World news

Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey dies aged 70

Burning Man co-founder Larry Harvey dies aged 70 0

by • Cars • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Harvey died in San Francisco after suffering stroke on 4 April and the festival in Nevada desert he co-created attracts 70,000 annually

Larry Harvey, whose whimsical decision to erect a giant wooden figure and then burn it to the ground led to the popular, long-running counterculture celebration known as Burning Man, has died. He was 70.

Harvey died on Saturday morning at a hospital in San Francisco, surrounded by family, Burning Man Project chief executive Marian Goodell said. The cause was not immediately known but he suffered a stroke earlier this month. A longtime friend, Stuart Mangrum, posted on the organizations website that Harvey did not believe in any sort of existence after death.

Now that hes gone, lets take the liberty of contradicting him, and keep his memory alive in our hearts, our thoughts, and our actions, Mangrum wrote. As he would have wished it, let us always Burn the Man.

Burning Man takes place annually the week before Labor Day in northern Nevadas Black Rock Desert. The week-long festival attracts some 70,000 people who pay anywhere from $425 to $1,200 a ticket to travel to a dry lake bed 100 miles east of Reno, where temperatures routinely reach 100F (37.8C) during the summer.

There they must carry in their own food, build their own makeshift community and engage in whatever interests them. On the gatherings penultimate day, the giant effigy or Man as it is known is set ablaze during a raucous, joyful celebration.

Friends and family toasted Harvey as a visionary, a lover of words and books, a mentor and instigator who challenged others to look at the world in new ways. Burners, as theyre called, left comments on the organizations website thanking Harvey for inspiring them as artists and for creating a community.

Thanks for everything. (No, really, pretty much everything in my life right now is a result of Burning Man), read one post.

An esoteric mix of pagan fire ritual and sci-fi Dada circus where some paint their bodies, bang drums, dance naked and wear costumes that would draw stares in a Mardi Gras parade was how the Associated Press once described the gathering.

While tickets now sell out immediately, Harvey described in a 2007 interview how he had much more modest intentions when he launched Burning Man on San Franciscos Baker Beach one summer day in 1986.

I called a friend and said, Lets go to the beach and burn a man, he told the website Green Living. And he said, Can you say that again? And I did and we did it.

It wasnt until afterwards, Harvey recalled, that he had the epiphany that led to Burning Man. Within a few years the event had outgrown Baker Beach and moved to the desert.

While Harvey would speak frequently about Burning Man in the years that followed, he would reveal little about himself and it was often hard to discern truth from fiction. He believed he was conceived in the back of a Chevrolet by parents who abandoned him soon after his birth, he once told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

His brother, Stewart Harvey, said in a post on Saturday that the two were adopted by farmers Shorty and Katherine Harvey and grew up outside Portland, Oregon. The brothers, who were not related by blood, were extremely close. Harvey said he hitchhiked to San Francisco at age 17. He settled in the Haight-Ashbury district for many years.

The
The Man burns on the Black Rock Desert at Burning Man near Gerlach, Nevada in 2013. Photograph: Andy Barron/AP

After that first fire in 1986, Burning Man flourished as Harvey meticulously oversaw its every detail from the various communities that would spring up overnight to its annual arts theme to the beautifully crafted temple that accompanies Burning Man and is also burned.

Harvey eventually formed a limited liability corporation to put on Burning Man, converting it in 2013 to a nonprofit with 70 employees and a budget of $30m. He was president of its board and chief philosophic officer.

Although known for retaining its joyful celebrative atmosphere as it grew from a small gathering to one of gigantic proportions, Burning Man occasionally had problems. In 2017, a man ran into Burning Mans flames, suffered burns over almost all of his body and died. In 1996, three people were injured when a drunken driver ran over their tent. The same year a man was killed when his motorcycle collided with a van carrying people to the festival.

In 2007, a prankster set fire to Burning Man four days early and it had to be frantically rebuilt while the man was charged with arson. After the 1996 troubles Harvey had a falling out with John Law, who had co-founded Burning Man with him and who sued to have its trademark placed in the public domain. They settled out of court and Harvey retained control.

We dont use the trademark to market anything. Its our identity, said Harvey, who often spoke against the commodification of popular culture.

He is survived by his son Tristan Harvey, brother Stewart Harvey and nephew Bryan Harvey.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/apr/28/burning-man-co-founder-larry-harvey-dies-aged-70

Justine Damond shooting: police officer Mohamed Noor charged with murder

Justine Damond shooting: police officer Mohamed Noor charged with murder 0

by • Cars • Tags: , , , , ,

Australian woman was killed in July 2017 after calling police to report a possible sexual assault

A Minneapolis police officer who shot and killed an Australian woman in July has been booked on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Officer Mohamed Noor turned himself in on Tuesday after a warrant was issued for his arrest in the death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond. Damond was shot on 15 July, minutes after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.

