Shinjuku

Tokyo's Shinjuku to ban more than half of vacation rentals

BY KYOKO HASEGAWA

  • A Shinjuku official supervising holiday rentals told AFP that the district was "planning to revise the current ordinance... to ban private lodging" in residential zones and areas near schools.
  • Tokyo tourist hotspot Shinjuku will impose a ban on more than half of its holiday rentals including homes on Airbnb after a surge in complaints about visitors, an official said Monday.
  • A Shinjuku official supervising holiday rentals told AFP that the district was "planning to revise the current ordinance... to ban private lodging" in residential zones and areas near schools.
Tokyo tourist hotspot Shinjuku will impose a ban on more than half of its holiday rentals including homes on Airbnb after a surge in complaints about visitors, an official said Monday.
Known for its buzzing commercial and entertainment district, Shinjuku has around 4,000 short-term rentals, according to the ward's official website. That is nearly 10 percent of Japan's total.
But its large residential population has become increasingly exasperated with tourists who fail to properly dispose of rubbish, smoke where they are not supposed to and make too much noise.
A Shinjuku official supervising holiday rentals told AFP that the district was "planning to revise the current ordinance... to ban private lodging" in residential zones and areas near schools.
"As the number of private lodging businesses has risen, complaints and troubles around them have increased," the official said on customary condition of anonymity.
More than 50 percent of short-term rentals in Shinjuku face a ban under the new rules, he said, adding that the plan would formally be announced by the Shinjuku mayor on Tuesday.
The policy will only apply to existing rentals, the official said. It is likely to result in the closure of around 2,000 properties, including an unknown number on Airbnb.
Japan aims to attract 60 million foreign tourists by 2030, up from 42 million in 2025, but overtourism has emerged as a major challenge.
Residents of Japan's former imperial capital Kyoto and other hotspots have expressed annoyance at selfie-taking crowds as well as traffic congestion and soaring land prices.
In Shinjuku, the number of complaints over vacation rentals increased by around 40 percent in the fiscal year to March, the official said.
"Many complaints are about the violation of trash disposal rules while others include smoking and trespassing," he said.
American tourist Luke Jemison, 24, told AFP that the rules "make sense, because of noise".
Masaru Sato, a Shinjuku resident in his 70s, said "many foreigners, including operators of private lodgings, don't follow local rules".
"This area gets dirty because the way they dispose of trash is very messy," he told AFP.
AFP has contacted Airbnb for comment. Several hosts in Shinjuku declined interviews when contacted by AFP.
In July, the Japan Tourism Agency gave municipalities the right to regulate short-term lodgings if "a tranquil living and educational environment" is under threat or if they "hinder the maintenance of a permanent population and local community".
Kyoto is also considering a ban on short-term lodging, but only for new rentals within residential and industrial areas.
Other global cities have cracked down on private lodgings available through online rental platforms.
That is partly due to overtourism concerns, but also because some residents say home-sharing websites for tourists deprive locals of apartments for long-term rent and push up prices for homes remaining on the market.
Barcelona, one of Europe's most-visited cities, aims to ban apartment rentals to tourists by 2029 to ease a housing shortage.
Under rules introduced in 2023, New York prohibits rental periods of less than 30 days unless the host lives in the property.
kh/aph/nf/mjw

internet

Australians could opt out of social media algorithms under new law

  • "A lot of Australians appreciate the algorithm, both for the enjoyment they get out of it or the utility they get out of it," Communications Minister Anika Wells told national broadcaster ABC. "A lot of Australians will want to choose the algorithm -- but we think that big tech should offer them the choice in the first place, and they should respect that choice."
  • Australians could be given the option of opting out of powerful social media algorithms under new legislation cracking down on big tech, a minister said Monday.
  • "A lot of Australians appreciate the algorithm, both for the enjoyment they get out of it or the utility they get out of it," Communications Minister Anika Wells told national broadcaster ABC. "A lot of Australians will want to choose the algorithm -- but we think that big tech should offer them the choice in the first place, and they should respect that choice."
Australians could be given the option of opting out of powerful social media algorithms under new legislation cracking down on big tech, a minister said Monday.
The draft law requiring a "digital duty of care" is expected to be introduced to Australia's parliament this week.
It would require firms like Meta to give users the option of turning off algorithms that tailor recommendations to their personal taste.
"A lot of Australians appreciate the algorithm, both for the enjoyment they get out of it or the utility they get out of it," Communications Minister Anika Wells told national broadcaster ABC.
"A lot of Australians will want to choose the algorithm -- but we think that big tech should offer them the choice in the first place, and they should respect that choice."
"We should give Australians more choice over what they should see on their feeds," she said.
Social media firms have long faced scrutiny over their use of allegedly addictive algorithms and stand accused of directing users to sensational or extreme content to keep them scrolling.
Australia implemented legislation barring children from social media platforms in December, part of a world-first crackdown designed to protect children from online bullying and "predatory algorithms".
The UK, France and others have followed suit.
Data last month found that under-16s in Australia were increasing their use of social media apps such as Instagram and TikTok despite the ban.
oho/sft/tc

vote

Far-right AfD claims crushing victory in east German state vote

BY CELINE LE PRIOUX WITH FRANK ZELLER IN BERLIN

  • All major parties have agreed on a "firewall" of non-cooperation with the AfD, whose state branch is categorised as "right-wing extremist" by Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
  • Germany's far-right AfD won a landslide victory in a key regional election Sunday in the ex-communist east, a result seen as a stinging rebuke for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, but looked set to miss out on an absolute majority to govern alone.
  • All major parties have agreed on a "firewall" of non-cooperation with the AfD, whose state branch is categorised as "right-wing extremist" by Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
Germany's far-right AfD won a landslide victory in a key regional election Sunday in the ex-communist east, a result seen as a stinging rebuke for Chancellor Friedrich Merz, but looked set to miss out on an absolute majority to govern alone.
"We have made history today," said a jubilant Ulrich Siegmund, the 35-year-old lead candidate of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party in Saxony-Anhalt state, as the vote count continued.
The AfD won 44 percent, more than doubling its support, and far ahead of the around 18 percent for the centre-right CDU of Merz, according to projections by public broadcasters ARD and ZDF.
The CDU's state premier Sven Schulze called the outcome "a severe blow" but will stay on as caretaker leader during what could be a long and painful process toward a new state government.
All major parties have agreed on a "firewall" of non-cooperation with the AfD, whose state branch is categorised as "right-wing extremist" by Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
The AfD's national co-leader Alice Weidel -- who has long condemned the "firewall" concept as undemocratic -- praised her party's result as "sensational" and said the party had "received a very clear mandate to govern" in Saxony-Anhalt. 
However, it remains far from clear who will eventually rule, as the AfD gained just less than half of parliamentary seats.
The CDU had hoped to cobble together a multi-party coalition to cling to power, but would still lack a majority even if it teamed up with the centre-left SPD, Greens and the far-left Die Linke. 
The AfD meanwhile may hope to win the support of the small pro-Russian BSW party -- a leftist group that is tough on immigration, and which was expected to just scrape into parliament with five percent.
Weidel said that "naturally, a government scenario involving the BSW is very interesting for us".
A first-ever AfD state government would be a shock for many in Germany, which has been at pains to atone for its dark history of World War II and the Holocaust and so far kept extremist parties at bay.
"I am personally appalled by this election result," said Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews.
The spectre of a far-right state government drew thousands of the AfD's opponents to a rally on Saturday in the regional capital Magdeburg, with banners saying "life is better without Nazis".
"I'm very worried," demonstrator Laura Saalfeld told AFP, fearing a change in atmosphere. "Far-right sympathisers will show themselves more openly on the streets," she said.

