It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
New Study Predicts When Ocean Life Will Die Off In Mass Extinction
Scientists have predicted when ocean life will die off in a ‘mass extinction’ if we don’t do enough to curb harmful greenhouse gas emissions, warning that there may be losses of ‘unknown severity’.
A new study titled ‘Avoiding ocean mass extinction from climate warning’, published in the journal Science, researchers outline how marine species face ‘particular risks’ from climate change, as seas steadily rise in temperature due to the extra heat created by burning fossil fuels.
According to authors Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch, the accelerating greenhouse gas emissions contributing to the increasingly warming waters and oxygen depletion will mean that fewer species are likely to survive.
Scientists have predicted when a 'mass extinction' will happen in the ocean if we don’t do enough to curb harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Credit: Alamy
They predict that the planet could face a ‘mass extinction rivaling those in Earth’s past’ by the year 2300, drawing parallels with the end of the Permian period 252 million years ago – which was known as the ‘Great Dying’, and led to the demise of up to 96 percent of the world’s marine animals.
Curtis Deutsch, professor of geosciences at Princeton University, said: "If we don’t act to curb emissions, that extinction is quite high. It registers on the geological scale among the major biotic collapses of diversity in the Earth’s history.”
A press release from Princeton University explained how the researchers combined existing physiological data on marine species with models of climate change to 'predict how changes in habitat conditions will affect the survival of sea animals around the globe over the next few centuries'.
They compared their model to 'pass mass extinctions captured in the fossil record', building on their own earlier work that 'linked the geographic pattern of Earth’s deadliest extinction event — the end-Permian extinction about 250 million years ago — to its underlying drivers: climate warming and oxygen loss from the oceans'.
However, the duo believe that the fate is not necessarily sealed, asserting that by reversing greenhouse emission trends, we can ‘diminish extinction risks by more than 70 percent’. Related video:
The fate of the ocean is not necessarily sealed, thankfully, and it's up to us to change things.
Credit: Alamy
Penn, a postdoctoral research associate in geosciences at Princeton University, said: “The silver lining is that the future isn’t written in stone. The extinction magnitude that we found depends strongly on how much carbon dioxide [CO2] we emit moving forward.
"There’s still enough time to change the trajectory of CO2 emissions and prevent the magnitude of warming that would cause this mass extinction.”
Deutsch agreed: "Aggressive and rapid reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are critical for avoiding a major mass extinction of ocean species."
Burp-catching mask for gassy cows, designed to reduce methane emissions and slow down climate change, wins prestigious Prince Charles prize
Joshua Zitser 30 April 2022 Prince Charles looks at a wearable device for cattle to neutralise their methane emissions in real time created by design group Zelp.Arthur Edwards/Pool via AP
Cows' burps produce a lot of methane which accelerates climate change.
A new face mask for cattle captures the burps and converts the methane into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
The design won the prestigious Terra Cart Design Lab competition and was praised by Prince Charles.
An innovative face mask for cows, designed to reduce methane emissions and slow down climate change, has won a prestigious design award.
The wearable device for cattle, created by UK-based design group Zelp, was one of the four winners of the inaugural Terra Cart Design Lab competition.
Prince Charles, who launched the competition as part of his Sustainable Markets Initiative, hailed the ground-breaking design as "fascinating" at an awards ceremony in London on Wednesday, The Telegraph reported.
Zelp's methane-reducing cow muzzle.ZELP
The design, a smart harness for cows, converts methane into carbon dioxide and water vapor.
Cows expel significant quantities of methane, an odorless greenhouse gas, which is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
Cows and other farm animals produce about 14% of human-induced climate emissions.
In the past, solutions to the cattle industry's methane problem have involved changing cows' diets. Scientists proposed the mass production of a puffy, pink seaweed to combat climate change, Insider reported in 2019.
But Zelp's solution allows cows to digest typical food, with the mask working to detect, capture, and oxidize the methane in the cow's burps.
A sensor at the tip of the masks detects when a cow exhales and the percentage of methane expelled, WIRED reported. The mask sets the oxidation mechanism into action when methane levels are too high.
The mask also collects data on the animals to improve efficiency and animal welfare on farms, Zelp co-founder Francisco Norris told Insider.
"The Terra Carta will play a key role in helping us tackle the final design optimizations before we can produce our technology at scale, and we are confident that through the network that this initiative provides, we will be able to really advance our technology and to unlock its true potential," Norris said.
