rural

Bitkine, Chad – For Ache Kodo, seeing a doctor once meant saving money for the journey.

Living in Bitkine, in central Chad, she said a medical visit could mean paying for transport, the consultation and other costs of travelling to a larger town.

Now, she can consult a doctor remotely through a Telemedan kiosk closer to home.

“Telemedan changed how my family accessed healthcare services,” Ache told Al Jazeera. “It was difficult before, as it involved me saving money to travel just to see a doctor. Now I’m able to do it on time with fewer costs from where I am. It has also enhanced my economic status.”

For people in rural Chad, distance can be as much of a barrier to healthcare as the shortage of doctors themselves. Medical facilities and specialists are concentrated in larger towns and cities, leaving many communities far from basic services.

Abakar Mahamat grew up with that reality.

“The problem wasn’t only the lack of doctors,” he said. “It was also the distance between those doctors and the communities that needed them.”

In 2021, he launched Telemedan, a telemedicine initiative designed to bring consultations closer to communities where electricity, internet access and medical infrastructure are limited.

“Instead of asking people to travel hundreds of kilometres to find a doctor, I wanted to use technology to bring the doctor closer to them,” Abakar told Al Jazeera.

A clinic powered by the sun

The kiosks run on solar panels and batteries, allowing them to operate without reliable grid electricity.

A local operator registers the patient and takes basic measurements using equipment including blood-pressure monitors, glucometers, thermometers, pulse oximeters and electrocardiogram (ECG) machines.

The doctor joins remotely, appearing on a screen as the operator assists with the examination.

Telemedan says its kiosks can also be equipped with diagnostic tools including stethoscopes, temperature sensors and, in some cases, ultrasound equipment. A trained local operator helps patients use them.

The system is designed for places where internet access may be unreliable. Patient information can be stored locally and synchronised when connectivity returns. An Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) service allows people without internet access to book appointments and access health information.

Depending on the location, the kiosks can connect through mobile networks or satellite links.

“We want to see that the absence of reliable electricity or the internet should not mean the absence of healthcare,” Abakar said.

The cost of getting to a doctor

Abakar said some journeys for medical care can cost $200 or more once transport, accommodation, logistics and medical consultations are included.

Telemedan consultations cost between $2 and $15, depending on the service.

For Abakar, the issue is also about what families can afford to give up to obtain care.

“A patient should not have to choose between seeking medical care and being able to feed their family,” he said.

From pilot to wider network

Telemedan began as a pilot and has expanded with support from grants and institutional partnerships, including Chad’s Ministry of Public Health and Prevention.

Abakar said the initiative now has 37 kiosks across 11 provinces and has reached an estimated 143,000 people.

Telemedan has also begun using artificial intelligence to help screen for diabetic retinopathy, a complication of diabetes that can damage vision. The initiative says the technology is intended to assist healthcare professionals rather than replace them.

But a remote consultation has limits.

A kiosk cannot provide emergency treatment or perform every examination. Patients who need specialist care, laboratory tests, medicines or hospital treatment still have to reach the next level of the health system.

Can the kiosks last?

Telemedan’s expansion comes as Chad develops its wider digital health system.

Youssouf Silay, an assistant to the coordinator of Chad’s National Digital Health Programme, told Al Jazeera that the country’s National Health Development Plan for 2022–2030 identifies digital health as a way to expand access to care.

Chad established the National Telemedicine Programme in 2021 and launched its National Digital Health Programme in 2023, Youssouf said. The Ministry of Health is also developing a legal and regulatory framework for digital health services.

“The objective is to promote innovative solutions that can improve access to healthcare, particularly in areas with limited medical and energy infrastructure,” Youssouf told Al Jazeera. “Solutions such as solar-powered telemedicine kiosks can contribute to this effort by bringing healthcare services closer to underserved populations.”

But putting a kiosk in a village is only the beginning.