Radical agenda

Siegmund has ambitions to become state premier and lead a political revolution from Saxony-Anhalt that would propel the party to national victory in 2029.
On the campaign trail, Siegmund -- a former entrepreneur with a huge social media following -- has been mobbed by fans, many wearing T-shirts bearing his likeness.
The party has tapped into a sense of nostalgia for communist East Germany as well as lingering resentment about an enduring wealth gap with the west decades after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall.
In line with the sometimes defiant sense of local "Ossie pride", Siegmund has often ridden the iconic local Simson bike, including to the polling booth Sunday.
While he has been dubbed the friendly face of the AfD, Siegmund's campaign promises have been radical. He wants to target irregular migrants with a "remigration and deportation offensive" from day one.
The party's "anti-woke" agenda also includes vows to replace LGBTQ pride rainbow flags at public schools with the German standard, and to lessen the emphasis on the Third Reich in history teaching.
The German Economic Institute has warned the AfD's immigration policy would be "ruinous" for Saxony-Anhalt, which is highly reliant on foreign-born workers.
The AfD win heaps pressure on Merz, who has vowed to reboot a stagnant economy and restrict irregular immigration, but has seen his party beaten by the AfD in national surveys too.
bur-clp-fz/sr/jxb

vote

German AfD supporters jubilant at far right's thumping win

BY CéLINE LE PRIOUX

  • As exit polls put the Alternative for Germany's vote share at a thumping 44 percent, jubilant scenes erupted at a post-election party in Magdeburg, capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
  • Letting out cries of joy and jumping into the air, supporters of Germany's far-right AfD celebrated as they realised the scale of their election triumph in an ex-communist eastern state on Sunday. 
  • As exit polls put the Alternative for Germany's vote share at a thumping 44 percent, jubilant scenes erupted at a post-election party in Magdeburg, capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
Letting out cries of joy and jumping into the air, supporters of Germany's far-right AfD celebrated as they realised the scale of their election triumph in an ex-communist eastern state on Sunday. 
As exit polls put the Alternative for Germany's vote share at a thumping 44 percent, jubilant scenes erupted at a post-election party in Magdeburg, capital of the state of Saxony-Anhalt.
AfD state lawmaker Daniel Wald, 44, compared the unbridled happiness to the collective joy he remembers witnessing as a child on the day the Berlin Wall fell.
"That very feeling -- that emotion I experienced back in 1989, with tears in my eyes and all the people around me, my family, cheering -- that exact feeling welled up again when we stood up there and saw the result," he said. 
"And that is precisely what the people are feeling right now ... that this is a new beginning. And, of course, that spirit is meant to spread across the entire country."
Angela Maike, a retiree from the city, told AFP: "I thought the result would be around 41 percent, but it's higher."
"I always prefer to be a bit pessimistic beforehand so I can be pleasantly surprised afterwards. And that's what happened today," she added, ordering two beers and a glass of red wine for her friends to celebrate the victory.
The 65-year-old said she "gave it her all" during the election campaign, and had helped by putting up posters -- and by rehanging those that were torn down.

High turnout

Voters flocked to back the AfD's lead candidate Ulrich Siegmund, a telegenic 35-year-old with a huge following on social media, who is hoping to form the first far-right state government in Germany since the Nazi era, to the dismay of mainstream parties and members of minority groups. 
With votes still being counted, it was unclear whether the anti-immigration party would be able to win an absolute majority to govern.
Julian Schneider, a 29-year-old member of the AfD's youth organisation, was not surprised at the result -- which saw the AfD more than double its support, putting it far ahead of the centre-right CDU of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.
"I'm naturally optimistic, but I think it was predictable," he said. 
Pointing to the high turnout -- 78 percent, according to public broadcaster ZDF -- he welcomed the fact that "people who might not have gone to vote in the end mobilised to vote for the AfD" in the small state of 2.1 million.
Five years ago at the last state election in Saxony-Anhalt, turnout was around 60 percent.

'Chancellor of the heart'

Many men in suits and a few women in evening dress were standing around small tables listening to Bjoern Hoecke -- a senior AfD firebrand politician who has been convicted for using a banned Nazi slogan -- belt out a victory song.
Siegmund was set to join his supporters later in the evening at the venue, a theatre built in the 1930s that once served as a military drill hall before becoming a cinema for Soviet soldiers in communist East Germany.
Wearing sneakers in sky-blue -- the AfD's signature colour -- and a T-shirt bearing the slogan "AfD Vision," one 64-year-old, who asked to remain anonymous, said Siegmund could be the saviour of Saxony-Anhalt.
Something has to be done," said the retiree, who hoped to get a cardboard heart emblazoned with the words "chancellor of the heart" -- a hopeful reference to Alice Weidel, the AfD's national co-leader -- signed by her.
He listed a string of complaints about life now in the small state as reasons he has put his trust in the AfD. 
"People are leaving (the state), companies are being forced to close, companies are closing or relocating their activities abroad," he said. 
"The state continues to sink into decline. The municipalities are all bankrupt. We are overwhelmed by immigration, some of which is irregular."
clp/sr/fz/jj

AfD

Smiling face of Germany's far-right AfD: Ulrich Siegmund

  • But behind the buzz and the likes, his critics warn, is a man with radical positions.
  • When a news magazine recently branded him "Germany's most dangerous man", the far-right AfD's Ulrich Siegmund mocked the weekly by handing out signed copies of the publication to his fans.
  • But behind the buzz and the likes, his critics warn, is a man with radical positions.
When a news magazine recently branded him "Germany's most dangerous man", the far-right AfD's Ulrich Siegmund mocked the weekly by handing out signed copies of the publication to his fans.
It was a signature move for the 35-year-old with a neat undercut hairstyle and winning smile who has blitzed social media and rallied real-world crowds at campaign events and motorcycle outings.
On Sunday, Siegmund converted his crowd appeal into a historic election win, as his Alternative for Germany won at least 44 percent in Saxony-Anhalt state in Germany's ex-communist east, according to exit polls.
"We have made history today," said a jubilant Siegmund, even as it remained unclear whether his party can win an absolute majority to end up governing.
For the AfD, Siegmund has been a stroke of luck -- the smiling, youthful and beer glass-clinking face of a party better known for channelling anti-establishment anger.
In recent months, Siegmund has been mobbed by adoring supporters at AfD "family picnics" and campaign events across the small state. 
"He's like a good buddy," a 19-year-old fan told AFP as Siegmund was posing for selfies while stalls offered T-shirts and coffee mugs bearing his likeness.
Hundreds of thousands follow him on TikTok, Instagram and other platforms.
But behind the buzz and the likes, his critics warn, is a man with radical positions. His vow to deport irregular migrants "from minute one" has terrified many foreign-born residents.
Germany's domestic intelligence agency considers the AfD chapter he represents as "right-wing extremist" with links to ethno-nationalist groups and think-tanks.
Siegmund was present at a 2023 secret meeting near Berlin where extreme right-wing activists discussed a radical "remigration" plan to expel millions of people with a migration background.
At the time, the revelation cost Siegmund a committee chairmanship in the state parliament -- but he has since dismissed the meeting as a "Kaffee Klatsch" or casual social gathering.

Anti-'woke' and patriotic

Several of Siegmund's staffers and party colleagues are former members of the since-banned neo-Nazi group "Heimattreue Deutsche Jugend" (Patriotic German Youth).
Commenting to Welt daily, Siegmund defended his team: "They are excellent people. They have a completely clean record. I'm not interested in what happened 20 or 25 years ago." 
Siegmund, whose followers often feel fondly about life in the former communist East Germany, was born in Saxony-Anhalt on October 25, 1990 -- about three weeks after Germany's reunification.
He grew up in the picturesque town of Tangermuende, where he still lives with his wife and daughter.
He studied business psychology and administration before founding a small company that markets air fresheners. 
Politically, Siegmund's path first led him to the centre-right CDU, but in 2014 he joined the newly founded AfD. At the time, the party mainly railed against eurozone bailouts but it soon refocused on railing against Islam and immigration.
The AfD has since become the strongest party across the east, giving voice to those who feel like second-class citizens in a region that still lags the west in prosperity and jobs. 
Symbols of nostalgia for the past are common at AfD events, where some sport the compass and sickle symbol of what was the Moscow-backed German Democratic Republic.
In March 2016, Siegmund entered state parliament for the AfD. In 2021 he became co-leader of its parliamentary group and recently he was elected as top candidate with 97 percent support. 
If the AfD does come to power, Siegmund plans sweeping measures that would aim to make the state less multicultural, less "woke" and more pro-family and proudly patriotic.
Speaking to AFP last week, Siegmund said this would help lure back expatriate Germans who could help rebuild the stagnant economy and a country he sees as headed down the wrong path.
"Here in this country, the current government is relying solely on immigration," he argued. "We can see where that has got us. We no longer want things to continue this way."
bur-clp-fz/sr/jj

US

US aircraft carrier departs Thailand after port call

  • The Lincoln departed from the port of Laem Chabang, a half-hour drive from Pattaya, at around 11:00 am (0400 GMT), AFP journalists saw. 
  • Thousands of US sailors aboard an aircraft carrier departed from Thailand on Sunday, AFP journalists said, concluding its first port call following reports of deteriorating living conditions on board after nine months at sea.
  • The Lincoln departed from the port of Laem Chabang, a half-hour drive from Pattaya, at around 11:00 am (0400 GMT), AFP journalists saw. 
Thousands of US sailors aboard an aircraft carrier departed from Thailand on Sunday, AFP journalists said, concluding its first port call following reports of deteriorating living conditions on board after nine months at sea.
The 5,000-strong crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln docked just north of the resort town of Pattaya, near Bangkok, on Wednesday for five days of rest and recreation after a lengthy Middle East deployment.
Amid Thailand's tourism low season, their arrival raised hopes for businesses in Pattaya, a city known for its beaches and nightlife -- as well as its seedy reputation as a hub for sex tourism.
The Lincoln departed from the port of Laem Chabang, a half-hour drive from Pattaya, at around 11:00 am (0400 GMT), AFP journalists saw. 
Security was stepped up in Pattaya during the visit, with authorities cracking down on sex workers ahead of the sailors' arrival -- although the mayor denied it was linked.

