It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, December 09, 2020
British author Johny Pitts wins Leipzig Book Award
The Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding, one of the most important awards in Germany, honors Pitts' "Afropean: Notes from Black Europe."
Author Johny Pitts
British television presenter, writer and photographer Johny Pitts has won the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding 2021 for Afropean: Notes from Black Europe, the city of Leipzig announced on Tuesday.
Pitts' book combines reportage and essays and aims show "the everyday Black experience, and tries to normalize rather than exoticize Blackness in Europe," he told DW's Arts.21.
The book was translated into German by Helmut Dierlamm
A search for an Afropean identity
The son of a working-class mother from Sheffield and an African American soul singer from New York, Pitts documents in Afropean his search for a European post-colonial identity.
He traveled around the metropolises of the continent — a journey including an exploration of James Baldwin's Paris, a meeting with Ghanaian Rastafarians in Berlin and a visit to the former Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. Alongside depictions of the everyday lives of musicians, activists, restaurant owners and simple workers, Pitts weaves in stories of Afropean writers like Dumas the Elder and Pushkin throughout the book.
The term Afropean is gaining popularity among Europe's Black diaspora, as it "can explain a kind of pluralism in a single word," says Pitts, who calls for teaching colonialism in schools to develop a better understanding of the structural injustices still in place today.
"When I'm criticizing Europe, I want Europe to be a better place," he says. The Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding
First awarded in 1994, the Leipzig Book Award for European Understanding is one of the most important literary awards in Germany. It is endowed with €20,000 ($24,210).
Last year's winner was Russian-American journalist, author, translator and activist Masha Gessen.
The prize is to be handed out at the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair on May 26, 2021. The fair usually takes place in March, but has been delayed due to the pandemic.
UN report: 'Woefully inadequate' climate pledges spell 3.2C temperature rise A green coronavirus-induced recovery could help close the emissions gap, but it is not enough for world leaders to meet their goal of limiting warming to well below 2C.
Emissions need to be significantly reduced to meet the Paris Agreement targets
World leaders could use the coronavirus pandemic to shave 25% off their greenhouse gas emissions with green recovery packages, according to a report released today by the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
But they have so far continued to make choices that push them further away from targets they agreed upon five years ago to protect the climate and their citizens. By burning fossil fuels and chopping down rainforests, countries are on track to heat the world by 3.2 degrees Celsius this century, despite committing to keep it well under 2C.
The annual emissions gap report, now in its 11th year, assesses the gap between what countries committed to doing under the Paris Agreement and what they need to do to keep temperatures in check. Despite recent pledges from major polluters to cut their emissions, the report describes concrete commitments as "woefully inadequate."
"The wealthy bear the greatest responsibility," wrote Inger Andersen, executive director of the United Nations Environment Program. The richest 1% of people, who emit more than double that of the poorest half of the global population, "will need to reduce their footprint by a factor of 30 to stay in line with the Paris Agreement targets." Deforestation often occurs to make way for monocultures such as palm oil
Emissions gap wide open
With factories closed, flights grounded and people buying fewer things, the pandemic is expected to lower carbon dioxide emissions by up to 7% this year, the report found. But the coronavirus panemic will do little to help governments meet temperature targets unless world leaders prioritize a green recovery.
By investing in green jobs and infrastructure and choosing climate-friendly policies, world leaders could lower emissions by a quarter of what they would otherwise be by 2030, according to the report. Among the suggested solutions are ending fossil fuel subsidies, banning new coal plants and planting trees in deforested landscapes.
But the report says most rich countries are instead supporting a "high-carbon status quo" with some putting money into new fossil fuel projects.
"There's been a perception that, because we've been stuck at home and not able to travel, we were doing great and moving in the right direction," said Martina Caretta, assistant professor of geography at West Virginia University in the US and IPCC author, who was not involved in the report. "But the truth that comes out is that this is just like a blip."
The report also calls for more action on planes and ships, which together account for 5% of global emissions and growing. About two-thirds of these emissions are international and not directly covered by national climate action plans under the Paris Agreement.
Increase in carbon-neutral pledges
Several countries have upped their ambitions in recent months.
