Carib Scope

标签： Suriname

苏里南

  • Overeenkomst LVV basis voor landbouwproject waarbij Mennonieten zijn betrokken

    Overeenkomst LVV basis voor landbouwproject waarbij Mennonieten zijn betrokken

    Newly released public contractual documents and a 10-year business plan have cast fresh clarity on the complex structure behind a controversial large-scale agricultural development project in Suriname, confirming that Mennonite farmers who migrated to the country for the initiative do not hold any formal stake in the state land agreement at the heart of the project.

    The deal, signed January 13, 2026, between Suriname’s Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (LVV) and local entity Braganza Marketing Group N.V. — the firm that recruited the Mennonite farmers to work on the project — grants the company conditional use rights to 9,366.72 hectares of state-owned land in Suriname’s Para district for an initial 20-year term. The land remains the formal property of the Surinamese state, and Braganza holds a non-transferable right to use the plot exclusively for large-scale mechanized agriculture and related agribusiness activities. Under the terms of the agreement, Braganza is required to bring at least 10 percent of the total allocated area under cultivation every year to retain its access rights. What makes the arrangement notable is that despite the Mennonite farmers being central to the project’s on-the-ground implementation, their names do not appear anywhere in the formal public contract between LVV and Braganza.

    LVV Minister Mike Noersalim had previously stated that his ministry never entered into a separate agreement with the Mennonite community, noting that the ministry’s contract was exclusively with the Surinamese registered firm for the production of commodity crops including soybeans and corn, and that Braganza did not present itself as a representative of the migrating farmers during negotiations. Braganza, however, has publicly confirmed its plan to rely on Mennonite agricultural workers for the project’s two core sites: one group of Mennonites from Belize for the Tibiti site, and a second contingent from Mexico for the Kabalebo site.

    During a recent visit to the Tibiti area by members of Suriname’s National Assembly and journalists, Peter Petersen, a Mennonite leader from Belize, explained that his group was recruited to Suriname by Lionel Blokland and Ruud Souverein, two figures connected to Braganza. Petersen said his community sold all of their assets in Belize and shipped heavy farm machinery to Suriname under the expectation that they would be able to operate large-scale farms on the Para district land. His group, he added, expects to use more than 9,000 hectares and has agreed to pay $150 per hectare for access, though details of who receives this payment and what contractual rights the group holds remain unclear.

    Braganza’s 2022-2031 business plan, also made public, shows that plans for the Tibiti and Kabalebo sites have been in development for nearly a decade, with the firm explicitly outlining its goal to produce soy and corn across the two concessions. The plan also highlights the project’s international backing, naming Adrian Barbero of Bolivia-based Rural Real Estate Investments Ltd. (RREI) as a lead initiator. According to the document, RREI brings more than 30 years of experience investing in large-scale agriculture and livestock operations across South America, with a track record of developing and acquiring large agricultural concessions across multiple regional countries where “agricultural specialist colonies” operate. While the plan does not explicitly confirm these colonies refer to Mennonite communities, it is now verified that Braganza has specifically recruited Mennonite farmers to carry out on-ground work for its Suriname projects. RREI, alongside Blokland, is listed as a stakeholder in Braganza Marketing Group, with international investors planning to contribute their own capital to develop agriculture, livestock, and dairy projects across the allocated Surinamese land.

    The disclosures confirm a clear structural separation: the Surinamese state has granted land access to Braganza, not directly to the Mennonite farmers, who are only involved as contracted workers through the local firm. Crucially, no details of the private agreement between Braganza and the Mennonite community — including terms for land use, per-hectare payments, investment responsibilities, or profit sharing — appear in the public contract with LVV or the released business plan. This lack of transparency raises regulatory questions, as the LVV-Braganza agreement explicitly bans transferring use rights to any third party without the ministry’s prior written approval.

  • Rechtstaat ondermijnd door vrijlopende moordenaar

    Rechtstaat ondermijnd door vrijlopende moordenaar

    Four decades after the devastating December 8, 1982 killings that shook Suriname, the legacy of unresolved justice remains a open wound for grieving families and a stain on the country’s democratic institutions. In a forceful statement released September 16, Stichting 8 December 1982 (the December 8, 1982 Foundation) has issued a sharp condemnation of the Surinamese government’s ongoing failure to detain Leendert Dijksteel, a convicted murderer directly implicated in the 1982 mass killing case, who remains at large decades after his conviction.