The shooting led to international condemnation, widespread street protests and the firing of the police chief.

The local prosecutor, the Hennepin county attorney Mike Freeman, laid out the case against the officer in a criminal complaint and a Tuesday afternoon media conference.

To lose a family member to violence is always wrenching and painful. But to lose it when she was acting as a concerned and caring citizen, and at the hands of the person she called for help, is inexplicable, Freeman said.

He began by laying out the facts of the acts already confirmed by authorities, but then, with charges already filed, he proceeded to go into much greater detail about what investigators believe happen on the night Damond died.

According to investigators, after calling authorities to report what she thought was a sexual assault happening outside her home, Damond approached the back of the Ford Explorer in which Noor was the passenger and his partner, officer Matthew Harrity, was the driver.

While Noor has invoked his constitutional right to not speak with investigators, Harrity did talk to them and appeared before the grand jury assembled to consider the case.

Freeman said that according to Harrity, Noor had radioed to dispatch a signal meaning that their investigation was complete when Harrity described hearing a a voice, and a thump somewhere behind him on the squad car and caught a glimpse of a persons head and shoulders outside his driver-side window an account that supports previous reports indicating that investigators believe Damond tapped or hit the back of the police SUV to get the officers attention before approaching the drivers window.

Then, according to Freeman, Harrity said he heard a sound he described like a light bulb dropping on the floor and saw a flash and Noors right arm extended across him towards the open window.

Harrity then looked out the window and saw Damond with her hands over a wound on her left side, Freeman said. Before getting out of the car, Harrity reporting hearing what would appear to be Damonds last words: Im dying, or Im dead.

Freeman explained that his task at trial would be to prove that, even if Noor did claim to have feared for his life, that fear was not objectively reasonable and therefore the use of deadly force was not justified.

In the short time between when Ms Damond Ruszczyk approached the squad car and the time that Noor fired the fatal shot, there is no evidence that officer Noor encountered a threat, appreciated a threat, investigated a threat or confirmed a threat that justified his decision to use deadly force, Freeman said in prepared remarks. Instead, officer Noor recklessly and intentionally fired his handgun from the passenger seat, in disregard for human life.

The officers did not turn on their body cameras until after the shooting and there was no squad camera video.

The lack of video was widely criticized, and Damonds family members were among the many people who called for changes in procedure, including how often officers are required to turn on their cameras.

Damonds family in the US and Australia released a statement through their lawyer, Robert Bennett, saying that they were pleased with Freemans decision to bring charges against Noor.

No charges can bring our Justine back, they said. However, justice demands accountability for those responsible for recklessly killing the fellow citizens they are sworn to protect, and todays actions reflect that.

Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on Islamic Relations, said the Somali and Muslim communities in Minnesota stand with Justine and were asking for justice, while at the same time questioning why police leaders and the police union had opted to not defend Noor in the same way they had officers involved in past police shootings.

Hussein said while Noor is Somali American his actions did not reflect on his community. We need to recognize him for who he is, he said. He was trained by the police department. He acted as a police officer. Mr Noor is responsible for his actions.

A group of Damonds neighbors who have helped to form an advocacy group, Justice for Justine, attended the press confernce and were planning a rally on Tuesday evening.

Sarah Kuhnen, who lived a block away from where Damond died, said she was glad to see charges finally announced in the case.

I also have a very heavy heart for all those impacted by police violence who have never seen charges, she said. My hope is that this will be the first of many charges for police who have disproportionately impacted communities of color. This is a very emotional day.

If convicted of third-degree murder, Noor could face a maximum of 25 years in prison, though the presumptive sentence is 12 years. A judge could issue a sentence ranging from about 10 to 15 years.

The second-degree manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison but the presumptive sentence is four years. Bail has been set at $500,000, according to jail records.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/20/justine-damond-shooting-police-officer-mohamed-noor-charged

Emma Bonino: Italy’s pro-Europe, pro-immigrant conscience

Emma Bonino: Italy’s pro-Europe, pro-immigrant conscience 0

by • Cars • Tags: , , ,

The former foreign minister, activist and politician has radical ideas for todays Italy

Forty years ago, Emma Bonino fought to secure abortion rights in Italy in the shadow of the Vatican. Her campaign involved hunger strikes and a three-week stint in jail.

These days, the former foreign minister, activist and candidate for parliament, is waging an equally difficult battle in support of migrants and in defence of Europe, two ideas that seem radical in todays bitter political environment.

There is, Bonino says, an invisible thread that connects the causes of her life.

You can look at the fights I have waged with this point of view: I support a democratic liberal order and believe in the centrality of the individual, his rights but also his responsibilities, she says.

Those ideas, she adds, are under threat.

Bonino is an icon in Italy. Her supporters might call her the conscience of the country.

