AFRICA

The Train of Regeneration: Green Peace for the Oases from Béchar to Tindouf

A monumental project, a regenerative potential in hibernation, with citizen contribution to a national flagship project

By El Habib Ben Amara

January 21, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Andrew Millison

Facing the strategic challenges in Algeria’s Southwest — water security, sustainable resource management, territorial stability, and socio-economic development — it is essential to complement major national projects with integrated approaches capable of amplifying their long-term benefits.

This contribution aims to do just that. It offers a complementary perspective on a state-led infrastructure project, exploring how a strategic investment can also become a lever for ecological regeneration, local wealth creation, and the sustainable strengthening of national food security.

In a context marked by heavy dependence on hydrocarbons — and soon, mineral resources — alongside regional water dynamics beyond our control, it is timely to exercise territorial intelligence. Designing resilient ecosystems capable of capturing, retaining, and valorizing water is key to enhancing the productive autonomy of local territories.

The Southwest of Algeria faces a paradox: a land rich in minerals and naturally capable of regeneration, yet increasingly dependent on agricultural imports from the North and extremely vulnerable to climate extremes. Droughts and floods alternate, access to fresh products is limited, and the cost of meat continues to rise. At worst, the country risks selling iron and hydrocarbons to import what this very land could produce locally — through its soil, water, and thousands of hands, especially those of its youth. Reversing this absurd cycle has become a necessity.

This reflection arises from years of observing the mega iron-mining project at Ghar Djebilat and its transport to Béchar, successfully managed by the national company Cosider. It proposes expanding the project’s scope by viewing it as a lever for regenerative development, integrating ecological, economic, and social dimensions.

Water: the true treasure at the heart of everything

The project could be called “The Train of Regeneration for Green Peace in the Sahara.” It is not only about extraction but about giving back. The real treasure lies not beneath the surface, but above it — falling from the sky: water.

We sell non-renewable resources to fund desalination plants, while we could instead capture the rain that currently flows to the sea or evaporates in the desert. We cannot continue to import this vital resource indirectly; we must learn to retain it in our soils with intelligence and humility.

Desertification: reversing the logic with pragmatic solutions

Desertification is not inevitable. It manifests primarily through bare, eroded soils depleted of microbial life. Combating it requires genuine hydration of the land, maintaining soil moisture through simple, proven methods adapted to arid environments.

Water-retention half-moons, scientifically validated over thirty years by pioneering hydrologists like Michal Kravčík and successfully implemented by NGOs across Africa, are particularly suitable for this goal.

The operational capacity exists for large-scale deployment. Cosider, leveraging its logistics, machinery, and experience with the railway project, has the workforce, equipment, and field bases needed for excavation and light earthworks over a corridor exceeding 1,000 km. This workload plan could reconcile strategic infrastructure with ecological restoration while showcasing proven national expertise.

Pastures and livestock: towards strengthened food sovereignty

This greening process goes beyond soil stabilization and water-cycle improvement. It also allows for the reconstitution of natural pastures, essential for reviving camel herding and extensive sheep grazing, historically adapted to Saharan and pre-Saharan territories.

Restoring these pastoral areas reconnects livestock to local resources — soil, vegetation, and water — gradually reducing dependence on meat imports. Ultimately, this approach contributes to national food security, even during high-demand periods such as religious festivals, while fostering a sustainable pastoral economy that generates local income.

A concrete plan in two axes: from mining corridor to corridor of life

1. Hydrate the route, regenerate the soil: Excavate millions of half-moons (5 m diameter, 60 cm depth) perpendicular to water flows along the railway corridor. These basins will capture water, protect the track from floods, hydrate the soil, and enable pioneer vegetation to grow. Through evapotranspiration, this vegetation will generate atmospheric moisture, triggering a virtuous cycle of micro-rains.

2. Plant the future: In these water-filled basins, plant trees perfectly suited to arid conditions: argan, tamarisk, acacia, pistachio, fenugreek… These plantations will revive pastoralism, create new economic sectors, and stabilize the soil.