China, the world's biggest polluter, said in October it will be carbon neutral by 2060. South Africa and South Korea have now committed to doing so by 2050, and US president-elect Joe Biden — who has promised to bring the US back into the Paris Agreement — has agreed to the same goal.
Japan has joined the EU in aiming for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century, which would mean also cutting down other pollutants like methane. Last week, the UK set itself the most ambitious short-term goal of any major economy, pledging to slash emissions by 68%— compared to 1990 levels — within this decade.
But none of these commitments have yet been translated into climate action plans known under the Paris Agreement as nationally determined contributions. Reaching carbon neutral targets will require expansion of renewables
2020 saw record fires around the world linked to global heating
Burning fossil fuels has already warmed the Earth by more than 1C and this has made storms stronger, heat waves hotter and droughts longer. By emitting more CO2 with each passing year, world leaders are locking in deeper cuts to emissions in the future.
The level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere in 2019 reached the equivalent of 59.1 gigatons of CO2. While the pandemic has tightened the carbon tap, slowing the flow of pollutants temporarily, it did not stop it.
"Are we on track to bridging the gap?" the authors write. "Absolutely not."
Acting sooner rather than later will decrease the amount of CO2 that would need to be removed from the atmosphere. The negative emissions technologies needed to keep warming below 2C — without rapidly cutting emissions now — do not yet exist at scale.
The Paris Agreement temperature targets are a long way away but "actions in the form of emission reductions to achieve them need to start immediately," said Alaa Al Khourdajie, research fellow at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London and IPCC senior scientist, who was not involved in the report. Cutting down on meat is one way to reduce personal emissions
Personal and policy change not mutually exclusive
The 132-page report also explores how to make lifestyles less carbon-intensive.
It highlights that two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions come from private households. This includes activities like eating beef, driving cars and heating homes. For instance, cutting meat out of a diet lowers emissions by about half a ton of CO2 a year — and going vegan reduces it by almost double that.
The report proposes policies for enabling lifestyle change that include laws restricting adverts for high-carbon foods, giving subsidies to people retrofitting homes with heat pumps and placing a levy on frequent flying.
Stopping climate change through personal choices or government policies is often "presented as a trade-off between two choices," the authors write. "However, system change and behavior change are two sides of the same coin."
Correction: This article has been updated to amend the affiliation of scientist Alaa Al Khourdajie.
Wildfires: Fraser Island is just one UNESCO heritage site threatened by climate change
The fires that have devastated more than half of the rainforest on Australia's UN-protected Fraser Island are among many climate change-related factors threatening the world's most treasured natural assets.
On the small sandy paradise of Fraser Island, or K'gari, off the east coast of Australia, the indigenous Butchulla people have maintained the delicate ecosystem of the rainforest on the sand dunes with controlled fires — known as "cool burns" — for generations.
But there was nothing controlled about the enormous bushfire that began spreading across the island more than seven weeks ago. Believed to have been started by a tourist campfire in October, the blaze reached its peak this weekend when it tore through the island's rainforest and forced many residents to evacuate their homes.
So far, the houses of the island's 200 residents have been spared the flames — but the same cannot be said of the natural landscape on the World Heritage-listed island. Over half the rainforest — 8,500 square kilometers (3,282 square miles) according to dpa news agency — has been destroyed by the fires.
The devastation comes at the beginning of Australia's wildfire period. Last year, in what became known as "Black Summer,” some of the most deadly and widespread fires the country has ever witnessed killed 1.25 billion animals according to conservation organization, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), burned houses to the ground and destroyed hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of bush.
On Fraser Island, the rainforest grows on sand dunes The fire has left much of the rainforest destroyed
"Fire seasons are lengthening worldwide, and we know that in Australia our fire seasons are starting earlier and finishing later, with more dangerous fire days occurring earlier in the season than they have previously," Richard Thornton, CEO of the Melboure-based non-profit Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Center, told DW by email.
"Climate change plays a role in this — Australia is now one degree Celsius warmer compared to the long-term average, which means that the variability of 'normal' events sits on top of that," he added.
UN report blames climate change
The destruction of the island's natural heritage comes as a new UN-backed report names climate change as the top threat to natural World Heritage sites. Researchers found one third of sites on the UNESCO list are now threatened by global heating.
