IRELAND

Tánaiste (PM) meets with Facebook moderators over working conditions concerns

Leo Varadkar, © PA Wire/PA Images

29/01/2021 BY JAMES WARD, PA

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has met with Facebook content moderators, who have outlined serious concerns about their working conditions.

Moderators have been pushing for months to be given the same right to work from home as other Facebook employees during the Covid-19 pandemic.

There are also concerns over the level of mental health supports available to workers, who are frequently exposed to distressing content.

They are employed through Covalen, an outsourcing firm with a major Facebook moderation contract in Ireland.

Leo Varadkar met with two moderators, Ibrahim Halawa and Paria Moshfeghi, in Dublin on Friday.

The PA News Agency understands that Mr Varadkar will write to Facebook next week to highlight the concerns raised.

Mr Halawa said he and Ms Moshfeghi were “risking our jobs” by speaking out about their concerns.

The main fear among employees is that they are forced to attend the office, where there has been positive cases of Covid-19, and return to vulnerable family members.

Mr Halawa said: “I had complained to the company and I have told them that my mom is a recovering cancer patient, and there’s only me and my sister, taking shifts on her care.

A lot of employees are really worried about their safety, about their mental health and it's not fair Ibrahim Halawa

“It’s unfair that I would have to come during these difficult times and move around the building and whatnot, then come back home.

“The response that was given really annoyed me. It was ‘try to stay away from them’. Well, how am I meant to stay away from my loved ones?

“It is not fair to work in a place in this modern time in Ireland and be in such fear to speak up just for simple improvements” he said.

“A lot of employees are really worried about their safety, about their mental health and it’s not fair.”

Ms Moshfeghi said: “I found it scary to speak up because Covalen and Facebook try to intimidate us.

“Really, it is my safety concern around Covid that led me to speak to Mr Varadkar today.

“Today I said that Mr Varadkar must use his power to make our employer protect us from Covid, in the same way Facebook staff are protected.”

Following the meeting, Mr Varadkar tweeted: “Met with internet content moderators today. They do really important work to protect all of us. Will be following up on some of issues they mentioned.”

Leo Varadkar is expected to write to Facebook next week, following a meeting with the company’s moderators (Niall Carson/PA)

Darragh Mackin of Phoenix Law, a solicitors’ firm representing the moderators, said they had written numerous letters to both Facebook and Covalen in the lead-up to Friday’s meeting.

He said: “Facebook, to no surprise, denied responsibility for the moderators as employees. Covalen, the employer, didn’t respond at all.

“Unfortunately, what we see is clearly a policy of hear no evil, see no evil, and certainly speak no evil.

“This shows a lack of respect for their own workers. Content moderators can today take great comfort from the Tanaiste’s statement and the fact that we stood up and asserted these people’s rights to talk about conditions, about safety about dignity, and about pay.

“Like any other playground playground bully, they went away. Today is the beginning of the end of the fear of these workers to speak out today.”

They can't tell their families that they moderate content on Facebook, they're subject to hours of toxic material without proper or meaningful mental health supportCori Crider, Foxglove Legal

The moderators have been working with Foxglove Legal, a team of lawyers, technology experts, and communications specialists seeking rights for tech workers.

Co-founder Cori Crider said: “Content moderators are a workforce of thousands all over the world and there are over 1,000 content moderators in Ireland

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IRELAND
Facebook group urging businesses to reopen labelle...

“Facebook as a platform simply couldn’t exist without this workforce and they’re not directly employed by Facebook, but often outsourced, underpaid and made to sign very restrictive non-disclosure agreements.

“They can’t tell their families that they moderate content on Facebook, they’re subject to hours of toxic material without proper or meaningful mental health support.”

The PA News Agency has contacted Facebook for comment.

 

Robin Hood society attracts surge in followers after trading platform confusion

BUSINESS

The group says is pleased the 'legend of Robin Hood is spreading far and wide'. Photo: PA

29/01/2021 

BY JOSH PAYNE, PA

A society promoting the legend of Robin Hood has attracted a surge in social media followers after people confused it with a US stock trading platform.

The England-based World Wide Robin Hood Society now has almost 40,000 followers after some Twitter users mistook the account for the Robinhood app, which curbed the buying of shares in Gamestop.

Some Americans have expressed outrage after the platform restricted trading – preventing people from buying the firm’s stock with the objective of increasing its value.

But the World Wide Robin Hood Society said it is “lovely” to have new followers and it is pleased the “legend of Robin Hood is spreading far and wide”.

Taking to Twitter, the society said: “Lovely to have all these new followers.

“Can we just check that you know that you’re following The World Wide Robin Hood Society in Nottingham and not the Robinhood App.

“If so… a big welcome from Sherwood.

Despite being pleased with the wider publicity, the society did encourage those with “grievances” to contact the Robinhood app directly.

They later tweeted: “Here at the World Wide Robin Hood Society, we rob the rich to give to the poor.

