#aaron vincent elkaim

[wewhowander]

Where The River Runs Through: Life in the Amazon Dam Boom, Aaron Vincent Elkaim

“The sound of thousands of different species harmonizing echoed in my ears as I lay in my hammock on my first night in the Xikrín community of Pot Crô on the Bacaja River in Brazil’s Amazon Rainforest; the name of the river means “that which flows is our veins.” I awoke at first light to find children playing a game of who could stand in a red ant hill the longest before having to jump into a puddle for relief. In that moment and in the days and weeks that proceeded I saw how those born and raised in the midst of nature were different than the rest of us. Their needs and desires were not determined by material goods, but by what nature simply provided and they were fighting to protect it.” | Alexia Foundation

[lstnrr]

Aaron Vincent Elkaim presents Where the River Runs Through, a profound portrait of the people and the landscape at the precipice of a massive change whose impact on the indigenous communities and the environment are devastating.

[thephotoregistry]

From Where The River Runs Through

Aaron Vincent Elkaim

[hellohaters]

Aaron Vincent Elkaim

[bezrat-ha-shem]

Morocco’s Jewish history dates back over 2000 years. Since the 7th century Jews lived as Dhimmi – a protected minority under the Islamic Principle of Tolerance – and flourished, holding high positions in trade and government. Jews and Muslims were united by culture and Kingdom. During WWII, under the French Vichy Protectorate, King Mohammed V responded to Nazi demands for a list of Jews with his famous words: “We have no Jews in Morocco, only Moroccan citizens.”

In the 1940′s Morocco had 300,000 Jews, the largest population in the Muslim World. After the formation of Israel, Zionists looked to Morocco’s Jews for their large population and ability to co-exist with Arabs. With promises of prosperity in Israel, fears after the holocaust, and rising Arab nationalism an exodus of Moroccan Jewry began. May left peaceful peasant lives only to be placed in the harsh deserts of Israel and along the volatile boarder regions where they worked to build what is modern day Israel. Today, only 3000 Jews remain in Morocco.

In Israel, Moroccan Jews were pushed to abandon their language and Arab culture. Shamed by their likeness to the enemy at their borders, their identities were forced to change. In Morocco the community remains in decline. A population aging while the youth, who identify with the West, leave for their educations rarely to return.

Throughout the country Muslim Guardians protect synagogues, cemeteries and the tombs of Holy Jews or Sadik –  legendary Rabbis known for their miracles that remain destinations for pilgrimage. In Morocco memories of the Jews are often connected to an idea of the golden years. Many saw them as brothers, growing up together, living under one god and sharing culture and history.

This project is an exploration of Jewish Morocco’s lingering ghosts. It examines the vestiges of a history of a co-existence while confronting the peripheral sacrifices of Zionism. It is a sober retrospective of a time and place where Jews and Arabs lived peacefully as neighbours and Moroccans, and a reminder that the sentiments of animosity and hatred prevalent today are shallower than they appear.

[fatehbaz]

Tataskweyak Cree Nation Elder Betsy Flett stands outside her home in Split Lake. “I have no hope for the future,” she says. “You won’t be able to live here cause it’s gonna flood. It’s already flooded where our loved ones rest. I tell my kids, ‘When I die, why don’t you just throw me in the water, because that’s where I’m gonna end up anyways.’ ” Although Tataskweyak Cree Nation is an official partner in the new Keeyask dam, years of impacts, trauma and broken promises from Manitoba Hydro have eroded people’s trust in the provincial utility. [...]

