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Protestors in Iran driven by desperation, says Halifax woman

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Mitra Mansouri witnessed protests sparked by the death of a 22-year-old woman who had been detained

CBC News · Posted: Oct 21, 2022 

Demonstrators chant slogans during the March of Solidarity for Iran in Washington, D.C. earlier this month. Demonstrations have taken place inside Iran and around the world following the mid-September death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest in Tehran by the county's morality police. (Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

While Mitra Mansouri was in Iran over the past month, she says she witnessed women and young people saying they have nothing to lose in their fight against the country's Islamic government.

"With the young people, especially students and women, they have the power of hopeless because they don't have any hope for their future," Mansouri told CBC Radio's Mainstreet on Thursday.

Mansouri moved from Iran to Canada 14 years ago, and now lives in Halifax.

She recently visited Iran and saw the unprecedented protests against its government that were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been detained by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her mandatory headscarf too loosely.

Amini fell into a coma after she was detained and died in hospital on Sept. 16, sparking international condemnation.

Mitra Mansouri moved to Canada from Iran 14 years ago. She now lives in Halifax. (Mitra Mehr/Facebook)

Mansouri spoke with CBC Radio's Preston Mulligan on Mainstreet Thursday. Their conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

What was your own experience like growing up in Iran, and did you ever worry about the morality police targeting you for anything?

Yes. If you are talking about my previous experience when I was living in Iran — yes, all the time. Me and my colleagues, my classmates, [we were] always under pressure, scared of the morality police and it was a very daily experience for [all] people in Iran.

Give me an example of what behaviour you might worry could offend the morality police.

I remember when I was married for just two years, me and my husband were walking in a park together and the morality police stopped us and asked, "Who is walking with you?" And I said, "This is my husband." 

They said "No, you are lying, he's not," and they took us to different cars and they started questioning us about, what is your name? What is your father name, grandfather name, your address, your uncle's address? And many, many different questions, just to recognize if we are really husband and wife or not. 

Listen to Mansouri's full interview on CBC Radio's Mainstreet:

Mainstreet NS8:34What a Halifax woman witnessed during protests in Iran

Mitra Mansouri just spent a month in Iran, witnessing the unprecedented protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by the morality police for allegedly wearing her mandatory headscarf too loosely. Mitra spoke with guest host Preston Mulligan about what she saw during the unrest.

And it took one hour, this questioning, in two different cars and after that I was shaking because I was scared very much. They are not very kind, they are not very polite and … they want to scare you and our generation really wants to escape. 

That's the point of it, as you say, just to intimidate and to scare you. How did that situation resolve? Were you let out of the vehicles and told to go on your way?

Yes. After one hour of questioning, they let us go because they recognized that we are really wife and husband, but imagine if we were not and we were just boyfriend and girlfriend. What would happen to us? ... Maybe they'd take us to prison? 

The experience of normal life was from the beginning of the revolution until now, the government always has some reason to force people to obey the rules. The Islamic Republic is not just a political government, it is a religious government, and they rule in your private life as well. It means you can't be yourself in the Islamic Republic.

Tell us what you saw during your visit back to Iran this past month.

When I arrived in Iran, it was just two days after the death of Mahsa Amini. In the early morning, when I was in Tehran, I saw police motorcycles around the city. It was very early but it seems they are going to very specific locations to control the people — every smaller street or bazaar, market, shopping centre, everywhere you can see the military stand with their guns ready.

Thousands showed their support for Iranian protesters standing up to their leadership over the death of a young woman after she was held police custody, during a demonstration in The Hague, Netherlands, on Oct. 8. (Peter Dejong/The Associated Press)

Tell me about some of the other places you visited while you were there.

I had a trip to Kerman, another city in south of Iran, and it is normally a very calm city, but I was there for around one week and I saw, against the government, many demonstrations and people, especially young people, and women were out to show their feelings about how they don't want this government.

They want to get back their normal life and it was very surprising for me because Kerman was most of the time, a very calm city.

Tell us about what you saw of the protesters and what they were doing and their attitude.

I have an example. I saw a very young girl and she had pain in her back and I asked her, "Why do you feel pain?" And she said, "Last night, I was beaten by the police" and she was laughing. I asked her, "Oh, why are you laughing?" 

She said "Because they can't understand. I have not married, I don't have any children and I don't have any future so I'm not scared for my life. I will fight to get back my normal life. Normal life means what I like to be." 

• Q&A
  'Right now, people sing it on the streets': Halifax concert to pay tribute to Iranian protesters

• Demonstrators in Canadian cities call for change in Iran after Mahsa Amini's death

With the young people, especially students and women, they have the power of hopeless, because they don't have any hope for their future. They [lost] their young years, they [lost] their wishes, their dreams and they want to change it. And I saw the power of the hopeless for this young generation and women.

The woman who you encountered who'd been beaten in the back, where was she going?

She was talking over the phone with other people for another demonstration in Tehran and as I said, she said, "I don't have anything to lose" and she was on the way to another protest.

It's really more than brave. I can't name it.

With files from CBC Radio's Mainstreet

IT STARTS WITH DRIVING
‘Alarming’ rise in Saudi divorce rate blamed on social media

The New Arab Staff
27 October, 2022

New figures show that there were seven divorces per hour in 2020 in Saudi Arabia, with experts blaming unrealistic portrayals of life provided by social media.


Saudi divorce rates increased by over 12% between 2019 and 2020 [Getty]

Figures released by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics have revealed a dramatic rise in the rate of divorce in the Gulf kingdom.

The latest statistics show that in 2020, there were 57,595 divorces – amounting to 168 per day or seven per hour.