'Everything went fine'

Despite concerns about possible trouble, local police said Sunday that the port call ended largely without incident.
"Everything went fine," Pattaya police chief Anek Srathongyoo told AFP.
"There were no arrests or arguments except on the first day when Americans had an argument among themselves," he said.
The US Navy sent two sailors back to the Lincoln after a drunken altercation in the early hours of Thursday near Pattaya's nightlife hotspot Walking Street, the police chief said earlier.
He had described the "small scuffle" as "trivial" and said local residents only called police to prevent the dispute from escalating.
Last month, US Democratic lawmakers called for an investigation into conditions on the Lincoln following reports of food shortages, broken plumbing and mental health crises.
President Donald Trump dismissed the concerns, which have fuelled criticism of his dragging war on Iran, although the Lincoln was replaced in the Middle East by the USS George Washington.
The enlisted Americans were estimated to have spent up to 100 million baht ($3 million) during their visit, Pattaya Mayor Poramase Ngampiches said on Sunday.
In addition, the city benefitted from "selling other supplies such as tootpaste to the ship worth millions of baht (tens of thousands of dollars)", Poramase told AFP.
Media reports said sailors on the Lincoln had gone without basic toiletries, including toothpaste, deodorant and soap, at points during their deployment.
Many of the sailors and Marines spent their time on Thailand's coast shopping and visiting tourism sites, Poramase said.
"It shows that they are missing their families and want to buy some souvenirs for them," he said.
tp-sco/ane

haze

Haze emergency grips Malaysian Borneo town

BY ISABELLE LEONG

  • But the smoke was difficult to escape even at home, a mere 10 kilometres (six miles) from Indonesia's Kalimantan province where the fires were raging.
  • Acrid smoke hung heavily over the Malaysian town of Serian, seeping into homes and cloaking roadside stalls, as residents navigated an air‑quality emergency fuelled by transboundary haze from Indonesia's raging fires.
  • But the smoke was difficult to escape even at home, a mere 10 kilometres (six miles) from Indonesia's Kalimantan province where the fires were raging.
Acrid smoke hung heavily over the Malaysian town of Serian, seeping into homes and cloaking roadside stalls, as residents navigated an air‑quality emergency fuelled by transboundary haze from Indonesia's raging fires.
Malaysia declared a state of emergency in Sarawak state's Serian district on Borneo island on Friday, after air pollution readings reached critical levels.
Toxic haze has shrouded parts of Indonesia and Malaysia for weeks as Jakarta struggles to contain fires that have scorched large tracts of Borneo and Sumatra, with the plumes drifting into neighbouring Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei.
In Serian, about 65 kilometres (40 miles) southeast of Sarawak's capital Kuching, residents tried to carry on with weekend routines but said the thick haze forced them to plan shorter trips to avoid the worst of the smoke.
"I rarely leave the house when it's like this (the haze). I only come out to buy food and groceries, then I'll immediately head home," said Ajen Anak Kunok, 64, a local retired technician. 
Ajen told AFP he had spent the past week battling shortness of breath and a sore throat due to the ongoing haze, before going to the hospital Saturday for treatment.
But the smoke was difficult to escape even at home, a mere 10 kilometres (six miles) from Indonesia's Kalimantan province where the fires were raging.
"Even when I turn on the air conditioner, I can still smell the smoke in my house," Ajen said.

Hazardous levels

Sarawak, which shares a border with Kalimantan, has borne the brunt of pollution in Malaysia. 
On Friday, Serian became the first district in the country this year to declare an emergency over the worsening air quality when API levels passed 500 and peaked at 512. 
Under Malaysian guidelines, API levels above 300 are classified as hazardous, while readings beyond 500 usually trigger consideration of a local emergency.
At the town's markets, the usual bustling throng dwindled, while roadside sellers of Serian's famous durians waited in vain beside their piles of fruit for customers that came in diminished numbers.
The district's scenic Ranchan Waterfall -- usually popular with locals and tourists alike -- was unusually quiet, with just a few visitors dotted around.
Roadside durian seller Siaw Thien Ha, 53, said the emergency has already hit his livelihood hard.
He struggled to earn even half of his usual income of 400 ringgit ($98) for the weekend.
"I'm worried that my income will be affected... But during the durian season, there is money to be made," he told AFP.
"So I don't have a choice but to bring the durians here to sell to support my family," he said.
Friday's emergency declaration will also keep some 647 schools closed until at least the end of the week in Serian district, which has a population of around 154,000 people.
Sister Irmina Peter, 64, who teaches at the St Joseph's Private Primary School in Kuching, told AFP she was worried that the emergency could drag on and spill over to other districts in Sarawak.
Rain in Serian on Friday night and Saturday morning, believed to have been the result of ongoing cloud seeding operations, brought some respite, with API levels dropping to 219.
Serian's state of emergency however remained in place.
Sister Peter said "we don't want the schools to be like during Covid-19 lockdown, where we couldn't do much." 
"We can't go on with our normal routine… we have to go to work, children have to go to school. It affects us very much."
llk/jhe/ane

anniversary

China's memories of Mao fade to nostalgia 50 years after his death

BY SAM DAVIES

  • "I still revere him very much," Xie Kaiyue, a 22-year-old local university student, said of Mao, who died almost three decades before she was born.
  • The crimson flags on Nanjie village's "East is Red" Square hang limp in the sweltering summer heat as a trickle of tourists take photos with a towering statue of Chairman Mao Zedong, still gleaming white almost 50 years after he died.
  • "I still revere him very much," Xie Kaiyue, a 22-year-old local university student, said of Mao, who died almost three decades before she was born.
The crimson flags on Nanjie village's "East is Red" Square hang limp in the sweltering summer heat as a trickle of tourists take photos with a towering statue of Chairman Mao Zedong, still gleaming white almost 50 years after he died.
The Great Helmsman, who died September 9 1976, is still very much a fixture in central Henan province's Nanjie -- often dubbed "China's last Maoist village".
Nostalgia for Mao's egalitarian ideals is growing in China as memories of his turbulent rule fade and the country grapples with a slowing economy and inequality.
Mao, who led the 1949 communist revolution against the ruling nationalists, ushered in an era of collectivised ownership he argued would drive industry and unite the country, but his drastic policies are also blamed by historians for mass starvation and millions of deaths.
While the ruling Chinese Communist Party maintains Mao was a revolutionary hero, it publicly acknowledged after his death that his devastating Cultural Revolution was a "grave mistake" -- a verdict upheld by subsequent leaders.
In Nanjie, countless murals of the former Chinese leader are plastered around the village.
Residents still live under Maoist principles of shared ownership, while the rest of the country moved on from that economic model.
"I still revere him very much," Xie Kaiyue, a 22-year-old local university student, said of Mao, who died almost three decades before she was born.
"I think young people in the village and, actually, myself, aren't as strong-spirited as in the past... People were purer," she said.
Nearby, electric carts whisked visitors past uniform apartment blocks plastered with socialist slogans as guides explained how cooperative ownership in local enterprises funds free housing for residents.

