[News] News From Other Places!

On April 14, 2023, Yasmine* stepped off the plane and into the arms of her sister in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.

The Sudanese human rights activist was five months pregnant and living in a nearby country, yet she was happy to be home. She was looking forward to spending some quality time with her parents.

But the next day, her life and her country changed forever.

“I woke up to sounds of very heavy artillery at about 5 or 6am, and it lasted until 7 or 8am,” Yasmine, 31, told Al Jazeera over voice messages from Khartoum, where she still lives.

“I remember rushing to turn on Al Jazeera. They were talking about a heavy conflict.”

The roar of fighter jets and crackle of gunfire she, her brother, sister and 2-year-old niece heard in their top-floor apartment confirmed Yasmine’s worst nightmare. Sudan’s civil war had started and Yasmine was torn between comforting her siblings and telling the world about what was happening.

She recalls having to stop a phone interview with a journalist from the BBC when she heard an army jet overhead.

“I remember screaming so loud in the interview when I saw the plane and we had to hang up,” she said.

Ren Wenbing is reluctant to leave the hollowed-out brick shell which was once a thriving factory in China's manufacturing hub of Dongguan.

"All the workers feel astonished," says the 54-year-old as he points out where he once assembled furniture and where everyone would gather to eat lunch.

The owner of the company has moved production to South East Asia to cut costs. Mr Ren says he is owed more than 80,000 RMB ($11,000; £8,800) in redundancy pay, which could take him years to earn.

"We are disappointed, and we grieve," he adds, as a machine takes a sledgehammer to the windows.

Mr Ren is not just mourning the loss of a furniture firm. He grieves for the passing of China's once unstoppable economy, which is making it harder for millions of workers to find a job.

For people like him, not enough is now made in China.

But the West has been accusing China of making far too much - it was the dominant message during US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's recent visit. She chided Beijing for "unfair economic practices," for producing more than it needs or the world could afford to absorb.

The "Made in China" brand that is etched, sewn or branded on t-shirts, tables and TVs in so many homes around the world is changing. It is now at the heart of the electric cars that are pouring into Germany, and the solar panels that are powering Europe's renewable policies. And that is worrying the West.

Rising trade tensions with the United States, strict Covid lockdowns and a global downturn mean some manufacturers who once flocked to Chinese shores are looking elsewhere. Foreign investment in the country is at a 30-year low.

But now the old industrial pillars of furniture, clothing and electrical goods are struggling, Beijing is looking to its "new productive forces": solar panels, lithium batteries and electric cars.

"We are exporting to the UK, Belgium, Germany, mostly European countries, but also to Africa, Australia, South America, North America and also South East Asia," salesperson Yan Mu says as he shows off the company's storage batteries.

His is one of the stalls at an exhibition held by hundreds of green energy storage companies in a refurbished and repurposed steel plant on the edge of Beijing.

"I think Chinese companies are leading the whole energy storage market. With innovation, with new technologies, battery sales, PCS [power conversion systems]... well, everything. Right now, I think 80% to 90% of the energy storage equipment are designed and manufactured in China."

A few hours' drive from Dongguan, there are more signs of the scale of this industry: there are solar panels as far as the eye can see.

China has installed more solar panels in the last year than the United States has managed to build in a decade, the mass manufacturing going on here driving the cost down to half of what it was last year.

Manufacturers across Europe are struggling to compete. In 2023, 97% of the solar panels installed across Europe came from China.

But China's new industries are far less labour-intensive than the ones that once fuelled its spectacular growth - and they require specialised, high-skilled workers and, increasingly, robots. While China's youth unemployment has made the bigger headlines, its overall urban unemployment rate is still over 5%.

The US and the European Union believe this is how China is trying to save its economy - producing cut-price and state-subsidised green technology to sell abroad. They say it's a tactic that is driving down the cost of solar panels and other emerging technology and driving Western firms out of business.

China says its success is down to innovation, not state subsidies and there is a demand for their exports as countries transition from fossil fuels to more climate-friendly sources of energy.

Thousands of diehard supporters of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro have hit the streets of Rio to champion their embattled leader and celebrate the new hero of their far-right movement: Elon Musk.

The tech billionaire has spent recent weeks using his social network X to bash Bolsonaro’s arch-enemy, the supreme court judge Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes is responsible for several investigations into Bolsonaro that could land the ex-president in jail, including one examining the alleged coup plot that preceded the rightwing insurrection in Brasília on 8 January 2023.

