In overcrowded environments, such realities further intensify the difficulty of daily life, where even the most basic conditions for safety and privacy are absent. After the war: A reality that has not changed Despite the notion of “after the war,” very little appears to have changed inside displacement shelters. Overcrowding persists , space remains limited, and daily life continues with the same routines that leave no room for personal space. There is no real return to homes, nor alternatives that provide even minimal comfort, only a continuation of the same conditions that have become normalized despite their harshness. In this reality, “after the war” does not emerge as a new phase, but as an extension of what came before. The same queues, the same shared spaces, and the same sense that life is constantly lived in full view of others. It is as if time stopped at the moment of displacement, without offering people a real chance to regain any part of their previous lives. This continuity does not only mean that conditions remain unchanged, but it also means they become deeply rooted.


Over time, the loss of privacy is no longer temporary, but a long-term condition that reshapes how people relate to space and to themselves. What do we lose when privacy disappears? Displacement is not only the loss of a home, but the loss of an entire way of life, the loss of a space that once protected daily details and gave individuals the simple sense that part of their lives belonged only to them In displacement shelters, people are not just living in temporary places, but in a new reality shaped by constant overcrowding. Over time, the loss of privacy ceases to be temporary and becomes part of everyday life, a reality that reshapes the relationship between people, space, and life itself. Here, it is not only walls that disappear, but also the boundaries that once gave life its simplest meaning: the ability for a person to have a space of their own, even if it is nothing more than a small corner where no one is watching.


Anatomy of a coverage: The making of Global Voices Spotlight

Global Voices Spotlight did not begin as a fixed format. It began as a question: H ow can we slow down in a media environment that constantly demands speed? At a time when news cycles move faster than understanding, the idea was simple but ambitious: to create space for depth, for context, for nuance. It’s not about more coverage, but better and more diverse coverage that connects local realities to global conversations, and that allows complexity to exist without being flattened. From the outset, GV Spotlight was conceived as a response to a gap: while global audiences are increasingly interested in stories from the Global South, the stories are often fragmented, simplified, or filtered through external perspectives. We decided that we needed to shift the perspective and bring together voices from the Global Majority, offering layered, sometimes contrasting perspectives that reflect the realities on the ground. What makes spotlights distinct is not just the topics they cover, but how they approach them.


Each edition focuses on a single issue — whether political, social, or cultural — and explores it through multiple angles. Contributors from different countries, backgrounds, and disciplines engage with the same theme, creating a dialogue rather than a single narrative. GV Spotlights are designed to hold contrasting perspectives and sit at uncomfortable intersections. This approach reflects a core belief that no story is complete from one perspective alone. Let’s go deep, let’s go together In practice, this means building coverage that is collaborative from the start. Topics are selected not only for their urgency, but for their potential to resonate across borders. Contributors are brought in not as isolated voices, but as part of a shared editorial process, one that values context, nuance, and lived experience as much as traditional reporting. Crucially, these decisions are made transversally across the Global Voices community. Editorial, translation, and social media work together to shape each Spotlight, deciding which ideas to focus on, how to frame the coverage, how to design collaborative posts across platforms, and how to make the storytelling more human and accessible.


The process is as collaborative as the final product. Play around with other platforms! Beyond its editorial ambition, Global Voices Spotlight is also an experiment in how journalism can live across platforms. The format has allowed Global Voices to rethink its presence on social media not just as a distribution channel, but as a space for storytelling. Collaborative posts, shared across contributors and partners, expand reach while reinforcing the collective nature of the project. A distinct graphic identity gives each Spotlight edition a recognizable visual language, helping audiences engage with the content more intuitively. This, too, is shaped collectively: decisions about where and how stories are shared, how collaboration is reflected visually, and how to bring audiences closer to the people behind the reporting are made across teams. Most importantly, the focus on a single theme creates continuity. Instead of isolated posts, audiences encounter a narrative that unfolds over time: one that invites them to stay, follow, and engage more deeply.


This shift has already shown its potential: more focused storytelling leads to stronger engagement, and stronger engagement leads to more meaningful conversations. Don’t be afraid of a good challenge Building GV Spotlight has not been without its challenges. Coordinating contributors across time zones, languages, and contexts requires time and care. Ensuring editorial coherence while preserving diverse voices is an ongoing balance. And, like much of independent journalism, sustainability remains a constant concern. But these challenges are also part of what makes the project valuable. They reflect the realities of collaborative, cross-border journalism—and the commitment required to make it work. What comes next? Global Voices Spotlight is still evolving. This whole process is an experiment, a prototype if you will, and each month we are iterating to see what worked and what didn’t, what could be different next time, what might be better for a different topic. We are slowly building out to our ideal timeline, with enough time after launch to fundraise from our readers and make content in formats they want (podcasts, narrative analysis, webinars).


A global shift from gender movements is directly impacting LBQT communities

This article specifically looks at the impact of the U.S. policy changes on a sub-group, LBQT (Lesbian, Bisexual, Queer, and Trans) people within the LGBTQ+ spectrum in South Asia, to understand the policy impact on people gender-assigned female at birth or trans-feminine people. In January 2025, the new Trump administration in the United States issued executive orders impacting social justice and development work around the world. While the most obvious and visible impact has been funding cuts , these developments have brought about a palpable shift in the understanding of gender and related power hierarchies. Tracing the impact of recent US policy changes across the geographies of my work in South Asia and the Caribbean nation of Belize has revealed different anti-gender strategies that are being engaged to influence state mechanisms, civil society organisations, funding agencies and big tech companies. A systematic effort seems to be underway to dismantle the support systems established to advance gender justice worldwide, reshaping the understanding of gender and gender justice.


In this article, I trace some specific anti-gender tactics and their cumulative impact on the data generated on these gender issues — data which is essential for driving development decisions. Direct attack on subversion tactics My sources observed that the US-imposed tariffs have resulted in increased economic pressure, shifting political priorities for different nations. Countries clamouring to bridge the financial deficit created by the new tariffs have resulted in LBQT rights taking a backseat for many countries, especially those that still criminalise homosexuality. With the current anti-gender attacks on any gender-related work, organisations are being forced to reimagine the manner in which they describe their work. As a general trend, these policy changes have impacted all gender related work, with a more immediate impact on organisations that specifically work on LGBTQ+ rights. In South Asian countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, which criminalise homosexuality, it is illegal for organisations working on LGBTQ+ issues to fundraise for their work, leading to active erasure of these issues.


Historically, these organisations have been forced to use the alternative tactic of raising funds under gender and gender-based violence as broad buckets. A source who opted to remain anonymous observed the US policy changes threaten these tactics, too. “Historically, as a movement, we have been using subversion to raise funds for our work. Now these policy changes are targeting these very tactics, giving us no way out.” Such strategies are a double-edged sword since they help raise funds in countries with criminalisation, but also result in erasure and misrepresentation of these populations. The consequences of grouping LGBTQ+ issues under the umbrella of gender and gender diversity look different in a country like India. Despite decriminalising homosexuality in 2018, “There is a lack of awareness about LGB identities within government departments and even the police,” shared Sandi, founder and general secretary of Mobbera Foundation, India. “They use the language of LGBT while talking about programmes for inclusion, but what they really mean by that is transgender inclusion. These programmes only address transgender persons, and even within that community, they only know trans women.


They don’t know about trans men either,” he added. Sources in Nepal and Belize shared that they had to change the language used in their programming and funding applications to get support. “We normally use terms like GSM (gender and sexual minorities), LBT and LBQ women as terms in our programming. They are now trying to erase these identities. Recently, we were working on a project that had LBT women in the title. The donor asked us to change the term LBT to ‘minorities’ in the project title following the recent US policy changes,” shared a gender professional working on LBQT+ issues in Nepal. Charrice Talbert, president of Promoting Empowerment Through Awareness for Lesbian and Bisexual Women (PETAL), Belize, shared, “The idea has always been for us to package our work differently because of the churches. The churches have a problem if we mention marriage or children while talking about LGBT community.” She added, “With the US policy changes, some agencies that were funding LGBT issues are now being forced to use different language.”


Changes in the language of evidence-building efforts There have been notable changes in the language used to record evidence on different gender issues. In 2023, the term “technology-facilitated gender-based violence” (TFGBV) was introduced. The term was coined to recognise the use and role of artificial intelligence (AI) in gender-based violence by different UN agencies. This term is increasingly used instead of online gender-based violence. UN Women says, “While many other terms — such as digital or online violence — are commonly used, ‘technology-facilitated gender-based violence’ better reflects how technology can enable harm, both online and offline.” This replacement raises questions about the validity of evidence gathered thus far on online gender-based violence. A more drastic development has been the recent demand by Project 2025, a right-wing political initiative in the US, asking the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to frame transgender ideology as extremist and a domestic threat following the shooting of Charlie Kirk , a right-wing political activist and an ally of Donald Trump . Although an event specific to the US, this incident aligns with the disinformation campaigns against gender ideologies that have sprouted in different parts of the world.


Following the US, several sources observe the shift in the stance of different governments, like the Netherlands , Sweden , and the United Kingdom , among others, on gender issues. This is significantly impacting the accountability mechanisms available in the development sector to counter the anti-gender narrative. The shift in the development sector’s language is influencing the way development issues are defined, prioritised, and funded. Gender as a term is changing to fit the heteronormative understanding of gender and sexuality. In March 2026, United Nations member states rejected U.S. efforts to limit the understanding of gender to men and women . The shift in the language of evidence-building efforts also changes the kind of gender issues that have evidence to substantiate the need for support. This will continue the active erasure of LGBT realities and hamper efforts to advocate for their inclusion. Justice system targeting the LBQT+ community A Sri Lankan LGBTQ+ rights activist said, “A lot of online hate speech and anti-LGBT speech has now become normalised in Sri Lanka, with Trump’s re-election. This perpetuates a narrative shaped by disinformation.”