The report — the World Heritage Outlook 3 — was authored by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a government and civil society group that advises UNESCO, the UN's culture agency.
"Natural World Heritage sites are among the world's most precious places, and we owe it to future generations to protect them," Bruno Oberle, IUCN director general said in a statement.
"As the international community defines new objectives to conserve biodiversity, this report signals the urgency within which we must tackle environmental challenges together at a planetary scale."
Watch video 28:35 After the inferno - The battle to save australia's koalas
Among the threats to 83 of the 252 World Heritage Sites are shrinking glaciers, an increase in the incidence and ferocity of fires, floods and droughts and coral reef bleaching — an impact of ocean acidification, which is caused by high levels of CO2 emissions.
The Great Barrier Reef, which is situated near Fraser Island, was singled out as one of the sites most at risk. The world's largest tropical wetland, the Pantanal Conservation Area in Brazil, was badly damaged by extensive fires in 2019 and 2020, while the melting of the Kaskawulsh Glacier caused by rising temperatures in Canada's territory of Yukon has depleted fish populations in Kluane Lake. A lack of of glacial run-off means large swathes of the lake are drying up.
"The findings of the report point to a dire need for adequate resources to manage our irreplaceable natural areas," said Peter Shadie, Director of IUCN's World Heritage Program in a statement.
According to the study, which is the third following previous assessments in 2014 and 2017, 16 of the nature sites have deteriorated in the last three years. Only eight have improved. Over a third of sites were also assessed as being at risk: 30% were of "significant concern" and 7% are "critical." These include the Great Barrier Reef, the Tropical Rainforest Heritage of Sumatra in Indonesia and the Lake Turkana National Park in Kenya.
Fires devastated parts of Brazil's Pantanal wetlands earlier this year
The Great Barrier Reef has lost around half its corals since the 1990s 'Our extremes are more extreme'
Among those sites with a more positive outlook are the Comoe National Park in Ivory Coast which Shadie identifies as an "inspiring example." After concentrated conservation efforts to counter the effects of climate change in the park, populations of chimpanzees, elephants and buffaloes are stable and rare bird populations are on the rise.
For Fraser Island, the opposite may be true. Though the report was published before the current fire started burning, the authors noted that an increase in fires posed the greatest threat to the sandy island.
"Changes in the plant communities (on Fraser Island) may be driven by future climate change and accelerated by the increase in fires," the IUCN report says. "It is felt that modern regimes driven by climate change will result in a decrease in native biodiversity with a possible increase in pyrogenic invasive plant species."
"Our extremes are more extreme — hotter and windier, and when it does rain, it rains more intensely," Australia bushfires expert Richard Thornton explained.
"It is extremely difficult to attribute any one bushfire, flood or cyclone to climate change," he added. "But climate change is changing our underlying weather conditions, and causing more severe weather," he added.
DOOMSDAY TOURISM AND CLIMATE CHANGE: VISITING NATURAL WONDERS BEFORE THEY DISAPPEAR Transient treasure
Of the 2 million-odd people who visit the Great Barrier Reef annually, a 2016 survey found that 69 percent were coming to see the UNESCO World Heritage site "before it's too late." And no wonder. The IPCC says that even if we manage to limit global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, 99 percent of the world's coral will be wiped out. Tourists can hasten their demise by touching or polluting reefs.
The US is working with aliens on Mars, says Israel’s former space chief
The planet Mars. (Supplied) Tommy Hilton, Al Arabiya English
Tuesday 08 December 2020
President Donald Trump almost revealed that the US is secretly working with aliens from the ‘Galactic Federation’ on Mars, claimed the former head of Israel’s security space program to Israeli media on Monday.
According to Prof. Haim Eshed, who served as the head of Israel’s space program from 1981 to 2010, not only is the American government in contact with aliens, but the aliens advised President Trump not to reveal their existence in case of “mass hysteria.”
“The UFOs have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet. Trump was on the verge of revealing, but the aliens in the Galactic Federation are saying: Wait, let people calm down first. They don’t want to start mass hysteria. They want to first make us sane and understanding,” said Eshed, as quoted in the Jewish Press.
Eshed claimed the American astronauts were coordinating with the aliens in an “underground base” on planet Mars.
