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Lebanon: Media’s 'Retreat' from Covering the Movement Angers Activists 

Demonstrators carry national flags during an anti-government protest in Tripoli, Lebanon October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim
Demonstrators carry national flags during an anti-government protest in Tripoli, Lebanon October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim
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Lebanon: Media’s 'Retreat' from Covering the Movement Angers Activists 

Demonstrators carry national flags during an anti-government protest in Tripoli, Lebanon October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim
Demonstrators carry national flags during an anti-government protest in Tripoli, Lebanon October 21, 2019. REUTERS/Omar Ibrahim

Many of the Lebanese popular movement activists expressed their displeasure with the media’s “retreat” over the past few weeks after they had played a critical role in the first period after the revolt erupted on the 17th of October.   
 
While some link this retreat to the loss of some of the movement’s momentum because of the holidays and the bad weather, others believe that the power retained their grip over media.  

Lucian Bourjeili, an activist, believes: "With the beginning of the new year, TV stations started hosting the rulers who bankrupted the country again, in an attempt to whitewash their image. This reminds me of what happened in the last parliamentary elections when politicians used their money to monopolize screen time and make false promises."
 
Walid Abboud, the editor in chief of MTV, refuses the accusation that media coverage retreated, emphasizing that, at least not in the media institutions which he works for which, according to Abboud “is still covering the events that lost their momentum due to several factors, including the weather, the holidays and other reasons."

"We are not in the position of creating or igniting events but in the position of covering them when they happen,” he added.

Abboud goes on to tell Asharq Al-Awsat: “Live coverage compels, to a certain extent, more people to join the revolutions by showing them the revolution’s beautiful and expressive scenes”.

Abboud believes that it is likely that the momentum will return in the next few days, emphasizing that the TV channel which he works for will: "Cover the events with the same enthusiasm as before, despite deductions to our long-overdue salaries because of the economic and financial crisis that is hurting institutions across the country." 
 
A study issued by the Maharat (Talents) Foundation on “freedom of expression and the media during the October 17 revolution” said that freedom of expression “reached a degree that Lebanon had not previously known during the revolution and broke the limits that had prevailed.

Some of the criticism leveled at the political class could be considered defamation, with public accusations of corruption and theft. This criticism has become part of revolutionaries’ daily discourse, expressed publicly through various media outlets and social media platforms without fear or ambiguity.

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Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
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Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)

Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country's entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.

The North African nation projects this year's harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.

"In the past, we used to have a bounty — a lot of wheat. But during the last seven or eight years, the harvest has been very low because of the drought," said Al Housni Belhoussni, a small-scale farmer who has long tilled fields outside of the city of Kenitra.

Belhoussni's plight is familiar to grain farmers throughout the world confronting a hotter and drier future. Climate change is imperiling the food supply and shrinking the annual yields of cereals that dominate diets around the world — wheat, rice, maize and barley.

In North Africa, among the regions thought of as most vulnerable to climate change, delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.

In Morocco, where cereals account for most of the farmed land and agriculture employs the majority of workers in rural regions, the drought is wreaking havoc and touching off major changes that will transform the makeup of the economy. It has forced some to leave their fields fallow. It has also made the areas they do elect to cultivate less productive, producing far fewer sacks of wheat to sell than they once did.

In response, the government has announced restrictions on water use in urban areas — including on public baths and car washes — and in rural ones, where water going to farms has been rationed.

"The late rains during the autumn season affected the agriculture campaign. This year, only the spring rains, especially during the month of March, managed to rescue the crops," said Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of Nalsya. The organization has advised farmers on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation as less rain falls and less water flows through Morocco's rivers.

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year's wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.4 million tons (3.1 billion kilograms), far less than last year's 6.1 million tons (5.5 billion kilograms) — a yield that was still considered low. The amount of land seeded has dramatically shrunk as well, from 14,170 square miles (36,700 square kilometers) to 9,540 square miles (24,700 square kilometers).

Such a drop constitutes a crisis, said Driss Aissaoui, an analyst and former member of the Moroccan Ministry for Agriculture.

"When we say crisis, this means that you have to import more," he said. "We are in a country where drought has become a structural issue."

Leaning more on imports means the government will have to continue subsidizing prices to ensure households and livestock farmers can afford dietary staples for their families and flocks, said Rachid Benali, the chairman of the farming lobby COMADER.

The country imported nearly 2.5 million tons of common wheat between January and June. However, such a solution may have an expiration date, particularly because Morocco's primary source of wheat, France, is facing shrinking harvests as well.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization ranked Morocco as the world's sixth-largest wheat importer this year, between Türkiye and Bangladesh, which both have much bigger populations.

"Morocco has known droughts like this and in some cases known droughts that las longer than 10 years. But the problem, this time especially, is climate change," Benali said.