The Weekly Lift - November 7, 2024

Dear Subscribers:

The re-election of Donald Trump as the 47th President of the United States this week has left many feeling a whirlwind of emotions: shock, surprise, and, for his supporters, elation, of course. His victory is undeniably remarkable, given the intense scrutiny and obstacles he has faced since leaving office in January 2021.

Trump, now a convicted felon, was accused of attempting to subvert the government on January 6, 2021, has persistently refused to acknowledge his 2020 election loss, and oversaw, while President, a response to COVID-19 that led to over a million American deaths.

Yet he forged ahead with one of the most populist campaigns in U.S. history, proposing mass deportations of undocumented immigrants and advocating policies experts view as impractical and potentially harmful to both the U.S. and global economies. He has also openly questioned key pillars of American democracy.

In the end, none of these factors deterred his supporters. What is remarkable is that the Democrats have also lost ground in blue states, adding an important variable to Donald Trump's comeback: he likely won the popular vote in addition to the electoral vote. If confirmed, this is a new tool in his toolkit compared to his 2016 win, where Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote.

With the Senate in Republican hands (and possibly the House of Representatives) and a Supreme Court that is heavily tilted to the right, it seems that the sky is the limit for a second Trump presidency. It is a celebration scenario for some and a nightmare for others.

Once again, "It's the economy, stupid." Most Americans feel worse off financially than during Trump’s previous term. They are less interested in examining whether Trump’s policies contributed to their perceived prosperity or if it was a mere coincidence. While some of his tax cuts may have been beneficial, the relationship between his policies and consumer wallets is a far more complex paradigm than most voters want to recognize.

Conversely, Biden (and Harris) may not be responsible for inflation and other economic woes. It did not matter. Voters can be ruthless, and many are willing to risk sacrificing their core moral and ethical values—such as protecting minority rights, women’s rights, and climate action—on the gamble that he might restore their financial wellbeing .

For those who assumed Donald Trump would fade from the political stage in 2021, this outcome is a cold dose of reality. Chief among them is President Joe Biden, who, arguably, should have stepped aside sooner to allow a fresh candidate to connect with voters. Kamala Harris ran a decent campaign under challenging conditions. Still, it was not enough to counter the deep-seated resentment that various demographic and socioeconomic groups felt toward the Biden administration.

Harris struggled to distance herself from this administration, and her association with it proved costly. One of the turning points of her campaign that may have sealed her faith was when she told the hosts of The View, a popular talk show, that "she could not think of anything she would have done differently from Biden."

Despite numerous opportunities to articulate her stance on the economy and immigration, she failed to deliver a clear message that resonated with voters, many of whom were more concerned with the future of their households than with broader national policies or geopolitics issues, including women's rights, the relationship with China, Ukraine's faith or the conflict in the Middle East.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this election is the persistent polling failure. Despite the lessons of 2016, 2020, and 2022, polls continue to mislead, and voters have been left to interpret this week’s results amid a barrage of data that vastly overstated Harris’s lead in swing states or projected a close race.

Neither prediction materialized. The results are still being tallied but point to a landslide and a decisive victory. This outcome raises serious questions about polling methods and calls for a reckoning—perhaps through the integration of Artificial Intelligence—to better analyze and reconcile polling data with actual outcomes and address the issue once and for all. For our sake, the anarchy surrounding presidential election polls every four years has to stop once and for all.

Putting my geopolitics hat on, I also want to emphasize that the results of this election should be analyzed in the context of a global phenomenon. Liberal values are not as popular as more voters seem to embrace populist messages focusing on immigration, inequalities, and promising economic solutions that are not realistic or achievable.

In the last two years, voters have shifted towards the far-right and populism in Argentina, France, The Netherlands, Austria, and Germany, while elected right-wing leaders in Italy and Hungary appear more popular than ever. In Brazil, Bolsonaro is prohibited from running for president for seven years, but his populist political movement is regaining strength.

In addition, these right-wing ideologies have become popular among younger and new voters, particularly young men. Donald Trump secured the vast majority of these votes. This trend dispels the perception that younger generations are inherently liberal and will prioritize liberal values and human rights.

Far from the truth, they appear drawn to leaders who exhibit a certain type of power and strength. Geopolitics and sociology experts are probably already looking at these important trends reminiscent of other moments in history.

