Travellers face ‘utter chaos’ after e-gates go down across all UK airport

Sam CorbishleySaturday 27 May 2023 

Passengers waited hours to have their passports checked manually (Picture: Alamy Live News)

Travellers arriving in the UK for the bank holiday weekend and half term break faced ‘scenes of utter chaos’ after a huge glitch caused electronic passport gates to fail nationwide.

The problems meant arrivals at airports including Heathrow and Gatwick had to spend hours waiting to have their documents checked by hand.

It comes as millions are expected to take to the roads and public transport this weekend.

One traveller arriving at Heathrow posted on Twitter: ‘Just landed to scenes of utter chaos. 2 hour queues just to get to the real queue. Gates broken.’

Another passenger at Gatwick described the situation as an ‘utter joke’.

A Gatwick Airport spokesman said the problem started on Friday evening but queues had eased on Saturday morning.

He said: ‘Some passengers may experience delays at immigration due to a nationwide issue with UK Border Force e-gates.

‘Our staff are working with UK Border Force – who operate passport control including the e-gates – to provide assistance to passengers where necessary.’

Holidaymakers queue for check-in at Manchester Airport (Picture: Ioannis Alexopoulos/LNP)

Heathrow Terminal 5 was mobbed with travellers (Picture: Alamy Live News)

Heathrow Airport posted on Twitter: ‘We are aware of a nationwide issue impacting the eGates, which are operated by Border Force.

‘This issue is impacting a number of ports of entry and is not Heathrow specific. Our teams are working closely with Border Force to help resolve the problem as quickly as possible and we have additional colleagues on hand to manage queues and provide passenger welfare.

‘We apologise for any impact this is having to passenger journeys.’

A Home Office spokeswoman said that the Border Force had put in place ‘robust plans’ to deploy officers to minimise disruption and wait times.

The automated e-gate system is available for British citizens aged over 12 and those from the EU, as well as people from several other countries including Australia, Canada, the US, Japan and New Zealand.

Passengers at London's Heathrow Airport Terminal 2 (Picture: Marcin Nowak/LNP)

The spokeswoman said: ‘We are aware of a nationwide border system issue affecting arrivals into the UK.

‘We are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible and are liaising with port operators and airlines to minimise disruption for travellers.’

The problems come after British Airways had to cancel 175 flights following an IT failure on Thursday and Friday.

Meanwhile, long queues have been experienced at Dover which has also experienced IT problems.

Passengers queue for ferries at the Port of Dover in Kent as the getaway for half term and the bank holiday weekend continues (Picture: PA)

The Port of Dover posted on Twitter: ‘Thank you for your patience as we catch up from earlier IT issues at border control, which have been resolved.

‘Traffic now processing well through border. Average waiting times for cars and coaches now 90 mins.’

The RAC estimated that drivers across the UK will embark on 19.2 million leisure car trips between Friday and Monday making it the busiest late May bank holiday since 2019.

Transport data company Inrix warned that journeys on some stretches of the M25 will take up to three times longer than normal.

They include clockwise from Junction 23 for Hatfield to Junction 28 for Chelmsford, and anticlockwise towards the Dartford Crossing.

Long delays are also expected on the M5 in Somerset and the M6 in Cheshire and Greater Manchester.

In the silence ahead of Women's World Cup, Canada Soccer continues to fail women's national team

Story by Shireen Ahmed • CBC

Yesterday

Canadian soccer team's Ashley Lawrence's pending transfer to Chelsea is the only news to emerge about this team in more than a month.© Cole Burstyn/Canadian Press

We are less than 60 days away from the FIFA Women's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, the biggest women's soccer tournament in the world.

But for all the hype and excitement that should be spreading from one coast to the other, the Canadian women's national team has been unusually quiet. The team has no home games before they go, and the only thing on the Canada Soccer social media account is the announcement of their first World Cup match against Nigeria on Thursday, July 20 in Melbourne.

No hoopla, no fanfare, no montages leading up to the World Cup. Nothing.

The only news I have seen of late is world-class Canadian defender Ashley Lawrence making a move (yet to be confirmed) from her current pro team, Paris Saint-Germain of French Division 1, to Chelsea of the Super League in the U.K.

Lawrence has been in France for more than seven years. The talented fullback said about what drew her to Europe: "The way we experience football here, how we play it. And it was an environment in which I wanted to evolve."

Lawrence has played with Paris St.Germain, won the league title in France and been lauded as one of the most dangerous players on the pitch. Her ability to pivot from defending to creating plays makes her unique and critical for Canada's squad.

This is a lot of excitement for Canadian women's soccer fans because it puts her on the same squad as national teammates Jessie Fleming and Kadeisha Buchanan — a trio that is extremely impressive. In 2021, both Fleming and Lawrence were nominated for the Ballon d'Or Feminin, the most prestigious award in soccer.

But this is the only player news we've heard lately and on a squad so talented, we should be hearing more about the team.

The only recent news surrounding the women's team that reached international press was for their fight against Canada Soccer, struggling for equity and equal pay, and testifying in front of the Heritage Committee in Ottawa. It was hardly the lead-up to the World Cup that this team deserves.

I spoke with former national team player and Canadian Soccer Hall of Famer Amy Walsh, who is now part of the soccer development team at CF Montreal of Major League Soccer. Walsh noted that the fanfare Canada's men team received leading up to the 2022 Men's World Cup in Qatar stood in "stark contrast to what women's soccer has been offered."

Before the Canadian men's long-awaited return to the World Cup, there was a documentary that was dropped on YouTube by Canada Soccer and a lot of press — something I can confirm because I was interviewed multiple times on this topic.

Walsh said the responsibility to amplify the team will likely fall on the athletes themselves instead of being fully supported publicly.

"In order to champion equality, you can't just talk about a proposed historic CBA. If you can't offer equity on a daily basis — and I'm not talking about the pay dispute in the background — you're hurting soccer," Walsh said of Canada Soccer's efforts to promote the team.

The lack of a send-off game is appalling to me. I remember when the Canadian women played Mexico ahead of the 2019 World Cup in France. I was covering that match and my daughter was in the stands with her girls soccer team. The excitement was palpable and the fans were screaming and cheering for their "sheroes" in the sold-out BMO Field in Toronto.

