country:mozambique

  • Augmenter les forages pétroliers et planter des millions d’arbres dans des monocultures industrielles : l’étrange façon de protéger le climat du groupe ENI.
    www.sauvonslaforet.org/petitions/1177/des-groupes-petroliers-neutres-pour-le-climat-quelle-blague

    ENI veut étendre ses activités forestières sur 8,1 millions d’hectares. Les pays ciblés (Ghana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe et Afrique du Sud) ne disposent pas de surfaces libres. L’appropriation à grande échelle de terres par des sociétés comme ENI est une spoliation aboutissant à l’expulsion de ses habitants.

  • Splendeurs et misères de la collapsologie - Les impensés du survivalisme de gauche | Pierre Charbonnier
    https://www.cairn.info/revue-du-crieur-2019-2-page-88.htm

    La #collapsologie se glisse sans le dire dans cette mythologie moderne en envisageant astucieusement que le tournant anthropologique décrit par Rousseau pourrait être parcouru à rebours. La catastrophe climatique, dans le dispositif de l’effondrement, c’est d’abord cela : l’opportunité à ne pas manquer d’abolir gaiement l’ensemble des médiations techniques, juridiques, économiques qui alourdissaient notre mode de vie pendant la parenthèse moderne, et de reconquérir la liberté primitive, la seule liberté authentique. Rousseau, dans une intuition grandiose, nous disait : quand change votre relation à la nature, tout change. C’est ce qui nous est arrivé lorsque a été prononcé le « Ceci est à moi » inaugural du Discours, et c’est ce qui nous a obligés à envisager notre coexistence de façon politique. À cela, les collapsologues répondent : puisque la catastrophe va détruire toutes les médiations modernes avec la nature, nous allons enfin pouvoir tout recommencer et reconquérir notre liberté prépolitique.

    Fin de l’abondance, de la propriété, de la domination – les ruines n’ont jamais semblé aussi attirantes. Mais ce reboot du système moderne n’est rousseauiste qu’en apparence, puisque la thèse centrale du philosophe consistait à affirmer que les adieux à l’état premier étaient définitifs. L’institution d’une justice sociale conçue comme compensation des tendances violentes et inégalitaires de l’économie était absolument irréversible. Quoi qu’il en soit des modifications ultérieures des rapports au monde, l’apprentissage de la justice constitue le legs de la modernité parce que nous ne reviendrons jamais à un stade où la rareté et la compétition seront éliminées à la racine. Or nous savons déjà que les crises écologiques ne font qu’accroître la rareté, la compétition, les inégalités. Aux bouleversements climatiques doit donc répondre une réflexion sur les instruments de protection contre ces phénomènes, sur nos moyens de faire aboutir de nouvelles demandes de justice dans une nouvelle conflictualité sociale.

    La question qu’il s’agit en définitive d’adresser aux avocats de l’effondrement est celle de leur engagement à l’égard de l’avenir. Le débat avec eux ne doit pas concerner la gravité et l’ampleur des bouleversements écologiques et sociaux en cours, car pour l’essentiel, nous sommes d’accord sur le fait que l’agencement des humains et des choses que nous avons connu est en bout de course, ainsi que les formes politiques dominantes qui l’ont accompagné. Ce débat doit concerner la promesse qu’ils font à leurs lecteurs, et qui les engage : que disent-ils aux millions de personnes prises au piège de l’extension urbaine, à celles qui ne peuvent accéder au luxe que constitue trop souvent un mode de vie écologique ? Que disent-ils, surtout, à ceux et celles qui, par exemple, ont été frappés par le cyclone Idai au Mozambique au printemps dernier ? Peuvent-ils se contenter de leur dire que faire face à une catastrophe est une affaire de « cheminement intérieur  » ? Autrement dit : vont-ils se montrer à la hauteur des affects qu’ils soulèvent et mobilisent, vont-ils assumer la responsabilité qui découle de leurs annonces ?

  • Le Botswana décriminalise l’homosexualité - RFI
    http://www.rfi.fr/afrique/20190611-le-botswana-decriminalise-homosexualite

    C’était une décision très attendue : la Haute Cour du #Botswana a ordonné l’abrogation des lois criminalisant l’#homosexualité ce mardi 11 juin. Après l’Afrique du Sud, les Seychelles, l’Angola et le Mozambique, un nouveau pays d’Afrique lève donc l’interdiction pénale en la matière.[...]

