It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, September 13, 2022
PATRIARCHY IS SEX ASSAULT
Tokyo station employee tells passengers to use rear train cars if they ‘do not want to be groped’
Rebecca Moon Mon, September 12, 2022 at 4:47 PM·2 min read
A Tokyo train station employee is facing backlash for an announcement he made instructing passengers to take the rear train cars if they “do not want to be groped.”
In a video taken on Aug. 30 at Shinjuku Station in downtown Tokyo, a station worker is seen making an announcement via the P.A. system, stating: “We have many security cameras installed, but there are many chikan. Passengers who do not want to be groped, please make use of the rear carriages.”
During the evening rush hour, gropers, also known as “chikans” in Japan, are typically seen in the front cars, which are the most crowded. Train stations in Japan often have posters stating that groping is a crime.
The East Japan Railway Company issued an apology on Thursday explaining that the announcement did not have any negative intentions.
“The intent was to guide passengers towards less crowded carriages, but a portion of the announcement was inappropriate. We deeply apologize to those who were made uncomfortable by the announcement,” JR East stated.
The employee’s choice of words prompted backlash, as many Twitter users pointed out that the announcement was inappropriate.
“They say, ‘People who don’t want to be molested should move,’ but they don’t say, ‘People who don’t want to be suspected of being molested, please move,’” one user wrote.
“Lack common sense,” another user commented.
“I think there could be a better way to say,” another user wrote.
END THE DEATH PENALTY State: Alabama nearly ready with untried execution method - This undated photograph provided by the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Alan Eugene Miller, who was convicted of capital murder in a workplace shooting rampage that killed three men in 1999. Miller, scheduled to be put to death by lethal injection on Sept. 22, 2022, says the state lost the paperwork he turned in selecting an alternate execution method.
(Alabama Department of Corrections via AP, File)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KIM CHANDLER
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama could be ready to use a new, untried execution method called nitrogen hypoxia to carry out a death sentence as soon as next week, a state attorney told a federal judge Monday.
James Houts, a deputy state attorney general, told U.S. District Judge R. Austin Huffaker Jr. that it is “very likely” the method could be available for the execution of Alan Eugene Miller, currently set for Sept. 22, if the judge blocks the use of lethal injection. Houts said the protocol “is there,” but said the final decision on when to use the new method is up to Corrections Commissioner John Hamm.
Nitrogen hypoxia, which is supposed to cause death by replacing oxygen with nitrogen, has been authorized by Alabama and two other states for executions but has never used by a state.
The disclosure about the possibility of using the new method came during a court hearing on Miller’s request for a preliminary injunction to block his execution by lethal injection. Miller maintains prison staff lost paperwork he returned in 2018 that requested nitrogen as his execution method rather than lethal injection. The Alabama attorney general's office argued there is no corroborating evidence that Miller returned the form.
Huffaker heard testimony and arguments during an evidentiary hearing in Montgomery federal court. He noted the “high stakes” involved with a looming execution date, but did not immediately rule on the request to block the lethal injection.
When Alabama approved nitrogen hypoxia as an alternative execution method in 2018, state law gave inmates a brief window to designate it as their execution method.
Wearing a maroon shirt and with his hands shackled in front of him, Miller testified that he returned a state form selecting nitrogen on the same day it was distributed to inmates by a prison worker.
“I remember the guy yelling he was going to put something in the door and would be back to pick them up,” Miller testified. He said he signed the form and placed it in the “bean hole" — the prison nickname for the cell door slot used to pass mail, food trays and paperwork — but he did not see who collected it. Miller said he yelled that he wanted the form copied and notarized, but he did not get that.
Miller described how he disliked needles because of painful attempts at drawing blood. He said nitrogen gas sounded like the nitrous oxide gas used at dentist offices, and that seemed better than lethal injection.
“I did not want to be stabbed with a needle,” Miller said.
Houts, attempting to cast doubt on the inmate’s story about the form, asked him if he could describe anything about the officer who distributed the paper, but Miller said he couldn’t.
“I think we are very much entitled to question his veracity,” Houts told the judge.
Alabama told a federal judge last year that it has finished construction of a “system” to put condemned inmates to death using nitrogen gas, but did not give an estimate of when it would be put to use.
Miller’s lawyer, Mara Klebaner, said the state had asked if Miller would waive his claims if nitrogen was ready, but she said they need more information about the nitrogen process. Miller’s lawyers don’t want him to be the test case for an untried execution method, she said.
Klebaner said the Alabama attorney general’s office recently withdrew an execution date request for another inmate after his lawyers provided proof that the inmate had selected nitrogen hypoxia. She said Miller should be treated the same.
The state argued Miller was trying to delay his execution. Houts told the judge the state had gone as far as to see if Miller would agree to be fitted with a mask for use of nitrogen, but the inmate declined. Miller's attorney said the state presented the gas mask during a deposition and that Miller was understandably upset.
Miller, a delivery truck driver, was convicted in workplace shootings that killed Lee Holdbrooks, Scott Yancy and Terry Jarvis in suburban Birmingham. Miller shot Holdbrooks and Yancy at one business and then drove to another location to shoot Jarvis, evidence showed.
Miller was delusional and believed the men were spreading rumors about him, including that he was gay, testimony showed. A defense psychiatrist said Miller suffered from severe mental illness but his condition wasn’t bad enough to use as a basis for an insanity defense under state law.
