In Jordan, growing U.S. aid and shrinking freedom
FOREIGN POLICY (13/11/2022) As she looked out the window of her bare, dimly lit living room in October, Mervat Hamda counted the days since the authorities took away her son Anas al-Jamal: 138. “He is more than my son—he is my closest friend,” she said as she showed me family photos in their home in […]
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In the Iberian peninsula, “unsustainable, unviable” berry businesses are draining water and exploiting migrant labour
EQUAL TIMES (5/12/2022) On a breathless summer morning in El Rocío, a village bordering Spain’s Doñana National Park, Juan Romero points to a map detailing the surrounding area. “Here are the berry crops,” he says, tracing their encroachment of the park from the north and west. “It’s all full of plastic.” For years, the retired […]
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Agribusiness depletes soil and water in Portugal’s Alentejo
AL JAZEERA (11/10/2022) Sitting in her home in a white-washed village nestled in Alentejo’s gently rolling hills, 92-year-old Inácia Cruz likes to reminisce about simpler times. “This region was rich in bread,” she says wistfully. “We would produce olive oil, cereals and cork. We didn’t need to buy things from abroad. We grew our own […]
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They make a desert and call it profit – How berry exports are draining Iberia
JOURNALISMFUND.EU Across the southern Iberian Peninsula, plastic greenhouses stretch to the horizon where rain-fed olives, wheat and grapes were traditionally grown. Spain and Portugal are Europe’s main producers of water-intensive berries. But the region is also one of the continent’s driest areas, where droughts are becoming more frequent. Reports have warned Europe’s fruit garden is […]
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Jordan’s ‘other’ refugees stuck in limbo with frozen asylum claims
MIDDLE EAST EYE (3/7/2022) Before he fled Sudan, Ahmed was an award-winning runner. Now, as an undocumented asylum seeker in Jordan, he mostly runs away from the police. “But I’m not a criminal,” he says as he opens his backpack to show his seven medals – gold, silver and bronze – won at junior championships in three […]
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“Amman is a prison” Rise in suicides highlights mental health crisis in Jordan
THE NEW HUMANITARIAN (14/6/2022) Adam Jawad escaped Iraq with his family following the US-led invasion in 2003, living in Syria until war forced him to flee again a decade later, this time to Jordan, where he eked out a living doing odd jobs and working at a cultural centre in the capital, Amman. Jawad wrote […]
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Calls for Middle East food sovereignty amid looming wheat crisis
MIDDLE EAST EYE (19/3/2022) Concerns are growing across the Middle East that the war in Ukraine will cut off international shipments of wheat, spurring shortages and soaring prices of a staple food millions of people rely heavily upon. Russia and Ukraine produce about a quarter of the world’s wheat. The MENA region is particularly dependent on wheat […]
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Jordan’s grassroot movement for food sovereignty
AL JAZEERA (7/2/2022) Carrying sickles, a group of Jordanians gather to harvest a wheat field that spreads around Amman’s City Mall. Logos of international supermarkets and franchises tower above the golden wheat, as dozens of people reap a crop that for thousands of years has been cultivated in the region. This collective harvest last summer […]
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Com o ódio à janela
SETENTA E QUATRO (28/1/2022) “Hoje acordámos com o ódio escrito nas nossas janelas.” Foi assim que os donos de uma mercearia árabe em Lisboa denunciaram terem sido alvos de um ataque xenófobo. Numa madrugada de outubro, a mercearia do Médio Oriente Zaytouna (azeitona em árabe) foi vandalizada com uma mensagem ofensiva contra o islão, e […]
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Copper mine threatens Jordan’s largest nature reserve
AL JAZEERA (3/10/2021) At dawn, blue and pink rays start to break over Dana’s mountain ridges. Birdsong and rustling leaves are the only sounds in the valley. Spread over 300sq km (116sq miles) from towering sandstone cliffs to desert plains, the Dana Biosphere Reserve is Jordan’s largest and most diverse protected region but its days […]
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