There is a general lack of support from the Sri Lankan police when it comes to LBQT rights. There have been cases when the police have refused to file complaints by LBQT persons against perpetrators of violence, leading them to be pushed into silence when abuse happens. In case of extortion or non-consensual sharing of intimate images, the police often target the individuals for having the video on their phone, framing it as a violation of the state’s obscenity laws. Several sources said that this stops queer individuals from approaching the police. Women in Belize experience similar police violations, a source shared. “Women are mostly targeted for sharing nudes. It doesn’t matter if your nudes are leaked. The fact that you shot it shows your intention of sharing it, so then a case is filed against you.” Similar to Sri Lanka, queer persons in Belize find it difficult to file police complaints. “Very often, people are forced to go to the media first before the police take any action. The commissioner then takes action because he doesn’t want the police looking bad.”


According to a feminist digital security expert, digital security threats against gender and sexual minorities are very common in South Asia. She said, “Issues of trolling and extortion are common. In Sri Lanka, LGBTQ+ organisations are often specifically targeted. In India, on the other hand, transgender persons have been facing a lot of financial fraud and extortion. Indians often use the religious and ethnic identities of gender and sexual minorities for targeted online gender based violence.” Due to the criminalisation of homosexuality in Bangladesh, many LBQ women seek partners online. In recent years, there has been a rise in cases of men pretending to be women to target LBQ women on dating apps. “Such cases were previously common among gay men. Now this has become an issue even for LBQ women.” The culture of disinformation influencing the rights of LBQT+ people has taken a drastic turn in Pakistan. Disinformation tactics are used to target the rights of gender and sexual minorities, especially transgender people, owing to their visible presence and legal recognition.


In 2018, Pakistan enacted the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, which was considered a progressive statute in the country. Sources note a drastic overturn of several provisions in recent years because of a disinformation campaign by influencers who cited religion as a reason to push for a rollback on transgender people’s rights , using hashtags such as #SayNoToTransgenderAct and #AmendTransgender Act. As a result of this campaign, the police made wrongful arrests and booked 60 transgender people for allegedly organising an objectionable private party. In March 2026, India, in a similar move, amended the provisions of the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019, reversing the fragile progress of transgender rights in the country. Social media control There has been a drastic increase in the anti-gender attacks online, moulded by local laws and the policies of big tech companies that have increasingly downsized their accountability to their users. Evidently, these attacks are using disinformation and online gender-based violence as tools to attack the rights of LBQT people.


In an effort to align itself with the Trump administration, Meta announced sweeping changes to its content moderation policies and initiatives across all its platforms in January 2025. This includes the Hateful Conduct policy , which controls the manner in which gender and sexual minorities may report targeted attacks on these platforms. The language used in the January update allowed for anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech and misinformation . The impact of these changes is more adverse in South Asian countries with more fundamentalist political regimes, as well as the criminalisation of homosexuality. Big tech and social media platforms have used compliance with local laws as an excuse to censor and control content on queer and transgender issues. Platforms like TikTok have admittedly shadowbanned LGBT content for many years now, owing to their own categorisation of any content by queer and transgender content creators as sexual content . Apart from self-censorship, this affects the type of content that is visible and available to consumers. Consumers in certain jurisdictions, such as the European Union , have legal recourse to address shadowbanning in specific cases.


Criminalisation and limited rights of gender and sexual minorities make it harder to insulate queer and transgender-related content from being shadowbanned in other geographies. Through these tactics, algorithms are manipulated to shape the narrative on gender-related topics. In addition, the lack of sufficient protection on social media platforms against anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech is leading to a shift in the perception of these issues and the general attitude of the public at large towards these marginalised communities. What’s to become of the data for the development agenda? With the impact of these ongoing developments, organisations working on LGBTQ+ rights are being forced to move away from using the language of human rights to protect the rights of this population group. In an attempt to continue their work, some organisations are devising newer strategies to support their agenda. “The Democratic argument is a good one. We are shifting our narrative to security and defence. We are speaking about how China and Russia are using anti-LGBT narrative to undermine democracy. Russia is funding anti-LGBT campaigns before elections to divide people,” said Alex Farrow, the CEO of Kaleidoscope Trust in the UK.


With this move away from the language of human rights, Farrow also notices human rights having a lesser impact on donor countries and even the United Nations . These concerns also raise questions about the global data-for-development agenda as a whole. The shifting focus of the global development agenda, accountability mechanisms, and the consequent changes in the language of development discourse on gender issues hardwire the erasure of the LBQTIA+ realities within different gender data sets. To begin with, global development datasets like the Global Gender Gap Index , among others, present data in binary form and do not sufficiently acknowledge the opportunity and economic cost of erasure for individuals who are not heteronormative in their gender or sexuality. This data gap is further widened and strengthened by the reshaping of public opinions on these issues using social media. The current global socio-political developments are systematically promoting the anti-gender agenda to fit individuals into the hetero-patriarchal understanding of gender and gender roles by influencing the data that is fed into automated decision-making systems.


For most Nigeriens, France has no place in Niger

Since this article was first published on January 22, 2024, ECOWAS lifted its sanctions against Niger on February 24, 2024, talks between AES and ECOWAS failed , and the ousted president, Mohamed Bazoum, remains detained . The periods preceding and following the coup d’état in Niger on July 26, 2023 , which ousted President Mohamed Bazoum (in office from April 2021 to July 2023), were marked by Nigeriens’ resolve to sever all ties with France. The public’s anti-French protests and discourse reaffirmed their anticipation of breaking away from this former colonial power. From 2020, a wave of coups d’état swept across Central and West African countries. Nine of the region’s governments were overthrown, including seven under military coups . This phenomenon ultimately hit the Republic of Niger on July 26, 2023. Pro-junta and anti-French protests Within hours of this coup, the military leaders who seized power took steps to revoke all agreements with France. Abdourahamane Tiani , President of Niger and leader of the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) , and members of his government, announced the withdrawal of French troops who had been stationed in Niger since 2014 .


Most Nigeriens expressed their support for the military regime’s decisions, using protest chants such as: “ Down with France! Get out of here, France! ” (À bas la France! France dégage!). These chants resonated with the public and helped amplify Nigerien discontent . Read the full analysis here . The protesters’ anger spared no aspect of French power in Niger, directly impacting diplomatic relations between Niger and France. On July 30, 2023, following repeated calls for the French troops’ withdrawal, young protesters stormed the French Embassy in Niger. In this video , protesters express their frustration, chanting “Down with France!” and replacing French flags with Russian and Nigerien flags in public places. See the full analysis of this news item here: Many young Nigeriens gave this new regime their blessing so that military leaders could lead a transitional government capable of achieving total independence and addressing the issues affecting their society: unemployment , insecurity , and corruption . Read the full analysis of this issue here. Young people in Niger and across West Africa consider their rejection of France to be equivalent to the rejection of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the regional institution intended to protect their interests.


Read more: The Sahel faces resurgence of terrorist attacks However, in reality, it’s the heads of state that ECOWAS protects. President-dictators seeking more than two terms through constitutional coups are left unchallenged, but military leaders who seize power are treated as putschists and threatened with sanctions. ECOWAS’s silence over these constitutional coups reinforces the argument that military coups are the only way to topple dictatorial regimes. In an analysis , Thierry Oberle, former editor-in-chief of the international desk at Le Figaro , expressed his views. According to Oberle, France has no grounds to remain in Niger combating jihadists (supporters of the Islamist and political ideology based on violence and armed terrorist attacks): Thierry Oberle : La France doit quitter le Niger. Il y a une rupture entre les forces du Niger et les forces françaises, donc il apparaît impossible de continuer le combat contre les djihadistes à partir de ce pays. Thierry Oberle: France must withdraw from Niger. There has been a breakdown in relations between the Nigerien forces and the French, making it seem impossible to continue combating jihadists from this country .


The pro-French In response to protests against this French presence, supporters of former president Mohamed Bazoum sought to thwart Nigeriens’ aspirations. Hassoumi Massaoudou, former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Bazoum’s presidency, denounced these anti-French protests, deeming them a manipulative act by the military regime. He consequently called for an ECOWAS military intervention, with French support, to oust the current regime and reinstate Bazoum. Read a comprehensive analysis of this news story here : Hassoumi Massaoudou : Ce sont des manifestations commanditées, organisées et achetées. Hassoumi Massaoudou: These protests are orchestrated, staged, and bought. The politician’s statement reinforced the pro-French rhetoric and strengthened the positions of French politicians and African presidents who are ECOWAS members. They demanded that Bazoum be released and threatened the country with military intervention if the overthrown president wasn’t reinstated. On X, the Sahel Afrique (Sahel Africa) account argued that US troops, who have also been present in Niger since 1962 under a military agreement intended to ensure the country’s security and independence, should face the same fate as the French troops.


