#Railway goods sheds in Switzerland

[kommabortsig]

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[pravasichhokro]

My childhood summer holidays! लहानपणीची उन्ह्याळ्याची सुट्टी

I will try to pen down the highlights of summer holidays I spent during 1960 to 1965 when I studied in standard 6 to 11 (SSC) in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. The schools would close for summer vacation around April 15 and reopen around June 15. In most summer vacations, our destination would be my mother’s native place Karad, about 100 miles South of Poona in Maharashtra. To maximize fun, we would leave on the last day of school exam and return only one week before school reopened.

Train journey from Ahmedabad to Karad would take app 20 hours, if non-stop and required change of trains at Bombay and Poona. Interestingly Ahmedabad to Bombay and Poona to Karad would be steam locos but Bombay to Poona would be electric locos. (even today it takes 20 hours, though we have no steam locos and no changeover at Poona). Except for the first leg, journeys would be in unreserved coaches and an adventure for a family-my mother and four children. The last leg from Karad railway station to residence of my maternal uncle would be by horse driven cart (टांगा). While writing this blog I am reminded of a marathi song popular then and now which goes as ”झुक झुक झुक झुक अगीनगाडी.........मामाच्या गावाला जाऊया” For non-Marathi readers, it means let us go to the village of our uncle (mama) by the steam engine driven train.

The residence of my maternal uncles was a palatial ancestral house, called Wada in Marathi and Haveli in Hindi. It was a two storied house with all main load bearing members of wood. The floors were wooden covered by mud and the walls were mainly of mud bricks, app 4 feet wide. All the bathrooms used the stones from the hills. The house was located on a hillock, near the confluence (Sangam) of rivers, Krishna and Koyana. The carpet area was more than 10000 sq ft and the open space around it would be easily another 30,000 sq ft. The premises had more than 25 trees and a Datta temple. There was cattle shed for bullocks and buffaloes. It had electricity only for lights and there were no ceiling fans. The ceiling was more than 20 ft high and kept inside cool.

In the summer vacation, our other cousins and aunts would also come to Karad from Poona and Dombivali. Sometimes we would be around 25 kids and 15 adults in the house. The logistics of managing the household work including cooking was a herculean task and well managed by the ladies. We had limited domestic help -part time help for cleaning utensils and washing clothes, and one full time servant, who would help the ladies. He would also care for the cattle.

Our day would start normally with going to the river for a bath and /or swim. I learnt swimming in the river from my uncles, who were expert swimmers. In about 3 yrs, I mastered the art of swimming in the river and was able to cross the river spanning more than 500 ft without any help of inflated tube or drum or another swimmer.

The major time pass activities were playing carom and cards in the temple, which was a cool place in the afternoon. Sometimes we would play tennis ball cricket in the evenings or mornings. We also played matches with the local boys for fun -home team vs visitors.

Sometimes we went to my (junior) uncle’s school and played badminton and table tennis. Actually, I learnt how to play these games there and then slowly got the hang of it.

My junior uncle was a very skilled person in addition to being a good teacher of mathematics /science and sport/physical training. He had studied agriculture and was in charge of the family farms. Those days the main crops were Jawar, ground nut and sugarcane. Farming was contracted out then. Once in the summer, we all would go to the farm, which was about 10 miles, using bullock cart and tractor etc. The farm had a team of contractors to make Gul/Gud (jaggery) from sugarcane juice. We enjoyed the fresh sugar cane juice, adding lemon and ginger taken from home. It was a full day picnic. Even today we get our annual stock of Gul/Gud from Karad.

We had some outings during our holidays. The regular visit to Ogale Glass Works, Ogalewadi, near Karad railway station was looked forward with keen interest. We could visit the plant and see the glass bottles, containers etc being made by manually blowing the molten glass. I think it was a rare industrial township by a Marathi industrialist. Another attraction was a sumptuous meal at my grandaunt, who lived in a staff quarter.

We also were able to visit the Koyana dam and Pofali power station when they were being constructed. One of my uncles in PWD was posted at Koyana dam site and he took us around the construction site. Another relative was the chief engineer at Indian Hume Pipe, who were constructing the electric generating room inside a mountain. The dam water would be brought by a tunnel in the mountain, and it would drop more than 1000 ft to generate power. The machinery was from Switzerland. We were taken to the machinery installation room from the tunnel, which would allow water to go out after turbine. It was very educating to see such construction at a young age.

I had not seen any Marathi play in Ahmedabad but during the summer holidays an amateur group would stage famous Marathi plays in the open area on a makeshift stage in the town square free for all. My senior uncle (a bank manager) and aunt (a school teacher) were highly active and used to play the lead roles. I remember to have seen “दुरितांचे तिमिर जाओ (Duritanche Timir Javo)” in one summer starting from rehearsals till final performance. A great learning experience.

I was exposed to some other activities where I picked up some skills. My junior uncle and we boys replaced a mud brick wall with new bricks and cement mortar. I was able to “drive” a bullock cart after riding with the “driver” for a couple of days. I was gifted a Afga box camera in one summer. My uncle’s friend, who owned a photo studio, taught me how to take a good photo. My junior uncle owned an ex-army BSA make motorcycle of 500 cc (like one we see in WWII movies). He taught me how to ride once I was able to handle the weight. I rode it, with my uncle on the pillion seat, to nearby villages on the tar and dirt roads.

We boys did help in fetching water from the only tap in the front of the residence to kitchen and bathrooms. I also helped and learnt how to stitch on a paddle sewing machine from my aunt. When old enough, I helped my uncle in correcting annual exam answer sheets of his school and compiling the marks sheets.

Towards end of the holidays, the school results would pour in and we would celebrate the achievements. Our favourite was to make pot ice cream at home and enjoy almost unlimited scoops. My uncle and we boys would take turn to churn the pot in the wooden drum (vat). Another way to celebrate was to go to see a Hindi (then it was not Bollywood) movie in one of three movie halls.

Towards the end of holidays, my father would join us, and we would go to Sangli, his native place. For me, Sangli meant that I could spend hours watching two elephants in their shed in Ganesh temple. I also recall that we used to go to Sangli railway station in the evening to watch the turning around of the steam loco as Sangli was dead end. A turn “table” was used to turn the loco by 180 degrees manually by two rail employees.

In all, it was a different world from the one in Ahmedabad and I picked up a lot of skills, knowledge and human values from these holidays. They are part of my body and soul even today.

The ancestral residential house was replaced about 25 yrs ago by standard concrete bungalow’s once the four brothers (uncles) divided the inheritance. Luckily the temple remains as it was.

Many readers, who grew up in cities, may not find the above of interest or difficult to appreciate the details. These are memories I would like to cherish.

[erpsoftwarsolution]

