Brasilia – It is one of the most expensive areas in the Brazilian capital – and one of the most sacred.

A plot in downtown Brasilia – known as Santuário dos Pajés or Shrine of the Shamans – is at the center of a conflict between indigenous people hoping to preserve their traditional way of life and developers eager to build an upmarket neighborhood.

While property is often contested in Brazil, it is usually waged over remote jungles or distant mountains – vast swaths of land that can be mined or farmed for profit.

This conflict centers on Brasilia’s urban power base. Just minutes from the National Congress, the Shrine of the Shamans – with its unpaved roads, forest and small houses – sits surrounded by lavish high rises.

Indigenous residents say they feel cornered by the encroaching developers, with multiple interests fighting over the last undeveloped plot in Brasilia, a planned city known for its futuristic buildings designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer.

“The sanctuary has been an indigenous land for more than 40 years. We have been fighting for its demarcation,” indigenous leader Márcia Guajajara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation inside the Shrine.

“When the developers arrived, we were already here. They think that money always wins,” she said.

It is one of many such conflicts in Brazil, rich in land to be exploited and low on deeds and property records.

For land demarcation is controversial in Brazil, despite safeguards in both the constitution and United Nations guidelines that are supposed to enshrine rights for indigenous people.

About a third of almost a million indigenous people live in Brazil’s cities, according to government statistics.

There are several land battles wending their way through the courts, many of them pit native people against powerful business interests.

But it is the prime downtown location that makes the fight over the Shrine stand out in the capital city, declared a World Heritage Site by the United Nations for its modernist architecture and artistic planning.

Conflicting Claims

Conflict began a decade ago when the local government claimed it owned the Brasilia plot, prompting indigenous groups to counterclaim, saying the Fulni-Ô Tapuya had lived and performed religious ceremonies there for decades.

To further complicate matters, the federal government said it took ownership of the area in 2008 and a year later sold it on to building firms to create a green and sustainable neighborhood called Noroeste (Northwest).

Since then, high-rise buildings have sprung up all around the sacred soil, making the Shrine one of the few areas in the city that is free of new buildings.

Forty-year-old Guajajara has been living in Santuário dos Pajés since 1996, after marrying shaman Santxiê Tapuya, considered the founder of the sacred land. She is one of 180 indigenous people who live in the area.

According to court documents, a receipt from 1980 shows Santxiê bought an area of about 4 hectares (9.8 acres), the size of almost six football pitches.

Indigenous locals say pressure to displace them from the area has steadily increased over the years.

One November afternoon last year, Guajajara said about 10 men – some armed – and three tractors invaded the Santuário dos Pajés area, knocking down trees in the hope of clearing the land sufficiently to pave an avenue down its middle.

Her 18-year-old son Fetxa said he tried and failed to stop them by blocking their path. “I did not get out of the front.

They pushed me forward, along with the soil, twice. I was shocked.”

According to Guajajara, she and her son – the only ones in the area when the tractors arrived – screamed they could not enter the indigenous land because it is protected by a court decision.

But the men said they had an order “to run it over.”

The local government’s development arm, Terracap, said its staff were doing some infrastructure works in the neighborhood close to the indigenous area but denied they were armed.

“We are removing garbage in various locations and they understood this as an affront,” Júlio César Reis, the head of Terracap, said by phone.

In an emailed statement, Brazil’s indigenous affairs agency, Funai, said it would not comment.

Federal prosecutors are investigating the case.

The indigenous residents were quick to fence in the area, though it is no barrier to any possible future encroachment.

How Much Land?

In 2013, a court recognized the indigenous land ownership rights over the area of about four hectares bought by Santxiê but Funai, Terracap and federal prosecutors appealed.

Terracap said it has not been proven the indigenous people lived in the sacred area before their registered their claim.

The matter was further complicated when in October 2017 federal prosecutors, who act on behalf of indigenous people in Brazil, made a request in court to allocate a further 28 hectares to  Santxiê’s family and the ethnic group Fulni-Ô Tapuya.

Federal prosecutor Felipe Fritz Braga said the sanctuary is crucial to ensure the Fulni-Ô Tapuya’s future in the area.

An anthropological report used in the suit found evidence that indigenous tribes have been living in the area since 1956, during the construction process of Brasília, he said.

