REST IN POWER
French architect and left-wing activist Roland Castro dies aged 82

Jonny Walfisz
Fri, 10 March 2023 



The French architect made his name through his design plans predicated on raising the standard of living for working class neighbourhoods and his involvement in the May 1968 Paris student protests.

Born Limoges in 1940, Castro's Jewish heritage meant he spent the first years of his life in hiding during the Vichy regime. Alongside his parents and sister, Casto took refuge in the Limousin hinterland, in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, where he was hidden by the Maquis, the communist resistance force.

His experience with the Maquis would define his worldview, believing he had “a debt of existence to France.”

“Architecture, the suburbs, the causes have never been lacking: everything has been a pretext for settling this debt,” he once said.

His ambition took him to the Paris Beaux-Arts architecture school in 1958 and joined the Union of Communist Students. Ever committed to his intellectual integrity, he was expelled from the union in 1965 for criticising Stalinism. In response, he embraced Maoism, as was popular in French communist circles at the time.

He became a leading figure in the anti-capitalism protests that erupted throughout France during May 1968 bringing the country to a standstill. Castro was involved in the student paper ‘Melp!’ which publicised the motivations behind the riots to the general public.

Castro became an architect and in 1983, and co-founded ‘Banlieues 89’ with his urbanist friend Michel Cantal-Dupart. Banlieues 89 was a vehicle for his political and architectural ideals with the mantra “to make a revolution in the suburbs.”

In 1983, President François Mitterrand (C) and architect Roland Castro (R) visit the new stock exchange building in Saint-Denis. - PIERRE GUILLAUD/AFP or licensors

The project was responsible for the renovation of Cité de la Caravelle in Villeneuve-la-Garenne and the housing estates in the Hauts-de-Seine. Castro also designed the Cité de la bande dessinée in Angoulême and the Bourse du Travail in Saint-Denis.

Roland Castro's buildings were often grafted onto existing constructions. He added asymmetrical lines, combining wood and concrete, and favoured white, adorned with plant facades.

More than 200 projects were submitted to Banlieues 89, but the operation faced financial reluctance from the French government, and the collective dissolved in 1991.



In 2017, Castro came out in support of President Emmanuel Macron.

The President responded to the architect's death on Twitter, writing: "Legend of architecture and urbanism, visionary left-wing activist, Roland Castro has left us. On our urban landscape, it bequeaths an indelible imprint. To the citizens, an inspiration. Goodbye and thank you, Roland."

Castro was a colourful figure of French intellectualism, donning a trademark pinstripe suit and socialising with Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan (who psychoanalysed him for seven years), as well as meeting Che Guevera and Fidel Castro - no family relation.

‘Trust is gone’: First Nation battles oil company and Alberta over toxic water


Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN
Fri, 10 March 2023

Photograph: The Canadian Press/Alamy

Throughout the summer and into the fall, members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation ventured out on to the land as they do every year, hunting and fishing the streams and boreal forest of their community in western Canada.

Over those same months last year, however, toxic water had been leaking from an oil sands operations upriver.

It wasn’t until recently, when Chief Allan Adam got a call from a neighbouring First Nation, that he realized the danger his community could be in: mine waste had been seeping from four tailings ponds for months.

When he called them, company officials and the province’s energy regulator both confirmed the leak – but neither had warned the community when they learned of the issue nine months ago.

Adam is now prepared to battle both Imperial Oil and Alberta’s energy regulator, alleging they “covered up unprecedented failures” of the company’s containment ponds, in what is now believed to be one of the largest tailings leaks in Alberta history.

“They’re both up against the wall right now. They were caught red-handed. The trust is gone. There’s no way you can come back from that. And we’ll always have what happened in the back of our mind, whenever we’re out on the land,” he said. “You can’t ever forget about something like this.”

The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation chief, Allan Adam. 

Photograph: Trevor Hagan/Reuters

Calgary-based Imperial Oil notified Alberta’s energy regulator in May that it had discovered discoloured water near the Kearl oil sands project.

The regulator soon concluded the water had come from tailings ponds where the company stored the toxic sludge-like byproducts of bitumen mining. Environmental samples showed high levels of several toxic contaminants, including arsenic, iron, sulphate and hydrocarbon – all of which exceeded provincial guidelines.

Local communities were notified in May of the initial discovery of discoloured water, but not made aware of the regulator’s subsequent findings that containment ponds had failed.

Last month, there was another leak, in which 5.3m litres of tailings water escaped from an overflowing catchment pond. This time, the community was informed two days later.

On Monday, Imperial said the second spill posed no threat to water or wildlife and that it had made “significant progress” in the cleanup efforts.

But the company admits it doesn’t yet know how much toxic tailings water has seeped into the land and water over the last nine months.

