When Maria Kartasheva and her husband realized that the political situation in Russia had become unsafe for them, they decided to move to Canada.
But when Maria applied for citizenship in their new home, the Canadian government learned of her persecution in Russia: Maria had been charged by a court in Moscow for spreading fake news about the Russian army because she posted on social media about the Bucha massacre. Her application for Canadian citizenship was subsequently rejected.
Maria told Blue Marble that it was the kind of treatment she expected from Russia but not from Canada. “I felt so betrayed,” she said.
So she went public. Soon the media was covering her story and people were writing in support of her citizenship. Facing pressure, Canada granted her citizenship in a private ceremony.
Maria went on to petition the Canadian government to implement a series of laws that would prevent others from going through what she had. Now, as a director of the Russian Canadian Democratic Alliance, she helps represent other Russian citizens living in Canada.
Climate activist Umesh Balal Magar’s hometown is in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal.
“We are facing the huge water crisis in the rural areas,” he told Blue Marble.
“Those impact especially the Indigenous community. And inside the Indigenous, also there are people with disabilities, and we are the most vulnerable people.”
Early warning systems for environmental catastrophes such as floods are not disabled-friendly, he said.
A deaf person cannot hear a warning siren, and a blind person cannot read an emergency text alert.
Due to the current state of Nepal’s infrastructure, people cannot always move wheelchairs easily.
“The problem is, these are also not mentioned in the policy, these are not also mentioned in the rescue plan,” he said. “I just think, how can I advocate for the climate change and disability?” Umesh has taken his call for disability rights in the climate movement from Nepal to international platforms, and it's making a difference.
This work needs your support
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to break down the most complex global issues so you have the info you need to build a better world.
“As a global community, we had said we’d like to eliminate malaria by 2030,” said Krystal Birungi, a field entomology coordinator for Target Malaria Uganda.
But we are currently off-target from that goal. Insecticide and drug resistance are two large reasons why, since they enable malaria-carrying mosquitoes to adapt to current prevention efforts.
Birungi and her team at Target Malaria are working on creating genetic technology to eradicate the disease.
Because malaria is spread by female mosquitoes, the team is using what is called a gene drive to alter their genetics. This means that, when eggs are laid, they’re mostly male rather than female. The genes will pass down from generation to generation, increasing the ratio of male mosquitoes to female ones. They also use this technology to pass along female infertility as a genetic trait, in order to create self-sustaining controls on malaria-carrying mosquito populations.
While many may feel removed from the realities of malaria, Birungi emphasizes that it is a large issue in Africa. Many families there fear the death of their children and family members by the disease — especially in households without the means to afford insecticides or mosquito nets for protection.
Defeating malaria is going to require a global effort, Birungi believes. “Let’s not wait until we have a million more deaths. Because that is what it is — like, for as long as we don’t eliminate it, it’s lives,” she said.
This work needs your support
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to break down the most complex global issues so you have the info you need to build a better world.
Yakir Renbaum grew up in a settlement outside of Jerusalem and learned that going beyond the fences of the settlement was considered dangerous.
His curiosity about what was happening on the other side, and his interest in Palestinian perspectives, led him to start learning Arabic at the age of 17.
During his trips into Jerusalem, Renbaum would use the minimal Arabic he knew to ask questions to Palestinians he came across. He hoped to understand their perspective, culture, and more. He went on to study literary Arabic and Middle Eastern history in school, which led him to become appreciative of the culture he was learning about.
Renbaum wanted to use his knowledge to enact change in the dynamic between Jews and Arabs in the region.
Today, Renbaum no longer lives in a settlement. He works for Hand in Hand, a network of bilingual schools in Israel, where Jewish and Palestinian children are able to learn side by side under the tutelage of both Jewish and Palestinian teachers.
“If we can raise all the kids in Israel and Palestine in this way, we would have different adults,” Renbaum said. “Breaking the barrier using language, showing that we can actually live here together.”
This work needs your support
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to break down the most complex global issues so you have the info you need to build a better world.
In short: The U.S. and France recently added to a growing chorus of legislation attempting to regulate PFAS or “forever chemicals,” citing links to harmful health effects, including cancer. Found in household items such as nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and stain-resistant fabrics, PFAS earned their “forever” nickname because of how long it takes for them to break down. While many PFAS chemicals are unregulated worldwide, more countries are acting to limit them, since they have been found in soil, water, and even people’s bloodstreams.
What are PFAS?
PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are man-made chemicals that can be found in everything from furniture to food packaging.