Lawyers push to toughen US insider trading laws

A group of influential US lawyers has urged Congress to toughen insider trading laws by making insiders liable even when they do not benefit from giving non-publicinformationtotraders. A task force led by Preet Bharara, the former Manhattan US attorney who led a crackdown on insider trading after the financial crisis, issued a report yesterday calling on legislators to eliminate the so-called “personal benefit” test in USinsidertradinglaw. “If you have a broad personal benefit requirement, it lets off the hook a rich insider who steals information from his company and benefits a crony or a family member to the tunes of tens of millions of dollars,” Mr Bharara told the Financial Times. “That’s classic unfairness and it has to be clear that such a thingviolatesthelaw.” The report from eight former enforcement officials, judges and professors comes after the House of Representatives last month passed a ban on insider trading with overwhelming bipartisan support. The bill has yet to pass the Senate but, if adopted, it would mark the first time the US has passed specific legislationcriminalisinginsidertrading. While many countries have specific statutes that outlaw insider trading, in the US decades of law have been built upon a more general 1934 law regulatingAmericanmarkets. US courts have rejected the fairness standard used in European insider trading law, instead basing the crime on the idea that insiders owe a duty not to share insider information. Republicans in the House backed the bill, called the Insider Trading Prohibition Act, after it was amended to retain the personal benefit requirement that has evolved over the years in the US courts. At the time, Patrick McHenry, the ranking Republican on the House financial services committee, said the test would help protect“good-faithtraders”. The test is founded on a 1983 decision by the Supreme Court in Dirks v SEC, where the justices cleared a securities analyst because he had not been motivated by a personal benefit when he discussed information obtained from a whistleblowerwithhisclients. As a US attorney from 2009 to 2017, Mr Bharara embarked on an aggressive crackdown on insider trading, including the high-profile prosecutions of Rajat Gupta, Raj Rajaratnam, and SAC Capital. The spree was derailed in 2014 when the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals found in two other cases involving traders that the government had not proven a personal benefit received by theoriginalinsiders. The Supreme Court declined to review that decision, but in a separate case later clarified that if insiders are giving tips to friends and families, they personally benefit because the action is legally the same as trading on their own accountandgiftingtheprofitsinstead. The2ndCircuitlastmonthsaidprosecutors using certain statutes did not have to prove a personal benefit. “The personal benefit requirement [that] has grown up over time has been very confusing to people,” said Mr Bharara. “There are times when you can provide a very impressive material non-public tip to somebody and the question about whateverthebenefitisisunclear.” ThegroupledbyMrBhararaincluded Joon Kim, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, who was the acting Manhattan US attorney after Mr Bharara, and Jed Rakoff, the Manhattan federal judge who pushed for tougher accountability against big banks after the2008crash. The others members of “The Bharara Task Force on Insider Trading” were Katherine Goldstein, a partner at Millbank; Melinda Haag, a partner at Orrick; Joan McKown, a partner at Jones Day; John Coffee, the Columbia Law School professor, and Joseph Grundfest, theStanfordLawSchoolprofessor. The absence of a specific ban on insider trading has not necessarily hindered US prosecutors, who have led the way in charging even global insider trading rings. Most recently, prosecutors in the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York broke up a scheme involving a Switzerland-based traderandbankersinLondon. “The insider trading laws in other parts of the world are actually specific to insider trading. In that way, US laws have fallen behind. It’s just the US is the only authority that actually enforces it inameaningfulway,”saidMrKim. The task force’s recommendations aligned in parts with the seven-page bill passed last year by the House, which largely codified existing practice while expanding the law to cover insider tradingthatinvolveshacking. However, the group called for a clearer distinction between the standards for civil and criminal cases and pushed for the elimination of the personalbenefittest. “It has generated a disproportionate share of confusion and uncertainty,” the reportsaid.

China’s leaders are braced for a blow to first-quarter economic growth as the deadlycoronavirusweighsonconsumption, travel and manufacturing, with some cities extending the lunar new yearbreakbynearlyaweek. The virus, which originated in the city of Wuhan, has led authorities to cancel events across the country for the normally week-long lunar new year period, whichstartedonSaturday. The financial capital Shanghai has ordered companies not to reopen until February 9, while the manufacturing hub of Suzhou, one of the world’s largest, has postponed the return to work of millionsoflabourersforuptoaweek. China’s banking and insurance regulator announced moves to help businesses affected by the crisis, including a loweringofloaninterestrates. The outbreak comes as the country is reporting its lowest rate of economic growth in nearly 30 years. For President Xi Jinping the crisis represents another major challenge on top of a popular uprising in Hong Kong, a swine fever outbreak that has wiped out millions of pigs and fuelled inflation, and the trade warwiththeUS. Travel restrictions meant railway transport fell about 42 per cent on Saturday compared with the same day last year, according to the transportation ministry. Passenger flights were also down by roughly 42 per cent and overall transportation across the country declinedabout29percent. “The coronavirus makes a pronounced slowdown even more likely and if the disease is not brought under control quickly, then even our downbeat forecasts may turn out to be too high,” said Julian Evans-Pritchard, ChinaeconomistatCapitalEconomics. The Sars epidemic knocked quarterly

economic growth down by two percentage points, from 11.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2003 to 9.1 per cent in the second quarter. In 2019, the economy grew byjust6.1percent. “This could have a serious impact on consumption,” said Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University and senior fellow at Carnegie-Tsinghua Center. “People are not going out to restaurantsandbars.” Airlines Shares in carriers in Asia, Europe and the US fell almost across the board yesterday. Air France-KLM, one of a number of European carriers with significant Chinese exposure, shed 7 per cent by mid-afternoon in Europe. BAowner IAG fell 6 per cent, while Germany’sLufthansawasdown5percent. Even airlines with no exposure to Chinacameunderpressureonfearsthat a drop-off in passengers could reverberate globally. EasyJetslipped 5 per cent, whileRyanairwasdown3percent. Automobiles Consumers are likely to delay car purchases, analysts warned yesterday, while several auto executives said a reliance on parts suppliers from the Hubei region may prevent some plants reopeningfollowingthenewyearholiday. Wuhan is a major automotive hub, with plants from Nissan, PSA, Honda, General Motors, Geely and Renault, as wellasarangeofautopartssuppliers. Banking Credit Suisse sent its staff in Hong Kong a memo instructing them to work from home and not come into its headquarters in the International Commerce Center tower if they have visited the mainlandinthepast14days. Fellow Swiss bank UBS told its 2,500 Hong Kong workforce to stay at home if they have travelled to China recently. The lender, which also has 1,200 employees in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, has set up an “internal pandemic website”, but all its offices remain open,accordingtoaspokesman. HSBCstaff have been told not to come into the office until February 3, the date when the Chinese lunar new year has beenextendedtobythegovernment. Consumer Starbucks closed stores in Wuhan and McDonald’s has suspended its business in Wuhan and surrounding cities where public transport has been closed. Heightened food safety measures were being rolled out at the company’s operationsacrossthecountry. Matthew DiFrisco, analyst at Guggenheim Securities, estimated China accounted for about a tenth of Starbucks’sales. Leisure There was no official fireworks to mark Chinese new year in Macau yesterday as the world’s largest gambling hub cancelledallitscelebrations. Figures from the tourist office show that the number of tourists from mainland China fell by 80 per cent on Sunday comparedtothesamedaylastyear. The $5.5bn Disneyland park in Shanghai was closed, as was its theme park in Hong Kong. The National Museum of China, Forbidden City, Beijing’s Olympic Stadium and parts of the Great Wall ofChinawerealsoclosed. Luxury Chinese customers now account for over a third of the value of luxury goods purchases, according to Bain & Co. consultants, leaving groups such as LVMH, Kering, Hermès and Burberry exposed to a health crisis likely to weigh on Chinesedemandandcurtailtravel. So far brands have managed to weather the sales drop from the Hong Kong protests because many of the purchases were repatriated from the island to mainland China, or elsewhere in Asia. Thecoronaviruscouldchangeallthat. “Not only will Chinese people buy less domestically during the key new year shopping season, they will also have to cancel trips abroad, during which they often buy luxury goods,” said Joëlle de Montgolfier, director of Bain’s luxury practice. “Recently announced restrictions on travel could have real consequencesforthesector.” Additional reporting by GeorgeHammond, Hudson Lockett, Leila Abboud, Alice Hancock, Myles McCormick, Stephen Morris, OwenWalker, PeterCampbell

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[topmixtrends]

POETRY CRITICS, just like the rest of us, are largely ungenerous to the middle-aged. More often than not, we expect our poets to vanish once the fury of youth has abated, and we ignore them all too happily until the reflective wisdom of senility has finally set in, when we return to gorge on the fruits of their ripened sorrows. In 1963, by then entrenched in his own middle age, William Empson shed some light on this perplexing phenomenon: “[A]s you approach middle age, though in fact you’re a seething pit of scorpions, you don’t recognize them in that form,” Empson told Christopher Ricks. Instead, “you’re getting things tidy: ‘Can I get the boy to college?’ […] So it doesn’t appear to you in this direct way, as an unresolved conflict which you need to express in a poem.” Empson believed one had to be “seriously old” in order to overcome “the pressure of making actual decisions in the world” and write good, emotionally affecting poetry. Empson may well have been influenced by T. S. Eliot’s contention that middle-aged poets could only make one of two choices: either produce “an insincere mimicry of their earlier work” or else “leave their passions behind, and write only from the head, with a hollow and wasted virtuosity.”