    Dans son arrêt, elle affirme que les lois en question sont « des reliques de l’ère victorienne », qu’elles « oppriment une #minorité » et « ne passent pas l’épreuve de la constitutionnalité ». Comme dans la plupart des pays, la #Constitution botswanaise affirme en effet la stricte #égalité entre les citoyens.

  • Emmanuel Macron va-t-il décider de céder à Madagascar les #îles Éparses ? - Sputnik France
    https://fr.sputniknews.com/france/201905311041302542-Macron-madagascar-iles-eparses

    La promesse d’Emmanuel Macron de régler la situation des îles Éparses d’ici 2020, revendiquées par Madagascar, a suscité la polémique. Le président du mouvement Objectif France et le mouvement République souveraine dénoncent, notamment, l’éventuelle remise des îles, en appelant à la préservation de la souveraineté et du patrimoine français.

    Emmanuel Macron a consenti avec le Président de Madagascar Andry Rajoelina, reçu à l’Élysée le 29 mai, à aborder le sujet de la remise des îles Éparses, situées dans le #canal_du_Mozambique, à Madagascar qui prétend avoir le droit à ces îles.

    Dans sa lettre adressée au Président français et postée sur Facebook, M.Rajoelina appelle Emmanuel Macron à « réparer l’erreur de l’Histoire » et demande « la restitution des îles Éparses ».

    Selon la déclaration de M.Macron, « un travail conjoint, totalement partenarial » sera lancé pour « bâtir une solution commune ». Le Président français a promis que « pour les célébrations du 20 juin de l’année prochaine [le 60e anniversaire de l’indépendance de Madagascar, ndlr], cette solution soit trouvée ».

  • Congo Ebola response must be elevated to maximum level, UN told | Global development | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/may/29/congo-ebola-response-must-be-elevated-to-maximum-level-un-told

    The UN has been urged by charities to ramp up Ebola prevention work in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the highest level of emergency response.

    Only three crises – Yemen, Syria and Mozambique – are treated as the equivalent of a level-three response, activated when agencies are unable to meet needs on the ground.

    Charities including Mercy Corps and Oxfam said the same declaration should also be made in DRC, following a recent acceleration in the spread of Ebola.

    Almost 2,000 cases of Ebola have been recorded since the outbreak began in August. As of Monday, 1,287 people have died from the disease.

    #santé #ebola #rdc

  • Après le cyclone | Making-of
    Maryke Vermaak- Vendredi 26 avril 2019
    https://making-of.afp.com/apres-le-cyclone

    Mais ça, c’était avant mars dernier, quand je m’y suis rendu par avion pour couvrir les suites du passage du cyclone Idai, un des plus meurtriers à avoir frappé l’hémisphère sud. Il a dévasté des parties du Mozambique et du Zimbabwe, tué plus de 1.000 personnes et en a affecté plus de deux millions, principalement au Mozambique.

    J’avais déjà couvert des inondations dans ce pays en 2015, mais cette fois la dévastation causée par Idai le 14 mars était sans commune mesure. (...)

  • U.N. to probe sex-for-food aid allegations after ...
    http://news.trust.org/item/20190426133548-oe3xz

    The United Nations said on Friday it will investigate allegations that survivors of a deadly cyclone in Mozambique are being forced to have sex with community leaders for food.

    More than 1,000 people died and tens of thousands were forced from their homes when Cyclone Idai hammered Mozambique before moving inland to Malawi and Zimbabwe, in one of the worst climate-related disasters to hit the southern hemisphere.

    The U.N. pledge came a day after Human Rights Watch (HRW) published accounts of female survivors who said they were abused by local leaders and as a second powerful storm, Cyclone Kenneth, pounded the impoverished southeast African nation.

    “As with any report on sexual exploitation and abuse, we are acting swiftly to follow-up on these allegations, including with the relevant authorities,” the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said in a statement.

    “The U.N. has a zero tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse. It is not, and never will be, acceptable for any person in a position of power to abuse the most vulnerable, let alone in their time of greatest need.”

    #abus_de_pouvoir #viols #abus_sexuels #Mozambique #catastrophe

    • et ce n’est pas tout #femmes #discrimination

      A local community leader in the town of Tica, Nhamatanda district, told Human Rights Watch that in some cases, where access by road is impossible, local community leaders are responsible for storing the food and distributing it to families on a weekly basis. She said that, “Because the food is not enough for everyone,” some local leaders have exploited the situation by charging people to include their names on the distribution lists.

