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Uruguay's Jorge Drexler eclipses Bad Bunny at Latin Grammys

18 Nov 2022 18 Nov 2022

Uruguay’s top musical export Jorge Drexler overshadowed megastar Bad Bunny’s hype at Thursday’s Latin Grammys, scoring seven trophies including Best Record during the gala that saw Spain’s Rosalia take home the coveted top album award.

The Puerto Rican reggaeton phenom Bad Bunny had been tipped as the favorite coming in with 10 nominations, though he was unable to attend the 23rd edition of the awards held in Las Vegas as he continues his massively popular world tour.

The 28-year-old — currently the highest-grossing and most streamed artist on the planet following the release of his album “Un Verano Sin Ti” — did nab five trophies but fell short of the night’s most prestigious prizes.

“Are you sure?” asked a surprised Drexler as he took the stage to accept the award for Song of the Year for “Tocarte,” a track that also featured Spanish rapper C. Tangana.

Along with Bad Bunny — whose smash “Titi Me Pregunto” ultimately scored two awards in the “urban” categories — the 58-year-old was up against stacked competition including Rosalia, who won four awards including for her critically acclaimed album “Motomami,” and Colombia’s Karol G.

In his speech Drexler acknowledged the massive reach of Latin urban music including reggaeton, dedicating the award “to everyone who does urban music in Spanish because you’ve taken our music to places it was never in before.”

Drexler was the big winner but in some respects it was Cuban Angela Alvarez who stole the show: at 95 years old the singer scored a gramophone for Best New Artist.

“It’s never too late,” said Alvarez, bringing the auditorium to tears in accepting the award that she shared in a tie with the Mexican artist Silvana Estrada.

“I want to dedicate this award to God, and to my beloved Cuba, which I will never forget. And to those who have yet to make their dreams come true, know that although life is hard, there’s always a way out and with faith and love everything can be achieved,” Alvarez said.

“With faith and love you can make it, I promise you.”

– Anitta, Bad Bunny head to Grammys –

Rosalia was visibly surprised in accepting the night’s top award for her genre-fusing masterpiece “Motomami,” telling the cheering crowd that it was “the album I had to fight the hardest to make.”

“But I put it out there and that has given me the most joy.”

Colombian crooner Sebastian Yatra — who made a splash last year with the Oscar-nominated song “Dos Oruguitas” from the film “Encanto” — notched two awards in the pop categories including Best Pop Song for “Tacones Rojos,” which he performed during the gala with John Legend.

Brazil’s Anitta left the show empty-handed — she was up for two awards for her booty-grinding reggaeton hit “Envolver” — but delivered a show-stopping performance of that hit and a twerk-heavy mashup of Brazilian dance tracks.

The 29-year-old is among the contenders for Best New Artist at February’s Grammys to be held in Los Angeles.

Bad Bunny’s work will also feature at the forthcoming Grammy gala, with “Un Verano Sin Ti” in the running for Album of the Year.

It’s the first time an all-Spanish album has a chance at that coveted award, and the Puerto Rican reggaeton megastar’s first time landing a solo nomination in the major Grammy categories.

UK's remote Pitcairn islanders see no Brexit bounty

18 Nov 2022 20 Nov 2022

The Pitcairn Islands, a volcanic outcrop halfway between South America and New Zealand, is the UK’s only overseas territory in the Pacific Ocean and home to only 46 people.

One of the most remote places on Earth, all its inhabitants live in the capital Adamstown.

But even here, islanders have not escaped the drama that has dominated British politics since 2016 — Brexit.

Pitcairn has its own well-equipped medical facility and a resident doctor.

For emergencies and longer-term conditions, however, the nearest hospitals are in French Polynesia, some 1,350 miles (2,170 kilometres) to the northwest, and New Zealand, 3,300 miles southwest.

With no access to the islands by air, that can mean at least two days’ sailing, depending on weather conditions.

Pitcairn’s mayor Charlene Warren fears vulnerable islanders could fall foul of restrictions usually associated with the length of time UK holidaymakers and those with second homes can stay in European Union member states.

“Brexit has definitely affected us for going to Tahiti (the largest island in French Polynesia) because we’re no longer in the European Union,” she told AFP.

“We’re now only limited to three months in Tahiti, which with some medical issues that we have can roll over three months.”

For Pitcairn’s ageing population healthcare is a pressing concern, even with recent support from the government in London, particularly through Covid.

Next month, there will be no minors left on the island when the last three schoolchildren, their mothers and their teacher leave Adamstown for New Zealand.

More than half of the remaining population will be aged over 60.

– Proud heritage –

The Pitcairn Islands were colonised in 1790 by the mutinous crew of the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty, led by the master’s mate Fletcher Christian.