Santuário dos Pajés has been targeted by almost 30 lawsuits over the last 10 years.

“This number of lawsuits reflects the complexity of the problem,” Braga said in an email to the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
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From: MeNeedIt

In her village of Komalia, the fog swirls so thick at 7 a.m. that Akansha Singh can see no more than 15 meters ahead. But the 20-year-old is already cycling to her workplace, nine kilometers away.

Halfway there she stops for two hours at a computer training center, where she’s learning internet skills. Then she’s off again, and by 10 a.m. reaches the small garment manufacturing plant where she stitches women’s clothing for high-end brands on state-of-the-art electric sewing machines.

Solar energy powers most of her day — the computer training center and the 25-woman garment factory run on solar mini-grid electricity — and clean power has given her personal choice as well, she said.

If the mini-grid system had not been put in place, Singh — a recent college graduate without funds to pursue training as a teacher, the only job open to women in her village — would have had no alternative but to marry, she said.

In fact, “I would already be married off,” she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Today, however, she earns 4,500 rupees ($70) a month working on solar-powered sewing machines. She uses part of that to pay 300 rupees ($4.70) a month for her computer education class — and is planning to start a computer training center closer to home.

Like her, most of the women at the factory earn between 2,500 and 4,500 rupees ($39- $70) a month, which has helped their families eat better, get children to school and pay for healthcare, they said.

“With a month’s earning alone we can buy new bicycles for ourselves and our school-going children,” Bandana Devi, a mother of four, told the Thomson Reuter Foundation, as she looked up from her sewing.

She bought one for her 12-year-old daughter, she said, and her 6-year-old rides pillion with her to the school, 2 km away.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced a $2.5 billion plan to electrify every Indian household by 2019 — a huge task in a country where close to 240 million people still have no access to electrical power.

Solar power — including the use of small local grids — is likely to be a big part of the push, with 60 percent of new connections expected to be to renewable power, according to a report by the International Energy Agency.

Stable Power, More Contracts

In a clearing in an acacia plantation, the more than 140 solar panels that make up the Kamlapur mini-grid are being cleaned early in the morning.

The 36-kilowatt plant, set up by the for-profit OMC Power Private Ltd.(formerly Omnigrid Micropower Company) in 2015, distributes solar energy over 2.4 kilometers of power lines to 70 households, two telecommunications towers, the clothing manufacturing unit and several other small businesses.

Solar mini-grids usually rely on one or two large users of power — often mobile phone towers — to provide a stable base revenue for the system. But as solar electricity becomes available in areas beyond the traditional grid, power-hungry small businesses are emerging that could become anchor users.

Kamlapur’s garment factory, for instance, consumes 10 kilowatts of power each day — the same as the telecom towers, said Ketan Bhatt, an OMC official in Uttar Pradesh state.

The state in 2016 became India’s first to put in place a mini-grid policy, recognizing private solar companies as legitimate players in India’s push to get power to all.

Company owners, in turn, say solar mini-grids — which can be more reliable than the unstable grid power their competitors rely on — is giving them a business advantage.

“Because the power supply is steady, we are regularly able to deliver on contract deadlines, which in turn enhances our reputation to bag more contracts,” said Mohammad Riyaz, who set up the Kamlapur garment unit in 2016.

Rohit Chandra, a co-founder of OMC, said he was seeing many solar power users moving beyond simply buying power for home lighting and appliances. Now, he said, they are harnessing solar energy for profit.

“We see barbers installing televisions and fans in their shops to attract more customers. Carpenters buy electric saws and wood polishers, fruit sellers are adding electric juicers. Health centers and dispensaries are coming up in underserved villages too,” Chandra said in a telephone interview.

“People are now continuously climbing,” he said.

Sangeeta Singh, of the Uttar Pradesh New and Renewable Energy Development Agency, said rural villagers “are willing to pay for assured, customized hours of supply, even at a higher price.”

“The myth that rural consumers will not pay for electricity is now demolished,” added Jaideep Mukherji, the CEO of Smart Power India (SPI). “Over the last two years we’ve discovered not only do rural consumers pay for the electricity, 93 percent pay on time.”

SPI is backed by the the U.S.-based Rockefeller Foundation’s $75 million Smart Power for Rural Development initiative, which aims to get power the “last mile” to users without it in India, Myanmar and sub-Saharan Africa.

