#indo african

[luvmesumus]

[caribbeanart]

Themes in Contemporary Caribbean Art

This blog is mainly focused on art before the 1980s but if you're interested in exploring themes in contemporary Caribbean art this article by Tatiana Flores (available in English and Spanish) looking at the theme of water is a great place to start.

This idea of water as something so essential for all life and the interconnectivity it represents of both living and non-living things (like water itself) is exemplified here by the hydrocommons, a term that looks to connect environmental movements with historical inequalities and the reclaiming of ancestral memory among other things; exploring how the arts can help us reimagine newer, more sustainable relationships with ourselves, other living beings and our natural environment (with a strong interest in performance, as a historically undervalued art form).

You do have to subscribe to their newsletter in order to access this article, a great resource if you're interested in larger contemporary trends across Latin America and the Caribbean. But rest assured, you can always unsubscribe if it's not what you're looking for.

(See also: Key Themes in Caribbean Art)

[chilewithcarnage]

kaka and kiki dunmeshi come here for a second

[sorrelwine]

Ughhh I wish I could just fucking rip out my genetic code and look at what my ancestors been up to

[nashvillethotchicken]

bby as someone who saw that premiere they are most deffo fucking 😭 blasia does win

WE WON!!!!!!!!!!

[negrophobe]

kiswahili ???? shaking you violently in the best way possible !! you say youre polyglot , do you speak any other languages similiar to it :0 ?

mm, i dont speak any other bantu languages. the closest would be some igbo that ive somewhat picked up, but i dont count that towards being polyglot as ive never tried to actively learn it and am far from holding a more formal conversation. if youre willing to stretch far enough, afrikaans too i guess.

[creativemedianews]

Global Alliances in 2024: Analyzing Economic and Military Power Blocks

Global Alliances in 2024: Analyzing Economic and Military Power Blocks #AfricanUnion #BRICSemergingeconomies

[hsmagazine254]

Barbecue Chicken Wings by Chef Befrey Musonye Styne, H&S Chef Of The Month

H&S Chef Of The Month Chef Befrey Musonye Styne Nationality: Kenyan Interview With H&S Magazine Who Is Befrey Musonye Styne? Commonly referred to as Chef Musonye; I’m a highly motivated and passionate team player, who accepts challenges as opportunities and projects excellence as my mantra. I also have an insatiable quest for knowledge, hence always willing to learn new skills and follow through…

[danicadenniss]

Na’Luzia Rio Garcia-Naruto

Aliases: Luz, Lu, Clover, Cloverleaf, Cloves, Clovis, Clovie, Mija by her mother and her maternal grandmothers, Mixed Girl by Lori Anderson

Abilities: Earth Bending, Lava Bending, Metal Bending, Glass Bending, Sun Breathing, Stone Breathing, Seismic Sense

Elements: Earth, Lava, Metal

Occupation: Student At Titan City School, Employee At Claymore’s Blacksmith Metal Shop (Part Time)

Dates of Birth: April 24th, 2007

Species: Human

Gender: Female

Height: 4’10

Ethnicity: Afro Asian Latina (Afro Puerto Rican, Chinese Jamaican, Indo Trinidadian)

Hair Color: Dark Auburn/Golden Dirty Blonde

Eyes Color: Hazel Brown

Skin Color: Dark Golden Bronze Tan

Skin Types: Olive Brown Freckled, Honey Beige Vitiligo

Family Members: Na’Coda Naruto (Father), Stella Mia Garcia-Naruto (Mother), Niagara Naruto (Partial Aunt), Blaze of Domino (Partial Uncle), Na’Kai Naruto/Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/New Limbonar (Older Cousin), Navajo Naruto (Partial Grandfather), Novae Naruto (Partial Grandmother), Unnamed Partial Great Grandmother✝️, Unnamed Partial Great Great Grandmother✝️, Kumora Naruto✝️ (Ancestor), Naruto Ancestors✝️, Karen Sara Garcia-Clark, Trudy Ana Garcia (Maternal Aunts), Calvin Lucas Clark (Maternal Uncle), Leonardo Santiago, Marcus Carlos, Megan Paola and Antonio Clark (Younger Maternal Cousins), Savannah Azan-Garcia and Gloria Garcia (Maternal Grandmothers), Mr. And Mrs. Garcia✝️ (Maternal Great Grandparents) Mrs. Azan✝️ (Maternal Great Grandmother) Garcia Ancestors✝️

