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Ed Webb

'Everything is stolen from us': Tunisians fight to preserve cultural heritage | PLACE - 0 views

www.thisisplace.org/i

Tunisia economy crime archaeology heritage

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • The looting of archaeological sites is a longstanding problem in Tunisia
  • Objects of significant historical and cultural value often end up on the European market and in the homes of Tunisia's rich and powerful
  • instability and chaos of conflict often provides a window for archaeological looting
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  • the authorities are getting more serious about tackling the illicit antiquities trade
  • The western region of Kasserine, where the shrine of Sidi Boughanem is located, is one of the most marginalised parts of the country - with government figures showing about one in four people unemployed, far higher than the 15% unemployment rate for the country as a whole. It is also one of the most archaeologically rich. There are four major sites located in an area of 8,000 square kilometres (3,000 square miles), and the land is peppered with architectural ruins and antique stones.
  • the sheer number of small sites makes it impossible to keep an eye on all of them
  • "There are economic reasons (for looting)," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in Tunis. "The blame should not be put on the people who are trying to get by day-to-day, but the persons who are furnishing these collections."
  • Ayoub Sayhi, a 22-year-old amateur filmmaker from Thala, called on the government to do more to care for the country's ancient objects. To Sayhi, the looting of Kasserine's antiquities was just another symptom of what he saw as the state's neglect of the region. "(My film) is to get the government to do something about this region because it is poor even though it is rich in natural resources," he said. "Everything is stolen from us, both in the day and in the night."
Ed Webb

A foreign mafia has come to Italy and further polarized the migration debate - The Wash... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...9-b585-e36b16a531aa_story.html

Italy Nigeria crime Sicily

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Jun 19 - Cached
  • In a country that has fought for decades to weaken its homegrown mafia, a foreign crime group is gathering strength. The group’s members are Nigerian. They hold territory from the north in Turin to the south in Palermo. They smuggle drugs and traffic women, deploying them as prostitutes on Italy’s streets. They find new members among the caste of wayward migrants, illicitly recruiting at Italian government-run asylum centers.
  • For the far right’s opponents, the Nigerian mafia has proved to be a trickier case — a problem that is politically risky to play down but that they say is being exploited as a cudgel against all migrants. They note that the Nigerian mafia primarily occupies immigrant neighborhoods, preying on those residents in a way that may feel familiar to Italians who have lived under the mob.
  • the emergence of a new foreign mafia strikes at some of the most emotional chords in a country still traumatized by its so-called mafia wars
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  • the Nigerian mafia has built Italy into a European hub, smuggling cocaine from South America, heroin from Asia, and trafficking women by the tens of thousands
  • Italian investigators say the Nigerian syndicate meets the definition of a mafia, rather than a criminal gang, because it has a behavior code and uses the implied power of the group to intimidate and silence. Nigerian members have been sentenced on ­mafia-related charges that Italy drew up decades ago in its fight against the homegrown mob.
  • In the Sicilian city of Palermo, Mayor Leoluca Orlando, a 71-year-old who keeps a Koran in his office and calls Salvini a “little Mussolini,” said he refuses to distinguish one kind of criminal from the next on the basis of ethnicity or “blood.” Several Nigerians in Palermo have organized news conferences and rallies, holding signs that say not all Nigerians belong to the mafia. “Just like with the Sicilians,” said Samson Olomu, the president of Palermo’s Nigerian Association, “not all of them are mafia.”
  • The Nigerian mafia has had a presence across Europe since the 1980s. In recent years, it has not only expanded but also pushed into the one Italian territory where no foreign mob had dared to go. Sicily was conquered and raided by Greeks, by Byzantines, by Normans. But for much of the past century, the island’s overlords have been Mafiosi, members of the Cosa Nostra group who specialized in racketeering, gambling and killing, and who have not typically shared their turf. “In the 1980s, 1990s, this never would have happened. Never,” Giuseppe Governale, the head of Italy’s central anti-mafia agency, said of Cosa Nostra sharing territory with outsiders.
  • Investigators say they first saw signs of the Nigerian mafia presence here in 2013 with an uptick in violent assaults. Two years later, evidence emerged that the new group might be cooperating in the drug trade with Sicilian mafia: A taped conversation showed two Cosa Nostra higher-ups describing the Nigerians as “tough young’uns” who are dangerous but know their place. That peace between the groups has held ever since.
  • the Nigerian mafia has built much of its business on the one thing Cosa Nostra has never shown an interest in: prostitution.
  • “This, for Italy, is a new criminal phenomenon,” Del Grosso said. “But from my perspective, it changes nothing. They are criminals.” Criminals, he said, have always crossed borders. “When Italians went to America,” he said, “they brought crime, too.”
Ed Webb