SPI works with seven private mini-grid operators, including OMC, in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand — some of India’s least electrified states — to boost demand for solar mini-grid power and help develop rural economies.

The aim is both to improve life for poor people in power-hungry regions and help make sure solar mini-grid power is financially feasible for its operators, Mukherji said.

Chandra, of OMC, said that, on average, after supplying reliable power for a year, “we see around 30 micro-enterprises come up in each village.”

Though most are expansions of existing businesses, some are new ventures — such as a new water purifying plant in Kamlapur.

Sanskrit language teacher Aparna Mishra has just invested 400,000 rupees ($6,240) to set up a reverse osmosis water purifier.

Starting later this month, 100 customers — including schools, hotels and homes in the area — will begin receiving 20-liter refillable jars of water, dropped off at their doorstep, the entrepreneur said.

Mishra’s two-year target is to produce 3,000 liters of clean water a day, delivered over a 12-km radius from the 5-kilowatt plant.

“If villagers can understand the link between good health and clean drinking water from my plant, that itself is the biggest return on my investment,” the 26-year-old told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

An assessment of Smart Power India villages at the end of 2016 found that after two years of access to mini-grid power, small businesses using it had increased their monthly income by 13 percent.

A Price Too High?

While Smart Power India is reaching a growing share of communities without electricity, a 2017 study by the International Center for Research on Women found that large numbers of women and poor families still lack access to clean energy, even in areas where it is available.

For some of them, the cost of private mini-grid power is a deterrent to using it.

Riyaz’s clothing factory, for instance, pays 25 rupees (39 cents) for each kilowatt of the 10 kilowatts of power it uses each day — well above the 11 to 17 rupees that rural users of grid power pay.

“The electricity bill pinches,” the 45-year-old tailor said.

Chandra, of OMC, admitted that “on the face of it, our charges for reliable power might look high.”

But grid power users in Uttar Pradesh must pay a minimum monthly fee of 1,000 rupees, he said. With many small solar businesses — such as phone recharging — using less power, and even larger businesses often saving energy by using efficient machines, solar mini-grid power can come out cheaper, he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos said on Tuesday the country needs international aid to help cope with the humanitarian crisis caused by hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing over the border to escape the economic crisis at home.

“I appreciate the offers of financial and other aid from the international community. We are fully prepared to receive them. We need them because unfortunately this problem gets worse day by day,” Santos said at an event in Bogota.

Last week, Santos tightened border controls and heightened security in frontier towns.

Colombia’s migration authority has said that the number of Venezuelans living in Colombia increased 62 percent to more than 550,000 in the second half of 2017. Colombia has estimated that it costs $5 per day to give each Venezuelan migrant food and lodging.

As the number of Venezuelans crossing the border increases, including unattended children who get free vaccinations and education, Colombia estimates it would need $30 million to build an assistance center to give the migrants a temporary place to stay before deciding their next move.

Venezuela is in the throes of a protracted, severe recession that has cast many people into abject poverty. That, combined with hyperinflation in the oil-rich country, has led to the mass exodus.

Last Thursday, Santos said he would institute stricter migration controls, temporarily suspend new daily entry cards, and deploy 3,000 new security personnel, including 2,120 more soldiers, along the 2,219 km (1,379-mile) shared frontier.

About 1.3 million Venezuelans have registered for the special migration card that allows them to cross the border by day to buy food and other products that are scarce in their own country.

While Venezuelan professionals like doctors and engineers have found work in big cities or in Colombia’s oil industry, most of the poor have settled in Colombian border towns.
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From: MeNeedIt

Surgeries in low-income countries had higher rates of infections than those in higher-income countries, according to a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

The authors said their report provided a starting point for making surgery safer.

Infections at the site of surgery are the most common complications after operations. These infections raise the cost of procedures that are already expensive. And they often make recovery longer and more painful.

The study looked at more than 12,000 gastrointestinal surgeries at 343 hospitals in 66 countries.

Marked difference

Overall, about one in 10 patients developed a surgical site infection. But in low-income countries, that rate rose to nearly one in four.

That’s after taking into account factors such as the patient’s health, the type of surgery and the condition being treated.

