Hey, this is Sham, your very own news curator. Last week, I asked you what you think of the term "the Americas" as a substitute for "Latin America". Some of you agreed, others disagreed. I'm still on the fence about it. One reader suggested Abya Yala. Have you heard of that term before? Also, a very warm welcome to all the new subscribers who found this newsletter through this ZEIT Online podcast interview (German) with me! Speaking of ZEIT Online, have you heard of the world’s biggest dialogue experiment? "The World Talks" starts today, and you can sign up here.
In issue #334, I do not talk about yesterday's elections in Turkey and Thailand (because the votes had not been counted when I was writing this). I do, however, talk about the cannabis industry in Eswatini and how feminist groups in Mexico are helping out abortion seekers in the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia. Plus, (almost too many) good news like Burundi's capital using only solar energy during the day, six new indigenous reserves in Brazil, the first bone marrow transplant center in Tanzania, a very brave South Korean politician, growing LGBTQ+ acceptance in South Asia, and so much more.
If you like this newsletter, yay! These lengthy emails take me hours and hours to write, research and make fun-to-read. You can support my work if you become a paid subscriber or buy me coffee. Or, just forward it to a friend.
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Estimated reading time: 10 min
You have access to all of my sources by clicking on what's underlined.
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Eswatini wants legal cannabis but locals say, 'that's bad for business'
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What happened
Eswatini plans to legalize cannabis for medicinal and research purposes. Activists and farmers aren't excited about it, reports Cebelihle Mbuyisa for Semafor.
Why this matters
Eswatini's got a handful of industries (agriculture, textiles, sugar-processing) and a whole lot of unemployment (24% of a population of 1.2 million).
Tell me more
The proposed bill, first tabled in parliament by the health ministry in 2020, will amend sections of a law passed in 1922 by the British who ruled the kingdom, then Swaziland, as a colony from 1903 to 1968. Critics of the proposed bill say it could bulldoze the small trader, leaving the riches of the cannabis trade in the hands of a select few. Many cannabis farmers in Eswatini’s northwestern Hhohho region, who sell their crop locally and in South Africa, are opposed to legislation — despite police harassment and arrests under the current system. They fear big money players elbowing them out of the market. Plus, besides farming, locals are also cashing in on cannabis tourism. Tourists are flocking to the Nkomazi valley to take in the sights of the cannabis farms, and to, well, 'smoke and relax in nature.'
- Did you know that Eswatini cannabis is commonly referred to as "Swazi Gold"? It's quite expensive and highly sought after in global markets due to its apparent potency. I knew so little about the cannabis industry in Eswatini, so I watched this documentary last week.
How so?
The upcoming legislation aims to establish a big shot regulator, the Medicines Regulatory Authority (MRA), says Eswatini Cannabis Association (ECA) chair Saladin Magagula. The MRA would have the power to import, export, and wholesale trade cannabis and its products. Critics are raising eyebrows, arguing it's like letting the umpire swing the bat. "They cannot be both the referee and the player at the same time", Magagula said. The Eswatini Cannabis Association is pushing for a more inclusive structure, but in an absolute monarchy, with political parties banned since 1973, the road to change seems fraught with challenges.
What now?
Eswatini’s health minister, Lizzie Nkosi, sees potential in the bill and believes that the legalization of cannabis will, among other things, give the country opportunities for manufacturing various cannabis plant derivative products which give a boost to the economy and thereby give current growers legitimacy and opportunities to be part of a new and growing industry. "All current growers are rated as unemployed — can you imagine how our employment rates would change?," said Nkosi.
Zoom out: Cannabis legalization isn't unique to Eswatini. Africa's slowly warming up to it, following global trends. Lesotho, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Malawi have all made moves to legalize cannabis, be it for private use or medicinal purposes.
An interesting fact about Eswatini, written by ChatGPT
"Despite being smaller than the state of New Jersey, Eswatini boasts an array of wildlife that would make any larger country envious. From the roaming lions and elephants in Hlane Royal National Park to the abundant bird species at Mlawula Nature Reserve, this tiny nation is a testament to the phrase "good things come in small packages." I fact-checked this, of course.
