Empowering Art review – Indigenous masterworks full of wonder and sorrow

Jonathan Jones
Fri, 10 March 2023 


When the artist Simeon Stilthda saw a picture of Egypt’s Great Sphinx in a missionary bible in the 1870s, he carved his own version of it. Stilthda was a member of the Haida people in the Pacific Northwest of the Americas and his carving was a tribute from the indigenous culture of this region to ancient Egypt, thousands of miles and years away. It’s not just a wonderful sculpture – round the back, the Sphinx has a Haida hairstyle – but a piece of art theory in wood. Stilthda draws eye-opening parallels between his community’s religious art and that of the Pharaohs.

Like the ancient Egyptians who conjoined a human and lion to create the Sphinx, the Indigenous peoples of North America’s Pacific Northwest have a magical eye for nature. This compelling exhibition transports you to vast coniferous forests and the open ocean where humans and animals are close. This style of Pacific Northwest art, with its blocky curved patterns, appears to emulate the black and white markings of one of the region’s ruling creatures, the killer whale. Not only do orcas feature on totem poles along with birds mythic and real, but their “abstract” appearance is reflected in a style that brilliantly stretches and warps reality.

Empowering Art is a radical and satisfying survey of nearly 250 years of Pacific Northwest culture, created in close collaboration with Indigenous artists and scholars, and drawing on Britain’s extensive collections of the art of the Haida, Tlingit, Nuu-chah-nulth and other communities. In 1778 the British explorer James Cook led the first European meeting with these peoples: at that time, writes artist haa’yuups in the catalogue, “virtually every man in each of our villages on the Westcoast could carve a dugout canoe, paddles, dishes and spoons … every man was his own Leonardo”. The power of these popular traditions, already millennia old, can be seen in 18th-century prints of the objects Cook collected: a mask in the shape of an otter’s head proves the later naturalism of masks by Stillthda – which imitate real faces uncannily – was not just an impression of the whites’ art but an Indigenous heritage.

This enthusiastic exhibition seems to me to reveal the way forward for exhibiting world art at a time when some believe the very ownership of “ethnographic” pieces by Britain’s museums is wrong. There are works here from Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the British Museum, the Wellcome and not least Ipswich Borough council: “some gifted, some traded, some stolen”, as haa’yuups writes. There are also contemporary artworks, from a 21st-century totem pole to video installations, that reveal a fiercely, joyously living culture. The show has a historical clarity that doesn’t disguise the violence Indigenous peoples have suffered but goes beyond the restitution debate to open up all the wonder and dreaming and sorrow these objects contain.

The masks alone are enough to inspire whole theories of art – and they have done. Anthropologists like Claude Lévi-Strauss and Franz Boas were fascinated by the complexity and variety of the ritual masks first brought to Europe by Cook. Here you are greeted by a row of them, fantastic faces that subtly mix myth and fact, imagination and observation: by putting on a 19th-century mask of the Thunderbird you could imitate or even become this mythic creature that waters the earth. Alternatively you could don a vividly mimetic Haida mask of a wrinkled old woman, another entrancing piece lent by the Pitt-Rivers Museum. And, in a contemporary take, you can mask as Marlon Brando.

At the heart of the show is the Potlatch, the weightiest collective event of the Pacific Northwest world. Chiefs and powerful people would invite neighbouring villages to a Potlatch feast where everyone took part in a meal served from beautifully carved wooden bowls: there’s one here in the shape of a canoe. At the Potlatch, everyone got a gift, for this was a world rich in material things.

The combs, figurines, model canoes, fighting knives, straw hats and other chunkily lovely artefacts could all have been Potlatch gifts. The gift relationship was binding: the debt conferred power. But it was the very opposite of capitalism, and perhaps that was why it was specifically banned by Canada in 1885. The ban lasted until 1951.

The assault on indigenous culture still scars memories and it sends a chill through the exhibition. A wall-filling photograph of the ruinous hulk of St Michael’s residential school is a measured way of documenting these outrageous institutions: right through the 20th-century Indigenous children were taken from their communities, their hair was cut to symbolise the killing of the “Indian” in them, some were sexually as well as physically abused – and worse, as has been shockingly revealed by recent excavations of mass graves.

Sonny Assu (Ligwilda’xw Kwakwaka’wakw) calmly comments on the horror of it with his 2024 artwork Leila’s Desk: on an old wooden school desk sits a bar of soap, symbolising what actually happened to his grandmother when she was made to wash herself on her first day as school, suddenly made to feel she was a “dirty Indian”.