According to the author, if the French must leave, other major powers present in Niger, such as the United States, must follow suit. Almost six months after the coup d’État, ECOWAS upheld its sanctions against Niger, demanding the release of Bazoum and his family. However, the institution didn’t rule out engaging in discussions with the military regime to adopt a roadmap and determine a transition timetable. On January 8, 2024, Salem Bazoum, son of Mohamed Bazoum, was subsequently released . Interestingly, Niger joined Burkina Faso and Mali, two other countries under military rule, to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), a coalition working to address security, economic, and political challenges. The establishment of this bloc was a heavy blow to ECOWAS, as this situation led to a breakdown in diplomatic relations with the region’s other states and undermined ECOWAS’ credibility. Talks between these two blocs failed to yield tangible changes, escalating tensions, and polarizing a region where major powers such as France, the United States, and Russia continue to vie for influence. Read all analyses


Disease, drought, and conflict: How Yemenis are adapting to a compounding crisis

In Yemen’s capital, shifting weather patterns and ongoing conflict are no longer abstract concerns. They are actively shaping public health outcomes. In a neighborhood of Sana’a, 17-year-old Malak Abdulmalik manages chronic respiratory symptoms that worsen with dust and seasonal changes. “I rely on my inhaler almost daily,” she explains, describing how air quality and temperature fluctuations directly affect her breathing. Her cousin faced a different challenge. After consuming contaminated food, she contracted cholera, a waterborne disease that continues to threaten Yemenis. The illness caused severe dehydration and required 11 days of medical care. Shortly after recovery, she was diagnosed with Hepatitis A, an infection commonly linked to unsafe water and food. According to the World Health Organization, Yemen has experienced recurrent cholera outbreaks driven largely by unsafe water and limited sanitation access, reporting the highest burden of cholera globally in 2024. Stagnant water caused by flooding and poor drainage also creates mosquito breeding grounds, contributing to the spread of dengue fever.


The World Bank reports that climate change is expected to intensify extreme weather events in Yemen, which, combined with infrastructure destruction, places additional pressure on water and health systems. Monitoring outbreaks and adapting on the ground These cases reflect a broader pattern: environmental stress, damaged infrastructure from war, and limited health resources combine to increase disease risk. This is what Hana’a Al-Zubairi, coordinator assistant at Yemen’s Ministry of Health and Environment, explains: Cholera, dengue fever, and Hepatitis A are driven by both climate change and war-damaged infrastructure. Flooded sewage contaminates water, while stagnant pools create mosquito breeding grounds. Many respiratory illnesses remain unrecognized until severe. “Respiratory illnesses are also increasingly common. Dust storms, rising temperatures, and seasonal shifts contribute to both upper and lower respiratory infections, placing additional strain on individuals and healthcare providers,” Al-Zubairi adds Her response team conducts weekly district visits to monitor outbreaks, run awareness campaigns, and guide treatments. Seasonal disease spikes often coincide with harvest periods when crops are irrigated with unsafe water. Poverty and misinformation also limit vaccination uptake, leaving children particularly vulnerable.


Expanding health risks Healthcare workers report that environmental and living conditions are influencing a wide range of illnesses. Dr. Ali Al-Hamzi, a surgeon based in Yemen, contracted dengue fever after a mosquito bite in 2018. He describes the illness as physically and mentally exhausting, requiring weeks of recovery. “Prevention is critical,” he says, emphasizing mosquito control and household protection measures such as window screens. In his case, the disease was relatively mild, but severe cases can require patients to be admitted to intensive care units, he explains. Delayed care and community-level challenges Ashwaq Abdullah, a nurse with over 15 years of clinical experience and founder of her own clinic, highlights delayed treatment as a major challenge. “Many patients wait too long before seeking care,” she explains. “By the time they arrive, dehydration or infection has already reached a critical stage.” During outbreaks at Al-Sabeen Hospital in the south of Sana’a, she observed how poverty forces many patients, especially from rural areas, to delay care, sometimes leading to severe complications such as kidney failure.


She also notes that respiratory illnesses, worsened by dust and changing weather, are becoming more complex, with viral infections increasingly developing bacterial complications. Her advice is clear: “Seek early medical care and maintain hygiene practices such as thoroughly washing fruits and vegetables to reduce risk.” The role of humanitarian organizations According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen, six diarrhea treatment facilities are currently supported across Yemen, providing medical supplies, hygiene kits, staff training, and operational support. Their water and sanitation programs aim to improve access to clean water, a critical factor in preventing disease spread. According to ICRC, mor e than 580,000 people gained improved access to health care services, while around 390,000 people benefited from improved access to safe water through its interventions in the first half of 2025.


Humanitarian organizations, alongside teams such as the Ministry of Public Health and Population staff and community-based health workers, continue supporting disease response efforts through medical assistance, water and sanitation interventions, healthcare training, and the maintenance of essential treatment services despite ongoing systemic challenges From crisis to climate solutions and resilience The connection between climate change, conflict, and public health is undeniable . It is visible in water scarcity, disease outbreaks, and the increasing pressure on healthcare systems. Yet focusing only on vulnerability does not reflect the full reality on the ground. Alongside these challenges, there is a continuous process of adaptation. Communities are not only responding to crises , they are actively developing solutions. They are adapting through renewable energy, solar-powered water systems, improved hygiene practices, community health awareness, and local health workers who continue disease surveillance despite limited resources. Adaptation is no longer an exception; it is becoming part of daily life in Yemen. Expanding renewable energy, particularly solar energy, represents one of the most practical climate solutions for Yemen.


Solar power is not only an alternative energy source; it is a lifeline that supports clean water access, strengthens healthcare services, and improves living conditions in areas affected by infrastructure damage and climate stress. Yemen’s diverse geography also creates opportunities for expanding sustainable energy solutions in different regions of the country through locally driven approaches. At the same time, effective climate action depends on collaboration with local actors because communities understand their environment, risks, and needs better than external systems alone. This local knowledge makes climate interventions more sustainable and more connected to realities on the ground. What becomes clear is that Yemen is not only a place of crisis, but also a place of continuous problem-solving. Where challenges exist, solutions also grow. Where climate risks increase, communities continue to adapt and build resilience through practical climate solutions. In Yemen, adaptation is ongoing. Solutions are already being built. Resilience is not theoretical — it is happening every day through communities, local knowledge, and climate solutions that are shaping a more sustainable future.


The death of a relentless mother reopens the wound of Venezuela’s political repression

Read our special coverage on Venezuela’s fight for democracy and the political crisis that has unfolded since the 2024 presidential elections, after the documented allegations of electoral fraud. A Venezuelan mother and her son have become the most recent painful reminder of the state of human rights in the South American nation. Carmen Teresa Navas, 82, died of natural causes on the night of Sunday May 17, days after finding about the death of her 51-year-old son, Víctor Hugo Quero Navas, who was arbitrarily detained in Caracas on January 1, 2025 under terrorism charges. According to the Venezuelan human rights NGO Foro Penal, Quero Navas was a forcibly disappeared political prisoner . Over the course of 16 months, having no idea about her son’s passing, Navas tirelessly searched for information about him in courthouses and public offices, and showed up at public demonstrations on behalf of political prisoners, always asserting his innocence. According to the Ministry of State Penitentiary, Quero Navas died of “acute respiratory failure” in a Caracas hospital while in state custody on July 31, 2025 and was buried in a mass grave, given that “no visitations from relatives had been requested at his detention place.”


Authorities said had been detained at El Rodeo I prison, near Caracas. This case is not an exception: under the interim administration of Delcy Rodríguez, the lives of more than 400 political prisoners remain at risk. Four other mothers , who had also been waiting for information on their sons’ release, have died this year, without ever learning of their children’s fate. Navas’ case, however, has become emblematic of sustained campaigning, highlighting the role of mothers in human rights defense in Venezuela and the toll that political violence and prolonged uncertainty take on their health. Sixteen months of searching Carmen Navas came to the attention of media in Venezuela after steadily showing up at protests in support of political prisoners holding a photo of her child — like at the camp set up next to Zona 7, a detention center in eastern Caracas, in February 2026. “Proof of life for my son!” Navas exclaimed , surrounded by other mothers and sympathizers . “Freedom, freedom, freedom!” Víctor Quero was a jeans merchant, initially detained under terrorism charges.


Even after his mother’s repeated media appearances, the state failed to provide her with solid information about him. Undeterred, she personally went to several detention centers looking for answers, as chronicled by local journalist Maryorin Méndez , who closely tracked her case. During a visit to El Rodeo I, a recently released political prisoner, Daniel Camara, told Navas that he had met Víctor at the prison, but that “he was taken away last October.” Every time Navas enquired, officials and public servants told her that her son was not detained, imprisoned or registered in the penitentiary system. Yet, a tribunal denied him conditional release under a new Amnesty Bill on May 6, 2026. The very next day, the Penitentiary Service Ministry issued a statement confirming that Quero had been dead and buried since July 2025: Navas only saw her son’s face again at his official exhumation and reburial on May 8 where, as told by El País , she asked officials to place her socks and hat on him.


Navas and her son now lie side by side in Caracas’ Cementerio del Este (Eastern Cemetery); her May 19 funeral was attended by hundreds of mourners. Nearly two weeks prior, on May 7, the attorney general’s office announced a full inquiry into Quero Navas’s death in custody, echoed days later by acting president Delcy Rodríguez. The United Nations’ Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances expressed “grave concern” over his enforced disappearance and made an immediate call for an independent investigation. At least ten Venezuelan state institutions appear to have concealed information, misinformed authorities, or ignored Navas altogether, highlighting the need for such an investigation. Many experts argue that this case is a stark reminder that Venezuela’s repressive apparatus remains intact: Venezuela in mourning On social media, Venezuelan citizens and activists erupted in grief over the death of Navas, who had last been seen praying in an open funeral Mass for her son . A lot of outrage was also being expressed over her son’s fate.


