Berlin mosque flies rainbow flag in support of LGBTQ community

A liberal mosque in Berlin has hoisted the rainbow flag ahead of a series of LGBTQ events in the city. One of the mosque's imams hopes other mosques will follow suit.

The rainbow flag will stay up until the end of July

The Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque in Berlin said on Friday it was the first German mosque to fly the rainbow flag, a symbol of pride and diversity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) community.

Located in the central Moabit neighborhood of the German capital, the mosque unfurled its flag in front of a small group of people, including Berlin's Culture Senator Klaus Lederer.

Attendees wore stickers saying "Love is Halal" ahead of a series of LGBTQ events scheduled to take place in the city in July.

Mo el-Ketab, one of the mosque's six imams, said the space was intended to be a "safe place for people who are different, so they too can experience the spiritual side of their lives."

"I hope that many other mosques will also show the flag in this way or set other positive signs for the LGBT community," he added.

The flag will remain up until the end of July, the LGBTQ website Queer.de reported.

Berlin's pride month just beginning

While most of the world celebrates pride month in June, the German capital will hold two major LGBTQ events in July.

One is the Lesbian and Gay Festival on July 16 and 17, while the other is Christopher Street Day (CSD) on July 23.

According to Berlin-based newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, organizers have planned four weeks of events running from the anniversary of the Stonewall protests on June 28 to Christopher Street Day.

Many people at the mosque wore stickers reading "Love is halal"

CSD board member Marc-Eric Lehmann said the rainbow flag at the Ibn Rushd-Goethe mosque sent "an incredibly strong sign" and it was "really important" to find a place for religion in LGBTQ communities.

"Queer people can also be religious and believe in God," he said. "We should not just be talking about safe spaces in bars and clubs in Berlin, we also have to talk about safe spaces in the places of worship."

The Berlin mosque is Germany's only self-described liberal mosque where men and women are invited to pray together. It was first founded just five years ago.

ab/sms (AFP, EPD)

State settles SNAP dispute, agrees to spend millions to beef up federal food aid program

Robert Nott, 

The Santa Fe New Mexican

Jul. 1—The state has agreed to invest millions of dollars into improvements to its administration of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program as part of a settlement in a long-running U.S. Department of Agriculture claim alleging mismanagement between 2014 and 2016.

The benefits program called SNAP, sometimes known as food stamps, helps about 510,000 low-income New Mexicans — about a quarter of the state's population — buy groceries.

Federal officials accused the state of approving eligibility of some applicants without full verification, improperly paying out retroactive benefits and keeping many SNAP applications pending beyond deadlines. While the initial USDA claim was for more than $163 million, the state submitted an appeal "asserting they are liable for $7,030,914," according to the settlement agreement, dated June 25.

Over the next few years, the state Human Services Department will pay $3.6 million to the Department of Agriculture under the settlement agreement.

New Mexico also must invest more than $15 million to strengthen SNAP services.

The investments, over a three-year period, include $7.1 million for staff hiring and retention, $1.8 million for fraud detection initiatives, $3.2 million to improve call center operations and $3.1 million for SNAP system enhancements.

David Scrase, the state's acting Cabinet secretary of health and human services, wrote in an email Wednesday, "HSD has worked tirelessly these past three and a half years to improve processes and implement procedures to provide timely and accurate benefits to more than 500,000 unique New Mexican SNAP customers."

A recent Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report said 67 percent of households in New Mexico receiving SNAP benefits include children.

Verenice Peregrino Pompa, an attorney with the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty, said Thursday, "New Mexican families need SNAP in order to make sure no one goes hungry. These investments as result of this lawsuit are important. We're facing a real crisis because a lot of people are not getting their SNAP benefits on time and cannot feed their family."

The USDA suit wasn't the first against the state accusing it of poor management of the federal food stamp program or even fraudulent practices.

In past years, officials with the Human Services Department faced allegations of illegal efforts to reduce a backlog of emergency requests for benefits by falsifying information on applications so it would appear families were ineligible for aid. Federal law requires state governments to process emergency SNAP applications within seven days.

The USDA settlement includes a provision allowing the agency to withhold federal funding if the state does not comply with the terms.

Earlier this year, the federal government granted the state's request to automatically continue providing SNAP benefits to recipients for several months to aid those affected by a record year of devastating wildfires.

SNAP recipients can also purchase hot prepared food from authorized businesses, along with groceries, through July 12 to help those who were evacuated or lost their homes in the fires, or who lost electricity due to wildfire damage.

China Destroyed Muslim Culture In This Ancient City — Then Turned It Into Disneyland


Alison Killing

BUZZFEED
Thu, June 30, 2022

For centuries, the arched entrances and ornate patterned brickwork of Kashgar’s mosques signaled Uyghur culture’s essential place in the ancient city.

Then the mosques fell into the crosshairs of China’s campaign targeting Muslims, including Uyghurs and Kazakhs, in the province of Xinjiang. The government removed minarets and painted over Arabic calligraphy, according to video obtained by BuzzFeed News. Police officers and metal detectors greeted worshippers as they entered. Inside Id Kah, Kashgar’s largest and most revered mosque, cameras spaced 6 meters apart kept watch over the carpet lining the prayer hall. A photograph of Chinese President Xi Jinping hung over one of the doors, even though Islam forbids most figurative images.