Party line

Around 500 kilometres (310 miles) north, in the mountain village of Dazhai in Shanxi province, once promoted by Mao as a national model after locals terraformed its arid hills into irrigated fields, tourists reminisce about an era when the Great Helmsman dominated political and social life.
"(People) didn't have enough to eat or to wear," Li, a 64-year-old tourist from Xi'an, said of his childhood.
"But... the whole country was full of vigour, and there was a spirit of struggling with heaven, earth, and people to change every aspect of China," the retiree said.
"Of course I miss it."
Now, Dazhai is overflowing with shops selling items that support Mao's personality cult -- posters, playing cards, and crockery emblazoned with his image, and the "Little Red Book" of his quotations.
Still, references to dark chapters of his decades in absolute power are tightly censored in public discourse.
The decade-long episode instigated by Mao in 1966 saw intellectuals brutally targeted as "class enemies" and schools shuttered, setting China back for years in education and development.
Private property and land were collectivised, while economic management pushed the country to the Great Famine, which the government says killed around 15 million people, while historians estimate around 20-43 million.
In one museum, text mentioning the Cultural Revolution had been crudely scraped off signage.
"Everything you see in the public domain... is the party line. No one is allowed to deviate from this," said scholar Xu Chenggang, who was targeted as a child in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution because his father was labelled a "rightist".
Mao's face is printed on banknotes, his portrait overlooks Tiananmen Square, and his body is preserved in a mausoleum.
Every year new movies and TV shows dramatising Mao's life beam the message of his great deeds to public. 
Public discussion has been squeezed further under current leader Xi Jinping, who warns against "historical nihilism", or narratives contradicting the party's own.
"The Communist Party told people there were mistakes, but what's the meaning of 'mistake'? No one knows," Xu said.

'Great figure'

The sanitised history has left space for romanticised interpretations among youths frustrated by long working hours and intense competition in education and the job market.
In December, a viral video series on Bilibili -- a platform popular with those under 30 -- argued that the 2017 movie 'Youth', which follows young performers in a military dance troupe during the 1970s, was a subtle ode to the Cultural Revolution.
The videos, which praised Mao and blamed capitalist elites for crushing the movement, were removed after gaining over 35 million views in less than a week.
"Today, there is more of a sense that the Cultural Revolution was a period of idealism, where society was fired by ideals and not by the relentless pursuit of money and material goods," said to Kerry Brown, head of the Lau China Institute in London and author of a recent book on Mao.
"This is, of course, a total fabrication," he said.
Many also credit Mao with laying the foundation for China to become a modern, technologically advanced nation, said Mobo Gao, professor of Chinese studies at Adelaide University.
"They ask, where did (today's China) come from? It came from the establishment of the PRC," said Gao, who lived through the Mao era in rural Jiangxi province.
"Who was the one who really established the PRC? It must be Mao."
In Shijiazhuang, an industrial city of seven million northeast of Dazhai, 20-year-old Wang Zhihao and his classmates posed with a giant Mao statue opposite the municipal government.
"We admire and revere Chairman Mao very much. He is a great figure," Wang said, as the sound of elderly residents singing songs praising the Communist Party drifted over from the nearby square.
"He led the founding of New China."
sam/reb/dhw/fox/ane

film

Indian Oscar-nominated filmmaker turns camera on his cancer

BY ARUNABH SAIKIA

  • - 'Meditative' - The central protagonist in Sen's new work is not the filmmaker himself but his surgeon. 
  • Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen's new documentary began as a "coping" mechanism after a shock cancer diagnosis, but continues the motifs of environmental degradation and caregiving that drove his previous work.
  • - 'Meditative' - The central protagonist in Sen's new work is not the filmmaker himself but his surgeon. 
Indian filmmaker Shaunak Sen's new documentary began as a "coping" mechanism after a shock cancer diagnosis, but continues the motifs of environmental degradation and caregiving that drove his previous work.
Sen's "All That Breathes", which follows two brothers running a largely self-funded clinic for birds falling victim to Delhi's polluted air, won top documentary prizes at Sundance and Cannes in 2022 and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 2023 Oscars.
"It became a kind of coping strategy, or a way to deal or dissociate or displace the terror of what you've just been told," Sen, 39, told AFP about his as-yet-untitled project, in an interview from his home in New Delhi.
The diagnosis brought home "the same risks" that make hundreds of birds fall every year from New Delhi's throat-burning polluted skies -- this time on "my own body", Sen said.
"Whenever you ask most oncologists why this happened, or why this current giant spike in cancer rates is occurring, a lot of them would talk about environmental factors like toxins or chemicals or the air," he said.
New Delhi and its sprawling metropolitan region of 30 million residents is regularly ranked among the world's most polluted capitals, due to a mix of emissions from power plants, heavy traffic and the burning of rubbish and crops. 
A 2024 study in The Lancet Planetary Health estimated that 3.8 million deaths in India between 2009 and 2019 were linked to air pollution.

'Meditative'

The central protagonist in Sen's new work is not the filmmaker himself but his surgeon. 
"I did not want to make something that was solipsistically inwards folding," he said.
It echoes his documentary "All That Breathes", where caregiving is at the emotional core of the film.
"What I loved in a surgeon was the ability to completely lose yourself, to be immersed in the absolute present," he said. 
"That feels meditative and contemplative. It's a kind of melting away of everything extraneous, and you're in the pinprick of the moment." 
- City as 'wallpaper' - 
The film is also about Sen's relationship with New Delhi, where he grew up, went to school and university, and the setting for all his work.
"The city," he said, is the "wallpaper of this film."
"In this case, the wallpaper is doing things to me, and I'm kind of reacting to it -- through a more personalised lens than I ever have."
His 2016 debut documentary, "Cities of Sleep", examined the city's  homeless population through the lens of sleep, following them in their quest for a safe place to rest. 
Sen is also heading to the Toronto International Film Festival in September to screen "Termite", his first fiction short, about two Delhi termite exterminators.
Yet the nature of his latest undertaking means it is inevitably different from his previous work.
Sen's ethnographic approach to filmmaking means shooting characters for long periods to, as he put it, "yield or slow drip certain answers".
"There's a deep pleasure in that kind of a thing," he said. 
"Time rewards you with accidents, but in this case, it would be really silly and self-congratulatory for me to say that, 'I gave this film time.'" 
Sen has had surgery, but continues the long road to recovery.
Shooting the film, he said, was a "way to not look directly at a scary thing", and "to aesthetically convert it into a project, so that you don't have to stare it in the grim eyes of what it actually is".
"I guess it's a kind of a con job."
sai/pjm/cms/ane

landslide

'The flood is coming': How a Nepal principal saved 900 students

BY LUCIE GODEAU

  • Now, standing above the scarred banks of the river in Nuwakot district more than a week after the disaster, Dawadi described himself simply as "a principal without a school".
  • Rajendra Dawadi was inside his school near Nepal's Trishuli River with around 900 students last week when a colleague delivered an urgent warning.
  • Now, standing above the scarred banks of the river in Nuwakot district more than a week after the disaster, Dawadi described himself simply as "a principal without a school".
Rajendra Dawadi was inside his school near Nepal's Trishuli River with around 900 students last week when a colleague delivered an urgent warning.
"My accountant came to the school and said, 'The flood is coming, the flood is coming'," the school principal told AFP in a recent interview.
Dawadi quickly ordered an evacuation, and teachers hurried hundreds of students from classrooms to higher ground. 
Minutes later, the 47-year-old watched the Trishuli Bazaar Secondary School he had run for years collapse into a raging torrent.
"If the information was wrong, we would lose a day of schooling," he recalled of the morning of August 26. "But if it was true, we were going to lose our lives."
Students were panicked, Dawadi said, and one girl fainted. 
Bus drivers bringing in other students were asked to turn back, including one driver who had just entered school grounds.
But the timely evacuation saved some 900 lives. 
Now, standing above the scarred banks of the river in Nuwakot district more than a week after the disaster, Dawadi described himself simply as "a principal without a school".
The tsunami-like wall of water, ice and debris unleashed by a massive glacial and rock collapse along the Nepal-China border killed at least 1,362 people and has left more than 5,500 missing across the two countries.
Five students died in the flooding outside the school, as well as a teacher and a security staff member, Dawadi said.
The staff member, who left the school after him, "had probably wanted to close the gate", he said.