This represented a 12.7 percent increase on the rate of divorce in 2019.

Saudi lawyer Dakhil Al-Dakhil told the local Al-Yaum newspaper that there had been only 9,233 divorces in 2010 although in 2011 the number of divorces had gone up to 34,000.

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Al-Yaum reported that one of the factors behind the alarming rise in divorce since 2010 was the effect of social media on society.

Al-Dakhil pointed to the role of social media influencers, telling Al-Yaum that they often gave impractical advice and portrayed life in a way that was too idealized and far removed from reality, giving Saudis unrealistic aspirations.

The lawyer also said that recent increases in the cost of living and the Covid-19 pandemic had also played a major role.

There has been an increase in divorce rates in the Arab world generally in recent years.

Pacific nuclear legacy overshadows US talks in Marshall Islands

Mon, October 31, 2022 


Marshall Islands officials say they are ready to resume talks with the United States this week on renewing a long-standing economic and security deal, provided Washington addresses grievances stemming from the testing of nuclear weapons on the Pacific archipelago more than 70 years ago.

The United States detonated 67 nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands between 1946-58, and the health and environmental impacts are still felt on the islands and atolls that lie between Hawaii and the Philippines.

US special envoy Joseph Yun is scheduled to land in the capital Majuro on Thursday to resume negotiations on extending the 20-year Compact of Free Association, part of which expires in 2023.

Marshall Islands negotiators first want the United States to pay more of the compensation awarded by the international Nuclear Claims Tribunal, totalling just over $3 billion, of which around $270 million has been paid so far.

Officials in Majuro broke off talks in September to renew the compact, a key international agreement between the United States, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.

The Marshall Islands said it would also be ready to resume talks with Yun if Washington tackled health and environmental issues stemming from their nuclear testing.

"We are ready to sign (a Compact extension) tomorrow, once the key issues are addressed," Parliament Speaker Kenneth Kedi told AFP.

"We need to come up with a dignified solution," he said. Kedi represents Rongelap Atoll, which is still affected by nuclear testing.

He was encouraged by an agreement signed in late September by US President Joe Biden and Pacific island leaders, including Marshall Islands President David Kabua, that included references to the US commitment to addressing its nuclear past.

However, until that happens, "it casts a question mark on all the promises Washington has made," Kedi said.

"If we can't resolve issues from our past, how will it be going forward with other issues?"

Thousands of Marshall Islanders were engulfed in a radioactive fallout cloud following the 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear test by the US military, and many subsequently experienced health problems.

Tonnes of contaminated debris from the testing was dumped in a crater on the Enewetak Atoll and capped with concrete that has since cracked, sparking health concerns.

Hundreds of islanders from the Marshall's Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrik atolls have also had to relocate due to nuclear contamination. Many are still unable to return home.

A study issued by the US National Cancer Institute in 2004 estimated around 530 cancer cases had been caused by the nuclear testing.

"As Bikinians, we’ve done enough for the United States," said Alson Kelen, chairman of the Marshall Islands’ National Nuclear Commission, who believes the United States should pay the full amount of the compensation awarded.

"We're not asking to be rich. We're asking for funding to solve our nuclear problems ... really the funds are to mitigate and address the problems of our health, relocations and nuclear cleanups," Kelen said.

  

Of Course War-Profiteering Gas Companies Don’t Want to Give Workers More Power

November 1, 2022


The Australian government is facing a swarm of opposition as it tries to push through a massive 249-page industrial relations bill that would allow workers—at different companies—to collectively bargain for better pay.

Now, bosses from some of Australia’s richest mining, coal and gas companies say they will run a “multimillion-dollar” ad campaign to stop them.

The threat was levelled at the Labor government on Tuesday, adding to growing unrest from members of the crossbench in both houses of parliament, as workplace relations minister Tony Burke continues to push ahead with hopes to get it done by the end of this year.

If he’s successful, the bill would make a slew of changes to industrial law in Australia, and give workers—and their unions—substantially more bargaining power.

Among the most controversial elements of the bill is the introduction of multi-employer bargaining, which would offer workers from lower-paid industries—like childcare and cleaning—to negotiate together sector-wide, as opposed to having negotiations fenced off by their bosses.

The possibility has outraged all sorts of bosses, not least those who sit at the top of some of the most profitable businesses operating in Australia.

Across the resources sector, where profits over the last year are in the tens of billions, anger over the idea of ceding more power to workers is running “white hot”. Steve Knott, chief executive at the Australian Resources and Energy Employer Association, said that if the government doesn’t make “substantive” changes to the bill, some of the sector’s biggest employers would launch a multimillion dollar campaign against it.

“It would be like the mining tax campaign but on steroids,” Knott told The Australian, referencing the $20 million campaign launched by the industry in opposition to the resource super profits tax in 2010, which eventually left former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s government in ruins.

At the centre of most of the blowback to the bill are claims that, if passed, Australia would descend into the strike-induced chaos last seen across the nation in the 1970s. It’s a heavily-trodden line, often heard from opposition leader Peter Dutton, as well as the various industry and lobby groups that have taken the same position.

But there’s plenty of research that suggests the opposite would be true. Chris F. Wright, an industrial relations academic and associate professor at the University of Sydney, says Denmark offers itself as a useful case study.

There, where close to two thirds of the population are unionised and even more are covered by collective agreements made on the foundation Australia’s Labor government is trying to introduce, strikes are rare, the unemployment rate is lower than it is in Australia, and “excessive” wage growth is nowhere to be seen.

In Australia, wages have remained stagnant for the better part of the last decade, while inflation for the September quarter rose to 7.3 percent.