      One aid worker said that the distribution list often contains only the names of male heads of households, and excludes families headed by women. “In some of the villages, women and their children have not seen any food for weeks,” she said. “They would do anything for food, including sleeping with men in charge of the food distribution.”

      Another aid worker said that her international organization had received reports of sexual abuse of women not only in their villages, but also in camps for internally displaced people. She said they were monitoring the situation and training people to raise awareness among women and to report any cases of sexual exploitation or abuse.

      https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/04/25/mozambique-cyclone-victims-forced-trade-sex-food

  • Pourquoi le #paludisme est-il à nouveau en hausse ? by Fredros Okumu - Project Syndicate
    https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/malaria-prevention-mosquito-nets-not-enough-by-fredros-okumu-2019-04/french

    ... malgré ses avantages, cette approche [utilisation de moustiquaires imprégnées, pulvérisation d’insecticide dans les foyers et traitements à base d’artémisinin] comporte un sérieux problème : elle a alimenté la montée en puissance d’une énorme #industrie de lutte contre le paludisme, qui est de plus en plus déconnectée de sa mission principale, consistant à maintenir les collectivités en bonne #santé.

    Les pays africains les plus touchés - Burkina Faso, Cameroun, République démocratique du Congo, Ghana, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria et Ouganda, qui représentent ensemble 60 % de la charge mondiale du paludisme - importent régulièrement des moustiquaires, des insecticides et des médicaments préconisés par les acteurs de l’industrie. Pourtant le paludisme est à nouveau en hausse, avec un nombre de nouveaux cas dans 16 pays africains en hausse de plus de 100 000 entre 2016 et 2017, selon l’OMS. La « banalisation » de la lutte contre le paludisme a également contribué à l’appauvrissement de l’#expertise pratique sur le paludisme dans les pays endémiques.

  • Zimbabweans struggle to recover from Cyclone Idai | Steve Kretzmann and Ashraf Hendricks
    https://www.groundup.org.za/article/zimbabweans-struggle-recover-cyclone-idai

    On 15 March, Cyclone Idai slammed into the Chimanimani Mountains that form the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Torrential rain and sustained winds of up to 190km per hour flattened the low-lying area between Beira in Mozambique and the Zimbabwean border. It set off landslides in the Zimbabwe highlands that have altered the landscape. Source: GroundUp

  • Le #Mozambique. Promesses de prospérité et instabilité – GeoStrategia
    https://www.geostrategia.fr/le-mozambique-promesses-de-prosperite-et-instabilite

    Cet article s’intéresse aux enjeux auxquels le Mozambique est confronté. La récente découverte de gisements d’hydrocarbures permet à ce pays d’envisager un développement économique rapide en devenant un champion énergétique du continent africain. Toutefois l’auteure nuance ce propos et rappelle que depuis 2013 une crise politico-militaire subsiste, marquée notamment par la déstabilisation islamiste au nord du pays.

  • #Pro-savana

    Vision

    Improve the livelihood of inhabitants of #Nacala_Corridor through inclusive and sustainable agricultural and regional development.

    Missions

    1. Improve and modernise agriculture to increase productivity and production, and diversify agricultural production.

    2. Create employment through agricultural investment and establishment of a supply chain.

    Objective

    Create new agricultural development models, taking into account the natural environment and socio-economic aspects, and seeking market-orientated agricultural/rural/regional development with a competitive edge.

    Principles of ProSAVANA

    1. ProSAVANA will be aligned with the vision and objectives of the national agricultural development strategy of Mozambique, the “Strategy Plan for the Agricultural Sector Development – 2011 – 2020 (PEDSA)”,

    2. ProSAVANA supports Mozambican farmers in order to contribute to poverty-reduction, food security and nutrition,

    3. Activities of ProSAVANA, in particular those involving the private sector, will be designed and implemented in accordance with Principles of Responsible Agricultural Investment (PRAI) and Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure of Land, Fisheries and Forests,

    4. Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security of Mozambique (MASA) and Local Government, in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC), will strengthen dialogue and involvement of civil society and other appropriate parties,

    5. Appropriate consideration will be given for mitigation of the environmental and social impacts, which might be provided through the activities under ProSAVANA.