“Much as we’d like to help with your grievances, @robinhoodapp doesn’t reply to us either, so please can you message them directly! Thank you.”

GameStop effect spreads beyond Wall Street as calls for investigation build

Stock shares of videogame retailer GameStop have increased 700% in the past two weeks due to amateur investors. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

28/01/2021 | BY SAGARIKA JAISINGHANI AND SHRIYA RAMAKRISHNAN
BREAKINGNEWS.IE

The battle between small-time traders and hedge funds that has shaken US and European stock markets moved into Asia on Thursday, with surges in several Australian companies joining a list of social-media hyped moves that have cost financial institutions billions of dollars.

Heavily shorted Australian shares, including Webjet and Tassal Group, climbed more than 5 per cent even as Sydney's benchmark ASX 200 index fell 2 per cent.

In New York, GameStop, the video game chain at the heart of the slugfest between Wall Street and Main Street, added another 37 per cent in early trading after a two-week, 1,700 per cent surge that has hammered fund investors who were betting the stock would fall.

Driven by an army of individual traders who work through online brokerage apps like Robinhood.com and discuss stocks on anonymous social media messaging boards, the dramatic jump in the stock price of companies including GameStop, BlackBerry Ltd and AMC Corp drew more calls for regulatory scrutiny from commentators.

“The frenzy raises all sorts of questions with respect to possible market manipulation,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at retail broker CMC Markets UK.

“It is already illegal for institutions to coordinate in the manner currently being seen in moving prices on these stocks, raising questions about the legality of what is currently taking place right now on these forums.”

Reddit discussion threads were again humming with chatter about the stocks on Thursday as membership of the trader-focused group WallStreetBets raced past 4 million.

In one discussion, thousands of participants responded “We love this stock” to a post that called for more buying of GameStop and cast retail traders as Iron Man against a hedge fund Thanos in a nod to the superhero movie “Avengers: Endgame”.

BlackBerry and Nokia, however, slipped more than 5 per cent in premarket trading after recording hefty gains this week and derivatives positioning pointed to a greater rise in the number of orders betting GameStop would fall.

“The idea that this is about hedge fund short-sellers transferring funds to a mass of ordinary retail buyers is a compelling story,” said Paul Donovan, chief economist of UBS Global Wealth Management.

“But it is also a story that is unlikely to hold true beyond the brief period of the frenzy.”

'Dumb money'  

GameStop shares spike after Reddit-driven rally an...

The war began last week when famed short seller Andrew Left of Citron Capital bet against GameStop and was met with a barrage of retail traders betting the other way. He said on Wednesday he had abandoned the bet.

Regarded by market professionals as “dumb money”, the pack of traders, some of them former bankers working for themselves, have become an increasingly powerful force worth 20 per cent of equity orders last year, data from Swiss bank UBS showed.

This week's turmoil caught the attention of the White House, with US president Joe Biden's economic team – including treasury secretary Janet Yellen on her first full day on the job on Wednesday – “monitoring the situation.”

Reddit said on Wednesday that it had not been contacted by authorities over the surges.

Nile cruiser follows the trail of Agatha Christie

Built for the Egyptian royal family in 1885 and transformed into a cruise liner in 1921, the SS Sudan hosted the novelist with her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, in 1933.

Wednesday 27/01/2021 AW ARAB WEEKLY KSA
The steam ship “PS Sudan” cruising along the Nile river by Egypt’s southern city of Aswan. (AFP)

ASWAN - More than a century after it first cruised the glittering waters of the Nile, the Steam Ship Sudan draws tourists following the trail of legendary crime novelist Agatha Christie.

The SS Sudan, which towers over the traditional wooden sailing boats in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan, inspired the British author sometimes dubbed the “Queen of Crime” to pen one of her most famous works in 1937, “Death on the Nile.”

The whodunnit tells the story of Christie’s famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, investigating murder among the well-heeled travellers as they cruise the Nile.

“Agatha Christie’s trip aboard the steamer, the atmosphere and its route… inspired her to begin writing the first chapters,” said Amir Attia, the cruise ship’s director.

A view of the deck of the Nile steam ship “PS Sudan” off of Egypt’s southern city of Aswan, some 920 kilometres south of the capital. (AFP)

Built for the Egyptian royal family in 1885 and transformed into a cruise liner in 1921, the SS Sudan hosted the novelist with her second husband, archaeologist Max Mallowan, in 1933.

– Two-year waiting list –

Among the ship’s 23 rooms and suites, Attia says the writer’s room is still “the most popular.”

Passengers are whisked away on Christie’s original itinerary, stopping at the same ancient archaeological sites, albeit with a difference — the liner now runs on diesel and solar power instead of coal.

A staff of 67 keeps the vessel shipshape, and a luxury eight-day trip also including stays in two historic hotels sets travellers back around $4,000, but there is a long waiting list to stay in the Christie cabin.

“There are booking requests for up to two years in advance,” he said.

