Power cuts in Syrian capital drive workers, students to cafes

Cafe owner Ihsan al-Azmeh (R) prepares coffee in the Syrian capital Damascus on January 30, 2023. (AFP)
Cafe owner Ihsan al-Azmeh (R) prepares coffee in the Syrian capital Damascus on January 30, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 13 February 2024
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Power cuts in Syrian capital drive workers, students to cafes

Cafe owner Ihsan al-Azmeh (R) prepares coffee in the Syrian capital Damascus on January 30, 2023. (AFP)
  • Nearly 13 years of civil war have hammered Syria’s infrastructure, including power stations and energy pipelines, leading to power outages that can drag on for up to 20 hours a day

DAMASCUS: Majida has been working from a central Damascus cafe almost every day for a year, depending on it for reliable electricity and wifi in a country plagued by debilitating power cuts.
“Without cafes, I would have been unable to work because of the long blackouts at home,” said the graphic designer, 42, declining to provide her surname.
Enterprising owners have upgraded their businesses with generators and batteries to guarantee power and draw in Damascenes plagued by Syria’s war-battered and crumbling infrastructure.




Students Shadi (L), Pierre (C) and George study at a cafe in the Syrian capital Damascus on January 30, 2023. (AFP)

“I need a continuous power supply (to work) — and I get my inspiration from the people here,” added Majida, drawing designs on a tablet on the cafe’s sofa.
Nearly 13 years of civil war have hammered Syria’s infrastructure, including power stations and energy pipelines, leading to power outages that can drag on for up to 20 hours a day.
Key oil and gas fields in the country’s northeast have not been under government control for years, while Western sanctions have hampered resource imports and strained public funds.




In the Syrian capital, the shortages have sparked a boom in caf's turned informal co-working spaces for electricity hungry workers and students. (AFP)

In 2021, Economy Minister Samer Al-Khalil said energy sector losses since 2011 amounted to around “$100 billion in direct and indirect damages.”
In the Syrian capital, the shortages have sparked a boom in cafes turned informal co-working spaces for electricity hungry workers and students.
At Flow Space Coffee, a colorful cafe with a quiet, studious ambiance, customers including Majida type on laptops or sip coffee while shuffling through papers.

The owner, Ihsan Azmeh, 38, whose friendly white dog Lilly is also a regular, said he wanted the cafe to be a place for young workers and students when he opened it three years ago.
“Damascus cafes solve at least three problems for people these days: electricity, Internet and heating,” he said.
Azmeh has rearranged the furniture to accommodate a growing number of workers seeking makeshift offices, with benches resembling school desks and a large rectangular table for meetings.
He bought a generator and has installed a battery system that kicks in when state power drops out, ensuring a constant electricity supply. Azmeh also doubled the number of outlets for charging mobile phones and other devices.
“I often find myself sleeping at the cafe instead of heading home” to avoid long power cuts, he added.
Across the city in the eastern neighborhood of Bab Tuma, known for its cafes and bars, Saint-Michel Coffee has also become a haven for freelancers and students.
Visiting the cafe “is not an option for me, but a necessity” said George Kassari, 18, a computer science student at Damascus University.
“As soon as I arrive, I take out all my devices to charge them,” he said, adding that he and his sister often recharge each other’s electronics at the cafe.

Muhammad Sabahi, a student who works as a website developer for a company in the Gulf, was preparing for an online meeting at a table nearby.
“I work from the cafe every day,” said the 22-year-old, adding: “I now have a fixed seat here, employees know my favorite drink by heart and they begin making it as soon as I arrive.”
If not for the coffee shop, “I would have failed my university exams and lost my job,” he said.
“This is the only solution for me and many of my friends,” he added, a large bag filled with chargers, cables and other necessities sitting beside him.
Medical student Shadi Elias, 18, said he chased sunlight around his home by day and read his textbooks by torchlight at night, heading to the nearest coffee shop whenever the batteries ran out.
“Cafes are crowded during the exam periods, so I make sure to come early,” he said, sitting near a chalkboard with drawings of lightbulbs reading “battery-powered.”
“This place turns into a big classroom — we borrow pens, papers, books and sometimes even phone chargers from each other,” he said with a smile.
 