So, where do we go from here? It isn't easy to predict the next Trump presidency's impact on the United States and the world. Regardless, I am glad the election is over, and I want to shift my priorities from political news, allowing for some detachment while seeking out positive, hopeful stories. I hope you do, too.

Saad

Creator and Editor

This week's selection of positive headlines and articles*:

International Relations: Turkey Could Soon Strike A Historic Peace Deal With The Kurds

The Economist (UK) reports, "Devlet bahceli, the leader of Turkey’s biggest nationalist party, has made a career out of opposing concessions to the country’s 15m-strong Kurdish minority. The only solution to Turkey’s conflict with armed Kurdish separatists, he has long argued, is to pound them into the ground.

Since 2016, when Mr Bahceli and his Nationalist Movement Party (mhp) threw their weight behind Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he has been able to put his convictions to work. On his watch, the government unleashed armed offensives against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (pkk) at home and abroad. Thousands of Kurdish politicians and activists ended up behind bars.

But on October 22nd, to the astonishment of most Turks, it was the same Mr Bahceli who raised hopes of a settlement with the pkk, by calling on the group’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Ocalan, to address parliament and renounce violence. Were the Kurdish leader to disband the pkk, he could have a chance to walk free, said Mr Bahceli. A day later Mr Ocalan, who has spent a quarter of a century on a remote prison island, said he could “move the process from violence to politics”.

A reminder of just how hard this might be came the same day, when two pkk militants killed five people and wounded over a dozen others at the headquarters of a leading Turkish defence company in Ankara, the capital, before they were killed. Turkey responded with air strikes against the group’s strongholds in Syria and Iraq. The pkk later claimed the attack was not related to Mr Bahceli’s overtures.

The violence could have derailed any peace process before it began—but it did not. On October 30th Mr Erdogan backed his coalition partner’s proposal, but ruled out talks with pkk commanders other than Mr Ocalan.

Success is hardly assured. Earlier talks collapsed in 2015 amid mutual recriminations, triggering a cycle of violence that reduced parts of Turkey’s south-east to rubble before spreading to northern Syria. Kurdish politicians accused Mr Erdogan of pursuing power rather than peace, and of backing Islamic State against the Kurdish insurgents. Turkish officials say the pkk used the talks to buy time and rearm.

pkk attacks, scorched-earth tactics by Turkey’s army and assassinations, by Turkish death squads and insurgents alike, have claimed over 40,000 lives since the conflict began four decades ago. Turkey now has a much stronger hand. The pkk has been wiped out as a fighting force in the south-east. Mass arrests have pushed Turkey’s main Kurdish party, the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (dem), to the fringes of politics.

That has many watchers wondering why Turkey’s government chose this moment to rekindle the peace process. The probable explanation has to do with the damage Iran and its proxies have suffered at Israel’s hands in the past year. Iran’s waning influence in Syria and Iraq risks emboldening the region’s Kurds to pursue more autonomy, says Mesut Yegen, a Turkish academic. “That’s the scenario Turkey wants to prevent.”

Mr Bahceli’s sudden conversion, from being one of the biggest obstacles to talks with the pkk to a go-between, is equally noteworthy. The mhp’s leader is known to have many allies in Turkey’s vast bureaucracy, and especially the security forces. “Bahceli’s role suggests this is a serious Turkish state project,” says Cengiz Candar, a dem lawmaker, “and that we are either on the eve of very important developments, or already in the implementation phase.”

Geopolitics: Moldovan President Beats ‘Russian Trojan Horse’ In Country’s Election

The Telegraph (UK) reports, "Moldova’s pro-EU president Maia Sandu has won a second term after a tense election marred by claims of Russian meddling.

With 98 per cent of the vote counted, Ms Sandu, with 54.35 per cent, was ahead of her pro-Russia rival Alexandr Stoianoglo, and on course to win a second term as Moldova’s president.

In a speech at her campaign headquarters on Sunday evening, Ms Sandu told supporters that Moldovans had defeated the Kremlin.

“Our country was under the most unprecedented attack in the history of the whole of Europe. Dirty money, illegal vote buying, the involvement of hostile forces outside the country,” she said. “But our people united in freedom and our citizens won.”

