Beyond the Hype of Lab-Grown Diamonds
▻https://earther.gizmodo.com/beyond-the-hype-of-lab-grown-diamonds-1834890351
Billions of years ago when the world was still young, treasure began forming deep underground. As the edges of Earth’s tectonic plates plunged down into the upper mantle, bits of carbon, some likely hailing from long-dead life forms were melted and compressed into rigid lattices. Over millions of years, those lattices grew into the most durable, dazzling gems the planet had ever cooked up. And every so often, for reasons scientists still don’t fully understand, an eruption would send a stash of these stones rocketing to the surface inside a bubbly magma known as kimberlite.
There, the diamonds would remain, nestled in the kimberlite volcanoes that delivered them from their fiery home, until humans evolved, learned of their existence, and began to dig them up.
The epic origin of Earth’s diamonds has helped fuel a powerful marketing mythology around them: that they are objects of otherworldly strength and beauty; fitting symbols of eternal love. But while “diamonds are forever” may be the catchiest advertising slogan ever to bear some geologic truth, the supply of these stones in the Earth’s crust, in places we can readily reach them, is far from everlasting. And the scars we’ve inflicted on the land and ourselves in order to mine diamonds has cast a shadow that still lingers over the industry.
Some diamond seekers, however, say we don’t need to scour the Earth any longer, because science now offers an alternative: diamonds grown in labs. These gems aren’t simulants or synthetic substitutes; they are optically, chemically, and physically identical to their Earth-mined counterparts. They’re also cheaper, and in theory, limitless. The arrival of lab-grown diamonds has rocked the jewelry world to its core and prompted fierce pushback from diamond miners. Claims abound on both sides.
Growers often say that their diamonds are sustainable and ethical; miners and their industry allies counter that only gems plucked from the Earth can be considered “real” or “precious.” Some of these assertions are subjective, others are supported only by sparse, self-reported, or industry-backed data. But that’s not stopping everyone from making them.
This is a fight over image, and when it comes to diamonds, image is everything.
A variety of cut, polished Ada Diamonds created in a lab, including smaller melee stones and large center stones. 22.94 carats total. (2.60 ct. pear, 2.01 ct. asscher, 2.23 ct. cushion, 3.01 ct. radiant, 1.74 ct. princess, 2.11 ct. emerald, 3.11 ct. heart, 3.00 ct. oval, 3.13 ct. round.)
Image: Sam Cannon (Earther)
Same, but different
The dream of lab-grown diamond dates back over a century. In 1911, science fiction author H.G. Wells described what would essentially become one of the key methods for making diamond—recreating the conditions inside Earth’s mantle on its surface—in his short story The Diamond Maker. As the Gemological Institute of America (GIA) notes, there were a handful of dubious attempts to create diamonds in labs in the late 19th and early 20th century, but the first commercial diamond production wouldn’t emerge until the mid-1950s, when scientists with General Electric worked out a method for creating small, brown stones. Others, including De Beers, soon developed their own methods for synthesizing the gems, and use of the lab-created diamond in industrial applications, from cutting tools to high power electronics, took off.
According to the GIA’s James Shigley, the first experimental production of gem-quality diamond occurred in 1970. Yet by the early 2000s, gem-quality stones were still small, and often tinted yellow with impurities. It was only in the last five or so years that methods for growing diamonds advanced to the point that producers began churning out large, colorless stones consistently. That’s when the jewelry sector began to take a real interest.
Today, that sector is taking off. The International Grown Diamond Association (IGDA), a trade group formed in 2016 by a dozen lab diamond growers and sellers, now has about 50 members, according to IGDA secretary general Dick Garard. When the IGDA first formed, lab-grown diamonds were estimated to represent about 1 percent of a $14 billion rough diamond market. This year, industry analyst Paul Zimnisky estimates they account for 2-3 percent of the market.
He expects that share will only continue to grow as factories in China that already produce millions of carats a year for industrial purposes start to see an opportunity in jewelry.
“I have a real problem with people claiming one is ethical and another is not.”
“This year some [factories] will come up from 100,000 gem-quality diamonds to one to two million,” Zimnisky said. “They already have the infrastructure and equipment in place” and are in the process of upgrading it. (About 150 million carats of diamonds were mined last year, according to a global analysis of the industry conducted by Bain & Company.)
Production ramp-up aside, 2018 saw some other major developments across the industry. In the summer, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reversed decades of guidance when it expanded the definition of a diamond to include those created in labs and dropped ‘synthetic’ as a recommended descriptor for lab-grown stones. The decision came on the heels of the world’s top diamond producer, De Beers, announcing the launch of its own lab-grown diamond line, Lightbox, after having once vowed never to sell man-made stones as jewelry.
“I would say shock,” Lightbox Chief Marketing Officer Sally Morrison told Earther when asked how the jewelry world responded to the company’s launch.
While the majority of lab-grown diamonds on the market today are what’s known as melee (less than 0.18 carats), the tech for producing the biggest, most dazzling diamonds continues to improve. In 2016, lab-grown diamond company MiaDonna announced its partners had grown a 6.28 carat gem-quality diamond, claimed to be the largest created in the U.S. to that point. In 2017, a lab in Augsburg University, Germany that grows diamonds for industrial and scientific research applications produced what is thought to be the largest lab-grown diamond ever—a 155 carat behemoth that stretches nearly 4 inches across. Not gem quality, perhaps, but still impressive.
“If you compare it with the Queen’s diamond, hers is four times heavier, it’s clearer” physicist Matthias Schreck, who leads the group that grew that beast of a jewel, told me. “But in area, our diamond is bigger. We were very proud of this.”
Diamonds can be created in one of two ways: Similar to how they form inside the Earth, or similar to how scientists speculate they might form in outer space.
The older, Earth-inspired method is known as “high temperature high pressure” (HPHT), and that’s exactly what it sounds like. A carbon source, like graphite, is placed in a giant, mechanical press where, in the presence of a catalyst, it’s subjected to temperatures of around 1,600 degrees Celsius and pressures of 5-6 Gigapascals in order to form diamond. (If you’re curious what that sort of pressure feels like, the GIA describes it as similar to the force exerted if you tried to balance a commercial jet on your fingertip.)
The newer method, called chemical vapor deposition (CVD), is more akin to how diamonds might form in interstellar gas clouds (for which we have indirect, spectroscopic evidence, according to Shigley). A hydrocarbon gas, like methane, is pumped into a low-pressure reactor vessel alongside hydrogen. While maintaining near-vacuum conditions, the gases are heated very hot—typically 3,000 to 4,000 degrees Celsius, according to Lightbox CEO Steve Coe—causing carbon atoms to break free of their molecular bonds. Under the right conditions, those liberated bits of carbon will settle out onto a substrate—typically a flat, square plate of a synthetic diamond produced with the HPHT method—forming layer upon layer of diamond.
“It’s like snow falling on a table on your back porch,” Jason Payne, the founder and CEO of lab-grown diamond jewelry company Ada Diamonds, told me.
Scientists have been forging gem-quality diamonds with HPHT for longer, but today, CVD has become the method of choice for those selling larger bridal stones. That’s in part because it’s easier to control impurities and make diamonds with very high clarity, according to Coe. Still, each method has its advantages—Payne said that HPHT is faster and the diamonds typically have better color (which is to say, less of it)—and some companies, like Ada, purchase stones grown in both ways.
However they’re made, lab-grown diamonds have the same exceptional hardness, stiffness, and thermal conductivity as their Earth-mined counterparts. Cut, they can dazzle with the same brilliance and fire—a technical term to describe how well the diamond scatters light like a prism. The GIA even grades them according to the same 4Cs—cut, clarity, color, and carat—that gemologists use to assess diamonds formed in the Earth, although it uses a slightly different terminology to report the color and clarity grades for lab-grown stones.
They’re so similar, in fact, that lab-grown diamond entering the larger diamond supply without any disclosures has become a major concern across the jewelry industry, particularly when it comes to melee stones from Asia. It’s something major retailers are now investing thousands of dollars in sophisticated detection equipment to suss out by searching for minute differences in, say, their crystal shape or for impurities like nitrogen (much less common in lab-grown diamond, according to Shigley).
Those differences may be a lifeline for retailers hoping to weed out lab-grown diamonds, but for companies focused on them, they can become another selling point. The lack of nitrogen in diamonds produced with the CVD method, for instance, gives them an exceptional chemical purity that allows them to be classified as type IIa; a rare and coveted breed that accounts for just 2 percent of those found in nature. Meanwhile, the ability to control everything about the growth process allows companies like Lightbox to adjust the formula and produce incredibly rare blue and pink diamonds as part of their standard product line. (In fact, these colored gemstones have made up over half of the company’s sales since launch, according to Coe.)
And while lab-grown diamonds boast the same sparkle as their Earthly counterparts, they do so at a significant discount. Zimnisky said that today, your typical one carat, medium quality diamond grown in a lab will sell for about $3,600, compared with $6,100 for its Earth-mined counterpart—a discount of about 40 percent. Two years ago, that discount was only 18 percent. And while the price drop has “slightly tapered off” as Zimnisky put it, he expects it will fall further thanks in part to the aforementioned ramp up in Chinese production, as well as technological improvements. (The market is also shifting in response to Lightbox, which De Beers is using to position lab-grown diamonds as mass produced items for fashion jewelry, and which is selling its stones, ungraded, at the controversial low price of $800 per carat—a discount of nearly 90 percent.)
Zimnisky said that if the price falls too fast, it could devalue lab-grown diamonds in the eyes of consumers. But for now, at least, paying less seems to be a selling point. A 2018 consumer research survey by MVI Marketing found that most of those polled would choose a larger lab-grown diamond over a smaller mined diamond of the same price.
“The thing [consumers] seem most compelled by is the ability to trade up in size and quality at the same price,” Garard of IGDA said.
Still, for buyers and sellers alike, price is only part of the story. Many in the lab-grown diamond world market their product as an ethical or eco-friendly alternative to mined diamonds.
But those sales pitches aren’t without controversy.
A variety of lab-grown diamond products arrayed on a desk at Ada Diamonds showroom in Manhattan. The stone in the upper left gets its blue color from boron. Diamonds tinted yellow (top center) usually get their color from small amounts of nitrogen.
Photo: Sam Cannon (Earther)
Dazzling promises
As Anna-Mieke Anderson tells it, she didn’t enter the diamond world to become a corporate tycoon. She did it to try and fix a mistake.
In 1999, Anderson purchased herself a diamond. Some years later, in 2005, her father asked her where it came from. Nonplussed, she told him it came from the jewelry store. But that wasn’t what he was asking: He wanted to know where it really came from.
“I actually had no idea,” Anderson told Earther. “That led me to do a mountain of research.”
That research eventually led Anderson to conclude that she had likely bought a diamond mined under horrific conditions. She couldn’t be sure, because the certificate of purchase included no place of origin. But around the time of her purchase, civil wars funded by diamond mining were raging across Angola, Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Liberia, fueling “widespread devastation” as Global Witness put it in 2006. At the height of the diamond wars in the late ‘90s, the watchdog group estimates that as many as 15 percent of diamonds entering the market were conflict diamonds. Even those that weren’t actively fueling a war were often being mined in dirty, hazardous conditions; sometimes by children.
“I couldn’t believe I’d bought into this,” Anderson said.
To try and set things right, Anderson began sponsoring a boy living in a Liberian community impacted by the blood diamond trade. The experience was so eye-opening, she says, that she eventually felt compelled to sponsor more children. Selling conflict-free jewelry seemed like a fitting way to raise money to do so, but after a great deal more research, Anderson decided she couldn’t in good faith consider any diamond pulled from the Earth to be truly conflict-free in either the humanitarian or environmental sense. While diamond miners were, by the early 2000s, getting their gems certified “conflict free” according to the UN-backed Kimberley Process, the certification scheme’s definition of a conflict diamond—one sold by rebel groups to finance armed conflicts against governments—felt far too narrow.
“That [conflict definition] eliminates anything to do with the environment, or eliminates a child mining it, or someone who was a slave, or beaten, or raped,” Anderson said.
And so she started looking into science, and in 2007, launching MiaDonna as one of the world’s first lab-grown diamond jewelry companies. The business has been activism-oriented from the get-go, with at least five percent of its annual earnings—and more than 20 percent for the last three years—going into The Greener Diamond, Anderson’s charity foundation which has funded a wide range of projects, from training former child soldiers in Sierra Leone to grow food to sponsoring kids orphaned by the West African Ebola outbreak.