Love Interest: Jennifer May O’Neil (Girlfriend)

Voiced By: Olivia Olson

Appearance:

Na’Luzia Rio Garcia-Naruto is an athletic dark bronze tan skinned Afro Puerto Rican, Chinese Jamaican and Indo Trinidadian pre teenage girl (later teenage girl to young woman, she was born as half Dougla and half Hakka), with shoulder length texture dark auburn and golden dirty blonde ombré dyed hair with right sides bangs kept in a low back ponytail bun with a burgundy hair tie, thick narrow dark auburn brown eyebrows, short eyelashes, hazel brown eyes, olive brown freckles on her cheeks, honey beige vitiligo on her forearms and legs reddish orange lava kanji symbol on her right wrist, and round natural tan lips. Her attire consists, few accessories, she wears two ebony black metallic ear hoop ear piercings on her right ear, pair of blue diamond star shaped earrings, a Creature Slayer sliver metal chain necklace with light blue wave and dark blue, navy bluish black checkered yin yang charm around her neck (Parody of Demon Slayer) and a black leather braided bracelet with orange topaz and emerald green charms on her left wrist. She wore a mid cropped burgundy graphic fit tank top with a white jaguar print on it front, a red leather jacket with 3/4 sleeves, dark red Japanese textured and Ghosted Away Haru print on its back (parody of Spirited Away Haku) a pair of black torn capri mid rise jeans with a lesbian pride flag and a poke ball patches on its right side front and left side back pockets, a reddish brown leather belt with a silver buckle around her waist, a dark red mini leggings underneath, red crew socks with black stripes and burgundy and black checkered combat boots with dark gray laces, and ebony black soles.

Personality:

Clover is thoughtful, kind, generous, and supportive tomboy.

Trivia:

Clover’s Ethnicity from American descent to Afro Asian Caribbean descent.

She is mixed race as half Dougla and half Hakka, her mother Stella is an Afro Puerto Rican and Afro Jamaican and her father Na’Coda is Chinese Trinidadian and Indo Trinidadian. She is an Afro Pueto Rican, Chinese Jamaican and Indo Trinidadian.

Her hair is dark auburn with golden dirty blonde hair dye, it’s wavy/curly texture.

She worked at Claymore’s Blacksmith Metal Shop.

She is a tomboy instead of girly girl.

She is a lesbian.

She had fear of water, she had a fear scary dolls.

She likes spending time with her girlfriend Jenny.

[xtruss]

World: The West Isn't Buying Into China's Year of Diplomacy

Chinese President Xi Jinping at a press conference in Shaanxi, on May 19, 2023. A new poll indicates that the West does not believe that China is contributing to Global Security. Florence Lo/Pool/AFP Via Getty Images

Western nations increasingly see China as an interventionist power that is not improving global security, according to recent polling, as Beijing struggles to square its desired peacemaker image with the political realities of its expanding global influence.

The Pew Research Center conducted a 30,000-person survey across 24 nations between February and May and found that people living in European, North American and Indo-Pacific democracies are particularly wary of China's influence. The sentiment was less strong, though still present, among African and South American respondents.

A median of 71 percent of the 30,000 people polled felt that China does not contribute either much or at all to international peace and stability, versus 23 percent who felt China does. Americans (80 percent), Dutch (86 percent), British (80 percent), Germans (80 percent), and French (75 percent) were among those who felt most strongly that Beijing is a negative influence on global affairs.

Democratic Indo-Pacific nations emphatically agreed, with 87 percent of South Koreans, 85 percent of Australians, and 85 percent of Japanese feeling the same.

The list of nations—the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland and South Africa, and Australia—is dominated by Western liberal democracies, with inherent ideological tensions likely somewhat explaining the negative views of Chinese foreign influence.

But only in Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria did a majority of respondents say Beijing contributes either a fair amount or a great deal to international peace and stability.

Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry via email for comment.

China—already considered by many an economic and technological superpower—is still shaping its military and diplomatic clout abroad. Major decades-long investment in the former is openly intended to eventually challenge American hegemony, but on the diplomatic battlefield, Beijing is following a less publicly combative path.

