Civil war economy hits Myanmar garment workers


By AFP
November 20, 2024

A civil war is devastating Myanmar, but thousands of garment workers in the country still churn out clothing for brands like Adidas and H&M - Copyright AFP/File Ye Aung THU

As civil war pounds Myanmar’s economy and drives up prices, garment worker Wai Wai often starts her shift making clothes for international brands on an empty stomach.

The orders she and thousands of others churn out for big names including Adidas, H&M and others bring in billions of dollars in export earnings for Myanmar.

It is a rare bright spot in an economy crippled by the military’s 2021 coup and subsequent slide into civil war.

But for 12 hours of sewing clothes for export to China and Europe in a bleak industrial suburb of Yangon, Wai Wai earns just over $3 a day, which has to cover rent, food and clothes.

It must also stretch to supporting her parents in Rakhine state at the other end of the country, where conflict between the military and ethnic rebels has wrecked the economy and driven food prices up.

With times so hard, Wai Wai “decided to mostly skip breakfast” to save extra money, she told AFP, asking to use a pseudonym.

“Sometimes we just have leftover rice from the night before and save money, because if we use money for breakfast, there will be less money to transfer to our family.”

In a nearby factory, Thin Thin Khine and her two sisters work 12 hours a day sewing uniforms for a Myanmar company and earn a monthly salary of around 350,000 Myanmar kyat.

That’s about $165 according to the official exchange rate set by the junta of just over 2,000 kyat to the dollar.

On the open market, a greenback can fetch around 4,500 kyat.

“All my sisters are working, but there is no extra money at all,” she said.

“In the past, we could buy two or three new items of clothing every month, but now we can’t afford to buy new clothes, cosmetics or things for our personal care.”



– Lights out –



Since the coup, Zara owner Inditex, Marks and Spencer and others have left Myanmar, citing the difficulties of operating amid the turmoil.

Others such as Adidas, H&M and Danish company Bestseller have stayed, for now.

Adidas told AFP it worked closely with its suppliers in Myanmar to safeguard workers’ rights, while H&M said it was gradually phasing out its operations in the country.

Estimates of the apparel industry’s export earnings vary.

Myanmar’s commerce ministry said exports were worth more than $3 billion in the past financial year.

But the European Chamber of Commerce in Myanmar said export earnings were higher, surging from $5.7 billion in 2019 to $7.6 billion in 2022 — with more than half of exports going to the bloc.

The European body said the rise in Myanmar exports was helped by low labour costs compared to Cambodia and China, along with trade preferences granted by the EU and United States.

Keeping the factories running is a challenge.

In May, the junta said the national electricity grid was meeting about half of the country’s daily electricity needs.

To keep the lights on and the machines spinning, factory owners rely on expensive generators — themselves vulnerable to the regular diesel shortages that plague Yangon.

“The working situation right now is like we invest more money and get less profits,” said small factory owner Khin Khin Wai.

Cotton spindles have more than doubled in price from 18 cents to 50 cents, she said.

“Our lives here are not progressing year by year, they are falling apart,” she said.

Wai Wai’s factory supplies Danish clothing brand Bestseller.

A Bestseller spokesman told AFP that sourcing from Myanmar was “complex” and the company “continuously assessed” the situation, publishing regular reports on its operations in the country.

According to its September report, “on average” workers at Myanmar factories supplying it were paid a daily wage of 10,000-13,000 kyat ($5-6.50 at the official rate), including bonuses and overtime.

– Crackdown –

Abuses in the sector have spiked since the military took power, rights groups say.

This month, Swiss-based union federation IndustriALL Global Union said the junta had banned unions and arrested union leaders.

“There are widespread, comprehensive reports on the extensive violations of workers’ rights,” IndustriALL general secretary Atle Hoie said in a statement.

AFP has sought comment from the junta about conditions in the industry.

The latest concern is a conscription law enforced from February to shore up the military’s depleted ranks.

In its most recent report on Myanmar, Bestseller said two workers at factories that supply it had been drafted between March and September of this year.

Women are included in the draft, although the junta has said it will not recruit them for now.

For migrant workers like Wai Wai who do not have the means to pay bribes to avoid any draft, it is a huge worry.

“I am full of fear about how I will face it if I am called up for conscription,” Wai Wai said.

‘Primitive’ beers draw crowds at Belgian brewery


By AFP
November 21, 2024


Foam coming out of a barrel containing 'lambic' in the process of aging at Cantillon brewery in Brussels - Copyright AFP Simon Wohlfahrt
Matthieu DEMEESTERE

Winding between copper vats and oak barrels, a cluster of early-morning visitors filed through a cavernous Brussels building for an up-close peek at craft beers brewed using a centuries-old method — before sampling the result.

Since it was founded in 1900 in Anderlecht, a working-class district of the Belgian capital, Brasserie Cantillon has been turning out so-called primitive “lambic” beers that are steeped in local tradition.

What makes lambics special is they start with a process known as spontaneous fermentation — through exposure to wild yeasts, specifically those native to Belgium’s Zenne valley — as opposed to cultivated brewer’s yeast.