    For the relatives of the 15 unarmed civilian victims killed in the 1982 incident, this unaddressed injustice has turned a court verdict into a hollow promise. While a court has formally handed down a guilty finding against Dijksteel, no authority has moved to enforce that ruling, leaving the convicted killer free to move across the country while victim’s families continue to grapple with the pain of losing their loved ones. The foundation describes this reality as completely unacceptable: a core violation of the basic promise of justice that a state owes to its citizens.

    Worse, the foundation argues, this ongoing failure to enforce the conviction undermines the very foundations of Suriname’s rule of law. A nation that allows convicted violent offenders to evade custody and lets suspects disappear without trace cannot credibly claim to be a functioning, rights-respecting state. The persistent impunity for Dijksteel carries four far-reaching harms that damage Suriname’s social and political fabric, the foundation outlines.

    First, it enables outright impunity for a severe crime against humanity, sending a dangerous message that grave violence against civilians can go unpunished. Second, it systematically erodes public trust in the country’s judiciary and law enforcement agencies, when citizens see that even finalized court rulings are not enforced. Third, it poses a direct, ongoing threat to public safety: a convicted mass murderer is able to move freely through communities, with no oversight to prevent further harm. Fourth, the failure to act violates Suriname’s binding international human rights obligations, as the country is a signatory to multiple international treaties that require states to guarantee equal access to justice and uphold the rule of law for all.

    In closing, the foundation issued an urgent demand to Suriname’s national authorities: launch immediate, full-scale efforts using every available resource to locate and take Dijksteel into custody without delay. Only through decisive, forceful action can Suriname demonstrate that its legal system does not bend to political convenience or bureaucratic apathy, the foundation says. Only by enforcing this conviction can the country prove that its justice system exists first to protect its citizens, and to honor the memory of the 15 people killed on December 8, 1982.

    The statement was signed by Sunil Oemrawsingh, chair of Stichting 8 December 1982.

  • PAHO opent toegang tot halfjaarlijkse hiv-preventie-injectie in 14 landen

    PAHO opent toegang tot halfjaarlijkse hiv-preventie-injectie in 14 landen

    Fourteen countries across Latin America are set to expand their HIV prevention toolkit after the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) secured a landmark access agreement with U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences for lenacapavir, a groundbreaking long-acting pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) administered just twice per year.

    The deal covers Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, with Suriname excluded from this specific arrangement. Participating nations will be able to purchase the drug through PAHO’s Regional Revolving Fund, a bulk procurement mechanism that aggregates demand across multiple countries to secure lower prices and more reliable supply of critical health products compared to individual national purchases. Before the drug can be rolled out to at-risk populations, each country must still complete national regulatory approval and program implementation processes.

    Unlike traditional oral PrEP that requires daily adherence, lenacapavir is delivered via injection just once every six months. The World Health Organization (WHO) formally endorsed lenacapavir as an additional HIV prevention option in 2025, following clinical trial data published by PAHO showing the drug achieves nearly 100% effectiveness in blocking new HIV infections. This half-yearly dosing model fills a critical gap for people who struggle to maintain daily or frequent dosing schedules required by existing prevention methods.

    Public health data underscores the urgent need for expanded prevention tools across the region: PAHO records roughly 140,000 new HIV infections annually in Latin America and the Caribbean. “The Americas have access to increasingly effective tools to prevent HIV, but these innovations only make an impact if they reach the people who need them most,” said PAHO Director Jarbas Barbosa. He noted the new agreement will help narrow gaps in access to lenacapavir and give countries more flexible options to expand their prevention outreach. This procurement arrangement operates alongside existing voluntary licensing agreements for lenacapavir that already cover 24 Latin American and Caribbean nations, as part of a broader global access program reaching 120 countries worldwide.

    In a complementary commitment included in the deal, Gilead has agreed to pursue technology transfer to Brazil to enable local manufacturing of lenacapavir in the future. No firm timeline or specific operational structure for local production has been finalized, but PAHO projects that regional manufacturing will boost long-term drug availability and create more sustainable, affordable procurement pathways for the region.

    Rollout of lenacapavir into national HIV programs will proceed in a phased, gradual manner. Participating countries will need to update national public health regulations and clinical treatment guidelines, train healthcare workers on administration and patient support, and adapt existing care systems to integrate the new prevention option.

    Lenacapavir will complement existing HIV prevention tools currently available across the region, including daily and on-demand oral PrEP, another long-acting injectable option called cabotegravir, and condoms. PAHO frames the expansion of prevention options as a core part of regional efforts to cut new infection rates further and achieve the global target of ending HIV as a public health threat by 2030.