'Nothing left'

Authorities in Trishuli Bazaar had not provided an evacuation plan, Dawadi said. 
Some residents tried to cross the bridge but were swept away. The others took refuge on higher ground.
"When I looked back, the school was standing there like the finest of buildings, and in five minutes, everything collapsed," Dawadi recalled. 
"It's also the school where I studied. There was nothing left."
Santoshi Dotel, 17, was in accounting class when the evacuation order came. At first, she struggled to comprehend the danger.
"We never would have thought the flood could reach such a scale," she said.
She initially went down to the river with her friend to try to cross and reach her family home.
Then the water surged.
"The bridge was swept away," she said. "I started to cry because I thought I would never get home and that there was nothing we could do."
Her friend pulled her up a hillside as the flood roared below.
Twisting her phone in her hands, Santoshi broke down into tears as she recalled the anguish of not knowing for hours whether her parents had survived.
It was only four days later that a helicopter finally reunited her with her family.
"I found my mother as I stepped out of the helicopter," she said. "She hugged me and started to cry. My mind just stopped working."
Her mother, Durga Dotel, had feared the worst.
"Seeing the river in flood, I had lost all hope that my daughter had survived," she said.
According to figures cited by Save the Children, at least 69 schools were destroyed or damaged, disrupting the education of nearly 19,000 children.
Dawadi said the disaster was "far worse" than the earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015. 
"The school had been completely destroyed (after the earthquake), but we rebuilt it," he said. 
"This time, we've lost the land and the building. We need a school again. But first, we need somewhere safe to build it."
bur-lgo/abh/lga/ane

pageant

Ethiopian Miss World contestant spotlights pain of sister's murder

BY TRAN THI MINH HA

  • This summer, Ruth's 29-year-old elder sister Kidusan Yirgalem Weldesilasie was kidnapped for ransom -- disappearing from her side as she prepared for the global beauty contest.
  • Preparing to take the stage representing Ethiopia at the Miss World pageant, Ruth Yirgalem Weldesilasie thinks of her sister, who was abducted and murdered ahead of the contest. 
  • This summer, Ruth's 29-year-old elder sister Kidusan Yirgalem Weldesilasie was kidnapped for ransom -- disappearing from her side as she prepared for the global beauty contest.
Preparing to take the stage representing Ethiopia at the Miss World pageant, Ruth Yirgalem Weldesilasie thinks of her sister, who was abducted and murdered ahead of the contest. 
"I'm going to change my pain to my purpose," the 25-year-old told AFP in Vietnam's coastal Nha Trang city, as 111 contestants gathered for the Saturday night pageant finale.
This summer, Ruth's 29-year-old elder sister Kidusan Yirgalem Weldesilasie was kidnapped for ransom -- disappearing from her side as she prepared for the global beauty contest.
Kidusan was discovered dead, her remains split between two suitcases, in late July. Ruth's best friend of a decade and her best friend's boyfriend are among 10 suspects who have been arrested, she said.
Violence against women and girls is endemic in Ethiopia's deeply patriarchal society.
Ruth hopes that by defying her grief to travel to Vietnam, she has found a platform to highlight its wrongs.
"I've been wanting to do this for a lifetime," she said.
Ahead of her departure, Ruth said she thought to herself that while she cannot bring her sister back, "if I go, there are things that I will do".
Saturday's event will be the 75th anniversary edition of the world's oldest beauty pageant.
The industry has in the past been criticised for reducing women to objects of glamour, undermining the feminist cause.
But in more recent decades contests have focussed on the charity and activist work of contenders -- while still staging all-colourful theatrical performances.

'Dignity'

On a break from rehearsals outside a hotel where she lodges with fellow competitors, Ruth told AFP of the stark issues she hopes her presence will highlight.
Her social impact projects focus on children's mental wellbeing and maternal health.
When you heal a woman, "you give her dignity back", she said. "You give her another life."
But travelling Ethiopia, she has seen many other women's issues requiring advocacy.
UN data shows nearly 20 million women in the country of 130 million people were married or in a union before the age of 18.
Female genital mutilation rates, though declining, are nearly 50 percent for women between the ages of 15 and 49.
A petition calling on the government to declare violence against women a "national crisis" has been signed by nearly 170,000 people.
Decades of instability and a 2020-2022 war in the country's north have worsened the lives of legions of women.
The root cause of all the problems is the same: women treated as objects.

Putting a price on women's lives

When the kidnappers of Ruth's sister called to demand their ransom, the point hit home.
"Imagine the person that you care for most has a price one day -- you're being asked for a price", Ruth told AFP. "It was hard, very hard."
Ruth will be mourning in the spotlight, a counterintuitive choice that she battled her emotional instincts to make.
"I know when I go back home tomorrow, I'm going to sit on my couch and try to process everything and cry my eyes out," she said.
But she is motivated by the memory of her sister. 
As a child, her family would tell her: "You are the one for your sister. You are the one who is going to protect her."
She sees taking the stage in Vietnam as a way to serve the larger sisterhood of women, even if her own sibling is lost.
"I want women to think beyond what they are going through," she said.
"I want to show the world that even when the world is being hard on you, you can also make it."
tmh/jts/ami/sst

pollution

How haze from Indonesian fires impacts Southeast Asia

BY MARCHIO GORBIANO

  • -  Most of the fires are concentrated on Borneo island, home to vast tropical jungle that Indonesia shares with Brunei and Malaysia, as well as Sumatra.
  • Thick smog has blanketed parts of Indonesia as the vast archipelago for weeks battles to contain fires that have burned large swathes of Borneo and Sumatra.
  • -  Most of the fires are concentrated on Borneo island, home to vast tropical jungle that Indonesia shares with Brunei and Malaysia, as well as Sumatra.
Thick smog has blanketed parts of Indonesia as the vast archipelago for weeks battles to contain fires that have burned large swathes of Borneo and Sumatra.
The hazardous smoke has led to an increase in respiratory problems, forced schools to close and has been drifting to neighbouring countries including Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines.
Here's what to know:
- Where are the fires? - 
Most of the fires are concentrated on Borneo island, home to vast tropical jungle that Indonesia shares with Brunei and Malaysia, as well as Sumatra.
So far this year, nearly 300,000 hectares of land have burned in Indonesia, according to an independent estimate from the Nusantara Atlas portal. 
Indonesia saw an uptick in carbon emissions since late July, and by the end of last month the levels were comparable to previous El Nino years of 2015 and 2019, Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) senior scientist Mark Parrington told AFP.
"We're seeing already now... really extreme fire emissions comparable to those previous strong El Nino years, and also the extent of the smoke and the haze and the air quality impacts," Parrington said.
Fires in the archipelago have released more than 23 million metric tons of carbon emissions between August 28 and September 3, according to the CAMS Fire Emissions Watch portal.
It was higher than 20.7 million metric tons of emissions from fires over the same period in 2015, which was a strong El Nino year.
- What causes the fires? - 
Analysts said that the El Nino weather phenomenon, which the United Nations said this week could turn out to be the strongest in four decades, has contributed to creating drier conditions in Indonesia and made it easier for fires to spread.
But slash-and-burn land-clearing practices also contributed to the damage, said David Gaveau, founder of the Nusantara Atlas.
"El Nino does not ignite fires. It creates the dry conditions that allow human-started fires to escape and become very large," he told AFP.
The fires are difficult to extinguish because many occurred on peatlands, a wetland ecosystem with layers of partially decomposed organic materials that become flammable when dry.
Between January and August this year, more than 210,000 hotspots were detected in peatland areas across the country, according to NGO Pantau Gambut.
"Peat is a naturally wet ecosystem and stores large amounts of organic material. When peat is drained, this organic material is converted into fuel," Pantau Gambut spokesman Wahyu Perdana said.
- What is the impact? - 
More than five million people across Borneo and Sumatra are directly exposed to the health risks from haze, deputy health minister Dante Saksono Harbuwono said last month.
Over 1.4 million students were attending classes remotely, with many schools closed due to worsening air quality, an education ministry official said this week.
In Malaysia, soaring pollution levels prompted the government on Friday to declare an emergency in a region of the Sarawak state in Borneo, with nearly 650 schools closed next week.
In the Philippines, air quality was slowly returning to normal after a week of reaching "very unhealthy" and "severely unhealthy" PM 2.5 levels that saw officials shutter schools in cities and provinces, citing the drifting haze.
The haze also drove air quality in Singapore's central region to an "unhealthy" level on Friday, the country's National Environment Agency data showed. 
Indonesia is in communication with other countries in the region in relation to the transboundary haze, foreign ministry spokesman Vahd Nabyl Achmad Mulachela said in a statement on Saturday.
He said that regular meetings between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members to discuss the haze and follow-up measures "continue to be held".
burs-mrc/lga