“Multi-employer bargaining systems have many other benefits,” he wrote on Twitter. “They can help to address gender pay inequity—according to the OECD multi-employer arrangements are ‘necessary to negotiate targeted raises in female-dominated and low-paid sectors’.”

“Multi-employer bargaining is also more effective at addressing skills shortages—because it encourages employers to cooperate over training, rather than poaching each other’s skilled workers [which is common in Australia],” he said.

But multi-employer bargaining only forms one part of the bill, and members of the Senate crossbench, who will have final say over the bill’s passage, argue that the government is trying to rush the bill through both houses without giving any mind to what unintended consequences it might bring with it.

In order to get the bill over the line, Labor will need support from the Greens in the Senate, along with at least one more independent member of the crossbench in just three weeks.

So far, One Nation has outright opposed the bill, while the Jacqui Lambie Network has reservations about how it could impact small businesses still recovering from the worst of the pandemic, and senator David Pocock is asking the government to break the bill up, so parts of it can be passed before Christmas, and others can be scrutinised for longer.

The government, however, has shown no signs of slowing down. Prime minister Anthony Albanese argued earlier in the week that there’s already been a considerable amount of consultation on the changes, and that his government will “consider practical changes”, but won’t pause for delays.

The message was repeated firmly by Burke later on Tuesday. Appearing on the ABC’s Afternoon Briefing on Tuesday, he said he didn’t want workers suffering wage stagnation to wait “a day longer than we have to”, before hitting back at Knott over threats to launch a campaign against the government’s bill.

“People have been waiting for 10 years without their wages moving, and I don’t want to continue that delay. Let’s not pretend we don’t have a level of urgency here…wages at the moment in Australia [are] running at 2.6 percent, and inflation [is] running at 7.3 percent,” Burke said.

“A $20 million campaign is not going to stop this government’s resolve in getting wages moving,” he said.

“If they think they can simply buy advertising space, and we will suddenly turn a blind eye to the households where wages are not keeping up with standards of living, then they just don’t understand what’s happening around every kitchen table in Australia.”

Follow John on Twitter.

Read more from VICE Australia 

The post Of Course War-Profiteering Gas Companies Don’t Want to Give Workers More Power appeared first on VICE.

Gay struggle offers new window on Berlin Wall’s fall

November 1, 2022


Art exhibitions, films and city tours are casting a new spotlight on LGBTQ life in the now defunct state, capturing the imagination of generations born after the Berlin Wall tumbled on November 9, 1989.

“It was a high-wire act,” said East German art expert Stephan Koal about the life of Juergen Wittdorf, a long-closeted gay artist whose daringly homoerotic works decorated even official buildings of the Stalinist regime.

Koal has co-curated a major retrospective of more than 250 pieces by Wittdorf for what would have been his 90th birthday.

Although it’s being staged in a sleepy eastern Berlin suburb, the exhibition has been a surprise success with more than 20,000 visitors since it opened in September.

As sexual autonomy comes under fresh attack around the globe, even in EU members such as Hungary and Romania, Wittdorf’s work is seeing a renaissance four years after his death.

Part of that renewed interest comes from a contemporary understanding of the “courage” required for LGBTQ people to fly beneath the radar, Koal said.

“Gay people were an important part of an incredibly exciting subculture,” he said, along with overlapping groups of intellectuals, churchgoers, environmentalists and squatters that finally spilled onto the streets in East Germany’s peaceful revolution.

“The regime saw the gay scene as a threat.”

‘Bubbling beneath’

Born in 1932, Wittdorf was a long-time member of the German Democratic Republic (GDR)’s ruling SED party, living off official commissions for his art.

The communist state decriminalised gay sex in 1968 — a year before West Germany — but it remained a serious social taboo.

Years before that reform, Wittdorf pushed the envelope with graphically lustful works featuring young men’s bodies that he managed to pass off as Socialist Realist heroism.

One work that stands out is a print that hung in the official Academy of Sport in Leipzig featuring buff athletes soaping up together under the showers.

Karin Scheel, artistic director of Biesdorf Palace, which is hosting the Wittdorf retrospective, said the collection was a “nearly buried treasure” that explored the limits of social repression in an authoritarian state.

“In the GDR these were just depictions of athletes,” said Scheel, who co-curated the show. “Today we see it totally differently — under these prints there’s something huge bubbling beneath the surface.”

Wolfgang Winkler, 86, a retired librarian visiting the show who met Wittdorf a few times, said the role of LGBTQ people in East Germany’s churning underground had long been “underestimated”.

“History just swept it aside, what Wittdorf achieved with his work,” he said. “But for those of us who knew about it, it was a sensation.”

Berlin’s chief culture official, Klaus Lederer, who is also gay and from the east, hailed new efforts to correct the “erasure” of Eastern artists and their battles for freedom.

Although most gave way to gentrification and online dating, a few of the gay bars and cafes of East Berlin are still around, such as the Sonntags Club (Sunday Club) which is now a stop on popular tours of the Prenzlauer Berg district’s LGBTQ history.

Since 2021, an annual East Pride Berlin demonstration has paid tribute to the LGBTQ pioneers in the “resistance” behind the Iron Curtain as well as embattled communities in eastern Europe today.

‘Cheeky’

One of the stops is at the Gethsemane Church, a centre of anti-regime protest and the birthplace of the rights group Lesbians in the Church.

Sexual liberation also drives the new movie “In a Land That No Longer Exists” set in East Germany’s world of fashion in the summer of 1989.

Director Aelrun Goette, who was herself discovered as a model on the street in East Berlin, tells the story of Suzie, a teen who escapes a state-mandated factory job by posing for a style magazine.