My then-17 year-old daughter waited for me as I interviewed players after the game. She is a goalkeeper who plays in Ontario's League1. She is naturally tenacious. But at that moment she was starstruck. In front of her was Steph Labbé.

My daughter chattered all the way home about meeting her goalkeeping idol. We both will never forget that interaction and although the players meet hundreds of fans, these moments empower their supporters. My child was so motivated and inspired to continue to play.

Seeing women play at home builds up a pride that cannot be understated. Taking that power away from fans is almost cruel. No other kids will get that opportunity to see them play at home. Their most recent game came in April, a 2-1 loss to France in Le Mans.

The players seeing the fans and feeling their exuberance is part of preparation for play. They are about to face extremely talented European teams in an expanded tournament. Any support is not only required but very important. To not receive this from their own federation continues to be mind-boggling.

There were some discussions about "squeezing in" a home game before the women leave for Australia. Walsh said that a sendoff game may seem "meaningless," but it truly matters to players who have been public about how much that attention is appreciated.

There are movements and intentions to try to reconnect and unite all teams under the Canadian soccer banner in the long term. But any help for the women's team this close to the World Cup seems impossible.

While there are initiatives and campaigns on the horizon from individual players, the undercurrent of support for the whole team is too quiet. There should be emphatic support.

Canada Soccer should be working overtime to compensate for the lack of public attention and that means connecting with players or personnel and creating opportunities for stories and for amplification.

Right now the field seems eerily quiet. This team is beloved to their fans. With all the momentum around women's sport in Canada and the proposed Canadian soccer league given a "go," support for this squad should be blaring out from all media fronts and pushed by Canada Soccer.

The team that has advocated for these pathways and for a sustainable future of women's soccer in Canada should get the highest level of support possible. I would like to think of possible support for the women's team as a classic music piece that leads up to a crescendo just before the tournament begins on July 20.

Right now it feels like nothing has been composed and other than a few bars the theatre is too quiet.

Canadians Fleming, Buchanan help Chelsea to 4th straight Women's Super League title

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Australia captain Sam Kerr paces attack with 2 goals

The Associated Press · Posted: May 27, 2023

Having beaten Manchester United in the FA Cup final this month, Chelsea eased past Reading 3-0 on Saturday for its fourth consecutive Women's Super League title. (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

Chelsea secured its fourth straight Women's Super League by beating Reading 3-0 on Saturday to wrap up the double in style.

Having beaten Manchester United in the FA Cup final this month, Chelsea eased past Reading with goals from Guro Reiten and a Sam Kerr double.

Jessie Fleming entered the game in the 85th minute for Chelsea with fellow Canadian international Kadeisha Buchanan watching from the bench.

The Blues' recent dominance shone through as their hosts failed to deal with the attacking talent of Emma Hayes' side, which finished the season on a seven-game league winning run.

The breakthrough came in the 18th minute through Kerr, who picked up a pocket of space inside the box before heading Reiten's cross past goalkeeper Grace Moloney to make it 1-0.

Reiten added the second after 42 minutes when she pounced on a loose ball in the Reading backline to go one-on-one with Moloney before producing a composed finish.

• Canadians Fleming, Buchanan win Women's FA Cup with Chelsea before world record crowd

• Kadeisha Buchanan in walking boot for Chelsea loss to Barcelona in Champions League semi

Chelsea enjoyed long periods of possession after the break and Kerr's efforts paid off in the 88th minute. The Australia captain was slipped through on goal and her first effort came back off the post but she was first to react to claim a simple tap-in and round off the victory.

Win not enough for Manchester United

Manchester United was once again grateful for substitute Lucia Garcia but its bid for the WSL title narrowly fell short.

Garcia came off the bench to score a late winner against Manchester City last weekend and ensure the title race went to the last day of the season, where United needed to beat Liverpool and hope Chelsea slipped up.

The first part was accomplished as Garcia's 72nd-minute strike secured a 1-0 win for United at Prenton Park, it wasn't enough. Canadian international Jayde Riviere was on the United bench.

Chelsea (19-2-1, 58 points) finished two points ahead of Manchester United (18-2-2, 56 points).

A Racist Exhibition Mars Milan Design Week

Story by Camille Okhio • May 27,2023
ELLE DECOR

A collection of 1920s Murano glass figurines hit every racist trope—and provoked outrage.

© Simone Simone - Getty Images

For the last three years, dialogue surrounding race has been encouraged within the design world by the largely white architects, designers, curators, and editors that have held its keys. Rarely, though, are we asked what the end goal of this dialogue is. Is it for white people to understand the crushing effects of casual racism? Or to understand why racist tropes and practices should be eradicated from Western design? Is the end goal to make life and work easier for Black designers, editors, and architects? If so, that end goal is nowhere near being met, though the effects of racism are quite obvious.

This year during Milan Design Week, Italian curator Federica Sala presented a group show called Campo Base, described as a “manifesto for interiors” and comprising six discrete pavilions, each designed and produced by a different Italy-based architect. The press release states that the spaces are intended to offer “visitors a moment of respite, reflection, and calmness.” The presentation was held in a cavernous venue, divided by curtains and made atmospheric by sound emitting from hidden speakers, inviting visitors to experience a sense of “domestic intimacy” in a pseudo-public space. Several pavilions were thoughtful, considered, and even beautiful. One was not.

In Italian architect Massimo Adario’s room, Murano glass figurines produced in the 1920s and depicting racist caricatures of Black, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Indigenous people as subhuman were placed on display in an incongruously chic vitrine, with no readily accessible context. Like editor Grace Coddington’s Mammy cookie jars, they were presented as neutral—even fun—objects. The press release reads: “Massimo Adario interpreted the concept of intimacy in a room called “Il Collezionista” (The Collector), an abstract yet cozy setting where the weather unfolds among a selection of objects that mirror the personality of the collector.” The objects on view are part of Adario’s own personal collection, here presented as the cherished objects of a fictional collector.