Michael Hofmann’s prodigious new collection, One Lark, One Horse, is the perfect antitoxin to these poisonous presumptions, and it further heralds the return of one of British poetry’s most brilliant talents following an equally monumental 20-year silence. After all, it was a silence which had once been nearly unthinkable. Publishing his acclaimed debut Nights in the Iron Hotel (1983) at 26, Hofmann quickly assured his fame with his follow-up Acrimony (1986), which skewered London’s consumerist culture during Margaret Thatcher’s austerity years, chronicling life in a city whose surfaces were “friable, broken and dirty, a skin unsuitable / for chemical treatment,” where “Arsenal boot boys” stomped the pavements, trapped in an “economy stripped to the skin trade.”

British critics further quivered in apprehensive excitement at Acrimony’s “My Father’s House,” a sequence of 19 poems where Hofmann employed his cutting, often rueful tone to lay bare his contentious relationship — and rivalry — with his father, the German novelist Gert Hofmann. The sequence later formed the basis of a documentary famously broadcast on BBC Two’s Bookmark series in 1990. In fact, Hofmann was such an undeniably inescapable presence in British poetry in the 1980s and 1990s that it led Mick Imlah, later the Times Literary Supplement’s poetry editor, to jest that he’d written an imaginary travel poem entitled “At the Grave of Michael Hofmann.” To the British, Hofmann had given a distinctly pan-European twist to the kitchen sink realism of their angry, young men, while displaying an absolute mastery of their language, perhaps sometimes to their chagrin.

The Hofmann legend was thus born and for a good while it appeared to keep pace with his Stakhanovite productivity: he was a placeless prodigy — was he British or was he German, or something else entirely? — a poet who was already on his third book by the time most of his peers were still struggling with their first. To top it off, rumor had it that he translated a book a night — in his sleep, surely, an ability which might have helped to explain his impressive bibliography: over 70 translations of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from German in roughly 30 years, a roster that included Franz Kafka, Joseph Roth, Wolfgang Koeppen, Hans Fallada, and Gottfried Benn.

Then, it all came to an abrupt stop. A fourth volume, Approximately Nowhere (1999), ended with the poem “Litany,” which chronicled Hofmann’s “months of transition” in London before the poet moved in with a new lover, at which point, it seemed to many, he simply vanished. Save for the occasional, cherished exception, his name mostly disappeared from poetry magazines, and as his silence grew more prolonged, his poems transformed into prized artifacts, prompting George Szirtes to call them “rare, strange, much valued” items by the time Faber & Faber and FSG put out a Selected Poems in 2008. Translation after translation followed, but Hofmann’s admirers — myself among them — were forced to wait, holding out hope he would one day return.

Indeed, Hofmann’s inscrutable poetic silence lasted so long that One Lark, One Horse addresses the subject head on in the first poem, “The Years”: “Nothing required an account of me / And still I didn’t give one. / I might have been a virtual casualty, / A late victim of the Millennium Bug. / No spontaneity, no insubordination, / Not even any spare capacity.” His absence quasi-mockingly addressed, Hofmann proceeds to tackle the meaty subject of this pleasingly leafy tome — his own middle age, making pallid soup of Empson and Eliot’s arguments. “LV,” the Roman numeral for 55, instead clears an alternative third path to Eliot’s two-forked road. The anxious lover taking buses to his girlfriend’s house from Approximately Nowhere is gone, and instead we are introduced to a man whom people address as “sir,” since he is “(long past ‘mate,’ much less ‘dearie’).” The following lines are drawn from the middle section of “LV”’s eight stanzas:

The years of taking the stairs two at a time (though not at weekends) a bizarre debt to Dino Buzzatti’s Tartar Steppe, the years of a deliberate lightness of tread, perceived as a nod to Franz Josef thinking with his knees and rubber-tired Viennese Fiaker. The years when the dead are starting to stack up.

The years of incuriosity and novarum rerum incupidissimus, the years of cheap acquisition and irresponsible postponement, or cheap postponement and irresponsible acquisition, of listlessness, of miniaturism, of irascibility, of being soft on myself, of being hard on myself, and neither knowing nor especially caring which.

Admirers of Hofmann’s earlier poetry will find much to their liking here that hasn’t changed: the oblique literary references, the insertion of non-English languages, and the penchant for Mitteleuropa’s Kakania, which also doubles as an acknowledgment to the period of time that has chiefly consumed his energies as a translator. However, the dichotomous figure of Franz Josef, the next-to-last Habsburg emperor, also serves as a symbol of the Hofmann’s uncertainty as he sits astride his own uncertain steed, one leg in the past, the other in the future. Just like Franz Josef, drawn along the streets of the Austro-Hungarian capital in a “rubber-tyred” horse-drawn cab, Hofmann is a living anachronism struggling in a world determined to doom him to irrelevance. Though much feels familiar, there is no “mimicry” here; rather, we see developments that have been two decades in the making. Hofmann’s perfectly engineered quatrains that fit neatly on a single page have been replaced by longer poems with more expansive lines — and the pleasing repetition of “The years of” produces an incantatory music that now sings unstifled by the constraints of his pithiness, like the lark of his title.

While Hofmann’s earlier volumes made a point of their geographical specificity — Nights in the Iron Hotel and Acrimony were largely set in Britain, with occasional forays into his father’s Germany, or Austria, or even the former Yugoslavia, and Hofmann’s third book Corona, Corona (1993) featured a lengthy section set in Mexico — his fourth has now launched him into full-blown homelooseness. While Acrimony depicts a child who routinely calls “Bruce’s record shop / Just for someone to talk to” and to unwittingly improve on his “first ever British accent” in order to engineer his “own birth in the new country,” One Lark, One Horse shows Hofmann giving up on his extended passport applications, to borrow from the author’s own outlook on his early poems and is growing resigned to being nationally unmoored.

“Derrick” is a case in point. What begins as a comical portrait of Hofmann’s one-time neighbor in London’s Hampstead, who is “half- / associated” in the poet’s mind “with the hirsute 14-year-old” who once “sued his local / education authority / to keep his beard,” metamorphoses into an acknowledgment of his inability to belong:

Some village-y gene had given him the atavistic habit of standing outside his front door for hours arms crossed, surveying the scene.

Perhaps a swagger-stick to take the parade. He knew the street as I didn’t know him, spent years setting plants and persecuting graffiti in a tiny doggy flowerbed

under the railway bridge, played tennis on the corporation courts, kept an ear open for the local scuttlebutt.

A third turn occurs when Hofmann unexpectedly announces Derrick’s death, as well as his wife’s, “massive heart attack (he), / years of chemotherapy / at the Royal Free and Easy (she),” leaving the poet to ruminate over the vestiges of their former rootedness: “the orphaned court, / the problematic flowerbed / improbably flowering,” hurtling the reader toward the poem’s melancholy, yet palpably sincere, conclusion: “more local connections / than I’ll ever have.”

Despite Hofmann’s time-honored penchant for squeezing every possible ounce of lyricism out of feeling adrift, One Lark, One Horse also exhibits the poet reveling in the very rootlessness which had once caused so much angst. “Bundaberg. Somewhere I’d no reason to be” he writes in “Recuerdos de Bundaberg,” “Anywheresville, as in miles from. / No dot on a marconigraph, semicolon, on no radar single ping. / Or if there was, then just a ping singing to itself.” Not long later, he’s in London, where he realizes he owns “[b]ooks in four countries, / The same books,” before moving on to Tartu and Tallinn in Estonia and Switzerland’s Valais — where “[p]oplars were planted en passant by Napoleon’s Grande Armée.” Later, he moves on to Germany’s Baltic Sea Coast and Hamburg’s Sankt Georg quarter, where Hofmann charts the neighborhood’s recent history through its gentrification. It is gratifying to see a book of poems live up to its title — inspired by an old recipe for lark pâté: half lark, half horse. This long-awaited collection is a singular, delicate concoction that is simultaneously muscular and humbly energetic.