Aged in wood barrels for months to years, which allows for a secondary fermentation to occur as the beer’s sugars convert to carbon dioxide, the result is a distinctive dry beer with a faintly tart aftertaste.

Cantillon’s speciality is an even more niche type of beer known as “gueuze” — a blend of lambics from different years and whose fruity varieties include kriek, or cherry in Flemish — that has around 20 brewers in Belgium.

Towards the end of the 1970s, the brewery decided to set itself apart by turning its operations into a museum that today draws more than 30,000 visitors a year, amid a broader surge of enthusiasm for craft beers and micro-breweries.

On this November morning, tourists from Italy, France, Japan and Britain rubbed shoulders in what is billed as the last working lambic brewery in Brussels, watching its workers ply their craft.



– ‘Long lost’ –



Joining the tourists were two interns from Canada’s Quebec including Isabelle Gignac — a beer professional in her thirties who works at a micro-brewery on the shores of the Gaspe Peninsula.

Her boss sent her to Cantillon for five weeks to bring back some of its know-how.

“What makes a difference between the beers brewed here is how long they are aged, and what barrels are used,” she said.

Morello cherry, haskap, elderberry flower: the brewery uses a whole palette of fruity aromas for its gueuze beers, adding them at the secondary fermentation stage.

“Lambic is what comes closest to primitive beer — the kind that was made before Louis Pasteur and microbiologists discovered how yeast works in the second half of the 19th century,” explained one of Cantillon’s co-owners, Jean-Pierre Van Roy.

Compared to the 6.5 million hectolitres of beer imbibed in Belgium last year, Cantillon’s output is a mere drop, with an annual 2,500 hectolitres (55,00 UK gallons) produced on average. Two-thirds of that are sold abroad.

Together with his wife Claude Cantillon, granddaughter of the brewery’s founder Paul Cantillon, the couple remain majority stakeholders in the family business while the day to day is handled by their three children.

John Gallagher, an Irish academic based in Leeds in northern England, inherited his taste for Belgian brewing from a well-travelled uncle.

“These are beers rooted in a ‘terroir,'” he said approvingly as he sipped from a red fruit variety, using the French term designating the particular mix of soil, climate and culture that feeds a product’s character.

“That’s what gives them such a reputation with beer lovers,” Gallagher said. “In England, traditional methods have been long lost.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Gautam Adani: Billionaire Indian tycoon facing US bribery charges

AFP
November 21, 2024

Gautam Adani has been charged by US prosecutors with paying more than $250 million in bribes to Indian officials for lucrative solar energy supply contracts - Copyright AFP Sam PANTHAKY

Billionaire Indian industrialist Gautam Adani, whose business empire has been rocked by US bribery charges against him, is one of the corporate world’s great survivors.

The tycoon — a close ally of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi — oversees a vast conglomerate encompassing coal, airports, cement and media operations.

The US court charges that he paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes sent his companies’ shares plunging. But Adani has seen off big threats before.

On New Year’s Day in 1998, Adani and an associate were reportedly kidnapped by gunmen demanding a $1.5 million ransom, before being later released at an unknown location.

A decade later, he was dining at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal Palace hotel when it was besieged by militants, who killed 160 people in one of India’s worst terror attacks.

Trapped with hundreds of others, Adani reportedly hid in the basement all night before he was rescued by security personnel early the next morning.

“I saw death at a distance of just 15 feet,” he said of the experience after his private aircraft landed in his hometown Ahmedabad later that day.

Adani, 62, differs from his peers among India’s mega-rich, many of whom are known for throwing lavish birthday and wedding celebrations that are later splashed across newspaper gossip pages.

A self-described introvert, he keeps a low profile and rarely speaks to the media, often sending lieutenants to front corporate events.

“I’m not a social person that wants to go to parties,” he told the Financial Times in a 2013 interview.

– ‘Stop Adani’ –


Gautam Adani, whose empire has been rocked by panic-selling and allegations of fraud, is one of the business world’s great survivors – Copyright AFP INDRANIL MUKHERJEE

Adani was born in Ahmedabad, Gujarat state, to a middle-class family but dropped out of school at 16 and moved to financial capital Mumbai to find work in the lucrative gems trade.

After a short stint in his brother’s plastics business, he launched the flagship family conglomerate that bears his name in 1988 by branching out into the export trade.

His big break came seven years later with a contract to build and operate a commercial shipping port in Gujarat.

It grew to become India’s largest at a time when most ports were government-owned — the legacy of a sclerotic economic planning system that impeded growth for decades and was in the process of being dismantled.

Adani in 2009 expanded into coal, a lucrative sector for a country still almost totally dependent on fossil fuels to meet its energy needs, but a decision that brought greater international scrutiny as he rose rapidly up India’s rich list.

His purchase the following year of an untapped coal basin sparked years of “Stop Adani” protests in Australia after dismay at the project’s monumental environmental impact.

Similar controversies plagued his coal projects in central India, where forests home to tribal communities were cut down for mining operations.

– ‘Extraordinary growth’ –

Adani is considered to be close to Prime Minister Modi, a fellow Gujarat native, and offered the leader the use of a private company jet during the 2014 election campaign that swept him to power.