“They have been waiting for humanity to evolve and reach a stage where we will generally understand what space and spaceships are,” he said, according to the Jewish Press.
Eshed added that the aliens had allegedly been waiting until humanity was more developed before they revealed their existence.
A mysterious metal monolith discovered in Utah recently prompted speculation. (AFP)
The professor acknowledged that some people might be skeptical about his claims, but insisted that there was a growing trend toward accepting alien existence.
“Wherever I’ve gone with this in academia, they’ve said: the man has lost his mind. Today they’re already talking differently. I have nothing to lose,” he explained.
“I’ve received my degrees and awards, I am respected in universities abroad, where the trend is also changing,” he added.
Professor Haim Eshed. (Twitter)
Eshed received the Israel Security Award three times, including twice for “confidential technological inventions,” reported the Jewish Press.
Eshed originally made the comments to 7 Days, the weekend edition of Israeli daily Yedioth Aharonoth.
No major governments or space programs have come out in support of Eshed’s claims.
Israel and US dealing with 'aliens',
says scientist Prominent Israeli Professor and Retired General Haim Eshed has claimed that Israel and the US are dealing with aliens who do not want to be identified because "humanity is not ready yet"
December 7, 2020
Prominent Israeli Professor and Retired General Haim Eshed has claimed that Israel and the US are dealing with aliens who do not want to be identified because "humanity is not ready yet," Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Saturday.
Eshed served from 1981 to 2010 as the head of Israel's security space programme, explained the Jewish Press. It noted that he received the Israel Security Award three times, twice for confidential technological inventions.
"[US President Donald] Trump was on the verge of revealing the situation, but the aliens in the Galactic Federation are saying wait, let people calm down first. They don't want to start mass hysteria. They want to first make us sane and understanding," explained Eshed. "They have been waiting for humanity to evolve and reach a stage where we will generally understand what space and spaceships are. There's an agreement between the US government and the aliens. They signed a contract with us to do experiments here."
The father of the Israeli security space programme said that the aliens are also carrying out research and trying to understand the whole fabric of the universe. "They want us as helpers. There's an underground base in the depths of Mars, where their representatives are, and also US astronauts."
He acknowledged that his claims are strange. "If I had come up with what I'm saying today five years ago, I would have been hospitalised. Wherever I've gone with this in academia, they've said: the man has lost his mind. Today they're already talking differently. I have nothing to lose. I've received my degrees and awards, I am respected in universities abroad, where the trend is also changing."
Fifth mysterious metal monolith appears in a shrubland in the Netherlands
New Mexico based Art collective called "The Most Famous Artist" has claimed credit for the monoliths previously found in Utah and California
As the mysterious monolith mayhem continues to steal headlines around the world, another one has just appeared in the Netherlands. The new obelisk was found by hikers Sunday on a private land near the Kiekenberg nature reserve in the Oudehorne, a village in the northern Friesland province.
Dutch Forestry Commission spokesman Imke Boerma said :
"We know that it was probably placed this weekend because some hikers who were walking there found it, but we don't know how it got there."
Rangers checked out the object Monday morning and are still seeking for clues to its origin. Photos have popped up all over Dutch media showing the metal monolith with a dull silver-coloured surface and standing next to an icy puddle surrounded by frost on the ground.
In an article on Newsweek, local broadcaster Omrop Fryslan said the metal structure was not shiny like the other monoliths that have been appearing in the US, Romania and England, but it was similar in shape, height and width.
He added speculations that the obelisk could be a stunt by a "New Year's Eve Club" tradition in the north of the Netherlands in a bid to draw attention to a village or association. However, the hiker who first spotted the monolith said there was no such club in the area.
Fryslan also said the object could have been there for some time since a good amount of ice has formed around the structure.
Meanwhile in the US, suspicion has fallen on an art collective called "The Most Famous Artist", which is based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The group has claimed credit for the monoliths in Utah and California as they posted an image of the Utah monolith with a £34,000 price tag attached to it.
Matty Mo, founder of "The Most Famous Artist" collective spoke up when he heard about the Isle of Wight's version:
"The monolith is out of my control at this point. Godspeed to all the aliens working hard around the globe to propagate the myth."
