Brazilian Centrist Alckmin, Lula's Big-tent Bet For VP

11/01/22 

Though from different political backgrounds, Brazil's vice president-elect Geraldo Alckmin (L) and Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (R) teamed up to defeat far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro 

AFP / NELSON ALMEIDA

Known as a good administrator but dull politician, Brazil's business-friendly centrist Geraldo Alckmin is the wingman leftist president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is betting on to help mend a deeply divided country.

The vice president-elect and his boss are not exactly an obvious match: Alckmin ran against then-president Lula in Brazil's 2006 election, losing badly in the runoff.

But they decided to team up, they say, to defeat a common enemy: far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

"People might think it's strange," Alckmin said in March when he became Lula's running-mate for the hard-fought election that ended with their victory in a runoff election Sunday.

"I ran against Lula in 2006. But we never put the very issue of democracy at risk."

Lula on Tuesday appointed Alckmin to lead the transition with the outgoing administration.

Alckmin, 69, rose to prominence as governor of Sao Paulo, Brazil's biggest and wealthiest state, in the 2000s and 2010s. The mild-mannered anesthesiologist earned a reputation as a solid managerial type and was well-liked by the business and financial sectors.

But he had fallen into political oblivion, winning less than five percent of the vote in the first round of the 2018 presidential race, which brought Bolsonaro to power.

A co-founder of the center-right Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), long the main rival to Lula's Workers' Party (PT), Alckmin switched to the center-left Brazilian Socialist Party (PSB) so he could do the once-unthinkable and stand as the ex-metalworker's VP.

"We have to open our eyes and have the humility to see that today, (Lula) is the person who best reflects and interprets the Brazilian people's sense of hope for the future," Alckmin said.

A few years back, he had fewer kind words for the former -- and now future -- president.

"After bankrupting Brazil, Lula says he wants to be president again. In other words, friends, he wants to return to the scene of the crime," Alckmin said in 2017.

But Lula wanted a business-friendly running mate to help him mount a big-tent campaign with broad appeal, winning back centrist voters still stinging from the huge recession and corruption scandals that marked the end of the PT's years in power (2003-2016).

Lula, 77, has been here before: his VP when he was president was center-right businessman Jose Alencar, who helped convince wary markets the ex-union leader was serious about orthodox economic policies.

As with Alencar, there appears to be little risk Lula will be overshadowed by Alckmin, a politician nicknamed "xuxu popsicle" -- a reference to a bland vegetable common in Brazil.

"I'm not a showman. If you want to see a show, go watch a comedian," the bald, bespectacled Alckmin once said.

Born in Pindamonhangaba, a small city outside Sao Paulo, Alckmin grew up in a devout Catholic family.

He was a city councilman and mayor before winning a seat in Congress and eventually the governorship.

Despite his clean-cut reputation, he did not escape unscathed from the massive "Car Wash" corruption investigation that stained a laundry list of politicians and business executives in Brazil, Lula chief among them.

Managers at construction giant Odebrecht listed Alckmin among the politicians who allegedly received illegal campaign donations.

He was never charged.

US requests for overseas abortion pills surges: study


AFP
PublishedNovember 1, 2022


After the US Supreme Court's controversial decision to overturn the nationwide right to abortion, more women have sought out abortion pills online - Copyright AFP/File Menahem KAHANA

Requests by Americans for abortion pills from outside the United States have surged since the US Supreme Court’s explosive decision last summer to overturn the nationwide right to the procedure, according to a study published Tuesday.

Researchers, whose work was published in the medical journal JAMA, analyzed the number of requests submitted to telemedicine service Aid Access, which delivers abortion pills from abroad to 30 US states.

Aid Access was purposefully set up to help women “self-manage” their abortions at home, circumventing local bans or other barriers.

After the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in late June, many Republican-led states severely restricted or outright banned abortions.

According to the study, Aid Access received an average of 83 requests per day before the Supreme Court’s decision from the 30 states in which it operates.

But in the two months after, that number jumped to 213 per day — an increase of about 160 percent.

Proportional to the number of women in each state, the increase in Aid Access requests were highest in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Oklahoma — all of which completely banned abortions.

In the states that outlawed abortions, “current legal restrictions” was cited as women’s motivation for using the service in about 62 percent of cases after the Supreme Court decision, compared to 31 percent before.

The study did analyze requests for the pills on other sites, where they are easily available for a few hundred dollars — but without medical supervision.

Another study, also published Tuesday in the journal JAMA, looked at the average travel time for women to reach an abortion clinic in the United States.

The average time was 28 minutes before the Supreme Court’s decision, and it increased significantly to 1 hour and 40 minutes afterward. The national average however masks wide local disparities.

In states that implemented a total abortion ban or limits after six weeks of pregnancy, the average travel time increase was four hours, according to the study, which added that the lack of access was especially a problem for those with fewer resources.

In the 100 days following the Supreme Court ruling, at least 66 clinics stopped performing abortions, according to a report in early October by the Guttmacher Institute.

Anonymous graves mark the end of the line for migrants at US border

Author: AFP|Update: 02.11.2022 

Anonymous graves in Falfurrias, Texas, mark the final resting places of many migrants who died attempting to enter the United States / © AFP

Sheriff Urbino Martinez has collected the remains of so many dead migrants who have come across the US southern border that he is known as "The Undertaker."

"It's deadly out there," says Martinez, who patrols the small Texan county of Brooks, a few dozen kilometers (miles) from Mexico.

"We started keeping track of the dead bodies from 2009," he told AFP in his office, pointing to 20 thick volumes, where his department has information on 913 cases.


But, he says, that's only a fraction of the true human toll of the border crossings.

"I would multiply that times five, maybe even 10 for those bodies that will never be recovered."