Analysts reported that Russian influence networks tried to manipulate the vote by buying voters and flying in pro-Kremlin expatriates. The result will be a big relief for the pro-Western government, which strongly backed Ms Sandu’s candidacy and her push for closer Western ties on Moldova’s path towards the EU.

Ms Sandu, 52, actually lost the vote inside Moldova, winning 48.8 per cent, but she won about 80 per cent of the diaspora vote as they mainly live and work in the EU. Ms Sandu’s team knew how important it was to mobilise the diaspora vote and the country’s Central Election Commission confirmed that the election marked the highest turnout of overseas voters since 2010, when they were first allowed to vote in elections.

Ms Sandu’s rival, Mr Stoianoglo, was a former state prosecutor who has accused her of disenfranchising a large part of the Moldovan population with her push to take the country into the EU by 2030. He was supported by pro-Russia parties and was described by Ms Sandu as a “Russian Trojan horse”.

Konstantin Sonin, a professor at the Harris School of Public Policy in Chicago, described the election as “incredibly tight” and Nicolae Ciuca, president of Romania’s Senate, said Ms Sandu’s win was a “decisive victory” along the EU path.

“Many thanks to the diaspora for mobilising and making history against vote-buying and propaganda,” Mr Ciuca said. But the vote also showed that Moldova is clearly a divided country.

Two weeks ago, Ms Sandu also narrowly won a referendum on taking Moldova into the EU, winning 50.3 per cent of the vote, a far lower “yes” vote than had been expected. Rigging by pro-Kremlin influence networks in that referendum was suspected of buying 300,000 votes.

Former Soviet Moldova is wedged between Ukraine and Romania and has a large Russian-speaking minority, which analysts have said makes it an easy target for Kremlin influence campaigns. David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, congratulated Ms Sandu on her election win on X.

Diversity: Kemi Badenoch Becomes First Black Woman To Lead Britain’s Conservative Party

The New York Times (US) reports "Britain’s Conservative Party announced on Saturday that it had selected Kemi Badenoch as its leader, putting a charismatic, often combative, right-wing firebrand at the helm of a party that suffered a crushing election defeat in July.

Ms. Badenoch, 44, whose parents were immigrants from Nigeria, becomes the first Black woman to head a party that has had three other female leaders — Margaret Thatcher, Theresa May and Liz Truss. She succeeds Rishi Sunak, who became the first nonwhite British prime minister after taking over the Tories, Britain’s oldest party, in 2022.

“It is the most enormous honor to be elected to this role, to lead the party that I love, the party that has given me so much,” a smiling Ms. Badenoch said to a group of Conservative Party members after being announced the winner. “I hope that I will be able to repay that debt.”

There is no guarantee, despite her swift ascent, that Ms. Badenoch will ever get to 10 Downing Street. The Labour Party’s landslide victory gave it a huge majority in Parliament and the Tories face at least four years in opposition before the next election is due.

While the Labour prime minister, Keir Starmer, has gotten off to a shaky start, his party remains more popular than the Tories, who left voters frustrated and exhausted after 14 turbulent years in government.

In a lively, occasionally bitter, leadership contest, Ms. Badenoch defeated Robert Jenrick, another former cabinet minister, by a vote of 53,806 to 41,388 among the party’s 130,000 or so dues-paying members (about 73 percent voted). She and Mr. Jenrick emerged as the two finalists in a multiple-round contest that left the members with an unexpectedly narrow choice of two candidates from the party’s right.

Ms. Badenoch has vowed to rebuild the Tory Party on more authentically conservative foundations, saying her training as a computer engineer had taught her how to fix problems. She speaks often of “first principles” like freedom and individual responsibility. And she has not hesitated to wade into thorny issues like transgender rights or Britain’s colonial legacy, deploring “woke” ideology and “nasty identity politics.”

In her brief speech, Ms. Badenoch vowed to “reset our politics and our thinking” and to be “honest about the fact that we made mistakes.” But she did not lay out any new policy positions, in keeping with her refusal during the contest to be pinned down on specific policies.

“It’s quite unusual to go into a leadership contest eschewing the idea that you need to put together policies for the party,” said Tim Bale, a professor of politics and an expert on the Conservative Party at Queen Mary University of London.