Revitalize the existing: oases as the starting point

Why build a new ecosystem when millennia-old ones are dying from neglect? The real starting point is revitalizing the existing oases along the Oued Saoura, hydro-agricultural masterpieces today threatened by wastewater discharge.

The first step is to reconnect the palmeries via a continuous route and restore their water supply. From Beni Ounif to Gsabi, passing through Taghit and Igli, along Oued Zouzfana and then Oued Saoura, the principle is the same: retain water. The same logic applies to Oued Guir and Daoura, all at risk of drying out.

A network of small perpendicular dams will slow floods, encourage infiltration, and recharge aquifers. This soft-retention approach should also guide protection of urban areas like Béchar against floods, far more efficiently than costly post-disaster repairs.

In complement to the agricultural projects initiated by the State over the past 20 years — where each farm had its well and basin — every farm should now have rainwater retention measures integrated on site.

A civilizational project reconciling time and territory

This plan is more than a technical intervention; it is a civilizational project, harmonizing temporalities and territories:

Short-term economic: The State can invest part of the mine’s revenue into regeneration over its lifetime.

Medium-term social: Thousands of low-skilled jobs are created in excavation, planting, and maintenance.

Long-term ecological and economic: Reduced meat and milk imports, new wealth through medicinal plants, and revived pastoralism.

It is also a matter of reconciliation. This region has endured, even after independence, nuclear and biological testing. Its residents, resilient guardians of desert life, bequeathed oases and traditional knowledge. Each palmerie must become a station on the train of regeneration — connecting communities, reactivating craftsmanship, and offering hope for self-sufficiency.

Choosing territorial intelligence

The overconfidence of modernity has resulted in endless drilling and wastewater discharge into these palmeries. Wisdom today lies in the small and the multiple: tiny dams, small half-moons, simple measures replicated millions of times.

Ignoring this path condemns the Southwest to dependency and costly disasters. Embracing it turns the territory into a living sponge, where every drop counts to make the desert green again.

Green Peace with the Sahara is not a dream. It is a concrete, pragmatic, and profoundly human plan, placing water, life, and territorial intelligence at the center of development. The Train of Regeneration is at the station — it only awaits political will to depart.

Pragmatic vision

Phasing:

Year 1: phase across 50 km of the railway corridor to demonstrate effectiveness, leveraging Cosider’s capabilities.

Years 2–5: Gradual deployment across the corridor’s width.

Years 5–10: Expansion to the entire region, with new economic sectors.

Benefits for all:

State: Protects mining and railway investments, reduces emergency costs (floods, imports), and demonstrates integrated, visionary development.

Population: Immediate local employment, village revitalization, pastoral revival, improved living conditions.

Environment: Concrete fight against desertification, soil restoration, reactivated water cycle, microclimate creation.

Economy: Diversification beyond extractives, export of medicinal plants, reduced food dependency.

A promising future:

Short-term (0–3 years): Jobs in earthworks and planting; first signs of vegetation.

Medium-term (3–10 years): Reduced agricultural imports, emergence of new economic sectors, gradual aquifer recharge.

Long-term (10+ years): Revitalized oases, food autonomy, a green, resilient, prosperous Southwest.

Our message

The Train of Regeneration is not a utopia. It is a realistic, actionable plan funded by local resources and driven by proven national expertise.

The advantages are clear:

• Logistics already in place
• Evident needs
• Proven techniques
• Available workforce
• Strategic timing

What remains is political will to launch the first phase.

This project embodies a new approach to development: not “extract and leave,” but “invest and regenerate.” It promises Green Peace in our Sahara, a fertile, prosperous South, and a future for the next generation.Email

El Habib Ben Amara

El Habib Ben Amara is an urban architect, science communicator committed to regenerating the water cycle, and translator of The New Water Paradigm by Michal Kravčík et al. into French and Arabic.