While Egypt’s key tourism industry has been hit hard by COVID-19 restrictions — with revenues slashed by more than a fifth from 2019-2020 — the ship’s staff are insistent the pandemic will not sink the historic vessel.

“My product is unique,” Attia said. “Egypt as a tourist destination will never die down.”

The SS Sudan has faced crises before.

It was left to rot for decades after World War II, but was rescued and refitted in 1991, before being abandoned and then repaired a second time in 2000.

Last year the boat was initially stuck in port — but it started operating as soon as rules allowed.

“The SS Sudan was the first cruise ship to re-open for business in October,” Attia said.

“We immediately got so many reservations… that we had to knock a few back because we’re overbooked.”

– Hollywood treatment –

Staff hope that Christie’s story can work its magic again to draw new visitors.

A big-budget film version — directed by and starring Kenneth Branagh, along with Hollywood stars Annette Bening, Russell Brand and Gal Gadot — is due for release in late 2021, a followup to the 2017 Christie adaption, “Murder on the Orient Express.”

An employee of the Old Cataract Hotel stands through the door of the suite where British crime fiction writer Dame Agatha Christie is believed to have stayed while writing her 1937 novel “Death on the Nile”, in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan. (AFP)

The last stop on the cruise is the Old Cataract Hotel, which over the years has hosted guests ranging from Britain’s Winston Churchill to Egyptian Nobel Prize for Literature winner Naguib Mahfouz, said Selim Shawer, the hotel manager.

The hotel too has a small exhibition dedicated to Christie, including the rocking chair and desk where she wrote.

“It is an attraction in itself for fans of Hercule Poirot,” said Shawer.

“Even people who are not staying in our hotel come to take photos with the chair.”

HOBBY LOBBY GRAVE ROBBER SCANDAL

Egypt recovers 5,000 illegally-smuggled artefacts from US

The items mainly consisted of manuscripts but also included funeral masks, parts of coffins and the heads of stone statues.

Friday 29/01/2021 AW ARAB WEEKLY KSA

Visitors look at monuments during their visit to the Coptic museum in old Cairo. (AFP)

CAIRO - Egypt announced this week that it had retrieved some 5,000 ancient items from the United States, after years of negotiations to return what it said were fraudulently acquired items.

In a statement, Wednesday, the ministry of tourism and antiquities confirmed the “arrival at Cairo airport of a large number of ancient Egyptian items which had been in the possession of the Museum of the Bible in Washington.”

The items, totalling nearly 5,000, mainly consisted of manuscripts, but also included funeral masks, parts of coffins and the heads of stone statues, said Chaabane Abdeljawad, an official quoted in the statement.

The items, which left Egypt in a fraudulent manner, would be placed in the Coptic Museum in Cairo, the statement added.

It was not clear how the items left Egypt illegally or ended up at the museum in Washington, but Egyptian authorities negotiated their return over several years.

Many treasured items were damaged, destroyed or illegally whisked out of the country during the popular uprising against former President Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

Thousands of them have ended up on the international market, on internet sites or under the hammer at auctions.

The Embattled Museum of the Bible Has Returned Over 5,000 Ancient Artifacts to Egypt

By Helen Holmes • 01/29/21 THE OBSERVER

The Museum of the Bible in D.C. in 2017. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
On Thursday, the US Department of Homeland Security announced that over 5,000 ancient Egyptian artifacts had been returned to their country of origin after previously being held at the Museum of the Bible, a Washington, D.C. institution that’s been troubled by various dustups since it first opened in 2017. The ancient objects that were recently returned to Egypt include numerous papyrus documents, heads of statues, fragments of coffins and funeral masks, and the papyrus artifacts are of particular interest to scholars. This mass repatriation has been years in the making, and comes on the heels of evidence that the objects may have been obtained illegally.
During and in the aftermath of the 2011 turmoil surrounding the presidency of Hosni Mubarak, many Egyptian treasures were furtively shipped from the country and sold all over the world; the US government has been particularly stringent about tracking these items down. There was, however, a previous indication that the Museum of the Bible’s return of the items to Egypt would take place. In March of 2020, Steve Green, the Museum of the Bible’s Chairman of the Board, stated that he had begun collecting “biblical manuscripts and artifacts” for the museum in 2009, when he knew little about the practice. Green also admitted that he had obtained “insufficient reliable provenance information” for many of the items he’d collected, leading to the return process that’s now unfolding.

Plus, the Museum of the Bible hasn’t just been reprimanded for questionable acquisition practices: in March of 2020, an internal investigation at the museum found that all of the textual fragments in the museum’s “Dead Sea Scroll” collection were forgeries. Given that so much of the material within the museum appears to be either inauthentic or obtained using shady practices, it’s also interesting that the Museum of the Bible has also restricted scholars from accessing and studying its materials in the past; the museum has reserved that privilege for individuals selected by the Green Scholars Initiative. On the whole, the Museum of the Bible seems like a holy mess.

