency basket” that are legal tender in Zimbabwe.

Some economists predicted the ZiG would follow its five predecessors into the dustbin and likened the introduction of the ZiG to sticking a bandage onto a festering wound.

Among them was Gift Mugano of the Durban University of Technology, who was pilloried by some government officials for warning the ZiG would fail, but now feels vindicated. He told Al Jazeera that a lack of competitiveness is among a litany of reasons that all these iterations of Zimbabwean currency have failed. “Zimbabwe is not competitive in terms of production at this time. We have had a drought of production over the last two decades.”

He noted that Zimbabwe’s over-reliance on imports has “destroyed” local manufacturing, not just the clothing and textile sectors.

Second to the lack of competitiveness, Mugano said, is the issue of confidence. “People don’t trust the local currency, and they’d rather have US dollars whose value is predictable. This raises the demand for the greenback, putting pressure on the local currency,” he said. The government itself demands payment for passports in US dollars. Fuel is also sold in dollars.

One of Truworths’s major selling points was offering pay-as-you-wear credit to its customers, whereby they pay off whatever they bought over an agreed period.

However, with Zimbabwe’s economy on a downward trend and an estimated 80 percent of Zimbabweans not formally employed, the pool of eligible customers for this has shrunk since only those employed officially and paid in US dollars qualify for the credit.

Workers at Kingsport Factory in Harare, Zimbabwe [Ish Mafundikwa/Al Jazeera]

‘They have reduced the country to a supermarket’

Other clothing companies have been similarly affected. Energy Deshe is the General Manager of Kingsport Investments, a company specialising in manufacturing protective clothing, promotional wear, corporate clothing, screen printing, and embroidery.

He is also the vice chairman of the Zimbabwe Clothing Manufacturing Association. He shares Ndebele’s exasperation about illegal imports and laments the lack of action from the authorities. “The clothes are brought into the country illegally; by allowing their open sale, it seems the authorities have given the green light to the traders to do what they want,” he said.

The impact has taken a massive toll on jobs in the sector, he said. “It currently employs just over 4,000 people, down from more than 30,000 at its peak around 2001.”

Those who do operate within the law, he said, are effectively punished for doing so via relatively high labour costs, taxes, and the cost of applying for licences. “We just can’t compete with these clothes dumped into the country. They have reduced the country to a supermarket.”

Kingsport, which employed 700 people at the end of 2022, has been forced to scale down to 400 employees since then. While exports could boost earnings, he says government regulations act as a disincentive. “The government deducts 25 percent of whatever we’ll have earned from exports in US dollars and pays us the equivalent in local currency.” This refers to the requirement by the Central Bank that Zimbabwean exporters convert at least 25 percent of foreign earnings into local currency at the official exchange rate, which is significantly higher than the more widely used black market rates. Businesses say this leads to losses for them.

Being required to pay taxes in US dollars, facing difficulties with importing raw materials, new machinery or spare parts, and an erratic power supply all present additional obstacles for manufacturers in Zimbabwe.

In 2015, Zimbabwe banned imports of secondhand clothes for resale in an attempt to boost the clothing manufacturing sector. However, the government relented to pressure from people dealing in used clothes and introduced new import taxes on used clothing instead in 2017. Furthermore, anyone wanting to import preloved clothes is required to apply for a licence to do so.

A customs official who spoke to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to talk to the media said importers are not inclined to obtain a licence as a “punitive” customs duty of $5 per kilogram plus 15 percent tax is then charged on those imports.

“If anybody pays those extra charges on secondhand clothes, it would not be viable,” he concluded. In any event, he said, the department has no record of any duty being paid on used clothes bales.

While the police do sporadically intercept trucks with bales of secondhand clothes, he said, “It seems it’s not enough.

“Every once in a while, the police call us to say they have intercepted a truckload of secondhand bales, but judging by the amount of clothes on the street, it’s clear most of the bales get through.”

When Al Jazeera contacted the Ministry of Industry and Commerce department that issues import licences, an official there said that the department had not issued a single licence for the import of secondhand clothes.

Zimbabwe Republic Police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi confirmed that the smuggling of secondhand clothes into the country is common. “We have an ongoing operation against smuggling which includes used clothing; we have recovered bales of clothing, which we have surrendered to the customs department,” he told Al Jazeera.

He added that the police had arrested some customs, immigration and law enforcement officers for working with the smugglers.

Despite all that, the secondhand clothes trade continues to flourish in Zimbabwe, with some sellers openly advertising on social media, where their phone numbers and addresses are clearly on display

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A roadside shop outside a house in surburban Harare [Ish Mafundikwa/Al Jazeera]
‘We’d buy local – if the price was right’

Some countries in Africa have banned the import of used clothing altogether. “We can learn something from Uganda and Rwanda, who enforce bans on used clothing,” said Kingsport’s Deshe. “Their textile and clothing industries are flourishing.”