Predictably, given its scale and the prominence of the designers and curator involved, the Campo Base show was given a spotlight in press about Milan Design Week. The only people to call it out as offensive were Jenny Nguyen, an Asian-Australian woman, of Hello Human; designer Stephen Burks, a Black American man and founder of industrial design studio Stephen Burks Man Made whose work has appeared in ELLE DECOR (most recently in our October 2022 print issue); and the curators behind Anava Projects. Their joint Instagram post attracted immediate attention.

“Federica and I have been friends for nearly 15 years,” says Burks, who says he demanded an explanation immediately after seeing her presentation. “You see a European architect making a literal cage to contain the historical racist objects of the past, presenting them in 2023 as if they still have relevance. It’s really a question of how homogenous cultures like Italy marginalize people of non-European descent, how they have done that historically [see Blackamoors], and how they continue to today,” Burks says.

The curator, Sala, has in her defense said that one of the figurines was from the Caucasus. “We didn’t perceive these pieces on a global scale and that is our mistake,” she said in a statement. “It is our intent to listen and learn from this experience as our objective was not to create division or conflict.” A global understanding isn’t necessary to reckon with racism—Sala could have looked at Italy’s own history of colonialism.

Adario, the architect, has responded to criticism with a call for—you guessed it—dialogue. “I am not racist. I hate racism. This affair and the false accusations made against me are especially troublesome and difficult for me because they convey an image of me that is totally, diametrically opposite to who I am,” he wrote in a statement sent to ELLE DECOR. “Again, I am deeply sorry that this project has hurt the sensitivities of communities from other countries and other cultures, surely including some also here in Italy. That was absolutely not my intention.” This statement, in some ways, displays an even deeper disdain for people of color than his installation did.

He also states that he embraces “the opportunity to learn from my mistake.” But why, I wonder, was the “mistake” made in the first place? The design world is international and for the most part well informed. We all have access to data and history, the internet, and networks of collaborators and colleagues abroad, with craftspeople of color often producing the designs we see on the covers of magazines.

There are think pieces written about and research centered on racism in the decorative arts, including sources here at ELLE DECOR. What, truly, is the likelihood that Adario has never seen a critique of blackface or a #stopasianhate hashtag? I would posit it’s highly unlikely. So then we must consider what was behind his choice. His portion of Campo Base was entitled “The Collector,” and every collector collects what delights them. So it follows that these demeaning characterizations of people of color are in some way delightful to Adario.

In his statement, Adario said: “Our artistic heritage has such historical depth and breadth, which fortunately helps us to give context and not to judge only with the eyes of the present moment,” but no context was presented along with the figurines, nor was context provided afterward.

“When I first saw Adario’s installation I immediately went to look for any text explaining why these were being shown,” says Nguyen, one of the first to flag the exhibition on social media. “All I could find was a statement that mentioned the objects were from the 1920s and it was a fictional collector’s case. They were also called ‘ironic,’ which I still struggle to understand.”

Adario suggested, after receiving criticism for his display, that “racism is not fought by destroying works of art.” Nowhere do Burks or Nguyen suggest the offending objects be destroyed. Adario’s response here indicates an unwillingness to engage in the actual conversation being had, besides the overall tone deafness of a white man suggesting he knows best how racism is fought, after stoking its fires himself.

“The notion that we, the insulted, should have to explain to the people who are insulting us is in itself even more insulting,” Burks says. Still, clear explanations were offered and instead of genuinely listening, Adario asks to be reasoned with further and given the benefit of the doubt, which begs the question, Why are Black, Brown, and Asian people required to endlessly defend and explain their humanity with patience and eloquence, when no results or change are being proffered by their white counterparts?

“It’s a very vulnerable position Stephen and I have put ourselves in,” says Nguyen, speaking to how sensitive and exhausting raising this issue has been. Many other editors of color were reluctant to speak or write publicly about the exhibition. I wonder who or what they were afraid of? And I wonder when we will move past dialogue to more concrete change. So far, our discussions as a field have proven an endless cycle of emotional labor, and so again I wonder, to what end?

‘Murderers’ and ‘criminals’: Meteorologists face unprecedented harassment from conspiracy theorists

Story by Laura Paddison • CNN


“Murderers.” “Criminals.” “We are watching you.”

These are just a handful of the threats and abuse sent to meteorologists at AEMET, Spain’s national weather agency, in recent months. They come via social media, its website, letters, phone calls – even in the form of graffiti sprayed across one of its buildings.

Abuse and harassment “have always happened” against the agency’s scientists, Estrella Gutiérrez-Marco, spokesperson for AEMET, told CNN.

But there has been a rapid rise recently, coinciding with extreme weather in Spain. A severe drought has shrunk water levels to alarming lows, exacerbated by record-breaking April temperatures.

The abuse got so bad that in April, AEMET posted a video on Twitter calling for an end to the harassment, and asking for respect. Even the government intervened. Teresa Ribera, Spain’s minister for the ecological transition, posted on Twitter in support of the agency: “Lying, giving wings to conspiracy and fear, insulting … It is time to say enough.”

The harassment of meteorologists by conspiracy theorists and climate deniers is not a phenomenon confined to Spain.

National weather services, meteorologists and climate communicators in countries from the US to Australia say they’re experiencing an increase in threats and abuse, often around accusations they are overstating, lying about or even controlling the weather.


Usually submerged ruins of the former village of Aceredo, appearing from the Lindoso hydroelectric plant reservoir due to the low water level, near Lobios, northwestern Spain, on February 15, 2022. - Cermelo Alen/AFP/Getty Images

In Spain’s case, much of the trolling revolves around the rehashing of an old conspiracy theory: so-called “chemtrails.”

Under many of the agency’s Twitter posts, especially those that refer to more extreme weather, users have posted images of blue skies, crisscrossed with wispy, white trails. They falsely claim the trails contain a cocktail of chemicals to artificially manipulate the weather – keeping rain away and causing climate change.

It’s a theory roundly rejected by scientists.

Airplanes do release vapor trails called contrails, short for condensation trails, which form when water vapor condenses into ice crystals around the small particles emitted by jet engines.

But scientists have been clear: There is no evidence “chemtrails” exist.