    Approaches of ProSAVANA

    1. Incorporate the results of relevant studies on the natural conditions and socio-economic situations, to support the establishment of appropriate agricultural development models,

    2. Increase agricultural productivity and production through appropriate measures, including improvement of farming systems, access to agricultural extension services including techniques and quality/quantity of inputs, value chain system and expansion of farmland,

    3. Promote diversification of agricultural production, based on research results to increase profitability,

    4. Provide opportunities to change from subsistence agriculture into a sustainable agriculture, with respect given to the farmers´ sovereignty,

    5. Strengthen the capacity and the competitiveness of farmers and farmers’ organisations,

    6. Enhance the enabling environment to promote responsible investments and activities, aiming to establish a win-win relationship between small-scale farmers and agribusiness firms,

    7. Promote and strengthen local leading farmers to disseminate and scale-up development impacts,

    8. Establish regional agricultural clusters and develop value chain systems,

    9. Promote public and private partnership as one of the driving forces for inclusive and sustainable agricultural development.

    http://www.prosavana.gov.mz
    #Pro_savana #land_grabbing #terres #Mozambique #accaparement_de_terres

    ping @odilon

    Apparemment, le programme a été arrêté avant d’être implémenté.
    Programme qui avait été promu par #Lula

    • What Happened to the Biggest Land Grab in Africa? Searching for #ProSavana in Mozambique

      What if you threw a lavish party for foreign investors, and no one came? By all accounts, that is what’s happening in Mozambique’s Nacala Corridor, the intended site for Africa’s largest agricultural development scheme – or land grab, depending on your perspective.

      The ProSavana project, a Brazilian-and-Japanese-led development project, was supposed to be turning Mozambique’s fertile savannah lands in the north into an export zone, replicating Brazil’s success taming its own savannah – the cerrado – and transforming it into industrial mega-farms of soybeans. The vision, hatched in 2009, but only revealed to Mozambicans in 2013, called for 35 million hectares (nearly 100 million acres) of “underutilized” land to be converted by Brazilian agribusiness into soybean plantations for cheaper export to China and Japan.

      In my two weeks in Mozambique, including one week in the Nacala Corridor, I had a hard time finding evidence of any such transformation. It was easy, though, to find outrage at a plan seen by many in the region as a secret land grab. That resistance, which has evolved into a tri-national campaign in Japan, Brazil, and Mozambique to stop ProSavana, is one of the reasons the project is a currently a dud.

      The new face of South-South investment?

      I came to look at ProSavana because, out of all the large-scale projects I studied over the course of the last year, this one sounded almost plausible. It wasn’t started by some fly-by-night venture capitalist, growing a biofuel crop he’d never produced commercially for a market that barely existed. That’s what I saw in Tanzania, and such failed land grabs litter the African landscape.

      ProSavana at least knew its investors: Brazil’s agribusiness giants. The planners also knew their technology: Brazil’s soybeans, which had adapted to the harsh tropical conditions of Brazil’s cerrado. And they knew their market: Japan’s and China’s hog farms and their insatiable appetite for feed, generally made with soybeans. That was already more than a lot of these grand schemes had going for them.

      I was also compelled by the sheer scale of the project. When first announced, ProSavana was to encompass 35 million hectares of land, an area the size of North Carolina. That would have made it the largest land acquisition in Africa.

      ProSavana also interested me because it was not the usual neo-colonial megaproject promoted by the Global North. It was a projection of Brazil’s agro-export prowess. This was South-South investment, the new wave of development in a multipolar world. Wouldn’t Brazil do this differently, I wondered, with the kind of strong developmental focus that had characterized the country’s ascendance under the leadership of the left-leaning Workers’ Party?

      ProSavana’s premise was that the soil and climate in the Nacala Corridor of Mozambique were similar to those found in the cerrado, so technology could be easily adapted to tame a region inhospitable to agriculture.

      Someone should have gone there before they issued the press releases.

      It turns out that the two regions differ dramatically. The cerrado had poor soils, which technology was able to address. That’s also why it had few farmers, and those that were there could be moved by Brazil’s then-military dictatorship. The Nacala Corridor, by contrast, has good soils, which is precisely why it is the most densely-populated part of rural Mozambique. (If there are good lands, you can bet civilization has discovered them and is farming them.)