  • Wereldeconomie onder druk door hoge rente, dure olie en dreigende handelsfragmentatie

    Wereldeconomie onder druk door hoge rente, dure olie en dreigende handelsfragmentatie

    The global economy is currently navigating a dangerous confluence of overlapping risks, from spiking financing costs and surging crude oil prices to growing geopolitical tensions that threaten to rip apart the established multilateral trading system. The World Trade Organization (WTO) has issued an urgent new warning that accelerating fragmentation of global trade could result in trillions of dollars in cumulative economic losses across the globe, even as bond markets in major economies signal mounting pressure from high interest rates and persistent inflation concerns.

    Yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury bonds have now climbed above the 5% threshold, matching multi-year highs for borrowing costs seen across most other major advanced economies. According to industry reports, average financing costs for leading industrialized nations have reached levels not seen in decades, driven by persistent market anxiety over stubborn inflation, expanding government budget deficits, and the likelihood that major central banks will keep interest rates elevated for an extended period to bring price growth under control.

    Compounding these financial market pressures is a sharp recent rally in global crude oil prices. On Tuesday, benchmark Brent crude traded above $107 per barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude also crossed the $100 per barrel mark. The renewed run-up in energy costs has reignited fears that inflation will remain stickier than policymakers and investors currently expect, potentially forcing further monetary tightening that would push borrowing costs even higher.

    Higher sovereign bond yields ripple out across every corner of the global economy, pushing up borrowing costs for nearly all participants. Governments face higher interest expenses when issuing new debt or refinancing maturing obligations, while business loans and consumer credit products from mortgages to auto loans also grow more expensive. Countries with high debt loads or large ongoing refinancing needs are disproportionately exposed to this pressure, leaving them vulnerable to fiscal strain in the coming months.

    Against this unstable macroeconomic backdrop, the WTO used its newly released 2026 World Trade Report to sound the alarm on a second, longer-term threat to global growth: the split of the global trading system into competing geopolitical and economic blocs. The organization emphasized that the current multilateral trading framework is at a critical crossroads, as it has failed to evolve quickly enough to keep pace with seismic shifts in the global economy, including changing global power balances, rising state intervention in markets, rapid digitalization, and escalating geopolitical frictions that have eroded cooperation.

    The potential economic damage from full fragmentation is staggering. WTO economists modeled two plausible fragmentation scenarios, and both project deep global output losses. In a scenario where the world splits into two geopolitically aligned trading blocs, global gross domestic product (GDP) would be 5.1% lower than a baseline scenario of continued existing cooperation, while global exports would drop by 18.6% relative to the baseline.

    The harm is even more severe in a second scenario where nearly all multilateral trade cooperation is replaced by a fragmented web of disconnected bilateral and regional free trade agreements. Under that outcome, global GDP would fall by 6.9% compared to the baseline, and global exports would contract by 26.9%. In contrast, the WTO projects that strengthening and reforming the multilateral trading system would deliver significant net gains: by 2050, global GDP would be 2.9% higher than the baseline, and global exports would expand by 17.9% if cooperation is reinforced.

    Smaller and lower-income economies face the most disproportionate risk from further erosion of the multilateral system, the WTO found. These nations typically lack the economic and geopolitical heft to negotiate favorable bilateral trade terms on their own, so they rely heavily on the rule-based multilateral framework to guarantee equal access to global markets. In a world where bilateral power dynamics dominate trade relations, these vulnerable economies would suffer far larger relative losses than larger, more powerful economies.

    Taken together, the latest bond market movements and the WTO’s warning lay bare two overlapping vulnerabilities facing the global economy today. In the short term, elevated oil prices, persistent inflation, and rising interest rates are driving up financing costs for governments, businesses and households worldwide, squeezing spending and investment. Over the longer term, growing geopolitical polarization and accelerating trade fragmentation will put additional sustained downward pressure on international trade and global economic growth.

    For small, open economies that depend heavily on international trade, energy imports and access to global capital markets, these two sets of risks are especially consequential. Higher global interest rates directly raise their borrowing costs, while disrupted trade flows and sustained high energy prices push up import costs and feed through to higher domestic inflation, creating a toxic mix of challenges for policymakers to address.

  • Een zonnige tot halfbewolkte woensdag

    Een zonnige tot halfbewolkte woensdag

    On Wednesday, September 16, Suriname will grapple with unseasonably warm, muggy conditions that will push perceived temperatures well above the actual mercury reading, according to the country’s Meteorological Service.