The first PFAS chemical was PCTFE, a compound created in 1934 by two German scientists. PTFE — which you may know by its commercial name, Teflon — followed in 1938. Today, though, the most researched and arguably best-known PFAS is a compound called PFOA.
Like other PFAS, PFOA is chemically resistant to water, grease, stains, oil, and heat, which, in its heyday, made it a common chemical to use in household items, including cookware, rain jackets, and cleaning products.
The properties that make PFOA and other PFAS so durable, though, also make them very difficult to break down in the body. Due to the strong bond between the compounds’ carbon and fluorine atoms, it can take over seven years for PFAS in a person’s bloodstream to reduce by half. Lead, which has been regulated since the 1970s in the U.S., takes just 32 days.
Why are countries regulating PFAS?
According to internal documents, the PFAS mass-manufacturer 3M knew at least as early as 1970 that the chemical PFOA had toxic effects in fish. Further research suggested that, by the end of the '70s, those effects had spread to humans, particularly those who worked in PFAS manufacturing. Manufacturers knew that potentially damaging PFAS were accumulating in people’s bloodstreams, but little was done to communicate that threat to the public – and by the turn of the century, the chemicals’ spread was near-universal. In 2007, a U.S. study on members of the public found PFAS in more than 98% of blood samples.
3M, DuPont, and PFAS
3M and DuPont were at the forefront of developing PFAS in the 1940s and, later, in covering up the chemicals’ harmful health effects. DuPont trademarked Teflon in 1945, and 3M was the first major commercial manufacturer of PFOA. A study in the Annals of Global Health found that both companies knew PFAS could be “highly toxic when inhaled and moderately toxic when ingested” by 1970, decades before the dangers were publicly known. Both companies have been embroiled in multiple lawsuits over PFAS, the first being a 1999 lawsuit against DuPont. In 2023, 3M agreed to pay out at least $10.3 billion in settlements.
Governments gradually started banning the chemicals as these ill effects became more widely known. PFOA, which was both highly toxic and highly susceptible to ingestion due to its popularity in cookware, was a major target of these early regulations. The European Union began regulating PFOA in 2008 and outright banned the compound in 2020. The U.S. started phasing the compound out in 2003, ultimately outlawing it in 2014. In 2020, PFOAs were banned worldwide as part of the Stockholm Convention, a global health treaty between 186 countries.
While PFOA isn’t used in commercial products anymore, the chemical is still found in the environment, and manufacturers have turned to less regulated PFAS to create the same effects.
As the chemicals continue to proliferate, an increasing number of studies have shown an association between PFAS exposure and health issues including cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease, asthma, and decreased fertility. Because of this (and despite decades of lobbying by the chemical industry), more and more countries are working to regulate the chemicals.
The Overview newsletter
The news you need to navigate our world, delivered to your inbox every weekday afternoon.
The U.S. is also subject to several other PFAS restrictions. The Toxic Substances Control Act requires manufacturers to report to the EPA on the chemicals’ production and hazards, and, at the local level, at least 28 states have implemented one or more laws regulating PFAS. In February, the Food and Drug Administration announced that, thanks to years of pressure and legislation, all American food manufacturers had stopped the use of PFAS in food packaging.
Australia has had policies regulating PFAS for at least six years, including a 2019 law requiring companies that manufacture the chemicals to evaluate potential health risks for any new types of PFAS before putting them on the market. Australian landowners have also sued their government on multiple occasions over PFAS contamination, including in a case last year where the government had to pay $132.7 million AUD (about $88 million USD) to about 30,000 landowners who argued that their land had been contaminated from PFAS used in firefighting foam on military bases.
In February, Japan proposed regulations that would create a “tolerable daily intake” of PFAS in food and drinks – a measure that may be difficult to enforce, since some water samples in the country have been found to contain more than 700 times the proposed daily limit.
In short: From tents to toilets to bags of food, there’s one thing much of humanitarian aid has in common: logos. The logos emblazoned on aid products often have practical purposes, including alerting a receiver to the legitimacy of the aid package, ensuring aid workers are easily recognizable in conflict zones, and even demonstrating an organization’s – or country’s – on-the-ground commitment in a crisis. But as organizations fight for funding and countries vie for international clout, the “soft power” move behind branded aid is beginning to show – and one NGO is over it.
Branding on U.S.-funded humanitarian aid dates back at least as far as 1961. That year, President John F. Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development – the body responsible for administering aid on behalf of the government, known commonly as USAID – and introduced the Foreign Assistance Act, which established rules for how humanitarian aid would be delivered.
