The geography and politics of Spain

From the Olive Press:  The geography and politics of Spain

Whilst the history of Spain is long and complicated, the geography and political set-up are fairly straightforward. Paul Whitelock takes a look.

IN geographical terms Spain comprises the Iberian peninsula (except Portugal, Andorra and Gibraltar); two island groups, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea and the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, off the west coast of Africa; and two enclaves in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla.

For political purposes, since 1978 when the new Spanish Constitution was established just three years after the death of Franco and the end of his nearly 40-year dictatorship, the Kingdom of Spain has comprised 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla), each of which enjoys significant devolved powers, probably more than in any other Western European country.

Beyond this arrangement the country is divided into fifty provinces. Since the adoption of the current system of autonomous communities, the importance of the provinces has declined. They nevertheless remain electoral districts for national elections and as geographical referents: for instance in postal addresses and telephone codes. A small town would normally be identified as being in, say, Málaga province, rather than the autonomous community of Andalucía. The provinces were the “building-blocks” from which the autonomous communities were created; consequently no province is divided between two or more of these communities.
Most of the provinces – with the exception of Álava, Asturias, Vizcaya, Cantabria, Guipúzcoa, Islas Baleares, La Rioja, and Navarra – are named after their principal town. Only two capitals of autonomous communities — Mérida in Extremadura and Santiago de Compostela in Galicia — are not also the capitals of provinces. Seven of the autonomous communities comprise no more than one province each: Asturias, Islas Baleares, Cantabria, La Rioja, Madrid, Murcia, and Navarra.

An autonomous community is the first-level political division of the Kingdom of Spain, established in accordance with the current Spanish Constitution (1978). The second article of the constitution recognizes the rights of “nationalities and regions” to self-government and declares the “indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation”.

Political power in Spain is organised as a central government with devolved power for 17 autonomous communities and two autonomous cities. These regional governments are responsible for the administration of schools, universities, health, social services, culture, urban and rural development and, in some cases, policing.

Spain has been described as remarkable for the extent of the powers peacefully devolved over the past 30+ years and is an extraordinarily decentralised country, with the central government accounting for just 18% of public spending. The regional governments use up 38%, the local councils 13% and the social security system the rest.

In terms of personnel, by 2010 almost 1,350,000 people or 50.3% of the total civil servants in Spain were employed by the autonomous communities; city councils and provincial diputaciones accounted for 23.6% and those employees working for the central administration (police and military included) represented 22.2% of the total.

For the record, the autonomous communities are as follows:

• Cataluña, País Vasco (Basque Country) and Galicia are “historical nationalities;
• Andalucía was not a historical nationality (one that had had a statute of autonomy before the Spanish Civil War). However, Andalucía was able to meet the requirements established by Congress to develop its autonomy;
• Aragón, Castilla-León, Castilla-La Mancha, Extremadura, and the Comunidad Valenciana were granted autonomy as communities integrated by two or more provinces with common historical characteristics;
• the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands were granted autonomy as insular territories, with the former composed of two provinces;
• Cantabria, Asturias, La Rioja, Murcia and Navarra were granted autonomy as single provinces with historical regional identity;
• the Comunidad de Madrid was constituted for the nation’s interest;
• Ceuta and Melilla, both cities, were granted autonomy—albeit limited—in spite of not being provinces themselves.

 

Climate Change And Sustainable Development In Ghana

From GhanaWed:  Climate Change And Sustainable Development In Ghana

It can safely be stated that the greatest danger to man is man himself. Why do I say so? Man has become so greedy in this time and age of unbridled consumerism so much so that man is creating conditions for his own extermination and extinction from the face of the earth. In my geography lectures at the university, I was told that geography is anthropocentric or man-centered. I think, on hindsight and reflection, that should not be the case. Geography is said to be the study of the earth as the home of man and also the study of areal and spatial differentiation. Why cannot we say that geography is the study of the earth as the home of multitudes and diversities of life? Don’t animals and plants have rights? Man has become self-centered and greedy to the extent that he cares only about his ego needs and less about the needs of other organisms and earth users.

