New Buddhist temple opens in Berlin

Christoph Strack

DW

Germany's newest Buddhist temple has opened in Berlin. It will be home to a small but very international religious community.

Germany's newest Buddhist temple opens in Berlin on Sunday

Image: Christoph Strack/DW

This particular street in central Berlin looks as if it has been overlooked by the gentrification elsewhere in the district. A few rather shabby apartment buildings, a car repair shop, a high-rise at the end of a cul-de-sac with a daycare center. A place where construction waste, smashed toilet bowls, empty paint buckets, and other junk are regularly and illegally dumped at night.

Yet this section of Ackerstrasse, barely two kilometers (1.2 miles) from Olaf Scholz's chancellery, is also home to a new building, seven years in construction, that happens to be one of the most remarkable religious buildings in the German capital: A modern Buddhist temple.

Miaoshiang Shih is the master of the Fo Guang Shan Community Temple. Born in Taiwan, she has been living in Berlin for decades, and for over 30 years has been meditating at the same place on Ackerstrasse with two or three other nuns in a wooden shack that used to be an auto parts factory. The nuns lived in an apartment next door.
The Buddhas have to make way

The friendly Buddhist with the shaved head leads a tour through the new building, showing off the rooms with pride: The main hall of the temple, where morning and evening meditation will be held in front of the three golden Buddhas, plus the kitchen, the guest rooms, the dining room, rooms for art exhibitions or small concerts, and a small memorial hall for the deceased.

Miaoshiang Shih is the master of the Fo Guang Shan Community TempleImage: Christoph Strack/DW

The master elaborates on the artfully crafted metal structure in front of the building. This, she tells DW, "is the incense stand. It's not allowed in the building because of fire safety regulations."

The temple was built without any financial support from the government. Everyone here on the team is familiar with the fire safety and building codes. As for the cost of the temple, Miaoshiang Shi remains discreet — she does say, however, that the construction was four times more expensive than calculated. Buddhist monasteries and Fo Guang Shan practitioners from all over the world helped to cover the costs.
Worldwide network

The monastery is part of the Fo Guang Shan community, which was founded in Taiwan in 1967. The name means "Buddha's Mountain of Light" in Chinese, and there are many such monasteries in Taiwan and around the world, including in a number of major European cities. In Germany, a monastery was opened in Frankfurt in 2004. Shi emphasized that there are also several monasteries in mainland China, and among the Asian members who come to Ackerstrasse to meditate, there are also many from China.

"At our center, humanistic Buddhism is our guiding principle," said the master. This modern Buddhist philosophy combines the meditative practice of Zen with a deliberate closeness to people. The teachings encourage people to care for others. On Sundays, Ackerstrasse also offers lunch and everyday care for those in need.

Several texts now need translating into English

Image: Christoph Strack/DW

The new Buddhist temple fits in well in Berlin. With more than 3.5 million people, the capital is not especially religious. But it is known for its religious diversity. According to estimates on the website of the state's Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, there are more than 250 religious or ideological communities active in Berlin, who play an "important role in the social life of this multicultural metropolis." The Ackerstrasse building is by no means the only Buddhist institution in the city. The Buddhist House in Frohnau, in northern Berlin, is already over 100 years old.

Religious diversity in Berlin

As more young people from around the world come to Berlin to study or work, the city is becoming more diverse. Later this year, a Hindu temple that has been under construction for almost 20 years is due to open in the south of the city.

And at the end of November, the Catholic Church plans to reopen its St. Hedwig Cathedral on central Bebelplatz for worship after four years of renovation. Construction on the House of One, a joint project of Christians, Jews, and Muslims, is behind schedule. Smaller non-denominational churches, synagogues, and mosques are also springing up at the same time.

This fits in with the picture that Miao Shiang Shi paints of the visitors and supporters of the monastery. She described passers-by popping into the building, or school classes who want to get to know the building. Among the members of the community are also some long-time Berliners. But the guests are becoming more and more international.

The new temple is officially called the Fo-Guang-Shan

Image: Christoph Strack/DW

For a long time, the nuns struggled to translate their liturgical and spiritual texts from Chinese into German. Now the demand for texts in English is growing. There have been temple visitors from South Africa and Indonesia. And an Indian scientist who got to know the monastery finally ended up coming to Ackerstrasse every week, eventually translating texts into English. "He has become a kind of family member for us," says the master.

Sunday, June 23 will be an exceptionally international day. The small community of nuns, two from Taiwan and one from Singapore, is expecting the highest-ranking abbot of the order to attend the opening ceremonies, along with a few companions from Taiwan and all the masters of the Buddhist monasteries in Europe, approximately three dozen representatives. In total, Shi expects up to 600 guests, far too many to fit into the temple space itself.

But the master is delighted. She says that the guests will be seated in the small Chinese garden that has been newly created at the back of the building. There, under a large picture of Buddha on the façade of the building, people will fill the rows of seats for the first time and watch the celebrations on large screens.

This article was originally written in German.

ISIS NEW FRONT

Dagestan lies east of Chechnya

Gunmen in Russia’s Dagestan attack churches, synagogue and police post

Gunmen on Sunday attacked synagogues and churches in Russia's North Caucasus region of Dagestan, killing a priest, six police officers, and a member of the national guard, security officials said.


Issued on: 23/06/2024 - 21:44
2 min

Photo taken from video released by Golos Dagestana shows smoke rises following an attack in Makhachkala, Dagestan, Russia, June 23, 2024.

© Golos Dagestana via AP

The attacks took place in Dagestan's largest city of Makhachkala and in the coastal city of Derbent, where gunfights were ongoing.

Russia's Investigative Committee said it had opened criminal probes over "acts of terror", while the hunt for the gunmen was ongoing.

Witnesses could hear shooting near a church in Makhachkala while shootouts were continuing in Derbent, the TASS state news agency reported. Dagestan's interior ministry said it had killed two of the gunmen in Makhachkala.


Sunday is a religious holiday in the Russian Orthodox Church called Pentecost Sunday. Dagestan is a largely Muslim region of Russia, neighbouring Chechnya.

"This evening in the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala armed attacks were carried out on two Orthodox churches, a synagogue and a police check-point," said the National Antiterrorism Committee in a statement to RIA Novosti news agency.

"As a result of the terrorist attacks, according to preliminary information, a priest from the Russian Orthodox Church and police officers were killed."

In all, six police officers had been killed and another 12 wounded in the attacks, the spokeswoman for Dagestan's interior ministry, Gayana Gariyeva, told RIA Novosti.

Russia's National Guard said one of its officers had been killed in Derbent and several others wounded.

A 66-year-old priest was killed in Derbent, the press secretary of Dagestan's interior ministry, Gariyeva told the agency.
Synagogues on fire

Dagestan's RGVK broadcaster named the priest as Nikolai Kotelnikov,saying he had served more than 40 years in Derbent.

"The synagogue in Derbent is on fire," the chairman of the public council of Russia's Federation of Jewish Communities, Boruch Gorin wrote on Telegram.

"It has not been possible to extinguish the fire. Two are killed: a policeman and a security guard".

He added: "The synagogue in Makhachkala has also been set on fire and burnt down."

Gorin wrote that in Derbent, firefighters had been told to leave the burning synagogue because of the risk that "terrorists remained inside".

He added: "There is shooting in the streets around the synagogue".

The leader of Dagestan, Sergei Melikov, wrote on Telegram: "This evening in Derbent and Makhachkala unknown (attackers) made attempts to destabilise the situation in society.

"They were confronted by Dagestani police officers."

Russia's FSB security service in April said it had arrested four people in Dagestan on suspicion of plotting a deadly attack on Moscow's Crocus City Hall concert venue in March, which was claimed by Islamic State.