Their actions, casting adrift the ship’s captain William Bligh, have been immortalised in books and film.

Its people are descended from the mutineers and their Tahitian companions, whose history since has been one of hardy self-sufficiency.

On Pitcairn — the only inhabited island of four scattered hundreds of miles across the ocean — there is only one grocery store, open three times a week for two hours at a time.

Supplies come every three months by cargo ship. There are only two metalled roads and no hotels.

King Charles III is head of state and the UK government is responsible for defence and foreign relations, controlling the 830,000 square kilometres (320,000 square miles) of sea around the islands.

The islanders have British passports, govern through an elected mayor and an island council, with a governor based in New Zealand.

But they are not part of the UK.

The islanders are proud of their Polynesian heritage, speak English and local language Pitkern.

“For me, I’m a Polynesian because I was born here,” said policewoman Brenda Lupton Christian, 69, adding that she is a descendant of Fletcher Christian.

“This is my home, I wasn’t born in England.”

– Cast adrift –

Pitcairn depends on trade with the EU, especially the sale of rich, fruity island honey — and wants access to EU markets.

But selling honey, stamps — once so popular among philatelists that they supported two-thirds of the islands’ budget — and souvenirs to cruise ship passengers is no longer enough.

The islands were never part of the EU but like the 260,000 British nationals in 10 other inhabited overseas territories, they were eligible for some EU funding and access to the single market.

The territories, however, were not part of the Brexit trade and cooperation deal that cemented the UK’s departure from the EU in January 2021.

That sparked concern about tariffs and the effect on the economies of the 14 British Overseas Territories scattered across the world.

Six were eligible for £69 million ($82 million) in European Development Fund cash to support infrastructure, tourism and education until 2014.

Pitcairn’s share to support tourism was £2.2 million, according to a UK parliament report published in August into the effect of Brexit on British Overseas Territories.

Discussions are ongoing to substitute funding. Pitcairn will receive £8.6 million in UK budget assistance from March 2021 to March 2023.

But the territory does not have the right to negotiate or agree its own deal with the EU without the UK government’s approval.

“We used to get some financial funds from the European Union. That has stopped as well with our ageing community,” said Warren.

“It is a shame because it does affect us, but what can we do?

“We’re only 46 people living in Pitcairn and our vote doesn’t even count.”

Battle to save ghostly Balkan lynx from extinction

18 Nov 2022 21 Nov 2022

In mountains overlooking an azure lake in southeast Albania, wildlife experts are tracking the Balkan lynx as part of last-gasp efforts to save the species from extinction.

The “forest ghost” which lives in tree-covered mountains straddling Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia, is now among the world’s most endangered mammals, scientists warn.

The victim of deforestation and poaching, there are less than 40 of these solitary wild cats in the three Balkan countries, analysis last year showed.

Albania is home to fewer than 10, down sharply from more than 200 in the 1980s.

“We are very much concerned that if we do not manage to raise its numbers and distribution very soon, we will lose it forever,” said Manuela von Arx of the Swiss foundation Kora, which is a part of the Balkan lynx recovery programme.

For the past 15 years, the NGO Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA) has been trying to save the animal also known locally as the “Balkans tiger”.

– Timid and elusive –

On the Mali i Thate mountain overlooking Lake Prespa, two experts taking part in the Balkan lynx recovery programme carefully install automated cameras at lynx height on oak trees.

They hope to capture the images of the timid and elusive carnivore that sleeps during the day and hunts at night for deer, hare, chamois and rabbit.

“It is difficult to get a good image,” forest engineer Ilir Shyti said as he and colleague Melitjan Nezaj checked the cameras’ positions.

The camera must be positioned well to cover the path used by the lynx.

In November 2021, cameras in the area caught a lynx arriving from North Macedonia, which experts hailed as a good sign for the resilience of the species.

“We are hoping that it will pass through again this year and, if we are lucky, we will be able to take a photo of another lynx,” said Nezaj, a biologist.

Subtle differences on the animal’s spotted coat and tufts of hair on the tips of its ears enable experts to identify them individually.

The meticulous tracking of the lynx is a key part of its protection, said Blendi Hoxha, a coordinator of the PPNEA lynx project.

“You have to observe it and understand its movements,” he told AFP.

“Any documented evidence of the presence of the lynx is watched for since it gives hope for (its) survival.”

The almond-eyed animal is threatened by the degradation of its habitat and significant deforestation, which are depleting the game they feed on and fragmenting its population.

Although it is strictly protected, the lynx has been the victim of poaching despite a hunting ban in Albania since 2014.

At least 14 lynx have been killed in Albania since 2006, according to the PPNEA.