MiaDonna isn’t the only company that positions itself as an ethical alternative to the traditional diamond industry. Brilliant Earth, which sells what it says are carefully-sourced mined and lab-created diamonds, also donates a small portion of its profits to supporting mining communities. Other lab-grown diamond companies market themselves as “ethical,” “conflict-free,” or “world positive.” Payne of Ada Diamonds sees, in lab-grown diamonds, not just shiny baubles, but a potential to improve medicine, clean up pollution, and advance society in countless other ways—and he thinks the growing interest in lab-grown diamond jewelry will help propel us toward that future.
Others, however, say black-and-white characterizations when it comes to social impact of mined diamonds versus lab-grown stones are unfair. “I have a real problem with people claiming one is ethical and another is not,” Estelle Levin-Nally, founder and CEO of Levin Sources, which advocates for better governance in the mining sector, told Earther. “I think it’s always about your politics. And ethics are subjective.”
Saleem Ali, an environmental researcher at the University of Delaware who serves on the board of the Diamonds and Development Initiative, agrees. He says the mining industry has, on the whole, worked hard to turn itself around since the height of the diamond wars and that governance is “much better today” than it used to be. Human rights watchdog Global Witness also says that “significant progress” has been made to curb the conflict diamond trade, although as Alice Harle, Senior Campaigner with Global Witness told Earther via email, diamonds do still fuel conflict, particularly in the Central African Republic and Zimbabwe.
Most industry observers seems to agree that the Kimberley Process is outdated and inadequate, and that more work is needed to stamp out other abuses, including child labor and forced labor, in the artisanal and small-scale diamond mining sector. Today, large-scale mining operations don’t tend to see these kinds of problems, according to Julianne Kippenberg, associate director for children’s rights at Human Rights Watch, but she notes that there may be other community impacts surrounding land rights and forced resettlement.
The flip side, Ali and Levin-Nally say, is that well-regulated mining operations can be an important source of economic development and livelihood. Ali cites Botswana and Russia as prime examples of places where large-scale mining operations have become “major contributors to the economy.” Dmitry Amelkin, head of strategic projects and analytics for Russian diamond mining giant Alrosa, echoed that sentiment in an email to Earther, noting that diamonds transformed Botswana “from one of the poorest [countries] in the world to a middle-income country” with revenues from mining representing almost a third of its GDP.
In May, a report commissioned by the Diamond Producers Association (DPA), a trade organization representing the world’s largest diamond mining companies, estimated that worldwide, its members generate nearly $4 billion in direct revenue for employees and contractors, along with another $6.8 billion in benefits via “local procurement of goods and services.” DPA CEO Jean-Marc Lieberherr said this was a story diamond miners need to do a better job telling.
“The industry has undergone such changes since the Blood Diamond movie,” he said, referring to the blockbuster 2006 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio that drew global attention to the problem of conflict diamonds. “And yet people’s’ perceptions haven’t evolved. I think the main reason is we have not had a voice, we haven’t communicated.”
But conflict and human rights abuses aren’t the only issues that have plagued the diamond industry. There’s also the lasting environmental impact of the mining itself. In the case of large-scale commercial mines, this typically entails using heavy machinery and explosives to bore deep into those kimberlite tubes in search of precious stones.
Some, like Maya Koplyova, a geologist at the University of British Columbia who studies diamonds and the rocks they’re found in, see this as far better than many other forms of mining. “The environmental footprint is the fThere’s also the question of just how representative the report’s energy consumption estimates for lab-grown diamonds are. While he wouldn’t offer a specific number, Coe said that De Beers’ Group diamond manufacturer Element Six—arguably the most advanced laboratory-grown diamond company in the world—has “substantially lower” per carat energy requirements than the headline figures found inside the new report. When asked why this was not included, Rick Lord, ESG analyst at Trucost, the S&P global group that conducted the analysis, said it chose to focus on energy estimates in the public record, but that after private consultation with Element Six it did not believe their data would “materially alter” the emissions estimates in the study.
Finally, it’s important to consider the source of the carbon emissions. While the new report states that about 40 percent of the emissions associated with mining a diamond come from fossil fuel-powered vehicles and equipment, emissions associated with growing a diamond come mainly from electric power. Today, about 68 percent of lab-grown diamonds hail from China, Singapore, and India combined according to Zimnisky, where the power is drawn from largely fossil fuel-powered grids. But there is, at least, an opportunity to switch to renewables and drive that carbon footprint way down.
“The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption.”
And some companies do seem to be trying to do that. Anderson of MiaDonna says the company only sources its diamonds from facilities in the U.S., and that it’s increasingly trying to work with producers that use renewable energy. Lab-grown diamond company Diamond Foundry grows its stones inside plasma reactors running “as hot as the outer layer of the sun,” per its website, and while it wouldn’t offer any specific numbers, that presumably uses more energy than your typical operation running at lower temperatures. However, company spokesperson Ye-Hui Goldenson said its Washington State ‘megacarat factory’ was cited near a well-maintained hydropower source so that the diamonds could be produced with renewable energy. The company offsets other fossil fuel-driven parts of its operation by purchasing carbon credits.
Lightbox’s diamonds currently come from Element Six’s UK-based facilities. The company is, however, building a $94-million facility near Portland, Oregon, that’s expected to come online by 2020. Coe said he estimates about 45 percent of its power will come from renewable sources.
“The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption,” Coe said. “That’s something we’re focused on in Lightbox.”
In spite of that, Lightbox is somewhat notable among lab-grown diamond jewelry brands in that, in the words of Morrison, it is “not claiming this to be an eco-friendly product.”
“While it is true that we don’t dig holes in the ground, the energy consumption is not insignificant,” Morrison told Earther. “And I think we felt very uncomfortable promoting on that.”
Various diamonds created in a lab, as seen at the Ada Diamonds showroom in Manhattan.
Photo: Sam Cannon (Earther)
The real real
The fight over how lab-grown diamonds can and should market themselves is still heating up.
On March 26, the FTC sent letters to eight lab-grown and diamond simulant companies warning them against making unsubstantiated assertions about the environmental benefits of their products—its first real enforcement action after updating its jewelry guides last year. The letters, first obtained by JCK news director Rob Bates under a Freedom of Information Act request, also warned companies that their advertising could falsely imply the products are mined diamonds, illustrating that, even though the agency now says a lab-grown diamond is a diamond, the specific origin remains critically important. A letter to Diamond Foundry, for instance, notes that the company has at times advertised its stones as “above-ground real” without the qualification of “laboratory-made.” It’s easy to see how a consumer might miss the implication.
But in a sense, that’s what all of this is: A fight over what’s real.
“It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in. They are a type of diamond.”
Another letter, sent to FTC attorney Reenah Kim by the nonprofit trade organization Jewelers Vigilance Committee on April 2, makes it clear that many in the industry still believe that’s a term that should be reserved exclusively for gems formed inside the Earth. The letter, obtained by Earther under FOIA, urges the agency to continue restricting the use of the terms “real,” “genuine,” “natural,” “precious,” and “semi-precious” to Earth-mined diamonds and gemstones. Even the use of such terms in conjunction with “laboratory grown,” the letter argues, “will create even more confusion in an already confused and evolving marketplace.”
JVC President Tiffany Stevens told Earther that the letter was a response to a footnote in an explanatory document about the FTC’s recent jewelry guide changes, which suggested the agency was considering removing a clause about real, precious, natural and genuine only being acceptable modifiers for gems mined from the Earth.
“We felt that given the current commercial environment, that we didn’t think it was a good time to take that next step,” Stevens told Earther. As Stevens put it, the changes the FTC recently made, including expanding the definition of diamond and tweaking the descriptors companies can use to label laboratory-grown diamonds as such, have already been “wildly misinterpreted” by some lab-grown diamond sellers that are no longer making the “necessary disclosures.”
Asked whether the JVC thinks lab-grown diamonds are, in fact, real diamonds, Stevens demurred.
“It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in,” she said. “They are a type of diamond.”
Change is afoot in the diamond world. Mined diamond production may have already peaked, according to the 2018 Bain & Company report. Lab diamonds are here to stay, although where they’re going isn’t entirely clear. Zimnisky expects that in a few years—as Lightbox’s new facility comes online and mass production of lab diamonds continues to ramp up overseas—the price industry-wide will fall to about 80 percent less than a mined diamond. At that point, he wonders whether lab-grown diamonds will start to lose their sparkle.
Payne isn’t too worried about a price slide, which he says is happening across the diamond industry and which he expects will be “linear, not exponential” on the lab-grown side. He points out that lab-grown diamond market is still limited by supply, and that the largest lab-grown gems remain quite rare. Payne and Zimnisky both see the lab-grown diamond market bifurcating into cheaper, mass-produced gems and premium-quality stones sold by those that can maintain a strong brand. A sense that they’re selling something authentic and, well, real.
“So much has to do with consumer psychology,” Zimnisky said.
Some will only ever see diamonds as authentic if they formed inside the Earth. They’re drawn, as Kathryn Money, vice president of strategy and merchandising at Brilliant Earth put it, to “the history and romanticism” of diamonds; to a feeling that’s sparked by holding a piece of our ancient world. To an essence more than a function.
Others, like Anderson, see lab-grown diamonds as the natural (to use a loaded word) evolution of diamond. “We’re actually running out of [mined] diamonds,” she said. “There is an end in sight.” Payne agreed, describing what he sees as a “looming death spiral” for diamond mining.
Mined diamonds will never go away. We’ve been digging them up since antiquity, and they never seem to lose their sparkle. But most major mines are being exhausted. And with technology making it easier to grow diamonds just as they are getting more difficult to extract from the Earth, the lab-grown diamond industry’s grandstanding about its future doesn’t feel entirely unreasonable.
There’s a reason why, as Payne said, “the mining industry as a whole is still quite scared of this product.” ootprint of digging the hole in the ground and crushing [the rock],” Koplyova said, noting that there’s no need to add strong acids or heavy metals like arsenic (used in gold mining) to liberate the gems.
Still, those holes can be enormous. The Mir Mine, a now-abandoned open pit mine in Eastern Siberia, is so large—reportedly stretching 3,900 feet across and 1,700 feet deep—that the Russian government has declared it a no-fly zone owing to the pit’s ability to create dangerous air currents. It’s visible from space.
While companies will often rehabilitate other land to offset the impact of mines, kimberlite mining itself typically leaves “a permanent dent in the earth’s surface,” as a 2014 report by market research company Frost & Sullivan put it.
“It’s a huge impact as far as I’m concerned,” said Kevin Krajick, senior editor for science news at Columbia University’s Earth Institute who wrote a book on the discovery of diamonds in far northern Canada. Krajick noted that in remote mines, like those of the far north, it’s not just the physical hole to consider, but all the development required to reach a previously-untouched area, including roads and airstrips, roaring jets and diesel-powered trucks.
Diamonds grown in factories clearly have a smaller physical footprint. According to the Frost & Sullivan report, they also use less water and create less waste. It’s for these reasons that Ali thinks diamond mining “will never be able to compete” with lab-grown diamonds from an environmental perspective.
“The mining industry should not even by trying to do that,” he said.
Of course, this is capitalism, so try to compete is exactly what the DPA is now doing. That same recent report that touted the mining industry’s economic benefits also asserts that mined diamonds have a carbon footprint three times lower than that of lab-grown diamonds, on average. The numbers behind that conclusion, however, don’t tell the full story.
Growing diamonds does take considerable energy. The exact amount can vary greatly, however, depending on the specific nature of the growth process. These are details manufacturers are typically loathe to disclose, but Payne of Ada Diamonds says he estimates the most efficient players in the game today use about 250 kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity per cut, polished carat of diamond; roughly what a U.S. household consumes in 9 days. Other estimates run higher. Citing unnamed sources, industry publication JCK Online reported that a modern HPHT run can use up to 700 kWh per carat, while CVD production can clock in north of 1,000 kWh per carat.
Pulling these and several other public-record estimates, along with information on where in the world today’s lab diamonds are being grown and the energy mix powering the producer nations’ electric grids, the DPA-commissioned study estimated that your typical lab-grown diamond results in some 511 kg of carbon emissions per cut, polished carat. Using information provided by mining companies on fuel and electricity consumption, along with other greenhouse gas sources on the mine site, it found that the average mined carat was responsible for just 160 kg of carbon emissions.