There she meets the designer Rudi — based on GDR style icon Frank Schaefer, author of a rollicking memoir about his life as a gay punk in then bohemian Prenzlauer Berg.

Even as they work in the official clothing industry, Rudi leads Suzie into East Berlin’s wild, creative underground — a “niche” Goette said could be found in most dictatorships.

“Either you’re free everywhere or you’re not,” Rudi tells his protegee. “If you’re not, then the West can’t help you either.”

Goette said the time had come to tell a story about how “cheeky, insubordinate” East Germans liberated themselves, little by little then all at once.

The movie’s success has a certain symmetry with the first gay-themed feature film to be released in East Germany, “Coming Out”, which premiered the night the Wall fell.

The post Gay struggle offers new window on Berlin Wall’s fall appeared first on France 24.

Yes, Christian Fascism’s Anti-LGBTQ Hate Extends to Asexual People, Too

Ace people are discriminated against for being queer. Here's why.

By Ana ValensOct 26th, 2022


The larger LGBTQ community can be dismissive toward its asexual members at times. That’s demonstrably unfair, as ace people have incredibly queer experiences of coming out and navigating life with a nonconforming sexuality. Nonetheless, claims that asexual Americans don’t really experience discrimination abound.

Well, it’s time to put that claim to bed, because acephobic rhetoric is alive and well in the Christian right. In fact, earlier this year, a wide assortment of right-wing Christian think tanks endorsed a letter demanding Congress’ top Republican prevent the federal government from codifying ace relationships.

According to a new report from LGBTQ Nation on acephobia from the American Christian right, far-right anti-LGBTQ think tanks such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, The Heritage Foundation, and the Family Research Council signed a letter petitioning Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the Senate minority leader, to act against the Respect for Marriage Act. The groups feared it would “require federal recognition of any one state’s definition of marriage without any parameters whatsoever.” Among the feared results, the letter decried “platonic marriages.”

“[T]he proposed Act goes far beyond merely codifying same-sex marriage in federal law,” the letter declares, leaning on anti-LGBTQ “religious freedom” rhetoric. “It is a startling expansion of what marriage means—and who may be sued if they disagree—that threatens the freedom of numerous ‘decent and honorable’ Americans of different faiths, creeds, and walks of life who wish to live consistent with their deeply-held beliefs.”

How anti-ace sentiments thrive in the Christian right

Image via Fox News

According to LGBTQ Nation’s Tyler Songbird, the “platonic marriage” phrase isn’t a throwaway line. Asexual relationship structures have increasingly come under scrutiny by the American right. Songbird points to a Heritage Foundation report that claims abstaining from sex is mere “selfishness,” and a Witherspoon Institute thinkpiece that argues sex “has long been at the core of marital meaning.” That piece explicitly disparages “those who identify as ‘asexual’.”

“I think it matters deeply that we continue to define marriage as a sexual union,” the Witherspoon piece argues. “This ongoing thinning of marriage’s meaning leaves less and less of the concrete conjugal elements that can bind marriages together. Also, it seriously erodes the legal justification for the benefits, responsibilities, and protections with which the law endows marriage.”

Anti-ace sentiments abound in the Christian right. Conservative anti-LGBTQ talking head Christopher Rufo, a man intimately embedded with the Christian right think tank circuit, told Tucker Carlson that LGBTQ organizations “have taken moral power from within” Disney and obsessively track for “transgender, asexual, and bisexual characters” in the company’s shows. Evangelical Christian author Gene Veith condemned the “sex-free ‘friend marriage'” because “from a Biblical point of view, sex is what defines a marriage,” as “marriage creates a new family.”

Far more blatantly, the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, known for his incredibly anti-trans documentary What Is a Woman?, argued in April that ace people simply have low libido or disinterest in romantic relationships caused by a “dysfunction of the brain.” He claims this is most commonly “a symptom of spiritual despair.” Walsh went on to state that asexual individuals simply don’t exist, and that it’s impossible to be asexual but romantically attracted to others.

“One of the latest LGBT innovations is to draw this incoherent bifurcating line between romantic and sexual, but the distinction, just like the distinction between sex and gender, is meaningless,” Walsh declares. “Romantic and sexual are the same thing. They are characterized the same way.”

These values permeate through evangelical Christian spaces. In the ace journal Aze, one arospec ace writer named Lynde describes the “double-edged sword” of purity culture while at an evangelical Christian college. Lynde was “protected” from purity culture’s sexual shame in college, she writes, but purity culture also prevented her from understanding the dimensions of her own ace sexuality—and she increasingly felt burdened by evangelical Christianity’s obsession with romantic relationships, young marriage, and seeking out sex through the latter.

Christian fascism and compulsory sexuality

In her work Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desires, Society, and the Meaning of Sex, writer Angela Chen identifies that ace people feel pressured to have sex via compulsory sexuality. This is “a set of assumptions and behaviors that support the idea that every normal person is sexual,” where “not wanting (socially approved) sex is unnatural and wrong.” It’s easy to see where compulsory sexuality comes into play with the Christian right. The ultimate goal of evangelical Christian sexual politics is to control peoples’ sexuality (or lack thereof) and then force them to have sex in specific ways.

Rhetoric of family and procreation appear in religious right criticism of platonic marriage and other ace relationship structures because, perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly, sexless marriages challenge the nuclear family structure. In a society increasingly obsessed with white birth rates, there are plenty of reasons why a fascist Christian movement would want people to have as much procreative sex as possible. As long as the context is specifically controlled and religiously approved, that is. Otherwise, the more opportunities for those babies, the better, even if that baby’s existence has to be coerced out of others.