The final display of contemporary north-west Pacific creativity could seem sentimental in the face of such brutality. But it’s a convincing testimony to the endurance and survival of a rare artistic vision. The patterns and creatures of traditional art are engraved into the skyline of Montreal and projected on to the walls of a room you want to dance in.

These mind-bending designs don’t need to be analysed, only enjoyed and shared. And everything in the show has a universal lesson for us now. For each object here contains the secret of living inside nature, alongside the otter and the whale.

Empowering Art: Indigenous Creativity and Activism from North America’s Northwest Coast is at the Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, from 12 March 2023.

Girl with AI earrings sparks Dutch art controversy

Posted : 2023-03-11 

A visitor takes a picture with his mobile phone of an image designed with artificial intelligence by Berlin-based digital creator Julian van Dieken, inspired by Johannes Vermeer's painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" at the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague, March 9. AFP-Yonhap

At first glance it seems to be just a modern take on Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece "Girl with a Pearl Earring".

But look more closely and things get a little strange.

Firstly, there are two glowing earrings in the image hanging in the Mauritshuis Museum in the Dutch city of The Hague. And aren't those freckles on her face actually... a slightly inhuman shade of red?

That's because the work ― one of several fan recreations replacing the 1665 original while it's on loan for a huge Vermeer show at Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum ― was made using artificial intelligence (AI).

Its presence has sparked a fierce debate, with questions over whether it belongs in the hallowed halls of the Mauritshuis ― and whether it should be classed as art at all.

"It's controversial, so people are for it or against it," Mauritshuis press officer Boris de Munnick told AFP.

"The people who selected this, they liked it, they knew that it was AI, but we liked the creation. So we chose it, and we hung it."

'Frankensteinish'

Berlin-based digital creator Julian van Dieken submitted the image after the Mauritshuis asked people to send in their versions of the famous painting for an installation called "My Girl with a Pearl."

Van Dieken said he had used the AI tool Midjourney ― which can generate complex pictures on the basis of a prompt, using millions of images from the internet ― and Photoshop.

The Mauritshuis then chose it as one of five images out of 3,482 submitted by fans that would be printed and physically hung in the room where "Girl with a Pearl Earring" is normally housed.

"It's surreal to see it in a museum," van Dieken wrote on Instagram.

The budding artists ranged in age from three to 94, depicting the "Girl" in diverse styles ranging from a puppet to a dinosaur and a piece of fruit.

But the decision to choose an AI-generated image sparked a backlash.

Dutch artist Iris Compiet said on the Instagram feed for the Mauritshuis exhibition that it was a "shame and an incredible insult," and dozens of others piled in.

"It's an insult to the legacy of Vermeer and also to any working artist. Coming from a museum, it's a real slap in the face," Compiet told AFP.

She said AI tools breach the copyright of other artists by using their works as the base for artificially generated images, as well as scraping the data of internet users in general.

The image itself she described as "almost Frankensteinish."

Artist Eva Toorenent, of the European Guild for Artificial Intelligence Regulation, criticized what she called the "unethical technology."

"Without the work of human artists, this program could not generate works at all," she was quoted as saying by the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant.



Visitors walk past an advertisement for Johannes Vermeer's painting "Girl with a Pearl Earring" at the entrance of the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague on March 9. AFP-Yonhap

'What is art?'

"It's such a difficult question ― what is art, and what is not art?" said the Mauritshuis's de Munnick.

But he insisted that the museum, whose collection boasts three Vermeers and nearly a dozen Rembrandts, had not deliberately set out to make an artistic statement on AI.

"Our opinion is, we think it's a nice picture, we think it's a creative process," he said. "We're not the museum to discuss if AI belongs in an art museum."

He admitted though that "up close, you see that the freckles are a little spooky."

Visitors to the Mauritshuis were equally divided, he added.

"Younger people tend to say, it's artificial intelligence, what's new.

Elderly people sometimes say we like the more traditional paintings."

The Mauritshuis was looking forward to the return of the real "Girl" in April, he added. The painting's fame has increased in recent years due to a 1999 novel by US author Tracy Chevalier and an ensuing Hollywood film.

