EU environment ministers on Friday adopted a biodiversity strategy aimed at protecting ecosystems, a move deemed essential to tackling climate change and reducing the risk of future pandemics.
Meeting in Luxembourg, the 27 national ministers backed the EU Commission’s strategy of placing at least 30 percent of the EU’s land maritime areas under special protection.
The European governments now expect the EU commission — the bloc’s executive arm — to integrate the biodiversity policy objectives in relevant future legislative proposals.
A Monday report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) warned that more than 80 percent of the European Union’s natural habitats were in poor or bad condition.
The European Parliament also easily passed a massive farm subsidy bill on Friday, to the fury of environmental activists who say it fell well short of EU commitments to fight climate change.
“It’s five minutes to midnight on the climate emergency clock, but our governments are stalling,” said Greenpeace EU climate policy adviser Sebastian Mang. “Meanwhile, the gas industry, the industrial farming lobby, airlines and carmakers are shooting holes in the EU Green Deal, and our chance of a safe climate for people and nature is fading.”
Urban farmer Rachel Rubenstein thinks the coronavirus pandemic, which has shut down major cities, state and international borders, is a chance to rethink where we get our food from.
Local car parks, median strips and rooftops, golf courses and even public parks — they’re just some of the ideas she and her city farming friends are throwing around as potential places to grow food.
“I think that having food grown close to home is super important, because we have seen a lack of access to fresh food with the bushfires and then COVID,” Ms Rubenstein said.
In Melbourne’s inner-northern suburb of East Brunswick, she’s growing fresh organic produce such as carrots, radishes, spinach, broccoli, and citrus for Ceres — a not-for-profit community-run environment park and farm.
An urban farm in East Brunswick in Melbourne is seeing a surge in demand for locally grown food by those stuck in lockdown.(ABC Regional)
Ceres has seen demand for its food boxes double since the pandemic began, as lockdowns forced people to shop more locally than ever before.
“Everything that I grow here on the farm is harvested straight away and goes straight to the grocery and the cafe on site,” Ms Rubenstein said.
“Just seeing how much I can grow in 250 square metres says something about how we can utilise space better in the city.”
Ceres grows vegetables across two sites in the inner city, but it’s not enough to fill demand with produce sourced from elsewhere to help fill the gap.
Ceres urban farm in Brunswick near the Melbourne CBD has seen demand for their produce triple since the pandemic started.(ABC Regional: Jess Davis)
Farms like this are a rare sight in Australian cities, with space a major constraint.
Calls to take existing green spaces, such as public parks and golf courses, and adapt them to support things like agriculture are growing in urban centres.
Nick Verginis recently started a social media group called ‘Community to Unlock Northcote Golf Course’ in a bid to get his local fairway converted into a public park with possible room for agriculture too.
The golf club is across the river from Ceres.
“In lockdown people have been really hungry to get in touch with nature, using whatever space they have on their balconies or in their small gardens to grow their own produce,” he said.
“This [fairway] obviously would be a natural place to expand that [farm], so some local residents could have access to a plot of land.”
Nick Verginis, with his son Teddy, started the Facebook group Community to Unlock Northcote Golf Course in the hope it could be used as a public space and potentially as a farm.(ABC Regional: Jess Davis)
Farming on the fringe
Converting sections of green spaces into farmland to create a local food bowl is already a reality in Western Sydney Parklands in New South Wales.
Thou Chheav learnt to farm 24 years ago after she moved from Cambodia. She now runs the family’s Sun Fresh Farms with her daughter, Meng Sun.(ABC Regional: Ben Deacon)
Five per cent of the 264-hectare park has been set aside for urban agriculture and 16 farms are already operating on it, selling at the farmgate or across Sydney.
Western Sydney Parklands is one of the largest urban parks in Australia — almost the same size as Sydney Harbour — and is one of the biggest urban farming projects in the country.
Sun Fresh Farms, run by Meng Sun and her mother Thou Chheav, has been leasing land off the Parkland for nine years to grow cucumbers, strawberries, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and broad beans.
