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A report on the American “The Nation” website, under the title “The New Colonial Food Economy,” by Alexander Zaitchik, author of the book “Owning the Sun” - A History of the Medical Monopoly, spoke about the consequences of the actions of the global billionaire Bill Gates and other business giants in the areas of food. And agriculture, on small farmers in Africa and the countries of the South.
“Last summer, the global trading system finalized the details of the revolution in African agriculture,” the report stated, explaining that “under the project, the trade bodies sponsoring the African Continental Free Trade Area seek to restrict all 54 African countries to a model “It aims to replace farmers’ traditions and practices, which have persisted on the continent for thousands of years.”
He continued, "The main goal is farmers' human right to seeds and crops, and to share and cultivate them according to personal and societal needs."
"By allowing corporate property rights to replace local seed management, the protocol is the latest front in a global battle over the future of food," he adds.
Based on draft laws written by Western seed companies more than three decades ago in Geneva, the new generation of agricultural reforms seek to impose legal and financial penalties across the African Union on farmers who fail to adopt seeds manufactured abroad and protected by patents, including This includes genetically modified versions of local seeds, according to the report.
The resulting seed economy would turn African agriculture into a bonanza for global agribusiness, foster export-oriented monocultures, and undermine resilience during a period of profound climate disruption.
This new seed economy includes not only major seed and biotechnology companies, but also sponsor governments, in a more complex and controversial effort to re-engineer global agriculture for the benefit of biotechnology and agribusiness, not for the benefit of African farmers or the climate, the report asserts.
The author adds, “Tightening ownership laws on farms across the African Union would represent a major victory for global economic powers, which have spent the past three decades campaigning to undermine farmer-run seed economies and oversee their forced integration into global agribusiness value chains.”
These changes threaten the livelihoods of Africa's small farmers and their collective vital biological heritage, including a number of staple grains, legumes and other crops, which their ancestors developed and protected since the dawn of agriculture.
For farmers who are on the path to a global market drive to standardize and privatize their seeds, the risks are simply preserving their right to economic self-determination.
In a statement to the website, one of the farmers warns: “Companies have changed our food culture... They are now using threats to change our agricultural culture. If we replace traditional seeds with foreign seeds that cannot be replanted, what happens if the new seeds do not arrive? It is an attack on our survival!” .
The report instead suggested the EU explore “a parallel and realistic framework,” such as a customs union, to determine its ties with Ankara.
“The EU is trying to break away from Turkiye,” Erdogan told reporters. “We will make our evaluations against these developments and if necessary, we can part ways with the EU.”
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said the European Parliament report contained unfounded allegations and prejudices and took “a shallow and non-visionary” approach to the country’s ties with the EU.
Visa liberalization, which would give Turkish citizens visa-free travel to the bloc for long periods, is a significant reason Turkiye wishes to join the EU. Many Turkish citizens work in EU states, most notably Germany, and EU membership for Turkiye would free them of the difficult bureaucratic process needed to obtain visas.
The European Parliament report follows renewed Turkish efforts to join the EU. Earlier this summer, President Erdogan sought to link Turkiye’s EU accession to approving Sweden’s bid to join NATO.
However, EU officials balked at linking the two issues, citing human rights abuses and the deterioration of the rule of law in Turkiye under Erdogan.
“We have recently seen a renewed interest from the Turkish government in reviving the EU accession process,” said the lead lawmaker on the file, Spanish Socialist Nacho Sánchez Amor, upon adopting the report on Wednesday.
“This will not happen because of geopolitical bargaining, but only when the Turkish authorities show real interest in stopping the continuing backsliding in fundamental freedoms and rule of law in the country,” Sánchez Amor said.
EU officials accuse Erdogan of stifling the media and imprisoning dissidents, including during a crackdown after a failed coup in 2016, which Erdogan blamed on the Gulen Movement. Turkiye’s occupation of parts of EU-member Cyprus has also led EU officials to criticize Erdogan.
In 2018, the European Council said in a statement that negotiations for Turkiye to join the EU “have come to a standstill.”
Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria will introduce restrictions on the import of grain from Ukraine.
Poland has already announced a unilateral ban on grain
imports, and Romanian farmers are threatening to block ports and customs if the
import ban is not extended.
The grain will be provided by Russia, the logistics will be financed by Qatar, and the operation will be managed from Trukeye, which is also asiring to become a natural gas hub for the world.
Liana Fox, a Census Bureau official, explained during an online press conference that “high inflation led to a decline in real average family income,” which amounted to $47,960.
The official poverty rate remained stable compared to last year, at 11.5%, or 37.9 million people, living on less than $14,880 annually, or $29,950 for a family of four.
But another measurement showed a completely different truth. This measure, also published by the Census Bureau, adjusts the income below which a person is considered poor, taking into account government assistance and the cost of child care and medical expenses.
According to this measure, the poverty rate rose for the first time since 2010, increasing from 7.8% to 12.4% between 2021 and 2022.
The child poverty rate doubled, rising to 12.4%, while it was 5.2% in 2021, a historic low.