Museum of the Bible in Washington returns around 5,000 disputed biblical objects to Egypt

Institution has been faulted for a lack of oversight in determining what artefacts were legally exported and sold

NANCY KENNEY 28th January 2021 

The Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC

The Egyptian government and the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, say that around 5,000 artefacts acquired by the museum–manuscript fragments, funeral masks, parts of coffins and the heads of statues–have been returned to Egypt as a result of evidence that they were acquired illegally.

The handover comes after years of negotiations over the ancient objects, mostly papyri that is of major interest to scholars. Details have not been disclosed about how the items left Egypt, but many treasured objects are thought to have been illegally shipped from the country amid the political turmoil of the 2011 uprising against then-President Hosni Mubarak or other chaotic circumstances and to have later ended up on the international market. For years, such objects offered for sale online have been under scrutiny by the US federal government.

Steve Green, president of the US company Hobby Lobby and the board chairman and founder of the Museum of the Bible, who says he began acquiring biblical manuscripts and other artefacts in 2009, reports that the objects’ return involved extensive talks that began with Egyptian officials in late 2017. They appear to be destined for the Coptic Museum in Cairo and were transferred to the US government for shipment on 7 January, he adds.

Green announced last March that “several thousand items that likely originated from Iraq and Egypt, but for which there was insufficient reliable provenance information” in the museum's collection would be returned to their countries of origin.

Critics say that the Green family have played a prominent role in acquiring biblical objects that were not legally sold. They have also accused the Green family and the Museum of the Bible of limiting publication access to manuscript fragments unless they enlist in the institution’s Green Initiative, most of whose adherents are thought to be Christian and evangelical.

Previously the museum announced that thousands of its Middle Eastern antiquities had disputed provenances and that its collection of Dead Sea Scrolls was not authentic.

Green notes that the museum on 27 January also initiated the shipment of 8,106 disputed clay objects to the Iraq Museum in Baghdad under the supervision of the US government, in addition to 3,800 clay items that have been set aside for that institution.

 

Algeria and France’s historical opportunism

Decision-makers in Algeria have stayed glued to the past, invoking its “glories” to conceal the shortcomings of the present and cover up their inability to achieve new “glories.”

Wednesday 27/01/2021 AW ARAB WEEKLY KSA

Algeria’s Republican Guards attend ceremony to lay to rest the remains of 24 resistance fighters, returned from Paris after more than a century and a half, on the 58th anniversary of Algeria’s independence, in Algiers on July 5, 2020. (AFP)

Different goals converge when it comes to the opportunistic exploitation of history and the attempt to gain political advantage from its events.

Algeria and France are ingratiated in a joint “hypocrisy party” around what has become known as the memory file. The great hype and controversy surrounding the issue almost suggests to those who follow its details that time has stopped in the two countries in the French colonial era in Algeria which spans the period from the 1830’s and the 1960’s, with all its confrontations, violence, victims and bloodshed.

From the Algerian side, one cannot understand the insistence on reopening the files of the colonial era and the insistence in asking France to apologise, regardless of the goals and political motivations behind it.

These goals and motivations are essentially to distract people from the current realities resulting from six decades of independence, during which valuable time was wasted and enormous energy was squandered but nothing important was accomplished in comparison to what could have been accomplished and what other countries that also went through the experience of colonialism and fought a freedom struggle to rid themselves of its yoke have achieved.  Not possessing the natural resources of Algeria, many of these other countries invested in their people and succeeded in doing so with great success.

The National Liberation Front (FLN) party has been clinging to power for six decades and living off a mix of pan-Arabist and Islamist slogans shed long ago by their countries of origin. These countries have instead chosen the path of wealth-producing rule instead of just relying on oil revenue. These countries opted for the development of their societies and their prosperity and future welfare. Decision-makers in Algeria have stayed glued to the past, invoking its “glories” to conceal the shortcomings of the present and cover up their inability to achieve new “glories.”

There is no nation without a past and without glories which gain moral value with the passage of time and can be used as a catalyst for more work, effort and achievement.

But these glories cannot be frozen in time and lived on endlessly, thus becoming a heavy burden and a barrier to development, which is the case of Algeria considering the way it deals with the colonial era and its files.

With due realism, one can only wonder what the importance is of “memory files” for the younger generation of Algerians whose interests, needs and aspirations are derived from their generation’s times and realities, and are radically different from the interests and aspirations of their predecessors.

What would be the answer of the vast majority of Algerian youth if asked what they would prefer:  France apologising to their country for the colonial era or instead facilitating their access to entry visas and living on French soil?

The clearest answer to this question is provided by the thousands of young Algerians who wade through the Mediterranean Sea every year on rickety and rudimentary boats in the hope of reaching the coasts of Italy, France and Spain. Some of them make it, many are arrested, while others end up as food for Mediterranean fish.

On the French side, especially during the era of President Emmanuel Macron, decision-makers dealt with the memory file with as much opportunism as their Algerian partners.