The Keeyask dam, the sixth to modify the river’s course, is scheduled to come online in 2021. [...] Ninety-seven per cent of energy produced in Manitoba comes from hydroelectricity. The vast majority of that energy comes from a string of dams on the Nelson River system in the province’s north. There, a sixth mega dam, known as the Keeyask, is under construction to provide electricity for export to the United States. Manitoba’s hydroelectric dams have always been marketed as clean, renewable energy. And yet, these projects have massively transformed the province’s northern ecosystems, impacting the culture, lives and livelihoods of Indigenous communities. Since 2012, the price tag for the dam and transmission line has grown from $9.8 billion to almost $14 billion [...]. This is of direct concern for the Tataskweyak Cree Nation, located 60 kilometres upstream of the new dam. Impeded by a critical housing shortage, high unemployment, the trauma of youth suicide [...] — all within the context of a long-term boil water advisory — the community will face the compounding impacts of the Keeyask dam as water levels begin to rise. But the Tataskweyak are not alone in their experience. This collection of photos explores the reality of hydroelectric development in northern Manitoba within the broader devastation of Canada’s ongoing history of environmental colonialism.

Jonathan Kitchekeesik, from the community of Tataskweyak First Nation, collects plants for medicinal tea on an island in Gull Lake, which was recently flooded during the impoundment of the Keeyask dam in September 2020. Kitchekeesik participated in the environmental assessment for the Keeyask project and was one of the members of his community to support the dam, believing it would provide good jobs. But more recently, he has begun to speak critically about the project and worries fellow Tataskweyak Nation members have become spiritually sick because of the community’s involvement in the dam. “We have funerals every week.” [...]

The Vale Nickel Mine near Thompson in northern Manitoba. The town of Thompson was originally founded in 1956 as a mining town and was the impetus for building the Kelsey dam, the first hydroelectric dam on the Nelson River. The Kelsey dam paved the way for more dams on the river system, which now produce 75 per cent of Manitoba’s electricity.

The Long Spruce dam was the fourth dam built on the Nelson River in the 1970s. It is near Gillam, about 745 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg. When the dam was built, water behind the structure rose by 26 metres, flooding the river and smaller estuaries over 13.7 square kilometres.

[HF] and [MG] walk the roads of Split Lake.

A mural commissioned by Manitoba Hydro depicting Indigenous children on the bank of a blue river is a visual landmark in the city of Winnipeg. Hydroelectric energy is often marketed as a reliable resource that is “clean and green” to consumers, but the story is more complicated for the communities near these dams. This is especially true for the Indigenous communities forced to contend with the province’s legacy of environmental and cultural degradation.

Students play outside the Split Lake School on Halloween night in 2018.

The Keeyask dam construction site at Gull Rapids on the Nelson River in June 2019. Since 2012, the cost of the dam and associated transmission lines has increased from $9.8 billion to almost $14 billion. The dam will create a flood reservoir that will cover 93 square kilometres.

A hydro impact report for the Fox Lake Cree Nation notes that, due to more than 50 years of hydro development, the community has permanently lost the sound of “Kischi Sipi,” or the voice of the rapids, at each of the dam locations.

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Photos and all text published by: Aaron Vincent Elkaim. “State of erosion: The legacy of Manitoba Hydro.” The Narwhal. 7 November 2020.

[k18]

Aaron Vincent Elkaim (1981－) #今日の写真家

https://www.instagram.com/avelkaim/

[girlactionfigure]

Pursuing family ghosts in Morocco

' I was never a Moroccan Jew, only a Jew in Morocco', Irin Carmon's grandfather tells her. He has put his past behind him, but it is a past, full of ghosts and magical thinking, that Irin is eager to reconstitute. Here is her lyrical account of her visit to Morocco in Tablet magazine. (With thanks: Shulamit)