China Trumps the Western Empire on Three Technological Fronts

Eve Ottenberg

 January 22, 2026

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Photograph Source: Peggy Greb, US department of agriculture – Public Domain

China may have paused its rare earth ban in November, but such a sanction remains a sword of Damocles over U.S. arms manufacturers. Nor is it China’s only high-tech weapon. Quite apart from its ability to tank the U.S. economy by – first step – ditching U.S. debt, Beijing can easily overcome Washington in three technological arenas: rare earths, jamming Starlink, which is so critical on any western battlefield, and, as geo-political researcher Brian Berletic has convincingly argued on X on January 15, by securing its and its allies’ information space. This trio of challenges has many implications, for instance: on January 12, the Trump regime slapped tariffs on anyone buying Iranian oil, so India stopped much of this trade pronto – but China picked up the slack and now purchases almost ALL Iranian oil. Is Beijing being tariffed by the geniuses in Washington? No way. It trades with Iran with impunity and not in dollars, because at the first whiff of trouble from the U.S., the 5000-year-old civilization can slam export controls back on Gallium, Germanium, Graphite, Antinomy and other rare earths and bingo! It zaps most American weapons production to a halt.

How can China do this? Because it’s home to 60 percent of the world’s rare earths, and the other 40 percent are nearly inaccessible. Even more unassailably, 90 percent of all rare earth processing occurs in China. So Beijing literally sells Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other U.S. arms makers the materials, without which they cannot produce modern weapons. That includes radar, submarines, F-35s, drones and missiles. In short, China has American defense contractors by the throat and knows this very well.

And not just weapons producers. Electric vehicles, wind turbines, laptops, data centers, smart-phones and AI infrastructure like semi-conductors and data storage all depend on rare earths only available from China. So if Donald “Over 100 Percent Tariffs on China” Trump threatens Xi Jinping with astronomical costs, as he did in October, life in the U.S. that depends on modern, computerized conveniences pretty much grinds to a halt. This is not news. It was reported in this space in July 2023. That’s when Joe “Bully Beijing” Biden so offended the Chinese nation that for the first time ever it announced export controls on Germanium and Gallium. It’s reassuring to know that Washington finally got the message, and we American consumers can still purchase laptops.

But it wasn’t easy, since our rulers are pretty dense when it comes to recognizing that anyone besides them has power. In 2025, it took China restricting such rare earths as Samarium, Lutetium, Terbium, Gadolinium, Dysprosium, Yttrium, Scandium, Holmium, Thulium, Erbium, Ytterbium and Europium for white house dunces to realize there was a gun to their heads. Back then, China said dual use (civilian/military) products required export controls. Beltway bigwigs woke up with a start: Washington no longer cornered the market on crippling international economic sanctions. And the rest is history.

But just because Beijing paused its rare earth export controls doesn’t mean anyone there’s asleep at the switch. Look at what’s going on with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which is absolutely vital to western wars and which relies on low earth orbit satellites for streaming and communications in essential spots like battlefields. Like in Ukraine, Iran and Taiwan. The Russkies figured out how to jam Starlink in Ukraine, while Chinese researches simulated “large scale electronic warfare against Elon Musk’s Starlink…jamming [it] across an area matching Taiwan,” according to 9Dashline on X on November 26.

Then came the idiotic Sturm und Drang over Iran, the week of January 15 – would the nitwits in the white house bomb the Persian Empire or no? They backed off for multiple reasons: Tehran has long-range missiles galore, very effective Russian and Chinese Air Defense, the capacity to put large holes in American navy ships and a clear shot at numerous U.S. military bases in the region, to say nothing of its ability to obliterate the postage-stamp-sized acreage of Israel. Also, it was reported on X that Moscow and Beijing showed Tehran how to zap the 40,000 Starlink terminals that the western Empire had smuggled into Iran, namely by totally blacking out the internet, so those terminals lit up like Christmas trees. Without Starlink, the Iranians began capturing the 1000s of commandos who’d infiltrated from Kurdistan, and the regime change op collapsed.

