London's $8M Marble Arch Mound to close Sunday after mockery

The Marble Arch Mound will close on Sunday. File Photo courtesy City of Westminster

Jan. 8 (UPI) -- London's $8 million Marble Arch Mound attraction will close on Sunday after receiving widespread mockery on social media since its opening six months ago.

The Mound, an artificial hill tourist attraction at the corner of Hyde Park and Oxford Street, promised lush vegetation, unique city views and a light exhibition inside, but when it opened July 26, visitors said it did not deliver on its promise, The Guardian and CNN reported.

It led to widespread mockery on social media, with pictures showing scaffolding used in the structure's development still visible and lush greenery clearly lacking, according to CNN.

The inside of the structure was marketed as "descending into the heart," but it felt "a little soulless rather than a beating heart, an empty space used to store hand sanitizer and temporary signs," a review for The Critic said, which also noted the light exhibition wasn't there in its opening days.

Stuart Love, Westminster's chief executive, admitted in a statement it "wasn't ready for visitors," when it opened.

"London's business and residents have suffered through the pandemic and we built the Mound as part of our bigger plan to get people back into the city and into the shops, restaurants, theatres and to see the amazing sights the West End has to offer," Love continued in the July statement. "We wanted to open the Mound in time for the summer holidays and we did not want to disappoint people who had already booked tickets. We made a mistake and we apologize to everyone who hasn't had a great experience on their visit.

The project's leader ended up resigning less than a month after the Mound's opening.

"With regret, I have accepted the resignation of my deputy leader, Melvyn Caplan, who led the Mound project," council leader Rachael Robathan said in an August statement to The Guardian. "We have also instigated a thorough internal review to understand what went wrong and ensure it never happens again."

Findings from the internal Westminster Council review released in October cited multiple failures, including failure of project management, mismanagement of project finances by senior officers responsible for the project and lack of effective governance and oversight.

Still, the council defended the project ahead of its closing in a statement to The Guardian.

"The Mound has done what it was built to do -- drawn crowds and supported the recovery in the West End," a spokesperson for the council said in the statement. "Central London's economy has suffered more than any other area during the pandemic. With football slashed and near-total loss of overseas tourists, many business have faced oblivion.

"We're really pleased that nearly 250,000 visitors have come to Westminster to see The Mound and the terrific light exhibition inside," the spokesperson added. "Those visitors have gone onto spend money in shops, bars and restaurants across the West End- helping local businesses to get back on their feet."

On the 150th Anniversary of the Paris Commune: Marx, Gender, and the Alternative to Capitalism in 1871, 1844, 

and Today

December 14, 2021

https://imhojournal.org/

Marx’s writings on the Paris Commune in 1871 and on crude communism in 1844 point to the centrality of gender in the struggle for the alternative to capitalism — Editors

Celebrating the Paris Commune as a Positive Form of Communism

This year, as we mark the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871, the question arises as to whether that type of direct democracy with an anti-statist, anti-capitalist bent is realizable any longer. One of the many objections to the Commune as a model centers on the notion that such practices cannot be replicated on the large scale of modern nation-states, let alone a world socialist polity. Another objection holds that the subjective force that brought about the Commune, i.e., the emerging working class as a powerful group with enough social weight to really challenge capitalism, has receded in size and importance, at least in the most technologically developed countries. Still, the aspiration persists, as seen most recently in the Occupy movement of 2011.

The Paris Commune poses, even now, the possibility of a totally different way of life, one where the working people, broadly conceived, take power and implement not a mildly reformist social democracy or an authoritarian system that calls itself socialism, but real mass self-rule. Marx sums it up this way in his classic eulogy, The Civil War in France, written as a statement of the First International in the wake of the Commune’s violent repression by the French army: “It was essentially a working-class government, the product of the struggle of the producing against the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.”

This was communism in the positive sense, as Marx also wrote: “Yes, gentlemen, the Commune intended to abolish that class property which makes the labor of the many the wealth of the few. It aimed at the expropriation of the expropriators. It wanted to make individual property a truth by transforming the means of production, land, and capital, now chiefly the means of enslaving and exploiting labor, into mere instruments of free and associated labor. But this is communism, ‘impossible’ communism!”


Women and Revolution in the Commune and After

At the same time, a number of commentators, most notably Edith Thomas in her 1963 book Women Incendiaries, have pointed out the substantial involvement of women in the Commune. Marx also singled out the participation of women as one of its core features, writing of how “the real women of Paris” came out onto the streets, “heroic, noble, and devoted, like the women of antiquity.”

It is striking that these words describe not women under capitalism, but women taking a leading role in a social structure that is reaching beyond capitalism.

But hasn’t that often been the case? Didn’t women, for example, touch off the Russian revolution of 1917, with the demonstration by working women on March 8 of that year? And wasn’t Stalin’s turn to counter-revolution within the revolution in the 1930s connected to the dismantling of many of the gains of women during the revolution, among them free and legal abortion?

This takes us to a slightly different issue, gender relations as a measure of whether a given society is genuinely revolutionary, or is turning away from its most revolutionary possibilities.


Gender and the Critique of Crude Communism in Marx’s 1844 Manuscripts

Looking from this angle also helps illuminate Marx’s most famous discussion of women, in a paragraph in the essay “Private Property and Communism” in the 1844 Manuscripts, where he writes of gender relations as a measure of social progress.

“Private Property and Communism” begins not with a discussion of how to transform capitalist society in a progressive direction, or even with how to abolish capitalism. Instead, Marx begins with the concept of communism itself at a very general philosophical level. He doesn’t sketch a positive model but instead develops a critique of “an entirely crude and unreflective communism.” Thus, we are conceptually already beyond capitalism and in a new society, but not in a positive sense. This crude communism is one of economic equality, but without real human emancipation, without the elimination of exploited and alienated labor. He adds: “The role of worker is not abolished but extended to all human beings.”

Marx ties this form of communism to gender, writing that such a “crude and unreflective communism” expresses itself in the notion of “the community of women,” wherein woman’s position is shifted from being the private property of one man to a type of “communal and common property.” Obviously, this not a positive solution to the problem of women’s subordinate position as the property of men, a system that has existed across many societies.

