Canal (Kanal) Istanbul May Displace Thousands, Impact Ocean and Water Quality - 0 views
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“Whoever cuts a branch from my forest, I will cut his head,” Sultan Mehmed II, who led the Ottomans into Istanbul, is said to have ordered in the 1400s. Today, thousands of trucks carrying soil and construction materials kick up dust along the roads north of Istanbul, depleting those forests that had been protected by sultans for five centuries.
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Canal Istanbul (also called Istanbul Kanal), a massive shipping canal meant to route traffic from the Bosporus some 18 miles (30 kilometers) to the east. The homes alongside the new seaway will be replaced with upscale residential and commercial areas. With construction set to start there any day now, real estate speculators descend on the area, clamoring for locals to sell them their land
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When completed, the canal will turn the densest part of the city, including its historic center, into an island. The area also straddles one of the world’s most active fault lines.
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Egyptian NGOs complain of being shut out of Cop27 climate summit | Cop27 | The Guardian - 0 views
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A group of Egyptian civil society organisations have been prevented from attending the Cop27 climate summit by a covert registration process that filtered out groups critical of the Egyptian government.
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“You don’t let a government tell the UN who is and who isn’t an NGO, certainly not the Egyptian government,” said Ahmad Abdallah, of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms (ECRF), one of five leading organisations unable to register to attend the conference due to the screening.
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“the UN is colluding with the Egyptian government to whitewash this regime”
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Tunisia's Southern Oases - Fragile Ecosystems Under Threat : Tunisia Live - 0 views
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Poor water management, urban encroachment and biological epidemics are threatening the sustainability of Tunisia’s oases.
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Three types of oases can be found in Tunisia: continental oases, including Tozeur and Kbilli, littoral oases such as Gabes, and mountain oases in towns like Tamaghza.
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Despite centuries of human activity in Tunisian oases, intensive agricultural production, combined with increased demands from industry, tourism and urban populations are threatening the sustainability of these ecosystems, leading to potential environmental, economic and social problems.
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Could Water Bring Jobs Back to the U.S.? - 0 views
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No less than Morgan Stanley Smith Barney declared “peak water” the challenge of the century last December in a report upholstered with authoritative graphs showing the heating of the world and the shrinking of water resources. Words almost failed report writers as they declared, “Water may turn out to be the biggest commodity story of the 21st century, as declining supply and rising demand combine to create the proverbial perfect storm.”
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McKinsey estimates that by 2050 the world will need a 140-percent increase in its water supply—which, the management consultancy adds, is obviously impossible
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Mention Big Water, or a coming age of water, and most of us visualize drought, migration, and mayhem. But some parts of the U.S. are strikingly water-rich, and the water century, if it comes, has the potential to remodel the country, economically and ecologically.
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The Politics of Image: The Bedouins of South Sinai - 0 views
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For a foreign power to successfully occupy, control and integrate the Bedouins into the new state-system entailed the disruption all of the above; from the nomadic lifestyle and lack of social stratification, to ourfi laws, loyalty to the tribe, and the notion of collective identity
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turning Egypt into a modern nation-state. To that end, he had to first re-organize Egyptian society, streamline the economy, train a bureaucracy to effectively run a centralized government, and build a modern military. “His first task was to secure a revenue stream for Egypt. To accomplish this, (he) ‘nationalized’ all the Egyptian soil, thereby officially owning all the production of the land.”13 As a result, all tribal or communal rights to landownership were not legally recognized. With the disenfranchisement of land came the disenfranchisement of image. In order to exert control over Sinai, the government restricted movement, imposed taxes and demanded payment for camping and grazing. It also started to co-opt certain individuals from various tribes, and favor some tribes over others, which in turn disrupted the Bedouin hierarchy based on sex, age and seniority.14
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Sykes-Picot agreement in 1916. The agreement divided the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire outside the Arabian Peninsula into areas of British and French control or influence. As a roaming people whose livelihood depended on seasonal movement from one pasture to another, cementing the border left them with no choice but to become sedentary. This severance from “fundamental elements in their economic, commercial and social universe,”15 exposed the Bedouin to a whole new level of poverty
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First Egypt-Ethiopia Nile talks end on sour note - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle ... - 0 views
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Egyptian, Ethiopian and Sudanese ministers of water resources met in the Sudanese capital Khartoum on Sunday, Nov. 4, to begin the first round of negotiating sessions set to deal with the Renaissance Dam, as well as to consult with each other on the mechanisms needed to complete it, and how to implement the recommendations of an international committee of technical experts. The latter concluded its activities on May 27 after studying the effects of the dam on the water security of Egypt and Sudan.