measles

Bangladesh measles toll nears grim 1,000-child mark

BY RASHEEK MUJIB

  • - 'Devastating' - The outbreak has exposed gaps in Bangladesh's efforts to protect its youngest.
  • Bangladesh's deadliest measles outbreak in decades is nearing the grim milestone of 1,000 child deaths, as a devastating epidemic sweeps through the country and crowded hospital wards fill with struggling babies.
  • - 'Devastating' - The outbreak has exposed gaps in Bangladesh's efforts to protect its youngest.
Bangladesh's deadliest measles outbreak in decades is nearing the grim milestone of 1,000 child deaths, as a devastating epidemic sweeps through the country and crowded hospital wards fill with struggling babies.
Cries of sick children and the hiss of oxygen machines fill the air at Dhaka's Shishu Hospital, where Rima Akter keeps a vigil beside her nine-month-old son.
"Just an hour ago, a child died, and they wheeled him out in front of us," 30-year-old Akter told AFP on Thursday. "We saw two children die today."
Akter's son Sabit Haque is one of scores filling the children's hospital's measles wards.
At least 986 children have died since March, while suspected and confirmed cases have surged past 180,000, according to the latest health ministry figures.
Measles is highly contagious, spreading through coughs and sneezes, and has no specific treatment once caught.
Complications can include brain swelling and severe breathing problems. Although anyone can catch the disease, young children are particularly vulnerable.
The South Asian nation of 170 million has rolled out a mass vaccination drive to combat the outbreak, but case numbers continue to climb.
More than 1,000 suspected cases are reported daily.
- 'Very weak' - 
"I've been running to and from multiple hospitals since July to get my son the proper treatment," said Sanjana Islam Modina, 19, cradling her six-month-old son Ayan, who has an oxygen tube fixed to his nose.
Small dark spots covered Ayan's head, fading from the angry red rash left by measles.
He was first admitted to hospital with pneumonia in July, then contracted measles before finally securing a bed at the capital's specialised children's hospital in mid-August.
Ayan spent 15 days in intensive care, before improving enough to return to the dedicated measles ward.
The hospital currently has 101 children admitted with suspected or confirmed measles.
"His lungs were already very weak from the pneumonia, then with measles his breathing was affected more," Modina told AFP, while trying to soothe her wailing baby.
"He's been on oxygen constantly for the last five days."
Most cases recorded in Bangladesh during the current outbreak have been among children aged between six months and five years.
Doctors say many of the children arriving at hospital are already critically ill, with malnutrition further weakening their ability to fight the virus.
Ayan has also been diagnosed as malnourished.
"The doctors gave my son a special milk specifically designed for malnourished children," said Modina, wiping sweat from his tiny forehead.

'Devastating'

The outbreak has exposed gaps in Bangladesh's efforts to protect its youngest.
SM Ziauddin Hyder, special assistant to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman for health, called the outbreak "devastating".
Bangladesh had previously made major advances in vaccination against infectious diseases, but a measles drive planned for 2024 was delayed by the uprising that toppled former prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Workers' strikes and political instability delayed a 2025 campaign.
The country has since rolled out a mass vaccination drive to combat the outbreak, but the number of cases continues to climb.
"There was a gap of a significant number of children missing the doses," Hyder said.
"Healthcare workers... are vaccinating these children to close the gap."
Mahmudur Rahman, an epidemiologist and former director of the Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), said Bangladesh should consider a broader vaccination campaign to contain the outbreak.
Rahman said public awareness was also crucial, stressing preventive measures including isolating infected children, handwashing and the use of masks by caregivers.
Worried mother Akter needs no reminder of how quickly the sickness can spread.
"We are aware of how contagious this disease is; our son was first admitted for bronchitis," she said
"After being released, we had to come back for measles."
bur-pjm/lga

TikTok

How a Dostoevsky novella took TikTok by storm

BY ANNA PELEGRI WITH AFP REPORTERS IN MOSCOW

  • Paloma Lima, a 29-year-old influencer and fan of Russian literature, told AFP that young TikTok users came to her YouTube channel after reading "White Nights."
  • Marcelo Nogueira is not well versed in the classics but the 27-year-old Brazilian book influencer was seduced by Fyodor Dostoevsky's "White Nights," a 19th-century tale of love and loneliness at the center of an unlikely TikTok craze.
  • Paloma Lima, a 29-year-old influencer and fan of Russian literature, told AFP that young TikTok users came to her YouTube channel after reading "White Nights."
Marcelo Nogueira is not well versed in the classics but the 27-year-old Brazilian book influencer was seduced by Fyodor Dostoevsky's "White Nights," a 19th-century tale of love and loneliness at the center of an unlikely TikTok craze.
Dostoevsky's story of a dreamer who, while strolling through the streets of Saint Petersburg, meets a young woman with whom he falls madly in love has become a bestseller in Brazil, nearly 180 years after its release.
Editora 34 publishing house told AFP that its sales of the novella, one of Dostoevsky's earliest works, had jumped 463 percent year-on-year.
In the United Kingdom and Spain, it is also flying off the shelves.
Nogueira, who has 13,000 followers on TikTok, explained that Gen Z readers found an echo in "the figure of the solitary dreamer, which is how many young people feel today."
Dostoevsky follows the narrator over four nights and a morning during which he ceases living in his imagination and embraces reality for the first time.
His peregrinations are the prelude to a love story as passionate as it is fleeting.
"My God! A whole minute of bliss! Is that really so little for the whole of a man's life?" the narrator exclaims in one of the lines most quoted on social media, reflecting on the enduring value of brief bursts of joy.

Bowled over

Tens of thousands of comments on BookTok, a popular book community on TikTok, attest to the popularity of one of Russia's greatest novelists with the social media generation.
It "bowls you over: it's real life written in a poetic way," user @thayslaaaa commented.
Paloma Lima, a 29-year-old influencer and fan of Russian literature, told AFP that young TikTok users came to her YouTube channel after reading "White Nights."
"It makes sense" because it's a "short and intense" book and falls into one of the most popular tropes on TikTok, she said, citing popular narratives such as "friends becoming lovers."
In Russia, the phenomenon is a source of both surprise and pride.
Speaking at the Moscow Book Fair, Ekaterina Kvitko, a 28-year-old author, said young Russian readers were far less enthused.
Perhaps it's because it's a "story about a protagonist who is alone, searching for some kind of love, some crutch to lean on. Maybe teenagers in the West are living in that state right now," she mused.

Criticism or advertising?

"White Nights" has emerged as a gateway book for Dostoevsky's work, with some young readers progressing onto more challenging novels, such as "Crime and Punishment."
It's an "unexpected" phenomenon, says Danilo Hora of Editora 34, reporting a 53 percent increase in sales of Dostoevsky's iconic tale of murder and guilt during the first seven months of the year.
In an era when short TikTok and YouTube videos are being blamed for eroding attention spans and fueling a reading crisis, social media, it transpires, is creating new audiences for the classics.
"Being a reader is a very beautiful idea; it can even be marketed. There's an associated aesthetic that's spreading" on TikTok, Nogueira said.
Aesthetics are also driving demand for the physical book over the digital version.
"It attracts more attention to have a wonderful cover than a Kindle," said Nogueira.
For his video discussing the book he used an edition with a colorful pop-art cover of a couple kissing, which is sold out in several bookstores in Rio de Janeiro.
Cecilia Rosas, a Brazilian researcher and translator of Russian literature, hailed the interest in the classics on social media.
She stressed, however, the importance of distinguishing between literary criticism and what often passes for such on social media but which, in her view, amounts to "advertising."
burs-app/tmo/cb/hol

sabotage

Germany hunts climate activist suspected of power grid sabotage

BY SAM REEVES

  • Germany has faced a spate of attacks on the power grid in recent times, with far-left activists claiming responsibility in some cases.
  • German authorities were Friday hunting a militant climate activist suspected of a spate of attacks on the power grid, the latest sabotage targeting critical infrastructure.
  • Germany has faced a spate of attacks on the power grid in recent times, with far-left activists claiming responsibility in some cases.
German authorities were Friday hunting a militant climate activist suspected of a spate of attacks on the power grid, the latest sabotage targeting critical infrastructure.
The 48-year-old man, named in German media as Daniel V., sent letters claiming responsibility for the acts and suspected explosives were found during searches of his apartment, officials said.
Germany has been rattled by attacks on electricity substations across the country this week which were apparently aimed at cutting power from coal-fired power stations and causing widespread blackouts.
"We must assume that this is a case of climate extremism," Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told journalists.
The Bild tabloid reported that a heavily armed elite police team had stormed a truck in Hambach Forest in North Rhine-Westphalia suspected of belonging to the activist, but had failed to apprehend him.
The area is highly symbolic for Germany's climate movement. Activists spent years protesting plans to raze vast tracts of forest to expand the nearby Hambach open-cast lignite mine.
Earlier, police had raided the suspect's apartment in the town Gevelsberg, in western North Rhine-Westphalia state, after security officials and media received his letters claiming the attacks.
They discovered "suspicious substances and suspected explosive materials or devices", the state's interior minister Herbert Reul told journalists. 