It is in this context, the critique of crude communism, including on gender relations, that Marx makes an important generalization: “This communism, which negates the personality of the human being in every sphere, is only the logical expression of private property.” He goes on to develop these critical remarks about crude communism for a few more lines of his essay.


Marx’s Most Cited Passage on Gender: Its Links to Communism

After that, Marx launches into what have become his most famous lines on gender relations, here quoted in part:


The direct, natural, necessary relationship of human being to human being is the relationship of man to woman…. Therefore, on the basis of this relationship, we can judge the whole stage of development of the human being. From the character of this relationship, it follows to what degree the human being has become and recognized himself or herself as a species being; a human being; the relationship of man to woman is the most natural relationship of human being to human being. Therefore, in it is revealed the degree to which the natural behavior of the human being has become human.

Thereupon, Marx returns to his discussion of communism as “democratic or despotic,” etc.

I have to admit that I have tended to see his famous paragraph on gender as a stand-alone statement about gender relations as a measure of social progress that could be connected to all manner of societies across human history. I did so, for example, in my introduction to Marx on Suicide in 1999. But when read carefully and in relation to the surrounding text, it becomes clear that this passage is about social progress in a very specific context, that of a society that has already abolished or begun to abolish capitalism, or at least tried to take steps in that direction.[1]

Thus, we need to view Marx’s 1844 comments on gender and human liberation very specifically as a discussion of gender in relation to the alternative to capitalism, just as we need to view those on women’s participation in the Paris Commune in a similar light.

To that I could add that his very last writings, particularly the Ethnological Notebooks of 1880-82, contain very lengthy ruminations on gender and the family in a number of precapitalist contexts, from Indigenous America to ancient Greece and Rome. This research, which concerns alternative forms of society to that of the industrial capitalism developing in Western Europe at the time, was also seen by Marx as related to the question of how a post-capitalist society could be organized on an emancipatory basis.


Taking It Forward to Today

Thus, on the basis of his 1844 Manuscripts, it could be said that Marx viewed gender relations as a very important yardstick that could measure whether a society aiming toward communism was getting on the wrong track. This problem weighs on us more deeply today, after developments like Stalinism or the Nicaraguan revolution. All too often, the counter-revolution that replaced the revolution did so on the backs of women, in a sometimes sudden and always vicious turn against women’s rights that was the harbinger of a much wider turning away from any possibility of human emancipation.

And what of the discussion within Marxist and feminist theory?

First, it should be said that most commentators on the 1844 Manuscripts have neglected the passage on gender.

That said, it should also be noted that several prominent feminist thinkers of the twentieth century have taken up the passage, as have newer studies like Heather Brown’s Marx on Gender and the Family (2012).

In 1949, the feminist and existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir quoted Marx’s paragraph on gender at the end of her pathbreaking book The Second Sex. To de Beauvoir, this showed how connected the struggle for women’s liberation is to all social progress: “It is when the slavery of half of humanity is abolished and with it the whole hypocritical system it implies that the ‘division’ of humanity will reveal its authentic meaning and the human couple will discover its true form.” And that is the way Marx’s passage has usually been read.

However, this kind of reading does not grapple with the specific context in which Marx writes these lines on gender relations as measure of social progress, the critique of crude communism. It is possible that de Beauvoir did not see or chose not to emphasize this aspect because at the time she was an apologist for Stalin’s Russia, siding with that regime — surely one of the best-known examples of a crude communism — against Western capitalism. In so doing, de Beauvoir was in agreement with her leftwing existentialist colleagues Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

By the 1970s, attitudes on the left toward Russia had shifted in the wake of its violent suppression in 1968 of Prague Spring’s “socialism with a human face,” after which it became very difficult to find apologists for the Russian regime on the left.[2] In 1973, the noted Marxist-Humanist and feminist philosopher Raya Dunayevskaya took up the paragraph on gender in her groundbreaking work, Philosophy and Revolution, tying it to Marx’s critique “vulgar communism’s ‘sham universality’.” Dunayevskaya concluded that the women’s liberation movement of the time was offering a challenge not only to the capitalist order, but also to the narrow vision of communism being put forth from the left, especially the Maoist-tinged New Left of the 1960s: “The uniqueness of today’s Women’s Liberation Movement is that it dares to challenge what is, including the male chauvinism not only under capitalism but within the revolutionary movement itself.”[3]

Pulling these threads together leads to two observations about Marx, communism, and gender.

First, Marx’s initial discussion of gender in 1844 occurs as part of a critique of crude communism, not a critique of capitalism. This makes his critique especially crucial to any discussion of the alternative to capitalism, of the new communist society in a positive sense. One thing therefore becomes clear in terms of gender: Gender relations are an important measure of whether a communist project is crude and limited, or whether it is, in Dunayevskaya’s apt phrase, “reaching for the future” in a positive sense. To Marx, the Paris Commune was reaching toward such a positive form of communism, not least because of the central involvement of women, especially but not limited to working women, in its project. This notion, drawn from Marx in 1844 and 1871, is the theoretical argument developed in the present essay.

Second, all this needs to be connected to the empirical, factual experience of revolution in the twentieth century, as revolutions in the name of Marxism began to win, to come to power. Starting with the Russian Revolution of 1917, women’s emancipation has been a key factor in almost all modern revolutions, as has women’s leading role in the struggle against old regimes. Yet under Stalin, women’s rights were sharply rolled back at the very time the regime was transforming the revolution into its opposite, a totalitarian state-capitalism where the workers and peasants came under exploitation by the state and the Communist Party in order to build up a modern industrial economy. The terrible human cost exceeded even those horrors described by Marx in Capital as “primitive accumulation” because rapid transformation of Russia into an industrial society took a decade rather than being spread out over centuries. More recently, the 1979 Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua involved crucial participation by women, both in the struggle and in the new regime. Nicaragua soon faced a brutal U.S.-backed war by counter-revolutionaries — the “Contras” — against the new regime. This partially dislodged the Sandinistas from power, but by the time they took full control of the state again in 2007, they had moved sharply to the right under the leadership of Daniel Ortega, especially on women’s rights. Ortega now supported a complete ban on abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, or serious risk to the mother’s life. This was accompanied by all kinds of reactionary measures, whether in terms of democratic rights or the environment. Looking at Russia and Nicaragua as examples of how crude forms of communism have blocked the drive toward a humanistic communism, one could say that Marx’s 1844 critique has had enormous predictive power.