One limitation here is that the carbon footprint estimate for mining focused only on diamond production, not the years of work entailed in developing a mine. As Ali noted, developing a mine can take a lot of energy, particularly for those sited in remote locales where equipment needs to be hauled long distances by trucks or aircraft.
There’s also the question of just how representative the report’s energy consumption estimates for lab-grown diamonds are. While he wouldn’t offer a specific number, Coe said that De Beers’ Group diamond manufacturer Element Six—arguably the most advanced laboratory-grown diamond company in the world—has “substantially lower” per carat energy requirements than the headline figures found inside the new report. When asked why this was not included, Rick Lord, ESG analyst at Trucost, the S&P global group that conducted the analysis, said it chose to focus on energy estimates in the public record, but that after private consultation with Element Six it did not believe their data would “materially alter” the emissions estimates in the study.
Finally, it’s important to consider the source of the carbon emissions. While the new report states that about 40 percent of the emissions associated with mining a diamond come from fossil fuel-powered vehicles and equipment, emissions associated with growing a diamond come mainly from electric power. Today, about 68 percent of lab-grown diamonds hail from China, Singapore, and India combined according to Zimnisky, where the power is drawn from largely fossil fuel-powered grids. But there is, at least, an opportunity to switch to renewables and drive that carbon footprint way down.
“The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption.”
And some companies do seem to be trying to do that. Anderson of MiaDonna says the company only sources its diamonds from facilities in the U.S., and that it’s increasingly trying to work with producers that use renewable energy. Lab-grown diamond company Diamond Foundry grows its stones inside plasma reactors running “as hot as the outer layer of the sun,” per its website, and while it wouldn’t offer any specific numbers, that presumably uses more energy than your typical operation running at lower temperatures. However, company spokesperson Ye-Hui Goldenson said its Washington State ‘megacarat factory’ was cited near a well-maintained hydropower source so that the diamonds could be produced with renewable energy. The company offsets other fossil fuel-driven parts of its operation by purchasing carbon credits.
Lightbox’s diamonds currently come from Element Six’s UK-based facilities. The company is, however, building a $94-million facility near Portland, Oregon, that’s expected to come online by 2020. Coe said he estimates about 45 percent of its power will come from renewable sources.
“The reality is both mining and manufacturing consume energy and probably the best thing we could do is focus on reducing energy consumption,” Coe said. “That’s something we’re focused on in Lightbox.”
In spite of that, Lightbox is somewhat notable among lab-grown diamond jewelry brands in that, in the words of Morrison, it is “not claiming this to be an eco-friendly product.”
“While it is true that we don’t dig holes in the ground, the energy consumption is not insignificant,” Morrison told Earther. “And I think we felt very uncomfortable promoting on that.”
Various diamonds created in a lab, as seen at the Ada Diamonds showroom in Manhattan.
Photo: Sam Cannon (Earther)
The real real
The fight over how lab-grown diamonds can and should market themselves is still heating up.
On March 26, the FTC sent letters to eight lab-grown and diamond simulant companies warning them against making unsubstantiated assertions about the environmental benefits of their products—its first real enforcement action after updating its jewelry guides last year. The letters, first obtained by JCK news director Rob Bates under a Freedom of Information Act request, also warned companies that their advertising could falsely imply the products are mined diamonds, illustrating that, even though the agency now says a lab-grown diamond is a diamond, the specific origin remains critically important. A letter to Diamond Foundry, for instance, notes that the company has at times advertised its stones as “above-ground real” without the qualification of “laboratory-made.” It’s easy to see how a consumer might miss the implication.
But in a sense, that’s what all of this is: A fight over what’s real.
“It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in. They are a type of diamond.”
Another letter, sent to FTC attorney Reenah Kim by the nonprofit trade organization Jewelers Vigilance Committee on April 2, makes it clear that many in the industry still believe that’s a term that should be reserved exclusively for gems formed inside the Earth. The letter, obtained by Earther under FOIA, urges the agency to continue restricting the use of the terms “real,” “genuine,” “natural,” “precious,” and “semi-precious” to Earth-mined diamonds and gemstones. Even the use of such terms in conjunction with “laboratory grown,” the letter argues, “will create even more confusion in an already confused and evolving marketplace.”
JVC President Tiffany Stevens told Earther that the letter was a response to a footnote in an explanatory document about the FTC’s recent jewelry guide changes, which suggested the agency was considering removing a clause about real, precious, natural and genuine only being acceptable modifiers for gems mined from the Earth.
“We felt that given the current commercial environment, that we didn’t think it was a good time to take that next step,” Stevens told Earther. As Stevens put it, the changes the FTC recently made, including expanding the definition of diamond and tweaking the descriptors companies can use to label laboratory-grown diamonds as such, have already been “wildly misinterpreted” by some lab-grown diamond sellers that are no longer making the “necessary disclosures.”
Asked whether the JVC thinks lab-grown diamonds are, in fact, real diamonds, Stevens demurred.
“It’s a nuanced reality that we’re in,” she said. “They are a type of diamond.”
Change is afoot in the diamond world. Mined diamond production may have already peaked, according to the 2018 Bain & Company report. Lab diamonds are here to stay, although where they’re going isn’t entirely clear. Zimnisky expects that in a few years—as Lightbox’s new facility comes online and mass production of lab diamonds continues to ramp up overseas—the price industry-wide will fall to about 80 percent less than a mined diamond. At that point, he wonders whether lab-grown diamonds will start to lose their sparkle.
Payne isn’t too worried about a price slide, which he says is happening across the diamond industry and which he expects will be “linear, not exponential” on the lab-grown side. He points out that lab-grown diamond market is still limited by supply, and that the largest lab-grown gems remain quite rare. Payne and Zimnisky both see the lab-grown diamond market bifurcating into cheaper, mass-produced gems and premium-quality stones sold by those that can maintain a strong brand. A sense that they’re selling something authentic and, well, real.
“So much has to do with consumer psychology,” Zimnisky said.
Some will only ever see diamonds as authentic if they formed inside the Earth. They’re drawn, as Kathryn Money, vice president of strategy and merchandising at Brilliant Earth put it, to “the history and romanticism” of diamonds; to a feeling that’s sparked by holding a piece of our ancient world. To an essence more than a function.
Others, like Anderson, see lab-grown diamonds as the natural (to use a loaded word) evolution of diamond. “We’re actually running out of [mined] diamonds,” she said. “There is an end in sight.” Payne agreed, describing what he sees as a “looming death spiral” for diamond mining.
Mined diamonds will never go away. We’ve been digging them up since antiquity, and they never seem to lose their sparkle. But most major mines are being exhausted. And with technology making it easier to grow diamonds just as they are getting more difficult to extract from the Earth, the lab-grown diamond industry’s grandstanding about its future doesn’t feel entirely unreasonable.
There’s a reason why, as Payne said, “the mining industry as a whole is still quite scared of this product.”
]]>To Stop Destruction of Liberia’s Rainforest, He Put His Life on the Line - Yale E360
▻https://e360.yale.edu/features/to-stop-destruction-of-liberias-rainforest-he-put-his-life-on-the-line-al
Alfred Brownell had to flee Liberia after challenging the powerful palm oil and other extractive industries that were clearing its forests. But he remains committed to seeing that the West African nation’s biodiverse lands be developed sustainably and the rights of its indigenous peoples respected.
#Liberia #forêt #déforestation #industrie_palmiste #extractivisme #écologie #militer
]]>Record High #Remittances Sent Globally in #2018
Remittances to low- and middle-income countries reached a record high in 2018, according to the World Bank’s latest Migration and Development Brief.
The Bank estimates that officially recorded annual remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries reached $529 billion in 2018, an increase of 9.6 percent over the previous record high of $483 billion in 2017. Global remittances, which include flows to high-income countries, reached $689 billion in 2018, up from $633 billion in 2017.
Regionally, growth in remittance inflows ranged from almost 7 percent in East Asia and the Pacific to 12 percent in South Asia. The overall increase was driven by a stronger economy and employment situation in the United States and a rebound in outward flows from some Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and the Russian Federation. Excluding China, remittances to low- and middle-income countries ($462 billion) were significantly larger than foreign direct investment flows in 2018 ($344 billion).
Among countries, the top remittance recipients were India with $79 billion, followed by China ($67 billion), Mexico ($36 billion), the Philippines ($34 billion), and Egypt ($29 billion).
In 2019, remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries are expected to reach $550 billion, to become their largest source of external financing.
The global average cost of sending $200 remained high, at around 7 percent in the first quarter of 2019, according to the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database. Reducing remittance costs to 3 percent by 2030 is a global target under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 10.7. Remittance costs across many African corridors and small islands in the Pacific remain above 10 percent.
Banks were the most expensive remittance channels, charging an average fee of 11 percent in the first quarter of 2019. Post offices were the next most expensive, at over 7 percent. Remittance fees tend to include a premium where national post offices have an exclusive partnership with a money transfer operator. This premium was on average 1.5 percent worldwide and as high as 4 percent in some countries in the last quarter of 2018.
On ways to lower remittance costs, Dilip Ratha, lead author of the Brief and head of KNOMAD, said, “Remittances are on track to become the largest source of external financing in developing countries. The high costs of money transfers reduce the benefits of migration. Renegotiating exclusive partnerships and letting new players operate through national post offices, banks, and telecommunications companies will increase competition and lower remittance prices.”
The Brief notes that banks’ ongoing de-risking practices, which have involved the closure of the bank accounts of some remittance service providers, are driving up remittance costs.
The Brief also reports progress toward the SDG target of reducing the recruitment costs paid by migrant workers, which tend to be high, especially for lower-skilled migrants.
“Millions of low-skilled migrant workers are vulnerable to recruitment malpractices, including exorbitant recruitment costs. We need to boost efforts to create jobs in developing countries and to monitor and reduce recruitment costs paid by these workers,” said Michal Rutkowski, Senior Director of the Social Protection and Jobs Global Practice at the World Bank. The World Bank and the International Labour Organization are collaborating to develop indicators for worker-paid recruitment costs, to support the SDG of promoting safe, orderly, and regular migration.
Regional Remittance Trends
Remittances to the East Asia and Pacific region grew almost 7 percent to $143 billion in 2018, faster than the 5 percent growth in 2017. Remittances to the Philippines rose to $34 billion, but growth in remittances was slower due to a drop in private transfers from the GCC countries. Flows to Indonesia increased by 25 percent in 2018, after a muted performance in 2017.
After posting 22 percent growth in 2017, remittances to Europe and Central Asia grew an estimated 11 percent to $59 billion in 2018. Continued growth in economic activity increased outbound remittances from Poland, Russia, Spain, and the United States, major sources of remittances to the region. Smaller remittance-dependent countries in the region, such as the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, benefited from the sustained rebound of economic activity in Russia. Ukraine, the region’s largest remittance recipient, received a new record of more than $14 billion in 2018, up about 19 percent over 2017. This surge in Ukraine also reflects a revised methodology for estimating incoming remittances, as well as growth in neighboring countries’ demand for migrant workers.
Remittances flows into Latin America and the Caribbean grew 10 percent to $88 billion in 2018, supported by the strong U.S. economy. Mexico continued to receive the most remittances in the region, posting about $36 billion in 2018, up 11 percent over the previous year. Colombia and Ecuador, which have migrants in Spain, posted 16 percent and 8 percent growth, respectively. Three other countries in the region posted double-digit growth: Guatemala (13 percent) as well as Dominican Republic and Honduras (both 10 percent), reflecting robust outbound remittances from the United States.
Remittances to the Middle East and North Africa grew 9 percent to $62 billion in 2018. The growth was driven by Egypt’s rapid remittance growth of around 17 percent. Beyond 2018, the growth of remittances to the region is expected to continue, albeit at a slower pace of around 3 percent in 2019 due to moderating growth in the Euro Area.
Remittances to South Asia grew 12 percent to $131 billion in 2018, outpacing the 6 percent growth in 2017. The upsurge was driven by stronger economic conditions in the United States and a pick-up in oil prices, which had a positive impact on outward remittances from some GCC countries. Remittances grew by more than 14 percent in India, where a flooding disaster in Kerala likely boosted the financial help that migrants sent to families. In Pakistan, remittance growth was moderate (7 percent), due to significant declines in inflows from Saudi Arabia, its largest remittance source. In Bangladesh, remittances showed a brisk uptick in 2018 (15 percent).