In Centering West Africa, an Exhibition Tells Another Story of the Medieval Period - 0 views

hyperallergic.com/...across-medieval-saharan-africa

Africa Islam trade mediterranean Sahara Sahel archaeology history

shared by Ed Webb on 24 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • a sweeping historical recalibration that centers on the importance of 14th-century trade routes that crossed the Sahara Desert and drove the movement of people, goods, and culture. As one flyer exclaims: “Weaving stories about interconnected histories, the exhibition showcases objects and ideas that connected at the crossroads of the medieval Sahara and celebrates West Africa’s historic and underrecognized global significance.” This is ambitious. The show doesn’t aim for less than decentering the idea that the medieval epoch should only be envisioned through a European lens, which are typically stories of feudalism, war, chivalry, and the Bubonic plague. These European sagas are the ones I grew up with, saw dramatized on television, and valorized in film. Caravans of Gold also seeks to put Islam at this reconstructed world’s fulcrum and regard it as a force which impelled cultural advance, rather than to associate it with iconoclastic destruction of historical patrimony — stories we know too well. Even more, it subtly raises up the entire African continent, which becomes through this retelling, a force of profound socioeconomic change at the global level. As their handout highlights: “Journey to a medieval world with Africa at its center.”
  • “Between the eight and the 16th century, an epoch that corresponds with the medieval period, the Saharan region was the site of world-shaping events.”
  • Partnering with institutions and researchers in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria was the only way that Berzock could, in the first instance, begin to understand the significance of scattered bits and pieces of commercially traded items left centuries ago in those once thriving cities and towns encompassed by the Saharan trade networks
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  • to the south these Saharan trade routes connected to the Niger river which fed down into contemporary Mali and then on into the forest region of West Africa, facilitating access to rich gold deposits in Bure and Bambuk. To the north trade routes connected to other exchange networks of the Mediterranean Sea and into the European mainland. To the east they intersected with the networks of the eastern Mediterranean and on through the Silk Roads of Central and East Asia.
  • ivory travels from up the Niger river from the south eventually making its way to Italian churches where the material is intricately carved into paeans to gods not imagined by Mensa Musa. This is the heart of the thing we call civilization: that we set in motion processes that are impelled by immediate need, but have deep ramifications for the future. An elephant’s tusk is sold; it is carved into the vignette of a story of redemption; it becomes a fetish; hundreds or thousands of elephants are killed to carve up their bodies and tell that (Christianized) story again.
Ed Webb

Turkey conducts largest ever navy drill as tensions rise in Mediterranean | Middle East... - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...ll-tensions-rise-mediterranean

Turkey Cyprus gas energy resources military navy mediterranean Israel Lebanon Greece Egypt pipelines