Overall, Marx’s critique of gender oppression under crude communism offers an insightful and still-timely perspective that links together a needed critique from within of the revolutionary movement and a conceptual framework that targets key features of an errant form of communism. It is an instance of something Peter Hudis underlines in his 2012 book Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism, that Marx often gives us insights into his own concept of communism in critiques of what he considers to be false and inadequate notions of communism.

[1] I would like to acknowledge at this point that my thinking on these issues was stimulated by a summer 2021 dialectics study group in which I participated with a group of students, intellectuals, and activists. We took several sessions to go over the opening pages of “Private Property and Communism,” as the participants kept insisting on reading these pages as a whole, rather than as a set of isolated statements. The group included Damian Algabre, Kristopher Baumgartner, Gerardo “Gary” Colmenar, the late Ali Kiani, Ndindi Kitonga, Derek Lewis, Andres Magon-Marmol, Nina, Jess, and Sushanta Roy.

[2] Angela Davis was a notable exception in this regard. It should also be noted that many like de Beauvoir who now attacked the Russian regime had switched to an equally uncritical stance toward Maoist China.

[3] A somewhat similar, more empirical critique can be found in Margaret Randall’s 1992 book Gathering Rage: The Failure of Twentieth Century Revolutions to Develop a Feminist Agenda.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

• Kevin B. Anderson
  

  Kevin B. Anderson’s authored books include Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies and Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism. Among his edited books are The Power of Negativity by Raya Dunayevskaya (with Peter Hudis), Karl Marx (with Bertell Ollman), The Rosa Luxemburg Reader (with P. Hudis), and The Dunayevskaya-Marcuse-Fromm Correspondence (with Russell Rockwell).

REWILDING

Former quarry turns haven for endangered UK birds


A Great White Egret in flight over the RSPB Ouse Fen Reserve (AFP/Justin TALLIS)

These Greylag Geese are among the wildlife species attracted to the former quarry site (AFP/Justin TALLIS)



Senior site manager Chris Hudson (l): 'It's really a demonstration of how working with partners -- big decisive action at large scale -- we can bring species off that Red list' 

Richard Gregory of the RSPB: 'When you protect the habitats, and you protect the birds, they can bounce right back' (AFP/Justin TALLIS)



Mute Swans at the Ouse Fen Reserve. Mother Nature is retaking her throne at a former quarry in the east of England (AFP/Justin TALLIS)

Sylvain PEUCHMAURD
Sat, 8 January 2022

Nature is reclaiming her territory at a quarry in the east of England that is being transformed into a vast reserve offering vital sanctuary to endangered birds.

With its reedbed wetlands, the marshy plain of the Fens outside Cambridge has become an attractive habitat for the secretive bittern, which was until 2015 on the UK's Red list of most-threatened species.

Today the thickset heron, with its perfectly camouflaged streaked brown plumage and a booming springtime call that sounds like someone blowing over the top of a bottle, is on the less critical but still threatened Amber list.

"It's really a demonstration of how working with partners -- big decisive action at large scale -- we can bring species off that Red list," said Chris Hudson, senior site manager at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds' (RSPB) Ouse Fen Nature Reserve, some 120 kilometres (80 miles) north of London.

Although the elusive bird did not put in an appearance when AFP visited on a brisk and rainy January winter morning, five percent of the UK's bitterns now nest at Ouse Fen.

The reserve's bittern population is today larger than the nationwide total in the mid-1990s, when the RSPB's list of threatened species was first published, said Hudson, binoculars always at the ready.

- Insect decline -

The latest edition of Birds of Conservation Concern was published in December 2021 and now includes 70 species on the Red list -- more than double the figure when the first report was published in 1996.

Around 30 percent of the British Isles' 245 bird species are now in danger.

Among the new species on the list are the house martin and the swift, migratory birds that fly thousands of kilometres (miles) from central and southern Africa each spring to breed in Europe.

Richard Gregory, head of monitoring at the RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, blames population decrease mainly on changing land use in the UK, Europe and beyond, which deprives birds of food and habitat.

"The decline of these birds might tell us something about a huge decline in the biomass of insects, which has been a real concern for conservationists across Europe recently, and it's probably a much wider phenomenon," he said.

"So we need more research, but that's a real warning sign about how the environment is changing around us.

"But we also know that when you manage the habitats, when you protect the habitats, and you protect the birds, they can bounce right back," said Gregory, pointing to the example of the "magnificent" white-tailed eagle, which was extinct in the British Isles in the early 20th century.

Thanks to a programme of protection and reintroduction, this imposing bird of prey is no longer on the Red list and today there are at least 123 pairs of these large sea eagles in the UK.

- Make conditions right -

At the Ouse Fen reserve in early January were once-rare great white egrets of the heron family and marsh harriers, a threatened bird of prey whose numbers have bounced back thanks to decades of conservation efforts.

The mix of reedbeds, open water and grassland, opened in 2010 and visited by 20,000 people a year, is being restored from land that has served as Europe's largest sand and gravel quarry.

Over the lifetime of the ongoing project, around 28 million tonnes of aggregate are being dug from the ground, leaving holes that are now filled with water and reeds, to the birds' delight.

"Our job here was to recreate the right habitat conditions that would bring the bittern back," said Hudson. These include "lots of feeding opportunities to get their prey sources like fish, and particularly eels".

"Once we've put those conditions in place, that effectively brings the birds back. 'If you build it they will come' is the phrase that we quite often use."

Humans change the landscape, creating bodies of water and planting reeds, "and then nature will look after the rest and come back quite naturally if given that opportunity, and that's the really key thing," he said.

