Two days after the rental site Airbnb announced it would stop listing properties in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, an Airbnb official told The Times of Israel on November 21 that it would consider dropping listings in Western Sahara as well. “In the statement we issued on Monday, we noted that we have developed a framework for evaluating how we should treat listings in occupied territories around the world. Western Sahara is one example of a place where we will use this framework,” the official said.
While Donald Trump has come out in support of the Saudi regime, several European nations are taking action to hold the murderers of Jamal Khashoggi accountable. On Monday, November 19, the German government issued a travel ban on the 18 Saudis implicated in the murder and halted previously approved arms exports to Saudi Arabia, Deutsche Welle reported. The decision was made in close consultation with France and Great Britain.
Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second largest city, will be the European Capital of Culture in 2019. The designation of Capital of Culture, alongside Matera, Italy, is a remarkable achievement for a city that has gone through a major transformation in the past decades. The city has also been successful in branding itself as an alternative to the capital Sofia for tourism, business, work, and play. The designation might even put Plovdiv on the map as a main travel destination in Europe.
Last Friday, mosques throughout the northern Caucasus commemorated the 75th anniversary of the mass deportation of the Karachays to Central Asia by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Between November 2 and November 5, 1943, some 70,000 Karachais, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group of the North Caucasus, were deported in cattle train cars to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, because they allegedly collaborated with Nazi Germany.
Moscow, Russia’s sprawling capital of 12.36 million, has a waste problem. The city has no recycling system: all the city’s waste goes to landfills. Rubbish sent to landfills has increased by 30% over the past ten years. These landfills were originally located outside of Moscow, but due to encroachment are now within the city’s borders.
At the beginning of the twentieth century an artistic rebellion swept through Europe. Artists, architects, and graphic designers attempted to liberate the visual arts from the rigid constrains of the past and developed Art Nouveau, a new style inspired by the natural world. Art Nouveau left its mark on cities in Europe and North America like Barcelona, Brussels, Prague, Vienna and New York. No other city is, however, defined as much by the ornamental style as Riga, the capital of Latvia and largest city in the Baltic: almost one third of the buildings in the city’s center are in the Art Nouveau style.
Pour relancer des pourparlers bloqués depuis 2012, l’envoyé onusien pour le Sahara occidental a convié les différentes parties impliquées – le Polisario, le Maroc, l’Algérie et la Mauritanie – à une réunion à Genève les 5 et 6 décembre. Une militante sahraouie revient sur le chemin parcouru et explique les aspirations de son peuple.
As it slowly becomes clear that Saudi Arabia is behind the disappearance and killing of journalist and Saudi regime critic Jamal Khashoggi, the U.S. government and its allies must consider how to respond to this horrific act that defies the core values of democracy and, indeed, of humanity itself. Under growing pressure to act against the Kingdom, President Donald Trump has already declared the United States would be “punishing itself” by scrapping the $110bn U.S.-Saudi arms deal. “If they don’t buy it from us, they’re going to buy it from Russia or they’re going to buy it from China,” Mr. Trump said, according to Sky News.
In socially conservative Poland, a new museum opened this summer: the Polish LGBTQIA Museum. The museum aims to preserve the history of non-heteronormative people in Poland by documenting their stories. Its collection includes a variety of archival materials — from posters, photographs, flyers, leaflets, and magazines to DIY zines and film clips. The museum is virtual and therefore accessible from anywhere in the world.
Fatma el-Mehdi is a Western Saharan activist who has been a refugee in Algeria for more than forty years. She is the secretary general of the National Union of Sahrawi Women. She was recognized as a Woman PeaceMaker in 2016 by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice in San Diego, California. Lisa Söderlindh and I spoke with Fatma el-Mehdi in the Smara refugee camp near Tindouf in March.