    The day will kick off on a calm, largely dry note. Localized patches of mist or light fog are possible in the early morning hours, but the service predicts these low-visibility conditions will clear gradually as the morning progresses. Cloud cover will build incrementally through the rest of the day, but forecasters do not expect widespread heavy downpours to hit the country. The overall chance of precipitation remains low: while isolated light showers could pop up here and there in the afternoon, the vast majority of Suriname will stay dry through the end of the day.

    Official temperature projections put maximum readings between 33 and 34 degrees Celsius across nearly all of the country’s administrative districts. Coastal districts, including the capital district Paramaribo and neighboring Wanica, are expected to hit the top end of that range at 34 degrees. In the southern interior, the district of Sipaliwini could see actual temperatures climb as high as 36 degrees Celsius. Even overnight will offer little relief, with minimum temperatures hovering between 22 and 24 degrees Celsius that keep conditions sweltering through the night.

    Winds will blow from the east-northeast to east, and are expected to remain mostly weak to moderate, with sustained speeds ranging from 11 to 24 kilometers per hour. Localized slightly stronger gusts are possible, but forecasters have ruled out dangerous wind events for the day. The main source of discomfort remains high humidity, which will push perceived temperatures to between 36 and 40 degrees Celsius across the country, creating a stuffy, oppressive feeling for most residents through the day.

  • Laatste Amerikaanse troepen verlaten Irak; milities weigeren wapens neer te leggen

    Laatste Amerikaanse troepen verlaten Irak; milities weigeren wapens neer te leggen

    As the final contingent of US troops packs their equipment to leave Iraq, Baghdad faces two interconnected critical deadlines that will shape the country’s security and political landscape for years to come. However, most powerful Shiite militias have already made clear they have no intention of laying down their arms, leaving major unanswered questions about what Iraq will look like after the full US military withdrawal.

    The US-led international coalition is accelerating its drawdown of forces, according to a senior anonymous US military official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter. All remaining US troops stationed in northern Iraq, numbering in the hundreds, will complete their withdrawal by the September 30 deadline. Most troops will be redeployed to Jordan and other regional countries, and key military equipment including air defense systems will be relocated alongside personnel.

    The timeline of US military engagement in Iraq stretches back more than two decades: the US invaded Iraq in 2003, ousted longtime leader Saddam Hussein, withdrew all forces in 2011, then returned in 2014 at the request of the Iraqi government to combat the rise of the Islamic State (IS) terror group. With the IS threat largely diminished after years of counterterrorism operations, Washington and Baghdad reached a 2024 agreement to gradually end the US combat mission. Last year, US troops withdrew from bases across most of Iraq, leaving only a small presence in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in the north.

    After the full withdrawal is complete, the US will open negotiations for a “normal bilateral security cooperation” framework with Baghdad’s central government, the official confirmed, though the exact structure of this future partnership remains undecided. The official noted that the counterterrorism base in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, has lost strategic importance for US forces as the IS threat has receded. While northern Iraq was never used as an offensive launchpad during the period of heightened US-Iran tensions, US troops stationed there were repeatedly targeted by attacks from Iran and Iranian-aligned Iraqi militias. This withdrawal will therefore “reduce our exposure” to such attacks, the official added.

    The Iraqi government tied the US withdrawal to a separate ultimatum requiring all armed militias to disarm by the same September 30 deadline. Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi promised after his July meeting with US President Donald Trump at the White House that the disarmament of Iraq’s powerful armed factions would be finalized before the end of September, aligning with the coalition’s withdrawal timeline.

    However, Iraqi government officials have sent conflicting signals about whether September 30 is a firm disarmament deadline. Government spokesperson Sabah al-Numan said last week that discussions and dialogue are still ongoing, and the disarmament issue will not be resolved until after the international coalition completes its withdrawal. Qasim al-Araji, the prime minister’s security advisor, clarified that September 30 is only the deadline for coalition troop withdrawal, not for militia weapons handover.

    For many observers of Iraqi politics, the failure of the September 30 disarmament goal is already a foregone conclusion. “On September 30, no armed groups will have disarmed. I think that is clear to anyone who follows Iraqi politics,” said Iraqi analyst Sajad Jiyad during a recent workshop hosted by the Washington-based think tank Atlantic Council.

    While a small number of less influential militias have agreed to hand over weapons, the most powerful factions with close ties to Iran — including Kataib Hezbollah, Harakat al-Nujaba and Kataib Sayyid al-Shuhada — have either outright rejected the disarmament demand or attached conditions the Iraqi government is highly unlikely to meet in the near term. These conditions include bringing the Kurdish Peshmerga security forces in northern Iraq under full central Iraqi military control, and expelling Iranian Kurdish opposition groups and the PKK, which maintain bases in the northern border region.