Sheriff Urbino Martinez, of Brooks County, Texas, says his department has information on 913 cases of deceased migrants collected since 2009 in 20 thick binders / © AFP

The United States logged a record 2.3 million migrant encounters at its southern border in the year to September -- a key issue for some voters as they head to the polls for next month's midterm elections.

Many were sent back south; an unknown number made it into the country without being detected.

At least 700 people are known to have died in the attempt.

To avoid the checkpoint in Falfurrias, the main town in Brooks County, migrants are directed by human traffickers into vast farmsteads where dense vegetation, treacherous sands and soaring temperatures can prove fatal.

Sometimes, there isn't much of a person left to find.

Martinez's folders are labelled "human remains" -- a chillingly accurate description of the photographs that sometimes show partial torsos or just a few bones.

"If it's real hot, your body will decompose completely within 72 hours, and then the animals are going to tear whatever's left.

"The feral hogs, the rats, anything that's out there that can tear the limb off, they're going to do it. We found human bones inside a rat's den before."

Numbers are down in Brooks county this year -- Martinez has logged 80 bodies so far in 2022, all of which were processed through his mobile mortuary.

"It is less than last year but it is 80 too many," he says.

- No identification -

The death that Martinez finds in Brooks is not unique to his county.

Dr. Corine Stern, the chief coroner for southern Texas, says most of migrants whose remains she deals with have died from heatstroke or dehydration / © AFP

The same pattern of tragedy is repeated all along the Texan border: desperate people dying as they flee the crushing poverty, violence and terror of their dysfunctional homelands.

In the border town of Eagle Pass, the municipal cemetery is strewn with rudimentary crosses that mark the graves of dozens of unknown dead; the men and women whose American dreams ended in anonymous graves.

Around 40 plaques, labelled John or Jane Doe, sit next to a small US flag.

Across town, the migrants are still coming, gambling that the possibility of death en route is better than the alternative.

"It was an ordeal," said Alejandra, a 35-year-old Colombian who crossed the rushing Rio Grande to reach Texas, even though she cannot swim. "But it was scarier to go back."

Cowering under a tree from the hot sun, Alejandra said she needed asylum because of the danger she faced from organized crime in Colombia.

"If we go back, they'll kill us," she said, looking at her three teenage children.

- Remains -

Corinne Stern, the chief coroner for southern Texas, says most of the migrants whose remains she examines died from heatstroke or dehydration.

"Up until about five years ago, (the border) took up about 30 percent of my time... Now it's taking up about 75 percent," says the doctor, who wears a necklace inscribed with the Hebrew word for "Life."

In the reception area of the morgue, a painting reads: "Let the dead teach the living."

Inside, a blackboard lists dozens of Jane and John Does.

Eduardo Canales founded the South Texas Human Rights Center in 2013, installing water stations around ranches to prevent migrants from drinking the water in the cattle troughs, which can be toxic for humans / © AFP

The morgue is impeccably clean, but the smell of bodily decay is pervasive, permeating the masks visitors are required to wear.

The vast majority of border cases she receives have no identification, Stern says, as she examines the skeletal remains of a still-clothed female body.

Attached to the corpse is a small olive green backpack.

When the doctor picks it up, two lollipops fall out, their colorful wrappings a contrast to the earthy ochre that swathes the clothes and the bones.

DNA samples are extracted in an attempt to identify her, but for now she will be labeled as yet another Jane Doe, one of 250 Stern has dealt with this year.

- 'Where is my wife?' -

For Eduardo Canales, the open-endedness of anonymous death is too much to bear.

In 2013, Canales founded the South Texas Human Rights Center, installing water stations around ranches to prevent migrants from drinking the water in the cattle troughs, which can be toxic for humans.

Canales, 74, supplies blue plastic barrels that have location coordinates and a phone number to call for help.

But when he began receiving calls from family members looking for loved ones who had gone missing after crossing the border, he decided to expand his work.

"For me the most important thing is for families to be able to find closure," he says.

The South Texas Human Rights Center supplies blue plastic barrels of water that have location coordinates and a phone number to call for help / © AFP

"Families don't stop looking, they never give up. They keep asking where is my wife, my brother, my daughter?"

Many were buried anonymously in the Falfurrias cemetery, but a partnership with Texas State University made it possible to exhume dozens of bodies and identify them by their fingerprints.

The effort has reduced the number of anonymous graves in Brooks: of the 119 people found in 2021, 107 were identified.

"But many more die and disappear without us ever finding them," Canales says, pointing to vast dusty plains.

"Here the only constant is death."

 EGYPT'S FAKE COP27

Sinking Alexandria faces up to coming catastrophe

by Bassem ABOUALABASS

Holding back the tide: Egypt's second city Alexandria is building barriers to save it from the 

rising sea.

Alexandria, Egypt's fabled second city and its biggest port, is in danger of disappearing below the waves within decades.

With its land sinking, and the sea rising due to global warming, the metropolis Alexander the Great founded on the Nile Delta is teetering on the brink.

Even by the United Nations' best case scenario, a third of the city will be underwater or uninhabitable by 2050, with 1.5 million of its six million people forced to flee their homes.

Its ancient ruins and historic treasures are also in grave danger from the Mediterranean.

Already hundreds of Alexandrians have had to abandon apartments weakened by flooding in 2015 and again in 2020.

Every year the city sinks by more than three millimetres, undermined by dams on the Nile that hold back the river silt that once consolidated its soil and by gas extraction offshore.

Meanwhile, the sea is rising.

The Mediterranean could rise a metre (3.2 feet) within the next three decades, according to the most dire prediction of the UN's panel of climate experts, the IPCC.