Other elements that could have been behind the difference included the kinds of facilities available in low-income countries, or how long it took to get patients to a hospital, said study co-author Ewen Harrison at the University of Edinburgh.

“If you’re in rural sub-Saharan Africa and you’re run over by a car, it may be a number of days before you can get to a hospital,” he said. “During that time, infection can get into wounds.”

Drug resistance

Another component could have been the availability of effective antibiotics, Harrison said.

Antibiotics were nearly always given before surgery to prevent infection. But overall, about one in five surgical site infections were resistant to these antibiotics. The rate was higher in low-income countries — one in three — but the authors cautioned that they did not have enough data to draw firm conclusions.

Resistance generally develops faster the more antibiotics are used. The study noted that hospitals in low-income countries gave patients more antibiotics than elsewhere, both before and after surgery.

“That may be completely appropriate if the patients are needing the antibiotics,” Harrison said. “But that may also be an area where unnecessary use of antibiotics could be reduced in order to reduce drug resistance.”

The authors’ next plan is to test different skin-cleaning techniques, antibiotic-impregnated stitches, and other simple, low-cost methods to reduce surgical site infections in low-income countries.

More than 1,500 health care providers took part in the research. Harrison said the study organizers “crowdsourced” their participants, using social media to recruit young surgeons-in-training around the world.

“They are really the driving force behind the change that we hope to happen,” he said.
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From: MeNeedIt

Carlos Campos arrived in the U.S. when he was 13 years old – alone and undocumented – but now the Honduran fashion designer and his elegant collections are a staple of New York’s Fashion Week. Fashion Week runs thru 2/16. Faith Lapidus has more.
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From: MeNeedIt

Valentine’s Day is probably the most romantic holiday. In the United States, with people sending 190 million Valentine’s Day cards and spending around $100 per person on gifts. Instead of going out for a restaurant dinner for the holiday, a new idea is taking hold. These days more couples are planning to do something together. Classes like painting and cooking are a popular. Mariia Prus checked out the options for couples at one of Washington’s fanciest hotels.
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From: MeNeedIt

Wang Zhuyin studies 10 hours a day preparing for a series of tests to obtain a U.S. physician’s license. But like millions of young Chinese adults, the 26-year-old has found a new way to cope with the pressure: an online game about a frog.

A frog that’s perpetually on vacation.

Wang’s diversion, the Japanese mobile game “Travel Frog,” has attracted a massive following in China by speaking to a desire for a more passive existence among harried young people that some have termed “Buddhist style” for its desired goal of Zen-like serenity.

The game has only two scenes, a loft home and a courtyard where users can collect clover leaves to buy food and other travel supplies for their frog. There isn’t much else a user can do, either. The virtual frog randomly spends time reading a book at home, eating or going on vacation around Japan. Since users have no control over their frog’s behavior, waiting takes up most of the playing time.

“When your frog goes sightseeing, there is nothing you can do but go with the flow,” said Wang, a native of the high-tech center of Hangzhou outside Shanghai. “This is similar to the situation young people are facing. Suffocated by stress, we learn to pretend we don’t care.”

The game’s popularity underscores the degree of pressure Chinese millennials face in a highly competitive society where stability and opportunity have become ever more elusive.

Developed by Nagoya-based Japanese company Hit-Point, Travel Frog — also known as Tabi Kaeru — has become the most downloaded free game app in China, despite never having been translated into Chinese.

The game’s simplicity has users enthralled. Wang and others describe a sense of healing when gallivanting frogs send photos from their trips, or just relax at home.

The frog “doesn’t interact with you or talk to you. You just watch the frog living its own life,” said Jia Weiwei, 37, who works with autistic children in Beijing. “There isn’t a lot of information, which gives you plenty of space for imagination.”

Jia has studied an online translation guide and checks her phone regularly to see whether her frog will surprise her by sending a photo or bringing home souvenirs.

Psychologist Hai Ming says the popularity of the game shows that human relations have declined in an increasingly data-driven digital society.

“Behind every frog-raising player is a lonely person,” Hai said. “How do you externalize your loneliness, your indecision? Through the frog.”

On Weibo, China’s Twitter-like social media platform, the topic (hash)TravelFrog(hash) has received over 1.96 billion views. According to Travel Frog developer Mayuko Uemura, Travel Frog has racked up about 30 million downloads on Apple’s App Store and Google Play since its launch in November. Fully 95 percent of downloads of the game from the App Store were in China.