– Stuffed trophies –

The last one, shot in 2020, was stuffed and mounted in a bar in Elbasan, south of the capital Tirana, displayed alongside the stuffed skins of other wild animals.

Trade in poached animals is punishable by up to seven years in jail, but the justice system is completely uninterested in the problem, said PPNEA lawyer Gentian Rumano.

The NGO filed a complaint against the bar but the case was dropped due to “lack of evidence” despite what it said was a report proving that it was the same Balkan lynx killed in 2020.

But the PPNEA has carried on with the fight, filing a complaint against the prosecutors in a bid to have the investigation relaunched.

Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia have joined forces within the Balkan lynx recovery programme, funded by foreign foundations like Kora, Euronatur and Mava.

The three countries created “new zones of protection where the lynx is present and where it can breed,” PPNEA chief Aleksander Trajce said.

They also try to educate hunters and the general population about the threat of extinction.

An information centre, which serves as a summer school for the region, was opened in 2020 in Gorica.

But the battle is far from being won, especially since the animal’s low population has left it with an impoverished genetic pool.

Their shrinking numbers and isolation undermine genetic diversity which leads to health and breeding problems, warned Hoxha from the PPNEA lynx project.

“Small population equals inbreeding,” echoed Dime Melovski, of the Macedonian Ecological Society.

One way to ease the problem, he said, could be to bring males from other lynx populations to breed in the Balkans.

DR Congo town set to 'disappear' as mines expand

18 Nov 2022 19 Nov 2022

“We’re screwed,” said Alphonse Fwamba Mutombo, standing on a plot of rubble overlooking an open-cast cobalt mine in Kolwezi, southeastern DR Congo.

His had once been a thriving neighbourhood of neat houses and tree-shaded avenues.

Today his cherished home is surrounded by the wreckage of demolished houses, separated from the sprawling pit by a concrete barrier.

The Chinese-owned mine wants to expand, and many of Mutombo’s fellow residents have taken buy-outs.

Mutombo doesn’t want to leave. The 70-year-old is clinging on, hoping to secure a better deal.

“We live on top of minerals,” Mutombo said.

But he had no delusions about what ultimately awaited his neighbourhood: “It will disappear,” he told AFP.

Kolwezi, home to more than half a million people, sits atop some of the world’s richest mineral reserves — a treasure trove of copper, cobalt and gold that provides the motor for DR Congo’s economy.

The city is already ringed by a moat of industrial mines, a sandy moonscape of enormous open pits, access roads and pylons.

But mining activity is increasingly edging inside the city itself, uprooting thousands of people who often complain of unfair treatment.

Mining permits cover most of Kolwezi’s surface area, according to the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mining cadastre.

– ‘Everyone’s gone’ –

Kolwezi was founded in 1937 by the then Belgian Congo’s mining monopoly.

Seven years after independence in 1960, the monopoly was nationalised, eventually becoming a giant called the Generale des Carrieres et des Mines, or Gecamines.

As mining in Kolwezi flourished in the subsequent years, the parastatal built neighbourhoods such as Mutombo’s Quartier Gecamines Kolwezi for its workers.

Gecamines’ production collapsed in the 1990s after decades of mismanagement, but many of the neighbourhood’s remaining residents still have ties to the firm.

“Everyone’s gone, we’re the ones who are left,” said Martin Tino Kolpy Kapenda, a retired Gecamines employee, standing on the plot of what was once his neighbour’s house.

Kapenda, 60, also wants more money from Compagnie Minière de Musonoi (COMMUS), the Chinese firm that owns the adjacent copper-cobalt mine.

Some of the remaining residents fear the money on offer won’t allow them to find similar-quality housing elsewhere.

Their district has reliable electricity and running water, a rarity in the DRC.

About 2,000 people out of 38,000 have left the neighbourhood within the last six months, according to city figures seen by AFP.

An official in the city administration, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the entire district may disappear within three years.

COMMUS is offering residents $7,500 to leave, the official said, although many of the remaining residents are asking for at least three times that amount.

– Waiting for death –

A semi-abandoned housing estate several kilometres (miles) outside of Kolwezi has served as a warning to some about enticements offered to leave neighbourhoods opened up for mining.

Luzanga Muteba, 78, accepted an offer in 2017 from Chinese firm Congo Dongfang International Mining (CDM) to leave his native Kasulo district.

A portion of that neighbourhood was razed to make way for a cobalt mine. In surrounding houses, many residents have taken to digging in their gardens for minerals themselves.

CDM built 21 houses for displaced Kasulo residents, but they say the firm never finished the work.

Muteba, wearing an oversized pinstriped shirt, said he once had a thriving bakery in Kasulo, but cannot replicate the business in his new location, which is relatively isolated.