Since early April Musk has been on the warpath against Moraes, calling him “Brazil’s Darth Vader” and comparing his actions to those of a “brutal dictator”.

“This judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil. He should resign or be impeached,” Musk tweeted.

Musk’s online campaign against Moraes – who has responded by including the X owner in an inquiry into the online dissemination of fake news – has outraged progressive Brazilians who suspect it is part of a calculated transnational ploy to undermine Brazil’s leftwing government.

The head of the governing Workers’ party, Gleisi Hoffmann, said Musk’s “truculent offensive” was an attack on the rule of law designed to boost Brazil’s far right. The first lady, Janja Lula da Silva, has accused X of being part of “a coordinated operation against democracy”.

But the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk has thrilled Bolsonaro followers, who accuse Moraes of waging an anti-constitutional crusade against far-right influencers, politicians and activists. In recent years, Moraes has instructed social media firms including X to block dozens of accounts belonging to allies or supporters of Bolsonaro and ordered the arrest of a series of figures linked to the ex-president.

On Sunday, Musk’s image and name were everywhere as tens of thousands of Bolsonaro followers congregated on Rio’s Copacabana beach to pay homage to both men.

Alfredo Queiroz, 68, travelled to the rally from the nearby city of Rio das Ostras with a banner emblazoned with the billionaire’s portrait and the words “Thank you Elon Musk.”

“He is supporting Brazil against this shameless bloody dictatorship that we have in this country,” he said.

Sergio Galvão, a 51-year-old Bolsonarista wearing a bright yellow football shirt, said: “Elon Musk has been an essential guy for us. God has used this man to expose the dictatorship that has taken hold in Brazil to the whole word. He is a crucial tool.”

“We want Bolsonaro back in power,” Galvão added as thousands of rightwingers marched down the beach to see the ex-president speak.

As Bolsonaro prepared to address the throng outside beachside apartment blocks adorned with yellow and green Brazil flags, a succession of rightwing politicians and preachers lauded Musk.

“Elon Musk is definitely watching what is happening here right now,” the pro-Bolsonaro congressman Gustavo Gayer told the crowd in Portuguese, before switching to English to send a message the billionaire could understand (and potentially share with his 181.5 million X followers).

“This is a message to the world,” Gayer bellowed. “Look at what is happening here in Brazil today. What you see here are freedom-loving people who are fighting for democracy.”

Minutes later, Bolsonaro continued the tributes, declaring: “[Musk] is a man who truly cares about the freedom of all of us.”

“He is the man who had the courage to show … the direction our democracy was going in and how much freedom we have lost,” Bolsonaro said, before requesting a round of applause for the South African-born billionaire.

Analysts said Sunday’s seafront mobilisation was the latest attempt by Bolsonaro to project political strength in the face of the increasing likelihood of imprisonment.

The reclining armchairs and plush leather sofas coming off the production line at Man Wah Furniture's factory in Monterrey are 100% "Made in Mexico".

They're destined for large retailers in the US, like Costco and Walmart. But the company is from China, its Mexican manufacturing plant built with Chinese capital.

The triangular relationship between the US, China and Mexico is behind the buzzword in Mexican business: nearshoring.

Man Wah is one of scores of Chinese companies to relocate to industrial parks in northern Mexico in recent years, to bring production closer to the US market. As well as saving on shipping, their final product is considered completely Mexican - meaning Chinese firms can avoid the US tariffs and sanctions imposed on Chinese goods amid the continuing trade war between the two countries.

As the company's general manager, Yu Ken Wei, shows me around its vast site, he says the move to Mexico has made economic and logistical sense.

"We hope to triple or even quadruple production here," he says in perfect Spanish. "The intention here in Mexico is to bring production up to the level of our operation in Vietnam."

The firm only arrived in the city of Monterrey in 2022, but already employs 450 people in Mexico. Yu Ken Wei says they hope to grow to more than 1,200 employees, operating several new lines at the plant in the coming years.

"People here in Mexico are very hardworking and fast learners," says Mr Yu. "We've got good operators, and their productivity is high. So, on the labour side, I think Mexico is strategically very good too."

Certainly, nearshoring is considered to be providing an important shot in the arm to the Mexican economy - by June of last year, Mexico's total exports had risen 5.8% from a year earlier to $52.9bn (£42.4bn).

The trend is showing few signs of slowing down. In just two months of this year, there were announcements of capital investment in Mexico of almost half of the annual total back in 2020.

The Man Wah sofa factory is located inside Hofusan, a Chinese-Mexican industrial park. Demand for its plots is sky high: every available space has been sold.