One of the act’s provisions was a marking requirement, stipulating that all aid products funded under the law must be branded as “American Aid.” Some USAID packages would even require the label “from the American people” – a motto that’s become much more common in the agency’s branding over the decades.
USAID humanitarian aid at a warehouse at the Tienditas International Bridge on the outskirts of Cucuta, Colombia, Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019. (Photo: Fernando Vergara / AP)
What is “soft power,” and how does branded aid contribute to it?
Coined by political scientist Joseph Nye Jr. in the 1980s, the term “soft power” represents a nation’s capacity “to influence others without resorting to coercive pressure.”
One recognizable example of soft power is the Peace Corps, which was created during the Cold War “to win hearts and minds” in developing countries that hadn’t allied themselves with Russia or the U.S.
Foreign aid is another common soft power tool, especially when it features prominent branding that identifies the donor country. Through aid, governments send money, goods, and services to other countries to advance their interests, foster goodwill and strengthen partnerships.
After 9/11, the U.S. began to consider foreign aid a key part of its national security strategy. While there was a clear humanitarian reason to provide increased assistance to anti-terrorism efforts, there was also an underlying motivation: If the U.S. gave countries aid, then the hope was that the U.S. would be viewed more positively. For example, in 2004, USAID sent $400 million to Indonesia after an earthquake and tsunami hit the country. The Pew Research Center largely credited this act with doubling the U.S.’s favorability in the country six months after the event.
The Overview newsletter
The news you need to navigate our world, delivered to your inbox every weekday afternoon.
The U.S. isn’t alone in these types of efforts, though. For many of the most powerful countries in the world, branded aid can be a way to make their country more liked, as it demonstrates their global engagement and leadership in the developing or conflict-stricken nations that receive the aid.
Visibility is another factor at play with branded aid, since prominent branding can help organizations like UNICEF generate more donations in a highly competitive funding landscape.
“When agencies post these logos on toilets, schools, objects, it's very much about gaining visibility to donor audiences through the international media," University of Sheffield lecturer Dmitry Chernobrov told NPR in 2018.
A student walks to school with a UNICEF backpack in Tacloban, Leyte province in central Philippines, Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014. (Photo: Bullit Marquez / AP )
Why are some organizations moving away from branded aid?
While logos can help organizations generate donations in a competitive environment, Norwegian Refugee Council head Jan Egeland said they have created a visibility “arms race,” leading to a “carnival of names and flags and logos” on everything from tents to toilets.
Branded aid can also erode citizens’ trust in their own governments, which often work with the aid groups to deliver supplies. The exclusive display of external countries’ or organizations’ logos can potentially undermine and delegitimize local government efforts, writes W. Gyude Moore, former Liberian public works minister.
In a 2023 interview with the New Humanitarian, Egeland said branding can also be harmful to aid recipients, since it risks making them unwitting, walking advertisements for aid groups.
That last sentiment, though, isn’t universal. In 2018, for instance, NPR spoke with Cedric Habiyaremye, a Rwandan scientist who lived in a Tanzanian refugee settlement as a child. (Habiyaremye was also affiliated with the Chicago Council on Global Affairs as a Next Generation Delegate for the Global Food Security Symposium.)
He told NPR that seeing the logo for the World Food Programme on aid trucks coming into the camp was “a very reassuring time of day.”
"No one complained that the logos were demeaning or humiliating," Habiyaremye said. "I feel that I am glad I got to know who served me at the refugee camp."
The safety of aid workers
While logos are meant in part to identify aid workers and keep them from harm, attacks on aid groups have grown in recent years. According to the Aid Worker Security Organization, there were 131 attacks on aid workers in 2010 and nearly double that number in 2022. Recently, an Israeli drone strike killed seven aid workers in a clearly marked World Central Kitchen convoy who were operating in Gaza. Over 200 aid workers – most of them Palestinian – have been killed in the enclave since the Israel-Hamas war started on Oct. 7, 2023.
Vehicle with the World Central Kitchen logo wrecked by an Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Tuesday, April 2, 2024. (Photo: Ismael Abu Dayyah / AP)
Could global aid go generic?
In April 2024, the NRC announced that they would be working to significantly reduce the use of logos on aid supplies and infrastructure.
“In the ideal world,” said Egeland, “I would see us branding our own structures – I mean a warehouse, the office, our vehicles – so that you know who we are and where we go,” but not always branding the aid products themselves.
