Tito Mboweni: South Africa's finance minster known for a Twitter roast chicken fail

 

Tito Mboweni

Far from the cliché of a grey-suited quiet man of numbers, South Africa's Finance Minister Tito Mboweni appears to relish stirring up trouble on Twitter both at home and abroad.

His most recent tweets to his more than 870,000 followers criticising the president of neighbouring Zambia earned him the wrath of many in that country, and a chastisement from his own President, Cyril Ramaphosa.

But the well-respected economist is affectionately known on Twitter in South Africa as "Uncle Tito" for his more domestic concerns.

Crying from chillies

While the 61-year-old tweets about a number of issues, his posts on what he is making for dinner are what gets most reaction from ordinary South Africans. But he is, let's say, not as talented in the kitchen as he is with numbers.

His dishes are simple and hearty and the man loves his chillies and garlic, oodles of either usually have pride of place on the plate - much to the shock of those with sensitive palates.

One of his most notorious tweets showed him with beads of sweat running down his face from the kick of a newly discovered concoction with chillies.

Tweet about chillies

He may be a serious man but he is not afraid to be the butt of a joke.

His cooking recently gained further attention over his roast chicken - not one of his finer moments, even by his own admission.

Tweet with a picture of a roast chicken

South Africans took the opportunity to mock him over the culinary disaster with rugby captain Siya Kolisi using the moment to show his own skills in the kitchen.

Siya Kolisi holding roast chicken

Apart from posting his "meal-for-one" dinners, he does also write about his frustrations at the state of the economy and world events, but his candidness has sometimes put him at loggerheads with other officials.

'Stop this nonsense'

In the latest episode of Mr Mboweni's "I-tweet-what-I-like" series, the finance minister got embroiled in Zambian affairs.

Last weekend, reacting to President Edgar Lungu's sacking of Zambia's central bank governor, Denny Kalyalya, he wrote: "Presidents in Africa must stop this nonsense of waking up in the morning and fire a Central Bank Governor! You cannot do that.

"This is not some fiefdom of yours! Your personal property?! No!"

He continued: "That Governor was a good fella. Why do we do these things as Africans. The President of Zambia must give us the reasons why he dismissed The Governor - or else hell is on its way. I will mobilize!"

After a backlash from Lusaka, Mr Mboweni in typical outspokenness refused to back down: "Looks like I am in trouble about my statement on the dismissal of the Bank of Zambia Governor! I stand by my statement. Central Bank independence is key. Not negotiable. Let all central bankers speak out!"

President Cyril Ramaphosa (L) has had to reprimand his finance minister over some of his tweets

The tweets were later deleted. But the damage was already done and the Zambians were not impressed.

South Africa's president reprimanded him over the tweets and issued an apology to the Zambian government over what he described as "unfortunate remarks" and promised to make sure the incident does not happen again.

However, he did not spell out how this would be prevented.

It's not that Mr Mboweni is combative, it's that unlike some ministers who are equally popular on Twitter, he does not seem to mind going against the party's line to say what he believes in.

Not just a keyboard warrior

This has won him the admiration of some. They see him as a man who does not simply sing for his supper.

Mr Mboweni is not just a Twitter struggler - he was one in real life.

After going into exile in neighbouring Lesotho in 1980 for his activism against white-minority rule in South Africa, he joined the African National Congress (ANC).

He is now one of the governing party's longest serving members and has occupied several influential positions over the years.

https://news.yahoo.com/tito-mboweni-south-africas-finance-070650670.html

 

23 Farm attacks and 3 farm murders in South Africa – 1-15 August 2020

During the first fifteen days of August 2020, there have been 23 Farm attacks and 3 farm murders in South Africa, while 5 attacks were averted. During the moth of July 2020, there were 55 farm attacks and 9 farm murders in the country and 6 farm attacks were successfully averted.

During June 2020, there were fifty six farm attacks and seven farm murders.
During May 2020, there were fifteen farm attacks and four farm murders.
During April 2020, there were seventeen farm attacks and one farm murder.
During March 2020 there were thirty five farm attacks and six farm murders.
During February 2020 there were thirty one farm attacks and eight farm murders.

https://southafricatoday.net/south-africa-news/23-farm-attacks-and-3-farm-murders-in-south-africa-1-15-august-2020/

 

Violent riots erupt in Malmo, Sweden after Koran-torching stunt, police say they have ‘no control’ over situation (PHOTOS, VIDEOS)

A wave of chaotic unrest broke out in Malmo, Sweden after anti-Islam activists filmed a public Koran burning, sparking protests that soon descended into riots, with unruly demonstrators setting fires and clashing with police.