shared by Ed Webb on 28 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • Turkish armed forces began the largest naval exercise in the country's history on Wednesday, with 103 military vessels and thousands of soldiers conducting operations in three seas surrounding the country. The drill, dubbed “Blue Homeland”, will be held until Saturday, covering over 462,000 square metres in the Black Sea, Aegean Sea and eastern Mediterranean.
  • the drills come a week after Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu declared that Turkey would in coming days send two ships to the waters near Cyprus to begin exploring for oil and gas
  • Blue Homeland has already caused disturbance in neighbouring countries, as Greek media reports suggest Athens has perceived it as a source of “renewed concern given the recent tension in bilateral relations”.
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  • Retired Turkish rear admiral Deniz Kutluk told MEE that Blue Motherland’s main aim was to show the real capabilities of Turkey's navy for deterrence, rather than sending messages to any neighbouring country. “There was this outside perception that the Turkish navy has been undermined by domestic shocks," he said.  "Senior commanders seem to understand this misperception. That’s why they wanted to reveal to the world that the Turkish navy is capable of simultaneously fighting in three seas surrounding Turkey.”
  • tensions have been building in the waters to Turkey's west with its neighbours Greece and Cyprus, as the countries vie over subterranean energy resources, particularly natural gas
  • Nothing at all can be done in the Mediterranean without Turkey, we will not allow that
  • Last November, Greece, Italy and Cyprus signed a $7bn deal with Israel to lay a pipeline and purchase Israeli natural gas, which will eventually reach wider European markets.
  • Necdet Ozcelik, an independent security analyst who served as an operations sergeant in the Turkish special forces, told MEE that Blue Motherland was being used to demonstrate that Turkey could provide energy security and act as a transit hub for resources in the region. “The competition in eastern Mediterranean for energy resources will be increasingly under the spotlight as the Syrian crisis comes to an end," he said. 
Ed Webb

Exxon's likely gas find off Cyprus could reignite tension in E. Mediterranean - analysi... - 0 views

ahvalnews.com/...nsion-e-mediterranean-analysis

Turkey Cyprus gas energy resources

shared by Ed Webb on 28 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil is soon expected to announce that its drilling campaign offshore the southern coast of the divided island of Cyprus has resulted in a major gas discovery, thereby reigniting tension between Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey in the eastern Mediterranean, the Guardian reported.
  • Exxon has found a commercially viable oil reservoir in Block 10 offshore Cyprus amid warnings from Ankara against exploration due to what it says is ignoring the rights of the Turkish Cypriot people
  • Erdoğan warned last November that Ankara would not allow other countries to drill for gas in Turkish or northern Cypriot waters in the resource-rich eastern Mediterranean.
Ed Webb

In 1930s Tunisia, French Doctors Feared a 'Tea Craze' Would Destroy Society - Gastro Ob... - 0 views