Macron, who is watching the rapid decline of his country’s role in its traditional spheres of influence on the African continent, seems to be driven by the disastrous results of a series of fatal mistakes committed by successive French governments in Africa, up to the cardinal sin of former President Nicolas Sarkozy in Libya. These mistakes put French troops at the risk of being swamped in the sands of neighbouring Mali.

The spark is now nearer to the uranium mines in Niger, the biggest source of this precious metal used as fuel to generate three-quarters of France’s electrical energy needs.

These considerations made Macron lose the ability to decide on Algeria’s demands regarding the colonial era. While he does not have the courage to close the door and close the file, thus ending all hopes for the restoration of his country’s influence in Africa from the Algerian gate, he cannot meet Algeria’s demands, which would mean recognition that his country committed colonial crimes that harmed its image.

By the same token, he would be presenting an electoral gift to the rising far right led by Marine Le Pen, behind whom there is a large audience that still believes in “French Algeria” and considers the signing of the Evian Treaty, which established the independence of Algeria, as a historic crime against the French nation, not to mention the attitude of that public when it comes to apologising to Algeria and granting it compensation for the colonial era.

In view of the inability of the Algerian and French sides to agree on a compromise formula to move beyond the past with a future-driven approach that establishes a tangibly beneficial partnership, instead of continuing the hollow debate over legal issues that have become part of the history, the two sides prefer to persist in an implicit and systematic agreement on keeping the memory file open and investing in it each in its own way, despite the meager results that both have achieved from this exercise.

Written ByZouheir Darraji

Zouheir Darraji is an Algerian writer.

Jews, Muslims contest European ritual slaughter restrictions

Jewish and Muslim groups challenged the Flanders law in Belgium’s Constitutional Court, which referred it to the European Court of Justice for a ruling on its compatibility with EU law.

AW ARAB WEEKLY Friday 29/01/2021

Staff work on the production line of Kosher poultry meat in a Kosher slaughterhouse in Csengele, Hungary on January 15, 2021. (AP)


CSENGELE, Hungary--In a small room lined with religious texts, a Jewish rabbi demonstrates how knives are sharpened and inspected before they are put to use slitting the throats of chickens, geese and other poultry at a kosher slaughterhouse in Hungary.

A shochet, someone trained and certified to slaughter animals according to Jewish tradition, whets a knife on increasingly fine stones before drawing the blade across a fingernail to feel for any imperfections in the steel that might inhibit a smooth, clean cut and cause unnecessary pain.

“One of the most important things in kosher is that the animal doesn’t suffer,” said Rabbi Jacob Werchow, who oversees production at Quality Poultry, a 3 1/2-year-old slaughterhouse that supplies nearly 40% of Europe’s kosher poultry market and a large portion of the foie gras sold in Israel.

The methods employed at the facility in the village of Csengele are based on ancient Judaic principles commanding the humane treatment of living creatures. They also are at the centre of a debate about how to balance animal rights and religious rights as parts of Europe limit or effectively ban the ritual slaughter practices of Jews and Muslims.

Companies like Quality Poultry have found new export markets since the European Union’s highest court last month upheld a law in Belgium’s Flanders region that prohibited slaughtering animals without first stunning them into unconsciousness. But the European Court of Justice ruling also has provoked fears of eventual EU-wide prohibitions on ritual slaughter, and aroused memories of periods when Europe’s Jews faced cruel persecution.

“This decision doesn’t only affect the Belgian Jewish community, it affects all of us,” said Rabbi Slomo Koves of the Association of Hungarian Jewish Communities, which owns the Csengele slaughterhouse. “If this is the case in Belgium and the court has given it moral approval, that might start a process on a larger scale. If you go down this logic, the next step is you also cannot not sell meat like this in these countries.”

A 2020 file picture of a Halal butchery in Paris. (AFP)

The EU has required the pre-stunning of animals since 1979, but allows member states to make religion-based exceptions. Most do, but along with Flanders and the Wallonia region of Belgium, Slovenia, Denmark and Sweden, as well as non-EU members Switzerland, Iceland and Norway, have done away with religious exemptions, meaning kosher and halal meat must be imported.

Animal rights groups say that slitting the throats of livestock and poultry birds while they are conscious causes suffering that amounts to animal cruelty. Stunning methods vary, but the procedure most often is performed through electric shock or a bolt pistol to the animal’s skull.

“Reversible stunning is the bare minimum we can do to protect animals,” said Reineke Hameleers, CEO of the Brussels-based Eurogroup for Animals. “They should be rendered unconscious before being killed.”

The situation is not so cut-and-dried for religious observers. Jewish law forbids injury or damage to animal tissues before slaughter, and modern stunning practices can cause death or irreparable injuries that would render meat and poultry non-kosher, according to Koves.

Although some Muslim religious authorities consider pre-slaughter stunning permissible, local Muslim groups argued that the stunning requirements in Flanders and Wallonia grew out of efforts by Belgium’s Islamophobic far-right to harass their communities.