"Give nature a chance and it will return."

spe/cjo/phz/gil

HALF A TRILLION

Europe nuclear plants 'need 500 bn euro investment by 2050': EU commissioner

ByAFP
Published January 9, 2022

France has led the charge for nuclear power -- its main energy supply -- to be included as a sustainable option - Copyright AFP/File SEBASTIEN BOZON

The European Union will need to invest 500 billion euros ($568 billion) in new generation nuclear power stations from now until 2050, the bloc’s internal market commissioner said in an interview published at the weekend.

“Existing nuclear plants alone will need 50 billion euros of investment from now until 2030. And new generation ones will need 500 billion!” Thierry Breton told the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

Breton also argued that an EU plan to label energy from nuclear power and natural gas as “green” sources for investment was a vital step towards attracting that capital.

The EU is consulting its member states on that proposal, with internal disagreement on whether the power sources truly qualify as sustainable options.

France has led the charge for nuclear power — its main energy supply — to be included, despite robust opposition from Austria and scepticism from Germany, which is in the process of shutting all its nuclear plants.

The proposal says the EU Commission “considers there is a role for natural gas and nuclear as a means to facilitate the transition towards a predominantly renewable-based future”.

Currently the bloc gets 26 percent of its energy from nuclear power, but Breton estimated that by 2050, that would be reduced to around 15 percent.

The proposal also states that for nuclear power, appropriate measures should be put in place for radioactive waste management and disposal.

And it calls for the building of new nuclear power plants to be conditioned on permits given out before 2045, while work to extend the functioning of existing plants would need to be authorised before 2040.

'Old Man Out!': Anger In Kazakhstan Focuses On Ex-leader

By Christopher RICKLETON
01/08/22 AT 9:53 PM

As protesters armed with sticks and discarded police shields prepared to storm the mayor's office in Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty, they marched to chants of "old man out!"

They were not referring to President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, 68, but Nursultan Nazarbayev, the octogenarian who after more than a quarter-century in office picked career diplomat Tokayev as his loyalist successor in 2019.

Since Kazakhstan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Nazarbayev has been synonymous with the world's ninth-largest country, a majority Muslim Central Asian state rich in oil.

Since Kazakhstan's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, founding president Nursultan Nazarbayev has been synonymous with the country Photo: AFP / NICHOLAS KAMM

But the 81-year-old has yet to appear in public since the country was plunged into unprecedented chaos this week when armed clashes between protesters and police escalated from demonstrations over a New Year fuel price hike.

For many residents of the city of 1.8 million people, the strongman who styles himself as a force for stability in the wider region is an increasingly incendiary and divisive figure.

"Kazakhstan has been turned into a private company of the Nazarbayevs!" vented a 58-year-old called Saule, as Almaty residents surveyed the charred, bullet-strewn territory of the presidential residence whose now-battered gates open out onto a street named after him.

"One clan lives well and everyone else is in poverty," complained Yermek Alimbayev, a builder who was chatting with volunteers manning a makeshift checkpoint in the city, where Kazakh military and a force from the Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) have secured strategic buildings.

  

Protesters in Kazakhstan have chanted 'old man out!' in reference to 81-year-old former leader Nursultan Nazarbayev Photo: AFP / Abduaziz MADYAROV

In one particularly striking image this week, demonstrators pulled down a statue of Nazarbayev in the provincial town of Taldykorgan.

 

Map of Kazakhstan Photo: AFP / Sophie RAMIS


The breadth and depth of anger now laid at his door would once have been unimaginable.

Credited with overseeing impressive economic growth in the years after the millennium, the one-time steelworker and Communist Party bigwig benefited from a personality cult that blossomed even as local incomes were hammered by successive economic crises.

Image consultants promoted his reputation abroad as an elder statesman committed to nuclear diplomacy and world peace.

Among them was former British prime minister Tony Blair, who continued to advise Nazarbayev even after police lethally repressed a 2011 oil strike in the western town of Zhanaozen, where this week's unrest over the fuel price hike began.

While the precise contours of the political crisis that has engulfed Kazakhstan are unclear, it is evident that the ruling elite has been roiled.

On Saturday, authorities announced the arrest on treason charges of Karim Masimov, a high-profile Nazarbayev ally who was dismissed from his post as security committee chief at the height of the unrest.

A notice on the presidential website said Tokayev had also appointed a new man as the committee's first deputy -- a role previously occupied by Nazarbayev's nephew, Samat Abish.

Tokayev has not mentioned the former president in a series of addresses to the nation since the crisis began, though he did say he was taking over as head of the national security council.

Nazarbayev had assumed the powerful position as part of the power transition.

Nazarbayev's spokesman on Saturday denounced rumours that the ex-leader had left the country, saying he was in the capital Nur-Sultan and in touch with Tokayev.

If the Nazarbayev political star is finally on the wane in Kazakhstan, then his relatives shoulder some of the blame.

Oldest daughter Dariga Nazarbayeva's political career, mainly in the rubber-stamp legislature, has been marked by a series of controversial statements and perceptions of an abrasive style.

Offshore leaks and a high court challenge in London have revealed the extent of her family's foreign property holdings -- part of a capital flight trend Nazarbayev officially discouraged while president.

His middle daughter Dinara and her husband Timur Kulibayev control Halyk, the largest commercial bank, and are among the richest people in the country.

Rustam Nugmanov, a 48-year-old man who arrived in Almaty on Saturday morning on the first train allowed to leave the capital for the troubled southern city, said Kazakhs had "woken up" and were ready for life without Nazarbayev.

"He did a lot for the country, but he could have done so much more," said Nugmanov. "Maybe he just wasn't capable. Greed, other human weaknesses. He kept feeding those weaknesses."

Kazakhstan unrest: At least 164 killed in crackdown on protests, reports say

Sun., January 9, 2022



At least 164 people have died in Kazakhstan during violent anti-government protests, according to media reports citing health officials.

If confirmed it would mark a sharp rise from the previous figure of 44 deaths.

Almost 6,000 people have been arrested, including "a substantial number of foreign nationals", Kazakhstan's presidential office said on Sunday.

The demonstrations, triggered by a rise in fuel prices, turned into huge riots as they spread across the country.