‘One of the hardest experiences’

In April, meteorologist Isabel Moreno wrote a tweet saying “rain skips Spain,” with an image of a band of rain stretching across Europe but missing Spain almost entirely. She was completely unprepared for the response.

“It was one of the hardest experiences in social media in my life,” said Moreno, who appears on the Spanish TV channel RTVE. “I received HUNDREDS of responses to an (apparently) inoffensive tweet,” she told CNN in an email.

Many accused her of covering up weather manipulation.

“Do not take us for idiots,” said one. “They dry us up, and you are the spokesperson for those who do it,” said another. And on, and on.

While there were plenty of supportive messages, too, it was scary, Moreno said. “I have never seen either that amount of responses nor that level of aggression.” It took days for her to be able to go onto Twitter again without feeling anxious or stressed.

This phenomenon may be particularly pronounced in Spain, but it spreads much wider.

In France, meteorologists have been accused of exaggerating the country’s drought and heat.

Météo France, the French national meteorological service, said the agency’s communications are “the object of more and more repeated attacks,” a Météo France spokesman told CNN.

Climate misinformation on social media is particularly widespread, he said. It “seems to be on the rise, both in terms of the number of attacks directed against scientific publications but also the increasingly aggressive tone of the insults.”

In Australia, the Bureau of Meteorology has been bombarded with criticism of its reporting of temperature records, with claims they have been inflated to make climate change seem worse. A spokeswoman for BOM called these claims inaccurate. “The Bureau transparently reports on and provides access to its very large climate data records,” she said.


And in the UK, meteorologists reported unprecedented levels of online harassment during last year’s record-breaking heat wave, which led to the first-ever “red warning” for heat.

“As scientists communicated this information, they were accused of instigating a nanny state hysteria,” Liz Bentley, the chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, told CNN.

The Met Office was even accused of changing the color palette of its maps to make them look more dramatic. “We hadn’t, it was just really hot,” Oliver Claydon, a communications officer at the Met Office, told CNN.

Firefighters contain a wildfire on July 20, 2022, in Sheffield, England. Multiple fires broke out across the UK during a record-breaking heatwave.

- Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

US meteorologists and climate communicators have not escaped the barrage of abuse and conspiracies.

“Whenever I posted about global topics, like the yearly temperature report, the comments section would be filled with political jabs and conspiracy theories,” said Elisa Raffa, a broadcast meteorologist with Queen City News, based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

As a woman in the media, she more often receives comments about her appearance than the science she’s communicating, she told CNN.

Jennifer Francis, a senior scientist at Woodwell Climate Research Center, said she’s seen a ramp up of abuse lately.

“I receive almost daily verbal declarations of my ignorance and climate alarmism,” she told CNN.

An erosion of trust

Some disinformation experts draw a straight line from the conspiracies that flourished during the Covid pandemic – when experts faced a slew of abuse – to the uptick in climate conspiracies.

People need “trending” topics on which to hang these theories, said Alexandre López-Borrull, a lecturer in the Information and Communication Sciences Department at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain.

As Covid-19 fades from the headlines, climate change has become a strong rallying point. There’s been a big increase in “insults directed at all organizations related to the weather,” he told CNN.

“It’s a logical evolution of the broader trend around pushback on institutions, and the erosion of trust,” said Jennie King, the head of Climate Research and Policy at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a think tank focused on disinformation and extremism.

These kinds of conspiracies are usually grounded in the idea that a set of institutions is “using the pretext of climate change, or the pretext of solving public policy issues, to enact some insidious agenda,” she told CNN.

And the weather is an easy way in. Many aspects of climate science can feel very technical or abstract, but the weather is something people interact with frequently, said King.

“It’s a much more immediate way to bring a wider audience into that skepticism … planting seeds of doubt against the climate agenda writ large,” she said.


The Hoover Dam on September 16, 2022, in Boulder City, Nevada. Climate change fueled drought has pushed Lake Mead's water levels to historic lows.

 - David McNew/Getty Images

The role meteorologists have in explaining how climate change affects the weather, especially extreme weather, is a particular flashpoint.

Extreme weather can be alarming, especially when there are consequences and sacrifices, such as Spain’s water restrictions.

Conspiracy theories feed on this fear by offering a simple, enticing explanation, said López-Borrull. It’s easier to believe climate change is fake, or a manipulation by powerful people, than get your head around the complex problem and what it means for society.

“Change is hard and scary,” Francis said

‘I’m just trying to do my job’

It’s difficult to combat conspiracy theories when they bubble up. Some experts say they offer simple charts and rebuttals when they can, but try to ignore those who come in bad faith.

Doug McNeall, a climate scientist and statistician at the Met Office Hadley Centre, a UK research center, said that, as a scientist, he welcomes being challenged. “If people come with better evidence, and you change your mind, that’s good,” he told CNN.

But that’s not been his recent experience. “These people were not coming with better evidence,” he said. “They were coming to stop us talking about climate science.” He now relies much more on the block button.

Moreno echoed this. “I find it very difficult to change the minds of people that really have strong beliefs in these conspiracies,” she said. It’s easier to prevent the ideas from taking hold in people in the first place by tackling the myths and explaining how the atmosphere works, she added.

This kind of communication can really help, said King. Some of the best initiatives are “when media outlets or scientific institutions really try to demystify the process of how they produce public interest data,” she said.

King worries about the impact of these conspiracies on climate politics. “If we want to implement any policies, ambitious or not, around the environmental agenda, and the acute crisis of climate change, it does now seem that this is going to rear its head,” she said.

López-Borrull hopes meteorologists and climate communicators will persevere and not be pushed away from online spaces.

“The answer is not disappearing or closing social media profiles … they have to remain on social media because they are really useful,” López-Borrull said.

But as the climate crisis causes more extreme weather, harassment could increase even further.

And it takes a toll, said Raffa.

“I think it’s easy for people to forget I’m human, some of those comments can be hurtful. I’m just trying to do my job.”

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 LGBTQ Russians seek refuge in Argentina

Associated Press

(27 May 2023) 

An increasing number of Russians from the LGBTQ community are settling in Argentina to escape discrimination and the war in Ukraine. 

