Friday, February 7, 2025

Polaris of Enlightenment

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Zimbabwe promises to partially compensate white farmers for confiscated land

Published 30 October 2024
– By Editorial Staff
Zimbabwe's Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube.

When Zimbabwe’s then-President Robert Mugabe initiated a large-scale “redistribution program” in the early 2000s, it resulted in the displacement of around 4,000 white farmers, stripping them of their farms, homes, and land.

Now the country’s government claims that some farmers will soon be compensated – at least partially.

Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party seized white farmers’ farms, citing a desire to address what they described as “wrongs of colonialism”, racism and alleged inequalities in land ownership between the black and white populations, which they believed dated back to before 1980 when Zimbabwe had white minority rule.

In practice, however, the land grab was a huge failure, not only because large farms were carved up and turned into much smaller and less profitable ones – but also because the reform was riddled with corruption and much of the land was given to representatives of the ruling party and its allies.

Almost overnight, the country’s agricultural production halved, and more than two decades later the economy has not recovered.

Since Mugabe’s death in 2019, other leaders in the country have tried, somewhat tentatively and without much success, to lure back formerly displaced farmers in the hope of boosting the battered economy. Recently, the country’s finance minister, Mthuli Ncube, even agreed to provide some compensation to white farmers who had their land stolen.

Murdered and raped

According to AP, Zimbabwe has approved a total of 441 applications for compensation worth $351.6 million from white local farmers, as well as 94 applications from foreign nationals worth $196.6 million.

However, only one percent, or $3.5 million will be paid out in cash to the indigenous white farmers, the remaining sum they will receive in government bonds, it said.

Many of the white farmers who previously owned the best agricultural land were often forcibly evicted by armed mobs, and according to human rights organizations, several were also killed, raped or seriously injured.

According to Ncube, the compensation to local white farmers does not relate to the land – which the government still believes it had a legal right to take. Instead, they are being compensated for infrastructure in the form of buildings, wells and irrigation systems, and payments are expected to be completed before the end of the year.

Dependence on aid

Zimbabwe used to be perhaps the region’s most important food producer but now needs to rely on aid, not least from the West, to feed its population, and long periods of severe drought have further worsened the situation.

Today, all agricultural land belongs to the state, and those who want to farm it can only do so by lease. Earlier in October, however, the government opened the door to allowing the sale of land – but only to black Zimbabweans.

This proposal has also been heavily criticized, as observers say that people close to the ruling Zanu-PF party were often allocated several farms that were supposed to go to poor citizens, and can now make money by reselling them.

 

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Google shuts down its DEI program

Published yesterday 17:46
– By Editorial Staff
Google had a supportive stance towards the violent black power movement BLM.

Google has decided to end its Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) programs in the recruitment process. The decision means that the company will no longer have specific targets for hiring people from “underrepresented groups”. This is according to an internal memo to employees, written by Google’s HR manager Fiona Cicconi, which The Verge has seen.

In the memo, Cicconi explains that the decision is a consequence of Google’s status as a federal contractor and is influenced by “court decisions and presidential orders in the US” relating to the subject. She also mentions that the company is now “carefully evaluating” other DEI initiatives that may involve “risk” or “aren’t as impactful as we’d hoped”.

However, a Google spokesperson, Chloe Cooper, emphasizes to The Verge that the company remains “committed to creating a workplace where all our employees can succeed and have equal opportunities”. She adds that over the past year, the company has been reviewing its programs to ensure they are achieving these goals.

The decision to end DEI targets comes after Google in 2020, during the height of the violent Black Lives Matter movement, publicly pledged to increase the percentage of leaders from “underrepresented groups” by 30 percent – a goal that was achieved by 2022. But now, as dismantling DEI programs has become a priority for the Trump administration, Google is choosing to change course.

Google is not alone in this change. The company is following in the footsteps of other tech giants such as Meta and Amazon, which have also cut back on their “diversity initiatives”. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google has also removed a previous line of text in its annual reports, in which the company assured that diversity was “part of everything” it does. This line has been there since 2021.

In the internal memo, Cicconi stresses that the decision is part of an annual policy review and that the company continues to strive for an inclusive workplace, although some programs are now being phased out.

Russia launches Eurovision rival

Published yesterday 16:11
– By Editorial Staff
All BRICS countries are said to have agreed to participate - and several Latin American nations are also said to be interested.

The Intervision Song Contest will be the BRICS’ alternative to Eurovision. The first contest will be held in Moscow already in September.

A similar song contest was held in 1965 and 1977 as an Eastern Bloc alternative to Eurovision. Participants included the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary.

