Australian taxi drivers win $178 million payout from Uber

Sydney (AFP) – Australian taxi drivers impacted by the rise of ridesharing giant Uber have won US$178 million in compensation, their lawyers said Monday after settling a gruelling legal battle.


Issued on: 18/03/2024 -

Australian taxi drivers impacted by the rise of ridesharing giant Uber have won US$178 million in compensation, their lawyers said 

© DAVID GRAY / AFP

More than 8,000 taxi drivers and hire car owners banded together to launch legal action in 2019, arguing they lost substantial income when Uber entered Australia in 2012.

Lead lawyer Michael Donelly said the A$271.8 million (US$178.3 million) settlement was the "fifth highest class action settlement in Australian legal history".

"Uber fought tooth and nail at every point along the way, every day, for the five years this has been on foot -- trying at every turn to deny our group members any form of remedy or compensation for their losses," said Donelly, from legal firm Maurice Blackburn.

"But on the courtroom steps and after years of refusing to do the right thing by those we say they harmed, Uber has blinked, and thousands of everyday Australians joined together to stare down a global giant."

Lawyers alleged that Uber engaged in "a variety of shocking conduct" when it launched in the country, including using "unlicenced cars with unaccredited drivers".

Taxi driver Nick Andrianakis told reporters he was forced to close his taxi business of 40 years when Uber launched.

"I lost my passion for work... and I lost my income that provided food on the table for my family," he said.

Uber said it was "inappropriate" to comment on the size of the settlement until it was signed off in court.

"When Uber started more than a decade ago, ridesharing regulations did not exist anywhere in the world, let alone Australia.

"Today is different, and Uber is now regulated in every state and territory across Australia, and governments recognise us as an important part of the nation's transport mix."

The US-based company, worth US$157 billion, said it had made "significant contributions" to Australian taxi compensation schemes.

© 2024 AFP

PHOTO ESSAY

 Syria's Al-Hol camp: child inmates and false identities

Paris (AFP) – The al-Hol camp is the largest of two in northeastern Syria holding the families of Islamic State fighters.

LONG READ

Issued on: 18/03/2024

A girl walks through the al-Hol Islamic State camp in northeastern Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP


Run by US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), its population spiked at more than 70,000 as the coalition began tightening its grip on the last IS holdout in Baghouz late in 2018.

Iraqis have always been "the dominant nationality" in the camp, with their numbers at one time reaching 30,000, according to Doctors Without Borders.

At its height, 11,000 "foreign" women and children -- that is non-Syrian or Iraqi -- were held there.

After the defeat of the "caliphate" in March 2019, countries across the world slowly began repatriating their nationals. Many Europeans were transferred to Roj, a smaller and better-kept camp close to the Turkish border that today holds 2,500 people, more than 2,140 of them foreign.

The sprawling 320-hectare al-Hol holds more than 43,000 people from 47 countries including France, Sweden, the Netherlands, Russia, Turkey and Tunisia -- 21,500 of them children, according to the latest figures.

Iraqis are the biggest group (20,144), followed by Syrians (16,710). Two thirds of the 6,612 "foreigners" are children under 17, according to the camp administration.
13-year-old brides

Kurdish security forces and the SDF guard the camp, with a Kurdish civil administration overseeing the camp. Dozens of United Nations agencies and international and local NGOs provide health, water, sanitation, education and protection services.

Women walk past a dress shop in the Iraqi and Syrian sector of the al-Hol camp © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

But the camp's overall management is handled by the US group Blumont paid for by the US State Department, with France also funding some humanitarian assistance and improvements to the infrastructure.

The camp is divided into two parts. Syrians and Iraqis live in the main camp, with "foreigners" held in the high-security "annex" that is cut off from the main camp.

Camp officials say many of the foreigners have not revealed their nationalities or given false ones.

Many marriages in the main camp -- where some 3,000 men live -- are to minors, including girls as young as 13, according to humanitarian workers.

Since the Kurdish-led administration does not recognise child marriage, they are not registered, nor are their children.
Two girls point to the sky -- a gesture often used by Islamic State -- in the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Many men take second wives. These marriages are also not recognised. As a result, the camp "bursts with unregistered children", a humanitarian worker said.

© 2024 AFP

Sins of the fathers: Children of IS left to rot in Syria camp

Al-Hol Camp (Syria) (AFP) – Ali is 12 and has survived things no child should see, spending half his life in what amounts to a prison camp for jihadist families in an arid corner of northeastern Syria.


Issued on: 18/03/2024 - 

Child of the caliphate: A girl in the vast al-Hol Islamic State camp in northeastern Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP
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He knows not to dream of freedom. Instead he fantasises about having a football. "Can you get me one?" he said, as if he was asking for the Moon.

Five years after the fall of the Islamic State group's brutal "caliphate", tens of thousands of women and children linked to the jihadists are still being held by the US-backed Kurdish forces in camps rife with violence and abuse, with seemingly no clear plan of what to do with them.

More than 40,000 inmates -- half of them children -- are cooped up behind the barbed wire fences and watchtowers of the windswept al-Hol camp run by Washington's Kurdish allies.

The children of the jihadists' failed project live out a grim existence in tattered, tightly packed together tents with little water and limited access to sanitation. Few go to school.

Many have never seen a television or tasted ice cream.

Some boys are taken from their mothers by the guards once they reach 11 in violation of international law, a UN expert found, with the Kurdish authorities claiming it is to stop them being radicalised.

They admit the jihadists still exercise control in parts of the camp through fear, punishments and even murder.

One former inmate told AFP that IS paid pensions to some widows.