(AP Video/Victor R. Caivano, Yesica Brumec, Natacha Pisarenko)

Roger Waters says Nazi outfit at Berlin concert was anti-fascist
 

FILE PHOTO: GERMANY-MUSIC/ROGER WATERS reuters_tickers

This content was published on May 27, 2023

BERLIN/LONDON (Reuters) - Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters said he was opposing fascism and bigotry when he wore a Nazi-style uniform on stage at a concert in Berlin that led German police to launch an investigation into the British musician.

The 79-year-old said aspects of his performance at Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Arena that have been questioned were "quite clearly" a statement against fascism, injustice and bigotry.

"Attempts to portray those elements as something else are disingenuous and politically motivated," he tweeted.

Images from a May 17 concert showed the famed singer and bass player in a long black trench coat with bright red arm bands, aiming an imitation machine gun into the audience.

The outfit included a swastika-like emblem made of two crossed hammers - iconography that also appeared on costumes in a film based on Pink Floyd's hit 1979 album "The Wall", a critique of fascism.

Waters said the depiction of "an unhinged fascist demagogue" had been a feature of his shows since "The Wall".

Social media users defended Waters, saying the performance was a recreation of satirical scenes from the film starring rock star turned campaigner Bob Geldof and that Waters had worn the same costume in past concerts.

Nazi symbols, flags and uniforms are prohibited in Germany. Waters is being investigated under a separate law on suspicion of "incitement of the people", police said.

The costume worn by Waters "is deemed capable of violating the dignity of the victims, as well as approving, glorifying or justifying the violent and arbitrary rule of the Nazi regime in a way that disrupts public peace," a police spokesperson said.

Other German cities including Munich, Frankfurt and Cologne tried to cancel Waters' concerts after Jewish groups including the Central Council of Jews accused him of anti-Semitism.

Waters is a member of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement that targets Israel over its occupation of territories where Palestinians seek statehood.

He denied the accusations and the efforts to stop the concerts were unsuccessful. The final German tour date at Frankfurt's Festhalle venue on Sunday is still listed on Waters' website.

(Reporting by Friederike Heine in Berlin and Sachin Ravikumar in London, Editing by Andrew Heavens and Andrew Cawthorne)

SEE  https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/05/berlin-police-investigate-roger-waters.html

Serbia’s President Vucic steps down as head of governing party

President Aleksandar Vucic says he will remain head of state, amid ongoing anti-government protests following two consecutive mass shootings.

Tens of thousands of people have rallied in support of Serbia's President Aleksandar Vucic following huge anti-government protests 

[Marko Djurica/Reuters]

Published On 27 May 2023

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic has stepped down as leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS), following anti-government protests against two mass shootings that killed 18 people this month.

On Saturday, Vucic told an SNS congress that he would remain head of state, but that a new approach was needed to unite the country.

“A slightly different approach is needed to unite a greater number of those who want to fight for the victory of patriotic Serbia … a successful Serbia that will focus on its citizens, for a country that will not look for reasons for division, but for unification and togetherness,” said the 53-year-old.

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The move came a day after tens of thousands of people from across Serbia and from neighbouring Kosovo, Montenegro and Bosnia rallied in the centre of the Serbian capital Belgrade in a show of support for Vucic after the massive anti-government protests against the shootings.

Another anti-government protest was scheduled for later on Saturday.

Leaders of the SNS accepted Vucic’s resignation offer at the party congress in Kragujevac, central Serbia, and appointed defence minister Milos Vucevic to replace him, as Vucic had proposed.

Opposition parties and rights watchdogs have long accused Vucic and the SNS of autocracy, stifling media freedoms, violence against political opponents, corruption and ties with organised crime.

Vucic and his allies deny the accusations.

Vucic told the congress he would stay head of state and would remain a party member. “I will never leave this party, I am proud to have led the best party all these years,” he told cheering delegates.

After his appointment, Vucevic confirmed the SNS will join an umbrella political organisation which Vucic plans to create on June 28.

“If Vucic is a locomotive of that movement, the first railcar would be the SNS,” he told reporters.

Mass shootings shock Serbia

Tens of thousands of Serbians rallied in Belgrade earlier this month after the two consecutive deadly shootings sent the country and surrounding Balkan region into a state of shock.

A 13-year-old suspect carried out an attack that officials say he had planned for months. A day later, a 21-year-old suspect in a moving car opened fire on passers-by in a town south of Belgrade.

Following the shootings, the union of educators of Serbia announced a strike and called for an end to the promotion of violence in the country.

“We demand for a ban on the promotion and public appearance of all convicted criminals, as well as all reality shows in which the participants behave violently,” their statement read.

At their protest march, Serbians demanded better security, a ban on violent content on TV and the resignation of key ministers.

Vucic became president of the SNS in 2012, replacing Tomislav Nikolic who held the post since 2008 when the party was formed as an offshoot of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party.

He first served as the deputy prime minister and prime minister, and was then elected president in 2017 and in 2022. His second and last term expires in 2027. Along with its allies, the SNS holds a majority of 164 seats in the 250-member parliament.

A nationalist firebrand during the wars in the 1990s, Vucic later embraced pro-European policies, proclaiming Serbia’s membership in the European Union its strategic goal. He also maintains close ties with Russia and China.

Back in Mexico, 'Earth Monster' sculpture points to ancient beliefs

Story by By David Alire Garcia • Reuters

 Yesterday 

The Olmec bas-relief Monument 9 of Chalcatzingo is pictured at the Museo Regional de los Pueblos de Morelos© Thomson Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A massive stone sculpture carved by Olmec artists more than 2,000 years ago that evokes ancient religious beliefs has returned to Mexico after decades in the United States in a homecoming cheered by officials and scholars.

Known today as the "Earth Monster," the sculpture was likely taken from central Mexico during the 1960s, spending time in the hands of private collectors as well as on public display before being seized by antiquities trafficking agents working with New York prosecutors.

The symbol-laden artifact weighs roughly a tonne (2,200 pounds) and was likely found several decades earlier at the Chalcatzingo archeological site in Morelos state, just south of Mexico City.

U.S. officials coordinated with their Mexican counterparts to repatriate the sculpture earlier this week.

