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Women take part in a ritual event of naked festival, for the first time in its 1250 years of history, at Owari Okunitama Shrine, also known as Konomiya Shrine, in Inazawa, Aichi Prefecture, central Japan February 22, 2024.
Hard Numbers: Japanese women go to naked party, Australian fires rage, French farmers fume, and Zambian creditors get paid.
1250:Washoi! Women crashed the party at Japan's 1250-year-old Naked Festival, a traditionally all-male event designed to drive out evil spirits. While they didn’t actually bare all, the first-ever female participants successfully trampled gender norms while ensuring that the festival continues as Japan’s population ages.
2000: Wildfires have forced more than 2,000 people to flee towns in western Australia. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged all necessary assistance to combat the blazes, which are being exacerbated by an El Niño weather pattern known to fuel fires, cyclones and droughts.
1 : Angry French farmers delayed the opening of a major Paris farm fair by one hour, protesting costs, bureaucracy, and environmental regulations. Amid calls for his resignation, President Emmanuel Macron promised to meet with union representatives and stakeholders. European governments are concerned that the farm lobby could feed gains by the far right in European Parliament elections this June.
13 billion: Zambia’s 13bn mountain of debt is a little lighter today, thanks to deals struck with creditors China and India. It’s welcome news as the African nation contends with past defaults, depreciation of the kwacha, a revival of inflation, and a drought that was “one of the worst in living memory.” Zambia now plans to resume talks with private creditors and is back on track for a 1.3 billion bailout by the IMF.Spain, Girona, 24/02/06. Several hundred farmers gather on the highway to protest against bureaucracy, Europe and water management.
Brussels bows to farmers on green goals
On Tuesday, the European Commission scrapped a plan to limit pesticide use and excluded agriculture from its roadmap to cut greenhouse gasses as the ruling coalition attempts to quell bloc-wide protests by farmers.
The concessions follow pledges last week to reduce the burden of environmental policy on farmers after protests erupted in France, Belgium, Germany, and other countries last month. Farmers say they can’t get a decent price for their produce thanks to strict environmental regulations, competition from cheap Ukrainian imports, and insufficient government support.
The EU did limit Ukrainian imports last week and loosened rules on how much land farmers have to leave fallow, but no dice. The protests only grew with farmers in Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Greece all turning out on Monday and Tuesday.
Why is Brussels being flexible? European parliamentary elections are looming in June, and the ruling centrist coalition is sweating the populist surge on the continent.
Knowing they need to keep farmers on their side to retain power, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pledged last week to rethink a series of climate-related laws.Dutch farmers block food distribution sites with tractors in Woerden, Netherlands.
Hard Numbers: Dutch farmers roar, Biden offers Griner swap, EU gas prices soar, Teva’s opioid settlement, carnage in Haiti
24.6 billion: Dutch farmers resumed protests Wednesday over the government’s plan to rein in emissions produced by livestock, which they say will decimate the agriculture industry. The Netherlands has earmarked $24.6 billion to help reduce emissions, but the farming sector says it is being unfairly targeted while the aviation, construction, and other industries are getting off scot-free.
25: The Biden administration has reportedly offered to exchange Viktor Bout — a Russian arms dealer currently serving a 25-year sentence in the US — in exchange for the release of two US citizens. WNBA player Brittany Griner has been held in Moscow on drug charges since February and faces a decade behind bars, while Paul Whelan, a former US marine, has been locked up since 2018 for alleged spying. Will Putin take the deal?
2: European gas prices rose by as much as 2% Wednesday after Russia further slashed natural gas output to Germany via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline. This comes after EU countries agreed to voluntarily cut natural gas consumption by 15% until April 2023. But some experts say that EU countries will need to make further cuts as winter approaches.
4.25 billion: Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva reached a whopping $4.25 billion settlement with US local and state governments — and tribes — over its role in fueling the country’s deadly opioid crisis. Teva’s opioid output in recent decades reportedly dwarfed that of better-known companies like Purdue Pharma, which makes OxyContin.
200: More than 200 people have been killed in just 10 days in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince according to the UN, as two gangs battle it out for control of a key neighborhood. Gang violence has exploded in crisis-ridden Haiti since President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by mercenaries last summer.Farmers take part in a protest to raise awareness about the crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic and demanding "respect and progress" for the rural sector in Madrid, January 23, 2022.
Hard Numbers: Angry Spanish farmers, South Korea foots Iran’s UN bill, China tests Taiwanese air defense, Turkish journalist jailed
4.7 billion: Spanish farmers protested on Sunday in Madrid against the leftwing coalition government's agricultural and environmental policies, which they claim are depopulating rural areas. No way, says the government, which has set aside $4.7 billion to stop the rural exodus.
18 million: Iran will regain voting privileges at the UN General Assembly, after South Korea pitched in the $18 million Tehran owed in UN dues with Iranian funds frozen by Seoul due to US sanctions. For the second year in a row, Iran had argued the sanctions impeded its ability to pay its UN bill.
35,500: Turkish journalist Sedef Kabas was arrested for allegedly insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan by reciting a proverb that compared him to a farm animal on live TV and Twitter. More than 35,500 charges of insulting the president have been filed in Turkish courts since it became a crime in 2014.