The tycoon has invested in the government’s strategic priorities, in recent years inaugurating a green energy business with ambitious targets.

In 2022, he completed a hostile takeover of broadcaster NDTV, a television news service considered one of the few media outlets willing to outwardly criticise Modi.

Adani batted away press freedom fears, but told the Financial Times that journalists should have the “courage” to say “when the government is doing the right thing every day”.

Last year a bombshell report from US investment firm Hindenburg Research claimed the conglomerate had engaged in a “brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades”.

Hindenburg said a pattern of “government leniency towards the group” stretching back decades had left investors, journalists, citizens and politicians unwilling to challenge its conduct “for fear of reprisal”.

Adani Group denied wrongdoing and characterised the report as a “calculated attack on India” but lost $150 billion in market capitalisation in the weeks after the report’s release.

Its founder saw his own net worth plunge by $60 billion over the same period, and he is now ranked by Forbes as the 25th-richest person globally.

US prosecutors on Wednesday charged the tycoon and two other board members with paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes and hiding the payments from investors.

The indictment accuses Adani Group’s leadership of bribing Indian government officials to secure lucrative government contracts.

The conglomerate and its founder have yet to respond to the charges.

How Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s alleged bribery scheme took off and unraveled

Indian billionaire Gautam Adani speaks during an inauguration ceremony after the Adani Group completed the purchase of Haifa Port in Israel on Jan. 31, 2023.(REUTERS/File Photo)

https://arab.news/pjuk8
Updated 50 sec ago
Reuters
November 22, 20240

Gautam Adani allegedly tried to bribe local officials in India to persuade them to buy electricity produced by his renewable energy company Adani Green Energy
The allegations caught the attention of US watchdog agencies as Adani’s companies were raising funds from US-based investors in several transactions starting in 2021


NEW YORK: In June of 2020, a renewable energy company owned by Indian billionaire Gautam Adani won what it called the single largest solar development bid ever awarded: an agreement to supply 8 gigawatts of electricity to a state-owned power company.

But there was a problem. Local power companies did not want to pay the prices the state company was offering, jeopardizing the deal, according to US authorities. To save the deal, Adani allegedly decided to bribe local officials to persuade them to buy the electricity.

That allegation is at the heart of US criminal and civil charges unsealed on Wednesday against Adani, who is not currently in US custody and is believed to be in India. His company, Adani Group, said the charges were “baseless” and that it would seek “all possible legal recourse.”

The alleged hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes promised to local Indian officials caught the attention of the US Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission as Adani’s companies were raising funds from US-based investors in several transactions starting in 2021.

This account of how the alleged scheme unfolded is drawn from federal prosecutors’ 54-page criminal indictment of Adani and seven of his associates and two parallel civil SEC complaints, which extensively cite electronic messages between the scheme’s alleged participants.

In early 2020, the Solar Energy Corporation of India awarded Adani Green Energy and another company, Azure Power Global, contracts for a 12-gigawatt solar energy project, expected to yield billions of dollars in revenue for both companies, according to the indictment.

It was a major step forward for Adani Green Energy, run by Adani’s nephew, Sagar Adani. Up until that point, the company had only earned roughly $50 million in its history and had yet to turn a profit, according to the SEC complaint.

The logo of the Adani Group is seen on the facade of its Corporate House on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, India, on November 21, 2024. (REUTERS)

But the initiative soon hit roadblocks. Local state electricity distributors were reluctant to commit to buying the new solar power, expecting prices to fall in the future, according to an April 7, 2021 report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a think tank.

Sagar Adani and the Azure CEO at the time discussed the delays and hinted at bribes on the encrypted messaging application WhatsApp, according to the SEC.

When the Azure CEO wrote on Nov. 24, 2020, that the local power companies “are being motivated,” Sagar Adani allegedly replied, “Yup ... but the optics are very difficult to cover. In February 2021, Sagar Adani allegedly wrote to the CEO, “Just so you know, we have doubled the incentives to push for these acceptances.”

The SEC did not name the Azure CEO as a defendant, but Azure’s securities filings show the CEO at the time was Ranjit Gupta.

Gupta was charged by the Justice Department with conspiracy to violate an anti-bribery law. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Azure said on Thursday it was cooperating with the US investigations, and that the individuals involved with the accusations had left the company more than a year ago.

‘Sudden good fortune’

In August of 2021, Gautam Adani had the first of several meetings with an official in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, to whom he allegedly ultimately promised $228 million in bribes in exchange for agreeing to have the state buy the power, according to the Justice Department’s indictment.

By December, Andhra Pradesh had agreed to buy the power, and other states with smaller contracts soon followed. Other states’ officials were promised bribes as well, US authorities said.

During a Dec. 6, 2021 meeting at a coffee shop, Azure executives allegedly discussed “rumors that the Adanis had somehow facilitated signing” of the deals, according to the SEC.

Gautam Adani said on Dec. 14, 2021, the company was on track “to become the world’s largest renewables player by 2030.”

“The sudden good fortune for Azure and Adani Green prompted speculation in the marketplace about the contract awards,” the SEC wrote in its complaint.

