PHOSPHATE FIGHT
Morocco – US: Protectionism rising, as US company accuses OCP of unfair competition
By Estelle Maussion
Posted on Thursday, 11 February 2021 17:06

Mines of Boucraa, in the Sahara. © HOC / OCP

The Biden administration has confirmed that it wants to tax Moroccan fertiliser imports, but the pan-African giant OCP is still hoping to avoid the worst. Its rival, Mosaic, accuse the Moroccan company of selling subsidised fertiliser.

It is not yet the end, however the affair is nearing its end. The US Department of Commerce (USDC) issued its final ruling on 9 February in a crucial case for Moroccan phosphate giant OCP.

A double lawsuit

The USDC decided to impose a tax on Moroccan fertiliser imports into the US, ruling in favour of OCP’s US competitor, the Mosaic group. Mosaic, which accuses OCP of selling “subsidised” products, filed a double lawsuit before the USDC and the US International Trade Commission for unfair competition in June 2020.

READ MORE Morocco – US: Fertiliser giant OCP faces challenges in North America

The required tax rate against OCP is 19.97%, slightly lower than the 23.46% announced at the end of the preliminary investigation.

This is less than that sought against EuroChem (47.05%) but more than PhosAgro (9.19%), two Russian groups also targeted by Mosaic, which claimed a fee of over 70%.

Remaining a “reliable” partner to US farmers

Taking note of the decision but continuing to reject the charges against him, the group led by Mostafa Terrab recalled that taxation will only go into effect if the US International Trade Commission confirms the existence of injury to US industry. The panel, which ruled in favour of taxation after the preliminary investigation, is due to issue its final decision on 25 March.

“OCP continues to cooperate with US agencies and is determined to remain a reliable partner to US farmers,” said the Moroccan giant. Unsurprisingly, its competitor Mosaic welcomed the US Department of Agriculture’s decision, stressing that if the tax is introduced that it would apply for at least five years.

That is enough time to reshuffle the cards on the strategic US fertilizer market. In 2019, according to the rating agency Fitch, Morocco was the leading exporter of MAP and DAP [main phosphate fertilizers] to the US, accounting for 60% of imports, followed by Russia with 25%.

MOSAIC IS A BIG PLAYER IN CANADIAN PHOSPHATE PRODUCTION IN SASKATCHEWAN. THE RUSSIAN IMPORTS ARE FROM BELARUS THAT HAS UNDERCUT THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET COST OF PHOSPHATE.

PHOSPHATE FIGHT
Morocco – US: Fertiliser giant OCP faces challenges in North America

By Estelle Maussion
Posted on Monday, 11 January 2021 

An OCP phosphate mine at Boucraa. REUTERS/Youssef Boudlal


The Moroccan fertiliser group, headed by Mostafa Terrab, is facing allegations of unfair competition by US-based producer Mosaic in an unprecedented dispute over the strategic North American market.

The United States, a country where the CEO of phosphate fertiliser giant OCP, Mostafa Terrab, once lived and studied, has been making the executive’s life difficult.

Since July 2020, the Moroccan group’s exports to the vital North American market have been at a standstill. OCP is one of the world’s top five producers alongside US-based Mosaic, Russia’s PhosAgro and two Chinese players, GPCG and YTH.

READ MORE OCP fertiliser deals take Nigeria closer to self-sufficiency

OCP made the move after its US competitor Mosaic filed a petition with the US Department of Commerce and the US International Trade Commission requesting an investigation into unfair competitive practices. Mosaic, alleging that OCP receives subsidies, is demanding countervailing duties be imposed on Moroccan phosphate fertilisers.

Taken by surprise

The dispute – a first in OCP’s 100 years of operation and a rarity in the phosphate market – demonstrates the stiff competition in the sector. Influenced by US political considerations, the final outcome of this economic wrangling is expected in March 2021.

On the face of it, the case has gotten off to a bad start for OCP – which reported revenue of €4.9bn ($6bn) in 2019 – as the investigation took the company and much of the industry by surprise.

After opening at the end of June 2020 and being publicly disclosed by Mosaic – which reported revenue of $8.9bn in 2019 – and widely picked up by the media, the probe put the Moroccan group, along with Russia’s PhosAgro and EuroChem, also targeted, on the defensive.

After this rude awakening, and despite OCP’s reassuring statements as to its ability to make a convincing case against the imposition of duties, the preliminary investigation had an unfavourable outcome for OCP.

At the end of last November, confirming the US International Trade Commission’s initial analysis, the US Department of Commerce issued a decision in favour of a preliminary 23.5% duty on Moroccan fertiliser imports, much lower than the rate applicable to EuroChem (72.50%) but higher than the one applicable to PhosAgro (20.94%).

And, while it is hard to say what the final outcome of the investigation will be – with a decision expected by 25 March – there is a real possibility that the imposition of countervailing duties will be confirmed. Before the competition case was launched, the duty applied to OCP was less than 1%.

OCP upbeat but worried

While upbeat about its prospects – in OCP’s words: “We are persuaded that a thorough investigation will reveal that the petition is baseless” – the group is taking the matter seriously.

The moment the probe got under way, the company suspended its US exports. OCP also mobilised its teams to counter Mosaic’s hefty complaint, in which it accuses the Moroccan group of benefiting from preferential access to mining properties, government loans and guarantees, and tax exemptions and rebates.

READ MORE Togo and Aliko Dangote join forces for a $2bn fertilizer project

OCP is being represented by its longstanding legal representative, the law firm Covington & Burling. Its senior counsel, Stuart E. Eizenstat, a former senior official in several US administrations, was OCP’s official lobbyist from 2008 to 2015.

His colleague, Shara L. Aranoff, assisted Mohamed Belhoussain, OCP’s executive vice-president for sales, during the preliminary investigation in July 2020.
Three PR firms retained

Further attesting to the matter’s significance, in October the group headed by Terrab, who holds a degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and previously worked as an analyst at engineering company Bechtel, retained three PR firms (Cornerstone Government Affairs, FleishmanHillard and CCO) to defend its position.

OCP argues “[it= does not benefit from any government subsidy” and “phosphate fertiliser imports from Morocco do not harm the local US industry”.

In early December, FleishmanHillard’s agriculture specialist Tony Zagora launched a PR campaign to promote awareness about the OCP situation among the American public.

Called “Stand with US Farmers” and led by OCP North America chief executive officer Kerry McNamara, who has served as Terrab’s adviser since 2010, the campaign sounds the alarm on the consequences of limiting the supply of fertilisers and the potential increased costs that Mosaic’s complaint could trigger. The campaign’s website calls on people to sign a petition directed at the US congress.
OCP halted in its tracks

OCP is hard at work on the issue because Mosaic’s complaint has halted its activity into the US market, a crucial source of revenue. In 2016, OCRP created both OCP Africa and a US subsidiary.

Initially focused on market analysis and partnerships, OCP North America has expanded to include sales and marketing divisions. These internal changes went hand in hand with fast business growth: North America’s share of the company’s revenue increased from 12% in 2016 to 16% in 2018.


The following year, the region accounted for 21% of the group’s exports, just behind South America (30%). The data regarding Morocco’s raw phosphate exports to the United States are even more telling: 1.3m tonnes (mt) in 2017, 1.8mt in 2018 and more than 2mt in 2019, representing around $1.9bn over a three-year period.

“Morocco is the biggest exporter of monoammonium phosphate/diammonium phosphate into the US, accounting for around 60% of the US imports, followed by Russia with around a 25% share in 2019,” Fitch Ratings wrote in July.
Mosaic, the big winner?

Is Mosaic the big winner and OCP the loser? Things are not so clear-cut in the run-up to the investigation’s final outcome. In the US, the withdrawal of Moroccan and Russian players has definitely proved a boon for domestic producers, including the leading firm, Mosaic, which has effectively taken back control of the US phosphate sector.

The US company – which did not respond to requests for comment – has rid itself of its most serious competitors, now replaced by others – Australia, Mexico and Saudi Arabia – that have production costs more in line with its own.

READ MORE Nigeria’s Dangote still expects refinery to be running early 2021

Mosaic’s manoeuvring has also pushed up phosphate prices in a global environment marked by low prices since 2019. In the third quarter of 2020, i.e., after the preliminary investigation launched, US-produced phosphate fertiliser was selling for $20 and $40 more per tonne, respectively, than fertiliser in India and Brazil. One year earlier, US phosphate fertiliser was selling for $20 less than these two countries’ prices.