Ms. Badenoch, he said, was also distinguished by her outspoken style and willingness to get into fierce debates over issues. He has described her as a “thinking man’s Thatcherite cultural warrior.”

That suggests the Conservatives could be in for an unpredictable, even bumpy, stretch as the main opposition party. Her predecessor, Mr. Sunak, was a more technocratic, if also occasionally querulous, figure.

And it is not clear, given the size of Labour’s majority, how much Ms. Badenoch can hope to achieve as leader of the opposition, a post that is sometimes described as the worst in British politics because of the dearth of power and shrunken media attention.

Like Mr. Sunak, whose parents are of Indian heritage, Ms. Badenoch’s story captures a slice of Britain’s varied immigrant experience. Born in London to a mother who was a physiology professor and a father who was a doctor, she spent her formative years in Lagos, Nigeria, where her family lived a comfortable life.

After political and economic upheaval swept Nigeria, her family’s fortunes abruptly declined. Years later, she recalled doing homework by candlelight during power outages and fetching water from a nearby well because the taps had run dry. She moved back to Britain at 16, taking a part-time job at a McDonald’s while she studied.

In a recent BBC interview, Ms. Badenoch described her early years back in Britain as a time of little money and low expectations. When she spoke of her ambition to become a doctor, she recalled, people asked her why she wouldn’t be content to be a nurse. Instead, she became a software engineer.

“To all intents and purposes, I am a first-generation immigrant,” Ms. Badenoch said after being elected to Parliament in 2017. In her well-received first speech, she quoted both Edmund Burke and Woody Allen.

Ms. Badenoch presents her British nationality as a stroke of good fortune — one that has instilled deep patriotism in someone who was raised “somewhere where the lights didn’t come on, where we ran out of fuel.”

She has joined calls for Britain to cut back the recent influx of immigrants, though she has avoided the kinds of strict, numeric targets embraced by Mr. Jenrick. And she has rejected his demand that Britain commit to withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights, a post-World War II treaty, because he says it obstructs efforts to control Britain’s borders.

Ms. Badenoch’s views on immigration have evolved along with those of the rest of her party. In comments from 2018 that recently resurfaced, she welcomed the Conservative government’s proposal to relax restrictions on visas for skilled migrants. She said she has since changed her mind.

On immigration policy, Ms. Badenoch now says, “numbers matter but culture matters more.” The most important criteria, she said, are “who is coming into our country and what do they want to do here?”

A confirmed Brexiteer, Ms. Badenoch rose rapidly in the governments of Boris Johnson, Ms. Truss and Mr. Sunak. She worked first as minister of state for equalities in the Johnson government. Ms. Truss then appointed her secretary of state for international trade, and Mr. Sunak later named her to head a newly created Department for Business and Trade.

Along the way, Ms. Badenoch has sparred with journalists, opposition figures, members of her own party, and even allies like Michael Gove, a former Tory minister who spoke warmly about her leadership bid.

Ms. Badenoch met her husband, Hamish Badenoch, a managing director at Deutsche Bank, through the Conservative Party when they were both activists and he was on the list of candidates approved to run for Parliament. They have two daughters and a son.

“One day he said to me ‘I think you are a lot better at this than I ever would be, and I think you should go for it, and I will support you all the way,’” Ms. Badenoch told the BBC in the recent interview.

Her ascent troubles some in Britain, who believe that, despite her status as the first Black leader of the Tories, she could set back the cause of racial justice and equality because of her right-wing views.

“The question on the left is: Is this a cynical performative device by the right to champion an anti-woke, Black, right-wing politician to challenge antiracist policies, and therefore will it have regressive consequences?” said Sunder Katwala, the director of British Future, a research institute.

Mr. Katwala said he preferred to think of Ms. Badenoch as representing a kind of “migrant patriotism” — the idea that “migrants choose the country and the rest of you are born in it and don’t know how lucky you are.”

Ms. Badenoch’s political views, he said, “are very authentic,” and understandable in the context of a life that took her from privilege and comfort in Nigeria to a tough new start and hard-won success in Britain.

“It’s just that her life experience is quite an unusual Black British story,” Mr. Katwala said."