While metal monoliths are currently having a moment, another monolith has also found its way in front of Grandpa Joe's Candy Shop in Pittsburgh.
Christopher Beers, the owner of the Candy Shop says he commissioned a colleague to construct the 10 foot metal structure as a way to lure in customers to his shop and other small businesses around the area.
One Instaram user joked the monolith was the reset button for 2020 and asked, "Can someone please press it quickly?" Photo: Utah Department of Public Safety / Handout
New mysterious metal monolith spotted in Compton Beach
in the Isle of Wight
Previous monoliths that have been found in Utah, Romania and California appeared to be similar in structure however, the California monolith was not planted well into the ground and could be easily knocked down with a firm push.
Another mysterious monolith has surfaced at Compton Bay on the Isle of Wight earlier today just days after similar pillars were found and removed in Utah ,Romania and California.
According to The Daily Mail, the three sided free standing metal structure was spotted by beachgoers who were left baffled as it is unclear how the object was moved to a part of the beach which only had a footpath access and was at the bottom of a cliff.
The newest discovery comes after similar metal monoliths have mysteriously appeared and were just as swiftly removed in the US and in Romania. The structure in Utah, which was discovered on November 18, was covertly removed within days after another was found in Neamt county in Romania.
Strangely, just four days after its sudden appearance in Neamt county, the 2.8 meter (9ft) tall structure also disappeared as quietly as it was erected. Local reporters who have seen the structure said it was poorly made and had badly welded joints.
A spokeswoman for Piatra Neamt police, Georgiana Mosu, said authorities are conducting an inquiry into the illegally-installed structure, which was erected in a protected archaeological area.
On Wednesday, another monolith surfaced in Pine Mountain, in the city of Atascadero in California. But just as tourists were beginning to flock to get a glimpse of the structure, a group chanting "Christ is King" and "America first" tore down the metal structure at some point during the night.
Video footage posted in a streaming website showed the group of four men dressed in military fatigues pushing down the metal obelisk and replacing it with a wooden cross.
However, despite being quite similar to the other metal structures, the monolith in California was different from the one found in Utah. Unlike the other structures, the Pine Mountain monolith was not planted well into the ground and could be easily knocked down with a firm push and could possibly injure hikers if it fell over. It was said to weigh about 200lbs.
Atascadero Mayor Heather Moreno was not too happy by its disappearance saying the monolith provided something unique and fun during these stressful times.
Meanwhile, two adventure sportsmen and Utah residents Andy Lewis and Sylvan Christensen, stepped forward to claim responsibility for being part of the team who removed the Utah monolith. They stood ground for their actions explaining the ethical failures of the monolith artist who gouged a 24-inch hole on the sandstone surface of a protected area.
"It was not even close to the damage caused by the internet sensationalism and subsequent reaction from the world. This land wasn't physically prepared for the population shift," Christensen stated.
Utah local officials cited how the structure had been placed without permission on public land and pointed out that curious visitors have now left behind a mess of human waste and debris and parked cars on vegetation.
The shiny, triangular pillar that protruded some 12 feet from the red rocks of southern Utah
It was spotted on November 18, 2020 by baffled local officials counting bighorn sheep from the air Photo: Utah Department of Public Safety / Handout
Mysterious monoliths popping up in US, Europe
Several metal monoliths have appeared in remote spots in the US and Europe over the past several weeks. While they are likely art installations, speculation remains about the objects' potential otherworldly origins.
On Sunday, a mysterious mirrored monolith was spotted by sea off the UK coast, sticking out of Compton Beach on the Isle of Wight. The nearly 8-foot (2.2 meter) gleaming pillar soon drew crowds, and speculation towards its origin.
"It's someone playing a practical joke. I don't believe in any of these conspiracy theories," a man walking his dog told Sky News.
Another monolith was spotted by hikers in the swampy Kiekenberg nature reserve in the Netherlands' northern Friesland province over the weekend, forest officials said Monday, adding they do not know how it got there and were looking for clues.
"We know that it was probably placed this weekend," a forestry service spokesman told AFP news agency.
This monolith appeared Sunday on the Isle of Wight The Utah monolith
The two sightings are among several in recent weeks. All of the monoliths have resembled an ostensible extraterrestrial object appearing in Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi classic "2001: A Space Odyssey."