While she is not realistically hoping to win next Sundays national election, if Bonino and her party More Europe do well, she will win 3% of the highly fractured Italian vote, a result that would give her control of her own parliamentary group. It would also grant her a fair amount of influence in the event that the election ends, as many expect, with the creation of a grand coalition government between the centre right and centre left parties headed by two former prime ministers, Silvio Berlusconi and Matteo Renzi.

The 69-year-old has gained momentum over recent weeks, despite the fact that her ideas including granting citizenship to immigrants run contrary to the prevailing winds in Italy, where migrants are increasingly the target of political vitriol, and where Brussels has been blamed for the countrys economic woes.

In an interview in her small rooftop apartment, which has a terrace overlooking St Peters Basilica, Bonino a lung cancer survivor admits she is frailer than she once was, but is driven by passion for her politics and concerns for the country.

If I look back 50 years ago, if you look at womens rights, I cannot even recognise my country, the change has been enormous, she says. That doesnt mean it is all done. On the contrary, rights are a process, and if you dont care for them, you can lose them from morning to night.

She has been thinking about the banality of evil, the term coined by Hannah Arendt, the political theorist who examined the rise of Nazism, after she saw a viral video of an elderly Italian woman harassing a black man on a bus while other passengers looked on.

Arendt explains how one small sign happens after the other that no one cares about, and then you suddenly find yourself in hell, she says.

The signs that are worrying Bonino are escalating incidents of political intolerance on the left and the right, racist attacks that are not adequately challenged, the lack of resilience in institutions, and the mediocrity of leaders.

She was disturbed by two recent incidents of violence against women, and how differently the murders were treated in the press based on the race of the suspected perpetrators: one, a migrant from Nigeria, and another, a white Italian.

There is no excuse for this kind of thing, she says. There are many things you can do to counter this phenomenon: public speeches, videos, talking in schools, exactly like the entrepreneurs of fear use. It is not true that we dont have tools to react, we are simply not using them in an assertive way.

One of her top political priorities is giving legal status to hundreds of thousands of migrants who are in Italy illegally, much as Berlusconi did in 2000.

She is convinced that Europes demographic challenges and low birthrates will, eventually, give European capitals a wake-up call about their need to welcome immigrants.

Sooner or later, we will recognise that we need them, she says. For the moment the political mood is so bad, so unhealthy, that there is no way to talk rationally.

While Bonino is not worried that Italy might leave the EU, she believes that the constant targeting of Brussels as the source of the countrys problems will have a long-term negative impact.

Its very simple. On one side you have Putin and on the other side you have Trump. You have China and south of the Mediterranean is on fire. If this is the new landscape, if we go on as 27 small states, each on his own, where do we go? she says.

If we continue with blaming Europe, we will never make it better. It will stay as it is, like a boat taking water. So in the end, the boat will sink out of inertia, she adds.

Bonino has her share of gripes with the EU, particularly in its handling of the Libya crisis. She condemns, as a stark violation of every sort of international convention, the manner in which Italy has sought to keep migrants from entering the continent.

We know that the ones who are saved [by the Libyan coastguard], that they are lost forever, and that no one knows what their life will be, she says. We know we are sending them back to hell, we know the conditions of the detention centres they keep. I dont call that a success, I cannot call that a success.

In contrast to her fight with the Catholic church 40 years ago, Bonino can, these days, count on at least one ally: Pope Francis.

The two, she says with a grin, are in touch. We have some connections, so we pass messages quite often, through friends.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/26/emma-bonino-italys-pro-europe-pro-immigrant-conscience

Fascism is back in Italy and its paralysing the political system | Roberto Saviano

Fascism is back in Italy and its paralysing the political system | Roberto Saviano

by • Cars • Tags: , , , , ,

Parties on right and left are urging people not to talk about an incident in which six immigrants were shot. They are afraid of alienating an increasingly xenophobic electorate

Italy
Opinion

Fascism is back in Italy and its paralysing the political system

Parties on right and left are urging people not to talk about an incident in which six immigrants were shot. They are afraid of alienating an increasingly xenophobic electorate

Luca

Wrapped in a tricolour, Luca Traini, 28, accused of opening fire on immigrants, is detained by Italian police in Macerata. Photograph: Reuters

Late last Saturday morning, 3 February, news started to come in from Macerata, a small county town in central Italy shots had been fired from a moving black Alfa Romeo 147. On Facebook, the mayor encouraged everyone to stay indoors because an armed man has opened fire from a car.

A couple of days earlier in Macerata, the body, cut up in pieces, of a young woman, Pamela Mastropietro, had been found in a suitcase and a Nigerian drug-pusher, Innocent Oseghale, had been arrested for murder. Oseghale is still in prison, accused of contempt and concealing the corpse.