There are numerous factors, though, that could prevent the NRC and other organizations from achieving brandless aid. The main issue: “visibility” is required in many aid project contracts, including those overseen by the EU and, thanks to the Foreign Assistance Act, those run by USAID. Until such requirements are lifted, generic aid could have trouble gaining ground.
This work needs your support
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to break down the most complex global issues so you have the info you need to build a better world.
A United Nations report released Wednesday found that the number of people experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity more than doubled last year compared to 2019. Of the more than 281 million people facing acute food insecurity worldwide, 705,200 in five countries and territories are facing “catastrophe,” the most extreme level of food insecurity and a classification that’s often used interchangeably with “famine.”
Famine is defined by the U.N. as the convergence of three conditions: at least 20% of the population is facing extreme hunger, meaning they go days eating little or nothing; 30% of children are too thin for their height; and the average death rate from hunger or disease has doubled.
In the Gaza Strip, one-quarter of the population — 576,600 people — are facing catastrophe or famine.
Minimal: Over 80% of households are able to eat over 2,100 calories per person, per day — which is generally regarded as the threshold for sufficient daily intake — and less than 5% of people are malnourished.
Stressed: At least 20% of households are struggling to reach a sufficient caloric intake each day, and 5% to 10% of people are malnourished.
Crisis: At least 20% of households are either malnourished or “adopting irreversible coping strategies,” like selling items essential to their livelihoods, to support their diet. Acute malnutrition rates are between 10% to 15%.
Emergency: At least 20% of households are “facing extreme food shortages.” Disease levels are “excessively high,” and people are at a fast-increasing risk of dying from hunger. Malnutrition rates are between 15% and 30%.
Catastrophe or famine: At least 20% of households have “almost no food,” and “starvation, death and destitution are apparent.” The acute malnutrition rate is over 30%, and two of every 10,000 people are starving to death each day.
This work needs your support
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to break down the most complex global issues so you have the info you need to build a better world.
In short: In 2023, at least 81 bills banning Chinese ownership of U.S. land were introduced across 33 states, at the same time that the federal government was ramping up efforts to restrict or investigate Chinese-owned businesses like TikTok and Temu. Some legislators say Chinese ownership of U.S. land presents a national security risk, but the acreage actually held by China in the States is relatively small. As of 2021, China owned less than 1% of all foreign-held land in the U.S. Canada, by contrast, held the most at 12.8 million acres — more than the entire area of Vermont and New Hampshire combined.
Which countries own the most U.S. land?
According to a USDA Farm Service Agency report, foreign individuals and entities had a stake in about 40 million acres of U.S. farm and forest land at the end of 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available. That’s about 3.1% of the country’s privately held farm and forest land.
Of all foreign-owned U.S. land, Canadian investors owned the most at 12.8 million acres. This makes up 31% of all foreign-owned U.S. land.
Four other countries held 12.4 million acres combined, or another 31% of foreign-owned land: the Netherlands (12%), Italy (7%), the United Kingdom (6%), and Germany (6%). China holds less than 1%.
The remaining 15.6 million acres are split up among around 100 other countries, including India, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.
The amount of agricultural land that’s foreign-owned has grown significantly in recent years. In 2011, 26 million acres were owned by foreign investors — less than two-thirds the acreage held by foreign interests in 2021. Though USDA data since 2021 is not as substantive, it shows that this trend is continuing: In 2022, foreign-owned acreage grew to 43.4 million.
The Overview newsletter
The news you need to navigate our world, delivered to your inbox every weekday afternoon.
In most states, very little land is foreign-held. The exception to this is Maine, where a fifth of all privately held land is at least partially foreign-owned. Most of that land is forest controlled by Canadian owners, particularly the Canadian timber company Irving Woodlands, which owns at least 1.255 million acres in Maine, or about a third of the state’s foreign-owned land. Maine and Texas – which are the top two states for most foreign-held lands – have no laws restricting foreign ownership of land.
At the county level, Aroostook County in northern Maine has one of the highest percentages of foreign-owned land. It’s also one of the main counties where Irving operates in Maine, having owned large parcels of land in the county since at least 1999. Nearly half of Aroostook County’s 6,671 square miles are foreign-owned – but, at the national level, this is an extraordinary outlier. Most American counties have single-digit percentages of foreign landownership, or less.
Why do they own U.S. land?
According to the USDA report, almost half of all foreign-held U.S. land is timber or forest land, 29% is for crops, and 22% is pasture or other agricultural land. Only about 2% of foreign-held land is non-agricultural.