So yes, the far-right might not focus on ace identities as much as they do gay, lesbian, and transgender ones. But make no mistake. In the Christian right’s eyes, ace people are just as much of a threat to heteronormativity as anything else.

(Featured image: Daily Wire, AnonMoos & AVEN. Remix by Ana Valens)

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ANA VALENS - EDITORIAL STRATEGIST

Ana Valens (she/her) is a reporter specializing in queer internet culture, online censorship, and sex workers' rights. Her book "Tumblr Porn" details the rise and fall of Tumblr's LGBTQ-friendly 18+ world, and has been hailed by Autostraddle as "a special little love letter" to queer Tumblr's early history. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her ever-growing tarot collection.

Ardern in a flap as wren rocks 

N. Zealand's bird beauty contest

The flightless kakapo -- a twice previous winner -- was barred from this year's bird of the year competition in New Zealand.

A tiny mountain-dwelling wren was the surprise winner Monday of New Zealand's controversial bird of the year competition, which even had Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in a flap.

The piwauwau rock wren punched above its 20-gram weight, flying under the radar to win the annual contest ahead of popular fellow native contenders, the little penguin and the kea.

Fans of the wren set up a Facebook page to help the outsider soar up the final rankings when the fortnight-long poll closed Monday.

"It's not the size, it's the underbird you vote for that counts," wrote one supporter.

The annual competition ruffled voters' feathers in years past after a native bat was allowed to enter, then won, the 2021 title.

There was also outcry this year after the flightless kakapo—a twice previous winner dubbed the world's fattest parrot—was barred from running to give others a chance.

The annual avian beauty contest run by environmental group Forest and Bird is popular with New Zealanders, including the country's top politicians.

The ever-popular kakapo (pictured with former prime minister Helen Clark) was barred from this year's competition to give other birds a chance.

The leader of the opposition, Christopher Luxon, took to Twitter —where else?—over the weekend to endorse the wrybill, a river bird with a distinctive bent beak.

On Monday, New Zealand's prime minister was momentarily ruffled live on air when asked if she had voted for her favourite bird.

"No I haven't yet—you can't just chuck a controversial question at me without a warning!," Ardern said with a smile.

New Zealand's leader revealed she will "always and forever" be loyal to the black petrel, which only breeds on the North Island but can fly as far as Ecuador, and she hopes the 2023 competition "will be its year".

© 2022 AFP

Delicious US Gravestone Recipes That Are To 'Die For'

By Valentin GRAFF
10/31/22 

TikTok star Rosie Grant bakes spritz cookies at her home in Los Angeles, California, on October 29, 2022

For some, gravestones can evoke mourning, for others a tribute to a loved one, or, with a little imagination, a gaunt hand emerging from freshly turned earth.

But to the discerning eye, a scattering of gravestones contain recipes, and an American librarian has begun to explore them on TikTok, where her videos posted under the account @ghostlyarchive have drawn millions of views.

Peach crumble, blueberry pie or fudge: for each gourmet epitaph, 33-year-old Rosie Grant proceeds in the same way.

Faced with limited instructions -- "there's only so much space on a gravestone," she tells AFP -- she first has to guess the cooking time and temperature. Viewers of her TikTok videos often post comments that allow her to refine the recipes.

It was by chance that Grant stumbled upon her first recipe from the graveyard, that of the spritz cookies of one Naomi Odessa Miller-Dawson, who died in 2009 at the age of 87 and is buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

As an intern in the archives of a Washington cemetery, Grant discovered the world of taphophiles, people who have a passion for cemeteries, tombstones and other aspects of burial.

She started a TikTok account dedicated to the unexpected wonders of cemeteries and ended up unearthing Miller-Dawson's recipe on the internet.

"It wasn't just that it said this woman liked cookies... It had the actual ingredients for the cookies on her gravestone. And I was, like, 'that's amazing!'" says the librarian, who has since moved to Los Angeles. "What is this? What is this recipe? What does this taste like? I was so curious."

She has even been contacted by descendants of those whose recipes she makes. All of the recipes she found were on gravestones of women, most of whom have died within the past 30 years.

"A lot of them have grandkids and great grandkids that are on TikTok. So several of them have commented on the videos, like, 'Hey, this is my grandma, this is the recipe we made and I recommend you do it this way, which is the coolest thing ever!" Grant says enthusiastically.

In between recipes, the librarian explores graveyards in her videos, tells about the lives of accused witches buried there, shares anecdotes about the lives of buried celebrities or tells, for example, how the custom of picnicking at cemeteries went out of fashion in the early 20th century.

For Grant, who lost both of her grandmothers during the pandemic, the journey has brought some closure.

"This whole process has made me aware of the idea that people and society are better off if you think about your own mortality. And not to be, like, 'Yay death!' It's not a happy thing, but to be more, like, 'oh, it's okay that we'll all die someday,' and celebrate yourself."

For Halloween, Grant will try a new recipe from the afterlife: apricot ice cream.

And at the end of the video, she'll add these words that she concludes each of her TikTok videos with: "They're to die for."

Rosie Grant found the recipe for these spritz cookies on a gravestone in Brooklyn, New York

TikTok star Rosie Grant tries out all the recipes that she finds on gravestones

The TikTok videos of librarian Rosie Grant have drawn millions of views

Deep In Brazilian Amazon, Ticuna Tribe Celebrates Lula Victory

By Lionel ROSSINI with Ramon SAHMKOW in Brasilia
10/31/22 

Ticuna Indigenous leader Geraci Aicuna dos Santos waits to vote in Brazil's presidential election

Deep in the Amazon, near the region where British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira were murdered in June, native Ticuna people are glued to a TV, watching the results of Brazil's down-to-the-wire presidential election.