Although middle-aged melancholy abounds in this volume — one must “listen to one’s bones,” as the Moroccans say — it is also deeply emotionally affecting, and Hofmann here attains a higher level of formal inventiveness and variety than in his previous volumes. Its cosmopolitan breadth is instantly infectious, and it seems quite clear to me that this is the perfect moment for Brexit Britain and Trump’s America to reacquaint themselves with Michael Hofmann’s work, both what he produced in the 1980s and 1990s — his Acrimony is now eerily relevant — and what he has done since. It would be a fitting reward for a poet who’s never balked at taking risks. Hofmann’s reputation is such that he could have easily churned out “mimicries” of his earlier work and been praised for it. We should all be grateful that he didn’t.

¤

André Naffis-Sahely’s debut collection of poems is The Promised Land: Poems from Itinerant Life (Penguin, 2017). His translations include over 20 titles of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction from French and Italian, including works by Honoré de Balzac, Émile Zola, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Abdellatif Laâbi, and Alessandro Spina. Several have been featured as “books of the year” in the Guardian, Financial Times, and NPR. He is currently a Visiting Teaching Fellow at the Manchester Writing School.

The post Singing in Anywheresville: On Michael Hofmann’s “One Lark, One Horse” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books https://ift.tt/2PX6qOQ

[travelworldnetwork]

To the farming families of Switzerland’s Engelberg region, cable cars aren’t built for ski holidays and scenic views. They’re vital to daily life.

By Larry Bleiberg

9 May 2018

After two hours of mountain hiking, my first destination came into sight, and it hardly seemed worth the trip. The wooden shelter was barely noticeable in the mist, but when I slid open the door, all doubts disappeared. A tiny blue cable car was waiting inside, it seemed, just for me.

I settled inside the vehicle, and picked up a clunky phone attached to the wall. Through the static I heard a woman’s faint voice answer in German. “Hi,” I said. “I’d like a ride down,” wondering if this was really going to work.

My answer came 20 seconds later, as machinery buzzed to life and the car glided out of the open side of the shack, floating above a spruce forest and looking out over emerald-green pastures. I felt like a feather slowly descending to Earth.

View image of In Switzerland’s Engelberg Valley, cable cars are used as basic transportation (Credit: Credit: Adina Tovy/Getty Images)

To the farming families of the Engelberg Valley region, which lies about 35km south of Lucerne in the Swiss cantons of Nidwalden and Obwalden, cable cars aren’t built for ski holidays and scenic views. They’re basic transportation, used to haul supplies and run errands. But the Buiräbähnli (German for ‘farmers cableways’), which are concentrated in the region, also welcome hikers, who can pay a small fee to hop aboard, like an Uber of the Alps.

“We call this the Valley of the Cable Cars,” said Linda Schmitter, 22, who uses one of her family’s small gondolas on her work commute to Engelberg. Her family runs a dairy farm in the hills above the village of Wolfenschiessen, and two dormitory-style mountain huts, offering room and board to visitors like me. I met her after a day of hiking that had included four cable-car rides zig-zagging up and down the Engelberger Aa River valley.

Linda’s father, Ueli Schmitter, a third-generation farmer, helps neighbours keep their gondolas in proper repair. The cableways must pass an annual government inspection, and every five years undergo a complete safety assessment, using X-rays to reveal stresses to cars and cables.

Ueli admits to an obsession with the vehicles. “I pimp my cable car,” he said in heavily accented English. “I clean it every evening. I say to it ‘I love you’.”

View image of Engelberg Valley residents use cable cards to haul supplies and run errands (Credit: Credit: Larry Bleiberg)

Although the family’s cars are 38 years old, they look brand new, with gleaming royal blue and lime-green paint jobs and a playful decal of a cow hanging from a cable car on the door. It’s not artistic license: occasionally Ueli attaches a basket to the bottom of his cars to transport his small-sized Dexter cattle down to the valley.

Farmer cableways developed after World War I as an efficient way to bring supplies to high Alpine fields and a cheaper alternative to building roads. Because of the hilly topography and reliance on agriculture, many developed in the canton of Nidwalden, which boasts one of the highest concentrations of cableways in the world. They’re particularly prominent in the Engelberg area, which has a third of the country’s remaining farmer’s cableways.

The cableways soon became quasi-public, with neighbours sharing them for deliveries and transportation. Eventually some were opened to hikers, who would pay owners a small fee for rides. But since it was difficult for visitors to learn details and plan outings, in 2016 the local tourist board began promoting a package ticket for a multi-day hike using cars around the Engelberger Aa River valley.

For me, it’s natural: when I go outside for work, for school, for anything, I take a cable car

It was that hike that led me the next morning to the compact village of Oberrickenbach, where three cable cars promised an easy ascent to the looming peaks. Two were commercial operations, but my ride was hidden around the corner, where a farmer lifted bales of hay onto a platform hanging from a cable.

When I requested a lift, he stepped inside a storage shed to press a button, and a second cable started to move. A few minutes later, a faded red vehicle glided into view. Again, I clambered aboard and a few minutes later found the farmer’s son, Daniel Durrer, unloading the hay his father had just sent up.

Durrer, who had taken a day off from his job as a chef, grew up with aerial transportation. “For me, it’s natural. When I go outside for work, for school, for anything, I take a cable car,” he said. “When I was a child, I used one every day.”

View image of Farmer Ueli Schmitter admits to being obsessed with cable cars, and helps his neighbours keep theirs in good working order (Credit: Credit: Larry Bleiberg)

This stop was only a waystation. After a few minutes of chatting, he pointed to an open-air vehicle that looked like a cable-car version of an antique pickup truck, with an open bed ringed with removable wooden guards. I piled in, and as the vehicle began to climb, Durrer waved goodbye.

At the top of the hill, a winding forest path led to a cheesemaker’s rustic studio and cafe, where owner Barbara Wismer seemed eager for company. She served a plate of nutty, creamy cheeses and freshly baked bread, and recalled how she left her banking job in Zürich to join her boyfriend. They live here from spring through autumn, and generate electricity with a wood-burning stove. Supplies come up by cable car.

It’s a simple life, but one under threat.

In the last 10 years, the Engelberg Valley has seen the number of cableways drop from about 100 to just more than 40 as the government began to remove cable cars from communities served by roads, Ueli Schmitter told me. The lines crisscrossing the valley were deemed a hazard to helicopters and paragliders, and expensive to regulate.

View image of In the last 10 years, the number of cableways in the Engelberg Valley has dropped from around 100 to just more than 40 (Credit: Credit: Larry Bleiberg)

Progress maybe. However, early in the trip I had seen why locals want to keep them.

Walking down the valley floor the previous day, I’d spotted a blue, four-seater gondola attached to cables leading up a mountain. It looked too enticing to pass up, so I hopped aboard. I was greeted by a couple, their two grandchildren and a dog who were waiting for the cable car at the top of the ridge. My plan had been to turn around and take the car with them back down to the valley floor, but the family suggested I might enjoy trying another gondola 20 minutes along the ridge path, and pointed the way.

Eventually I found the second cableway ­– and a cryptic handwritten sign with bright red letters scrawled across the top. ‘Achtung!’ it read, followed by a brief note. After a moment, its meaning sank in. The line was closed for repairs.

My destination, Wolfenschiessen, lay nearly 365m below. I was going to have to walk.

A path led across a field, and suddenly corkscrewed down a deep gorge. It was getting dark and starting to rain, and the trail grew rocky, steep and slick, forcing me to grab at tree limbs to slow my descent.

Experience Engelberg's cable cars

The Engelberg-Titlus tourism bureau has designed a three-day hike called the Buiräbähnli Safari using privately owned cableways. The hike, which takes around 20 hours and includes two overnight stops, starts and finishes at Engelberg railway station. Shorter hikes can also be planned easily.