Now the government is using the mosques that remain as part of another campaign: to draw tourists to Xinjiang. Travelers pose in the mosques’ doorways for Instagram photos to which they append hashtags such as #travel, #streetphotography, #travelblogger, #chill, and #holiday. The city has been optimized for social media, and the mosques fit right into this image. A tree outside one is filled with hanging ornaments, and beneath it sits one of many new rustic-style benches found in the city’s public squares — a perfect view for a holiday snap.

In the span of a few years, China assembled a vast and sophisticated infrastructure to lock up Muslims in Xinjiang and to force them to labor in factories. The government built enough space to detain 1 million people at any given time.

The camps and detention centers form the fulcrum of a campaign that the US and other governments have labeled a genocide. But China has also been systematically hollowing out Uyghur culture in Xinjiang’s towns and cities, degrading Muslim landmarks, and inviting non-Uyghurs to move in — or visit for a vacation.

Journalists and independent observers have been largely unable to see the shape and scale of these changes, because it is nearly impossible for them to travel within the region without police harassment. Earlier reporting has described a lot of the surveillance infrastructure and some of the ways that the city has been transformed for the benefit of tourists, but extensive visual documentation has been lacking, with journalists frequently forced to delete any photographs they take.

But BuzzFeed News has compiled and analyzed a large trove of videos and photos that provide an intimate portrait of recent life in Kashgar, which is Xinjiang’s second most populous city. Much of this documentary evidence was captured by tourists, who are able to move around Xinjiang much more freely.

A series of videos taken by a Russian-speaking tourist who walked around Kashgar in October 2017 shows how, at the same time it was rounding up Muslims by the thousands, the government was suffocating the practice of Uyghur culture in the city. Cameras and police checkpoints are everywhere. Chinese flags are hanging from every market stall and shop front; in one video, a group of police officers stops to check that the flags are hanging correctly.

We analyzed the videos, recording the presence of CCTV cameras as well as police checkpoints, stations, and patrols, then geolocated them from the footage to build a detailed map of the city and its surveillance infrastructure at the height of the crackdown. We then compared later videos and photographs to document how the city changed from 2017 through to the present day.

In mid-2019, after locking up 1 million people in the region according to UN estimates, the government declared victory, saying it had stamped out terrorism — and was turning its focus to tourism. “As the infiltration of religious extremism has been curbed, public order and security have returned to society, where equality, solidarity and harmony among ethnic groups and religions have prevailed,” the government wrote in a white paper. In the same paper, the government touted Xinjiang’s tourism industry.

Around that time, the government began to draw back some of its most menacing surveillance features in Kashgar, according to an analysis of contemporary photos and videos. In the three years since, a very different type of visual began to stand out: visor-wearing tour groups, Uyghurs dressed up in 100-year-old costumes to entertain visitors, and a fleet of Disneyland-like golf buggies to ferry people around.

Many of Xinjiang’s cities now resemble Potemkin villages with carefully manicured facades obscuring massive human trauma, experts said. But nowhere is that more apparent than in Kashgar.

“The city is completely changed,” said Rian Thum, a historian of Islam in China at the University of Manchester. “It’s absolutely Disneyfication. It’s an alien place — a theme park.”

Kashgar sits on the ancient Silk Road and has featured prominently in Uyghur literature for hundreds of years. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, well before the Communist Party came to power in China, Kashgar served as the capital for two states controlled by Turkic cultures. Densely packed with busy markets and home to many sacred tombs and monuments, it was long regarded as the best-preserved example of a central Asian city, Thum said.

But in 2009, as part of a modernization campaign, the Chinese government began demolishing Kashgar’s old city, moving families who had lived there for generations to newly built apartment blocks on the outskirts. The older mud-brick buildings and winding alleyways were replaced by new concrete buildings, albeit in an ornate style. By mid-2015, an enormous city gate was under construction to the southeast of the old city, in addition to city walls, all styled to look as though they had been in place for hundreds of years.

Abduweli Ayup grew up in Kashgar. When the demolitions began, he started seeing bulldozers everywhere. When he ate in street stalls, every mouthful tasted like dust.

Ayup said he was first locked up in 2013 after opening a chain of schools that taught Uyghur children in their own language, instead of Mandarin Chinese. He was detained for 15 months in a suffocatingly crowded prison where there was no flush toilet, he said. For the first six months, he was interrogated every day, he said. After his release, Ayup fled to Turkey.

In late 2016, the government dramatically escalated its repression of Uyghurs and other Muslims, embarking on the campaign that the US and other countries now refer to as a genocide. China has pointed to maintaining social stability as a reason for its policies in Xinjiang. The government began detaining people for infractions that included wearing a beard or downloading a banned app.

Stuck thousands of miles away, Ayup was unable to watch as his hometown descended into a police state. But the Russian-speaking tourist who visited Kashgar in October 2017 and took video of his experiences provides a rare window into a terrifying time for Uyghurs in Kashgar and Xinjiang.

The tourist narrates what he sees as he films it, over what appears to be the course of one single day. The camera often lingers on surveillance cameras, checkpoints, and policing infrastructure in between shots of craftspeople at work or the food on display at market stalls. Some of his observations stand out. “I noticed some people, just this morning I saw a few of them, who walk around and knock at the doors, and check something according to the information in their lists," he says at one point.

The videos are often filmed as a single shot. This enabled BuzzFeed News to record and geolocate the surveillance tools across a wide swath of the old city — and build a detailed picture of Kashgar at the height of the crackdown.