The Havana Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Group of 77 + China, which will be held in the Cuban capital, Havana, from September 15 to 16, is being held under special international circumstances and a combination of efforts and paths of joint bilateral and multilateral action to overcome hegemony. Western and its associated institutions and forums.
The summit comes under the title “Current Development Challenges: The Role of Science, Technology and Innovation,” as Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced last June, calling for action on this occasion to strengthen the unity of the member states of the group, and to take an effective decision on Collective and practical actions to confront contemporary challenges.
The Group of 77 is the largest intergovernmental group of developing countries in the United Nations. It aims to collectively advance the economic interests of its members, as well as create common negotiating capacity within the scope of the United Nations.
The group began on June 15, 1964, at the initiative of 77 countries that signed the Joint Declaration, which was issued at the closing session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva.
Although the membership of the Group of 77 has reached 134 countries today, it has maintained its original name due to its historical significance. It represents two-thirds of the members of the United Nations and 80% of the world’s population.
The group's first ministerial meeting was held in Algeria in 1967, and represented a qualitative shift in its structure, as the Algeria Charter was adopted, which became the group's institutional structure, and also paved the way for a permanent institutional structure that grew continuously.
The structure of the group gradually developed, as this development led to the establishment of the pacts of Rome, Vienna, Paris, Nairobi, and Washington. The group also has representatives in several international institutions and paths, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). ", and others.
The group takes the United Nations building in New York as its headquarters, and the presidency of the group is transferred between member states in a vote that takes place every year at the end of each session.
Since its establishment, the Group of 77 has enjoyed China's support, as Beijing attended the group's meetings as a "special guest" at first, until coordination between the two parties began in 1991.
In 1996, the 20th Ministerial Session of the organization adopted its current name, and then the first statement was issued under the name “Group of 77 + China”, and the name has been adopted since then.
China confirms that it supported the legitimate demands of the group and maintained cooperative relations with it, despite the fact that it is not a member of it.
According to its official website, the G77+China aims to provide the means for countries of the South to articulate and advance their collective economic interests, and to promote South-South cooperation for development.
The group seeks to enhance its joint negotiating capacity on all major international economic issues within the United Nations system.
In the political context, some attribute the roots and reasons for its establishment as an international group and bloc to the fact that it is the economic complement to the bloc of Non-Aligned Movement countries, as it was established due to the geopolitical and economic conditions that characterized the post-Cold War period, and as a middle way between the two social and economic systems existing at that time, the liberal capitalist system. The free market economy, the socialist system, and the commanded market economy.
The group's main decision-making process is known as the South Summit, and the first summit was held in the Cuban capital, Havana, in April 2000.
It is also noteworthy that the member states finance the group's activities through contributions, and enjoy a joint work system at the level of its various branches. The presidency of the organization is also transferred on a regional basis, between Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean countries, and the period extends for one year in all branches.
According to what was announced by Cuba's Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Pedro Luis Pedroso, Cuba, as the current president of the group, hopes that the upcoming Havana summit will contribute to strengthening the voice of the group in the ongoing intergovernmental negotiation processes, which aim to hold a “sustainable development” summit in September 18 and 19, in New York, and the “Future” Summit, scheduled to be held in September 2024, are two events that aim to chart a future of peace and sustainable development for the peoples of the Global South.
For his part, the Cuban President spoke, during his speech at the recent BRICS summit, that the Group of 77 and the BRICS group bear the responsibility of calling for a change in the current international system, indicating that “this is not an option, this is the only alternative.” .
Cannell stressed that the Group of 77 and the BRICS have historically called for a real transformation in the current international financial structure, describing it as “extremely unfair, outdated, and suffering from dysfunction.”
This year's meetings in Cuba come in light of transformations and coups at the global level, while the role of political blocs, groupings, and economic and geopolitical alliances is growing.
The current summit also gains special importance, for more than one factor, including that related to the location of its holding, as some Western media outlets reported that Cuba “by presiding over the summit, will seek to lead like-minded countries in standing against the United States.”
The upcoming summit also represents special importance as the world is preoccupied with talking about the Global South, and the authenticity and history that the group represents in its representation of the countries of the South.
In the same context, the American ABC network spoke, in a report, about the definition of the Global South, stressing that “at one stage the Group of 77 was considered the Global South.” It is also noted that the summit also comes after the “Voice of the Global South” summit was held. In India, which took place last January, in addition to the recent BRICS summit in South Africa, last August, which indicates the increasing importance of these groupings and frameworks.
Now, it is the turn of big pharma; companies that are
headquartered in the West and protected by western governments, have been bullying
African governments to sign deals for the supply of vaccines at higher prices.
It is now reported that Pharmaceutical giant Janssen/Johnson
& Johnson (J&J) and generic manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII)
charged the South African government more than the European Union for COVID-19
vaccines – and South Africa assumed all the risk in ‘take-it-or-leave-it’
contracts with Pfizer, J&J and SII.
This is according to an analysis of the contracts led by
Health Justice Initiative (HJI), a South African NGO that won a court challenge
last month to get access to all South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccine contracts.