Dramatic footage shows orcas breaking an ice platform to trap and kill a seal, a rare technique used by only 100 whales
Marianne Guenot, BBC Mon, September 12, 2022
A new BBC documentary shows a pod of killer whales hunting a seal using a sophisticated technique.
They used "wave crashing," creating a wave to break up an ice platform and trap the seal on it. The technique is used by only about 100 killer whales around the world.
A file photo of killer whales hunting a seal.iStock / Getty Images Plus
Dramatic footage showed killer whales using a rare hunting technique to trap and kill a seal in the icy waters surrounding Antarctica.
The video, part of the BBC's new "Frozen Planet II" documentary released Sunday in the UK, shows four killer whales that attacked a Weddell Seal. The seal had found refuge on a platform made of ice floating on water.
The killer whales started by swimming side by side, which created a wave that cracked the seal's large ice platform into a smaller one, making it vulnerable.
A second wave the whales generated knocked the seal off the ice into the water, where the whales could attack it.
Once the seal was in the water, the whales used another hunting technique: blowing bubbles to confuse the seal, which made it easier to catch. A Weddell Seal floats among pieces of ice in Antarctica on February 20, 2019.
Ozge Elif Kizil/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
There are only about 100 killer whales on Earth that use this sophisticated coordinated hunting technique, per the documentary, narrated by the naturalist Sir David Attenborough. It is known as "wave-crashing."
An expert previously told Insider they might do so by using their echolocation to find the fattiest organs in their prey.
Killer whales aren't put off by hunting animals larger than them. Rare footage released earlier this year showed them attacking and killing at least two blue whales, the largest animals on the planet.
Carnivorous plant’s grisly last meal found during Georgia elementary class dissection
Georgia DNR photo Mark Price
One of Georgia’s notorious meat-eating plants surprised a group of elementary school students by revealing its last meal — a lizard — was still in the process of being digested.
“During a routine presentation on native plants with a group of elementary students, our biologists learned a valuable lesson: check the plant before you dissect,” the Georgia Department of Natural Resources wrote in a Sept. 11 Facebook post.
“The plan was to dissect a pitcher plant to show the students its contents, which are typically comprised of beetles and a variety of flying insects. To everyone’s surprise, they found a green anole.”
Photos shared on Facebook show the lizard was nose-down and still intact (except for a hole in its neck) as it sat in one of the plant’s tube-like pitchers.
The reaction of the students was not revealed and state officials did not identify the school.
It is suspected the hungry lizard was chasing a bug on the plant when it slipped into the pitcher and became “this plant’s feast.”
“This carnivorous plant attracts insect prey with a combination of scent, gravity and a waxy, slippery substance, forcing prey to fall into the pitcher,” the state wrote.
“In the shaft of the plant, downward-pointing hairs make escape impossible. In the lowest part of the pitcher, there is a pool of liquid that drowns and digests the prey, leaving the exoskeletons to pile up inside.”
Georgia’s 11 types of pitcher plants are in decline due to the draining of wetlands and over collection, the state reports. Pitcher plants are a protected species in Georgia, known to thrive “in acidic soils of open bogs and sphagnum seeps of swamps,” experts say.
The state’s Facebook post about the lesson-gone-grisly got nearly 1,200 reaction and comments as of Sept. 12, with many saying they found the whole thing kind of “cool.”
“Silly me. Wondering if the plant burped,” one commenter wrote.
Science could uncover alien life within 25 years, scientist says
Jon Kelvey Mon, September 12, 2022
The exoplanet HIP 65426 b as imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope (Nasa)
Swiss astrophysicist Sascha Quanz believes humanity may uncover evidence of life outside our Solar System within the next 25 years.
Speaking at a 2 September press briefing, Dr Quanz cited new technology underdevelopment at ETH Zurich, Switzerland’s federal technology institute, existing technologies such as the James Webb Space Telescope, and the progress science has already made in discovering more than 5,000 exoplanets — planets around stars other than our Sun — as reasons for his optimism, according to reporting by Space.com.
“There’s no guarantee for success,” Dr Quanz said, according to Space.com, “But we’re going to learn other things on the way.”
Dr Quanz cited as an example the 1 September release of the first direct image of an exoplanet by the Webb Telescope, an image of the gas giant exoplanet HIP 65426.
“"[The HIP 65426] system is a very special system," Dr Quanz said, according to Space.com. "It’s a gas giant planet orbiting very far from the star. This is what Webb can do in terms of taking pictures of planets. We will not be able to get to the small planets. Webb is not powerful enough to do that."
Dr Quanz and his colleagues at ETH Zurich are working on a mid-infrared imager and spectroscopy instrument intended for the Extremely Large Telescope, currently under development by the European Southern Observatory in Chile. The telescope will be the largest ground-based telescope when it opens, with a 130-foot diameter mirror, and together with the instrument being developed at ETH Zurich, could study exoplanets the Webb Telescope cannot.
“The primary goal of the instrument is to take the first picture of a terrestrial planet, potentially similar to Earth, around one of the very nearest stars," Dr Quanz said, according to Space.com. "But our long-term vision is to do that not only for a few stars but for dozens of stars, and to investigate the atmospheres of dozens of terrestrial exoplanets."