    One senior official with a pro-Iranian Iraqi militia put the position even more bluntly: “After these preconditions are set, discussion will shift to regulating weapons holdings, not surrendering them. The factions have absolutely made no decision to give up weapons, and we have not handed over any weapons to date.”

    Forcing full disarmament by military means is widely seen as an enormous challenge for Baghdad. The militias are organized under the “Iraqi Islamic Resistance,” an umbrella group of roughly 10 hardline Shiite armed factions that together command around 50,000 fighters and possess advanced weaponry including long-range rockets and air defense systems. The group has claimed responsibility for dozens of rocket and drone attacks targeting Israel and US forces in Iraq and Syria over the past several years.

    Beyond their military power, the militias have deep and entrenched economic interests across Iraq’s construction, real estate, and currency exchange sectors, giving them powerful incentives to retain their autonomy and armed status.

    Most of these militia factions are formally part of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella organization that was officially integrated into Iraq’s national security forces in 2016 and nominally falls under the authority of the prime minister. However, many of the most powerful factions operate with near-total autonomy and maintain close strategic and political ties to Iran.

    A senior Iraqi government official outlined the administration’s current strategy: the government aims to bring all armed factions under the full command of the Iraqi army. Baghdad hopes factions will transfer high-risk “dynamic weapons” such as rockets and long-range systems to the central command of the PMF, before the independent factions are dissolved and integrated into the PMF and national army structure.

    Concerns are growing over the security outlook for Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region following the US withdrawal. While the drawdown removes a key target for attacks from the area, analysts warn it will not end the threat of violence. Mohammed A. Salih, a non-resident senior fellow at the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on Kurdish and Iraqi affairs, noted that Iran and its aligned groups have already targeted other sites in the Kurdistan region unrelated to US troops, including bases of exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition groups, energy infrastructure, and even the office of Kurdistan Regional Prime Minister Masrour Barzani.

    “The withdrawal will further expose the Kurdish region and make it an easier target for attacks,” Salih said.

    Kurdistan Regional Government officials declined to comment on the record, but Barzani has publicly stated his concern that the removal of US air defense systems will leave the region far more vulnerable to attack. In response, al-Numan said last week that the Iraqi central government is finalizing purchases of new air defense systems from South Korea, Turkey, and the United States, which will be deployed according to a carefully crafted military plan to ensure full protection of Iraqi airspace, including the Kurdistan region.

  • Forse boetes voor dumpen afval en verwaarlozen percelen

    Forse boetes voor dumpen afval en verwaarlozen percelen

    PARAMARIBO – Suriname’s top law enforcement official has formally enacted a new schedule of fixed fines for common environmental violations, aiming to crack down on unsustainable practices that damage public spaces and community health.

    Starting immediately, anyone caught dumping waste illegally or failing to maintain their private land faces penalties ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 Surinamese dollars (SRD), according to the official order signed by Prosecutor General Garcia Paragsingh on September 15. The new fine schedule codifies penalties for violations already listed in the Police Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Law, bringing clarity and consistent enforcement to environmental regulation.

    Penalty amounts are scaled based on the severity of each offense. For illegal dumping, the fine increases with the volume of waste found on site, while fines for unmaintained private land are tied to the size of the plot, both falling within the 1,000 to 10,000 SRD bracket. A flat 1,000 SRD fine applies to two separate offenses: failing to maintain the roadside verge adjacent to a private property, and burning household or garden waste. A higher fixed fine of 3,500 SRD is set for leaving abandoned vehicles, scrapped vehicle parts, or other obstructions on public road verges.

    With the official signing of the fine schedule, all penalty amounts are now formally enforceable. The Public Prosecution Service of Suriname has issued a public call for all residents to abide by the new regulations, emphasizing that collective compliance is critical to building a clean, healthy, and safe living environment for all communities. The full text of the approved fine schedule is available for public review on the Public Prosecution Service’s official website.

  • Inheemse genezers uit Suriname, Guyana en Brazilië richten regionaal netwerk op

    Inheemse genezers uit Suriname, Guyana en Brazilië richten regionaal netwerk op

    Indigenous knowledge-holders and traditional healers from Suriname, Guyana, and Brazil have marked a historic milestone by establishing the Regional Network of Traditional Knowledge and Healers, a first-of-its-kind collaborative body aimed at securing greater formal recognition for Amazonian traditional medicinal plant knowledge and healing practices within national public health systems.

