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Take the ferry from Hyres, on the French Riviera, to Porquerolles island, walk past the beach where Jean-Luc Godard shot the film Pierrot le Fou, wander through the government-protected, sculpture-dotted pine forest, remove your shoes and then descend to a subterranean gallery illuminated by sunbeams shimmering through a transparent swimming pool.

Here, in Fondation Carmignacs newly opened private museum, you will find a portrait of Rita. Rita was 17 when the photojournalist Lizzie Sadin photographed her. A year before, she was living with her family near the foothills of the Himalayas. A friend told her of a life of opportunity lying in wait in India, just a few hundred miles away. After crossing the border from Nepal, Rita was captured, imprisoned and forced into a life of sex work for visiting tourists. Ritas eyes blaze into the airy calm of Porquerolles island.

In 2017, Sadin, a former social worker in Pariss priphrique, was the Carmignac photojournalism awards eighth winning laureate. On the basis of a two-page pitch, she received a 50,000 (45,000) grant. She used the money to embed herself, with her camera hidden beneath her coat, in the shady dance bars of the Nepalese borderlands, capturing stories of modern-day slavery.

Sadin is one of 10 photojournalists to receive such backing over the course of the last decade. To mark this milestone, Fondation Carmignac is exhibiting each laureates work in a retrospective titled 10 Years of Reportage, on show until 1 November 2020.

With Ritas eyes at its centre, the show is curated to urgently explore some of the biggest existential questions we face the hidden truths of modern slavery, the cost of endless conflict, the consequences of habitat loss and the quest of freedom for those living under authoritarianism.

Libya: A Human Marketplace Narciso Contreras, 2016

I came to Libya to document the humanitarian crisis of migrants trying to reach Europe through Libyan territory, says Narciso Contreras. But, actually, what I found is a market.

From February to June 2016, the Mexican photographer travelled through Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.

He captured how Libya has become a human marketplace in which destitute migrants are bought and sold as they attempt to make their way to Europe.

Contreras uses the exhibition to show the first images taken on his iPhone of a transaction taking place between traffickers, which helped NGO groups affiliated with Carmignac prove modern slavery was taking place in Libya.

Contreras concluded that, far from trying to resolve the situation, Libyan authorities were running, and profiting from, the trafficking of people.

Arctic: New Frontier Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen, 2018

If youre planning to visit the north pole, it might be a good idea to get a move on. On the basis of all authoritative forecasts, the ice of the Arctic will be gone by 2030, to be replaced by a water world created by anthropogenic global warming.

Never before have two photojournalists simultaneously covered the irreversible changes that are taking place in the Arctic. That is until Yuri Kozyrev and Kadir van Lohuizen, working in coordination, created Arctic: New Frontier in 2018.

Kozyrev followed the routes of the Russian Arctic ports, from the city of Murmansk to the Taymyr peninsula and the islands of the Russian Arctic. Van Lohuizen, meanwhile, started in the Svalbard Archipelago and followed the northern Arctic route through Greenland, Canada and the northern tip of Alaska. Each captured the expansion of the regions ports, industrial forces and military sites a process that will change the map of the world forever, Kozyrev says.

Mbare, Harare, Zimbabwe, 2011. A poster celebrating the 88th birthday of Robert Mugabe in the most populated and unstable suburb of the country, synonymous with disease, fear, crime and political violence.

Zimbabwe, Your Wounds Will Be Named Silence Robin Hammond, 2012

The New Zealand-born photographer Robin Hammond calls Robert Mugabes Zimbabwe a garden of Eden that became a hell to many of its inhabitants. In the processing of taking portraits of Zimbabwes pro-democracy activists, Hammond was imprisoned twice. They wanted to show me the terrible living conditions they have to endure, he says. But some were afraid for me, and warned me of the danger.

His portraits include the face of the activist Masvingo, staring out from a pool of darkness. Hammond hides his body, severely burnt after soldiers threw a can of lit petrol into a campaign office for Zimbabwes Movement for Democratic Change.

Iran: Blank Pages of an Iranian Photo Album Newsha Tavakolian, 2014

In 2015, Tavakolian became the first female photographer from the Middle East to join Magnum, the photography collective. The year before, she was the Carmignac laureate for a body of work that explored, via moving and still image, the personal stories of her own generation the Iranian millennials who have grown up in Tehran after the 1979 revolution and the countrys bloody war with Iraq.