“Agricultural land can be a great investment,” said Michigan State University agriculture professor David Ortega in a Q and A with the college. “Foreign entities have bought this land for food production, energy projects such as wind or solar farms, or as an investment due to its stable growth and returns.”
In 2023, the average value of farm real estate in the U.S. hit $4,080 an acre – nearly double what it was worth in 2007.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office notes that wind farms have been a particular driver of the recent increase in foreign-held land. As the office explains, many foreign companies have begun leasing pastures and farmland in recent years to build wind turbines.
Why are lawmakers concerned about Chinese landownership?
Many of the state legislators who have supported bills to limit Chinese landownership cite national security concerns — for instance, that the Chinese government could use the land to set up espionage operations or that U.S. food security could be threatened if too much farmland is bought up. This was partially sparked by an alleged Chinese spy balloon seen flying across the country in 2023.
Can foreign governments themselves own land?
While foreign governments can own or have a financial stake in U.S. land, it’s not typical, Michigan State University agriculture professor David Ortega said in a 2023 testimony to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. (The Chinese government, for instance, does not hold any.) The landownership statistics compiled by the USDA show that multiple types of foreign entities currently own U.S. land, including individuals, corporations, associations, estates, and institutions as well as governments.
A 2022 Chinese land purchase in the U.S. also raised concerns. That spring, a food producer called Fufeng Group bought 370 acres for corn milling near an Air Force base in North Dakota. This prompted the Biden administration to propose a new rule: any foreign company or individual who wants to buy land within 100 miles of certain U.S. military bases (the North Dakota base included) needs government approval.
While Chinese ownership of U.S. land has been a hot topic among lawmakers — even becoming the center of a Montana Senate race this year — China only had a stake in 383,935 acres of U.S. land as of 2021, which is less than 1% of all foreign-held land.
It’s worth noting that a 2023 NBC investigation found that the foreign ownership reporting system is “lax and enforcement minimal,” with some purchases not reported to the USDA for years, but there is little evidence that Chinese land ownership in the U.S. exceeds its reported boundaries by any significant margin.
In testimony to the Senate agriculture committee in September, Michigan State’s Ortega said, “China’s investments in foreign agriculture are largely driven by its desire to build food self-sufficiency.” Former USDA chief economist Joe Glauber told the Washington Post that Chinese ownership of U.S. farmland is “literally a drop in the bucket.”
Despite this, in 2023 alone, at least 81 bills were proposed across 33 states that would restrict Chinese ownership of farmland and of any land near military bases. At least one of those bills passed, a Florida law that banned those who are not U.S. citizens and are “domiciled” in China from buying land or buildings. But the bill was blocked by a U.S. appeals court in February.
Though this new wave of Chinese land restrictions is notable in its volume (and its disproportionality to the amount of land that China actually owns in the U.S.), placing some limits on foreign landownership is a fairly common practice. About half of all states have laws restricting foreign landownership in some capacity, according to the National Agricultural Law Center, and at least 11 federal bills on the topic have been proposed in the last three years.
“We expect the political rhetoric on this to escalate and also expect more legislation to be introduced and passed,” John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, told the Washington Post. “Even state legislators want to appear to be tough on China right now, and they are grasping for things that they can control in their own state legislatures to show that they are being tough.”
This work needs your support
Your tax-deductible donation enables us to break down the most complex global issues so you have the info you need to build a better world.
Tharma Pillai co-founded Undi18 in 2016 to advocate that Malaysia lower its voting age from 21 to 18. At the time, Malaysia was one of nine countries that prohibited anyone under the age of 21 from voting in an election.
In 2019, the bill passed. But a year later, an ultra-conservative government took power and used a COVID-19 pandemic lockdown as an opportunity to shut down Malaysia’s parliament and pause the work of Pillai and his colleagues.
Still, they persisted and rallied in the streets for the cause — and their efforts were not in vain. In 2021, the Undi18 Bill passed, and 5.8 million new voters joined Malaysia’s electoral roll.
“All of this from a simple idea by two college kids,” Pillai said.
Sami al-Gada and Hassan Tibwa were students at the International University of Africa when the war in Sudan broke out. Neither thought the war would last longer than a few days. They were wrong.
Soon, the pair of friends realized the place they called home was forever changed. They began to assist people stuck in downtown Khartoum who were trying to escape the violence. It wasn’t a move they planned, but they knew they couldn’t sit by.
What started as helping one person turned into helping dozens evacuate before it was time for the students to leave the country themselves. “We are hoping one day to get back to life,” Tibwa said.