Militants from Dagestan are known to have travelled to join the Islamic State group in Syria.

In 2015, the group declared it had established a "franchise" in the North Caucasus.

Dagestan lies east of Chechnya where Russian authorities battled separatists in two brutal wars, first in 1994-1996 and then in 1999-2000.

After the defeat of Chechen insurgents, Russian authorities have been locked in a simmering conflict with Islamist militants from across the North Caucasus that has killed scores of civilians and police.

(AFP)

Gunmen in Russia's Dagestan conduct deadly attacks on churches, synagogue, police post

Issued on: 23/06/2024 - 

Gunmen opened fire at a synagogue, an Orthodox church and a police post in Russia's North Caucasus region of Dagestan on Sunday, killing six policemen and injuring 12, the region's Russian news agencies quoted the interior ministry as saying.

02:03  Video by FRANCE 24

Priest, 15 security personnel killed in attacks on synagogue, church in Russia's Dagestan

Derbent occupies the narrow gateway between the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus Mountains. Photo by lnur Neciyev/Wikimedia Commons


June 23 (UPI) -- At least 15 police officers, a priest and an unknown number of civilians died in an attack on two Orthodox churches and a synagogue in Russia's majority Muslim Republic of Dagestan, the national counterterrorism agency and police said Sunday.

The attacks were in the cities Derbent and Makhachkala. Also, a police traffic stop in Makhachkala was hit. The region is in the southernmost tip of Russia, about 2,000 miles south of Moscow, along the Caspian Sea.

Attackers used automatic rifles around 5:50 p.m. local time at the synagogue in Derbent, just 40 minutes before evening prayers, then drove away in a white Volkswagen Polo car, officials reported. The synagogue then was set on fire by "terrorists," according to TASS News Agency.

Six of the attackers are dead, TASS reported.


"Further operative and search and investigative action will continue until detecting all the participants of sleeper cells, which were definitely prepared in particular from abroad," Sergey Melikov, head of the Dagestan Republic, said.

Father Nikolai, a 66-year-old priest at the Orthodox church, died in a knife attack, Shamil Khadulaev, the chairman of Dagestan's Public Monitoring Commission, said in a report by TASS.

Priests locked themselves inside the church and were waiting for help.

A security guard at the Orthodox church in Makhachkala was also killed, Khadulaev said.

"As far as is known, there were no worshipers in the synagogues at the time of the attack, and there are no known casualties from the Jewish community," according to a statement from the Israeli foreign ministry.

Elsewhere, a group of unknown assailants attacked the traffic police post in the regional capital of Makhachkala.

Residents of Makhachkala were asked to remain in their homes.

"The Russian Jewish Congress offers condolences to the families of those killed and wishes the soonest recovery to those hurt," it said in a statement. "We call on the authorities to take the toughest measures against the bandits and murderers who committed this atrocious crime."

A terror investigation has been launched under the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Republic of Dagestan said.

"All the circumstances of the incident and the persons involved in the terrorist attacks are being established, and their actions will be given a legal assessment," the investigative directorate statement said.

More than 3.1 million people live in the republic, which is ethnically diverse.

"The Muftiyat of the Republic of Dagestan expresses sincere words of condolences to the families and friends of the victims," the centralized Islamic organization said in a statment on Telegram.

"We mourn with you and ask the Almighty to grant you patience. We also ask the Merciful Lord to grant speedy healing to all those affected."

Three days of mourning have been declared in Dagestan, TASS reported.

Buildings burned, police attacked amid renewed unrest in New Caledonia

Several buildings, including a police station and a town hall, were set on fire in New Caledonia overnight, authorities said Monday, as the French Pacific territory was hit by a fresh surge of unrest.

THE LAST COLONY    VIVA INDEPENDENCE 

Issued on: 24/06/2024

A young man takes part in a road block lighting a fire on a roadside overnight, in the district of Auteuil, in France's Pacific territory of New Caledonia on June 19, 2024.

 © Thomas Bernardi, AFP

"The night was... marked by unrest throughout the mainland and on the island of Pins and Mare, requiring the intervention of numerous reinforcements: with attacks on the police, arson and roadblocks", the High Commission, which represents the French state in the archipelago, said in a press release.

Rioting and looting erupted in New Caledonia in mid-May over an electoral reform plan that Indigenous Kanak people feared would leave them in a permanent minority, putting independence hopes definitively out of reach.

The unrest left nine dead and damage estimated at more than 1.5 billion euros ($1.6 billion).

The French government responded by sending more than 3,000 troops and police to the territory almost 17,000 kilometres (10,600 miles) from Paris.

In Dumbea, north of the capital Noumea, the municipal police station and a garage were set alight. Four armoured vehicles intervened, an AFP journalist said.

Several fires broke out in the Ducos and Magenta districts of Noumea, while police and separatists clashed in Bourail, resulting in one injury, AFP learned.

The High Commission reported "several fires were extinguished", particularly in Ducos and Magenta, adding that "the premises and vehicles of the municipal police and private vehicles" were set on fire.

"Abuses, destruction and attempted fires were also committed in several places in Paita," in the Noumea suburbs, added the High Commission, which said police in Mare had also been attacked.

On Monday morning, many schools were closed due to the renewed unrest.

On Saturday, seven independence activists linked to a group accused of orchestrating the riots last month were indicted and sent to mainland France for pre-trial detention.

(AFP)

'We are not trash': Horrors suffered by Canada's Indigenous women

Prince Rupert (Canada) (AFP) – A mountain of windswept garbage. Beneath it, bodies. For years, the remains discarded by a serial killer have languished in a landfill -- the latest chapter in a long history of violence against Canada's Indigenous women.

LONG READ

Issued on: 24/06/2024

Red dresses on crosses are displayed at the entrance of a makeshift camp near near the Prairie Green landfill in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where the families of Indigenous women believed slaughtered by a serial killer are keeping vigil 

© Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Morgan Harris and Marcedes Myran were raped, killed, dismembered and thrown out with the trash in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Police believe their remains are buried deep inside the Prairie Green landfill.

The partial remains of another victim, Rebecca Contois, were found in two places -- a garbage bin in the city and in a separate landfill. The body of a fourth, unidentified woman in her 20s -- dubbed Buffalo Woman -- is still missing.

Their murderer, Jeremy Skibicki, now 37 and linked to white supremacists, confessed in 2022 and has been tried. A verdict is expected next month.

But their relatives have been unable to lay them to rest, as the excavations to find their remains have not yet begun.

Indigenous women are disproportionately targeted by violence in Canada, and often poorly protected by authorities accused of paying little attention to their plight.

Instead, they are thrown "into the trash," says Elle Harris, the 19-year-old daughter of Morgan Harris.

A member of the Long Plain nation, Elle is dressed in a traditional skirt, her hair twisted into a long braid.

She says her mother had a difficult life, spending years homeless after losing custody of her five children due to a drug addiction.

"My mom was taken just like that, just like nothing. And I wish I could see her one more time, to talk to her again," she tells AFP.

Elle Harris, whose mother Morgan is believed to have been killed by Jeremy Skibicki © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Instead, she and her family are keeping vigil near the Prairie Green landfill, where they have set up teepees, a sacred fire, red dresses and a banner demanding empathy: "What if it was your daughter?"

For months -- through the wind-blasted Winnipeg winter -- they have taken turns staying in the makeshift camp, seeking, says Elle, "to prove that we are something, we are not trash, we can't just be thrown into the garbage."

It has also formed part of their campaign to pressure authorities to excavate the site, which has remained in use since Skibicki's confession, with new truckloads of debris regularly arriving to be piled on top of what is already there.