“We were hoping to some extent that people overseas would be able to enjoy this game as well, but I would never have imagined that it would become so popular with people in China,” Uemura said.

The company is now considering producing an international version that could be tailored to appeal to local audiences, she said.

Social media have played an important role in the game’s success, said Chenyu Cui, a game analyst with IHS Markit in Shanghai.

Gamers can show off on Chinese social media sites by comparing photos of their frogs’ “travels,” Cui said.

Some users refer to the frog as their child and will worry if it hasn’t been home for even two days.

“It connects with people’s common experience,” said Shao Yuanyu, 32, a Taiwanese doctor based in Beijing. “Now I know how my mom felt when she waited for me to come home.”

For young people living in China’s fast-paced modern society, the game provides a sense of connection, said Xu Ziwei, a counselor from the mental health center at Beijing’s Renmin University.

“To some extent, you feel that you have a stable relationship with the frog. If it leaves, it will always come back, it will send you a postcard,” Xu said.

Not all are as positive. The game and the social trends it embodies run counter to the ruling Communist Party’s frequent exhortations to the public to strive for economic advancement. In a speech last year, President Xi Jinping called on young people to “write a vivid chapter in your tireless endeavors to serve the interests of the people.”

The party’s official newspaper, People’s Daily, stated in a recent Weibo post that young people should spend their time enriching themselves “instead of just being a lonely frog-raising person.”

But others see the frog game and the popularity of “Buddhist style” thinking as examples of young Chinese expressing a newfound independence. People born in the 1990s are largely better off than earlier generations of Chinese and they’re searching for meaning beyond material wealth, said Jia, the frog raiser in Beijing.

“This is like the western lifestyle we always envy: to be able to really be ourselves and not care about how others judge us,” Jia said.

“The ‘Buddhist style’ doesn’t mean a lack of pursuits or simply giving up,” Jia said. “I think it’s a spiritual pursuit. It’s not harmful if it makes people more at peace.”
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From: MeNeedIt

General Motors said Tuesday it will close an underutilized factory in Gunsan, South Korea, by the end of May as part of a restructuring of its operations.

The move is a setback for the administration of President Moon Jae-in, who has made jobs and wages a priority.

A GM statement said Monday the company has proposed to its labor union and other stakeholders a plan involving further investments in South Korea that would help save jobs.

“As we are at a critical juncture of needing to make product allocation decisions, the ongoing discussions must demonstrate significant progress by the end of February, when GM will make important decisions on next steps,” Barry Engle, GM executive vice president and president of GM International, said in the statement.

The company’s CEO Mary Barra has said GM urgently needs better cost performance from its operations in South Korea, where auto sales have slowed.

South Korea’s government expressed “deep regret” over the factory’s closure. It said it plans to study the situation at the business and will continue talks with GM.

Korea’s finance ministry said earlier this month that GM had sought government help. The government has denied reports that South Korea will raise the issue in trade talks with the U.S.

The factory in Gunsan, a port city about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southwest of Seoul, has been making the Cruze, a sedan, and the Orlando model SUV. It employs about 2,000 workers, and only used about 20 percent of its full production capacity in 2017, rolling out 33,982 vehicles.

GM Korea has made 10 million vehicles since it was set up in 2002. In 2017, it sold 132,377 units in Korea and exported 392,170 vehicles to 120 markets around the world.
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From: MeNeedIt

It’s a long way from Abidjan in the Ivory Coast to the interstate highway near Chicago where trucker Mamoudou Diawara relishes the advantages that come with traveling the open road.

“Trucking is the freedom,” Diawara says. “It is the freedom and the money is right. I am not going to lie to you. You make more than the average Joe.”

Increasing demand for long-haul truckers in the United States is drawing more African immigrants like Diawara onto America’s roads. He says truckers in the United States can make as much as $200,000 a year. The sometimes dangerous work involves long hours, but it’s a chance to make a new life in a new country on his terms.

“You got to get the goods to the people,” he says. “This is how the country is built. It does not matter where you were born, you can be whatever you want. This is what this country teaches me everyday.”

Elias Balima took a similar journey from Burkina Faso. He saved for years to buy this truck and now not a day passes without someone offering him work.