 


Study of 700-year-old handwriting unveils leading Byzantine painter’s identity

Study of 700-year-old handwriting unveils leading Byzantine painter’s identity
Updated 05 December 2024
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Study of 700-year-old handwriting unveils leading Byzantine painter’s identity

Study of 700-year-old handwriting unveils leading Byzantine painter’s identity

THESSALONIKI: Crime-solving techniques applied to a medieval illuminated manuscript in Paris may have solved a centuries-old puzzle — the true identity of a leading Byzantine painter who injected humanity into the rigid sanctity of Orthodox religious art.
A contemporary of Giotto, considered the father of Western painting, the artist conventionally known as Manuel Panselinos was equally influential in a totally different tradition that’s largely overlooked in the West.
But nothing is known of his life, and scholars now believe Panselinos was just a nickname that eventually supplanted the real name of the man for whom it was coined — likely Ioannis Astrapas, from the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki.
The art of Byzantium, that decorates churches across Greece, Serbia and other Orthodox countries, stands out for the stark formalism of its elongated, glowering saints, quasi-cubist mountains and doe-eyed Madonnas.
Work attributed to Panselinos, from the late 13th and early 14th centuries, is considered the finest produced in an empire that straddled Europe and Asia and endured from the fall of Rome until the capture of the imperial capital Constantinople by the Ottoman Turks in 1453.
Art historians had long suspected that the name — Greek for “full moon” — could have originated as a nickname for some member of the so-called Macedonian School of painting, based in Thessaloniki.
Recent research by a Greek monk and linguistics scholar linked “Panselinos” with Macedonian School painter Astrapas. Now court handwriting expert Christina Sotirakoglou has matched lettering on a manuscript tentatively attributed to Astrapas with characters on a church painting in northern Greece, long seen as Panselinos’ best work.
Father Cosmas Simonopetritis, a former senior administrator in Mount Athos, the semiautonomous monastic community where the Protato church stands, says Sotirakoglou’s and his own research “clearly prove” Panselinos’ real identity.
“Panselinos was a real person, and (the name) was just the nickname by which Ioannis Astrapas became known,” he told The Associated Press.
Constantinos Vafiadis, a professor of Byzantine art in Athens who was not involved in the studies, said he found merit in the nickname theory and Astrapas link, even though it appeared more than one painter had undertaken the Protato project.
“I agree with attributing part of the paintings to Ioannis Astrapas,” he said. “But again there remains much ground for future research into that person, because other Mount Athos monuments from the same period have not yet been sufficiently published.”
“Panselinos” — a role model for generations of painters — and his contemporaries are associated with a renaissance of kinds in Orthodox art that revived forms and techniques inherited from antiquity. Facial expressions acquired a deeper humanity, and greater attention was paid to proportion and depth of field in composition.
Father Cosmas said Astrapas was an “extremely gifted painter ... with vast knowledge who harmonically combined the ancient, classical world with Orthodox Byzantine spirituality.”
“And that ... makes his work unique worldwide,” he added.
Artists’ signatures were not common at the time, although some survive from members of the Astrapas family. There are none by “Panselinos.”
The trail started with earlier research linking Astrapas with the artist and scholar who wrote and illustrated Marcian Codex GR 516, an early 14th century Greek handwritten text treating subjects from astronomy to music theory. Among the painted illustrations was a full moon.
“For me ... that was the main proof,” Father Cosmas said.
With a name found for the hand that produced the manuscript, the next step was to check its style against writing on the Protato painting, traditionally linked with “Panselinos.”
“Mrs Sotirakoglou, who is a handwriting expert, filled in that blank,” Father Cosmas said.
There was one problem: Women have for more than 1,000 years been banned from entering Mount Athos.
“I was forced to study the Protato paintings based on photographs,” Sotirakoglou, who works as a court consultant on identifying or authenticating handwriting in criminal cases, told the AP.
“(The work) was very difficult, because the writing on the wall paintings is in capital letters, and the painters subdued their personal handwriting to conform” with the traditional format, she said — rather like anonymous letter-writers’ attempts to disguise their true style. “The Marcian codex is written in very small lower-case letters.”
The first clue came from the Greek letter Phi, the English F.
“It’s a Phi that stands out, and is similar” in both the manuscript and the Protato painting, she said. “Matches also followed with other letters, T, with its proportions, which is bigger, covering the other letters and is topped with a curve, the proportions of the K.”
“But when the Phi was revealed, the code of the writing was broken and the job became much easier,” she added.
Father Cosmas said that during his administrative duties on Mount Athos he attended services at the Protato church on a daily basis.
“That’s where my desire was born ... to explore the mystery around the name and the identity of Panselinos,” he said, adding that he thinks the artist “has now acquired his true identity.”