      Mozambique also has a democratic government, forged in an independence movement rooted in peasant farmers’ struggle for land rights. So the country has one of the stronger land laws in Africa, which grants use rights to farmers who have been farming land for ten years or more.

      The disconnect between the claims ProSavana was making to its investors and the reality of the situation reached almost laughable proportions. Agriculture Minister Jose Pacheco led sales visits to Mozambique, organized by Brazil’s Getulio Vargas Foundation, which had put together the agribusiness-friendly draft “Master Plan” that was leaked to Mozambican civil society organizations in March 2013. Brazil’s biggest farmers came looking for thousands of hectares of land, only to find three disappointments: they couldn’t own land in Mozambique; what land they could lease was by no means empty; and it was far from the ports, with no decent roads to transport their soybeans. Brazil’s soybean mega-farmers packed up their giant combines and went back to the cerrado, where there are still millions of hectares of undeveloped land.

      A kinder, gentler ProSavana

      There are a few large soybean farms in Gurue, producing for the domestic poultry industry; but nothing like the export boom promised by ProSavana. According to Americo Uaciquete of ProSavana’s Nampula office, Brazilian farmers came expecting 40,000 hectares free and clear. He told me no investor could expect that in the Nacala Corridor. The only foreign investors who will farm there, he said, are those willing to take 2,000 hectares and involve local farmers.

      To me, that sounded like a very quick surrender on the ProSavana battlefield. Couldn’t the Mozambican government open larger swaths of land?

      “Not without a gun,” Uaciquete said, clearly rejecting that path. “We are not going to impose the Brazilian model here.” He went on to describe ProSavana as a support program for small-scale farmers, based on its two non-investment components: research into improved locally adapted seeds, and extension services to improve productivity.

      In Maputo, the ProSavana Directorate did its best to polish up the new, development-friendly ProSavana. Jusimere Mourao, of Japan’s cooperation agency, had it down best. She lamented that ProSavana was “poorly timed” because its “announcement” (a leak) “coincided” with international concerns about land grabbing. Hmmm….

      After taking civil society concerns into account, she said, the program had issued a new “concept note” and the Master Plan is under revision. “Small and medium producers are the main beneficiaries of ProSavana,” she said. “We have no intention of promoting the taking of their land. It would be a crime.” It’s not about promoting foreign investment, she assured me; that is up to the Mozambican government.

      The turnaround was stunning, and welcome, if not quite believable. It certainly had not quieted the coalition calling for an end to ProSavana until farmers and civil society groups are consulted on the agricultural development plan for the Nacala Corridor.

      Luis Sitoe, Economic Adviser to the Minister of Agriculture, smirked when I told him I’d been in the region researching ProSavana. “Did you find anything?” For him, ProSavana had failed.

      But lest I think anything profound had been learned from that experience, he reassured me that the Mozambican government remains firmly committed to relying on large-scale foreign investment to address its agricultural underdevelopment.

      He pulled out a two-inch-thick binder to show me he was serious. It was the project proposal for the Lurio River Valley Development Project, a 200,000-hectare irrigation scheme right there in the northern Nacala Corridor. Was it part of ProSavana? Absolutely not. Had the communities been consulted on this ambitious project along the heavily populated river valley?

      “Absolutely not,” said Vicente Adriano, research director at UNAC, Mozambique’s national farmers’ union, which had just presented its own agricultural development plan, based on the country’s three million family farmers.

      The ProSavana directorate is still promising a new Master Plan for the project in early 2015. So it would be a mistake to think that ProSavana is dead. Large-scale land deals certainly aren’t, however they are branded. Investors may just be waiting for the Mozambican government to bring more to the table than just promotional brochures. Things like land, which turns out to be rather important for a successful land grab. In the Nacala Corridor, that land is anything but unoccupied.

      https://foodtank.com/news/2014/12/what-happened-to-the-biggest-land-grab-in-africa-searching-for-prosavana-i

  • Emmanuel Macron, une mort pendant les manifestations
    Les forces de l’ordre craignent par dessus tout deux jours au Tchad loin des « gilets jaunes »

    Indonésie, avec les « délogés » : « L’Hôtel c’est pour les vacances, pas pour vivre »
    A Marseille, le bilan du tsunami s’alourdit à plus de 280 morts

    Selon Trump, Eric Drouet, l’une des figures du mouvement des « gilets jaunes » va « éradiquer » le groupe Etat Islamique en Syrie
    Erodagn sera jugé le 5 juin

    A Lille, l’ancienne conseillère de Martin Aubry dans l’enfer de la dette
    Le Mozambique choisit le macronisme pour conquérir la ville

    Besoin de fuir la foule ? Emmanuel Macron deux jours au Tchad
    Cinq idées pour être seul au monde loin des gilets jaunes

    Il y a trente ans une enquête ouverte après une scène antisémite dans le métro parisien
    « Gilets jaunes », le monde a failli trouver un accord sur le climat.