Despite this good news, Mosaic’s financial position is still precarious, as its cashflow from has almost been halved in four years. Its 2019 revenue showed no change from 2015 levels.

Global competition

OCP has responded to the setback through diversification. “The Moroccan group swiftly responded to and offset the suspension of its exports to the United States by increasing its exports to other countries, including Brazil and India,” said Mounir Halim, managing director of Afriqom, a consulting firm specialising in the African fertiliser market.

As a matter of fact, Brazil is a key market for Mosaic, which acquired Vale Fertilizantes in 2018 and invested in production and port infrastructure there. Though Mosaic has forced OCP out of its North American sphere of influence, it will nevertheless compete with it elsewhere.

READ MORE Morocco and Western Sahara: a decades-long war of attrition

“Being shut out of a market is never a good thing, but OCP, as one of the world’s most competitive fertiliser producers, has plenty of alternatives,” said Glen Kurokawa, senior analyst at CRU.

Fitch Ratings emphasised OCP’s numerous advantages, such as its international footprint, position as the world’s leading phosphate fertiliser producer and low production costs, arguing that if the US ultimately imposes countervailing duties, the measure would have a limited impact on the group’s performance and no effect on its rating.

Once the final outcome of the investigation is known, OCP’s return to the US market will be determined by a calculation: can the group maintain adequate margins despite the cost of potential import duties?
Unknown political variables

In addition to these economic considerations, there are unknown political variables. For one, the arrival US President-Elect Joe Biden in office and the recent diplomatic rapprochement between Morocco and the US are likely to have an impact on the ongoing investigation.

While experts say that such investigations are purely administrative and that there is generally little difference between preliminary and final decisions, the reality is that Mosaic – whose lobbying activities are performed by Ballard Partners, a firm headed by Brian Ballard, a major donor of President Donald Trump – has overwhelmingly played the protectionist card. The US company has repeated over and over that 3,500 jobs are at stake in the country.

Will these arguments have as much impact when Biden takes office? On 10 December, he nominated attorney Katherine Tai as US trade representative. While some have been quick to praise her “diplomatic skills” and “pragmatism”, her backers also underlined that she is determined to “ge[t] wins for American workers”. OCP is now factoring these new variables into its complex US equation.

MORROCO INVADED THE WESTERN SAHARA FOR PHOSPHATE

TEND YOUR GARDEN
Morocco’s OCP – A big, green mining machine

By Julien Wagner, in Khouribga for Jeune Afrique
Posted on Friday, 18 January 2019 

 updated on Thursday, 7 March 2019 

OCP's phosphoric acid and phosphate fertilizer production in Jorf Lasfar.

 (AP Abdeljalil Bounhar)

In a decade Morocco's OCP Group, the formerly state-owned phosphate-mining firm, has become the kingdom's behemoth. It is spending big on research, and expanding production and processing capacity, in order to grab more of the international market.

Just as the gold rush built Johannesburg, Morocco’s town of Khouribga was built to service the monumental phosphate deposit discovered in Boujniba in 1917 – some 31% of global reserves. Since then its destiny has been inextricably linked to that of the Office Chérifien des Phosphates – now the OCP Group.

Leaving Khouribga to the south, looking towards Boujniba, you can’t miss the huge mounds left by the extraction of millions of tonnes of phosphate rock. “There used to be many more,” says Brahim Ramdani, OCP’s director of mines in Khourigba. For several years now, the company has been flattening these mini-mountains and using them to plant millions of trees. It is just one of the thousands of projects in the $8bn investment programme OCP launched in 2008, which in 10 years has transformed the company and, with it, Khouribga. OCP is now Morocco’s largest group, with a 2017 turnover of €4.3bn.

The plan, financed by sky-high prices for phosphate, was to double phosphate mining activity and triple fertiliser production by 2020. It was a two-pronged strategy, suggests one Middle Eastern importer who requested anonymity: “Partly to become flexible enough to export more of one product – be it phosphate rock, phosphoric acid or fertiliser – to meet market demand at any particular moment. […] But also to dissuade other rival producers from trying to enter the race.”

Back in the early years of the century, OCP’s margins were small, and the company was caught up in the machinery of state, run by officials linked to the royal palace. Under Mostafa Terrab, it became a limited company in 2008 and restructured its management and operations: from logistics to sales. Over the next decade, OCP went from 28m tonnes of phosphates mined to 45m, and fertiliser output leapt from 3.6m tonnes to nearly 12m tonnes per annum. It now has a gross operating surplus of more than $1bn.

There have been other innov­ations. Where the rock was pre­viously hauled by train 150km from the Khouribga mines to the port of Jorf Lasfar, it is now pumped through a metre-wide, steel and rubber slurry pipe. Sensors at each mine and along the pipeline allow a new data-management system to track volumes and identify problems as they develop. A plan to replicate the system for the mines of Ben Guerir is taking shape

Industry is greedy for energy

At the other end of the pipe, the port of Jorf Lasfar is transforming into the largest fertiliser production hub in the world, with a capacity to produce 11m tonnes of phosphate fertiliser per year and 6m tonnes of phosphoric acid. The whiff of sulphur wafts over the complex. Some 45 different blends of fertiliser are created there, ready to be shipped out from Jorf Lasfar, which last year overtook the port of Casablanca in tonnage exported.

All this requires energy. OCP alone consumes 6%-7% of Morocco’s annual energy supply and 1% of its water. “As soon as we boost production, we have to systematically think of ways to lower costs,” says Amine Kaf, the Jorf Lasfar facility director. “We need both flexibility and sustainable development. We have brought in the best industrial consultants, like Jacobs Engineering and DuPont, to help us square that circle.”

Given the immense technical challenges, OCP is investing in research and training engineers. It built Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique at Ben Guerir, with its well-equiped laboratories to do research in agronomy, nanotechnology and soil analysis. Its current few hundred students should number 5,000 at maturity. The school has forged partnerships with the US-based Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), France’s Ecole de Mines de Paris and Canada’s Université Laval.
Open innovation

OCP chief economist, Mohamed Soual, adds: “The university allows us access to many research institutions around the world and allows us to participate in ‘open innovation’ […]. We can’t keep chasing academics around the world and offering them consulting contracts.” The group has even created a think tank, the OCP Policy Center, to tackle the political angles of global business.

Step inside OCP’s headquarters in Casablanca, and you might think yourself in Silicon Valley. Even more so on the first floor, dubbed the ‘Digital Factory’. A young woman wearing a hijab plays ping pong during lunch, and there are many whiteboards and Post-it notes. This US-inspired environment is not without business logic. Trade with the United States represents between 25% and 30% of the group’s turnover.

OCP’s ambitions are to take this as the first phase of a much larger journey. “We cannot be satisfied with being 17%-18% of global phosphate production when we have 72% of global phosphate reserves,” says Soual, taking aim at competitors like Russia’s PhosAgro and Saudi Arabia’s Ma’aden. “And we also need to diversify, hence our purchase of a Spanish biostimulant company and a new partnership with a Chinese group who are specialists in fertiliser additives.”

But all is not plain sailing for OCP, which has faced hard times in the past (see box). There remains, for example, the domestic political context of the group, operating in the sensitive Western Sahara region. The Polisario Front, which does not recognise Morocco’s sovereignty in the region, regularly tries to intercept OCP cargoes around the world. The OCP-backed Phosboucraa Foundation is trying to improve relations by investing in the city of Laayoune and elsewhere in the region.

And then there is the question of OCP’s debt. To execute its expansion plans covering the period until 2027, OCP will need to invest more than $9bn. In May, it raised Dh5bn ($526m) on the local market, following fundraising of $2.6bn on the international markets in 2014 and 2015. Today, total debt is estimated at Dh45bn – about three times OCP’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. The company lost Dh1.6bn in the last financial year.

Greener Africa: Time for ‘free trade but also fair trade with Europe’

IN DEPTH
This article is part of the dossier: Greener Africa
Posted October 2020


Africa’s summit meeting with the European Union (EU) in 2021 is a critical opportunity to assert that the relationship is mutually beneficial only if Africa produces what it consumes.

This is part 4 of a series.

Africa’s summit meeting with the European Union (EU) in 2021 is a critical opportunity to assert that the relationship is mutually beneficial only if Africa produces what it consumes.

Europe should in turn practice the solidarity it preaches in principle, by supporting capacity building in Africa for self-sufficiency. Africa needs to stand firm, with a clear, long-term vision, in order to forge with the EU a common and equitable path to prosperity.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the climate emergency have exposed afresh Africa’s various shortcomings, notably in the health and education sectors that are the foundation for capacity building.

Yet, the crises also set the stage for Africa to put unprecedented emphasis on human development, which is one of the pillars for the structural transformation discussed for the past 60 years.

Fundamental change needed

Another pillar is economic diversification. Africa has long been merely a supplier of raw materials and recipient of finished products. This role has been codified in the Lomé and Cotonou conventions and the EU/African, Caribbean and Pacific framework such that African raw materials get EU customs exemptions but processed African exports are greeted with heavy taxes.

An equitable partnership requires a fundamental change in this relationship. This is why the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) is an excellent platform for genuinely African products to feed African markets based on strict rules of origin and local content.

READ MORE Now is the time for Africa to implement AfCFTA, not later

However, before the AfCFTA can restructure production and distribution patterns, there are constraints to overcome. 

These include:
Africa’s internal coordination
Policy space
Governance

“Africa’s far smaller margin for monetary manoeuvre”

Negotiations are on-going between Africa’s 33 least developed countries (LDCs) and the remaining low and middle-income countries which are more interested in a common African position.

Currently, the latter have relatively limited access to EU markets under the Standard Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) while the LDCs have largely free access under the GSP Everything but Arms initiative.

Such differences also have repercussions on AfCFTA discussions on tariffs among economies that range in size from tiny to giant. Given Africa’s greater vulnerability to global warming and its need for international support, better coordination is also needed for a collective response to climate effects that do not respect borders.

In terms of policy space, Africa’s injection of about 5% of GDP in response to the economic impact of COVID-19 seems timid when the rest of the world injected about 20% of GDP. The reason is Africa’s far smaller margin for monetary manoeuvre; another indicator of our need to reconquer economic sovereignty in terms of currency and budget. A related problem is the tendency to think at the macro level in the wake of our Bretton Woods partners.

READ MORE The G20’s action on debt is an important first step; now for the hard part

One example is the call for almost $100bn in international COVID support by Africa’s finance ministers which is more a macro-level than a sectoral response when Africa needs to come down to the micro level of the vast majority of our economic actors in order to build their capacity and responsiveness to current crises and emerging frameworks.

“Quality of governance”

Another constraint is the quality of governance, which plays an important role in what may be called “the dictatorship of emergencies”, or constant fire-fighting.

Besides reflecting the presence or absence of a capable state providing amenities and economic prospects for citizens, political instability and insecurity also discourage foreign direct investment. ECOWAS leaders in October 2019 decided, problematically, to classify military spending as public investment expenditure, meaning that all types of resources including development aid could be diverted to military spending at the expense of schools, clinics, feeder roads and potable water.

READ MORE Egypt VS Coronavirus: Military’s excuse to extend economic control?

This illustrates the short-term thinking that for 60 years has exposed Africa to many supposedly exogenous shocks that in fact only reveal our failed approach to structural transformation.

Time is right for Africa to deploy pragmatic and long-term vision

Local processing begins with choosing the appropriate product and working out the factors for success. The frequent mistake is one of scale, aiming too high to start with. If we identify the target market and use small-scale hydro and solar energy, we can create successful enterprises and then work on upscaling, with no need for big dams or fossil fuel.

Developing a textile industry would clearly be easier and more broadly and immediately beneficial than processing uranium.

African cotton is already highly prized abroad. With a market of 400 million people in West Africa alone, and further cooperation among nations and regional institutions, textile industries could take off and Africa could establish its own international brand.

However, for at least 20 years the World Bank and International Monetary Fund have forced us to allow second-hand clothes imports to swamp our markets. We need enlightened protectionism to build competitive industries.

This entails radical policy changes to end the colonial structure of dependence that privileges raw material exports for foreign revenue while discouraging bank finance for local processing and extended local markets. It implies avoiding the resource curse, boosting local content, transforming value chains and attaining agricultural self-sufficiency.

The pandemic revealed the responsiveness of local production and distribution networks linking urban, peri-urban and rural areas to meet demand as food imports shrank. Promoting these local networks boosts rural and urban incomes, with a very small carbon footprint. Such promotion also shortens the linkages from local to continental value chains, illustrating the importance of the AfCFTA and genuinely free movement of people, goods, services and capital across Africa.

READ MORE COVID-19: When ‘local sourcing’ is more than buzz words, but a reality

Africa must reduce transport and energy costs which discourage rural producers as well as industrialists. Better roads and active development of solar and small-scale hydroelectricity can rapidly improve production and marketing prospects. The final requirement is high-quality governance and management at both national and firm level, such that capital is never mistaken for profit.

Bottom line

Europe has launched a “Green Deal” which aims to halve its carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. It has also committed to a new Africa strategy which recognises respective and mutual interests and responsibilities and promotes green growth.

Africa must therefore meet Europe with its own strong vision of a green and industrialised future. It aims to change the continent’s role as a reservoir of raw materials and recipient of manufactured goods. It rejects the neo-liberalism that protects European markets and forces African markets open. Africa wants free trade but also fair trade and well-targeted support for a win-win partnership with Europe.

*This Op-Ed is part of a series of pieces produced for a United Nations University Institute for Natural Resources in Africa (UNU-INRA) project on Green Transformation in the wake of Covid-19 recovery, in collaboration with the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the African Union Commission (AUC), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and other partners. The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the institutions involved in the project.

Also in this in Depth:

PART 1
Greener Africa: Powering the Sahel with renewable electricity
Ahead of the coronavirus outbreak, the issue of a greener Africa was getting underway. But while many think the COVID-19 pandemic threw a wrench into those efforts, others say it might just be the right catalyst to push forward greener energy. In this first part of our series of exclusive opinion pieces, we look at the Sahel and the quest for solar energy.

PART 2
Greener Africa: Women – The face of a digital and green revolution?
In this second part of our series, we look at the indispensable role Africa's digital revolution plays in attaining a greener continent, but women remain the missing ingredient in maximising this technology.

PART 3
Greener Africa : ‘It is scandalous that Africa has the world’s highest prevalence of hungry people’
In this third part of our series, we look at the central role agriculture must and can have in achieving sustainable and profitable development across the continent.

By Kako Nubukpo

Economist, former minister for long-term strategy and public policy evaluation of Togo and former economic and digital director of the International Organisation of La Francophonie. Author of 'L’Urgence africaine: Changeons de modèle de croissance' (The African Emergency: Let’s change the growth model).

TRICKS OF TRADE
Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala makes history twice by taking over the WTO


By Patrick Smith
Posted on Monday, 15 February 2021 

Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is the first woman and the first African to become director general of the World Trade Organisation. 

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson


Crashing through glass ceilings, let alone ones with reinforced steel, doesn’t often happen in Geneva – the velvet-lined headquarters of the international system in Europe.

‘Chapeau’ to Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as the well-watered burghers and bankers of this lakeside city would say.

As the first woman and first African to win the director general post of the of the 164-member World Trade Organisation (WTO) after navigating the body’s opaque electoral processes, Okonjo-Iweala will start work with a quotient of respect.
A little luck

Like Napoleon’s more successful generals, she was also lucky.

Back in November, then US president Donald Trump had ordered his trade envoy Robert Lighthizer to block her appointment – despite her winning support from more than 70% of the WTO members.

Then Joe Biden defeated Trump in the US elections, triggering several foreign-policy about-turns – among them was to give “strong support” to Okonjo-Iweala. And at 15.00 Geneva time on 15 February, the WTO held its general council online to confirm the new director general.

Okonjo-Iweala is expected at the organisation’s forbidding grey-stone headquarters this week, say diplomats in Geneva. After that, she embarks on the task of reforming, perhaps reimagining, the WTO for the pandemic and post-pandemic era.

Trade fan

When The Africa Report asked Okonjo-Iweala last year why she was campaigning for what was widely seen as the job from hell, she smiled quickly and clicked back into her stride: “Because I’m really passionate about trade.”

Detecting our scepticism that the arcana of multilateral trade deals could ever fire up the emotions, she added: “Trade is not an end in itself, it’s a means to an end […] an instrument that helps deliver development so that those who have been marginalised can be brought in.”

That explains Trump and Lighthizer’s opposition to her. Their view of trade is mercantilist: maximise exports, minimise imports in the cause of economic nationalism.

Okonjo-Iweala sees trade as motor for growth, development and raising living standards, which she points out was in the original remit of the WTO. That has long been relegated behind battles over commercial dispute resolution and geopolitical rivalries between China and the United States.
Disputes and values

Those rivalries surface in the myriad issues locked in the WTO’s trade disputes settlement system but also in a battle about ‘values’ in the organisation. The US, along with the European Union, Japan, Brazil and pro-West powers argue for the primacy of market forces and trade-policy convergence – ideas they see as inconsistent with China’s economic system.

Since it joined the WTO in 2001, China has rejected the idea that its economic system, defined by many as state capitalism, should be a subject for scrutiny by the organisation. With economic nationalism in Washington and Beijing ballooning over the past five years, the stand-off in the WTO looks more intractable than ever.

READ MORE What can Africa expect from the Biden administration?

On the genteel campaign trail in Geneva, Okonjo-Iweala walked the fine line between the two. She argued that the WTO should not exclude any economic system but rather look at how different economic systems create trade distortions and how the organisation could update its rule book.

“The principles of stability, predictability, non-discrimination, fairness, transparency – these are all the important principles on which the WTO and the world trading system was founded,” Okonjo-Iweala told The Africa Report last year. “It delivered, it stopped all the trade wars and it can deliver again.”
Policy and populism

Turning that into policy as WTO director general, will be much harder as Dirk Willem te Velde, a trade expert at the Overseas Development in London argues: “Amongst several global popularist moves, such as ‘Buy American’, the EU’s strategic autonomy approach to be launched this month and concerns over subsidised production in China, the director general will face an uphill battle to use discussions at the WTO to reinstate the importance of free trade.”

For Te Velde, promoting free trade as a way to address the health (trade in PPE, vaccines, through safe and resilience supply chains), and climate crises (inducing innovation and trade in green technology) would be a prime and ambitious way to make the WTO relevant in the new era.

That would also position it as an international body helping to lead a recovery from the pandemic-triggered recession. Arguments about whether trade is good or bad have been overtaken by events, says Te Velde.

First tests

All that will be tested at the WTO’s 12th ministerial conference, which is due this year. It will be an early indicator of Okonjo-Iweala’s chances of resolving the pitched battles between the members.

“The ministerial conference can keep the WTO on the global economic governance map,” says Te Velde, as well as “keep discussions ongoing on e-commerce and services, deliver on action on WTO declarations such as gender.”

Before the grander ambitions of steering a global recovery, the ministerial conference will have to produce a formula for updating WTO rules and unlocking the frozen dispute settlement mechanism.

READ MORE Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala set for WTO leadership after South Korea’s Yoo quits

First, Okonjo-Iweala and colleagues such as New Zealand diplomat David Walker, will have to develop some credible proposals with member states.

Will Okonjo-Iweala be able to persuade the US to end its boycott of the WTO’s appellate body, which adjudicates trade disputes? Although US President Biden offered strong backing to Okonjo-Iweala, he will not be much more conciliatory on trade than his predecessor: whether towards China or Europe.
A fishy quick win

Before the ministerial conference, Okonjo-Iweala could score a quick win by concluding WTO negotiations over fisheries. In July, she told the New Zealand delegation that the negotiations over fishing grounds and subsidies have been progressing “relatively well”. A success there could encourage members to reach agreement on still more contentious issues, she said.

Fishing subsidies and the devastation to national fishing grounds by fleets of foreign industrial trawlers is an urgent concern for African economies, especially those along the western seaboard.

READ MORE Wamkele Mene: ‘AfCFTA is going to be difficult but we’ve got to do it’

A senior African diplomat in Geneva tells The Africa Report that there were high expectations that Okonjo-Iweala would help start the dismantling the system of rich-country agricultural subsidies that have weighed heavily on so many farmers and exporters in the region.

“It is a matter of coalitions and alliances,” the diplomat says, “already we are having positive discussions with Australia on how to reform the subsidy system. This with public health and climate change are firmly on the WTO agenda now.”
What role for Africa?

Yet Ismail Lagardien, a former World Bank economist writing in South Africa’s Business Day, was less sanguine about Okonjo-Iweala’s agenda: “To be absolutely clear: Okonjo-Iweala will head the WTO with the blessing of the US and the EU. It is not clear whether she received the blessing of the African Union or any of the mangled mess that is Africa’s regional organisations.”

“She will not represent Africa’s agenda, as some may expect, as she has to preside over the global trade regime and changing the WTO would be unimaginably difficult within one four-year term.”

READ MORE Informal sector holds key to unlocking intra-Africa trade, says Afreximbank

This pessimism is not shared by African diplomats in Geneva or by trade specialists such as Te Velde, who told us: “Okonjo-Iweala will also have a keen interest in African prospects.” There would have to be more focus on the economic cost of the Covid-19 pandemic to Africa, he argues.

Apart from being unable to afford the lavish stimulus programmes in Western economies and being at the back of the vaccination queue, Africa’s economies were, he says: “at the receiving end of global protectionism, trade wars and ‘buy local’ campaigns.”

Aid for Trade

One of the first conferences over which director general Okonjo-Iweala is set to preside is the Aid for Trade stocktaking event in March, which is to discuss the effect of the pandemic on developing economies.

It will be, says Te Velde, “an opportune moment to support a step-up in Aid for Trade for the poorest countries to ensure that trade can help speed up their recovery.”

READ MORE Greener Africa: Time for ‘free trade but also fair trade with Europe’

It might also be one of those rare occasions when the gladiators from the world’s two biggest economies can find some common ground on trade: how to finance it and make it work better in developing economies.

WTO formally appoints Okonjo-Iweala as its first female leader

Bryce Baschuk, Bloomberg News

Nigeria’s former finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , Bloomberg

The World Trade Organization selected Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to be the first woman and first African as its leader, tasking the former Nigerian finance minister with restoring trust in a rules-based global trading system roiled by protectionism and the pandemic.

During a virtual meeting on Monday the WTO’s 164 members unanimously selected the 66-year-old development economist to serve a four-year term as director-general beginning March 1. She can seek to renew her term after it ends on Aug. 31, 2025.

After withstanding a veto of her candidacy by the now-departed Trump administration, Okonjo-Iweala takes the helm of the Geneva-based WTO at a precarious time for the world economy and just as the organization itself is mired in a state of dysfunction.

She held a previous role as chair of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization after a public sector career in international finance, including two terms as Nigeria’s finance minister and some 25 years at the World Bank. Her dual U.S. citizenship means she’s also the first American to hold the organization’s top job.

Navigating the growing chasm between China and western nations -- which argue that China’s entry into the organization in 2001 failed to transform it into a market economy -- will be a key challenge.

'Deliver Soon'

The U.S. delegation to the WTO said it is “committed to working closely with Director General Okonjo-Iweala and she can count on the United States to be a constructive partner,” according to a statement released in Geneva. “Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has promised that under her leadership it will not be business as usual for the WTO, and we are excited and confident that she has the skills necessary to make good on this promise.”

China’s delegation to the WTO, in a statement, said “the WTO is at its critical moment and must be able to deliver soon. The collective decision made by the entire membership demonstrates a vote of trust not only in Dr. Ngozi herself, but also in our vision, our expectation and the multilateral trading system that we all believe and preserve.”

Washington and Brussels have railed against China’s massive subsidy programs, forced technology transfers and the state’s expansive influence over the Chinese economy -- policies that they say have collectively resulted in trade distortions that negatively affect the global economy.

During her campaign, Okonjo-Iweala acknowledged the necessity of rebuilding trust between the U.S. and China while trying to find areas of common interest. As a candidate she endorsed an ongoing an initiative among the U.S., EU and

Japan aimed at developing new disciplines for industrial subsidies, state-owned enterprises and forced technology transfers.

In the near term, Okonjo-Iweala may look for some early wins on issues including:
A multilateral accord to curb harmful fishing subsidies

Negotiations to govern the US$26 trillion global e-commerce marketplace, which could reduce cross-border hurdles for U.S. technology companies

Moderating talks to address the paralysis of the WTO appellate body, the forum for settling international trade disagreements

This week the European Union is expected to call upon U.S. President Joe Biden to consider a set of principals as a basis for negotiating and clarifying the WTO’s dispute settlement rules.

Call of Cthulhu is bigger than D&D in Japan
GARETH BRANWYN 4:40 AM THU FEB 11, 2021


Here's an amazing fact. More Japanese-language copies of Chaosium's classic horror RPG, Call of Cthulhu, are sold than all other languages combined. CoC is far more likely to be the gateway RPG for new gamers in Japan than Dungeons & Dragons.


Call of Cthulhu was first translated into Japanese by publisher Hobby Japan, which localised the game's third edition in 1986. Following a break in development during the 1990s due to a slump in the local market, its sixth edition was released by current publisher Kadokawa in 2004, and has seen a number of reprints since. By September 2019, all versions of the RPG had sold over 200,000 copies in Japan, according to Kadokawa.