It was carved from volcanic rock sometime between 800-400 BC during the heyday of the Olmec civilization, one of Mexico's earliest complex societies with sites mostly clustered around the country's Gulf coast. The Olmecs are well-known for their advanced artistic tradition, including colossal head sculptures.


The Olmec bas-relief Monument 9 of Chalcatzingo is pictured at the Museo Regional de los Pueblos de Morelos© Thomson Reuters

The artifact depicts a mythological mountain and its stylized cave entrance in the form of a cross, according to Mario Cordova, an Olmec archeologist who traveled to the United States as part of the recovery mission.


The mountain was also made to resemble the head of a jaguar, ancient Mexico's most fearsome predator, with the cave doubling as its open jaws and the entrance into the underworld.

Some have speculated the sculpture may have been used in ritual acts as a sacred passageway.

"This is a very important piece," said archaeologist Sara Ladron de Guevara, a scholar of Mexico's Huastec culture, pointing in particular to the cross-shaped open mouth.

"I can't remember any other sculptures that include this kind of opening," she said.

Other scholars note how the worldview of the Olmecs as seen in the "Earth Monster" sculpture is a recurring theme across ancient Mexico, including up to the Aztecs, who began their rise to power around 1,700 years later and whose main temple also doubled as a sacred mountain.

"The mountain-cave-mouth symbolic complex acquired a high iconographic value throughout Mesoamerica from very early times, giving rise over the millennia to increasingly complex sets of images," according to a book written by the father-son scholarly duo Alfredo Lopez Austin and Leonardo Lopez Lujan.

Lopez Lujan currently leads excavations at the Aztecs' holiest shrine in downtown Mexico City.

The Olmec sculpture's return to Mexico was hailed by Mexico Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard, who spoke just before it was carefully hauled onto a plane for its trip back home.

"This gives us back something that explains where we come from," Ebrard said.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Tom Hogue)

Farmer-turned-policeman is Mexico’s eyes and ears at Popocatepetl volcano

By MARÍA VERZA

AP

yesterday


Mexico farmer becomes official volcano watcher
When the Popocatepetl volcano reawakened in 1994, scientists scoured the surrounding areas for people who could be their eyes and ears. Nefi de Aquino, a farmer in his fifties who knew photography and lived beside the volcano, fit the bill. Since then his life changed. (May 25) (AP video shot by: Gerardo Carrillo)

SANTIAGO XALITZINTLA, Mexico (AP) — When the Popocatepetl volcano reawakened in 1994, Mexican scientists needed people in the area who could be their eyes and ears. State police helped them find one, Nefi de Aquino, a farmer then in his 40s who lived beside the volcano. From that moment on, his life changed.

He became a police officer himself, but with a very specific job: watching Popocatepetl and reporting everything that he saw to authorities and researchers at diverse institutions.

For nearly three decades, de Aquino says he has been “taking care of” the volcano affectionately known as “El Popo.” And for the past 23 of those years, he has been sending scientists daily photographs.

Collaboration between researchers and local residents — usually people of limited means — is crucial to Mexico’s volcano monitoring. Hundreds of villagers collaborate in different ways. Often local residents are the only witnesses to key events. Sometimes scientists install recording devices on their land, or have them collect ash samples.

One evening this week, the thin 70-year-old policeman with a hoarse voice stopped his patrol truck near the cemetery overlooking his home town, one of the area’s best vantage points. At his feet lay the town of Santiago Xalitzintla. Directly in front at a distance of 14 miles (23 kilometers) sat Popocatepetl, puffing smoke, the rim of its crater aglow.

Since it appeared calm, de Aquino didn’t stay long. Over the previous week, he had been busy sending digital volcano photographs to a slew of researchers at universities and government agencies as the mountain’s activity increased and authorities raised the alert level. Once again the world’s eyes were on the 17,797-foot Popocatepetl, including those of the 25 million people living within 60 miles of its crater.

On Friday, officials said the volcano’s activity had decreased somewhat although they maintained the same alert level.

A farmer who was a meat packer for three years in Utah in his late 20s when he illegally emigrated to the United States, de Aquino’s life took a radical turn one day in 1994 when someone in his home town told him police were looking for him.

At first he was afraid to go to the police, but eventually did. The interview was brief.

“’Do you know how to read?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Write?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you drive?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Do you have a license?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Heck, this one will work.’”

Officers told de Aquino that the government was looking for people to monitor the volcano and that he, then 41, had certain advantages. He appeared serious, he had finished high school and during his short stay in the United States he had learned how to take photographs.

At first he was given a volunteer civil defense role, and he took some courses at National Center for Disaster Prevention, or CENAPRED where he was “immersed in the volcano.” But he wasn’t thrilled with doing the work without pay. So authorities offered to send him to the police academy.

Although de Aquino became an officer with some normal police duties, he was an odd cop. He almost always worked alone, patrolling remote mountain roads, taking photos of the volcano.

The ways that local people who help monitor the volcano are compensated are seldom straightforward, because they are not on the payrolls of universities or other research institutions, despite “becoming our eyes close to the volcano,” said Carlos Valdés, a researcher at the UNAM’s Geophysics Institute and former head of CENAPRED.

As an example, Valdés said that the key person when the seismic monitoring system was installed on Popocatepetl was a mountain climber who lived in the town of Amecameca. The man, since deceased, knew the safest routes to climb and how to avoid putting instruments in locations that were sacred to locals.

The way to compensate the man, was “to buy tires for his jeep, repair the vehicle, get him coats,” because it was otherwise difficult to pay him.

Paulino Alonso, a technician at CENAPRED who does fieldwork at Popocatepetl, said collaboration with locals also has given researchers a better understanding of how locals perceive risks.

“A machine is never going to speak to the human perception of danger,” Alonso said.

In 2000, when Popocatepetl grew more active, authorities declared a red alert and thousands of people were evacuated. De Aquino’s monitoring work intensified.

“They gave me cameras, a patrol car and binoculars and every day I had to send three photos: one in the morning, one at midday and one at night,” the policeman said.