Letter from the SEC

Before long, the SEC began to probe. The agency sent a “general inquiry” letter to Azure — which at the time traded on the New York Stock Exchange — on March 17, 2022, asking about its recent contracts and if foreign officials had sought anything of value, according to the Justice Department indictment.
According to the Department of Justice, Gautam Adani told representatives of Azure during a meeting in his Ahmedabad, India office the next month that he expected to be reimbursed more than $80 million for the bribes he had paid officials that ultimately benefited Azure’s contracts.

Some Azure representatives and a leading investor in the company decided to pay Adani back by allowing his company to take over a potentially profitable project. The representatives and investor allegedly agreed to tell Azure’s board of directors that Adani had requested bribe money, but hid their role in the scheme, prosecutors said.

All the while, Adani’s companies were raising billions of dollars in loans and bonds through international banks, including from US investors. In four separate fundraising transactions between 2021 and 2024, the companies sent investors documents indicating that they had not paid bribes — statements prosecutors say are false and constitute fraud.

FBI search

During a visit to the United States on March 17, 2023, FBI agents seized Sagar Adani’s electronic devices. The agents handed him a search warrant from a judge indicating that the US government was investigating potential violations of fraud statutes and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

According to prosecutors, Gautam Adani emailed himself photographs of each page of the search warrant on March 18, 2023.

His companies nonetheless went through with a $1.36 billion syndicated loan agreement on Dec. 5, 2023, and another sale of secured notes in March 2024, and once again furnished investors with misleading information about their anti-bribery practices, according to prosecutors.

On Oct. 24, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn secured a secret grand jury indictment against Gautam Adani, Sagar Adani, Gupta, and five others allegedly involved in the scheme.
The indictment was unsealed on Nov. 20, prompting a $27 billion plunge in Adani Group companies’ market value. Adani Green Energy promptly canceled a scheduled $600 million bond sale.

UK sanctions Angola’s Isabel dos Santos in graft crackdown


By AFP
November 21, 2024

Isabel Dos Santos is one of three people dubbed 'infamous kleptocrats' by the UK government - Copyright AFP/File Patrick T. Fallon

The UK government on Thursday announced sanctions on Angola’s Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire businesswoman and daughter of the country’s former president, as part of a new anti-corruption drive.

It also sanctioned Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian tycoon with links to the Kremlin, and Aivars Lembergs, one of Latvia’s richest people, who is accused of abusing his political position to commit bribery and money laundering, the foreign ministry said.

They are all subject to travel bans and asset freezes, it added in a statement, calling them “three infamous kleptocrats” and accusing them of “stealing their countries’ wealth for personal gain”.

Dos Santos, the ministry said, had “systematically abused her positions at state-run companies to embezzle at least £350 million ($443 million), depriving Angola of resources and funding for much-needed development”.

Considered Africa’s richest woman, she is currently wanted by Angolan authorities investigating alleged illegalities in the management of national oil company Sonangol between 2016 and 2017.

Her father, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who died in 2022, ruled energy-rich Angola for 38 years until 2017.

She was sanctioned by the United States in 2021 for “involvement in significant corruption” and is barred from entering the United States.

Responding to the UK decision Thursday, dos Santos said that it was “incorrect and unjustified” and that she “intends to appeal”.

“I hope that the United Kingdom will give me the opportunity to present my evidence and prove these lies fabricated against me by the Angolan regime,” she said in a statement released in Portuguese.

“No court has found me guilty of corruption or bribery,” she added. “We are facing another step in Angola’s politically motivated campaign of persecution against me and my family.”

– ‘Ill-gotten gains’ –

Firtash is a one-time ally of ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

He is currently in Austria fighting extradition to the United States, where he is wanted on bribery and racketeering charges.

In June 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree imposing sanctions on Firtash, including the freezing of his assets and withdrawal of licences from his companies, after accusing him of selling titanium products to Russian military companies.

“(Firtash) extracted hundreds of millions of pounds from Ukraine through corruption and his control of gas distribution and has hidden tens of millions of pounds of ill-gotten gains in the UK property market alone,” the UK government statement added.

Sanctions would also be imposed on his wife, Lada Firtash, and UK-based Denis Gorbunenko, a UK-based financial “fixer”.

Lembergs, a former mayor, is accused of bribery and money laundering. His daughter, Liga Lemberga, is also sanctioned.

In 2021, a Riga court found him guilty of 19 charges including extorting bribes, forging documents, money laundering and improper use of office.

The measures are the latest under 2021 anti-corruption sanctions legislation brought in by the previous Conservative administration.

“These unscrupulous individuals selfishly deprive their fellow citizens of much-needed funding for education, healthcare and infrastructure — for their own enrichment,” said Foreign Secretary David Lammy, a member of the UK’s new Labour government elected in July.

 ”I committed to taking on kleptocrats and the dirty money that empowers them when I became Foreign Secretary… The tide is turning. The golden age of money laundering is over,” he said.

The Conservative government of Boris Johnson announced the first sanctions under its new global anti-corruption regime in 2021.

Britain had previously followed the European Union’s sanctions regime but since leaving the bloc in January 2020 struck out alone with its own policy.