But to return to that Saturday: uncertainty reigned only very briefly before the first pictures began to circulate of a young man by the name of Luca Traini, picked up by the carabinieri, the Italian tricolour draped around his shoulders. There are six wounded, all immigrants. Shots had also been fired at the headquarters of the centre-left Democratic party (PD) in Macerata. Shooting at immigrants, the fascist salute, the tricolour what more do you need to call what happened by its true name?

So why did the Italian media have such trouble defining what happened as a fascist-inspired terrorist attack? I was immediately put in mind of a tweet that Matteo Salvini, the leader of the Lega Nord, the xenophobic party allied to Silvio Berlusconi in the forthcoming elections, had posted two days prior to the attack, referencing the death of Pamela Mastropietro and the arrest of Oseghale: What was this worm still doing in Italy? [] The Left has blood on its hands.

The moral instigator of the Macerata attack was then Matteo Salvini, who for years now has been sowing hatred without a thought for the consequences of his words. But why such timidity from the media and other politicians?

The act of a madman; Lets not talk fascism; Keep quiet so as to avoid it being exploited. These are some of the comments that were made some immediate and off the cuff, but others cool and considered. Very few politicians talk about the victims of the attack because to take the side of the immigrants means losing votes. Only one small party, the Potere al popolo (Power to the people), straight after the attack visited the wounded in hospital. Wilson, Jennifer, Gideon, Mahamadou, Festus and Omar are their names, all very young people trying to make their way in Italy.

Social phantoms always emerge in moments of crisis. Hatred of the foreigner is the result of a lethal cocktail of bad politics, irresponsible information and economic crisis. Now in Italy all bearings have been completely lost and a climate of endless electoral campaigning has triggered a chain reaction that no one seems able to keep in check: the entire political campaign is focused on the subject of immigration.

Five
Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio his party will contest the forthcoming elections in March. Photograph: Pacific Press/Shutterstock

Immigrants are perceived as the prime reason for the longevity of the economic crisis and even of the risk of attacks taking place. Though it should be noted that the only attack that could be considered a genuine massacre has been perpetrated by an Italian against foreigners.

But you might have read this before, certainly in Italy it crops up in articles that end by saying: But if Italians are afraid, there must be a reason for it. Its almost a waste of time providing data and stressing that immigration is not a crisis, but a phenomenon that, when managed responsibly and with foresight, we are able to control.

A waste also to note that there exists something called good practice and that there are excellent examples we could follow. Its also pointless to comment on the falling crime rates because, someone will assert and they will have much less trouble than I do at sounding a popular note that if Italians feel at risk there must be a reason for it. Today, feelings whatever they are are more important than reality.

And then there are the voices of caution: care should be taken not to attach too much importance to a violent episode. The more I talk of migrants, the more I am accused of encouraging hatred of them. Its a kind of back-to-front logic: how is it possible, I wonder, that if I relate what is happening in Libya in the detention centres, if I speak of the mud-slinging machine against the NGOs who are operating in the Mediterranean, I manage the opposite of what I am trying to achieve?

Even if you explain that migrants are a fundamental resource in an Italy that is demographically moribund, I hear the earnest plea: keep mum, dont mention it, find something else to do.

The stories that are told about migrants are the result of electoral calculation and one that has emerged to fill the space that has always belonged to the Lega Nord and which the Five Star Movement (M5S) has slipped into with a new narrative, one that goes as follows: right and left no longer exist; what does exist, though, are Italians with problems and who come before everyone else.

After the attack, something happened which in Europe up to now has been unprecedented: Matteo Renzi, secretary of the PD and Luigi Di Maio, leader of the M5S, urged everyone to keep silent about the events. Why? So as not to lose the votes of the xenophobic electorate: this is their fear, the consequence of a now vacuous political system.

Does not the fact that Luca Traini, the terrorist who opened fire on unarmed individuals simply because they were Africans, and who had been a candidate for Lega Nord, tell us that Salvinis party is putting up criminal and violent extremist candidates for election? Absolutely not it tells us something that is valid about all the parties, and that is that there is no longer any substance to them, that they can no longer field candidates on the ground because they have now lost all contact with the real world.

Nowadays, when a politician, a journalist or an intellectual starts out with statements such as: Whatever you think about immigration, they must realise that they are acting irresponsibly. In a period as delicate as the one we are living through, no flippancy can be tolerated. On paper, on the small screen and on social media, each and every word should be weighed and weighed heavily.

Roberto Saviano is the author of Gomorrah: Italys Other Mafia

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/11/fascism-is-back-in-italy-and-its-paralysing-politics

Italy: failed Northern League candidate held over migrant shootings

Italy: failed Northern League candidate held over migrant shootings

by • Cars • Tags: , , , ,

Far-right election candidate arrested in city of Macerata after shootspree targeting Africans

Italy

Italy: failed Northern League candidate held over migrant shootings

Far-right election candidate arrested in city of Macerata after shooting spree targeting Africans

and agencies

Play Video
0:30

Italy: African migrants shot and injured by driver in Macerata video

A failed election candidate for Italys far-right Northern League has been arrested after a gunman targeted African migrants in a two-hour drive-by shooting spree in the Italian city of Macerata.