The third big technological field on which China has outplayed the U.S. Empire is securing its information space. This is a stupendous block against CIA-backed coups, regime change efforts and color revolutions, and both China and Russia have outstripped everyone else in the multipolar world in this regard. So they have blazed a trail that any non-U.S.-puppet government interested in survival must follow – looking at you, Iran and Brazil, just for starters. “Throughout the 21^st century,” wrote Brian Berletic on X January 15, “the U.S. has deliberately and maliciously weaponized its domination over global information space, specifically through U.S.-based social media platforms like X (formerly twitter), Meta/Facebook, YouTube, Google, Instagram and many others.” But China and Russia, over years and with hard work, “secured their respective information space. This has – in turn – allowed both nations to secure and stabilize their political space, providing the social harmony required to not only survive ongoing attempts by the U.S. to encircle an contain both global powers, but in many instances to thrive.”

Berletic argues that China and Russia accomplished this by creating “domestic alternatives to the U.S.-based social media platforms.” They have “online networks that can be disconnected from Western-influenced information space when and if necessary.” And now, apparently, they have helped Iran achieve this, too, though unlike China and Russia, it probably has not yet created a reservoir of technicians and programmers “to maintain the physical infrastructure of this information space,” experts who are patriotic and trained in-country. Berletic compares all this to any sovereign nation’s physical infrastructure. He concludes that any country that surrenders this key aspect of national security to the U.S. pays the price of “political infiltration, capture and even complete collapse,” and urges Russia and China to export “turnkey domestic alternatives to U.S. social media platforms, physical infrastructure and gateways as well as electronic warfare equipment” for use against such assaults as the recent U.S. fiasco vis a vis Iran.

These three developments – with rare earths, Starlink and securing the information space – signify a crossroads for the western Empire. It can continue to hurl its bombs, artillery and other assets futilely against the multipolar powers that have achieved independence and, if it does, face devastating consequences, such as the massive battlefield losses in Ukraine, the aborted Iran assault and disrupted supply chains for U.S. defense contractors, disruptions that will in short order cripple American weapons making. Or the U.S., the European Union and other vassals like Australia, Canada, South Korea and Japan can accommodate the unbeatable new powers and relax in the knowledge that, apparently, neither Russia nor China nor Russia/China aspires to be a global hegemon. They appear content to rule in their immediate neighborhood. But of course, accepting that means that the U.S., too, must abandon the hallucination of global hegemony. Are the psychopaths in Washinton up to this task – or does it take reality, as it already has done in a small way, to smack them in the face in a much bigger way? I, for one, have no idea. You pick.

Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest novel is Booby Prize. She can be reached at her website.

Israeli Agricultural Exports Face Looming ‘Collapse’ as World Rejects Products Over Gaza Genocide

By Jonathan Ofir

January 20, 2026

Source: Mondoweiss

Image by Tzahy Lerner/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 3.0

In recent months, Israel’s public broadcaster aired several reports on Israel’s massive problem in exporting fruits, particularly to European markets.

Put out by Kan 11, the reports indicate what the growers themselves describe as a looming “collapse,” unwittingly testifying to the importance of the continuing international boycott of Israel. 

Now Israel finds itself alongside Russia in the “alliance of the boycotted,” one report from the public broadcaster says. It’s hard to identify a single party responsible for this state of isolation, but Europe is a big part of the story. 

“They don’t want our mangos,” a mango farmer tells Kan 11 in one of the reports. “In Europe, they talk to us only if they’re missing something. Only then do they buy from us. If they have an alternative, they avoid it.” 

Another part of the story is Yemen’s Ansar Allah, more commonly known as “the Houthis.” Their blockade of the Red Sea in the south — despite their May agreement with the U.S., which did not desist from threatening Israel — has forced shipping companies to use longer and more expensive routes. This has also compromised the Asian market. 