The equipment has to keep working. Connectivity has to be available. Local operators need training. Doctors need to be there when patients call. And people who need care beyond the kiosk need a way to reach it.

Each kiosk costs about $10,000, according to Abakar. Telemedan sells the units to governments, public health programmes and partner organisations, which then operate them. The model means patients are not paying for the infrastructure itself.

Telemedan says it wants to reach one million people in rural communities across sub-Saharan Africa.

A solar-powered kiosk cannot replace a hospital. It cannot replace a doctor in every circumstance.

But it can shorten the distance between a patient and the health system.

“We want Telemedan to become a sustainable layer of healthcare infrastructure, not simply a collection of technology projects,” Abakar told Al Jazeera.

AMARILLO, Texas — When Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, began her campaign last year, candidates weren’t talking about — or hearing about — data centers that power artificial intelligence.

But with barely three months until November’s contest, the perceived threat to rural life, ranchland and dwindling water supplies could become a defining issue for her long-shot challenge to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, dividing conservative rural areas that have traditionally served as a counterweight to Democrats’ urban strongholds.

The backlash to energy-guzzling server warehouses is also shaping other statewide campaigns from Arizona to Ohio to New York, and even giving Democrats a glimmer of hope in Texas, where Republicans have dominated for three decades.

“There is this little issue that I recently started hearing about that I wanted to tell you about, in case you don’t know,” Hinojosa quipped to a Democratic Party-organized crowd of about 160 seated on fold-out chairs at an Amarillo social club in Texas’ panhandle. “It’s this issue of data centers.”

The crowd booed, and she went on: “They are owned by the richest men in the world. We’re all footing the bill. There are no rules. It is the wild west of data centers.”

The fast growth of massive data centers has already upended races for local offices across the country, often uniting conservatives and liberals in revolting against projects in their midst.

People don’t like the secrecy surrounding the projects or the prospect of air, noise, water and light pollution. They fear electric bills going up, wells going dry and losing open space, farmland or forest.

Now the ripple effects have spread to top-of-the-ticket races, where incumbents and challengers are trying to show that they hear an angry electorate.

In Ohio, Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown aired a television advertisement attacking Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted as the “face of data centers in Ohio” as people gather signatures for a statewide referendum to outright ban their construction.

In Wisconsin, a Democratic candidate for governor, Francesca Hong, is pledging to “tax the rich, fund our schools and stop AI data centers” as she campaigns for her party’s nomination in a crowded primary.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is facing heat from some voters who feel like he’s been too welcoming to tech behemoths. Sam Burleigh, a Democrat whose rural community is fighting off data center projects, accused Shapiro of “allowing these data centers to come in and take over acres and acres of prime farmland.”

Texas is fertile ground for data centers

Any political unrest may be felt most acutely in Texas.

The state is poised to overtake northern Virginia as the largest global data center market by 2030, according to a report by commercial real estate giant JLL. It has lots of land, lots of energy and a friendly regulatory environment under Republican leadership.

In rural west Texas and its panhandle, gargantuan data centers are under construction, including one near Amarillo touted as the world’s largest. Some come with designs for natural gas-fired turbines to power them.

Rumors are flying about others popping up — Google, which is building four data centers in northwest Texas, sponsored moderated conversations with officials and business elite in Lubbock and Amarillo in recent weeks — and it is sowing an outcry across small cities, tiny towns and sprawling ranches where people vote overwhelmingly Republican.

Google says its investments are advancing American innovation, fortifying cybersecurity and boosting energy capacity, while President Trump has made data centers a top priority to help the U.S. compete against China for AI superiority.

But tech giants and developers can be secretive about their plans, making it impossible to know what will be built or what sort of pollution they’ll create, critics say. Some worry that data centers will destroy rural Texas’ low cost of living and sully sunsets and sweeping views that stretch toward the horizon.

Others say construction and an influx of workers are already causing havoc for ranchers and towns, driving up rents, snapping up farmland, illuminating the night sky, clogging roads and turning parts of rural Texas into industrial zones.