    Des briques de lait contaminées par l’Etat
    Climat : la pétition réclamant un recours en justice contre les résidus de détergent recueilli 1,6 million de signatures.

    #de_la_dyslexie_créative

  • Quién es Edgar Peña, el venezolano que será el número 3 del Vaticano
    http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/bbc-mundo/quien-edgar-pena-venezolano-que-sera-numero-del-vaticano_255759

    El tercer hombre más influyente de la Iglesia católica romana será a partir de este lunes 15 de octubre un religioso políglota, con 25 años de experiencia diplomática y nuncio en naciones de Asia y África.

    Y es venezolano.

    El papa Francisco nombró en agosto a monseñor Edgar Peña Parra como sustituto para asuntos generales de la Secretaría de Estado del Vaticano.

    Es el cargo más importante en el Vaticano luego del propio pontificado y la cancillería, liderada desde 2013 por el italiano Pietro Parolín, exnuncio en Venezuela durante el gobierno de Hugo Chávez.

    Peña tiene 58 años y reemplazará al italiano Angelo Becciu, nuevo cardenal.
    […]
    La curia describe a monseñor Peña Parra como un hombre inteligente, de trato amable y sensible a las causas de los pobres.

    La primera es su currículo: es licenciado en Filosofía y Teología, doctor en Derecho Canónico y especialista en Derecho Internacional de la Pontificia Universidad Gregoriana; habla español, inglés, francés, portugués, serbocroata, italiano, latín; y ha ejercido con éxito como nuncio apostólico en Pakistán y Mozambique.

    La segunda es simple: su gentilicio.

  • Premature Postcolonialists: the Afro-Asian Writers Association and Soviet Engagement with Africa | Lefteast
    http://www.criticatac.ro/lefteast/premature-postcolonialists-the-afro-asian-writers-association-and-soviet-

    In October 1958, over two hundred writers from Asia and the emerging African nations descended onto Tashkent, the capital of the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan. Among the participants was W. E. B. Du Bois, who at age 90 had just flown in from Moscow (where he persuaded Nikita Khrushchev to found an Institute for the Study of Africa). Alongside leading Soviet writers and cultural bureaucrats, some of the major figures of the 1930s literary left outside of Europe or the Americas were in attendance: the Turkish modernist poet Nazim Hikmet and his Pakistani counterpart Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the Chinese novelist Mao Dun and Mulk Raj Anand. Though poorly known at the time, some of the younger delegates at that meeting would go on to become the leading literary figures of their countries: the Senegalese novelist-cum-filmmaker Sembene Ousmane, the Indonesian writer Pramoedya Toer, the poet and founder of Angola’s Communist Party Mario Pinto de Andrade, and the Mozambican poet and FRELIMO politician Marcelino dos Santos. By all accounts, Tashkent impressed visitors with its mixture of Western modernity and familiar “eastern-ness,”—an effect carefully curated by the Soviet hosts who sought to make it a showcase city for Third-World delegations.

    The gathering that brought all these writers together—the inaugural congress of what would later become known as the Afro-Asian Writers Association—represented the literary front of the Soviet Union’s return to the colonial question after a two-decade-long lapse. The Stalinist state’s geopolitical zigzags and the rumors, confirmed in Khrushchev’s 1956 Secret Speech, of oppressive practices at home had considerably dimmed the flame of the Russian Revolution by the mid-1950s. African and Asian intellectuals’ doubts over the Soviet state’s emancipatory promises were now partly made up by the resources of a world super-power, which interwar Soviet anti-imperialism had lacked. These resources exercised a powerful, if ambiguous, effect on black political life worldwide, resulting, on the one hand, in devastating proxy wars in Angola and Mozambique and, on the other, fueling emancipatory struggles against apartheid in South Africa and Jim Crowe in the US.1

    This article will be particularly interested in the cultural consequences of the Soviet engagement with the postcolonial world, namely, in its effect on African letters. As a heir to the literature-centrism of the revolutionary Russian intelligentsia of the late nineteenth century, the Soviet state, down to its very bureaucracy, believed in the capacity of literature to transform society and invested heavily in literary engagements even with societies very different from its own. By the reciprocal logic of the Cold War, the U.S. State Department and CIA, institutions not known as patrons of literature before or after the Cold War had to match those investments. The real beneficiaries of this competition were African writers, interest in whose work significantly increased, as well as readers in the first, second, and third worlds, who were given greater access to those writers.