Zelp received £50,000 ($63,424) in funding as part of the prize to help further develop the idea.
Shanghai lockdown sends chill down meat trade
By Dominique Patton
BEIJING (Reuters) - The protracted lockdown in Shanghai, China's financial hub, is slowing the nation's normally booming meat trade, with stringent COVID-19 measures causing logistics logjams across the food industry in a sign of the broadening disruptions to business.
China is the world's biggest buyer of meat, bringing in more than 9 million tonnes last year, worth about $32 billion, and the financial hub with a thriving dining scene accounts for the largest chunk of imports.
Traders rely on Shanghai's ideal location for distributing product around the country, but since an outbreak of COVID-19 cases forced a lockdown in the city at the end of March, moving chilled or frozen products has become a costly headache.
"Unloading containers is actually ok. The real issue is logistics out of the harbour, getting trucks and drivers to pick up the product," said Soeren Tinggaard, Vice President at the Pinggu Retail & Foodservice business for pork processor Danish Crown.
Frequent COVID tests, lengthy quarantines and long clearance times to enter Shanghai have kept many drivers away, while fewer refrigerated trucks are available because of special licensing requirements.
IMPORTS PRESSURED
Other food products, including dairy and edible oils, have also been stuck in the Shanghai port, while beef imports into the city have dropped 23% year-on-year in March. Taken together with other cities under COVID-19 restrictions, the data suggests food exporters like Brazil, the United States and Australia are facing pressure on their trade with the world's second-biggest economy.
Australian beef exports to China fell 10% year-on-year in March, when the lockdown had just started, while overall pork imports fell 70%.
Pork imports could plunge as much as 30% this year because of the logistics woes, compared with a previous estimate of 10%, said Pan Chenjun, senior analyst at Rabobank.
U.S. meat processor Tyson Foods said this week it has diverted meat shipments to other markets until the situation eases. Brazilian exporters have cancelled shipments and stopped booking new cargo, a source told Reuters.
The Shanghai port congestion has also impacted customers elsewhere in China.
"Since April 1, I haven't got a single piece of meat," said a Beijing-based trader who normally receives about 3 million yuan ($453,995.16) worth of beef each month from Shanghai.
A two-tonne shipment of chilled U.S. beef worth about 400,000 yuan that arrived more than a month ago is becoming a concern, said the trader.
"If it's still there after 70 days, most of my customers won't want it anymore," he said, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of speaking out about COVID measures. 'NEW CHALLENGE' EVERYDAY
For now, the sharply weaker consumption due to COVID restrictions is keeping a lid on prices, though it could become a problem the longer the lockdowns persist.
"All these logistics issues are adding cost into the supply chain, which ultimately leads to food inflation," said Andrew Cox, Singapore-based general manager of international markets at trade body Meat and Livestock Australia.
Some traders are rerouting product to other ports in China, but deliveries are slow and even then, costs are mounting as cities roll out their own stepped-up COVID protocols.
For trucks arriving into Beijing, product goes to designated central warehouses where it is tested for COVID-19. Once released, some importers have been told they must hold it for up to 14 days and carry out more COVID tests.
Tianjin requires COVID tests on all chilled and frozen foods, including one test on the inside of the packaging, said another Beijing importer. For a bag of Wagyu beef worth about 2,000 yuan, that's a lot of money down the drain.
"Every day brings a new challenge for the F&B industry," he said.
($1 = 6.4408 Chinese yuan renminbi)
($1 = 6.6080 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Dominique Patton; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
Why do humans eat so much meat? We know the current meat and dairy industry are harming our planet and that eating too much animal protein can even be bad for our health. So why do humans continue eating meat? Archaelogical evidence of butchering animals may not indicate that meat was key to human evolution after all
Humans have been eating meat since the prehistoric age, consuming ever more of it as time has worn on. Over the past 50 years alone, we have quadrupled global production to roughly 350 million tons annually, according to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).
And the trend shows no sign of abating. Current predictions suggest we will be producing up to 455 million tons a year by 2050. Inefficient food source
Scientists have long raised concerns about the environmental impact of this love affair, particularly with regard toindustrially farmed animals, and have deemed it an "inefficient" food source, on the basis that it requires more energy, water and land to produce than other things we eat.