They started on 2 January and grew to reflect discontent at the government and former President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who led Kazakhstan for three decades and is still thought to retain significant influence.

Last week, troops from countries including Russia were sent to Kazakhstan to help restore order.

The presidential statement added that the situation had stabilised, with troops continuing "cleanup" operations and guarding "strategic facilities".

A state of emergency and a nationwide curfew remain in place.

AT THE SCENE: 'Like something from an apocalypse film'

CONTEXT: Why is there unrest in Kazakhstan?

Kazakhstan: The basics

Where is it? Kazakhstan shares borders with Russia to the north and China to the east. It is a huge country the size of Western Europe.

Why does it matter? A former Soviet republic which is mainly Muslim with a large Russian minority, it has vast mineral resources, with 3% of global oil reserves and important coal and gas sectors.

Why is it making the news? Fuel riots, which have escalated to become broader protests against the government, have resulted in resignations at the top and a bloody crackdown on protesters.

In the capital, Nursultan, there are obvious signs that security has been tightened, says the BBC's Steve Rosenberg, with the entrance to the city's Presidential Palace blocked.

There is a growing suggestion, our correspondent adds, that the recent violence is linked to a power struggle within Kazakhstan's ruling elite.

Some 103 fatalities in the latest violence were reportedly in the main city, Almaty.

The security forces said they killed rioters in Almaty while trying to restore order and that protesters had tried to take control of police stations in the city.

President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said "20,000 bandits" had attacked Almaty and that he had told security forces to "fire without warning".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday criticised the president's directive. "The shoot-to-kill order, to the extent it exists, is wrong and should be rescinded," he told ABC News' This Week.

He said the US was also seeking clarification from the Kazakh president on why he had requested the presence of Russian troops.

On Saturday, Kazakh authorities said the country's former intelligence chief Karim Massimov had been arrested on suspicion of treason. They gave no further details.

AFP

Amid Kazakhstan unrest, Almaty residents seek bread and information

After days of violent anti-government protests, the situation in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, appears to have stabilized. DW spoke with residents who are now wondering what's next.


After days of unrest and turmoil, a semblance of normalcy has returned to Almaty

For days, Almaty has been enveloped in thick fog in the evenings. Explosions are heard from different parts of the city, sometimes accompanied by gray-blue flashes of light muffled by the murky haze. Gunfire, too, breaks the silence from time to time.

But compared to earlier this week, the situation has calmed considerably. Residents of Kazakhstan's largest city are now venturing out once again.

Many were scared to leave their homes, especially after dark — and not only because of the curfew imposed after mass protests broke out on Tuesday. Those who had unexpected access to the internet, despite an online shutdown, were shocked by footage that showed a young woman with a child being hit by bullets. It remains unclear who shot at her.

More people are now out on the streets, many seeking out small grocery stores in their neighborhoods. The big supermarkets and shopping centers in the city remain closed.


Basics like bread, milk and noodles have been hot commodities in Almaty

Askar Jermekov owns a small food store and told DW he has seen a big demand, especially for bread and noodles. "Before I open my store, I have to line up in front of the bread factory for a long time. If I can manage, I buy about 50 loaves of bread," he said. "I open my shop at 9 in the morning and by 10 I have almost nothing left, no noodles or milk. I'm now considering how to manage the shopping for tomorrow. The bread factories are operational, but the problem is that their drivers are scared and are refusing to deliver to shops."

'Everyone has to help as much as possible'

Nevertheless, residents seem to have enough bread. Many of the small snack bars in the city's neighborhoods, which normally sell shawarma and the savory puff pastry, samsa, have also begun baking their own loaves.

Some have also been preparing other dishes according to Kazakh, Uyghur, Uzbek or Tajik traditions — Almaty is a multiethnic city. The dishes are then transported by car to small stores, where they are distributed free of charge to those in need. It's estimated that more than 7,000 such trips have been carried out so far.


Free delivery of bread loaves have been a lifeline for many residents

"People are having a hard time. At a time like this, everyone has to help as much as possible. When I heard that there was a problem in the city with bread supplies, I showed up early in the morning and baked some," said the owner of a small bakery, who did not want to be named. "But I only give one loaf per person so that everyone gets something."

'We don't know anything, we only hear shooting'

Another small bakery near the now burned-down residence of the Kazakh president has also resumed business, also distributing free bread to those in need. Waiting in long lines, people exchange the latest information.

"How else are we supposed to know what's happening around us? There is no internet and the mobile network doesn't work everywhere. Television reception is disrupted," said one woman. "We don't know anything, we only hear shooting. It's an information vacuum. That's also one of the reasons we come here, to at least find out something." Nearby, other people standing in line nod as she speaks.

Getting reliable information in and out of Almaty is difficult. Many rumors and unbelievable stories are circulating in the city, mostly spread by those people who still have a landline. At the moment, the old-school telephones are almost the only means of communication available to the general population.

Many shops in Almaty were looted and vandalized during days of turbulent protests and violence

With mobile internet switched off and intermittent problems with wired connections, instant messaging services — very popular here — have been essentially shut down. In addition, many terminals that could be used to top up cellphone credits have been vandalized during the riots.
Situation remains volatile

As dusk falls, fresh gunfire can be heard. But those who still want a loaf of bread stay in line, seemingly already used to the new situation.

Suddenly, two armored personnel carriers drive by at high speed. It's unclear who they belong to, because the vehicles aren't marked. Many people in the bread line begin to speculate. Some think they are the so-called "peacekeepers" from Belarus or Russia, while others are convinced the vehicles belong to the Kazakh army, which is still trying to maintain order.

In any case, after days of violent turmoil the streets are once again being patrolled by police officers, with some security officials armed with machine guns. Patrols are common, even though numerous police cars were burned or destroyed during the unrest.

'We are dealing with bandits and terrorists'

In a televised address on Friday, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said Almaty alone had been invaded by "20,000 bandits," and ordered security forces to fire on the "terrorists" without warning. He dismissed as "stupidity" appeals "from abroad" for all parties to negotiate a peaceful solution to the crisis.