The go-ahead for the digging was finally given at the end of 2023, shortly after Winnipeg elected Canada's first Indigenous provincial leader, Wab Kinew.

But the searchers must sift through tons of garbage and construction rubble, and such an operation involves considerable risks due to the presence of toxic materials such as asbestos, according to independent experts.

Ultimately, it could take years and cost tens of millions of dollars.

An aerial view of the Prairie Green landfill, where the remains of at least two of confessed serial killer Jeremy Skibick's victims are believed to be buried © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Morgan Harris' family has vowed to maintain their vigil until her remains are recovered.
'Devastating history'

Skibicki targeted Indigenous women he met in homeless shelters, prosecutors told his trial, which began in late April. A judge is expected to issue a verdict on July 11.

At the time of his arrest, the then-Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller said the case was part of "a legacy of a devastating history" of Canada's treatment of Indigenous women "that has reverberations today."

"No one can stand in front of you with confidence to say that this won't happen again and I think that's kind of shameful," he said.

A banner at the Prairie Green landfill demands empathy

 © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Indigenous women are wildly overrepresented among the victims of femicide in Canada.

They represent about one-fifth of all the women killed in gender-related homicides in the country -- even though they are just five percent of the female population, according to official figures documenting an 11-year period up to 2021.

In that year in particular, the rate of gender-related homicide of Indigenous victims was more than triple that of such killings of girls and women overall, the report said.

"Canada is looked at as a country that upholds rights," said Hilda Anderson-Pyrz, an activist who has championed Indigenous women for years.

But when "we're being disposed of like garbage in landfills, that clearly says something is very wrong in this country."

In 2019, a national commission went so far as to describe the thousands of murders and disappearances of First Nations women over the years as a "genocide."

Isolated, marginalized, and heavily impacted by intergenerational trauma, they face disproportionate violence due to "state actions and inactions rooted in colonialism and colonial ideologies, built on the presumption of superiority," the commission concluded.

It is a conclusion shared by some of the families of Skibicki's victims.

The young children of Marcedes Myran do not understand why she is in a landfill, admits their great-grandmother Donna Bartlett, who is raising them in her small, cluttered house in an outlying neighborhood of Winnipeg.

Marcedes was a kind, happy girl who loved to play jokes, the 66-year-old recalls.

Donna Bartlett now cares for her great-grandchildren alone after their mother, Marcedes Myran, became another of Skibicki's victims © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

She laments authorities' reluctance to search the landfill.

"If (the women) were white, they would have done it right away," she says.
'Highway of Tears'

Further west, in British Columbia, is a stretch of road hundreds of miles long known as the "Highway of Tears" -- a stark monument, activists say, to the many ways Canada has failed Indigenous women.

Here, nature is spectacular -- the snow-capped mountains, the immense trees, the meandering Skeena River, waterfalls and abundant wildlife such as foxes, bears and eagles.

But on the side of the highway is an incongruous sight: red dresses nailed to posts symbolizing vanished women, faded photos of young girls with dazzling smiles, messages promising rewards for any clues to where they have gone.

A totem pole along the so-called "Highway of Tears" in British Columbia, where dozens of Indigenous women have gone missing since the 1960s © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Since the 1960s, as many as 50 women -- and a few men -- have vanished along this 450-mile (725-kilometer) highway linking Prince Rupert, on the Pacific Coast near Alaska, to Prince George.

All are believed to have been young and Indigenous. Many vanished while hitchhiking or walking home along Highway 16. No community in the region was spared.

Tamara Chipman, who was a member of the Wet'suwet'en First Nation, was heading to Prince Rupert to see friends when she was last seen hitchhiking on September 21, 2005. She was 22, the mother of a little boy.

Her aunt, Gladys Radek, described a feisty young woman who "loved fast boats and fishing and also life," in a region marked by social disintegration and drugs.

In these isolated and impoverished communities, connected only by this single highway flanked by deep forests, without proper telephone networks or public transportation, many young people are forced to hitchhike to get around.

They often encounter temporary workers who have come for jobs at local mines: mainly well-paid, single men.

A memorial marks the site where the remains of one missing woman, Alberta Williams, were found in 1989, on Highway 16, the "Highway of Tears" © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

The case of Chipman, like the majority of disappearances on the route, has never been explained.
Neglected

When Lana Derrick went missing in the area 25 years ago, "we had some challenges in the beginning getting support from the RCMP to take the case seriously," says her cousin Wanda Good, referring to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

It is an observation made by many of the families -- that efforts to find women stigmatized as drug addicts, prostitutes or alcoholics can be middling at best.

In several cases the families say they have organized the first searches themselves -- both for their missing loved ones, and for any witnesses.

RCMP Constable Wayne Clary, shown here speaking in Surrey, British Columbia in May, says that with some of the activities that women engage in, "they make themselves available for men who prey on women" © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

The head of the RCMP admitted to the national commission in 2018 that, for too many Indigenous families, "the RCMP was not the police service that it needed to be during this terrible time of your life."

Studies show a deep-rooted distrust between police and Indigenous people. It dates back to decades when police were used as the armed wing of Canadian governments, as they imposed a policy of forced assimilation on the country's First Peoples.

At the RCMP's British Columbia headquarters on the outskirts of Vancouver, Constable Wayne Clary, a veteran homicide investigator, tries to explain the tragedy of the Highway of Tears.

"The northern areas are very, very isolated. Some of the activities that these women engage in, and not just Indigenous, but other women, they make themselves available for men who prey on women," he says.

He rejects accusations of botched investigations, but acknowledges: "In the past, communication may not have been there."
'Never stop looking'

Clary is part of the E-Pana unit, created in 2005 -- more than 30 years after the disappearances began -- to "determine if a serial killer, or killers, is responsible."

Gladys Radek, advocate for missing Indigenous women, displays the images plastered across the van she drives to visit communities along the "Highway of Tears" © Sebastien ST-JEAN / AFP

Eighteen women are on the unit's list -- 13 homicides and five disappearances spanning from 1969 to 2006. No connection has been established between the cases so far.

The investigations remain open, but new homicides are not handled by the special unit. The last -- that of Chelsey Quaw, a 29-year-old Indigenous woman reported missing after leaving home from Saik'uz First Nation -- dates back to last November.

In recent years, there has been progress, notes Good: the police listen more to families, and new relay antennas have been installed for mobile communications on the road.

"We are moving forward, but at a very, very slow, snail's pace," she says.

But it is a collective tragedy which the country refuses to confront, believes Radek, 69.

Speaking slowly and gravely, her voice at times rising in anger, she describes how she began traveling the country "to tell the stories of all these women with broken destinies, to be the voice of these families, because they were silenced."

Her fight now takes her outside of Canada to conferences and demonstrations seeking to raise awareness of the women's plight.

"I'll never stop looking," she says.

© 2024 AFP

MBAPPE GETS MASK FOR BROKEN NOSE

Kylian Mbappe sports a mask in training on Sunday. Could the France captain play against Poland on Tuesday? 

© FRANCK FIFE / AFP

NATIONAL SECURITY AS PROTECTIONISM

US slaps sanctions on leaders of Russia software firm Kaspersky


AFP

June 21, 2024

The US Treasury Department slapped sanctions on 12 members of Kaspersky's senior leadership on Friday - Copyright AFP/File Daniel ROLAND

The United States unveiled sanctions Friday against 12 top leaders of the Russia-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab, a day after banning the sale of its popular antivirus software on national security grounds.

The widespread sanctions target many of Kaspersky Lab’s most senior leaders, including its chief operating officer, while sparing the chief executive and the company itself, the Treasury Department said in a statement announcing the designation.