www.atlasobscura.com/...tea-in-tunisia

tea Tunisia France history empire colonialism

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Feb 19 - No Cached
  • In 1927, at a meeting of the Academy of Medicine in Paris, a French-trained Tunisian doctor, Béchir Dinguizli, sounded the alarm about a “new social scourge” spreading like an “oil stain” across Tunisia. It had “entered our morals with lightning speed,” he warned, and if not stopped by French authorities, it had the power to paralyze Tunisian society. The alarming threat? Drinking tea.
  • Although practically unknown before World War I, tea imports nevertheless shot up from 100,000 kilos in 1917 to 1,100,000 in 1926. The catalyst appears to have been the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, which sent an influx of tea-drinking refugees from Tripolitania (modern-day Libya) into Tunisia.
  • Among these French administrators, there was real fear that the colonized population was turning into tea addicts, with medical, social, and economic consequences for France’s mission civilisatrice.
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  • “The harm that [tea] causes is especially visible in the [Tunisian] countryside, where it weakens the race, which is literally intoxicated and morally and physically diminished.”
  • In 1941, the French doctor Edmond Sergent described in several scientific articles how Tunisians, instead of adding fresh tea leaves to already boiling water, added used leaves to the water as it boiled, creating a harmful, tar-like drink. Sergent also argued that Tunisians’ black tea was more dangerous than Moroccan green tea, which explained why cases of teaism were rare in Morocco, despite Morocco’s tea consumption being much higher.
  • not a single case of a French settler in Tunisia being diagnosed with teaism can be found in the French publications.
  • The perceived social consequences of teaism were founded in the belief that tea addicts would do almost anything to satisfy their habit. According to Sergent, the whole salary of many Tunisian workers went “to the buying of tea and sugar.” When their money ran out, Tunisian teaists sold their last possessions, stole from employers, friends, and family, and, in Dinguizli’s words, lost their “usually docile character.”
  • By the 1940s, a variety of publications had ceased to view teaism as an exclusively Tunisian problem, as diagnoses cropped up elsewhere in the Maghreb, such as, in 1948, the psychiatrist Charles Bardenat offhandedly ascribing an act of conjugal manslaughter committed in Algeria to the overconsumption of coffee and tea.
  • According to Dinguizli, teaism was an addiction comparable to alcoholism, a form of chronic poisoning with nervous tremors, amnesia, palpitations, blurred vision, serious disturbances of the nervous and circulatory system, a general weakening of the body, and even a marked decrease in birth rates. Later authors delineated additional mental consequences, such as hallucinations, delusions, and even psychoses.
  • French administrators tried banning illegal coffeehouses, which served tea, and increasing customs duties on tea. There were also calls for posters and educational films on the dangers of tea and how to prepare it correctly, for creating a state monopoly on tea, and even a law restricting tea sales to pharmacies upon presentation of a prescription
  • Tea neither produced hallucinations nor induced crime, and it did not “corrupt” Tunisians. They simply enjoyed a new drink that French authors objected to.
  • When tea first reached England in the 17th and 18th centuries, writers described it as un-British, “unmanly,” and altogether dangerous
  • chocolate, once the drink of choice at rowdy British clubs, inspired similar concern
  • The French viewed coffee, which was produced in their colonies of Martinique and La Réunion, as the drink of the Enlightenment and reason
  • The sight of Tunisians sitting and chatting over tea fueled settler prejudices about Tunisians as lazy and immoderate—nearly all descriptions of teaism focused on the economic consequences
  • feared attacks, revolt, and any sign of the population losing their supposed “docility.”
  • The irony of teaism is that the only real epidemic was the diagnosis of teaism itself. Today, tea is practically Tunisia’s national drink
Ed Webb

Club Med: Israel, Egypt, and Others Form New Natural Gas Group - Foreign Policy - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...ers-form-new-natural-gas-group

mediterranean gas energy regionalism exports pipelines Egypt Israel Turkey Lebanon Syria Cyprus Russia EU

shared by Ed Webb on 19 Jan 19 - Cached
  • a forum joining Israel, Egypt, Cyprus, and other neighbors to develop their new natural gas discoveries. The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum, announced Monday in Cairo, formalizes growing energy ties among recent rivals and could spur much-needed development of energy infrastructure required to tap the region’s potential as a source of energy for Europe and beyond. The forum in particular cements the growing commercial links between Israel and Egypt; Israel expects to start shipping natural gas to Egypt in the next few months as part of a landmark, $15 billion deal between the two countries.
  • a few notable absences, including Syria and Lebanon—both of which are trying to develop potential offshore gas fields—and especially Turkey
  • The new body will promote “discussions among countries that already have cooperation with each other,” said Brenda Shaffer, an energy expert at Georgetown University. “Hopefully, in the next round of the forum, Turkey will be involved, and that would make it much more significant and not just include the happy campers.”
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  • Another option to market the gas would be to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals; liquefied gas can be shipped on tankers around the world. But the problem, aside from the upfront cost of building the expensive infrastructure needed to superchill natural gas, is the economics of the gas trade, especially when it comes to competing with Russian energy supplies to Europe. LNG costs a lot more than natural gas shipped through a pipeline, and Russian gas is especially cheap.
  • even with the creation of the new organization and increased energy exploration, the Eastern Mediterranean has a long way to go to truly become the kind of energy hub that many in the region and even in Brussels hope to see. The European Union’s top energy official, for instance, has repeatedly pointed to the Eastern Mediterranean’s potential as an alternative source of energy to importing gas from Russia, and Egypt dreams of again becoming an exporter of natural gas to Europe, as it was until 2012
  • grandiose plans, such as a pipeline snaking across to southern Europe via Crete, keep colliding with political and economic realities. Deep waters and high costs make building a pipeline to Europe an expensive proposition
  • Europe’s dependence on Russian energy is growing,
  • Tapping its own natural gas fields would enable Cyprus to replace costly energy imports and power its economy. Israel has already turned its first offshore gas discoveries into a new, cleaner source of electricity, and the country hopes to phase out coal entirely over the next decade. Egypt, too, is using domestic natural gas resources to keep the lights on and factories running, and natural gas demand there is expected to keep growing and potentially gobble up whatever is produced by additional offshore discoveries.
Ed Webb