The latest seventh edition of the game was released in December 2019, featuring a complete overhaul of the rulebook. Roleplaying game writer and editor Masayuki Sakamoto, who has worked on Call of Cthulhu since its original release in Japan, told Dicebreaker that the sixth and seventh editions have sold more than 300,000 copies combined, including 60,000 copies of the latest edition.

Read the rest at Dicebreaker.

IN 1984 I DID INTERVIEWS WITH SCI FI AUTHORS IN THE BAY AREA, INCLUDING WITH CHAOSIUM WHO HAD JUST COME OUT WITH THE GAME AND IT WAS A BIG HIT IN EDMONTON WHICH WAS THE GAME TESTING BETA MARKET FOR NORTH AMERICA I LEARNED

Mythical or mysterious -- search for Bigfoot alive among Montana believers


by Maritsa Georgiou

Friday, November 1st 2019

A Sasquatch warning sign hangs in the forest at the Montana Vortex, where several people have reported seeing Bigfoot. Photo: NBC Montana

COLUMBIA FALLS, Mont. — On any given day in a forest in the Pacific Northwest, you can find people searching for proof of a mysterious creature.

“Yes, I do believe in Bigfoot.” That’s what Joe Hauser told us on a late summer day at the Montana Vortex and House of Mystery outside Glacier National Park.  GLACIER IS SHARED WITH CANADA, WE CALL IT WATERTON NATIONAL PARK, BIGFOOT IS A CANADIAN TOURIST FROM HARRISON, BC

Hauser walks the grounds every day. He bought the property to study the electromagnetic anomaly. He’s the first to tell you weird things happen there.

“A lot of people come in totally skeptical, and then they leave and go, ‘I don’t know what’s going on here, but there’s definitely something going on here,’” Hauser said.

And people like Hauser say they’ve seen Bigfoot appear out of nowhere in the very woods surrounding the Montana Vortex.

You can find Bigfoot reminders everywhere at the tourist attraction, including what believers say is real evidence of footprints.

“You can see they’re all different just like our feet are all different,” Hauser explained, showing off casts of the footprints. “That was from Bluff Creek by Roger Patterson -- and that’s where the Patty video was actually done in California.”

That Patty video is possibly the most controversial and known footage of what some say is Bigfoot. It was shot in 1967, and it’s what first piqued Hauser’s interest.

“I remember watching that on the news with my parents and grandparents -- and my grandfather and dad and uncle, they had an experience in Colorado where they found large tracks in the 1930s.”

Hauser’s first encounter took place goldmining in California in 1983.

“We heard some really big loud screams and whoops. It was like a howler monkey on steroids. And I turned to my partner and said, ‘What the heck is that?’ He said, ‘Oh, that’s Bigfoot. Haven’t you heard him yet?’”

It took 22 more years before Hauser says he actually saw a Sasquatch -- at the ever popular Avalanche Lake in Glacier Park with his son.

“He looks across the lake and goes, ‘Hey Dad, there’s two Bigfoot walking across that snow field there.’ And sure enough -- big strides, great big arm swings, arms down to their knees. And we had about a 5-minute sighting walking across the snow field.”

Hauser’s most recent sighting took place last fall on a trail at the Vortex, where tourists also reported seeing them. Hauser says Bigfoot will knock on his house at night and leave signs on his walkways after he's raked them.


Joe Hauser, Bigfoot enthusiast and Montana Vortex owner, talks everything Sasquatch with Maritsa Georgiou.{https://nbcmontana.com/news/local/mythical-or-mysterious-search-for-bigfoot-alive-among-montana-believers }

And he's not alone.

“Most people don’t talk about it, because there’s kind of a stigma to it, and people think you’re crazy because you saw a Bigfoot or you heard something,” Hauser said.

But some people do talk about it. You can find thousands of reports on the Bigfoot Field Research Organization website, which is run by reality show personality Matt Moneymaker of “Finding Bigfoot” fame. It includes photos and audio recordings and descriptions of sightings, including hundreds of Montana sightings from Missoula to Malta.

The BFRO has collected reports since 1995. Once you report a sighting, a BFRO investigator will likely do a follow-up report. The database shows 22 of Montana's 56 counties don't have any sightings. Missoula County has the most official reports to the BFRO at 17. Flathead comes in second with 13, and Gallatin County ranks third with 10 reports. But there are many more sightings you won’t find on the site.

“We have lots of sightings here; they’re just not reported,” Hauser said. “We take reports in here almost every week. And this is all over Montana. Georgetown Lake, Anaconda, and people have been having experiences down there for years. Glacier Park has a lot of sightings up there.”

There's no doubt Bigfoot has made a comeback in pop culture. Montana filmmaker Adam Pitman wrote his first screenplay in 1999, a psychological thriller about Bigfoot. It came after his dad recounted a strange sighting.

“He was on a jog, and up ahead of him this guy walked out across the road, but it wasn’t a guy,” Pitman said. “He was much taller, pure black and long arms. Very long arms that reached down to his knees.”

Pitman researched the legend at length, but added, “I’m not a believer. No. I’ve heard countless stories, but I want to see. And during my research I’ve gone through so many pictures and so many stories and nothing is definitive or caught me, like, how could that be explained?”

“There’s thousands of sightings and people are hearing whoops and screams and stuff like that,” Hauser said. “So we either have thousands of delusional liars out there, or something is really going on.”

So where's the evidence?

“There’s been bones that have been found; there’s been DNA studies that have been done,” Hauser explained. “There’s another DNA study being done right now.”

He couldn’t comment on the studies, but said they’re being done at reputable universities. He says some of that DNA was collected at his Vortex.

“They like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and if you put double-faced tape on the outside and they pick up the bowl it leaves hair and skin follicles,” Hauser said. “And then if you put a different variety of food in there, they’ll sample it. They don’t like Skittles or M&Ms, so they’ll put it in their mouth and then spit it back out in the bowl, and there’s saliva. There are DNA tests being done right now.”

Until those test results come back, the questions remain.

“All of those out there searching for Bigfoot, good luck,” Pitman said, addressing the camera. “Find him. I want to believe!”

“If you ever have a Bigfoot experience, once you have that experience it changes your life,” Hauser said.

And with every experience, the legend lives on, and so do the searches through our Montana forests.

Even in the camp of believers, there are a lot of debates on topics like why the creatures are so elusive and so on.

Hauser says there’s been an increase in scientific interest in recent years, and he hopes more evidence comes out of that.

St. Johns County man releases Bigfoot movie on Amazon Prime

BY SHELDON GARDNER, ST. AUGUSTINE RECORD THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FEBRUARY 06, 2021

ST. AUGUSTINE, FLA.

As part of his new line of work, St. Johns County resident Chris Simoes has become well-acquainted with Bigfoot culture.

The filmmaker has traveled with Bigfoot enthusiasts and gone on sasquatch hunts. He camped in North Georgia with a friend he describes as a “Bigfoot believer,” who used various calls to try and attract a sasquatch.

“There’s several ways that people believe Bigfoot communicates,” Simoes said. “He knocks on trees, like with a stick. So they’ll knock on trees. They’ll clack rocks together. And they’ll hoot and, you know, howl and that kind of thing, so a lot of Bigfoot hunters will go out into the woods and try to mimic their sounds and wait for answers.”

So far the trips haven’t surfaced any Bigfoot sightings.

Simoes has made two feature-length films about Bigfoot

His latest, “Bigfoot: The Conspiracy,” was picked up in December by Amazon Prime Video after he submitted it for publication. The film has been streamed for millions of minutes so far, he said. It’s also available on the site in Japan.

“It’s surreal, really,” he said.

He created the film under his business, Legends Beware.

“As a kid I was always so enthralled, I guess, with myths and legends and Bigfoot, and that kind of thing,” he said.

Simoes sat down for an interview with The Record at his home near U.S. 1 South along with his daughter, Alexa, who is 24.

He said he chose Bigfoot as the topic for his first feature-length film, “Bigfoot: The Curse of Blood Mountain,” which was released in 2014 on Amazon Prime Video, in part because of the “subculture” that follows Bigfoot sightings, he said. He knew people would watch it.

THE LEGEND

According to the Washington Military Department (a sector of the Washington Air National Guard took Bigfoot as its mascot), “The legends of Bigfoot go back beyond recorded history and cover the world. In North America — and particularly the Northwest — you can hear tales of 7-foot-tall hairy men stalking the woods, occasionally scaring campers, lumberjacks, hikers and the like.”