In a joint statement , local Venezuelan feminist organizations, including Uquira and Surgentes DDHH, said that they “exalt [Navas’s] memory, dignity, her pain and her tireless search for justice.” Ramón Centeno, a journalist and former political prisoner whose mother, Omaira Navas (no relation to Carmen or Víctor), passed away shortly after his January 14 release, tweeted “There will be justice.” He also remembered the other mothers of political prisoners who died waiting on word of their sons. An open protest in memory of Carmen Navas and Víctor Quero Navas was held on May 18, near Universidad Central de Venezuela. “They did not die, they were killed!” chanted demonstrators. The non-violent protest was met with repression by security forces. Two people were detained and several more injured: The day after Navas’ burial, Jorge Rodríguez, head of Venezuela’s National Assembly and brother to Delcy Rodríguez, announced the pending release of an additional 300 political prisoners , though no names or exact release dates were shared.


Hong Kong NGOs call for policy interventions to help vulnerable groups withstand heat hazards

In pursuit of climate justice, Hong Kong environmental groups work with community and grassroots organizations to advocate for safety nets and inclusive climate action to help the vulnerable withstand heat hazards. Hong Kong Observatory warned earlier this year that the city would see abnormally high temperatures in 2026 with the return of El Niño conditions, characterized by warm sea-surface temperatures and super-typhoons that bring intense rainfall and flash floods in summer. While Hong Kong is less affected by natural disasters like flooding thanks to its well-developed infrastructure, the city’s residents are often exposed to extreme heatwaves during summer, and the most vulnerable are outdoor workers who have to perform heavy physical labor, and low-income and elderly households who can’t afford to pay for air-conditioning in the densely populated concrete jungle. In recent years, heat hazards have been worsening, as very hot days have become more frequent. Inadequate social inclusion in HK’s climate action Since China ratified the Paris Agreement in September 2016, Hong Kong followed suit, but at a slower pace.


The city’s current target is to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 , with an action plan spanning major strategic areas, including energy, construction, waste reduction, conservation, and climate adaptation. Yet its approach is technical and investment-based, failing to recognize the need to redistribute resources and advance climate justice for the vulnerable. Executive Director, Ivy Leung of CarbonCare InnoLab (CCIL), a climate justice NGO, stressed in an email interview with Global Voices on the need to “protect those who are hit hardest yet have contributed the least [to the current climate crisis]” and to develop an empowering approach to draw grassroots participation: Climate action cannot rely on infrastructure and policy alone. Hong Kong also needs stronger capacity building across society so that communities, schools, NGOs, businesses, and frontline service providers are better equipped to understand climate risks and respond effectively. Building resilience means investing in people’s knowledge, skills, and ability to act… Prudence Yeung, a Greenpeace Hong Kong campaigner on climate change, also pointed out in an interview with Global Voices that the Hong Kong government had yet to acknowledge the existence of vulnerable groups in relation to climate change in its policy papers.


The green group criticized the government’s 2026 fiscal budget for focusing on green finance and infrastructure investment while providing “zero support” for climate-vulnerable groups. Its statement said: Greenpeace is very disappointed that comprehensive, people-centred climate adaptation strategies and measures were not included in the government’s public fiscal planning Hong Kong’s climate-vulnerable groups The most vulnerable group to weather-related health crises is the elderly, as heat stress can exacerbate underlying illnesses among the aged population, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. In 2024, about 20 percent, or approximately 1.5 million, of the city population is aged 65 or above, with 236,100 living alone. Fortunately, the Hong Kong welfare system provides moderate support for the elderly, and the two major power supply corporations have also recently rolled out significant discounts for impoverished elderly households. Similar safety nets, however, are unavailable for the low-income working class who suffer from heat stress in substandard housing and heat stroke when working outdoors. In 2025, Hong Kong logged 53 very hot days with temperatures at or above 33 degrees Celsius and four extremely hot days with temperatures at or above 35 degrees Celsius. Humidity is often above 90 percent during Hong Kong’s summer, making the apparent temperatures even higher. The indoor setting of the urban poor further inflames the heat.


Since 2021, CCIL has worked with a community organization, the Kwai Chung Subdivided Units Neighborhood Association, to support vulnerable communities in implementing energy-saving and adaptation measures, such as shifting to more efficient appliances, improving ventilation, supporting neighbors during heatwaves, and developing co-created small-scale resilience solutions based on local needs. The project collected community-based evidence through a survey of 31 subdivided flats last year and showed the public that temperatures measured in the substandard units were 1 to 10 degrees Celsius higher than the city’s average between July 3 and July 2025. About 74 percent of residents report sleepless nights due to extreme heat. Many residents refrained from turning on their air conditioners due to high electricity costs, as their shared electricity meters bar them from receiving the government and corporate electricity subsidies. Currently, about 220,000 residents live in subdivided flats in the city. Although the government has designated 19 centers for people to take refuge from heatwaves, Greenpeace HK and social inclusion NGO ImpactHK’s joint investigation found that the hot weather shelters are underused due to inappropriate locations, insufficient publicity, a lack of privacy and security measures, and short opening hours.


Prudence Yeung explained, While the city has relatively good hardware, the software and management are inadequate to address people’s needs. The cooling centers are not equipped to let people have a good sleep. Ivy Leung, on the other hand, stressed the significance of grassroots engagement in building climate resilience: Climate resilience is not only about infrastructure or technology. It is also about empowering people, strengthening neighbourhood support, and making sure the transition to a low-carbon future is fair and inclusive. Heat stress as a health crisis The summer heatwaves also caused a health crisis among outdoor workers. In 2023, a survey conducted by Greenpeace HK and the HK Catholic Commission for Labor Affairs showed that 62 percent of Hong Kong street cleaners and construction workers had experienced symptoms of heatstroke, such as dizziness, a lack of energy, breathing difficulty, and a rapid heartbeat, within three months, and half of them said they had suffered from heatstroke at least once a week. The Labor Department recorded about 30 cases of heatstroke at work per year in 2023 and 2024.


Since heatstroke has not been recognized as an occupational disease in Hong Kong, many cases have not been reported. Hong Kong only rolled out a guideline on the prevention of heat stroke at work in 2023, which later evolved into a three-tier (amber, red and black) warning system that instructs employers to adjust hourly work-rest schedules or suspend work that requires heavy physical demands. However, employer compliance remains an issue, as the guideline is not statutory law, and there are no direct fines for ignoring the coloured alerts. Between May and October 2024, the Labour Department issued 1031 warnings to non-compliant employers; thus far, there has been no prosecution related to the heat-stress warning, even though the authority can prosecute offenders under the Occupational Safety and Health Ordinance. Moreover, the single heat-detection station at King's Park did not capture the microclimate and the heat stress of the densely populated urban districts. Following rigorous research and surveys by a coalition of environmental and labor groups on microclimates across different urban settings, the government eventually refined heat stress monitoring by expanding data collection to 10 locations earlier this year.


Given the nature of outdoor work, it is very difficult to monitor employer compliance, local NGOs, including Oxfam HK, thus urge the government to further refine the current monitoring system by establishing a workplace-based heat stress index, motivating employers to let their workers wear mobile heat-detection devices, and to include heat stress in the list of occupational diseases under Hong Kong’s Employees’ Compensation Ordinance. Even though heatstroke is on China's occupational disease list, authorities in the special administrative region rejected this demand in 2022 on the grounds that heat-related sickness stems from environmental factors and has no direct link to the nature of work or work-specific conditions. But more medical experts have argued that the city should treat heat hazards as a public health crisis. A recently published Hong Kong University study finds that heat caused 1,455 to 3,238 excess deaths between 2014 and 2023, and that heatwaves now rank among the top ten causes of death in Hong Kong, with mortality rates comparable to those of diabetes. Last month, t he World Health Organization also reinstated that “ heat is an important environmental and occupational health hazard . ” Let’s hope the experts’ alarm provides more grounds for climate justice advocacy.


How AI is upgrading African dictatorship

“On coins, on stamps, on the covers of books, on banners, on posters and on the wrapping of a cigarette packet — everywhere. Always the eyes watching you and the voice enveloping you. Asleep or awake, working or eating, indoors or out of doors, in the bath or in bed — no escape. Nothing was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside yo ur skull.” – George Orwell, “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Orwell could not have imagined that eventually, even those few cubic centimetres inside the skull would be contested on a continent already plagued by corruption and tyranny. This matters especially on a continent where corruption, impunity, and executive appetite long predate artificial intelligence. And where AI adoption is outpacing the development of rights-respecting legal frameworks Africa rushes for smart tools of tyranny In the past, tyranny in Africa required prisons, informants, secret police, and visible repression. Today, more and more of it arrives as software, financed by credit, wrapped in the language of modernisation, and sold as an upgrade to public safety.


A March 2026 study by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) and the African Digital Rights Network found that 11 African governments had collectively spent more than USD 2 billion on AI-powered surveillance systems. Nigeria alone accounted for more than USD 470 million. The kit includes high-definition CCTV, plate readers, facial recognition, biometric identity layers, and a control room where the feeds converge. Much of it is supplied or financed by Chinese firms and banks , while other layers come mainly from Israeli firms . The common justification usually given by African governments is that acquiring this equipment is necessary to fight crime, but the crime numbers are not decreasing. IDS researchers, having examined the installations across several cities, found little evidence that the cameras reduce offending , and the evidence actually shows that cameras cluster in neighbourhoods where opposition parties organise, where protests have happened and where the press has “made trouble” for ruling regimes. The info-infrastructure of dictatorships in Africa is not new, and it won’t be starting from zero.