In fact, the Industrial Parks Association of Mexico say every site due to be built in the country by 2027 has already been bought up. Little wonder many Mexican economists say China's interest in the country is no passing fad.

"The structural reasons that are bringing capital to Mexico are here to stay," says Juan Carlos Baker Pineda, Mexico's former vice-minister for external trade. "I have no indication that the trade war between China and the US is going to diminish any time soon."

Mr Baker Pineda was part of Mexico's negotiating team for the new North American free trade agreement, USMCA.

"While the Chinese origin of the capital coming into Mexico may be uncomfortable for the policies of some countries," he says, "according to international trade legislation, those products are, to all intents and purposes, Mexican".

That has given Mexico an obvious strategic foothold between the two superpowers: Mexico recently replaced China as the US's main trading partner, a significant and symbolic change.

Mexico's increased trade with the US has also come about in part through a second key aspect of nearshoring in the country: US firms setting up Mexican facilities too, sometimes after relocating production from factories in Asia.

Perhaps the standout announcement came from Elon Musk last year, when he unveiled plans for a new Tesla Gigafactory outside Monterrey. However, the electric car company is yet to break ground on the $10bn plant.

And, while Tesla is apparently still committed to the project, it has slowed its plans amid concerns over the global economy, and recent job cuts at the carmaker.

But regarding Chinese investment, some urge caution over Mexico being drawn into the wider geopolitical struggle between the US and China.

"The old rich guy in town, the US, is having problems with the new rich guy in town, China," says Enrique Dussel of the Centre for China-Mexico Studies at the National Autonomous University in Mexico. "And Mexico - under previous administrations, and in this one - doesn't have a strategy vis-à-vis this new triangular relationship."

With elections looming on both sides of the US-Mexico border, there may be new political considerations ahead. But whether it's Donald Trump or Joe Biden in the White House over the next four years, few expect any improvement in US-China relations.

Mr Dussel thinks nearshoring is better defined by what he calls "security-shoring", saying Washington has placed national security concerns above all other factors in its relationship with China. Mexico, he argues, must be wary of being caught in the middle.

Amid this tension, Mr Dussel says: "Mexico is putting up a big sign to China saying: 'Welcome to Mexico!'. You don't need a PhD to know that this isn't going to end well for bilateral relations between the US and Mexico in the medium term," he adds.

Others are more optimistic. "In my mind, the question is not if this trend will continue, but rather how much of this trend can we take advantage of," says former Mexican trade official, Juan Carlos Baker Pineda.

"I'm sure people are having these same discussions in Colombia, in Vietnam, in Costa Rica. So, we need to make sure in Mexico that those conditions that are aligned by themselves go hand-in-hand with corporate and government decisions to sustain that trend in the long term."

Back in Monterrey, the talented Mexican seamstresses at Man Wah Furniture put the finishing touches to another sofa before it's shipped north.

When an American family buys it at a Walmart store near them, they may have little idea of the complex geopolitics underpinning its production.

But whether nearshoring is a clever back door to the US, or part of a costly war between superpowers, it's currently Mexico's key advantage in these hostile times of global trade.

Harrowing first-hand accounts of women being dragged from the streets of Iran and detained by security services have emerged as human rights groups say country’s hijab rules have been brutally enforced since the country’s drone strikes on Israel on 13 April.

A new campaign, called Noor (“light” in Persian), was announced the same day the Iranian regime launched drone attacks against Israel, to crack down on “violations” of the country’s draconian hijab rules, which dictate that all women must cover their heads in public.

Hours later, videos verified by human rights groups showing women and girls being forcefully arrested by agents of the notorious Gasht-e-Irshad (“morality police”) flooded social media along with stories of beatings and assault.

One mother and daughter walking through a busy Tehran square were surrounded by five chador-clad female agents and two male agents, who hurled insults and accusations before they grabbed the women. When they resisted arrest, they were violently dragged into the van, a source close to the family said.

Dina Ghalibaf, a student at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University and was among the first to tweet about a confrontation. On her now suspended X (formerly Twitter) account, she said: “Yesterday in the police room of Sadeghiyeh metro station, I insisted that I had the right to use the metro as a citizen and a taxpayer. But then, they violently dragged me into a room and Tasered me. They handcuffed me and one of the officers sexually assaulted me.”

A day after her post, she was reportedly arrested and transferred to the notorious Evin prison. The state judiciary’s Mizan news agency announced that Ghalibaf will face legal action and refuted her allegations of sexual assault.