As a self-taught photographer, and when still a teenager, she took to the streets to photograph the 1999 student uprising in Iran, spending a week scaling trees with a zoom lens while militia marched through the streets.

Her series here captures nine men and women, shot in and around Tehran, as they communicate the tension of being marginalised by those speaking in their name, Tavakolian says. In Iran, they try to fit into a landscape they regard as not being their own. They, like many of the others they represent, adapt.

Gaza Beach, 2009. A destroyed container, probably used as a Palestinian police station. Ka Wiedenhofer for Fondation Carmignac.

Seen together, the Carmignac Foundations retrospective is a stark reminder, in the midst of the bucolic beauty of the French Riviera, of the first worlds increasing responsibility to the poverty, oppression and vulnerability that is the daily reality for most people in this world.

Carmignac Photojournalism Award: 10 Years of Reportage is on show until 1 November 2020 at Villa Carmignac, Porquerolles

Go here to read the rest:
Ten years of photo reportage from Libyan traffickers to Mugabe's Zimbabwe - The Guardian

Three people were shot dead and two were severely injured at the disembarkation site in Khoms on Tuesday night, 28 July, after being returned to Libya, the country they were trying to flee. The victims are aged between 15 and 18. This is yet another tragic development showing that migrants in Libya face life-threatening violence and brutality. Vulnerable people should benefit from protection and evacuation out of the country, instead of suffering forced returns and arbitrary detention.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting which took place at a disembarkation site in Khoms on Tuesday 28 July, Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) organised the referral of the two injured survivors to a nearby hospital and supported their care. Both were injured by gunshot and are still deeply shocked by the event. One of the two survivors is a relative of one of the three victims, who was shot dead in front of him.

First-hand testimonies gathered by MSF indicate that the three victims and the two injured were part of a group of 73 people intercepted at sea by Libyan coast guards and brought back to Khoms. Among them some dozens of people, all Sudanese nationals, tried to flee the disembarkation site, to avoid being brought into detention, and were shot at.

While some managed to escape, 26 people were finally taken to a detention centre. MSF teams, who provide assistance to vulnerable migrants in detention centres, visited them, and found many who were still in shock and were distressed.

See more here:
People shot and killed in Libya while trying to flee arbitrary detention | MSF - Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) International

In 2011, in a phase of severe economic crisis for Italy, almost on the verge of default, the violent ousting of the Libyan leader, Muammar al Minyar El Gaddafi, was the obvious tombstone of Italian foreign policy and also of its intelligence Services forced to serve only the interests of those who wanted to destroy Italys interests.

The United States wanted to put an end to the sequence of Arab Springs started in Tunisia, a small country suitable for tests as the papers of the Foreign Office reported in 1901 with respect to Russia, a country suitable for Socialist tests.

The United States interpreted foreign policy according to its internal and self-referential criteria and it was useless to ask it to have a broader vision.

Certainly France wanted to take Libya, but above all it wanted to take ENI and also to put Italy in a severe minority condition throughout the Mediterranean region.

The way in which France operated in Gaddafis times and, indeed, France has never relinquished coup designs against Gaddafi showed only one thing, that also Great Britain knew, i.e. that Gaddafi had been an excellent invention of the Italian Intelligence Services, when they still existed. Italy rescued Gaddafi at least three times, twice from Great Britain and once from France, as well as twice from the United States.

Pursuing our national interest, we were branded as anti-liberal and, in any case, within NATO you pay for certain betrayals.

Great Britain also wanted to follow France in its anti-Gaddafi hysteria, especially after Sarkozy asked the Raisfor a significant loan. It had some oil interest with it to prepare for the Royal Dutch Shell, which first opened negotiations with the new Libyan regime in 2013, as well as the ENI security Services, which quickly agreed with Jallud and Italys traditional points of reference in opposing Gaddafi. Either Shell or Total that was the game, while Italy was sinking into the crisis and a friendly sale of ENI was not unlikely.