There is also no running water or electricity, although pylons carrying power to nearby mines stretch over the housing estate. Only a few of the houses are now inhabited.

“They have to come and finish the work,” said Muteba, pointing to fetid green puddles in a ravine, where he and other residents draw their water.

“They take our minerals and develop their country,” he added, noting that he was losing hope after petitioning the government several times, without success.

“I wait only for death,” Muteba said.

Shanghai-based Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, which owns majority stakes in both COMMUS and CDM, did not respond to questions from AFP.

A senior figure in the local government, who asked for anonymity, told AFP he thought it was “inevitable” that Kolwezi would one day disappear under expanding mines.

“This is the mess we live in,” said the besuited official, with a sad smile.

'European California' Portugal woos Americans seeking better life

18 Nov 2022 18 Nov 2022

Nathan Hadlock moved to Portugal to escape the violence and lack of social welfare he saw in the United States, while still enjoying the sun and sea he had loved in California.

“Lisbon checked all the boxes,” the 40-year-old American entrepreneur told AFP.

It even has a suspension bridge that is almost a dead ringer for San Francisco’s Golden Gate.

“My partner and I were looking to slow life down and enjoy things more. And so we made a list of the top 10 places in the world and Lisbon quickly made it to the top.”

The couple, who started a family when they moved to the Portuguese capital in 2020, were drawn by the weather, the good food, the cheaper lifestyle and the ease of travelling to other parts of Europe.

They also wanted to escape the darker sides of US society.

“One of the main reasons (US) investors are looking to move here, is their kids’ safety. They often say, ‘I don’t want my kid to go to school and get shot,'” Hadlock insisted.

“And that’s a real thing in the United States that just no one here in Europe has to experience.”

Jen Wittman, who uprooted from the Golden State to Lisbon during the pandemic with her husband and teenage son, said the United States was “really kind of falling apart at the seams”.

“The George Floyd incident and the pandemic, the political division, the racism… Everything was just getting overwhelming in America.”

Having a European social net made a big difference too.

“America is terrible with health care. And it’s terrible if you’re a retiree and you have a health condition. Essentially in America you can be bankrupted by an illness,” the 47-year-old said.

At around 7,000, the number of US citizens living in Portugal remains tiny compared to the 42,000 British expats who had made the country their home.

But while the influx of Brits — the largest expat community from western Europe — has begun to tail off, incomers from the States have doubled since 2018.

This year Americans are jostling with the Chinese for top spot among overseas investors lured by Portugal’s “golden visas” — residents permits issued for foreigners prepared to buy property or transfer capital to the Iberian country.

But most come on a D7 visa, which demands they have a regular “passive income” from pensions, rents or investments.

– ‘Different mentality’ –

Joana Mendoca, a lawyer for migration consultancy Global Citizen Solutions, speaks “almost every day” to US clients.

“Some come because they’re digital nomads and want to work from home by the sea,” she said.

“There are also entire families, who dream of one day getting their children into European universities.

“And there are retired people who sell everything in the States so they can enjoy a good retirement in Portugal.”

Mendoca said Americans had “a different mentality” from other foreign investors, who were drawn to Portugal essentially by residency permits and tax exemptions.

“They really want to come and live here and adopt a different lifestyle,” she said, even though the introduction of the golden visa scheme in 2012 has contributed to an unwelcome surge in property prices.

Hadlock started off as a digital nomad in Portugal. Now he works for an investment fund that buys up land for olive and almond groves in the rolling hills of the Alentejo.

The region south of Lisbon reminds him of California’s Napa and Sonoma valleys.

– ‘Surf and good wine’ –

In Lisbon, Hadlock runs get-togethers to develop business ties between California and Portugal. The group calls itself Red Bridge, in a nod to the red suspension bridges spanning San Francisco Bay and the Tagus estuary.

Jonathan Littman, one of the members, still lives in California but is learning Portuguese.

He got to know Portuguese start-ups in Silicon Valley when Lisbon started organising yearly international web summits in 2016.

“We sort of see this as the California of Europe,” he said.

“The surfing, the coast… We both have great wine. We both have a love of seafood and healthy cuisine. We both can be a little laid back.”

Like her compatriots, Wittman and her family left the States to escape a “divisiveness” that Hadlock said is “pulling the US apart” and is palpable “as soon as you get off the plane”.

But Portugal was not their first choice.

“We tried to move to Italy but they were not accepting American visa applicants at all,” she recalled. “And so, we were like, ‘Who in Europe will take Americans?’ And it was Croatia and Portugal.”

She and her husband run their own digital marketing company and have no plans to move back.

“It’s safe. It’s inclusive. We feel safe walking around, we feel safe at night. We do things that we could never do in America without being in constant fear,” she said.