  • The poachers and the treasures of the deep: diving for abalone in South Africa | Environment | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/aug/19/poachers-abalone-south-africa-seafood-divers

    Abalone is dried in clandestine cookhouses in South Africa before being sent to Hong Kong, usually via neighbouring African countries with laxer borders and no laws for policing the abalone trade. Trucks routinely cross into Namibia or Zimbabwe or Mozambique with abalone in false compartments or hidden among boxes of dried fruit. It is a bizarre supply chain, from the shores of South Africa to plates in China.

    In the last 25 years, according to Traffic, syndicates have exported more than 50,000 tonnes of the shellfish, equivalent to some 130 million abalone. The annual illicit catch exceeds 3,000 tonnes, averaging eight tonnes every single day. The legal catch, set by the South African government, is 30 times smaller.

    #trafic #braconnage #coquillages

  • La victoire des paysans sur les modèles de développement transnationaux au Mozambique.
    Article du monde diplomatique du mois de juin 2018

    Aujourd’hui, Wuacua est un village fantôme, entouré des plantations d’Agromoz. Des vigiles recrutés par l’entreprise ne laissent personne approcher. La terre est nue, dans l’attente d’être semée. Le contraste est frappant avec le paysage de Nakarari, où s’étendent de petites parcelles de haricots et de manioc, où poussent des manguiers et où des bandes d’enfants courent de tous côtés.

  • Russia says only Syrian army should be on country’s southern border with Israel

    Israel believes Russia may agree to withdrawing Iranian forces and allied Shi’ite militias from Israel-Syria border

    Noa Landau and Reuters May 28, 2018

    https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/syria/russia-says-only-syrian-army-should-be-on-country-s-southern-border-1.61198

    Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that only Syrian government troops should have a presence on the country’s southern border which is close to Jordan and Israel, the RIA news agency reported.
    Lavrov was cited as making the comments at a joint news conference in Moscow with Jose Condungua Pacheco, his counterpart from Mozambique.
    Meanwhile, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman will leave on Wednesday for a short visit to Russia. He is scheduled to meet with his counterpart, Russia’s Defense Minister Sergei Shvigo, the ministry said in a statement on Monday. Lieberman is expected to discuss with his hosts the recent events in the Middle East, primarily the tension between Israel and Iran over the Iranian military presence in Syria.
    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke at the Knesset Monday, saying that “there is no room for any Iranian military presence in any part of Syria.”
    Lieberman said that “these things, of course, reflect not only our position, I can safely say that they reflect the positions of others in the Middle East and beyond the Middle East.”
    Keep updated: Sign up to our newsletter
    Email* Sign up

    On Sunday, Haaretz reported that Israeli political and military officials believe Russia is willing to discuss a significant distancing of Iranian forces and allied Shi’ite militias from the Israel-Syria border, according to Israeli officials.
    The change in Russia’s position has become clearer since Israel’s May 10 military clash with Iran in Syria and amid Moscow’s concerns that further Israeli moves would threaten the stability of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
    Russia recently renewed efforts to try to get the United States involved in agreements that would stabilize Syria. The Russians might be willing to remove the Iranians from the Israeli border, though not necessarily remove the forces linked to them from the whole country.
    Last November, Russia and the United States, in coordination with Jordan, forged an agreement to decrease the possibility of friction in southern Syria, after the Assad regime defeated rebel groups in the center of the country. Israel sought to keep the Iranians and Shi’ite militias at least 60 kilometers (37 miles) from the Israeli border in the Golan Heights, east of the Damascus-Daraa road (or, according to another version, east of the Damascus-Suwayda road, about 70 kilometers from the border).