Dr Quanz is also one of the directors of ETH Zurich’s new Centre for Origin and Prevalence of Life, announced on 9 September, an designed to bring disciplines together to answer the big questions of where life on Earth came from, how it developed, and whether life exists anywhere else in the universe.
This New Webb Telescope Image Looks Like a Painting of the Cosmos
Neel V. Patel Mon, September 12, 2022
NASA, ESA, CSA, Data reduction and analysis : PDRs4All ERS
Team; graphical processing S. Fuenmayor
NASA and its partners released a new image Monday morning of the inner region of the famous Orion Nebula, located 1,350 light-years away, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Though the celestial structure is by no means a stranger to astronomers, Webb’s powerful cameras show the nebula in unprecedented beauty and detail.
The new image is really a composite of several photos taken using different filters. Combined, we get a glimpse of the nebula’s various components, including its youngest stars and caverns of dense gas. The most visible feature is the Orion Bar, a wall of gas and dust that stretches from left to right and contains a bright star called θ2 Orionis A. A composite of the Orion Nebula, viewed by the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA, ESA, CSA, Data reduction and analysis : PDRs4All ERS Team; graphical processing S. Fuenmayor
“We are blown away by the breathtaking images of the Orion Nebula. We started this project in 2017, so we have been waiting more than five years to get these data,” Western University astrophysicist Els Peeters, who helped lead the latest observations, said in a press release. “These new observations allow us to better understand how massive stars transform the gas and dust cloud in which they are born.”
NASA/STScI/Rice Univ./C.O’Dell et al.
Previous views of the Orion Nebula taken by Hubble, although beautiful, pale in comparison to what Webb can observe. Much of that is thanks to the orbital observatory’s ability to view the universe in infrared and near-infrared light, which allows it to see past the gas and dust that enshrouds much of the inner region’s most captivating parts. This also means scientists can better study how structures like the nebula foster the birth and growth of infant stars.
Close up of the Orion Bar’s northern region. Can you spot the frog? NASA, ESA, CSA
Webb also picked up a bonus image of the nebula as it zoomed in on the Orion Bar. If you look closely, you can spot a frog-like structure.
Bezos rocket crashes after
liftoff, only experiments
aboard
MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A rocket crashed back to Earth shortly after liftoff Monday in the first launch accident for Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, but the capsule carrying experiments managed to parachute to safety.
No one was aboard the Blue Origin flight, which used the same kind of rocket as the one that sends paying customers to the edge of space. The rockets are now grounded pending the outcome of an investigation, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The New Shepard rocket was barely a minute into its flight from West Texas when bright yellow flames shot out from around the single engine at the bottom. The capsule’s emergency launch abort system immediately kicked in, lifting the craft off the top. Several minutes later, the capsule parachuted onto the remote desert floor.
The rocket came crashing down, with no injuries or damage reported, said the FAA, which is in charge of public safety during commercial space launches and landings.
Blue Origin's launch commentary went silent when the capsule catapulted off the rocket Monday morning, eventually announcing: “It appears we've experienced an anomaly with today's flight. This wasn't planned."
“Booster failure on today’s uncrewed flight. Escape system performed as designed,” the Kent, Washington-based company tweeted close to an hour later.
The company later said the rocket crashed.
The mishap occurred as the rocket was traveling nearly 700 mph (1,126 kph) at an altitude of about 28,000 feet (8,500 meters). There was no video shown of the rocket — only the capsule — after the failure. It happened around the point the rocket is under the maximum amount of pressure, called max-q.
The rocket usually lands upright on the desert floor and then is recycled for future flights.
The webcast showed the capsule reaching a maximum altitude of more than 37,000 feet (11,300 meters). Thirty-six experiments were on board to be exposed to a few minutes of weightlessness. Half were sponsored by NASA, mostly from students.
It was the 23rd flight for the New Shepard program, named after the first American in space, Mercury astronaut Alan Shepard. It was the ninth flight for this particular rocket-capsule pair, which was dedicated to flying experiments.
The rocket should have launched nearly two weeks ago, but was grounded until Monday by bad weather.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
A crypto billionaire is joining the race for private space stations
September 13, 2022
Quote A pioneer of cryptocurrency is turning to a different frontier: Jed McCaleb, the original founder of Mt. Gox and an early developer of Ripple, has founded a new company called Vast that aims to build space stations with artificial gravity.
It’s a high-risk business plan, but because the International Space Station is aiming at retirement in 2030, and NASA is shifting its focus to the Moon and beyond, a handful of companies are raising money and mocking-up plans for private habitats in low-earth orbit.
“We’re at the beginning of this explosion of activity in orbit and in space generally,” McCaleb tells Quartz. “A lot of that will require people in the loop to bring down the prices for things we really can’t do remotely or robotically at this point. There will be demand for multiple stations. We will be one of the first, if not the first.”
Building a machine shop in space, where astronauts could perform scientific experiments, manufacture special goods, or even build other spacecraft is a tall order for a software entrepreneur who has never run an aerospace business before. Vast will vie with firms like Axiom Space, which has its own module on the ISS and is flying private astronaut missions; Nanoracks, a longtime NASA contractor with its own space station plans; and Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’ space company, which is developing a habitat called Orbital Reef.