This article was originally written in Russian

SUNNI PATRIARCHY

Outspoken Saudi princess released after nearly three years in jail

Human rights advocate Princess Basmah and her daughter were imprisoned without charge in 2019
 

Princess Basmah, the daughter of Saudi Arabia’s second king and an outspoken human rights advocate, has been freed after almost three years in jail. 

Photograph: Marcus Ingram/Getty Images

Staff and agencies
Sun 9 Jan 2022

Saudi authorities have released a princess and her daughter who had been detained without charge for nearly three years.

Princess Basmah bint Saud bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, 57, an outspoken human rights advocate and member of the royal family, went missing in March 2019 along with her adult daughter Souhoud al-Sharif.

“The two ladies were released from their arbitrary imprisonment, and arrived at their home in Jeddah on Thursday 6 January 2022,” her legal adviser Henri Estramant said on Saturday.

“The princess is doing fine but will be seeking medical expertise. She seems worn out but is in good spirits, and thankful to reunite with her sons in person.”


Supporters of detained Saudi princess call for UK to help secure release

The government has not made a comment about her release. It has never publicly commented about the case.

In 2020, Princess Basmah said via social media that she had been imprisoned in the capital Riyadh for more than a year and was sick. She demanded that the current ruler and her cousin, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, release her and provide medical care.

She claimed she was being detained without charge in al-Ha’ir prison, where numerous other political detainees have been held, and neither she nor her daughter received explanations for their arrests, despite repeated pleas to the kingdom’s royal court, and to her uncle King Salman.

The youngest child of the late King Saud, Princess Basmah has been critical of the kingdom’s treatment of women.

She had been due to travel abroad for medical treatment around the time of her arrest in late February 2019, and was informed after her detention that she was accused of trying to forge a passport, a close relative said at the time. The nature of her illness has never been disclosed.

Following her release, rights group ALQST for Human Rights said: “She was denied the medical care she needed for a potentially life-threatening condition. At no point during her detention has any charge been levelled against her.”



Prince Mohammed has overseen a reform drive since he was appointed by his father King Salman in June 2017 at the expense of the previous designated heir to the throne, Mohammed bin Nayef.

Reforms have included lifting a decades-long ban on women driving and the easing of so-called “guardianship” rules that give men arbitrary authority over female relatives. But Saudi authorities have also cracked down on dissidents and even potential opponents, ranging from preachers to women’s rights activists, even royals.

In written testimony to the UN in 2020 Princess Basmah’s family said her detention was likely due in large part to her “record as an outspoken critic of abuses”. She was also deemed an ally of Mohammed bin Nayef, the written testimony added.

With Reuters and Agence France-Presse

Taliban arrest Afghan professor after social media criticism

A prominent Afghan university professor who openly criticised the Taliban's hardline regime has been arrested in Kabul, a spokesman for the government said.

© JACK GUEZ

 Kabul University law professor Faizullah Jalal (pictured with

 his wife Massouda during a trip to Paris in 2004) has long had 

a reputation as a critic of Afghanistan's leaders

Professor Faizullah Jalal has made several appearances on television talk shows since the previous US-backed government was ousted in August, blaming the Taliban for the worsening financial crisis and criticising them for ruling by force.

Since returning to power, the Taliban have cracked down on dissent, forcefully dispersing women's rights protests and briefly detaining several Afghan journalists.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that Jalal had been detained Saturday over statements he made on social media in which he was "trying to instigate people against the system and was playing with the dignity of the people".

"He has been arrested so that others don't make similar senseless comments in the name of being a professor or scholar that harm the dignity of others," he added.

Mujahid shared screenshots of tweets he claimed had been posted by Jalal, which said the Taliban intelligence chief was a stooge of Pakistan, and that the new government considers Afghans as "donkeys".

In one television appearance, Jalal called Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem -- who was also participating -- a "calf", a grave insult in Afghanistan.

Clips of his passionate criticism went viral on social media, sparking concern he risked Taliban retribution.

Jalal's wife Massouda, who once stood as Afghanistan's first woman candidate for the presidency, posted on Facebook that her husband had been arrested by Taliban forces and detained in an unknown location.

"Dr. Jalal has fought and spoken out for justice and the national interest in all his activities pertaining to human rights," she said.

A long-time professor of law and political science at Kabul University, Jalal has long had a reputation as a critic of Afghanistan's leaders.

On Twitter, rights group Amnesty International condemned the arrest of the lecturer "for exercising his freedom of expression and criticising the Taliban", calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

The Taliban have formed an all-male cabinet made up entirely of members of the group, and almost exclusively of ethnic Pashtuns.

They have further restricted women's rights to work and study, triggering widespread international condemnation.

bur/ecl/jd/fox/mtp

Archive Amassed By Nazis Sheds Light On Masonic History

By Stanislaw WASZAK
01/09/22

Curators combing through a vast historic archive of Freemasonry in Europe amassed by the Nazis in their wartime anti-Masonic purge say they believe there are still secrets to be unearthed.

Poland has a vast archive of items that shed light on the history of Freemasonry in Europe Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

From insight into women's Masonic lodges to the musical scores used in closed ceremonies, the trove -- housed in an old university library in western Poland -- has already shed light on a little known history.

But more work remains to be done to fully examine all the 80,000 items that date from the 17th century to the pre-World War II period.

'It is one of the biggest Masonic archives in Europe,' says curator Iuliana Grazynska Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

"It is one of the biggest Masonic archives in Europe," said curator Iuliana Grazynska, who has just started working on dozens of boxes of papers within it that have not yet been properly categorised.

"It still holds mysteries," she told AFP, of the collection which curators began going through decades ago and is held at the UAM library in the city of Poznan.

The collection was amassed by the Nazis during their wartime anti-Masonic purge Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

Initially tolerated by the Nazis, Freemasons became the subject of regime conspiracy theories in the 1930s, seen as liberal intellectuals whose secretive circles could become centres of opposition.

Lodges were broken up and their members imprisoned and killed both in Germany and elsewhere as Nazi troops advanced during WWII.

Fine prints, copies of speeches and membership lists of Masonic lodges in Germany and beyond feature among the collection's 80,000 items 

Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

The collection was put together under the orders of top Nazi henchman and SS chief Heinrich Himmler and is composed of many smaller archives from European Masonic lodges that were seized by the Nazis.