Checkpoints were typically a couple of hundred meters apart — roughly a three-minute walk — but some were as close as 50 meters. Key intersections had heavier controls, with metal detectors, heavy metal barriers across the road, and gazebos to protect the police stationed there. Even at minor junctions, string tied between traffic cones often blocked the road — and police seated at a nearby table checked documents of locals who wished to pass. The entrance to one small street was blocked by barriers similar to ticket gates at the entrance to a subway.

The changes at the mosques were equally dramatic. More than a dozen smaller neighborhood mosques identified by BuzzFeed News were affected. So too was Id Kah. With its grand entrance and exterior walls clad in lemon yellow tiles, it dominates the large square in Kashgar’s old city center and holds special meaning for Muslims. In less tense times, people would gather in the square outside the mosque to celebrate festivals like Eid. Before he fled, Ayup came to Id Kah less for prayer and more to meet up with friends, whom he’d smile at from across the room.

The prayer hall at Id Kah mosqueGuang Niu / Getty Images; Igor Putilov via YouTube

In the tourist’s video of Id Kah, two police officers in helmets and flak jackets sit at a table outside the entrance, and a CCTV camera points back at the doorway to capture everyone coming in. Visitors pass through metal detectors to enter. Inside, the grounds are peppered with cameras, mounted on walls around the compound, as well as on scaffolding-like arches built over pathways.

Police officers guard the entrance to Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in 2017.Igor Putilov via YouTube / Via youtube.com

Along the length of the prayer hall’s back wall is a row of CCTV cameras at 6-meter intervals, watching people kneel to pray. The photograph of Xi Jinping, which shows him meeting Muslim religious leaders, sits above a door to an enclosed part of the prayer hall. At several other mosques, propaganda signs above or beside the entrance urge people to “love the party, love the country” or remind them of the importance of ethnic unity. Large posters on the walls lay out what constitutes illegal religious activities.

Two views of an intersection in KashgarIgor Putilov via YouTube; Urban Aboveground via YouTube

Starting in 2019, a shift began to happen in Kashgar that has carried through to the present day, according to a BuzzFeed News analysis comparing newer videos, photos, and satellite imagery to the 2017 videos. The heavy metal barriers and fencing topped by barbed wire that had been built at the entrances to schools and police stations were gone by mid-2019. Some of the cameras that had proliferated throughout the city went away, too — and so did several checkpoints.

The police also scaled back their presence. The officers that remained were less obviously obtrusive and had traded their riot helmets for soft caps.

But the surveillance of Uyghurs hasn’t disappeared. Many people released from camps were being monitored through their cellphones and prevented from leaving their towns without a permit.

“The authorities scrutinize and surveil former detainees to check if ‘re-education’ helped them to be transformed into ‘normal human beings,’” said Nury Turkel, chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, who interviewed former detainees for a recent book.

Recent photos and videos show that there are still checkpoints at key access points, often partly hidden from view and in places where they might fit more naturally — such as at the main gate to the old city or as part of the imposing new gate at the end of the street where the night market is held.

Cameras are now distributed along roads in a more regular pattern as well as at key access points to the old city, providing more comprehensive coverage of the area and giving authorities a clear overview of who is there. New cameras have often been installed at locations where police were stationed earlier.

The surveillance remains. It’s just less obvious — and less intrusive for holidaymakers.

Abduweli Ayup has not been back to Kashgar since 2015, and his chances of doing so anytime soon seem slim. The Chinese government has canceled his passport, he said.

Sometimes he watches videos on YouTube of his hometown. They do not make him feel better. It feels compulsive, he said, “like eating bad food.”

“You know, you want to keep eating it, but afterward your stomach feels upset,” he added. As he watched one video while speaking with a BuzzFeed News reporter, Ayup pointed to a giant sculpture of a traditional stringed instrument by the gates of the city. “See that, that’s just for tourists,” he said.

The city is now full of these sorts of photogenic additions. There are giant teapots at the main junction near the city gate. Elsewhere, murals show maps of Xinjiang or carry slogans such as “Xinjiang Impressions” where visitors stop to take holiday snaps. A new entrance has been added to the metalwork market, with a large sign featuring silhouetted figures hammering iron. The anvil statue at the corner now comes with projection-mapped fire, as well as sparks and a piped soundtrack of metal being struck. Camel rides are available too.

In the videos he has seen, Ayup has also noticed footage of people dancing while wearing traditional Uyghur dress — costumes that they might have worn more than a century ago. Figures like these can be seen on Chinese state television and at the country’s annual rubber-stamp parliamentary session. “Nobody would wear that clothing anymore unless it was for show,” Ayup said.

Tourism is now booming in Xinjiang. Last year, even as global numbers fell as a consequence of the pandemic, 190 million tourists visited the region — more than a 20% increase from the previous year. Revenue increased by 43%. As part of its “Xinjiang is a wonderful land” campaign, the Chinese government has produced English-language videos and held events to promote a vision of the region as peaceful, newly prosperous, and full of dramatic landscapes and rich culture.

Chinese state media has portrayed this as an economic growth engine for Xinjiang natives, too. One article described how a former camp detainee named Aliye Ablimit had, upon her release, received hospitality training. “After graduation, I became a tour guide for Kashgar Ancient City,” Ablimit said, according to the article. “And later, I turned my home into a Bed and Breakfast. Tourists love my house very much because of its Uygur style. All the rooms are fully booked these days. Now I have a monthly income of about 50,000 yuan," or about $7,475.

The facade holds up less well with Kashgar’s mosques. Many of the smaller neighborhood mosques appear to be out of use, their wooden doors damaged and padlocked shut — and others have been demolished completely or converted to other uses, including cafés and public toilets.

Inside the Id Kah mosque, many of the cameras, including inside the prayer halls, have disappeared. But as might be expected given the past five years, many of the worshippers have disappeared too, down from 4,000–5,000 at Friday prayers in 2011 to just 800 or so today.

The mosque’s imam, Mamat Juma, acknowledged as much in an interview with a vlogger who often produces videos that support Chinese government narratives, posted in April 2021. Speaking through a translator, he is at pains to point out that not all Uyghurs are Muslims and to diminish the role of the religion in Uyghur culture. “I really worry that the number of believers will decrease,” he said, “but that shouldn't be a reason to force them to pray here.” ●

Additional reporting by Irene Benedicto

10,000 hippies and one (illegal) gathering in a remote Colorado forest: Meet the Rainbow Family

Trevor Hughes, USA TODAY
Sat, July 2, 2022

HAYDEN, Colo. – Erik Childress squatted down alongside the hiking trail snaking deep into the forest and tucked a cigarette between his lips.

A steady stream of bare feet trod the path past the tie-dye-clad Childress, 30, and his red wheelbarrow full of onions, water and gasoline. His chest still heaving from the exertion of pushing the supplies up the bumpy trail, Childless looked up at a passing woman, a blanket and tent slung over her shoulders.

“Welcome home,” he said with a smile, flashing a peace sign.

Under the watchful eyes of local residents and officials, as many as 10,000 self-described hippies and counter-culture people like Childress are flocking to this remote area of northern Colorado for the 50th-anniversary gathering of the Rainbow Family of Living Light held the Fourth of July weekend.

Erik Childress, 30, of Oregon flashes a peace sign while taking a break from hiking to the Rainbow Family gathering on June 26.

Founded in part by veterans struggling with alcoholism, drug dependence and what's now recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder, the group held its first organized campout in Colorado in 1972. Participants party, pray for world peace and celebrate their collective humanity in an event that shares similarities with Grateful Dead concerts, Woodstock and Burning Man.

The leaderless group meets annually to camp out on public land across the country and for generations, it has clashed with law enforcement over drug use, sanitation and damage to the forests. Previous national campouts, which have been held in Arkansas, Texas, Vermont and Michigan, have drawn up to 20,000 attendees. About 3,400 attendees, including dozens of children, had arrived as of Friday morning, according to federal officials.

Dozens of police officers are monitoring the gathering in the Routt National Forest and have already kicked participants out of a lake where they were bathing, cautioned about open campfires and off-leash dogs, and inspected the vans, buses and dilapidated cars making their way down the long dirt road to the gathering.

Rainbow Family attendees hug in reunion during preparations for the annual campout, this year held in a remote part of Routt National Forest in Colorado on June 26.

Forest rangers typically issue hundreds of tickets at each gathering, which last year was held outside Taos, New Mexico, about 70 miles north of Santa Fe. Normally, the Forest Service requires large groups to get a permit but the Rainbows decline to participate in that process, citing their First Amendment right to gather without government approval.

While the group claims no leaders, participants volunteer to perform necessary work to pull off the gatherings, from tapping mountain springs for drinking water to digging latrines and hauling in communal kitchens. Their camp for the week is more than a mile up the trail from the parking lot, so attendees must carry in everything they need for their stay.

Barry “Plunker” Adams is among the group’s founders and turned 77 days before the event began. Taking a breather in the shade after hiking up to camp, Adams sang a nearly five-minute song about the origins of the group and explained how he needed a new way of coping with modern society after leaving the Navy following the Vietnam War.

“It saved us. Instead of killing people, we were looking after people,” he said. “We tried to heal each other that way.”

Barry "Plunker" Adams is one of the Rainbow Family campout group's founders.

A Rainbow Family member flashes a peace sign as a U.S. Forest Service law enforcement ranger helps carry supplies on June 26. Rangers and Rainbows say they try to build relationships of mutual respect, and the Rainbows, while chafing at the police presence, say they also respect the rangers' orders to enforce the rules.

Adams has attended most of the national gatherings since the first one, although he said some years he’s had to hide on the fringes to avoid law enforcement officers who wrongly believed he’s in charge.

“We do it in peace and try not to harm the Earth, and everyone gets to feel their individual sovereignty,” he said, leaning against his walking stick in the shade as mosquitoes buzzed around. “We’re not perfect. We’re just people.”

Adams dubbed the levels of law enforcement this year "not too bad" in comparison to past experiences.

Forest Service officials say they're working with some members of the Rainbow Family to minimize the group's impacts, but they still consider it an illegal gathering. So far, the Forest Service has issued about 100 tickets for violations ranging from drugs to damaging the land, according to officials. Last year, rangers issued about 600 tickets and made a small number of arrests.

"It's about protecting health and safety, and protecting the forest resources," said Hilary Markin, a U.S Forest Service spokesperson assigned to the 60-person federal team overseeing the gathering.

Markin, who has helped manage several past gatherings, said rangers are concerned about making sure human waste is properly buried, communal kitchens don't pollute streams, and that any temporary structures built for the campout are removed when the Rainbows leave.