To put it frankly, however, the anti-Gaddafi rhetoric was ridiculous: the usual talk about his not being democratic as if an Arab Rais could behave like a Manhattan jazz musician, all sex, drugs and rock & roll while opening the doors to the Muslim Brotherhood and its networks which, coincidentally, immediately generated a widespreading of jihadist organisations, as it happened also outside Libya.

Did they really believe there were good and bad jihadists? But where did they live, in a commercial spot for detergents?

The French intelligence services operation triggering the revolt was above all the tension at the Abu Salim prison, organized by a strange and previously unknown Libyan section of the Association for Human Rights based in Paris.

The material start of the revolt was in Benghazi, in February 2011, but the economic and social situation in Gaddafis Tripoli was very different from the other Arab springs superficially organized by some strategic PRs,paid by the intelligence Agencies, between Manhattan and Sloane Street. Nothing to do with talk about freedom and Martini cocktails.

In fact, as maintained by some reports of the German Foundations published shortly before Gaddafis fall, Gaddafis Libya ensured an average income five times as much as Egypts. Said income was also well spread among the population, especially with Gaddafi who did the only possible job in a country with many tribes, i.e. ensuring their selective support.

Furthermore, the harsh but also nave system already put in place against Milosevic in Serbia or against Saddam Hussein in Iraq was used again in Libya. Distingue frequenter, as the medieval logicians used to say.

The network of bloggers, previously strangely silent, started immediately, as well as some demonstrations on problems that existed even before, and the obsessive use of the buzzword democracy, which, in the minds of the poor and underprivileged people meant getting better, while in the words of strategic information managers, hired at a high and useless price by Western governments, meant: now work for us.

There was also Nietzsches soothing oil of the democratic myth to calm peoples fears, with some other possible distraction. Sex, above all, or youth amusement and entertainment business.

In the first phase of the Libyan peoples revolt, the United States largely had a wait-and-see attitude, but certainly a West believing that reality reasons like snobbish young ladies, like those you can find in some jet setters and socialites salons, is always doomed to the most tragic failures.

The Libyans did not want to kill the tyrant, in a Macbeth-style Scottish ritual since it is a concept completely alien to their political culture but they simply wanted to improve the Libyan regime, like the Tunisian one, both certainly permeated with nepotism and corruption, especially in Tunisia. Nevertheless, everything would certainly have been better than what happened afterwards.

Just think about the fact that the long war seems to be the silly rule of current humanitarian operations and interventions: everything is done with great fanfare and democratic rhetoric as if the whole world should go on like Vermont, or Paris V Arrondissement -and later you discover that the world is different from the parochial and obscure wealth of certain leaders. Hence the dose is repeated endlessly, always with fewer troops, as if the others were idiots or unable to fight, finally believing that everything works according to the repetitaiuvant principle. However, foreign policy and strategy never work like that.

The United States will be out of Afghanistan, without having resolved anything. Indeed, the situation will be worse than before, after a treaty with the Taliban drafted in Doha, which should lead to the withdrawal and complete return of U.S. soldiers back home within the next 14 months.

In Iraq, U.S. troops have been the subject of a Parliamentary resolution calling for their removal, despite the fact that the Iranian Armed Forces are still reluctant.

No significant strategic results have been reached and will be reached on the ground. Hence in Afghanistan the Taliban will obviously rise to power, as would have also happened many years ago.

In Iraq, with the Shiite majority in the population and the Iranian oil, economic, political and military penetration, I do not believe that the U.S. presence will achieve other great results.

Certainly the U.S. bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the largest one in the Emirates, are another necklace around Tehran. As the old and new AFRICOM networks around Libya, i.e. as many as 29 military bases in Bizerte, Tunisia; Libreville, Gabon; Ouagadougu, Burkina Faso; Dakar, Senegal; Niamey and Agadez, Niger, to control the great route of African migration, often directed against our shores, as well as 5 other bases in Somalia, 4 in Mali, and finally 2 in Libya.

Hence a terrible game is being played on Libya, which is the command and control on the passages from the Mediterranean to Central Africa, and Italy seems only to repeat the usual formulas of the snobbish young ladies, like those portrayed by Italian comedian Franca Valeri, based on two gross and very dangerous mistakes: a) Libya is not a national interest, because the usual human rights must be restored, but this is huge nonsense because these famous rights should be restored all over Africa; b) Italys interest is only that of the West, which does not have only one interest and, anyway, all the interests already defined are against Italy.