Some 300 people gathered along a main thoroughfare in Malmo on Friday around 7:30pm local time to protest after members of a far-right political party staged a Koran burning earlier in the day, according to local press reports. As the crowd grew, fires were ignited in the street and several cars were torched, prompting a heavy police response that struggled to bring the situation under control.

“We have ongoing and violent riots right now that we have no control over,” police spokesman Rickard Lundqvist told a local news outlet amid the disorder.

Clashes erupted between protesters and law enforcement in Malmo’s Rosengard district, seeing stones, paving bricks and fireworks hurled at officers and emergency response vehicles.

Chants of “Allahu akbar” (“God is great” in Arabic) could be heard in footage that circulated online, which also showed tires and other debris burned in the street and a billowing column of black smoke rising into the night sky. A major fire was also reported in an underground parking garage in Rosengard, about 1km away from the main area of unrest.

The Koran burning which set off the riots was carried out by members of Stram Kurs (“Hard Line”), a far-right Danish political party founded by lawyer and anti-Islam activist Rasmus Paludan in 2017. The activists filmed the burning of the holy book, which was done in a public park.

Elsewhere in Malmo, three Stram Kurs members were reportedly arrested for incitement against an ethnic group after torching another Koran in public.

Paludan was barred from entry into Sweden earlier on Friday, turned away at a border checkpoint near Malmo and slapped with a two-year ban from the country over concerns that he could “disturb public order,” a police spokesperson told Danish broadcaster DR. The right-wing activist had previously requested a permit to hold a demonstration in Malmo, where he was set to attend a Koran burning with street artist Dan Park, which was promptly rejected by Swedish authorities. A court argued that while “the freedom of assembly and demonstration are constitutionally protected rights,” the government may prohibit a gathering “for reasons of order and safety.”

https://www.rt.com/news/499381-malmo-riots-koran-burning/

 

Is an African wild dog actually a dog? Candid Animal Cam meets the rare canid

African wild dogs are neither wolves nor dogs, even though they belong to the Canidae family. In fact, they have their own genus. Their biggest populations are in the open plains and sparse woodland of Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique. African wild dogs are highly social animals forming packs that can have more than 60 members.  They live and hunt in groups that are usually dominated by a monogamous breeding pair. These dogs have a higher success rate killing prey than lions and leopards. Rather than the suffocation strategy used by big cats when they catch large prey, African wild dogs will bite their prey until it stops running. However, if it’s a smaller animal they will pull and tear it apart. Unfortunately, African wild dogs are listed as Endangered with fewer 6,000 individuals left in the wild. Habitat loss, human-wildlife conflict, being caught in snares as bycatch by poachers hunting for meat, and infectious diseases like canine distemper and rabies, are among the factors that affect their population. To protect this species we need to create protected wildlife corridors to help connect their fragmented habitats and also reduce its conflict with humans. Watch the video to learn more about them!

https://youtu.be/pqpIYeZe3Zg

FTC urged to keep up antitrust fight against Qualcomm

AUGUST 26, 2020, by Mike Freeman, The San Diego Union-Tribune
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-08-ftc-urged-antitrust-qualcomm.html

Added by CC

A group of 20 technology companies, car makers and advocacy groups is urging U.S. Federal Trade commissioners to continue the antitrust fight against Qualcomm.

A letter dated Aug. 24 to Commissioners, the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA) and others called for the agency to seek a rehearing before the entire 9th Circuit Court of a recent three-judge panel's finding that Qualcomm's patent licensing practices do not violate anti-monopoly laws.

Some rival chip firms and industry trade groups that supported the FTC's initial antitrust lawsuit against Qualcomm in 2017 signed this latest letter as well, including Intel and ACT/The App Association.

But a handful of auto companies—Tesla, Honda, Ford and Daimler—joined this time in asking commissioners to keep up the battle.

Automakers are increasingly relying on wireless connectivity in vehicles. Today, it's mostly used for onboard infotainment, software updates and roadside assistance.

As faster, more reliable 5G networks become widespread, however, mobile connectivity could become a key technology for powering enhanced safety and self-driving features.

Qualcomm is among the leaders in 5G. The company declined to comment. But executives said recently that the San Diego company has a longstanding 3G/4G patent licensing business with automakers.