"Well, she is beautiful in the (Rijksmuseum) exhibition... But we will be very happy when she is at home." (AFP)

Dutch historian finds medieval treasure using metal detector




Handout image shows 1000-year-old treasure discovered in Hoogwoud

Thu, March 9, 2023 
By Charlotte Van Campenhout

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch historian found a unique 1,000-year-old medieval golden treasure, consisting of four golden ear pendants, two strips of gold leaf and 39 silver coins, the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden) announced on Thursday.

Lorenzo Ruijter, 27, who told Reuters he has been treasure hunting since he was 10, discovered the treasure in 2021 in the small northern city of Hoogwoud, using a metal detector.

"It was very special discovering something this valuable, I can't really describe it. I never expected to discover anything like this", Ruijter said, adding that it was hard to keep it a secret for two years.

But experts of the National Museum of Antiquities needed the time to clean, investigate and date the treasure's objects and have now found that the youngest coin can be dated back to around 1250, which made them assume the treasure was buried then.

By that time the jewellery was already two centuries old, the museum said, adding it must already have been "an expensive and cherished possession".

"Golden jewellery from the High Middle Ages is extremely rare in the Netherlands," the museum also said.

While it will remain a mystery why exactly the treasure was buried, the museum pointed out there was a war raging between Dutch regions West Friesland and Holland in the middle of the 13th century, with Hoogwoud being the epicentre.

Lorenzo said it is possible someone powerful at the time buried the valuable objects as a way to protect them and hopefully dig them up once it was safe again.

Given its archaeological significance, the treasure was given as a loan to the museum which will display it, but it will remain the official property of finder Lorenzo Ruijter.

(Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

Canada immigration: Why record asylum seekers are crossing U.S. border





Asylum seekers cross into Canada from Roxham Road in Champlain New York

Sat, March 11, 2023 
By Anna Mehler Paperny and Ted Hesson

CHAMPLAIN, New York and WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bookseller Zulema Diaz fled her native Peru after being kidnapped, beaten and robbed, hoping to find safety in the United States. Instead, she said she experienced homelessness and sexual harassment as she worked off-the-books on a hospital cleaning crew.

So when Diaz, 46, heard New York City was distributing free bus tickets, she said she hopped on a bus for Plattsburgh, a town close to the Canadian border, then took a taxi to the irregular crossing at Roxham Road to enter Canada and file an asylum claim.

A sharp increase in asylum seekers entering Canada through unofficial crossings -- including many whose bus fares were paid by New York City and aid agencies -- is intensifying the pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reach an agreement with President Joe Biden to close off the entire land border to most asylum seekers.

Canadian immigration minister Sean Fraser discussed irregular migration with U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in Washington, D.C., this week. Trudeau has said he would raise the issue when Biden visits Ottawa on March 23-24.

Many of the arrivals abandoned plans to seek asylum in the United States, deterred by long processing times and restrictive definitions for asylum, according to aid officials and interviews with asylum seekers.

On a snowy day in late February, about three dozen asylum seekers, some wheeling suitcases, others carrying backpacks, trudged along a snow path from New York State to Quebec.

For Diaz, the city's payment of the roughly $150 fare to Plattsburgh offered an extra incentive for a decision she had been weighing for months.

"This presented itself like a miracle," she said. After arriving in the U.S. in June last year, she was given a January 2024 date to appear in U.S. immigration court.

"I felt protected in the United States, it just takes a long time to process the documents."

New York City has been providing bus and plane tickets to homeless people who can demonstrate a source of support in other cities and countries since 2007. Refugee aid groups began offering free bus tickets to migrants in August last year but said they stopped in November for cost reasons. New York City said it began its effort in September.

The office of New York City Mayor Eric Adams would not say how many tickets the city and partnered charity organizations purchased for migrants. Reuters requested comment from mayoral spokespeople Kate Smart and Fabien Levy; the mayor's immigrant affairs office; the Department of Homeless Services, and SLSCO, the contractor that handles the ticket distribution.

Smart said migrants choose their destinations.

"To be clear, New York City has not sent people to anywhere in Canada," Smart said. "We want to help asylum seekers stabilize their lives whether in New York City or elsewhere."

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on processing times in the U.S. asylum system. The Biden administration has called on Congress to overhaul immigration laws.

Almost 40,000 asylum seekers entered Canada through irregular border crossings from the United States last year -- nine times higher than in 2021, when pandemic restrictions were still in place, and more than double the nearly 17,000 who crossed in 2019. Almost 5,000 entered in January alone, according to the most recent figures from the Canadian government.