Some Bigfoot movies are about “mindless killing machines” who tear people apart, Simoes said. But that wasn’t the kind of Bigfoot story he wanted to tell.

Simoes wanted to emphasize the importance of respecting nature and to portray Bigfoot as more of a protector of the land.


“It’s just like any other bear or anything else,” Simoes said. “They just want to be left alone.”

Through research for the films and from experiences with Bigfoot researchers, he has learned more about the roots of the Bigfoot story.

“Like the first movie, it’s based on Cherokee Indian folklore. There are a lot of Cherokee Indians who are firm believers in Bigfoot,” he said.

Alexa said the movie sheds a different light on Bigfoot.

“It’s not just like, ‘This is a monster,‘” she said.

Some people take Bigfoot research seriously. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization ― which describes itself as “the only scientific research organization exploring the Bigfoot/Sasquatch mystery” ― lists close encounters by region.

There are five reported encounters in St. Johns County, the latest from February 2013 at Twelve Mile Swamp, according to the website.

Though the man didn’t see a creature, he heard noises. The site described it as largely constituting “typical Sasquatch behavior.”

“At one time (the man) hooted twice. In return, the branches thrashed violently, and he heard a guttural growl,” the report says. “Before he left, he hit a tree, twice. When he did this something ran through the scrub away from him, it sounded to be 40 feet away.”

Simoes said he went out to the area a couple of weeks ago and didn’t not encounter Bigfoot, or the “skunk ape,” as it’s referred to in Florida.

According to the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization, “Indian tribes across North America have a total of more than 60 different terms for the sasquatch. ... Many different terms have been used by pioneers and later non-native inhabitants of North America, including ‘skookums’ and ‘mountain devils.‘”

The group also offers safety advice to people who encounter Bigfoot:

“A bright flashlight or spotlight seems to be the most effective way to make one or more sasquatches back off and leave an area. Even warning shots are apparently not as effective as bright spotlights, especially when carried by groups of people searching a wooded area after dark.”

A VOLUNTEER EFFORT

An unexpected life event led Simoes to making movies about Bigfoot.

Years ago, Simoes was forced to retire early from a career in federal law enforcement because of a back injury. He worked jobs that proved to be unfulfilling, and so he began to pursue his longtime interest in filmmaking.

With no background in the field, Simoes sold personal items to buy equipment and learned the craft on his own. He practiced by making short films with family.

“Bigfoot: The Conspiracy” focuses on a retired Border Patrol agent (played by Simoes) “as he discovers the possible existence of Bigfoot and the shroud of darkness that surrounds it,” the film’s summary reads.

Simoes has lived in the area with his family since 2020, but he filmed much of the movie on their former property in Georgia. His children appear in the film, and Alexa helped with production.

Filming started in July 2019, just soon enough to finish before COVID-19 struck.

Simoes began working in the film industry as an actor before going into filmmaking, and he built relationships with other actors.

Eventually he got tired of being an extra and decided to do his own work, desiring to influence the creative process, he said. He reached out to actors he had met, and he found enough volunteer actors to put films together.

Simoes’ friend Dave Watkins starred in the latest film and co-produced it. But there was a multitude of help from other people.

And, of course, Simoes’ needed a Bigfoot suit.

But the one he ordered online wasn’t ready to go when it arrived.

“When I got it, I was disappointed there wasn’t more hair, so I added so much more hair to it,” he said.

He taught himself how to plug hair into the suit, and even collected hair from Alexa after she got haircuts. It’s lightweight, weighing only about 15 pounds or so.

A few people wore the suit in the movie, including someone with experience as a professional sports mascot. Watkins made a small appearance in the suit.

“It’s actually very difficult to do. … I’m definitely not the best Bigfoot walker,” Watkins said.

Simoes said without the help of Alexa, Watkins and volunteers, the film would not have been possible.

“We know we’re learning. We know we don’t have a budget. We just try to work extra hard to create a cinematic feel,” he said.

Eventually Simoes wants to make money creating films. He’s focused now on a short film about COVID-19 and the vaccine, he said.

It’s not clear yet what fresh work Simoes might pursue involving Bigfoot, though he is planning a trip with another Bigfoot enthusiast.

As for his thoughts about the legend of Bigfoot?

“I’m an enthusiast, but I’m a skeptic,” Simoes said.

Stomp out governmental regulation of Bigfoot
Feb 5, 2021

If there is one thing I can’t stand, it is government overregulation of cryptozoological creatures.

There are actually several things I can’t stand — someone putting an empty steak sauce bottle back in the refrigerator, irresponsible dog owners and people with Facebook medical degrees, just to name a few.

This week, though, it is government overregulation of cryptozoological creatures, specifically Bigfoot.

Regular readers of this column know I am a citizen of the city that proudly hosts the annual Western North Carolina (WNC) Bigfoot Festival during non-plague years.

Those same readers may even recall I performed as Bigfoot’s stand in a few times, climbing into the suit for both promotional and educational efforts, such as the non-award-winning documentary “Bigfoot Tells Fifth-Graders about Trees.”

That’s probably not the name of it, but I was only on set for about 20 minutes before I overheated in the suit and left.

Netflix might have it.

Those same readers, it appears, have mixed feelings about ongoing Bigfoot coverage.

“Love your stuff,” Loretta wrote in an email last week. “The Monkey Reports were super. Bigfoot, not so much…”

My friend Susan, though, alerted me to the most recent Bigfoot-related news to tackle.

“I feel certain you will cover this more thoroughly,” she wrote in a message that included a link to NPR.

I initially figured it was either a way to make a donation for a tote bag or instructions on how to donate my car, but it turned out to be a Morning Edition blurb about an Oklahoma lawmaker who introduced a bill to establish a Bigfoot hunting season.

“The measure would require hunting licenses, and comes with a $25,000 reward for Bigfoot’s capture,” NPR’s intro said. “The legislation is aimed at increasing tourism near the Ouachita Mountains.”

Immediately, I stopped doing real work and began extensive research into this misguided attempt by the government to regulate Bigfoot.

Let me be clear: I am not anti-government. I haven’t stormed anything in weeks. I pay my taxes, eventually. I get out and vote if it isn’t raining too hard.

But there are some things government has no business sticking its nose in and Bigfoot is one of them. Yes, admittedly, our mayor declared Bigfoot the official animal of Marion, N.C. but that was purely ceremonial. No one, as far as I know, wanted to issue a state license to hunt down Bigfoot.

After some blowback from the Bigfoot community, the legislator who introduced the bill, State Rep. Justin Humphrey, clarified his intent to The Oklahoman newspaper.

“I want to be really clear that we are not going to kill Bigfoot,” he said. “We are going to trap a live Bigfoot. We are not promoting killing Bigfoot. We are promoting hunting Bigfoot, trying to find evidence of Bigfoot.”

Humphrey insists it’s all in good fun and a way to get people to buy a Bigfoot hunting license to carry in their wallets or hang on their walls, but I envision a scenario like this:

“Hello, boys. I’m Warden Simmons with the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. How y’all doing today?”

“Uh…fine, sir. You?”

“Not too bad. What you boys got on the back of the truck there?”

“We got us a Bigfoot.”

“Yeah, that’s a nice one, too. He must go 7-and-a-half, maybe 8 feet. I’m going to need to see your Oklahoma-issued Bigfoot hunting license.”

“Do what now?”

“Bigfoot hunting license. You can’t go around hunting Bigfoot without a state-issued Bigfoot hunting license. Where do you think you are, North Carolina?”

“You mean we have to throw him back?”

“Oh, yeah. And I’m writing you a ticket, too. It’s going to be $250 plus court costs. You can pay it to the magistrate on duty at the Ouachita Mountains Tourism Development Authority. Y’all have a good day and remember: Oklahoma is OK – except when it comes to hunting Bigfoot without a license.”

Scott Hollifield is editor/GM of The McDowell News in Marion, N.C. and a humor columnist.

'THE WITCH' AND 'INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS' MAKE HORROR OUT OF BOTH CONFORMITY AND INDIVIDUALITY


Credit: Allied Artists Pictures/A24

Opinion Contributed by Noah Berlatsky
Feb 5, 2021, 

Horror is about that cackling outsider, scratching at your door. The question in the genre is always which side of the portal you’re on. Are you with the community, fighting the threat? Or are you rooting for the monster to break through and savage the dull weight of ordinariness?