Wearing traditional face paint and feather headdresses, they suddenly explode into cheers and set off fireworks: veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has been declared the winner.

The former president (2003-2010) defeated far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro by a razor-thin margin in Sunday's divisive runoff vote, 51 percent to 49 percent.

But in the Umariacu 2 Indigenous reservation, a community of mainly wood and tin-roof houses near Brazil's border with Peru and Colombia, Lula won in a landslide.

The left-wing icon took 67 percent of the vote in the county of Tabatinga, where the community votes.

Bolsonaro is reviled in many native communities for presiding over a surge of destruction in the Amazon, pushing to open Indigenous reservations to mining, and vowing not to allow "one more centimeter" of native lands to receive protected status.

"I was very nervous waiting for the result, but when Lula won, I felt so happy," Indigenous council member Nagela Araujo Elizardo told AFP.

"Lula will do a lot of good for this region. He's completely different from Bolsonaro."

The first thing Lula should change, Elizardo said, is the government Indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI, which native peoples accuse Bolsonaro of gutting and turning into an organization hostile to their interests.

Tabatinga has 57 indigenous villages, including Umariacu 1 and 2, home to around 12,000 Ticunas.

The far-flung region has been hit by violent crime and growing lawlessness, including drug trafficking, poaching and illegal logging.

It is near the sprawling Javari Valley Indigenous reservation, home to the largest concentration of uncontacted tribes on Earth.

Phillips, a correspondent for The Guardian, The New York Times and other leading media, and Pereira, a respected Indigenous expert, were just outside the Javari reservation when they were murdered on June 5.

Police say they were killed by members of an illegal fishing ring angry over Pereira's work organizing Indigenous patrols to combat poaching on native land.

The case triggered international outcry and drew fresh attention to rampant crime and environmental destruction in the Amazon under Bolsonaro, who has presided over a 75 percent increase in the average annual deforestation rate.

Those in Tabatinga know the violence all too well: FUNAI's anti-poaching chief in the region was murdered there in 2019, in a gangland-style execution.

"We suffered for four years, it seemed like there was no way out. Now my community is celebrating," said Sebastiao Ramos, 57, head of the Indigenous council for the Ticuna villages of the Amazon river, who was wearing a yellow and blue feather headdress.

Ticuna residents said they hoped for a change for the better, as they celebrated, played music and waved "L" hand signs for Lula.

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"I've followed Lula for a long time," said 53-year-old teacher Luz Marina Honorato, praising the ex-metalworker's focus on not just Indigenous but women's issues, as well.

In his victory speech, Lula vowed to work to achieve zero deforestation, saying, "We need a living Amazon."

He has also pledged to create a ministry of Indigenous affairs, and name an Indigenous person to lead it.

Canoes line the banks by the Indigenous village of Umariacu, in the Brazilian Amazon

Indigenous Ticuna voters line up to cast their ballots

A Ticuna woman casts her ballot


© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.

Lula wins Brazil election, vows to combat destruction of Amazon rainforest

Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called for "peace and unity" after narrowly winning a divisive runoff election Sunday, capping a remarkable political comeback by defeating far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Although Lula's own environmental record is hardly spotless, activists say there is no comparison between him and Bolsonaro, under whom deforestation in the Amazon has soared, as Boris Patentreger from the NGO Mighty Earth explains.

Lula wins Brazil election in political resurrection for leftist

Brazilian leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated President Jair Bolsonaro in a runoff election, but the far right incumbent had not conceded defeat by Monday morning. Tens of thousands of jubilant supporters took to the streets of Sao Paulo to celebrate a stunning comeback for the 77-year-old former metalworker who, following his previous two-term 2003-2010 presidency, served prison time for corruption convictions that were later annulled.

Lula wins Brazil election: Bolsonaro defeated in stunning political comeback story

Brazilian leftist leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva narrowly defeated President Jair Bolsonaro in a runoff election, but the far right incumbent had not conceded defeat by Monday morning, raising concerns he might contest the result. Octavio Luiz Motta Ferraz, professor of Law at King's College London, joins us on set to talk about the "mixed feeling" in Brazil "given the difference of opinion" that prevailed in the election.

Rosangela da Silva hopes to be a different kind of Brazilian first lady

AFP - 10h ago

Jumping for joy in a bright red dress, then tenderly holding her husband's victory speech as he addressed a sea of euphoric supporters, Brazil's first lady-elect, Rosangela da Silva, looked very much in love.


Brazilian press reports say the two have known each other for decades, but Lula's press people say their romance began only in late 2017 at an event with left-leaning artists

© Mauro PIMENTEL

Her husband, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, had just won Sunday's presidential election in Brazil, capping a remarkable political comeback for the leftist icon -- and his new wife was elated at his side.


Former Brazilian president and current candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva appears with his wife Rosangela da Silva during a rally at a Rio de Janeiro samba school on September 25, 2022© MAURO PIMENTEL

Da Silva, a 56-year-old sociologist and left-wing activist, married Lula, a twice-widowed cancer survivor who is 21 years her senior, in May.

Despite being stuck in the slog of the ex-president's brutal, divisive election campaign against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, the newlyweds have appeared to be on an extended honeymoon ever since -- capped by Lula's election victory.


Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his wife, Rosangela da Silva, share a kiss after his election win© NELSON ALMEIDA

Lula credits Da Silva, widely known by her nickname, "Janja," with giving him new life after the 2017 death of his wife of 30 years, Marisa Leticia, with whom he has four children.

"I am as in love as if I were 20 years old," the former -- and now future -- president says of his wife, a long-time member of the Workers' Party.