The first monolith appeared two weeks ago, hidden deep in the red-rock desert country near Moab in the southwestern US state of Utah.
This monolith in Utah was discovered by officials counting big horn sheep
The 10-foot shiny metal object was first spotted by wildlife officials tracking big horn sheep, and it soon drew hundreds of people to the remote spot.
After several days, the monolith was removed by a group of locals concerned about the environmental damage caused by masses of people heading through the fragile desert to get a look. An anonymous art collective has since taken credit for placing it. All that remains of the mysterious Utah monolith
Monolithic copycats?
Soon after the Utah monolith appeared, two similarly styled objects popped up in California and Romania.
A shiny 9-foot monolith was discovered near an archaeological site in Romania's mountainous Neamt county. It was up for four days before it disappeared overnight.
A local journalist told Reuters news agency that a "bad local welder" probably made it, as it looked poorly put together. The Romanian monolith on Batca Doamnei hill in northern Romania
The California monolith was placed on the top of a mountain trail in the city of Atascadero between San Francisco and Los Angeles and it drew interest from local hikers.
However, it was quickly torn down by a group of men who posted a video on social media of them replacing it with a cross, which was also subsequently removed.
"We are upset that these young men felt the need to drive 5 hours to come into our community and vandalize the monolith,'' Atascadero Mayor Heather Moreno said in a press release. "The monolith was something unique and fun in an otherwise stressful time.''
Local media reported the three-sided, 10-foot-tall object was back in place on the hilltop by the weekend. The monolith in California was once removed, and since replaced
Iranian artist collective on show for first time in Germany Political and social conflicts are the focus of the trio Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian, whose exhibition opened in Frankfurt.
Large-scale installations, films, collages, sculptures and a huge floor painting: Curator Martina Weinhart has long looked forward to the first solo exhibition in Germany by the brothers Ramin and Rokni Haerizadeh and their friend and colleague, Hesam Rahmanian. The original plan for an opening four months ago was thwarted by the coronavirus pandemic, but now the Schirn Kunsthalle museum in Frankfurt can finally showcase the Iranian trio's works.
A monumental painting created especially for this exhibition stretches across the Kunsthalle floor; strange figures, a blend of human and animal, populate a cosmos full of images, symbols and memories.
Strange figures populate the imagery of Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh and Hesam Rahmanian
The artists draw inspiration from their biographies mixed with political impressions and the background of a rich Persian culture. "The result is a walk-in floor work, a huge essay with many references," curator Martina Weinhart told DW. Sculptures, texts, photographs, sound and videos round it off.
Artists' studio in Dubai is a 'cabinet of curiosity'
The three artists have lived and worked in the United Arab Emirates for years. Their mansion on Dubai's Al Barsha Street "is an extraordinary villa full of things, but it is also a stage, a film set and movie theater. It is their studio and a cabinet of curiosity," the Kunsthalle Zürich wrote five years ago on the occasion of the artists' first show in Europe.
It is "a test site-cum-monastery, an academy-cum-pleasure dome" where the trio lives and works as a loosely-knit artist collective, sometimes together, sometimes on separate projects and often in cooperation with other artists.
The Schirn exhibition, for instance, also shows two textile sculptures by the Egyptian artist Hoda Tawakol.
The artists often come up with humorous titles for their works, such as this one:
'If I Had Two Paths I Would Choose The Third'
Coronavirus regulations made shipment challenging
The three artists sent Weinhart a creative response to their postponed exhibition, a self-produced video whose protagonist is the passing of time. The camera slowly wanders around tables with emerging works of art, prepared food, pots of paint and photos. A voice declaims the days of the week: "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ..."
Due to constantly changing regulations as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, transportation by ship and rail from Dubai to Frankfurt proved to be a logistical challenge, Weinhart said. And because of the current restrictions, the artist trio was not able to travel to Germany for their exhibition either.
Their works, filled with poetry, speak for themselves. "Expect to be amazed!" Weinhart said.
The exhibition "Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian" runs at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt from September 3 - December 13, 2020.