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“We do not want to characterize the negotiations as having failed. We will give ourselves another chance to talk and better clarify everybody’s points of view,”
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Ethiopian Minister of Water and Energy Alamayo Tegno, in a statement given to Al-Monitor after the meetings, said: “The decision to build the Renaissance Dam is resolute, both by the government and the Ethiopian people. We are in complete agreement with Sudan about all the details pertaining to the completion of the dam. Egypt will certainly come to understand this and espouse our position.”
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Why the CIA is spying on a changing climate | McClatchy - 0 views
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Back in the 1990s, the CIA opened an environmental center, swapped satellite imagery with Russia and cleared U.S. scientists to access classified information. But when the Bush administration took power, the center was absorbed by another office and work related to the climate was broadly neglected.In 2007, a report by retired high-ranking military officers called attention to the national security implications of climate change, and the National Intelligence Council followed a year later with an assessment on the topic. But some Republicans attacked it as a diversion of resources.And when CIA Director Leon Panetta stood up the climate change center in 2009, conservative lawmakers attempted to block its funding."The CIA's resources should be focused on monitoring terrorists in caves, not polar bears on icebergs," Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said at the time.
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Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, who led the CIA from 2006 to 2009, said issues such as energy and water made Bush's daily briefings, but climate change was not a part of the agenda."I didn't have a market for it when I was director," Hayden said in a recent interview. "It was all terrorism all the time, and when it wasn't, it was all Iran."
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A 2007 congressional oversight report found the administration "engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming."
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Jordan's anti-nuclear movement gains steam | Jordan Times - 0 views
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“If they think they will build a nuclear reactor here, the Bani Hassan tribe will go nuclear,”
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Irhamouna (or give us a break), a loose grouping of prominent Mafraq citizens, geologists, lawyers and youth activists who have mobilised against the planned nuclear reactor
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With the presence of grey water produced by the nearby Khirbet Al Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant for reactor cooling, JAEC maintains that the Mafraq site became the only suitable alternative.
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'The threats continue': murder of retired couple chills fellow activists in ... - 0 views
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Turkey boasts 40% of the world’s marble reserves and nine out of 10 quarries are found in Anatolia. They are a mainstay of the regional economy and the country’s $2bn-a-year natural stone export business. China is currently the biggest customer, but Turkish marble is also found in Disneyland, the White House, the Vatican, Burj Khalifa, the Bundestag and luxury hotels across the world
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Ali, Aysin and their fellow campaigners launched a successful challenge that shut down two marble companies Bartu Mermer and Bahçeci. Bartu Mermer fought back with a defamation lawsuit against Ali. But he won again in March 2017. The judge not only acquitted him, but also cancelled the company’s operating license. Hailing the victory, Ali predicted it would be the first of many. “Before, citizens were scared to sue companies – now the decision will encourage all environmentalists,” he declared.
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A suspect – Ali Ymaç – was quickly found and arrested. He confessed to carrying out the execution in return, he said, for a promise of 50,000 lire (£10,000) from a quarry owner who he knew only by the alias “Çirkin” (Ugly). Yumaç said he was paid 3,000 lire up front and promised the rest on completion. He was instructed to make the killing look like a robbery. That ought to have been where the Turkish justice system cranked into high gear to track down those behind the assassination. Instead, it was the starting point for months of delays, obfuscations and another death that has frightened and frustrated activists and raised wider questions about the country’s slide away from democratic rule of law.
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A declaration from North Africa: food sovereignty is a right | openDemocracy - 0 views
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On December 15, 16 and 17, 2017, ATTAC Morocco, a member of the global network for the abolition of illegitimate debts (CADTM), organised a Maghreb seminar on free trade agreements, agriculture and food sovereignty under the slogan: No to colonial agreements, for the defence of people's sovereign right on their agricultural, food and environmental systems. The seminar was held in Agadir, Morocco with the participation of activists coming from Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco.
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trade agreements have deepened the control of multinational companies on agriculture and maritime fishing, exacerbated food speculation, and destroyed subsistence agricultural and fishing systems. Moreover, they accelerated the unlimited quest for the promotion of genetically modified seeds and the generalisation of the export-oriented agriculture and fishing industry. In the global south, International Financial Institutions (IFIs) are pursuing neoliberal policies that further deregulate, open borders to the invasion of foreign capital and subsidised products and ensure the transfer of profits and wealth. These neoliberal dictates are leading to an increase in public debt at the expense of the popular classes who shoulder the burden of austerity policies
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affirm our support for people's food sovereignty and their right to determine their own food system, a system that ensures the production of healthy food in sufficient quantity while protecting nature and remaining in harmony with it
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