Opposition crosses partisan divide

Democrats are prominent among the data center critics, but so are Republicans, including Texas’ sitting agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller. They say there are many more Republicans who are quieter because they fear publicly opposing their governor and party.

“They’re upset with Greg Abbott,” said Suzanne Bellsnyder, a former Republican activist from Spearman who writes a syndicated column that advocates for rural Texas. “Whether that translates into voting against him, I don’t know.”

Abbott has aggressively advocated for big projects in Texas and, in November, he helped make Google’s announcement of a $40-billion investment there, saying, “Texas is the epicenter of AI development.”

Compounding that, Texas counties don’t have zoning authority — precisely the local land planning authority that communities around the country are increasingly using to fight off data centers.

Abbott seems to recognize that data centers are dividing his base. In recent weeks, he ordered regulators to take steps to ensure Texans weren’t paying higher electricity bills because of data centers and promised to push a legislative agenda next year to impose regulations on data centers.

At an East Texas campaign stop, Abbott said that includes taking away the state’s billion-dollar-plus-per-year tax break and preventing data centers from being built in “rural Texas neighborhoods.”

Hinojosa and others derided Abbott’s words about “rural Texas neighborhoods” as meaningless — “doublespeak that makes no sense to anyone,” Hinojosa said — and lacking urgency or seriousness.

“Now we have this gold rush of data centers in our communities,” Hinojosa said in an interview, adding that “people want a say, and I think that’s fair.”

As governor, she said she’d block a permit for a data center if it wasn’t a good deal for Texans or residents hadn’t gotten a say in the matter.

Abbott tries to soothe concerns

Abbott’s campaign season turnabout on data centers doesn’t seem to have soothed many.

Of great concern is the prospect that data centers will consume massive amounts of water and worsen drought conditions for ranchers and farmers in a state where water shortages already crippled the sugar cane industry.

“Oh, I guarantee you, it’s on everybody’s mind,” said Giles Dalby, a cattle rancher and a Republican county commissioner in west Texas.

Dalby, who raises Angus and Brangus cattle on ranchland that’s been in his family for 125 years, pointed to fast-growing cities where water authorities have had to go to greater lengths to procure water, including the “water wars” between San Antonio and ranchers several years ago.

Texas is increasingly steamrolling over landowner rights in the quest for public water, Dalby said, and that could mean that data centers get in line ahead of ranchers when shortages or rationing worsen.

Clayton Tucker, a rancher and the Democratic nominee for state agriculture commissioner, said his campaign events are consumed by talk of data centers. It doesn’t matter whether he’s meeting with Democrats or Republicans.

“This is the most cross-partisan issue I’ve ever seen in my life,” Tucker said.

Meanwhile, protest groups are springing up, including one in Lubbock that is led by Republicans. The founders, Stephen Sanders and Hallie Bertrand, like some other Republican opponents of data centers, say it’s possible or even certain they won’t vote for Abbott, although they may not necessarily vote for Hinojosa.

There is still time for Abbott to push through major legislation before the election and “be a hero,” Sanders said.

The big question is whether enough rural voters will turn against Abbott to give Hinojosa a shot. It’s hard to tell, Bertrand said, especially when some know nothing about the issue.

“They’ll just hit that button, Republican all the way down,” Bertrand said. “But I think it’s a step towards something that we have not seen in Texas in a long time, with people on the right switching to the left. Or scooting a little closer to the middle, maybe.”

Levy writes for the Associated Press.

BUENOS AIRES, July 21 (UPI) — President Javier Milei’s government is backing a bill that would eliminate most of Argentina’s restrictions that have limited foreign ownership of rural land since 2011 in an effort to attract investment and strengthen legal certainty.

The plan also has reignited debate over sovereignty and control of a resource considered strategic.