Which is the virus currently inoculated in our childish and immature politicians, which does not let them believe that there is a national interest, in which Libya is an unavoidable axis, considering that, as Napoleon said, the basis of foreign policy lies in geography?

At the time, we followed the very childish idea of Silvio Berlusconi and of his centre-right coalition that sided with the Anglo-Saxons and France as if we were in a costumed re-edition of the Second World War.

Certainly, just in case, we were also told that we would be bombed by mistake. But fear is not part of some strategic calculations. If our allies that were stealing Libya and ENI from us had done so, we would have told the truth. And more train attacks and bombings would have taken place

The Reductio ad Hitlerum is a naivety that, in Italy, also applies to ruling classes. Ignorant of foreign policy as confirmands.

Now, we are in the fairy world of a government that believes it can mediate while being completely irrelevant. Even on the ground, in Tripoli and Benghazi. A fairy-tale world made of human rights, always slave to propaganda, as well as to the rejection of war laid down by the most idiotic article of our Constitution, Article 11 (and, indeed, it is not the only one), which in fact accepts only unconditional surrender. In fact, those who came to power after an unconditional surrender, remember only that.

Not to mention the usual irregular migrants to be accepted without saying a word something that our EU friendly countries do not and have never done, but that we should do immediately, considering the Dublin agreement and the always artfully created sense of guilt for old experiences.

It is also worth reiterating that Italy is out of Libya, of the Maghreb region, of Africa and it will shortly be out of the Mediterranean. Thanks to our politicians, who know about strategy and geopolitics like a pizza maker usually knows about the calculus of variations. No disrespect and offense to our pizza makers, of course.

Without Libya there will beno control of the Mediterranean. Without control of the Mediterranean, there will be no Italian strategic and economic autonomy. Finally, without Italian strategic and economic autonomy there will be no growth, the mantra about which current politicians talk grandly.

However, let us better analyse the situation: Russia denies any direct engagement in Libya, but there are at least 14 MiG29 missiles in the Jufra base, as well as some Sukhoi-24 bombers, and also Pantsir anti-missile systems.

Allegedly, in the bases still linked to General Haftar, there are also Serbian and Ukrainian mercenaries, connected to the Wagner networks of Russian contractors.

They are mainly in the base of Gardabyah, but although denying any direct military interest in Libya, Russia has reportedly deployed its 900 militants in Syria and Libya in the bases linked to Haftar, as done also by Turkey.

The intelligence Services are particularly active. Especially the French ones, namely the DGSE, as well as the American CIA, which has never left Libya, and the German BND. This is not surprising.

Italy still has an excellent advisor to al-Sarraj, who knows all too well how to deal with certain issues. But he is alone, isolated, and now he is rare breed in Tripolis government.

In our opinion, al-Sarraj was not the holder of some Italian geopolitical interests, which should be dealt with well, but has the virtue of having been awarded the holy spirit of international organisations, through complex and sometimes indescribable ploys and ruses.

Italy would recognize also the devil, if it were appointed by some international organisations and fora, possibly even irrelevant.

France does not care about the international choices, which so much entice ambassadors and ladies, although it is a major part of them, more than Italy. In fact, it has always operated with its intelligence Services on Haftars side. When will the geopolitical servile attitude typical of the Italian ruling classes end?

The passage channel between Libya and Europe but not in Italy is always the triangle between Benghazi, Zuwara and Malta, created with light aircraft.

They know more in certain palaces in Valletta, including the religious ones, than in many Italian palaces of power, if we still want to call them so.

For the French Intelligence Services, the easiest connection is between Algeria and Lyon and, still today, some French intelligence service operatives train the still budding executives of Haftars Internal Intelligence Service.

The Germans meet both Haftar and al-Sarraj with communication lines starting directly from Germany and arriving both in Tripoli and Benghazi.

Meanwhile, on July 19, Egyptian President Al Sisi, the former Chief of the Military Services of the Armed Forces in Cairo stated and he could not do otherwise that Libya is obviously a national interest for Egypt. Even Italy, however, should have done so, also with possible harshness.