On Aug. 11, the three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit threw out a lower court's ruling that Qualcomm's patent licenses were illegal under anti-monopoly law.

A rehearing petition would ask that all the judges of the 9th Circuit weigh in on the case.

FTC commissioners are considering options, according to an agency spokeswoman. They have 45 days from the time when the 9th Circuit panel's findings become official to petition for a rehearing.

If the full 9th Circuit declines, the FTC could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

In the letter, the CCIA and others argued that the panel's decision undermines longstanding U.S. policy and misapplies competition law.

"If it becomes precedent, this decision would endanger domestic competitiveness, as well as weaken the ability of the FTC to protect consumers through future enforcement actions."

Others who signed include MediaTek, HP Inc., Nordic Semiconductor, Denso Corp., the Center for Democracy & Technology, Open Markets Institute and Public Knowledge.

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Inside the Chinese military attack on Nortel

By Sam Cooper Global News, Posted August 25, 2020
https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/inside-the-chinese-military-attack-on-nortel/

It was a mind-blowing clue. 

In 2004 Nortel cyber-security advisor Brian Shields investigated a serious breach in the telecom giant’s network. At the time Nortel’s fibre optics equipment was the world’s envy, with 70 per cent of all internet traffic running on Canadian technology.

And someone wanted Nortel’s secrets.

Shields found that a computer in Shanghai had hacked into the email account of an Ottawa-based Nortel executive. Using passwords stolen from the executive the intruder downloaded more than 450 documents from “Live Link” — a Nortel server used to warehouse sensitive intellectual property.

Shields soon found the hacker controlled the accounts of at least seven Nortel executives. This was no random cybercriminal. But who was it?

Shields examined the numerical internet addresses of computers extracting Nortel data and found that they were clustered into a tiny pinprick of cyberspace. He was stunned because it looked like a room filled with web servers. Whoever was behind these hackers, Shields believed, seemed to control China’s internet.


“It hit me like a ton of bricks,” Shields said.

“I knew this couldn’t be happening by chance.”

China ‘totally took us down’: former Nortel cyber-security investigator

Shields says the Internet addresses were all registered to Shanghai Faxian Corp., a company with no connection to Nortel that Shields determined was a front with no real business in China.

Shields spotted another major clue in Nortel’s logs of network traffic from Saturday, April 24, 2004. According to Shields, in just seven hours a Shanghai Faxian address downloaded 779 documents that day using the account of Nortel CEO Frank Dunn. The hack occurred four days before Dunn was fired, amid an investigation of accounting irregularities. To Shields, this suggested the Shanghai hackers knew exactly what Nortel’s board of directors planned, and the perfect time to extract a massive cache of records.

“To date, we have 1,488 documents which were downloaded,” Shields wrote to Nortel’s management in his “data theft” investigation report. “China is the source of all extractions we are aware of.”


For months Shields tracked the hackers. But Nortel’s brass was mostly disinterested in the investigation and did little more than change executive account passwords, Shields says. He says they were more focused on year-to-year profits and innovation budgets than protecting Nortel’s precious research. Mike Zafirovski, Nortel’s CEO from 2005 to 2009, did not respond to questions for this story sent to his LinkedIn account. Zafirovski said Shields was known to “cry wolf” and management didn’t believe hacking was a real issue, the Wall Street Journal reported in 2012.

So the systematic hacking continued, Shields says. And as a result, Shields says, in 2009 — after getting massively underbid on a series of contracts by China’s state-champion company Huawei — Nortel went bankrupt.

In the end, Shields determined China’s government gained complete control of Nortel’s internal systems. After ten years of cyberattacks they could see everything Nortel was doing, he says. The infiltration was so insidious, Shields says, that technicians in China could send encrypted packages of stolen Nortel data to Shanghai and Beijing, by sending Internet commands to a “backdoor” buried in a Nortel computer.

To visualize that in the real world — it would be similar to a foreign army constructing a hidden tunnel into Canada’s treasury vault, and marching out unimpeded with gold bars.

And it was more than coincidence, Shields believes, that upstart Huawei suddenly replaced Nortel as the world’s dominant internet technology provider.

“You could have put Steve Jobs in to run Nortel. But if you are up against a nation-state, Nortel would have failed, without Canadian government intervention,” Shields said.

“Canadians just don’t realize the extent of the Chinese government’s involvement in this thing.”