A study on the impact of farming for instance found beef production is responsible for six times more greenhouse gas emissions and requires 36 times more land compared to the production of plant protein, such as peas.
Avoiding meat and dairy products is the biggest way to reduce our environmental impact on the planet, the study concludes. Without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75%.
What's more, 60% of global biodiversity loss is caused by meat-based diets, according to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) sources.
The psychology behind eating meat
Yet, many of us continue to eat meat regardless. Benjamin Buttlar, a social psychologist from the University of Trier, Germany, attributes this to habit, culture and perceived needs.
"I think a lot of people just enjoy the taste. And the other thing is the identity part of eating. Many traditional cuisines revolve around certain meat dishes," he said, adding that the habitual nature of eating animals means we often don't even question what we are doing.
"And most of the time, these habits prevent us from thinking that meat consumption is actually bad because it's just something that we do all the time," he said.
We don't usually see how animals are slaughtered
Then there's the fact that because what we are eating doesn't remind us of an animal or the suffering it has gone through on the way to the plate, we are able to dissociate more easily. Yet when confronted with a different perspective, whether in talking to a vegetarian or a vegan or watching a documentary about animal welfare, Buttlar says we might feel a need to justify ourselves, for example, by saying humans have always eaten meat.
Research shows that justifying eating meat as a natural, normal and necessary part of our diet is something that's more typical for males.
"You see this in the trends of food," Buttlar explained. "There are a lot more young females and fewer men who are becoming vegetarian because it's still a masculine stereotype that men eat meat. And this goes back to the idea of strong men hunting and evolutionary misconceptions around meat consumption."
The 'meat made us human' hypothesis
Scientists long believed that eating meat helped our ancestors develop more human-like body shapes and that eating meat and bone marrow gave the Homo erectus the energy it needed to form and feed a larger brain around 2 million years ago.
But a recent study questioned the importance of meat consumption in our evolution.
The study authors argued that while the archaeological evidence for meat consumption increases in step with the appearance of H. erectus, this could also be explained by the greater attention given to the time period. Or, put another way, a sampling bias.
The study counted the number of fossils and the number of butchered bones found at major research areas in eastern Africa dating 2.6 million to 1.2 million years ago
The more paleontologists went looking for archaeological evidence of butchered bones, the more they found it. As a result, the increase in bones seen during this time is not necessarily evidence of an explosion in meat eating, the authors wrote.
"I was definitely very surprised by this finding," said Briana Pobiner, a paleoanthropologist at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the US and study co-author. "I was one of those people for a long time that had this narrative that H. erectus evolved because meat eating increased, and so these findings are something that forced me to reexamine my perception of our evolutionary history."
What role did plant-based food play in our evolution?
Eating meat may not have been responsible for supersizing our brains either, according to Pobiner, who researches the evolution of human diet.
"We don't see a big increase in brain size around the time that meat eating started. The brain size got absolutely bigger with H. erectus, but it actually didn't get relatively bigger — so a much bigger brain compared to the body size — until about a million years ago."
Eating meat may not have been the reason why the brains of our ancestors grew
There is some evidence that early humans started cooking their food around the time their brains were getting bigger. Heating food unlocks extra nutrients and speeds up the process of digestion because food is softer and easier to chew.
Pobiner also believes human evolution is attributable to a healthy dietary mix.
"And interestingly, there are ideas that it's not so much one particular type of food that drove our evolutionary history, but it's really being able to eat a wide variety of foods that made us so successful and that kind of made us human," Pobiner said.
Currently, 75% of the world's food comes from only 12 plants and five animal species. But when humans consume too much of a single food source, it can cause health problems.
"Innumerable studies show that when human beings consume animal protein, it is linked to the development of a variety of cancers," Dr. Milton Mills, an internal medicine and critical care physician in the US, told DW.
Some people argue that vegetarians or vegans typically do not get enough protein and nutrients from their diets, but Mills, who is an advocate for plant-based diets and founded his own website to raise awareness of the issue, disagrees.
"Those theories originated 50, 60 years ago, when people were under the mistaken impression that meat was somehow more nutritious than plant foods. That was a grotesquely false misconception that people used to have, that there are only certain amino acids that you could get from animal tissue. That is flatly not true," said Mills.
What's next?
If the appetite for meat remains unchanged, the world population could be too big to feed itself by 2050, when we'll reach a global population of almost 10 billion.