Why should one man have more than one car or more than one refridgerator? If all the 7 billion or so humans were all to have cars and houses, what great pollution there would be from the exhaust of fossil-fuel powered cars and what a danger we would cause to the reserves of our finite resources such as iron, rubber, copper, petroleum and other natural resources? As our population grows exponentially and geometrically, we are reminded of the Malthusian spectre of doomsday. When demand far outstrips supply, then there will be water wars, raw material wars, land space wars, among others. Capitalism has taught us to create wealth and to consume, consume and consume but it has not provided the means of containing our incalculable negative externalities or social costs such as noise pollution, from the hum and drone of automobiles, locomotives, ships and aeroplanes.

Our mining activities in the dense forest areas of Ashanti, Western, Eastern and Central Regions of Ghana are causing vast areas of soil erosion, badlands, carapaces, bogs and marshland. Our flora and fauna are greatly being depleted and decimated by these unregulated mining activities. Take for example, the illegal galamsey miners along our prime rivers such as Tano, Ankobra, Offin, Pra, Birim and Ayensu. These rivers are losing a lot of forest in their catchment areas, leading to floods in the rainy season. These rivers are being toxified by harmful discharge of mining effluents which contain cyanide and sulphuric acid. Many communities living along these rivers are gradually being poisoned and some have lost their means of livelihood because of displacement from their farmlands as the large scale conglomerates, as well as the small-scale galamsay miners, have taken over.

The owners of the land are marginalized as they receive no royalties or compensation. Many areas in Tarkwa, Prestea, Obuasi, Aboso and Nsuta are sorry sights with shacks and slums. One wonders what the multinational mining corporations are ploughing back to the communities by way of corporate social responsibility. In fact, some of the mining activities are unsustainable as they rob the country and the local communities because very little money (25%) goes into the national kitty from gold concessions. It is high time the NDC government took action to renegotiate some mining agreements. New foreign investors in mining, quarrying, lumbering and fishing should be properly vetted before they are granted licences to trade. They should come up with copious environmental impact assessment plans to show how they will mitigate against the social costs which they create.

It is important to note that each land area has a carrying capacity or threshold population which is the ideal population it can sustain. In this regard, it is important to examine each ecosystem and know the ideal population size and the social amenities to provide. Right now in Ghana, our planners have been sleeping because in most cities such as Accra and Kumasi, the population size is beyond the threshold or carrying capacity, hence great strains on transport infrastructure, educational system, health and sanitation infrastructure, housing accommodation, water supply reticulation, and power consumption, among others. This is why we need to take certain critical measures:

1. Decongest the cities by developing the rural areas

2. Decongest Accra and decentralize most of the service functions in the primate city, Accra, by developing new growth poles in other parts of Ghana.

3. Implement population control measures such as family planning, tighter immigration against Ecowas members and having a two-child policy, among others.

4. Boost agriculture production through a revival of Operation Feed the Nation

5. Provide a master plan for Ghana through roll over five year plans

6. Increase measures for forest conservation, wildlife protection and control of both inland and sea fishing by banning the use of small-mesh nets and foul fishing methods such as use of explosives, chemicals etc.

7. Sensitize communities through campaigns to encourage them adopt right farming practices such as mechanization, hybrid seeds, application of fertilizers, among others.

8. Educate citizens to cage their livestock so as to reduce overgrazing and desertification, especially in the Savannah and Sahel northern regions.

9. Increase inspection of industrial premises to check how they discharge effluents

10. Encourage more efficient methods of extracting raw materials and ask manufacturers to recycle their waste material

11. Protect river catchment areas and their gallery forests

12. Organise awareness campaigns in schools and colleges across Ghana so that children become aware of the causes and dangers of climate change. This can be in conjunction with UNICEF, UNDP,UNEP and Green Party.