Turkey Rattled by Weak Hand in Libya as Russia and Egypt Advance - 0 views

www.turkeyanalyst.org/...-russia-and-egypt-advance.html

Turkey Russia Egypt Libya mediterranean military

shared by Ed Webb on 09 Jan 19 - No Cached
  • By assisting Egypt to protect its western border, Moscow has re-forged the military links of its former alliance with Cairo
  • The 75-year-old Haftar, who retains the loyalty of the parliament in Tobruk, is a central actor in the Libyan civil war. A former ally of deposed Libyan strong man Moammar Gadhafi who received his military training in the Soviet Union, Haftar maintains deep ties with Russia. Haftar’s forces control most of Libya’s oil facilities, particularly after they captured the ports along Libya’s “Oil Crescent” in September 2016, resulting in a rise in oil production from 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) to over 700,000 bpd in January 2017.  On February 21, 2018 Russian oil giant Rosneft signed an investment and crude oil purchasing agreement with Libya’s National Oil Corporation, paving the way for a major Russian role in Libya’s oil industry.
  • In January 2017, Haftar was invited aboard Russia’s aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean in order to conduct a video conference with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu
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  • During Ahmet Davutoğlu’s tenure as Turkey’s prime minister, relations between Ankara and the Tobruk-based parliament deteriorated to the point where all Turkish firms were expelled from Libya. 
  • Ankara's efforts to gain influence in Libya pale in comparison to the security assets that Moscow and Egypt may be preparing for a more expanded military presence in Libya. On November 7, 2018, Haftar and his senior staff visited Moscow for their latest meeting with Russia's defense minister Sergei Shoigu. Following the session, the Libyan Armed Forces released a video showing the presence of Yevgeny Prigozhin, an associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin and linked to several Russian private military companies, including the Wagner Group that allegedly participated in operations in Syria. Prigozhin's presence at the Haftar-Shoigu meeting has suggested to observers within Russia and beyond that Moscow may be gearing up for some form of increased intervention in Libya with operations similar to those conducted in Syria.
  • from November 3 to 16, Egypt hosted a two-week long joint exercise with the militaries of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan. Dubbed Arab Shield 1, the exercise involved land, naval, and air forces as well as Special Forces and took place at Egypt's base in Marsa Matrouh. While some view the exercises as a step toward creating an 'Arab NATO' to confront Iran, the massive joint Arab exercise on Egypt's Mediterranean coast sent a clear signal to Turkey and demonstrated the sort of coalition Egypt could muster should it decide to expand its military footprint in Libya
  • both Russia and Egypt have strategic incentives to escalate their support for the aging Libyan commander Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.  In April 2018, the general suffered a stroke and required hospitalization in an intensive care unit in Paris.  Although two of Haftar's sons are commanders in the Libyan National Army, it is unclear whether either one of them could maintain the loyalty of the coalition of diverse factions that have united under the figure of Khalifa Haftar.  It would behoove both Moscow and Cairo to press their current advantage and deepen their respective positions in preparation for a post-Haftar era.
  • Moscow’s military presence in Libya would enable the Kremlin to complete a Russian ring around the southern half of the eastern Mediterranean. It is worth noting that Vladimir Putin's Russia is more popular than NATO in Greece and among Greek Cypriots. With only 195 nautical miles (360 km) separating Tobruk and Crete, Turkey thus faces the prospect of eventually finding itself encircled by a Russian presence among all of its regional adversaries
  • The change in the balance of power in North Africa in favor of Russia and Egypt inevitably and severely undermines Turkey's already challenging strategic position in the Eastern Mediterranean.
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