The proposal is part of the Private Property Inviolability Act, and it would substantially amend the framework established a law enacted during the administration of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner that set limits on the amount of rural land that foreign individuals and companies could own.

Presidential spokesman Adrián Ravier said the initiative seeks to strengthen property rights protected under Argentina’s Constitution. Speaking at a news conference, he said the country had endured decades of legal uncertainty that discouraged investment and hindered opportunities for economic growth and job creation.

“What we are seeking is to remove the general restrictions on the acquisition of rural land by foreigners,” Ravier said.

He also argued that Argentina historically grew thanks to immigrants who invested and became landowners, and that maintaining broad restrictions on foreign investors no longer makes sense. He added that the bill instead strengthens oversight of foreign governments and their state-owned companies.

The initiative also removes one of the central principles of the current law, which states that purchasing rural land by foreigners does not constitute an investment because the land is a nonrenewable natural resource that belongs to the country.

Former Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries Minister Julián Domínguez, who promoted the law during Fernández de Kirchner’s administration, had rejected proposed reform.

He told UPI that when Congress approved the legislation, it established that “the acquisition of rural land shall not be considered an investment because it is a nonrenewable natural resource contributed by the recipient country.”

Domínguez contended the proposal contradicts the objective of protecting a strategic resource.

“It is paradoxical. The grandly titled ‘Private Property Inviolability Act’ ends up being, precisely, a violation of Argentines’ rights over their land,” he said.

The former minister also rejected the government’s argument that the current law discouraged foreign investment.

“Our producers are recognized around the world for their ability to adapt and innovate. So does the government believe a foreigner will do a better job than an Argentine producer? The debate is about something else,” he said.

The issue goes beyond economics. Domínguez said.

“In Congress, what is at stake is our identity as Argentines and our relationship with our territory. Every country is very careful about who can buy its land,” he said.

Attorney Enrique Viale, president of the Argentine Association of Environmental Lawyers, also criticized the bill, saying it should instead be called the “foreignization of land law.”

He told UPI that the proposal repeals the provisions that establish acreage limits, ownership caps and protected areas for foreign purchases of rural land.

“It repeals the provisions establishing acreage limits, ownership percentages and protected areas. It fully liberalizes land purchases, including in border areas and without ownership caps,” he said.

Viale said foreigners already own large portions of Argentine land, adding that without restrictions, the trend could accelerate.

He said reform would benefit large international investors who seek to develop artificial intelligence-related data centers, as well as foreign landowners who already hold extensive properties in Patagonia and Argentina’s Littoral region.

“I see no benefit in this bill. What it does is consolidate permanent control of land by foreign capital and increase the risk of losing sovereignty,” he said.

From the real estate sector, José Rozados, director of consultancy Reporte Inmobiliario, said easing restrictions could encourage large-scale investment.

“Anything that removes restrictions on the inflow of capital, especially for investments that require large amounts of money and long payback periods, is important,” he said.

Rozados said greater openness would facilitate productive projects that require large tracts of land and significant investment to develop economic activities.

“Whatever legislation is enacted regarding the permissibility and protection of those investments could allow foreign investors, or even local investors partnered with foreign capital, to be willing to invest in large areas of land,” he said.

The law, known as the National Protection Regime for the Ownership, Possession and Tenure of Rural Land, mandates that foreign individuals and companies may not own more than 15% of the country’s rural land — a limit that also applies within each province and municipality.

It also provides that citizens of the same nationality may not account for more than 30% of that quota, equivalent to 4.5% of the total rural land within a given territory.

The legislation also limits to 2,471 acres the amount of land that may be acquired by a single foreign owner in the country’s core agricultural zone, or its equivalent in other regions, and prohibits the sale of land located in border security zones or containing significant permanent bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes and glaciers.

The government’s bill amends several of those provisions to relax the current framework while maintaining restrictions on foreign governments and their state-owned companies.

The ruling coalition failed to secure enough support to move the initiative forward, and the bill will return to the Senate for debate in August.