13. Build more dams and reservoirs in the country to reduce surface run-offs, rill erosion, among others

14. Monitor emission levels of chloro-fluoro carbons (CFCs) across the country to advise on corrective action

15. Encourage judicious exploitation of our flora, fauna and mineral resources by strengthening the legal and environmental requirements and oversight

There is need to reduce the carbon footprint of the mining conglomerates in Ghana. Also, the cumulative impact of unhealthy socio-cultural and economic activities in Ghana, among all of us, call for sober reflection on how we go about to eke a livelihood. What about bush burning to hunt for grasscutters or big bush rodents, charcoal burning, wrongful farming methods such as shifting cultivation and slash and burn, variously called chitemene, milpa and lading, among others? There are skeptics today, even in the advanced countries, who do not buy into the idea of global warming and as such, they see no immediate problem or challenge to the existence of man. These are the investors whose interest lies in the bottom line and profit maximization at any cost. Despite irrefutable evidence provided to the contrary concerning global warming, these hard-core agnostics believe the idea of global warming is a fallacy and a ruse to engage in what some academics dub as ‘enlightened self interest’. The major culprits of pollution in the west have failed to sign on to the Kyoto, Copenhagen and Helsinki protocols. We need to come up with proper environmental policies in Ghana in order to have sustainable development which will meet the needs of the current generation and will not impair or jeopardize the needs of future generations. We need to sensitize our children in schools to be environmentally-conscious and friendly. We can use folktales and some positive aspects of our culture to educate the older folk to look after the environment. These can be explored from Ananse stories, celebration of festivals such as Akwambo, Odwiraa, Fetu, Aboakyir, Bakatue, Dipo, Ohum, Dambaa, Homowo, Kotokro, Okyir, Ahobaa, Hogbetsotso, Dagbon, Kundum, Akwasidae, among others. The Ghana Customs Authority should be vigilant against the unregulated importation of second-hand cars and fridges which do not meet the required standards. Heavy polluters such as the mines should be made to pay heavy fines and penalties or what is termed ‘polluter pays’. Those business activities which discharge heavy amounts of chlorofluorocarbons should be identified and intervention measures put in place. The CFCs deplete the ozone layer, thus exposing the earth’s atmosphere to harmful ultra violet rays and radiation and disturbing the climatic cycle and weather patterns. The departments of agriculture, wildlife and forest conservation, fisheries and industries should increase their inspectorate roles and come up with innovative ideas to conserve our natural resources. They should recommend the enforcement of robust legal regimes which will serve as deterrent. We need to go for clean sunrise industries such as services instead of focusing on the depleting robber economies in the sunset industries. We need more investment in the midstream and downstream industries which add more value and use less natural resources. These are the human-capital intensive knowledge industries of health, education, hospitality/tourism, transport, entertainment, banking and finance, personal services, professional services like accountancy, law, architecture, insurance, beauty care, commerce and e-commerce.

By Kwesi Atta Sakyi B.A.(Ghana), MPA(Unisa), NDP, Group Dip.(Jersey), 4Yr Tr. Cert

 

New GIS Partnership Brings State-of-the-Art Tools to N.H. Educators

From NewHampshire.com:  New GIS Partnership Brings State-of-the-Art Tools to N.H. Educators

CONCORD, N.H. -- Over 200,000 students in New Hampshire schools now have the ability to learn and apply 21st century geospatial concepts using the ArcGIS software developed by Environmental System Research Institute (ESRI). Thanks to a statewide partnership between ESRI and the New Hampshire Department of Education, this new partnership will allow every public and private school throughout the state unprecedented access to ESRI's state-of-the-art GIS tools for use in education and research. The agreement also includes school administrative use for tasks like creating district maps and efficient bus routes.

"New Hampshire is one of several states in the nation that can provide Geographic Information Systems software to every school in the state free of charge," said Virginia M. Barry, Ph.D., Commissioner of Education. "We are glad to be able to partner with ESRI to provide this opportunity in NH."