'No justification'

The letters, which contained detailed descriptions of the attack plans, were presumed to be authentic, he said. 
"The author cites as his motive the fight against fossil fuels," said Reul.
However, the minister stressed that "attacking critical infrastructure is a crime... There is no justification for this crime, no ideology that counts as an excuse."
The attacks followed the same pattern, with firework-like devices used to shoot wires at overhead cables at substations in a bid to cause short circuits and cut power from nearby coal-powered plants.
While there were no major outages, power-generating units at some plants had to be taken off the grid for a a time.
The first attacked happened on Tuesday morning when a substation in eastern Brandenburg state was targeted, damaging power cables and briefly disrupting supply. 
A further attack followed later the same day targeting a substation in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Authorities say he also confessed in his letter to planning further attacks, while devices to launch small rockets were found at other locations.
Germany has faced a spate of attacks on the power grid in recent times, with far-left activists claiming responsibility in some cases.
The most serious took place in Berlin in January, causing an electricity outage that left tens of thousands of homes and thousands of businesses without power for nearly a week in the middle of winter.
The far-left "Vulkangruppe" (Volcano Group) claimed responsibility for the arson attack on high-voltage cables that caused that blackout. 
sr/jj

politics

5 EU countries aim to send rejected migrants to 'return hub' by 2027

BY CAMILLE BAS-WOHLERT

  • Earlier Friday, Denmark said it was ready to send rejected asylum seekers to such hubs by the end of 2027, not the start.
  • Five EU countries are seeking a deal with a country outside the bloc to host a "return hub" for migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected, with a targeted start date of January 1, a Danish minister said Friday.
  • Earlier Friday, Denmark said it was ready to send rejected asylum seekers to such hubs by the end of 2027, not the start.
Five EU countries are seeking a deal with a country outside the bloc to host a "return hub" for migrants whose asylum applications have been rejected, with a targeted start date of January 1, a Danish minister said Friday.
Denmark, Greece, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands agreed to the initiative as Copenhagen hosted talks on the creation of migrant detention centres outside Europe.
"Around New Year, we expect to have a common understanding with a partner country outside of the European Union," said Danish Migrations Minister Morten Bodskov, without naming the nation.
He said the countries were "transforming EU asylum and migration policy".
The partner country or countries have not been disclosed, but Uganda and Rwanda in particular are seen as possibilities.
Greek Migration and Asylum Minister Thanos Plevris said the goal was to have "the return hub operational in a country outside the European Union by 2027", adding that discussions were at an "advanced" stage.
Earlier Friday, Denmark said it was ready to send rejected asylum seekers to such hubs by the end of 2027, not the start.
"We do not accept that foreigners staying illegally in Denmark should be rewarded because of our difficulties in returning them," Bodskov said in the earlier statement.
In June, the European Parliament approved tougher migration rules granting authorities much broader detention powers, and allowing for the creation of "return hubs".
The idea has been severely criticised by rights groups.
Britain abandoned a scheme to deport undocumented migrants to Rwanda, while Italian-run facilities to process migrants in Albania have faced legal challenges and a slow uptake.

'We were mocked'

The Danish migration minister hailed the progress toward setting up "return hubs".
"When we launched this debate... we were mocked, people said it was totally unrealistic," Bodskov said.
"And today, we're there."
The five countries said the model would help make the migration system "more humane".
"It will also be a tool to break the business model of cynical migrant smugglers that are exploiting vulnerable people who risk their lives on perilous journeys to Europe," they said in a statement.
Bodskov said the centres would not be "camps".
"We are talking about opportunities for a new chance for irregular migrants which cannot return to their home country today, and that have no legal grounds to be in our countries," he said.
Rwanda confirmed in August it had opened "preliminary" talks on the subject with unnamed European countries.
Not all EU member states are on board with the idea.
French President Emmanuel Macron has dismissed it as ineffective and incompatible with European values.
European Parliament member Melissa Camara of the Ecologists said the Copenhagen meeting "marks yet another step in the renunciation of the fundamental values of the European Union and the violation of the dignity of exiled people".
cbw/nzg/po/gv/jhb/ach

film

'Wallace & Gromit' creators turn 50 with spook-tacular Shaun yarn

BY CLARA LALANNE

  • In the world of sophisticated digitalised animations and computer graphics, Aardman stands out for its painstaking handcrafted "stop-motion" technique, which dates back to the late 19th century.
  • Crochet hook in hand, the animator slightly raises the eyelid of a clay model sheep in a filmmaking technique as old as cinema, perfected over five decades by Aardman Animations.
  • In the world of sophisticated digitalised animations and computer graphics, Aardman stands out for its painstaking handcrafted "stop-motion" technique, which dates back to the late 19th century.
Crochet hook in hand, the animator slightly raises the eyelid of a clay model sheep in a filmmaking technique as old as cinema, perfected over five decades by Aardman Animations.
In the basement of the Bristol-based company -- whose beloved characters such as Wallace and Gromit have won them four Oscars -- designers have been working for the past three-and-a-half years on the latest adventure in their "Shaun the Sheep" series.
"Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom" is the third full-length film starring the mischievous, savvy sheep, due to be released on September 18 in UK cinemas.
This time Shaun and his flock have to work together to save Halloween from a fur-raising creature terrorising their farm's pumpkin patch.
The film marks the 50th anniversary of Aardman, founded in Bristol in 1976 by Peter Lord and David Sproxton who went to school together and used to make models on a kitchen table.
In the dim light of Aardman's basement, about 40 small rooms with a blue background have been set up, with curtains concealing puppet-sized scenes from the film.
One curtain opens to reveal Mossy Bottom farm and its autumnal colours, another a mad science lab, while behind yet another is a black and red fishing boat.
In the world of sophisticated digitalised animations and computer graphics, Aardman stands out for its painstaking handcrafted "stop-motion" technique, which dates back to the late 19th century.
"Our aim as animators is to make people think these puppets are alive," said animation director Claire Rolls.
"Nowadays, there's not a lot of places in the world doing stop-motion animation." 

'Spare arms and ears'

In a docklands scene, Rolls, who joined the company in 1998, was working with team member Ed Jackson setting up camera shots.
The sheep, wearing yellow rain jackets, are trying to attract the attention of a crew of sailors, Rolls explained.
The animator gets down to work, eyes fixed on a screen that alternates between the shot he's preparing and the previous frame. 
To create the illusion of movement, he raises one sheep's head, lowers another's legs, and clicks the camera once the shot is ready.
After two days of this patient, exacting work, he will have filmed about two seconds of footage, each second made up of 24 frames.
And the complete film is made up of more than 100,000 of these painstakingly created stop-motion frames.
The creatures that populate the studio's productions are created upstairs, in the puppet department.
After first appearing in 1995 in "Wallace & Gromit: A Close Shave", Shaun has become one of the studio's icons.
He is now the hero of a television series, shown in 170 countries, and two previous films, and has attracted a huge social media following.
Amid a jumble of drawings and materials, Kate Anderson, the head of the puppet department, pulls out a box filled with interchangeable parts - a mouth closed, a jaw dropped, or rounded in an 'O' of surprise.
Such parts help animators to illustrate different "sounds and expressions" for Bitzer, the long-suffering sheepdog.
The puppet makers "stick with clay for really expressive areas of the puppet, like the face," said Anderson, even if sometimes silicon is used to make the characters' bodies.
That material is more resistant when applied to a metal frame, she explained, with the figures nailed in place to avoid any continuity errors.
"Because animators are touching puppets all day long, they do break quite easily," she said.
"We always know that we need to have a big stock of spare sheep arms and ears."

'Quirky, fun'

"The animation is like a live performance," said co-director Steve Cox.
It is different to computer-generated images and two dimensional or 2D ones as "you can't really go back and change things once you've done it".
Filming is done in silence and sound added later, but that doesn't stop its "very British" humour, kind of "quirky and fun", from shining through.
"We do use digital effects in our films, but they're an embellishment to... the hand-crafted work," said producer Richard Beek.
Artificial intelligence has not been used for this latest Shaun movie, he said.
Aardman's playful, imaginative clay figures are instantly recognisable, from the pumpkins to Shaun's mad-scientist glasses.
The release of Disney's "Toy Story" in 1995 caused concern, as with AI, that "we're going to make films now on computers" and there would no longer be any place for stop-motion.
"But what's happened is we've continued to make films," Beek said.
"The whole world changes around us, but there's lots of things that stay the same at Aardman, and maybe that's partly what people like... there's a familiarity to it."
cla/alm/jkb/jj