The EU, another factory of nothing, has stated in these days that we need to go back to the 5+5 mechanism for negotiation. But all the Libyan parties are reflections of other foreign countries and it is useless kicking the dog and meaning the master. We only need to talk to the master. What would be the resolution of the Libyan crisis magically awaited by the United Nations? No one knows.

An open and clear segmentation of the territory, which at the time of the Ottoman Empire was not unified at all. Hence it is a matter of saying goodbye and part without resentment. Like the aforementioned snobbish young ladies, jet setters and salon socialites.

But are we sure that a split Libya would be in our best interest? Possibly with the Fezzan tribes, happily involved in the illegal migration business, and Italy there to wait and see, as well as pay additional 1.3 million Euros to the so-called Libyan coastguards, as recently happened?

In a context of oil and hence of public revenue crisis, such as the one expected in Libya in 2020/2021, the only country that will bear a heavy brunt will be Italy, which will probably die economically together with its old Libyan colony.

Al-Sarraj recently explained that 1.4 billion U.S. dollars of oil sales have been lost since the port blockade imposed by General Haftar last January.

It should also be noted that General Haftar already has excellent relations with the Greek Intelligence Services, he has often met in obvious opposition with Turkey. However, the choices made by the Benghazi leader have already caused an 80% fall in Libyan oil sales.

Considering that, in a situation of low prices per barrel and oil extraction restrictions, the least expensive oil in Africa, that is Libyas, has its own strong significance, if it is closed to markets, we can infer the rule of those who have an interest in still destabilising Libya and those who have not.

Where would the playing cards of Westerners be? A small market in a very severe crisis? A non-existent presence on the ground? The idiotic ideologies that see in rampant immigration or in the impossible sealing of borders the solution to our problems? Those who do not know how to use weapons should not do foreign policy, and there would also be many weapons.

Turkey has quickly taken the place of Italy, which is increasingly apallic.

In Italy they probably fear the reactions of some salon , jet setters and socialites, who would cry out for human rights and, sometimes, for the necessary actions of some lackeys.

Until January 2020, however, Turkey sent 100 of its officers and at least 2,500 militants from a jihadist group operating in Syria under the orders of MIT, the Turkish Intelligence Service, who quickly overturned the military result on the ground against General Haftar.

Turkey has two goals on Libyan soil: firstly, stopping the Egyptian, Emirates and Saudi operations against Turkeys economic and oil expansion in the Mediterranean. They know where the Mediterranean is. We do not.

We have surrendered to a beautiful region full of far more powerful States than Italy, namely Northern Europe, which no longer knows what to do with us. If it were not for the SMEs in the North.

Beautiful those times when Amintore Fanfani, a man with extraordinary strategic and predictive skills- after all Tuscan-Etruscans are a bit haruspices, or predictors, whom the Romans greatly feared, according to Titus Livy predicted a new Mediterranean policy for Italy, so as to take back that area that solum mio, just to quote Machiavelli in a well-known letter to Vettori.

The other Turkish policy line is that of perceiving a threat of the strategic whole between Israel, Greece and Cyprus to which at least it reacts with the probable EU support which, if any, would probably bring bad luck to the Turkish expansion in the Mediterranean.

The reaction of Haftars operatives, although defeated on the ground so far, has not been negligible and allows to foresee a long proxy war between Turkey, Egypt, the Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other countries.

With whom are the Westerners siding? They have left the ground to local players, with the exception of a few intelligence positions. Precisely with the hope of nothing, or rather with the idea that the matter will calm down and be settled by going back to the negotiation and mediation tables. To mediate what?

The success of Turkey, which will certainly not want to mediate its new presence in Tripolis oil market, as well as in the new Turkish Exclusive Economic Zone, stretching from the Libyan coast to Kastellorizo, in the Dodecanese?

What does Russia want? It wants to fight Westerners in the region and, anyway, also Turkey.

But again for Turkey and its intelligence, the services of the Russian contractor company Wagner were allegedly sold to the Emirates. This is not impossible.

Russia does not want a long war in Libya, which would wear out Mediterranean equilibria and probably exclude it from the new strategic context.

On the contrary, Russia officially wants an agreement between the parties, the end of hostilities and the creation of a Government of National Unity.

Furthermore, unlike others, Russia perceives the sense of Turkish penetration in Libya as the antecedent of the hegemonic Islamization of Turkey with respect to the jihadist groups of sub-Saharan Africa.