“Today’s action against the leadership of Kaspersky Lab underscores our commitment to ensure the integrity of our cyber domain and to protect our citizens against malicious cyber threats,” US Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence Brian Nelson said.

“The United States will take action where necessary to hold accountable those who would seek to facilitate or otherwise enable these activities,” he added.

In a separate statement, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the company was subject to the “jurisdiction, control, or direction of the Russian government, which could exploit the privileged access to obtain sensitive data.”

This poses “an unacceptable risk to US national security or the safety and security of U.S. persons,” he added.

The Treasury sanctions come a day after the Commerce Department announced it was banning the Moscow-headquartered cybersecurity firm from providing its popular antivirus products in the US.

That announcement came after a lengthy investigation which, the Commerce Department said, found that Kaspersky’s “continued operations in the United States presented a national security risk due to the Russian Government’s offensive cyber capabilities and capacity to influence or direct Kaspersky’s operations.”

Kaspersky, in a statement to AFP, vowed to “pursue all legally available options to preserve its current operations and relationships,” adding it “does not engage in activities which threaten US national security.”

Friday’s designation targeted many of the company’s most senior officials, including the company’s long-serving chief operating officer, Andrei Tikhonov, and its chief legal officer, Igor Chekhunov, the Treasury Department said.

Is the founder of the modern Olympics being cancelled?


AFP
June 20, 2024

Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin (seated L) with members of the first International Olympic Committee which organised the 1896 Games in Athens -

 Copyright AFP Anthony WALLACE

Adam PLOWRIGHT

France likes to honour its late pioneers and visionaries, but the aristocratic Frenchman who founded the modern Olympics is proving to be a troublesome figure for organisers of the Paris 2024 Games.

Inspired by William Penny Brookes’ Wenlock Olympian Games, Baron Pierre de Coubertin almost singlehandedly created the Olympics by reviving the ancient Greek tradition of Games at the end of the 19th century.

Lauded for his devotion to using sport to promote peace and international cooperation, he is now classed in the 21st century as a sexist, a class snob and a supporter of colonialism.

“He created the movement, he had the idea, he laid the foundations,” Daphne Bolz, a sports historian at the University of Rouen, told AFP on the sidelines of a recent seminar in Paris.

“In this respect, he’s never completely forgotten. But he was a man of his time, not in line with the contemporary values of France and those promoted by today’s International Olympic Committee (IOC),” she added.

The question of how much prominence to give him as France hosts its first Olympics in 100 years next month — the last Paris Games in 1900 and 1924 were during de Coubertin’s time — has posed a dilemma.

“Paris is going to host its third Games and we know what we owe to the baron,” chief organiser Tony Estanguet told reporters in March when asked about him. “If we are here today it’s because of him.”

Yet de Coubertin is only very rarely name-checked by Paris organisers, nor does he feature prominently in any of the official narrative around the Games, which begin on July 26.

He has no major Paris stadium named after him, besides a municipal sports centre in the southwest of the capital that will be used as a training base.

A homage for him on Sunday at the Sorbonne University in Paris — marking a speech he gave there in June 23, 1894, to create the International Olympic Committee — is being snubbed by Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera.

Although IOC head Thomas Bach is expected, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said Wednesday that she too had “another event” that made it impossible for her to attend.

“Paris 2024 has not done much around Pierre de Coubertin, either to show appreciation or raise awareness,” his great-great niece, Diane de Navacelle, speaking on behalf of the family, told AFP in an interview.

– ‘Right place’? –

The treatment of de Coubertin comes at a time of a broad ideological struggle about how to remember major historical figures in the modern era who are tainted by their beliefs or actions, particularly in relation to colonialism.

Across Western countries in recent years, left-wing student groups have torn down or defaced statues of individuals linked to slavery in a movement denounced as “cancel culture” by critics.

In France, this has been symbolised by the struggle over a statue outside the national parliament of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, a 17th-century statesman who helped write legal guidance for slave owners in the French West Indies.

De Coubertin held fairly typical views for a man of his class and era, namely a belief in the superiority of white men and Western civilisation.

The Games were conceived for wealthy, upper-class amateurs, while the prospect of women competing was “uninteresting” and “unaesthetic”, he wrote.

He also heaped praise on the infamous Nazi-organised games of 1936, which were instrumentalised by Adolf Hitler.

“How do you expect me to repudiate these celebrations?” he wrote.

But he did not attend in person and was no longer head of the IOC at the time, his family contends.

“What delighted him was to see a country make such an exceptional investment for the first time to host the Olympics,” de Navacelle said.

Paris Mayor Hidalgo said this week that she had no interest in “starting a fight to tear down the image of Pierre de Coubertin”.

“We need to add to history, explain history, complete history, including the shadowy areas of some people,” she urged on Wednesday.

For Bolz, organisers have probably got the balance right.

“He doesn’t represent the things we want to promote nowadays, that’s why he’s a bit withdrawn,” she said. “In the end, he’s in the right place. He’s present, but without being glorified.”

Nobel committee condemns jail term for Iranian laureate Mohammadi

AFP
June 20, 2024


An undated photo of Narges Mohammadi provided by the foundation that bears her name - Copyright POOL/AFP NHAC NGUYEN

The Norwegian Nobel Committee on Thursday criticised an Iranian court’s decision to slap an additional one-year jail term on imprisoned 2023 Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi.

Jorgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, called it “a flagrant violation of human rights and a travesty of justice”.

Mohammadi, 52, has been jailed since November 2021 over several past convictions relating to her campaigns against the obligatory hijab for women and capital punishment in Iran.

Her lawyer, Mostafa Nili, said on X on Tuesday: “Mohammadi was sentenced to one year in prison for propaganda against the system.”

The Nobel Committee said it “strongly condemns the harsh and unjust sentencing”.

Nili said the sentence was in response to calls to boycott parliamentary elections, letters to Swedish and Norwegian lawmakers, and comments made about journalist and student Dina Ghalibaf.

Rights groups said Ghalibaf was taken into custody after accusing security forces on social media of putting her in handcuffs and sexually assaulting her during a previous arrest at a metro station.

Ghalibaf has since been released.

The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website said on April 22 that Ghalibaf “had not been raped” and that she was being prosecuted for making a “false statement”.

Mohammadi refused to attend a trial hearing in Tehran earlier this month, and in March shared an audio message from prison in which she decried a “full-scale war against women” in the Islamic republic.

She was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in October “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all”.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Colombia sex tourism boom lures MALE foreigners seeking underage girls

MACHO MISOGYNIST FEMICIDE


AFP
June 20, 2024

A woman walks in Lleras park in Medellin -- the city expects a record number of visitors this year - Copyright AFP/File STR

At night, sex workers take up their positions in the Colombian city of Medellin, where a tourism boom has led to a rise in prostitution that is dragging in underage girls.

Once synonymous with lawlessness, the birthplace of Pablo Escobar has become a trendy hotspot for tourists and digital nomads drawn to its mountainous landscapes and vibrant nightlife.

However, a seedy and dangerous underbelly remains, with child prostitutes on offer and a string of tourists drugged and murdered by their matches on dating apps.

“Women drive tourism here in Medellin because men come to Colombia to look for women and to get high,” a sex worker who gave her name only as Milena and said she was in her thirties, told AFP.

Milena said she earns between $150 and $300 per night, the equivalent of the minimum monthly wage in Colombia.

Prostitution is legal in Colombia but several high-profile cases of children being exploited by foreigners have put the local government on guard against sex tourism.

Pedophiles are “taking advantage to come here and have sex” with children, said Jazmin Santa, a member of an independent organization fighting against the sexual exploitation of minors.