It is seen by researchers as a precious repository of the history of the day-to-day activities of lodges across Europe, ranging from the menus for celebrations to educational texts.

The first edition of the earliest Masonic constitution written in 1723, six years after the first lodge was created in England, is one of the gems of the collection 

Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

The collection was put together under the orders of SS chief Heinrich Himmler and some documents still bear Nazi stamps 

Photo: AFP / JANEK SKARZYNSKI

Fine prints, copies of speeches and membership lists of Masonic lodges in Germany and beyond feature in the archive. Some documents still bear Nazi stamps.

"The Nazis hated the Freemasons," Andrzej Karpowicz, who managed the collection for three decades, told AFP.

Nazi ideology, he said, was inherently "anti-Masonic" because of its anti-intellectual, anti-elite tendencies.

The library puts some select items on show, including the first edition of the earliest Masonic constitution written in 1723, six years after the first lodge was created in England.

"It's one of our proudest possessions," Grazynska said.

The oldest documents in the collection are prints from the 17th century relating to the Rosicrucians -- an esoteric spiritual movement seen as a precursor to the Freemasons whose symbol was a crucifix with a rose at its centre.

During the war as Allied bombing intensified, the collection was moved from Germany for safekeeping and broken up into three parts -- two were taken to what is now Poland and one to the Czech Republic.

The section left in the town of Slawa Slaska in Poland was seized by Polish authorities in 1945, while the others were taken by the Red Army.

In 1959, the Polish Masonic collection was formally established as an archive and curators began studying it -- at that time, Freemasonry was banned in the country under Communism.

The collection is open to researchers and other visitors, who have included representatives of German Masonic lodges wanting to recover their pre-war history.

It is "a mine of information in which you can dig at will," said Karpowicz.
Copyright AFP. All rights reserved.

Concern grows for Palestinian teen held by Israel

Palestinian teenager Amal Nakhleh's first name means "hope" in Arabic, but his parents are in despair because he is chronically ill and one of the few minors held without charge by Israel. 

© ABBAS MOMANI

Moammar Nakhleh, the father of 17 year-old Palestinian prisoner Amal, shows a photograph of his son on his telephone, in Jalazun refugee camp, near the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, on January 8, 2022

"Since his arrest last year I have only seen him twice, including last week when he told me he wanted to go on hunger strike," journalist Moammar Nakhleh said of his 17-year-old son.

"This scares me because he is already very weak," from myasthenia, a rare neuromuscular disease, and underwent surgery in 2020 to have a tumour removed from his rib cage, Nakhleh said.

Israeli authorities accuse Amal of throwing stones at soldiers and have held him for a year in administrative detention. The practice allows for suspects to be detained without charge for renewable six-month terms while investigations are ongoing.

© ABBAS MOMANI 

Moammar Nakhleh is the father of 17-year-old Palestinian prisoner Amal. Israeli authorities accuse Amal of throwing stones at soldiers and have held him for a year under administrative detention

Amal faces a new hearing Monday, and his father is worried that his detention could be renewed.

Administrative detention has been criticised by the Palestinians, human rights groups and foreign governments, who charge that Israel abuses it.

Israel defends the practice, saying that "due to the complex and volatile security situation in the West Bank, detention orders are issued against those who plan terrorist attacks, or those who orchestrate, facilitate or otherwise actively assist in the commission of such acts"

.

© MOHAMMED ABED 

Palestinian artists paint a mural, in Gaza City on January 5, 2022, of Hisham Abu Hawash, a Palestinian prisoner who ended his hunger strike after Israel committed to his eventual release

"The use of administrative detentions, which allow for the deprivation of a person's liberty for a limited time only, is an effective and lawful security measure against such continuous terrorist attacks," Israel argues in a foreign ministry statement.

Leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz joined the fray days ago with an editorial entitled "Enough with administrative detentions".

"It's time for Israel to learn to forgo this undemocratic, corrupt practice of unlimited administrative detention, without evidence or charges that can be refuted," Haaretz said.

- 'Where is the evidence' -

The editorial highlighted the case of Hisham Abu Hawash, one of more than 450 Palestinians held for more than a year in administrative detention by Israel.

Six teenagers are among these prisoners, according to the Israeli human rights group Hamoked.

Tuesday's editorial came as Abu Hawash, a 40-year-old member of the Islamic Jihad movement, ended a 141-day hunger strike after Israel agreed to his eventual release.

The deal proposed to Abu Hawash, a father of five, stipulates that his detention will not be extended beyond February 26, in return for his ending his fast.

"If the state had evidence against Abu Hawash, it should have charged him. If not, it had to release him immediately," Haaretz said.

According to the paper, military prosecutors "had no unclassified evidence on which to draft an indictment to present to a military court" in the Abu Hawash case.

But for the Shin Bet domestic security agency, "'confidential material' is enough for a military commander to sign an order for six months of administrative detention, and an additional one six months later, repeat ad infinitum".

So why was Amal arrested?

The Shin Bet declined to comment when asked by AFP but the agency has previously been quoted as saying that he was "suspected of having taken part in terrorist activity".

- 'Bracing for the worst' -

Amal's predicament dates back to November 2020 when he was arrested by Israeli authorities in the occupied West Bank.

A football fan, he was out with friends after recovering from his cancer surgery, his family said.

Accused of throwing stones at soldiers, Amal was held for 40 days but then set free by an Israeli judge.

"At the hearing, a representative of the security forces said they had a 'file' against him and would seek administrative detention," Amal's father recalled.

"The judge asked them to provide him with the incriminating file," which they failed to, prompting the judge to free Amal.

But in January last year, he was re-arrested and placed in administrative detention, which has since been twice renewed.

The UN refugee agency UNRWA has taken up Amal's case with the Israeli authorities.

"We are demanding his immediate release from administrative detention for two reasons: his medical condition which is incredibly serious... and he is a minor," UNRWA's West Bank chief, Gwyn Lewis, told AFP.

"We have written several times and followed up but there has never been any information on why he was arrested."