Even Ali is old enough to be terrified of them. "They enter tents at night and kill people," he said.

"It's not a life for children... they are paying the price for something they didn't do," an aid worker told AFP.

The al-Hol camp ballooned as the coalition and its allies in the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) closed in on IS's last bastion in eastern Syria, putting an end to their five-year reign of terror marked by beheadings, rapes, massacres and enslavement.

Women in niqabs walk past a fence at the al-Hol camp in Syria where thousands of families of Islamic State fighters are still held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

When the extremists were finally defeated in March 2019, families of suspected jihadists were trucked north to al-Hol from the last holdout in Baghouz.

Five years on, dozens of countries are still refusing to take back their nationals with SDF leader Mazloum Abdi -- whose soldiers guard the Western-funded camp -- calling it "a ticking time bomb".

– 'Acute deprivation' -

AFP interviewed IS widows, aid workers, security forces and administration employees in the difficult to access camp, including inside the high-security "annex", the camp within a camp where "foreign" and more radical women and their children from 45 countries are held apart from the "local" Syrians and Iraqis.

Some asked not to be named for fear of what might happen to them.

To complicate matters, some 3,000 men are held with the women and children in the Syrian and Iraqi sector of the camp. Some are ordinary refugees, but suspicion lingers over others detained by Kurdish fighters as the caliphate collapsed.

Not even the guards venture into the rows of tents at night unless they are carrying out a raid.

The huge dusty camp -- first built for refugees fleeing the wars in Iraq and Syria -- dwarfs the nearby town of al-Hol, with its small houses and narrow streets.

The vast Al-Hol camp in Syria holds more than 40,000 people -- all but 3,000 women and children © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Its thousands of white tents are crammed so closely together that it is almost impossible to walk between them without bumping into something.

Privacy is nonexistent, with the communal kitchens and toilets squalid and insufficient, say humanitarian workers who provide some basic services on top of the food aid on which the inmates survive.

Behind the camp's high fences, kids roam dirt roads, bored and frustrated, some throwing stones at visitors. A blond boy blinked at the camera and then drew his finger across his throat to mimic a beheading.

Most children do not go to the makeshift schools. Instead they try to earn a little by carrying water, cleaning or fixing tents for those whose families wire them money.

Others work in the camp's market, or trade their food aid.

"Al-Hol is a suffocating place for children to live and grow-up," said Kathryn Achilles from Save the Children.

They "have endured acute deprivation, bombardment and have now been in the camp for almost five years. They need more," she said.
'We'll be left here'

"How can our children dream if they've never seen the outside world?" a mother of five held in the high-security annex reserved for foreign women and their children told AFP.

A girl walks behind her mother through the vast al-Hol camp in northeastern

 Syria © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Two thirds of the annex's 6,612 inmates are children, according to the camp's administrators.

The 39-year-old gave birth to her youngest child in al-Hol after fleeing Baghouz in 2019 after her husband -- an IS fighter -- was killed there.

Like all of the women in the camp, she was covered head-to-toe in a niqab and black gloves, a thin slit in the face covering showing her wide, dark eyes.

Although the niqab is banned in the smaller Roj camp holding IS members' families close to the Turkish border, women in al-Hol told AFP they would not dare to take it off, fearing punishment from hardliners.

"It is a bitter life, and what's worse, they say we'll be left here," the mother lamented, with the authorities starting to build new sections where each tent will have its own toilet and kitchen.

Jihan Hanan, the head of the camp's civil administration, confirmed that the work was being done "because the camp may be in place for the long term".

She admitted life was "difficult for residents, but it's also difficult for us given the security situation."

Murder and sexual abuse

But it is what is happening to the children that most worries humanitarian organisations.

In 2022, two Egyptian girls, aged 12 and 15, were murdered in the annex, their throats cut and their bodies dumped in an open septic tank.

Rana, a Syrian girl, was shot in the face and shoulder in 2022 by armed men who accused her of having a child out of wedlock when she was 18.

"They kidnapped me for 11 days and hit me with chains," she told AFP.

Other children are being sexually abused and harassed, a health worker told AFP. In three months in 2021, she treated 11 cases of child sexual abuse.

A girl hugs her mother at the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Some cases were children abusing other children. "They may not know they are hurting each other," she said, adding that a child who abuses is likely to have been a either a victim of sexual assault or witness to it.

Children in al-Hol have seen or heard murders as well as "shootings, stabbings and strangulations on their way to buy food from the marketplace or while on their way to school," Save the Children said in a 2022 report on the camp.

The trauma triggers sleeping disorders, bed-wetting and aggressive behaviour, it said.

"I try not to let my kids socialise to keep them out of harm, but it is almost impossible because the camp is packed," said Shatha, an Iraqi mother-of-five.

"Every time my kids go out, they come back beaten."

Yet keeping children confined to their tents was tantamount to holding them "in a prison inside a prison", a social worker told AFP.
'Coming for my son'

Every mother AFP spoke to in al-Hol -- particularly those in the annex -- were terrified about their boys being taken from them and sent to "rehabilitation centres" by the guards.

The high-security camp within a camp contains women from 45 countries including France, the Netherlands and Sweden, with large numbers from Turkey, Tunisia, Russia, the Caucasus and the Central Asian republics.

Security forces regularly take boys over 11 from the annex in night raids or sweeps of the marketplace, a policy a UN expert condemned as "forced arbitrary separation".

Boys in the 'foreign' section of the camp are removed from their mothers aged 11 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

Zeinab, an Egyptian mother, said her 13-year-old son was taken away from her a year ago. Now she worries it will soon be her 11-year-old's turn.