Among the salient diplomatic issues that have helped shape global opinions of China this year are one striking success and one ongoing failure.

The former was the landmark Iran-Saudi Arabia normalization deal signed in April, in which China unexpectedly brokered a détente few thought likely given the deep and historic animosity between the Middle East's power players.

But China's unconvincing neutrality regarding Russia's war on Ukraine has somewhat eroded global trust in Beijing, particularly among the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific nations rallying to Kyiv's cause. China's de facto backing for Russia has undermined its continued calls for peace and the anemic peace plan it proposed in March.

North vs. South

Larger issues involving China—among them the fate of Taiwan, the situation in the South China Sea, lingering frustrations about the pandemic, the brewing showdown with the U.S., human rights, and concerns about political interference—have "completely dwarfed" Beijing's diplomatic efforts, Andrew Small, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told Newsweek.

"Publics have evidently not seen either the Saudi-Iranian deal as particularly significant or the Chinese efforts on Ukraine as particularly credible," Small said.

Small noted Beijing will not necessarily be too concerned with continued Western skepticism.

"In one sense, the argument for what China has been trying to do on Ukraine and in some of these other efforts was positioning in the 'Global South,'" he said. "The view on their side had been that no one in Europe is going to take this seriously, but they are able to position themselves through this in the Global South as an actor that approaches these issues in a neutral way."

Russian President Vladimir Putin (R) and China's President Xi Jinping deliver a joint statement in Moscow, on March 21, 2023. China's de facto support of Russia's war on Ukraine has angered Western nations. Mikhail Tereshchenko/Sputnik/AFP Via Getty Images

But the poll's findings also suggest that Beijing's self-framing might not be playing out as it hoped. A median of 57 percent of those surveyed said they felt China interferes in other countries affairs either a fair amount or a great deal.

The sentiment was most notable in Europe, where a majority of national respondents excluding Hungarians agreed, as well as in North America. A majority of all those in Indo-Pacific nations apart from Indonesia saw Beijing as interventionist.

Even in the four of the six African and South American nations surveyed a majority said China intervened at least somewhat in other countries' affairs. Fifty percent of South Africans and 46 percent of Argentinians also agreed.

"It's such a mantra in Chinese foreign policy, so foundational in the way that they frame things that this is not what they do, and it is the antithesis of the Western approach," Small said.

Against this backdrop, Small added, it is "striking" to see so many nations feeling that China is indeed intervening abroad. The data suggests, he said, that the perception of Chinese anti-interventionism is being "shredded."

Recent months have seen a renewed China-U.S. effort to thaw chilly bilateral relations. In June, Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. And earlier this week, Blinken told CNN the U.S. wants to "put some stability into the relationship."

But the long-term disputes show no signs of easing. While visiting Tonga this week, Blinken hit out at what he called China's "increasingly problematic behavior" in the Indo-Pacific.

In Europe too, major nations are increasingly concerned about Chinese espionage and influence, even if leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz are still courting investment.

Worsening Euro-Atlantic ties with Beijing, Small said, might accelerate a brewing confrontation.

"To a certain extent, this will validate an analysis on the Chinese side that starts to write off the West," he said, and instead focus on a "winnable" public opinion battle in the developing world.

— Newsweek Magazine | By David Brennan | July 27th, 2023

[todropscience]

THREE NEW SHARK SPECIES THIS WEEK!

The second week of July 2023 something extraordinarily beautiful happened, the findings of 3 new species of sharks for were announced

A new angel sharks species was identified, from the western Indian Ocean on the Mascarene Plateau and off southwestern India in 100–500 m depths, the Lea’s angel shark Squatina leae, was recognized to be different genetically and morphologically distinct from its congeneric species Squatina africanae, following unique morphological features.  This species was first detected in 1988 after finding  three unusual, small sharks, but till today was completely understood. The angel shark is named after one of the author’s fiancee’s late sister, Lea-Marie Cordt.

-  Squatina leae, adult male, in dorsolateral.

Angel sharks are “flatter sharks”, possesing distinctly broad, dorsoventrally flattened bodies, a short snout with large mouth and nostrils, eyes on top of the head close to the large spiracles, very large pectoral fins, and a lateral caudal keel. They've evolved to be ambush predators, they lie in wait for prey to pass closely overhead before attacking.