Adam says he met with company officials three times during the period, but alleges they never mentioned the leaking tailings pond.

On Monday, Imperial apologized for not communicating with affected communities, admitting it had “fallen short of expectations”.

Despite assurances from the company, residents remain wary. In the municipality of Wood Buffalo, city staff have stopped drawing from Lake Athabasca.

And in Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, community members have been advised by leadership not to eat any game or fish harvested in the last nine months.

“I just got back from an elders meeting and I told everyone to get rid of whatever you harvested. Throw it out. Don’t even feed it to your dogs,” said Adam, adding the community was waiting on test results of its water supply to determine if it is contaminated.

Imperial Oil has since been hit with both an environmental protection order and a non-compliance order in relation to the leak and the province’s regulator has demanded the company file plans to show how it intends to contain, monitor and remediate the areas affected by the leak.

Canada’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, said last week he was “deeply concerned” over revelations toxic water had been leaking into the nearby land and water for months.

Adam met with the the province’s regulator this week, and received an apology from senior staff for their failure to notify his community.

“I told them don’t bother apologizing. We’re well past that. Fix this problem, and show me how you won’t let it happen again.”

He says the inability for residents to harvest from the lands is a violation of the nation’s treaty rights and by not notifying the community of the spill, the company breached its benefit agreement contract with the First Nation.

“I told the company and I told the regulator that a simple phone call would have cost you less than five bucks. A simple phone call,” he said. “Look at what it’s going to cost you now.”

Explainer: Where are the critical raw materials the EU needs for its green transition?


Marie Lecoq
Fri, 10 March 2023 

Raw materials are present in the ground all over the world but some are more common in certain areas than others.

All of the clean energy technologies that we need to decarbonise the energy system require large amounts of minerals and metals.

These minerals and metals are used in many technologies, from smartphones to wind turbines and electric car batteries.

And as countries around the world are setting out to reduce carbon emissions, the demand for clean technologies is increasing, and with it so is the demand for raw materials.

K.C. Michaels is a legal advisor and critical minerals expert at the Internation Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organisation analysing data on the energy sector worldwide.

“Essentially all of the clean energy technologies that we need to decarbonise the energy system require large amounts of minerals and metals,” he explains.

Electric vehicle (EV) batteries for instance need large amounts of lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and graphite. While rare earth elements are mainly used in permanent magnets for EV motors and wind turbines.

An excavator piles up salt at the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia, one of the biggest reserves of lithium in the world, October 10, 2009 - MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP

The European Union has established a list of 30 critical raw materials, mostly minerals, that are considered strategic to the EU’s economy and that have high supply risk.
But where do we get them from?

“The first challenge is the availability of those critical raw materials,” explains Dario Liguti, the director of sustainable energy at the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe.

“The production of some of those materials is highly concentrated in certain countries today,” he adds.

More than three-quarters of the global production of critical raw materials used for energy comes from just three countries.

China leads with 66% of the global supply share, followed by South Africa with 9% and the Democratic Republic of Congo with 5%.

And in some cases, a single country can be responsible for over half of the global output.

“For example, cobalt supply from the Democratic Republic of Congo is about 60 or 70% of the world production,” Liguti explains.

China also plays a huge role in refining, a necessary step before the materials can be used.

So for example, even though cobalt is primarily mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo, almost all of it goes to China for processing.

This concentration of resources can lead to major issues in supply, particularly for places like Europe, which produces very little in-house.

“If we imagine a world where there are ten suppliers of lithium and one of those suppliers has a strike or some sort of issue and a shutdown, there are a lot of opportunities to switch to other suppliers. But if we imagine a world where there are only two suppliers and there's a disruption from one, then there's a really big impact,” Michaels says.

An aerial view of wind turbines off the coast of Great Yarmouth, eastern England, on February 15, 2023 - DANIEL LEAL/AFP

“Their demand is already right now explosive and it will only become so as the transition towards a less carbonised energy system becomes even more important,” Liguti says.

The International Energy Agency projects that if the world stays on track to meet its global climate goals and reach net zero by 2050, the overall demand for minerals is going to quadruple by 2030.

“This is a huge increase in just the next seven or eight years,” Michaels says.

“When we start to look at specific minerals, then the demand increase can be much higher. Specifically for lithium, it's as many as 40 times, depending on the scenario,” he adds.

Why efficient use of batteries is key to the clean energy transition


Europe in race to secure raw materials critical for energy transition


The road to sustainability: the superhighway built from paper waste instead of cement

So can the current supply keep up with growing demands?

“There is a real risk that we won't be able to ramp up production fast enough to meet these goals,” Michaels says.

The quantities necessary for the green transition are staggering.

“Even if we could have 100% re-use of all the minerals and metals that are out there today, we're still not even close,” he adds.