When I finally arrived on the valley floor, I was muddy and soaking wet. What would have been a five-minute ride had taken nearly an hour. And like the farmer Schmitter, I was ready to declare my love for a cable car.

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[olyvine]

Science for Environment Policy, Issue 485: A service from the European Commission

Latest issue March 27, 2017 at 06:31PM via Published thanks to IFTT   News Alert Issue 485, 27 March 2017  Science for Environment Policy     About this service   Contact the Editor   Subscribe to this service    Noise in Europe conference: 24th April 2017   In the European Union, more than 120 million people suffer from noise levels that are considered to have a negative effect on health. On 24th April 2017, the European Commission will be holding the 'Noise in Europe' conference in Brussels, Belgium, to present and discuss the latest scientific evidence on the negative impacts of noise from transport on human health. If you are interested, please register.      In this issue     Oilseed rape genes transfer from inside to outside of crop fields: study could aid GM risk assessment This study is one of few to assess the genetic diversity of crops in an agroecosystem over several years. Researchers analysed the genetic makeup of oilseed rape plants within and outside crop fields over four years. They found similarity between cultivars of field plants in one year and those of feral plants (unplanted) in the following year. They also found persistence of the cultivars within the feral plants, which suggests that feral populations with genetically modified (GM) traits might result from persistent GM traits within field seed banks. The researchers say their findings could aid impact assessments of GM crops. (more...)  Download article (PDF) Waste materials are an underused resource in the construction of Europe’s roads Recycled waste material could play a major role in the construction of roads in Europe, bringing both environmental and economic benefits. A new study proposes a scenario where 50% of the asphalt for Europe’s roads consists of recycled materials, leading to significant reductions in costs, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. (more...)  Download article (PDF) Combinations of veterinary antibiotics may harm algae Combinations of antibiotics used in veterinary medicine could harm the growth of algal communities when they pass into water bodies from treated livestock, according to recent European research. Algae play vital roles in ecosystems by cycling nutrients and producing energy from photosynthesis; veterinary use of antibiotics should, therefore, be monitored in the environment, including for any biological impacts on algal species, the study recommends. (more...)   Download article (PDF) Environmental DNA in rivers can assess broad-scale biodiversity Traces of animals’ DNA in the environment, known as environmental DNA (eDNA), can be monitored to paint a picture of biodiversity, new research shows. This study used eDNA to assess biodiversity in an entire river catchment in Switzerland. Importantly, the eDNA technique allowed the researchers to detect both aquatic and land-based species in river water, making it possible to assess biodiversity over a broad scale. (more...)  Download article (PDF) The contents and views included in this News Alert are based on independent, peer-reviewed research and do not necessarily reflect the position of the European Commission.    Beyond this News Alert     News Alert article archive Read articles published in past issues of Science for Environment Policy's News Alert. In-depth Reports Take a comprehensive look at the latest relevant science for key policy topics. Future Briefs Policy briefs shedding light on emerging areas of research and policy. Thematic Issues Special editions of the News Alert focusing on hot policy issues and providing expert commentary.       Full articles   Oilseed rape genes transfer from inside to outside of crop fields: study could aid GM risk assessment This study is one of few to assess the genetic diversity of crops in an agroecosystem over several years. Researchers analysed the genetic makeup of oilseed rape plants within and outside crop fields over four years. They found similarity between cultivars of field plants in one year and those of feral plants (unplanted) in the following year. They also found persistence of the cultivars within the feral plants, which suggests that feral populations with genetically modified (GM) traits might result from persistent GM traits within field seed banks. The researchers say their findings could aid impact assessments of GM crops. The diversity of genes in crop plants is important for food security, as a greater variety of genes give plants a better chance of adapting to environmental change. Information on the genetic diversity of crops is also important for understanding agroecosystem function, and has recently garnered attention in the context of GM crops. Understanding the dynamics and relationships of gene flow in agroecosystems can help to assess the impacts of growing GM crops alongside conventional crops. This study focused on genetic diversity in oilseed rape. Oilseed rape is an economically important crop across Europe (although GM versions are not currently authorised for cultivation). It is also useful in studying the large-scale movement of genetic material (gene flow). Natural diversity among oilseed rape is generated by several processes, including pod shattering — a common phenomenon that causes seeds to be lost during harvest, which can then establish long-lived seed banks in the soil. Originating from these seed banks, oilseed rape volunteers (plants that grow on their own, without being planted) are common in fields. Volunteers, although grown from the seeds of particular cultivars (a group of plants with similar characteristics), can be different to the parent plant. Feral populations of oilseed rape, those that grow outside fields, are common along roadsides and railways (due to seed spillage from trucks, for example). A consequence of the ability of oilseed rape to establish feral and volunteer populations and exchange genetic material through cross pollination is the appearance of plants with multiple GM traits, that are not found in grown cultivars (due to exchange of GM traits through pollen). Recent studies have shown that after GM crops have been grown in a field, it is not possible to meet the EU threshold for ‘no GM’ labelling for crops grown in the field in the years after. To better understand how genes move between oilseed rape fields and populations, this study used sophisticated molecular techniques. The study was based on a four-year survey of oilseed rape plants (both field and feral) in a typical open-field agricultural landscape, a 41 km2 field in central France, where local farmers take their harvested grain for storage. The researchers carried out a survey twice a year, from 2002 to 2005, once during oilseed rape flowering and once before harvesting. Field and feral populations were recorded and mapped, and plants were analysed using genetic markers to assign them to a cultivar. The results showed a succession of cultivars, some of which were grown for longer periods because of good traits, some that were used only for a year, and others that were gradually adopted (e.g. numbers of the cultivar gradually increased over time). As a result, the authors identified three field types: fields sown with a single cultivar; fields sown with two cultivars; unassigned fields (fields with many cultivars or unassigned plants). Plant diversity in fields was higher than the researchers expected, which suggests that even cultivars grown purposely for only a year persisted in the fields for longer periods. They also found that feral populations have a similar level of cultivar diversity to those in fields and that their diversity increases over time. This is because they persist (due to survival in seed banks created by seed losses during harvest or truck spillage for example). Feral populations on the sides of roads were also more diverse than those on the side of paths. The researchers suggest this is due to truck traffic, which is linked to seed spilling. This study shows that agroecosystems are complex, and that the plants within them are strongly affected by human activities. Specifically, it shows that oilseed rape fields are not uniform — not the products of sowing seeds from a single cultivar. Instead, fields display a ‘cultivar footprint’, which includes plants previously grown in the area. The most important outcome of this study is the demonstration of a link between the diversity of feral populations in one year and that of field plants in the previous — demonstrating gene flow from the field. This is the first time such a link between feral and field plants has been demonstrated in an agroecosystem using genetic tools. The researchers suggest that feral populations containing GM traits could be due not only to the ‘one-off’ escape of GM material, but also due to GM persistence among field plants. They propose that persistent feral populations could act as a ‘relay’ to contaminate crop fields with GM traits. They further suggest that these findings could improve assessments of agricultural landscape function, as well as the impacts of GM organisms. Source: Bailleul, D., Ollier, S. & Lecomte, J. (2016). Genetic Diversity of Oilseed Rape Fields and Feral Populations in the Context of Coexistence with GM Crops. PLoS ONE, 11(6), p.e0158403. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0158403. Contact: diane.bailleul@gmail.com Read more about: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land use, Risk assessment   Waste materials are an underused resource in the construction of Europe’s roads Recycled waste material could play a major role in the construction of roads in Europe, bringing both environmental and economic benefits. A new study proposes a scenario where 50% of the asphalt for Europe’s roads consists of recycled materials, leading to significant reductions in costs, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. According to the European Waste Framework Directive, there is a need to promote reuse and recycling, which are the preferred options to disposal or incineration of waste. However, there need to be clear pathways for that recycled waste to take. One such pathway is reuse in the construction and renovation of Europe’s road network. Europe’s road network is the key component in its transport infrastructure, and as such it requires constant maintenance; every year 4.7 million kilometres of new road are built. Waste is already used in road construction. This study suggests that the input of recycled materials in road construction can be increased, with the potential for both economic and environmental benefits. The researchers assessed certain waste materials as substitutes for virgin raw materials that normally form the basis for new roads. These waste materials, which include glass, asphalt, concrete, wood and plastics, were considered appropriate substitutes because they demonstrate comparable performance to traditional materials and are available in large quantities, with effective systems in place for their collection. In addition, there are no alternative applications with higher value for these waste materials, and they are too expensive to dispose of by traditional methods such as incineration. Part of the analysis also looks at potential sources for the materials, such as construction and demolition waste and end-of-life vehicles. Following a literature review covering a range of potential materials and their sources, the study concludes that there are considerable economic and environmental advantages to using waste in roads and there is high potential for recycling in European road construction and repairs of potholes. Waste products analysed either match or improve upon currently used road materials in terms of performance. Examples of improvement include the enhanced drainage properties of scrap tyres, or the better stiffness and rutting resistance seen in ceramic mixtures. There is also potential for sizeable cost reductions; one US case demonstrated savings of 51–70% when using reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP). Current data suggest that around 