    FILE – Iran’s Army Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, left, in Aleppo, Syria, in photo provided October 20, 2017/AP
    According to Israeli intelligence, in Syria there are now around 2,000 Iranian officers and advisers, members of the Revolutionary Guards, around 9,000 Shi’ite militiamen from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq, and around 7,000 Hezbollah fighters. Israel believes that the Americans are now in a good position to reach a more effective arrangement in Syria in coordination with the Russians under the slogan “Without Iran and without ISIS.”
    The United States warned Syria on Friday it would take “firm and appropriate measures” in response to ceasefire violations, saying it was concerned about reports of an impending military operation in a de-escalation zone in the country’s southwest.
    Washington also cautioned Assad against broadening the conflict.
    “As a guarantor of this de-escalation area with Russia and Jordan, the United States will take firm and appropriate measures in response to Assad regime violations,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement late on Friday.
    A war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported on Wednesday that Syrian government forces fresh from their victory this week against an Islamic State pocket in south Damascus were moving into the southern province of Deraa.
    Syrian state-run media have reported that government aircraft have dropped leaflets on rebel-held areas in Deraa urging fighters to disarm.
    The U.S. warning comes weeks after a similar attack on a de-escalation zone in northeastern Syria held by U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. U.S. ground and air forces repelled the more than four-hour attack, killing perhaps as many as 300 pro-Assad militia members, many of them Russian mercenaries.
    Backed by Russian warplanes, ground forces from Iran and allied militia, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, have helped Assad drive rebels from Syria’s biggest cities, putting him in an unassailable military position.

  • The victory of Mozambican farmers against the soya empire

    In 2011 the Mozambican government launched Africa’s largest agro-industrial development plan. The so-called #ProSavana aimed to turn 14 million hectares of land in the #Nacala corridor, in the north of the country, into a huge #monoculture, mainly soybean for the Chinese market. The development of the area would have been entrusted to Brazilian entrepreneurs coming directly from Mato Grosso.

    When they realized they would have lost their ancestral lands, local farmers put up a great mobilisation, which proved very successful.

    https://www.internazionale.it/video/2018/05/16/mozambican-farmers-soya
    #résistance #Mozambique #agriculture #soja #Chinafrique #Chine #Brésil #terres #accaparement_de_terres #vidéo

    • #Soyalism

      I n a world struck by climate change and overpopulation, food production control is increasingly becoming a huge business for a handful of giant corporations. Following the industrial production chain of pork, from China to Brazil through the United States and Mozambique, the documentary describes the enormous concentration of power in the hands of these Western and Chinese companies. This movement is putting out of business hundreds of thousands of small producers and transforming permanently entire landscapes. Launched in United States at the end of the Seventies, the system has been exported across the world, especially in large-populated countries such as China. From waste-lagoons in North Carolina to soybeans monoculture developed in the Amazon rainforest to feed animals, the movie describes how the expansion of this process is jeopardizing the social and environmental balance of the planet.

      https://www.soyalism.com

      #film #documentaire

      Trailer :
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwwAqllgwYg

      #Stefano_Liberti

    • La vittoria dei contadini del Mozambico contro l’impero della soia

      “In Mozambico non c’è abbastanza terra, abbiamo già conflitti tra di noi. Se verranno gli investitori stranieri, i conflitti peggioreranno. La terra appartiene ai mozambicani”, dice Costa Estevão, presidente dell’unione contadina di Nampula.

      Nel 2011 il governo mozambicano ha lanciato il più grande piano di sviluppo agroindustriale dell’Africa. Il ProSavana mirava a trasformare 14 milioni di ettari di terreno in monocolture da esportazione. L’area interessata era il corridoio di Nacala, nel nord del paese.

      Il suo sviluppo sarebbe stato affidato a imprenditori brasiliani venuti dal Mato Grosso, lo stato del Brasile trasformato negli anni ottanta nel principale produttore di soia al mondo. I contadini mozambicani, informati che avrebbero perso le proprie terre, hanno messo in piedi una grande mobilitazione e hanno vinto.

      Questo video, disponibile anche in inglese, è stato realizzato con il sostegno del Pulitzer center on crisis reporting. È uno spin-off di Soyalism, un documentario di Stefano Liberti ed Enrico Parenti sull’industria globale della carne e le monocolture correlate in giro per il pianeta.

      https://www.internazionale.it/video/2018/05/16/contadini-mozambico-soia
      #vidéo