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Feminist groups in Mexico are helping abortion seekers in the U.S.
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What happened
 Feminist groups in Mexico have seen has seen a spike in demand for their abortion services and information. Surprisingly, a lot of this demand is coming from the U.S.; think 200 to 300 calls every day, report Lorena Riós and Daniela Dib for rest of world.
Context: The U.S. Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade in June last year, which protected abortion rights, seems to coincide with the rise in demand. Meanwhile, Mexico in 2021 has taken a different path, with its Supreme Court declaring punishing abortion as unconstitutional.
Why this matters
This is a reminder of the enduring power of grassroots movements and their commitment to providing safe, accessible, and free healthcare resources for whomever, regardless of borders, ethnicity, religion and gender.
Tell me more
These feminist women-led groups, like Colectiva Bloodys, Las Libres, Marea Verde, Matamoros Decide, and Red Necesito Abortar, among others, provide free abortion assistance to thousands across Mexico. They also remotely support individuals in countries like Russia and Saudi Arabia. "We still do everything through social media — from sending information to asking for [their] addresses to sending the abortion pills," said one abortion assistant in Mexico – and that is extremely dangerous for abortion seekers in the U.S.
How so?
Getting an abortion is considered a felony in some U.S. states. Last year, a mother and a daughter in Nebraska — where abortion is banned 20 weeks after conception — were charged with several felonies, after the police uncovered incriminating Facebook messages. It's worse in states like Texas and Ohio, as they have full bans on abortion. Activists say that there are concerns that even third-party apps like period trackers can potentially be used as evidence against abortion seekers or providers in some states.
But not all U.S. states have banned abortion. Why not go there?
Yes. For example, Las Libres has trained around 50 U.S. women's networks to recreate their abortion assistance model. Even though abortion networks are multiplying in the U.S., individuals continue to reach out to Mexican networks due to various challenges, including immigration status, legal risks, misinformation, and financial constraints. As Castro Flores, a member of Marea Verde Chihuahua, told Riós and Dib, "Some of these women face paying over US$1,500 for an abortion in states like California or New York, where abortions are still legal. We provide an option for free by supplying the medication and proper, scientific-based companionship."
A name from Mexico you should know when you read about abortion, suggested by ChatGPT
"One of Mexico's most prominent feminist activists, Marta Lamas has been an influential voice for women's rights and reproductive health for decades. She was instrumental in the decriminalization of abortion in Mexico City in 2007 and continues to be a vocal advocate for women's reproductive rights across the country." I dug up a few more names for you to diversify your knowledge streams on Mexican feminism: Regina Tames, María Consuelo Mejía and Verónica Cruz Sánchez.
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United Kingdom / Nigeria: Britain’s Supreme Court last week upheld the ruling of its lower courts, saying it is too late for Nigerian communities to sue Shell over the 2011 leak of 40,000 barrels of crude oil. Shell said the people of the Niger delta, who were affected by the leak of 40,000 barrels of oil, only had six years to take legal action, and that time has now passed. The courts backed this argument. This year, Shell made a record profit of $40 billion. (The Continent, issue 124)
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Senegal: A teenager was killed and dozens injured in Dakar protests which began in the community of Ngor, where residents protested state plans to build a new police station. They want a high school instead. The harsh reaction of the police to the protests made more young people join the demonstrations against the government's tough control. Now, the government and the mayor of Ngor have agreed to use the land for both a police station and a high school. But residents are still concerned that their high school will be close to a police station. (The Continent, issue 124)
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DRC: The death toll from devastating floods in DR Congo rose to more than 400 last week after aid workers found more bodies among the muddy debris. More than 1,500 are said to be missing and over 200 are in local hospitals with injuries. (Reuters)
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Iran: Iran hanged 194 people in 2023 alone, says Iran Human Rights. (Firstpost)
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Cameroon: Three journalists from Cameroon have been killed since the beginning of the year. The most recent one is Anye Nde Nsoh, who was killed last Sunday outside a bar in Bamenda, the capital city of a troubled region in the Northwest. The leader of a separatist group, Ambazonian Defense Council, who says they killed him, told a journalist protection group that they mistook Nsoh for a military leader. (The Continent, issue 124)