Alliance Canada Hong Kong leader says a Huawei 5G network in Canada would track citizens

Now, more than 20 years after Nortel was first warned of Chinese Communist Party espionage, Hong Kong Canadians such as Cherie Wong say that Ottawa’s failure to protect Nortel and to promptly bar Huawei from modern 5G networks is putting lives at risk.

There are vids and much much  more to this article at:  https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/inside-the-chinese-military-attack-on-nortel/

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Ai Weiwei’s Surprise-Released Wuhan Film Is a Gripping Document of the Coronavirus Pandemic’s Beginnings

By Alex Greenberger
August 24, 2020 2:58pm
www.artnews.com

Still from Ai Weiwei's CoroNation (2020). 
Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio


How will historians of the future remember the lockdown that took place in China this past January during the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic? It’s very possible they’ll rely heavily on a new documentary by artist Ai Weiwei.

Titled Coronation and surprise-released online last week, the feature-length film offers a rare firsthand look at the pandemic in Wuhan, China, where life was largely brought to a standstill by one of the first known outbreaks of the virus. Shot between January and April by a combination of paid crew members and volunteers, the film is a disturbing, chilling work, and one that is likely to endure as a wrenching portrayal of how an unfortunate combination of biology, bureaucracy, and human error changed life in China—and around the world—in 2020.

Interspersed throughout Coronation. are images shot from above, as though from a drone or an airplane. They show a vacant Wuhan: skyscrapers empty of people, railways without trains, highways absent cars or trucks. Filmed against grayish skies, Ai makes the city seem positively apocalyptic, intensified by a soundtrack that sounds like primal screams put through a vocoder.

Although viewers are likely to come away remembering most strongly these horror-movie-like shots, the majority of Coronation is unlike those images. For the most part, the film focuses on regular people doing regular things—or, at least, things that have become regular in a time of pandemic.

There are medical workers who don a stunning array of personal protective equipment, and there are people trying to cross barriers in tightly secured areas. There are people who muse on the disinformation the government may be disseminating, and there are mail carriers who must go through byzantine processes simply to deliver packages. Coronation succeeds in these sequences by tapping into a muted sense of boredom—and the sense of uneasiness undergirding it—that has guided everyday life in China in 2020.

Ai makes all this banality absolutely fascinating, however. There’s an amazing shot near the film’s beginning in which the camera follows one medical worker through a windowless corridor. Wisely, there’s nary a cut—the shot goes on and on and on for several minutes as the worker winds past various windowless rooms. We glimpse others along the way—some are putting on PPE, others seem to be performing medical tests—but the worker curiously ignores them. The corridor is dark and seemingly infinite, but somehow, the subject knows where to go.

Beyond that corridor are many, many people in need of urgent medical help, but Ai focuses largely on the people who care for them, not the patients themselves. His film is attentive to the new daily rituals those workers must undergo to be safe—one long take features two nurses who apply a series of Q-tips to their ears, as part of a complex sanitizing procedure. You can’t watch Coronation without remembering how hard nurses like these two have worked since the pandemic began.

Within the art world, Ai is known mainly as a provocateur. For one work made in the 1990s, he procured a Han Dynasty urn and smashed it. And for a 2009 film, he chronicled the lives of school children killed in their classrooms during an earthquake that killed almost 90,000 in China’s Sichuan province. It’s works like these, plus his vocal forms of activism, that have garnered the attention of Chinese authorities, who have detained him multiple times and sought to censor his art.

 Still from Ai Weiwei’s Coronation (2020). 
Courtesy Ai Weiwei Studio


At first, it might seem that Coronation shares little in common with Ai’s works that employ more well-known shock tactics, but in fact, this film is a daredevil move as well, made as it is in a country that tightly controls the dissemination of such images. That the film exists at all is a feat, given that U.S. audiences have rarely gotten to peer inside Wuhan ICUs for prolonged periods. (In a New York Times interview last week, Ai declined to explain how the crew created the footage. He also said that the film’s political content may have kept it from getting a major U.S. release and a showing at the world’s top festivals.)

Yet the chief reason for Coronation’s success is the attention it pays to how the crisis affected the ordinary Chinese citizen. Together with the footage of nurses on the job, there is an interview with a construction worker who was left stranded in Wuhan while working to erect a temporary hospital. He is shown living out of his car in a parking lot, several electric outlets near the vehicle being his main source of power. And there is a touching sequence where a man argues with his mother about whether the Communist Party is to be trusted. Are they telling the truth about the virus’s abatement, or is it all lies? They’re split on the question, the elderly woman left defending political officials. Still, even she has grown exhausted by the lockdown. “When is all this going to be over?” she asks at one point, exasperated.