President Erdogan knows that Westerners who do not make calculations, but live on paranoia are now obsessed with China in Africa. He therefore thinks they will keep quiet while Turkey takes the big piece of Africa not yet fully colonized by China.

Russia, however, will never take great risks in Libya, because it does not want tension with Turkey, and especially with its new Turkish Stream.

In 2016 Russia already printed 9 billion U.S. dollars of Haftars new Libyan currency, with the effigy of the old Rais, transported to Benghazi via Malta, which imposed its remarkable tax.

Moreover, the Russian Federation is playing its future true cards on Saif-al Islam Gaddafi rather than on General Haftar. In short, everyone is playing and making plans on Libya, after the democratic disaster of France and Great Britain, while Italy is doing nothing at all.

Related

Original post:
The Libyan crisis in the summer of 2020 - Modern Diplomacy

Our editors weekly take on humanitarian news, trends, and developments from around the globe.

The extreme dangers for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe via north Africa and the Central Mediterranean were underlined this week. Libyan authorities shot dead three Sudanese asylum seekers on 27 July as they attempted to flee after being intercepted at sea and returned to the country by the EU-backed Libyan Coast Guard. And in two separate incidents, boats carrying close to 100 asylum seekers and migrants were left to drift for more than a day as both Libyan and Maltese authorities failed to respond to distress calls a recurring pattern since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. After a private merchant vessel also refused to help one of the stranded boats, Maltese authorities eventually rescued one and the Italian Coast Guard the other. At least 232 people are known to have died or gone missing in the Central Mediterranean so far this year, although the true number is almost certainly higher. Meanwhile, at least 1,750 people died many of them in Libya between 2018 and 2019 while undertaking journeys from East and West Africa to the Mediterranean coast, making the migration route one of the deadliest in the world, according to a new report from the UNs refugee agency and the Danish Refugee Council. Keep an eye out for upcoming TNH articles on the surge in disappearances of people returned to Libya and on the fledgling legal bids to sue the EU for assisting human rights abuses in the country.

Much has changed in Sudan since the ousting of long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir last year, but not in war-scarred Darfur, where lives are still being lost and humanitarian needs are growing. More than 60 people were killed and nearly as many injured in an attack by a militia group on 25 July one in a string of violent incidents that has prompted authorities to declare a state of emergency. The UNs aid coordination agency said the attacks were leading to increased displacement at a critical moment during the agricultural season. Jonas Horner, a Sudan analyst at the International Crisis Group, said militias were defending land taken from displaced populations amid expectation that peace talks between the government and rebel groups around the country may spark return movements. A peacekeeping mission in Darfur with a mandate to protect civilians is, meanwhile, set to shut down at the end of the year a move that could expose the region to major insecurity, according to the Institute for Security Studies. Read our latest on Sudans shaky transition for more.

Zimbabwes city streets were empty today as soldiers and police set up roadblocks to enforce a ban on protests. Demonstrators had been set to march to protest alleged state corruption and the mismanagement of the economy with inflation at over 700 percent, shortages of foreign currency, and public hospitals crippled by strikes and a lack of medicine. But President Emmerson Mnangagwa has accused opposition leaders of attempting to overthrow the government, and said the security forces would appropriately respond to their shenanigans. What that has often meant is beatings, and the use of live ammunition. Earlier this week, the government called the US ambassador a thug, accused him of funding the protests, and threatened him with expulsion. But the governments political problems do not stop with the opposition. There is a factional fight underway in the ruling party and three years after the overthrow of former president Robert Mugabe a section of the army appears deeply unhappy. In any county where a military coup has happened, there is a tendency for it to recur, noted NGO activistBlessing Vava.

A record 212 environmental activists were killed in 2019, according to a new report from Global Witness. The toll was up from 164 in 2018, and more than half of the killings occurred in Colombia and the Philippines. In Colombia, where 64 activists were killed, violence has spiked since a 2016 peace agreement. Farmers have been pushed to swap illegal crops for other harvests and many have been moved off of land to make way for other industries. The country is one of the worlds largest coal exporters but also has substantial oil, gas, and palm oil holdings. In the Philippines, 43 people were killed many of those killed fighting against the countrys many agribusinesses. Brazil reported 24 killings, while killings of environmental activists in Honduras jumped from four in 2018 to 14 last year. Mining was the sector linked to the most killings, but logging had the largest increase in deaths since 2018. There were seven killings in Africa, but Global Witness warned that several cases likely went unreported. Read this weeks TNH story for more on how hundreds of Indigenous people in Colombia forced from their rainforest reserves by conflict are protesting the lack of government assistance as they try to make new lives in the capital, Bogot.

