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Ed Webb

'The threats continue​': murder of retired couple chills fellow activists in ... - 0 views

  • 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
  • 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.
  • 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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  • Last month, the public prosecutor was finally ready to submit his indictment, which meant the family’s legal team would get their first opportunity to question Yumaç on the record. He had told them he was ready to reveal everything. He never got the chance. Days later Yumaç reportedly committed suicide in a high-security prison where he had been moved for his safety. Guards claimed he hung himself in a toilet with elastic from his clothing. Many find this incredible.
  • For Turkey’s environmental campaigners, this is part of a broader alarming trend.
  • The attack on the environment now is the biggest in our country’s history.
  • Erdoğan refutes such claims. He says his pro-business policies are in the national interest and accuses those who try to impede development as traitors and terrorists.
  • Eight people died and thousands were injured in clashes between the riot police. “For what?” a scornful Erdoğan asked afterwards. “For 12 trees!” Since then, he has pushed ahead with several massive infrastructure projects – a third airport, a third bridge over the Bosphorus and a new canal – that environmentalists say has led to the felling of 100 million trees.
  • “To be an activist in Turkey is to be constantly worried. We have to protect ourselves as well as the environment.”
  • With forest conservation now such a sensitive political subject, supporters of Ali and Aysin are in a difficult position. They plan to turn the dead couple’s home into a eco-residency, to establish a memorial park in Antalya, and to continue the campaign against the quarries and to get justice for the killings. “This is the first time two people have died trying to protect nature in Turkey. If we win, it will set a precedent that will help others in a similar position,” said one of those close to the campaign. “It would be a big step for Turkey. Ali and Aysin may be dead but they can still help the living.”
Ed Webb

Could Water Bring Jobs Back to the U.S.? - 0 views

  • 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.”
  • 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
  • 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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  • in places where water is abundant it has no price and where it’s scarce, it’s very expensive
  • the U.S. hasn’t fully absorbed the importance of virtual water, but China and India, where drought and population pressures are more extreme, recognize the crucial relationship of water to GDP growth. As of last October, 80 Indian companies had spent $2.4 billion buying East African land in areas where water is abundant to grow and export water-hungry crops. China has also been actively buying land, and has reportedly considered buying rice (a pound contains 650 gallons of virtual water) from the U.S. Virtual water has created an unnoticed trade flow from water-rich countries to the water poor. In world terms, the U.S. is an enormous exporter of water
  • A state like Pennsylvania, with abundant water and lots of nearby natural gas will become reindustrialized as companies from around the world relocate. “The chemical industry is repatriating to the U.S. for the abundance of water and cheap energy. We’ve got enough water for 5 to 20 years.” Cheap labor in places like China is becoming a nonissue, Brennan says, while companies chase the chance to have access to resources again. What he describes—a new life for once-abandoned, resource-rich places like Bellingham, Washington—sounds like the Industrial Revolution all over again. In fact, a similar shift occurred after the 1973 energy crisis, when many manufacturers relocated from the Northeast to the South, where they could spend less on energy and (in some cases) labor.
  • Environmentalists’ efforts to limit the damage from extracting resources in the U.S. during the last 30 years have been enabled by globalization, which allowed U.S. consumers to buy cheaper resources abroad. But when the U.S. has some of the world’s cheapest water, how will we protect it as a natural resource?
  • For the “creative classes” on the coasts, the idea that parts of the U.S. economy are living on resources (rather than their wits), may seem a bit “third world,” or at least a step backwards from the service-and-brains paradigm the country has embraced over the last two decades. The paradox is that in order to get business to treat water well, we may need to put a price on water—an idea that runs counter to our American sentiment that water should be free.
Ed Webb

Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt are marketing solar power to Europe while sub Saharan Africa... - 0 views

  • north African nations have been making major progress with power generation. Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco have invested tens of billions of dollars in renewable energy projects—particularly solar power—as a springboard to drive their energy ambitions. By harnessing the power of the Saharan sun, these countries hope to not only bring down the cost of solar technology, but also scale it for larger use, enhance energy security, create cleaner environments, and boost the creation of new business opportunities.
  • the low access, poor reliability and high prices of electricity cost African economies an average of 2.1% of their GDP, according to the World Bank
  • Even though the continent’s power generating capacity has slowly improved over the years, rationing, rolling shortages, and blackouts continue to hamper many countries development—including economic giants like South Africa and Nigeria. These cutoffs stunt economic growth, hindering small and large businesses alike as well as schools and hospitals.
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  • a new, intercontinental energy corridor between north Africa and Europe by delivering power to homes in Italy and France
  • “Solar energy is an emerging opportunity that cannot be ignored,” says Zandre Campos, chief executive of ABO Capital, an Angola-based fund which invests in energy, agriculture, and technology. Campos said north African nations were “true innovators” for spearheading these infrastructural projects and for building on the falling price of solar panels and the improved efficiency of light bulbs and appliances
Ed Webb

Texas shale oil has fought Saudi Arabia to a standstill - 0 views

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    Really important for KSA's medium term strategy and prospects.
Ed Webb