“People like me who did not go far in the school system, it is an opportunity for us,” Balima says. “It is tiresome. But after the labor, the result is good.”

After several days on the road stuck inside a five-square-meter compartment, it’s the little things that count — like a free shower. And a good night’s sleep after a long day’s drive.

But time is money so Balima is up early. On this morning, he’s thinking of home.

“I am almost 34 years old now. I am still not married,” he says. “Because I cannot make my mind up. My mind is between Africa and America. Sometimes I see younger brothers newly arrived from Africa telling me, ‘I will not stay more than two years in the States.’”

WATCH THE VIDEO:

As much as Balima and Diawara have grown to love McDonald’s french fries and the opportunities and freedoms in America, they believe that in the current political climate, many Americans will always see them as Africans.

Balima says he tries to stay out of the U.S. immigration debate.

“I know they are all politicians,” he says. “I am not afraid of him. If Americans did not like Trump, he would not be where he is today.”

Most of the time there’s no room for politics inside Balima’s cab. For these African immigrants turned American truckers – keeping their eyes on the road is the key to success.
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From: MeNeedIt

Industrial pollution is making life difficult in Iran, adding to a long list of economic and political grievances, according to Hamid Arabzadeh, an Iranian-born environmental health expert who teaches at UCLA. Pollution is among the reasons for the protests in Iran in December and January, Arabzadeh said.

The pollution “started with water resources,” he noted. “It led to air pollution, and now in some of the very large cities in Iran, people literally don’t have the air to breathe.”

Arabzadeh said one of the largest salt lakes in the world, Lake Urmia in northwestern Iran, is drying up because of dams diverting water and the pumping of groundwater.

“The government has been promising for many years that they are going to reverse some of the ill-conceived policies,” he said. “And it never happened.”

Pollution has led to decades of protests in China and officials have responded, making environmental protection a priority, said Alex Wang, who teaches environmental law at UCLA. He has worked in the Beijing office of the environmental advocacy group Natural Resources Defense Council.

“There’s a new concept that the (Chinese) state is calling ecological civilization,” he said, “and it’s been all over the official propaganda and the state leadership messaging.” Wang explained that the approach has been “top-down,” with the officials taking the lead and sometimes limiting the flow of information on environmental problems through media censorship.

Thanks to citizen-activists, however, the process has also been bottom-up. Chinese farmers in a village in Heilongjiang province won the first round of a lawsuit against the Qihua Group, arguing that its chemical plant was contaminating their land. The lawsuit was spearheaded by Wang Enlin, a farmer with just three years of formal schooling who spent 16 years studying law on his own. The farmers won compensation in early 2017, but an appeals courts reversed the verdict, and the case continues.

Chinese officials are moving too slowly for many. A 2015 internet documentary called “Under the Dome,” by former Central China Television journalist Chai Jing, shows the devastating impact of pollution. The documentary was widely circulated online, but pushed the limits for government censors who monitor the web for signs of unrest and challenges to state authority.

“That video within three days of being posted garnered by some estimates up to 300 million viewers, and within three or four days had also been blocked,” Wang said.

The stakes are higher in countries where corruption and the scramble for resources can lead to violence against the people, but the repression hasn’t stopped the activists who demand a voice, said Billy Kyte of the London-based organization Global Witness.

“Mining industries, agribusiness, logging, hydrodams are being built and imposed on people without their consent,” says Kyte. “This leads to them campaigning or protesting.”

Global Witness counted 200 killings in 24 countries in 2016 alone. The numbers recently released for 2017 were nearly as bad, with 197 killings. Kyte noted that the problem is worse in areas where corruption is common, with Latin America seeing the largest number of killings both years.

“Murder is just the sharp end of a whole range of attacks and tools used by industries and states to try and silence environmental activism,” he said, adding that threats and intimidation are also tools against activists.

Yet from Pakistan to Indonesia, activists are pressing their demands and are sometimes prompting action, often finding more success in societies that are open, said Arabzadeh.

“It has a lot to do in an organic and dynamic relationship with democratic institutions, with women’s rights, and with citizen’s empowerment,” he argued.

In the United States, activists have found a new target in President Donald Trump, who is withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris climate agreement that limits the release of so-called greenhouse gases, unless he can secure better terms. Trump is a global warming skeptic and calls the agreement unfair.