Luca Traini, 28, was arrested after six people were shot in the small city near Italys east coast, 200km (125 miles) east of Rome. Police said the attack appeared to be racially motivated.

A video posted by the newspaper Il Resto di Carlino showed armed officers arresting a man with an Italian flag draped over his shoulders in the city centre, near where he apparently fled his car on foot.

Macerata locator

He drove around in his car and when he saw any coloured people he shot them, Marcello Mancini, a Macerata resident, told Reuters. Romano Carancini, the citys mayor, confirmed that six foreign nationals, all of them black, had been wounded in the shooting spree. One had life-threatening injuries, he said.

The ruling centre-left Democratic party said Traini had stood as a candidate for the Northern League at local elections last year and also accused him of firing shots at one of their offices in Macerata before he was arrested.

The Northern Leagues leader, Matteo Salvini, distanced himself from the shooting, but said unrestrained immigration was causing social strife. I cant wait to get into government to restore security, social justice and serenity to Italy, he said.

The shootings happened days after a Nigerian was arrested in connection with the death of an 18-year-old Italian woman, Pamela Mastropietro, whose dismembered body was discovered hidden in two suitcases near Macerata.

Rightwingers campaigning before national elections on 4 March have leapt on Mastropietros death to promote their anti-migrant message. The suspect, Innocent Oseghale, who was denied asylum last year but has remained in Italy, has refused to talk to police.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/03/driver-opens-fire-african-migrants-italian-city-macerata

‘Public transport is cool’: new Adidas trainers double as Berlin transit passes

‘Public transport is cool’: new Adidas trainers double as Berlin transit passes

by • Cars • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Hundreds queued for todays release and with the 180 shoes doubling as 700+ transport tickets, it wasnt just the usual sneakerheads

Cities
Cities in motion

‘Public transport is cool’: new Adidas trainers double as Berlin transit passes

Hundreds queued for todays release with the 180 shoes doubling as 700+ transport tickets, it wasnt just the usual sneakerheads

Cities is supported by

About this content

in Berlin

The

The EQT Support/93 Berlin shoe an unlikely collaboration between Adidas and BVG

Outside Overkill, a hip shoe store in Berlins Kreuzberg district, breakfast is being served: Mettbrtchen, minced raw pork on a bread roll. This isnt a hipster breakfast, explains Julian Kalitta of Overkill. It is typical old-school Berlin something you can imagine one of the citys tram drivers eating before work.

Its a fitting treat for the hundreds of people who have camped out in the snow, some since Saturday, waiting for the limited release of 500 pairs of the new EQT Support 93/Berlin shoe an unlikely collaboration between Adidas and BVG, the citys transport company.

The shoes, which feature the same camouflage pattern used on the citys train seats, double up as an annual transit pass. Its embedded in the tongues of the trainers, which are styled as a fabric version of the BVG annual ticket, and can be used just like a regular ticket covering the bus, tram and underground in zones A and B. While the cheapest annual ticket available from the BVG is currently 728, the shoes cost just 180.

As a result, the sale has drawn an unusual mix of trainer collectors and those simply looking to make a saving on their daily commute.

We often see people camping outside for new shoes but this is different, says Kalitta. Its not just the sneakerheads.

Shoppers
Shoppers queue outside Overkill in Berlin to get their hands on the limited edition trainers. Photograph: Holly Young for the Guardian

Mihai Vtafu, 28, A graphic designer originally from Bucharest, has been camping in the bus stop across from the shop since Sunday. I fell in love with the city when I moved here six months ago and Ive always loved the trains, says Vtafu. Wearing the shoes will be a statement; it doesnt matter where you are from, they represent how you feel about the city. Plus I cant wait for the moment a ticket inspector gets on the train and I can just point to my shoes.

But Jana Strter, 20-year-old student, sees them as practical. Im not a big Adidas fan, but I think the idea of getting a ticket for the train is really cool, says Strter. Some people will sell them on but I will wear them.

Riders will need to wear both shoes, rather than carrying them in a bag or giving one to a friend, to use the ticket.

The collaboration between a transport company and sportswear company is unusual, but the BVG saw it as a way of encouraging ridership.

Mihai
Mihai Vtafu braved the cold for a box of the new trainers. Photograph: Holly Young

The motivation behind the collaboration is really to get young people on to public transport, says Petra Reetz, who says at first she was skeptical of the idea. I said, We are a public transport system, not Michael Jordan … But in a big city like Berlin, the quality of life and quality of the air are important. We wanted to tell young people public transport is cool you dont need to buy a car.