But despite the lack of a single, clear factor, Israel’s genocide in Gaza remains one clear common cause arching across the various elements. Israelis simultaneously deny and declare their support for it, as evidenced by a major poll last year showing that a vast majority of Israelis believe there are “no innocents in Gaza.” 

Due to Israelis’ national self-righteousness — and their sense of entitlement to commit genocide under the pretext of “self-defense” — the first victim of the export crisis is the Israeli collective ego. We see farmers cry in the report, and the national sympathy naturally goes to the citrus and mango growers — even as one of them, a retired general, tells everyone how he is “done with” the Palestinians.

In other words, the Israeli backlash against the global boycott implicitly adds to the hatred of Palestinians, despising those who don’t stand with Israel. 

But what’s actually taking a hit in Israel isn’t one economic sector or the other — it’s the Israeli brand, and it may not recover. 

Ironically, the best representation of that brand is the “Jaffa oranges,” which have virtually disappeared from the international market — a brand that in and of itself is a representation of Israel’s settler colonial expropriation of Palestinian culture.   

Let us have a look at two main media reports, one about citrus and the other about mangos, which make up two major Israeli agricultural exports.

‘Where are the oranges?‘

The first Kan 11 report, which aired at the end of November 2025 and ran under the title of “End of the Orange Season” — in reference to a popular Israeli song — focuses on the citrus orchards of kibbutz Givat Haim Ichud. Incidentally, that is the kibbutz where I was born and raised. 

The orchard is located just near the point where the cacti from the ethnically cleansed village of Khirbet al-Manshiyya can still be found. The kibbutz orchard grower, Nitzan Weisberg, explains that all the orchards are at risk of being uprooted due to a lack of export orders. 

Weisberg started managing plantations for the kibbutz two years ago and had initially cut down half of the citrus orchards in an attempt to make the sector profitable again. 

But then orders from Europe started to be cancelled, and now he can’t even sell the produce from the half-orchard that is left. “Israeli fruit, despite its high quality, is currently less desired in Europe,” he says. “We’re actually operating at a loss since the war [in Gaza].” 

If things get worse, Weisberg says, it will lead to “collapse.” 

The tour continues just across the road to the orchards of kibbutz Ein Hahoresh, where Israeli historian Benny Morris was born. There, Gal Alon, a third-generation citrus farmer, talks about how his family decided not to export at all from the beginning of the war. Export is “a very tough and aggressive world,” he says, so he decided to rely solely on local markets. 

The film crew then drives two miles west to Hibat Zion, a moshav (agricultural settlement) where farmer Ronen Alfasi is negotiating the price for grapefruits with a dealer who wants to sell them to Gaza markets. Alfasi says that the packed products will be too expensive for them to buy, even though his warehouses and refrigerated storage is full. He shows that the fruits on the trees have exceeded their size limit and will be useless for sale as fruit, let alone for export. They will have to be sold locally for juice.

The report also notes that hardly any oranges are being grown. There are some, but only for local markets. The “Jaffa orange” brand is history, but that brand was made world-famous by Palestinian farmers in the mid-1800s, getting its name from the port city of Jaffa that exported it — a city that was nearly entirely ethnically cleansed by Zionist militias in 1948. Israel then took over the brand, a part of the same cultural appropriation that regards hummus and falafel as Israeli.  

“Before the war, we were exporting some [oranges] to Scandinavia,” says Daniel Klusky, Secretary General of the Israeli Citrus Growers’ Organization. “But after the war, we haven’t even exported a single container.”

‘Alliance of the boycotted’

Ronen Alfasi says that most of the crops from his sector used to be exported to Asian countries, but mentions the “logistical problem against the Houthis” as the reason for which “all the logistical lines have changed.” Longer, more expensive routes were sought, Alfasi says, with containers arriving 90 to 100 days late. “And they came with big quality problems,” he described. 

The only remaining market, Alfasi says, is Russia. Even though he’s losing money as a citrus farmer, he’s exporting to Russia just to cover warehouse expenses.

At one point, the interviewer asks an uncomfortable question: “Can we say that Russia is the only market that still talks to us?” 