Canada accepted more than 46% of irregular asylum claims in the 12-month period ending Sept. 30, according to Canadian government data. U.S. immigration courts approved 14% of asylum claims in the same period, according to U.S. government data.

At the end of last year, Canada had more than 70,000 pending refugee claims. The United States had about 788,000 pending asylum cases in U.S. immigration court.

Nigerian, Haitian and Colombian nationals accounted for nearly half of the irregular claims in Canada, according to previously unreported data from the Immigration and Refugee Board.

'PEOPLE ARE DISCOURAGED'

While the Safe Third Country Agreement allows U.S. and Canadian officials to turn back asylum seekers in both directions at formal ports of entry, it does not apply to unofficial crossings like Roxham Road.

A Canadian government official who was not authorized to speak on the record told Reuters the U.S. has little incentive to agree to expand the agreement to the entire 4,000-mile border.

Asylum seekers in the United States wait more than four years on average to appear in immigration court, according to Syracuse University's Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. It takes at least six months after filing a refugee claim to get a work permit, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"People are discouraged with the long, long timeline they have for getting working papers and asylum hearings," said Ilze Thielmann, director of Team TLC NYC, which aids migrants arriving in New York.

In Canada the average processing time for refugee claims was 25 months in the first 10 months of 2022. That’s up from 15 months in 2019, according to the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Raymond Theriault, 47, said he left his home in the Nicaraguan mining town of Bonanza aiming to connect with relatives in Canada, where he said his late father was born.

Theriault said he had struggled to find steady work and that local officials blocked him from opening a small seafood restaurant after he criticized the government.

After crossing into the U.S. at El Paso in November, he visited a daughter in West Virginia entering Canada at Roxham Road last month. In New York City, he paid $140 for a bus ticket to Plattsburgh.

Now at a government-paid hotel in Niagara Falls, he said he is happy with his decision to go to Canada.

"There is more support, they're more humanitarian," he said. "In the United States ... if you die of hunger, that's your problem."

The Quebec government has said the increase in asylum seekers is straining its capacity to house people and provide basic services. The federal government said it has relocated more than 5,500 asylum seekers to other provinces since June, the first time it has done so.

In his downtown Montreal office, refugee lawyer Pierre-Luc Bouchard said he has never been so busy.

"I have limited resources. I can't take everybody," he said. "My staff is getting tired of saying 'No.'"

RISING NUMBERS IN BOTH DIRECTIONS

Irregular crossings into the United States are also increasing.

U.S. Border Patrol said it apprehended more than 2,200 people crossing between ports of entry in the four months since October, nearly as many as in all of fiscal year 2022. The force said it deployed an additional 25 agents to the stretch of border that includes Champlain, New York, where most migrants were apprehended.

Immigration experts said closing off the border to asylum seekers could push migrants to take even riskier routes. Last year an Indian family of four froze to death in Canada's province of Manitoba as they were trying to cross the border into the United States.

"You’re just going to see people making more risky and dangerous choices and we’re going to see more tragedies happen," said University of Ottawa immigration law professor Jamie Chai Yun Liew.

(Reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Champlain, New York and Ted Hesson in Washington; Editing by Denny Thomas and Suzanne Goldenberg)

UK

York: Event to remember the 1190 Jewish massacre in Clifford's Tower


Emily Horner
Fri, 10 March 2023 a

The event will take place at York Castle Museum (Image: Newsquest)

An event to commemorate the 1190 massacre of York's Jewish population is taking place next week.

City of York Council is inviting residents and visitors to the event to mark the anniversary of the massacre, which had occurred at Clifford's Tower.

The mass murder and suicide of 150 people, York's entire Jewish community at the time, took place inside the tower, where they were trapped by rioters.

The Lord Mayor will be attending, and there will be guest speakers from English Heritage and York Interfaith, music and a prayer.

The free event will take place at The Castle Museum on Thursday, March 16, and will run from 6.30pm to 7.30pm.

Read Next: Ghost caught on camera at York Castle Museum

Cllr Darryl Smalley, executive member for culture, leisure and communities, said: "It is important that, as a city, we come together to commemorate the 1190 massacre and reflect on both past and present persecutions.

"By being vigilant in our opposition to hatred, discrimination and oppression – and vigilant in defence of peace, respect and human rights – we can work together to stop division and the spread of hatred in our society."

Sam Borin, Holocaust Memorial Day Steering Committee Chair, said: "This is a chance to reflect not only on events in the past, but on how we can work together to put a stop to division in our society.