Its also an attempt to modernise the image of BVG, which although attracting more than 1 billion rides last year, is ageing (it turns 90 this year). The visual lynchpin of the rebranding is the camouflage design, which has also been spun into a range of merchandise including baby bibs, swimming shorts and teapots. The agency has also taken an irreverent tone on social media, including a tweet encouraging Donald Trump to become a Berlin bus driver rather than run for president.

Weil wir dich lieben (@BVG_Kampagne)

Okay, einen Nachteil gibt es:
Eine Mauer darfst du hier nicht bauen. pic.twitter.com/UxXwu3mqTP

January 20, 2017

The collaboration is also about repositioning the BVG as central to the brand of the city itself. We Berliners, we are like Londoners we know we are cool, says Reetz. And now we are very cool because we have our own sneakers.

Despite being sleep deprived, and having waited in both the snow and the rain, Vtafu is delighted to get his hands on the trainers. Im too excited to be tired, he says. Now hes heading home to sleep and keep the shoes safely out of the rain. After that maybe all of us with the shoes will organise a night out riding the trains for free, he laughs.

Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to join the discussion, and explore our archive here

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jan/16/adidas-eqt-trainers-transport-tickets-berlin

Migration can benefit the world. This is how we at the UN plan to help | Antnio Guterres

Migration can benefit the world. This is how we at the UN plan to help | Antnio Guterres

by • Cars • Tags: , , , , , ,

The global compact on migration aims to change a source of abuse and conflict into a driver of prosperity. Now we need the support of governments, says UN secretary general Antonio Guterres

Managing migration is one of the most profound challenges for international cooperation in our time. Migration powers economic growth, reduces inequalities and connects diverse societies. Yet it is also a source of political tension and human tragedies. The majority of migrants live and work legally. But a desperate minority are putting their lives at risk to enter countries where they face suspicion and abuse.

Demographic pressures and the impact of climate change on vulnerable societies are likely to drive further migration in the years ahead. As a global community, we face a choice. Do we want migration to be a source of prosperity and international solidarity, or a byword for inhumanity and social friction?

This year, governments will negotiate a global compact on migration through the United Nations. This will be the first overarching international agreement of its kind. It will not be a formal treaty. Nor will it place any binding obligations on states. Instead, it is an unprecedented opportunity for leaders to counter the pernicious myths surrounding migrants, and lay out a common vision of how to make migration work for all our nations.

This is an urgent task. We have seen what happens when large-scale migration takes place without effective mechanisms to manage it. The world was shocked by recent video of migrants being sold as slaves.

Grim as these images were, the real scandal is that thousands of migrants suffer the same fate each year, unrecorded. Many more are trapped in demeaning, precarious jobs that border on slavery anyway. There are nearly six million migrants trapped in forced labour today, often in developed economies.

How can we end these injustices and prevent them recurring in future? In setting a clear political direction about the future of migration, I believe that three fundamental considerations should guide discussions of the compact.

The first is to recognise and reinforce the benefits of migration, so often lost in public debate. Migrants make huge contributions to both their host countries and countries of origin.

They take jobs that local workforces cannot fill, boosting economic activity. Many are innovators and entrepreneurs. Nearly half of all migrants are women, looking for better lives and work opportunities.

Migrants also make a major contribution to international development by sending remittances to their home countries. Remittances added up to nearly $600bn ($445bn) last year, three times all development aid. The fundamental challenge is to maximise the benefits of this orderly, productive form of migration while stamping out the abuses and prejudice that make life hell for a minority of migrants.

Second, states need to strengthen the rule of law underpinning how they manage and protect migrants for the benefit of their economies, their societies and the migrants themselves. Authorities that erect major obstacles to migration or place severe restrictions on migrants work opportunities inflict needless economic self-harm, as they impose barriers to having their labour needs met in an orderly, legal fashion.

Worse still, they unintentionally encourage illegal migration. Aspiring migrants, denied legal pathways to travel, inevitably fall back on irregular methods. This not only puts them in vulnerable positions, but also undermines governments authority. The best way to end the stigma of illegality and abuse around migrants is, in fact, for governments to put in place more legal pathways for migration, removing the incentives for individuals to break the rules, while better meeting the needs of their labour markets for foreign labour.

States also need to work together more closely to share the benefits of migration, for example through partnering to identify significant skills gaps in one country that migrants from another are qualified to fill.

Third and finally, we need greater international cooperation to protect vulnerable migrants, as well as refugees, and we must reestablish the integrity of the refugee protection regime in line with international law. The fate of the thousands who die in doomed efforts to cross seas and deserts is not just a human tragedy. It also represents the most acute policy failure: unregulated, mass movements in desperate circumstances fuel a sense that borders are under threat and governments not in control. In turn this leads to draconian border controls that undermine our collective values and help perpetuate the tragedies we have too often seen unfold in recent years.