According to Liguti, increasing production won’t be enough. “The quantities necessary for the green transition are staggering,” he says.

“The answer to that demand is not only through increased primary production, but it is as well through the increase of the recycling and the reuse of those raw materials, on establishing the circular economy, the traceability of those minerals, so we exactly know at which stage of the value chain those raw materials are,” he explains.

A child and a woman break rocks extracted from a cobalt mine in Lubumbashi on May 23, 2016 - JUNIOR KANNAH/AFP

Securing the supply is not the only issue at stake. Mining can have a destructive impact not only on the environment but also on local communities.

"While we develop lithium mines and cobalt mines and manganese mines, even if the scale of operations is smaller, we don't want to do the same errors that we did when we started exploiting oil and gas, ” Liguti says. So we have to consider what happens to mines at the end of their lifecycle, he adds.

This means looking at "what to do with the mine, how to involve the local communities, how to account for negative externalities on the environment and mitigate those aspects”, he explains.

Mining Europe’s biggest rare earth deposit could make life ‘impossible’ for Sámi communities

Lithium’s green potential fails to defuse Europe’s opposition to mining

Swedish mining company to use green hydrogen as it looks to reduce CO2 emissions

So how can we ensure a sustainable and ethical supply chain of raw materials?

One of the solutions, experts say, is supply chain diligence.

“Companies will be required to look into their suppliers and really try to understand where the materials are coming from, what the risks are and what they can do as purchasers to reduce those risks,” Michaels explains.

This principle will be used in the new EU battery regulations, to ensure that batteries on the European market are sustainable and circular throughout their whole lifecycle, from the sourcing of materials to their collection, recycling and repurposing.

Once the purchasing companies, the car manufacturers become engaged, then they can bring a lot of change.

“It can lead to real efforts to improve the situation because once the downstream companies, the purchasing companies and the car manufacturers become engaged, then they can bring about a lot of change. They can speak to their suppliers, they can push for new standards and push for improvement,” Michaels adds.

Innovation can also play a big role in reducing the demand on raw materials.

New technologies can help improve how we use and mine these materials but also find alternative sources, develop substitutes and improve recycling.

“A raw material might not be critical a few decades from now as they were not critical a few years ago,” Liguti says.

“But they are critical now and we need to take care of that. So in 20 years, we don't have to look back and say: "Oh, we did the same errors that we did 100 years ago when we started exploiting oil and gas",” he adds.

To address this, the EU will adopt a Critical Raw Materials act on the 14th of March, 2023. The initiative aims to make sure Europe has a diverse and reliable supply of materials, and ensure social and environmental standards are respected.

BBC will not broadcast Attenborough episode over fear of ‘rightwing backlash’

Helena Horton Environment reporter
Fri, 10 March 2023 



The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.

The decision has angered the programme-makers and some insiders at the BBC, who fear the corporation has bowed to pressure from lobbying groups with “dinosaurian ways”.

The BBC strongly denied this was the case and insisted the episode in question was never intended for broadcast.

Attenborough’s highly anticipated new series, Wild Isles, looks at the beauty of nature in the British Isles.

Narrated by David Attenborough, it is expected to be a hit, with five episodes scheduled to go out in primetime slots on BBC One.

A sixth episode has also been filmed, which is understood to be a stark look at the losses of nature in the UK and what has caused the declines. It is also understood to include some examples of rewilding, a concept that has been controversial in some rightwing circles.

Related: The truth about Britain’s wildlife crisis is stark: the timid BBC must let David Attenborough tell it loud and clear | Geoffrey Lean

The documentary series was part-funded by nature charities the WWF and RSPB, but the final episode will not be broadcast along with the others and will instead be available only on the BBC’s iPlayer service. All six episodes were narrated by Attenborough, and made by the production company Silverback Films, responsible for previous series including Our Planet, in collaboration with the BBC Natural History Unit.

Senior sources at the BBC told the Guardian that the decision not to show the sixth episode was made to fend off potential critique from the political right. This week the Telegraph newspaper attacked the BBC for creating the series and for taking funding from “two charities previously criticised for their political lobbying” – the WWF and RSPB.

One source at the broadcaster, who asked not to be named, said “lobbying groups that are desperately hanging on to their dinosaurian ways” such as the farming and game industry would “kick off” if the show had too political a message.

They added: “Frankly, this idea that you sort of put it in a separate programme to almost parcel it to one side is disingenuous. Why don’t they integrate those stories into all of them at the time?”

In a statement provided after the story was first published, the BBC said: “This is totally inaccurate, there is no ‘sixth episode’. Wild Isles is – and always was – a five part series and does not shy away from environmental content. We have acquired a separate film for iPlayer from the RSPB and WWF and Silverback Films about people working to preserve and restore the biodiversity of the British Isles.”