Rabbis Koves and Werchow said they believe the kosher slaughter method, known as shechita, is no less humane than the methods used in conventional meat production. In addition to the intensive process of sharpening and inspecting the knives, the shochet is trained to make the cut in a single smooth motion, severing the animal’s nerves and draining the blood from the brain in seconds.

“Whatever you think about…whether kosher slaughter is better for the animal than regular slaughter, you are basically putting animal rights ahead of human rights,” Koves said. “If people are going to ban our rights to have kosher food, that means that they are limiting our human rights. And this, especially in a place like Europe, brings very bad memories to us.”

Laws requiring the pre-slaughter stunning of animals appeared in some European countries as early as the late 19th century. Adolf Hitler mandated the practice in 1933 just after becoming chancellor of Germany, one of the first laws imposed by the Nazis.

Jewish and Muslim groups challenged the Flanders law in Belgium’s Constitutional Court, which referred it to the European Court of Justice for a ruling on its compatibility with EU law.

The Court of Justice’s advocate general advised the court to strike the Flanders law down, arguing it violated the rights of certain faiths to preserve their essential religious rites. But the court disagreed, finding the law “allow(s) a fair balance to be struck between the importance attached to animal welfare and the freedom of Jewish and Muslim believers to manifest their religion.”

The animal welfare minister for the Brussels region of Belgium, where stunning is not mandatory, said the ruling would breathe new life into the mandatory stunning debate there. The Brussels chapter of the New Flemish Alliance, a centre-right party whose members led the push for the law in Flanders, said it would now submit a proposal for an ordinance to ban slaughter without stunning in the capital region.

The Hungarian government helped finance the slaughterhouse in Csengele, and Prime Minister Viktor Orban joined Jewish groups in condemning the court’s decision as an assault on religious freedom. In a January letter to the U.S.-based Jewish Agency for Israel, Orban wrote that his government would “spare no effort to raise our voice against (the decision) in every possible international forum.”

Koves and other chief rabbis in Europe are looking into ways to appeal the EU court’s decision.

Uprising of the hungry confuses Lebanon’s political class

Experts warn that the Lebanese people have found themselves trapped between starvation or death in the middle of a pandemic that the government is unable to contain.

Friday 29/01/2021

Lebanese anti-government protesters burn garbage in the northern port city of Tripoli to protest the economic situation and their role in leading the country to crisis, on January 28, 2021. (AFP)


BEIRUT – Protests across Lebanon, especially in the northern city of Tripoli, have confused the country’s dominant political class, which is concerned the scope of unrest will expand and threaten their influence.

In last minute attempts, some political players have been looking to pass blame for the ongoing unrest, deliberately questioning motives and promoting the narrative that rival political and legal forces are behind the protests.

Among these sceptics is former Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who heads the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM). On Thursday, Bassil said “the affiliation and financing of the recent protests are known. The fingerprints of some coordinators and officials from some former and current agencies are clear in what is going on.”

He added, “What is happening will not protect their political and financial organisation and will not divert our attention from their corruption, and we will continue to pursue them all, with both determination and common sense, until they return what they seized.”

The FPM leader’s statement provoked angry and sarcastic reactions, as Bassil, despite attacking the current political system, is one of its main pillars who protesters hold responsible for a large part of the country’s economic and political paralysis.

Political circles believe that Bassil’s accusations are directed in part at the country’s Central Bank governor, as well as the Future Movement and its leader Saad Hariri, who paradoxically also questioned the recent protests a day before.

In a series of Twitter posts, Hariri said “some parties who want to send political messages could be behind the unrest in Tripoli. There could be someone who wants to take advantage of the people’s pain and the distress experienced by the poor and those with limited income.”

Hariri addressed the protesters, saying, “I warn our people in Tripoli and other regions against any exploitation of their living conditions, and I call on the state and the competent ministries to use all available means to curb poverty and hunger and to provide the social foundations for citizens’ commitment to the general lockdown.”

— Between COVID-19 and starvation —

Observers said the political force’ reactions showed how detached they are from the Lebanese people, more than half of whom are suffering from poverty as well as the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, which is claiming thousands of victims daily.

These observers pointed out that the general lockdown approved by the caretaker government headed by Hassan Diab did not come with any measures to help thousands of families bear the cost of their depleted pockets.

The public’s reaction to the deteriorating situation was expected, experts said, while warning that the Lebanese people have found themselves trapped between starvation or death from the pandemic that the government has proven unable to contain.

Thursday was the fourth straight night of unrest in one of Lebanon’s poorest cities, after the Beirut government imposed a 24-hour curfew to curb a surge in the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed more than 2,500 people and compounded an economic crisis.

A Lebanese anti-government protester waves a national flag during clashes with security forces in front of the Serail (headquarters of the Governorate), in the northern port city of Tripoli, Januray 28, 2021. (AFP)

In Tripoli, flames engulfed the municipal government building after it caught fire just before midnight. Police had been firing tear gas at protesters hurling petrol bombs.