Synagogue in Marrakesh (Photo: Aaron Vincent Elkaim) My grandfather does not remember himself as a dupe. He remembers three beatings on the road to Israel. The first beating came in 1948, when he would have been about 15, he went to buy a newspaper and saw that the Jews had occupied Jaffa. A boy his age, he tells me, saw him smiling, and demanded, “Tu es satisfait? De quoi?” Yes, I am satisfied, he replied, “Qu’est-ce que tu veux?” What do you want? My grandfather began backing into an alley. The second beating occurred two years later, at the border between Morocco and Algeria. He had spent two weeks salary on laissez-passer papers to cross the border at Oujda, which was letting its Jews leave for what was by then the State of Israel. He was around 17. At the border, they told him to empty his pockets and turn around. He remembers the kick that knocked him to the floor and the 24 hours in jail for having what turned out to be false papers. A member of the Jewish community bailed him out as the ones before him had been, and put him on a train to Casablanca. There, he was taken in by relatives and wrote letters for illiterate laborers to earn his fare home. The third beating was in Casablanca a few months later. By this time, he had begun to drive a sardine truck between Agadir and Casablanca, a well-paying job. The clandestine network was still the only way for the Jews to leave. He heard about a travel agency that was a front for the Mossad, run by a Madame T. Each time he came to the travel agency to ask for her by name, he was told no such woman worked there. For three mornings he stood outside and watched as the clerk went for coffee and went up to the second floor. On the fourth day, when the clerk left, he went inside and went upstairs. There a woman sat. “Are you Madame T?” he asked. “I want to go to Palestine.” Israel was a forbidden word. “You have the wrong address,” she replied. But then she relented. At 17, she said, he was too old for the youth aliyah and too young for the army. He could, however, do agricultural training in France. Anything to leave Morocco, he replied. “Come back in a few days,” she said. “I’ll tell him to let you up.” When the day came, my grandfather put on his best suit and in the crowded streets of Casablanca, bumped shoulder to shoulder with a boy around his age. “Pardon,” my grandfather said, but the boy turned around and smacked him hard in the face. Blood seeped into his suit. When it became clear that the stony faced Meir was not going to fight back, the other boy became enraged and began to yell that the Jew had cursed Islam. Unluckily for him, another Muslim who was sitting nearby had witnessed the entire encounter. Rising from his chair, the man slapped the boy in the face. “You’re a liar!” My grandfather did not clean his suit or his face before he went to see Madame T. that day. “You see why I need to leave Morocco?” he grinned. She did. Here were his instructions: At 4 p.m. he was to go to the Place de France and enter a horse-drawn carriage. The carriage took him to a bus that was already full of boys and girls. The bus took him to a house surrounded by trees and an orchard. At 2 in the morning they were awakened and taken to an abandoned port, where they sailed—at first, smuggled below deck—until Gibraltar. After 10 months in Toulouse and a month in Marseilles for agricultural training, he was on a ship to Israel. The way he tells the story, he had to refuse the calls of sirens, women who sought his protection and who would tie him down. The family where he stayed in Casablanca had tried to trick him into marrying their daughter, such that his mother showed up all the way from Agadir to wish him well on his engagement. He was so furious he walked out on her then and there to begin sleeping on a park bench until they let him go to the promised land. Two weeks in Place de France. He still has a postcard of the bench. The woman on the boat from France who had asked for his protection; he told her she would get it on his terms only, which were cold and dutiful terms that demanded she keep her distance. But he arrived in Israel reborn. “I became a child again only in Israel.” Read article in full Al-Jazeera programme on Morocco A partial paen to coexistence in Morocco Keep calm and carry on - in Mogador 

Point of No Return

[socialboxworldnews]

"Meet Yellowknife, a small provincial capital that lies at the edge of vast wilderness." by BY IAN AUSTEN AND AARON VINCENT ELKAIM via NYT World https://ift.tt/Jhf4anP

[yasmin-bashirova-brand]

Meet Yellowknife, a small provincial capital that lies at the edge of vast wilderness.

By BY IAN AUSTEN AND AARON VINCENT ELKAIM Published: May 19, 2022 at 03:36PM from NYT World https://ift.tt/Jhf4anP via IFTTT

[miss-rosen]

A PORTRAIT OF THE AMAZON ON THE BRINK OF CATASTROPHIC CHANGE Miss Rosen for Feature Shoot

The mouth of the mighty Amazon River lies in the state of Pará, Brazil, which has been home to the people of the rainforest for over 5,000 years. During the 1960s, the government created the nation’s very first Indigenous Park, which was, at that time, the largest preserve in the world.