The global anti-corruption sanctions were designed to prevent Britain from being a haven for illicit funds and money laundering.

Brazil police urge Bolsonaro’s indictment for 2022 ‘coup’ plot


By AFP
November 21, 2024

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was in office from 2019 to 2022 - Copyright AFP Joe Klamar
Louis GENOT

Brazilian police on Thursday called for the indictment of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro over a 2022 “coup” plot to prevent current leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva from taking office.

A police statement said its investigators concluded that Bolsonaro and 36 others planned the “violent overthrow of the democratic state.”

“Federal police concluded on Thursday the investigation into the existence of a criminal organization that acted in a coordinated way in 2002 in an attempt to maintain the then-president in power,” the statement said.

“The final report has been sent to the Supreme Court with the request that 37 individuals be indicted for the crimes of the violent overthrow of the democratic state, coup d’etat and criminal organization,” it said.

It is up to Brazil’s attorney general to decide whether the allegations are substantiated enough to warrant criminal charges being laid. The charge of attempting a coup carries a sentence of up to 12 years in prison.

Bolsonaro vowed to fight the allegation, and accused the Supreme Court judge overseeing the case of overstepping the law.

“The fight begins at the Attorney General’s office,” Bolsonaro said on his X social media account.

The judge, Alexandre de Moraes, “leads the entire investigation, adjusts statements, arrests without charges, fishes for evidence and has a very creative advisory team. He does everything that the law does not say,” Bolsonaro said.

According to police, the alleged plot was hatched in the final months of Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 presidency.

Lula, a left-winger who was previously president between 2003 and 2010, won October 2022 elections to succeed the far-right Bolsonaro.

Police have not so far drawn a direct link between the alleged plot and an insurrection that took place in Brasilia on January 8, 2023, when thousands of Bolsonaro supporters stormed the capital’s presidential palace, the Congress building and the Supreme Court.

Investigations continue into that upheaval, which echoed scenes from the United States two years earlier, when supporters of Donald Trump protesting President Joe Biden’s election win attacked the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021.

Bolsonaro has expressed admiration for Trump in the past.

The list of alleged co-conspirators in the Bolsonaro case included three elite soldiers and a police officer arrested on Tuesday for allegedly plotting to assassinate Lula and Moraes, in a separately announced case.

“I must be very grateful that I am alive. The attempt to poison me and Alckmin didn’t work,” said Lula on Thursday at an official ceremony, referring to Vice President Geraldo Alckmin.

“We need to build this country without persecution, incitement to hatred or discord,” the president added.



– Trump parallels –



Bolsonaro is the target of several investigations, but the one on Thursday placing him at the center of an alleged coup is the most dramatic.

He says he is innocent and the victim of “persecution.”

A former army captain, Bolsonaro has already been declared ineligible to hold public office until 2030 for having made unsubstantiated claims of fraud in Brazil’s electronic voting system.

He has been prohibited from leaving the country while a vast probe named “Tempus Veritatis” (“the time of truth” in Latin) continues. The investigation has already swept up several of Bolsonaro’s closest aides.

Bolsonaro hopes to overturn the ineligibility ruling and attempt a comeback in 2026 presidential elections.

On X, he has posted parallels between his situation and that of Trump, who won over US voters this month to secure a return to the White House.

The police investigation calling for Bolsonaro’s indictment detailed an alleged decree the ex-president was said to have issued in December 2022 ordering high-ranking military officers to arrest Moraes.

Moraes was head of the national electoral tribunal that validated Lula’s victory in 2022.

That decree was confirmed by the military officers in police questioning, according to transcripts made public by Moraes, who is now in charge of the case at the Supreme Court.

According to a transcript released in March, a retired Brazilian army general, Marco Antonio Freire Gomes, had spoken to police investigators about the December 2022 meetings with Bolsonaro.

He said a Bolsonaro aide had seen legal opinions the then-president had drawn up supporting his attempt to stay in power.

PERVERSE PATRIARCHY

Wildlife monitoring tech used to harass, spy on women in India

By AFP
November 21, 2024

Technology intended to protect tigers in an Indian forest have sometimes been turned on women, researchers warn 

- Copyright AFP/File Aditya Singh

Daniel Lawler

Camera traps, drones and other technology for monitoring wildlife like tigers and elephants are being used to intimidate, harass and even spy on women in India, researchers said on Friday.

In one particularly egregious example, a photo of an autistic women relieving herself in the forest was shared by local men on social media, prompting villagers to destroy nearby camera traps.

Trishant Simlai, a researcher at the UK’s Cambridge University, spent 14 months interviewing some 270 people who live near the Corbett Tiger Reserve in northern India.

For women living in villages around the reserve, the forest has long been a space for “freedom and expression” away from the men in a “heavily conservative and patriarchal society,” Simlai told AFP.

The women sing, talk about taboo subjects such as sex, and sometimes drink and smoke while collecting firewood and grass from the forest.

But the introduction of camera traps, drones and sound recorders as part of efforts to track and protect tigers and other wildlife has extended “the male gaze of the society into the forest,” Simlai said.

On multiple occasions, drones were deliberately flown over the heads of women, forcing them to drop their firewood and flee for cover, according to a study led by Simlai in the journal Environment and Planning.