Moammar Nakhleh fears that Amal's detention will be renewed again on Monday.

"I am scared that if his detention is renewed, I will not see him for a long time," he said at the family home in Al-Jalazun refugee camp.

"I'm bracing for the worst."

gl/dms/hkb/kir/fz

Shaky ground: Texas Railroad Commission takes much-needed stand on oilfield earthquakes

A FRACKQUAKE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Jason Jennaro
Fri, January 7, 2022

A map of seismic activity in the Permian Basin is pictured.

On the cloudy afternoon of Dec. 15, I was in Houston speaking to a colleague on the phone in Midland when a 3.6 magnitude quake shook the oil-rich town. She nearly fell out of her chair, quickly ending the conversation by saying, “I need to check on my children.” It was one of 15,000 earthquakes to hit West Texas’ Permian Basin in the last five years.

More: 'The time is now': New Mexico taking action on oil and gas-induced earthquakes

The Permian Basin has been a prolific economic engine for the State of Texas and is a vital energy resource for the United States. The basin is the center of the U.S. shale revolution, employs half of all U.S. drilling rigs, produces almost 5 million barrels of oil per day and boasts the largest oil-shale reserve base on the planet. Its resource is deep and geographically vast, with one of the thickest hydrocarbon structures in the world spanning 300 miles from Big Lake, Texas to Carlsbad, New Mexico.

But the Permian Basin has a problem: a 15 million barrel per day problem.

Approximately three barrels of brackish water are produced for every barrel of oil, and this wastewater needs to go somewhere. Much of this water is disposed of into thousands of deep injection wells known as saltwater disposals. Many of these injection wells were drilled on or close to ancient but historically inactive fault lines. Scientists have warned for years that deep water injection can pressurize these faults and induce quakes. With 5,200 West Texas quakes in 2021, double what was observed in 2020, this is no longer a theoretical discussion. Earthquakes are now impacting West Texas cities spanning from Pecos to Big Spring on a weekly basis. The Texas Railroad Commission (RRC), the principal regulatory body for Texas oil and gas, has responded in a pragmatic and data-driven way by severely limiting wastewater disposal in parts of six counties, impacting how millions of barrels of oil are produced daily.

More: Risk of earthquakes caused by oil and gas operations in New Mexico rising

The RRC is a storied Texas institution established in 1891 to first regulate railroads and then the nascent oil industry. For 130 years the RRC has had the central role in safeguarding the state’s place as the unofficial capitol of American energy, and in protecting its environment and its communities.

Earthquake data employed by the RRC is gathered by the TexNet Seismic Monitoring Program. In 2015 the Texas legislature under Gov. Abbott passed a law that established TexNet to scientifically determine the causes of increased seismic activity via continual seismic data collection and analysis. The rapid rise in West Texas earthquakes has prompted data-driven regulatory action from the RRC to mitigate induced seismicity while still facilitating the development of the state’s most important energy asset.

More: New Mexico investigates earthquakes induced by oil and gas as Texas cracks down on injection

Over the last two years the RRC regulated and encouraged the development of multi-customer produced water recycling and storage facilities. These facilities repurpose produced water for use in the completion process and thus reduce dependence on deep well injection into basement formations where fault lines exist. The RRC also developed stringent commercial recycling permitting standards know as Division 6-H11 (Div. 6-H11). These rules are essential because they protect west Texas’ aquifers, waterways and ecosystems from produced water contamination. Produced water typically contains oil, residual chemicals from the fracking process and suspended solids, and when stored improperly it can create toxic hydrogen sulfide gas. Commercially permitted recycling facilities operating under Div. 6-H11 are held accountable by stringent reporting, bonding, engineering, monitoring and other standardized RRC regulations.

Over the final months of 2021 the RRC responded more forcefully with first-of-kind Seismic Response Actions that severely limit deep well produced wastewater injection into seismically active areas, particularly around the population centers of Midland-Odessa. These actions encouraged wastewater to be recycled safely or at a minimum redirected away from population centers and seismic clusters.

To understand these actions, it’s important to understand how Permian Basin operators have managed billons of barrels of fresh and wastewater over the last decade, and how it has evolved.

More: 4.3 magnitude Texas earthquake felt in Carlsbad Wednesday

In the early 2010s operators used freshwater from local aquifers to frack single well developments. Upon completion, the wastewater byproduct was trucked to local disposal wells for injection. In the early days of shale there were very few earthquakes so induced seismicity was understandably not a consideration. By the late 2010s, multi-well development techniques materially improved efficiency but they also increased the demand for freshwater for fracking and deep well injectors for the disposal of wastewater.

While additional water infrastructure was built to handle increased industry demands, the water reservoirs supporting the Permian Basin started to signal distress: freshwater aquifers began to decline and injection formations started tremoring. The RRC was quick to act. Today’s water supply chain relies less on freshwater aquifers and more on consuming recycled produced water. Produced water now moves almost exclusively via pipeline, not by truck, to recycling facilities or to disposals further away from population centers or concentrated areas of seismicity.

More: Data ties series of West Texas earthquakes to oil and gas wastewater

Make no mistake about it, deep well saltwater disposals are here to stay. With over 2,000 active disposals in Texas, they are an essential tool in managing produced wastewater. However, with data-driven regulation and thoughtful oversight, the RRC has encouraged operators to be better stewards of the Permian Basin by either recycling the produced water when it is possible or moving it to disposals outside of population centers or seismic clusters when it is not.

Thank you, Chairman Wayne Christian, Commissioner Christi Craddick and Commissioner Jim Wright for your thoughtful stewardship of the Permian Basin, its citizens and its resources.

Jason Jennaro is CEO of Breakwater Energy Partners. Breakwater has constructed the largest commercially permitted produced water recycling facilities in the state of Texas. He has master’s degrees from Harvard University and Georgetown University. Mr. Jennaro serves on the Board of Directors of Make-a-Wish Gulf Coast and lives in Houston, Texas with his wife and two boys.

This article originally appeared on Carlsbad Current-Argus: Shaky ground: Texas Railroad Commission takes much-needed stand on oilfield earthquakes