Remittances to Sub-Saharan Africa grew almost 10 percent to $46 billion in 2018, supported by strong economic conditions in high-income economies. Looking at remittances as a share of GDP, Comoros has the largest share, followed by the Gambia , Lesotho, Cabo Verde, Liberia, Zimbabwe, Senegal, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria.
The Migration and Development Brief and the latest migration and remittances data are available at www.knomad.org. Interact with migration experts at ▻http://blogs.worldbank.org/peoplemove
▻http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2019/04/08/record-high-remittances-sent-globally-in-2018?cid=ECR_TT_worldbank_EN_EXT
#remittances #statistiques #chiffres #migrations #diaspora
#Rapport ici :
ping @reka
Child Inmates of South Korea’s Immigration Jail
Helene* had a challenge that no mother would want. She, with her husband, was a refugee in a foreign land with a foreign language, trying despite all odds to raise her children as best she could. If this weren’t enough of a challenge, Helene was in jail, locked up in a 10-person cell with others she didn’t know. The only time she could leave her cell was for a 30-minute exercise time each day. But her task was more daunting still. Her children were locked up with her.
Helene’s jail was an immigration detention facility, and her crime was not having enough money to begin refugee applicant proceedings. She spent 23 days in that cell with her two sons. Her oldest, Emerson, was three years and eight months old, and her youngest, Aaron, was only 13 months old. She watched their mental health and physical health slowly deteriorate while her pleadings for help fell on deaf ears.
*
In June, American news media were shocked by the revelation that migrant children, who were only guilty of not possessing legal migrant status, were being held in large-scale detention facilities. This was something new—a part of President Donald Trump’s ‘tough on immigration’ stance.
In South Korea, detaining children simply due to their migration status, or the migration status of their parents, is standard practice.
Children make up a very small percentage of the total picture of unregistered migrants in South Korea. However, as the nation’s foreign population reaches 2 million and beyond, that small percentage becomes a large number in real terms. The Ministry of Justice (MOJ) doesn’t keep statistics on the exact number of unregistered child migrants in the country.
Most unregistered child migrants in South Korea fall into one of two broad categories: teenagers who come alone, and infants or toddlers brought by their parents or born to migrants already living in the country. In both cases, the majority of children (or their parents) come from other parts of Asia seeking work in the industrial sector.
These children often end up in detention facilities when immigration authorities carry out routine crackdowns targeting workplaces in industrial districts or transportation routes workers use to get to these districts. Authorities, by policy, detain any unregistered migrant who is 14 or older. Younger children are technically exempt from detention orders, but parents are often caught in crackdowns while with their children. The parents can’t leave their children on the street to fend for themselves, and so, left with no other options, they choose to bring their children with them into the detention facilities.
Helene’s case was different. She and her husband brought their sons to South Korea with them when they fled religious persecution in their home country of Liberia. The South Korean government rejected their refugee applications, and the family only had enough money to begin a legal challenge for one person. Emerson and Aaron, along with Helene, became unregistered migrants.
How they were detained would be comical if their case were not so tragic. After a trip to a hospital, the family was trying to board a subway to return home. Their stroller could not fit through the turnstiles, and after a brief altercation an upset station manager called the police. The police asked to see the family’s papers, but only Helene’s husband had legal status. The police were obligated to arrest Helene due to her unregistered status and turn her over to immigration authorities. Because her children were very young – the youngest was still breastfeeding – she had no viable option but to bring her children with her.
*
Helene and her sons were sent to an immigration detention facility in Hwaseong, some 60 kilometers southwest of Seoul. Inside and out, the facility is indistinguishable from a prison. Detainees wear blue jumpsuits with the ironic Korean phrase “protected foreigner” printed in large white letters on the back. They live in 10-person cells with cement walls and steel bars at the front. Each cell has a small common area up front with tables, a sleeping area in the middle, and a bathroom at the back.
For detainees, these cells become the entirety of their existence until they are released. Food is delivered through a gap in the bars, and the only opportunity to leave the cell is for a brief 30-minute exercise period each day.
These facilities were never intended to house children, and authorities make little to no effort to accommodate them. Young children have to live in a cell with a parent and as many as eight other adults, all unknown to the child. The detention center doesn’t provide access to pediatricians, child appropriate play and rest time, or even food suitable for young children.
Government policy states that education is provided only for children detained for more than 30 days. Children have no other children to interact with, and no space to play or explore. During daytime, when the sleeping mats are rolled up and stored, the sleeping area becomes a large open space where children could play. According to Helene, whenever her sons entered that area guards would shout at them to come back to the common area at the front of the cell.
Emerson’s fear of the guards’ reprimand grew to the point that he refused to use the toilets at the back of the cell because that would mean crossing the sleeping area, instead choosing to soil himself. Even after the family was eventually released, Emerson’s psychological trauma and his refusal to use bathrooms remained.
The stress and anxiety of being locked in a prison cell naturally takes a severe toll on children’s wellbeing. Like the adults they’re detained with, they don’t know what will happen to them or when they will be released. Unlike the adults, they don’t understand why they are in a prison cell to begin with. Without any way to alleviate the situation, the stress and anxiety they feel turn into mental disorders. These conditions can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and even increased rates of suicide and self-harm.
Kim Jong Chul has seen many examples of these symptoms firsthand. Kim is a lawyer with APIL, a public interest law firm, and he’s worked to secure the release of many migrant children held in detention.
In one such case, May, a 5-year-old migrant from China, spent 20 days in a detention facility with her mother. Over those 20 days, May’s extreme anxiety produced insomnia, a high fever, swollen lips and more. Despite this, her guards never brought a doctor to examine her.
For most migrants in immigration custody, children included, their release comes only when they are deported. In 2016, authorities held 29,926 migrants in detention, and 96 percent of them were deported. The whole deportation process, from arrest to boarding a plane, typically takes ten days.
But for children, ten days in detention are enough to develop severe stress and anxiety. Special cases, including refugee applications or a migrant laborer with unpaid wages, can take much longer to process. South Korea’s immigration law doesn’t set an upper limit on migrant detention, and there are cases of migrants held for more than a year. The law also doesn’t require regular judicial review or in-person checks from a case worker at any point in the process. According to Kim from APIL, the longest child detention in recent years was 141 days.
Existing children’s welfare services would benefit migrant children, but the MOJ opposes any such idea. In the view of the MOJ and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, welfare facilities should be reserved only for citizens and foreigners with legal status.
Children between the ages of 14 and 18 are yet another matter. The MOJ’s stance is that most of these children are physically similar to adults, highly likely to commit crimes and in general a danger to society, and they need to be detained.
Kim argues that it’s hard to interpret the MOJ’s stance that migrant teenagers are all potential criminals as anything other than institutional racism. South Korean citizens who are under 18 are considered minors and treated differently in the eyes of the law.
International treaties ban detaining children, including teenagers, due to migration status, and the South Korean government has signed and ratified each of the UN treaties that relate to children’s rights. It means that under the country’s constitution, the treaties have the same power as domestic law. And yet abuses persist.
Lawmaker Keum Tae-seob from the ruling Minjoo Party—often called one of the most progressive members of the National Assembly— is fighting this reality. He has proposed a revision to the current immigration law that would ban detention of migrant children, but it has met opposition from the MOJ. Ironically, the ministry argues that because South Korea has signed the relevant international treaties, there is no need to pass a separate domestic law that would ban such detention. This is despite the fact that immigration authorities, who belong to the MOJ, have detained over 200 children over the past 3 years, including many under the age of 14.
To rally support for a ban on detaining migrant children, APIL and World Vision Korea launched an awareness campaign in 2016, complete with a slick website, emotional videos and a petition. As of this writing, the petition has just under 9,000 signatures, and APIL is hoping to reach 10,000.
Back in June of last year, another petition received significant media attention. A group of Yemeni refugee applicants—fewer than 600—arrived on the island of Jeju, and in response a citizen’s petition against accepting refugees on the office of the president’s website garnered over 714,000 signatures. A collection of civic groups even organized an anti-refugee rally in Seoul that same month.
APIL’s campaign has been underway for more than two years, but the recent reaction to Yemeni refugees in Jeju has unveiled how difficult it will be change the government’s position on asylum seekers. A Human Rights Watch report released on Thursday also minced no words in critiquing the government policies: “even though [South Korean president] Moon Jae-in is a former human rights lawyer,” he “did little to defend the rights of women, refugees, and LGBT persons in South Korea.”
For now, Keum’s bill is still sitting in committee, pending the next round of reviews. Helene’s family has been in the UK since her husband’s refugee status lawsuit failed.
*Helene is a pseudonym to protect the identity of her and her family.
▻https://www.koreaexpose.com/child-migrant-inmates-south-korea-immigration-jail-hwaseong
#enfants #enfance #mineurs #rétention #détention_administrative #Corée_du_Sud #migrations #sans-papiers #réfugiés #asile
UNPROTECTED
An acclaimed American charity said it was saving some of the world’s most vulnerable girls from sexual exploitation. But from the very beginning, girls were being raped.
▻https://features.propublica.org/liberia/unprotected-more-than-me-katie-meyler-liberia-sexual-exploitati
She was a dervish of hugs, laughter, even tears. Her name was Katie Meyler. It was her 31st birthday and, she would later say, the best day of her life. The More Than Me Academy was opening.
The building had been a war-ruined shell people used as a toilet, festering so long a tree had grown through its walls. Now, with the Liberian president having given Meyler free use, it shone, improbably rebuilt into a school. A slogan ran step by step up a staircase: “I – promise – to – make – my – dream – come – true.” A sense of possibility infused the day, for Liberia and for the girls whose lives Meyler was transforming.
In matching neckerchiefs, some sang, some danced. One, 15 years old but betraying no nerves, gave a speech: “There is a saying in Liberia. Nothing good can ever come out of West Point.” Their home was an infamous sandy limb protruding from the city out into the sea, where over 70,000 of the world’s poorest people lived in a labyrinth of zinc-topped houses. The girl spoke of friends her age with multiple babies, friends forced to sell their bodies. “I could have been one of these girls, but I am not. I am not, because More Than Me believed in me.”
Meyler wanted to save these girls from sexual exploitation. She wanted to educate them, empower them, keep them safe. That’s why she had founded a charity called More Than Me. When the Liberian president, who had won a Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for women’s safety, was asked that day what she wanted from those keen to help her country, she answered, “To expand Katie Meyler’s initiative to as many communities as possible.”
]]>« Un écrivain passe l’essentiel de sa vie dans l’obscurité » : rencontre avec Zadie Smith - Culture / Next
▻https://next.liberation.fr/livres/2018/09/21/un-ecrivain-passe-l-essentiel-de-sa-vie-dans-l-obscurite-rencontre-a
C’est une belle soirée de juillet, tout Paris semble s’être précipité pour voir les joueurs de l’équipe de France descendre les Champs-Elysées. Mais une petite foule compacte et fébrile a fait le choix d’élire domicile à quelques kilomètres de là, devant la librairie Shakespeare and Company. Vu ce qu’a duré la parade triomphale des Champs, il semble qu’ils aient fait le bon choix, car l’écrivaine britannique Zadie Smith, attendue ce soir-là avec son mari, Nick Laird, pour une lecture publique, est restée bien plus que dix-sept minutes. La taille de l’attroupement, la présence en son sein de l’écrivain américain en vue Dave Eggers, tout cela disait quelque chose de la célébrité de l’écrivaine au turban. « Oh, il y a toujours du monde ici », nous confia-t-elle avec légèreté, sans que l’on sache si cela disait quelque chose de la France, ou de cette librairie en particulier. Mais depuis la parution en 2000 de son premier roman, Sourires de loup, lorsqu’elle avait 24 ans, et le succès retentissant de cette plongée dans le Londres multiculturel de l’époque, il n’est pas excessif de qualifier Zadie Smith de star.