Home to 14 tribes that survive off the land, Xingu Indigenous Park became the site of controversy when the government began to develop plans for the Belo Monte Dam Complex on the Xingu River in 1975. In 1989, the Kayapo, a warrior tribe, mounted a massive campaign in opposition to the construction. International financers pulled out, and the project was shelved until 2007, when President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva announced the Accelerated Growth Program.

Positioned at the forefront of construction of more than 60 major hydroelectric project in the Amazon over the next 15 years, Belo Monte is poised to become the fourth largest dam in the world — displacing up to 40,000 people living in the park while destroying the complex ecosystems in order to fuel continued mining of the rainforest.

In his series, Where the River Runs Through, which was chosen for the Critical Mass Top 50, photographer Aaron Vincent Elkaim presents Where the River Runs Through, a profound portrait of the people and the landscape at the precipice of a massive change whose impact on the indigenous communities and the environment are devastating. Elkaim shares his insights into the impact of industry on the earth.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Photo: March 29, 2014. A group of boys climb a tree on the Xingu River by the city of Altamira, Para State, Brazil. Major areas of the city have been permanently flooded by the construction of the nearby Belo Monte Dam Complex displacing over 20,000 people while impacting numerous indigenous and riverine communities in the region. © Aaron Vincent Elkaim

[javierpenadea]

"Ice Skating at a Rink Is Fun. Gliding Through a Forest? Glorious." by BY IAN AUSTEN AND AARON VINCENT ELKAIM via NYT World https://ift.tt/tj1v4Tq

[dailyhailee]

Hailee Steinfeld photographed by Aaron Vincent Elkaim (2016)

[canada4news]

AIMCo's next move: As Alberta contemplates CPP exit, investment manager focuses on rebuilding trust

AIMCo’s next move: As Alberta contemplates CPP exit, investment manager focuses on rebuilding trust

Breadcrumb Trail Links News FP Street In an exclusive interview, AIMCo board chair Mark Wiseman says building trust with stakeholders a top priority after last year’s VOLTS trading strategy fiasco Author of the article: Barbara Shecter Publishing date: Mar 19, 2021  •  16 minutes ago  •  8 minute read  •  Join the conversation AIMCo board chair Mark Wiseman. Photo by Aaron Vincent Elkaim for…

[dailynewswebsite]

Holiday food drives: Tossing a can of beans into a donation bin is hardly enough

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau retailers at a Metro earlier this yr earlier than dropping the gadgets in a bin destined for a meals financial institution. Adam Scotti/The Prime Minister's Workplace

The value of meals is predicted to climb dramatically in 2021 at a time when many Canadians can barely afford to feed their households, following the financial devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

But to kick off the “season of giving,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau posted a pre-Thanksgiving video to Twitter asking Canadians to choose up “an additional merchandise or two for the native meals financial institution and assist a household in want.”

Trudeau collected non-perishables at a Metro grocery store, emptied his purchases right into a donation bin and guaranteed us that purchasing meals from the grocery retail oligopoly to assist native meals banks is the Canadian method.

It actually appears to be the federal government’s method, having invested $200 million by way of the Emergency Meals Safety Fund to assist meals banks and meals organizations throughout the pandemic.

The issue, nevertheless, is that this method fails to scale back meals insecurity.

Canadians have an enshrined proper to meals, however our authorities contorts meals into a present to these residing with meals insecurity. This corporatized method to charity ignores the blatant creation of meals insecurity alongside strains of race, Indigeneity, gender, parenting and relationship standing, housing standing, precarious labour and social help participation. However greater than this, the method merely doesn’t work.

In reality, after practically 40 years of meals banks, an unprecedented 4.5 million folks had been nonetheless meals insecure pre-pandemic. On the identical time, company grocery retail income have flourished, partly with assist from the federal authorities. What’s extra, the focus of market share of the large three grocery retailers — Loblaws, Sobeys and Metro — rose to not less than 80 per cent.

Canada’s grocery giants simply hold getting greater. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Vincent Elkaim

Persevering with to advertise this corporatized response to Canada’s persistent meals insecurity emergency throughout the pandemic hasn’t modified a factor. Statistics Canada discovered meals insecurity elevated throughout the first wave of the pandemic, whereas on the identical time grocery retail income soared.