"It is vital that we remember those who have lost their lives and take positive action to make a difference and promote peace.”

No booking is required and it is accessible to all.

European leaders must deliver a renovation wave that leaves no one stranded

Laia Segura, Friends of the Earth Europe and Javier Tobías, ECODES
Fri, 10 March 2023 


Even before the energy crisis struck, 50 million people across the European Union were living in energy poverty, unable to adequately light, heat or cool their homes, choosing between heating and eating.

Renovating the EU's worst-performing homes, those that waste the highest quantity of energy — and often housing the most vulnerable families — will help tackle housing exclusion and improve living conditions.

Fixing Europe’s housing is key to eradicating energy poverty.

With 75% of Europe’s buildings deemed inefficient and 40% of our energy consumption taken by our homes, it seems obvious that housing renovations should be a priority for the bloc's leaders.
This year is crucial to the well-being of millions

With the revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive or EPBD coming to an end, 2023 could be a watershed moment for the well-being of millions of citizens.

Europeans cannot afford to let valuable heat escape in the winter or let it creep in during summer.

Europe's energy crisis: European nations scramble to help households with soaring bills


Why energy poverty is rising among low-income households in the EU

High indoor temperatures can be even more harmful, causing increased mortality rates during heat waves.

Jordanka Dimitrichkova who lives alone at her home in a suburb of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, brings in wood for her wood-burning stove, January 2009 - Petar Petrov/AP

Indecent housing leads to dampness, which can cause respiratory health issues, and cold living environments can worsen cardiovascular diseases.

Carbon monoxide poisoning and other intoxications go hand in hand with outdated temperature control methods using wood and coal, and/or fossil fuels.

Still, high indoor temperatures can be even more harmful, causing increased mortality rates during heat waves.
No one should be made to live in inadequate housing

The EPBD has the potential to offer a long-term solution to address energy poverty and improve living conditions for millions of Europeans.

This opportunity must be seized by prioritising the renovation of worst performing homes of vulnerable households and ensuring no one is locked into inefficient homes with dirty and outdated heating and cooling technologies.

"MEPS need to be implemented ... to ensure the renovations benefit those who need them the most and don’t leave them stranded.

Elma Avdic, 4, peers from the window of her old family house near the Bosnian town of Kalesija, 130 kms north of Sarajevo, February 2012 - Amel Emric/AP

Housing renovation incentives have been offered for decades, yet renovation rates are far below what is needed, particularly when considering the number of households faced with energy poverty.

Regulatory measures, including Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) throughout the residential sector, binding standards on indoor air quality and phasing out fossil fuels, are all necessary parts of the push.

To ensure the EPBD covers vulnerable families, MEPS need to be implemented alongside strong social safeguards and adequate outreach and funding programs to ensure the renovations benefit those who need them the most and don’t leave them stranded.
Energy efficiency and comfort for all

MEPS require buildings to meet a minimum energy efficiency standard within a certain period, giving them the potential to boost renovations in Europe’s most draughty and leaky buildings.

However, amongst the positive proposals within the EPBD, catastrophic exclusions are creeping in.

Households across Europe struggle to pay bills as cost of living crisis bites

How are EU households and businesses coping with the energy crisis?

Negotiators have proposed a range of exemptions that will exclude some households from receiving renovations, meaning some of the people who need them most will see their dreams go up in thin air.

Allowing member states to be selective and exclude large percentages of the worst-performing buildings from the renovation plans drastically limits the directive's ability to lift millions out of energy poverty.

Homes that have so far been ignored in renovation efforts will continue to be left out.

A key question EU decision-makers need to address when considering each and every single exemption is who is the renovation wave for and who is being excluded?

The European Council President Charles Michel and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen speak at the end of an EU Summit in Prague, October 2022 - AP Photo/Darko Bandic

A key question EU decision-makers need to address when considering each and every single exemption is who is the renovation wave for and who is being excluded?

Overlooking MEPS for residential buildings means overlooking the EPBD’s potential to tackle some of the structural inequalities of our housing system.

To actually protect the energy poor, provide decent housing for all and be a way out of the energy crisis, the EPBD needs MEPS for residential buildings with stronger social safeguards.

Fossil fuels for no one

The energy crisis has shown us how exposed we are to the fossil fuel industry's volatile prices.