Ms Sun said, even before the pandemic, the popularity of sourcing food from peri-urban farms like her family’s was taking off.
“All the locals come out on the weekends. It’s providing food for the local community and also it gives them a better understanding of where food and vegetables come from,” she said.
Unlike produce sold at larger supermarkets that was often picked before it ripened, Ms Sun said being able to buy fresh vine-ripe produce appealed to customers.
“We like to pick fresh and sell direct to the customers. Cut the middleman out so there’s not much heavy lifting involved, it is just straight to the farm gate,” she said.
There are 16 urban farms operating in the Western Sydney Parklands, but there are plans to increase that number.(ABC Regional: Ben Deacon)
Suellen Fitzgerald, the chief executive of Greater Sydney Parklands, said they were currently accepting applications for new farming projects so that the precinct could expand its food production.
“Many of our farmers have roadside stalls and during the pandemic have reported an up-swing in customers, with the community choosing to shop locally over traditional supermarkets,” Ms Fitzgerald said.
Suring up food supply
Rachel Carey, a lecturer in food systems at the University of Melbourne, said cities should increase their urban farming capacity as an “insurance policy” in the event of future natural disasters or pandemics that disrupt supply chains.
“Obviously urban agriculture is a much smaller part of our food supply system, but I think it does have an important role in future,” Dr Carey said.
“If we can keep some of this food production locally it acts as a bit of a buffer or an insurance policy against those future shocks and stresses.”
Food systems lecturer Rachel Carey says urban farming has an important role to play in our future.(ABC Regional: Jess Davis)
Dr Carey said cities were more conducive to agriculture than most people realised.
Europe‘s largest urban farm opened in Paris during the COVID-19 pandemic.(Supplied: Nature Urbaine)
“Cities have access to really important waste streams, and also food waste that can be converted into compost and used back on farms,” she said.
“If we can keep some urban food production close by it enables us to develop what we call circular food economies, where we are taking those waste products and we’re reutilizing them back in food production to keep those important nutrients in the food supply.”
The other benefit was financial.
Dr Carey said buying food from local farmers helped to “keep that money circulating within our own economy rather than going outside to other areas”.
She believed Australian towns and cities should also consider the United Kingdom’s food allotment system, where local governments or town councils rented small parcels of land to individuals for them to grow their own crops on.
Major European cities such as Paris have also embraced urban farming amid the pandemic — the largest rooftop farm in Europe opened there in July.
The farm, which spans 4,000 square metres atop the Paris Exhibition Centre, supports a commercial operation as well as leases out small plots to locals who want to grow their own food.
There are plans to increase it to 14,000 square metres, almost the size of two football fields, and house 20 market gardeners.
The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a surge in people growing their own crops, making their own bread, and even cooking more at home.(ABC Regional: Marty McCarthy)
From converting sections of golf courses or public parks into small farms, or median strips, car parks or rooftops, Dr Carey said the pandemic had shown the time was ripe to reconsider our urban food production methods.
“I see COVID-19 is a transformational moment that is going to lead to some rethinking about the way that we use our spaces in urban areas and in the city,” she said.
“So cities around the world are starting to look more to urban agriculture not just in terms of city soil-based farms, but also non-soil-based farms such as vertical farms and intensive glasshouse farming.”
City golf courses are being identified as potential sites for small urban farming plots.(ABC Regional: Jess Davis)
Brazil is home to the world’s largest Catholic population, but the rise of Pentecostalism is drawing young Brazilians away from traditional pews, and toward charismatic, “club-like” mega-churches.
And according to Cristina Rocha, a Brazilian-born cultural anthropologist at Western Sydney University, Australia plays an important role in this trend.
Over the past two decades, Professor Rocha has been researching the intersections between migration and religion, exploring why so many Brazilians travel to Australia.
“More and more international students coming from Brazil have said, ‘I came here because of Hillsong,'” she says.