Clothes designer Joyce Chimanye, who worked for various clothes manufacturers before launching her own brand of clothing named Zuvva, said she believes enforcing the law and changing government policy could revive the ailing clothes retail and manufacturing sectors.

Before the secondhand clothing craze, she said, “There was a very high level of domestic apparel consumption, and the manufacturing sector was vibrant; the factories exported clothes for brands such as Littlewood, JCPenney, Gap, Levis and Banana Republic”. But that was before the country’s economic woes took hold and many have since shut up shop.

Chimanye said she believes Zimbabwe could learn from Bangladesh, which implemented market-oriented policies, including industry privatisation and trade liberalisation in the 1980s, to become the second-largest garment-producing country in the world.

According to data from the Bangladeshi Export Promotion Bureau, the county’s textile and garment industry now employs more than 4 million people.

While the customers of preloved clothing that Al Jazeera spoke to are happy with the low prices, the quality, and the variety of used clothes they have access to, they said they would also be happy to buy locally manufactured clothes on condition that the cost and quality are right.

“We’d buy local clothes if the prices, quality, and variety are addressed,” Kimberley Dube says.

Source: Al Jazeera

Tesla bursts into flames inside Florida garage flooded by Hurricane Helene, terrifying video surfaces: Watch

NO SHARK SEEN

BySumanti Sen

Sep 30, 2024 

The garage where the incident took place was flooded with saltwater by Hurricane Helene.

A terrifying video shows the moment a Tesla burst into flames inside a Florida garage as a result of Hurricane Helene. The garage where the incident took place was flooded with saltwater by the storm.

Tesla bursts into flames inside Florida garage flooded by Hurricane Helene (Pinellas County Government/Facebook)

The fire, which started underneath the electric ride, completely engulfed it in less than a minute, the video shows. The room was quickly filled with thick smoke.

Pinellas County Government shared the video on Facebook, with a warning. “Electric Vehicles that have been flooded in saltwater can catch fire. As you return home, here's some advice from our fire admin,” the post reads.

The advice includes points like, “Do not charge, drive, or store your EV or E-bike in your home or garage,” “do move the EV or E-bike 50 feet away from any other combustible material,” and “do have the vehicle towed to a dealership for inspection.”

‘The road to recovery will be long’

The storm has killed at least 91 people, and the number is reportedly expected to increase. President Joe Biden expressed his sorrow at the “loss of life and devastation caused by Hurricane Helene across the Southeast.” In a statement released by the White House, he said, “The road to recovery will be long, but know that my Administration will be with you every step of the way. We’re not going to walk away. We’re not going to give up. As we turn toward recovery efforts, we will make certain that no resource is spared to ensure that families, businesses, schools, hospitals, and entire communities can quickly begin their road to rebuilding. Jill and I are praying for those who lost loved ones from Hurricane Helene, and for those whose homes, businesses, and communities were impacted by this terrible storm.”

Federal emergencies were declared in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. Over 800 personnel from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) had to be deployed. According to the National Weather Service, conditions would "continue to improve today following the catastrophic flooding over the past two days."

Essay

The Radical Act of Gardening Silicon Valley

Communities Are Nourishing Themselves—And a Movement to Transform Our Food System—By Planting in Unlikely Soil

In San Jose, hidden amid the campuses of Google, Cisco, and Apple, a different kind of movement is growing—a movement of home gardeners, who provide food for their families and communities, writes Gabriel R. Valle, associate professor of environmental studies at California State University, San Marcos. image courtesy of author

By Gabriel R. Valle | September 30, 2024


Days start early in the garden. As the sun rises over the Santa Clara Valley’s Diablo Range, we’ve already gathered and prepared seed beds for planting. The smell of damp soil fills the air as we carefully place fava beans into the dark earth. The soil under our fingernails and caked onto our knees doesn’t bother us—it reminds us of where our food comes from. We fill our bellies with warm coffee and pan dulce as we plant and discuss what the day will bring.

Silicon Valley might seem like a strange place for a gardening movement to flourish. Our plantings are hidden amid the palm tree-lined technology campuses of companies like Google, Cisco, and Apple, buried under the sounds of busy freeways, and packed neatly into an urban center where millions of people live. Yet the ways these gardens have found a home here can teach us a lot. By cultivating physical spaces to grow food in the margins of modernity—in the places ecologists call “ecotones,” where habitats, or worlds, collide and the unexpected emerges—we are also nourishing political spaces to live 21st-century life.

In 2012, while researching urban agriculture in Silicon Valley, I met the director of La Mesa Verde, an organization that teaches gardening and food literacy in the low-income communities of San Jose. She gave me a neighborhood tour, and then invited me to participate in a community action research project that would change my life.