It’s time to stop lining the fossil fuel industry's pockets and start protecting ourselves by accelerating the energy transition, strengthening citizen engagement in the energy system and fully decarbonising our homes.

Fossil fuel-based heating will become more expensive as infrastructure costs will be carried by a smaller number of homes, price volatility increases and the application of carbon taxations to households.

An employee of the company EngelSolar holds a solar panel in Boadilla del Monte near Madrid, December 2022 - JAVIER SORIANO/AFP or licensors

Renewable heating and cooling solutions on the market are numerous and are becoming increasingly affordable, offering comfortable home temperatures no matter the climate.

We need an EPBD that delivers these solutions into our homes by creating a policy framework that helps EU Member States rapidly scale up programmes that let households take advantage of energy savings and renewables.

Fossil fuel-based heating will become more expensive as infrastructure costs will be carried by a smaller number of homes, price volatility increases and the application of carbon taxations to households.
We need to lift millions out of energy poverty — and EPBD can do that

Opening the door to maintaining heating systems that use gas, with the excuse of alternatives like "renewables-ready" systems, including hydrogen, will not serve vulnerable or low-income households.

It will leave them locked into using expensive, dirty, and dangerous fossil fuels, which won’t offer cheaper bills.

EU's green renovations proposal 'lacking ambition', says environmental lobby

A Berlin resident cooks dinner on a gas stove in the German capital in 2009 - JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP

To lift millions of people out of energy poverty, we need ambitious MEPS standards with strong social safeguards and a decarbonised heating and cooling system for all.

We need an EPBD that unleashes its full potential to help solve the housing and climate crisis.

Laia Segura from Friends of the Earth Europe and Javier Tobías from ECODES are part of the Right to Energy coalition, representing one of Europe’s largest groups fighting to eradicate energy poverty, bringing together trade unions, anti-poverty groups, social housing providers, NGOs, environmental campaigners, health organisations and energy cooperatives across Europe.

KASHMIR IS INDIA'S GAZA
Indian minister accuses New York Times of ‘spreading lies’ after damning report on Kashmir


Arpan Rai
Fri, 10 March 2023 

India’s minister of information and broadcasting Anurag Thakur (L) and national security advisor Ajit Doval at the Hyderabad House in New Delhi (AFP via Getty Images)

An Indian minister launched a sharp retort at The New York Times (NYT) for publishing a news report on the alleged arming of civilians in the contentious territory of Kashmir over which the Narendra Modi administration exercises control.

The report “India is arming villagers in one of Earth’s most militarised places” detailed the alleged revival of local militias in Jammu territory in the years since Kashmir’s special status was abrogated. It accused the government of displaying a military approach to tackle the conflict in the Himalayan part controlled by India.

Anurag Thakur, the federal minister of information and broadcast under the Modi administration, accused the US daily of “spreading lies” about India and nourishing a grudge against the country’s prime minister.


“The New York Times had long back dropped all pretensions of neutrality while publishing anything about India. NYT’s so called opinion piece on freedom of press in Kashmir is mischievous and fictitious published w/ [with] a sole motive to spread a propaganda about India and its democratic institutions and values,” the minister tweeted.

He added that this was “in continuation with what NYT and a few other link-minded foreign media have been spreading lies” about India and its democratically elected prime minister Narendra Modi.

“Some foreign media nourishing a grudge against India and our prime minister Shri Narendra Modi have long been systematically trying to peddle lies about our democracy and pleuritic society,” Mr Thakur said without elaborating about the nature of these lies.

“Freedom of press in India is as sacrosanct as other fundamental rights,” the minister said.

He said “Indians will not allow such mindsets to run their decisive agenda on India soil”.

India ranked 150 among 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index in 2022. The nation tumbled from its previously held spot of 133 in 2016 in the index released by the global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.

In the news report published on Wednesday, The New York Times featured the Dhangri village where ordinary civilian men working as drivers, shopkeepers, and farmers have allegedly been handed arms at night to keep guard as local militia in the face of rising deadly militant attacks on Hindu families.

The federal Indian territory of Jammu and Kashmir has remained a flashpoint amid controversial claims of land control by Pakistan and been a fertile ground for tensions springing due to terrorism and religious discord between the Hindu and Muslim population.

Tensions have further heightened in the Himalayan area due to rising local militant crossfires and rising attacks elsewhere in the country on minority communities.

The report noted that the continuing attacks on civilians have sparked questions about the government’s military approach to a “fundamentally a political problem in Kashmir”.