How to build a space station
The first obstacle for any mission like this is cost: While rockets built by Elon Musk’s SpaceX are driving down the price of access to orbit, launching substantial infrastructure still isn’t cheap. The ISS cost more than $100 billion, and while McCaleb thinks his station will be an order of magnitude cheaper, it’s still likely to cost a billion dollars or more, once development, testing, launch, construction, and operations are all factored in.
What sets Vast apart thus far is its dedication to creating a space station with artificial gravity. Existing plans for private space stations envision habitats like the ISS, where astronauts float about in microgravity. However, that environment can cause significant health problems for humans, including declining vision and loss of bone density, particularly over long-term stays. Creating artificial gravity, such as by rotating a habitat as in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, will be a significant engineering challenge. Vast isn’t yet ready to share the details on its concept for such a space station.
To get Vast’s station in orbit, McCaleb is betting on SpaceX’s Starship, the next-generation rocket the company is currently developing. While it has yet to make its first orbital flight, the vehicle is also at the center of NASA’s plans to put humans back on the Moon.
Like the other space station aspirants, Vast hopes to attract a variety of customers: Government astronauts from NASA and other space agencies, private astronauts on tourist trips, or from companies attempting to develop space-based businesses. While business models exist that take advantage of the unique properties of microgravity, from making drugs with microscopic crystals that can’t form in Earth’s gravity to creating goods like ultra-efficient fiberoptic cable, it’s not clear how much demand there will ultimately be for time spent 500 miles above the surface of the Earth.
Vast is mainly in recruiting mode right now, scooping up former employees of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. One key adviser is Hans Koenigsmann, formerly the top engineer at Musk’s firm.
Silicon Valley turns its eyes to orbit
McCaleb, whose net worth is estimated in the billions of dollars, wouldn’t say how much he has invested in Vast. He plans to self-fund the business through the launch of its first habitat, but wants it to ultimately be a sustainable enterprise. Vast’s future is not dependent on the crypto markets, according to McCaleb, who says “I still own a bunch of crypto, but I know that it’s volatile.”
McCaleb’s professional history began with developing peer-to-peer networks and creating Mt. Gox, initially a trading platform for Magic: The Gathering cards that became one of the most prominent early crypto exchanges. After he sold it in 2011, it collapsed dramatically in 2014. McCaleb was also one of the lead developers of Ripple, an early crypto alternative to bitcoin, and today is involved with Stellar, a digital currency trading protocol.
Now, he is turning a longtime personal interest in space exploration into a business. McCaleb, like Bezos and Musk, believes that the future of human civilization is beyond the Earth. “As a civilization, we need a frontier, otherwise things get very zero sum, and that’s very bad for society,” he told Quartz. “This is something that has higher [return on investment] for humanity. For me personally, I want to do the biggest ambitious thing, given the resources I have.”
If anyone wondered what the original founder of Mt. Gox was up to. It seems he has his sights set upon space based ventures. He plans to deploy space stations in orbit with artificial gravity. To avoid detrimental health effects of zero gravity on human health. It is interesting that this is mentioned as most are unaware people lose a percentage of bone density for every day spent in a zero gravity environment. Much of biology on earth relies upon gravity producing hydraulic pressure. When gravity and hydraulic pressure are removed, it results in many different types of negative health effects. This is a significant obstacle to overcome before a manned flight to mars could be launched.
With the current state of technology a rocket carrying astronauts to mars would take around 5 years. During which time astronauts in zero gravity would lose more than half of the bone density they had when they left earth. Malus effects on their health would be disastrous, perhaps even fatal. Given these harsh realities it is crucial for research into artificial gravity research in space to progress.
McCaleb says he still HODLs large quantities of crypto btw. He's still HODL even long after Elon Musk and tesla SODLed. I think he deserves at least a little bit of credit for that.
A century after Mussolini seized power, Giorgia Meloni looks to steer Italy back toward nationalism
Almost exactly 100 years after Benito Mussolini staged his “March on Rome” mass demonstration, during which his National Fascist Party seized power, Italy appears likely to hand control of its government to Giorgia Meloni, another leader of the nationalist right.
Charismatic and driven, the 45-year-old Meloni, a parliamentarian, doesn’t hold a university degree, but as head of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), a far-right-wing party she formed a decade ago, the single mother has campaigned on a platform based on her belief in the virtues of God, motherhood and patriotism, while decrying immigration and LGBTQ rights. Polls show her and Brothers of Italy poised for victory in a Sept. 25 parliamentary election that will determine Italy’s next prime minister.
While many conservatives cheer her ascent — and the idea of the first woman to rule Italy — her candidacy has simultaneously raised concerns among Italians about racism and the future of abortion in the country as well as Italy’s role in the European Union.
Although she rejects being labeled “far-right” and “neo-fascist” by opponents and has toned down her attacks on the European Union, Meloni appeared at a June rally in support of Spain’s far-right Vox party and delivered remarks that renewed that criticism.
“The secular left and radical Islam are menacing our [European] roots,” she told the crowd, adding that no middle ground was possible.
Giorgia Meloni, leader of Italy’s Fratelli d’Italia party, in Rome on Aug. 24. (Yara Nardi/Reuters)
“Yes to natural families! No to LGBT lobbies! Yes to sexual identity! No to gender ideology!” she yelled, whipping up supporters. “Yes to the universality of the cross, no to Islamist violence! Yes to secure borders, no to mass immigration!”
Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, who on Thursday was indicted on money laundering and conspiracy charges in New York, helped spur Meloni’s rise since 2018, when Brothers of Italy took a mere 4% of the vote in parliamentary elections — whereas current polls show the party in first place at 25%. Bannon spent much of 2018-19 in Europe attempting to form “the Movement,” an envisioned network of right-wing European populist parties. He not only advised Brothers of Italy and shared the spotlight with Meloni at rallies, but also brought her along on high-profile media interviews. Rome-based Benjamin Harnwell, international editor for Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, told Yahoo News that he recalls Bannon calling Meloni “a rock star” after their first meeting, saying “this woman is going to transform Italy,” though few gave that idea credence at the time.
David Broder, Europe editor of the left-wing journal Jacobin, has been sounding the alarm about Meloni since the government of Mario Draghi collapsed in July, prompting the September election. He foresees her plans to clamp down on immigration as just one problem area. “Meloni says that her party would introduce a naval blockade off of Africa in order to stop migrant boats crossing the Mediterranean,” he told Yahoo News. “This is a recipe for Italian naval vessels to deliberately sink migrant boats, which would kill potentially thousands of people. It’s also illegal under maritime law and EU law. So we can imagine the conflict that would result from that.”
Steve Bannon at his arraignment in New York on Sept. 8. (Steven Hirsch/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
One of Meloni’s most powerful critics is fashion designer and bloggerChiara Ferragni, who has cautioned about restrictions on abortion in Italy if Meloni’s party is elected. In August, Ferragni warned her 27 million Instagram followers that in Italy’s eastern region of Marche, which is governed by Brothers of Italy, abortion has already become “practically impossible.” Abortions there are now prohibited after seven weeks of pregnancy (versus the nine weeks stipulated by law), and the party is not allowing dispersal of abortion pills in clinics. Brothers of Italy is also pushing to allow anti-abortion protesters to enter abortion clinics. That is the kind of “policy that risks becoming national if the right wins the elections,” Ferragni wrote.
Meloni and Brothers of Italy did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Meloni, who has expressed concern over Italy’s low birth rate, has countered that Brothers of Italy will implement “a full and integral application” of a 1978 abortion law that requires that pregnant women be fully counseled on alternatives to terminating a pregnancy.
Broder sees the party’s abortion politics as “heavily linked to the immigration issue.” Meloni, he pointed out, “says that the Italian people are at risk of extinction. And that giving citizenship to the children of immigrants is part of the ethnic substitution of the Italian population.”
Meloni drew more criticism last month after posting a video of an African asylum seeker raping a woman in a small town in broad daylight — a video promptly removed from Twitter. Yet even some who don’t support her say she’s running an impressive “Revive Italy” campaign, one in which she’s famously described herself as “a woman, a mother, a Christian.”
Demonstrators in Rome protest the end of abortion in the United States. (Matteo Nardone/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“She’s intelligent, she has acumen and she has the ability to communicate with the people,” Italian political commentator and co-founder of the Inter Press Service news agency Roberto Savio told Yahoo News. Her working-class background in Rome has endeared her to many, he added. Savio credits Meloni’s jump in popularity to Italy’s rising inflation and high youth unemployment as well as the fact that she is an unknown commodity in a country that has blown through six prime ministers in the past 10 years.
“You have a lot of people voting for Meloni because they say, ‘We tried with other parties, other politicians, and nothing worked. So let us try this one. Maybe she’ll surprise us,’” he said.
Nevertheless, Savio thinks that if she is elected, which looks very likely, Meloni won’t last long thanks to soaring costs of living, the European energy crisis, Italian bureaucracy and her relative lack of hands-on governingexperience.“She’s never even been the mayor of a little village,” he pointed out.
Florence-based sociologist and professor Giovanna Campani, co-author of “The Rise of the Far Right in Europe,” shares similar concerns. “In France, the people who go into politics, they have a big academic training. Giorgia Meloni didn’t even go to university.” That works in her favor with some, she added, further burnishing the image that “she comes from the people.” On the other hand, Campani said, “I don’t have the impression that she did the work to really become an accomplished person” in a leadership role. Campani worries that with Italy led by Meloni, who is opposed to gay adoption and favors what she calls “natural motherhood,” life will turn tougher for those in the LGBTQ community and immigrants, for starters.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán gives his first international press conference in Budapest on April 6. (Attila Kisbenedek/AFP via Getty Images)
Broder predicts that Italy may become more like Hungary under strongman Viktor Orbán, who Meloni considers a role model. “We’re more likely to see an erosion of democratic norms,” he said. He also worries that Meloni’s attitudes about immigration and non-white Europeans will be infectious. “It’s symbolic to have a country’s prime minister openly endorse racist ideas — obviously that’s going to filter through society as well.” He’s also uncomfortable with the fact that her party’s alliance with center-right parties the League (headed by anti-abortion, fervently anti-immigrant Matteo Salvini) and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia could give the right a large enough majority in the upcoming elections to alter Italy’s constitution, which Meloni has expressed she hopes to do.
Even though Meloni herself has softened her former Euroskeptic views and openly supports Ukraine while condemning Russia, Broder said, once in power those commitments will probably weaken. “You can see lots of potential split lines within the [potential] majority already,” he said. The League’s Salvini is already questioning sanctions against Russia, he pointed out, and “a big majority of voters for both Brothers of Italy and the League want to end those sanctions. Ultimately, when what’s perceived to be the consequences of those sanctions, including the blowback against energy in Europe, begins to make itself more harshly felt, then Meloni’s [pro-Ukraine] position is going to become difficult to maintain.”