Depuis, l’écrivaine mi-anglaise mi-jamaïcaine a signé d’autres bons romans - Ceux du Nord-Ouest est à nos yeux le meilleur - et quantité d’essais. Le couple habite désormais New York, où Zadie Smith enseigne le creative writing à la New York University, et s’ils sont à Paris ce soir, c’est pour présenter deux recueils paraissant en anglais à ce moment-là - des essais pour elle, des poèmes pour lui -, dont la particularité est de porter le même nom, Feel Free (« sens-toi libre »). Cette homonymie leur a donné l’occasion de lever un voile pudique sur leurs relations de couple et de travail, avec le genre d’humour autodépréciatif que les écrivains de langue anglaise manient avec agilité. Et n’est-ce pas une chose passionnante, la petite fabrique du métier d’écrivain, sur quoi Zadie Smith disserte très généreusement lorsqu’on l’interviewe ? Il faut l’avouer, Swing Time n’est peut-être pas, d’elle, notre livre préféré, sa magistrale première partie, qui met en scène l’amitié fusionnelle de deux fillettes métisses dans le Londres des années 80, bourrée de détails ironiques et de commentaires sociaux fulgurant tous azimuts, faisant place à une deuxième partie un brin plus mécanique, affaiblie par l’entrée en scène d’une pop star ressemblant à Britney Spears. Mais quelle intelligence, toujours, chez cette écrivaine-là. Le matin même est parue une nouvelle signée de sa plume dans le New Yorker, charge déjantée contre la tentation de notre époque à vouloir « oblitérer » tel ou tel dès lors qu’ils font un faux pas, et il fut jouissif de l’entendre, elle, s’entretenir à bâtons rompus. « On n’est libre nulle part, nous confiera-t-elle, autant être libre sur la page. »
Il y a dans Swing Time une célébrité qui a grandi dans l’œil du public. Un écrivain n’est pas une rock star, mais n’y a-t-il pas des résonances avec votre parcours ?
J’ai 42 ans, mes 24 ans me semblent loin ! (Rires) Mais ma renommée n’a rien à voir avec le genre de célébrité que je décris dans le livre : un écrivain passe l’essentiel de sa vie dans l’obscurité, la plupart des gens ne lisent pas, personne ne nous agresse. A New York, il m’arrive de voir des gens constamment harcelés, jour et nuit, et cela me fascine. Pas la célébrité en soi, mais qu’elle puisse continuer à exercer ce pouvoir d’attraction, particulièrement sur les jeunes, alors que l’on constate tous les jours que c’est un enfer. Cette aspiration, à quoi tient-elle ? Qu’en attendent ces gens ? J’en suis venue à la conclusion que ce qu’ils souhaitent, c’est être libérés de l’énorme anxiété qui naît des rencontres. Débarrassés de toutes ces choses qu’induisent les rapports sociaux. La célébrité les annihile, puisque tout le monde vous connaît déjà. Visiblement, une part de nous-mêmes aspire à cela : n’avoir aucune intimité à partager avec quiconque.
Il y a un autre élément qui semble autobiographique, c’est ce sentiment de loyauté coupable d’un enfant envers ses parents, exacerbé par la différence de leurs origines…
Je ne peux parler de ce que je ne connais pas, et je ne peux imaginer avoir deux parents blancs ou deux parents noirs ou tout simplement deux parents à qui je ressemble. Je ne sais pas si les différences entre mes deux parents ont pu rendre plus aiguë cette interrogation éternelle : « De qui es-tu davantage l’enfant ? » Mais je suis convaincue qu’il y a une attente génétique de similarité. Si un enfant ressemble à ses parents, c’est le résultat d’un attendu très profond. Ce qui se passe quand cela n’arrive pas, par exemple lorsque la couleur de peau n’est pas la même, n’est pas un problème ni une tragédie, mais c’est différent. Et cette différence-là m’intéresse.
Votre livre commence en 1982, il est truffé de références, notamment musicales, à cette époque et à sa pop culture. En avez-vous la nostalgie ?
Enfant, j’en avais plutôt pour les années 30 et 40. Mais étant donné la personne que je suis, je passe mon temps à me corriger : « Euh, non, ça ne serait pas merveilleux de vivre à cette époque-là et de porter les vêtements magnifiques qu’on portait alors car j’aurais sans doute été servante, et peut-être même qu’on m’aurait lynchée. » Il est certain que j’aurais été pauvre, que je n’aurais pu aller à la fac ni choisir un travail. Est-ce que les filles blanches se disent ce genre de chose ? En Angleterre, je vois toutes ces bandes de filles qui s’habillent dans le style des années 20 ou 50, mais avec des yeux de Noire, chacune de ces époques m’offre un scénario de meurtre potentiel, d’oppression certaine. C’est tentant, la nostalgie, mais je n’y ai pas droit. Cela m’a rendue, je ne dirais pas optimiste, mais en tout cas certaine que ce monde-ci, qui n’a rien de parfait, est historiquement le meilleur des mondes pour moi, femme noire. Même s’il reste encore beaucoup de choses à améliorer.
Une grande partie de Swing Time se déroule en Afrique, lorsque la narratrice doit suivre la pop star pour qui elle travaille dans un projet caritatif fumeux. On y trouve des échos à un reportage que vous aviez fait au Liberia en 2007, qui est dans votre recueil Changer d’avis. Pourquoi avoir fait ce reportage à l’époque ?
Hmm… Je ne suis pas sûre. Les gens qui me l’ont commandé ont vraiment été très insistants ! Je ne suis pas une grande voyageuse, pas une aventurière, et je décline généralement les propositions de reportages intéressants. Mais je crois que j’étais fascinée par l’histoire des origines du #Liberia, cet aveuglement total du « premier monde » vis-à-vis du tiers-monde, cette création ex nihilo. Mais pour moi ce premier voyage était totalement sentimental. Je suis sûre que beaucoup de Noirs britanniques et d’Afro-Américains vous diraient la même chose : aller en Afrique, c’est comme rentrer à la maison. C’est comme cela que je l’envisageais, et comme cela que je l’ai vécu. Ce n’était pas un fantasme, mais un fait historique et génétique : voilà l’endroit d’où vient le peuple de ma mère.
L’article et le livre sont assez critiques des bonnes intentions des pays du « premier monde ». Tout Swing Time ne parle finalement que de responsabilité sociale. Vous croyez à quel type d’action ?
Je m’intéresse peu au travail individuel des ONG dès lors qu’il existe d’immenses inégalités structurelles. Quand les Panamá Papers sont sortis, on a pu constater l’étendue du blanchiment d’argent américain, anglais, français, italien ou allemand en Afrique. Il faut se rendre à l’évidence : on peut envoyer autant d’organismes caritatifs qu’on veut au Liberia, tant que ce système de pillage ne change pas, par des lois internationales - car le pillage des ressources économiques de l’Afrique ne s’arrêtera pas à moins -, le reste est un détail.
La question de la responsabilité personnelle, de la culpabilité et du privilège se retrouve souvent dans vos livres…
Hmmm… Je crois que le sens des responsabilités par quoi il faut être habité pour être un bon citoyen, français, new-yorkais ou anglais, est désormais hors de portée pour n’importe qui. Voilà le piège : être un bon citoyen aujourd’hui, c’est devoir transformer radicalement sa manière de vivre, voyager, manger, envoyer ses enfants à l’école, les habiller. Chaque aspect de notre vie occidentale revient grosso modo à exploiter quelqu’un. Qu’il soit quasiment impossible de changer les choses au niveau individuel fait partie du problème. Cela me rappelle le krach de 2008 - ces banquiers qui nous ont fichus dedans, qui étaient-ils ? Des gens de mon âge, qui avaient fréquenté ma fac. Je les connaissais, c’étaient des connards de base. Rien de spécial, des connards de base. Mais le système où ils évoluaient leur a permis d’accomplir une destruction globale sans précédent. On peut bien s’émouvoir de la vanité, l’égoïsme et l’avidité de cette génération de jeunes hommes (car c’étaient surtout des hommes), et certes ils étaient avides et prétentieux. Mais ne le sommes-nous pas tous ? La différence, c’est que la plupart d’entre nous n’auront jamais accès à des structures permettant de tels dégâts. Je pratique le réalisme moral, je ne m’attends pas à ce que les gens soient parfaits. Mais j’aimerais en revanche qu’ils existent au cœur d’un système où les dégâts qu’ils causent peuvent être limités. C’est sans doute là que je m’éloigne de certains activistes. Je ne suis pas catholique, mais la conception très catholique du péché me parle : nous sommes tous en position de pécher. Il faut en tenir compte lorsqu’on travaille sur la réalité sociale, les gens ne sont que ce qu’ils sont.
Swing Time est le premier livre que vous avez écrit à la première personne. C’était libérateur ou contraignant ?
Oh, très difficile ! Cela allait à l’encontre de tout ce que je fais lorsque j’écris de la fiction. Les histoires que j’écris, pour le meilleur et pour le pire, traitent de notre vie en société, s’intéressent à des tas de gens différents. Me limiter à une seule personne était incroyablement étrange, mais cela m’a permis d’explorer les modalités de la subjectivité. D’être injuste et jalouse et cruelle, toutes ces choses qu’on est dans la vie. Dans mes autres romans, je m’octroyais la voix de la justice. Mais ça n’existe pas, la voix de la justice ! Il n’y a que nous et notre expérience subjective. J’ai commencé en pensant que j’allais écrire un roman existentiel français, quelque chose de très ramassé, à la Camus, mais après vingt pages j’avais déjà quinze personnages (rires). On ne se refait pas. Je n’ai aucun mal à inventer des personnages, je pourrais écrire un roman avec sept cents personnes dedans. Mais je ne voulais pas écrire un livre comme ça, je crois qu’il faut se méfier de ce qui nous vient trop facilement. Je voulais m’essayer à quelque chose d’un peu plus difficile, d’un peu nouveau.
Pensez-vous revenir un jour aux « gros romans » ?
Oh, j’espère bien ! J’ai une immense tendresse pour ce genre d’épaisseur. Les livres avec lesquels j’ai grandi, George Eliot, Dickens, que vous, Français, trouvez un peu ringards, je les adore. Ils sont loin de l’existentialisme, ce ne sont pas des livres idéologiques, plutôt des romans qui décortiquent la société - mais précisément, c’est à cet endroit-là qu’on vit. Donc aussi banals et petits et ennuyeux et pragmatiques et anglais qu’ils puissent paraître, ils sont aussi notre lieu de vie, notre réalité sociale. Ces romans-là sont d’un sublime un peu différent, parce qu’ils sont prêts à descendre dans la boue, à se colleter avec les gens… Oui, j’espère sincèrement me remettre à écrire comme ça.
Ringards, vous y allez fort ! Ceux qui les lisent les aiment beaucoup ! Mais Eliot souffre en effet d’être mal connue ici. Pourquoi pensez-vous qu’elle n’a jamais « pris » en France ?
Parce que c’est tout le contraire de l’esthétique française ! Les romans d’Eliot sont trop hégéliens, thèse-antithèse-synthèse. Complètement programmatiques et sociaux, là où les romans français sont tout en subjectivité, la vie comme processus…
Enfin il y a Balzac quand même…
Mais même Balzac… Il n’a pas ce côté domestique qu’ont les Britanniques et qui exaspère les écrivains français. Ils n’ont peut-être pas tort, mais les Anglais ont aussi quelque chose de précieux.
Dans votre écriture, vous êtes toujours plus « micromanagement » que « macroplanning », pour reprendre des termes que vous utilisiez dans Changer d’avis ?
Je n’écris rien à la légère, je ne fais pas d’esquisse, pas plus que je n’avance en me disant « bon, ce truc, j’y reviendrai ». J’écris une phrase, je la réécris, je la réécris encore, et je passe à la suivante. Je ne changerai jamais.
Pas de plan ?
Pas vraiment. Une vague idée, oui, mais très vague. Je crois que cela traduit un mélange de besoin de tout contrôler et de ressentir l’horreur de ne pas savoir où je vais - enfin, j’imagine que ça ressemble à l’horreur aux yeux d’un écrivain d’un autre genre.
Quel plaisir trouvez-vous à l’écriture d’essais ?