“They still talk to us”, says Alfasi, “but in Europe, less so…they talk to us only if they’re missing something. If they have an alternative, they avoid buying from us.” 

“And was it said explicitly that it’s because of…Israel’s national situation?” the interviewer asks more pointedly. 

“Yes,” Alfasi says clearly. 

“So the Europeans don’t count us in, and the Asians are blocked. At least the Russians still buy some goods from us — the alliance of the boycotted,” the interviewer concludes.

Rotting mangos

It was a similar picture in another Kan report from late August 2025 about the mango harvest in the north. Here, they feature a retired general and former military spokesperson, Moti Almoz, now a mango farmer. He is seen barking orders at workers while using military jargon.

The fruit looks good enough, but the season is nonetheless “one of the hardest experienced by the mango growers in Israel,” the narrator describes. “They are talking about an actual collapse.” 

Almoz says this isn’t because production is bad — he had “an insane harvest” this season, he maintains — but rather because “25 percent of it is on the ground.” 

“Why didn’t you pick them?” the interviewer asks. 

“Because I couldn’t do anything with them. After the fridge is full, and after the merchants take what they’ve ordered…the people of Israel also need to eat meat, some bread and cheese. They can’t just eat mango.” 

Many farmers’ markets for mango producers were closed this year, the report says, and Almoz notes he is losing hundreds of thousands of shekels, while the larger farms are losing millions. 

Dodi Matalon, a farmer for the shared mango orchards of the kibbutzim of Moran and Lotem, says this year they’re not even sending fruit to the warehouses because it won’t be profitable. Instead, people arrive in their own cars and buy boxes directly from the orchard. “I hope it will help us to just stay afloat,” Matalon comments. “But it won’t really save us.”

Out of 1,200 tons of fruit, 700 will remain on the trees, fall to the ground, and rot. “It’s a crisis the likes of which we haven’t ever experienced,” Matalon explains. 

Then comes the narrator’s framing. Like the other report, this one also alludes to the genocide. “This crisis was formed by a combination of several factors which have all landed simultaneously — and most are related to the war,” the narrator says. “Gaza, which held 15 percent of the market, closed off completely. The Palestinians in the West Bank also buy much less. But the big hit came from abroad: 30 percent of Israeli mangos go for export, especially to Europe — but this year, the ports began to close.”  

“Because of the war in Gaza, they are reducing the scale of purchase from Israel,” says Almoz. “They don’t want our mangos.” 

Matalon says that in Europe, there are “small signs indicating where the produce came from,” noting that “we can see that it has an effect”.

He believes that the deteriorating state of Israeli export agriculture requires governmental intervention if the sector is to be saved, or else, he warns, “we will simply find ourselves without export agriculture.” 

Would rather go broke than sell to Gazans

The narrator says that Almoz is an old Labor guy, a “security hawk” who has become more hawkish since October 7. The predominant position of these kinds of people was articulated by the head of the kibbutz movement, Nir Meir, in March 2024: “Many of the kibbutzniks who experienced October 7 can’t bear to hear Arabic and want to see Gaza erased.”  

Almoz echoes similar sentiments, contending that after October 7, “we need to rethink everything, everything. I was someone who said that more [Palestinian] workers in Israel might mean less terror.” 

“Were you wrong?” he is asked. 

“Of course, what do you mean? I’m done with them,” he says emphatically. “You’re talking to a person who is done with them. Everything you may tell me, that they may change…it’s fairy tales…” 

In fact, Almoz says he won’t sell to Gaza, even if it would bring in some money. “If there’s a chance that I lose money because this [mango] turns into a Hamas interest, then I need to lose money.” 

Matalon was shedding literal tears in the report, but the general sense of self-righteousness in Israel has insulated him and those like him, for the while, from having to recognize that genocide has a price. These are the bitter fruits of genocide. Email

Jonathan Ofir

Jonathan Ofir is an Israeli musician, conductor and blogger / writer based in Denmark.