He continues that work to this day, filling up his adobe-walled home with thousands of photographs. De Aquino lives alone on a modest ranch on the volcano’s slopes, where he has some fruit trees growing beside a stream, and also raises corn and a few animals.

De Aquino helps keep locals informed about the volcano and assists during evacuations. Once, his house becomes an impromptu shelter for soldiers, police and government officials, he said.

De Aquino has gotten to go along on overflights of the crater, the first time terrified. “You see the whole base, how it lights up, how its puts out smoke ... it felt strange,” he said.

He has continued in his job despite being past retirement age.

“What I have learned from (Popocatepetl) is that while it’s calm, it doesn’t do anything, but when it gets mad, it goes crazy,” he said.

'Don Goyo's Angry': The Legends Behind Rumbling Mexican Volcano

By Sofia Miselem

AFP

May 26, 2023

Ash and smoke billow from Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano

Pictures by Claudio Cruz. Video by Carlo Echegoyen

In the foothills of Mexico's Popocatepetl volcano, locals have their own beliefs about why ash is recently raining down on them -- and it has little to do with conventional science.

According to legend, the spirit of the volcano located 70 kilometers (about 45 miles) southeast of Mexico City is embodied by a man known locally as "Don Goyo."

And when he gets upset, "El Popo" starts to rumble as it has for more than a week.

"Don Goyo's angry because they didn't put out his offering," said Jose Luis, a 55-year-old charcoal seller in Xalitzintla, the community closest to Popocatepetl.

Some residents even report having seen the mountain incarnate appear before them.

Jose Marcos said that when he was a child, Don Goyo -- full name Gregorio Chino Popocatepetl -- came to his house for a glass of water and a taco.


Jose Marcos, 77, a local farmer, keeps a wary eye out for further rumblings from the volcano known familiarly as El Popo

"We asked him 'who are you?' He said: 'Don't you know me? I'm Gregorio Chino Popocatepetl. I'm the volcano,'" the 77-year-old farmer said.

Every year on March 12, residents mark the day known as Don Goyo's birthday.

Hundreds of people approach the crater to offer typical dishes, liquor, flowers and clothes, and sing a traditional song.

This year, however, authorities restricted access to the site due to the increased danger, dismaying locals who warned that it would anger the mountain's spirit.


"We've already asked Don Goyo to wait for us until next year," local mayor Gumaro Sandre Popoca told AFP.

Life in Xalitzintla, home to about 2,000 inhabitants, revolves around volcanoes.

The walls are dotted with images of Popocatepetl and the neighboring Iztaccihuatl volcano.

Mediums who claim to communicate with "Don Goyo" are influential figures in the community.

One of them, Nazario Castro, blames people who enter the exclusion zone to take selfies for upsetting the volcano.

"They're provoking it because they go up" to take pictures and "it starts to thunder," Castro said.

Isabel, a restaurant owner in the town, said that as an 11-year-old girl she also saw the man who embodies Popocatepetl.

"He comes down from the mountain. He's tall, with white hair and green eyes," she said.

"He scared me. I ran home and got under the bed," added the 54-year-old, who did not want to give her full name for fear of being called a "gossip."


"We're not afraid," says Eufemia de Jesus Ramos, who sells birds at an animal market near Popocatepetl volcano

But she enthusiastically recounted a pre-Hispanic love story involving Popocatepetl and Iztaccihuatl.

According to legend, Iztaccihuatl ("white woman" in the Indigenous Nahuatl language) was the daughter of a local chief who fell in love with a handsome warrior called Popocatepetl ("smoking mountain").

But Popocatepetl was sent to war and a lovelorn Iztaccihuatl died of grief.

When the warrior returned, he found her body and carried it to the mountain, where both were covered with snow and became majestic volcanoes.


All around the Popocatepetl volcano are signs for how to escape should an eruption occur

For the past week, "El Popo," which awoke from decades of slumber in 1994, has unnerved locals with several explosions and repeated emissions of ash, gasses and molten rock.

Authorities increased their warning level to one step below red alert, which, if reached, would mean evacuation for thousands of people living near the volcano.

While some residents have already left as a precaution, others prefer to stay.

"We're not afraid," said Eufemia de Jesus Ramos, who sells birds at an animal market in San Andres Calpan, about 25 kilometers from Popocatepetl.

"If we leave, the thieves will take advantage of it," the 65-year-old said.

© Agence France-Presse

Booming eruptions, ash everywhere: What life is like under Mexico’s most dangerous volcano

Mexico’s Popocatépetl volcano erupting on May 23, 2023.

(Cristopher Rogel Blanquet / Getty Images)

BY KATE LINTHICUM

LA TIMES

STAFF WRITER MAY 25, 2023

SANTIAGO XALITZINTLA, Mexico —

Each spring, residents of this village tucked at the base of one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes trek up to a cave near its crater to make a peace offering.

Their gifts of fruit, flowers and turkey cooked in sweet mole are meant to placate Popocatépetl, the nearly 18,000-foot-high volcano viewed by many here not just as a geological wonder, but also as a mythological being whose whims have long shaped the lives of those in its shadows.

These days, the consensus among villagers is clear: Popocatépetl isn’t happy.

Villagers in Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico, plant corn in the shadow of the Popocatépetl volcano.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)
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For months now, the volcano has been spewing molten rock and shooting massive columns of ash into the sky.

The eruptions have grown bigger and more frequent in recent weeks — rattling homes with wheezing exhalations that residents compare to steam escaping from a pressure cooker. Bone-gray ash blankets everything: cars, crops and even the dogs that beg for scraps in the streets.


At Mexico’s gay cowboy conventions, men connect with each other — and their country’s rugged past
May 22, 2023

The sheer quantity of ash — a mixture of rock, mineral and glass particles from deep inside the volcano — has prompted officials to ground thousands of flights at airports in nearby Mexico City and Puebla and to suspend school in nearly two dozen municipalities.

On Sunday, officials raised the volcano threat level to “Yellow Phase 3,” which calls for those who live nearest to the volcano — including the 2,000 residents of Santiago Xalitzintla — to prepare for possible evacuation.