Je ne suis pas sûre… J’essaie d’en écrire un en ce moment, et je ne trouve pas l’expérience très gratifiante. Généralement, ces textes tournent mal, ou deviennent une source d’embarras. Ou alors, et c’est le problème que je rencontre actuellement, on me demande sept pages mais j’en écris quinze. Alors ça devient de la torture, je m’énerve, je tente de me sortir de la commande, j’envoie des mails hystériques. Et puis je sors du lit à 10 heures du soir, je m’y remets, je tente un truc. Et parfois je me rends compte que je n’ai pas besoin de ces huit feuillets-là, que je peux condenser ceci, et petit à petit je resserre, et l’essai devient meilleur. Bien meilleur que ce que je pensais tenir au départ, bien plus intelligent et raisonné que je ne le suis. C’est ça, le cadeau que vous font les essais : en corrigeant, en enlevant, en éditant, tout s’améliore. La #fiction, ce n’est pas pareil, rien n’est aussi précis, alors que le but de l’essai est limpide : j’ai un argument, et je veux vous convaincre. Quel est le but de la fiction ? Qui peut le dire ? On ne le sait jamais vraiment.
Vous lisez quoi ?
Je sors d’une année sabbatique où j’ai eu le temps de lire toutes sortes de choses. Quel bonheur ! Plein de jeunes, j’ai l’air vieille en disant ça, mais je pense à des écrivains de l’ère Internet, qui n’ont pas 27 ans et écrivent une prose habitée par leur vie en ligne. Ce n’est pas mon monde, c’est une génération à qui les noms de Roth, DeLillo ou Pynchon ne disent rien du tout. Mais j’aime bien le fait qu’ils écrivent tout court, à leur place je serais sur mon téléphone jour et nuit… Le fait qu’ils arrivent à prendre du recul et à écrire m’impressionne, il y a tellement plus de tentations pour eux.
Vous relisez des vieux livres ?
Ouhlala non, je ne tiens vraiment pas à être le genre d’écrivain British qui passe ses étés à relire Middlemarch. Je veux savoir ce qu’il y a de neuf. Je fais un cours chaque année sur quatorze livres, les quatorze mêmes, voilà pour la relecture. Évidemment, si je tombe sur un Dostoïevski que je n’ai jamais lu, c’est merveilleux : on adore tous découvrir des choses qu’on a ratées à 15 ans. Mais sinon, du neuf !
Elisabeth Franck-Dumas
Très intéressant le passage sur la nostalgie.
J’aurais bien aimé qu’elle cite des auteurs et autrices qu’elle lit, dommage !
#Tunisie : les #réfugiés de #Choucha à la Marsa - leur situation toujours en question.
Arrivés de Choucha en juin 2017, ils devaient être hébergés pour quelques jours seulement à la Marsa en attendant de résoudre leur situation. Pourtant ils y sont toujours aujourd’hui. Après avoir fui la Libye en 2011, leurs demandes d’asile avaient été rejetées en 2012 par le Haut-Commissariat des Nations Unies pour les Réfugiés (UNHCR). Ils ont espéré un réexamen de leurs dossiers pendant 6 ans, dans le camp de Choucha. Huit mois après leur arrivée à la maison des jeunes de La Marsa, les conditions de vie des 34 réfugiés et déboutés se sont gravement détériorées et les autorités compétentes ont abandonné le dossier.
▻https://nawaat.org/portail/2018/03/14/refugies-de-choucha-a-la-marsa-abandonnes-par-les-autorites-tunisiennes-et-l
]]>#Accaparement_de_terres : le groupe #Bolloré accepte de négocier avec les communautés locales
–-> un article qui date de 2014, et qui peut intéresser notamment @odilon, mais aussi d’actualité vue la plainte de Balloré contre le journal pour diffamation. Et c’est le journal qui a gagné en Cour de cassation : ►https://www.bastamag.net/Bollore-perd-definitivement-son-premier-proces-en-diffamation-intente-a
Des paysans et villageois du Sierra-Leone, de #Côte_d’Ivoire, du #Cameroun et du #Cambodge sont venus spécialement jusqu’à Paris. Pour la première fois, le groupe Bolloré et sa filiale luxembourgeoise #Socfin, qui gère des #plantations industrielles de #palmiers_à_huile et d’#hévéas (pour le #caoutchouc) en Afrique et en Asie, ont accepté de participer à des négociations avec les communautés locales fédérées en « alliance des riverains des plantations Bolloré-Socfin ». Sous la houlette d’une association grenobloise, Réseaux pour l’action collective transnationale (ReAct), une réunion s’est déroulée le 24 octobre, à Paris, avec des représentants du groupe Bolloré et des communautés touchées par ces plantations.
Ces derniers dénoncent les conséquences de l’acquisition controversée des terres agricoles, en Afrique et en Asie. Ils pointent notamment du doigt des acquisitions foncières de la #Socfin qu’ils considèrent comme « un accaparement aveugle des terres ne laissant aux riverains aucun espace vital », en particulier pour leurs cultures vivrières. Ils dénoncent également la faiblesse des compensations accordées aux communautés et le mauvais traitement qui serait réservé aux populations. Les représentants africains et cambodgiens sont venus demander au groupe Bolloré et à la Socfin de garantir leur #espace_vital en rétrocédant les terres dans le voisinage immédiat des villages, et de stopper les expansions foncières qui auraient été lancées sans l’accord des communautés.
▻https://www.bastamag.net/Accaparement-de-terres-le-groupe-Bollore-accepte-de-negocier-avec-les
#terres #Sierra_Leone #huile_de_palme
Photo Essay - The promise of palm oil sows anger and doubt in the forests of Liberia
▻https://theecologist.org/2018/may/02/photo-essay-promise-palm-oil-sows-anger-and-doubt-forests-liberia
For many residents of Sinoe County, Liberia, the experiences of Golden Veroleum (GVL) - a palm oil company that arrived in 2010 - have been disappointing and detrimental to their way of life.
Communities say their land was taken without their consent in many instances. These communities remain on the frontline of a development model that puts people’s wellbeing in the hands of private companies and foreign investors.
This remains so, even after years of complaints to international organisations including the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (#RSPO), the industry’s leading certification body.
]]>Exxon Sparks IMF Concern With Weighty Returns in Tiny #Guyana - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-09/exxon-sparks-imf-concern-with-weighty-returns-in-tiny-guyana
Exxon Mobil Corp. got such a “favorable” deal from Guyana, home to the biggest new deepwater oil play, that the tiny South American country should rewrite its tax laws, the International Monetary Fund said.
While Guyana should honor the existing deal, future contracts should ensure the state gets a higher portion of crude proceeds, the fund said in a report seen by Bloomberg News. The country, South America’s third poorest with an average per capita income of around $4,000, has little experience of dealing with multinational behemoths such as Exxon.
Terms of the 2016 contract “are relatively favorable to investors by international standards,” the IMF said in a report prepared for Guyanese officials. “Existing production sharing agreements appear to enjoy royalty rates well below of what is observed internationally.”
[…]
Open Oil, a Berlin-based company that advocates contract transparency, also found Guyana’s share of the #Stabroek was low compared with both established and early-stage producing countries. Guyana will receive 52 percent of positive cash flow over the life of Exxon’s initial project, compared with between 63 percent and 72 percent for developments in Liberia, Mauritania, Ghana, Senegal and Papua New Guinea, it said in a March report.
The Exxon contract, which was published on a government website last year, provides Guyana with a 2 percent royalty on sales and 50 percent of profitable oil, once costs are repaid. Exxon and its partners can only deduct three-quarters of their costs each year, giving the government some cash in the first years of the project.
]]>What kind of city is an African architecture for?
▻http://africasacountry.com/2018/03/what-kind-of-city-is-an-african-architecture-for
Children ran up and down the central stairwell as Martin led me and a small group of companions around the Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS) building on the outskirts of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. It was the start of the rainy season. Martin lived among approximately 80 families in the ruins of the brutalist LBS, one of the…
]]>What kind of city is an African architecture is for?
▻http://africasacountry.com/2018/03/what-kind-of-city-is-an-african-architecture-is-for
Children ran up and down the central stairwell as Martin led me and a small group of companions around the Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS) building on the outskirts of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. It was the start of the rainy season. Martin lived among approximately 80 families in the ruins of the brutalist LBS, one of the…
]]>Authoritarianism built into the city
▻http://africasacountry.com/2018/03/when-authoritarianism-is-built-into-the-city
Children ran up and down the central stairwell as Martin led me and a small group of companions around the Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS) building on the outskirts of Liberia’s capital, Monrovia. It was the start of the rainy season. Martin lived among approximately 80 families in the ruins of the brutalist LBS, one of the…
]]>Liberia’s stress test for democracy
▻http://africasacountry.com/2018/03/liberias-stress-test-for-democracy
The recent presidential and legislative elections in Liberia and the series of court challenges that preceded it, certainly tested the country’s fragile institutions. In the end, the courts, the National Elections Board, and the candidates themselves all seem to have proved their ability to withstand pressure. It was with relief and a new confidence in their constitution and their institutions that Liberians inaugurated their new president,…
]]>L’incroyable histoire de l’unique (et éphémère) #colonie russe en Afrique - Russia Beyond FR
▻https://fr.rbth.com/histoire/80110-russie-colonie-afrique
La#Russie est arrivée en retard dans la course des grandes puissances visant à diviser l’#Afrique, qui s’est produite dans les années 1980 du XIXe siècle. Cependant, un aventurier cosaque a été chargé de créer une colonie russe dans la Corne de l’Afrique. Voici l’incroyable histoire de la seule (et éphémère) implantation russe sur le continent noir.
Lors de la conférence de Berlin (1884-1885), le Royaume-Uni, la France, les Pays-Bas, la Belgique, l’Espagne et le Portugal divisèrent le continent africain, laissant de côté l’Autriche-Hongrie, la Suède, le Danemark, l’Italie et la Turquie. Le très jeune État d’Italie a protesté, obtenant la cession de certains territoires. Les États-Unis étaient invités, mais ils ne s’intéressaient qu’au Liberia, un projet créé en 1822 pour ramener les esclaves africains sur leur lieu d’origine.
En revanche, la Russie n’a reçu aucun territoire sur l’immense continent. « Elle est déjà assez grande comme ça », ont dû penser les puissances européennes, qui se méfiaient du géant russe, vainqueur dans la guerre de Crimée (1853-1854). Malgré cela, un homme ne se résignait pas à ce que la Russie soit spoliée dans la distribution des territoires africains.
]]>Weah président : le pouvoir (enfin) aux footballeurs
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/281217/weah-president-le-pouvoir-enfin-aux-footballeurs
George Weah, lors d’un meeting à Monrovia le 23 décembre 2017 © Reuters / Thierry Gouegnon. Ancienne légende du #football, #George_Weah vient d’être élu président du Liberia, avec plus de 61 % des voix. C’est la première fois qu’un footballeur devient chef d’État, l’aboutissement de plus d’un demi-siècle de relations passionnées entre ballon rond, pouvoir charismatique et responsabilité #politique.
]]>George Weah is on the brink of his biggest goal
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/12/on-the-brink-of-his-biggest-goal
After weeks of high-drama legal scrutiny over #Liberia’s first round of voting, carried out amidst a backdrop of shifting allegiances undoubtedly hammered out over cold beers on muggy nights, the end is drawing near. This coming Tuesday, just one day after celebrating Christmas with their families, Liberians will head to the polls and – finally – select their next president. It’s a watershed moment in the country’s…
]]>Expier 20 000 crimes de guerre
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article/expier-20-000-crimes-de-guerre
Expier 20 000 crimes de guerre
Joshua Blahyi, seigneur de guerre repenti, meurtrier de masse devenu pasteur, est à bien des égards un cas limite. L’un des pires criminels actuellement vivants, responsable d’atrocités innombrables lors de la guerre civile du Liberia, il a brusquement quitté sa vie de meurtres, écoutant le prêche d’un pasteur l’appelant à la conversion, puis est devenu pasteur lui-même. Libre dans un pays où aucun des anciens seigneurs de guerre n’est poursuivi, il recherche systématiquement les familles de ses anciennes victimes afin d’implorer leur pardon.
L’extrême de ses crimes, la mue en apparence totale qu’il a depuis connue, interrogent - qu’en est-il de sa sincérité ? Un homme peut-il revenir du fin fond de la criminalité ? Sa (...)
]]>Le sommet Israël-Afrique repoussé face au boycott | Agence Media Palestine
Par Ali Abunimah, le 11 septembre 2017, Traduction : J. Ch. pour l’Agence Média Palestine , Source : The Electronic Intifada
▻http://www.agencemediapalestine.fr/blog/2017/09/12/le-sommet-israel-afrique-repousse-face-au-boycott
Il semble qu’un sommet Israël-Afrique de haute notoriété prévu pour le mois prochain se soit effondré devant l’opposition croissante des gouvernements africains.