For over a decade, I have been learning from, planting alongside, and writing about the home gardeners of La Mesa Verde. They live in parts—Alma, Alum Rock, Campbell, Willow Glen, Spartan Keyes, and East San Jose—where their options for fresh, healthy, and culturally relevant foods are limited. Most of the families in the program are Spanish-speaking, but it is a multi-ethnic, multilingual group of gardeners. With the help of the UC Master Gardener Program and the extensive farming and gardening knowledge of many of its members, gardeners who participate in La Mesa Verde are more than successful growers; they are advocates for community transformation. They share surpluses to challenge market logics. Their collective efforts promote their right to food and challenge their marginality by bringing together people who might otherwise not come together. They celebrate life by centering dignity in their efforts to transform their food system.

Countless nonprofits have popped up across the country to help alleviate the lack of access to quality food in many low-income communities. The belief is that state-sponsored intervention such as food pantries or the strategic placement of farmers markets are the best way to bring food into the community. There is an assumption that people living in these communities are too poor, busy, or ignorant to fix the issues they face related to food access themselves.

These communities are not naturally occurring empty “food deserts,” but rather they are products of food apartheid, or a food landscape that has been engineered in ways that benefit some and harm others. Ironically, even well-intentioned nonprofits seeking to “fix” low food access in underserved areas can end up prolonging it because their food charity interventions address the symptoms of hunger rather than the root causes of social inequality.


There are orange, lemon, lime, and pomegranate trees towering over houses; pinto and green beans climbing up chain-link fences; and yerba buena, epazote, and verdolagas propagating around foundations.

As I have gotten to know these Silicon Valley neighborhoods and the people who call them home, I’ve learned that community members address issues of food access in ways that do not fit the mold these initiatives promote. Food emerges from the neighborhoods’ lost, forgotten, and marginalized places. There are orange, lemon, lime, and pomegranate trees towering over houses; pinto and green beans climbing up chain-link fences; and yerba buena, epazote, and verdolagas propagating around foundations.

In fall 2013, I met a gardener in his early 80s originally from the outskirts of Mexico City. He and his wife lived in half of a two-bedroom duplex, with his daughter and her two kids next door. The best thing, he told me, was that while they had separate living areas, they shared a backyard, which was large enough for him to grow food and his grandkids to explore.

Gardening had played a central role in his life—as a kid he grew corn, beans, and squash in his family’s huerta (vegetable garden)—but what stood out the most from that conversation was how he explained the act of gardening as a reciprocal relationship between people and places. “Ser un jardínero,” he said, “es estar en comunicación. Comunicación con la comida, familia, comunidad, y tierra.” (“To be a gardener is to be in communication. Communication with food, family, community, land.”)

That afternoon, I watched him tend to his heirloom corn, summer squash, pinto beans, and jalapeno peppers. He moved through the garden as if in sync with its rhythms. It became evident that for him, gardening was less about food production, and more about cultivating relationships with his food through his labor—something most of us have lost touch with in recent years.

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Labor is the source of value in these gardens, but not in the classical economic sense of how much things cost. Rather, value manifests in what gardens can restore. Most of us living under capitalism work for a living, and the more energy and time we invest in earning money, the less time we have for ourselves. Many of the gardeners I have interacted with hold part-time, low-wage jobs—sometimes two or three—that take them away from their families and communities. They are caretakers, food service workers, housekeepers, landscapers, and retail employees. But when they garden, their labor contributes to the social and cultural reproduction of their communities and cultures. Their simple acts of gardening challenge the capitalist ideal of individualism over all else because gardening does not separate people from community; it roots them in community. As a gardener told me one afternoon, “Tener un jardín es contra este sistema.” (“To have a garden is against this system.”)

Another La Mesa Verde gardener once told me, “When I go into my garden, I greet life.” He was doing more than referring to the ways growing food supports his physical health. By growing and sharing food, home gardens allow people to root themselves, regain control over their agricultural production, re-envision communal organization, and remind themselves—and us—how to be human again.

When we grow food, we work toward a reciprocal partnership with the human and non-human communities around us: We hope to support them as we rely on them to support us in turn. Gardening regenerates healthy soils, communities, peoples, and cultures. Silicon Valley’s home gardeners are growing food to feed the physical and spiritual needs of their communities—and they’re doing it at the epicenter of modernity and technology, in one of the most expensive and alienating places to live in America today.


Gabriel R. Valleis an associate professor of environmental studies at California State University, San Marcos. His most recent book, Gardening at the Margins: Convivial Labor, Community, and Resistance, explores food, gardening, health, and cultural resilience in the Santa Clara Valley.

PRIMARY EDITOR: Caroline Tracey | SECONDARY EDITOR: Sarah Rothbard