Women and girls have paid a heavy price in the COVID-19 pandemic, with increased gender-based violence, forced marriages, and loss of reproductive healthcare. But when it comes to deaths, people are dying at a rate six times higher in countries with male leadership than in countries with female leaders. New research by the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the PRIO Centre for Gender, Peace and Security suggests that countries that prioritise the well-being of women have also fared better. The research looked at womens well-being as measured by the Women, Peace, and Security Index and risk factors associated with the outbreak that exceed a nations capacity to respond. Their findings? Countries that do poorly on womens inclusion, justice, and security are at higher risk during a pandemic. For more from women and girls themselves, check out our She Said reporting.

AFGHANISTAN: Coronavirus has decimated Afghan womens healthcare access, and humanitarian aid is excluding women and girls as well, according to a new CARE study on the pandemics gender impacts. The analysis, based on interviews or surveys of about 400 people, found three quarters of Afghan women have no access to family planning, and many arent able to reach clinics at all. Only eight percent of interviewed women said they received aid in the last month; some cited a lack of female aid staff. See our recent reporting on Afghanistans missing coronavirus patients: Women.

CHINA/LATIN AMERICA: As global competition over coronavirus vaccines builds, Chinas foreign minister has vowed to loan $1 billion to help Latin American countries access any workable vaccine it produces. Observers suggested this may not be a simple act of kindness, but its not just Brazil that might be interested: Mexico, Chile, and Peru are also among the top 10 countries in the world for confirmed cases.

FINANCE: Wealthy countries have found $11 trillion to cushion the blow of the coronavirus for themselves, but less than half a percent of that to give as aid. COVID-19 exposes global inequalities like never before, as well as the limitations of the international aid machinery. According to a new study commissioned by the Norwegian Refugee Council, the crisis demands a "fundamental rethink" and a "pivot to preparedness". It warns that this crisis won't be a one-off: "Systemic crises are likely to become an increasingly common feature of a highly integrated global economy with a growing population, an unstable and warming climate and deteriorating ecosystems."

ISRAEL/PALESTINE: Both Israel and the occupied West Bank are witnessing a second wave in COVID-19 infections, and there is increasing concern about the potential for spread in crowded Palestinian refugee camps. Previous lockdowns and a ban on Palestinians going back and forth to Israel for work (a major source of income) are believed to have helped contain the virus, but many restrictions have since been lifted, and cases are surging.

NORTH KOREA: Pyongyang announced its first suspected case of coronavirus, warning of a dangerous situation, according to state media. North Korea was among the first countries to seal its borders with China in the early days of COVID-19, though various media have reported signs of undisclosed cases. Malnutrition and food insecurity are widespread, and the countrys underfunded health system struggles to treat diseases like tuberculosis.

AFGHANISTAN: A car bomb killed at least 17 people on Thursday on the eve of an Eid al-Adha ceasefire. The Taliban said its not behind the unclaimed attack. UN statistics show civilian conflict casualties fell in the first half of 2020, but notably not casualties caused by the two main parties that have delayed peace talks for months: the Taliban and the government. The overall drop is linked to a smaller battlefield footprint from international forces and so-called Islamic State, the UN said.

ASIA FLOODS: Monsoon floods hitting vast stretches of Asia have been so severe in part because of previous damage to vital flood barriers. In Bangladesh, where up to a third of the land is now submerged, many communities hadnt fully repaired the damage after back-to-back seasons of severe flooding in 2016, 2017, and 2019: The normal recovery cycle is at least three years. An early assessment of this years (ongoing) disaster warns that infrastructure repair and reconstruction must be a big part of early recovery plans in the coming months.