Japan’s famous sake joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list

Japan’s famous sake joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list
Updated 05 December 2024
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Japan’s famous sake joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list

Japan’s famous sake joins UNESCO’s cultural heritage list

LUQUE: Sake is perhaps more Japanese than the world-famous sushi. It’s brewed in centuries-old mountaintop warehouses, savored in the country’s pub-like izakayas, poured during weddings and served slightly chilled for special toasts.
The smooth rice wine that plays a crucial role in Japan’s culinary traditions was enshrined on Wednesday by UNESCO on its list of the “intangible cultural heritage of humanity.”
At a meeting in Luque, Paraguay, members of UNESCO’s committee for safeguarding humanity’s cultural heritage voted to recognize 45 cultural practices and products around the world, including Brazilian white cheese, Caribbean cassava bread and Palestinian olive oil soap.
Unlike UNESCO’s World Heritage List, which includes sites considered important to humanity like the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Intangible Cultural Heritage designation names products and practices of different cultures that are deserving of recognition.
A Japanese delegation welcomed the announcement in Luque.
“Sake is considered a divine gift and is essential for social and cultural events in Japan,” Takehiro Kano, the Japanese ambassador to UNESCO, told The Associated Press.
The basic ingredients of sake are few: rice, water, yeast and koji, a rice mold, which breaks down the starches into fermentable sugars like malting does in beer production. The whole two-monthlong process of steaming, stirring, fermenting and pressing can be grueling.
The rice — which wields tremendous marketing power as part of Japan’s broader cultural identity — is key to the alcoholic brew.
For a product to be categorized Japanese sake, the rice must be Japanese.
The UNESCO recognition, the delegation said, captured more than the craft knowledge of making high-quality sake. It also honored a tradition dating back some 1,000 years — sake makes a cameo in Japan’s famous 11th century novel, “The Tale of Genji,” as the drink of choice in the refined Heian court.
Now, officials hope to restore sake’s image as Japan’s premier alcoholic drink even as the younger drinkers in the country switch to imported wine or domestic beer and whiskey.
“It means a lot to Japan and to the Japanese,” Kano said of the UNESCO designation. “This will help to renew interest in traditional sake elaboration.”
In Tokyo, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, in a statement, said he was “delighted” by the inscription of traditional sake-making, the traditional technic that Japan is proud of. Ishiba congratulated those who dedicated to preserving and promoting the tradition.
Also, Japanese breweries have expressed hope that the listing could give a little lift to the country’s export economy as the popularity of sake booms around the world and in the United States amid heightened interest in Japanese cuisine.
Sake exports, mostly to the US and China, now rake in over $265 million a year, according to the Japan Sake and Shochu Makers Association, a trade group.
Japan’s delegation appeared ready to celebrate on Wednesday — in classic Japanese style.
After the announcement, Kano raised a cypress box full of sake to toast the alcoholic brew and cultural rite.


Eminem’s mother Debbie Nelson, whose rocky relationship fueled the rapper’s lyrics, dies at age 69

Debbie Nelson, mother of rap star Eminem, appears in Mount Clemens, Mich., on April 10, 2001. (AP)
Debbie Nelson, mother of rap star Eminem, appears in Mount Clemens, Mich., on April 10, 2001. (AP)
Updated 04 December 2024
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Eminem’s mother Debbie Nelson, whose rocky relationship fueled the rapper’s lyrics, dies at age 69

Debbie Nelson, mother of rap star Eminem, appears in Mount Clemens, Mich., on April 10, 2001. (AP)
  • Eminem has disparaged his mother in songs such as the 2002 single “Cleaning Out My Closet”

Debbie Nelson, the single mother of rapper Eminem whose rocky relationship with her son was known widely through his hit song lyrics, has died. She was 69.
Eminem’s longtime representative Dennis Dennehy confirmed Nelson’s death in an email on Tuesday. He did not provide a cause of death, although Nelson had battled lung cancer.
Nelson’s fraught relationship with her son, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, has been no secret since the Detroit rapper became a star.
Eminem has disparaged his mother in songs such as the 2002 single “Cleaning Out My Closet.” Eminem sings: “Witnessin’ your mama poppin’ prescription pills in the kitchen. ... My whole life I was made to believe I was sick when I wasn’t.”
In lyrics from his Oscar-winning hit “Lose Yourself” from the movie “8 Mile,” his feelings seem to have simmered, referencing his “mom’s spaghetti.” The song went on to win best rap song at the 2004 Grammy Awards.
Nelson brought and settled a pair of defamation lawsuits over Eminem’s statements about her in magazines and on radio talk shows. In her 2008 book, “My Son Marshall, My Son Eminem,” she attempted to set the record straight by providing readers details about the rapper’s early life, writing that Eminem had forgotten the good times they had.
“Marshall and I were so close that friends and relatives commented that it was as if the umbilical cord had never been cut,” she wrote.
In 2004, she was dragged from her car on Eight Mile Road, the street in a Detroit suburb made famous by “8 Mile,” by a 16-year-old who was later sentenced to more than four years in prison. She suffered bruises and a broken foot.
The highly acclaimed rapper Eminem won for best hip hop act at the 2024 MTV EMAs and was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2022.
He announced in October that he was going to be a grandfather, saying his daughter Hailie Jade is pregnant by way of a touching music video that is a tribute to their relationship.
 