But Hillsong Church, which was established by husband and wife pastors Brian and Bobbie Houston in Sydney in 1983, isn’t the only drawcard.
Professor Rocha discovered that C3, Australia’s second-largest Pentecostal church, has also amassed a large Brazilian cohort.
“[Both churches] focus on youth culture,” she explains.
“[Followers] can be who they are, they can have tattoos and piercings, they can dance and listen to secular music. They can drink in moderation.”
These attitudes, Professor Rocha says, are at odds with traditional Pentecostal churches back in Brazil.
Cristina Rocha is director of Western Sydney University’s religion and society research cluster.(Supplied: Cristina Rocha)
“What Hillsong and C3 say is, ‘Once you’re here, the Holy Spirit will change your life. It’s not us — we’re just humans like you.'”
Professor Rocha says many Brazilians — both students and pastors — who study at the churches’ colleges or attend their conferences, are spreading this style of worship.
“There is a circulation of Brazilians coming here then going back [to Brazil],” she says.
“They bring these practices — the way Hillsong does church with lights in a dark room, and the clubbing experience — and the very informal way of relating the Bible to everyday events.”
C3 now has two branches in Brazil, while Hillsong has one in São Paulo, and Professor Rocha says several of the pastors received their training in Australia.
Marist priest Paul Mahony spent nearly 20 years working with Catholic communities in Brazil.(Supplied: Paul Mahony)
Following in Catholic footsteps
Decades before C3 and Hillsong set up their outposts in Brazil, Australians from other denominations were spreading the Word in South America.
One of these Australians was Father Paul Mahony, a Marist priest who arrived the capital Brasilia in 1985 and spent 18 years working in congregations throughout the country.
“We went to live and work with the poorest people we could find,” he recalls.
Although Brazil was — and still is — a majority Catholic country, Father Mahony says the priesthood requires a high school certificate, so many locals were not qualified to lead their own parishes.
He recalls being faced with a surprising level of violence. During his time in Brazil, homicide rates were some of the highest in the world.
As a Marist, Father Mahony conducts services, including this one in a Brazilian jail, in the spirit of Mary, mother of Jesus.(Supplied: Paul Mahony)
“[In São Paulo] we had the largest cemetery in South America near our parish,” he says.
“In the time I was there, there’d be no child finishing primary school who didn’t personally know somebody who’d been murdered.”
When the spiritual becomes political
For Brazilian-born Gabriela Cabral da Rocha Weiss, who is now studying social work in Australia, this prevalence of violence explains why so many Brazilians look to a higher power.
“Sometimes the only hope people have is religion, because there’s poverty, violence and inequality,” she says.
Ms Cabral da Rocha Weiss, however, is neither Catholic nor Pentecostal. She was raised in the minority religion known as Spiritism.
Gabriela Cabral da Rocha Weiss was raised in a devout Spiritist family, but today she’s not religiously affiliated.(Supplied: Gabriela Cabral da Rocha Weiss)
It was founded in 19th century by a French educator, who wrote under the pen name Allan Kardec, and gained a following in Brazil. According to the country’s 2010 Census, there were 3.8 million members.
“Spiritists believe in God and Jesus Christ,” she says.
“They believe that we incarnate multiple times to develop our moral[ity] and our intellect, and whatever you did in past incarnations will impact your future.”
Although Ms Cabral da Rocha Weiss no longer practises today, she appreciates the moral framework and comfort that religion offers many in Brazil.
Ms Cabral da Rocha Weiss recalls attending Spiritism gatherings with her family, pictured, from an early age.(Supplied: Gabriela Cabral da Rocha Weiss)
But she says faith has become increasingly politicised, especially by the country’s right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro, who identifies as a Catholic, but has strong support from Evangelical and Pentecostal voters.
“I believe that religion mixed with politics — in a country where there’s no good education, everything’s so expensive, salaries are so low — can be a very dangerous mix, and it can be taken advantage of, like Bolsonaro is doing.”