The Jerusalem Post racontait lundi que le sommet, qui devait se tenir dans la capitale togolaise Lomé, « a été annulé à la suite de menaces de boycott de la part d’un bon nombre de pays, et de pressions contre l’événement venues des Palestiniens et des pays arabes ».
Le ministère israélien des Affaires étrangères a annoncé que le sommet avait été « remis » mais, comme le faisait remarquer le journal, aucune date alternative n’a été annoncée.
De plus, i24 News d’Israël a évoqué comme une inquiétude l’instabilité politique au Togo, où les forces de sécurité ont essayé de violemment réprimer les manifestations contre 50 ans de pouvoir de la famille du président autocrate de l’État ouest-africain Fauré Gnassingbé.
Ce sommet devait être le couronnement de l’offensive de charme du Premier ministre israélien Benjamin Netanyahu en Afrique.
]]>L’US Navy ouvre une enquête sur un nouvel accident impliquant un navire de guerre
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/ameriques/article/2017/08/22/l-us-navy-ouvre-une-enquete-sur-un-nouvel-accident-impliquant-un-navire-de-g
Le chef des opérations de la marine a ordonné une « pause opérationnelle » de toutes les flottes après une série de quatre accidents dans le Pacifique cette année.
L’US Navy se remet en cause après son quatrième accident dans le Pacifique depuis le début de l’année. La marine de guerre des Etats-Unis a annoncé lundi 22 août une vaste enquête sur l’ensemble de sa flotte après la collision, la veille, entre le destroyer lance-missiles USS John S. McCain et un pétrolier battant pavillon du Liberia dans le détroit de Singapour. Dix marins étaient toujours recherchés mardi alors que des « restes humains » ont été retrouvés dans les parties inondées du navire américain.
C’est la seconde collision impliquant un navire de guerre américain en deux mois, et la quatrième depuis le début de l’année. Le 17 juin, sept marins périrent dans un accident entre le destroyer USS Fitzgerald et un porte-conteneurs battant pavillon philippin, au large du Japon.
D’après Ridzwan Rahmat, expert à Jane’s IHS Markit, cette série noire soulève des questions sur une éventuelle surexploitation des ressources de la marine de guerre des Etats-Unis en Asie, sur « un surmenage des équipages, une trop grande accélération des opérations ». Le navire de guerre américain venait de mener « une opération » de promotion de la « liberté de navigation » en mer de Chine méridionale, à la grande fureur de Pékin, qui revendique la quasi-totalité de cette région stratégique.
]]>Hey VICE! Put some respeck on Nollywood’s name!
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/08/hey-vice-put-some-respeck-on-nollywoods-name
Though VICE has, in some ways, improved its Africa coverage — see, for instance, its reporting on the political crises in the Central African Republic —it continues to offer some familiar, adventurist, Tarzanist tricks. Think of the infamous “cannibals”-in-Liberia episode, which prompted the late New York Times reporter David Carr to pillory VICE executives for their exoticizing methods. Those affiliated with VICE appear to have learned little from Carr’s blistering critique. Among the worst offenders is its correspondent Thomas Morton. Take VICE’s recent television segment on Nollywood — the second half of an…
]]>L’agriculture industrielle et l’accaparement des terres en Afrique - RFI
▻http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20170715-agriculture-industrielle-accaparement-terres-afrique
L’#accaparement des #terres par l’agriculture industrielle au détriment de l’agriculture familiale est un phénomène qui prend de plus en plus d’ampleur, avec des conséquences sociales et économiques de plus en plus marquées. Quelques chiffres : en Zambie 194 513 ha, au Burkina Faso 1 527 000 ha et une superficie additionnelle de 750 000 ha, au Congo 660 000 ha, au Mali 819 567 ha, en Côte-d’Ivoire 730 400 ha, au Liberia 1 737 000 ha (67 % des terres agricoles) sont entre les mains de compagnies internationales d’agriculture industrielle. Encore qu’il n’y a aucune certitude sur les chiffres, parce que ça relève presque du secret d’État.
]]>Why is #Liberia’s Government rushing to sell its public schools to U.S. for-profits?
▻http://africasacountry.com/2017/07/why-is-liberias-government-rushing-to-sell-its-public-schools-to-u-
When Liberia’s Minister of #education, George Werner, announced last spring that he was inviting foreign education companies and non-profits to run our public schools, our country came under the international spotlight, both in Western media and for education activists. The Minister and the supporters of the government’s plan excitedly championed the notion that clever thinking…
]]>En visite en Israël, Kagame salue une coopération « fleurissante »
AFP | 11 Juil 2017
▻http://www.afriqueexpansion.com/fil-de-presse-manchettes/5605-en-visite-en-israel-kagame-salue-une-cooperation-fleurissante
Le président rwandais Paul Kagame a déclaré lundi chercher à développer le commerce et la coopération avec Israël, lors d’une visite à Jérusalem, nouveau signe d’un réchauffement des relations entre l’Etat hébreu et l’Afrique.
En juillet 2016, le Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu s’était rendu dans quatre pays africains, dont le Rwanda, et a assisté en juin dernier à un sommet des dirigeants ouest-africains au Liberia.
« Israël continue à accroître ses engagements en Afrique. C’est une tendance très positive », a ajouté le président rwandais qui a rencontré M. Netanyahu et le président israélien Reuven Rivlin.
M. Kagame a affirmé que la coopération entre Israël et les nations africaines avait « fleuri dans de nombreux domaines », dont la technologie, l’agriculture, l’énergie et la sécurité. « Nous avons hâte de renforcer notre coopération avec Israël ».
]]>Report de la rencontre entre Netanyahu et le président du Togo
Voyant que ses gardes du corps ne pouvaient pas entrer dans la salle, retenus par la sécurité israélienne, Faure Gnassingbé a fait demi-tour
Times of Israel Staff 4 juin 2017, 19:04
▻http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-meeting-with-togo-president-rescheduled-after-their-bodygu
Les correspondants diplomatiques israéliens ont indiqué dimanche qu’une altercation physique entre les gardes du corps du Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu et ceux du président du Togo Faure Gnassingbé avait entraîné une annulation de la rencontre entre les deux dirigeants au sommet de la CEDEAO à Monrovia, au Liberia.
L’altercation a inclus des « poussées » et des « coups », a dit sur Twitter Moav Vardi, journaliste de la Dixième chaîne.
Selon Vardi, Gnassingbé est arrivé à la rencontre avec ses gardes du corps, qui ont été arrêtés à la porte par la sécurité de Netanyahu, et les Israéliens auraient demandé que les Togolais s’identifient.
Quand il a vu que ses gardes du corps ne pouvaient pas entrer, Gnassingbé serait parti, annulant la rencontre.
Le bureau du Premier ministre a ensuite affirmé que la rencontre du Premier ministre Benjamin Netanyahu avec le président du Togo, Faure Gnassingbé lors du sommet de la CEDEAO à Monrovia, au Libéria, a été reportée à plus tard dans la journée de dimanche.
]]>Maroc : Mohammed VI annule sa participation au 51e sommet de la Cedeao, auquel est invité Benyamin Netanyahou - JeuneAfrique.com
▻http://www.jeuneafrique.com/444457/politique/maroc-mohammed-vi-annule-participation-51e-sommet-de-cedeao-auquel-inv
L’organisation devait se prononcer sur la demande d’adhésion du Maroc à l’occasion de son 51e sommet, qui a lieu à Monrovia. Mais plusieurs pays participants ont été étonnés de l’invitation adressée à Benyamin Netanyahou. Jeudi, le roi du Maroc a annulé sa participation, ne souhaitant pas que sa première présence à ce sommet intervienne dans "un contexte de tension".
Le roi Mohammed VI a annulé sa visite à Monrovia, au Liberia, où il devait assister le 4 juin au 51e sommet de la Cedeao. Un rendez-vous important pour le royaume, puisque l’organisation devait statuer sur sa demande d’adhésion, formulée en février. Or, comme l’explique un communiqué du ministère marocain des Affaires étrangères, jeudi 1 juin, « au cours des derniers jours, des pays importants de la Cedeao ont décidé de réduire au minimum leur niveau de représentation à ce sommet, en raison de l’invitation adressée au Premier ministre israélien, Benyamin Netanyahou ».
Depuis quelques années, Israël cherche à renforcer ses relations économiques avec l’Afrique. En juillet 2016, Netanyahou s’est rendu en Ouganda, au Kenya, au Rwanda et en Éthiopie, alors qu’aucun Premier ministre israélien ne s’était rendu sur le continent depuis des décennies.
““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““
$1 billion Israeli solar commitment to ECOWAS
▻https://www.africa-newsroom.com/press/1-billion-israeli-solar-commitment-to-ecowas?lang=en
$20 million agreement for Liberia’s first solar field inked as Prime Minister Netanyahu arrives ; “Power to the African people,” says Israeli MP Neguise
MONROVIA, Liberia, June 2, 2017/APO/ —
Under the MOU signed today between the State of Israel and ECOWAS, Israel’s leading solar developer will invest $1 billion over the next four years to advance green energy power projects across the 15 member states of the West African economic community.
#Israfrique #CEDEAO = Communauté économique des États de l’Afrique de l’Ouest
]]>We are destroying rainforests so quickly they may be gone in 100 years | John Vidal | Global Development Professionals Network | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jan/23/destroying-rainforests-quickly-gone-100-years-deforestation?CMP=share_b
If you want to see the world’s climate changing, fly over a tropical country. Thirty years ago, a wide belt of rainforest circled the earth, covering much of Latin America, south-east Asia and Africa. Today, it is being rapidly replaced by great swathes of palm oil trees and rubber plantations, land cleared for cattle grazing, soya farming, expanding cities, dams and logging.
People have been deforesting the tropics for thousands of years for timber and farming, but now, nothing less than the physical transformation of the Earth is taking place. Every year about 18m hectares of forest – an area the size of England and Wales – is felled. In just 40 years, possibly 1bn hectares, the equivalent of Europe, has gone. Half the world’s rainforests have been razed in a century, and the latest satellite analysis shows that in the last 15 years new hotspots have emerged from Cambodia to Liberia. At current rates, they will vanish altogether in 100 years.
]]>« Partir du petit bout de la lutte »
Entretien avec Julie, membre de ReAct-Paris
par Alexane Brochard & Ferdinand Cazalis, illustré par Benoit Guillaume
paru dans CQFD n°149 (décembre 2016)
▻http://cqfd-journal.org/Partir-du-petit-bout-de-la-lutte
Qu’est-ce que le ReAct ?
C’est une petite association qui s’est créée à Grenoble en 2011 autour de quelques militants, avec l’idée que beaucoup d’injustices sociales et environnementales reposent sur le pouvoir excessif et croissant des multinationales. D’où l’envie d’un réseau transnational d’intervention, en développant des réseaux militants en vue d’actions directes coordonnées contre des multinationales ciblées. L’association s’est alors mise en route autour d’un projet en particulier : une rencontre en 2011 avec des paysans camerounais qui se sont fait voler leur terre par les entreprises de Bolloré, très implantées sur le continent africain. Ils étaient complètement démunis face à une entreprise basée en France, mais qui a ses plantations d’huile de palme au Cameroun. Le travail du ReAct a été alors de mettre en lien les riverains camerounais de Bolloré avec ceux du Libéria, de Sierra Leone, ou du Cambodge, victimes des mêmes exactions.
En 2013-14, en même temps que des actions coordonnées dans plusieurs pays, des membres des diasporas camerounaises, ivoiriennes, cambodgiennes vivant en France se sont invités à la tour Bolloré, le jour de l’AG du groupe. Munis de bêches, de râteaux, de pioches, ils ont jardiné la pelouse en disant : « On n’a plus de terres disponibles dans notre pays, alors on vient planter le manioc sur votre pelouse, M. Bolloré. » Au même moment, ils étaient des centaines à occuper les terres et bloquer les usines au Cameroun, au Liberia, au Cambodge et en Côte d’Ivoire. Vincent Bolloré a finalement accepté une négociation internationale avec des représentants de chaque pays en novembre 2014. Des engagements ont été pris, les avancées sur le terrain sont notables (rétrocession de parcelles, compensations pour les terres accaparées, arrêt des pollutions des eaux), mais la lutte est encore loin d’être gagnée et les actions se sont multipliées en 2015-16 pour pousser la multinationale à aller plus loin.