Alastair Fothergill, the director of Silverback Films and the executive producer of Wild Isles, added: “The BBC commissioned a five-part Wild Isles series from us at Silverback Films back in 2017. The RSPB and WWF joined us as co-production partners in 2018.

It was not until the end of 2021 that the two charities commissioned Silverback Films to make a film for them that celebrates the extraordinary work of people fighting to restore nature in Britain and Ireland. The BBC acquired this film for iPlayer at the start of this year.”

Laura Howard, who produced the programme and used to work at the BBC’s Natural History Unit, said she did not believe its messages to be political.

She told the Guardian: “I think the facts speak for themselves. You know, we’ve worked really closely with the RSPB in particular who are able to factcheck all of our scripts and provide us with detailed scientific data and information about the loss of wildlife in this country. And it is undeniable, we are incredibly nature-depleted. And I don’t think that that is political, I think it’s just facts.”

The producer said the film would touch on how farming practices had harmed wildlife, but would also profile farmers who had done the right thing.

“Those farmers are there to make the point that every farm in the country ought to be able to do a little bit at least of what they do, and that it is possible to farm alongside nature, to make a profit, to produce healthy food and to still run a business,” Howard said.

She added that she hoped a young audience would be able to find the film, as they are used to streaming on iPlayer rather than watching a broadcast.

Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP for Brighton Pavilion, said: “For the BBC to censor of one of the nation’s most informed and trusted voices on the nature and climate emergencies is nothing short of an unforgivable dereliction of its duty to public service broadcasting. This government has taken a wrecking ball to our environment – putting over 1,700 pieces of environmental legislation at risk, setting an air pollution target which is a decade too late, and neglecting the scandal of our sewage-filled waterways – which cannot go unexamined and unchallenged by the public.

“BBC bosses must not be cowed by antagonistic, culture war-stoking government ministers, putting populist and petty political games above delivering serious action to protect and restore our natural world. This episode simply must be televised.”

Chris Packham, who presents Springwatch on the BBC, also criticised the decision. He told the Guardian: “At this time, in our fight to save the world’s biodiversity, it is irresponsible not to put that at the forefront of wildlife broadcasting.”

Stephen Moss, a natural historian and TV producer who has worked for the BBC on nature programmes, said focusing on a conservation angle could win political support for the cause. He said: “Often, if you lead on environmental issues, people genuinely turn off. But if you drip feed it within the programmes and then hit people with a message at the end when you convince them how brilliant wildlife is, it tends to work.

“With Blue Planet, you got Theresa May standing up and Philip Hammond, the chancellor at the time, saying: ‘this is the BBC as its very best’, doing what Conservatives never do, basically praising the BBC and saying: this is fantastic. So maybe that will happen with this. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Tory politicians jump on the bandwagon and go on and on about how brilliant it is.”

The charities involved in the programme are already using it to launch a campaign – unaffiliated with the BBC – called Save Our Wild Isles. They have gained the support of the National Trust, the Guardian understands.

EU commits to pushing for global fossil fuel phaseout ahead of Cop28 summit


Stuti Mishra
Fri, 10 March 2023

The European Union (EU) has agreed to support a worldwide push for phasing out fossil fuels in a bid to tackle the growing threat of climate crisis ahead of the Cop28 climate summit in Dubai later this year.

Ministers from the 27 EU member states approved a text on their diplomatic priorities ahead of the conference, where almost 200 countries will be present to strengthen their efforts towards limiting global warming.

“The shift towards a climate-neutral economy will require the global phase-out of unabated fossil fuels,” the EU text said, citing the scientific consensus that this is necessary to avoid a more severe climate crisis, Reuters news agency reported.

“The EU will systematically promote and call for a global move towards energy systems free of unabated fossil fuels well ahead of 2050,” it said, adding that global fossil fuel consumption should peak in the near term.

The shift towards a climate-neutral economy, the EU text said, would require a worldwide phase-out of unabated fossil fuels.

This decision comes after countries failed to agree on a push to phase out fossil fuels at last year’s climate summit in Egypt.

More than 80 countries, including the EU, supported an Indian proposal to do this at last year’s summit, provided the earlier agreed-upon pace of coal phase-down is not slowed. But Saudi Arabia and other oil and gas-rich nations opposed it.

Many other nations also backed the proposal, including 39 countries of the Alliance of Small Island States, seriously threatened by the rise in temperatures and sea levels.

There’s hope that this year’s Cop28 summit, starting on 30 November in UAE, could clinch a global deal on phasing out all Co2-emitting fossil fuels - not only coal, as agreed at previous UN climate talks, but also oil and gas.