Eventually, the lockdown does end, but the difficulties do not, as Ai’s film shows. The powerful finale documents the long and arduous process of obtaining the remains of those who have died. We watch as people line up in the rain to take home their loved ones in boxes. Even to join that line is not easy, however. One sequence shows a man on the phone with authorities who are refusing to let him retrieve his father’s ashes. Official documentation has suggested that the employers of the deceased should be in charge of the body, rendering family unable to claim it.

In this sequence, we glimpse how a virus has become politicized, ruining the lives of everyday people who are at its mercy. “The government, in order to maintain its stability, uses so many resources, so much manpower and money to monitor and control me,” the man trying to retrieve his father’s ashes says in an interview. “Since you have all these resources and power to use against these families, why don’t you help us with our problems?”

Health experts call for shift in COVID strategy, say current track is 'a fool’s errand'

BY CORMAC MACSWEENEY, Posted Jul 9, 2020
https://www.660citynews.com/2020/07/09/health-experts-covid-strategy/

This undated electron microscope image made available by the U.S. National Institutes of Health in February 2020 shows the virus that causes COVID-19. The sample was isolated from a patient in the U.S. THE CANADIAN PRESS/NIAID-RML via AP

SUMMARY

Health experts have penned a letter to the federal, provincial governments saying COVID-19 strategies need to change

Experts say we need to accept COVID-19 will be with us until a vaccine is developed

Trying to stamp out COVID-19 will not work, restrictions should be eased, open letter says

OTTAWA – A group of 18 prominent health experts in Canada, including the two previous chief public health officers of Canada, is calling on the federal and provincial governments to change their strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group is calling for an end to attempts to eliminate the coronavirus, instead advocating for an approach where Canadians would learn to live with it.
“It’s a fool’s errand,” Dr. Neil Rau, an infectious disease specialist with the University of Toronto, says. “We’re not going to win with that strategy.”

Rau argues business closures, mandatory masks, and complete border closures are doing more harm than good for employment and the wellbeing of our society, and adds these things disproportionately affect low income and racialized Canadians.

“Poverty has huge health impacts on people. Health is wealth, wealth is health,” Rau says.

He says trying to stamp out COVID-19 will not work and we need to accept that the coronavirus is with us at least until a vaccine is developed.

Rau joins other experts in calling on governments to further relax lockdown measures and not return to the Phase 1-style restrictions we saw in the spring, even if there is a second wave.

“We strongly believe that population health and equity are important considerations that must be applied to future decisions regarding pandemic management,” the open letter, dated July 6, reads.

“Canada must work to minimize the impact of COVID-19 by using measures that are practical, effective and compatible with our values and sense of social justice,” the letter adds. “We need to focus on preventing deaths and serious illness by protecting the vulnerable while enabling society to function and thrive.”

The experts are also concerned about the development of children and are calling on the federal government to create a national strategy to reopen schools in the fall across the country.

They note Canada needs to “improve infection prevention and control in long-term care and congregate living settings,” while also providing support for those who choose to isolate “when the disease is active.”

Support should also be provided to people “who have been adversely affected by COVID-19, or the consequences of the public health measures,” the letter adds.

“Canadians have developed a fear of COVID-19,” the experts write. “Going forward, they have to be supported in understanding their true level of risk, and learning how to deal with this disease, while getting on with their lives – back to work, back to school, and back to healthy lives and vibrant, active communities across this country.”

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One Way To Protect Cattle From Predators? Paint Eyes On Their Butts. Really

By Good News Network -Aug 24, 202
www.goodnewsnetwork.org

It’s not easy being a cow living among African lions in Botswana. After all, there’s always the threat you could soon be a big cat’s meal.

UNSW conservationists have found an effective, low-cost way to protect cattle from their predators and help lions coexist with livestock and farmers. 

In a piece of “psychological trickery,” scientists have trialled painting eyes on local cattle butts.  

The idea is that the intimidating eyes will trick the lions into thinking they’ve been spotted, causing them to abandon the hunt.

“As protected conservation areas become smaller, lions are increasingly coming into contact with human populations, which are expanding to the boundaries of these protected areas,” says Dr Neil Jordan, a conservation biologist from UNSW’s Centre for Ecosystem Science.