17% of asphalt concrete in Europe’s roads comes from RAP, but this is just one of many potential recycled materials. If an additional 33% of mixtures used for roads were to consist of waste materials, around 16% of the available European waste quantities would be recycled in roads, the study suggests. In a potential future scenario set out in the study, half of the asphalt concrete used in European road construction could come from recycled materials. As part of the study, the researchers considered four hypothetical asphalt roads constructed using different combinations of the waste products discussed in the literature review. Each one demonstrated considerable decreases in cost, greenhouse gas emissions and energy use. One scenario saw material costs reduced by 31.4%, a saving of 76.1% in non-renewable energy used and an impressive 860% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. While these projections are promising, the researchers note that the use of waste is limited by national standards, with recycling rates and practices varying by country. The use of crumb rubber from scrap tyres in roads, for example, is allowed in Spain but not in Switzerland. This study helps demonstrate the considerable value that can come from incorporating recycled materials into road construction. The scientific community has an important role to play in encouraging the widespread roll out of recycled materials in road construction, by bringing the required technical expertise to practicing professionals in road construction and recycling, it also suggests. Source: Poulikakos, L.D., Papadaskalopoulou, C., Hofko, B., Gschösser, F., Falchetto, A. C., Bueno, M., Arraigada, M., Sousa, J., Ruiz, R., Petit, C., Loizidou, M. & Partl, M.N. (2016). Harvesting the unexplored potential of European waste materials for road construction. Resources, Conservation and Recycling. DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.09.008 116: 32–44. Contact: lily.poulikakos@empa.ch Read more about: Climate change and energy, Resource efficiency, Waste   Combinations of veterinary antibiotics may harm algae Combinations of antibiotics used in veterinary medicine could harm the growth of algal communities when they pass into water bodies from treated livestock, according to recent European research. Algae play vital roles in ecosystems by cycling nutrients and producing energy from photosynthesis; veterinary use of antibiotics should, therefore, be monitored in the environment, including for any biological impacts on algal species, the study recommends. Antibiotics used in agriculture can enter soils and waterways either directly when excreted from pasture animals or when manures and slurries from housed animals are added to agricultural fields as fertiliser. As antibiotics target bacteria, non-target algal species such as cyanobacteria — bacteria which obtain their energy from photosynthesis — may be particularly affected by antibiotics in the environment. Potential impacts include prevention of, or a reduction in, the algae’s growth. Water bodies within certain agricultural landscapes are likely to be exposed to a mixture of antibiotics from veterinary use. Assessing the combined effects of these products is therefore important when assessing the environmental risks from antibiotics. The EU’s Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) legislation outlines a tiered approach for assessing the risks from mixtures of chemicals to the natural environment, which can also be used to assess antibiotic mixtures. Tier 1 uses a conservative approach for assessing chemical mixtures. The risk from chemicals to the environment, termed risk quotient (RQ), is assessed based on predicted environmental concentrations (PECs) and predicted no-effect concentrations (PNECs). In this study the researchers use a similar approach to that under REACH, in order to assess the risks posed by antibiotic mixtures to algal species. The study used experimental ecotoxicity studies combined with exposure models1 to assess the risk from mixtures of three veterinary antibiotics to algae and cyanobacteria in European water bodies. The antibiotics studied — tylosin, lincomycin and trimethoprim — are commonly used and have all been detected in water bodies. They initially estimated concentrations of the antibiotics in representative water bodies within agricultural land in Europe using scenarios recommended by the EU’s Forum for Pesticide Fate Models and their Use (FOCUS). Different scenarios for soil drainage, run-off and water-body type (i.e. ditches, ponds or streams) were all considered to derive the PECs. They then used data from their own laboratory experiments with algae and cyanobacteria alongside published data to determine PNECs for each of the antibiotics. The researchers calculated an RQ for each antibiotic individually based on the PECs and the PNECs. They also used a mixture modelling approach, validated using targeted laboratory studies on defined mixtures of the antibiotics, to calculate RQs for mixtures of the antibiotics. If the RQ was lower than 1, the risk was considered acceptable2. The study found that trimethoprim posed an acceptable risk level (RQ of 0.033) to algal species. Tylosin (maximum RQ value 367) and lincomycin (maximum RQ value 18.68) were found to pose an unacceptable risk to the aquatic environment. For tylosin, unacceptable risk was found for all exposure scenarios, with the RQ values (based on maximum application rate) ranging from 5.33 to 367. For lincomycin, unacceptable risk was calculated for scenarios that represented ditches and streams within agricultural land found in western, central and southern Europe (with the RQ values of 1.24, 6.71 and 18.68, respectively). For the mixtures of antibiotics, the RQ value exceeded 1 for most scenarios modelled. The RQ values for the mixtures ranged from 0.066 to 385. The researchers say that the method used here could be applied to other antibiotics and active ingredients used in veterinary medicine, as well as other situations of antibiotic exposure, such as emissions from wastewater treatment plants. As the models indicated an unacceptable risk level for the mixture of three antibiotics (mainly due to tylosin and lincomycin), the researchers recommend targeted monitoring of these antibiotics within European water bodies. Monitoring should collect data which could contribute to a full risk assessment of antibiotics, including data on any effects on algae. 1. EMEA, Revised guideline on environmental impact assessment for veterinary medicinal products: http://bit.ly/2nFzEH4 2. Ibid. Source: Guo, J., Selby, K. & Boxall, A.B.A. (2016). Assessment of the Risks of Mixtures of Major Use Veterinary Antibiotics in European Surface Waters. Environmental Science & Technology, 50(15): 8282–8289. DOI:10.1021/acs.est.6b01649. This study is free to view at: http://bit.ly/2oajnrx Contact: alistair.boxall@york.ac.uk Read more about: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Chemicals, Risk Assessment, Water   Environmental DNA in rivers can assess broad-scale biodiversity Traces of animals’ DNA in the environment, known as environmental DNA (eDNA), can be monitored to paint a picture of biodiversity, new research shows. This study used eDNA to assess biodiversity in an entire river catchment in Switzerland. Importantly, the eDNA technique allowed the researchers to detect both aquatic and land-based species in river water, making it possible to assess biodiversity over a broad scale. Recently, eDNA analysis has emerged as a useful tool for conservation management. This technique identifies species in the environment through their DNA found in cells shed from skin, faeces or other bodily excretions. Much of the eDNA research to date has focused on identifying aquatic species. Suspended cells, particle bound or free-floating DNA in water can last from a few days to a few months and can be collected and analysed for the presence of genetic material, which is unique to a particular species or group of species. In this study, researchers broadened the use of eDNA analysis to develop a picture of the biodiversity found in the Glatt river catchment in Switzerland. They collected water samples from eight sites along the river network where major sub-catchment tributaries join the main river Glatt and analysed these in the laboratory for specific gene sequences. Any DNA detected in samples from a particular site would suggest that the DNA came upstream from that site. The researchers also used the traditional kicknet sampling method to take water samples at each site. In this method, macroinvertebrates are collected in a net and visually identified onsite or in the laboratory. In all, the eDNA analysis revealed the presence of 296 animal families in the Glatt river catchment. The researchers confirmed that all the families were recorded as being present in Switzerland or in the four neighbouring countries of Austria, France, Germany and Italy. Most of the families identified (196) were arthropods (insects, crabs, spiders, millipedes). Significantly, 119 of the 255 species identified were terrestrial species which inhabit river banks or wet habitats or usually feed in aquatic habitats, but do not otherwise live or reproduce in the water. This suggests that DNA in river water can also be used to detect species in the surrounding landscape. Of the 296 families identified by eDNA analysis, 65 are used as part of the Swiss biomonitoring programme. The kicknet samples revealed a further 13 macroinvertebrate families, not captured by the eDNA analysis. When comparing eDNA and kicknet methods for identification at each sampling site, the researchers detected 23–40 macroinvertebrate families through eDNA and 17–24 macroinvertebrate families through the traditional kicknet method. Furthermore, the larger the overall size of the study area considered, the more families the eDNA analysis could identify. In comparison, the kicknet method did not detect this relationship. The researchers say that as rivers accumulate and transport DNA throughout the river network, they act as “conveyor belts of biodiversity information”. eDNA analysis thus provides a powerful tool that can assess broad-scale biodiversity across a landscape. Traditional methods and eDNA can also be used together, say the researchers. For example, combining the methods would work well in river restoration efforts by identifying areas where there is greater potential for recolonisation by lost species. The study also highlights other benefits of eDNA analysis. For example, the method can detect the presence of species in a river habitat without the species being physically present at the time of sampling. Other studies1 suggest eDNA can travel 12 kilometres in a river, making detection of rare or elusive species more possible. In addition, although not specifically evaluated in this study, the eDNA method typically uses less effort, time and expense than traditional sampling methods, which will help to reduce the cost of large-scale biomonitoring in river systems. 1. Deiner, K. & Altermatt, F. (2014). Transport Distance of Invertebrate Environmental DNA in a Natural River. PLoS ONE, 9(2): 88786. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0088786. This study is free to view at http://bit.ly/2nFw5Ro Source: Deiner, K., Fronhofer, E.A., Mächler, E., Walser, J-C. & Altermatt, F. (2016). Environmental DNA reveals that rivers are conveyer belts of biodiversity information. Nature Communications, 7:12544. DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12544. This study is free to view at: http://go.nature.com/2oajVxw Contact: alpinedna@gmail.com or florian.altermatt@eawag.ch Read more about: Biodiversity, Biotechnology, Environmental technologies, Water Science for Environment Policy is published by the European Commission's DG Environment and edited by the Science Communication Unit (SCU), at the University of the West of England, Bristol. To obtain printed copies of the promotional Science for Environment Policy leaflet, please email sfep.editorial@uwe.ac.uk including 'Request leaflet' in the header. Alternatively, you can download the online version To subscribe to this News Alert:http://bit.ly/1MA5Wb9   This message was sent to olyvine@gmail.com from: Science Env Policy | sfep@uwe.ac.uk | UWE | Coldharbour Lane | Bristol, UK BS16 6DY, United Kingdom Unsubscribe