Europe is currently transforming its energy system to meet climate targets and end decades of reliance on Russian fossil fuels. The EU text said countries should combine the two aims and use renewable energy or energy savings - rather than fossil fuels - to replace Russian energy.

“There is no need for a one-to-one replacement of former Russian natural gas import volumes,” it said.

EU countries approved their climate text two weeks later than planned, owing to a spat among countries over whether it should promote nuclear energy.

The final version scrubbed some wording that countries had disagreed on but said that alongside renewable energy, EU diplomacy will promote sustainable “low-carbon technologies” - a phrase that often refers to nuclear energy.

As climate crisis continues to be a pressing issue, it is hoped that the commitment made by the EU to promote a global fossil fuel phaseout will set the ball rolling for the global deal this year to include in the text.

While coal is considered the dirtiest of all fossil fuels, it is also the cheapest and most abundantly available energy source for developing countries like India which still has a long way ahead to provide cheaper electricity to their population. While India has made strides in renewable growth and aims to increase its share by half by 2030, it often comes under fire for its coal usage.

The move to get all fossil fuels mentioned in the global climate deal was considered a diplomatic offensive by India at the UN climate summit in Egypt and aimed to put the spotlight on oil and gas-producing nations, mostly developed countries like the US and the EU, instead of singling out coal.

The EU’s move towards a global phase-out of fossil fuels is seen as significant as the bloc’s carbon emissions makeup approximately 18 per cent of global historic greenhouse gas emissions.

The European Commission plans to increase the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to 55 per cent below 1990 levels by 2030, which will require significant changes in the way people heat their homes, travel, and produce food.

BP boss earns 170 times his average worker as his pay doubles to £10m

August Graham, PA Business Reporter
Fri, 10 March 2023 



The boss of BP earned more than 170 times more than his average employee last year as his pay doubled to around £10 million after the company benefited from the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

New figures from the oil giant showed that Bernard Looney’s total pay packet increased from around £4.5 million in 2021.

The company’s profit doubled between 2021 and 2022, but the increase was largely thanks to a long-term incentive that was paid to Mr Looney.

This means that Mr Looney’s remuneration was around 172 times higher than the average employee at the oil and gas giant.

Compared to the 25th percentile – that is to say an employee whose pay was less then three in four of their colleagues’ – Mr Looney’s pay was 421 times higher.

Those in the 25th percentile also saw their pay increase, going from £21,450 in 2021 to £23,810 a year later.

The average salary for workers across all employers in the UK is around £33,000.

BP fared well last year thanks in no small part to the day that Vladimir Putin decided to send tanks across the border in an attempt to annex the entirety of Ukraine.

As cruise missiles started falling on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities the price of oil and gas ticked upwards last year, peaking in August and June respectively.

The cost of gas in particular spiked for European customers. Oil is largely transported by ship around the world so it was easier for other countries to supply oil to Europe.

But there are many fewer gas ships in the world, so as supply from Russian pipelines dried up the price of gas peaked at somewhere around 15 times its historical average.

BP and its rivals around the world helped avoid a massive energy crunch in Europe by supplying oil and gas to the continent.

But it came at a price as the energy they sold was much more valuable to their customers.

By January this year the average household energy bill was nearly £4,300 per year – four times where it had been before the crisis.

The Government has racked up a massive bill to help households so they did not have to shoulder the full amount themselves.

But BP had its best ever year as a result. Profit doubled to around 28 billion dollars (£23.4 billion).

Jonathan Noronha-Gant, senior fossil fuels campaigner at Global Witness, said: “People everywhere struggling to feed their families or warm their homes in the harsh winter months, have every right to be angry that the CEO of a huge energy firm is netting millions of pounds in pay. This enormous pay package is a kick in the teeth to all hard-working people being faced with a cost-of-living crisis.

“Nothing could be a starker example of the gross inequality that sits at the very heart of our broken energy system.

“For a rich few to be seeing their already extraordinary wealth bolstered, precisely because bills have been so unaffordable for the majority, is a twisted irony. At the very least the governments should be implementing a proper windfall tax on both profits and CEO pay.”

Greek tragedies like Medea are an ethical nightmare. That’s why we need them

Charlotte Higgins
Sat, 11 March 2023 


Last week, I found myself – at the end of a gloomy day – shot through with a burst of fierce, electric energy. It came from watching Sophie Okonedo’s 90 minutes of flat-out fury as she played Medea, opposite Ben Daniels’s Jason, in Dominic Cooke’s production of the Euripides play.

Afterwards, I registered the fact that the woman sitting by me had actually put her hands over her face when Medea decided to murder her own children. I, on the other hand, had not. Why did I mentally urge her on towards the unspeakable deeds, inwardly channelling all the pent-up anti-patriarchal rage at my disposal? Wasn’t there something deeply disturbing about that? Or was the play precisely doing its job in Aristotelian terms: providing a catharsis?