Medellin Mayor Federico Gutierrez declared the city had hit “rock bottom” after an American citizen, 36, was found by police with two girls, aged 12 and 13, in his luxury hotel room in late March.

He was released and returned to the United States, sparking outrage in Colombia.

Gutierrez temporarily suspended prostitution in the touristy heart of the city, El Poblado, and vowed to tackle the gangs involved in pimping out children.

But sex workers can still be seen openly negotiating with tourists in the area.

– Child sexual exploitation –

At least a dozen foreigners have been arrested in Medellin this year for suspected sexual exploitation of children, according to the police.

The age of consent in Colombia is 14, but paying a minor for sex is illegal.

Santa’s organization recorded 714 child victims of sexual exploitation between 2020 and 2022, based on police data.

In April, local media published the alleged chats of a Colombian-American citizen who had negotiated with a sex trafficker to rape a minor of “10 or 11 years” in exchange for $150 and an iPhone XS.

He was arrested at the airport in Miami before taking a flight to Medellin.

The suspect “had entered Colombia 45 times since 2022. These abuses against our children have been occurring with great intensity for years,” said the mayor, Gutierrez.

According to city hall, the number of visitors to Medellin has increased sevenfold in less than a decade, with 1.5 million coming to the city last year, half of them foreigners.

The city expects a record number of visitors this year.

“Most tourists don’t come looking for sex… of course we have some. As long as they do it legally, we in the city can’t do anything,” Medellin’s Tourism Secretary Jose Gonzalez told AFP.

He said the city wants to focus on “health tourism, sports tourism and digital nomads.”

– ‘Scare away’ demand –

In March, Gutierrez proposed regulating short-term rentals on sites like Airbnb after apartments were used to host parties with underage girls. He has since signed an agreement with the platform to exchange information on guests suspected of criminal behavior.

The mayor’s office presents the restriction on prostitution in some areas as a bid to “scare away” demand for sexual services.

But the president of the region’s sex worker union, Valery Ramirez, said the ban was “punitive and unconstitutional.”

As the debate rages, normal tourists have tried to keep to themselves.

Carl Manz, a 33-year-old American visiting Medellin for an amateur football tournament, is not unaware of the prostitution that abounds just a few blocks from where he is staying.

“If that is the culture here, I respect it. But I try to mind my own business,” he said.

Drones: new terror tool for Colombian guerrillas

AFP
June 20, 2024

Dissidents of the now disbanded FARC guerrilla group continue fighting for territory and trafficking routes - Copyright AFP/File STR

David SALAZAR

Colombia’s leftist guerrillas are increasingly relying on drones to drop explosives on rivals, sowing terror in rural areas and leaving the military scrambling.

As dissident groups of the now-disbanded FARC guerrilla army continue fighting over territory and trafficking routes, the low-frequency hum of a drone has become a signal for villagers to take cover.

The Colombian military has recently distributed videos of the rebels using unmanned aircraft to attack soldiers and civilians alike — with at least 17 attacks registered in the last six weeks in conflict-torn departments such as Cauca.

Unlike the sophisticated payloads mounted on drones by soldiers in Ukraine, for example, the guerrillas mainly use homemade explosives or fireworks.

So far their rudimentary flying bombs have claimed no lives.

But in the Cauca capital of Popayan, the mayor’s office has banned drone flights after a June 7 attack with explosives on a police station.

Less than a week ago, a girl was injured by an explosive device dropped near a hospital in the town of Suarez, while three soldiers were recently injured in two drone attacks in the town of Argelia.

The armed forces of the South American country battling to extract itself from a six-decade civil war announced Tuesday they were themselves acquiring drones aimed at “containing these terrorist actions.”

– Rudimentary, but effective –

In its military campaign to seize power, the FARC spent millions of dollars on black market weaponry — machine guns, grenades and mines.

Today, the Central General Staff (EMC) and Segunda Marquetalia — two splinter groups that refused to disarm when the FARC signed a peace deal in 2016 — are increasingly relying on commercially available drones that cost less than $1,000 apiece.

“It may be rudimentary technology, but it’s effective,” security expert Luis Armas told AFP.

AFP obtained transcripts from an official source of intercepted phone calls between EMC members discussing plans for drone strikes.

In one, the rebels mull “neighborhoods where the oligarchy lives” in Bogota. Police in the Colombian capital this week announced they had acquired a “Dronebuster 3” to jam drone communications.

A guerrilla commander told AFP that obtaining drones was a priority for the insurgents.

“If the enemy is preparing itself… with drones, then of course we have to keep up,” he said in a voice message from the country’s southwest.

The Cauca department’s security secretary Miller Hurtado told Colombian outlet W Radio there was a race among armed groups to show “that they are better armed, that they have better technology.”

But with the drones lacking precision targeting methods, explosives risk landing on unintended civilian locations such as schools.

Jorge Restrepo, a researcher at the Conflict Analysis Resource Center, said a massive uptake in drone use “would mean a huge jump in military capacity” for guerrilla fighters.

“The armed forces are not prepared” for this new “terrorism” tool, he told AFP.

Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez has acknowledged that the military’s drone-fighting capabilities are “insufficient.”

AU CONTRAIRE 

Op-Ed: Just Stop Oil – Not stopping oil, annoying Greens, and making anti-oil look bad

STONEHENGE IS SACRED


By Paul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
June 20, 2024

NOTICE THE CHEMTRAILS (AKA CONTRAILS) IN THE SKY

Just Stop Oil has been making all the wrong noises too often. Attacking Stonehenge was an incredibly bad and very ugly move, guaranteed to infuriate Greens. It comes on top of other useless vandalism attacks and some of the worst publicity any supposedly Green movement could want.

If you check out the lengthy list of irritating news about Just Stop Oil, there’s not much to like. Just Stop Oil started in 2021, and since then has achieved remarkably little.

The group acts like the 1970s “radicals”, creating impossibly hostile scenarios for dialog with any government, oil company or stakeholders. It has started an argument nobody can win.

Oil is a problem. The oil sector is too backward, stupid, and insular to realize it can repurpose all of its products away from fuels. The sector doesn’t even need to tweak distribution or anything else. All it needs to do is, just make other, non-polluting products. Apparently, that’s too difficult.

You can’t stop billions of oil dollars with cheap stupid and counterproductive publicity stunts. You can’t stop it with self-righteousness. You’re not offering alternative solutions; you’re just making a racket.

Just Stop Oil is effectively creating sympathy for the oil sector simply because of its extremely offensive and idiotic targeting of inoffensive subjects. No Green is ever going to agree with this ultra-dumb vandalism.

The targeting of these so-called protests is also highly questionable. What is supposed to be achieved by attacking the Rugby World Cup? That audience isn’t famous for its Green sympathies. Nor is Wimbledon.

When did Van Gogh’s Sunflowers poison the world? How did Stonehenge become responsible for a brain-dead energy sector? How did Les Miserables contribute to global warming?

No direct Just Stop Oil protests against actual oil companies seem to happen. There’s not an atom of orange paint on a Chevron, Exxon, or BP property, or anything else. Why?

This looks far more like a brazen right-wing negative publicity campaign than any kind of legit climate protest group. They have achieved precisely nothing. They will continue to achieve nothing if they continue with this worthless attention-getting charade.

An extremely old McCarthyist tactic is to discredit opposition groups by joining them and carrying out destructive actions in their names. The Black Bloc, which used to show up at environmental protests, would “help” protect the Amazon by burning people’s cars. That, of course, antagonized just about everyone and got far more publicity than the protest or the issues. It also discredited the real protesters.