An Israeli singer's secret collaboration with Iranians Subversive diplomacy: Israeli singer and actress Liraz Charhi has recorded her latest album in a secret collaboration with Iranian artists. Singer Liraz Charhi is also an actress
Officially there's supposed to be no contact between Iranians and Israelis, but Liraz Charhi took a risk and carried out an extraordinary act of subversive diplomacy.
Charhi's parents are Sephardic Jews from Iran who emigrated to Israel when they were teenagers. The singer and actress born in 1978 has always kept a connection to her Persian roots, but most of her previous recordings have been in Hebrew. This album, Zan (Women), is her second album in Farsi.
Via Youtube she has grown a following inside Iran. She was inspired to see her Iranian fans uploading videos of themselves dancing to her songs — in Iran, public dancing by women is forbidden.
While living in Los Angeles to pursue her acting career, she connected and bonded with the Iranian community there. On her return to Israel she took a suitcase full of pre-revolution Iranian pop music, which became the musical inspiration for her latest album.
A risky collaboration
Charhi told DW that actually making the album was an emotional experience: "Emotionally it was pretty challenging because both Israel and Iran are very complex countries… but we do love each other very, very much," she said.
The album was challenging to make technically, as different parts were recorded secretly in Iran and the files sent to Israel. There, Charhi assembled and mixed the final work. But it was also dangerous for the Iranian artists who participated, and they had to be credited under assumed names to avoid repercussions from Tehran's intelligence and security networks.
The cover of Charhi's album 'Zan'
"It's very difficult for us to understand that we cannot speak freely or we cannot create an album freely. And we did it, in a very naive way, but there was a very challenging point that we got lots of bad messages telling us that we're doing something wrong, and we should not do what we're doing," she said. "I was really afraid for the lives of the people from Iran that I have been working with."
A Mossad spy in Tehran
While Charhi's Iranian fans have responded ecstatically to the album, her family and her Israeli fans took a little while to warm to the idea. But, she says, that once they listened to the music and came to the shows, the inhibitions fell away.
"At first it was strange to them, but immediately they came to my shows and danced with their Iranian moves, and it was very natural for the fans here in Israel and they love Persian music," she said.
Under the current political situation, Liraz Charhi will never be able to openly travel to Iran and perform for her fans. Ironically her most recent television role is in the Israeli spy series Tehran, as a Mossad agent who has to be dropped into Tehran undercover.
Hong Kong police arrest pro-democracy activists in widening crackdown
Hong Kong police have arrested eight activists, including three ex-lawmakers, over their role in a July pro-democracy protest. This comes as China condemns US sanctions over Beijing's actions in the territory. Pro-democracy lawmaker Wu Chi-wai struggles with security at Hong Kong's Legislative Council
Eight pro-democracy activists were arrested in Hong Kong on Tuesday as authorities continue a crackdown on dissent under a new security law imposed by Beijing.
The eight, who include three former lawmakers, were detained for their role in a protest against the security law on July 1. They could face a maximum of five years in prison.
The ex-lawmakers who were arrested are Wu Chi-wai, the former chief of Hong Kong's Democratic party, Eddie Chu and Leun Kwok Hung.
The arrests came shortly after the US sanctioned 14 top Chinese officials, all of them vice chairpersons of the National People's Congress, over their role in disqualifying pro-democracy politicians from Hong Kong's legislature last month.
China has reacted angrily to the US move, with its Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office calling it the product of "double standards" while voicing "strong indignation and condemnation."
The Foreign Ministry was even more emphatic in its condemnation of the sanctions, calling their imposition "unwarranted and vile behavior." Pro-democracy lawmaker Wu Chi-wai (r) is among those detained Draconian law
The national security law was imposed by China in Hong Kong on June 30 in a bid to crack down on dissent in the former British territory after months of mass protests last year.
The vaguely worded law is seen by critics as an attempt by Beijing to curb the rights to freedom of speech and assembly guaranteed to the territory when Britain handed it back to Chinese rule in 1997.
A number of activists have been recently arrested and some jailed under the law. Notably, leading dissident Joshua Wong and two other major figures in the activist scene were sent to prison last week over their involvement in a rally outside police headquarters in 2019.