Medea’s murder of her children is the nuclear button when it comes to punishing her faithless husband, who has cast her aside like an old rag: their sons are the symbol and reality of inherited male power. Since Jason has just openly voiced his fantasy that men might give birth to sons without the need for women at all, there’s a magnificent, if gruesome, logic to her crime.

My theatre date quizzed me. She had found Medea a surprisingly sympathetic character … well, for most of the play, and had the script been updated? It had, but not that much: the essentials of Medea’s character were intact, including her immortal words, “It is easier to stand in battle three times in the front line … than to bear one child.”

The audience at the premiere, in Athens in 431BC, mostly male, would have received the story very differently. Athenian women, particularly high-born women, were expected to be silent and remain out of sight and mind of men; in public, they would be veiled. The same year that the play premiered, the Athenian statesman Pericles gave a famous speech in which he said that women’s greatest glory was not to be spoken about. It crossed my mind that my friend had once been a correspondent in Afghanistan.

What on earth do we do with these strange, knotty, difficult texts from the past? Roald Dahl has nothing on Greek tragedy, and yet we seem always to be coming back for more. Okonedo’s Medea was the second brilliant performance I’d seen in a year, after Adura Onashile’s, for the National Theatre of Scotland, last summer. And then there is Phaedra at the National Theatre, starring a magnificent Janet McTeer. The play, by Simon Stone, who also directs, is “after” Euripides’s Hippolytus, Seneca’s Phaedra and Racine’s Phèdre. Those plays tell of how Phaedra, queen of Athens, falls in lust with her stepson, Hippolytus. After he rejects her, she accuses him, falsely, of rape.

I was intensely curious to see how Stone would deal with this storyline. Phaedra’s tale is enormously potent and has parallels in other cultures; for example, the biblical story of Potiphar’s wife. But it’s powerful in a destructive way. It reinforces the patriarchal lie that women, far from being overwhelmingly the victims of sexual violence and abuse, routinely accuse men of rape falsely.

If you disagree that a myth like that can still have a foothold in the modern world, I would politely refer you to the alleged statement by Stephen House, a former Metropolitan police deputy commissioner, that the bulk of rape accusations are, in fact, “regretful sex”. (He denies having used the phrase or believing the statement.) For such reasons, I decided not to include the story of Phaedra in my book Greek Myths: A New Retelling.

As it turned out, Stone also refused the fence. His Phaedra (renamed Helen) does many terrible things, including causing, directly or indirectly, at least two deaths. But in his version of the story, she does not falsely accuse anyone of rape. “What I have her do in my version is no less heinous,” Stone told me. “But it’s not an act that reduces her to a set of cliches that certain parts of society currently use to try to hinder the essential progress towards gender equality.” Is inventing a rape claim worse than causing people’s death? What are we supposed to do with these stories that take you into a world way beyond the boundaries of the taboo?

A couple of weeks ago, I saw another, quite different approach to Greek tragedy, in the Gulbenkian Arts Centre in Canterbury. Several years ago, the playwright David Greig and the director Ramin Grey worked on a hit production, performed in London, Dublin, Manchester, Belfast and Edinburgh, of Aeschylus’s play Suppliants. The story tells of how the 50 daughters of Danaus, forced into marriage with the 50 sons of Aegyptus, flee their homeland in Africa and claim asylum in Argos.

What I saw in Canterbury was the second part of the story, the middle play of what originally would have been a trilogy of tragedies. The twist is that only that first, Suppliants, actually survives. Of the second, Egyptians, only a single word remains, and, of the third, little beyond a few lines hymning Aphrodite. So the play I saw was a complete (bar one word) reconstruction. Greig’s idea, a crazy and quixotic one, was to imagine himself into Aeschylus’s shoes and to build the play without modernising, recuperating, softening or reclaiming it. Impossible, of course, but a fascinating quest.

Related: Yes, Roald Dahl was a bigot. But that’s no excuse to re-write his books | Francine Prose

The result was mesmerising to watch – a thing that both was and wasn’t Greek. It put me in mind of Ossian, whose poems, purporting to be ancient Gaelic epics, were actually faked by the 18th-century Scottish poet James Macpherson – by which I mean it struck me that in years to come, the play will, like Macpherson’s poems, be more revealing of the moment in which it was created than of the culture it aims to reconstruct.

Greig had, I thought, done a good job of being Aeschylean. That is, he had written a play whose likely outcome was the mass rape of 50 women; in which his major female character slits her own throat; and in which the other female character exists solely to uphold the patriarchal values of marriage and family represented by the goddess Hera, whose priestess she is. It’s true that in the next play, which Greig is also planning to write, 49 of the 50 brides murder their rapists/bridegrooms – but Aeschylus was no feminist, and nor, even, was Euripides.