– ‘We are afraid’ –


“We cannot walk in front of the cameras or sit in the area with our Kurtis (tunics) above our knees, we are afraid that we might get photographed or recorded in a wrong way,” a local woman was quoted in the study saying.

A forest ranger told the researchers that when a camera trap took a photo of a couple engaging in “romance” in the forest, “we immediately reported it to the police”.

In perhaps the most appalling example, a photo of an autistic woman from a marginalised caste relieving herself in the forest was inadvertently taken by a camera trap in 2017.

Young men appointed as temporary forest workers shared the photo on local Whatsapp and Facebook groups to “shame the woman,” Simlai said.

“We broke and set fire to every camera trap we could find after the daughter of our village was humiliated in such a brazen way,” one local told the researchers.

Aiming to avoid the cameras, some women have started roaming farther into the forest, which has the highest density of tigers in the world.

The women also sing less than they used to, which was used to deter animal attacks.

One local woman — who spoke about fear of cameras forcing her into “unfamiliar spaces” in 2019 — was killed by a tiger earlier this year, Simlai said.

– ‘New ways to harass women’ –

Another woman took advantage of the constant surveillance.

“Whenever her husband would beat her, she would run in front of the camera so that her husband did not follow her,” Simlai said.

Overall, “these technologies are actually very good” and are revolutionising conservation efforts, Simlai emphasised.

But he called for more consultation with local communities about the technology, as well as more transparency and oversight from forest authorities, and sensitive training for local workers.

“A lot of that can be done by conservation organisations that — in the first instance — introduced these technologies to the government,” Sim added.

Rosaleen Duffy, a conservation expert at Sheffield University in the UK, told AFP that “sadly” she was not surprised by this research.

“What surprises me is conservationists who imagine that technologies can be introduced and used in a social, political and economic vacuum,” she said.

“The cases in this research are not accidental,” Duffy pointed out. “They were actively using the drones to provide new ways of continuing to harass women.”

While this technology can be a powerful tool to conserve wildlife, “there must be clear rules for what they can and cannot be used for, and clear consequences for anyone misusing them,” she added.

Macron calls Haitian officials ‘total morons’ over PM sacking

POMPOUS PRICK COLONIALIST

By AFP
November 21, 2024


Macron has caused a stir with his comments about Haiti - Copyright AFP Joe Klamar

French President Emmanuel Macron accused Haiti’s transitional council of being “total morons” for dismissing the country’s prime minister, according to a video shot at the G20 summit in Brazil this week and shared on social media Thursday.

In the footage, the French leader is speaking on the sidelines of the G20 in Rio with an individual accusing Macron and France of “being responsible for the situation in Haiti”.

Haiti’s transitional council pushed out then-prime minister Garry Conille after just five months in office, a move Macron called “terrible” in the clip.

“They’re total morons,” said Macron referring to the transitional body, adding, “they never should have dismissed him.”

Condemning the remarks, Haiti’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday that French Ambassador Antoine Michon had been summoned following the “unacceptable comments.”

Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste used the meeting to express “indignation” on behalf of the transitional council, which he said viewed the remarks as “an unfriendly and inappropriate gesture that must be rectified,” according to a statement from the ministry.

Haiti has suffered from decades of political instability.

But in recent months, the Caribbean country has seen a surge in violence with gangs now controlling 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The clip also shows the French president, who is on a multi-leg tour of Latin America with his most recent stop in Chile, blaming Haitians for “letting drug trafficking take over”.

“Quite frankly, it was the Haitians who killed Haiti,” the French president said in the clip.

Businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aime was sworn in as Haiti’s new prime minister on November 12, promising to restore security in the crisis-wracked country.

Haiti summons French ambassador after Macron's 'total morons' comment

French President Emmanuel Macron was caught on video on Thursday calling the Haitian transitional council "total morons" for sacking the embattled nation's prime minister, prompting Haiti's foreign minister to summon French Ambassador Antoine Michon to address the "unacceptable remarks".

Issued on: 22/11/2024 
By: NEWS WIRES
Video by: Charlotte HUGHES

01:21France's President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron greet Haiti's President of the transitional council Smith Augustin at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris, July 26, 2024. © Valentine Chapuis, AFP


French President Emmanuel Macron accused Haiti's transitional council of being "total morons" for dismissing the country's prime minister, according to a video shot at the G20 summit in Brazil this week and shared on social media Thursday.

In the footage, the French leader is speaking on the sidelines of the G20 in Rio with an individual accusing Macron and France of "being responsible for the situation in Haiti".

Haiti's transitional council pushed out then-prime minister Garry Conille after just five months in office, a move Macron called "terrible" in the clip.

"They're total morons," said Macron referring to the transitional body, adding, "they never should have dismissed him."


Condemning the remarks, Haiti's Foreign Ministry said Thursday that French Ambassador Antoine Michon had been summoned following the "unacceptable comments."

02:00



Haitian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Worship Jean-Victor Harvel Jean-Baptiste used the meeting to express "indignation" on behalf of the transitional council, which he said viewed the remarks as "an unfriendly and inappropriate gesture that must be rectified," according to a statement from the ministry.