The lions eat livestock, such as cattle, which negatively impacts the livelihood of the subsistence farmers living in these rural areas. With no non-lethal way to prevent the attacks, the farmers often turn to deadly force, shooting or poisoning the lions in retaliation.

Dr Jordan says these human-animal conflicts have resulted in populations of African lion—a threatened species—“draining away.”

Dr Jordan’s idea of painting eyes onto cattle rumps came about after two lionesses were killed near the village in Botswana where he was based. While watching a lion hunt an impala, he noticed something interesting: 

“Lions are ambush hunters, so they creep up on their prey, get close and jump on them unseen. But in this case, the impala noticed the lion. And when the lion realized it had been spotted, it gave up on the hunt,” he says.

A Strategy Derived From Nature

In nature, being ‘seen’ can deter predation. For example, patterns resembling eyes on butterfly wings are known to deter birds. In India, woodcutters in the forest have long worn masks on the back of their heads to ward-off man-eating tigers.

Jordan’s idea was to hijack this mechanism. Last year, he collaborated with the BPCT and a local farmer to trial the innovative strategy, which he’s dubbed “iCow”.

The researchers stamped painted eyes onto one-third of a herd of 62 cattle, and each night counted the returning cows. The effectiveness of the eyes essentially comes down to relative survival rates: are painted cows less likely to be attacked and killed than unpainted cows?

In mid-July, he’ll return to Botswana for three months to further test and validate the tool. He’s raised more than A$8000 on the science crowdfunding platform Experiment.com to purchase 10 cattle GPS loggers, and one GPS radio collar, which will be fitted to a wild lion under anaesthetic.

Dr Jordan’s team, involving a UNSW PhD student and researchers from the BPCT, will paint roughly half the cattle in a herd of 60. They’ll use the GPS devices to monitor the movements of cows and lions, and to determine when and where they meet.

“This will give us information about the exposure of painted and unpainted cows to predation risks, and where the conflict hotspots are,” says Dr Jordan.

If the tool works, it could provide farmers in Botswana–and elsewhere–with a low-cost, sustainable tool to protect their livestock, and a way to keep lions safe from retaliatory killing. That’s good news all around.

Peaches recalled across Canada due to potential Salmonella contamination

Daily Hive Staff, Aug 23 2020
https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/peaches-recalled-canada-salmonella-contamination

Shutterstock

Prima Wawona brand peaches from the United States are being recalled across Canada due to a possible Salmonella contamination.

According to the statement, the CFIA is issuing a warning to the public not to eat the product and retailers, restaurants and institutions not to sell or use it. Various importers in Canada are conducting a recall of the affected products.

Overall, 11 different UPC coded products are being recalled, and a complete list can be viewed online.

Peaches with the same PLU numbers and that were produced in Canada are not affected.

Foods that are contaminated with Salmonella might not look or smell rotten but have the ability to make you sick, according to the food agency website.

The recall was triggered by a recall in the United States by the company. The CFIA says it is conducting an investigation, which may lead to the recall of other products in the future.

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Mesmerizing Photos Show the Patterns Created by Murmurations of Starlings

By Good News Network

Aug 23, 2020

 www.goodnewsnetwork.org

Sean Hepburn has been photographing birds, like gannets and ravens, flocking on the Isle of Portland, Dorset for the past six years. But there is nothing like mumuration of starlings to inspire awe in any who watch them.

Sean Hepburn – SWNS

The amateur landscape photographer from nearby Weymouth took an interest in starlings after being amazed by the birds flocking habits.

Murmurations are the flocking movements of starlings, which can involve thousands of birds flying in complex aerial formations, seemingly in sync.

To create his interesting photos, the 55-year-old uses multiple exposures, taking around 200 pictures in just five seconds.

His pictures, which include the Portland Bill Lighthouse and the scenic the Jurassic Coast, show eye catching spiral shapes as the birds’ flight path is captured.

 “I focus on starlings because they make quite spectacular pictures,” said the grandfather-of-three.

Sean Hepburn – SWNS

However he claimed it takes coordination and can be quite tricky to get his shots right.“I’ve been a landscape photographer for 20 years and wanted to get these images with landmarks in the background.

 Sean Hepburn – SWNS

“You’d think it would be easy but it can be quite difficult to get them near landmarks.

“They create optical illusions and helices, like a spiral staircase—they look absolutely ethereal.”