That would inundate "a third of the highly productive agricultural land in the Nile Delta", as well as "cities of historical importance, such as Alexandria", it said.

Third of city could go

UN experts say the Mediterranean will rise faster than almost anywhere else in the world.

A third of Alexandria could disappear under the sea within three decades.

"Climate change is a reality and no longer an empty threat," said Ahmed Abdel Qader, the head of the authority protecting Egypt's coastline.

Even under the best-case scenario outlined by other Egyptian and UN studies, the Mediterranean will rise 50 centimetres by 2050.

That would leave 30 percent of Alexandria flooded, a quarter of the population having to be rehoused and 195,000 jobs lost.

Such a catastrophe will have dramatic repercussions for Egypt's 104 million people because "Alexandria is also home to the country's biggest port" and is one of the main hubs of the economy, Abdel Qader said.

Across the Delta, the sea has already advanced inland more than three kilometres since the 1960s, swallowing up Rosetta's iconic 19th-century lighthouse in the 1980s.

All this is happening as Alexandria's population is exploding, with nearly two million more people arriving in the last decade, while investment in infrastructure, as elsewhere in Egypt, has lagged.

The city's governor, Mohamed al-Sharif, said the drainage system for its roads was built to absorb one million cubic metres (35 million cubic feet) of rain. But with the more violent storms that have come with climate change, "today we can get 18 million cubic metres falling in a single day".

The changing climate is also playing havoc with Alexandria's weather, which can veer from unseasonal heat to snow.

"We have never experienced such heat at the end of October," resident Mohamed Omar, 36, told AFP, with the temperature rising to 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 Fahrenheit), five degrees above normal.

'Lost beneath the waves'

The looming threat has also been a hammer blow to the image of a city that likes to celebrate its cosmopolitan golden age at the start of the 20th century, with its art deco cafes and elegant avenues of Paris-style apartment buildings.

Within 30 years a third of the Egyptian city of Alexandria could be under water.

Many Egyptians were horrified when Britain's then-prime minister Boris Johnson warned that Alexandria was at risk of being lost "beneath the waves" at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow last year.

"Yes, the threat exists and we don't deny it, but we're launching projects to attenuate it," Abdel Qader said.

A huge belt of reeds is being planted along 69 kilometres of coastline. "Sand sticks around them and together they form a natural barrier," he said.

Alert mechanisms and wave measuring systems are also soon to be put in place, Abdel Qader added.

Treasures in jeopardy

Alexandria's rich and ancient heritage is particularly vulnerable. Most exposed is the 15th-century Mamluk citadel of Qaitbay, built on a neck of land that was once the site of the Lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Lashed relentlessly by the sea, a breakwater made up of 5,000 huge concrete blocks has been installed to protect it.

More have been put in place to limit damage to the 19th-century corniche.

Destruction and rebuilding is nothing new to a city that once was home to the Library of Alexandria, the world's greatest temple of knowledge until it was accidentally burned by Julius Caesar's troops.

Neither its modern heir, a gleaming edifice on the corniche tilting like a solar disc toward the Mediterranean, nor the rest of the city can be left to a watery grave, Abdel Qader insisted.

"The West has a moral responsibility: it must help to counter the negative effects of climate change, which are the result of its civilisation" and industrialised model.

And Egypt will be hammering that message home when the UN COP27 climate talks open there on November 6.

© 2022 AFP

Climate change and rising seas threaten Egypt's breadbasket

UGANDA

Choking on factory waste: the Nile's rising scourge

by Grace MATSIKO

'We were told to stop drinking the water': Ali Tabo on the banks of the Nile in Jinja, Uganda.

As tourists pose for selfies on the shores of Lake Victoria in Uganda, factories within spitting distance of the source of the Nile dump their waste directly into Africa's longest river.

AFP journalists watched as staff at a tannery shovelled garbage into the river, while dirty water flowed into the Nile through plastic pipes leaving a brown sheen, in a vivid illustration of the mounting scourge.

The town of Jinja, where the Nile begins its 6,500-kilometre (4,000-mile) journey to the Mediterranean, is a jumble of small houses squeezed between textile and fish processing factories, boatbuilders, maize millers, brewers and coffee processors.

Smoke billows from a factory chimney as fishermen nearby land meagre catches from their small boats.

Rising industrial pollution in the area set off alarm bells last year, with a report by the 10-nation Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) warning that "the rich natural resources and outstanding biodiversity in the Nile Basin face unprecedented threats".

It blamed population growth, urbanisation and water contamination, saying the "discharge of untreated wastewater and sludge, fertiliser and pesticides from farming and sediments from land degradation comprise the prime pollutants".

'The fish die'

Young men and women take turns to swim in the waters of the Nile, oblivious to its dangers.

But fishermen like Stanley Ojakol know the changes wrought by pollution all too well.

Meagre catch: fisherman Jowali Kitagenda, 40, casts his net on the Nile in Jinja, Uganda.

"We have seen fish stocks disappear... This is largely because of the chemicals the factories pour into the river," the father of 12 told AFP.

"At times the fish die in the water," he added.

Jowali Kitagenda, 40, has been fishing the river since childhood, and has endured many beatings from soldiers assigned to guard restricted areas of the Nile.

"The government sent the army to stop us from fishing in the deep section of the Nile... but they let the factories pour tonnes of chemicals into the water and the fish die," Kitagenda told AFP.

"When we try to search for fish, we only get a few."

With drinking water also polluted, anger at the authorities and the factory owners is rising around Jinja, a town of an estimated 300,000 people, where many households have more than 10 members.

"We were advised by the ministry of health to stop fetching the water from the Nile. It got polluted," said 50-year-old Ali Tabo, a member of the local council executive committee.