We must fulfil our basic obligations to safeguard the lives and human rights of those migrants that the existing system has failed. We must take urgent action to assist those now trapped in transit camps, or at risk of slavery, or facing situations of acute violence, whether in North Africa or Central America. We have to envisage ambitious international action to resettle those with nowhere to go.

We should also take steps through development aid, climate mitigation efforts and conflict prevention to avoid such unregulated large movements of people in future. Migration should not mean suffering.

We must aim for a world in which we can celebrate migrations contributions to prosperity, development and international unity. It is in our collective power to achieve this goal. This years global compact can be a milestone on the road to making migration truly work for all.

Antnio Guterres is secretary general of the United Nations

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/11/migration-benefit-world-un-global-compact

Netanyahu son bragged about gas deal outside strip club, tape reveals

Netanyahu son bragged about gas deal outside strip club, tape reveals

by • Cars • Tags: , , ,

While on tour of clubs with minder in tow, Yair Netanyahu is heard telling friend: My dad made an awesome deal for your dad

Lawyers for Israels prime minister, Benjamin Netanayhu, tried to stop the broadcast of an embarrassing audiotape in which Netanyahus son Yair suggested his father helped push through a $20bn deal to the benefit of a gas tycoon.

The recording of the conversation, which took place outside a strip club, is the latest revelation to cast light on the Netanyahu familys relationships with wealthy tycoons, which have so far spawned two corruption investigations into the prime ministers activities.

According to the Israel Television Channel, the tape features the voices of Yair Netanyahu and Ori Maimon, a son of the gas tycoon Kobi Maimon. Maimon Sr is a shareholder in Isramco, which owns the Tamar gas fields.

According to the reports, Yair and friends, with his government-provided security guard and driver in tow, were going from one strip club to another.

He and Maimon can apparently be heard arguing about 400 shekels ($116) as they leave the club, with Yair reportedly telling his companion: Bro, you got to spot me. My dad made an awesome deal for your dad, bro, he fought, fought in the Knesset for this, bro.

He continues: Bro, my dad now arranged for you a $20bn deal and you cant spot me 400 shekels?

The recording was apparently made in 2015, at a time when Israel was in the midst of a political controversy over newly discovered natural gas deposits and the rights to drill in them.

What is most likely to cause uproar in Israel is the revelation that a state security guard and government-provided car ferried Netanyahus son and his friends between strip clubs. The provision of a security detail for Netanyahus children was already controversial.

While Yair, now 26, has a reputation for his crass behaviour, his remarks serious or not also feed into a growing sense of outrage in Israel over the cosy relationship between the Netanyahus and wealthy businessmen.

The disclosure of the tape comes at a highly sensitive moment for Benjamin Netanyahu as he awaits police recommendations in two corruption investigations into his behaviour, one of which involved the receipt of gifts from wealthy benefactors.

That investigation, known as Case 1000, involves the billionaire Australian businessman James Packer, whose own relationship with Yair Netanyahu has come under the spotlight.

Public concern over the slow pace of the police investigations have spawned weekly anti-corruption demonstrations calling for Netanyahu to stand down.

The Netanyahu family attorney, Yossi Cohen, sent an urgent letter to the Israel Television News Company on Monday demanding it withhold the recordings contents from the public.

In a statement to the television channel, a spokesman for the Netanyahu family said the recording was a witch-hunt meant to undermine the prime minister.

In an apology issued later by Yair Netanyahu he said: In a evening conversation, under the influence of alcohol, I spoke nonsense about women and other things that were better left unsaid.

These remarks do not reflect who I am, the values on which I was raised and my beliefs. I regret the remarks and apologise if anyone was hurt by them. In addition, the things I said to Maimon were a dumb joke and joking around with him, as anyone could tell. I never took an interest in the natural-gas framework agreement and never had any idea about its details, he said in a statement.

In his own remarks on the affair, Netanyahu said: My son was correct in saying yesterday that he had spoken foolish words. He said, its not me, Yair. He said that these are not the values that characterise him. And hes right.

Yair Netanyahu last year drew unexpected praise from US neo-Nazis including the far-right website Daily Stormer after posting an antisemitic meme on social media. The image showed the billionaire philanthropist George Soros, a frequent target of antisemitic attacks, with a reptilian creature and a hooded, hook-nosed Elder of Ziontype dangling inducements before three of the familys enemies.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/08/netanyahu-son-bragged-about-gas-deal-outside-strip-club-tape-reveals

Justine Damond shooting: prosecutor delays decision on charging police officer

Justine Damond shooting: prosecutor delays decision on charging police officer

by • Cars • Tags: , , , , , ,

Mike Freeman had promised decision by end of the year over shooting in which Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor killed Australian on 15 July

A Minnesota prosecutor said on Thursday he needs more time to decide whether to charge a police officer who fatally shot an Australian woman who called 911 for help.