Multi exposure ocean view by Sean Hepburn – SWNS

Sean spends three hours on Portland for a day or two each week to get this best shots.

Canaanite Fortress from Judges’ Era Uncovered in Excavations near Kiryat Gat

By David Israel 

3 Elul 5780 – August 23, 2020

www.jewishpress.com 

 

 Young volunteers unearthing the fortress' floor.

A Canaanite fortress from the middle of the 12th century BCE (the days of the biblical judges), was unearthed in an excavation of the Israel Antiquities Authority and volunteer youths near Kibbutz Galon outside Kiryat Gat,some 50 miles south of Tel Aviv.

 

 The Canaanite fortress against the background of the Judaean plain. / Emil Elgam, Israel Antiquities Authority

The size of the fortress is 60 × 60 ft. and it includes towers at the four corners. A huge threshold was preserved at the entrance to the structure, hewn from a single stone weighing about 3 tons. 

Young volunteers unearthing the fortress’ treasures. / Dafna Gazit Studio, Israel Antiquities Authority

Inside the citadel was a courtyard paved with stone slabs which had pillars in the center. Rooms were arranged on either side of the courtyard. Hundreds of pottery vessels, some of them intact, including special vessels such as a bowl and a cup, which were probably used for worship, and a large number of bowls, were exposed in the fort’s rooms. Some of the bowls were made in a style that imitated Egyptian bowls.

 

 Canaanite bowls carved in Egyptian style. / Dafna Gazit Studio, Israel Antiquities Authority

The remains of the citadel were uncovered with the help of students from the Eretz Israel Dept. at the multidisciplinary school in Beer Sheva, students from the Nachshon pre-military preparatory school, and many volunteers. This is part of the Antiquities Authority’s policy to bring the general public, in particular the younger generation, closer to the archeology of their homeland.


Young volunteers unearthing the fortress’ floor. / Dafna Gazit Studio, Israel Antiquities Authority

 According to archaeologists Saar Ganor and Itamar Weisbain of the IAA, “the fortress we discovered provides a glimpse into the geopolitical reality described in the Book of Judges, in which the Canaanites, the Israelites and the Philistines struggle against one another. During this time, the land of Canaan was ruled by the Egyptians, and its inhabitants were their subjects. But then, during the 12th century BCE, two new major players appeared in the region: the Israelites and the Philistines, thus began a series of bloody territorial struggles.”


 Young volunteers unearthing the fortress’ treasures. / Dafna Gazit Studio, Israel Antiquities Authority

“The Israelites settled in unfortified communities on the central mountain ridge, while the Philistines gained great power in the southern coastal plain where they established large cities in Ashdod, Ashkelon, Ekron and Gat,” the two researchers continued. “In an attempt to occupy more territory, the Philistines confronted the Egyptians and the Canaanites on the border, which presumably stretched between the Philistine kingdom of Gat and the Canaanite kingdom of Lachish in Nahal Guvrin.”

 Young volunteers unearthing the fortress’ floor. / Dafna Gazit Studio, Israel Antiquities Authority

Ganor Weisbein added that “the stories of the judges in the Bible clearly illustrate the complex geopolitical reality and the struggle for territorial control, during the realignment of the political forces in the Land of Israel. The layout of the citadel is known from other sites which were excavated in the country, and identified as Egyptian ‘governor’s houses.’ The fortress was built in a strategic location, from which it was possible to view the main road that passed along Nahal Guvrin – a road that connected the coastal plain to the Judaean plain.”

Young volunteers unearthing the fortress’ floor. / Dafna Gazit Studio, Israel Antiquities Authority

Talila Lifshitz, Director of the Community and Forest Department in the Southern Region of the Jewish National Fund said: “Gal-on Fortress provides a fascinating glimpse into the story of a relatively unknown period in the country’s history, and is a tourist and experiential attraction for visitors. The fortress is located in the Guvrin Forest and was prepared for access to the general public together with the southern district of ​​the Jewish National Fund. A parking lot and explanatory signs have been set up there to enhance the archeological experience in nature and in the forests.”