    The founding of the network took place during a four-day convening held from September 8 to 11, 2026, at Iwokrama River Lodge, located deep within Guyana’s protected Iwokrama Rainforest. Representatives of Indigenous communities from all three Amazon-bordering nations gathered to share ancestral expertise on traditional therapies, medicinal plant use, and culturally rooted health practices, building on two prior regional knowledge exchange events organized over the past four years. The gathering was coordinated by the Amazon Conservation Team Guianas (ACT Guianas), a Suriname-registered non-governmental organization that has partnered with Indigenous and tribal groups across the Guiana Shield since 2002 to support territorial stewardship and cultural preservation.

    Core objectives of the new network include creating a unified regional platform anchored in shared ethical protocols, clear communication frameworks, and a coordinated advocacy agenda to push for respectful recognition of traditional medicine by national governments and public health institutions. Beyond formal establishment, participants used the convening to share successful healing practices across bordering communities, reflect on lessons learned from prior collaborative efforts over the past four years, strengthen ethical and consistent standards for traditional healing across the region, and explore pathways toward formal integration of traditional practices into national healthcare systems.

    A central focus of the gathering was learning from Brazil’s decades-long policy framework for integrating Indigenous health into national care, a model that Suriname and Guyana are examining for potential adaptation. Brazil first enshrined a decentralized Indigenous Health Subsystem into its national Unified Health System (SUS) in 1999, structured around regional Indigenous health districts that require policy to center the unique local realities and cultural identities of Indigenous peoples, covering not only clinical care but also sanitation, food security, housing, environmental protection, and health education. Since 2006, Brazil has also maintained a national policy for integrative and complementary practices within SUS, which formally recognizes medicinal plant use and phytotherapy as valid care options. As of 2024, more than 23,000 Brazilian health teams offer these integrative practices across roughly 21,000 primary health care centers nationwide.

    The gathering opened with a sacred spiritual cleansing ritual led by Adele John, a young apprentice healer from Guyana’s Surama Village, setting a culturally rooted tone for the days of collaboration. Following opening ceremonies, participants engaged in immersive forest learning activities around the Iwokrama site and breakout working sessions to draft a three-year strategic roadmap for the new network. A key ceremonial highlight of the forum was the formal signing of the network’s founding charter by official representatives from all three participating countries.

    The Iwokrama International Centre for Rainforest Conservation and Development (IICRCD), which hosted the event at its river lodge facility, expressed full support for the initiative. “We are delighted to host the ACT team and Indigenous healers from across the region,” a center spokesperson said. “We endorse the establishment of this network and wish them every success in building an Indigenous knowledge platform for the region and advocating for the integration of Indigenous medicinal knowledge into national health systems.”

    ACT Guianas, which is headquartered in Paramaribo, coordinates conservation and cultural preservation initiatives across Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, and northern Brazil, working directly with Indigenous communities to strengthen their capacity to manage and protect their ancestral territories.

    The launch of the new network aligns with a growing regional movement to center Indigenous traditional knowledge as a critical component of sustainable development and accessible, culturally appropriate healthcare. As early as August 2025, during the Fifth Presidential Summit of the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO), Suriname highlighted the essential role of Indigenous and local community traditional knowledge in protecting the Amazon biome. In March 2025, Suriname hosted the national Traditional and Integrative Health Systems Conference, co-organized by Medische Zending Primary Health Care Suriname and ACT Guianas, where the Ministry of Public Health signed a memorandum of understanding with four partner organizations including ACT Guianas to advance collaboration on integrative health. By the end of 2024, Suriname’s National Assembly had already received a draft bill to establish a regulatory authority, OTIMSI, tasked with overseeing the development of traditional and integrative medical systems across the country.

  • Oproepen AI-ontwikkeling te vertragen leiden tot stille koude oorlog

    Oproepen AI-ontwikkeling te vertragen leiden tot stille koude oorlog

    In September 2026, a growing rift over artificial intelligence development has erupted between the world’s two largest economies, sparked by a leading American AI chief’s urgent call for safety slowdowns and new export restrictions that have drawn sharp pushback from Beijing. The controversy began when Dario Amodei, CEO of leading AI developer Anthropic, published a weekend essay sounding the alarm over the accelerating pace of frontier AI development, warning that unregulated progress could bring catastrophic global risks within a year.