"It started itching our skin. The government said it was not good for the kids and domestic use. They sank boreholes and we now draw water from the boreholes, not the river," he added.

Pollution is an even bigger issue than climate change for the Nile in Uganda.

'Dirty water'

Based in the Ugandan town of Entebbe, the Nile Basin intergovernmental partnership brings together 10 nations in the Nile basin to discuss ways to best manage their shared water resources.

"When you have a problem of water quality without the systems to clean it, it becomes complicated," NBI's executive director Sylvester Anthony Mutemu told AFP.

Climate change may pose a serious threat to the Nile's levels, but pollution is increasingly emerging as "a bigger issue" in Uganda, said Callist Tindimugaya of the country's ministry of water and environment.

"Pollution is a very big issue with growing population and industries," Tindimugaya told AFP.

Under a Ugandan environmental law adopted in 2000, factories must be no closer than 100 metres from a river's highest watermark, but many are much closer, often hugging the banks.

"We have laws but implementation is a different issue. (The factories) need water treatment plants but some discharge dirty water at night," he added.

Tindimugaya said the government had come up with a very direct way to show businesses the environmental consequences of their actions. They want factories to release their treated wastewater into the same section of the Nile from which they draw their own supplies.

That way "they are the first to suffer if they pollute", he said.

© 2022 AFP

In Bolivia, Lake Poopo's 'water people' left high and dry

by Martín SILVA
Felix Mauricio is a former fisherman who had built a life around a lake that is now gone.

An abandoned boat rests on the cracked earth where formerly it floated. Lake Poopo, once Bolivia's second-largest, has mostly disappeared—taking with it a centuries-old culture reliant entirely on its bounty.

Felix Mauricio, a member of the Uru Indigenous community, used to be a fisherman. Now 82, he gazes over a barren landscape and chews coca leaf to suppress the hunger pains.

"The fish were big. A small fish was three kilos," he recalls of the good old days.

At its peak in 1986, Lake Poopo spanned some 3,500 square kilometers (1,350 square miles)—an area more than twice the size of Greater London.

But by the end of 2015 it had "fully evaporated" according to a European Space Agency timeline of satellite images tracking the lake's decline.

Scientific studies have blamed a confluence of factors, including climate change and water extraction for farming and mining in the area on the Bolivian high plains, some 3,700 meters above sea level.

"Here was the lake... It dried up quickly," Mauricio told AFP, kneeling in the dry bed and playing with a miniature wooden boat he had carved himself—pushing it around with a wistful look, like a kid lost in an imaginary world.

Mauricio has always lived in Punaca Tinta Maria, a village in the southwestern region of Oruro.

His grandparents settled in the area in 1915 at a time when the waters of Lake Poopo lapped at doorsteps and intermittently flooded huts.

Scientists have blamed a confluence of factors including climate change and water extraction for Bolivia's Lake Poopo's lake drying up.

No land either

Mauricio's is one of only seven families left in Punaca Tinta Maria, which used to have 84 of them, according to locals.

There are only about 600 members left of the Uru Indigenous community—which goes back thousands of years in Bolivia and Peru—in Punaca Tinta Maria and the neighboring settlements of Llapallapani and Vilaneque, according to a 2013 survey.

"Many lived here before," said Cristina Mauricio, a resident of Punaca Tinta Maria who guesses her age at 50.

"They have left. There is no work."

Since 2015, rainfall has returned a shallow film of water to parts of the lake, but not enough to navigate or to hold the fish or water birds the Uru—who still call themselves "water people"—used to catch and hunt.

With none of the lake's natural offerings left, the Uru have had to learn new skills, working today as bricklayers or miners, some growing quinoa or other small crops.

Lake Poopo was once the second-largest in Bolivia.

A major problem is that the Uru have little access to land.

Their villages are surrounded by members of another Indigenous community called the Aimara, who jealously guard the farmland they occupy with property titles from the government.

The state has announced plans to distribute land to the Uru as well, but the community claims most of it is infertile and useless.

'We have been orphaned'

What is left of the lake is largely an evaporated bed of salt the village's remaining residents had hoped would be Poopo's last gift to them.

They banded together and invested what little they managed to raise into equipment for a small plant to mine the salt and refine it.

But they hit an unforeseen snag: they could not find the $500 needed to buy bags to package the salt in.

The business has stalled.

"The Urus will disappear if we do not heed the warnings," senator Lindaura Rasguido of Bolivia's ruling MAS party said on a visit to the community in October.

What is left of the Lake Poopo is largely an evaporated bed of salt the village's few remaining residents had hoped would be the lake's last gift to them.

She and her delegation were met with traditional dancing and poems in a language very few still speak.

"Who thought the lake would dry up? Our parents trusted Lake Poopo... It had fish, birds, eggs, everything. It was our source of life," lamented Luis Valero, the spiritual leader of the Uru people of the region.

As his five children chased each other around an unused canoe grounded outside the family's mud hut, the 38-year-old mused: "We have been orphaned."

But Mauricio, wearing a traditional poncho and a hat made of totora—an indigenous reed from which boats used to be fashioned, still holds out hope that things will go back to how they were.

Staring at the bare soil where he once navigated through waves and wind, he told AFP the lake "will return. In five or six years' time, it will be back," he insisted, with more hope than confidence.

Members of the Uru Indigenous community around dried-up Lake Poopo have had to find other ways of making a living.

There are only about 600 members left around Lake Poopo of the Uru Indigenous community, which goes back thousands of years in Bolivia and Peru.

Luis Valero, spiritual leader of Bolivia's Uru people around Lake Poopo, said the lake used to hold everything the community needed.

A 2020 study in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment said global annual mean lake evaporation rates are forecast to increase 16 percent by 2100.