IRAQ: A new report from Amnesty International documents the myriad challenges faced by around 2,000 young Yazidis who survived what the UN has called a genocide by the so-called Islamic State. Having returned to their families in Iraq after witnessing and being subjected to horrific events, the watchdog says these children are now facing a physical and mental health crisis, are often no longer able to speak their own Kurdish dialects, and have trouble enrolling in school. Check out these stories for our reporting on the challenges facing Yazidis who have come back after years in captivity.

MALI: The opposition coalition leading Malis surging protest movement called for further civil disobedience this week as the latest meditation effort by West African leaders came to little. Protesters have been calling for the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who has struggled to stem rising jihadist and inter-communal violence in the country after seven years in power. Read more in our latest from the ground.

RANSOMWARE: NGOs in North America and the UK were among over 100 organisations whose data was accessed by hackers in a cyber attack in May. US cloud services provider Blackbaud, used as a fundraising platform by charities, announced it had paid off ransomware hackers for an undisclosed sum and restored the systems. But what happened to the data and when were victims notified? (Save the Children says it was only notified in July). Blackbaud said: "We have no reason to believe that any data went beyond the cybercriminal." Analysts point out the hack could include the estimated wealth and giving habits of individuals who donate to charities.

YEMEN: Southern separatists and Yemens internationally recognised authorities have reportedly agreed (not for the first time) to form a government of technocrats equally split between representatives of the north and the south. The deal will see the powerful Southern Transitional Council give up its late April declaration of self-administration in the south, which escalated tensions between the STC and forces allied with President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi; both sides are members of the same Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen.

When hundreds of millions of international aid dollars were pumped into the Democratic Republic of Congos eastern Ebola response in 2018 and 2019, it kickstarted a scramble to profit. So-called Ebola business didnt just drive widespread corruption, it potentially cost lives. Just eight weeks into a new outbreak in northwestern quateur province, it appears the lessons have not been learned: Aid officials have reported that local officials are already attempting to profit from relief funds. Concerns over the latest outbreak which has claimed more than 30 lives are compounded by COVID-19 travel restrictions. Border closures make it more difficult to bring staff and equipment into the country to fight the virus, and there is a country-wide shortage of vaccines. The epidemic is running ahead of us, Robert Ghosn, of the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), told TNH earlier this month. The response overall is not on par with the needs.

The week saw the start of a drastically different version of the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca: Usually more than two million Muslims from all over the world descend on the holy city in one of the worlds largest religious gatherings, but thanks to the pandemic it has been scaled back to a socially distanced 10,000, all of whom were already inside Saudi Arabia. Pilgrims have all been tested for COVID-19, and will wear masks and electronic monitoring bracelets while they perform a series of rites that all able-bodied Muslims who can afford it are supposed to perform at least once in their lives. This years pilgrims will not be able to kiss or touch the Kaaba, Islams holiest site site, which is usually closely surrounded by people. The Washington Post reports that the downsized Hajj has had a devastating impact on people in Somalia, which usually exports millions of livestock to Saudi Arabia in the months leading up to the Hajj. The country relies so heavily on this trade that the entire economy already in a bad way has been hit hard.

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Libyan returns, Darfur emergency, and a pared-back pilgrimage: The Cheat Sheet - The New Humanitarian

The French writer Bernard Levy said he had obtained his entry visa to Libya via the newspaper he works for not through the Interior Ministry of Libya.

Levy told Libya Alahrar TV on Saturday that he had obtained a regular visa and he had visited Libya by an invitation from Misrata and Tarhouna to write a report on the cities, mass graves and other issues in western Libya for US-based Wall Street Journal.

Levy denied meeting any Government of National Accord officials, saying he met with civilians and policemen, as well as municipal employees and civil societies, adding that he came to support Libyans who have suffered enough from "martyrdom, war, ISIS, Gaddafi and Haftar".

"I have seen something in Tarhouna that broke my heart as many civilians and children are buried in mass graves with their hands tied to their backs. I came to document this." Levy added.

Asked if he had been invited by a GNA entity, he said the question should go to the government as he had obtained invitations from Tarhouna and Misrata's people.

He also said later on Twitter that he had been saddened by the views he saw in Tarhouna, adding that his report "Fields of Death" will soon be published to show those atrocities.

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Bernard Levy: I entered Libya with a visa obtained by the newspaper - The Libya Observer