"I can't sleep at night. When I hear sounds outside, I fear they are coming for my son," she said.

Some mothers hide their boys from the guards in holes and trenches or prevent them from going outside.

"Some boys may have turned 20, but we don't know where they are hiding," a member of the security forces admitted.

Authorities say they take the boys to protect them from "sexual abuse" and a "radicalised" environment.

The Pentagon told AFP that it was aware that some youths were removed "to both youth centres and detention facilities" but said "we keep the well-being of children at the centre of our policies and encourage local authorities to ensure their actions consider the best interests of children."

IS cells

Kurdish forces have long warned about IS cells in the camp, with a spike in murders, arson and escape attempts in 2019. Rifles, ammunition and tunnels have also been found in regular security sweeps.

A Syrian woman who fled the camp in mid-2019 recalled how an IS member known as Abu Mohamed would visit widows monthly and pay them $300 to $500.

Diehard: A woman in the Al-Hol camp points to the sky -- a gesture long associated with the Islamic State

 © Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

"He used to come in a security forces uniform and promise that the group will return," she said.

In the annex's squalid marketplace, women pore over the few available pieces of meat through the slits in their niqabs, while others haul away bottles of water and rugs in three-wheeled carts or on makeshift sleds made from cardboard attached to a rope.

Seeing journalists, some raised a gloved index finger to the sky, a gesture frequently used by IS signifying the "oneness of God".

While many women are repentant, others don't hide their continued allegiance to IS.

IS "are still here, and they have a stronger presence in certain sectors of the camp," according to Abou Khodor, a 26-year-old Iraqi man who has been in the camp for seven years.

He complained that diehards from IS's last bastion in Baghouz had "ruined" the camp. But one of the women captured there said it was more complex.
'Death does not scare us'

"There are supporters of IS, and those who have become even worse," she said. Others, however, "don't want anything to do with it anymore."

Women stand next to a fence at the al-Hol camp in Syria where Islamic State fighters' families are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

At a protest over searches in the camp earlier this year, one woman was filmed shouting at the guards, "We are here now but one day it will be you!

"The Islamic State is not going away, even if you kill and beat us... Death does not scare us."

But an Egyptian woman was seen urging calm, saying, "We don't want problems."

Such is the mistrust that some women resist being treated with what they call "Western medicine" leading to outbreaks of disease, most recently of measles.

Women and children in the annex also have to get permission to go to the health centres outside the camp, and it sometimes takes "days, weeks or even months" for less critical cases, according to Liz Harding, head of Doctors Without Borders mission in northeastern Syria.

"Fear, movement restrictions, insecurity and lack of emergency services at night" was cutting them off from care, she added.

Some smuggle in medication and at least one woman performs clandestine dental procedures, which has led to cases of sepsis.

"She doesn't have the tools, but there is no other dental care," a Russian woman complained.

- Huge burden for Kurds -

The grim desperation of the situation weighs heavy on the Syrian Kurds running the camp. Many lost comrades to IS militants whose family members they now have to guard.

A Kurdish security forces member patrols the al-Hol camp in Syria where the families of IS fighters are held 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

"It's a major problem... a burden both financially, politically and morally as well," the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces Mazloum Abdi told AFP.

Humanitarian groups in the camp said children should not have to live in such conditions and insist they should not be defined by their parents' actions.

"Mothers want their children to go to school, to grow up healthily and hope they won't be discriminated against because of all they have experienced," said Save The Children's Achilles.

Kurdish authorities have repeatedly urged countries to repatriate their citizens, but hold out little hope of it happening anytime soon. Hanan, the camp's civilian chief, said many "nationalities have no one asking about them".

Asked by AFP what it plans to do with the women and children, the Pentagon said "the only long-term, durable solution for the residents... is the return or repatriation of displaced persons to their areas or countries of origin."

While Iraq has started slow but successful repatriations, thousands of Syrians are stuck in al-Hol awaiting tribal sponsorship to return to areas under Kurdish control. For now, a return for those from Syrian government-held areas looks impossible.

"We wish everyone could go home," Hanan said. "We don't intend to lock anyone up and leave them."

Behind the wire: A boy plays with a mesh bag over his head in the al-Hol camp holding the families of IS fighters in Syria 

© Delil SOULEIMAN / AFP

But it was little comfort to a Russian mother of two who told AFP she felt the world had abandoned her and her children.

"There is no place to go. There is no solution," she said.

© 2024 AFP

Colombia partly suspends truce with EMC armed rebel faction RIGHT WING DRUG CARTEL

Colombia on Sunday suspended a truce with the armed rebel faction the Central General Staff (EMC) in three different parts of the country, citing violence including an attack on an Indigenous group that left one woman dead.


Issued on: 18/03/2024 -

Des membres de la Garde indigène assurent la surveillance au milieu d'une plantation de coca près de Suarez, dans le Cauca (Colombie), le 19 septembre 2023. 

© Joaquin Sarmiento, AFP

By: NEWS WIRES

The EMC -- dissident guerillas who broke off from the rebel FARC group when it signed a peace pact with the government in 2016 -- opened talks with President Gustavo Petro's administration last year.

Since his election in 2022, leftist Petro has sought to put an end to six decades of conflict between the country's security forces, guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug gangs.

However, his "total peace" process has faced multiple setbacks with the guerrillas, who are linked to drug trafficking and are accused by rights groups of taking advantage of various ceasefires to expand their influence, seize more territory and recruit new members.

Sunday's announcement came after the EMC's "non-compliance with the ceasefire," and would see the military resume "offensive actions" against them in the departments of Narino, Cauca and Valle del Cauca, according to a decree from the defense ministry.