Thus, the future Meloni government may go the way of the six governments that preceded it. But, Broder cautions, “it could last for years.”
Pope heads to Kazakh interfaith congress, without patriarch Pope Francis delivers his blessing as he recites the Angelus noon prayer from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Sunday, Sept. 11, 2022.
(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
NICOLE WINFIELD and KOSTYA MANENKOV Mon, September 12, 2022
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis had hoped his trip to Kazakhstan this week would offer a chance to meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church — who has justified the war in Ukraine — and plead for peace. Patriarch Kirill bowed out a few weeks ago, but Francis is going ahead with the trip that is nevertheless being overshadowed by Russia’s seven-month war.
Francis travels to the majority-Muslim former Soviet republic on Tuesday to minister to its tiny Catholic community and participate in a Kazakh-sponsored conference of world religious leaders. The conference had as its original goal to promote interfaith dialogue in the post-pandemic world, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given it a more immediate cause: for faith leaders from around the world to appeal for peace with a united voice.
“It will be an occasion to meet so many religious representatives and to dialogue as brothers, animated by the common desire for peace, the peace for which our world is thirsting,” Francis told thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.
In a way, Kirill’s absence will make life easier for all involved: Kazakhstan won’t have its showcase gathering of Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Shinto and Jewish leaders from 50 countries overshadowed by a headline-grabbing photo op between the pope and the patriarch. Francis won’t have the diplomatic headache of having to explain to Ukraine why he met with an ideological supporter of Russia’s war before Francis even visited Kyiv. And Kirill will avoid the embarrassment of being present when a global congress of imams, rabbis, ministers and a pope issues a final statement largely expected to denounce war.
But for Kazakhstan’s Catholic leaders, Kirill’s absence represents something of a lost opportunity.
“Personally I am pained,” said Bishop Adelio Dell’Oro of the Kazakh diocese of Karaganda. “I think a meeting between them on the sidelines of the congress would have been a notable contribution, notable in this process of peace to clarify what religions can contribute to human coexistence in the world. So I am disappointed, but you have to accept it.”
The interfaith congress is an important triennial event for Kazakhstan, a country that borders Russia to the north, China to the east and is home to some 130 ethnic groups: It’s a showpiece of its foreign policy and a reflection of its own multicultural and multiethnic population that has long been touted as a crossroads between East and West.
“We can say that Kazakhstan is really a place where dialogue is not some formal slogan, but this is a Kazakh brand," said Monsignor Piotr Pytlowany, spokesman for the Kazakh bishops conference. "Kazakhstan wants to share dialogue not only during this congress but also after it, offering the dialogue as one of the possible ways to resolve the various difficulties that the world now faces.”
When St. John Paul II visited in 2001, 10 years after independence, he highlighted Kazakhstan’s diversity while recalling its dark past under Stalinist repression: Entire villages of ethnic Poles were deported en masse from western Ukraine to Kazakhstan beginning in 1936, and the Soviet government deported hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, Chechens and other accused Nazi collaborators to Kazakhstan during World War II. Many of the deportees’ descendants remained and some of them make up the country’s Catholic community, which only numbers about 125,000 in a country of nearly 19 million.
Kazakh bishops had asked Francis to visit a former Soviet detention camp during his three-day visit, but the 85-year-old pope declined due to his strained knee ligaments, which have forced him to use a wheelchair and cane to get around.
His program has time for private meetings with religious leaders attending the congress. While the Vatican hasn’t released a list, expected participants include Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the seat of Sunni learning in Cairo.
One visitor not currently on his agenda: Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is expected in Kazakhstan on his first foreign trip since the coronavirus pandemic. Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said there were no current plans for any meeting and noted that Xi isn’t attending the religious conference. China and the Holy See haven’t had diplomatic relations for over a half-century.
Francis has repeatedly denounced Russia’s war in Ukraine as an unjust “violent aggression,” expressed solidarity with the “martyred” Ukrainian people and sent personal envoys to Ukraine to provide humanitarian and spiritual aid. At the same time, he has refrained from calling out Russia or President Vladimir Putin by name, trying to maintain a path of dialogue with Moscow in keeping with the Vatican’s diplomatic tradition of not taking sides in a conflict.
Kirill has justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on spiritual and ideological grounds, calling it a “metaphysical” battle with the West. He has blessed Russian soldiers going into battle and invoked the idea that Russians and Ukrainians are one people.
The Kazakh congress would have provided a neutral location and coincidental excuse for their second-ever meeting, and both Kirill and Francis had originally confirmed their presence. But Kirill pulled out last month. A former Vatican ambassador to Moscow has suggested that grumblings within the Russian Orthodox hierarchy might have factored into Kirill’s decision.
Perhaps they saw the writing on the wall. Just last week, the general assembly of the World Council of Churches, a fellowship of more than 350 churches representing more than a half-billion Christians worldwide, denounced what it called an “illegal and unjustifiable” invasion and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
The Russian Orthodox Church, which is a member of the WCC, refused to vote for the “politicized” declaration and complained about what it called “unprecedented pressure” on members to condemn Moscow and the Russian church.