The initiative is a Kremlin order, signed by President Vladimir Putin on Monday, and the idea to revive the contest came from the Russian culture minister, Olga Lyubimova, in September 2023.

Eurovision, which started in the 1950s, excluded Russia from the 2022 contest in the context of the start of the war. Meanwhile, the organizers, including the Swedish state channel SVT, have been criticized for double standards as Israel was allowed to participate in 2024, despite accusations of war crimes.

Latin American interest

The Intervision Song Contest will include all BRICS countries, members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and other interested nations, Russian state broadcaster RT reports. According to Russian authorities, the contest will be free of political restrictions.

Mikhail Shvydkoy, the President’s Special Representative for International Cultural Cooperation, confirmed that all BRICS countries have agreed to participate. Several Latin American nations are also said to be interested.

The competition is scheduled to take place in Moscow in September.

Trump bans trans women from competing in women’s sports

Published yesterday 13:54
– By Editorial Staff
Trump signed the decree in front of girl athletes on National Girls' and Women's Sports Day.

Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning trans women from competing in women’s and girls’ sports in the United States.

Transgender women overshadowing their biologically female counterparts in women’s sports has been a hot topic of debate in the US in recent years. For example, Lia Thomas, formerly Will, provoked strong reactions when the swimmer broke new women’s records at the University of Pennsylvania.

This led Riley Gaines, who lost to Thomas, to raise the debate about biological males competing against biological females – and that it’s simply not a fair set-up.

However, the debate has been socially charged, and those who oppose trans women competing in women’s and girls’ competitions are often accused of being “transphobic”, when in fact it is about creating justice for women and girls. Despite years of debate, trans women have continued to win gold medals in various sports.

“The war on women’s sport is over”

On Wednesday, National Girls’ and Women’s Sports Day, President Donald Trump signed a new executive order banning trans women from competing in women’s and girls’ sports in the United States.

– With this executive order, the war on women’s sports is over, says the president, who signed the decree in front of excited girl athletes of all ages, CNN reports.

In practice, it means withdrawing the Biden administration’s guidance on Title IX, the civil rights law. Under those guidelines, schools were required to allow trans students access to school sports teams and sex-segregated facilities that align with their self-selected gender identities. The new decree will instead bar students born with biological male gender from participating in girls’ and women’s sports or using women’s restrooms.

Fraud

Furthermore, it will work with sports governing bodies, including the International Olympic Committee, to ensure that the guidance is followed in non-training environments. It will also affect US visa policy.

– If you are coming into the country and you are claiming that you are a woman but you are a male here to compete against women, we’re going to be reviewing that for fraud, said one of the officials.

Trump has also signed executive orders banning transgender people from serving in the military, declaring that there are only two genders, and banning the use of sex reassignment therapy, such as hormone blockers, for minors.

Zelensky’s call: “Give us nuclear weapons”

The war in Ukraine

Published yesterday 11:09
– By Editorial Staff
Zelensky has repeatedly expressed regret that Ukraine has no nuclear arsenal.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky wants the West to provide Kiev with nuclear weapons and even more missiles “to stop Russia” if Ukraine is not granted membership of the NATO military pact very quickly.

British journalist Piers Morgan published an excerpt from an interview with Zelensky in which he asked the Ukrainian leader why Kiev refuses to provide any alternative to NATO membership for possible peace negotiations, when he knows that such a proposal is considered completely unacceptable to Moscow.

The Ukrainian president replied that if Kiev is prevented from joining the US-led bloc in the near future, Ukraine will have the right to ask its allies how to defend itself against Russia instead.

– Which support package? Which missiles? Will we be given nuclear weapons? Then let them give us nuclear weapons!

Give us back nuclear arms. Give us missile systems. Partners, help us finance the one-million army, move your contingent on the parts of our state where we want the stability of the situation, he continued.

“A maniac”

In recent months, Mr. Zelensky has repeatedly expressed his regret that Ukraine had previously handed over Soviet nuclear weapons stationed on its soil in exchange for security guarantees. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine inherited some 1 700 nuclear warheads, which remained under Moscow’s operational control.

Russia has always maintained that Ukraine never had any nuclear weapons to begin with, as the Soviet assets legally belonged to Moscow.

– Zelensky’s latest statements that he wants to possess a nuclear capability expose him as a maniac, who considers the planet as an object for his sick delusions. They also prove that for him nuclear power stations are not a source of peaceful energy, but a dirty weapon that the Kiev regime needs for blackmail, comments Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova.