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Remembering avant-garde artist Mary Bauermeister

For a long time, Germany did not appreciate the work of Mary Bauermeister, a pioneer of avant-garde art. Her studio in Cologne was the birthplace of the Fluxus movement.


Sabine Oelze
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Mary Bauermeister died on March 2 at the age of 88, as confirmed by her son Simon Stockhausen to German press agency dpa.

She was considered the "mother of the Fluxus movement," which broke with tradition, using Dadaist means to, bring everyday life into art. Yet, for Bauermeister, who was born on September 7, 1934 in Frankfurt, this categorization did not make sense.

"Fluxus didn't even exist at the end of the 1950s," she said in an interview in 2018. The term was not in circulation until 1963, when Fluxus festivals were being held in Düsseldorf and other cities across Germany. By then, Bauermeister had already become a star in the US.

Before that she spent time in Cologne where she moved to at the age of 22 after studying art in Ulm and Saarbrücken.

The city with the famous cathedral had been cleared of rubble and was in the midst of the "economic miracle."

Women had been given equal rights by law.

Bauermeister's studio turns into a meeting place for artists

A trailblazer who disregarded norms, the young woman declared nature to be the material for her art, breaking with all prevailing genre boundaries.

In her famous "lens boxes," dome-shaped pieces of glass, magnifying lenses and prisms merged together to form optically-distorted images and words that appeared to be magical structures.

 

Mary Bauermeister observing one of her artworks

picture-alliance/dpa/O. Berg

Bauermeister soon became involved with the New Music scene in the Rhineland. Her attic apartment in the heart of the historical part of Cologne also served as her studio, and developed into a meeting place for the international art and music avant-garde. Composers such as John Cage, David Tudor and La Monte Young gave their first concerts there at Bauermeister's invitation.

Cologne — a magnet for the international avant-garde

The public West German broadcaster WDR, with its radio station and renowned studio for electronic music, was a magnet for musicians from all over the world.

The International Society for New Music (IGNM) hosted a festival in the city. In the evenings, after various WDR events, an international audience and artists from all over Europe and the US would gather in Bauermeister's studio, where a "counter-festival" would be held, featuring many artists who had been rejected by the official IGNM jury.

Between March 1960 and October 1961, legendary exhibitions also took place in Bauermeister's apartment in addition to concerts. Fluxus stars such as Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik and Christo performed and/or exhibited their works in the "Bauermeister Studio." The "Light Ballet" by Zero artist Otto Piene premiered with Bauermeister's support. Her studio was a hub of creativity and free thought.

'Purge the world of bourgeois sickness': The Fluxus manifesto by Georges Maciunas, 1963

Image: Gemeinfrei

Radical new beginning in art after the Nazi era

"All the greats slept on my mattresses — John Cage, Christo, writer Hans G. Helms, pianist David Tudor and Korean composer Nam June Paik, who is regarded as the inventor of video art," Bauermeister, who was active through her old age, recalled in an interview. What she shared with her companions was a zest for improvisation.

She said her perspective on life had been formed in reaction to Germany's National Socialist past: "People murdering Jews during the day while listening to Beethoven in the evening made us suspicious. So, we loved everything that was radical and broke with the past," she said.

Baumeister not only played host in a male-dominated avant-garde movement, but also continually developed her own installations made of mirrors, sculptures made of fluorescent tubes or "writing pictures." She created spirals of polished pebbles, which made her famous in the US in the 60s. She also experimented with patched sheets that she mounted on light boxes. Ciphers, signs and text fragments from science, philosophy and mathematics, music and art formed the basis for her drawings, collages and objects

Marriage with Karlheinz Stockhausen

During a composition course in Darmstadt, Bauermeister met the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. In 1962, they displayed their works together in Amsterdam — it was Bauermeister's first museum exhibition. A year later, she moved to New York, where her prisms and lens boxes sold at top prices in galleries. A closer look at her glass spheres reveals notes by John Cage or her own autobiographical texts.

Bauermeister married Karlheinz Stockhausen in 1967. Before that, the two lived for several years under one roof with Stockhausen's first wife Doris in a menage-a-trois. Bauermeister had two of her four children with Stockhausen.

German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-2007) was a pioneer of electronic and 'intuitive music'

Erich Auerbach/Getty Images

She later wrote a book entitled "Ich hänge im Triolengitter: Mein Leben mit Karlheinz Stockhausen" (Hanging in a Triplet Grid: My Life with Karlheinz Stockhausen) about this time. It was published in 2011.

While the Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited Baumeister's works in the 1990s, Germany was for a long time more hesitant. She was only rediscovered in her home country a few years ago. Now, her works are exhibited in German museums.

Baumeister continued to work in her house near Cologne, creating geometric shapes in the form of snails and pyramids from stones that had been smoothed by the sea. She also created pictures made of delicately arranged bits of straw, painted over with phosphorus paint, a technique she had begun to employ back in 1958. In her house in Forsbach, she regularly held Sunday matinees in which she talked to interested people about her eventful life.

This article was originally written in German.

How healthy are India's 1.4 billion people?

India is now the world's most-populous country with over 1.4 billion people — 5 million more than in China. 

But what do the data say about their health?

Mahima Kapoor in New Delhi

India's population reached 1.4 billion people at the end of 2022, according to estimates from the World Population Review. That's 5 million more than in China, which had held the top spot since 1950, when the United Nations began keeping a track of national demographics.

The development comes at a time when developed nations such as Germany, the UK and Japan are facing shrinking workforces. Subsequently, their governments are introducing immigration policies that invite highly skilled individuals to set up their homes in these countries.

India's growing population has historically been seen as something negative given the stress it puts on basic resources. More recently, though, there seems to have been a shift in perspective as some parties argue that having the world's largest and youngest population has its perks.

Either way, India currently has the world's attention, and everyone has one underlying question: Will India's rising population propel it into accelerated development?

The big picture

"It becoming the most populous country in the world doesn't change anything on ground," Belgian-born Indian developmental economist Jean Dreze told DW.

India's fertility rate has dropped from an average of six children per woman in 1964 to 2.1 children per woman in 2020, according to UN data. That's marginally below the replacement rate of 2.2 — i.e., the required number of births per woman to maintain a population. Improvements in health care and increasing life expectancy are likely to continue the momentum of population rise for a few more decades, according to experts.

Data projections predict that India's population will slowly grow to 1.7 billion by 2064 but then fall drastically. The US-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation has predicted that India's population could fall back to around 1 billion by the end of the century.

"What I'm saying is that I don't see a population crisis," said Dreze. "India has been a large country all this time and nevertheless the economy is growing, and it is able to improve people's living conditions, albeit slowly. And population growth is not going to continue much longer."

With more than half of India's population under 30, the country's young people give the economy an edgeImage: Adnan Abidi/REUTERS
Exaggerated expectations

With more than half of India's population under 30 years of age, several argue that the country's young people give its economy an edge in the form of a demographic dividend — the economic growth potential which comes from the shift in a population's age structure.

Dreze, however, thinks that this is exaggerated.

"What they don't realize is that the demographic dividend is already over, by and large," he said.

The economist pointed out that the dependency ratio of children and elderly who don't earn on those who do, had dropped drastically over the past decades.

"It [dependency ratio] is not going to decline much more now. We are already past that stage. In the future, there may not be as many children, but elderly dependency will rise," he said.

Quality over quantity

Overpopulation of a country, by simple rules of demand and supply, will inevitably put pressure on natural and manmade resources.

"Rapid population growth makes eradicating poverty, combating hunger and malnutrition, and increasing the coverage of health and education systems more difficult," said Li Junhua from the UN's Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

India's population has grown by a billion in the past 70 years, but the health care infrastructure has not grown at a proportional rate and the out-of-pocket cost of health care has risen.

Nonetheless, cost of health care in India is still significantly lower than its peers and per capita income has been rising.

However, the majority of India's population growth comes from rural and underprivileged areas around the Ganges basin, while the rise in income comes from the urban, privileged population.

Inequality is on the rise.

On the education front, 65% of India's population has finished secondary education and would be eligible for higher levels such as PG diplomas, MBAs and doctorates — an impressive statistic comparable to developed nations. However, only a quarter of the population actually enrolls in such courses.

Moreover, a significant chunk of India is malnourished, unskilled and marginalized — and hence unable to meaningfully contribute to the nation's development.

The employment rate has been steadily declining since 2005.

Economics Professor Jayan Thomas of Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi outlined the mismatch between demand and supply of labor in an interview with the media outlet Business World.

"The difficulty is that the labor supply growth in India is accelerating during a period in which the employment elasticity of growth has declined significantly," Thomas said.

"Due to automation and other technological changes, the production of one ton of steel or garments requires fewer workers today than it did two or three decades back.Therefore, it will be difficult for India to replicate China's success in absorbing massive amounts of labor into its export-oriented industries during the 1990s and 2000s."

Per capita income — while rising — is still among the lowest in all of G20 countries.

Over 70% of India's population cannot afford a healthy diet as of 2020 despite the fact that the cost of food remains relatively low by comparison to other countries.

Key social and economic indicators apart, India also seriously lags in other arenas such as the overall happiness of the population, press freedom, the safety of women and minorities.

"Having a large population is one thing but for that to be advantageous, we need to focus on the quality of the population," Dreze said.

"And that's something India can improve on."

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Edited by: Keith Walker

Hatching leatherback turtles get helping hand on Thai beach

by Sarah LAI

Leatherbacks are the world's largest sea turtle and a rarity in Thailand thanks to habitat loss, plastic pollution and consumption of their eggs.

It is past midnight on a beach in southern Thailand and 12-year-old Prin Uthaisangchai is anxiously staring at a leatherback turtle nest, waiting for scores of the endangered hatchlings to scrabble out from the sand.

The Bangkok secondary school pupil is producing a short documentary about the snappers, under a programme run by the Environmental and Social Foundation, an NGO working to educate children about conservation.

That morning a team of marine biologists noticed the sand covering one of the leatherback nests on Phang Nga beach was beginning to sink in on itself.

That was a telltale sign the eggs buried inside were starting to crack and that sometime that night the hatchlings would emerge and make a dash to the ocean under the cover of darkness.

But after more than 20 hours with no sign of any baby turtles, Prin and the team grew worried.

Donning plastic gloves, they carefully dug into the nest to give each squirming critter a helping hand into the world.

Soon the tiny turtles were scrambling towards the shore where waves swept in, taking them into their new ocean home.

"I feel very disappointed how we have to interfere with a natural living thing that shouldn't need a human's help," said Prin.

"But in the end, we have to help."

Bangkok secondary school pupil Prin Uthaisangchai is producing a short documentary about leatherback turtles to raise conservation awareness.

Reclaiming the beaches

Leatherbacks—the world's largest sea turtle weighing up to 500 kilogrammes—are a rarity in Thailand thanks to habitat loss, plastic pollution and consumption of their eggs.

The creatures are listed as vulnerable globally on The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, with many sub-populations deemed critically endangered.

The pandemic allowed the turtles to reclaim beaches usually packed with tourists, with marine biologists recording an increase in nests.

Better protections for the creatures have also helped. Thailand banned poaching their eggs in 1982, and locals are now awarded 20,000 baht ($570) for reporting a leatherback nest—like the one closely watched by Prin under the moonlight.

But only 87 hatchlings from 126 eggs in the nest survived their short journey to the sea.

The pandemic allowed the turtles to reclaim beaches usually packed with tourists, with marine biologists recording an increase in nests.

Prin spent two years visiting Thailand's southern coast to research the animal's habitat, interview experts and chase turtle tracks on beaches.

"It was a good decision to lend them a hand otherwise we would see more deaths," said marine biologist Hirun Kanghae from the government-run Phuket Marine Biological Centre.

Prin spent two years visiting Thailand's southern coast during school breaks, researching the animal's habitat, interviewing experts, and chasing turtle tracks on beaches.

His 10-minute film, which is now in post-production, will be one of a dozen produced by the Environmental and Social Foundation in the hope of informing other young people about the endangered marine animals in their country.

"I like how they're great swimmers and that they can dive the deepest," he said of the leatherbacks.

"I want to spread awareness to people around me and people on the other side of the world to hear the leatherback turtle story, why they're going extinct."

© 2023 AFP


Explore further Eggs from endangered sea turtle stolen from Thai beach

 

'Surgical' shark-killing orcas fascinate off South Africa

by Julie BOURDIN

Scores of disembowelled sharks have washed up on a South African beach.

Scores of disembowelled sharks have washed up on a South African beach putting the spotlight on a pair of shark-hunting killer whales whose behaviour has fascinated scientists and wildlife enthusiasts.

Marine biologists were alerted to the find by beach walkers who stumbled upon the grim sight last week in Gansbaai, a small fishing port 150 kilometres (93 miles) south east of Cape Town.

"The dead sharks are torn open at the pelvic girdle, they have Orca teeth marks known as rake marks on their pectoral fins and their liver is missing," said Alison Towner, 37, a shark scientist with the Dyer Island Conservation Trust.

All evidence points to "Port" and "Starboard", an infamous pair of killer whales spotted off Gansbaai only three days earlier.

Recognisable by their twisted dorsal fins, the animals are well known to locals, who have developed a penchant for sharks.

"We found in total 20 sharks," said Ralph Watson, 33, a marine biologist with local conservation and diving group Marine Dynamics.

Victims included 19 broad nosed seven-gill and one spotted gully sharks, he added.

Towner said the slaughter was noticeable as it was the first time that Port and Starboard had hunted those species in the area and "so many of them washed out after one visit."

Yet, it wasn't the orcas' most daring hunt.

Experts credited the duo with having caused white sharks, one of the world's largest sea predators, to disappear from some of the waters near Cape Town.

Last year, Starboard and another four orcas were captured on camera chasing and killing a great white off Mossel Bay, a southern port town.

Unusual behaviour

The unusual behaviour had never been witnessed in detail before.

Orcas, the ocean's apex predator, usually hunt dolphins in these parts and have been known to prey on smaller shark species. But evidence of attacks on great whites was previously limited.

Port and Starboard were first spotted near Cape Town in 2015.

"They probably came from somewhere else. West Africa, east Africa, the Southern Ocean, we don't know," said 45-year-old Simon Elwen, who heads Sea Search, a scientific collective.

Unlike other killer whales, the pair likes to hunt near the coast—something that has made their peculiar fins a common sight in the region.

"Within southern Africa, Port and Starboard have been seen from as far west as Namibia to as far east as Port Elizabeth," said Elwen.

The marine mammals' killing technique is "surgical", added Watson, explaining the pair targets sharks' liver, "a very nutritious organ, full of oils."

"They tear open the pectoral girdle chest area... then the liver flops out," said Watson.

The 2022 video showing Starboard in action has worried biologists, for it suggested the practice was spreading with studies having established that the black and white animals have the capacity to teach hunting techniques.

Some Antarctic orcas use the cunning tactic of hunting in packs and making waves to wash seals off floating ice, according to researchers.

In the Antarctic two orca populations—not subspecies, but different groups that overlap at the margins—used very different hunting techniques, taught across generations.

Such behaviour is not hard-wired, but learned—one of the arguments for suggesting that whales have 'culture'.

In the clip, the other four orcas shown were not known to have attacked white sharks before.

"This is now an additional threat to shark populations on coastal South Africa," said Towner.

Elwen said it was "fascinating, and frustrating" to see "a rare, endangered animal killing another endangered species".

Still, the overall danger Port and Starboard posed to South Africa's shark population remained very limited.

Hundreds of thousands of sharks are fished out of the sea every year, said Watson.

"Two killer whales are not going to wipe out a species," Elwen said.

© 2023 AFP

Clip provides first proof of orcas killing white sharks

Austria far-right eyes comeback under new hardline leader

AFP - news@thelocal.dk • 4 Mar, 2023

Supporters wave Austrian flags as they attend an election rally of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPOe) in Vienna, Austria 

 Photo: JOE KLAMAR/AFP

Sunk by a corruption scandal four years ago, Austria's far-right is rapidly regaining lost ground under its new hardline leader and topping polls in the small Alpine nation.

Freedom Party head Herbert Kickl delighted 300 cheering supporters at an event ahead of weekend elections in southern Carinthia state, setting out his party's stall.

Besides its trademark opposition to migration, the Freedom Party (FPOe) has been able to tap into voter anxieties over the Ukraine war and inflation, as well as anger over strict Covid-19 measures during the pandemic.

It has also lured back voters from the conservatives, who lost their charismatic leader Sebastian Kurz when he stepped down in 2021, facing a string of corruption accusations.

'Fortress Austria'

Since Kickl, a 54-year-old former interior minister, took over the FPOe in 2021, it is polling 29 percent, according to recent voter intention surveys, up significantly from 16 percent won at 2019 elections.

The opposition Social Democrats and the conservatives -- whose mandate to govern with the Greens runs until 2024 -- lag behind, polling head-to-head at around 24 percent in the country of just over nine million.

While Kickl is not known for close ties with his European counterparts, his virulent rhetoric is typical of other prolific far-right figures.

In last week's political rally, he accused "political elites" of running a "big programme of uprooting ordinary people".

He appeared on posters across Carinthia ahead of the polls dressed in a military-green jacket and his trademark stubble and spectacles alongside the slogan: "Fortress Austria -- closing borders, guaranteeing security".

Kickl has also seized on anger over Covid restrictions, including a now-scrapped mandatory vaccination law, to turn the FPOe into an anti-jab party.

"The FPOe was really the only party here in Austria that always sided with us," said Fabian Nicolasch, a 24-year-old who joined the party in protest at being restricted during the pandemic.

While a folk group plays under electric blue neon lights, the party's colour, at the rally, Nicolasch also complained about price increases caused in part "probably by the sanctions against Russia" which have made oil and gas "very expensive".

On Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Kickl insists on upholding Austria's neutrality, while his party has criticised EU financial aid to Kyiv and opposes Ukraine's EU membership aspirations.

At the party campaign event, Kickl taunted Austria's pro-Kyiv president, saying "he forgets he's not head of a NATO country".

The party's 'brain'

"Mr Kickl is honest -- and sometimes maybe a bit strong in his choice of words -- but always great," said Iris Pirker-Fruehauf, a local FPOe leader.

Kickl, a marathon runner and climbing enthusiast, has long been considered the "brain" of the FPOe and has made his career largely behind the scenes.

After studying philosophy, history, communication and political science, he started to work for the party in 1995.

He shot to national prominence as interior minister, overseeing a controversial raid on the country's secret service, while the FPOe governed as junior partner in a conservative-led government from 2017 until 2019.

That government fell apart when footage secretly filmed on the Spanish resort island of Ibiza was published, implicating then FPOe leader and vice chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache in wrongdoing.

In the footage, Strache is seen offering public contracts to a woman claiming to be the niece of a Russian oligarch in return for campaign support.

Strache resigned, with his deputy Norbert Hofer taking over the party, until rivalry between him and Kickl ended with the latter taking the helm.

Under Kickl's leadership, the FPOe "has no limits in trying to capture and strengthen" popular opinion, according to political scientist Johannes Huber.

The conservatives once again could be tempted to work with the FPOe following elections as "Kickl remains the most attractive partner to serve the interests of their constituents," Huber told AFP.

"In this respect, I would absolutely not exclude that after the next elections, Herbert Kickl could become chancellor," he said.

UN chief slams rich countries' treatment of poor states


Sat, March 4, 2023 


UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Saturday slammed the world's rich countries and energy giants for throttling poor nations with "predatory" interest rates and crippling fuel prices.

Speaking in the Qatari capital, Doha, Guterres told leaders of more than 40 of the most deprived states that wealthy nations should provide $500 billion a year to help others "trapped in vicious cycles" that block efforts to boost economies and vital services.

The summit of Least Developed Countries (LDC) is normally held every 10 years but has twice been delayed since 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Afghanistan and Myanmar, two of the poorest countries, are not present at the Doha meeting of 46 LDC states because their governments are not recognised by UN members.

No leader from any of the world's major economies attended.

At a leaders' summit ahead of the start of the general LDC conference on Sunday, Guterres hit out straight away at the way poor nations are treated by the more powerful.

"Economic development is challenging when countries are starved for resources, drowning in debt, and still struggling with the historic injustice of an unequal COVID-19 response," he said.

The LDCs have complained that they did not get a fair share of the Covid vaccines that went mainly to Europe and North America.

"Combatting climate catastrophe that you did nothing to cause is challenging when the cost of capital is sky-high" and the financial help received "is a drop in the bucket", said Guterres.

"Fossil fuel giants are raking in huge profits, while millions in your countries cannot put food on the table."

Guterres said the poorest nations were being left behind in the "digital revolution" and the Ukraine war had fuelled their food and fuel prices.

- Broken promises -

"Our global financial system was designed by wealthy countries, largely to their benefit," he said.

"Deprived of liquidity, many of you are locked out of capital markets by predatory interest rates," the UN leader said.

A host of presidents and ministers hit out at financing conditions for LDCs, whose debt has more than quadrupled in a decade to an estimated $50 billion in 2021.

East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta called interest rates "rapacious" and "insensitive".

Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera, the summit chairman, highlighted "broken promises" and said that aid was not "an act of charity" but a "moral responsibility".

Wealthy nations had failed to keep a promise to give 0.15-0.20 percent of their Gross National Income to LDCs, the UN chief said.

With poorer states trapped in a "perfect storm for perpetuating poverty and injustice", Guterres said LDCs required a "minimum" $500 billion a year to overcome their problems, build up job creating industries and repay debts.

He added that the United Nations would also "keep pushing" richer countries to hand over hundreds of billions of dollars promised separately to help poorer states battle climate change.

Under proposals a so-called Doha Programme of Action, a food stockholding system, will be set up to help countries facing hunger crises through drought and high prices.

It also calls for new efforts to help LDCs attract foreign funding and lower interest rates to ease the impact of their debts.

Bhutan will this year become one of seven countries -- along with Bangladesh, Laos, Nepal, Angola, Sao Tome and Principe and the Solomon Islands to "graduate" out of LDC status by 2026.

But they will gradually lose trade and aid privileges. Guterres said they risk becoming "victims of the cruelest sleight-of-hand trick -- support systems vanishing before their eyes" and would need help after they move up the wealth scale.

tw/hkb

Tunisia labour union rally urges president to accept 'dialogue'

Sat, March 4, 2023 

More than 3,000 people demonstrated against Tunisia's government on Saturday at a rally organised by the powerful UGTT trade union, which called on President Kaid Saied to accept "dialogue".

Saied has pushed through sweeping changes to the political system in the sole democracy to have emerged from the Arab Spring uprisings, concentrating near-total power in his office since he froze parliament and sacked the government in July 2021.

In the biggest crackdown since the president's power grab, police have arrested around 20 prominent political figures over the past two weeks, primarily Saied's opponents.

"Freedom, freedom, down with the police state," demonstrators chanted as they marched in Tunis on Saturday, also calling for "a halt to impoverishment" in the North African country.

UGTT chief Noureddine Taboubi accused the president of targeting the powerful union as part of a wider crackdown against critics.

Taboubi condemned the latest wave of arrests and the imprisonment since February of Anis Kaabi, a top UGTT official for highway workers, who had been detained after a strike by toll barrier employees.

"We will never accept such arrests," Taboubi told the protesters.

The UGTT has around one million members and shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 with three other civil society groups for promoting national dialogue in the country of about 12 million inhabitants.

AFP journalists said that more than 3,000 people took part in the rally.

Taboubi called on Saied to embrace "dialogue" and "democratic" ways, slamming the president for pursuing a "violent discourse... that is dividing the country".

The UGTT chief also defended "the rights of migrants, regardless of their nationality or the colour of their skin".

"Tunisia is a country of tolerance, no to racism," he told the crowd.

Saied last month ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was underway "to change Tunisia's demographic make-up".

The rally on Saturday came as some 300 West African migrants in Tunisia prepared to be repatriated, fearful of a wave of violence since Saied's comments.

Taboubi also criticised negotiations between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Tunisia, which is struggling under crippling inflation and debt worth around 80 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP).

Tunisia is seeking a bailout package worth nearly $2 billion from the IMF, which conditions any aid on a series of reforms.

Taboubi said the UGTT is unaware of the "details of the proposals" made by the Tunisian authorities but stressed that the union is totally opposed to any lifting of government subsidies on basic goods such as foodstuff and fuel.

ayj-fka/hkb/ami

Tunisian union holds biggest protest yet against president

Credit: REUTERS/ZOUBEIR SOUISSI

March 04, 2023 —

Written by Tarek Amara for Reuters ->

TUNIS, March 4 (Reuters) - Tunisia's powerful UGTT labour union rallied in the capital on Saturday in what appeared to be the biggest protest yet against President Kais Saied, staging a show of strength after his recent crackdown on opponents.

Many thousands of protesters filled Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main street in central Tunis, holding banners that read "No to one-man rule" and chanting "Freedom! End the police state".

They were marching after weeks of arrests targeting prominent opponents of Saied, who has staged his first major crackdown since he seized wide-ranging powers in 2021, shutting down parliament and moving to rule by decree.

"We will continue to defend freedoms and rights, whatever the cost. We do not fear prisons or arrests," UGTT leader Noureddine Taboubi told the crowd.

"I salute the jurists and politicians in Mornaguia prison," he added, referring to recent detainees.

Hamma Hammami, head of the Workers Party, said protests were the answer to what he called Saied's "creeping dictatorship". "He wants to spread fear but we are not afraid," he said.

The crackdown is the biggest since Saied's seizure of powers and his opponents say it is increasingly clear that he has dismantled the democracy won in the 2011 revolution that triggered the Arab Spring and will end the freedoms it brought.

Saied has denied his actions were a coup, saying they were legal and necessary to save Tunisia from chaos.

CRACKDOWN

The UGTT was initially slow to criticise Saied while political parties accused him of staging a coup, but as the president consolidated his grip while ignoring the union and other players, it began to openly challenge him.

A senior union official was detained last month for organising a strike by highway tollbooth operators, prompting the UGTT's newspaper to accuse Saied of declaring war on the organisation and its million members.

This week authorities barred foreign labour union leaders from entering Tunisia to take part in the rally in solidarity with the UGTT, and Saied said he would not accept foreigners joining protests.

The size of Saturday's rally underscored that the union remains a powerful adversary that Saied may struggle to bat aside as he moves to sideline other opponents in the wake of a parliamentary election that had very low support.

With Tunisia's economy in crisis, state finances on the brink of bankruptcy and shortages of key goods, the potential for public anger may grow.

Over recent weeks police have detained more than a dozen prominent opposition figures, mostly tied to the coalition of parties and protesters that is planning to rally on Sunday, accusing them of conspiring against state security.

Those arrested include politicians from the Islamist Ennahda, which was the biggest party in the shuttered parliament, leaders of a protest group, the head of Tunisia's main independent media outlet and a prominent businessman.

"Saied is threatening everyone here. Parties, civil society, unions. All freedoms ... Tunisians are here to say we cannot accept populism and nascent dictatorship," said Najeh Zidi, a teacher at the protest


(Reporting by Tarek Amara, writing by Angus McDowall, editing by Giles Elgood)

Hundreds of West African migrants flee Tunisia after President Saied’s controversial crackdown


NEWS WIRES
Sat, 4 March 2023 

Hundreds of West African migrants flee Tunisia after President Saied’s controversial crackdown

Some 300 West African migrants were set to leave Tunisia on repatriation flights Saturday, fearful of a wave of violence since President Kais Saied delivered a controversial tirade last month.

In his February 21 speech, Saied ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was underway "to change Tunisia's demographic makeup".

Saied charged that migrants were behind most crime in the North African country, fuelling a spate of sackings, evictions and physical attacks against the community.


The African Union expressed "deep shock and concern at the form and substance" of Saied's remarks, while governments in sub-Saharan Africa scrambled to organise the repatriation of hundreds of fearful nationals who flocked to their embassies for help.

A first group of 50 Guineans were flown home on Wednesday, while Ivory Coast and Mali prepared to repatriate a combined 295 of their citizens on special flights on Saturday, diplomats and community organisers said.

He had said earlier that the whole community was living in fear.

"They feel like they've been handed over to mob justice."

(AFP)  

Tunisia climate of fear pushes sub-Saharan migrants to the exit

Copyright © africanewsFETHI BELAID/AFP or licensors
By Rédaction Africanews


TUNISIA

A steady flow of taxis has rolled up outside the Ivorian embassy in Tunis in recent days, depositing dozens of migrants who say they no longer feel safe amid an officially sanctioned climate of fear.

After a wave of arrests in recent weeks, President Kais Saied gave a speech on Tuesday that critics said was openly racist.

Many sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia are now heading for the exit.

"We want to go home," said Constant, who arrived at the embassy early on Friday in the hope of getting her paperwork in order.

In his speech Saied had ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was underway "to change Tunisia's demographic make-up".

His comments, praised by French far-right former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, were seen by many as inciting violence against sub-Saharan Africans living in Tunisia legally or illegally.

Aboubacar Dobe, head of a radio station for French-speaking migrants, said it was "clear that things are different since Saied's speech".

The head of Radio Libre Francophone said he had received threatening phone calls.

"When it was just the (recently created far-right) Tunisian Nationalist Party or on social media, people thought the state would protect them," he said.

"Now, they feel abandoned."

The African Union also expressed concern following Saied's remarks on migrants, calling on its member states to "refrain from racialised hate speech that could bring people to harm".

On Saturday, hundreds of protesters marched down Avenue Habib Bourguiba in central Tunis, chanting: "Down with fascism, Tunisia is an African country.

"President of shame, apologise," they demanded of Saied.

- Harassment and intimidation -

Outside the Ivorian embassy, one couple arrived after being evicted from their apartment, their worldly belongings in backpacks and suitcases.

Three other young women were dropped off by a smartly dressed Tunisian woman.

"They've been working at my beauty salon for two years," she said. "They're leaving now because they don't feel safe."

Constant, who has been unemployed for six months, said she has set up a WhatsApp group for Ivorians wanting to go home.

"I'm here to organise an exit permit, because I've overstayed by four years and I can't afford to pay the fine" of more than 1,000 euros ($1,055), she said.

Other migrants spoke of harassment and intimidation, including fires lit outside their buildings or attempts to break in.

"The landlords are kicking us out; people beat us up or mistreat us," said Wilfrid Badia, 34, who has spent six years in the North African country eking out a living on casual jobs.

"To be safe, we decided to come to the embassy to sign up to go home."

Hosni Maati, a lawyer who helps an association for Ivorians in Tunisia, said that "since the president's speech, (Tunisians) have totally lost it".

Maati said sub-Saharan Africans had been living without papers in Tunisia for years as authorities turned a blind eye.

Bureaucratic obstacles prevented many from regularising their status, making them easy targets for exploitation by unscrupulous employers as cheap labour.

- 'Mob justice' -

Authorities began a wave of arrests targeting migrants two weeks ago and have so far detained around 400 people, rights groups say. Most have since been released.

"You can't solve such a complex situation by making a speech and arresting people left, right and centre," Maati said.

Jean Bedel Gnabli, deputy head of an association for sub-Saharan migrants, said the whole community -- also including Senegalese, Guineans, Congolese and Comorans -- was living in fear.

"They feel like they've been handed over to mob justice," he said.

Even sub-Saharan African students at Tunisian universities, who in principle are in the country legally, have been affected.

AESAT, an association that supports them, sent out a message this week urging them "not to go out, even to go to class, until authorities ensure we are properly protected from these attacks".

In the Bhar Lazreg neighbourhood of north Tunis, streets of informal African restaurants and barber shops have closed, apparently for good.

A creche that had taken care of dozens of African children was nowhere to be seen.

Ivorians Blede Dibe and Michel Yere worked manual jobs in the neighbourhood until they found themselves abruptly unemployed two weeks ago.

But they agreed there was little point in returning to their home country.

"Go back to do what? There's no work for us in Ivory Coast," they said in unison.

Sub-Saharan Africans desperate to leave Tunisia after attacks

Advocacy groups have documented an increase in attacks against sub-Saharan Africans following comments from Tunisia’s president.

Nikki Yanga waits outside the embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Tunis, in the hope that she will be repatriated to her home country [Khemaies Ben Braiek/Al Jazeera]

By Khemaies Ben Braiek

Published On 4 Mar 2023

Tunis, Tunisia – Nikki Yanga left the Democratic Republic of the Congo for Tunisia five months ago, dreaming of a better life.

There was the potential to work in Tunisia itself, or to use the North African country as a springboard to travel to Europe, as many migrants and refugees have done in the past.

Those dreams have now been turned upside down. Instead, her only hope is that she can make it back home, away from a rising tide of racism in Tunisia that has emerged following anti-migrant statements issued by President Kais Saied.

Yanga spoke to Al Jazeera from outside the Congolese embassy as she fearfully waited to hear if she had been approved for voluntary repatriation, a return to a country she had left after the death of her father.

“There was nothing left for me in the DR Congo; I heard that Tunisia was a beautiful and tolerant country, so I decided to travel,” Yanga explained.

With some friends, Yanga says that she had journeyed overland, passing through several countries, before crossing the border from Algeria to Tunisia with a group of sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees, aided by a people smuggler, three months ago.


“There were approximately 20 of us from the DR Congo, Guinea and the Ivory Coast, and I paid 250 euros ($266) to the smuggler,” Yanga said.

However, her plans soon fell apart, as she was unable to find a job, and, without money, unable to buy enough food or rent a home.

“I spent each day looking for work or for someone to help me find a place to stay … [but] I was constantly harassed by police,” Yanga said.

Presidential incitement

Yanga said her life in Tunisia has progressively worsened, particularly following President Saied’s February 21 comments at the country’s National Security Council, in which he said migration from sub-Saharan Africa aimed to change Tunisia’s national identity.

“The undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations,” Saied, who has taken an increasingly authoritarian turn since suspending parliament and dissolving the government in July 2021, said.

He added that undocumented immigration to Tunisia had led to violence and crime, and needed to end quickly.

Official figures show that there are approximately 21,000 undocumented Africans in Tunisia.

Those comments, and Saied’s rhetoric since then, have been denounced by the president’s opponents and the African Union, and have led to what has been described by advocacy groups as a racist backlash against sub-Saharan Africans living in Tunisia, as well as Black Tunisians, particularly on social media.

The far-right Tunisian National Party has also led a campaign calling for the expulsion of sub-Saharan African immigrants, framing immigration to Tunisia from other parts of Africa as being part of an effort to initiate demographic change in the country, an idea that has parallels with the European far right’s “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which posits that immigration from Africa and Asia is aimed at replacing white people in Europe.

Migrants and refugees have used social media to show the consequences of some of that rhetoric.

Videos show physical attacks on the people themselves, as well as on their homes.

Tunisian security forces, however, appear to be targeting the migrants themselves, rather than the perpetrators of the attacks.

According to Lawyers Without Borders, an advocacy group, approximately 800 sub-Saharan Africans have been arrested. Others have been evicted from homes they had rented, or have lost their jobs.

Yanga herself says that she has since been attacked by two men who took a bag containing her passport.

“The attack took place a few days after the Tunisian president spoke,” Yanga said. “His speech was inciteful against us, and its results have begun to appear.”

With a continuing security clampdown on illegal immigration, and, fearful of being imprisoned because of her immigration status, Yanga says that she has not gone to the police following the attack.

Instead, she is hoping that the DR Congo will follow in the footsteps of other African countries, such as Guinea and the Ivory Coast, in working to bring her home.

KEEP READING

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Meloni rejects speculation govt didn't want to save shipwreck victims


04 March 202318:23NEWS

(ANSA) - ROME, MAR 4 - Premier Giorgia Meloni on Saturday dismissed speculation that her government may have in some way impeded operations that would have saved the victims of last Sunday's migrant-boat disaster off Calabria.

So far 69 people are confirmed to have died in the shipwreck and dozens more are missing, feared dead.

"Can there really be anyone who, in good conscience, thinks that the government deliberately let 60 people die?" Meloni said at a press conference during her visit to Abu Dhabi.

"Please, let's be serious".

She added that she was considering holding her next cabinet meeting in Cutro, the town off which the disaster took place, and to put the focus of it on migration.

Meloni reiterated that the Italian authorities did not get an alert from EU border agency Frontex that the fishing boat that the asylum seekers were on, and which broke up in rough waters, was in distress.