Ever-evolving faith
While President Bolsonaro is popular amongst many religious voters, Professor Rocha says his leadership is dividing Christians, often within denominations.
“There has been a rift within all these major religions between the far-right conservative wings of these religions versus the progressives,” she says.
“We have seen the more conservative Opus Dei Catholics [working] with the very conservative Pentecostals, as much as we have seen progressive Pentecostals working together with progressive Catholics and Spiritists.”
Professor Rocha acknowledges that while Brazil’s religious demography has changed under the leadership of Bolsonaro, the transformation of faith is endemic to this country.
When the Portuguese colonisers arrived in Brazil in 1500, they brought Catholicism. Simultaneously, through the slave trade, religious practices from Africa also came to Brazil.
According to Professor Rocha, these religious traditions melded with the pre-existing spiritual practices of Indigenous Brazilians.
“Catholicism in Brazil is divided, even today, between Roman Catholicism — the hierarchical Church — and popular Catholicism, with the cult of the saints, the myriad miracles, healings and pilgrimages,” she says.
“This popular Catholicism is mixed with Indigenous religion, Shamanism, animism and African practices of veneration of ancestors, spirit incorporation, divination.
Stockholm: Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg has denounced the new farm bill adopted by the European Parliament as one that “fuels ecological destruction.”
Environmentalists say only 20 percent of planned spending under the massive farm subsidy bill passed Friday will go to climate-friendly policies.
“Eleven months after the European Parliament declared a climate emergency, the very same parliament voted to go ahead with an agricultural policy that – in summary – fuels ecological destruction with almost 400 billion euros,” Thunberg wrote in a Facebook post signed with four other activists.
In the budget proposal for 2021 to 2027 under discussion, 387 billion euros ($460 billion) is earmarked for agriculture, accounting for roughly one-third of all bloc spending for member states.
“Are we disappointed? No,” Thunberg and fellow activists wrote.
“Because that would mean we were expecting a miracle. Yet this day has once again shown the size of the gap that lies between current policies and where we would need to be, in order to be in line with the Paris Agreement,” they said.
The 2015 Paris agreement signed by the vast majority of world’s nations set out a path to reducing emissions and prevent out-of-control climate change.
Critics say 80 percent of aid is distributed to 20 percent of the most favoured beneficiaries under the farm bill.
The subsidies are prized by farming states, most notably France, Ireland and eastern European nations, where farmers enjoy strong political influence.
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Malta has filed a complaint before the Court of Justice of the European Union against new trucking rules which the government says will undermine the country’s competitiveness.
The new rules force trucking companies to provide a paid rest period of around 45 hours every three to four consecutive weeks, at “the employer’s establishment or to the drivers’ place of residence”.
Trucks will also have to return to the company’s headquarters every eight weeks, in a move designed to prevent haulage companies from trying to register in other EU countries to take advantage of lower taxes.
Maltese operators Attrans told Times of Malta the rules would cost the company between €500,000 and €1 million because of the need to buy more trucks and employ more people.
In a statement on Saturday the government said the two specific rules were not part of the original proposals presented by the European Commission but were only added towards the end of the legislative procedure, despite the objections of several member states, including Malta.
“These measures were therefore not subject to a proper impact assessment by the EU institutions. A KPMG study commissioned by the government shows that both these rules are expected to have a negative impact on Malta, making road haulage operations more costly, mainly as a result of Malta’s geographic position, and having also a negative impact on the environment,” the government said.
Malta is arguing that the measures violate the EU Treaty provisions and lead to distortion of the EU Single Market by including measures that serve to disrupt road haulage operations, increase costs for consumers and exports, and disproportionately and adversely affect Malta as a peripheral and island member state.
Malta is therefore requesting the Court of Justice to annual these measures.
The government said other member states have also initiated a similar annulment action on the measures, or are in the process of doing so.
Independent journalism costs money. Support Times of Malta for the price of a coffee.