So Trudeau isn’t merely asking us to purchase and donate a couple of additional gadgets; he’s beckoning us right into a flawed mannequin of ineffective, commoditized charity in two important methods.

1. Ignoring the proof

Trudeau is successfully asking us to disregard the proof that lack of revenue is the important thing predictor of meals insecurity in Canada. Meals charity can’t repair this, particularly when solely a few fifth of food-insecure households truly flip to meals banks.

However, research in British Columbia and Ontario, and analysis on the federal Assured Earnings Complement for seniors, present meals insecurity drops with unconditional money transfers.

Habitable wages, safe jobs, an revenue ground offered by a primary revenue assure and powerful social applications like childcare, inexpensive housing and psychological well being helps are important to making sure that each one folks — together with these presently on social help or not within the labour power — can afford the meals they want.

2. False suggestion grocery giants are benevolent

Trudeau can be successfully asking us to just accept Canadian grocery giants as benevolent company residents, implying that their single-minded pursuit of revenue in some way corresponds with ending meals insecurity on this nation. The contradictions listed here are stark.

From price-fixing schemes and document income throughout the pandemic to just about concurrently ending pandemic pay for his or her workers (Sobey’s just lately reinstated “hero pay”) just some months into the primary wave whereas elevating shareholder dividends, these companies don’t ameliorate the hardships of Canadians. They assist create them.

The massive three grocery retailers are motivated by revenue for his or her shareholders, not well-being for residents. And regardless of its worldwide obligations to guard and fulfil the best to meals for all Canadians, our authorities continues to deal with meals as a commodity, whereas sprucing the good-corporate-citizen veneer of those that revenue from this association.

Apparent counterpoint

Canada’s method to offering common entry to well being care and to schooling on the elementary and highschool ranges offers an apparent counterpoint to its reckless method to offering entry to meals.

But Canadians hardly ever regard meals, in some ways extra elemental than well being care and schooling, as a public, decommodified good.

The federal authorities would possibly discover braveness to pursue this path within the ongoing and overwhelmingly widespread assist for publicly funded, common entry to well being care in Canada.

As a substitute of heeding Trudeau’s demand to assist meals charity, it’s time for us to demand extra of our state and ourselves. Common, publicly funded well being care and schooling are efficient, so why not embrace this method to revenue and meals?

It’s time for common entry to meals. (Claudio Schwarz Purzlbaum/Unsplash)

Throughout this vacation season, a time of charitable giving for therefore many Canadians, why not signal this briefing notice to assist a Primary Earnings Assure?

Or electronic mail your native politician to demand common entry to meals for all Canadians?

Or prioritize buying out of your native unbiased grocers, or purchase from an alternate social enterprise that prioritizes folks over revenue?

The quantity of ardour, goodwill and exhausting work that has fuelled 40 years of meals charity on this nation reveals we will marshal that collective effort.

As Paul Taylor, govt director of FoodShare Toronto, just lately stated: “Put down the tins and go type out the coverage.”

Mary Anne Martin receives funding from Trent College and the Social Sciences and Humanities Analysis Council (SSHRC).

Michael Classens receives funding from Trent College and the Social Sciences and Humanities Analysis Council (SSHRC).

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/holiday-food-drives-tossing-a-can-of-beans-into-a-donation-bin-is-hardly-enough/ via https://growthnews.in

[newestbalance]

Toronto Van Driver Kills at Least 10 People in ‘Pure Carnage’

The carnage was reminiscent of deadly attacks by Islamic State supporters using vehicles that have shaken up Nice, France, Berlin, Barcelona, London and New York. But late Monday, Canada’s public safety minister, Ralph Goodale, said this time appeared to be different.

“The events that happened on the street behind us are horrendous,” he said, “but they do not appear to be connected in any way to national security based on the information at this time.”

With the driver under arrest, the Canadian authorities began the process of reconstructing how — and why — a day filled with the promise of early spring became a scene of horror. The authorities released few details about Mr. Minassian on Monday night.