A funeral for a man who died from a gunshot wound on Wednesday night had given fuel to protesters. Security forces said they had fired live rounds to disperse rioters trying to storm the government building.

In a statement Friday, Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister and its president condemned the violence in Tripoli.

“The criminals who set the municipality on fire and attempted to burn the court…represent a black hatred for Tripoli,” Prime Minister Hassan Diab said.

“The challenge now is in defeating these criminals by arresting them one by one and referring them to the judicial system.” President Michel Aoun also condemned the violence.

Diab’s statement did not mention the killing. Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for it to be investigated.

“The government neglected the needs of Tripoli’s people and used brute force…when they demanded a better life,” HRW researcher Aya Majzoub said.

According to the state-run National News Agency (NNA), a total of 226 people were injured in Tripoli and a man from Bab al-Tabbaneh area, whom it did not identify, later died of his wounds in hospital. The Lebanese Red Cross said it treated 67 people at the scene and took 35 others to hospital for treatment.

The financial meltdown gripping Lebanon could render people more dependent on political factions for aid and security, in a throwback to the 1975-90 civil war era of dominant militias.

Some analysts have warned that security forces, their wages fast losing value, would not be able to contain rising unrest.

Najib Mikati, a billionaire businessman and former premier who is from Tripoli, warned on Friday that should the army prove unable to control the situation in his city quickly enough, dangerous disorder could set in.

“I may have to carry arms to protect myself and my institutions,” Mikati told local media.

Lebanon has been in the throes of its worst financial crisis since 2019 and anger has escalated into street unrest over the economy, endemic state corruption and political mismanagement.

A currency crash has raised the spectre of widespread hunger but Lebanese leaders have yet to launch a rescue plan or enact reforms to unlock aid, prompting rebukes from foreign donors.

Diab is steering the government in a caretaker role as fractious politicians remain unable to agree on a new government since he quit in the aftermath of the August 4 Beirut port explosion, leaving Lebanon rudderless as poverty spreads.

AW ARAB WEEKLY

Brisbane Times

‘'Stop us in our tracks’: Biden’s new climate chief John Kerry invokes Australian bushfires

By Bevan Shields and Matthew Knott
January 28, 2021

London: US President Joe Biden’s climate tsar has invoked last summer’s Australian bushfire crisis as evidence the world “can’t afford to lose any longer” and must urgently slash carbon emissions.

John Kerry, a former US secretary of state under Barack Obama, is rallying world leaders to bring more ambitious policies to a crunch summit in Glasgow later this year through his role as Biden’s international climate envoy.

His appointment and a much more aggressive approach to global warming by the Biden-led White House has put fresh pressure on the Morrison government to commit to net zero emissions by 2050.

Joe Biden’s choice of former secretary of state John Kerry

 as his climate envoy underscores the US President’s determination

 to tackle climate change. CREDIT:AP

The Biden administration made climate change its focus on Thursday AEDT, announcing a series of new executive orders designed to elevate climate “as an essential element of US foreign policy and national security”.

The White House announced it was suspending all oil and gas leases on federal land, would begin transforming the government’s vast fleet of cars and trucks into electric vehicles and propose legislation to eliminate fossil fuel subsidies.

Biden will host a leaders’ climate summit on Earth Day, April 22, in a bid to create momentum before the Glasgow event in November.

‘We need to be bold’: US President Joe Biden.CREDIT:AP

“We’ve waited too long to deal with this climate crisis,” Biden said at a White House signing ceremony.

“This is not a time for small measures. We need to be bold.”


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Biden has also created a new office of domestic climate policy to co-ordinate climate policy across key government agencies.

In his first appearance at the White House briefing room, Kerry said: “The stakes on climate change just simply couldn’t be any higher than they are right now [...] This is an issue where failure, literally, is not an option.”

Speaking earlier at the World Economic Forum, Kerry said he had read an article over Christmas “that ought to stop every single one of us in our tracks”.

Headlined “Watching Earth Burn”, the story by New York Times writer Michael Benson pieced together satellite images of the Australian bushfire emergency.

“You could see huge plumes of smoke when you saw these pictures of Australia’s fires with, and I quote Michael, ‘flame vortexes spiralling 200 feet into the air’ passing New Zealand and stretching thousands of miles into the cobalt Pacific,” Kerry said.

He continued to quote details in Benson’s article, including the razing of an estimated 46 million acres, loss of dozens of lives, destruction of nearly 6000 buildings and potential extinction of some species.

“Benson summed it up,” Kerry said. “With shocking iconographic precision, that unfurling banner of smoke said: The war has started. We’re losing.”


Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pledged to work closely with the US President-Elect Joe Biden on key issues such as climate change.

Kerry did not directly criticise Australia’s climate change policies but earlier this week said he would push the world’s largest emitters to sign up to deeper cuts.