39: Taiwan scrambled fighter jets to ward off 39 Chinese aircraft that entered its air defense identification zone on Sunday, the largest incursion since October. China's "grey zone" warfare tactics are designed to strain the self-governing island's air defenses and test their response to a hypothetical attack.What We're Watching: Indian farmers' hunger strike, Brexit finale, Russian cyber attack
Indian farmers' hunger strike: After three weeks of protests over legislation that farmers say will threaten their livelihoods, Indian agriculture workers upped the ante on Monday when they began a day-long hunger strike that they hope will pressure the government to scrap the new laws. Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government says that three reforms passed in September amid the pandemic are meant to liberalize the country's robust agriculture sector (which accounts for 15 percent of India's GDP) by lifting requirements that farmers sell their harvests directly to state warehouses — which guarantee a set minimum price in return. Many agricultural workers, a group that includes about half the country's 1.4 billion people, fear that the laws will benefit big corporations that can increase their market-share by driving down prices and forcing smaller farmers out of business. Protests outside New Delhi continue to intensify, and some demonstrators have blocked highways leading into the capital and set up sprawling tent cities to wait out the political crisis. Modi's government has offered amendments to the legislation, but the demonstrations — and the political stakes — continue to grow.
Brexit endgame: Brits and Europeans are still talking and, believe it or not, that alone is significant. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has signaled at various times that he's prepared to walk away from the bargaining table without an 11th-hour trade agreement with the EU, and the rest of us are left to wonder whether he's bluffing. The European Commission appears impressed enough with Johnson's patience and stubbornness to offer some flexibility on a key sticking point: the so-called Level Playing Field, the willingness of the UK to align its labor, environmental, tax and competition rules with those used in Europe to ensure the UK can't have both broad access to EU markets and a competitive advantage over EU companies. Will this European move be enough? The clock is now ticking thunderously: In just 16 days, the UK will finally leave the European Union with or without a deal.
A major Russian hack: US government officials said Sunday that hackers (likely from Russia) gained access to government email accounts at agencies including the US Commerce and Treasury departments, as well as private companies, as part of a hacking scheme that could date as far back as the spring. Details remain sketchy, but reports indicate that FireEye, a computer security firm that counts the US Department of Homeland Security as one of its clients, first raised the alarm about the breach after its own systems were infiltrated. A software company called SolarWinds, whose products are used by 300,000 global organizations including the Pentagon, State and Justice departments was also breached. Analysts say it could be the most sophisticated hack by a foreign government on US infrastructure in more than five years. While it's unclear what, if anything, the Russian hackers extracted — and whether highly-classified information has been stolen — US government agencies went into crisis mode as they continued to investigate.
Farm to (negotiating) table in India
In recent days, tens of thousands of protesters have descended on the capital of the world's fifth largest economy as part of a political fight that directly affects the livelihoods of more than 600 million people.
This drama is unfolding in India, where a series of reforms to decades-old agriculture laws has touched off a major political crisis. Farmers streaming in from the country's breadbasket regions have blocked roads and set up encampments in New Delhi to demand that the government scrap the new laws. Yesterday, they called a nationwide strike.
In a country where nearly 60 percent of the population of 1.4 billion people depends on farming to earn a living, this is an issue with huge repercussions for the country's popular prime minister, Narendra Modi.
What's the back story? Under a system set up by the socialist-leaning governments that held power during the first decades of India's independence, farmers have long been required to sell their harvests to state warehouses, which guarantee a set minimum price in return. To make the system more efficient and market-driven by ensuring that supply responds directly to actual demand, the government recently passed laws that allow farmers to sell to whomever they like.
Allowing farmers a greater choice of buyers might sound appealing, and supporters of the new laws say they will attract more and better investment in the sector. But many farmers' groups are angry. They say they weren't sufficiently consulted about the law and, crucially, that without the guarantee of state purchases and prices, they'll be at the mercy of large agriculture companies that can force down prices to levels that make it impossible for them to make a living.
It's a classic case of market-oriented reforms that offer the promise of more prosperity and efficiency on a broad level, while also raising individuals' fears about their own economic security and future.
For context, more than 80 percent of India's farmers are small-plot tillers who eke out a very modest living. And droughts, floods, and underinvestment were making their lives harder even before the coronavirus pandemic kneecapped the economy: last year, some 10,000 Indian farmers committed suicide.
So far, talks between the government and farmers groups have gone nowhere. The government says it's willing to revise the laws, but farmers insist on scrapping them entirely and starting from scratch.
Prime Minister Modi has to tread carefully. This is heartland politics, and unlike last year's citizenship law protests, farmers' grievances are harder for Hindu hardliners of the BJP, India's ruling party, to ignore or quash on nationalist or sectarian grounds.
Modi has, of course, recovered from many reform missteps. His decision to squeeze black markets by abruptly removing most paper currency from circulation in 2016 caused widespread confusion and produced little benefit. His historic attempt to streamline the national tax system ended up more fragmented than promised. His moves on citizenship laws and the massively disruptive short-notice coronavirus lockdowns earlier this year both seemed politically perilous at the time. Yet, he and his government remain broadly popular – Modi's approval rating is above 70 percent.
Will a mass protest by the people who feed India damage Modi more than these other misadventures did? Those tractors parked in New Delhi don't look like they're going anywhere soon.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly stated that the currency move was done in 2017 -- the measure was actually implemented in December 2016.