But how can levels of global meat consumption be reduced? Psychologist Buttlar believes incremental change with "top-down intervention" is the way forward.
"For instance, by making meat products as expensive as they should be for securing animal welfare and in terms of costs for the climate. And by making alternatives cheaper," he said.
What's also important, according to Buttlar, is enabling people to have positive associations with plant-based alternatives.
"Instead of pushing them away by saying, 'you shouldn't eat meat,' we should probably say, 'have you tried this? This is really good.' And once they realize plant-based food tastes the same or even better, and it's even better for my health, for the climate, and animal welfare, then change will come automatically."
Changing attitudes are already becoming apparent, even in meat-loving Germany. According to the statistics for 2021, the market for meat alternatives is thriving with a 17% increase in the production of plant-based foods compared to 2020.
VEGGIE DISCS AND BLOODY BEETS: FUTURE OF MEAT
Big appetite
With climate concerns growing, many people are trying to reduce their environmental impact. Increasingly, they're turning to plant-based meats — and investors are taking notice. When Beyond Meat debuted on Wall Street in early May, share prices more than doubled the first day. "Investors recognize … a huge business opportunity," Bruce Friedrich, director of the Good Food Institute, told AFP.
In Mexico, some spend Mother's Day looking for missing children Mexican mother Araceli Hernandez holds a missing persons poster for her daughter Vanessa and son Manuel
(AFP/ULISES RUIZ)
Mireya Blanco Mon, 9 May 2022,
While most Mexicans celebrate Mother's Day on Tuesday, thousands of women will mark the occasion by continuing their desperate mission to find out what happened to their missing children.
Five of Maria Guadalupe Camarena's nine children are among the more than 95,000 people who have disappeared in the violence-plagued Latin American country.
"There are five empty chairs. There's nothing to celebrate here," said the 61-year-old domestic worker from the western state of Jalisco.
Asked about her plans for Mother's Day, she answered without hesitation: "Look for my children."
Jalisco is the Mexican state with the most missing people -- nearly 15,000.
Camarena's daughter Lucero vanished in 2016 after going to a job interview.
Four of her sons disappeared in 2019 when they were traveling by road to visit a relative and were detained by police.
Although two officers were accused of forced disappearance, they have not been tried and there has been no official search operation.
The United Nations Committee on Enforced Disappearances in April urged Mexico to tackle an "alarming trend" of rising enforced disappearances, facilitated by "almost absolute impunity."
- A mother's mission -
Araceli Hernandez, 50, has photos of her daughter Vanessa and son Manuel, in their 20s, on an altar in her home.
She has not heard from them since 2017 when first Vanessa disappeared and then her brother while he was looking for her.
"They had been missing for about four months when I grabbed a backpack, some bottles of water, a wooden stick and started walking in the hills," Hernandez said.
She joined the growing number of mothers who have formed associations that comb the countryside for clandestine graves that might hold their children's remains.
She also walks the streets of the city of Guadalajara putting up missing person posters, tearfully kissing the images of her son and daughter.
"It's my mission as a mother," she said. 'My life project'
When she wakes up each morning, Rosaura Magana, 61, lights a candle and prays next to a photo of her son Carlos Eduardo.
He disappeared five years ago when armed men who said they were from the prosecutor's office arrived at his workplace and took him away with three others, two of whom were released.
"I never thought this would be my life project," she said of the days she now spends looking for her son instead of enjoying her retirement.
She criticized the authorities for the lack of progress in the case.
The two people who were freed refused to say what happened and the case has gone through six prosecutors and eight investigative police officers, Magana said. - 'We found nothing' -
Azulema Estrada, 49, has learned on her own about the laws and excavation techniques needed to look for Ivan Alfredo, who disappeared in 2020 aged 30.
Her son was taken by gunmen from his home in the northern state of Sonora along with his partner.
A search of a hillside where their remains are suspected to be buried was unable to cover all the ground, and when lookouts working for drug cartels spotted them it became too difficult to return.
"Unfortunately we found nothing," she said.
In Mexico, even searching for the missing can carry significant risks.
Disappearances began during the Mexican authorities' so-called dirty war against the revolutionary movements of the 1960s-1980s.
They soared after the government launched a military offensive against drug cartels in 2006, since when more than 340,000 people have been murdered in a spiral of violence.