    Amodei warned that the most powerful next-generation AI systems could, in as little as six to 12 months, build a persistent botnet capable of seizing full control of the global internet, causing hundreds of billions of dollars in economic damage. Without binding safety guardrails, he argued, risks will only grow exponentially as models grow more powerful. He called for a deliberate slowdown in the development of the most advanced frontier AI systems, giving governments, researchers and regulators time to implement robust risk management frameworks.

    His stance quickly won backing from other major U.S. tech figures, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Beyond safety concerns, Amodei framed Chinese AI advancement as a major strategic threat to the U.S. and the world, urging the White House to maintain strict restrictions on exports of cutting-edge AI chips and chip manufacturing equipment to China. He also called for new measures to crack down on what he claims is unauthorized “distillation” of U.S.-developed AI models by Chinese research labs.

    U.S. President Donald Trump, however, has pushed back on calls to slow AI development, dismissing many safety warnings as overblown while doubling down on his framing of AI as a zero-sum global competition. “We are ahead of China in AI. We are the most advanced country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way — because whoever wins the AI race wins everything,” Trump stated Sunday, aligning with his administration’s long-standing hardline approach to technological competition with Beijing.

    China has hit back against Amodei’s proposals, accusing the U.S. of using AI safety as a cynical pretext to lock in its long-held technological dominance. On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called for a global approach to AI governance that is open, inclusive and collaborative. “Stoking unfounded fears, pushing confrontation and engaging in malicious competition will only disrupt global AI governance processes, and serve no one’s interests,” Guo said. The Chinese state-backed *Global Times* went further, labeling Amodei’s plan a Cold War-era tactic designed to stifle Chinese AI progress and preserve U.S. technological hegemony, calling the emerging “quiet AI Cold War” hypocritical and short-sighted.

    The current clash is unfolding against a well-documented backdrop of intensifying AI competition between the two powers. Experts note that while the U.S. still maintains leading positions in key segments of the AI race, China is rapidly closing the gap. Data from Stanford University’s 2026 AI Index Report shows U.S. private companies invested $285.9 billion in AI development in 2025, dwarfing China’s $12.4 billion in private investment. The U.S. also retains a clear lead in the production of the advanced semiconductors required to train cutting-edge large language models.

    Despite sweeping U.S. export restrictions on top-tier AI chips, Chinese firms have already proven they can develop competitive large AI models at a fraction of the cost of their U.S. rivals. In early 2026, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek made global headlines when it revealed it had trained its latest flagship model using less than $6 million worth of computing power from Nvidia H800 chips — a tiny fraction of the $100 million OpenAI reportedly spent to train its GPT-4 model back in 2023. The announcement sent shares of major U.S. tech firms tumbling, as it upended widespread assumptions about the cost barriers to cutting-edge AI development.

    The U.S. has enforced broad restrictions on Chinese access to advanced semiconductors and chip manufacturing technology for years, justifying the limits on national security grounds, arguing advanced AI chips could boost China’s military, intelligence and surveillance capabilities. The Trump administration has maintained bans on the most cutting-edge chips, including Nvidia’s Blackwell processors, while allowing limited exports of lower-power chips to the Chinese market.

    China, meanwhile, holds key advantages across other segments of the AI supply chain. It dominates global production of the critical rare earth metals required for advanced semiconductor manufacturing, and it generates more than twice as much electricity as the U.S., giving Chinese AI data centers access to abundant low-cost energy to power energy-intensive AI training and operations. In late 2025, China tightened export controls on five critical rare earth metals and restricted exports of specialized refining equipment for these resources, a move widely seen as a countermeasure to U.S. chip restrictions.

    Beyond the commercial and technological competition, both powers have faced scrutiny for their growing use of AI in military and surveillance applications, despite both framing their own AI policies as responsible. In June 2026, the Trump administration ordered a rapid expansion of AI use across U.S. intelligence and military operations. In March, the U.S. military confirmed it had deployed advanced AI tools to process intelligence during operations against Iran, though it emphasized human officials retain final authority over target selection. That confirmation came amid calls for an independent investigation into a bombing of a school in southern Iran that killed 156 people, most of them children.

    Multiple independent reports have also documented extensive Israeli reliance on AI for target selection, surveillance and operational planning during its ongoing military campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,800 Palestinians since October 2023 and left most of the territory in ruins. A 2025 report from United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese named major U.S. AI and tech firm Palantir as one of the companies supporting Israel’s military campaign and displacement of Palestinian populations in violation of international law. Google and Amazon have also faced widespread backlash over their $1.2 billion Project Nimbus deal, struck in 2021, to supply cloud and AI-powered surveillance infrastructure to the Israeli government and military.