The truce remains in force in other regions, including the Amazon and along the border with Venezuela, however.

Sunday's announcement of the truce suspension came after officials in the municipality of Toribio said an attack on an Indigenous community there had left a 52-year-old woman dead and a man wounded Saturday.

Petro's government has suspended the truce before, doing so for several months last year after four Indigenous people who defected from the EMC's ranks were killed.

The EMC is made up of some 3,500 fighters and controls drug trafficking routes along the borders with Ecuador and Venezuela, according to military intelligence.

(AFP)

Revived TV drama breaks Iraq's taboos

Baghdad (AFP) – After a 27-year hiatus, an Iraqi TV programme banned by Saddam Hussein for its gritty depiction of life under sanctions has returned to portray drug lords thriving in the war-scarred country.


Issued on: 18/03/2024

Iraqi actors film scenes for a television series to be broadcast during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when TV viewership traditionally peaks 

© AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP

Television viewership in the Middle East traditionally peaks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when the faithful tune in to their favourite shows after breaking their daily fast at sunset.

This Ramadan, a revived "Wahiba's World" is one of several Iraqi shows focusing on social issues such as drug addiction, crime, divorce and unemployment.

It delves into "issues troubling our society as a consequence of war and chaos," the programme's director Samer Hikmat told AFP.

Iraqis have suffered through decades of turmoil since the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s and former dictator Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, which triggered harsh economic sanctions.

They were followed by a US-led invasion in 2003, civil war, sectarian violence and the jihadist proto-state of the Islamic State group, which was only defeated in late 2017.

The oil-rich country of 43 million, still recovering from those conflicts, is now plagued by endemic corruption and clientelism, a weak economy, poor public services and high unemployment.
'Drug-fuelled wealth'

Decades of instability have created "a class of people who have profited from the chaos," Hikmat said, pointing in particular at newly wealthy drug dealers.

"Young people fall victim to this dark path."

This Ramadan, several Iraqi shows focus on social issues including drug addiction and crime © AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP

Iraq, traditionally mainly a transit country for drugs, has faced an explosion in narcotics use in recent years, mainly of the amphetamine-like stimulant captagon and crystal meth.

The first series of "Wahiba's World", released in 1997, told the story of Wahiba, a nurse who makes every effort to help her neighbours amid the crippling international sanctions that plunged many Iraqis into poverty and crime.

Seventeen minutes into the broadcast of the first episode, authorities banned the programme, fearing it could incite people against the regime.

A year later, the show received a regional prize and authorities allowed it to be aired, but only at midday, considered a dead time slot.

This year, the show began airing on the first day of Ramadan during prime time on the Iraqi local private channel UTV.

Several actors had died during the long hiatus, but many others reprised their roles. In the revival, Wahiba plays a supporting part to her granddaughter and namesake, a psychiatrist, as the main character.

Unemployment, divorce and child marriage are among other topics addressed in this year's series © AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP

In a busy industrial area in Baghdad's centre, in the same garage where scenes from the first series were shot, director Hikmat filmed a segment in which drug lord Alaa threatens to behead a member of his gang.

Actor Zuhair Rashid, who portrays the drug dealer Alaa, said the programme showed the grim reality of "drug-fuelled wealth, its consequences and tragic endings".

- 'Sensitive issues' –

Despite these efforts, Iraq's worn-out entertainment industry is still far from gaining recognition in a region where Syrian and Egyptian programmes have long held the top spot.

After the rise of IS, Iraq's drama shows, which only air on local television, have focused chiefly on telling stories of the jihadists' brutal rule and the war to defeat them.

But critic Mehdi Abbas said there is a noticeable trend this Ramadan, with "the majority of this year's shows tackling issues that are a threat to society".

Another new show, titled "Nay" -- flute in Arabic -- addresses unemployment, especially among art students, and the growing gap between rich and poor.

Actress Suzanne Salehi, who stars in it, said the programme recounts the "yearning for an opportunity" of youth.

An Iraqi director supervises the filming of the Iraqi series 'Al-Waziriya' -- despite such efforts, Iraq's TV industry is still far from gaining regional recognition 

© AHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP

"Separation", another Iraqi show, is based on real divorce stories that writer Hassaballah Yehya followed in court, reflecting increasing break-up rates in the country.

It also tackles child marriage, which is not uncommon in Iraq, especially in rural areas. The legal age of marriage in Iraq is 18, but it can be lowered to 15 in cases of parental or judicial consent.

"People usually avoid sensitive issues," Yehya said, adding that "we're trying to break taboos."

© 2024 AFP

Ropes, brass, salt, stone: Reinventing jewellery in Kenya

Nairobi (AFP) – Sisal ropes, salt crystals, volcanic rocks and aged brass: award-winning Kenyan designer Ami Doshi Shah has always chosen unlikely materials to make sophisticated jewellery that redefines value in a carat-obsessed industry.

Issued on: 18/03/2024

Kenyan designer Ami Doshi Shah established her brand in 2015

 © Tony KARUMBA / AFP
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"As a child, I was always finding beauty in unusual things like stones and fossils," Shah, 44, told AFP in an interview at her rooftop studio in Kenya's capital Nairobi, where she crafts her pieces by hand.

Her 2019 collection Salt of the Earth featured ropes, salt crystals and patinated blue-green brass, and was showcased in exhibitions at London's Victoria and Albert Museum and New York's Brooklyn Museum.

But despite earning a university degree in jewellery and silversmithing in the British city of Birmingham and the prestigious Goldsmiths award for best apprentice designer, Shah said it took her years to fully commit to her metier.