I left with a nagging sense of what a strange – and yet intriguing – thing it was to put a play like this into the world when what the world actually needs is space for the untold stories of women and girls.

And yet we do need difficult, violent intractable texts such as Euripides’s Phaedra with its false rape claim, because the play tracks us back to the origins of a pernicious narrative, but also because Euripides’s play Hippolytus is otherwise ravishingly beautiful (read Anne Carson’s translation in her volume Grief Lessons).

We do need Medea and her horrific child-killing. We need the literature of the past in its spikiness and indigestibility, with its people whom we love and hate, who remind us of ourselves and yet are alien to us. It is one of the few ways we have left of understanding ourselves and other humans in all our destructiveness, and all our deadliness, and all our magnificence.

Charlotte Higgins is the Guardian’s chief culture writer

Ukraine's same-sex marriage campaign: 'Russia is homophobic; we want to be different'

By Alasdair Sandford & Euronews • Updated: 11/03/2023 

An activist in Ukraine's first gay pride demonstration seen through the rainbow flag during the action in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, May 25, 2013. - Copyright AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky

"As we are not married... I'm not protected and my partner is not protected by law... unfortunately I can die at any moment in Ukraine now."

Jul has been living in Kyiv throughout Russia's onslaught on their country, ever since Putin launched the full-scale invasion over a year ago. Together with partner Olha they recently applied to get married online -- a new possibility via the "Diia" ("action") government website.

"Our application was in progress for one day, one business day, and now we have a note of a rejection because unfortunately our constitution position of Ukraine we have this part is that marriage is a willing union between woman and man. That's why our application was rejected," Jul told Euronews.

The couple knew full well what would happen, but like many other LGBT+ couples who also applied, they saw it as a symbolic gesture.

"It's an opportunity to show to our government that this question, a question about civic partnership or same-sex marriage is still very important for Ukraine, especially during this year, during the full-scale war," Jul added.

'What happens if a partner is killed?'

Ukraine has increased support for the rights of LGBT+ people since Western-looking leaders came to power in 2014. Discrimination in the workplace was banned, but same-sex marriage or civil partnerships have not been legalised.

Same-sex marriage is very important for Ukraine, especially during the full-scale war
Jul
Member of Kyiv Pride

Inna Sovsun, a deputy in the Ukrainian parliament, believes that the government has been "dragging its feet for many years now" over the issue. This week she put forward a bill in parliament to legalise same-sex relationships.

She argues that the lack of equal opportunities not only amounts to discrimination, but the additional factor that Ukraine is at war with Russia puts into sharp focus the vulnerability of LGBT+ couples, for whom the consequences can be severe.

"We do have over 700,000 people who are serving in the Ukrainian army. Some of them are LGBT people. Those LGBT people, they do have partners, but they cannot in any way make their relations official," Sovsun told Euronews.

"So in case anything happens to the military person on the battlefront, his or her partner would not be able to make any medical decisions about the partner. Or if the worst happens, if a death happens, if the person is killed, again the partner would not have legal opportunity to make decisions about the burial and all of that. So that kind of adds the urgency to this situation."


The risk is far from theoretical. Olena Shevchenko of the human rights group Ukraine Insight told us there are "real stories, which you see almost every day" on the battlefield.

"Somebody died on the front line, and the partner doesn't have access even to recognise the body because this person's (considered) a nobody... Somebody also died on the front line and this woman had a family with a child. So what will happen next if your partner is not (the) biological mother of this child? What will happen to all those people or mostly those who have families with children?" she said.

"I would say there's a very deep frustration, especially for those of us who gave so much during this war, who are doing many unbearable things," she went on, adding that couples were facing an internal struggle with the Ukrainian authorities, on top of the war with Russia.

"But we have to fight, you know, on both sides, inside and outside. I don't think it is right," Shevchenko said.

Increasing support for LGBT+ rights

Opinion polls suggest that Ukrainians have become much more tolerant of homosexuality in recent years than they once were. One recently indicated that a majority was no longer opposed to same-sex marriage. In August 2022, an online petition to legalise it gathered more than 28,500 signatures.

President Zelenskyy, noting that the government had been looking at legalising same-sex relationships, responded by asking his prime minister to further examine the issue. But he added that during wartime, no changes could be made to the constitution, defining marriage as being between a man and a woman.

Russia is a homophobic country... we want to be different from them

Inna Sovsun

Member of Ukrainian parliament

However, the war has intensified the drive among LGBT+ rights campaigners for urgent change. Inna Sovsun argues that the contrast between Ukraine and Russia adds another dimension to the fight for equal rights in her country.

