Every year elephants kill dozens of people in Sri Lanka. Hundreds of these huge mammals are slaughtered too - often by farmers attempting to protect their land. For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly travels to the east of the island - one of the regions devastated by over two decades of civil war. Thousands of people fled their homes during the fighting, and in their absence, the elephants moved in. With peace came resettlement, but many villages are now forced to negotiate a precarious existence with the wild herds, and death-by-elephant is not uncommon. Meanwhile, the government is attempting to take action against the illegal ownership of elephants, and prosecutions are in train. In Sri Lanka, elephants are a status symbol for the rich and powerful, and they are also highly revered in Buddhist culture - no pageant is complete without a slow-moving procession of elephants. But there are claims the confiscation of illegally-kept animals has created a shortage for religious rituals, and criticisms that the government is over-responding to the animal rights lobby. In a fractured nation, elephants are becoming increasingly politicised. Linda Pressly reporting.
14 May 2017
BBC4 The Invention of...: The Thirty Years War
" Germany as we understand it, unified and strong, only came into existence a mere 140 years ago. Before then ? Well there was Bavaria and Prussia, Saxony, Baden Wurttemberg, Pomerania, Westfalia, Schleswig Holstein .this list is extremely long. And defining where one bit ended and the next began - well, it was utterly bewildering."
Misha Glenny presents a three part history of Germany before the world wars, revealing how weak and fragmented it used to be.
The series starts with the siege of Magdeburg of 1631, when a city the size of Paris was burnt to the ground. The events of the Thirty Years War hugely influenced later German nationalists, as Swedes, French, Danish, Spanish and huge numbers of Scottish mercenaries rampaged through the area we now call Germany. "Germany was in many ways more sinned against than sinning," concludes contributor Simon Winder.
Misha Glenny is a former BBC central European correspondent and winner of a Sony gold. The producer is Miles Warde, who collaborated with Misha Glenny on previous series about the Alps, the Habsburgs and Garibaldi.
Foreign Policy: The United States and Turkey Are on a Collision Course in Syria
America’s relationship with Turkey has entered a period of deep crisis. At the heart of the matter is continued U.S. support for Syrian Kurds fighting the Islamic State. The partnership between the United States and a coalition of Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Syrian Arab militias, currently known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), began more than two years ago under President Barack Obama. President Donald Trump’s administration continues to back the 50,000-strong SDF as the most capable anti-Islamic State force in northern Syria. The SDF are now closing in on Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State’s self-described caliphate, and Trump has approved a plan to provide arms directly to the YPG for the final push. Yet Turkey sees the SDF as mortal enemies due to the YPG’s affiliation with the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK), a designated terrorist organization which has fought a bloody insurgency inside Turkey for three decades. These clashing interests have put Washington and Ankara on a collision course just as the U.S.-led campaign to crush the caliphate enters its culminating phase. [...]
Erdogan has warned that Turkey will continue to strike the YPG unless the United States abandons its partnership with them, even as Turkey has thrown its support behind a Russian proposal to create “de-escalation zones” to freeze the conflict elsewhere in Syria. One Erdogan advisor even hinted that U.S. forces could be struck if they continue to back the Syrian Kurds. If Turkey follows through with these threats, it could trigger a Turkey-Kurd border war that derails the Raqqa campaign, undermining a core national security interest of the United States. And, if a military mistake by Turkey results in the death of U.S. forces, it could bring Washington and Ankara — two NATO allies — into direct conflict. [...]
Erdogan’s decision to play hardball stemmed from the priority he placed at the time on toppling Assad over combatting the Islamic State and other extremist groups. Indeed, for the first few years of the war, Ankara’s commitment to regime change led Turkey to impose few restrictions on the transit of anti-Assad fighters across the border into Syria. Even as the Islamic State spread in eastern Syria and the influence of al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate grew among the northern opposition — including groups Turkey worked with — toppling Assad remained the focus of Erdogan’s policy. [...]
Even as it takes steps to address legitimate Turkish concerns, however, Trump must insist that Erdogan take reciprocal actions to address the concerns of Syrian Kurds. If the SDF fully withdraws east of the Euphrates, for example, Turkey should facilitate the creation of a secure transportation corridor across its buffer zone to allow the movement of Kurdish civilians between disconnected Kurdish cantons. In exchange for greater participation of openly pro-Turkish political organizations in SDF-controlled areas, Turkey should also agree to tolerate a future Syrian government that provides a degree of local autonomy to SDF-controlled areas in northern Syria. And, in return for the YPG distancing itself from the PKK, the Trump administration should offer the SDF continued U.S. assistance.
Scientific American: The American Obsession with Lawns
The goal—as confirmed by the efforts of Abraham Levitt in his sweeping exercise in conformity (although it had been established well before that)—is to attain a patch of green grass of a singular type with no weeds that is attached to your home. It should be no more than an inch and a half tall, and neatly edged. This means you must be willing to care for it. It must be watered, mowed, repaired, and cultivated. Lawns are expensive—and some regard them as boring in their uniformity—but they are a hallmark of homeownership. Why do Americans place so much importance on lawn maintenance? [...]
This concern is not limited to fiction. The state of a homeowner’s lawn is important in relation to their status within the community and to the status of the community at large. Lawns connect neighbors and neighborhoods; they’re viewed as an indicator of socio-economic character, which translates into property- and resale values. Lawns are indicative of success; they are a physical manifestation of the American Dream of home ownership. To have a well maintained lawn is a sign to others that you have the time and/or the money to support this attraction. It signifies that you care about belonging and want others to see that you are like them. A properly maintained lawn tells others you are a good neighbor. Many homeowner associations have regulations to the effect of how often a lawn must be maintained. So important is this physical representative of a desired status that fines can be levied if the lawn is not maintained. It’s no wonder that Gatsby wanted Carraway’s lawn addressed: it would reflect on him in a variety of ways if it were not. [...]