And according to the UN, the number of people living in water-scarce areas will rise to between 2.7 and 3.2 billion people by 2050 from 1.9 billion in the early- to mid-2010s.

Natural disasters displaced 30.7 million people within their own countries in 2020, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.

© 2022 AFP


Explore furtherWhy Bolivia's second largest lake disappeared – and how to bring it back

‘Just hell’: New book shines light on migrant deaths ahead of Qatar World Cup

Romain HOUEIX - 

Less than three weeks before the tournament kicks off, the Qatar World Cup remains shrouded in controversy – largely due to the deaths of migrants constructing the stadiums under dreadful conditions. FRANCE 24 spoke to the co-author of a new book detailing their plight.

Related video: File footage of construction as Qatar evicts thousands of workers ahead of World Cup    Duration 4:13   View on Watch

© Maya Alleruzzo, AP

For Krishna Timislina, who worked for several years at construction sites for the Qatar World Cup, the conditions were “hell on earth”. Interviewed by French journalists Sébastian Castelier and Quentin Muller for their book “Les Esclaves de l’Homme Pétrole” (“The Oil Man’s Slaves”), Timislina said that with “precarious living conditions, terrible water quality and interminable shifts, we know our health is being damaged – but do we have a choice?”

“So much of Qatar is being built thanks to our work – stadiums, shopping malls, bridges and roads are being constructed – but we’re not invited to share in the dream,” Timislina, 36, lamented.

He recounted working at a frenetic pace (sometimes 18 hours a day in searing heat and powered by energy drinks), water of dubious quality, prefab housing without space or privacy, and – most harrowingly – people dying from accidents or exhaustion.

In going to Qatar, workers from developing countries like India, Pakistan, Nepal, Kenya and Sudan are playing “the Russian roulette of migration”, Castelier said. “They try their luck, knowing it’s not absolutely certain that something terrible will happen to them. They’re attracted by the high salaries – very high compared to their countries they come from. They see it as an economic opportunity that’s worth the risks.”

>> ‘Drowning in bad publicity’: Has Qatar’s World Cup soft power push backfired?

Castelier and Muller gave a voice to many of them in their book, gathering some 60 testimonies. Qatar hosts nearly 400,000 migrant workers, often in conditions of modern-day slavery.

“It’s like a disposable workforce,” Castelier said. “That’s how migration to the Gulf states works. It’s impossible for an immigrant to obtain local citizenship. So when they’re no longer working, they have to leave. You could see how that happened during Covid when everything came to a standstill.”

But the Gulf nations are not the only ones benefitting from this system: 25 percent of Nepal’s GDP, for example, is produced by remittances from people working abroad. Many such governments are happy to see their citizens working in the Gulf states – and even encourage them by organising departures.

Exploitative ‘kafala’ system

Migrants arriving in Gulf states soon fall prey to an exploitative system, with “kafala” at the heart of it. A widely used system in the Gulf, a sponsor (or “kafeel”) is assigned to each migrant, often his or her employer. The system puts migrants at the mercy of their employers, who often confiscate their passports upon arrival.

The kafala system “gives the employer a lot of power over the employee”, Castelier said. “Everything is OK if the employer respects the rules. But if not, the employee’s life can become a living hell.”

>> France to contribute officers to World Cup security in Qatar amid boycott calls

In an attempt to improve its image as controversy swirled around the 2022 World Cup, Qatar officially abolished the kafala system in 2016. Yet in reality, “many aspects of it are still in force”, Castelier said. “Most notably, an employer can say that a migrant working for them is a fugitive. So if a domestic worker, for example, wants to denounce abuses by their employer, the latter can easily say that they have absconded – and instead of looking into the worker’s complaints, the police will just return them to their employer.”

“In Qatar there are perfectly good employers but also nefarious ones – like in every country,” Castelier said. “The problem is that, in Qatar, the bad employers can do whatever they want. There’s a sense of total impunity. Employers know that all they have to do is to send the migrants back to their countries of origin and they’ll never hear from them again.”

Qatar has used a massive influx of foreign workers to build the infrastructure for the footballing extravaganza – with migrants building roads, a new airport, a railway network and seven new stadiums. However, the human cost has been dreadful. In a report published in August 2022, Amnesty International said that more than 15,021 foreigners of all ages and occupations had died in Qatar between 2010 and 2019, while conceding that the causes of death were not clear.

A February 2021 investigation by The Guardian found that at least 6,751 migrant workers died in Qatar from 2010 to 2020. But Castelier noted the real number is likely much higher. “These figures mainly come from Asian embassies in Qatar; we don’t have the statistics for African workers there.”

Moreover, Castelier and Muller point out in their book that The Guardian’s figure does not take into account workers who die after returning home. They point out that many such untimely deaths are due to kidney problems following the consumption of unsafe water. An Amnesty International investigation found that at least 6,751 migrant workers died in Qatar from 2010 to 2020 from drinking homemade alcohol and energy drinks as they struggle to keep up with the frantic work pace.

‘Risk of backsliding’

Qatar’s climate has a lot to do with the high mortality rate. “It’s very hot in the summer,” Castelier said. “It’s just hell working in the construction industry. Qatar has banned working outdoors in the open from 10:30am to 3pm, but many violations have been reported.”

Lack of training can be another cause of death. “They put people who haven’t been trained on huge machines or on scaffolding, and they often have no idea about safety measures – so there are plenty of accidents,” Castelier said.

>> ‘Greenwashing’ mars Qatar’s carbon-neutral World Cup promise

Qatar knows all this makes for bad PR: “It’s perfectly aware that the stories about migrants workers are a problem; they’re constantly trying to put forward a narrative that they’re a modernising country.”