A third-generation Kenyan of South Asian origin, she interned at Indian jewellers such as The Gem Palace, whose patrons have included Princess Diana, Oprah Winfrey and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Traditional Indian ideas of jewellery as a luxury investment did not resonate with her. And she wasn't wholly sure of how to marry her experimental sensibility with commercial pressures.

So Shah joined an advertising firm and spent the next 12 years there, working in London and Nairobi.

"I knew it wasn't my calling," she said.

She took a sabbatical during her second pregnancy and began a year-long artist residency at the non-profit Kuona Trust in Nairobi in 2014-15.

Shah's vision is to create bold, sculptural pieces that reflect the talismanic role of jewellery in Kenyan culture © Tony KARUMBA / AFP

It was a cathartic period, yet one also "filled with self-doubt", she said.

"I was worried whether people would like my work... it is hard to accept that you might not be a commercial success, especially when you have spent so many years focused on making money."

Personal and political

She established her brand in 2015, with a view to creating bold, sculptural pieces that reflect the talismanic role of jewellery in Kenyan culture, where it is used in rites of passage, for protection and to imbue the wearer with strength.

Her body of work ranges from sisal neckpieces to cuffs inlaid with stones and brass earrings that sway with every movement.

A striking departure from the precious metals and gemstones that dominate traditional Indian jewellery, her design process is driven by materials found in Kenya and every piece is made to order.

Shah's design process is driven by materials found in Kenya and every piece is made to order © Tony KARUMBA / AFP

She uses brass -- which dominates Kenya's jewellery landscape -- but also materials such as leather, mango wood and zoisite, a cast-off from ruby mining in the East African country.

The result is jewellery that is deeply personal and sometimes political, with prices ranging from $75 to $375.

"Not everyone's going to love my work, not everyone's going to understand it and that's ok," she said, emphasising that she approaches jewellery-making as "a labour of love", not a business venture.

Her acclaimed 2019 collection explored salt's dual nature as a life-giving mineral that is also destructive and corrosive.

Shah uses metals like brass -- which dominates Kenya's jewellery landscape -- as well as other materials © Tony KARUMBA / AFP

It also reflected on Britain's colonial past, with punitive salt taxes prompting Mahatma Gandhi to stage a historic protest march in 1930 in the Indian state of Gujarat, where Shah's grandparents emigrated from.

"That was the first time I felt like jewellery could be political, like it could be a thread connecting so many things," she said.
'Tell our own story'

Her latest collection Memento Mori was born out of grief, reflecting on the loss of her father in 2021 and their final days together in the Indian Ocean town of Watamu along Kenya's coast.

"I feel far more Kenyan than Indian," she said, urging her South Asian-origin compatriots to embrace integration, instead of finding safety in self-segregation, decades after the traumatic 1972 expulsion of South Asians from Uganda.

Shah (right) shows a client a display of a previous collection at her Nairobi studio 

© Tony KARUMBA / AFP

With recent forays into furniture, her dream is to build a multi-disciplinary studio with "predominantly Kenyan" designers.

"It's important to be able to tell our own story in our own way instead of having a narrative projected onto us."

© 2024 AFP

STATE-CAPITALI$M

China retail sales show shaky economic recovery

Beijing (AFP) – The performance of China's economy in the first two months of 2024 was mixed, official figures showed Monday, with sluggish household consumption alongside increased industrial production reflecting an uneven recovery.

Issued on: 18/03/2024 - 
Industrial production in China was up 7.0 percent year-on-year in January and February © STR / AFP
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The highly anticipated comeback after Beijing lifted stringent Covid control measures in late 2022 was less robust than expected, and the world's second-largest economy now grapples with turbulence in the property sector, high youth unemployment and flagging consumption.

In January and February combined, retail sales -- the main indicator of household consumption -- increased 5.5 percent year on year, China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said.

But the figure was down from December, which saw an increase of 7.4 percent, and was slightly below the result anticipated by a Bloomberg survey of analysts, who had predicted a rise of 5.6 percent.

The recording period included China's major Lunar New Year holiday -- this year falling in early February -- which generally drives a consumption spike in the preceding weeks.

Industrial production, meanwhile, was up 7.0 percent year on year in January and February, NBS data showed, beating the 6.8 percent rise in December and the 5.2 percent predicted by Bloomberg.

China typically releases combined data for the first two months of the year, due to the Lunar New Year holiday.

Fixed asset investment was up 4.2 percent year on year during the period.

The figure is a key indicator for spending on real estate, infrastructure, equipment and machinery -- sectors in which Beijing has sought to stimulate activity of late.

Investments specifically in property development, however, were down nine percent year on year, the NBS said.

The property sector -- long a vital growth engine for China's economy -- is now under unprecedented pressure, with several major developers on the verge of bankruptcy and falling prices dissuading investment in real estate.

The country's urban unemployment rate rose slightly to 5.3 percent in January and February from 5.2 percent in December.

The figure was 14.6 percent for the 16-24 age bracket, according to a new criterion that excludes students, introduced after a record high was notched last year.

Beijing has set a target of five percent annual growth in gross domestic product (GDP) this year -- among the slowest official goals in decades.

China's economy emerged from deflation in February for the first time in six months.

© 2024 AFP

END THE EMBARGO!

Rare protests erupt in Cuba over food and electricity shortages

Cubans staged rare street protests Sunday over food and electricity shortages as the country suffered long outages that left parts of the island without power for up to 14 hours a day.


Issued on: 18/03/2024 -

Elderly people queue to buy bread at a bakery in Havana, Cuba on March 8, 2024. 