“There were a lot of pedestrians out, a lot of witnesses out, enjoying the sunny afternoon,” said Peter Yuen, the deputy chief of the Toronto police service.

John Flengas, the acting E.M.S. supervisor for Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, which said it received 10 victims from the scene, described it as “pure carnage.” He told CTV News on Monday that he had seen “victims everywhere.”

One witness said the van had mowed down everything in its path: pedestrians, mailboxes, electrical poles, benches and a fire hydrant. Another, who rushed to help the pedestrian struck while crossing the street, said, “Pieces of the van went flying everywhere.”

Meaghan Gray, a spokeswoman for the Toronto police, said the authorities received a report at 1:30 p.m. on Monday that the van had mounted a curb near Yonge Street and Finch Avenue West. Stephan Powell, a spokesman for the Toronto Fire Department, said pedestrians were struck at “at least two locations.”

Continue reading the main story

Ten victims were taken to the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center, Dr. Dan Cass, its executive vice president, said at a news conference. Two were declared dead on arrival, five were in critical condition and three were in serious condition, he said.

Dr. Cass said that he did not have information about the nature of the victims’ injuries and that the hospital had not yet confirmed the identities of the dead.

In a statement on Monday, John Tory, the mayor of Toronto, said, “My thoughts are with those affected by this incident and the front-line responders who are working to help those injured.”

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “We’re monitoring the situation closely.”

Yonge Street is Toronto’s main artery, and is widely celebrated as the longest street in Canada. It cuts through the city from Lake Ontario through downtown before reaching the suburbs and then into farmland.

The deaths occurred in the far north, a densely populated part of the city surrounded by many new condominium towers. On Monday, many shops in the area remained closed, at the request of the authorities. And a makeshift memorial was developing at a stone wall just south of Finch Avenue.

Konstantin Goulich, a local resident, appeared with bags of markers and rolls of cardboard from a dollar store.

Photo

A rented van on a sidewalk about a mile from where several pedestrians were killed. Credit Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press, via Associated Press

“Guys please come and write how you’re feeling: your wishes for the victims, if you’d like to say something. Every bit of support counts,” Mr. Goulich said to passers-by.

“If you can’t write in English, write in your own language write in Chinese, write in Korean,” he said.

Continue reading the main story

Late in the day, well south of the scene of the killings, extra security was obvious around the Air Canada Centre in downtown Toronto, where the Toronto Maple Leafs were playing Boston in a playoff game. Large municipal dump trucks, apparently filled with sand and gravel, were used to block off roads, including one major thoroughfare near the ice rink.

After the game, which Toronto won, jubilant fans streamed out of the arena, but the only sign of the day’s events on Yonge Street were clutches of police officers wearing bulletproof vests. Some fans expressed shock about the carnage that had taken place earlier in the day.

“We don’t expect this in Canada,” said one fan, Luca Pitsocia, a 21-year-old aspiring paramedic.

Photo

Residents on Yonge Street in Toronto gathered at a makeshift memorial for victims struck by a man driving a van on Monday. Credit Cole Burston/Getty Images

The van used in the rampage was stopped about a mile south of where it took place, said Dan Fox, a civil servant who passed the vehicle on his way to work on Monday. He said it had “significant damage.”

“It looked like the side of the van had scraped along the side of the building,” Mr. Fox said in a phone interview, the sound of police sirens wailing behind him. “The driver-side door was open, but I didn’t see anyone in or around the van.”

The episode in Toronto appeared to be the deadliest use of a vehicle in Canada to deliberately mow down pedestrians.

Last October, a police officer in Edmonton was struck with a car and stabbed, and four other people were later deliberately hit by a U-Haul truck. The driver of both vehicles, a Somali immigrant, was arrested in what Prime Minister Trudeau called a terrorist attack.

In 2014, a driver in the Montreal area struck two members of the Canadian armed forces and was shot and killed by the police, who described the attack as Islamist terrorism. One of the victims died.

Continue reading the main story

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