In most African countries, the state has long had an appetite for data. Records from communications, tax rolls, bank accounts, and administrative registries have been collected for decades and used with little legal restraint, even where protections exist on paper. What is new is the engine. AI turns the dormant files into a queryable archive. A name, a network, a pattern of travel, a history of transactions, now surface in seconds. Even the KGB, the Soviet Union ’s secret police, as Yuval Noah Harari has pointed out , did not have enough people to read millions of reports on millions of citizens every day. The dust in the archive was itself a form of freedom. AI dissolves that dust. The AI-enabled surveillance now coming online in African cities is much cheaper thanks to Chinese open AI models and Israeli smart tools, because it rarely needs to punish anyone. Mass surveillance technologies — cameras, phone software, local internet networks — do not have to arrest anyone. They only need the citizens to know they are there.


The awareness of being watched stops most action before it begins. The target list Every movement for change on the continent has begun the same way. A group of people decides the risk of being seen in public is lower than the risk of staying silent. They gather. They post. The images travel. Sometimes the government falls. Sometimes it holds. The calculation in both cases turns on a single moment, when strangers become visible to each other and to the world as a movement. The upgrade changes that calculation at the source. AI-enabled surveillance is not a neutral grid cast over a city. It is configured around a target list, and that target list is political. The IDS mapping shows cameras clustered where opposition parties organise, not where ordinary crime is highest. The effect is pre-emptive; it suppresses dissent before it forms. Facial recognition at a bus stop does not need to arrest the organiser; it only needs to make clear that organising is no longer anonymous, and that being identified carries a cost.


For instance, a protest planned for Sunday and identified on Saturday — through metadata, social media posts, network analysis and face-matching — rarely needs to be broken up by police. The organisers already know they have been seen, and they know what being seen can cost: arrest, charges filed later in court, or even being banned from government jobs. Often, the protest simply does not form. The logic compresses into a loop: the algorithm flags a person as a likely organiser, and that flag is treated as proof that the event would have occurred; thus, the person cannot be innocent because the alarm itself is the evidence. In a country with thin courts and a politicised security service, this becomes a machine that treats intention as guilt. Digital footprints widen the target list. Through the traces users leave online and through state-controlled communications, the state can build a profile of every citizen, then query it for signs of disloyalty. Not for what the person has done, but for what they have liked, who they have called or messaged, which rally their phone was near, which anti-government hashtag they shared.


The quietest and most uncomfortable finding within the Atlantic Council’s report concerns this integration of administrative databases into something broader, a loyalty index, built out of records that were each introduced, separately, for a different reason. The consequence is that reform dies early. CIPESA (the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa) documents the chilling effect across fourteen countries; a measurable retreat of expression, assembly, and independent media in places where the surveillance architecture has been built out without rights-based safeguards. The citizen who would have marched, posted, joined the committee, filed the complaint, now calculates and stays home. From North to South Africa, a new kind of everyday atmosphere settles in. The seed of change is aborted, not in a cell but in a bedroom, by a person who has understood that the database remembers, and that the algorithm does not distinguish between the opinion expressed and the opinion held. This is what the upgrade protects most efficiently. Not the state’s capacity to punish. It’s capacity to make punishment unnecessary. Foucault called this the panopticon: a design in which the inmate, uncertain whether the guard tower is occupied, learns to guard himself.


Those who refuse While AI surveillance is becoming a powerful tool for authoritarian regimes, there are small counter-efforts, underfunded, and racing against a procurement cycle that has already delivered the cameras and wired the databases. Several journalists and organisations are documenting abuses, litigating test cases, and pushing for rights-based AI governance. Civic technologists are turning the same tools back on the state, including fact-checking generative content, monitoring hate speech, observing elections, and offering open, safe, smart tools for journalists and activists. However, the symmetry is false. The infrastructure, the compute, the training data, the vendor contracts, the technical talent, all sit with the state and its foreign suppliers. They do not sit with the African citizen, who struggles every day for just their daily bread. A civic-tech app might monitor some corruption, but it cannot match the control room. The few cubic centimetres Orwell’s dictatorship needed a ministry, a war, an informant behind every door. The new African version seems to need only a loan agreement for buying AI infrastructure, and a population that has been persuaded that the whole thing is for their convenience.


The historian Yuval Noah Harari has warned that the combination of biometric sensors, facial and voice recognition “make it possible for the first time in history for a dictatorial government to follow all the citizens all the time,” and could produce totalitarian regimes “much, much worse than anything we saw in the 20th century.” That warning is usually aimed at Beijing. But Beijing and Tel Aviv are starting to export the tools to Africa. The fear on the continent is not that AI will turn any single African state into a dictatorship. The fear is that AI is lowering the cost of authoritarian capacity and raising its ceiling — at an unprecedented pace, at precisely the moment when the appetite of corrupt regimes is growing, and the legal and institutional safeguards meant to contain them are thin or absent. Certainly, AI can be a lever for development and well-being in Africa; for public services, for innovation, and for expression, too. But, without the underlying infrastructure of democracy and a free press, it becomes a nightmare.


Somalia: Drought, fuel prices, and conflicts heighten famine risk

As of May 2026, Somalia, a country with a population of over 20 million, is facing one of the worst food crises in its history. According to a new analysis published on May 14, 2026, by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), six million people are experiencing high levels of acute hunger. The IPC is an innovative global multi-stakeholder initiative designed to improve food security and nutrition analyses for informed decision-making. There are multiple mutually reinforcing causes: consecutive below-average rainy seasons, a security situation that hinders humanitarian aid distribution, and the U.S.’s conflict in Western Asia and its impact on fuel prices and foodstuffs. A crisis compounded by climate change Somalia, the easternmost country in Africa, has an arid and semiarid climate . The country contends with four seasons: two dry seasons (Hagaa and Jiilaal) from July to September and from December to March; and two rainy seasons (Gu and Day) from April to June and from October to November. However, in recent years, insufficient rainfall during rainy seasons has caused widespread ecological and agricultural issues.


This insufficient rainfall has weakened herds, reduced harvests, and dried up water supplies, depriving pastoral and farming families of their main sources of income and food. According to Radio France Internationale , the livestock trade, a major source of this country’s foreign exchange earnings, remains operational despite considerable tensions. Armed conflicts caused by the State’s collapse, clan rivalries, arms proliferation, corruption, and a rise in armed groups, like Al-Shabaab, persist in several regions of the country, and have also caused food and aid disruptions. These circumstances, therefore, hamper humanitarian organizations’ access to the most vulnerable. According to the latest IPC analysis , six million Somalis are facing high levels of acute hunger (IPC Phase 3 or above), including more than 1.9 million in Emergency Phase (IPC Phase 4) . In a UNICEF publication, following a trip to Dollow, a town in the southern region of Gedo, southwestern Somalia, Executive Director Catherine Russell , stated : L’une des images les plus bouleversantes qu’il m’a été donné de voir est celle de rangées de lits où se trouvent des enfants malnutris et des mères anxieuses qui espèrent seulement que leurs enfants survivront.


La population est incroyablement résiliente, mais elle a besoin de davantage de soutien au plus vite, d’autant que tous les signaux d’alarme sont au rouge, notamment du fait des répercussions de la guerre au Moyen-Orient. Rows of beds with malnourished children and anxious mothers just hoping their children would survive are one of the most heartbreaking scenes I’ve ever witnessed. Although people are incredibly resilient, they urgently need more support. All the alarm bells are ringing, mainly due to the conflict in Western Asia. In the Burhakaba district of the landlocked Bay region in southern Somalia, more than one in three children under five years old suffer from acute malnutrition. Consequently, humanitarian workers warn that this area could officially fall into famine by June without any large-scale emergency intervention. Nationally, 1.88 million children are expected to require treatment for acute malnutrition in 2026. Although the early mobilization of funding averted an official famine declaration in these districts in 2022, this window of opportunity is rapidly closing. Hormuz shock: A distant crisis with close-to-home consequences The crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, which began on February 28, 2026, has directly impacted prices in Somalia. Before the conflict, around one-fifth of the world’s crude oil passed through this strait.


As a country largely dependent on basic commodity imports, Somalia is particularly vulnerable to international supply chain disruptions. This blockade also hampers the delivery of humanitarian aid and fertilizers, as Catherine Russell highlighted. In March 2026, fuel prices jumped by 150 percent in Somalia , rising from USD 0.60 to USD 1.50 per liter, stalling the delivery of water, foodstuffs, and humanitarian aid. In the areas hardest hit by drought, the price of a jerrycan of water has risen from USD 0.06 to USD 1.50, a rise of over 2,000 percent in just one year. In the Mudug region (central Somalia), transport costs have also risen by up to 50 percent , forcing entire families to forgo healthcare. The country also imports 30 percent of its fertilizers from Western Asia . This crisis struck during the agricultural input purchasing period for the Gu season, the Horn of Africa’s main rainy season (as mentioned above). According to the French media outlet Le Grand Continent , the impact on Somalia’s 2026 harvests is now largely irreversible. Sharp decline in humanitarian funding Compounding this situation is a particularly severe humanitarian funding deficit.


According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), in April 2026, out of the USD 1.42 billion required for Somalia’s intervention plan, only USD 288 million was allocated , about 20 percent of the total required. Ultimately, a 75 percent reduction to this plan is a direct consequence, lowering the number of beneficiaries from six million to 1.3 million. As a result, more than 200 health and nutrition centers have closed since early 2025, depriving 1.7 million people of essential care. Read more: Crumbling of the global aid sector Halima, a Somali woman, quoted in an MSF publication, explained that she attended Mudug’s regional MSF-supported hospital because its medical services are free. She explained : Je suis venue ici car les services sont gratuits. Sans cela, je n’aurais pas pu obtenir de soins pour mon enfant. I came here because the services are free. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to get healthcare for my child. Referring to the transport costs, which have become unaffordable for her, she continued: C'est devenu beaucoup plus coûteux et difficile qu'avant », déclare-t-elle. « Beaucoup de gens sont désormais contraints de parcourir de longues distances à pied, simplement pour accéder à des soins de santé.