Michael Gove today told Michel Barnier ‘the ball is in your court’ if the European Union wants trade talks with the UK to resume as he said the bloc had given Britain ‘no choice’ but to step up its preparations for a no deal split.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office said Brussels had shown in recent weeks it was ‘not serious’ about striking a deal because it had failed to compromise on key issues.
He said he still hoped a deal could be done in the coming weeks but stressed that for the UK to consider going back to the negotiating table the EU will have to drastically overhaul its approach.
He borrowed a term from Star Trek as he said the EU was trying to ‘keep us in their tractor beam’ and suggested Brussels had broken its word by failing to agree to a Canada-style free trade agreement.
His intervention came after Boris Johnson warned businesses to prepare for leaving the bloc without a trade deal when the standstill post-Brexit transition period ends in December after EU leaders refused to bow to his negotiating deadline.
Michael Gove today said the UK had ‘no choice’ but to prepare for leaving the EU without a trade deal
Mr Gove said the ‘ball is in his court’ as he was asked whether formal trade talks with Michel Barnier could resume
Mr Johnson had set a European Council meeting last Thursday as the deadline for agreeing the broad outline of a trade agreement.
But the two sides remain deadlocked in a number of crunch areas, including on post-Brexit fishing rights with French President Emmanuel Macron adamant he will not drop his hardline stance on keeping current levels of access to British waters.
The summit saw EU leaders agree to talks continuing but they gave no ground and said it was for the UK to make the next move, prompting a furious response from Mr Johnson who said Britain would now step up its preparations for a no deal divorce.
The UK has made clear it is willing to restart trade discussions but only if the EU completely changes its negotiating stance, with the two sides now locked in a high stakes game of brinkmanship.
Mr Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, had been due to come to London next week but those talks have now been cancelled.
Mr Gove told Sky News: ‘Well, the ball is in his court. We have made clear that we need to see a change in approach from the European Union.
‘I know that he will be calling David Frost over the course of the next few days. Let’s see if the European Union appreciate the importance of reaching a deal and the importance of moving ground.’
Mr Gove had previously estimated there was a 66 per cent chance of a trade deal being agreed with the EU.
Asked what his new estimation was, he replied: ‘Less. I think it is less but I can’t be precise. One of the reasons why it is less is the position that has been taken in the last couple of weeks by European Union leaders.
‘What we have seen and what our negotiators have found is the European Union side have not been willing to produce the detailed legal text, they have not been willing to intensify the talks in a way that would indicate that they were actually serious about reaching an agreement.
‘At the same time they have also insisted both that we accept a level of control over our autonomy that an independent country can’t really accept and at the same time they are saying they should continue to have exactly the same access to for example our fishing waters and our fishing stocks as before and so that seems to me to be the behaviour of an organisation and an institution that is not serious about making the compromises necessary to secure a deal. I still hope we will get a deal though.’
Writing in The Sunday Times, Mr Gove had said: ‘Unless the EU makes a fundamental change, we’ll leave on Australian-style terms trading on WTO rules.
‘It is not my preferred destination, and there will be turbulence en route.
‘I am not blasé about the challenges, but if the choice is between arrangements that tie our hands indefinitely, or where we can shape our own future, then that’s no choice at all.’
Australia has no comprehensive trade deal with the EU and it also does far less business with Brussels than the UK.
A no deal split would see the EU impose tariffs on UK goods, with business groups warning this would damage British firms at a time when they can least afford it because of the coronavirus crisis.
Mr Gove, who has long warned against a no deal split, said the UK will be ‘flexing every muscle to be match fit for January 1’ and that the Government will not be ‘squeezed or sandbagged into acquiescing to anyone else’s agenda’.
He suggested the EU had broken its word by failing to offer the UK a Canada-style agreement.
‘The terms on which Canada and the EU waive tariffs on each other’s goods is all we seek,’ he said.
Emmanuel Macron has stuck to his hardline stance on post-Brexit fishing rights – one of the crunch areas where talks remain deadlocked
‘That’s what the EU said it would offer us but at the eleventh hour it seems the bloc won’t take yes for an answer.’