AfD

German AfD's love for Simson mopeds dismays Jewish family behind brand

BY BRYN STOLE

  • The scooters were designed and built in East Germany -- years after the Simson family had fled Nazi Germany for the United States -- but the bikes were still branded with their name.
  • German far-right AfD politicians like to ride vintage Simson scooters that are icons of the former communist East Germany -- much to the dismay of the Jewish family whose name adorns the machines.
  • The scooters were designed and built in East Germany -- years after the Simson family had fled Nazi Germany for the United States -- but the bikes were still branded with their name.
German far-right AfD politicians like to ride vintage Simson scooters that are icons of the former communist East Germany -- much to the dismay of the Jewish family whose name adorns the machines.
Ulrich Siegmund, 35, the top candidate of the Alternative for Germany party and frontrunner in Sunday's Saxony-Anhalt state elections, has often led Simson rallies that have drawn hundreds of riders.
This has helped him tap into "Ostalgie", or nostalgia for the vanished German Democratic Republic (GDR), that is sometimes mixed with bitter resentment over how the region has fared since Germany's 1990 reunification.
AfD firebrand Bjoern Hoecke in neighbouring Thuringia has also been riding the bikes and featuring them in campaign material.
Dennis Baum, a descendant of the Simson founders who lives in New York, said seeing videos of AfD politicians on Simson bikes was "one step too far".
The scooters were designed and built in East Germany -- years after the Simson family had fled Nazi Germany for the United States -- but the bikes were still branded with their name.
"The bottom line ... is that we do not want the Simson name politicised," Baum told AFP.
Baum has stressed that "my family and I firmly reject extremist ideologies and will not accept the AfD's appropriation of our name".
This year Baum travelled to Germany to talk about his family's experience of antisemitic persecution and to warn against far-right agitation, including at anti-AfD protests.
Siegmund meanwhile hopes to win big on Sunday, potentially bringing a far-right party to power in a state for the first time in Germany's post-war history.

Symbol of youthful freedom

To many enthusiasts, Simson bikes were a beloved symbol of youthful freedom and regional identity in the east long before the AfD appeared on the scene.
During communist days, chronic shortages and years-long waiting lists for cars like the puttering Trabant meant that mopeds and motorcycles became an indispensable way to get around.
"The GDR's motorisation, because of scarcity, happened through two-wheelers," Ulrike Schulz, a historian and author of a book on the history of the Simson companies, told AFP.
The most famous model, the Schwalbe (swallow), became ubiquitous in the 1960s. Decades later, its fans still gather at rallies, trade spare parts and restore ageing machines.
Since the 1990s, the relatively low cost of used Simson scooters, along with their stylish retro look and simple mechanics, have kept them a persistent favourite for tinkerers and hobbyists. 
Part of their appeal is that Simson bikes first registered before 1992 are allowed to travel at 60 kilometres per hour, rather than the standard 45 kph for other scooters.
"That, of course, is what makes them so attractive for young people, especially for youths living in rural areas," said Enrico Wedekind, a curator at Berlin's DDR Museum who for years rode a Simson himself.

Persecution and expropriation

Simson bikes may be a symbol of East Germany, but the company has a much longer and more complex history.
Founded in the 19th century by Jewish brothers Loeb and Moses Simson in Suhl, Thuringia, it grew into a thriving industrial firm that made firearms but also bicycles and luxury automobiles. 
But by the late 1920s, Schulz said, local Nazi leaders targeted Simson with an intense antisemitic campaign which only worsened after Adolf Hitler took power in 1933.
Simson family members were harassed, jailed and pressured by the Gestapo secret police into surrendering control of the business for a pittance before fleeing Germany.
"It was expropriation, pure and simple," Schulz said.
The firm was folded into a Nazi-controlled arms company while the Simson family eventually settled in the United States.
After World War II, the Soviets seized the Simson Works, before the complex eventually became a state-owned scooter manufacturer which retained the pre-war Simson brand name.
Simson's moped division puttered on after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall but eventually went bust in 2002.
Baum and other heirs, meanwhile, spent years navigating complex restitution claims for expropriated properties and assets.
Years on, Baum said, "I thought the whole story was over. But it wasn't over, and that was thanks to the far-right party."
bst/fz/cw

climate

After heatwaves, will EU pivot back to the climate fight?

BY ADRIEN DE CALAN

  • With Europe barely emerging from a sweltering summer, climate would have been hard to ignore in the normally sprawling "State of the European Union" address -- a yearly speech setting out political priorities for the next 12 months.
  • Is climate change set for a comeback as a top EU priority, after a deadly summer of record-breaking heatwaves across Europe?
  • With Europe barely emerging from a sweltering summer, climate would have been hard to ignore in the normally sprawling "State of the European Union" address -- a yearly speech setting out political priorities for the next 12 months.
Is climate change set for a comeback as a top EU priority, after a deadly summer of record-breaking heatwaves across Europe?
The fight against global warming is expected to feature prominently in a key policy speech by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen this month, after two years critics say were marked by major environmental rollbacks.
With Europe barely emerging from a sweltering summer, climate would have been hard to ignore in the normally sprawling "State of the European Union" address -- a yearly speech setting out political priorities for the next 12 months.
After years as a leading EU cause, climate concerns have taken the backseat to defence and industry goals over the past couple of years -- to the frustration of environmentalists.
The bloc has notably watered down new green rules for businesses and proposed abandoning a ban on the sale of new internal combustion engine cars by 2035.
Yet some hope the September 16 speech could signal a rebalancing of priorities in Brussels.
In August, about 200 environmental groups urged von der Leyen in a letter to use the speech to lay out concrete plans to wean the 27-nation bloc off fossil fuels.
And in a possible harbinger of things to come, the EU's 27 commissioners are scheduled to meet Swedish climatologist Johan Rockstrom for a post-summer seminar in Brussels on Friday.
 

'Uphill battle'

 
But other evidence points in a different direction.
EU sources say von der Leyen will focus on "climate resilience" and the economic potential of green industries -- two low-hanging fruits.
The latter has been a familiar refrain during von der Leyen's seven years at the helm and legislation on climate resilience was already due to be presented before the end of the year.
The kind of ambitious climate legislation that defined von der Leyen's first five years in office -- known as the Green Deal -- is a hard sell in Brussels these days.
Green parties lost out in the 2024 European elections, and the business-friendly centre-right now holds sway in a European Parliament where climate sceptics on the far-right also have a bigger say.
The priority is not "to repaint in green laws that Europeans have asked to be changed", said right-wing lawmaker Celine Imart.
Within the commission itself there are divisions.
In recent months for example green voices have clashed with pro-business colleagues over the impact of a carbon market reform on the aviation and maritime transport sectors.
At the same time, EU countries are wrangling over where to allocate the limited resources that are to be dished out under the bloc's next long-term budget.
"It's going to be an uphill battle," said Green leader Terry Reintke.
Her group was nevertheless going to "push very, very hard" to have von der Leyen lay out concrete climate actions in her speech.
"We are talking about existential situations here," she told AFP.
adc/ec/jhb

drugs

New Zealand approves use of party drug MDMA to treat trauma

  • Wellington's Ministry of Health said MDMA-assisted treatment would be combined with psychotherapy and stressed that patients would not be supplied drugs to take home.
  • Two psychiatrists in New Zealand won approval Friday to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade MDMA to sufferers of severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
  • Wellington's Ministry of Health said MDMA-assisted treatment would be combined with psychotherapy and stressed that patients would not be supplied drugs to take home.
Two psychiatrists in New Zealand won approval Friday to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade MDMA to sufferers of severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
The move by New Zealand's pharmaceutical regulatory body Medsafe makes the country only the second worldwide to approve the use of the party drug for use in treating PTSD, following Australia in 2023.
"PTSD ruins lives and is difficult to treat," said Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour, who last year backed the approval of magic mushrooms to treat people with severe depression.
"MDMA can be very effective at treating it through psychedelic-assisted therapy."
New Zealand is committed to opening up access to "innovative treatments", Seymour said.
PTSD is a mental health condition that develops after a person experiences or is threatened by traumatic events such as death, combat or sexual assault.
Clinical trials are ongoing in the United States after the Federal Drug Administration rejected legalising MDMA's medicinal use in 2024, saying there was not enough evidence it was safe or effective.
Pharmaceutical treatment options for PTSD in the United States have so far been limited to two antidepressants that require three months of dosing to take effect, and response rates to the medications have been uneven.
A study in Israel last year found that MDMA taken by ravers at the Nova music festival when hundreds were killed by Hamas have been helpful in cushioning the impact of the trauma they endured.
Wellington's Ministry of Health said MDMA-assisted treatment would be combined with psychotherapy and stressed that patients would not be supplied drugs to take home.
"Treatment takes place in a controlled clinical setting under the care of an authorised psychiatrist and forms part of a comprehensive treatment plan," the ministry said.
Any patients would have to be aged 18 or older, it added.
bes/oho/cms