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South Africa: On May 4, the South African Reserve Bank rolled out new designs of all its banknotes and coins for the first time in about ten years. Nelson Mandela is still on it, the colors are coloring, and there's a debate about an apparent misspelling of the word for ‘reserve bank’ in the Xitsonga language on the 100 rand note. (Eyewitness News South Africa)
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Botswana: The first Olympic medal that Botswana has ever won is being sold to the person who offers the most money for it. Amos Nijel, who won this silver medal in the 800m race in 2012, said that the money from selling the medal could support him during his three-year ban from sports. Nijel's ban, which began last week, is due to him using an experimental drug that's considered too risky for humans. He already has an offer of $300,000 for the medal, but he thinks it could be sold for even more money after a documentary about him is released. (The Continent, issue 124)
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Nigeria: Nigeria’s outgoing president Muhammadu Buhari this week declared that ownership of Benin Bronzes and other items recently restituted from Germany, would be handed over to the Oba (King) of Benin, the southern Nigerian city. Western scholars are outraged, 'we thought you'd keep it in the palace.' Nigerian-American artist Nigerian-American artist Victor Ehikhamenor described the criticism as "neocolonial propaganda" and argued that the king’s palace is not a private building, but an institution recognized by the Nigerian government. "I think it's insulting for them to want to dictate where the works are kept and how they are managed after returning them." (The Times, BBC, Semafor)
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Guinea: After protests in which at least two people died, the government freed three activists who had been in jail since September 2021. Their release was one of the things that a group of activists, called Forces Vives de Guinée, asked for when they called for protests between May 10 and 25. The activists want the military leaders to allow protests again and to seriously start shifting power to civilian rule. (The Continent, issue 124)
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Burundi: Gitega, the capital of Burundi, now uses only solar energy during the day. This is because Burundi has increased the amount of energy its Mubuga solar farm can produce. The farm, which opened in 2021 as a 7.5MW power plant, was the first source of solar energy connected to Burundi's power grid. The company that built it, Gigawatt Global, also built the first large-scale solar farm in Africa. This farm in Rwanda started making power in 2014 and provides about 4% of Rwanda's electricity. (The Continent, issue 124)
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Brazil: Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has decreed six new indigenous reserves, banning mining and restricting commercial farming there. The lands – including a vast area of Amazon rainforest – cover about 620,000 hectares (1.5m acres). Indigenous leaders welcomed the move, but said more areas needed protection. (BBC)
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Tanzania: In the capital, Dodoma, Tanzania opened its first bone marrow transplant center. The unit will concentrate on treating sickle cell patients, marking a significant development for the country's healthcare system. Only five other African countries offer similar treatment programs. (BBC)
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Zimbabwe: The High Court in Harare, Zimbabwe, cancelled the guilty verdict against famous Zimbabwean writer and activist Tsitsi Dangarembga last Monday. Dangarembga, 64, was accused of encouraging violence when she held a quiet protest asking for political changes in 2020. Last year, a lower court gave her a six-month suspended sentence and fined her 70,000 Zimbabwean dollars. Dangarembga has often criticized the political party in power, Zanu-PF. (The Guardian) For my German readers: I talked about this piece of good news last week in Die Wochendämmerung with Katrin Rönicke and Holger Klein.
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South Korea: Last week, a South Korean politician spoke out against the growing number of places in the country that don't allow children. She did this during a press conference while she was holding her nearly 2-year-old son. The politician, Yong Hye-in, is part of a small political party called the Progressive Basic Income Party. Representative Yong Hye-in, member of the minor Progressive Basic Income Party in South Korea, spoke about the need for a society that embraces parents and children in public spaces, rather than alienating them. (Yahoo! News)
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Nepal / India: Two essays are going viral among the LGBTQ+ community in South Asia. One is written by a retired Nepali civil servant about his son coming out, published in Himal Southasian: "The night I became privy to his secret, I couldn’t sleep well. Not because of his orientation but because of my own ignorance." In a poignant piece, he wrote of positive references to homosexuality in Hindu scripture, his family’s travels to Germany to take part in his son’s wedding, and the disconnect between Nepali law and practice. The second was published in The Indian Express by a gay physician from India on how his wedding was presided over by three path-breaking women in his life, including his mother, who, "like women everywhere, remain the legitimate guardians of their culture."