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New Post has been published on http://www.top20broker.com/news/china-eyes-global-economic-leadership-u-s-turns-inward/

China eyes global economic leadership as U.S. turns inward

This year, a 300-mile railway will begin slicing through Kenya, cutting travel time between the capital, Nairobi, and one of East Africa’s largest ports, Mombasa, from 12 to four hours and breeding hopes of an economic and tourism revival in the region.

The country’s most significant transportation project since its independence in 1963 is being built courtesy of China. China Road and Bridge, a state-owned enterprise, leads construction of the $13.8 billion project, which is financed nearly 100% by the Export-Import Bank of China.

The railroad is one of a host of infrastructure projects China spearheads around the world in an ambitious quest to reinforce its emergence as the world’s next economic superpower while President Trump turns his back on globalization.

Trump’s pivot to economic nationalism and hostility toward multilateral trade deals create an opportunity for China — second only to the USA in economic output — to shine even brighter on the world stage, said Louis Kuijs, head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics. “As the U.S. becomes more insular in economic philosophy, I think it gives China one more reason to … say, ‘We are still interested, and we want to continue globalization,’ ” Kuijs said.

One of the clearest examples of the two countries’ divergent paths is Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal that excludes China, and the Asian powerhouse’s role as a dominant foreign investor in Africa, Central Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

Eyepopping numbers

China’s outward foreign direct investment totaled $187.8 billion in 2015, a record and a 52.5% increase from a year earlier, according to the World Bank. Ten years ago, its outward FDI stood at about $17.2 billion. The U.S. FDI — though still significantly larger than China at $348.6 billion — grew only 1.5% year-over-year.

China’s economic ascendance from poverty is a model for struggling nations eager to modernize rapidly, too. In helping to create wealth abroad, China gets an early say in the formation of markets for its exporters to sell.

“I think the Chinese have realized they’re the major beneficiary of globalization,” says Pieter P. Bottelier, former chief of the Resident Mission in Beijing for the World Bank. “If the U.S. ducks out, China will take over the leadership role in globalization. And whatever happens to China, it’ll have a major impact on Americans.”

The range of projects China has launched is eyepopping:

•New Silk Road: China’s modern version of the ancient East-West trade route — known as One Belt One Road — winds its way through Asia, the Middle East and Europe. Launched in 2014 with $40 billion of initial investment, it entails new or reinvigorated railways, ports and roads that will link key cities. The anticipated total investment could top $4 trillion, according to The Economist, citing Chinese government officials.

“People don’t’ seem to realize how important it is,” Bottelier says. “A (freight) train is already running between London and China.”

•Pakistani infrastructure: Chinese President Xi Jinping arrived in Pakistan in the spring of 2015 and announced $45 billion worth of investment projects in energy and infrastructure development, some of it tied to the new trade route.

•Nicaraguan canal: In 2015, Wang Jing, a Chinese billionaire who made his fortune in telecom, began digging in the city of Brito, Nicaragua, in hopes of building a canal that will cut 170 miles across the country and ultimately compete with the Panama Canal. The project stalled as his fortunes sank along with the Chinese stock market, but it has not been abandoned.

•South American rail: China plans to build and expand rail networks in Brazil, Peru and Colombia, though it has run into opposition from environmentalists.

“A lot of gigantic Chinese companies are good at building dams, bridges, railroads, and we can use their expertise and capacity abroad,” Kuijs says. In this photo taken Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016, Kenyan Besides courting favor with other countries, global investments help Chinese leaders deal with a persistent domestic economic issue: massive excess capacity for producing steel, glass, cement, paper, solar panels and other products.

“China’s economy is so large, even if it supports infrastructure in neighboring countries, that amount is trivial compared to the problems (of excess capacity) it has at home,” said Yukon Huang, senior fellow in the Carnegie Asia Program.

Some recipients of Chinese investments are skeptical of their larger neighbor’s intentions. The Philippines and Vietnam, for example, are engaged in a territorial dispute with China in the resource-rich South China Sea.

“But in general, poor countries are glad to have the investment,” Kuijs said. “The way China’s leadership communicates to foreign leaders is that China is not an expansionist country, that it’s not interested in invading other countries.”

Wheeling and dealing

In addition to massive infrastructure projects, China exerted its financial muscle by taking the lead in creating the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in 2015, a 35-nation organization that will compete with older world lending institutions where China has less clout, such as the Asian Development Bank and World Bank. The investment bank’s initial total capital was $100 billion, significantly smaller than the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank’s capital.