"We are asking that forest visitors obey all local, state and federal laws in our enforcement actions," Markin said.

U.S. Forest Service law enforcement rangers walk through a parking area at the Rainbow Family gathering on June 26.

A mailbox filled with marijuana sits outside a camp at the Rainbow Family gathering on June 26. Marijuana is legal in Colorado but is banned on federal forest lands, so campers put the marijuana inside the mailbox because they believe that only postal inspectors can open it without a warrant.

One challenge for this year's gathering: Although marijuana is legal in Colorado, it remains illegal on Forest Service lands, and rangers are handing out tickets if they catch people with it. One enterprising group of campers erected a mailbox and loaded it with marijuana for strangers to use, claiming that only postal inspectors can open mailboxes without a warrant.

Forest Service rangers stress that the vast majority of Rainbow Family members they interact with are respectful and law-abiding. But many Rainbow members chafe at what they see as harassment by law enforcement over minor issues.

Local officials say they're particularly concerned about public safety and health issues, given the rural nature of their county, Routt, which normally only has about 25,000 residents.

Rainbow Family gathering in Colorado's Routt National Forest for 50th anniversary

County Commissioner Beth Melton said the closest ambulance to the Rainbow gathering would have to make a three-hour round-trip drive to evacuate someone – and it's the only ambulance typically available. Recent rains have muddied some of the dirt roads leading to the camping area, making travel even more challenging than usual.

“We have a duty to public health and safety, and this gathering impacts that, so we need to be prepared," Melton said. “This is a significant number of people in a very remote area of our county. God forbid there’s an E. coli outbreak.”

Back in the shade of the fast-growing Kid Village area, longtime attendee Filipe Chavez, 83, said he hoped clashes with law enforcement would be minimal this year. Chavez, a retired trucker, drove to Colorado with his dog Benny from near Gainesville, Florida.

He credits his participation in Rainbow with helping him overcome alcoholism that developed during his Vietnam military service. He said attendees just want to be left alone.

Being surrounded by the forest, among people sharing a unique experience, helps him maintain perspective on the world, he said.

“It’s a statement about how to come together and live together with tolerance and respect," said Chavez, swatting at the bugs. "Even the mosquitoes are here for a reason."

Members of the Kid Village camp at the Rainbow Family gathering set up a shade over their group kitchen in preparation for the annual campout in Routt National Forest on June 26.

The First Rainbow Gathering 1972

 

Here is the full video from the 1972 World Peace and Healing Gathering at Strawberry Lake, near Granby Colorado. Recently recovered from the Woodstock museum archived, this never-before published film gives a historical glance into the first Rainbow Gathering.

Fossil discovery solves mystery of how pandas became vegetarian

Sat, July 2, 2022 


The discovery of panda fossils in China has helped researchers solve the mystery of how the giant species developed a "false thumb" and became the only dedicated vegetarian in the bear family.

Fossils dating back about six million years found in southwest China's Yunnan province included a greatly enlarged wrist bone called a radial sesamoid.

It is the oldest known evidence of the modern giant panda's false thumb that allows it to grip and break heavy bamboo stems, scientists wrote on a research paper published in the latest edition of the Scientific Reports.

The fossils belong to the now-extinct ancient relative of the panda called an Ailurarcto that lived in China six to eight million years ago.


"The giant panda is... a rare case of a large carnivore with a short, carnivorous digestive tract... that has become a dedicated herbivore," Wang Xiaoming, curator of vertebrate palaeontology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, said.

"The false thumb in Ailurarctos shows... for the first time, the likely timing and steps in the evolution of bamboo feeding in pandas."

Researchers had known about the panda's false thumb, which works similar to a human thumb, for about a century. But the lack of fossil evidence had left unanswered questions about how and when the extra digit -- not seen in any other bear -- evolved.

"While the giant panda's false thumb is not the most elegant or dexterous... even a small, protruding lump at the wrist can be a modest help in preventing bamboo from slipping off bent fingers," Wang wrote.

The fossils found near Zhaotong city in the north of Yunnan included a false thumb that was longer than that found in modern pandas, but without an inward hook on the end.

The hook and a fleshy pad around the based of the thumb evolved over time since it had to "bear the burden of considerable body weight", the paper said.

Pandas traded the high-protein, omnivorous diet of their ancestors for bamboo, that is low in nutrients available year-round in South China millions of years ago.

They eat for up to 15 hours a day and an adult panda can consume 45kg of bamboo a day. While their diet is mostly vegetarian, wild panda are known to occasionally hunt small animals.

prw/je

NATO NATION BUILDING

'Fragile situation' in Libya as anger seethes over living conditions

Libya’s rival leaders were under growing street pressure Saturday after protesters stormed parliament as anger exploded over deteriorating living conditions and political deadlock.

© Hazem Ahmed, Reuters

Libyans, many impoverished after a decade of turmoil and sweltering in the soaring summer heat, have been enduring fuel shortages and power cuts of up to 18 hours a day, even as their country sits atop Africa’s largest proven oil reserves.

The country has been mired in chaos and repeated rounds of conflict since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

Protesters stormed the seat of the House of Representatives in the eastern city of Tobruk on Friday night, ransacking its offices and torching part of the building.

In both the main eastern city of Benghazi—the cradle of the 2011 uprising—and the capital Tripoli, thousands took to the streets to chants of “We want the lights to work”.