It has become a lot more expensive and challenging than before. Many people must now walk long distances just to access healthcare. Amid the security crisis, Mercy Corps , a U.S. humanitarian NGO operating in transitional and unstable contexts, had to suspend food distribution, water trucking, and nutritional support for severely malnourished children due to resource constraints. In the displaced persons camps in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, arrivals continue even though distributions have ceased. Mohamed Abdi, Somalia Country Director for the Norwegian Refugee Council, makes a clear assessment: Les communautés de Burhakaba (dans la région de Bay) sont au bord de la famine en ce moment même et pourraient franchir cette ligne d'ici juin. Seulement 15 % de la réponse humanitaire est financée. Nous regardons cette situation se détériorer en temps réel pendant que les ressources pour l'arrêter ne sont pas là. As we speak, the Burhakaba communities (in the Bay region) are on the brink of famine and could cross that threshold by June. Only 15 percent of the humanitarian response receives funding.


We are watching this situation worsen in real time while the resources to prevent it are lacking. Post-aid era threatening millions of lives Somalia is a prime example of a broader global trend. International humanitarian funding is shrinking while needs are increasing due to the combined impacts of climate change and geopolitical instability. Daud Jiran, Somalia Country Director at Mercy Corps, summarizes the situation : La Somalie risque de devenir l'une des premières grandes crises de l'ère “post-aide” : un endroit où les besoins augmentent, la survie devient plus coûteuse, et la réponse se rétrécit. Somalia risks becoming one of the first major crises of the ‘post-aid’ era. A place where subsistence is becoming more expensive, and responses are shrinking just as needs are increasing. In 2022, the rapid mobilization of funding prevented an official famine declaration in these same districts. Today, on-the-ground humanitarian organizations are calling for a similar response: increased food aid, access to drinking water, health and nutrition services, and continued livelihood support for affected communities. Just weeks remain to take action before this situation crosses the official famine threshold in Burhakaba.


How Kazakhstan resurrected the North Aral Sea

Over the last 20 years, Kazakhstan managed to resurrect the Small Aral Sea, a.k.a. the North Aral, a small part of the Aral Sea , which once was the fourth largest lake in the world, bustling with life and abundance. Situated between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the Aral Sea fell victim to the Soviet Union’s agricultural policies. In the 1960s, when both nations were part of the Soviet Bloc, officials began cultivating vast stretches of barren land in Central Asia by diverting water from the two main rivers that fed the Aral Sea: the Syr Darya and the Amu Darya. Without water from them, more than 90 percent of the lake’s surface area dried up, turning the sea into the Aralkum Desert , filled with toxic pesticides and fertilizers washed down from the cotton fields. After years of restoration efforts, the North Aral, located on the Kazakh side of the dried-up sea, has become an astounding success story in reversing one of the worst anthropogenic environmental disasters in world history.


Health and environmental consequences The consequences of draining such a colossal body of water were devastating and continue to affect the population of regions around the sea and beyond. It significantly affected the climate, manifesting in unbearably hot summers and harsh frosts in winter. The residents of the Aral Sea region were hit hardest . In the late 1990s, the child mortality rate in the region was the highest in the world, and the situation remains dire. Every year, storms disperse 80 million tons of toxic sand and salt from the lake bed, which poisons the population, leading to a myriad of chronic and deadly diseases . Various regional studies found toxic substances, insecticides, and dangerous pesticides in the blood and urine of adults and children, and even in the milk of nursing mothers. Adults and children in the region often suffer from anemia, cancer, kidney disease, and epidemic-spreading tuberculosis. Economically, the drying up of the sea killed off the finishing industry, one of the main sources of livelihood and food for locals.


Until the 1960s, the annual fish catch amounted to 80 thousand tons, making the Aral Sea by far the largest fishery basin in Central Asia. Read more: China is helping Uzbekistan save the Aral Sea In addition to fish, which all disappeared from the sea due to increased salinity, the Aral Sea disaster also led to the extinction or endangerment of dozens of mammals, birds, and plants in the area. Save a small part or lose all of it? By the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union fell and Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan became independent, the Aral Sea stopped existing as a single body of water. It was divided into the “Big” Aral on the southern Uzbek side, fed by Amu Darya, and the “Small” Aral on the northern Kazakh side, fed by Syr Darya. Connecting these two bodies of water was a narrow channel, which ran from the Kazakh city of Aralsk to the largest biological weapon testing site in the world, built by the Soviet Union on the so-called Vozrozhdenie Island, located in the Big Aral. Uzbekistan failed to direct water from the Amu Darya, which originally fed 70 percent of the water to the sea.


Consequently, the Big Aral became an evaporating pot for the water coming from the Syr Darya as well, which trickled down from the north, pushing Kazakhstan to prioritize saving the North Aral. Put simply, there was not enough water to save the entire sea. Thus, in 2005, Kazakhstan built the Kokaral Dam to trap water flowing from the Syr Darya and save the North Aral. Stretching 13 kilometers, the dam was built with the financial support of the World Bank. By the time the dam was built, there were no fish left in the North Aral, and the shoreline had retracted 40 kilometers away from Aralsk, a former port town. In addition to building the dam, the authorities also modernized the irrigation and water distribution system to increase the flow capacity of the Syr Darya and save water for the North Aral. The results have been an astounding success. In 2025, the total volume of water in the North Aral increased by 42 percent and reached 27 billion cubic meters. This helped to decrease the salinity level by four times and reclaim 870 square kilometers of previously dried up sea bed.


Here is a YouTube video about the resurrection of the North Aral. Environmentalists also reintroduced fish to the sea — so successfully that the annual catch reached 8,000 tons, reviving the fishing industry and boosting local economic development. Continued resurrection efforts More good news awaits the North Aral in the near future. The Kazakh government has already announced that it will start implementing the second stage of the project to resurrect the North Aral and will continue cooperating with the World Bank and researchers. Between 2026 and 2029, the authorities plan to make the Kokaral Dam wider and taller to help raise the water level from 40.4 to 44 mBS (meters of the Baltic system). This will also increase the water volume from 27 to 34 billion cubic meters and expand the water surface to 3,913 square kilometers. In addition to reconstructing the dam, Kazakhstan will modernize and automate irrigation systems in the Turkestan and Kyzylorda provinces, through which water from the Syr Darya flows. This will further improve water resource efficiency and direct the saved water to the North Aral.


Here is a YouTube video about the next steps to resurrect the North Aral. Ultimately, the goal is to improve the socio-economic standing of the population and the environmental situation of the nearby region. Kazakhstan’s biggest challenge going forward is the sustainability of the North Aral. The interim success is built on man-made support, which makes the current landscape quasi-natural , characterized as “imperfect, unnatural, and weak” from the sustainability viewpoint. Reports of significantly reduced fish catch amounts in 2025, from 7.8 to 3.9 thousand tons, and the receding water line underscore the precariousness of this victory. Kazakhstan’s status as a “downstream country” also contributes to the sustainability problem, making it dependent on the upstream and neighboring Kyrgyzstan for a steady water supply. Not to mention the rapid melting of glaciers that feed the Syr Darya. Despite these challenges, Kazakhstan has not given up on the North Aral. It has achieved what seemed near impossible twenty years ago and resurrected the dying sea. The North Aral is the only remaining heir to the once mighty and plentiful Aral Sea, deserving of every effort to save it — even without long-term assurances.


Tuvalu aims to become a ‘Digital Nation’ amid rising sea levels

What happens to a country without land? This is the question that inspired the launch of Tuvalu’s Digital Nation project amid rising sea water levels and the worsening impact of climate change. Tuvalu, which has a population of around 12,000, is a Pacific nation made up of low-lying atolls. As the climate crisis worsens and ocean levels rise, Tuvalu is at risk of being submerged by the seas over the next 100 years. In 2021, Tuvalu’s then-Foreign Minister, Simon Kofe, addressed the Conference of the Parties 27 (COP26), the world’s largest annual climate conference, from a podium while standing knee-deep in seawater to dramatize how small nations with historically low carbon emissions suffer the most from climate change. The following year, he announced during the COP27 that Tuvalu would become the first Digital Nation : This digital transformation will allow Tuvalu to retain its identity and continue to function as a state, even after its physical land is gone.


It will also facilitate the governance of a Tuvaluan diaspora by creating a virtual space where Tuvaluans can connect with each other, explore ancestry and culture, and access new opportunities for business and commerce in various industries. Moreover, a permanent digital replica of Tuvalu — a new ‘defined territory’ — will aid in the fight for continued sovereignty under international law. The project has three major components: 1) Digital Twin, which involves the scanning of 124 islands and islets to make a digital copy of the land of Tuvalu; 2) Digital Ark , a cloud platform for digital and 3D scans of important Tuvaluan objects, values, and stories; and 3) E-government services for Tuvalu “to ensure improved access for Tuvaluans while also allowing the government to function virtually in a worst-case scenario where people are forced to leave Tuvalu because of climate change.” This is a large-scale project that seeks to mobilize the whole population. Consultations are crucial for securing public support and ensuring that the most valuable cultural resources are preserved.


After attending workshops and consultations about the project, the people of Tuvalu themselves are charged with identifying the stories and cultural practices they want to digitize. For example, a resident wanted to document the art of canoe making. Another resident wanted to promote the knowledge of making Ano, the ball used in a traditional Tuvaluan sport. In another workshop, 3D scans of pulou (traditional woven hats) and pillows were made In an interview with this author, the team behind the Digital Nation shared the status of the project. We are in the middle of Outer Islands consultations promoting and explaining the project to Tuvalu’s Outer Islands communities. When we are digitizing stories of Tuvaluan objects, values, and practices in the Digital Ark, we have to make sure that the people who store their data are fully protected and we also have to ensure that Tuvalu hosts, houses, and maintains sovereignty over the platforms that support this data.