He added: ‘The EU wants to keep us in their tractor beam. It’s independent life, Jim, but not as we know it.’
Mr Gove’s intervention comes after Government sources claimed the EU had treated trade talks more like ‘performance art’ than serious negotiations.
In a blistering attack, insiders accused EU negotiators led by Mr Barnier of using the meetings to ‘shore up their domestic position’ – with particular criticism levelled at French President Emmanuel Macron.
‘There are signs that EU leaders, worried about the prospect of populist politicians such as Marine Le Pen, have decided that they would put domestic politics ahead of agreeing a free-trade agreement with the UK,’ said one source close to the talks.
The Government is today launching a public information campaign to encourage businesses to prepare for Britain’s departure on January 1.
A TV advert with the slogan ‘Time is running out’ will air tonight on ITV.
The European Union deplores the strikes on the Azerbaijani city of Ganja during the night of 16-17 October resulting in civilian loss of life and serious injury, says a statement by the organization on the strikes on the city of Ganja.
“All targeting of civilians and civilian installations by either party must stop.
The ceasefire of 10 October must be fully respected without delay,” the statement adds.
AZERTAG.AZ :European Union deplores strikes on Ganja resulting in civilian loss of life and serious injury
By: Express News Service | Mumbai |
Updated: October 18, 2020 8:48:34 am
<span itemprop="image" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/ImageObject">
<meta itemprop="url" content="https://images.indianexpress.com/2020/10/kangana-rangoli-new.jpg"/><meta itemprop="width" content="1200"/><meta itemprop="height" content="667"/></span><span class="custom-caption"> <span class="ie-custom-caption">Actor Kangana Ranaut with her sister Rangoli Chandel. [Instagram/Rangoli Chandel]</span></span>POLICE REGISTERED an FIR against actor Kangana Ranaut and her sister Rangoli Chandel at Bandra on Saturday afternoon, based on a private complaint filed before a metropolitan court.
The women were booked under sections pertaining to committing malicious or deliberate acts with the intention of outraging religious feelings of citizens, sedition, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence or language and common intention of the Indian Penal Code.
According to police, the FIR states that through their tweets, the sisters tried to “malign the Indian Constitution and image of the Maharashtra government, hurt sentiments of Muslims and tried to create division between Hindus and Muslims”.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone IX) Abhishek Trimukhe said the investigating officer would begin gathering evidence and verify the allegations made in the complaint.
The complaint filed before the court stated that Ranaut was “creating divisions between communities and spreading communal hatred”. The court had ordered an FIR to be registered against the sisters on Friday.
“On prima facie perusal of complaint and submissions… I found the cognizable offence has been committed by the accused. Total allegations are based upon comment on electronic media, Twitter and interviews. The accused used social media like Twitter. Thorough investigation is necessary by the expert… search and seizure is necessary in this case,” Metropolitan Magistrate Jaydeo Khule said in his order. He had directed the concerned police station to investigate the complaint.
The complaint was filed by Munawwar Ali Sayyed, a casting director and fitness trainer. In his complaint, he stated that he had worked with well-known film directors and had, for the past few months, been observing on social media that Ranaut “is continuously defaming Bollywood film industry and is portraying people working in Bollywood films as a hub of nepotism, favouritism, drug addicts, communally-biased people, murderers, etc” through her tweets and television interviews. “…(this) is creating a very bad image of Bollywood in the minds of people and even creating a communal divide and rift between people of two communities and in the mind of common man”.
He also stated that a rift was being created between artistes of different religions. The complaint referred to various tweets by Ranaut over the past few months, including a tweet where she referred to Mumbai as POK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir).
The complainant also stated, “Police investigation is necessary to ascertain the real motive behind such hate tweets, and who are the people backing such hatred to create communal tension and sentiments.”
Lawyer Rizwan Siddiquee, representing Ranaut, said, “This shall be dealt with on merits as per procedure of law. Right of speech and expression should not be construed as promoting communal disharmony.”