So Qatar jealously protects the image it wants to dominate the public imagination. Throughout the book, the two journalists describe an atmosphere where journalists are discouraged from straying off course from organised press tours and reporting about deaths on construction sites.

While reporting in Qatar’s industrial area where the stadiums were constructed, Castelier’s co-author Muller was set upon and then followed by two Qatari women keen to alert the police to the journalist’s presence in a place where Qatar’s dark side is hidden.

Qatar has lifted a ban on workers changing employers and has introduced a minimum monthly wage of 1,000 riyals (about €280). The Qatari government says it has done more than any other country in the region to improve conditions for migrant workers and strongly rejects media and rights groups’ reports of thousands of deaths on construction sites.

“Qatar has implemented reforms but it has done so quite late, so we will only know how significant they are after the World Cup,” Castelier said. “If they are not sincere, they risk backsliding on the treatment of migrant workers after the media’s attention goes elsewhere.”

This article was translated from the original in French.

Punk poet Patti Smith says writing is her 'essential' art form

Bob Chiarito
Wed, November 2, 2022 


Her Godmother of Punk Rock icon status made her a household name, but for Patti Smith, it's writing where she finds her true artistic voice.

Along with her musical performance and literary pursuits, Smith is a painter and photographer, but if she had to choose one form?

"I'd pick writing."

"Writing is my most essential form of expression," the artist told AFP in Chicago, where she recently received the prestigious Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.

Smith, who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007, is perhaps best known for her seminal punk album "Horses."

But poetry was an earlier love, and "Horses" begins with lines from a poem that she penned.

"Performing poetry, reading poetry was very strong in New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s," she said.

But "I had so much energy and was really a child of rock and roll, so standing there reading a poem was never satisfying to me," Smith continued.

"I quickly merged my poems with a few chords as something to propel me to improvise more poetry, and it sort of evolved into a rock and roll band."

While Smith's album and her band went on to critical acclaim, writing always was at its backbone, she said, pointing to her song "Redondo Beach" which was initially a poem.

"Throughout all my albums and even the prose that I write, poetry is still a thread," she said.

"Horses" is widely considered one of the best albums of all time, but for Smith it was her 2010 book "Just Kids" -- a memoir she promised her best friend and muse Robert Mapplethorpe that she would write hours before he died -- that became her life's greatest success.

"I'd never written a book of nonfiction, but he asked me if I would write our story," she recalled.

Mapplethorpe, a photographer, died at age 42. He and Smith shared a deep friendship, romance and lifelong creative bond.

"My greatest success in my life has been the book that he asked me to write and it almost makes me cry. Robert got his wish and I kept my vow and wrote the book as best I could."

"Just Kids" won The National Book Award and introduced Smith to an entirely new generation of fans, while outselling all of her music albums along the way.

She said young people used to tell her "Horses" changed their lives -- but "it was usurped by 'Kids.'"

"I think it's really opened up many doors for me," she continued. "Other books were examined and people read them and now when we have our concerts, it's a wonderful thing to step on stage and see a sea of people under 30, even under 25."

"To see all these young people who are interested in your work and giving of their energy, I'm so grateful for that."

- People power -

Smith, who turns 76 this December, said she has no plans to slow her output.

She's set to release "A Book of Days" later this month, a volume based on her Instagram account's musings.

She's also considering a serialized book entitled "The Melting," based on her Substack account posts.

Smith has maintained her prolific output for years but she says "things don't necessarily come easy."

"I've had to plug away my whole life."

She considers herself an optimist but she's "deeply concerned and heartbroken" about the state of the world right now, citing environmental crises along with the rise of nationalism globally and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"There's so many things happening simultaneously right now, it's overwhelming," she said. "But I have kids, so I'm always seeking in my mind ways to make the world better for them."

Persevering means writing daily and trying her best to help others.

"We just have to keep doing our work and find a way to keep ourselves healthy and just help one another. It seems so elemental but it's also required," she said.

Smith said she's working on writing a new song inspired by the women protesting in Iran, and still believes, like one of her famous songs, that people have the power.

"I absolutely believe it," she said. "It's just whether we choose to use it or not. That's what the women of Iran are doing."

"That's the only tool we have."

How To Write A Poem According To Patti Smith, The Ultimate Punk Poet

By:
María Isabel Carrasco Cara Chards - November 5, 2019


There are people who are so talented they can do whatever they want. One of these characters is Patti Smith, a woman that had no life expectations and that ended up being one of the most important rockstars of her time, considered a queen and a main representative of punk, as well as one of America’s finest poets. Why did she achieve all that recognition? Where does her talent come from, and how did she manage to overcome every tragedy in her life and transform it into beauty? She became very popular through her songs, especially with her album Horse (1975), and after some time touring, she just decided to take a break, not a short one, but a nine-year one. Why? There were mainly three reasons behind her decision. The first one was a terrible accident she had when she fell off the stage, breaking her back and her skull. Then she met and married Fred “Sonic” Smith (guitarist of MC5), and decided to move from NYC to devote more of her time to raise their kids. Finally, the last reason was that she realized fame and popularity were a void and corrosive atmosphere she didn’t really want to be part of. In that way, she went back to what she had actually dreamt since she was a little girl: becoming a poet. And, if you somehow share that passion with her, here is her own advice. So, take note.

Read whatever you can

“I think that it’s important that we learn from other poets before we abandon them and write our own.”

Not being able to do as much as a kid could do, she secluded herself in the many worlds books offered. Her father, a factory worker, was an avid reader who would always be seen with a book in his hands, while her mother, a devoted Jehovah’s Witness, instructed her family into the precepts of the Bible, which were of utmost importance. Naturally, all this literary influence helped her develop a sensitivity for words, giving her the knowledge and tools to create her own.