Haiti has suffered from decades of political instability.

But in recent months, the Caribbean country has seen a surge in violence with gangs now controlling 80 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.

Read more  FRANCE 24 exclusive report in Haiti: The Iron Grip of the Gangs

The clip also shows the French president, who is on a multi-leg tour of Latin America with his most recent stop in Chile, blaming Haitians for "letting drug trafficking take over".

"Quite frankly, it was the Haitians who killed Haiti," the French president said in the clip.

Businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aime was sworn in as Haiti's new prime minister on November 12, promising to restore security in the crisis-wracked country.

(AFP)

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Australian eyes $30m fine for social media flouting under-16s ban


By AFP
November 21, 2024


Australian legislation could force social media firms to take steps to prevent those under 16 years of age from accessing platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File Michael M. Santiago
Laura CHUNG

Social media companies could be fined more than US$30 million if they fail to keep children off their platforms, under new laws tabled before Australia’s parliament Thursday.

The legislation would force social media firms to take steps to prevent those under 16 years of age from accessing platforms such as X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.

Failing to do so would mean fines of up to Aus$50 million (US$32.5 million).

Australia is among the vanguard of nations trying to clean up social media, and the proposed age limit would be among the world’s strictest measures aimed at children.

Details about how social media companies are expected to enforce the ban remain unclear.

The proposed laws would also include robust privacy provisions that require tech platforms to delete any age-verification information collected.

Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said Thursday that social media companies had a responsibility for the “safety and mental health” of Australians.

“The legislation places the onus on social media platforms, not parents or children, to ensure protections are in place,” she said.

Some companies will be granted exemptions from the ban, such as YouTube, which teenagers may need to use for school work or other reasons.

Rowland said that messaging services — such as WhatsApp — and online gaming would also be exempt.

Once celebrated as a means of staying connected and informed, social media platforms have been tarnished by cyberbullying, the spread of illegal content, and election-meddling claims.

If the proposed law passes, tech platforms would be given a one-year grace period to figure out how to implement and enforce the ban.

Social media companies have said they will adhere to new legislation but have cautioned the government against acting too quickly and without adequate consultation.

Analysts have also expressed doubt it would be technically feasible to enforce a strict age ban.

Katie Maskiell from UNICEF Australia said Thursday the proposed legislation would not be a “solve-all” for protecting children and much more needed to be done.

She added the laws risked pushing young people onto “covert and unregulated online spaces”.

Several other countries have been tightening children’s access to social media platforms.

Spain passed a law in June banning social media access to under-16s.

And in the US state of Florida, children under 14 will be banned from opening social media accounts under a new law due to come into force in January.

In both cases, the age verification method has yet to be determined.

Canada AI project hopes to help reverse mass insect extinction


By AFP
November 21, 2024

The extent and nature of insect losses have been hard to quantify

 - Copyright AFP Sebastien ST-JEAN

Samira AIT KACI ALI GONZALEZ

Researchers in Canada are using artificial intelligence to monitor the ongoing mass extinction of insects, hoping to collect data that can help reverse species collapse and avert catastrophe for the planet.

“Of all the mass extinctions we have experienced in the past, the one affecting insects is happening a thousand times faster,” said Maxim Larrivee, director of the Montreal Insectarium.

The decline is occurring so quickly it can’t be properly monitored, making it impossible “to put in place the necessary actions to slow it down,” he told AFP.

For the Montreal-based project, called Antenna, some of the data collection is happening inside the insectarium under a large transparent dome, where thousands of butterflies, ants and praying mantises are being studied.

Solar-powered camera traps have also been installed in several regions, from the Canadian far north to Panamanian rainforests, snapping photos every 10 seconds of insects attracted to UV lights.

Larrivee said innovations like high-resolution cameras, low-cost sensors and AI models to process data could double the amount of biodiversity information collected over the last 150 years in two to five years.

“Even for us, it sounds like science fiction,” he said, a grin stretched across his face.

– ‘Tip of iceberg’ –

Scientists have warned the world is facing its biggest mass extinction event since the dinosaur age.

The drivers of insect species collapse are well understood — including climate change, habitat loss and pesticides — but the extent and nature of insect losses have been hard to quantify.

Better data should make it possible to create “decision-making tools for governments and environmentalists” to develop conservation policies that help restore biodiversity, Larrivee said.

There are an estimated 10 million species of insects, representing half the world’s biodiversity, but only a million of those have been documented and studied by scientists.

David Rolnick, a biodiversity specialist at the Quebec AI Institute working on the Antenna project, noted that artificial intelligence could help document some of the 90 percent of insect species that remain undiscovered.

“We found that when we went to Panama and tested our sensor systems in the rainforest, within a week, we found 300 new species. And that is just the tip of the iceberg,” Rolnick told AFP.

– Public education –

At Antenna, testing to advance AI tools is currently focused on moths.

With more than 160,000 different species, moths represent a diverse group of insects that are “easy to identify visually” and are low in the food chain, Rolnick explained.

“This is the next frontier for biodiversity monitoring,” he said.