The U.S. is the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, which most scientists say lead to climate change. China is the worst emitter.

Chinese protests usually focus on the regional impacts of industrial pollution, and environmental law professor Alex Wang is worried about limitations on activists and controls on the flow of information in China.

“While it’s good that the state, by all accounts, seems to be investing tremendous amounts of resources on pollution reduction, in order to keep it going, you need that public attention and public support, he said.”

Kyte of Global Witness said the activists his group calls Defenders of the Earth brave threats and violence in corrupt regimes, and harassment in others, where their activism is “criminalized.” And yet, they continue to speak out.
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From: MeNeedIt

The lawyers for the daughter of late French rocker Johnny Hallyday say she plans to contest her father’s will, which leaves all his property and artistic rights “exclusively” to his widow Laeticia.

Laura Smet was said to have discovered the contents of Hallyday’s will “with amazement and pain” in a communique from her lawyers that was seen Monday by The Associated Press. The note says “not a guitar, not a motorbike, and not even the signed cover of the song ‘Laura’ which is dedicated to her” has been left to Smet.

Her lawyers say the will — which uses law from California, where the singer spent time — is contradicted by French law.

Laetitia Hallyday was the fourth wife of the man dubbed the “French Elvis,” who died in December.

 
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From: MeNeedIt

Author, actress and activist Eve Ensler has dedicated her life and work to women’s issues around the world. She’s spent years visiting war zones and developed a special connection with victims of rape and torture in the Democratic Republic of Congo when she was invited there in 2007.

“I think what really struck me about the Congo,” Ensler recalled, “was the kind of synergistic cauldron of colonialism, capitalism, racism, insane misogyny. You know that all of those violences kind of being enacted on the bodies of women.”

She worked with local activists in the DRC to create a women’s leadership community and sanctuary for survivors of gender violence in Bukavu called City of Joy.

“And it’s almost impossible building something in the middle of a war zone. You don’t have roads, you don’t have electricity. You don’t have … it was just… it was madness!” she said.

In the midst of that chaos, her own life got upended. “I got diagnosed with stage III-IV uterine cancer. The alchemy of it all was just: you know, change or die,” she said with a rueful laugh.

Medicine to memoir

Ensler turned the months of harrowing treatment — and years of painful memories — into a book: In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection.

Tony Award-winning director Diane Paulus read the book, and wanted to collaborate with her on turning it into a one-woman show.

“It was signature Eve,” Paulus said of the memoir. “Philosophy, politics, feminism, all told through humor and her point of view, which she does not shy away from. But it was so deeply personal.”  

So, Paulus arranged to meet Ensler in her Manhattan loft, and they began an intense process to translate it into a play.

In the Body of the World toggles between the harrowing journey Ensler took to fight the cancer, her own painful family history, and her connection to women and nature in the outside world. Ensler says her own experiences with rape and abuse caused her to mentally disconnect from her body.

Watch a scene from In the Body of the World, as Eve Ensler talks about the support of friends during her cancer treatment (Courtesy Manhattan Theatre Club)

“I think my whole life, not only have I been trying to get back into my body, but I’ve been really working to find ways to support women coming back into their bodies,” she said. “And cancer did the trick, as well as building a City of Joy because those two things together … you know, we were building a place where women could come back into their bodies.”

The show, which just opened off-Broadway, has received glowing reviews. But it’s a tough performance schedule for a 64-year-old cancer survivor, so Ensler doesn’t plan to tour the play, like she did with her signature work, The Vagina Monologues. 

A play that launched a movement

Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues in 1994 as a celebration of vaginas and femininity. She says the purpose of the changed, becoming a movement to stop violence against women. Twenty years ago this February 14, the first V-Day was held: productions of the play in professional theaters, colleges and even living rooms, raised millions of dollars toward women’s causes.

“I’m so emotional right now, coming up on the 20th anniversary,” Ensler said. “You know, when I think 20 years ago, how hard it was to say the word vagina, you know, how crazy everybody thought it was. And then to see how women – amazing women – across the world, across this country took this play brought it into their communities, were brave enough to put it on.”

For the 20th anniversary, 3,000 performances are scheduled.
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From: MeNeedIt