They also enumerated some of the lessons from implementing the project: The importance of closely collaborating with all departments who work on digitization in the Government of Tuvalu (there are a lot!) to gather best practices and ensure a streamlined approach to digital futures. The strong appetite for digital and cultural preservation, especially among youth in Tuvalu. The vast range of objects, values, stories, and practices communities want to digitize. The need for different levels of security in digital platforms like the Digital Ark to ensure that people can digitize objects and stories but also ensure that access to those objects and stories can be limited if the people who digitize the objects and stories request that only their family members or specific community can have access. Since the project relies on internet connectivity, there are concerns about the resources it will require and consume, as well as the risk of cyberattacks . Some also criticize that the project implies officials have accepted that Tuvalu will inevitably disappear from the maps.


Writing for the DevPolicy blog, Venu Edwin Pedro and Jess Marinaccio addressed this issue and asserted that the project carries the message of hope — not resignation. The Digital Nation represents the hope that Tuvalu can prepare for extreme climate impacts, with its culture and government services fully protected in the face of rising sea levels and other disasters It is about being proactive in the face of climate change and other influences and preserving culture for a better tomorrow. Digital Nation is an investment in improved connectivity and e-services that can help citizens buy inter-island boat tickets, renew passports or obtain marriage certificates online rather than travelling great distances to do so in person. It is a story of staying in Tuvalu — not leaving it. Venu, a native of Tuvalu, highlighted how the project inspired greater appreciation for the nation’s cultural resources. To me, the Digital Nation is a new way to fight, adapt and protect our identity and sovereignty. It is about taking control, shaping our future and keeping our roots alive.


As someone who does not want to migrate, the project is a beacon of hope and a way for Tuvaluans to solve the problems they face without relying on others. The Digital Nation complements other initiatives aimed at countering the harsh impact of climate change, such as land reclamation and coral restoration in Tuvalu. It also sends an important message to the global community that urgent action is needed to stop the loss of small island states like Tuvalu. A small nation like Tuvalu is forced to replicate itself in the metaverse because of the continued slow response, inaction, and failure of nation-states and global institutions to implement a sustained program of action to reduce and combat the adverse effects of fossil fuel emissions. In other words, the Digital Nation project may be focused on preserving Tuvalu, but its global significance should be underscored as well.


The serpent in the code: What allegations of AI usage in the Commonwealth Short Story Prize mean for regions like the Caribbean

Where to begin? Those could have been the very words that went through Trinidadian Jamir Nazir ’s head when he decided to write “ The Serpent in the Grove ,” his submission to the 2026 edition of the prestigious Commonwealth Short Story Prize . The piece was judged the regional winner for the Caribbean and, as a result, became a contender for the overall prize — except that there’s a huge debate over whether he wrote it at all. On Monday, May 11, I received an alert that Nazir had topped the slew of Caribbean entries, with a note that the news was embargoed until that Wednesday. Exactly a week later, a North America-based colleague emailed me to say he’d seen allegations circulating on Bluesky that the story was the work of artificial intelligence (AI): Mollick ’s theory quickly gained traction — he’s a University of Pennsylvania professor, after all, specialising in entrepreneurship, innovation and AI — but it hadn’t yet been reported in any newspaper of record, though I found similar threads emerging on Reddit and X: A couple of calls to trustworthy sources revealed that the accusation might have legs.


Neither the Commonwealth Foundation nor Granta, where the winning entries are published, had yet made official statements, so I waited. It was an interesting story, but if it ended up going somewhere, I wanted to be able to cover it in a way that wasn’t simply amplifying the noise. The sins of syntax What concerned me at this stage was that the finger-pointing seemed largely rooted in syntax; the conclusion being that a proliferation of dashes, coupled with the approach of describing things as being “ not this, but that ,” meant that the story must have been generated either wholly or partly by AI. Chat GPT, in particular, is heavily trained in this approach, but this type of writing existed long before Large Language Models (LLMs) did. In an auspiciously timed episode of the podcast This Week in Tech , futurist and author Amy Webb admitted that she neither thinks nor speaks in complete sentences: “I’m just a giant run-on […] this is my natural way of speaking and writing. And the bots out there got hooked on Miranda and now […] I have to convince people like, no, this is just the way that I write.”


It got me thinking about the way Caribbean people speak, meandering down long, winding trails of thought before they get to the point. Being of the opinion that AI has done the dash dirty to some degree, the podcast exchange made me consult my always-within-arm’s-reach copy of Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style,” which advises that dashes as a whole — there was no distinction made between en or em — should be used “only when a more common mark or punctuation seems inadequate.” In other words, apply sparingly. In a story of 3,385 words, Nazir used dashes approximately 28 times. Is that too much? And if it is, do we mean “too much” in the sense of overkill, or do we mean it as a reliable gauge of AI usage? What’s the limit, and who gets to decide? Via a WhatsApp call, I asked this of Jarrel de Matas , an assistant professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch’s Department of Bioethics and Health Humanities. His feeling is that because AI detectors can misrepresent, clear disclosure parameters are needed.


“How much LLM output can you actually use before it crosses over into irresponsible usage?” he asks. “If you use it for spell check or grammar correction, these are low-level writing mechanics. If it’s just for outlining, researching…I think those are acceptable ways to use it, but they should be disclosed. But when you are engaging with a system that you are asking for ideas, you’re giving it some kind of authority over the creative process.” He calls it “a watershed moment for creativity.” Using AI to detect AI By May 19, the UK Guardian ran a story about the controversy, which quoted Granta’s Sigrid Rausing, as saying, “It may be that the judges have now awarded a prize to an instance of AI plagiarism – we don’t yet know, and perhaps we never will know.” The magazine stated that it had put Nazir's writing through Claude to determine whether his story had been AI generated, which is a classic case of “himself to himself,” to quote The Mighty Spoiler . The chatbot concluded that it was “almost certainly not produced unaided by a human.”


Trinidadian writer Kevin Jared Hosein, the 2015 regional winner of the prize, was livid that the Commonwealth Foundation continues to stand behind Nazir, who insists “The Serpent in the Grove” is his own work, and that the story — along with other 2026 entries that have also been flagged for their potential use of AI — remains on Granta’s website. Rausing’s admission that there is “a certain irony in the fact that beyond human hunches AI itself is the most efficient tool we have for revealing what is AI generated,” likely brings little consolation. Hosein challenged , “You have human eyes. You will be the jury. Jamir’s headshot, first of all, is a product of AI modification. He has admitted this. If he is willing to dupe the Foundation with this, why stop there?” Hosein is one of the judges for the 2026 Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival , which just posted its policy on AI use for its short story contest. The parameters prohibit the use of “LLM-based tools to generate, edit, revise, summarize, or otherwise assist in preparing your submission.”


While some regional writers were pleased with the festival’s stance, it seems a bit idealistic considering you can’t even google something now without being met with the search engine’s standard AI Overview at the top of the page. De Matas reminds me that when ChatGPT burst onto the scene in November 2022, the talk was about the death of the English major . “At that point, the threat was that we wouldn’t think anymore,” he recalls. “But now, it seems the conversation has shifted to, ‘We cannot be creative anymore.’” The competition’s judges have come under their fair share of fire. A WIRED article noted that Jamaican author Sharma Taylor , who sat on the jury, “has been accused of using AI to craft her descriptive blurb that accompanied the listing of ‘The Serpent in the Grove’ as a regional winner,” adding that Pangram — which the AI experts who raised the alarm in the first place employed to evaluate Nazir's story — had assessed Taylor’s text as “AI-assisted.”


In a WhatsApp thread, Global Voices community member Tori Egherman found herself wrestling with the concept “that AI — which was trained on the very good writing of human beings, most often without their consent — can judge whether someone’s writing is AI generated or not […] I see so many human creators being accused of using AI because AI was trained on their work. Someone make it make sense.” Between a rock and a hard place Both the Commonwealth Foundation and Granta have received criticism for the equanimity of their response, but really, how else could they have played this? “We are making assumptions to fill a gap,” De Matas explains. “I think that certain ‘obvious markers’ make parts of the text read as AI-generated, and I also think that it’s difficult to prove.” He’s interested in how we can use this moment to develop tools that can ascertain, without a doubt, what many people believe they’re seeing, and suggests this can be accomplished by tracking trends — data sets, stylography: “A lot of work would have to go into coding style.


It’s not impossible, but we’d need incentives to create the guard rails.” As a machine learning model, he continues, Chat GPT trains on the data it finds and continuously refines it, though it never really loses the structure. “You can ask it a hundred things and it will say 99 in the same way,” he adds. “It doesn't change the style. It changes the information.” Against the backdrop of a quickly advancing AI race , such a tool seems critical, especially since these developments appear to push us towards more usage. “We think we have the agency,” De Matas laments, “but we don’t; everything is becoming AI-driven. It’s affected image generation, the smartphone, operating systems and so, we’re doing less and less.” Rise of the bots? A friend recently recounted a discussion she’d had with a Trinidadian secondary school student, who told her that any School-Based Assessments (SBAs) she and her peers submit are put through an AI-checker, and there’s a certain percentage of AI detection they are not allowed to surpass.