This created a rather stark landscape which was not conducive to raising animals, a chief concern for survival at the time. So as a part of their supply lists, settlers in the 17th-century requested grass and clover seeds. The supply ships brought more than “good” grasses, however. At the ports, the dump site for ships introduced weeds, like dandelions and plantains, from bedding, fodder, and manure. By 1672 twenty-two European species of weeds had taken up residence around Massachusetts Bay. [...]
Following the Civil War and toward the end of the 19th-century, however, the Northern states entered into a period of growth following the Civil War. Railroad tycoons and factory owners saw their investments and businesses grow, and as such, they looked to accumulate material symbols to signify their prosperity. The front lawn became an exhibitive space. The rise of printed gardening advice enforced this position. It became a part of regular news circulation—newspapers covered lawn care and flower cultivation in an effort to boost circulation—and consequently, everyday conversations. The awareness of lawns and their significance was made into an everyday occurrence.
Quartz: In praise of selfish women
Femininity and selflessness are so deeply ingrained as twin ideals that even the most “woke” woman feels vaguely guilty when she chooses to do something purely for herself—whether it’s lying in bed an extra few minutes instead of preparing the family’s breakfast, reaping the psychological rewards of wasting time, or refusing to do housework at the office, where women’s work is too often called “help.”
It wasn’t always this way. There was actually a brief window, not so very long ago, in which we may have been able to claim a healthy modicum of self-love without facing criticism. If we had followed that trajectory, women may not have to learn the hard way that what we often think of “selfishness” is a necessary part of life, and even of motherhood. [...]
In the 1970s, a positive take on measured narcissism captured the public imagination. It came from a leading American psychoanalyst named Heinz Kohut—the man who gave the world self-psychology theory, which included narcissistic personality disorders. Less well-known is the fact that Kohut also talked up “normal narcissism” as a positive, even life-sustaining aspect of human nature, as Lunbeck explains in her 2014 book. To Kohut, narcissism was “the wellspring of human ambition and creativity, value and ideals, empathy and fellow feeling,” she writes. [...]
Malkin’s book describes all the admirable qualities of moderate narcissism: It enables drive and motivation, for example, and it’s connected to resilience following trauma. Extreme Echoism, on the flip side, is linked to higher rates of depression.
The Economist: With a new museum complex, Doha reflects on its past and present
The subject matter of the museums reflects the activities of the original owners of the buildings. Bin Jelmood House, originally the base of a notorious slave and goods trader, contains a museum of regional and international slavery. Company House charts the early chapters of Qatar’s petroleum industry. Mohammed Bin Jassim House, once the home of an Al-Thani prince, portrays the history and future of the Msheireb area. Radwani House is a charming vestige of the courtyard homes that once covered most of Doha, but began to vanish after the city gained electricity and piped water in the 1950s and 60s.
Bin Jelmood House is the first slavery museum in the Gulf region, and it is by far the most engrossing and informative of the four Msheireb offerings. It acts as a form of historical shock therapy in a country which only abolished slavery in 1952. The subject of the Indian Ocean slave trade is handled deftly and innovatively, combining video and text, detailed historical imagery, maps of slave routes, personal testimony and interactive montages.
But it is in tackling the issue of modern slavery that the museum proves most effective. The faces of indentured workers—who make up nearly 90% of Qatar’s population—recur throughout and serve as a reminder of how Doha’s cosmopolitan prestige is built on the back of nefarious systems such as the kafala (sponsorship) scheme. The text in one illustrated display states that “throughout the Gulf States, the abuse of the kafala system directly affects large numbers of foreign migrant workers” for it places workers at the mercy of their employers. The text accompanying a picture of Nepalese construction workers uses stronger language: labourers “in the Gulf region are considered to be contractually enslaved”. The government has taken modest steps to reform labour laws (thanks to pressure from international human rights groups), but there has not yet been a decisive crackdown on this form of exploitation. This museum, endorsed by Sheikah Moza, a wife of the Father Emir, may add another level of pressure: a voice of discontent from within as well as without.
Salon: China is planning ahead for life after coal
However, coal as a proportion of China’s energy mix peaked at 75% in the late 1980s and by 2016 it had fallen to 62%, the lowest since the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949. This was a result of Beijing taking serious measures in recent years to cut coal, in order to reduce domestic pollution and to tackle climate change.
One of these measures was the Top-1,000 Enterprises Energy-Saving Programme. Launched in 2006, the programme targeted the country’s largest energy-consuming firms in sectors like steel, petrochemicals, cement, and textiles. Together, these 1,000 enterprises accounted for a third of the nation’s energy consumption. The programme was quite effective and contributed towards China’s efforts to reduce its energy consumption per unit of GDP. [...]
In September 2016, China’s cancelled more than 103 under-construction and planned coal-fired power plants, a total of 120 gigawatt hours (GWh) of capacity. In March this year, premier Li Keqiang announced that an additional 50GWh would be shut down or postponed. The coal power stopped in China so far is equivalent to the combined coal power capacity of the UK and Spain. China’s era of one coal-fired station a week is over. [...]
China is now the world’s largest backer of green energy, accounting for 17% of global investment in the sector. According to Greenpeace, it installed an average of more than one wind turbine every hour of every day in 2015. It also covered the equivalent of one soccer field with solar panels every hour, action that may allow China to meet its 2020 goals for solar installation two years ahead of schedule. By 2030 it is hoped that cleaner energy will help reduce China’s CO₂ emissions by 54% from 2010 levels.
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