Some brandished the green flags of the former Kadhafi regime.

Calm appeared to have returned to Tobruk on Saturday, though there were calls on social media for more protests in the evening.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on “all actors to refrain from any actions that could undermine stability” and urged them “to come together to overcome the continued political deadlock”, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

UN-mediated talks in Geneva this week aimed at breaking the stalemate between rival Libyan institutions failed to resolve key differences.

‘Extremely painful’ year

Presidential and parliamentary elections, originally set for December last year, were meant to cap a UN-led peace process following the end of the last major round of violence in 2020.

But voting never took place due to several contentious candidacies and deep disagreements over the polls’ legal basis between the rival power centres in east and west.

In Tripoli on Friday, hundreds came out to demand elections, fresh political leadership and an end to the chronic power cuts.

The sudden eruption of unrest appeared to be spreading to other areas of the country, with Libyan media showing images of protesters in the oasis city of Sebha, deep in the Sahara desert, torching an official building.

A local journalist said protesters in Libya’s third city Misrata were blocking roads after setting fire to a municipal building on Friday night.

After dark, protesters also gathered at several points in Tripoli, shutting down some roads and burning tyres, according to images broadcast by local media.

Interim prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah leads a Tripoli-based administration while former interior minister Fathi Bashagha draws support from the Tobruk-based House of Representatives and eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar’s forces said Saturday that they “support the citizens’ demands” but called for protesters to “preserve public property”.

Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui told AFP that “for more than a year, the overwhelming majority of diplomatic and mediation efforts around Libya have been monopolised by the idea of elections, which won’t happen for at least two years, given the failure of the Geneva negotiations.”

This year “has been extremely painful for Libyans” because the country “imports almost all its food and the Ukraine war has hit consumer prices”, Harchaoui said.

‘Fragile situation’

Libya’s energy sector, which during the Kadhafi era financed a generous welfare state, has also fallen victim to political divisions, with a wave of forced closures of oil facilities since April.

Supporters of the eastern-based administration have shut off the oil taps as leverage in their efforts to secure a transfer of power to Bashagha, whose attempt to take up office in Tripoli in May ended in a swift withdrawal.

“There is kleptocracy and systematic corruption in the east as in the west, as the fancy cars and villas of the elite constantly remind the public,” Harchaoui said, accusing militias from both camps of carrying out “massive” fuel trafficking.






The European Union’s envoy to Libya, Jose Sabadell, said Friday’s events “confirm people want change through elections”.

But he urged peaceful protests, adding that “special restraint is necessary given the fragile situation”.

US ambassador to Libya Richard Norland said that “no single political entity enjoys legitimate control across the entire country and any effort to impose a unilateral solution will result in violence”.

He urged Libya’s “political leaders across the spectrum and their foreign backers to seize the moment to restore the confidence of their citizens in the country’s future”.

(AFP)

PASSION PLAY

German town united by 400-year-old theatre tradition


Isabelle LE PAGE
Sat, July 2, 2022 


In this article:
Jesus
Jewish preacher and religious leader, central figure of Christianity


Walk around the German Alpine village of Oberammergau, and the chances are you'll run into Jesus or one of his 12 disciples.

Of the 5,500 people living there, 1,400 -- aged from three months to 85 -- are participating this year in the once-a-decade staging of an elaborate "Passion Play" depicting the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Dating back to 1634, the tradition has persisted through four centuries of wars, religious turmoil and pandemics -- including the most recent Covid-19 crisis which caused the show to be postponed by two years.

"I think we're a bit stubborn," says Frederic Mayet, 42, when asked how the village has managed to hold on to the tradition.


Mayet, who is playing Jesus for the second time this year, says the Passion Play has become a big part of the town's identity.

The only prerequisite for taking part in the five-hour show, whether as an actor, chorister or backstage assistant, is that you were born in Oberammergau or have lived here for at least 20 years.

"I remember that we talked about it in kindergarten. I didn't really know what it was about, but of course I wanted to take part," says Cengiz Gorur, 22, who is playing Judas.
- 'Hidden talent' -

The tradition, which dates back to the Thirty Years' War, was born from a belief that staging the play would help keep the town safe from disease.

Legend has it that, after the first performance, the plague disappeared from the town.


In the picturesque Alpine village, Jesus and his disciples are everywhere -- from paintings on the the facades of old houses to carved wooden figures in shop windows.

You also can't help feeling that there is a higher-than-average quota of men with long hair and beards wandering the streets.

An intricate image of Jesus graces the stage of the open-air Passion Play theatre, where the latest edition of the show is being held from mid-May to October 2.

"What has always fascinated me is the quality of the relationship between all the participants, young and old. It's a beautiful community, a sort of 'Passion' family," says Walter Lang, 83.


He's just sad that his wife, who died in February, will not be among the participants this year.

"My parents met at a Passion Play, and I also met my future wife at one," says Andreas Roedl, village mayor and choir member.

Gorur, who has Turkish roots, was spotted in 2016 by Christian Stueckl, the head of the Munich People's Theatre who will direct the play for the fourth time this year.

"I didn't really know what to do with my life. I probably would have ended up selling cars, the typical story," he laughs.

Now, he's due to start studying drama in Munich this autumn.