According to the government, there are around 37,000 unidentified corpses lying unclaimed in forensic services, though activists believe the number is more than 50,000.
The authorities aim to use genetic testing to reunite more parents with their children's remains.
But in the meantime, with morgues overflowing, some corpses are buried before they can be identified.
str/sem/dr/mlm/bfm
In Mexico, some spend Mother's Day looking for missing children. Ulises RUIZ #AFP
World could see 1.5C of warming in next five years, WMO reports
By Gloria Dickie
LONDON (Reuters) - The world faces a 50% chance of warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, if only briefly, by 2026, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Monday.
That does not mean the world would be crossing the long-term warming threshold of 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), which scientists have set as the ceiling for avoiding catastrophic climate change.
But a year of warming at 1.5C could offer a taste of what crossing that long-term threshold would be like.
"We are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas, referring to climate accords adopted in 2015.
The likelihood of exceeding 1.5C for a short period has been rising since 2015, with scientists in 2020 estimating a 20% chance and revising that last year up to 40%. Even one year at 1.5C of warming can have dire impacts, such as killing many of the world's coral reefs and shrinking Arctic sea ice cover.
In terms of the long-term average, the average global temperature is now about 1.1C warmer than the pre-industrial average.
"Loss and damage associated with, or exacerbated by, climate change is already occurring, some of it likely irreversible for the foreseeable future," said Maxx Dilley, deputy director of climate at the WMO.
World leaders pledged under the 2015 Paris Agreement to prevent crossing the long-term 1.5C threshold – measured as a multi-decadal average – but so far have fallen short on cutting climate-warming emissions. Today's activities and current policies have the world on track to warm by about 3.2C by the end of the century.
"It's important to remember that once we hit 1.5C, the lack of science-based emissions policies mean that we will suffer worsening impacts as we approach 1.6C, 1.7C, and every increment of warming thereafter," said Kim Cobb, a climate scientist at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
(Reporting by Gloria Dickie; Editing by Katy Daigle and Nick Macfie)
Even chance world will breach 1.5C warming within 5 years: UN
There is a 93 percent chance of at least one year between 2022-2026 becoming the warmest on record (AFP/Hussein FALEH) (Hussein FALEH) Robin MILLARD Mon, May 9, 2022,
There is an even chance that global temperatures will temporarily breach the benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in one of the next five years, the United Nations warned Tuesday.
The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw countries agree to cap global warming at "well below" 2C above levels measured between 1850 and 1900 -- and 1.5C if possible.
"The chance of global near-surface temperature exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels at least one year between 2022 and 2026 is about as likely as not," the UN's World Meteorological Organization said in an annual climate update.
The WMO put the likelihood at 48 percent, and said it was increasing with time.
An average temperature of 1.5 C above the pre-industrial level across a multi-year period would breach the Paris aspirational target.
There is a 93 percent chance of at least one year between 2022-2026 becoming the warmest on record and dislodging 2016 from the top ranking, said the WMO.
The chance of the five-year temperature average for 2022-2026 being higher than the last five years (2017-2021) was also put at 93 percent.
"This study shows -- with a high level of scientific skill -- that we are getting measurably closer to temporarily reaching the lower target of the Paris Agreement," said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.
"The 1.5C figure is not some random statistic. It is rather an indicator of the point at which climate impacts will become increasingly harmful for people and indeed the entire planet." - 'Edging ever closer' -
The Paris Agreement level of 1.5C refers to long-term warming, but temporary exceedances are expected to occur with increasing frequency as global temperatures rise.
"A single year of exceedance above 1.5C does not mean we have breached the iconic threshold of the Paris Agreement, but it does reveal that we are edging ever closer to a situation where 1.5C could be exceeded for an extended period," said Leon Hermanson, of Britain's Met Office national weather service, who led the report.
The average global temperature in 2021 was around 1.11C above pre-industrial levels, according to provisional WMO figures.
The report said that back-to-back La Nina events at the start and end of 2021 had a cooling effect on global temperatures.
However, this was only temporary and did not reverse the long-term global warming trend.
La Nina refers to the large-scale cooling of surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean, typically occurring every two to seven years.
The effect has widespread impacts on weather around the world -- typically the opposite impacts to the El Nino warming phase in the Southern Oscillation cycle.