Their age difference seems to have breathed new energy into Lula, whose first wife, Maria de Lourdes, died in 1971.

"When you lose your wife, and you think, well, my life has no more meaning. Then suddenly, this person appears who makes you feel like you want to live again," he told Time magazine in an interview published just before he remarried.

The septuagenarian politician often links his political rebirth to his late-life love affair.

"I'm here, standing strong, in love again, crazy about my wife," he told the crowd Sunday. "She's the one who will give me strength to confront all obstacles."



Lula and 'Janja' (in yellow) at a campaign event in October© CARL DE SOUZA

Earlier, Da Silva had celebrated the news of his victory by posting a picture of them on Twitter.

"I love you," she wrote.

- A kiss outside prison -

Da Silva was born in the south of Brazil and earned a sociology degree from the university in Curitiba, capital of Parana state.

In 1983 she joined the Workers' Party, which Lula had co-founded two years earlier.

Brazilian media reports say the two have known each other for decades, but Lula's press people say their romance began only in late 2017 at an event with left-leaning artists.

But the love affair between this smiling woman with long chestnut hair and the aging lion of the Brazilian left became widely known only in May 2019.

At the time, Lula was in prison -- jailed on controversial corruption charges that were later annulled by the Supreme Court.

"Lula is in love, and the first thing he wants to do when he gets out of prison is get married," said one of his lawyers after a visit with him.

In the end, the two wed only this year. It was a discreet ceremony -- by Lula's standards. The 200 guests included celebrities like singer Gilberto Gil, who had served as culture minister under Lula.

While Lula was in prison, Janja would pen affectionate tweets about him. "All I want to do is hug you and cuddle with you non-stop," she wrote on his 74th birthday.

In November 2019, shortly after Lula's release from prison, they shared a kiss before a crowd gathered outside the prison in Curitiba, where Lula had spent 18 months locked up.

- 'New meaning' -

While she has been active in Lula's campaign, on stage and on social media, Da Silva is very private with her personal life. The magazine Veja says she was previously married for more than 10 years and has no children.

Now, as of January 1, she will be Brazil's first lady.

"I want to give new meaning to the role of first lady, by focusing on topics that are priorities for women, such as food insecurity or domestic violence," she said in August.

She was one of the stars of his campaign, playing a leading role from the day it launched on May 7 -- right up to his victory speech on Sunday night.

mel-lg/jhb/st

Bolsonaro supporters block Brazil highways over electoral defeat

Issued on: 31/10/2022 - 16:20

05:11

Demonstrators burn tires as they block federal roads during a protest the day after the Brazilian presidential election run-off, in Varzea Grande in Mato Grosso state, Brazil, October 31, 2022. © Rogerio Florentino, Reuters

Text by:FRANCE 24

Video by:FRANCE 24


Truckers protested the defeat of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro Monday by blocking national highways. Bolsonaro had yet to concede defeat Monday morning following a tight race, raising fears the far-right nationalist might contest the victory of his leftist rival Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Follow FRANCE 24 for live updates. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).

Brazil’s election authority called the race for former leftist leader and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday. Lula won 50.9 percent of the vote to outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro’s 49.1 percent, with a margin of 2 million votes.

About 124 million Brazilians voted in the 2022 presidential election, or nearly 80 percent of the more than 156 million eligible.

As of Monday, Bolsonaro had yet to concede defeat.

7:42pm: Protesters block road to Brazil's Paranagua port

Brazil's Paranagua port authority on Monday said one of the main roads giving access to the port was being blocked by protesters, adding that there was no immediate disruption to cargo movement.

Roadblocks in at least 12 Brazilian states by truckers who support outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro could affect agricultural exports.

6:43pm: Bolsonaro to speak on election result on Monday afternoon, says allied party leader

Outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro will break his silence on the country's presidential election result on Monday afternoon, the acting chief of an allied party said, more than 16 hours after he lost to his adversary Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

"In principle, they want him to read a text, but the format is not yet defined," Claudio Cajado said, pointing out that it is also not certain that Bolsonaro will publicly concede defeat.

03:15

6:19pm: Brazil's Lula to speak with Biden later on Monday

Brazil's President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is set to speak with US President Joe Biden later on Monday, said the head of Lula's Workers Party, a day after he won the country's presidential runoff ousting far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

Biden moved quickly to congratulate Lula on Sunday for his victory in "free, fair and credible elections", according to a White House statement. Bolsonaro has yet to concede.
3:57pm: Brazil's Lula to send reps to COP27 climate summit after election win

Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will send representatives to next month's COP27 United Nations climate summit, allied environmentalist Marina Silva said on Monday, a day after the left-wing former president won a third term.

The congresswoman-elect told Reuters in an interview that Lula would "definitely send broad representation" even if it was not an official delegation ahead of his Jan.1 inauguration.

05:41

3:36pm: Stocks rise in volatile session after Lula's win

Brazil's real reversed course to rally 1.6 percent on Monday and stocks followed a similar pattern as leftist candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won a presidential election run-off, while a strong dollar weighed on most other emerging market currencies.

The real, among the best performing emerging market currencies this year, recouped early losses of up to 2 percent. The currency is on course to mark a near 4 percent gain in October. Brazil's benchmark stocks index rose 1.3 percent, with mining giant Vale and Itau Unibanco up around 3 percent each. Oil major and privatisation candidate Petrobras however, fell 3.7 percent.
3:25pm Nordic banking powerhouse may lift ban on Brazil bonds after Lula win

The asset management arm of Nordea, one of the biggest banks in the Nordics, on Monday said it may lift a ban on buying Brazilian government bonds previously established over environmental concerns, after Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva won Brazil's presidential election on Sunday.