J&J charged South Africa $10 a dose, 15% more than the
company charged the European Union (EU), and the government was required to pay
a non-refundable down payment of $27.5 million.
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As the new academic year starts, Muslims’ right to education in Europe is denied in order to uphold and enforce secularism. This seems to be...
Der Spiegel asked the same question: Another pro-French regime is shaking... Will Senegal be next?The German newspaper "Der Spiegel" indicated that France Afrique's regime had...
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300 girls defied a ban on the wearing of the religious garment in protest to the recent ruling by the French government that the long robe worn by some Muslims breached rules on secularism in schools.
French President Macron had earlier sought to link the wearing of religious dress with the murder of school teacher, Samuel Paty three years ago, saying "we cannot act as if the terrorist attack, the murder of Samuel Paty, had not happened".
Girls in a defiant scene wear abayas in schools despite the ban on the abaya in France..and the authorities send them back to their homes..and the French Council for the Islamic Religion considers banning the abaya an “arbitrary” decision
Late Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron defended this measure, stressing that it aims to defend secularism and the principles of the republic. He also mentioned the terrorist attacks that the country witnessed, especially the killing of Professor Samuel Paty, who was beheaded by a jihadist near his school.
In an interview with YouTuber Ugo Decrypt on his channel, Macron said, "We also live in our society with a minority, with people who change the direction of a religion and come to challenge the Republic and secularism." "Sometimes the worst happened," Macron added. We cannot act as if there had been no terrorist attack and there was no Samuel Paty."
On October 16, 2020, Professor of History and Geography Samuel Paty (47 years old) was stabbed to death in front of his school in the Parisian region, by the Chechen jihadist Abdullah Anzorov, who beheaded the teacher before the police shot him dead. This professor was killed days after he showed his students, during a class on freedom of expression, caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The jihadist said in an audio recording that he had committed his act "in retaliation for the Prophet."
An association representing Muslims has applied to the Council of State, France's highest court for complaints against state authorities, to issue an injunction against the ban on the abaya and chemise, the equivalent dress for men.
The "Action for Muslim Rights" memorandum will be considered later Tuesday.
According to the law of March 15, 2004, which prohibits the wearing of signs or clothes that show religious affiliation, students in violation are allowed to enter the school, not the classroom, provided that a dialogue takes place between the family and the Ministry of Education. This includes Christian crosses, Jewish skullcaps and Islamic headscarves.
However, unlike the veil, the abaya was not clearly defined within this law.
For its part, the official body representing Islam in France considered on Tuesday that the recent ban on the cloak in schools in France is "arbitrary" and creates "high risks of discrimination" against Muslims.
In the name of the principle of secularism, the French government announced at the end of August the ban on wearing the abaya in schools because of its controversial religious nature. In France, it is forbidden to wear religious symbols in schools under a law passed in 2004.
The French Council for the Islamic Religion considered that the absence of "a clear definition of this dress creates, in fact, an ambiguous situation and judicial insecurity."
This body noted in particular that the abaya can sometimes be considered “Islamic” – and thus prohibited – and at other times “un-Islamic” and therefore permitted.
As a result, the council expressed its fear of “arbitrary control,” as the criteria for evaluating girls’ dress are based on “presumed origin, last name, or skin color.”
Therefore, the authority warns that it reserves the right to take legal action “if the concrete application of this prohibition leads to forms of discrimination.” She added that the cloak "was never a garment or a religious guide."
About 300 female students out of 12 million who started the school year wearing the abaya this week attended schools on Monday, and 67 of them were sent home because of their refusal to comply with the government decision, according to figures announced by the Ministry of National Education on Tuesday.
Banning the abaya in schools is controversial in France, where the left asserts that this measure hides more pressing problems in national education, such as a shortage of teachers.
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Der Spiegel asked the same question: Another pro-French regime is shaking... Will Senegal be next?
The German newspaper "Der Spiegel" indicated that France Afrique's regime had reached the stage of its demise, expecting that Senegal, located in western Africa, and France's last remaining partner in the region, would be the next country to turn against French exploitation of it.
The newspaper said that young people in Senegal "are moving away from France, because they are tired of the clique surrounding President Macky Sall," noting that "he will not run for re-election next year."
The newspaper pointed out that the Senegalese view Sal as a French puppet, and a key element in France's policies in Africa.
And it used to be that the close relations between the candidate and Paris helped in the elections, so that the newspaper indicated that these relations almost guarantee the failure of the ballot boxes in the West African region.
Since last June, the Senegalese opposition has staged mass protests, primarily against the criminal conviction of its leader, Ousmane Sonko, with thousands taking to the streets earlier this month.
The marches have sometimes turned violent, with several people killed since the protests began. Far from simply showing support for Sonko, the demonstrators also targeted French supermarket chains and service stations of French oil giant Total.
And the German newspaper "Der Spiegel" revealed that in European diplomatic circles, there is "a fair amount of ambiguity about the French approach."
In this regard, one of the diplomats said that "Paris does not have mechanisms to deal with the current rejection of everything that is French," stressing that the member states of the European Union have failed to agree on a common position.
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