Coronavirus: Rich countries hoarding COVID vaccines, campaigners warn
Rich nations are stockpiling the most promising coronavirus vaccines, and people in poorer nations could miss out as a result. Campaigners are urging pharma companies to share technology so more doses can be made. The UK began its coronavirus vaccination campaign on Tuesday
Just one in 10 people in dozens of poor countries will be able to get vaccinated against the coronavirus because wealthy countries have hoarded more doses than they need, the People's Vaccine Alliance said Wednesday.
Rich nations have bought 54% of the total stock of the world's most promising vaccines, despite being home to just 14% of the global population, said the Alliance, a coalition including Oxfam, Amnesty International and Global Justice Now.
Those wealthy nations have purchased enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations three times over by the end of 2021 if the vaccine candidates currently in clinical trials are approved for use.
"This shouldn't be a battle between countries to secure enough doses," Mohga Kamal-Yanni, an advisor for People's Vaccine Alliance, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
The Alliance called on pharmaceutical companies developing coronavirus vaccines to openly share their technology and intellectual property through the World Health Organization so that more doses can be made.
"During these unprecedented times of a global pandemic, people's lives and livelihoods should be put before pharmaceutical company profit," Kamal-Yanni said
This week it was revealed US President Donald Trump would sign an executive order prioritizing the distribution of the coronavirus vaccine to Americans before doses go to other nations, as part of his "America First" policy.
But while these wealthy nations are either beginning or about to begin their vaccination campaigns, the People's Vaccine Alliance warned that people in 67 low- and lower-middle-income countries, including Bhutan, Ethiopia and Haiti, are at risk of being left out.
Almost all the available doses of the BioNTech-Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — two of the most promising — have been bought up by rich countries, the Alliance said.
AstraZeneca and Oxford University, who are also developing a promising vaccine, have promised to make 64% of their doses available to developing countries. However, the Alliance said that would reach only 18% of the world's population by next year "at most."
"No one should be blocked from getting a life-saving vaccine because of the country they live in or the amount of money in their pocket," said Anna Marriott, Oxfam's health policy manager. "But unless something changes dramatically, billions of people around the world will not receive a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19 for years to come."
Germany's gender pay gap shrinks, but still higher than EU average
German women made 19% less than men in 2019, a slim decrease from 2018. With the European Union average at 15%, Germany has the bloc's second-worst gender pay gap after Estonia.
The gender pay gap between men and women in Germany fell by 1% in 2019, but it was still higher than the European Union average, according to new figures from the Federal Statistical Office published on Tuesday.
"Viewed over a longer period of time, a slow but steady decline can be observed in Germany," the report read, noting that the gap in 2014 stood at 22%. The figure takes a look at all jobs and all qualifications, adjusting only for gender differences.
When the wage gap is evaluated for men and women employed in the same number of hours, with the same qualifications and in the same kinds of jobs, the gap narrowed to 6%.
The narrower adjusted wage gap has moved at an even slower pace than the unadjusted wage gap, remaining at 6% since 2014. It stood at 7% in 2010 and 8% in 2006.
Experts have long attributed Germany's gender pay gap to the differences in career choices, with women working in lower paid professions and industries.
Women are also more likely to work part-time or reduced hours, often because they still bear the brunt of childcare and housekeeping responsibilities.
Moreover, women in Germany are less likely to occupy higher management positions in most industries.
The EU has not yet published its figures for 2019, but it posted an average 15% gender pay gap across the bloc in 2018.
Germanys 2019 numbers still put it above the average and last year, it ranked second worst after Estonia, which posts the highest wage gap in the EU at 22%.
The EU countries that registered the narrowest gaps in wages between men and women were Luxembourg at 1%, Romania at 2% and Italy at 4%.
Countries like the Netherlands, Denmark and Ireland landed roughly at the average with 14-15%, while nations like Croatia, Hungary and Sweden were just below at an average of 10-12%. Germany's east-west divide
The gender pay gap in Germany is driven by a higher inequality in the West, as the states which made up the former East Germany had markedly narrower gaps in 2018.
In the states of Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia the pay gap was on average 7%.
This can be attributed to the fact that wages are generally lower in eastern Germany, but also to cultural patterns of childcare and female participation in the labor force, which was much higher in the East prior to reunification.