The net effect of this absurdly over-the-top conspicuous “extremism”, of course, is hyper-polarization. One of the easiest anti-environmental tricks is to simply paint environmentalists as whackos. The actual issue, which is just cleaning up a toxic world, gets lost in the negative imagery.

That’s been going on for 50 years at least. It’s also one of the reasons so little has been done about the plague of environmental disasters. Governments and companies feel safe not “giving in” to supposed nutcases.

I think it’s fair to say that no real Greens want any part of Just Stop Oil.

I certainly don’t. They’re ridiculous.

Goodbye Just Stop Oil, and back to Central Casting with you.
\

EU chief’s texts for Covid vaccines under court scrutiny


By AFP
June 21, 2024

Von der Leyen is seeking a second term as president of the European Commission - Copyright GETTY IMAGES/AFP ALEX WONG
Matthieu DEMEESTERE

A Belgian court on Friday heard a lawsuit accusing European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen of secretly negotiating Covid vaccine purchases via text message and arguing she should be barred from a second term.

The case centres on allegations that von der Leyen, at the height of the pandemic, exchanged messages with Pfizer boss Albert Bourla to help arrange the EU’s mammoth vaccine purchases.

The EU’s ombudsman in January 2022 declared that the commission had been guilty of “maladministration” for failing to identify any such text messages, not making them public — and claiming that, if they existed, they should not come under its public transparency rules for documents.

The case was brought by a Belgian former lobbyist to the European Parliament, Frederic Baldan. He alleges “destruction of public documents” and argues that von der Leyen both overstepped her role and violated the commission’s code of conduct.

Through his lawyer, he urged the court to force von der Leyen’s European People’s Party (EPP) to withdraw its support for her to get a second, five-year term running the commission.

The EPP did not have a lawyer in court representing it. Contacted by AFP, the political group refused to comment.

The Brussels judge hearing the case said a ruling would be issued before next Thursday. That is when EU leaders are to gather for a summit expected to nominate von der Leyen to a new mandate, following the European elections earlier this month.

– Secret messages –

Baldan, who since 2023 has brought the lawsuit before several Belgian courts and the EU court, says von der Leyen conducted the Pfizer vaccine purchase “by SMS, in secret” without approval from EU member states.

While the EU ombudsman’s finding carried no penalty for the commission, the EU prosecutor’s office in October 2022 launched a probe into how von der Leyen and the EU set about procuring the Covid vaccines.

Baldan has a case related to the matter that will be heard in December by another Belgian court, in Liege, in which he contests the ability of the EU prosecutor’s office to effectively investigate.

The alleged exchange of text messages between von der Leyen and Bourla was revealed by the New York Times in 2021. The US newspaper last year sued the commission for failing to release the messages.

The EU acted swiftly after the Covid pandemic struck in 2020 to secure vaccines for member countries to buy for their citizens and residents, with the commission tapping Pfizer as the main supplier.

Many aspects of the vaccine procurement have been kept confidential.

The commission, by late 2021, had signed 71 billion euros ($76 billion) worth of contracts for the joint procurement of 4.6 billion doses, according to the European Court of Auditors.

“The heart of the process were the preliminary negotiations that took place before a tender invitation was sent out,” the official auditor said in a 2022 report.

French left vows new taxes as snap election draws near

AFP
June 21, 2024

The New Popular Front (NPF) plans to tax wealth and windfall profits - Copyright AFP/File Daniel ROLAND

Tom BARFIELD

Left-wing parties in France on Friday pledged to raise 30 billion euros a year from taxing businesses and the rich if they win a majority at snap parliamentary polls, drawing ire from centrists and business leaders.

The promises to fund new welfare handouts come as the left tries to catch up to the lead of the far-right National Rally (RN) in the polls — both of them well ahead of President Emmanuel Macron’s camp.

Socialists, Greens, Communists and hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) would “immediately reinstate a wealth tax with a climate component” to bring in “15 billion euros” ($16 billion) if they enter government, Socialist senator Alexandre Ouizille told journalists in Paris.

A tax on businesses’ windfall profits would bring in a further 15 billion euros, the New Popular Front (NPF) alliance predicts.

They plan to spend the cash on reversing Macron’s hugely unpopular increase to the official retirement age as well as increasing housing and unemployment benefit payments and public sector salaries.

Olivier Blanchard, former chief economist of the IMF, called the NPF’s plans “essentially confiscatory in nature,” in a message on Twitter.

“It is hard to see how this will not lead entrepreneurs to move en masse their operations elsewhere,” he added.

In a sign of weakening confidence, yields on France’s debt have soared since the president called the snap election after a European poll drubbing, as investors react to lavish spending plans from both the left and the RN.

France’s public finances are already under strain, with an outstanding debt pile of around 110 percent of GDP — over three trillion euros — and an enduring government deficit that on Wednesday earned it a rebuke from the European Commission.

Bond markets are showing “the direct consequences of totally senseless and irresponsible economic and financial plans” from both left and far right, Macron’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.

He vowed to bring France’s deficit back to the notional EU limit of three percent by 2027, from over five percent this year.

The RN has for its part vowed to face down Brussels over the party’s plans to reduce VAT on fuel — forbidden under EU rules aimed at limiting greenhouse emissions.

– ‘Electioneering anti-Semitism’ –

Ministers led by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal have hammered their message that they are the sole bulwark against two “extremes” on left and right.

“Today there are three blocs, two of them extremes who feed off each other, because they are fuelled by divisions between French people, by stigmatising some French people,” Attal said in Marseille on Friday.

The RN’s core messages revolve around opposition to Islam and immigration, with its manifesto pledging to “stop the migrant flood”.

But allegations of anti-Semitism have resounded loudest this week, intensified after the rape of a 12-year-old girl by two teenagers allegedly motivated by hatred of Jews.

Some figures in LFI, the largest party in the left alliance, have been accused of anti-Semitism over their reactions to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

“There is no equivalence between the contextual, populist and electioneering anti-Semitism used by some members of LFI and the founding, historical and essential anti-Semitism of the RN,” which was co-founded by a former Waffen-SS member, lawyer Arie Alimi and historian Vincent Lemire wrote in an op-ed for Le Monde daily.

While “it cannot be contested that there is a resurgence in anti-Semitism from the left,” they insisted that “the NPF is the only electorally credible alternative to avoid an openly xenophobic party taking control of our institutions.”

The left’s electoral programme includes a condemnation of Hamas’s attack on Israel and a plan to address racism and anti-Semitism.

– Rush for proxy votes –


As voters rush to prepare for the June 30 and July 7 polls, over a million have already registered to vote by proxy in the election falling at the start of the summer holiday period.

The number stood at over 1,055,000 by June 20, the interior ministry said, already outstripping the number seen at the parliamentary election in June 2022 election when people had more notice and were more likely to be at home.

Some eyes were also already on the Paris Olympic Games starting in late July, which Macron has not shied away from using to call on voters to choose stability.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Friday that he would not continue in his post to oversee security at the Games if Macron’s camp loses the election, “even for just a few extra weeks”.

Nevertheless, “the Olympic Games have been well prepared for, everyone knows and appreciates that,” he added.

burs-tgb/as/rlp

French feminists march against far right with days before vote

By AFP
June 23, 2024

Feminist demonstrators marched against the far right in Paris - Copyright AFP Eyad BABA

Thousands of people turned out in France on Sunday for feminist demonstrations against the far right, which is expected to come out on top in June 30 snap elections, as parties sought to shore up support with days to go.

With the far-right National Rally (RN) polling at around 35 percent, “we have to remind people that they’re the ones who talked about ‘comfort abortions’, who are always attacking family planning services,” said Morgane Legras, a nuclear engineer and feminist activist taking part in the thousands-strong march in Paris.