© Yamil Lage, AFP

By NEWS WIRES

"People were shouting 'food and electricity'," a 65-year-old resident, who asked not to be named, told AFP by phone from the island's second-largest city of Santiago de Cuba, 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the capital Havana.

Electricity was restored to the city later in the day and "two truckloads of rice" were delivered, the witness said.

Social media platforms were filled with images of protests in Santiago de Cuba, a city of 510,000 people located in the east of the island. There were also images of protests in another large city, Bayamo.

Cuba has been experiencing a wave of blackouts since the start of March due to maintenance works on the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant, the island's largest.

But this weekend, the situation was worsened by a shortage of fuel needed to generate the electricity.

The outages left some areas such as Santiago de Cuba without power for up to 14 hours a day.

"Several people have expressed their dissatisfaction with the electricity situation and food distribution," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on X, warning that "enemies of the Revolution" aimed to exploit the situation.

There are "terrorists based in the United States, whom we have denounced on several occasions, who are encouraging actions that go against the internal order of the country," he added.

The US embassy in Havana said on X that it was aware of reports of "peaceful protests" in Santiago, Bayamo and other parts of Cuba. It urged the Cuban government to "respect the human rights of the protestors and address the legitimate needs of the Cuban people."

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez responded on X, urging Washington not to "interfere in the country's internal affairs".

Cuba's power comes from eight old thermoelectric power plants, generators and eight floating electricity plants leased from Turkey, which were also affected by the fuel shortage.

The cash-strapped island nation imposed a more-than 400 percent fuel price hike earlier this month as part of an economic recovery plan.

Soaring petrol prices in Cuba are a cause of great concern for Havana residents

The nation of 11 million is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the collapse of the Soviet bloc in the 1990s due to fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, the recent tightening of US sanctions and structural weaknesses in the economy.

According to official estimates, the Cuban economy shrank by two percent in 2023, while inflation reached 30 percent. Independent experts say this is likely an underestimation.

There are chronic shortages of fuel and other basics, and the government subsidizes almost all of the goods and services consumed by Cubans.

(AFP)

THE MYSTERY CONTINUES

Bitcoin not invented by computer scientist Wright: court

Agence France-Presse
March 14, 2024 

 A collection of Bitcoin (virtual currency) tokens are displayed in this picture illustration taken December 8, 2017. 

REUTERS/Benoit Tessier/File Photo

Australian computer scientist Craig Wright is not "Satoshi Nakamoto", the pseudonym used by the creator of the cryptocurrency bitcoin when it launched in 2008, a UK court ruled Thursday.

The decision follows a trial in London's High Court after the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), a nonprofit organization set up to keep cryptocurrency technology free from patents, sued Wright.

Wright, 53, has claimed since 2016 that he was Satoshi Nakamoto and the author of a white paper that unveiled what would grow to be the world's most popular cryptocurrency -- and which Thursday reached a record high.

But in his ruling handed down Thursday, judge James Mellor dismissed Wright's claims, calling the evidence for his decisions "overwhelming".

"Dr Wright is not the author of the bitcoin white paper," Mellor said.

"Dr Wright is not the person who adopted or operated under the pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto in the period 2008 to 2011."

The judge added: "Dr Wright is not the person who created the bitcoin system... he is not the author of the initial versions of the bitcoin software."

Wright, an enigmatic programmer who has described himself as "creator of bitcoin" on social media platform X, had initiated a number of lawsuits over the issue but faced legal action brought by COPA on this occasion.

The organization brings together heavyweights in the industry, including the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase and Block, which specializes in digital payments.

Wright had yet to react publicly to the ruling.

'Win for truth'

"This decision is a win for developers, for the entire open-source community, and for the truth," a COPA spokesperson said in a statement.

"For over eight years, Dr Wright and his financial backers have lied about his identity as Satoshi Nakamoto and used that lie to bully and intimidate developers in the bitcoin community.

"That ends today with the court's ruling that Craig Wright is not Satoshi Nakamoto," it added.

The ruling could impact another lawsuit pitting Wright against 26 developers -- including Coinbase -- for allegedly infringing upon his intellectual property rights.

Earlier in the day, bitcoin struck a new record high at $73,797.

It later traded at $70,646, highlighting the volatile nature of cryptocurrency that has triggered warnings from regulators and central banks aimed at small investors.

Bitcoin has soared this year on several factors, notably being made more accessible for trading.

The launch of a new investment vehicle -- bitcoin-indexed exchange traded funds (ETFs) in the United States -- has opened up the sector to a wider public by allowing investors to bet on bitcoin's price without owning it directly.

Specialized companies such as Grayscale and Wall Street giants such as asset manager BlackRock are among those now investing in the digital token.

Haven investment?

The soaring price is also due to an impending technical four-yearly phenomenon known as halving -- the next round of which is due for next month.

This involves cutting in half the reward for "mining" bitcoin, slowing the rate at which units are created and restricting their supply.

Bitcoin is often viewed as a haven investment, helping it benefit in times of dollar weakness, such as in recent weeks with traders expecting the Federal Reserve to soon start cutting US interest rates as inflation cools.

The bitcoin rally comes at a time when cryptocurrency is struggling to restore its image after the collapse of several leading players in the sector, not least the bankruptcy of the FTX exchange platform in November 2022.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty of embezzling billions of dollars in customer deposits without their permission and bitcoin's price collapsed in the aftermath of the case, reminiscent of previous cycles of the cybercurrencies' booms and busts.

Some commentators argue that bitcoin is the work of such scope and complexity that its creation must be the result of a group of people, rather than a single developer.