Reference (Open Access):  Weigmann et al., 2023. Revision of the Western Indian Ocean Angel Sharks, Genus Squatina (Squatiniformes, Squatinidae), with Description of a New Species and Redescription of the African Angel Shark Squatina africana Regan, 1908. Biology 

From North Australia, another species of hornshark is described based on six whole specimens and a single egg case. The painted hornshark Heterodontus marshallae was previously considered to be the same with the zebra bullhead shark another well know bullhead shark from the central Indo-Pacific from Japan  to Australia, but genetic and morphological analyses indicated the sharks were different, but looking alike. The painted hornshark is endemic to northwestern Australia and occurs in deeper waters, at 125–229 m below surface.

-  Lateral view of two mature female painted hornshark Heterodontus marshallae showing small differences between individuals

The painted hornsharks is named in honour of Dr. Lindsay Marshall www.stickfigurefish.com.au a scientific illustrator and elasmobranch scientist who expertly painted all the sharks and rays of the world for the Chondrichthyan Tree of Life Project.

Reference (Open Access): White et al., 2023 Species in Disguise: A New Species of Hornshark from Northern Australia (Heterodontiformes: Heterodontidae). Diversity.

And from an unidentified shark egg collected from the deep waters of northwestern Australia, in 2011 recently helped researchers identify a new species of deep water cat shark. Called ridged-egg catshark Apristurus ovicorrugatus after its eggs, it was collected in the earlys 90 but remained unknown to date. This sharks presents white eyes, and is small in size, reaching less than a half meter in length. .

- Lateral view of female Apristurus ovicorrugatus before preserved. Photo by  CSIRO. 

Egg cases belonging to this species had been documented as early as the 1980s, but could not be matched to any species of Australian shark until recently scientists examined a shark specimen of previously uncertain identity in the CSIRO collection.

 -egg cases of Apristurus ovicorrugatus. Scale bar is 10 mm

Reference (Open Access) White,et al., 2023 What came first, the shark or the egg? Discovery of a new species of deepwater shark by investigation of egg case morphology. Journal of Fish Biology.

[beni75]

Photos and texts: @thomaspeschak

1-. A curious gray whale exhales almost directly into my camera

2-. A curious juvenile gray whale vigorously exhales and speeds past my camera in Mexico's San Ignacio Lagoon

3-. A Humpback whales breaches in the North Pacific Ocean off Canada's Great Bear Rainforest

4-. A dusky shark charges through a baitball of sardines

5-. y 6-. A whale sharks swins in shallow water in La Paz Bay, Baja California Sur

7-. A reef manta ray feeds on a plankton patch by barrel rolling over and over again in the same spot, not unlike a puppy chasings its own tail

8-. A reef manta ray feeds along the drop off at D'Arros Island an St. Joseph Atoll. Seychelles

9-. African peguins

10-. A endemic Socotra cormorant comes in to land on a roosting rock deep within the Fjords of Oman's Musandam Peninsula (2012)

11-. African peguins shelter and nest in decaying building long abandoned b the guano industry on Namibia's Halifax Island

12-. At Aldabra atoll green sea turtles often rest for hours on the sandy seabed between coral outcrops

13-. Blacktip reef sharks inspect the hull of our boat on Aldabra's tidal flats. Seychelles

14-. Blacktip reef sharks patrol the drop off where D'Arros Island's coral reef descendes into deeper water

15-. Cape fur seals surf Altantic swell in the Table Mountain Marine Protected Area

16-. Cape Gannet colony on Bird island bathed by lightening and the beam of the lighthouse

17-. The hunt begins at dusk and continuous deep into the night

18-. A curious gray whale swins upside down beneath our boat in Mexico's San Ignacio Lagoon

19-. A venomous lionfish hunts baitfish in Mozambique's Ponta do Ouro marine reserve, by @thomaspeschak

20-. A salmon leaps high into the air to clear a raging waterfall

21-. A wild rocky point just out into the North Pacific Ocean

22-. A large potato grouper hunts amongst schools of baitfish that seasonally drape southern Mozambique's reefs

23-. Dolphins of Indo pacific