Any development of an El Nino event would immediately fuel temperatures, as it did in 2016, said the WMO.
- Greenhouse gas link -
The annual mean global near-surface temperature for each year between 2022 and 2026 is predicted to be between 1.1C and 1.7C higher than pre-industrial levels.
There is only a 10 percent chance of the five-year mean exceeding the 1.5C threshold.
"For as long as we continue to emit greenhouse gases, temperatures will continue to rise," said Taalas.
"And alongside that, our oceans will continue to become warmer and more acidic, sea ice and glaciers will continue to melt, sea level will continue to rise and our weather will become more extreme.
"Arctic warming is disproportionately high and what happens in the Arctic affects all of us."
Meanwhile, predicted precipitation patterns for 2022, compared to the 1991-2020 average, suggest an increased chance of drier conditions over southwestern Europe and southwestern North America, and wetter conditions in northern Europe, the Sahel, northeastern Brazil, and Australia.
rjm/apo/ach
UN says 'imminent' Yemen oil spill would cost $20 bn to clean up
A satellite image shows the FSO Safer oil tanker on June 19, 2020 off Yemen
(AFP/Handout) (Handout)
David Gressly Mon, May 9, 2022
The United Nations warned Monday that it would cost $20 billion to clean up an oil spill in the event of the "imminent" break-up of an oil tanker abandoned off Yemen.
"Our recent visit to (the FSO Safer) with technical experts indicates that the vessel is imminently going to break up," the UN humanitarian coordinator for Yemen, David Gressly, said ahead of a conference, hosted by the UN and The Netherlands, to raise funds for an emergency operation to prevent an oil spill.
The 45-year-old FSO Safer, long used as a floating oil storage platform with 1.1 million barrels of crude on board, has been moored off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida since 2015, without being serviced.
"The impact of a spill will be catastrophic," Gressly continued at a briefing in Amman. "The effect on the environment would be tremendous... our estimate is that $20 billion would be spent just to clean the oil spill."
The UN official had earlier announced on Twitter that the Netherlands would host on Wednesday a pledging conference for the international body's plan to avert the crisis.
Last month, the UN said it was seeking nearly $80 million for its operation. It warned of "a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe centred on a country already decimated by more than seven years of war".
It said that the emergency part of a two-stage operation would see the toxic cargo pumped from the storage platform to a temporary replacement vessel at a cost of $79.6 million.
Gressly estimated that a total of $144 million would be needed for the full operation, reiterating that $80 million was needed "to secure the oil safely in the initial phase".
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed directly or indirectly in Yemen's seven-year war, while millions have been displaced in what the UN calls the world's biggest humanitarian crisis.
msh/jsa/it
Historic coalition marks paradigm shift for French left ahead of June legislative elections
The agreement sets out a joint slate of campaign proposals and apportions shares of constituency nominations to all the allied parties, who have pledged to field a single coalition candidate in each of France’s 577 legislative districts next month.
The deal marks the first time in 25 years that the French left has come together to contest the first round of the legislative elections in lockstep. In 1997, the so-called Plural Left joined forces to win a legislative majority, elevating Socialist heavyweight Lionel Jospin to the post of prime minister for five years while conservative rival Jacques Chirac held the French presidency, a power-sharing scenario known in France as “cohabitation”.
Five years on, the state of play is very different. The 2022 presidential election opened the eyes of the leftist parties in two ways. For one, the appetite for unity among leftist voters is known to be high – 84 percent of left-wing sympathisers in a May 4 poll by the Elabe firm said they were in favour of an alliance between the top four left-wing parties. But also, for the Socialist and Green parties in particular, it became clear that there was consensus to be found in a programme that breaks with Macron and his neoliberal agenda.
Hollande, for his part, says he “rejects the accord in substance and even on the [allocated] constituencies”, as he told regional daily La Montagne last week. The former French president had already warned that an accord between the Socialist Party and La France Insoumise would call into question “the very principles that are the foundations of socialist engagement”, telling France Info radio on April 28 that such an alliance would lead to the “disappearance” of the Socialist Party.
Among Socialist proponents of the coalition deal, the response to Hollande’s remarks was cutting. “I have trouble imagining that my main preoccupation today would be to listen to what François Hollande has to tell us about what the left is and what loyalty to socialism is,” Corrine Narassiguin, the party’s No. 2, told Radio J on April 29. “I’d prefer to listen to what the voters told us in the first round of the presidential election. That was a very strong and very clear message.”