Salty foods are making people sick − in part by poisoning their microbiomes

The Conversation
March 12, 2024 

Salt Robert Guenther/dpa







People have been using salt since the dawn of civilization to process, preserve and enhance foods. In ancient Rome, salt was so central to commerce that soldiers were paid their “salarium,” or salaries, in salt, for instance.

Salt’s value was in part as a food preservative, keeping unwanted microbes at bay while allowing desired ones to grow. It was this remarkable ability to regulate bacterial growth that likely helped spark the development of fermented foods ranging from sauerkraut to salami, olives to bread, cheese to kimchi.

Today, salt has become ubiquitous and highly concentrated in increasingly processed diets. The evidence has mounted that too much salt – specifically the sodium chloride added to preserve and enhance the flavor of many highly processed foods – is making people sick. It can cause high blood pressure and contribute to heart attacks and stroke. It is also associated with an increased risk of developing stomach and colon cancer, Ménière’s disease, osteoporosis and obesity.

How might a substance previously thought worth its weight in gold have transformed into something many medical institutions consider a key predictor of disease?

Salt lobbyists may be one answer to this question. And as a gastroenterologist and research scientist at the University of Washington, I want to share the mounting evidence that microbes from the shadows of your gut might also shed some light on how salt contributes to disease.

Blood pressure cookers

Sodium’s role in blood pressure and heart disease results largely from its regulating the amount of water inside your blood vessels. In simple terms, the more sodium in your blood, the more water it pulls into your blood vessels. This leads to higher blood pressure and subsequently an increased risk for heart attack and stroke. Some people may be more or less sensitive to the effects salt has on blood pressure.

Recent research suggests an additional way salt may raise blood pressure – by altering your gut microbiome. Salt leads to a decrease in healthy microbes and the key metabolites they produce from fiber. These metabolites decrease inflammation in blood vessels and keep them relaxed, contributing to reduced blood pressure.


Extra salt may contribute to high blood pressure. 

Jupiterimages/Stockbyte via Getty Images

With the exception of certain organisms that thrive in salt called halophiles, high levels of salt can poison just about any microbe, even ones your body wants to keep around. This is why people have been using salt for a long time to preserve food and keep unwanted bacteria away.

But modern diets often have too much sodium. According to the World Health Organization, healthy consumption amounts to less than 2,000 milligrams per day for the average adult. The global mean intake of 4,310 milligrams of sodium has likely increased the amount of salt in the gut over healthy levels.

Salt of the girth

Sodium is connected to health outcomes other than blood pressure, and your microbiome may be playing a role here, too.

High sodium diets and higher sodium levels in stool are significantly linked to metabolic disorders, including elevated blood sugar, fatty liver disease and weight gain. In fact, one study estimated that for every one gram per day increase in dietary sodium, there is a 15% increased risk of obesity.

A gold-standard dietary study from the National Institutes of Health found that those on a diet of ultraprocessed foods over two weeks ate about 500 more calories and weighed about 2 pounds more compared with those on a minimally processed diet. One of the biggest differences between the two diets was the extra 1.2 grams of sodium consumed with the ultraprocessed diets.

A leading explanation for why increased salt may lead to weight gain despite having no calories is that sodium increases cravings. When sodium is combined with simple sugars and unhealthy fats, these so-called hyperpalatable foods may be linked to fat gain, as they are particularly good at stimulating the reward centers in the brain and addictionlike eating behaviors.


Many people could do with a pinch less of salt. 

Skynesher/E+ via Getty Images

Salt may also connect to cravings via a short circuit in the gut microbiome. Microbiome metabolites stimulate the release of a natural version of weight loss drugs Wegovy and Ozempic, the gut hormone GLP-1. Through GLP-1, a healthy microbiome can control your appetite, blood sugar levels and your body’s decision to burn or store energy as fat. Too much salt may interfere with its release.

Other explanations for salt’s effect on metabolic disease, with varying amounts of evidence, include increased sugar absorption, increased gut-derived corticosteroids and a sugar called fructose that can lead to fat accumulation and decreases in energy use for heat production.

Desalin-nations

While many countries are implementing national salt reduction initiatives, sodium consumption in most parts of the world remains on the rise. Dietary salt reduction in the United States in particular remains behind the curve, while many European countries have started to see benefits such as lower blood pressure and fewer deaths from heart disease through initiatives like improved package labeling of salt content, reformulating foods to limit salt and even salt taxes.

Comparing the nutrition facts of fast-food items between countries reveals considerable variability. For instance, McDonald’s chicken nuggets are saltiest in the U.S. and even American Coke contains salt, an ingredient it lacks in other countries.



Some fast foods have more salt than others.

Peter Dazeley/The Image Bank via Getty Images

The salt industry in the U.S may have a role here. It lobbied to prevent government regulations on salt in the 2010s, not dissimilar from what the tobacco industry did with cigarettes in the 1980s. Salty foods sell well. One of the key voices of the salt industry for many years, the now-defunct Salt Institute, may have confused public health messaging around the importance of salt reduction by emphasizing the less common instances where restriction can be dangerous.

But the evidence for reducing salt in the general diet is mounting, and institutions are responding. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued new industry guidance calling for a voluntary gradual reduction of salt in commercially processed and prepared foods. The Salt Institute dissolved in 2019. Other organizations such as the American Frozen Food Institute and major ingredient suppliers such as Cargill are on board with lowering dietary salt.

From add-vice to advice

How can you feed your gut microbiome well while being mindful of your salt intake?