Kazakhstan, for its part, has had to walk a thin line with the war. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has vowed to respect Western sanctions against Russia while trying to maintain close ties with Moscow, an important economic partner and ally. At the same time Tokayev refused to recognize the Russia-backed separatist “people’s republics” in Ukraine, which Moscow recognized days before invading Ukraine.
While Kazakhstan could have emerged as the mediator if Francis and Kirill had met, “maybe it’s even better that this is not happening because Kazakhstan would have looked like as a country that is getting involved in the Ukraine crisis, and this is the last thing that Kazakhstan wants to do right now,” said Temur Umarov, a Central Asia expert and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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Manenkov reported from Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.
Russia's pro-war patriarch conspicuously absent in pope's Kazakh trip
Pope Francis and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill stand together
after a 2016 meeting in Havana
Mon, September 12, 2022 By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis leaves on Tuesday for a peace meeting of world religious leaders in Kazakhstan marked by the conspicuous absence of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who supports the war in Ukraine.
Kirill had been expected to attend the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, and Francis had several times said he was willing to talk to him.
Their meeting in Cuba in 2016 was the first between a pope and a Russian Orthodox patriarch since the Great Schism of 1054 divided Christianity into Eastern and Western branches.
But the Russian Church abruptly announced last month that Kirill would skip the meeting in the Kazak capital, Nur-Sultan. It gave no reason.
Some top Vatican officials were relieved that the encounter would not take place because of the bad optics of the pope meeting with a key backer of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, according to a senior Vatican source.
Ukraine's ambassador to the Vatican, Andreii Kurash, also told the Vatican that his government would not look positively on a pope-patriarch meeting, preferring that the pope first visit Kyiv, according to the source.
Kirill has given enthusiastic backing to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which the patriarch views as a bulwark against a West he calls decadent.
His stance has caused a rift with the Vatican and unleashed an internal rebellion that has led to the severing of ties by some local Orthodox Churches with the Russian Orthodox Church.
The Vatican has been trying to mend strained relations with Ukraine after the pope upset Kyiv last month by referring to Russian ultra-nationalist Darya Dugina, who was killed by a car bomb near Moscow, as an innocent victim of war.
Still, the war in Ukraine is likely to cast a long shadow on the meeting, which is due to be attended by more than 100 delegations from about 50 countries.
Speaking at his Sunday address, Francis called his Kazakhstan trip "a pilgrimage of dialogue and peace" and in the very next line asked for prayers for the Ukrainian people, who he often has said were being "martyred".
The logo of the trip is a dove carrying an olive branch.
There are only about 125,000 Catholics among the 19 million population of the vast Central Asian country, which is a former Soviet Republic. About 70% of the Kazakhs are Muslim and about 26% Orthodox Christians.
Francis, who uses a cane and a wheelchair because of a knee ailment, will say a Mass for the tiny Catholic community.
The religious leaders are due to hold a silent prayer at the start of the meeting on Wednesday and issue a joint statement at the end.
Francis is scheduled to hold private meetings with several religious leaders but the Vatican has not yet announced who they are.
(Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
Pope, opening Kazakh visit, blasts 'senseless' Ukraine war 1 / 31 Pope Francis, left, meets the Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev as he arrives at Our-Sultan's International airport in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022. Pope Francis begins a 3-days visit to the majority-Muslim former Soviet republic to minister to its tiny Catholic community and participate in a Kazakh-sponsored conference of world religious leaders.
(AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
NICOLE WINFIELD and KOSTYA MANENKOV Mon, September 12, 2022
NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (AP) — Pope Francis begged for an end to Russia’s “senseless and tragic war” in Ukraine as he arrived Tuesday in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan to join faith leaders from around the world in praying for peace.
Francis flew to the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan to meet with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for an official state visit portion of his three-day trip. On Wednesday and Thursday, he participates in a government-sponsored triennial interfaith meeting, which is gathering more than 100 delegations of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Shinto and other faith groups from 50 countries.
The 85-year-old Francis made the trip despite what appeared to be an aggravation of the strained knee ligaments that have greatly reduced his mobility all year. Francis struggled to walk through the aisle of the aircraft during the 6.5-hour flight from Rome, and he appeared tired and in pain as he limped heavily with his cane, ceding to a wheelchair for most events once in town. Doctors have told him that for the time being, any further travel — to Kyiv, for example — is out of the question.
Speaking upon his arrival to government authorities and diplomats gathered at the Qazaq concert hall, Francis praised Kazakhstan’s commitment to diversity and dialogue and its progress from decades of Stalinist repression, when Kazakhstan was the destination of hundreds of thousands of Soviet deportees.
Francis said the country, which borders Russia to the north and China to the east and is home to some 150 ethnic groups and 80 languages, now has a “fundamental role to play” in helping ease conflicts elsewhere.
Recalling that St. John Paul II visited Kazakhstan just days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S., Francis said he was visiting “in the course of the senseless and tragic war that broke out with the invasion of Ukraine.”
“I have come to echo the plea of all those who cry out for peace, which is the essential path to development for our globalized world,” he said.
Directing himself at global superpowers, he said expanding efforts at diplomacy and dialogue were ever more important. “And those who hold greater power in the world have greater responsibility with regard to others, especially those countries most prone to unrest and conflict.”