Look after yourself

“Live a life as full as you can so that you can do the work you want to do.”

Being the eldest daughter of Beverly and Gary Smith, she spent most of her childhood suffering from different medical diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis, and scarlet fever. From a young age she learned to live knowing that her life could end at any moment. Moreover, she lost her fear of death, and by doing so, she decided to make the most out of every moment of her life. Her suggestion also invites us to develop the ability to spot stories and characters in everyday situations.

Work hard

“You have to practice your gifts.”

At some point in her youth, she decided she wanted to make a life of her own to explore what she was capable of, and moved to New York to become a poet. One of the most inspiring episodes in her life was when she met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, with whom she moved to a hideous apartment with no bathroom. They had almost no money, barely scraping by to survive and pay bills. Yet she describes those as very happy moments, when both would stay up all night working on their creations. So, you must work really hard, even day and night, to develop your skills. If you’re doing what you like, you won’t even be tired of it.

Communicate directly

“Our natural order is being destroyed, our natural way of communicating with each other is being altered.”

Talk to people face to face, forget about your gadgets for a while, and share with them any kind of experiences. Although she never thought of actually becoming a musician, once the opportunity arrived, she understood it was her chance to give a message for young people. She’s explained how at the time the world had already lost those representative voices that promised a change in society (Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X). In the same way, she’s stated that poetry can build a pure and direct bridge of communication. To achieve that sensitivity and power, you have to communicate directly with those around you.

Act

“We should be acting on it. That’s what we had rock and roll for, that’s what we had a cultural voice for.”

Being a social activist most of her life, she’s always focused her poetic vision on topics that concern the world. As it was mentioned in the previous point, she believes poetry, music, and art should be used as a link to expose what’s going on with the world. But that’s not enough. It must work as inspiration to make people aware and push them to act. As a poet your job isn’t only to write and inspire others. You must also lead by example. Moreover, only by engaging directly will you be able to portray the truth.

Probably her most prolific and deepest works were created in the last 20 years. Perhaps experience and the multiple tragedies she’s experienced throughout her life made her more acute to understand the human experience better. I don’t know. The truth is that, as you could see, she’s not giving a very specific guideline on how to write the best poem. She’s telling us how to experience life in order to have the tools needed to let our imagination run amok and channel it on the paper. As she says, “there’s no real rules. I don’t know anything more than anybody else”.

Sometimes listening to great representatives of each discipline in the art can give us hints of how they approached their visions. 

Patti Smith turns 75

Silke Wünsch

12/29/2021

December 29, 2021

An icon for over half a century, Patti Smith remains an enigma to those who try to pigeonhole her. At 75 years young, Smith continues to find poetry in unlikely places. Happy birthday to the reluctant Godmother of Punk!

https://p.dw.com/p/2V4Kh


Patti Smith's biggest hits

Patti Smith never wanted to be a punk rock icon, but her music had a strong influence on rock music in the 1970s. "Three chord rock merged with the power of the word" - that's how she described her style.

Poetry meets Rock'n'Roll

Patti Smith had French poetry and 1960s rock icons on her mind - a combination that became her very own style. Her songs were covered, mixed, and new lyrics were added all the time. By the means of poetry, she transported the wild, rebellious rock of the 1960s into a new era.

Gloria
Her best friend, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, created this cover image for the 1975 album "Horses" - which became a veritable soundtrack for the anti-establishment sentiments of the 1970s. By no means did Patti aim to be a sexy rock star - she wanted to be a rebel. She made this more than clear in her own version of the Van Morrison song "Gloria."



Because the Night
Three years later, Smith's international breakthrough came with album number three, "Easter," featuring a pop song co-written with Bruce Springsteen. The track had nothing to do with radicalism but rather was somewhat of a declaration of love to guitar player Fred "Sonic" Smith. The cover of the single "Because The Night" shows a frail and feminine version of Smith.Image: Record Plant


Frederick
"Wave," Patti Smith's most commercial album, was produced by Todd Rundgren and released in 1979. "Frederick" is dedicated to her lover Fred: "Bye bye, hey hey, Maybe we will come back some day, now. But tonight on the wings of a dove, Up above to the land of love." The couple tied the knot one year later.

Dancing Barefoot
Also featured on the album "Wave," Rolling Stone magazine lists "Dancing Barefoot" as one of the 500 best songs of all times. It's a haunting description of the emotions and confusion that feelings of love typically seem to trigger in Patti Smith. "Rolling Stone" magazine that Smith masturbated to the album cover photo.

Smells Like Teen Spirit
On the 2007 album "Twelve," Patti Smith covers 12 songs, including a hit song by Nirvana, whose singer/song writer Kurt Cobain killed himself in 1994. Patti Smith successfully distills the essence of "Smells like Teen Spirit" and presents it in a plain, acoustic way, while still reflecting her signature poetic style of approaching lyrics.

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
Patti Smith's good friend Bob Dylan helped her out of a major career slump at the end of the 1990s. On December 10, 2016, she reciprocated, attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for absentee laureate Dylan, and singing one of his best-known songs, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall."


Some have called her the Godmother of Punk, others the Grande Dame of Alternative Rock. But what Patti Smith really is, deep down in her heart, is a poet. Her music takes second.

Born on December, 30, 1946, in Chicago, Smith grew up in New Jersey together with three siblings. While her father was an atheist, her mother was a Jehovah's Witness, raising her kids to be religious.

She wanted to become a teacher. During her studies, she got pregnant and had the baby, but gave it up for adoption. Then she quit her studies, and — not even 20 years old — found her way to New York's art scene where she got involved in art, drugs, parties and music.