“Some speak of ‘disobeying’ and others of temporarily contravening, but the objective is the same: The ability to fully apply our shared programme of governance and to thereby respect the mandate the French people will have given us,” the document affirmed.
“The reaction of the elephants is understandable,” said Perrineau. “With this accord, the Socialist Party will become an auxiliary to La France Insoumise. As such, it’s a total break with the history of the Socialist Party, which had previously been the central force. From now on, the left will redefine itself around the radical force that LFI represents,” the professor added.
Negotiations between LFI, the Greens, the Communists and the Socialist Party were also about divvying up constituencies (indeed, some opponents say that it was the deal’s overriding goal). Each party earned assurances that it could form an official group in the National Assembly – key to maintaining any political influence – with at least 15 lawmakers elected per party from surefire winnable districts. And despite initial reluctance from LFI, each party is certain to secure public financing as all four will run candidates in at least 50 legislative races – the threshold for unlocking state subsidies: The Greens got the coalition’s green light to stand in 100 districts, the Communists in 50 and the Socialists in 70. La France Insoumise gets the rest: More than 350.
It remains to be seen how the alliance will do at the ballot box. The left has its sights set on winning a legislative majority, but that prospect appears highly optimistic under the circumstances. Since France made the shift to five-year presidential terms (down from seven) in 2002 and rejigged the calendar to have legislative elections follow the presidential vote, the country’s freshly elected leader has always won the legislative majority he needed for governing.
Indeed, while divisions persist on the far right, and while Macron has appeared at pains to recruit a new prime minister as his own allies spar over constituency arithmetic, the French left is enjoying its moment as the country’s most dynamic political force. And judging by the the attacks Macron’s outgoing legislative majority has levied of late, the left’s unforeseen alliance has rivals on edge.
This article has been translated from the original in French.
How the Taliban are 'eliminating women' in Afghanistan
The Taliban have further curbed women's rights with their latest veil compulsion decree. Afghanistan's civil society faces an uphill task to challenge the group without adequate support from the international community.
Instead of dealing with the economy, the Taliban have set up rules of conduct and dress codes for women
If there was any hope that the Taliban would pay heed to repeated calls from Afghanistan's civil society and the international community to uphold women's rights, the Islamic fundamentalist group's latest decree for women to cover their faces in public has dashed it.
The latest order to make veil compulsory is one of the harshest controls on women's lives in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in August last year. It is also reminiscent of the Islamist outfit's strict Shariah-based rule in the late 1990s.
"They [women] should wear a chadori [head-to-toe burqa] as it is traditional and respectful," Afghanistan's Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada said on Saturday.
The statement said the measure was introduced "in order to avoid provocation when meeting men who are not mahram [adult close male relatives]," adding that if women had no important work outside it was "better they stay at home."
From now on, if a woman does not cover her face outside the home, according to the decree, her father or closest male relative could be imprisoned or fired from government jobs.
Older women and young girls are exempt from the latest Taliban order. Decree condemned by civil society
Many Afghan women traditionally wear the hijab, but not all of them wear an all-covering burqa in public. The new order will restrict their mobility and access to employment.
Following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Afghan women earned many rights, which the Taliban had taken away from 1996 to 2001. The hard-earned rights included the right to choose how they dress, and the right to employment and education.
Since they retook power, the international community has been urging the Taliban to allow girls to go to school and give them more freedom in society. Instead, the new Afghan rulers have done the contrary and backslided on women's rights.
Daud Naji, a former Afghan government official, wrote on Twitter that the Taliban have imposed a type of Hijab that is not suitable for working in office or in the field.
"The Taliban have imposed the burqa, which abolishes [a woman's] identity… The issue is not the hijab but the elimination of women," he said.
Nahid Farid, a former Afghan member of parliament and women's rights activist, has dubbed the veil mandate a "symbol of gender apartheid."
"The dress code for women, and putting men as executors of this plan, along with the Taliban's restrictions on girls' education, prove that the group seeks to control the body and mind of half of the population," she wrote on Facebook. A larger plan to subjugate women
Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, rising living costs and unemployment have left many people with barely enough money to buy food. However, the Taliban government has no solution for stopping the collapse of the economy.