China’s sway in the bank is part of its broader geopolitical strategy “to undermine the U.S. alliance system in Asia,” says Jennifer Harris, a senior fellow at Council on Foreign Relations.

The Export-Import Bank of China and China Development Bank are even larger and also spend billions a year abroad. But they aren’t transparent in their operations like the new bank, which helps shed China’s reputation as a world player more comfortable with shadow lending and backroom deals. “It is also multilateral, not bilateral, so other countries can have (a say),” Kuijs said.

China has been open to allowing companies in any country, including the USA, to sell services and equipment to the projects financed by AIIB. “China knows they’re not the most loved country. They’re trying to buy alliance through financial and security arrangements,” Bottelier said.

Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, ready to be ratified after years of wheeling and dealing, opens the door for China to step in. Australia has called for the TPP to proceed with China taking the U.S. spot.

The TPP is unique in that it ushers in new labor, environmental and intellectual property protection standards — benchmarks many are eager to see China adopt. “The only way to influence and contain China is to force China to abide by the rules of TPP,” Huang said.

Regardless of the TPP’s outcome, China is proceeding with another trade agreement to forge closer alliances in the region. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), proposed in 2012, would merge the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with six states that have free-trade agreements with ASEAN.

Chinese President Xi summed up his country’s goal at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January with words that could not have been more different than Trump’s isolationist “America First” mantra:

“We must remain committed to developing global free trade and investment, promote trade and investment liberalization and facilitation through opening up,” he said. “And say no to protectionism.” source

[sumikoirala]

Death of North Korea"s Onetime Heir Sheds Light on Secretive Kim Dynasty

The apparent assassination of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is drawing the world’s attention to the secretive Kim family’s inner circle.

Kim Jong Nam, 45, died en route to a hospital Monday after he was reportedly poisoned by two women at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport while waiting to take a Macau-bound flight, according to Malaysian and South Korean officials. Malaysian police have detained two women and one man in connection with the death. Authorities are hunting for other suspects.

FILE – This image provided by Star TV of closed circuit television footage from Feb. 13, 2017, shows a woman, left, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Malaysia, who police say was arrested Wednesday in connection with the death of Kim Jong Nam.

Selangor Police Chief Abdul Samah Mat told VOA Friday the hospital has not released final results of an autopsy that could determine the cause of the death. Abdul Samah, who is in charge of the investigation, said the police are trying to obtain DNA samples from the victim’s kin to confirm his identify.

According to South Korean lawmakers briefed by the National Intelligence Service, there is reason to believe that Kim was killed on the orders of his younger half-brother Kim Jong Un, who is known to execute or depose anyone who appears to be a threat to the legitimacy of his rule. In late 2013, the North Korean leader executed his uncle Jang Song Thaek, who was widely deemed as the second-most powerful figure in the country.

Jang Jin-sung, who worked as a psychological warfare officer for North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party before he defected in 2004, told VOA that given Kim Jong Nam’s place as the firstborn child of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un might have seen his brother’s existence as an obstacle to his grip on power.

FILE – Kim Jong Nam, front row center, at Wonsan Beach in 1980. Rear row left to right, aunt Song Hye Rang, maternal grandmother Kim Won Ju, Li Nam Ok. (Source: Imogen O’Neil/The Golden Cage: Life with Kim Jong Il, A Daughter’s Story.)

Secluded childhood

Kim Jong Nam is the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who ruled the communist state from 1994 to 2011, and was once regarded as heir apparent to his father. The son was born on May 10, 1971. His mother was a South Korea-born film star, Song Hye Rim, who divorced her husband to become Kim Jong Il’s secret mistress.

“Kim Jong Il wanted a family with the woman he loved, and now he had an heir, but he also needed to protect his position as his father’s successor,” reads an unpublished memoir obtained by VOA and based on the oral accounts of Li Nam Ok, Song’s niece.

Kim Jong Il kept the relationship with Song secret, especially from his father Kim Il Sung.

Kim Jong Il almost completely insulated his son from the outside world. Li Nam Ok was his only playmate in Pyongyang. Kim, besotted with his son, forgave his “tantrums and capriciousness,” according to French author Imogen O’Neil, who worked with Li on the memoir. Li left North Korea in 1992 and never returned.

FILE – Kim Jong Nam rides on water skiing at Wonsan beach in 1987. (Source: Imogen O’Neil/The Golden Cage: Life with Kim Jong Il, A Daughter’s Story.)

“His father refused him nothing; Kim Jong Il used to say there was only his son in his life,” according to O’Neil’s manuscript.

The memoir offers a rare glimpse into Kim Jong Nam’s childhood, adolescence and early manhood. It revealed that he lived in luxury in Pyongyang, surrounded by expensive goods virtually unseen in North Korea. His aunt, Song Hye Rang, who was Li’s mother, oversaw Kim’s private education, which covered math, science, English and Russian. When Kim was 8 years old, he visited Moscow, where his mother was receiving medical treatments.

According to the memoir, Kim Jong Il decided to send the “little general” overseas for “structured education” on his son’s 10th birthday. For most of the 1980s, Kim Jong Nam lived in Switzerland, where he studied at the International School of Geneva.

After returning to Pyongyang in 1988, Kim, who was known to be a computer enthusiast, held government posts. At one point, he was head of North Korea’s Computer Committee where he was in charge of developing information technology.

FILE – North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, front left, poses with his first-born son Kim Jong Nam, front right, and his relatives in Pyongyang in this Aug. 19, 1981 photo.

Fall from grace

Yoji Gomi, a senior staff writer at the newspaper Tokyo Shimbun closely followed Kim Jong Nam and published a book in 2012 that was based on correspondence with him. Gomi told VOA that upon returning from Switzerland, Kim had frequently advised his father to adopt the free market system to boost North Korea’s economy.

“Kim told me that he had some friction with the supreme leader Kim Jong Il, and that’s when their relationship began to sour,” Gomi said. “I believe that because of that friction, Kim was not able to become North Korea’s leader and, instead, he led an itinerant life” outside North Korea.

Cheong Seong-chang, an expert on North Korea’s leadership and director of unification strategy at the Sejong Institute in Seoul, said Kim Jong Nam was sidelined from succession when Kim Jong Il’s third wife, Ko Yong Hui, a dancer born in Japan, gave birth to two sons, one of whom now rules North Korea.

“It appears that after Kim Jong Chul and Kim Jong Un were born, Kim Jong Nam may have come as a burden to Kim Jong Il,” the analyst said in an email to VOA. Kim Jong Chul was last seen in 2015 in London at an Eric Clapton concert, according to press reports.

Some suspect that Kim Jong Nam fell out of favor with his father when he was arrested at Tokyo’s Narita Airport in 2001 as he attempted to enter Japan with a forged Dominican Republic passport. He told police at the time that he had traveled to Japan to visit Tokyo Disneyland with his four-year-old son and two unidentified women.

FILE – A TV screen shows pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his older brother Kim Jong Nam, left, at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea, Feb. 14, 2017.

Since then, Kim Jong Nam had been living in exile — mostly in Beijing and Macau — with his wife and children. Often spotted at hotels, casinos and airports throughout Southeast Asia, Kim was widely known for his gambling and drinking habits.

In an interview with TV Asahi in 2010, shortly before his younger brother Kim Jong Un rose to power, Kim Jong Nam expressed his discontent with the Kim family’s three-generation dynasty.

In 2012, Kim Han Sol, the then 16-year-old son of Kim Jong Nam, said during an interview with a Finnish TV channel that he didn’t know how his uncle Kim Jong Un “became a dictator.”

Feared for his life

Seoul’s intelligence agency said Kim Jong Un had “a standing order” for his half-brother’s assassination and that there had been a botched attempt in 2012, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed by the agency.

Following the failed attempt, Kim Jong Nam begged for his life in a letter addressed to Kim Jong Un, said the lawmakers.

Kim Jong Nam’s family members are believed to be in Beijing and Macao under China’s protection, according to the South Korean intelligence agency.