Gender Equality: Lessons From The Most Advanced Countries

Le Monde (France) reports "From November 8 at 4:48 p.m., women will still work for free this year. And this until the end of December, "warns Rebecca Amsellem, founder of the newsletter Les Glorieuses. The observation is repeated every year in November. In 2024, it is a little less than in 2023, but there are still nearly two months of free work to be absorbed to compensate for wage inequalities between women and men.

This calculation developed by feminist economist Rebecca Amsellem can certainly be improved, but symbolically embodies the delay or advances in policies to reduce inequalities.

To achieve total parity without having to wait one hundred and thirty-four years, as predicted by the Global Gender Gap Index 2024, should women slam the door of HRD or "roll on the floor"? "I have seen some men do it," says the general director of the Association for the Employment of Executives, Gilles Gateau.

The effectiveness of the method is the subject of a report published on Thursday, November 7 by Les Glorieuses to highlight the actions that have made significant progress in reducing inequalities, in some countries of the European Union (EU) and beyond.

Their goal? "May all experts, politicians and leaders be able to answer this recurring question: "What really worked to reduce the wage gap?" with practical lessons, "explains Ms. Amsellem.

This report, which has recently been in the hands of the Secretary of State for Equality between Women and Men, Salima Saa, is not a collection of recipes, but rather a review of the experiments, collective mobilizations and public policies that have allowed companies to achieve results in Rwanda, New Zealand, the United States, Iceland, the European Union, Sweden and Spain.

The good students of the European Union, Spain and Sweden, have relied heavily on public policies. In Spain, the improvement is both recent and lightning. The wage gap has been reduced by 10 points in ten years, to 8.7% in 2022 compared to 18.7% in 2012, says the report, which takes up Funcas' figures. The Spanish analysis center specializing in economic and social research explains this performance by "a higher level of education" of the younger generations. "Among those under 25, women earn on average more per hour than men of the same age," explains the think tank.

On the public policy side, the Glorious team always sees the impact of the sharp increase in the minimum wage (+ 47% between 2018 and 2023), which affects more women than men, and on the business side, the effect of the royal decree of October 13, 2020 on wage transparency and the obligation for companies to display their strategy to reduce inequalities.

The Glorious report obviously refers to the activism of feminist and trade union organizations that had claimed these advances and highlights the effectiveness of a triple action: education, minimum wage and transparency in companies.

In Sweden, policies to reduce inequalities pursued over the years, the publication of action plans in companies and the implementation of generous equivalent parental leave schemes for both parents have reduced the wage gap to 11.1% (in 2022).

The "model country" is now once again a pioneer in tackling the discriminatory nature of wage inequalities related to professions, by equipping itself with the means to measure more and more. The experimentation of the three researchers Marie Trollvik, Anita Harriman and Lena Johansson has proven this.

"In assessing the work requirements for all the professions in the labour market, we were able to divide them into groups of equivalent jobs and compare wages. In our studies, we highlight the models and mechanisms that underlie the lowest appreciation of predominantly female professions, "they explain on their website L?nelotsarna (The Pilots of salary).

They thus revealed that "the structural wage gap between predominantly female professions and others was 19% in 2021". The three "super geeks of the calculation of equal pay", as they are nicknamed, have thus paved the way for corrective policies of professional segregation.

Finally, the report gives significant importance to mobilization, which is often at the origin of political decisions. This is explained by MEPs Samira Rafaela and Kira Peter-Hansen who brought the draft European directive on the transparency of remuneration, the measure that produced the "most significant advance for equal pay", according to Les Glorieuses. The European legal framework requires from 2026 on companies with more than 100 employees in all Member States of the European Union transparency on remuneration, including before hiring.

In the "most egalitarian country" (9.3% in 2022) outside the EU, Iceland, the feminist movement had, the very first, played an essential role in obtaining strong regulation and government initiatives, such as the creation of a working group to reassess the value of women-predominant professions.

"The feminist movement's most famous achievement was the 1975 Women's Day of Leave, when 25,000 women (out of 250,000 people in Iceland) mobilized for equal rights. Women's Leave Day was repeated in 1985, 2005, 2010, 2016, 2018 and 2023," says the report.

