Animal culture can be as rich and varied as human culture. In this episode of "Animalism" by The Atlantic, we investigate the most fascinating examples of culture in the animal kingdom, including the bizarre traditions of Capuchin monkeys in Costa Rica and the incredible "Top 20" music charts of humpback whales.
13 January 2018
BBC4 Profile: President Hassan Rouhani
It's been a tumultuous week in Iran.
Thousands of protestors in more than twenty towns and cities taking to the streets to demand economic and political change.
On the programme this week, we update a profile we did of Hassan Rouhani when he first became President of Iran back in 2013.
Regarded as more liberal than some of his predecessors - and now in his second term as President - he faces the unenviable task of trying to balance the demands of the Iranian people who want better living conditions with the religious establishment which still wields ultimate power.
Meanwhile, lurking in the wings, is US President Donald Trump - threatening to tear up a 2015 deal that waived sanctions in return for Iran reigning in its nuclear programme.
Mark Coles hears from Iranian journalists, political analysts and some of the President's former colleagues as we get to grips with where he's come from and what his future may be.
Vox: How the US failed to rebuild Afghanistan
The US war in Afghanistan has raged for 16 years, since the US invaded after 9/11, in 2001. At the onset, a centerpiece of US strategy was to rebuild Afghanistan's crumbling infrastructure. This move expedited military logistics and maneuvers, while simultaneously reigniting travel between Afghanistan's major cities. But when the US started its war in Iraq, that diverted resources and manpower from the battlefield of Afghanistan. And the Taliban didn't miss the chance. To date, the most ambitious roadbuilding project, known as the Ring Road, has seen over $3 billion spent on its renewal. And it was never completed.
The School of Life: NIETZSCHE ON: Amor Fati
“One of the strangest yet most intriguing aspects of Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas is his repeated enthusiasm for a concept that he called amor fati (translated from Latin as ‘a love of one’s fate’, or as we might put it, a resolute, enthusiastic acceptance of everything that has happened in one’s life). The person of amor fati doesn’t seek to erase anything of their past, but rather accepts what has occurred, the good and the bad, the mistaken and the wise, with strength and an all-embracing gratitude that borders on a kind of enthusiastic affection…”
The Calvert Journal: Looking for Lenin
Last year the Ukrainian government banned any symbols, statues, flags, mosaics, imagery, anthems, street or city names affiliated with the Soviet Union. Over 900 Lenin statues have fallen across the country in the last three years in a phenomena known as Leninopad (“Lenin-fall”). Monuments to Lenin began to be removed mainly in the western parts of the country as early as the 1990s. Elsewhere, the statues survived until very recently, with the largest of Ukraine’s Lenins uprooted in Zaporozhia not two weeks ago. As easy it is to lose sense of what’s real when you witness historic events or conflicts on a screen, it’s also easy to forget about the physical debris left after such a symbolic gesture as the razing of a monument. The public indifference to what happened to the statues spurred Ackermann and Gobert to trace the whereabouts of the fallen leader.
“This project started out of curiosity. After the the statue of Lenin fell during Maidan, nobody cared what had become of it. For me it’s a very different visual and narrative work from the things I’m usually doing. Most of the work is done beforehand, behind the picture. Going to the location where the statue is, the only variables you have are the weather, the moment of the day, and the composition,” Ackermann explains. Working alongside, Gobert was crucial in researching where the monuments might be, and began also to document the stories of the people they met in the process. Combining images and first-person accounts, they are hoping to show the various perspectives to decommunisation. [...]
Statues are attacked for their association with power. Once fallen the monuments still find themselves in the midst of political struggles. As Gobert reflected: “Over the three days in Kharkiv we came to understand the balance of power in the city between the mayor and the governor and also between the activists who were united at the time of Maidan but are now fighting against each other. Looking for remnants of decommunisation, we found traces of corruption and a Soviet state of mind.”
Politico: Europe tries to clear the air
Bulgaria, which holds the rotating presidency of the Council for the first half of 2018, said it would make air quality “a focus” of its presidency. The country has experienced the problem first hand: It has the highest death rate related to air pollution in the bloc, with over 13,000 premature fatalities a year linked to fine particulate pollution — out of nearly 400,000 for the whole EU. [...]
Dirty air is a Continent-wide problem. Central and Eastern European countries struggle with dust and fine particulate pollution, where low-quality domestic heating units are often a major source of those pollutants. And Western European countries are recording high levels of nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant closely linked to diesel vehicle exhaust, in their cities.
Five of them — France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. — were given a final warning in early 2017 by the Commission, the last step before being taken to the European Court of Justice. [...]
In one of them, France’s highest court gave the government until March 31 to come up with tougher measures to tackle high levels of nitrogen dioxide. In the U.K., the leading NGO on this issue, ClientEarth, launched its third legal challenge against the government’s air-quality plans in November, with a decision expected in the coming months.
Al Jazeera: What is going on between Egypt and Sudan?
Among these agreements was a deal to temporarily hand over the Red Sea island of Suakin to Turkey. Ankara and Khartoum said Turkish investors would rebuild the ruined, sparsely populated island to increase tourism and create a transit point for Muslim pilgrims crossing the Red Sea to reach the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
The agreement over Suakin has triggered a heated debate in the region, as many saw Erdogan's move as an attempt to establish a third military base - after the ones in Qatar and Somalia - outside Turkey's borders.[...]
In 2016, it flared up again. That year, Cairo signed a controversial agreement with Riyadh to hand over two strategically important Red Sea islands - Tiran and Sanafir - to Saudi Arabia. The agreement, which redrew the maritime border between the two countries, also unilaterally recognised Egypt's sovereignty over the Hala'ib Triangle. [...]
There are indications that Khartoum is actually trying to escalate the ongoing confrontation with Egypt, in order to exploit the nationalist sentiments of the Sudanese people and divert attention from the country's grave internal problems - particularly the current protests over the new austerity budget and the increase of the price of bread and other basic goods. However, Egypt may be inclined to de-escalate until after its presidential elections later this year. [...]
Ethiopia, just like Sudan, has become closer to Qatar in its struggle to navigate the ongoing tensions in the Gulf. The Ethiopian government, which previously accused Egypt of supporting separatist movements on Ethiopian territory, understandably chose to place itself against Egypt in this conflict.
Politico: ECJ advocate general: ‘Free movement’ rights extend to same-sex spouses
An EU member country cannot refuse residency rights to the same-sex spouse of an EU citizen on the grounds that it does not recognize gay marriage, a European Court of Justice advocate general said in an opinion published Thursday.
The opinion was issued in response to a 2012 case in which Romanian authorities refused to grant residency rights to a male U.S. national married to a Romanian man. [...]
The married partner — including partners in same-sex unions — “may also reside on a permanent basis in the territory” of an EU member country where “his or her spouse is established as an EU citizen after exercising his or her freedom of movement,” according to the opinion.
The Romanian Constitutional Court referred the gay marriage case to the European Court of Justice in November 2016. A final ruling on the case is still pending.
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