Plastic pollution in oceans has reached 'unprecedented' levels in 15 years


NEWS WIRES
Fri, 10 March 2023 

© Olivier Morin, AFP

Plastic pollution in the world's oceans has reached "unprecedented levels" over the past 15 years, a new study has found, calling for a legally binding international treaty to stop the harmful waste.

Ocean plastic pollution is a persistent problem around the globe -- animals may become entangled in larger pieces of plastic like fishing nets, or ingest microplastics that eventually enter the food chain to be consumed by humans.

Research published on Wednesday found that there are an estimated 170 trillion pieces of plastic, mainly microplastics, on the surface of the world's oceans today, much of it discarded since 2005.

"Plastic pollution in the world's oceans during the past 15 years has reached unprecedented levels," said the study, published in open-access journal PLOS One.

The amounts were higher than previous estimates, and the study found that the rate of plastic entering the oceans could accelerate several-fold in the coming decades if left unchecked.

Researchers took plastic samples from over 11,000 stations around the world focusing on a 40-year period between 1979 and 2019.

They found no trends until 1990, then a fluctuation in trends between 1990 and 2005. After that, the samples skyrocket.

"We see a really rapid increase since 2005 because there is a rapid increase in production and also a limited number of policies that are controlling the release of plastic into the ocean," contributing author Lisa Erdle told AFP.

The sources of plastic pollution in the ocean are numerous.

In 1950, only two million tonnes of plastic were produced worldwide.

(AFP)

Judy Heumann obituary

American disability rights activist


David Brindle
Fri, 10 March 2023 

The leading US disability rights advocate Judy Heumann, who has died aged 75, fought for her own and others’ emancipation, and blazed a trail for fellow campaigners around the world.

Espousing both direct action and working with and inside government, she played a decisive role in securing legislation outlawing discrimination against disabled people across the US and helping shape international protocols. She served the Clinton and Obama administrations and became the first adviser on disability and development at the World Bank.

The British crossbench peer and disability rights campaigner Jane Campbell described Heumann as “[the] greatest woman disability rights activist/leader who inspired me to become what I am today. She gave everything to our worldwide civil rights movement.”

Heumann’s own disability was caused by childhood polio, which left her unable to walk. The local nursery school refused to admit her on the grounds that she and her wheelchair would be a fire hazard. Her parents fought to ensure she was educated and did not miss out on mainstream activities, and a formative experience was attending Camp Jened, a pioneering summer camp for disabled children and young people in Hunter, New York, later made famous by a 2020 documentary film, Crip Camp, in which she featured.

She first came to prominence in 1970, when she sued the New York City board of education for denying her a teaching licence because of her “paralysis of both lower extremities”, which, the board said, might prevent her escorting students out of school in case of an emergency. She won her case, stating that if the school did not have a ramp or a lift, she could teach on the ground floor, and in any case she could move faster than a pedestrian in an electric wheelchair. She won the suit, and became the city’s first teacher in a wheelchair.

Two years later she was one of a group of disabled people who blocked traffic in Manhattan in protest at President Richard Nixon’s initial veto of anti-discrimination legislation. And, in 1977, she helped lead a 26-day occupation of a federal government building in San Francisco – the celebrated “504 Sit-in” – as part of nationwide action that forced the Carter administration to sign the section 504 regulations that finally enacted the same legislation, ultimately providing the basis of the widely respected 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act.

Judy Heumann attending the 2022 Women's Entrepreneurship Day organisation summit at the UN in New York in May 2022. Photograph: Chance Yeh/Getty Images

Those 1970s protests are seen now as a watershed, the first in which disabled people with impairments of all kinds joined forces. When the authorities cut power, water and landline phones to try to end the San Francisco standoff, deaf people among the occupiers maintained contact with supporters outside by using sign language.

In 1975 Heumann was on the west coast, after gaining a master’s in public health at the University of California, Berkeley. There, she co-founded with other disabled students the celebrated Berkeley Center for Independent Living, which she served as deputy director until 1982. The centre occupies a special place in the history of disability rights, leading as it did to the establishment of more than 400 others in the US alone and inspiring disabled visitors from other countries, including the UK, to fight for supported independent living as a proven alternative to residential homes.

John Evans, who was in one of the first groups of disabled people in the UK to leave residential care for their own home in the early 80s, visited Berkeley to prepare for the transition. He later recalled: “Everything I dreamed of, everything I thought of, was going on in front of my eyes.”