With Yemen's Saleh gone, attention turns to problem of qat - 0 views

  • One in every seven working Yemeni is employed in producing and distributing qat, making it the largest single source of rural income and the second largest source of employment in the country after the agriculture and herding sector, exceeding even the public sector, according to the World Bank. Many of Yemen's poorest families admit to spending over half their earnings on the leaf. "Qat is the biggest market in Yemen, bigger than oil, bigger than anything," said Abdulrahman Al-Iryani, Yemen's former water minister and founder of 'qat uprooting', a charity which supports farmers in replacing qat shrubs with coffee plants.
  • qat is entwined in all of Yemen's problems
  • One "daily bag" that can be consumed by one person in one day requires hundreds of litres of waters to produce
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  • the cultivation of qat - the least taxed, most subsidized and fastest-growing cash crop in Yemen - consumes 40 percent of irrigated farming land
  • In 1972, then-Prime Minister Mohsin Al-Aini forbade qat-chewing by public servants during working hours and banned its cultivation on lands run by state-controlled religious trusts. He received death threats from tribesmen and qat farm owners around Sanaa. Many Yemenis suspect his eventual dismissal from office three months later was in large part due to his push.
  • "As water prices go up, the competition drives more and more people toward farming qat which in turn uses up even more water. If the spread of qat farms continues like this soon all our arable land will be used to grow qat."
  • everyone chews
Ed Webb

Saudi Arabia's Energy Crisis | Arabia, the Gulf, and the GCC Blog - 0 views

  • consuming more and more of its precious petroleum resources, and within a decade may have to begin cutting back on its oil exports to the rest of the world
  • In a recent report entitled, “Burning to Keep Cool: The Hidden Energy Crisis in Saudi Arabia,” Chatham House researchers Glada Lahn and Prof. Paul Stevens said unchecked growth in energy consumption in Saudi Arabia was a “cause for international concern.” If it continues at its present rate, this would threaten the Kingdom’s ability to stabilize world oil markets.
  • Saudi crude export capacity would fall by about 3 million bpd to under 7 million bpd by 2028 unless domestic energy demand growth is checked
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  • Saudi Arabia hopes to buy itself some time with major energy conservation efforts. Saudi Aramco is pursuing an initiative in cooperation with the Kingdom’s utilities and business sector to generate massive energy savings on as rapid a timetable as possible. This initiative includes moves into renewable power sources like solar and wind, plus efforts to slash energy waste and duplication and create a business culture sensitive to energy efficiency
  • Plans to add renewable power would help maintain fiscal balance for another two or three years, but that’s all
  • Saudi Arabia currently relies on oil revenues for about 80 percent of its government spending
  • Chatham House believes “huge economic, social and environmental gains from energy conservation are possible in Saudi Arabia” but it cautions that the longstanding Saudi tradition of low energy prices and the Kingdom’s sluggish bureaucracy pose “challenges” to implementing needed pricing and regulatory reforms.
  • Saudi Arabia is aiming to generate about 10 percent of its power needs from solar energy by the year 2020
Ed Webb