The Montreal project is using an open source model, aiming to allow anyone to contribute to enriching the platform.

Researchers eventually hope to apply their modeling to identify new species in the deep sea and others harmful to agriculture.

Meanwhile, the Montreal Insectarium is using its technology for educational purposes. Visitors can snap pictures of butterflies in a vivarium and use an app to identify the exact species

French tourist Camille Clement sounded a note of caution, saying she supported using AI to protect ecology provided “we use it meticulously.”

For Julie Jodoin, director of Espace Pour La Vie, an umbrella organization for five Montreal museums including the Insectarium: “If we don’t know nature, we can’t ask citizens to change their behaviour.”

Volkswagen workers head towards strikes from December


By AFP
November 21, 2024

Volkswagen workers staged a colourful protest against planned cost cuts - Copyright AFP/File Patrick T. Fallon

Volkswagen workers in Germany took a step closer to strike action on Thursday, after unions and management met for the third round of talks over the ailing carmaker’s drastic cost-cutting plans.

Despite progress in the negotiations, representatives from the IG Metall union indicated they would move to start “warning strikes” from December 1.

Volkswagen, whose brands range from its core VW models to Porsche and Skoda, is battling challenges including high costs at home, slowing sales in key market China and a problematic transition to electric vehicles.

Thursday’s talks were the third round since September’s bombshell announcement that VW was mulling unprecedented factory closures in Germany.

IG Metall went into the meeting with proposals it said would save 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion) in labour costs without the need for site closures.

Union negotiator Thorsten Groeger told reporters after the talks that the management side had agreed to evaluate the plans and continue talks “on this basis”.

The two sides would meet again on December 9 to discuss the proposals, Groeger said.

At the same time, Groeger said he would “recommend to the collective bargaining committee that we call for warning strikes at Volkswagen’s locations when the no-strike obligation expires, that is to say from December 1”.

“This is necessary in the ongoing negotiation process because it has also become clear today that… the difference between the positions is still huge,” he said.

The possibility that VW factories in Germany would be closed was “not off the table”, he added.

– ‘Positive signal’ –


Volkswagen’s lead negotiator Arne Meiswinkel said in a statement it was a “positive signal that the employee representatives have shown openness to reducing labour costs and capacity reductions”.

Making savings was “crucial in order to ensure competitiveness in an extremely challenging phase for the German automotive industry”, Meiswinkel said.

Ahead of the talks, about 6,000 workers from across Germany joined colourful demonstration outside VW’s historic headquarters in Wolfsburg, waving banners that read “Fight for our future” and “Solidarity wins”.

One protesting worker, Kubilay Otzgemir, told AFP that “we are all angry” and that he did not have a “plan B” if he loses his job.

“We hope it doesn’t come to that,” said the 41-year-old, who has been working at VW’s plant in Salzgitter for 13 years.

Daniela Cavallo, head of VW’s works council, said the union’s plan showed there was room for compromise.

“Now it is the turn of the company side to respond to this and show that they are also prepared to move towards us in the upcoming talks,” Cavallo said after the meeting with management.

No space to heal: Anti-Islam sentiments on rise in US California campuses

Recent survey has revealed a concerning trend of Islamophobia and discrimination against Muslim students at California colleges and universities.



Reuters

Muslim students call for solidarity and support against rising hate. / Photo: Reuters


Roughly one in every two Muslim college students in the US state of California have experienced harassment or discrimination, according to a recently published survey.

The report from the California chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Center for the Prevention of Hate and Bullying (CPHB) includes responses from 720 students at 87 public and private colleges and universities across California, which found a 10 percent spike in Islamophobia faced by students since 2020.

The October 7, 2023, Hamas-led cross-border attack, as well as Israel's onslaught on besieged Gaza, have exacerbated Islamophobia on campuses as well as "anti-Palestinian hate, and anti-Arab racism, leaving Muslim students feeling targeted and unsupported," CAIR said in a statement.

Student-led anti-war protests that erupted nationwide on campuses in the wake of the escalating death toll have been repeatedly met with an effort to stamp them out or otherwise curtail the demonstrations.

“This past year has been extremely traumatizing for college students of varying ethnicities within the Islamic faith—all because they valiantly chose to stand up and humanise the plight of Palestinians, who have suffered from over 75 years of oppression, dehumanization, and war," CPHB Director Osman Khan said in a statement.

"These students should not have to suffer physical reprisals, nor fear possible academic and future employment repercussions, for simply practising their constitutionally protected rights of petition, assembly, and speech," he added.

'Not a global institution'

University of Southern California student Summer said many Muslim students have felt isolated within their college communities, particularly those who have lost friends and family in Israel's war, which has claimed the lives of more than 43,000 Palestinians.

"Some students, while in class, have received (the) devastating news of losing loved ones in Gaza. They not only mourn their families but also face the silence and lack of empathy from their own community. Where are the statements of solidarity, safe spaces for healing, or meaningful support from the administration for those grieving innocent lives?" she asked rhetorically.

"We cannot claim to be a global institution of higher learning while neglecting the global realities of our students. We cannot say we stand for justice when we turn a blind eye to injustice within our own campus," she added.