In 1983, Heumann co-founded the World Institute on Disability in Berkeley, serving as co-director until 1993, when she moved to Washington DC to work for President Bill Clinton on special education and rehabilitation services for disabled people.

She left government with Clinton, going to the World Bank (2002-06), but returned in 2010 under Barack Obama as special adviser on international disability rights and director of the department of disability services.

It was to her profound and lasting disappointment that, owing largely to Republican resistance to external influence on domestic policy, Obama failed to win sufficient backing in Congress to ratify the 2008 UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, which she helped draft. Today, the US remains one of just a handful of UN affiliates not to have done so.

Born in Philadelphia but brought up in Brooklyn, New York, Judy had two younger brothers. Her father, Werner, who ran a butcher’s shop, and mother, Ilse, who was active in community groups, had been sent separately from Nazi Germany in the 1930s by their Jewish parents, who all later died in the Holocaust. She thought this experience was why her own parents, especially her mother, fought tenaciously to prevent her being separated from them and placed in institutional care.

She contracted polio at 18 months and spent three months in an iron lung. She had to be home educated until she was nine, when her mother eventually won her full admission to school. Yet even then she and other disabled students had to take lessons in a basement and were able to mix with the wider school community only at a weekly assembly.

She attended a special high school, then Long Island University, graduating with a BA in speech and theatre in 1969.

In her memoir, Being Heumann (2020), she reflected: “Some people say that what I did changed the world. But really, I simply refused to accept what I was told about who I could be. And I was willing to make a fuss about it.”

Heumann is survived by her husband, Jorge Pineda, an accountant and fellow wheelchair user who she met at an activist meeting and married in 1992, and her brothers, Ricky and Joseph.

• Judith Ellen Heumann, disability rights campaigner, born 18 December 1947; died 4 March 2023

Spain's coalition government strikes deal on pensions, shifting cost to high earners

Belén Carreño
Fri, 10 March 2023

 A pensioner looks at the street from her balcony in Barcelona

By Belén Carreño

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Socialists and their junior coalition partners Unidas Podemos have struck a deal on changes to the pension system that will put most of the additional cost on its highest earners, government sources said.

The overhaul is a key requirement by Brussels for Spain to access a fourth tranche of European post-pandemic recovery funds and has caused dispute within the coalition government as it seeks to hike revenue without penalising future pensioners.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the proposals would provide stability for a pension system under pressure with one of Europe's largest ageing populations.

Revenues will increase by 15 billion euros ($16 billion) a year, representing a rise of three percentage points of gross domestic product by 2050 and reducing to 15.5% of GDP the burden of pension payments on the budget.

A government source told Reuters that Madrid had received positive preliminary feedback from the European Commission about the proposal. A Commission spokesperson said they had been informed but that official opinion would not come for some months.

Other countries in Europe are also changing their pension systems. Fierce, cross-sectoral protests have raged in France in recent weeks over plans to cut benefits or extend the retirement age for pensioners by two years to 64.

Spain carried out a major pension reform in 2011 when it raised its retirement age to 67 but that proved insufficient to offset the high costs of the system, which has come under pressure from measures such as the raising of pension payouts in line with inflation.

'ENDANGERING JOB CREATION'

The government plans to press ahead in spite of opposition to the proposal by Spain's main business association, the CEOE.

The reform "will reduce the wages of all workers and increase labour costs, endangering job creation," CEOE said in an emailed statement.

A so-called "solidarity tax" will remove tax exemptions from social contributions for high earners, from salaries above 54,000 euros a year. The new tax, paid by earners' employers, will start at 1% in 2025, rising to 6% by 2045.

The government also plans to double from 0.6% a recently-introduced social contribution known as the "Mechanism of Intergenerational Equity" designed to generate further revenue.

Total labour costs for companies paying the highest salaries will increase by seven percentage points, in line with the European average, government sources said.

Although the government does not have a parliamentary majority, other left-wing parties are expected to support the reform if it is backed by unions, which said in a statement that they saw it "positively".

The government is proposing to raise the minimum number of years of contribution to 29 years from 25 years, a key aspect of the reform required for Brussels' approval. However, it is offering to make the increase voluntary until 2044, to facilitate an agreement from unions.

($1 = 0.9383 euros)

(Reporting by Belén Carreño; Writing by Charlie Devereux; Editing by Aislinn Laing and Angus MacSwan)