Start with limiting your consumption of highly processed foods: salty meats (such as fast food and cured meat), salty treats (such as crackers and chips) and salty sneaks (such as soft drinks, condiments and breads). Up to 70% of dietary salt in the U.S. is currently consumed from packaged and processed foods.

Instead, focus on foods low in added sodium and sugar and high in potassium and fiber, such as unprocessed, plant-based foods: beans, nuts, seeds, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Fermented foods, though often high in sodium, may also be a healthier option due to high levels of short-chain fatty acids, fiber, polyphenols and potassium.

Finally, consider the balance of dietary sodium and potassium. While sodium helps keep fluid in your blood vessels, potassium helps keep fluid in your cells. Dietary sodium and potassium are best consumed in balanced ratios.

While all advice is best taken with a grain of salt, your microbiome gently asks that it just not be large.

Christopher Damman, Associate Professor of Gastroenterology, School of Medicine, University of Washington

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Redwood trees are growing almost as fast in the UK as their Californian cousins – study

The Conversation
March 13, 2024 

Redwood forest in Muir Woods National Park. California's so-called Grove of Titans, a patch of parkland near the Oregon border, is home to some of the planet's tallest trees. Yuval Helfman/dpa

What can live for over 3,000 years, weigh over 150 tonnes and could be sitting almost unnoticed in your local park? Giant sequoias (known as giant redwoods in the UK) are among the tallest and heaviest organisms that have ever lived on Earth, not to mention they have the potential to live longer than other species.

My team’s new study is the first to look at the growth of giant sequoias in the UK – and they seem to be doing remarkably well. Trees at two of the three sites we studied matched the average growth rates of their counterparts in the US, where they come from. These remarkable trees are being planted in an effort to help absorb carbon, but perhaps more importantly they are becoming a striking and much-admired part of the UK landscape.

To live so long, giant sequoias have evolved to be extraordinarily resilient. In their native northern California, they occupy an ecological niche in mountainous terrain 1400 – 2100 metres above sea level.

Their thick spongy bark insulates against fire and disease and they can survive severe winters and arid summers. Despite these challenges these trees absorb and store CO₂ faster and in greater quantities than almost any other in the world, storing up to five times more carbon per hectare than even tropical rainforests. However, the changing climate means Californian giant sequoias are under threat from more frequent and extreme droughts and fires. More than 10% of the remaining population of around 80,000 wild trees were killed in a single fire in 2020 alone.
Tree giants from the US

What is much less well-known is that there are an estimated half a million sequoias (wild and planted) in England, dotted across the landscape. So how well are the UK giant sequoias doing? To try and answer this, my team used a technique called terrestrial laser scanning to measure the size and volume of giant sequoias.


Sequoia national park in California, USA. My Good Images/Shutterstock

The laser sends out half a million pulses a second and if a pulse hits a tree, the 3D location of each “hit” is recorded precisely. This gives us a map of tree structure in unprecedented detail, which we can use to estimate volume and mass, effectively allowing us to estimate the tree’s weight. If we know how old the trees are, we can estimate how fast they are growing and accumulating carbon.

As part of a Master’s project with former student Ross Holland, and along with colleagues at Kew Royal Botanical Gardens, we measured giant sequoias across three sites - Benmore botanical gardens in Scotland, Kew Wakehurst in Sussex and Havering Country Park in Essex. These sites span the wettest (Benmore) and driest (Havering) climates in the UK, enabling us to assess how rainfall affects growth.

The fastest-growing trees we measured are growing almost as fast as they do in California, adding 70cm of height and storing 160kg of carbon per year, about twice that of a native UK oak. The trees at Benmore are already among the tallest trees in the UK at 55 metres, the current record-holder being a 66 metre Douglas Fir in Scotland. The redwoods, being faster growing, are likely to take that title in the next decade or two. And these trees are “only” around 170 years old. No native tree in the UK is taller than about 47 meters. We also found significant differences in growth rates across the UK. They grow fastest in the north where the climate is wetter.

So how did these trees get here? Exotic plant collecting was big business in the 18th and 19th centuries, in large part as a display of wealth and taste. Giant sequoias were first introduced in 1853 by Scottish grain merchant and keen amateur collector Patrick Matthew, who gave them to friends. Later that same year commercial nurseryman William Lobb brought many more from California, along with accounts of the giant trees from which they came.

Giant sequoias quickly became a sensation and were planted to create imposing avenues, at the entrances of grand houses and estates, in churchyards, parks and botanic gardens. The letters about these trees helps us to accurately age planted trees, enabling us to calculate their growth rates.

Normally, you need to take samples from a tree’s core to get an accurate age estimate but that can damage the tree.

Imagine their potential

UK sequoias are unlikely to grow as tall as their Californian counterparts, which tend to grow in forests, due to lightning strikes and high winds – always a risk when you’re the tallest thing in the landscape rather than one among many. More recently, there has been a resurgence in planting giant sequoias in the UK, particularly in urban settings. This is because of their carbon storage potential and perhaps because people seem to really like them.

We urgently need to understand how UK trees will fare in the face of much hotter, drier summers, stormier winters and with increased risks of fire. Global trade is also increasing the spread of disease among plant life. More work is needed to consider the impact of planting non-native species like giant sequoias on native habitats and biodiversity but our work has shown that they are apparently very happy with our climate, so far.

More importantly, we have to remember that trees are more than just stores of carbon. If we value trees only as carbon sticks we will end up with thousands of hectares of monoculture, which isn’t good for nature.

But these giant sequoias are here to stay and are becoming a beautiful and resilient part of our landscape.

Mathias Disney, Reader in Remote Sensing, Department of Geography, UCL

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.