Protesters wearing violet marched from the Place de la Republique square in central Paris to Place de la Nation in the east, bearing signs with messages such as “Push back the far right, not our rights”.

Other rallies took place in around 50 other cities such as Toulouse.

France’s two-round election system makes it difficult to predict which party could ultimately claim a majority in the lower house of parliament, handing them the prime minister’s post which is second in power to President Emmanuel Macron.

Since Macron dissolved parliament after a European Parliament election battering, his centrists are badly lagging the RN as well as a reforged left-wing alliance called the New Popular Front (NFP) in surveys of voting intentions.

The RN has garnered unprecedented levels of support after a decades-long “de-demonisation” push to distance its image from its roots, including a co-founder who was a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS paramilitary.

But the core of its message remains hostility to immigration, Islam and the European Union.

Senior RN lawmaker Sebastien Chenu gestured towards Muslim and Jewish voters Sunday by vowing not to ban the ritual slaughter of livestock to produce halal or kosher meat.

“Everyone will be able to keep eating kosher meat if they want,” Chenu told Jewish broadcaster Radio J.

He added that a historic far-right policy of barring the kippa in public spaces — in the footsteps of an existing law forbidding the full-body burka worn by some Muslim women — was not top of the RN’s agenda, saying its priority was to fight “the Islamist threat”.

– ‘Do better ‘-

In Macron’s camp, Prime Minister Gabriel Attal acknowledged that the European Parliament result — where they scored just 14 percent — was “a message to us that we have to do better with our methods, with our governance” of the country.

If his party defies the odds to come top in the legislative polls, he vowed “change”, including a turn to “seeking out coalitions with the French public, with civil society” in an interview with broadcaster RTL.

Macron’s alliance would open up to “all who want to come, from the conservative right to the social-democratic left”, Macron’s former prime minister Edouard Philippe told broadcaster France 3.

Attal also hammered the centrists’ mantra about the threats from “extremes” on the left and right, saying both promised a “tax bludgeoning… a shredder for the middle classes”.

The RN especially is “not ready to govern… it’s a party of opposition, not a party of government”, Attal said.

In a sign of the disquiet abroad over Macron’s snap poll gamble, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday that he was “concerned about the elections in France”, though “it’s up to the French people to decide”.

– ‘Shut up’ –

The left-wing NFP alliance continued to show strains Sunday, after parties hastily re-knitted ties sundered over differing responses to Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel and the ongoing retaliation by Israeli forces in Gaza.

Divisions are particularly stark over whether their candidate for prime minister should be Jean-Luc Melenchon, head of France Unbowed (LFI) — the largest party in the grouping, some of whose members have been accused of anti-Semitism.

Melenchon should “shut up”, former Socialist president Francois Hollande said Sunday, as “people reject him more strongly” than the RN’s leaders Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella.

“Do we want the left to win, or do we want to be stoking conflict?” he said.

Melenchon said on Saturday that he aimed “to govern the country”.

“I will never give up the honour of being a target” for attacks, Melenchon told a rally in the southern city of Montpellier on Sunday.

burs/tgb/

COUNTER GENTRIFICATION
Barcelona aims to become Airbnb-free zone by 2029


AFP
June 21, 2024

Tourists crowd Las Ramblas alley in Barcelona - Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File SCOTT OLSON

Barcelona, one of Europe’s most visited cities, said Friday it aims to ban apartment rentals to tourists by 2029 to ease the housing shortage in Spain’s second largest city.

The licences for the 10,101 apartments currently approved as short-term rentals which are available on platforms such as Airbnb and Homeaway will not be renewed when they expire in November 2028, Barcelona’s leftist mayor, Jaume Collboni, told a news conference.

“The city cannot allow such a large number of flats to be used for tourist activity at a time of difficulty of access to housing and when the negative effects of tourist overcrowding are obvious”, he added.

This means that “from 2029”, if there are no setbacks, “tourist flats as we conceive of them today will disappear from the city of Barcelona”.

Cities like Berlin, Paris and Barcelona say home-sharing websites for tourists deprive locals of apartments for long-term rent and push up prices for homes remaining on the market.

Collboni said the boom in short-term rentals in Barcelona had helped push up rents by 68 percent in the city, and the cost of buying a house by 38 percent.

“We are confronting what we believe is Barcelona’s biggest problem,” he said.

His predecessor, former housing activist Ada Colau, suspended the issuing of new licences for tourist apartments and banned the opening of new hotels in the city’s most popular areas as part of efforts to cub over-tourism.

But that has not prevented the number of visitors to the city, which is known for its Belle Epoque architecture, museums and beaches, from continuing to increase, especially after pandemic travel restrictions were lifted.

Several local associations have called for a demonstration on July 6 with the slogan: “”Enough! Let’s put a stop to tourism!”.

The rally will come on the heels of other similar demonstrations held in recent months in other Spanish tourism hotspots such as the Canary Islands and Palma de Mallorca.

SAY NO TO GENDER APARTHEID

No Afghan ‘reintegration’ without progress on rights: UN


AFP
June 21, 2024

Afghan women walk along a road in Arghandab district of Kandahar province on May 27, 2024 - Copyright AFP/File Sanaullah SEIAM

Restrictions on women’s rights continue to prevent Afghanistan’s “reintegration” into the international community, a senior UN official said Friday, noting the Taliban’s participation in upcoming talks in Doha is not legitimization of the isolated government.

Since their 2021 return to power, Taliban authorities have not been formally recognized by any nation and apply a rigorous interpretation of Islam, leading to a suppression of women’s freedoms that the United Nations has described as “gender apartheid.”

Restrictions on women and girls, particularly in education, “deprive the country of vital human capital” and lead to a brain drain that undermines the impoverished country’s future, Roza Otunbayeva, head of the UN mission in the country, UNAMA, told the Security Council.

“By being deeply unpopular (the restrictions) undermine the de facto authorities’ claims to legitimacy,” she said.

“And they continue to block diplomatic solutions that would lead to Afghanistan’s reintegration into the international community.”

Last year marked the start of a process in Doha to consider strengthening the world community’s engagement with Afghanistan.

The first Doha talks included foreign special envoys to Afghanistan under the aegis of the United Nations, and in the presence of the country’s civil society, including women.

The Taliban had been excluded from the opening talks and refused to take part in the second round if other representatives from the country were involved.

The third round of talks is set for June 30 and July 1 in Doha, and the Taliban has given assurances it will attend.

“For this process to truly begin, it is essential that the de facto authorities participate at Doha,” Otunbayeva said, warning however that high expectations “cannot realistically be met in a single meeting.”

“It cannot be repeated enough that this sort of engagement is not legitimization or normalization,” she stressed.

Responding to criticism over the absence of Afghan civil society representatives, notably women, at the talks that include the Taliban, Otunbayeva said those groups would be present in Doha for a separate meeting on July 2.

“This is what is possible today,” she said.

Afghanistan’s UN ambassador Naseer Ahmad Faiq, who still represents the government that preceded the Taliban’s rise to power, called the absence of civil society and women at the table in Doha “disappointing.”

He also expressed concern the agenda does not include discussions on the political process and human rights in Afghanistan, saying “this will be perceived as a shift away from issues deemed essential to the people of Afghanistan.”

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/no-afghan-reintegration-without-progress-on-rights-un/article#ixzz8e2f12VsX

Ferrari eyes electric future with solar-powered factory

FIRST THEY ANNOUNCE AN EV NOW THIS

AFP
June 21, 2024


Ferrari's new factory will produce the group's legendary combustion engine cars as well as hybrids and the firm's first EV - Copyright AFP/File Daniel ROLAND

Italian luxury carmaker Ferrari on Friday inaugurated a new solar-powered factory at the group’s historic Maranello site, where its much anticipated wholly electric car should be produced from 2026.