From that perspective, Don Siegel’s 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which turns 65 this month, and Robert Eggers’ 2016 film The Witch, which turns 5, are ugly, oozing mirror images. Body Snatchers is about how evil alien pod people infiltrate the small, wholesome 1950s California town of Santa Mira. The Witch is about a good, wholesome, God-fearing family in the 1630s and how much fun it is when their daughter gets to abandon their boring hypocrisy to join a bacchanal of witches. You could argue that between 1956 and 2016, good, wholesome Americanism started to look less heroic and more like death. Eggers’ witches are Siegel’s aliens, but with better PR.

MORE THE WITCH

The threat of female sexuality in The Witch, 

Picnic at Hanging Rock and The Falling

Chosen One of the Day: Black Phillip

If you look closer into the maw of evil and/or good, though, you start to wonder whether even the PR has changed. Body Snatchers has as much dislike for deindividuation as The Witch; The Witch mistrusts freedom as much as Body Snatchers. Both celebrate an American individualism that they both also fear, and for good reason.

The much-remade Body Snatchers is a classic of Cold War paranoia. Handsome, hearty doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns from a conference to discover the town of Santa Mira in the grips of a quiet epidemic of neuroses. Patients believe their close relatives — mothers, uncles, fathers — have been replaced with exact, unfeeling duplicates.

Miles is skeptical at first, but it’s all true. Space spores have landed and grown giant pods. These open to reveal wet plant people, who absorb sleeping human minds and personalities. The film is shot in crisp black and white, and its horror comes from seeing rational, suburban normality fray and disintegrate even as it continues to look precisely like rational, suburban normality. Everyone goes about their business as always. It’s just that the business becomes perversion and apocalypse.

In the '50s, perversion, apocalypse, and Marxism were seen as all of a piece. The people who are replaced by the pods lose all appetite for business and consumption, abandoning produce stands and closing shops. They want only to spread the pods further, across the nation and the world. “Love, desire, ambition, faith. Without them life’s so simple,” one of the pod people declares with the menacing altruistic calm of a devoted cultist. The alien communists drain away personality and autonomy, leaving a hive mind that has feelings and energy only for the collective. It’s a nightmare vision of American individualism subsumed by socialist group-think.

In The Witch, the threat of conformity comes not from the communists, but from the church. William (Ralph Ineson) is a stubborn religious dissenter who is kicked out of a New England settlement. He, his wife, and their five children settle in a clearing in the woods, where they pursue a dreary, colorless existence, filmed in sweeping vistas of ravishing bleakness. They subsist on a diet of starvation rations and fears of hellfire. William’s idea of a fun father-son chat is to quiz his boy, Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw), in an elaborate catechism about the corruption of his soul.

The family’s obsessive fear and paranoia leave them with few resources when the witches steal away infant Sam. Williams, his wife, and their children quickly turn on each other in a brief, sexless orgy of paranoia, recrimination, and hypocrisy. When older daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) gets a chance to sell her soul to the devil for the taste of butter, pretty dresses, and other lascivious pleasures, who can blame her? Flickering candlelight gives her a beauty and color the movie has almost entirely denied her as Satan whispers, “Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?” She and the viewer answer with an enthusiastic affirmative.

Thomasin is ironically achieving the American dream her dreary father grasped for. He wanted absolute freedom of conscience and fled England to escape from the stifling, dead norms of the old world. Family, church, community — they demand you stifle desires for the good of the group, just like pod people always do. Thomasin, nude, blood-spattered, ecstatically laughing as she floats into the trees in the film’s final dramatic shot, has escaped that hivebound gravity. She becomes her truest self through an exercise of individualist, American will — like Ben Franklin, if he were a self-made demon rather than a self-made businessman.

Does Thomasin really make herself over, though? When the Devil asks her to sign the book, she has to admit she doesn’t know how to write her name. “I will guide your hand,” he says in that rich, velvety voice. But if he’s the one manipulating Thomasin here, might he not have been manipulating her throughout? It’s only because witches steal away infant Sam, curse Caleb, and, it is implied, spoil the harvest, that Thomasin’s family falls apart. The film is a plot against Thomasin; the director is Satan himself, leading her to damnation. Thomasin has little more choice than her siblings, who, it is intimated, are stolen away by the witches to be boiled down for their fat. American freedom is a trick the Devil plays to convince you to crawl into his mouth.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers is also not quite so emblematic of virtuous American independence as it seems at first. After all, the whole point of the movie is that the pod people are us; we’re one and the same. When the good folks of Santa Mira — the cop, the psychiatrist, the housewives — all chase after Miles and his girlfriend Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter), it looks eerily like a witch-hunt. And the targets of witch-hunts in America and Hollywood in the 1950s were not capitalists, but Communists.

In the name of freedom, those Communists were persecuted and hounded for refusing to bow to community norms. In the film’s conclusion, Miles contacts the authorities, and the weight of U.S. military and logistical power is poised to sweep down on the pods. A story supposedly about communists assimilating Americans ends up as a story about Americans exterminating communists. All the aliens will be destroyed for the cardinal sin: refusing to embrace the communal value of individualism.

Americans love liberty. It’s such a core value that those who do not hold it are viewed with suspicion. You must be an individual or face the consequences of communal loathing. As a result, the ecstatic Dionysiac abandonment of the witches and the satisfied emotionless calm of the pod people start to look much the same. When you watch Body Snatchers and The Witch together, the horror isn’t individuality. Nor is it the obliteration of individuality. It’s that you can’t tell the two apart.


<The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author's, and do not necessarily reflect those of SYFY WIRE, SYFY, or NBCUniversal.>

Friday essay: why Rosaleen Norton, ‘the witch of Kings Cross’, was a groundbreaking bohemian

Rosaleen Norton works in crayon in a converted stable in Kings Cross in Sydney, 1946. News Ltd/Black Jelly Films

February 4, 2021 2.08pm EST

Marguerite Johnson

Rosaleen Norton, or “the witch of Kings Cross,” is finally receiving the attention she deserves. Born in Dunedin in 1917, emigrating with her family to Sydney in 1925, and dying in 1979, Norton was a trailblazing woman and under-appreciated cultural touchstone of 20th century Australia.

A self proclaimed witch, Norton experienced childhood visions. From around the age of 23, she practised trance magic and, later, sex magic in various flats and squats in inner-city Sydney.

Trance magic involved Norton meditating (sometimes with the assistance of various substances, ingested and/or inhaled) and raising her consciousness. The aim was to transcend her physical body and conscious mind to experience higher forms of existence.

Sex magic was developed by the infamous occultist, Aleister Crowley around 1904, and involves a complicated series of sexual rituals designed for a variety of perceived needs (depending on the practitioner), including spiritual awakening

.
FireBird by Rosaleen Norton. Black Jelly Films, courtesy Burgess Family

As an artist, Norton drew and painted her beliefs and the gods, goddesses, and spiritual beings who were central to it. She also lived free from societal expectations. Not only a witch, but openly bisexual, Norton robustly challenged a predominantly Christian Australia. But she was reviled for doing so, attacked by the media for her art, her beliefs, her lifestyle, and sometimes, her appearance. She experienced police surveillance and faced obscenity charges over her art.

Norton defied cultural norms and, though she did not identify as a feminist, was a powerfully unconventional woman. Poor but not without imaginative style, she had distinctive arched eyebrows, sometimes dressed in male attire, and was often photographed wearing all black. With a new film about her life being released next week, it is timely to look at her legacy.

Freedom and creativity

Norton’s story has fascinated me from the age of five, when I began to devour the 1970s tabloid newspapers and magazines that featured her. During those years, Norton had become something of a recluse, rarely appearing in public but graciously agreeing to be interviewed about her life. By this time, the legend of “the witch of Kings Cross” was entrenched. Norton was not averse to it, even donning a pointed hat for photos.

This passionate interest went on to inform my adult life. As a classicist, I have explored Norton’s occult belief system, which embraced the old gods. Beings such as Hecate, an ancient Greek goddess who presided over witches, Lilith, the ancient female demon originating in Mesopotamia, and the Egyptian goddess Isis, were at the heart of Norton’s magical practice.

Pan and Daphnis. Roman copy of Greek original c. 100 BC, found in Pompeii. Wikimedia Commons

But the Greek god Pan was at the centre of her pantheon. To the ancient Greeks, Pan was the god of nature, regularly associated with pastureland and its human and animal inhabitants.

Half-man, half-goat, Pan also embodied the sexual drive, the uninhibited urge to copulate. As the “High Priestess at the Altar of Pan”, Norton performed rituals both alone and with members of her inner magical circle in his honour.