"Although dramatic, the situation is simple," Meloni said.

"No emergency signals came from Frontex.

"Furthermore, the route is not among those covered by non-government organizations (that run search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean) and so it has nothing to do with the government's policies," she added, referring to a recent decree regulating NGO-run rescue activities.

"Even though we are working to stop illegal migrant flows, we have continued to save all the people (in distress at sea).

"This is history. I really do not think there is material to go too far in this way in order to hit someone who is considered an opponent".

A probe has been opened into whether rescue operations were negligently delayed.
The government has staunchly defended the coast guard, which has said it followed its rules in handling such situations.

On Saturday, two lawmakers for the Italian Left (Sinistra Italiana) party, Ilaria Cucchi and Nicola Fratoianni, filed petitions calling on Rome prosecutors to check whether there had been "ministerial provisions preventing the Coast Guard from going out to sea" to save the shipwreck victims.

(ANSA).

ECOCIDE

Philippines

Spill From Sunken Product Tanker Reaches Resort Towns on Mindoro

Fuel oil on the beach on Mindoro, March 2 (PCG)

PUBLISHED MAR 2, 2023 3:45 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

The fuel spill from a sunken product tanker off the island of Mindoro is spreading, according to the Philippine Coast Guard. 

The product tanker Princess Empress sank off Balingawan Point on Tuesday after losing power in rough seas. The 20 members of her crew were all safely rescued by a good samaritan vessel, and no injuries were reported. However, the vessel was carrying a cargo of about 210,000 gallons of fuel oil, and it began spilling petroleum into the water. On Wednesday, the PCG confirmed the presence of an oil spill, "black and thick with strong odor."  

In an update Thursday, the PCG reported that the spill has reached the shoreline near the towns of Pola, Pinamalayan, Barangay Aplaya and Bongabong on Mindoro's eastern coast. Spill response teams from the Philippines' Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) have been dispatched to begin a shoreline cleanup.

"These are not just traces. People are getting pails of black and sticky sludge in some places," Mindoro disaster response official Vincent Gahol told the AP. 

Images courtesy PCG

The oil slick on the water has drifted as far south as Sibale Island, a snorkeling and tourism destination in the Tablas Strait.

Seven coastal towns on Mindoro have imposed fishing and swimming bans out to three nautical miles from shore due to the health risks from the pollution. The area is home to many beach resorts and more than a dozen protected marine sanctuaries; according to the DENR, the oil could affect up to 21 different locally-managed marine reserves if it continues to spread. This includes the Verde Island Passage, one of the most biodiverse ocean areas in the world and a key habitat supporting commercial fisheries in the northern Philippines.

The quantity of fuel oil spilled so far is not known, nor the quantity remaining in the wrecked vessel's tanks. The location of the sunken tanker has not yet been identified, and a search is under way.

Once Princess Empress has been found, any response will be challenging, as the average water depth in the area is in excess of 1,300 feet, according to the PCG. This is well beyond the reach of everyday commercial diving techniques and would likely require ROV intervention. 

The surface spill response to date has focused on booms and dispersants, and the salvage tug Titan is on scene to apply a treatment mixture to the slick. 

Image courtesy PCG

Small Tanker Sinks and Spills Fuel off Philippines

Slick from the wreck of the Princess Empress, March 1 (PCG)

PUBLISHED MAR 1, 2023 9:01 PM BY THE MARITIME EXECUTIVE

 

A sunken tanker is spilling petroleum into the water off the coast of Balingawan Point, Mindoro, in the Philippines' Tayabas Bay. 

The recently-built tanker Princess Empress partially sank off Balingawan Point on Tuesday after losing power in rough seas. The 20 members of her crew were all safely rescued by a good samaritan vessel, and no injuries were reported.

However, the vessel was carrying a cargo of about 210,000 gallons of fuel oil, and it began spilling petroleum into the water, the PCG reported. A helicopter overflight first detected the slick, and the PCG initially determined that the substance was diesel, not the cargo of fuel oil. 

The situation worsened overnight. Princess Empress slipped fully below the waves on Wednesday, and the PCG confirmed the presence of an oil spill, "black and thick with strong odor." The response tug Titan has been dispatched to spray dispersants and to conduct limited oil recovery, and the crew located what they believe to be the source point of the spill at a position about seven nautical miles off Balingawan Point. The Titan's crew are collecting water samples for evaluation by the PCG's in-house environmental protection unit. 

Images courtesy PCG

The Philippines' Department of Environment and Natural Resources reported Wednesday that the spill has grown to cover about five square miles of surface area. If it continues to expand, it could affect up to three dozen different local marine protected areas, including the highly biodiverse Verde Island Passage. The PCG will deploy booms to protect the most sensitive locations, according to the department.

Multiple rescues

The Princess Empress was just one of three vessels to run into serious trouble in the Philippines this week. In addition to the sunken tanker, the ro/ro ferry Starlite Saturn went aground off Cebu Island Tuesday night, stranding nearly 100 passengers and prompting an evacuation by small boat; and the inter-island freighter Manfel V ran aground near Lubang Island, 80 nm to the west of where the Princess Empress went down.

Manfel V drifted onto the beach on February 26, but the crew were stranded aboard for two days as rescuers tried to reach them through heavy surf. The PCG eventually used a human chain of nearly a dozen rescuers, connected by a safety tether, to reach the stranded ship in the surf zone.