The Politics of Image: The Bedouins of South Sinai - 0 views

  • 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
  • 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
  • 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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  • the role of “The Sheikh” was invented, as mediator between the government and the inland population. Unlike the wise and elderly tribal sheikhs who were appointed through tribal consensus, these “sheikhs” were co-opted by the government. They did not protect the independence of the tribes, they did not arbitrate disputes, and they had little power in local affairs. Still the power of these sheikhs for hire was “exalted, since it was through them that decrees of government were transmitted to the tribesmen.”17 Although they were viewed as “agents of the occupier,” the Bedouins were left with no choice but to turn to them in issues pertaining to their economic and political lives
  • Prior to 1952, “Egypt had the largest consumer market for hashish in the Middle East. Turkey, Lebanon and Syria were the largest regional producers of the drug.”20 The smuggling route ran through the more accessible desert areas of the Middle East, crossing the TransJordanian Plateau, the Negev, and the North Sinai to Egypt. With the ousting of King Farouk in 1952, Abdel Nasser started to fortify the North of Sinai to prepare for nationalizing the Suez Canal. As a result, the smuggling route had to move to the mountainous and inaccessible South Sinai. Thus, the South Sinai “smuggler” came into being, and made use not only of his unemployment, but his nomadic prowess and knowledge of his cavernous terrain. The logic was, if the state treated them as outsiders, then they might as well exist outside the law. After all, smuggling was more lucrative than any grazing or menial government job could ever be
  • the smuggling business continued even after the Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula in 1967. “Assuming that the Egyptian border guards would be given a cut of the drugs as a bribe, they chose to allow the smugglers to continue operating the drug traffic to Egypt, on the logic that drug use by Egyptian soldiers could only benefit Israel.”21 However, when the Eilat-Sharm road opened in 1972, the Israelis feared that the inexpensive drug might find its way into their own lucrative drug scene, and effectively ended all activity
  • Whereas the Egyptian administration distributed a sadaga, meaning charity, through their hired sheikhs, the Israelis personally distributed basic food staples from the American charitable organization CARE to the heads of every family.25 They also organized visits to villages in Israel, built a total of eleven clinics, offered formal vocational courses in Dahab and Sharm El Sheikh, employed half the Bedouin population in the oil fields, and in military and civilian construction, and at the request of the sheikhs, built them a total of thirteen schools in South Sinai alone. The Bedouins, who had expected to be dealt with impersonally, were quite amused with the new perks. Still, while most embraced change, they never let their guard down. In other words, there were no illusions of loyalty. Israel was still seen as an “occupying power.”
  • the Israelis also created “The Exotic Bedouin.”
  • One way for the Bedouins to mark their territory was to come up with an image that would help define and differentiate them. As a result, the “Muslim Bedouin” was born. The issue of self-definition became an urgent one when relations with outsiders ceased to be conducted through sheikhs and Bedouins came into increasing contact with the West. They felt that all Westerners, whether tourists or soldiers, Israelis or Europeans, Jews or Christians, invaded their privacy and threatened their traditions and customs.28 For example, in keeping with the Sinai image as an exotic, all-natural paradise, the tourists sunbathed in the nude, a practice that Bedouins took great offense to. When they expressed their dismay and requested that the behavior of tourists be regulated, Israeli authorities responded by explaining that they wanted nothing to do with the issue. Seeing that the “Bedouins were not permitted by either Israeli or Egyptian law to impose their own laws on non-Bedouins.. the problem could not be resolved.”29 In response, the Bedouins encouraged an Islamic revival of a very paradoxical nature. They still worked in tourism and came into contact with tourists everyday, but all the money made was “purified” by lavish expenditure on mosques and shrines of Saints and excessive manifestations of religious zeal. “‘We are Muslims,’ (they said) ‘they are the Jews.’”30
  • While the Bedouins were trying to disassociate themselves from the West, Egyptian policy was heading in the other direction. To complicate matters even more, “state-supported Muslim institutions, such as Al-Azhar University, invested this official policy with an Islamic sanction.”31 Result was an institutional type of Islam, one that was mainly constructed to fight the remnants of Nasser’s socialist regime. In this context, it was hard for the Muslim Bedouin to demonstrate loyalty merely by waving the flag of religion. The fact that Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel did not help bridge the gap either. Were the Bedouins to be viewed as fellow Egyptian returning from exile or were they treacherous collaborators?32 More importantly, which of these images was more beneficial to the state?
  • “The Villain” was born; an all-encompassing figure who stood for many ills all at once. He was uncivilized, lawless, treacherous, and dangerous. The most important thing for the state was to cater to the economic interests of Cairo’s elite in the Sinai, from the military and the industrialists, to the members of political parties and ministers. This goal could only be achieved through a label that would blunt Bedouin capacity to organize, gain sympathy, and attract media attention. In 1980, “Law 104, providing for state ownership of desert land and thus making the whole Sinai government property was changed to permit private ownership.”33 The law had some devastating effects on the Bedouins. Their land claims were not legally recognized, and they were subsequently displaced “with no government compensation.”34 In their place, the land was repopulated with peasants to solve the unemployment problem in the urban center. The once virgin coast became littered with grotesque infrastructure that paid no heed to damaging the natural balance of the environment; thousands of them were framed and sent to prison after the terrorist attacks on Sharm El Sheikh and Dahab in 2004 and 2005
  • a 20 million pound wall was built in Sharm El Sheikh to isolate the “dangerous” Bedouin from the tourist “paradise” beyond
  • every Bedouin stereotype out there has been readily absorbed and exploited by the Bedouins themselves
  • All what is left of Bedouin life is its cultural identity, and they hold on to that dearly. “The Bedouin is not Egyptian,” a young man in a white cotton head dress said, “The Sinai is not Egyptian or Israeli. It is Bedouin.” This is all that is left. In the age of state-systems, modernization and globalization, the world is becoming increasingly hegemonic and indigenous cultures are losing the battle. The world might like to think that it is without borders, but say that to a Bedouin and wait for a response.
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    Some flaws here, but worth a read/some thought.
Ed Webb

Egypt's Mursi names little-known water minister as PM - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • President Mohamed Mursi has asked Hisham Kandil, a relatively young water minister little known outside Egypt, to form a new government, disappointing investors who had hoped for a high-profile economy specialist. Kandil was a senior bureaucrat in the ministry until he was appointed minister in July last year after the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. He obtained a doctorate in irrigation from the University of North Carolina in the United States in 1993
  • "This is quite a surprise as most of the names put around had been from the financial sector. The market is definitely reacting negatively,"
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    Interesting choice
Ed Webb

Sidi Bouzid Without Water: "Birthplace of the Revolution" Continues to Lack Basic Servi... - 0 views

  • Fahim Brahm, a worker at Tunisia’s SONEDE water company, supported these claims. “The cut-off is due to an increase in consumption – especially in light of the hot weather – and is also due to weak electrical production capacity. The water cut-offs have nothing to do with people not paying the water distributor,” he asserted. Brahm explained that the water supply has been severed every day in the entire governorate of Sidi Bouzid from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm, with suspensions sometimes lasting the entire day.
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