The factory, covering 42,500 square metres and located just north of the current Ferrari campus, will produce the group’s legendary combustion engine cars as well as hybrids and the firm’s first EV.

Dubbed an “e-building”, the rectangular, 25-metre-high factory will be powered in part by more than 3,000 solar panels installed on the roof, producing 1.3 megawatts at their peak.

The aim is for the building to be entirely powered by renewable energy — both internal and external sources — by the end of the year.

High-voltage batteries, electric motors and axles will also be produced there, Ferrari said in a statement.

But the most excitement will be over the production of the new electric Ferrari sports car, the design of which is being kept under tight wraps ahead of its launch in 2025.

“It’s going to look like nothing you’d expect it to look like,” Ferrari chairman John Elkann told a podcast on Wednesday, giving few details but noting that the absence of a normal engine meant more space.

He told the Norges Bank Investment Management podcast that he had already taken it for a test drive.

“It’s incredible… in all ways. If you like to drive, the thrills and the emotions that you will have on this car are just exceptional,” he said.

And what of the traditional Ferrari roar? “It will have a sound,” he said.

Putting the production of all its models under one roof will allow Ferrari “to reorganise and reallocate all production activities more efficiently among its existing facilities in Maranello, increasing its ability to adapt quickly to production needs”, it said.

The group launched its first hybrid model in 2013, and now has four. It aims for full electric and hybrid models to make up 60 percent of production by 2026, and 80 percent by 2030.

Antimicrobials: There’s more to blue cheese than just the stench


By Dr. Tim Sandle
June 21, 2024
DIGITAL JOURNAL

Some members of the genus produce penicillin, a molecule that is used as an antibiotic, which kills or stops the growth of certain kinds of bacteria. Other species are used in cheesemaking. CC Image: CDC, SA 3.0

The distinctive, colourful marbled veins of blue lines cross-cross across the antique white surface of some of the world’s best and most flavoursome cheese. These cheeses are not only renowned for their taste and texture, but also for their pungent smells.

For some, the smell is sufficient to entice the taste buds and to get your stomach acid churning. For others, the smell is revolting, similar to worn socks after a park run.

The highway-like network of blue veins that twist and turn through blue cheeses are the hyphae and mycelium networks of edible Penicillium moulds. These filamentous fungi not only impart flavour to cheese, they also, as those familiar with the work of Alexander Flemming will know, produce compounds with antifungal, antibacterial, and other biological properties in high doses.

How can these compounds be more efficiently captured and processed for the benefit of humanity? Virginia Tech researchers have discovered a new, efficient way to synthesize some of these beneficial blue cheese compounds. This has been achieved deploying methods that avoid the use of harmful chemicals.

Previous problems with attempting the capture of the active ingredients either resulted in extremely low yields or required the use of harmful or dangerous chemicals, which would then have to be removed from the extracted compound.

Bleu de Gex, a creamy, semi-soft blue cheese made in the Jura region of France. Image by Myrabella. CC BY-SA 3.0 & GFDL

As to why the new renewed interest in these fungi, antibacterial resistance has become a growing problem for society, which was caused by the overuse of antimicrobials – from animal rearing to mis-prescribing by medical doctors.

As I’ve written elsewhere:

“This has been compounded not only by microorganisms that are resistant to one antimicrobial or another, but due to the rise of multi-drug resistant microorganisms (the so-termed ‘super bugs’). Prominent examples include MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), VISA (vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus), VRSA (vancomycin-resistant S. aureus), ESBL (Extended spectrum beta-lactamase), VRE (vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus) and MRAB (multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii).”

By finding a way to synthesize on a large scale a naturally occurring compound that has not previously been used for antibacterial applications, Virginia Tech researchers were able to evade the existing antibacterial resistances.

The extraction was achieved using an enzyme that can help create a natural product that has a different structure. Enzymes are proteins that help speed up chemical reactions. For their experiment, researchers used an enzyme that produces something called roquefortine L. Parts of its chemical structure are biologically active, which means that it can have beneficial properties such as antimicrobial activities.

This enzyme attaches two hydroxyl groups to a nitrogen atom, which are functional groups found in sugars and alcohols. A hydroxyl group consists of one hydrogen and one oxygen atom. Through a complex chemical process, the hydroxyl groups then develop an entirely different functionality.

Consequently, the compound extracted is of a form that makes it difficult for pathogens to become resistant.

In addition, the production of roquefortine L is central to the production of other molecules called glandiclone, melegranin, and oxaline, which have been shown to have broad antimicrobial properties and promising anticancer effects against human breast and leukaemia cancer cells.

The research has been published in the journal ACS Biochemistry. The paper is titled “Mechanism of Nitrone Formation by a Flavin-Dependent Monooxygenase.”

PUTIN'S CHEF
In Russia, Prigozhin remembered as ‘great man’ year after mutiny

HE HAD BECAME BOGGED DOWN IN BAKHMUT

By AFP
June 21, 2024

Yevgeny Prigozhin died in a plane crash two months after the mutiny - Copyright AFP Olga MALTSEVA

Almost a year since Yevgeny Prigozhin sent his Wagner mercenaries marching towards Moscow in a rebellion against Russia’s military leadership, residents in the capital spoke of respect and admiration for the late renegade.

The mercenary chief died in a mysterious aeroplane crash two months after ordering the short-lived mutiny on June 23-24 2023.

But despite mounting the biggest ever challenge to President Vladimir Putin’s near quarter of a century in power, Prigozhin and his Wagner Group continue to command respect.

“He did a lot for Russia at a difficult moment,” said 60-year-old caretaker Alexander Ulyanov, calling the late mercenary boss a “great man”.

Wagner spearheaded some of the Kremlin’s longest and bloodiest military campaigns in Ukraine, including the fight for the mostly destroyed city of Bakhmut in the east.

“The organisation he created has an iron discipline,” Ulyanov said.

Prigozhin is alive “in our hearts,” he added, comparing him to historical generals like Mikhail Kutuzov, who led Russian soldiers during the Napoleonic Wars.

“If people remember him, he’s alive,” Ulyanov said of Prigozhin.

A former hotdog seller and convicted criminal, Prigozhin became acquainted with Putin in the 1990s, later running catering businesses that served the Kremlin.

Nicknamed “Putin’s chef”, his influence quickly grew as he won government contracts, eventually founding the Wagner Group in 2014 to support Russian paramilitaries in east Ukraine.

After his death, for which the Kremlin categorically denied responsibility, Putin praised Prigozhin as a “talented businessman” who made “serious mistakes”.

– ‘It was so scary’ –

In their quest to unseat Moscow’s military top brass, Prigozhin’s fighters seized Russia’s army headquarters in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don and shot down military aircraft.

They managed to march roughly halfway to the capital Moscow before Belarus mediated a deal to end the near 24-hour uprising.

“It was so scary,” said Svetlana, a 42-year-old English teacher who was in Rostov at the time. “I didn’t know where it would lead to.”

“He was probably right about something. But… the fact that during the special military operation, when hostilities were going on, he deployed and moved some troops to Rostov in particular — that was wrong,” she said.

But “Teddy Boy”, a 41-year-old American citizen from Los Angeles and member of the “Espanola” battalion fighting for Russia in Ukraine, praised the mercenary boss.

“I’m not 100 percent with him, but if I had met him, I would have shook his hand,” said Teddy Boy, who wore a military uniform and sported tattoos of pro-Russian army symbols.

“He spoke (about) a lot of things that people are thinking, that they’re too scared to say. That’s the problem. And I think that’s why a lot of people supported him.”