Instead, the Islamist militant group has decided to focus on setting up rules of conduct and dress codes for women based on a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.
New, stricter rules are announced almost every day. For example, since the end of March, women are only allowed to board an airplane in the company of a man.
The Taliban also recently backtracked on a promise to allow girls to attend school. Secondary schools for girls will be opened once "appropriate dress codes" are agreed upon for students aged 12 and older, according to a statement issued last week by the Ministry for the "Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice."
This ministry was set up in place of the Ministry of Women's Affairs after the Taliban took power in August.
The war-torn country has not been able to stand on its own economically and has been highly dependent on payments from abroad in recent years. Western donors, however, turned off the money tap after the Taliban takeover.
LIFE IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER THE TALIBAN
New but old dress code
Although it is not yet mandatory for women to wear a burqa, many do so out of fear of reprisals. This Afghan woman is visiting a local market with her children. There is a large supply of second-hand clothes as many refugees have left their clothes behind.
Humanitarian aid intended to reach the suffering population directly through international organizations continues to be provided, but not in sufficient quantities.
In order to be recognized by the international community as a legitimate government, the Taliban would have to make certain changes, including accepting demands from Western donors, for example, on gender equality.
The radical forces in the Taliban have indicated that they will not accept this.
"The new restrictions were created by old and uncompromising Taliban leaders," Afghanistan expert Tariq Farhadi told DW.
Farhadi, who was also an adviser to former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, believes that the radical wing of the Taliban has prevailed in an internal power struggle.
"For them, ideology is more important than the welfare of the citizens. They have no interest in the Taliban's rule being recognized by the world community," he said. A bargaining chip?
Soraya Peykan, a former professor at Kabul University, told DW that the limited and informal exchanges between the international community and the Taliban may break down if the Taliban continue to increase pressure on society.
Peykan said the Taliban had deliberately turned basic rights such as the right to education for girls into a bargaining chip in talks with the international community.
"They want to use the granting of this right as leverage to gain a better position in negotiations," said Peykan.
But the Afghan conflict is no longer receiving the international spotlight that it did last year. With the West currently dealing with the Ukraine war, Afghan civil society has practically been left on its own to confront the Taliban's harsh decrees.
Sardar Mohammad Rahman Ughelli, Afghanistan's former ambassador to Ukraine, says the world is already "forgetting" about the Afghanistan crisis.
"Even the international media is not covering the crisis in Afghanistan," he said, adding that the Taliban are now free to implement their regressive policies in the country.
Additional reporting by: Ahmad Hakimi
Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru
Freed Taiwan activist recounts 'fascist circus' of Chinese court
Lee Ming-che spent more than four years in a Chinese prison under national security laws, saying authorities there operated 'a total slavery sweatshop'
(AFP/Sam Yeh) Sam YehMore Amber WANG Tue, May 10, 2022
A Taiwanese democracy activist, jailed in China for five years, on Tuesday described the court proceedings as a "fascist circus" and said he was told he might be released if he admitted to bei Lee said he bought books and supplies and donated money to some Chinese political prisoners and their families, as well as visiting them on the mainland.
"My actions are very normal in Taiwan or any democratic society... I didn't expect China would view my humanitarian acts as grossly as subverting state power," he said.
He was sent to Chishan Prison in Hunan province where Lee said he initially had to work 11 to 12 hours daily all year round, except for a four-day lunar new year break.
Food often smelt "rotten" when it cooled and he was initially without hot water during Hunan's bitter winters.
"Chishan is like a big factory... It's a total slavery sweatshop," Lee said, adding the prison produces gloves, shoes, bags and backpacks.
China's prisons have long deployed forced labour programmes for inmates, something that has received increased international scrutiny following the construction of a vast detention system in western Xinjiang province.
Lee was accompanied Tuesday by his wife Lee Ching-yu who campaigned hard for her husband's release.
Lee said he believed that campaign kept public focus on his case and helped improve his treatment.
Asked if he had anything to say to the Chinese government, Lee replied with a pro-independence slogan in Taiwan: "Taiwan, China, one country on each side".
China claims self-ruled democratic Taiwan as its own and vows to seize it one day, by force if necessary.
Beijing has ramped up pressure on Taiwan since President Tsai Ing-wen came to power on the island in 2016, as she views Taiwan as an "already independent" sovereign nation and not part of Chinese territory.