Les Glorieuses finally traces, in detail, the moving story of American Lilly Ledbetter, who, during her career, lost more than 200,000 dollars (183,000 euros) in wages, because of discrimination. When the worker discovered the difference between her salary and that of the men she worked with, she "embarked on a journey that would take more than ten years, which led her to the Supreme Court and led to this bill that will help other people get the justice that was denied to her," said Barack Obama in his speech on January 29, 2009, which announced the Equal Pay Act: the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

For France (where the net wage gap in full-time equivalent is 13.9% in 2022), the interview with the head of the INSEE salary section, Mathilde Gerardin, reveals the ways to follow to reduce inequalities: working hours and the composition of employment. "The magnitude of the differences varies according to age, socio-professional category and sector [of activity]," she says."

Peacebuilding: Hero Rats Save Lives In Angola - Trained Rodents Detect Mines For People To Farm Again

El Pais (Spain) reports “If you come across a snake, it’s best not to get nervous, but to stay calm and wait for it to pass.” The instructions given by paramedic Jo?o Eduardo are alarming, especially in latitudes where certain species of viper, cobra, or the feared and deadly black mamba live.

However, they sound like an asterisk in a contract: on these sandy paths of sparse vegetation and dry strands, it is not the animals on the surface that are dangerous, but what is hidden underground. Every few meters, without any specific arithmetic, anti-personnel mines nest under the soil.

They have been here since the civil war that ravaged Angola for almost three decades, from 1975 to 2002, and they still cause serious injuries to the population. That is why a team of workers from different parts of the country, with international participation, is dedicated to deactivating and removing the explosives, to transform the de-mined land into farms for residents.

On the plot where the presence of reptiles was reported, Japanese and Belgian funds, through the NGO APOPO, are channelled to clear the land of hidden threats, including missiles or shrapnel. To do this, the team have metal detectors and the help of specially trained rats.

The so-called “hero rats” are Southern giant pouched rats that play a “crucial” role, according to Lily Shallom, spokesperson for the organization. This species can smell explosive devices, but because of their light weight, there is no risk of setting them off. With this “special” equipment, APOPO has achieved “more precise research” and “greater interaction with local communities and authorities,” Shallom said via email from APOPO’s African headquarters in Morogoro (Tanzania).

“We currently have around 110 rats sniffing out anti-personnel mines. They are of the species Cricetomys ansorgei, a large, omnivorous, mainly nocturnal, burrow-dwelling rodent. Their head and body are between 25 and 30 centimeters long, with a tail of around 30 centimeters.

In total, these little heroes weigh between one and two kilos,” explains Shallom. The organization breeds and trains them from 10 weeks of age, making them associate the smell of TNT with treats such as bananas or peanuts.

The origin of this method was the brainchild of Belgian Bart Weetjens, founder of APOPO, who thought that these animals could be trained to detect explosives and decided to use them for landmines. The first tests were carried out in 2003, in a training camp in Mozambique.

They were “exciting” but also “a little stressful”: “We didn’t know if they would be able to do it in open terrain,” says Shallom. The rats proved exceptional: over the past 20 years they have helped clear thousands of hectares of explosive devices in different parts of the world, such as in this corner of Angola.

A few miles from the town of Libolo, in the center of the country, a camp of thick canvas tents and military-style beige camouflage announces the presence of the deactivators. At the checkpoint, on the side of the road, are a dozen workers. Among them, apart from the aforementioned medic, are the sappers and the head of the mission, 40-year-old Ar?o Dos Santos. “We have already located 22 mines and removed eight,” he says.

To access this minefield, you have to put on a protective uniform consisting of a long overall and a plastic mask. The path is marked by poles with three painted upper edges. “If they are red, it means there are mines; yellow means there were mines before; and white means it is safe,” explains Dos Santos in front of an armored car that they deploy in the most delicate situations.

The process of de-mining is arduous and expensive. While these explosive devices cost very little, disarming them involves fencing off each area, searching with a metal detector, using experts to dig them up, and either extracting them or detonating them without inflicting damage.

In addition, there are awareness campaigns in nearby towns. “We give guidelines on behavior, prevention, and avoiding certain places,” says Jo?o Eduardo, who at 37 is already experienced in hospitals, health centers, and remote villages, where he performs more of an informative than a health-related job. “A few days ago, a peasant woman stepped on one and lost her legs,” he laments.