“Now is the time to stop intensifying rivalries and reinforcing opposing blocs,” he said.
Tokayev didn’t mention Ukraine specifically in his prepared remarks to Francis. But speaking in English, he referred in general terms about humanity being on an “edge of an abyss as geopolitical tensions escalate, global economy suffers, and mushrooming religious and ethnic intolerance becomes the ‘new normal.’”
Kazakhstan has had to walk a thin line with the war. Tokayev has vowed to respect Western sanctions against Russia while trying to maintain close ties with Moscow, an important economic partner and ally. At the same time, Tokayev refused to recognize the Russia-backed separatist “people’s republics” in Ukraine which Moscow recognized days before invading Ukraine.
The most noteworthy aspects of Francis’ visit to Kazakhstan might boil down to the missed opportunities with both Russia and China: Francis was supposed to have met with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church on the sidelines of the conference. But Patriarch Kirill, who has supported the war in Ukraine, canceled his trip last month.
Francis is also going to be in the Kazakh capital at the same time as Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is making his first foreign trip since early in the coronavirus pandemic.
The Vatican and China haven’t had diplomatic relations for a half century and the timing is somewhat tense, with the two sides finalizing the renewal of a controversial deal over the nominations of Catholic bishops in China.
The Vatican has said there were no current plans for any meeting between Xi and Francis while they were both in Kazakhstan and the Kazakh deputy foreign minister, Roman Vassilenko said he didn’t believe there was time in Xi’s schedule to meet with Francis.
Asked about the possibility en route to Nur-Sultan, Francis said: “I don’t have any news about this. But I am always ready to go to China.”
The interfaith congress, now in its seventh iteration, is a showpiece of Kazakhstan’s foreign policy and a reflection of its own multicultural and multiethnic population that has long been touted as a crossroads between East and West.
When St. John Paul II visited in 2001, 10 years after independence, he highlighted Kazakhstan’s diversity while recalling its dark past under Stalinist repression: Entire villages of ethnic Poles were deported en masse from western Ukraine to Kazakhstan beginning in 1936, and the Soviet government deported hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans, Chechens and other accused Nazi collaborators to Kazakhstan during World War II. Many of the deportees’ descendants remained and some of them make up the country’s Catholic community, which only numbers about 125,000 in a country of nearly 19 million.
Sophia Gatovskaya, a parishioner at Our Lady Of Perpetual Help Cathedral in the capital, said she attended that first papal visit and that it has borne fruits to this day.
“It was actually amazing. And after this visit, we have peace and tolerance in our republic. We have a lot of nationalities in Kazakhstan, and we all live together. And we expect the same from this visit (of Pope Francis) that we will have peace in our republic. And we very much expect that the war in Ukraine will end.”
Pope arrives in Kazakhstan, says 'always ready' for China visit 1 / 10
Philip Pullella Tue, September 13, 2022 By Philip Pullella
NUR-SULTAN (Reuters) -Pope Francis said on Tuesday he was willing to go to China at any time but had "no news" to offer over speculation he might meet Chinese President Xi Jinping while both are in Kazakhstan.
Francis arrived in Kazakhstan after a six-hour flight from Rome at the start of a three-day trip to attend a peace meeting of world religious leaders.
Francis, who suffers from a knee ailment, for the first time on his trips used a finger ramp to exit the plane and enter the terminal on a wheelchair.
President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev greeted the pope briefly at the airport before the pope travelled in a small white car to the gleaming marble presidential palace for a private meeting with the head of state.
Speaking to reporters accompanying him on his flight to the central Asian republic, Francis was asked whether he might meet Xi in its capital Nur-Sultan, where both men will be on Wednesday.
"I don't have any news about that," the pope replied, without elaborating.
Asked if he was ready to go to China, Francis responded: "I am always ready to go to China".
Francis used a cane to walk around the plane greeting reporters as he usually does on such trips. He appeared in pain by the time he returned to his own seat in the front section of the aircraft.
The pope has tried to ease the historically poor relations between the Holy See and China, and told Reuters in an interview in July that he hoped to renew a secret and contested agreement on the appointment of Roman Catholic bishops in China.
Xi is visiting Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan from Sept. 14-16 in his first official trip to a foreign nation since China all but shut its borders due to COVID-19. He is expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Uzbekistan.
The war in Ukraine is casting a long shadow on the pope's visit to Kazakhstan and the international religious meeting, which is due to be attended by more than 100 delegations from about 50 countries.
In an address to the Kazakh government and the diplomatic corps on Tuesday night, Francis spoke of "the senseless and tragic war that broke out with the invasion of Ukraine".
He also spoke of the need to ease Cold War-style confrontations and rhetoric, saying "Now is the time to stop intensifying rivalries and reinforcing opposing blocs."
Francis will be in Kazakhstan until Thursday for the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, a gathering marked by the conspicuous absence of Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, who supports the war in Ukraine.
Kirill had been expected to attend the congress, and Francis had several times said he was willing to talk to him.
There are only about 125,000 Catholics among the 19 million population of the vast Central Asian country, which is a former Soviet Republic. About 70% of the Kazakhs are Muslim and about 26% Orthodox Christians.
Francis will say a Mass for the tiny Catholic community on Wednesday afternoon.
(Additional reporting by Olzhas Auyezov in AlmatyEditing by Raissa Kasolowsky)