Nordea Asset Management's (NAM) head of responsible investing, Eric Christian Pedersen, told Reuters in a statement that the firm is considering whether to lift a prohibition on new government debt purchases instituted in 2019 over concerns about fires in the Amazon rainforest.

NAM has about €237 billion of assets under management, according to its website.

03:54

2:45pm: Trucks, protesters block Brazil highways after Bolsonaro rout

Truckers and other protesters on Monday blocked some highways in Brazil in an apparent protest over the electoral defeat of far-right Bolsonaro to leftist Lula da Silva, authorities said.

Burning tires, as well as vehicles such as trucks, cars and vans were blocking several points in the central-western agricultural state of Mato Grosso, which largely supports Bolsonaro, reported the company which manages the highway in the state.

It was not immediately clear if the protests were being organised by a particular group. Brazil has a powerful, loosely organised truckers' movement that is heavily pro-Bolsonaro.

Local media reported road blockages in at least five other states, including Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and Reuters)

 

 

Brazil awaits Bolsonaro's next move as Lula faces tough to-do list

Joao Peres, Political Science professor in Rio de Janeiro, speaks to FRANCE 24 as a tense Brazil awaited Jair Bolsonaro's next move Monday. The far-right incumbent remained silent after losing a razor-thin runoff presidential election to veteran leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva -- who now faces a tough to-do list.

Brazil holds its breath over Bolsonarist reaction as Lula claims razor-thin win

Issued on: 31/10/2022 

With less than two percentage points to spare, Brazil’s leftist leader and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Sunday claimed victory over far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in the country’s tightest election race yet. But the ultra-conservative legacy Bolsonaro is leaving behind could mean that Lula’s biggest challenges still lie ahead as the three-time president takes the reins on January 1.

It proved to be a nail-biter until the end: it wasn’t until 80 percent of the votes had been tallied that Lula began to emerge as the winner of Brazil’s most disputed election on record.

For almost three hours the vote was too close to call, but at around 8pm local time, the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE) finally issued a partial result that carried a verdict, showing Lula at 50.9 percent and Bolsonaro at 49.1 percent. With some 2 million votes separating the two, Bolsonaro no longer had a mathematical chance to catch up.

Lula supporters erupted into joy and celebration across the country, but not without trepidation. Since the first round of the elections on October 2, when Bolsonaro largely beat the polls and came out with an unexpectedly strong showing of 43 percent against Lula’s 48 percent, many feared that the incumbent could potentially claim a second straight mandate.

Will Bolsonaro concede defeat?

As in the first round, Lula won the backing of Brazil’s poor states in Nordeste (northeast), while Bolsonaro won the blessings of the rich, including in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo.

But Lula’s victory is a far cry from the tidal wave the country’s polling institutes had predicted, and is likely to leave Brazil even more polarised than it was before the election campaign began – pitting the north against the south, the rich against the poor, and conservative against liberal values.

"Some of the big names within Bolsonarism very quickly recognised Lula’s victory. But we don’t know how the army will react, nor Bolsonaro’s supporters, who can occasionally be violent at the local level,” Anaïs Flechet, a historian who specialises in Brazil at the University of Paris-Saclay, said.

So will Bolsonaro, known by the nickname “Tropical Trump”, follow the example of his north American counterpart in the 2020 US elections? All eyes are now on the former military officer and whether he will concede defeat after spending months alleging - without evidence - that the country’s electronic voting system is plagued by fraud and that the courts, media and other institutions have conspired against him. The fact that Brazil’s 13,000 road network unit (PRF) agents spent election day mounting road blocks and barriers across the country suggests that the next few days could be tense.

Everyone is now waiting for Bolsonaro, who so far has remained silent, to comment on the results.

Democracy vs God?

While Lula on Sunday cast his ballot “for democracy”, Bolsonaro laid his political destiny into the hands of God: “God willing, we will be victorious later today,” he said as he voted.

With roughly half of Brazil’s population of 215 million having bought into Bolsonaro’s ultra-conservative agenda, Lula’s toughest challenge will therefore be to garner support for his more liberal programme.

Lula, who served two presidential terms from 2003 to 2010 and is credited with lifting some 30 million Brazilians out of poverty, is set to face fierce opposition on pretty much all fronts, including on education, healthcare and public service. The former unionist’s negotiation skills will be tested to their utmost as he tackles some of Brazil’s most fractious debates, including abortion and gun rights, as well as the exploitation of the Amazon.

“On January 1, 2023, I will govern for 215 million Brazilians, and not just for those who voted for me,” Lula said at his campaign headquarters. “There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people, one great nation.”

But at 77, Lula is as hated by Brazilians as he is adored. And even though he might have defeated Bolsonaro at the ballot, “Bolsonarism” still came out of the 2022 campaign stronger than ever, with the far-right nabbing the majority in Congress.



Shortly after the election results were announced, Carla Zambelli, a Brazilian lawmaker and a close Bolsonaro ally, wrote on Twitter: “I PROMISE you, I will be the greatest opposition that Lula has ever imagined.”

But Lula’s challenges are not likely to end with tough debates in parliament: When parliament resumes in early February, the Bolsonaro camp will have enough seats to be able to vote through impeachment procedures against him.

Bolsonaro’s four-year mandate was a chaotic one - marked by the disastrous handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, in which more than 680,000 Brazilians died, a weak economy and damaging attacks on democratic institutions – but will first and foremost go down in history for its ability to polarise.

More than ever, Bolsonaro divided Brazil into two opposite camps, and Lula’s vow to “unite” them is sure to take the latter to task.

This article has been translated from the original in French.