Dans notre jargon, les militants du ReAct ne sont pas les « leaders » de la mobilisation, mais les « organisateurs ». La différence est importante. Les organisateurs ne portent pas la colère : ils sont plus distants de l’objet de la lutte, ont le temps de faire ce travail d’organisation, et sont parfois payés comme permanents. Les leaders, eux, subissent la domination. Ils vont partir de leur colère pour construire leurs revendications, avec toutes les personnes concernées et prêtes à s’engager.
]]>a Mirai botnet perturbed Liberia’s internet connectivity
Liberia is connected to internet via only one undersea cable (part of ACE - African Coast to Europe) of 5.12 Tbps, shared between all 23 countries connected via ACE.
Mirai has been targeting IP addresses of Lonestarcell MTN, a telecom operators managing the Liberian ACE leg, flooding the pipe with 500 Gbps and thereby impacting Liberia’s internet several times. (well, the 6% of the country that actually has internet access).
Lonestarcell MTN is one of the 4 telecom operators
▻http://thehackernews.com/2016/11/ddos-attack-mirai-liberia.html
Many media, including BBC, PC World, The Guardian, Forbes, IBtimes, Quartz, Mashable, The Register, inaccurately reported that Liberia was totally cut off.
▻https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/11/did-the-mirai-botnet-really-take-liberia-offline
“Both our ACE submarine cable monitoring systems and servers hosted (locally) in LIXP (Liberia Internet Exchange Point) show no downtime in the last 3 weeks,” [the general manager of Cable Consortium of Liberia] said. “While it is likely that a local operator might have experienced a brief outage, we have no knowledge of a national Internet outage and there are no data to substantial that.”
Mirai announces its attacks here:
]]>« Aucun ménagement à garder » : pour une autre histoire de la Mission Congo-Nil | Olivier Favier
▻http://dormirajamais.org/marchand
Entre juillet 1896 et mai 1899, la mission Congo-Nil a mené le capitaine Marchand, treize militaires français ainsi que cent-cinquante tirailleurs africains, de Loango sur la côte Atlantique à Djibouti au bord de la Mer Rouge. Pour appréhender la violence coloniale et son acceptation, la mission Marchand s’avère un terrain doublement pertinent : célèbre, elle n’a pas donné lieu à une dénonciation de grande ampleur sur ce plan, richement documentée, elle offre des données précises sur la nature et l’ampleur des exactions. Source : Dormira jamais
]]>Liberia must learn to honor the rights of rural residents to manage their own land - LA Times
▻http://www.latimes.com/world/global-development/la-fg-global-liberia-human-rights-oped-snap-story.html
▻http://www.trbimg.com/img-57bf6df5/turbine/la-fg-global-liberia-human-rights-oped-snap
Some 40% of Liberia is under concessions for logging, oil and mining. While these lands may appear empty on government maps, they are home to millions. A recent analysis by the Munden Group of 237 mining and agriculture concessions in Liberia found that all had established communities in their midst.
The ancestors of the people in these rural communities have lived on and farmed this land since before Liberia became a republic in 1847 — long before Sirleaf’s government took power and before the dictatorships and civil wars that wreaked havoc across the country.
These people rely on the lands as a source of food and shelter, as well as the foundation of their culture and spirituality. Having survived so much, these people now face the prospect of losing their homes to multinational corporations. True economic development would instead improve the lives of people in these communities, rather than displace them.
#terres #Liberia #droit_foncier #ressources_naturelles #conflit #agro-industrie
]]>Why Liberia Needs to Protect Land Rights | Human Rights Watch
▻https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/17/why-liberia-needs-protect-land-rights
▻https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/styles/open_graph/public/multimedia_images_2016/2016-08-liberia-africa-sirleaf.jpg?itok=C9CuyBi6
Land in #Liberia is in high demand from foreign and national investors, particularly for palm oil plantations, mines, and timber concessions. According to the World Bank, 1.6 million hectares – that’s almost 2 million football fields – of land in Liberia was sold, leased, or licensed to commercial investors between 2004 and 2009, often with little or no consultation with those directly affected. Many disputes have not only ended up in the courts, but in violence between those who live on the land and investors.
The proposed act would legally recognize communities’ rights to “customary land,” defined as land owned by a community that is used in accordance with customary practices like arable farming. The concept of customary land recognizes communities’ long-term, continuous occupancy and use of land. The act would empower communities to legally own this land. It also establishes safeguards to reduce discrimination against women and other vulnerable groups – who are often disproportionately affected by social and cultural barriers to using and owning community land.
]]>700-year-old West African soil technique could help mitigate climate change
▻http://phys.org/news/2016-06-year-old-west-african-soil-technique.html
A farming technique practised for centuries by villagers in West Africa, which converts nutrient-poor rainforest soil into fertile farmland, could be the answer to mitigating climate change and revolutionising farming across Africa.
A global study, led by the University of Sussex, which included anthropologists and soil scientists from Cornell, Accra, and Aarhus Universities and the Institute of Development Studies, has for the first-time identified and analysed rich fertile soils found in Liberia and Ghana.
They discovered that the ancient West African method of adding charcoal and kitchen waste to highly weathered, nutrient poor tropical soils can transform the land into enduringly fertile, carbon-rich black soils which the researchers dub ’African Dark Earths’.
From analysing 150 sites in northwest Liberia and 27 sites in Ghana researchers found that these highly fertile soils contain 200-300 percent more organic carbon than other soils and are capable of supporting far more intensive farming.
]]>Liberia : le pari risqué de la privatisation de l’éducation (LeMonde.fr)
▻http://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2016/05/26/liberia-le-pari-risque-de-la-privatisation-de-l-education_4927019_3212.html
Le gouvernement veut lancer un partenariat public-privé dans 120 écoles primaires à la rentrée de septembre, pour un coût de 65 millions de dollars (environ 58 millions d’euros), soit environ trois quarts du budget de l’éducation.
Si l’essai s’avère concluant, cette association avec une dizaine d’entreprises spécialisées dans l’éducation, dont la chaîne Bridge International Academies, présente notamment au Kenya, en Ouganda et au Nigeria, sera étendue à tout le primaire. Le gouvernement récuse le terme de « privatisation », soulignant qu’il continuera à payer les salaires et à assurer l’entretien des établissements.
[…]
Car la méthode de Bridge International repose sur des cours magistraux dispensés avec l’aide d’une tablette numérique à des classes d’une cinquantaine ou d’une soixantaine d’élèves, avec beaucoup d’apprentissages par cœur.
La tablette permet de s’assurer que le programme est suivi, mais aussi de mieux contrôler l’absentéisme et les résultats des élèves.
#éducation #privatisation #secteur_privé #TICE #NTIC #partenariat_public_privé
]]>Huile de palme : appel au boycott d’entreprises par des communautés villageoises
▻http://www.boursorama.com/actualites/huile-de-palme-appel-au-boycott-d-entreprises-par-des-communautes-villag
Une délégation représentant des communautés villageoises du Pérou, de Colombie, d’Indonésie et du Liberia a appelé au #boycott des entreprises qui abusent de la #déforestation pour planter à la place des palmiers à huile, mercredi à Londres.
La délégation a remis un manifeste à la Bourse de Londres, dans lequel elle appelle les investisseurs, les consommateurs et les gouvernements à vérifier l’origine de l’#huile_de_palme consommée en Europe.
L’Union européenne (UE) est le troisième importateur de cette huile, de plus en plus utilisée par l’industrie agroalimentaire, notamment dans l’élaboration de biocombustible et de cosmétiques.
Reste à préciser lesquelles...
]]>Abandoned Tanker Mysteriously Washes Ashore in Liberia - gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/abandoned-tanker-mysteriously-washes-ashore-in-liberia
An abandoned oil tanker has mysteriously washed ashore in Liberia leaving officials scratching their heads as to how it got there and what exactly happened to its crew.
According to local reports the vessel emblazoned with the name Tamaya 1 was discovered washed up on a beach in Robertsport, Liberia on Wednesday with no sign of any crew.
AIS data from MarineTraffic.com shows the Tamaya 1 is a 63-meter oil products tanker flagged in Panama. It’s last known position was recorded back on April 22 as the ship was steaming southward at just .7 knots after leaving the port of Dakar in Senegal.
Speculation over the ship has ranged from abandonment to piracy, although the vessel’s last known position was well north of active Gulf of Guinea pirate groups who typically stick to the waters off Nigeria.
Adding to the confusion, the Liberian government is being slammed in the media for being unaware of the ship until two days after it washed ashore, sparking criticism over safety and security in Liberian waters. Other reports have said that a fire was discovered in captain’s quarters.
]]>Palm oil protest urges boycott at London Stock Exchange, Energy & Commodities - THE BUSINESS TIMES
▻http://www.businesstimes.com.sg/energy-commodities/palm-oil-protest-urges-boycott-at-london-stock-exchange
Indigenous and civil society leaders from Indonesia, Peru, Colombia and Liberia gathered in London Wednesday to urge a boycott of firms that commit human rights violations and land seizures to cultivate palm oil.
The delegates presented a petition to the London Stock Exchange calling on investors, consumers and governments to ensure palm oil used in the European Union is from sustainable sources.
The EU is the third largest importer of palm oil, a key ingredient in many everyday goods, from biscuits to make-up.
Demand for the oil has rocketed in recent years but the expansion of the industry has been blamed for the destruction of tropical forests and polluting forest fires.
]]>Indigenous leaders from threatened tropical forests to launch tour in Europe; will challenge region’s deadly trade in ubiquitous palm oil | Forest Peoples Programme
▻http://www.forestpeoples.org/topics/agribusiness/news/2016/04/indigenous-leaders-threatened-tropical-forests-launch-tour-europe-w
Between 27 April and 4 May 2016, indigenous representatives and community leaders from tropical forest countries in Asia, Africa and South America will tour Brussels, The Netherlands, Germany and the UK to raise concerns with high-level policy and decision-makers about palm oil supply chains and the impact they are having on their lands, forests and communities.
WHO: Franky Samperante and Agus Sutomo from Indonesia; Ali Kaba from Liberia; Robert Guimaraes Vasquez and Sedequías Ancon Chávez from Peru; and Willian Aljure from Colombia
WHEN: Wednesday 27 April to Wednesday 4 May 2016
WHERE: Multiple venues in Brussels, The Hague, Rotterdam Port, Bonn, Cologne and London
#peuples_autochtones #Europe #contestation #industrie_palmiste
]]>Code Blue
un site qui dénonce les #abus_sexuels des #casques_bleus et réclame la fin de l’impunité
▻http://www.codebluecampaign.com/welcome#recentstatements
▻http://static1.squarespace.com/static/514a0127e4b04d7440e8045d/t/554c24dee4b0fce4eb907a61/1459262559398/?format=1000w
Media exposés of widespread rape and sexual violence always shock the public. But no accounts are more abhorrent than those of women and children trapped in armed conflicts – often homeless, hungry, weak and impoverished – whose elation at the arrival of a UN peacekeeping operation turns to horror. From adolescent girls trafficked by UN peacekeepers to underground brothels in the former Yugoslavia, to refugees forced to provide sex for their food rations, and women and children violently raped in Haiti, Darfur, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the past two decades have brought stunning reports of sexual violence committed against defenseless civilians by the peacekeepers sent to shield them from more harm. The stories rarely end with justice served. Abuse by countless other sexual predators working in peacekeeping operations remain hidden. Annually, when the Secretary-General reports to Member States on the allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse documented during the previous year, he re-asserts the UN’s policy of ‘zero tolerance for sexual exploitation and abuse.’ And he concedes the problem is still at the crisis level.
]]>Regardez “Cargos, la face cachée du fret”, ou l’invisible armada de la mondialisation - Télévision - Télérama.fr
▻http://television.telerama.fr/television/regardez-cargos-la-face-cachee-du-fret-ou-l-invisible-armada-de-
Ils échappent aux regards. Pourtant, chaque jour, des dizaines de milliers de cargos font tourner l’économie planétaire. Embarquement édifiant. Du vendredi 5 février, 19h au mardi 9, à 10h, “Télérama” vous propose de regarder en avant-première le documentaire de Denis Delestrac, avant sa diffusion sur France 5.