Some strips of land have already been marked out by stakes and plastic tape. Inside, half-unearthed, these deadly artifacts can be seen. “They were put there by all sides, from the Cuban MPLA troops to the South African SWAPO troops,” says Dos Santos, referring to the various factions that fought in the war: during 27 years of civil conflict, different national and foreign groups fought for power in Angola after the country gained independence from Portugal.

The after-effects are still felt today. Not only in anti-personnel mines, but in the half-buried tanks that lie dormant on sidewalks or in the rusty bullet casings that litter the landscape. Also in the census: of the country’s nearly 38 million inhabitants, only 3% are over 65 years old, according to the United Nations Population Fund. “And we still live with insecurity, although we are people who have managed to move forward, without quarrels. With peace, there are also more universities and schools,” reflects Jo?o Eduardo.

They move without hesitation, with aplomb. Clementina Regina, 46, Francisco Joaquín, 51, and Daniel Casinda, 42, are some of the nine sappers who are currently combing the area, with a separation of 25 meters between them. Today, they are passing a metal detector over the ground, without touching the soil, until the alarm goes off. “It’s dangerous, but we’re careful and we believe that it is an important task,” they say.

Once the beep is heard, the next step is to cordon off an area of about 40 square centimeters. It will remain untouched until it can be deactivated or destroyed with the appropriate material. Meanwhile, one side of the device protrudes between grains of black earth. If rats are used, they would raise the alarm, sniffing the gunpowder and marking the limit for the farmers’ crops.

The laying of mines is random, as in other areas of Angola, where 1,304 mines were still active in 2020, as estimated by the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention. Clearing the land requires foreign assistance. This investment comes from various countries and is channelled here by APOPO, which began de-mining Angola in 2013.

They have “safely” removed 306 landmines, 714 items of explosive remnants of war and 7,880 small arms and ammunition, according to Shallom, who details the devastating injuries caused by these munitions: “Loss of limbs, severe burns, or even death.” She notes that certain challenges specific to Angola — the long rainy season and dense vegetation — can make de-mining operations difficult.

Mine clearance missions are “essential to restore confidence and security” in affected regions, Shalom adds. In Kwanza Sul province, they not only prevent potential disasters associated with these explosives, but also turn formerly dangerous terrain into farmland.

“We are proud to say that our efforts have made significant portions of land safe again for communities to live on and farm,” Shallom says. In July, APOPO said that the de-mining teams had found 74 mines in Kwanza Sul and Ebo over the past year, clearing 921,232 square meters of land.

“We will soon clear this land,” says Dos Santos, who highlights the team’s achievements: “In three months, we cleared some 250,000 square meters.” Manuel Agostinho, a veteran member of APOPO, stated in October in the Jornal de Angola that this operation has re-established agricultural activities in various departments of the country and has benefited, in total, 23,000 peasant families directly and 80,000 indirectly.

Various vegetables have already been planted on the land in this area of Libolo. Antonio Baristo, a 36-year-old farmer, comes from Huambo, some 236 miles away. He has six children and now sows this freed land, happy, but with a latent fear: “It goes away because I am outside the mining boundaries,” he confesses. Irrigation comes from the Longa River. Along its banks are eucalyptus trees jostling for water: unlike in other parts of the country, here ocher prevails, speckled with the green of the grass and the brown of the stunted bushes.

Perhaps that is why, for the moment, they will only plant tomatoes, onions, and peppers. “Angola, however, is very rich in crops. There is coffee, cassava, potatoes, beans and fruits such as strawberries, watermelon, or bananas,” says a Cuban agricultural engineer who has been supervising orchards throughout the country for two years and prefers not to give his name.

Everyone walks determinedly, hiding their nerves. “There is no thought of fear. I am happy because we free up land and we are lifeguards for farmers and residents. We make a contribution to the country,” says Jo?o Eduardo, whose job has the downside of being far away from his family. The paramedic looks at the farmer and smiles. He hopes that one day he will only have to warn about the poisonous snakes that cross the paths of visitors, and not about what remains hidden under the land."

*Please note that certain headlines and articles may have been modified or summarized to fit the format of the newsletter.

All feedback and comments are welcome.