 


Artist Jasleen Kaur wins Turner Prize for work exploring her Scottish Sikh identity

Artist Jasleen Kaur wins Turner Prize for work exploring her Scottish Sikh identity
Updated 04 December 2024
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Artist Jasleen Kaur wins Turner Prize for work exploring her Scottish Sikh identity

Artist Jasleen Kaur wins Turner Prize for work exploring her Scottish Sikh identity
  • Named for 19th-century landscape painter J.M.W. Turner and founded in 1984 to reward young artists, the prize helped make stars of shark-pickling artist Damien Hirst, potter Grayson Perry, sculptor Anish Kapoor and filmmaker Steve McQueen

LONDON: An artist whose work exploring her Scottish Sikh identity includes a vintage Ford car draped in a crocheted doily won the UK’s prestigious Turner Prize on Tuesday, during a ceremony picketed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Jasleen Kaur was awarded the 25,000-pound ($32,000) prize by actor James Norton at the Tate Britain gallery in London.
Kaur used her acceptance speech to express support for scores of demonstrators outside. She is among signatories to a letter demanding Tate, which runs several major British art museums, cut ties with donors who are linked to Israel over its war in Gaza.
“This is not a radical demand,” Kaur said. “This should not risk an artist’s career or safety.
“We need a proper ceasefire now,” she said.
The Israel-Hamas war has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to Hamas health officials in Gaza. Israel launched the war in response to the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack that killed some 1,200 Israelis and took more than 250 hostage.
A jury led by Tate Britain director Alex Farquhar praised the way 38-year-old Kaur “weaves together the personal, political and spiritual” through “unexpected and playful combinations of material.”
Her winning exhibition mixes sculpture, print, everyday items — including family photos, a Ford Escort car and the popular Scottish soda Irn Bru — and immersive music to reflect on her upbringing in Glasgow’s Sikh community.
Three other finalists – Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson and Delaine Le Bas – received 10,000 pounds ($12,670) each.
Named for 19th-century landscape painter J.M.W. Turner and founded in 1984 to reward young artists, the prize helped make stars of shark-pickling artist Damien Hirst, potter Grayson Perry, sculptor Anish Kapoor and filmmaker Steve McQueen.
But it has also been criticized for rewarding impenetrable conceptual work and often sparks debate about the value of modern art, with winners such as Hirst’s “Mother and Child Divided,” which consists of two cows, bisected and preserved in formaldehyde, and Martin Creed’s “Lights On and Off” — a room with a light blinking on and off – drawing scorn from sections of the media.
In 2019, all four finalists were declared winners after they refused to compete against one another, “to make a collective statement in the name of commonality, multiplicity and solidarity.”
In 2021, all five finalists were collectives rather than individual artists.
The award was initially open to artists under 50 but now has no upper age limit.
Works by the four finalists are on display until Feb. 16.

 


100-year-old ex-Nazi camp guard could face trial in Germany

Gregor Formanek. (Supplied)
Gregor Formanek. (Supplied)
Updated 04 December 2024
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100-year-old ex-Nazi camp guard could face trial in Germany

Gregor Formanek. (Supplied)
  • Germany has been scrambling to bring the last surviving former Nazi war criminals to justice since a 2011 landmark ruling paved the way for several trials

BERLIN: German authorities are pressing for a 100-year-old former Nazi concentration camp guard to face trial almost 80 years since the end of World War II.
The higher regional court in Frankfurt on Tuesday said it had overturned a decision by a lower court under which the suspect had been deemed unfit to stand trial.
The suspect, named as Gregor Formanek by German media, was charged last year with aiding and abetting murder in 3,322 cases while working at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp near Berlin between July 1943 and February 1945.
However, an expert determined in February that Formanek was not fit to stand trial due to his mental and physical condition and the court in Hanau, Hesse state, eventually decided not to open the proceedings against him.
The Frankfurt court on Tuesday found the expert’s decision had not been based on “sufficient facts.”
“The expert himself stated that it was not possible to interview the defendant and that the opportunity for extensive psychiatric testing was not available,” it said.
Germany has been scrambling to bring the last surviving former Nazi war criminals to justice since a 2011 landmark ruling paved the way for several trials.
One former death camp guard, John Demjanjuk, was convicted on the basis that he served as part of Hitler’s killing machine, even though there was no proof he had directly killed anyone.
Since then, several former concentration camp workers have been found guilty of being accessories to murder on the same basis.
However, with time running out, many cases have been abandoned in recent years after the accused died or were physically unable to stand trial.
More than 200,000 people, including Jews, Roma, regime opponents and gay people, were detained at the Sachsenhausen camp between 1936 and 1945.
Tens of thousands died there from forced labor, murder, medical experiments, hunger or disease before the camp was liberated by Soviet troops.