In my own research, I have studied witchcraft through the ages and how, especially from Victorian times, it provided an outlet for unconventional women to leverage freedom (and sometimes power) and express their creativity. (Even as a child, I baulked at the media’s determination to cast Norton as a woman to be judged, feared or, worse still, mocked.)

Read more: Toil and trouble: the myth of the witch is no myth at all

As an academic, I extended my research into the worlds of Greece and Rome with a focus on sexual histories and belief systems — and explored Norton’s life through the same lens. Along the way, I acquired enough material to donate a personal archive on Norton to the library at The University of Newcastle.

Norton’s identity as a witch was formed early. As a child, she was drawn to the night, to nature, and to drawing and recording the preternatural world. In an article published in Australasian Post in January 1957, she describes visions from the age of five (a lady in a grey dress, a dragon) and trance states (which she called “Big Things and Little Things”) to capture the experience of her body growing in size as she “floated,” as if in a dream. She also records the appearance of “witch marks” on her left knee when she was seven (in the form of two small, blue dots).

Bored and frustrated by her middle-class life in Lindfield on the North Shore, Norton left home for inner-city Sydney at the age of 17 and never returned. She found employment as an artist model (including a stint modelling for Norman Lindsay), a pavement artist, and as a contributor to the avant-garde publication, Pertinent.

Eventually, she based herself in Kings Cross. There, she was free to explore and develop her beliefs and practices. In the late 1940s, it was where she met one of her companions in life and magic, the poet Gavin Greenlees (1930-1983)

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Rosaleen Norton and poet Gavin Greenlees, one of her lovers, photographed on Darlinghurst Road in 1950. Sydney Morning Herald

Strands of magic

Norton and Greenlees practised several strands of magic, including trance magic, sex magic, and ceremonies combining and improvising elements from several traditions. These included Kundalini (the feminine, creative force of infinite wisdom that “lives” inside us, usually represented by a snake) and Tantra (encompassing esoteric rituals and practices from Hindu and Buddhist traditions).

Norton explained that she employed these practices to augment her unconscious, inspire and empower her art, and commune with entities on other planes.

Norton’s trance magic, in states of self-hypnosis, was a continuation of her childhood visions and visitations. In correspondence with a psychologist in 1949, she described experiencing deities and projecting her astral body to contact other practitioners in alternative spiritual spheres. The idea, she wrote, was “to induce an abnormal state of consciousness and manifest the results, if any, in drawing”.

Read more: A murky cauldron – modern witchcraft and the spell on Trump

These experiences informed and inspired her art. Norton’s paintings were produced for her own ritual spaces, as well as for exhibitions and publications. In a well-known photograph from the 1950s, Norton is shown crouching at the base of her altar to Pan, replete with a large portrait of the god.

Norton in front of her altar to the god Pan, photographed in 1950. 

The Sydney Morning Herald/Black Jelly Films

Pan features in many other works. As Norton said in 1957, his “pipes are a symbol of magic and mystery”, while his “horns and hooves stand for natural energies and fleet-footed freedom”.

Norton’s worship of Pan reflected her passion for animals, insects and nature in general. While she did not publicly campaign for animal rights, she was, in some respects, a forerunner of the movement. Regularly the target of outrageous media allegations, she was particularly incensed when asked whether, as a witch, she performed animal sacrifice.

In 1954, 89.4% of the Australian population identified as Christian. Unfortunately for Norton, the ancient Greek god Pan also resembles Christian representations of Satan or the Devil. Indeed with his goat legs, pointed ears, and lascivious face, Pan most likely inspired early Christian images of Satan. Norton was regularly asked whether she was a Satanist. She wasn’t. But, accusations of Satanism haunted her.

Journalists accused her of Devil worship, police occasionally placed her and Greenlees under surveillance, and her private life became fair game. By the 1950s, the tabloid press’ preferred name for Norton — “the witch of Kings Cross” — had stuck. It featured in news stories on her even after her death.

Sensationalist claims about Norton were frequently published in Sydney’s newspapers, like here in the Sunday Telegraph. The Sunday Telegraph/Black Jelly Films

Censorship and court proceedings

Norton’s run-ins with authorities are partly what make her such an important historical figure. Her early exhibitions were subject to media attention and sensationalism, censorship and court proceedings. During an exhibition of her art at Rowden-White Library, University of Melbourne, in 1949, the Vice Squad seized several works deemed to be profane. Norton appeared in court on obscenity charges — the first such case against a woman in Victoria.

While Norton was acquitted, more scandals erupted. Her collaboration with Greenlees on a book titled, The Art of Rosaleen Norton, with poems by Gavin Greenlees, published privately by Walter Glover in 1952, landed Glover and printer, Tonecraft Pty Ltd, in court on charges of producing an obscene publication.

Fohat, one of Norton’s most famous and controversial works. Black Jelly Films, courtesy Burgess Family

Glover was fined £5 and Tonecraft £1. The book was subject to a customs ban (copies sent to New York were confiscated and burnt by United States Customs) and it became a prohibited import to Australia.

Norton’s Fohat (one of the book’s notorious images) was a representation of her beliefs. The goat, she said, “is a symbol of energy and creativity: the serpent of elemental force and eternity”. As with the images of Pan (and many other artworks), the meaning behind Fohat was misconstrued, deemed obscene and Satanic.

The case of Sir Eugene Goossens

Norton’s practice of sex magic was at the centre of one sensational court case. Her private rituals concerning the practice (including, among other acts, anal and oral sex, and sado-masochism) involved a discrete group of devotees. One of them was the revered composer and conductor Sir Eugene Goossens (1893-1962).

As director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium and chief conductor of the ABC’s Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the English-born Goossens was a cultural and social giant in a still very parochial Australia. Having seen a copy of the infamous book by Norton and Greenlees, Goossens sought out the couple and soon became part of their occult practices and personal lives.

Caught up in their world, Goossens became an unsuspecting target of police surveillance. In March 1956, returning from an overseas trip, he was confronted with officers waiting to search his luggage and subsequently charged with importing prohibited items, allegedly including “indecent works and articles, namely a number of books, prints and photographs, and a quantity of film”.

Goossens was besieged day and night at his home, and newspapers screamed headlines, such as “BIG NAMES IN DEVIL RITE PROBE”

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Norton photographed with her cat in 1949. News Ltd

Goossens’ life and career were ruined. He pleaded guilty to pornography charges in absentia at a hearing in Martin Place Court of Petty Sessions, was fined £100, and returned to the United Kingdom a broken man.

While the media and some biographers of Goossens still tend to blame Norton for contaminating him by inducting him into her unholy cult of sex magic, this could not be further from the truth.

In fact, Goossens came to Australia with significant experience in occult practices, actively seeking out Norton and Greenlees. Personal correspondence from Goossens to Norton reveals his role in mentoring his new friends in more advanced magic, and hints at a network of practitioners in the UK and Europe. Three of the extant letters are signed with Goossens’ magical name, “Djinn”.

Later life

Norton retired from public view during the 1970s, living in a basement flat in Roslyn Garden, with her sister, Cecily Boothman (1905-1991), close by in the same apartment block. Frail, in poor health, but an artist and witch to the end, Norton practised her rituals, painted and communed with animals and nature.

Rosaleen Norton’s Bacchanal. Black Jelly Films, courtesy Burgess Family

She and Boothman were visited by Greenlees on his days of temporary release from the Alma Mater Nursing Home, Kensington, where he had been sectioned after a lengthy stay at Callan Park Mental Hospital at the age of 25.

At the age of 61, Norton was diagnosed with colon cancer. She died at the Sacred Heart Hospice for the Dying, in Darlinghurst, on 5 December 1979.

Norton has been the subject of biographies by Nevill Drury, a fictionalised account, Pagan, by Inez Baranay, and several plays (including a student production, on which I was dramaturg).

Rare footage also captures her at her rebellious best: ensconced in a Kings Cross cafe, talking about rejecting the ordinary life of wife and mother, the thought of which prompts her to say: “I’d go mad”.


Norton was more than a witch. When we look closer at a woman reviled by the media, we see a groundbreaking bohemian, committed to living freely and authentically, who challenged censorship.

In many ways, she helped to push Australia out of the safety of the Menzies era, into the civilising forces of the sexual revolution and the freedoms it brought.

The Witch of Kings Cross, written and directed by Sonia Bible, will be released on Amazon, iTunes, Vimeo and GooglePlay on 9th February and opens in selected cinemas from February 11.

Marguerite Johnson

Professor of Classics, University of Newcastle