Through the computer glass darkly

ARTMAGEDDON - Igan D’Bayan
www.philstar.com

 
 Liv Vinluan’s “Morphine, Mother (And the Impending Extinction of Bees)” at Silverlens


Just as many folks are dusting off selfies taken in Vigan or Venice and plastering them all over social media as their way of accepting, uhm, “challenges” (I mean, zombies could be out scrambling for brains in Makati or Mandaluyong, while these attention-seeking dolts would still be posting about their lunches, whitening creams, or brag-able books they don’t actually read), we who love art and deem it essential even during these pre-apocalypse times get to visit galleries mainly online. How can you see the revelatory layers in Art Sanchez’s work, the labyrinthine threads in Raffy Napay’s opus, or the phantasmagoric colors of a Rodel Tapaya with your wavering, wobbling Internet connection? Not an ideal situation. The rule for everything nowadays is: adjust or die. Here are a few shows worth visiting — verily or virtually.

A disclaimer: things might change in a couple of days (we are in a Luis Buñuel movie and the pandemic is an exterminating dinner party we can never, ever leave — or like Hotel California), the key is to ask galleries first as to how they presently conduct operations in our New Society of Subnormality featuring ill-health officials, dolphin cavorters, mystery vaccines and ostriches on the loose.

 
John Marin's “Hungry Years” at Blanc Gallery


Silverlens is relaunching its “Searching Sanctuary” exhibition curated by Gregory Halili. The show promotes “the imperative and ever-relevant theme of environmental preservation, displaying a diverse range of artistic styles and practices — drawings, paintings, sculptures, and photography — to express the language of conservation amidst the decline of the natural world.”

Currently on view at silverlensgalleries.com are works by 21 artists: Pope Bacay, Marionne Contreras, Jigger Cruz, Rocelie Delfin, Patricia Perez Eustaquio, Dina Gadia, Mark Andy Garcia, Gregory Halili, Paolo Icasas, Bree Jonson, Pow Martinez, Maya Muñoz, Raffy T. Napay, Wawi Navarroza, Elaine Navas, Bernardo Pacquing, Christina Quisumbing Ramilo, Popo San Pascual, Nicole Tee, Ryan Villamael and Liv Vinluan. For information, email info@silverlensgalleries.com or call +63917-5874011.

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Dale Erispe’s “Living Code 42” at West Gallery

On view until Sept. 6 at Blanc Gallery, 145 Katipunan Ave. in QC, is John Marin’s “Relentless Years.” The exhibit intimates life’s “transient nature and confronts its reality of impermanence.” The artist admitted to being disturbed, moved and compelled by natural disasters that wrought havoc in recent months, Abloom in the works are burning trees and bonfires as well as blossoms upon graves and canines surveying the carcasses of destruction. The exhibition “locates life’s meaning in its fleeting moments and opportunities, in the unrelenting drive to cope with hard times, and the ever-hopeful stance to start anew when things come to an end.”

This show, curated by Ryan Francis Reyes, is a collaboration between Blanc Gallery and The Working Animals Art Projects (TWA). Visit Blanc Gallery at blanc.ph, email info@blanc.ph or call +63920-9276436 for inquiries.

 

A digital portrait of Gaby dela Merced and Pia Reyes by Tyang Karyel

Dale Erispe continues to “visualize alternative environments to ponder on the interaction and conflict between humankind’s actions and the forces of nature” in his latest show. Erispe’s contemplative compositions deal with “reflections on ecology, survival, and co-existence, and he suggests these themes mainly by painting outdoor views in which natural elements figure alongside man-made structures but devoid of human presence.” The sense of desolation in Erispe’s paintings are all the more amplified with what the world is going through in these pandemic times characterized by curfews, quarantines, lockdowns and deserted cities of the heart.

This show, curated by Ruel Caasi, is on view until Aug. 29 at West Gallery, 48 West Ave., Quezon City. Visitors are welcome by-appointment-only. To make an appointment, contact the gallery at (02)3411-0336.

Works by Tyang Karyel. Her online exhibit hopes to raise medical funds for her father, hospitalized with COVID.

Lastly, Tyang Karyel is holding an online exhibit (@tyangdynasty on Instagram) to help raise funds for her father’s hospitalization due to COVID-19. Since her family owes the hospital more than P3.5 million, Karyel is creating digital, “Tyanganized” portraits for people in exchange for cash contributions. Vinyl On Vinyl is also helping out Tyang raise funds. For information, visit @tyangkaryel on Instagram. You can also call Inas Amuyo at +63917-8022984 or email vinylonvinyl@gmail.com, inas.gallerymama@gmail.com.

Artists are — in a way — essential workers, too. Just like musicians and theater actors, artists are the frontliners of the soul.

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Not accepting “challenges” @igandbayan on Instagram. For some scary shit, visit www.igandbayan.com.