    Notably, Anthropic itself has clashed with the U.S. Pentagon over military AI use, refusing to allow its models to be used for fully autonomous weapons or large-scale domestic surveillance.

    China has publicly criticized the growing militarization of AI, warning against ceding life-or-death decision-making power to algorithms. But independent investigations have also raised red flags over Chinese military and surveillance use of AI: a July 2026 Reuters investigation found researchers with ties to the Chinese military have used outputs from leading U.S. AI models to enhance Chinese defense capabilities, including for surveillance applications. A 2025 Associated Press investigation documented how AI has become a core component of a massive Chinese mass surveillance system targeting dissidents and ethnic minority groups including Uyghurs and Tibetans, and found U.S. tech firms played a key role in supplying core technology for that system. In February 2026, both the U.S. and China refused to sign a joint declaration regulating military AI use at an international military AI summit in Spain.

    AI industry analysts say the high-profile calls for a slowdown from top tech leaders have raised new questions about whether the private sector can or will regulate the rapidly advancing technology responsibly. Aya Ibrahim, senior visiting fellow at the AI Now Institute, told Al Jazeera that warnings from tech leaders come as private firms face intense financial pressure to roll out ever-more powerful AI systems as quickly as possible to capture market share. “So much money is riding on getting these new systems to market and performing well, and there is growing doubt that companies can both deliver profit and manage risk,” Ibrahim explained.

    She also questioned the dominant framing of AI development as a geopolitical and commercial race, arguing this narrative pushes firms to prioritize speed over safety and accountability. “The race narrative is inherently problematic, because it pushes us toward a race to the bottom,” Ibrahim said. “You might win, but what do you actually win, and at what cost?”

  • BIS noemt zich eerste digitale ministerie van Suriname

    BIS noemt zich eerste digitale ministerie van Suriname

    In a landmark step for public sector digital transformation in Suriname, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Cooperation (BIS) officially rolled out its custom digital platform BIS Online on Monday, 14 September, marking the country’s first fully digitized government ministry.

    The new platform is designed to streamline core ministry operations by digitizing dossier tracking and administrative workflows, gradually phasing out the outdated paper-based filing systems that have long hampered government efficiency. Through BIS Online, ministry staff can remotely access real-time updates on case location, current processing status, and assigned responsibility for each dossier, bringing unprecedented transparency to internal operations.

    Luziano Truideman, Director of General Management and Consular Affairs at BIS, noted that the digital overhaul does more than just improve organizational clarity: it also drastically cuts the risk of lost or misplaced physical documents, a longstanding pain point for public administration in the country.

    What sets BIS Online apart from most government digital projects is its development model: rather than outsourcing construction to an external third-party ICT firm, the platform was built entirely in-house. Ambassador Gilbert van Lierop led the development effort, working alongside BIS’s internal ICT department and integrating iterative feedback from frontline ministry staff to tailor the system to the department’s specific needs. The project also leveraged existing government-owned technology infrastructure and software licenses to keep costs low.

    This in-house development approach delivered substantial fiscal savings for Suriname’s public coffers. Ministry estimates show the project avoided at least $100,000 in external development fees that a contracted build would have required. Additionally, a comparable commercial off-the-shelf system for roughly 200 users would carry an annual recurring licensing cost of at least $36,000, expenses that are entirely eliminated with the custom in-house build.

    Speaking at the official launch ceremony, van Lierop emphasized that successful public sector digitalization is far more than a technical undertaking. He noted that meaningful digital transformation also requires committed leadership, active engagement from frontline staff, and a willingness to adapt long-standing work practices to new ways of operating — all elements that were central to BIS Online’s development.

    BIS Minister Melvin Bouva framed the launch of BIS Online as a key milestone in the current administration’s broader push for governance reform. The adoption of a centralized digital document management system was one of the core recommendations from a rapid organizational assessment conducted after Bouva took office, carried out on instructions from Suriname President Jennifer Simons.

    Looking ahead, BIS officials see significant potential to expand the use of BIS Online across other levels and departments of the Surinamese government. The internally developed platform could serve as a foundational framework to accelerate digital transformation across the entire public sector. At the launch ceremony, Bouva presented van Lierop with a certificate of appreciation to recognize his leadership and contribution to the project. Closing the event, Bouva emphasized the significance of the milestone, saying: “BIS is the first digital ministry of Suriname. Let us ensure it is not the last.”