Fair enough, but here’s the rub: if she submits a “perfect” paper , her work is judged to be AI. She’s then forced to submit papers with deliberate errors, for which she gets marks docked. In a LinkedIn post, Nazir took a similar line of defence, questioning the accuracy of AI detection tools like Pangram: “It is a fact that AI detectors are completely unreliable generating false positives when evaluating highly polished human prose. Algorithms cannot be allowed to dictate that a human is incapable of producing a high level of literature.” So what constitutes great writing ? To shed some light, I revisited Plato’s “ Phaedrus ,” which mentions things like the power of truth to tap into the universality of the human experience. In the text, Socrates, who values rhetoric more than the written word, declares, “[T]his discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners’ souls, because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves […] you give your disciples not truth, but only the semblance of truth, [having] the show of wisdom without the reality.”


Plato, clearly a soothsayer, might as well have talking about artificial intelligence. As AI continues to be fed human content, it will get better; it already has. This makes it all the more difficult to discern what is human and what isn’t. An educator friend posed a theoretical question to me in the midst of all the furore: “If a good story is proven to have been written by AI, does it make it any less of a good story?” My personal feeling is that yes, it does, because it lacks the authenticity of the human experience, which is where the power and truth in stories inherently lie. It reminds me of a yarn about a purported face-off between famed Shakespearean actor Richard Burton and American Catholic bishop Fulton Sheen. In the (admittedly AI-esque) story, they were each asked to read Psalm 23 to see who could evoke the more emotional response. Burton’s rendition earned him a standing ovation; Sheen’s, contemplative silence, with the judge determining that Burton knew the passage, but Sheen knew the shepherd.


De Matas and his peers now routinely come up against the likelihood that AI is changing how we engage with our own humanity — “our processes of creating connections, originality, how we derive inspiration, things we took for granted because we were human.” Even Pope Leo XIV has weighed in; his first encyclical argues that humans flourish because of limitations, not in spite of them. AI, on the other hand, makes everything immediate and easy. There is no struggle and, as any writer can attest , the struggle is real. “I think what we are losing is the self, the ability to be honest with each other; with ourselves,” De Matas stresses, “and that is such a nebulous concept, we can’t quantify it. We can’t code honesty.” Literary backlash Recognised writers have not deemed Nazir’s story worthy. Despite the Commonwealth Foundation’s assessment of its “lyrical precision” and “confidence and restraint of its voice,” Hosein found that it “lacks intentionality behind the strangeness it evokes as ‘great’ literature. [N]one of his metaphor and simile serve the characters or the narrative.


The closer you look at it, you may see how it employs heavy use of (unearned) aphorism and I always find AI stories to be floaty or glide-y, like it can never really settle on a particular moment and sustain emotion or tension, only ideas of it.” Jamaican Booker Prize winner Marlon James simply quipped , “Forget AI for a second. A story won an international Competition with a line like this: ‘The girl smiled like sunrise over a sink.’” Such comments point to a two-pronged issue. First, whether Nazir and the other two writers accused of using AI were truthful when they declared to the Foundation that their work was of their own creation, and second, whether the writing has merit. Addressing the first point in a May 19 statement, the Commonwealth Foundation defended its “robust” judging process : “Until a sufficient tool or process to reliably detect the use of AI emerges that can also grapple with the challenges pertaining to working with unpublished fiction, the Foundation and the Commonwealth Short Story Prize must operate on the principle of trust.”


As criticism mounted, however, the Foundation’s Director-General Razmi Farook felt it important to address the organisation’s “duty of care.” Calling AI “the single biggest issue facing much of the creative world,” she noted, “[W]hile we welcome constructive debate surrounding this complicated and nuanced matter, we are deeply concerned by the tone of much of the discourse surrounding it. At the centre of this are real people: striving writers, dedicated judges, and a passionate team.” She further noted the Foundation’s disappointment that the work of not only current but previous winners of the prize had been called into question, but added, “We feel it is vital to recognise the upset felt by all those involved in or affected by the recent discourse surrounding the Short Story Prize. We offer our support to our winners, shortlisted writers, judges, alumni and wider community.” Their message is clear, at least to me, on the point of calibre: writers, readers, critics, AI specialists and social media commentators can all have their opinions, but the final word on whether a piece is deserving or not lies with the people who have been entrusted to judge it.


For De Matas, this is precisely the point: “In the same way that AI tools are not transparent, and AI developers are not transparent, this moment should be an eye-opener for the prize itself, because they aren’t exactly transparent either. It says as much about the creative output as it does about the basis for judging those outputs.” Is there a way to tell? AI was always going to become an integral part of our existence. Technology has been going in that direction for quite some time, but the hope was that it would — like Rosie in “The Jetsons” — competently perform operational tasks for us, leaving humans to concentrate on creative ones. Instead, we’re being faced with Open AI’s Sam Altman boasting about “a new model that is good at creative writing” and “got the vibe of metafiction so right.” While AI models are proceeding at breakneck speed, even as they negatively impact both planet and people, regulation, legislation, and discernment tools are lagging behind. On Substack, James O’Sullivan posited that stylometry , “a technique within the computational humanities which sets out to measure literary style — i.e., how a text is written, or indeed, by whom it was written,” could be useful in cases like this.


“Count up the most common words in a corpus (which are always function words like ‘the’, ‘and’, ‘of’, ‘I’, ‘was’),” he advised, “standardise those counts against the corpus as a whole, and the resulting profile turns out to be a reasonably reliable identifier of who wrote what.” In another blog post, O’Sullivan agreed that “The Serpent in the Grove” had a few red flags: “Negation staged as the setup for revelation is among the most reliable rhetorical defaults of current language models when asked to perform a literary register.” He also mentioned various aphorisms that have “the cadence of profundity but little real meaning,” “deliberately strange verb-noun pairings,” and “the reflex toward parable in place of incident.” “But maybe,” he continued, “Nazir did write The Serpent, which wouldn’t be the first piece of formulaic fiction to reach award-winning status (I can honestly see ChatGPT receiving a Booker Prize someday).” Bringing the discussion around full circle to the tweet that started the bot-text ball a-rolling, O’Sullivan said, “The framing here is telling.


By calling it a Turing test, Ethan Mollick implicitly conceded the central problem that readers (and publishers) face in the age of LLMs: whether a piece of prose was written by a human can no longer be reliably determined through reading alone. If it could, well then no test would be needed.” He then cut to the heart of the matter : “The consequences of this reach far beyond Nazir. If AI ‘detectors’ and Bluesky accusations are allowed to function as prima facie grounds for a public denunciation of authorship, the writers harmed will be the ones whose stylistic surface overlaps with generative prose for reasons that have nothing to do with AI use.” This includes, from my own editorial experience, writers for whom English is not a first language, academic writing, and flowery prose with an over-reliance on that ubiquitous em dash. Could it also include Jamir Nazir’s “unusual writing process,” which he shared with the UK Observer’s Erica Wagner? “Chronic health conditions which make sustained, desk-bound typing physically impossible,” he told her, require him to write via speech-to-text, with minimal keyboard editing.


It puts a very human face on what many are regarding as a primarily technical or even moral issue. “The problem we now face is this,” O’Sullivan surmises. “[W]e do not want so-called authors winning literary prizes for AI slop, but equally, we don’t want a situation wherein the threshold for being publicly named as a fraud is a screenshot from an AI detector and a Bluesky post.” Vestiges of colonialism I’ve heard all manner of questions raised about this debacle, perhaps the most common being, “How could the judges not have known?” Do you know, without a doubt, that Nazir and the two other accused are guilty of using AI? I don’t, but I’ll tell you what I do know. Despite the prize’s judging panel being as diverse as the regions it serves, they often don’t see us. In Lina Abushouk’s article “How to read postcolonial writing,” she argued that the Foundation’s rationale for choosing the story revealed “a critical vocabulary that has become entirely decorative — terms like ‘richly evocative,’ ‘sensory detail,’ and ‘melodic voice’ floating free of any engagement with the actual sentences on the page.


Nazir’s selection, therefore, is less about him using AI and more about the irony of Euro-American conceptions about the unintelligibility of postcolonial writing.” She went on to explain that “large language models do not invent anything. [T]hey learn to predict what kinds of sentences tend to follow other kinds of sentences. This means that when an LLM generates ‘literary’ fiction set in the postcolonial Caribbean, it does not reach for originality — it reaches for the most probable version of what such fiction has looked like in the texts it has been trained on. It reproduces the expected atmospheric density, the expected weight of landscape and labor, and the expected imagery of poverty and endurance. The scandal is that the existing formulae for ‘authentic’ postcolonial prose are already so codified that a language model can reproduce them convincingly. In this way, AI does not disrupt literary taste so much as expose its furniture.” Abushouk continued , “Others have pointed out that some of the judges themselves are from the Global South, which would mean it is not a simple story of metropolitan outsiders imposing their expectations.


But actually, this would make it something more insidious: a set of aesthetic assumptions so thoroughly institutionalized that they can be reproduced from within.” Comparing the whole affair with Amos Tutuola ’s relationship with Faber and Faber in the 1950s, Abushouk surmised, “Faber did not celebrate him despite his linguistic unevenness […] they celebrated him because of it. The ‘wrongness’ of the English was the point — it authenticated the primitive. […] The structure of the error is identical across seven decades: Incoherence that would disqualify a European writer is reframed as authenticity when it is attached to the right cultural geography. This is what the AI controversy ultimately reveals — not a new problem introduced by technology, but an old one made newly legible.” The issue of access The notion of Tutuola being perceived as “ ungrammatical ” gave me pause. I thought back to Wagner’s interaction with Nazir, and her musings after an AI checker determined his headshot was either heavily edited or AI-generated: “Why wouldn’t you use all the tools available to you if it was hard for you to get a decent headshot done?”