"I've discovered my hidden talent," he says.
- Violence, poverty and sickness -

Stueckl "has done a lot for the reputation of the show, which he has revolutionised" over the past 40 years, according to Barbara Schuster, 35, a human resources manager who is playing Mary Magdalene.

"Going to the Passion Play used to be like going to mass. Now it's a real theatrical show," she says.


In the 1980s, Stueckl cut all the parts of the text that accused the Jews of being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, freeing the play from anti-Semitic connotations.

"Hitler had used the Passion Play for his propaganda," Schuster points out.

The play's themes of violence, poverty and sickness are reflected in today's world through the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic, says Mayet, the actor playing Jesus.

"Apparently we have the same problems as 2,000 years ago," he says.

For 83-year-old Lang, who is playing a peasant this year, the "Hallelujah" after Christ has risen for the final time in October will be a particularly moving moment.

"Because we don't know if we'll be there again next time," he says, his eyes filling with tears.

ilp-fec/hmn/ah

Africa celebrates the return of Benin Bronzes, but questions remain

Across Africa, many are excited about Germany’s decision to return more than 1,000 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. But there are calls for monetary compensation, too.

Artifact displayed in French museums, like this one, are also set to go back to Nigeria.

"This is perhaps the most significant agreement signed by a European nation with Nigeria with regards to cultural diplomacy," Yusuf Tuggar, Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, told DW after the agreement to return more than 1,000 Benin Bronze artifacts was signed on Friday. "It is a very significant achievement, a very significant milestone and we hope that it will lead to the return of not just the Benin Bronzes, but other stolen cultural properties from other countries as well."

In all, German museums hold more than 1,130 of the artifacts. They're spread across the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, the Berlin Humboldt Forum, the Cologne Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, the Hamburg Museum for World Cultures and the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony.

The importance of the decision to return the Benin Bronzes is underscored by the leader of the Bana people in Cameroon, Fon Sikam Happi V.

"It's a very good thing. This will allow Africa to come to terms with its past and reclaim these objects that would never have left Africa" if colonizers hadn't taken them, Fon Happi told DW. 

The valuable artifacts were stolen from the former Kingdom of Benin by the British when they sacked Benin City in 1897. The royal palace was razed to the ground, and Benin City, in what is now the southern Nigerian state of Edo, was almost destroyed. 

For many residents of Edo the news of the return couldn't have come at a better time.

"We are really happy about the news of the return of the Benin artifacts," Friday Osaro told DW. "Our heritage and assets that were stolen years back are being returned to the rightful owner, Benin Kingdom. We are really happy."

Lancelot Imansuen, a restitution activist, believes this decision will inspire creatives. "As an artist, as an Edo man, as a creative, I feel very elated by this move by the German government to return these artworks," he told DW. 

Across Nigeria, many see this as an opportunity to learn their history.

"This is like physical history for us. Everyone today can see this and know that our people had history and they were civilized to an extent because all these artifacts are not toys, they tell a story", Samuel Marv, a history graduate and user interface designer, said in an interview with DW. 

Pieces like this lion displayed in Cologne are among the artifacts set to be returned to Nigeria

For some, repatriation is not enough

Although there is excitement about the return of cultural artifacts to Africa, there are still questions surrounding the payment of compensation.

"Beyond the restitution of objects that have been stolen and exhibited in European museums, compensation must be paid. This would help Africa build proper museums to house these artifacts", Fon Happi added. 

Ify James, an independent contractor, told DW, "I think that the return of the Benin Bronzes should come with huge compensation, because it made them tons of money while they had them."

The agitation is particularly strong on Facebook. Justin Curtis, a user from Liberia, commented on a DW Africa video about the bronzes that "the healing process should be extended further to paying for what was done to Africa. This is a new way of seeing Africans as partners to a global solution to the many challenges we all face as a people".

Harry Koffi, another user on DW Africa's Facebook page added: "They must also return all monies they accrued from the museums that housed these artifacts." 

And while it is unlikely that Germany will pay any monetary compensation, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said during the official official ceremony on Friday that the country is "assisting Nigeria in establishing a new museum in Benin City, which will also display Benin Bronzes in the future." 

Benin Bronzes open up the conversation on African art

Other African countries are taking a cue from Friday's event, demanding that other artifacts be returned too. Togo, which was a German colony until 1914, says it will soon make a formal request for its art to be returned.

"There are teacher-researchers who are in German galleries and museums, identifying cultural property from Togo," Kossi Gbenyo Lamadokou, Togo's Minister of Culture and Tourism, told DW. "At the end of the identification of items in Germany and France, we will be able to say which of the items need to be repatriated." 

Lamadokou explained that not all African art in European museums was illicitly taken, and that Togo is specifically targeting stolen art. 

These Benin bronze artifacts and more than 1,000 others will soon return to their rightful home

In Tanzania, there is a growing debate over the return of the dinosaur ‘Brachiosaurus brancai' bones recovered by German paleontologists in 1909. The dinosaur bones were excavated from more than 100 sites in Tendaguru in southern Tanzania. Today, the dinosaur skeleton is the star exhibit at Berlin's natural history museum.

"The dinosaur fossil is important in matters of research in the area of archaeology and paleontology so if we are to receive it, we must also make sure that we have the human resources to retain it ― not only for the benefit of Tanzania, but also for the world", Tanzania's ambassador to Germany Abdallah Possy told DW.

Abdallah Possy explained that the East African nation has been in negotiations with Germany over the return of the dinosaur fossils. 