Back then, her idols were the poets Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud, and the musicians Jimi Hendrix, Brian Jones and Jim Morrison.
Poetry in a punk club

In clubs and bars, Smith opened for rock bands by reciting her poems on stage. She had her first big performance in February 1971. As part of a planned poetry series, Smith recited her work for New York stars like Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, Sam Shepherd and others, eventually publishing two volumes of poetry.

During that time she also jammed with guitarist Lenny Kaye and keyboarder Richard Sohl.

Patti Smith is seen here performing at the Rainbow Theatre in London in 1978Image: Imago/ZUMA/Keystone

"Our songs consisted of three chords," she told the US radio magazine "Fresh Air" in 2006, "so that I could improvise on them."

The three musicians kept playing around with Van Morrison's song "Gloria" for a long time until Smith decided to work in her famous poem "Oath" into that song:

"Christ died for somebody's sins, but not mine (...) Christ, I'm giving you the goodbye, firing you tonight. I can make my own light shine."

The reference to her mother's suffocating religiosity could not be overlooked.
The birth of garage rock

In 1975, the Patti Smith Group was complete. The first album, "Horses," was created with the help of producer and Velvet Underground veteran John Cale. On the cover, Smith looks androgynous with dishevelled hair — slim, clad in a men's shirt and jacket, and wearing a black ribbon looking like a loose tie.

The album contained pure poetry, sometimes loud and uncontrolled, sometimes intense and enchanting. Smith made full use of her voice, implementing melody, rap, recitations and improvisations.

"Horses" made it into the charts as the very first so-called new underground album. The magazine "Rolling Stone" included the disc in its list of 500 best albums of all time.
Godmother of Punk?

Reacting to Smith's wild performances, the music world put her squarely in the punk box, and even called her the Godmother of Punk. In an interview with BBC, she later said she regretted having been given all kinds of titles, like "princess of piss," or "wild rock 'n' roll mustang."

She also said she and her band were never really punk. And yet, Smith definitely played a key role in punk - at least in the US. Yet the essence of Smith's music wasn't anarchism and nihilism, but rather the firm belief that rock 'n' roll could change the world - just as her rock heroes of the 1960s had demonstrated.

Even today, "Horses" still stands for music that comes from the streets, transports dirt and feelings, and is ruthless, honest, unsparing and uncomfortable. Smith said she speaks to those who are like her - the disenfranchised, the mavericks - and tells them, "Don't lose heart, don't give up."
A break after 'Frederick'

The second album of the Patti Smith Group, "Radio Ethiopia" (1976), wasn't quite as successful. According to some observers, Smith was overdoing it a bit with her intensity that at times bordered on "extravagant confusion" ("Rock Rough Guide"). At the same time, though, the album was respected for its rough rock sound.

In 1978, the album "Easter" followed with Smith's first big commercial hit. She released "Because the Night," with some support from Bruce Springsteen. It became her international breakthrough, and was followed by even more hits. The album "Wave" (1979) contained two famous songs, "Dancing Barefoot," and "Frederick," both lacking some of Smith's original wildness.

After that, Smith's musical life came to an end - for a while, at least. With her husband Fred Smith and their children, she withdrew into family life. Once again, she wrote poems, and in 1988 she produced a record with her husband that nobody wanted to listen to.

The mid 1990s were a dark period for her, as, within a few months only, she lost her husband, her best friend, and her brother. She also went broke - but was not forgotten. After all, she always continued to fascinate musicians, among them Kurt Cobain and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. So she started to perform again, here and there, as old friends started calling on her once again.
And then came Bob Dylan

Finally, Bob Dylan brought her back into the limelight. Smith reactivated her old band, and before they knew it they were opening for Dylan's show. The audience was thrilled. Twenty years after the release of "Horses," the band returned into the studio to produce the album "Gone Again" - a collection of somber and touching songs in memory of her deceased husband.

Smith still continues to produce music today. Her hair has turned grey but the power of her songs hasn't diminished a bit. Whether she sings her old hits, attempts to cover rock classics like "Smells like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, she remains a poet who transports her verses via music.

This story was originally written in German.

LUXEMBOURG - FOREST CEMETERIES

Could green burial become the norm?

RTL|02.11.2022 


© Pixabay

More and more people are keen on being buried at forest cemeteries, the Cemeteries Department says.

Betzdorf was the first commune in Luxembourg to have such a green burial option, which acted as a pilot project for the rest of the country. Today there are 12 forest cemeteries throughout the Grand Duchy. There is a greater interest for people to be buried in nature, whether that decision is taken by family members or the individual themselves.

In the capital, more than half of residents are cremated, the ashes are then scattered or buried. As an alternative to a 'classic' cemetery, the choice falls more and more often on the Cessange forest cemetery.

Around 200 people have been buried here in the last nine years, according to Luc Theis of the Cemeteries Department. The deceased person must have lived or died in the city to be cared for here.

The forest cemetery works jut like a normal cemetery, where spaces are reserved for up to 30 years. The prices vary between a few hundred and a few thousand euro, depending on whether one purchases a whole tree or just a location near a tree.

The 70% of non-Luxembourgers who live in the city clearly play a role in the cemetery statistics. More than half of the residents are cremated and then buried or buried in an urn. If one continues with the current rhythm at the forest cemetery, the capacities will be exhausted by 2045 at the latest.

ON A ROLL!

Chaos on London's Tottenham Court Road after giant baubles roll into traffic

RTL|Update: 02.11.2022 


© Unsplash

In a video posted on social media, the baubles are shown rolling down the street, as passing cars and pedestrians attempt to avoid them


The baubles that were part of an art display in London got dislodged following heavy winds in London.

A video capturing the moment was posted on Tiktok, captioned: "Looks like these #Christmas decorations couldn’t withstand the heavy winds in Central London last night!"

 

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