Minneapolis officer Mohamed Noor shot Justine Ruszczyk Damond on 15 July, just minutes after she called 911 to report a possible sexual assault in the alley behind her home.

The 40-year-old life coach was engaged to be married, and her death drew international attention. It also cost Minneapolis then-police chief her job and forced major revisions to the police departments policy on body cameras.

Hennepin County attorney Mike Freeman had promised a decision by the end of the year. But on Thursday he said his office was getting more information and evidence, and additional investigation must be completed.

The investigation and review of the case will not be rushed, he said in a statement.

Freeman set no new timetable for a charging decision. His statement said he had spoken with Damonds family to inform them of the delay.

In a statement Damonds family said they accepted Freemans decision to take time to ensure the investigation is rigorous and complete.

We want justice and appreciate the support from all those who want the same. We ask for the publics patience to allow the investigation to continue.

Damonds family said in an email to the Associated Press that they are still struggling to understand how and why this could happen. They say family members in Australia and in the US. are devastated and want the investigation concluded so that we have some resolution to this tragedy.

The announcement came two weeks after Freeman was captured on video at a holiday reception saying investigators had not brought him enough evidence to warrant charging the officer.

Noor has not spoken publicly about the case. He also declined to speak with state investigators.

Noors police partner, Matthew Harrity, told investigators he was startled by a loud noise right before Damond approached the drivers side window of their police SUV. Harrity, who was driving, said Noor then fired his weapon from the passenger seat, shooting Damond. She died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

The officers did not turn on their body cameras until after the shooting, and there was no squad camera video of the incident. The lack of video was widely criticized and Damonds family members were among the many people who called for changes in procedure, including how often officers are required to turn on their cameras.

Play Video
2:17

Justine Damond’s father questions US police shooting investigation video

The shooting also prompted questions about the training of Noor, a two-year veteran and Somali-American whose arrival on the force had been celebrated by city leaders and Minnesotas large Somali community. Noor, 32, had trained in business and economics and worked in property management before becoming an officer.

Then-police chief Janee Harteau defended Noors training and said he was suited to be on the street, even as she criticized the shooting itself. But Harteau, who was on vacation when the shooting happened and did not make her first public appearance until several days after the shooting, was forced out by Mayor Betsy Hodges, who said she had lost confidence in the chief.

Harteaus replacement, Medaria Arradondo, quickly announced a policy change requiring officers to turn on their body cameras in responding to any call or traffic stop.

The police shooting was the third high-profile incident for Minnesota in recent years in which a prosecutor made a charging decision rather than relying on a grand jury, a process criticized for secrecy and for the rarity of officers being charged.

Its the second time that Freeman has weighed a high-profile police shooting without a grand jury. In the earlier case, Freeman elected not to file charges against two officers involved in the November 2015 death of Jamar Clark in Minneapolis.

The shooting of the 24-year-old Clark, who was black, set off repeated protests and an extended encampment outside the police precinct headquarters on the citys north side.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/28/justine-damond-shooting-prosecutor-delays-decision-mohamed-noor

Family of UK diplomat murdered in Beirut launch charity fund

Family of UK diplomat murdered in Beirut launch charity fund

by • Cars • Tags: , , ,

Foundation established to continue Rebecca Dykess work supporting refugees, with focus on preventing violence against women

The family of a British embassy worker murdered in Beirut have launched a charity foundation to support her humanitarian causes.

Rebecca Dykes, 30, was working in Lebanon as a programme and policy manager for the Department for International Development before her body was found dumped by a motorway in the east of the countrys capital on 16 December.

Her family and friends have established the charitable fund to continue her work supporting refugees, with a particular focus on empowering and preventing violence against women.

In a statement, the Dykes family said: In the time since Beckys death we have been overwhelmed by the messages of support we have received from those who encountered her during her life.

Becky dedicated her career to humanitarian causes, and worked tirelessly to make the world a kinder, fairer, safer and more stable place. We want to ensure that this work continues in her name.

The JustGiving page hopes to raise 100,000 in memory of Dykes.

The page said: Rebecca was compassionate, caring and committed to humanitarian causes. She worked tirelessly to make the world a kinder, fairer, safer and more stable place.

As well as being a dedicated humanitarian worker, Rebecca was a colleague, a friend, a daughter, a sister and aunt. Your donations will help us build the better world that Rebecca believed in.

It is believed Dykes had been at a colleagues leaving party in the Gemmayzeh district of Beirut on the night before she was found dead.

An Uber driver arrested over the killing has admitted attempting to rape Dykes before strangling her with a rope, according to local media reports. Lebanese police traced the suspect after his car was picked up on traffic management CCTV cameras.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/25/rebecca-dykes-uk-diplomat-charity-fund-beirut

1 2