Although the volcano appears to be more active now than it has been in the last two decades, there is no indication that catastrophic eruption is underway, said Ana Lillian Martín del Pozzo, a volcanologist at the Geophysics Institute of the National Autonomous University of Mexico. It has been centuries since the volcano last expelled a significant flow of lava.

Pedestrians cross an ash-covered street in Atlixco, Mexico, on May 22, 2023.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Still, the volcano’s long history of destructive explosions and the 24 million people who reside within 60 miles of its crater make Popocatépetl an acute threat. Authorities aren’t taking any chances.

Scientists are monitoring seismic activity, testing the chemical content of the ash and probing other metrics that predict volcanic activity. The federal government has mobilized 7,000 troops in case an evacuation becomes necessary.

As geology fans gape at video feeds that show incandescent rocks blowing from El Popo’s peak, those who live along its flanks have watched with respect and a noteworthy lack of trepidation.

Soldiers patrol as ash from the Popocatépetl volcano blankets the streets of Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Residents went on with their scheduled celebration of a saint’s day over the weekend, dancing to a live band as flurries of ash fell, dusting the streets with what looked like snow.

And although many complain of sore throats, coughs and irritated eyes, they have mostly continued tilling the earth, tending their horses and otherwise going about life as usual.

“We’re used to it,” said Nazario Galicia, an 81-year-old farmer who on a recent afternoon was feeding his donkeys even as truckloads of national guard troops descended on the village to sweep up ash. “Our grandparents lived with the volcano, and their grandparents lived with it too.”

Two people wear hoodies and masks to shield themselves from the ash emitted by the Popocatépetl volcano in Atlixco, Mexico, on May 22, 2023. The volcano’s activity has increased over the last week.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Like many people here, Galicia believes the volcano is a kind of deity — they call him Don Goyo — whose behavior is closely linked to human activity.

Galicia wondered whether the powerful eruptions in recent days were occurring because townsfolk had been unable to bring their annual offering this spring, when milder bursts from the volcano ruled out an ascent. Or maybe, he said, the volcano was responding to current events, airing its discontent with Mexico’s high levels of violence and corruption.

A woman sweeps ash from the Popocatépetl volcano in Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Popocatépetl and a nearby volcano, the relatively dormant Iztaccihuatl, have loomed large in Mexican mythology since at least the time of Aztecs.



According to one popular myth, they were formed after ill-fated lovers — the warrior Popocatepetl and the princess Iztaccihuatl — died tragic deaths and were turned into stone.

Popocatépetl’s explosions have displaced humans in the past. Archaeologists say a pre-Hispanic settlement not far from Santiago Xalitzintla was buried twice by ash long before the Europeans arrived in Mexico.

The volcano was dormant for about half of the last century but rumbled back to life with a series of relatively small eruptions beginning in the 1990s.

The government ordered evacuations then, and some locals moved away. But most residents returned, adopting new practices such as covering water and food supplies for farm animals to prevent contamination from falling ash. Many, too, have embraced a kind of steely humor to cope with living alongside an ever-present threat.

Villagers make peace offerings to the Popocatépetl volcano


Residents of Santiago Xalitzintla, Mexico, a village at the base of the Popocatépetl volcano, trek up to a cave near its gaping crater to make a peace offering.

“We hope it calms down,” said Juana Hernández, 55, as she finished off her tacos near the town’s plaza one afternoon this week. “If not we’ll have to bring an offering.”

She wondered whether a chicken would do. Her friend Francisca de los Santos, 56, had another idea. “Maybe we should sacrifice one of our men,” she said, laughing.

The friends said they haven’t slept much in recent days, thanks to the volcano’s rumblings. In the evenings, villagers gather outside in the cold to watch eruptions light up the night sky.

Many children are scared of the pyrotechnics. Some had urged their parents to find them a new place to live.

But despite her burning throat, scratchy eyes and worry that her family’s fruit trees might not survive the volcano’s blowing debris, De Los Santos said she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

After all, in this part of Mexico so prone to natural disasters — where earthquakes can level apartment buildings in seconds — there’s a certain pride that comes with living in proximity to danger.

Agustín Ochoa, the 64-year-old owner of a hat shop in the next town over, said life is more exciting under a volcano.

“The day there’s no eruption,” he said as he whisked ash from several white cowboy hats, “we’ll miss it.”


Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in The Times’ Mexico City bureau contributed to this report.

Volcanic ash obscures a view of the city of Atlixco, Mexico.
(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

 

 

UAE releases Lebanese detainees after death in custody raised allegations of mistreatment

By ABBY SEWELL

AP

 Relatives and supporters of Lebanese citizens detained in the United Arab Emirates protest in front of the Foreign Ministry headquarters demanding the release of the detainees, in downtown Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, May 15, 2023. Lebanon's foreign ministry said Saturday, May 27, a group of Lebanese citizens detained in the United Arab Emirates have been released.

 (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — A group of Lebanese citizens detained in the United Arab Emirates have been released, Lebanon’s foreign ministry said Saturday.

Lebanon’s ambassador to the UAE notified the ministry of the release of 10 Lebanese detainees who had been arrested there about two months ago, the ministry said in a statement.

The release comes after the death earlier this month of a Lebanese man who was detained in the UAE on unknown charges. A committee of family members of Lebanese citizens detained in the UAE alleged in a statement that Ghazi Ezzedine, 55, had died under torture, and rights groups raised concerns about the Emirati government’s lack of transparency regarding Ezzedine’s case and the linked detentions.

Emirati authorities have not commented on the case or on the release of the other detainees.

Afif Shouman, head of a group of Lebanese families with relatives detained in the Gulf country, said seven Lebanese citizens remain detained in the UAE, none of whom have been convicted of a crime, and called for their release.

UAE authorities have detained dozens of Lebanese, mostly Shiites, in the past over alleged links to the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The UAE, like other Gulf Cooperation Council members, considers Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

In 2019, the UAE sentenced one Lebanese national to life in prison and two to ten years in prison on charges of links to Hezbollah.

Amnesty International said in a statement at the time the trial of the men “failed to meet international fair trial standards,” as the evidence included confessions that were “extracted under duress, and the defendants were detained incommunicado for months and denied access to lawyers during interrogation and investigation.”