Germany returns Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

After a century of restitution claims, Germany is transferring ownership of 1,130 bronzes to Nigeria. A groundbreaking step in the return of looted art.

"It's a historic moment for us, for our two countries, that we are now signing an agreement for the return of the Benin Bronzes," Abba Isa Tijani, director of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM), told DW ahead of the ceremony on Friday.

The Nigerian commission has played a key role in drafting the restitution agreement signed in Berlin on July 1 by Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Commissioner for Culture and the Media Claudia Roth, Nigeria's Minister of Culture Lai Mohammed and Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Zubairo Dada. "I like to express my gratitude to the trailblazing German government as the first European country in history to ever enter into a formal agreement to return all properties of the colonial past to their rightful owners. You have set the standards of what reconciliation should look like. It is my hope that other European countries who still posess such artifacts of ours will enter into your footsteps", Dada said.

The contract officially transfers ownership of the Benin Bronzes held by German museum collections to Nigeria, with immediate effect. "This is the known single largest repatriation of artifacts anywhere in the world. The president, government and people of Nigeria and especially the Oba of Benin, Oba Ewuare II are very happy and grateful to the federal government of Germany for making it possible", said Lai Mohammed.

Five German museums involved in restitution

In all, there are more than 1,130 artifacts from the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, the Berlin Humboldt Forum, the Cologne Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum, the Hamburg Museum for World Cultures and the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony.

The valuable artifacts — sculptures and reliefs made of bronze and brass, as well as works made of ivory, coral and wood — were stolen from the former Kingdom of Benin by the British in a brutal punitive expedition in 1897. The royal palace from pre-colonial times was razed to the ground, and Benin City, in what is now northern Nigeria, was almost completely destroyed.

Admiral Sir Harry Rawson (center) led the punitive expedition

At the beginning of the 20th century, many of the stolen works of art were auctioned in London, with Germany securing the second-largest collection in the world.

The former Kingdom of Benin tried once to reclaim the bronzes 100 years ago — without success.

African intellectuals took up the fight again in the 1970s, but their demands fell on deaf ears in Europe.

It was French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to Burkina Faso in 2018 that marked a turning point: the French President announced that France would be returning its colonial art treasures and commissioned a report on how to achieve this.

The queen heads, such as the one seen in this picture, are particularly impressive

The report made waves in Germany. For Nanette Snoep, the fact that Nigeria and Germany are now coming to an agreement after protracted negotiations means that "history is now really being written."

"If the return and transfer of ownership of the Benin Bronzes succeeds now, then that really is the beginning of the decolonization of the so-called ethnographic bronzes museums," Snoep, who is the head of the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, told DW. "This transfer of ownership is incredibly important, almost more important than the physical return."

From now on, Nigeria will decide how to deal with these objects and also how to talk about them: "It's about returning history and it's about a new narration of history," she added.

Icons of looted art

Nanette Snoep has been an advocate of restitution for nearly two decades

Every major museum in the Global North with collections from the Global South has at least one Benin Bronze: "These are the Warhols, these are the Rembrandts, the Dürers of the so-called ethnographic museums," said Snoep.

The fact that these "icons" of looted art are now being returned clears the way for "a new ethic in the field of international cooperation."

"It's about finally giving space to talk about colonial trauma, about broken or shattered memories."

However, a specific date for the "physical return" of the Benin Bronzes has not yet been set: "It won't happen overnight," said the director of Nigeria's National Commission of Museums and Monuments, Abba Isa Tijani. Transport, packaging, insurance, preservation and many other technical aspects have to be regulated first, he explained.

The bronzes are to be exhibited in various state institutions and museums, in galleries and in the rebuilt royal palace, which is to be inhabited by descendants of the once expelled king of Benin City.

The Edo Museum of West African Art (EMOWAA), originally planned for the Benin Bronzes, is still under construction, and it is unclear when it will be completed, explained Tijani.

In the Kingdom of Benin, the king was traditionally called 'Oba'

In Nigeria and especially in Benin City, the anticipation couldn't be greater: "We are really happy with the return of Benin artifacts. It means a lot. Our heritage, our cultural assets that have been stolen years ago, have been returned to their rightful owner, the Kingdom of Benin," said Friday Osaro, a resident of the former royal city.

Godwin Obaseki, governor of the state of Edo, where the former kingdom is now located, agrees: "The idea of ​​bringing these items home is not only important to our identity; they are a part of us. We can have them here and the world can come to us and see what we have created."

Some Benin Bronzes to remain on loan in Germany

Not all Benin Bronzes will return to Nigeria; some will remain in Germany on loan.

Abba Isa Tijani, director of Nigeria's National Commission of Museums and Monuments: 'Partnership is key'

Joint exhibitions with museums around the world are also planned. Tijani aims to focus on partnerships with museums as global institutions. "We don't want it to be just a return," he said.

The Nigerian commission is seeking to involve the large African diaspora in Europe: "When these objects go back to Nigeria, we are talking about a period of over 100 years that these objects have been outside the country," said Tijani. He believes that it is important to keep telling the stories of the journey of these objects, and of the communities and countries where they spent the past century.

Not only Germany is beginning to restitute cultural assets from colonial times. Most recently, the Glasgow Museum in Scotland returned 19 artifacts to Nigeria. The Smithsonian in the United States has restituted 29 pieces, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington has also agreed to repatriate objects from its collections.

This article was originally written in German.