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Serbia: In the first two days of a weapons amnesty in Serbia, people handed in over 3,000 weapons. The amnesty came after two mass shootings last week, where a 13-year-old boy is accused of killing eight students and a security guard at a school, and a man shot and killed another eight people. Many Serbians have a lot of weapons left from wars in the early 1990s. With the amnesty, people can give in illegal weapons and even military-grade ammunition without telling who they are and without being punished. People have also given in tens of thousands of bullets. (Reuters, hard paywall)
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Look at... Photos by Claudia Andujar. Between 2010 and 2020, mining activities in the Amazon have increased by 495 percent (!) and threatened the livelihoods of the Indigenous people who live there, including the Yanomami. Christopher Green for Aperture reviews the most recent work of Brazilian photographer Claudia Andujar, who has spent decades collaborating with the Yanomami and capturing the existential disruption mining has caused. The photographs are stunning, depicting daily life, rituals, and the struggle against land theft and destruction.
Listen to... Podcast episode: "Beirut's Scarred Heritage" (30 min) by The Lede (New Lines Magazine). “As long as justice hasn't been done, I think these scars should be here and remain here to remind us of this horrific tragedy and of responsibility.” After the 2020 Beirut blast, a massive volunteer effort took place to save the city’s ancient heritage. Three years later, New Lines magazine's Lydia Wilson goes back to see the results of that effort firsthand and to talk to museum curator Nadine Panayot about what it means for Lebanon’s uncertain future.
Read... Article: "A Diary of the Opening Salvos of Sudan's Conflict" (14 min) by Dallia Abdelmoniem for New Lines Magazine. A lot of times when Western news speak of conflicts and wars in Asia, Africa or the Americas, they write in a way that makes it difficult for someone who has never been to that country/region to understand just how devastating and abnormal so much violence is to the ordinary citizen (I will talk about this in my upcoming TEDx talk in Bolzano, Italy next week, but more on that in the next issue). Dallia Abdelmoniem is a former journalist who moved back to her home country of Sudan in 2013 and started a baking business, and for New Lines Magazine, she wrote a first-hand account of the early days of Sudan's war and brings us inside the intimate terror of one family's escape from Khartoum. War is never normal. For nobody.
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"Cuba Primero" by Lenier Mesa and La Diosa is the latest trending Cuban song that calls for artists to speak out against the island's regime (there are many like it). Lenier Mesa and La Diosa, two singers in exile in the U.S., released their song in Miami on April 16, 2023. Each scene of the music video deals with the symbolic connotations of the country’s historic exodus events, like Operation Peter Pan in 1959 and the 1994 Cuban Rafter Crisis, writes Luis Rodriguez for Global Voices. Of course, I added the song to this newsletter's Spotify playlist, 'Go Global Weekly'.
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I think the headline says it all:
"Locals force council to fill in potholes by drawing penises around them"
The Lesson of this Issue: When you don't have any other moves left, there's always the D*ck Move™.
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That's it from me. This issue has been written on Mother's Day. I sent her yellow flowers, and I'm afraid that she maybe didn't like them. But I like yellow.
For the maps, say thanks to Wikimedia Commons.
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Hey, I'm Sham, the person behind this newsletter. Since 2014, I email a bunch of strangers once a week, curating news headlines from Asia, Africa and Latin America. I work under the assumption that, here in the West (I live in Berlin, Germany), we don't read or know much about the global majority, aka the rest of the world.
My goal is to help you burst your Western-centric bubble.
If you want to know more about me, visit my website or follow me on Twitter or Instagram.
Questions or feedback? Just reply to this email. I intend to write back.
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