"We are now in a war with a highly homophobic country. Homophobia nowadays is basically part of Russian official ideology, and I think that in society, people also start to differentiate that we're different from Russia. Russia is extremely homophobic. We want to be different from them," she told Euronews.

"So I think that this also adds to our understanding of the problem as a society. And I think that actually creates better conditions for the legislation to be supported."

Moderna to hire around 2,000 employees amid mRNA development push



Fri, March 10, 2023 

(Reuters) -Moderna Inc said on Friday it was planning to hire about 2,000 employees globally by 2023-end and set up new offices on the U.S. West Coast, as it aims to scale up development of new products amid declining COVID vaccine sales.

The COVID vaccine maker said it will open new offices in California and Seattle, adding that its Genomics unit will expand to south San Francisco.

The latest move comes at a time when Moderna has been working on developing vaccines for skin cancer, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) using its mRNA technology, which if approved would significantly boost the biotech company that currently relies heavily on its COVID-19 shot.

Last month, Moderna forecast rising costs for 2023 and a decline in COVID vaccine sales, raising concerns that the company could post a loss this year.

The firm had about 3,900 full-time employees as of Dec. 31, according to a regulatory filing.Shares of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company were up more than 2% at $140.22 in afternoon trade.

(Reporting by Raghav Mahobe in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva, Shinjini Ganguli and Shailesh Kuber)

Biden administration grants US visa to extremist Israeli minister

Smotrich  described himself as a “fascist homophobe”

Chris McGreal in New York
Fri, March 10, 2023 

Photograph: Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

The Biden administration has granted a US visa to Israel’s extremist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, over the objection of Jewish American leaders who said he should be barred from the country for his call to “wipe out” a Palestinian town.

The US state department gave Smotrich a diplomatic visa to speak at an investment conference in Washington DC on Sunday, and for meetings with the International Monetary Fund, after concluding that it would be highly unusual to refuse one to a member of the government of a close ally. But the White House said no US officials will meet him or attend the conference.

More than 100 Jewish American leaders signed a statement opposing the visit by the leader of the Religious Zionism party in Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition. It accused him of promoting “Jewish supremacy” along with anti-Arab racism and homophobia.

Related: Biden administration urged to block extremist Israeli minister’s visit

The signatories included three former US ambassadors to Israel, Jewish religious leaders and former heads of pro-Israel groups.

Dozens of Jewish American organisations have pledged to shun Smotrich while he is in the US, noting that he described himself as a “fascist homophobe”. They include the country’s largest Jewish organisation, the Union of Reform Judaism, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and Americans for Peace Now.

Their statement compared the minister to the American-born Israeli rabbi and convicted terrorist, Meir Kahane, who founded the extremist and racist political party, Kach.

“In 1984, when Meir Kahane was first elected to the Knesset, virtually all American Jewish organizations turned their backs on him and his violent and racist ideology and rhetoric. Now it is time for us to do the same for Bezalel Smotrich. American Jewish organizations must be clear: Smotrich has no place here,” they said.

Smotrich has been widely condemned for comments after a mob of several hundred religious Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank attacked the Palestinian town of Hawara nearly two weeks ago, burning dozens of buildings and cars and killing a man in what an Israeli military commander called a “pogrom”.

The attack on Hawara followed the shooting dead of two brothers from a nearby settlement earlier in the day which in turn came after the Israeli military killed Palestinian fighters and civilians in West Bank raids.

Related: Israeli settlers rampage after Palestinian gunman kills two

The Israeli finance minister criticised the settlers for taking matters into their own hands but said the military should act instead.

“I think the village of Hawara needs to be wiped out. I think the state of Israel should do it,” he said shortly after the attack.

The US visa was issued after Smotrich apologised for the comments in a Facebook post on Wednesday. The minister said a friend in the Israeli air force had warned him that pilots were interpreting his remarks to mean that they might be ordered to destroy Hawara.

Smotrich said he was “shaken by the thought that this is how I could have been understood”.

The apology was met with scepticism by his critics who plan to demonstrate at the Washington hotel where he will be speaking at a conference to promote investment in Israeli government bonds.

The US state department described Smotrich’s remarks as “irresponsible, repugnant and disgusting” but still granted him the visa.

The advocacy group Dawn, founded by the murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi to promote democracy and human rights in the Middle East, said the Biden administration could have refused it on several grounds used to block visits by officials from other countries.

Dawn noted that in January, the state department restricted visas to “those believed to be responsible for, or complicit in, undermining democracy in Nigeria” and to Cameroonian officials for “inciting violence, human rights violations and abuses”.

The US has also refused entry to other Israeli extremists including a member of the Knesset, Michael Ben Ari, in 2012, probably for his ties to the Kach movement.