Australia has a goal of cutting emissions by 26-28 per cent by 2030. It has not signed up to achieving net zero emissions by 2050 but Morrison’s language has shifted recently and many Liberal MPs believe he will take the pledge at the Glasgow summit.

“So we are here now, at this moment, not just because we understand the urgency or the moral imperative, we’re here because we know we can’t afford to lose any longer and action is the one moral, economic and scientific imperative worth contemplating,” Kerry said.

He emphasised the need to limit temperature rises to 1.5 degrees but warned the world was on track to hit 4.1 or 4.5 degrees of warming. The Glasgow meeting was “the last best chance” to arrest the trajectory, Kerry said.

“But even if we did everything that was promised in Paris, folks, temperatures are going to rise to 3.7 degrees [of warming]. And that’s just because the conglomeration of all the things people were willing to do didn’t add up to what we need to do.”

Kerry estimated the world had to phase out coal five times faster than current rates, ramp up renewable energy six times faster and transition to electric vehicles 22 times faster.

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In a panel discussion after Kerry’s speech, Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said companies knew they would have to reduce the supply of oil, gas and coal but said a careful transition was needed.

Kerry responded: “The problem with gas is if we build out a huge infrastructure for gas now and continue to use it as the bridge fuel when we haven’t really exhausted the other possibilities, we’re going to be stuck with stranded assets in 10, 20, 30 years.

“And gas is primarily methane. The fact is methane is 20 times [more] damaging, if not more, than fossil fuels.”

His views on gas are significant because the Morrison government has flagged the resource as a transition fuel for the coming decades.

Kerry also criticised China’s pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060 when other countries have signed up to a 2050 target.

“China has said they’re gonna do something by 2060 but we don’t have a clue really, yet, about how they’re going to get there. I hope we can work with China. I hope we can get China to share a sense of how we get there sooner than 2060.”

At his later White House briefing room appearance, Kerry said the Biden administration would not trade away a tough stance on the South China Sea or intellectual property theft in order to co-operate with China on climate.

The statement announcing Biden’s executive order states that “both significant short-term global emission reductions and net zero global emissions by mid-century – or before – are required to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory”.




Bevan Shields  is the Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.


Matthew Knott is North America correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Milk-stained teeth reveal early dairy consumption in Africa



Ancient dental proteins reveal early milk drinking in Africa, which researchers say predates the evolution of lactase persistence in humans. Photo by A. Janzen

Jan. 27 (UPI) -- The extraction and analysis of milk-specific proteins from ancient materials, including dental calculus, has allowed scientists to uncover the origins of dairying in Eastern Africa.

Some 6,000 years ago, toothbrush technology was non-existent. As a result, the teeth of early humans accumulated significant amounts of plaque. These mineralized layers of ancient plaque, hardened by time, form what's called calculus.

A new survey of calculus content collected from 41 adult individuals, excavated from 13 ancient pastoralist sites in Sudan and Kenya, turned up several milk-specific proteins -- evidence of early milk consumption.

Researchers shared the results of the survey in a new paper, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Communications.

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"Some of the proteins were so well preserved, it was possible to determine what species of animal the milk had come from," lead author Madeleine Bleasdale said in a news release.

"And some of the dairy proteins were many thousands of years old, pointing to a long history of milk drinking in the continent," said Bleasdale, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany.

Researchers identified evidence of milk consumption in the dental calculus of eight individuals, the earliest of which was recovered in Sudan and dated to 6,000 yeas ago.

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"This is the earliest direct evidence to date for the consumption of goat's milk in Africa," said Bleasdale. "It's likely goats and sheep were important sources of milk for early herding communities in more arid environments."

Researchers also found milk proteins preserved in the dental calculus of an individual buried at a herder settlement site in southern Kenya, dated to between 3,600 and 3,200 years ago.

"It seems that animal milk consumption was potentially a key part of what enabled the success and long-term resilience of African pastoralists," said Steven Goldstein, study co-author and Max Planck researcher.

RELATED Europe milk drinking began 7,500 years ago

The latest findings suggest the development of dairy consumption in early African populations drove the evolution of human biology and the emergence of lactase persistence.

Lactase is the enzyme that allows humans to breakdown and fully digest lactose. In most people, lactase production tapers off after childhood, though it does persist in some.

Among European populations, a single genetic mutation is responsible for lactase persistence, but in Africa, lactase persistence has been linked with several different gene mutations.

Through genetic analysis, researchers were able to confirm that the milk drinkers unearthed in Sudan and Kenya were without the genes for lactase persistence. In other words, milk consumption predates the emergence of lactose tolerance.

The findings suggest human dairy consumption actually triggered the emergence and spread of lactase gene mutations, and that Africa was a key site for this evolutionary phenomena.

Scientists suspect fermentation likely helped early African herders digest milk. Fermented milk products, like yogurt, have lower levels of lactose, making it easier to digest.