China says "AI"

In this issue, I talk about the illegal stuff the British government wanted to do to deal with refugees it doesn't want, Chinese tech innovations in AI (because ChatGPT is not everything), and Guatemalan politics (a lot is at stake). Plus, a South African steamy thriller on Netflix has kept me busy during my free time, a long read about a Ugandan couple that's reclaiming the African road trip (it's so white still), Lebanese comics, an all-female rock band from Kurdistan in the 1980s, and so much more.

A UK court ruled that the British government cannot send asylum seekers to Rwanda

What happened:
Recently, the Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom ruled that the government's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda is unlawful. 'It would violate the European Convention on Human Rights, which the UK is party to.' The charity Asylum Aid brought this case against the government.

Good to know:
What is an asylum seeker? What is a refugee? According to the UN's refugee agency, an asylum seeker is someone who has applied for shelter and protection in another country. A refugee is a person who has fled conflict or persecution in their own country. The legal rights of refugees are protected by international law. However, it is up to host countries to decide whether an asylum seeker is granted refugee status.

Why this matters:
The rights of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers are protected by international law, regardless of how and why they arrive in a country. UNHCR most recently estimated that, by end of 2022, for the first time in recorded history, the number of people forcibly displaced is now 108.4 million, and over 35.3 million refugees.

Tell me more:
Judges said (interestingly, it was not a unanimous decision) that the East African country had not provided enough safeguards to prove it is a "safe third country", meaning there is "a real risk" that people sent to Rwanda will be returned to the home countries they fled. Rwanda, however, vows it is 'exemplary' in the way it treats refugees. However, Rwanda itself creates thousands of refugees every year and its government is yet to guarantee a safe environment for Rwandan refugees settled across the world to return home. The UK has already given Rwanda US$177-million for this plan (and it was going to get even more expensive; according to government assessment US$215,035 per person). No asylum seeker has actually been sent to Rwanda so far. The first flight was scheduled to go in June 2022, but was cancelled after legal challenges.

'Fun' fact:
The airline which was scheduled to take asylum seekers from the UK to Rwanda was called 'Privilege Style'.

Tell me more about Rwanda's refugees:
According to the most recent figures by the UNHCR, there are still more than 200,000 Rwandan refugees in the DRC, close to 24,000 in Uganda, 10,000 in the Republic of Congo, close to 6,000 in Zambia, more than 4,000 in Mozambique, close to 4,000 in Malawi and more than 2,000 in Kenya. There are compelling reasons why so many Rwandan refugees do not want to -- or do not feel safe enough to -- return to their motherland. Memories of war, genocide and conflict, inequality, poverty and a 'not free' human rights record, writes Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, a Rwandan political figure, in an opinion piece for Al Jazeera.

Did you know:
that in 2022, the UK received more than 89,000 asylum applications, the highest number for 20 years? Of these, more than 23,800 people and their dependents were granted a form of protection.

What now?
The UN's refugee agency, which advised the court on matters of international refugee law during the appeal, was like, 'yes, this is a good ruling. UK government, try other measures'. Home Secretary Suella Braverman called the judgment "disappointing", and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said they will appeal last week's verdict in the Supreme Court.

On a related note, meanwhile, Rwanda wants to become the 'Singapore of Africa' and has successfully attracted two huge fintech companies, as Alexander Onukwue reports for Semafor. Two of Africa's biggest fintech players are expanding their operations in Rwanda, Chipper Cash (pan-African money transfer company) and Flutterwave (Africa's largest payment network).

There is a lot of AI innovation in China right now

What happened:
Since ChatGPT took the world by storm late last year, Chinese tech giants and startups have been rushing to join the AI race by launching similar AI chatbots one after another.

Why this matters:
All over the world, generative AI startups are popping up. To really stay in the loop (and to decenter Western-centric knowledge production), keep an eye out for more tech updates everywhere.

Tell me more:
Caiwei Chen for rest of world writes about these four Chinese startups that everyone in tech in China is talking about:

• DeepLang AI: Two natural language processing researchers at Tsinghua University, Qi Fanchao and Li Xiaoxiang, trained this large language model on Chinese-language content, and created a dictionary that suggests a list of words based on users' descriptions and a classical Chinese poetry generator. Tencent is one of the bigger funders.

• Zhipu AI: Founded by Tang Jie, another talent from Tsinghua University (yes, this is where a lot of tech magic happens in China in general) created a large language model that can be integrated into Qihoo's search engine (a big competitor to Baidu).

• Baichuan Intelligence: Tsinghua graduates and search company Sogou executives...