However, jailed Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi sent a voice message – published by relatives on Instagram – about Ghalibaf’s visible bruises. In the post, she urged Iranian women to share their stories of arrest and sexual assault at the hands of the security forces.

The Guardian spoke to the families of two women who were arrested last week and three women who were arrested by the Gasht-e-Irshad. One young woman from Tehran said: “Around eight agents surrounded me on Saturday and started screaming at me. They hurl insults like ‘whore’, ‘naked America-loving slut’ – all while kicking me in the legs, stomach and everywhere. They don’t care where they hit you.”

Another woman said: “Both women and men touch our bodies during arrests. They say they’re religious and loyal Muslims, but don’t care if the male agents touch our bodies, which is supposedly forbidden for them to do. There were around six evil women agents and three of them attacked me. Two of them held my hands [behind] my back and one of them tried to throw me into the white van. Two male agents then violently grabbed my arms and pushed me into the van. While in the van, they were verbally abusing us and took five or six of us – arrested for hijab – to the detention centre in Gisha.”

The woman added that at the detention centre she saw about 40 detained women. After spending more than five hours in detention, where they were subjected to insults and beatings, some of the women were released.

A family member told the Guardian: “My mother was kicked in her legs, and now has bruises and long lasting injuries to her legs. During her arrest, the agents called her ‘ugly’, ‘old dog’ and a ‘crone’, and continued hitting her.”

The Guardian has seen pictures of at least two women who showed signs of violent attacks, which they say occurred during their detention last week. Since nationwide protests gripped Iran after the death in custody of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini, independent human rights organisations and the UN fact-finding mission on Iran have investigated cases of rape and sexual assault of protesters, concluding that the Iranian regime committed crimes against humanity.

Speaking on the continued repression, Shabnam, a student, said: “In and around Valiasr Square there’s always police present. It’s not just ‘morality police’ or hijab bans, even the traffic police have joined hands in making our lives hell. They stop motorcycles, cars, taxis … wherever they find women driving or seated without a hijab. Some get fined, some have their vehicles confiscated and others get away with a warning but later receive an SMS that they need to come and surrender their vehicle because they’ve defied hijab rules. Many of my friends have received these SMSs.”

Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist, has launched the United Against Gender Apartheid campaign in collaboration with Iranian and Afghan activists to urge the international community to codify gender apartheid.

“I want the free world to hear the tragic stories of women who experienced gender discrimination in Iran and Afghanistan in a united movement,” she said.

Kosar Eftekhari, a 24-year-old artist was blinded by the security forces during protests and has now joined other women to speak up. “I was arrested eight times by the ‘morality police’ – the Islamic Republic took my eyesight simply for being unveiled,” said Eftekhari, urging world leaders to recognise and classify the Islamic Republic as a gender apartheid regime.

The “chastity and hijab bill” was sent back to the Iranian parliament by the country’s Guardian Council in October 2023 for further clarifications of “vague” terms. Human rights activists fear women could face longer jail terms and the harshest punishments when the law is implemented.

An Iranian student said: “There are hijab ‘protectors’ swarming and stationed almost permanently in the Shahr and Enghelab theatre subway. There’s no escaping them and I want the world to know.

“We are not going anywhere, there’s no wearing of hijab or following the rules of this regime. We boycotted the elections and we won’t stop.”

Agreeing with Malala that “storytelling is the soul of any activism”, Lawrence commissioned Mani to coordinate the shooting of first-person testimonies. “Hopefully this movie,” says Lawrence, “made by Afghan women, through their perspective of this moment, will mean it’s not just a flash of a story in a pan. It is a resistance happening right now. These women need the world to witness this so that they are not suffering in vain, and we need to pressure our governments to hold the Taliban accountable.”

Progress has been slow. The US administration has not taken responsibility for the repercussions of its military retreat. Western feminists tend to focus on matters of immediate domestic import, and on identity politics, rather than the massive and dramatic human rights abuse in the Middle East.

“It is a reality that breaks your heart,” says Malala. “Why is there silence? Why is there inaction? Activists and storytellers cannot spend too much time thinking about it.” The ultimate obligation lies with the general public, she believes. “I think it’s the job of the people to hold their leaders to account and put more pressure on them. So I hope that people will begin to question their representatives and ask them what they have been doing. What do they mean when they say they’re committed to gender equality – those nice fancy words – when they don’t take any action to protect women’s rights and girls’ education in Afghanistan?”