According to Judy Tumosa of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, “This partnership will provide a wonderful opportunity for teachers to use GIS to gather, display, analyze and share their data as they study their watersheds.” Kevin Heany, social studies teacher at Monadnock Regional High School says, “Our environmental studies students have been actively involved in collecting data from the nearby Asheulot River. Giving them the opportunity with ArcGIS to map and visualize their own data, as well as the capability to actively participate in monitoring the water quality is exciting.”

Recognized non-formal education groups such as 4-H Clubs, scout groups, and Boys and Girls Clubs will also have access to the software. Shane Bradt, director of the UNH Cooperative Extension Geospatial Technologies Training Center, is excited that, "Not only will this ESRI license provide a wonderful opportunity to engage kids in geospatial inquiry in the classroom, but the availability of GIS to afterschool groups will further integrate spatial thinking into the next generation of NH students."

The partnership with ESRI was made possible through the collaborative effort of the New Hampshire Department of Education, New Hampshire Geographic Alliance (NHGA), New Hampshire Fish and Game, and UNH Cooperative Extension. This collaborative effort would not have been possible without individual efforts from teachers like Plymouth Regional High School teacher, Ina Ahern, who was awarded the Christa McAuliffe Sabbatical Fellowship in 2008-2009 with a project which promoted GIS in New Hampshire schools, as well as Robert Woolner, geography teacher at Hopkinton Middle High School, who began using GIS with his students in 1997, and is chair of the NHGA geospatial literacy initiative. This group has formed a team of New Hampshire Education GIS Specialists (NHEdGIS) that will not only manage the state account, but also provide professional development for teachers as part of a strategically planned effort to foster geospatial literacy across the state. A variety of workshops and

institutes are planned to aid teachers in the implementation of this powerful technology in their classrooms.

"I have been working with future teachers, teaching them how to effectively use the software in their classrooms to support geographic inquiry," says Dr. Lara Bryant, an assistant professor at Keene State College, who teaches a GIS in K-12 education course and is also the coordinator of the NHGA. “It is now exciting that the software will be available to them when they begin teaching. GIS really allows teachers to create an inquiry based learning environment; one in which students can ask questions, explore spatial data and begin to derive possible solutions to the variety of geographic issues our communities face.” ESRI Education Manager, Charlie Fitzpatrick, added "This is a huge opportunity for students of New Hampshire to build their career options. GIS is in every industry, GIS is STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), GIS is green, and GIS is growing."

For additional information regarding the New Hampshire ESRI partnership, visit http://nheon.org/nh_projects/esri.html. 

Geography of H-1B Workers

From Brookings Institute: Geography of H-1B Workers

This year, it took only ten weeks for employers to reach the nation’s overall cap on the H-1B visas they need to hire immigrant workers in specialty occupations—three times faster than last year. Yet debates over the program suffer from a lack of information about where demand for H-1B workers is highest, and the role that the program plays in addressing local labor market needs.
On July 18, the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings hosted a forum presenting a regional analysis of the H-1B visa program, highlighting how foreign-born skilled immigrants in the United States contribute to the country’s metropolitan economies. Panelists from the public and private sectors discussed the report’s findings and their potential impact on current economic and immigration debates.

After each discussion, panelists took audience questions. Participants joined in the discussion on Twitter using the hashtag #metroH1B.
Following this event, Brookings's Jill Wilson answered questions on the H-1B visa program in a live POLITICO web chat.

 Visit the link above to see video of all the discussions.

I share this here because it's interesting. Skilled workers have a hard time coming into this country... but unskilled workers who are much more of a drain on our nation - pour in without hindrance.

These skilled guys must be kind of ticked off that they jump through all the hoops are government demands and are not rewarded, whereas those who come here illegally are welcomed by being charged in-state tuition for kids to go to college, low income housing, food stamps, etc., all after just getting here and thus not having paid a dime into the system that is supposed to help the indigent.

The End of Geography (and School Boards?) in Education Governance

From HuffPost Education:  The End of Geography (and School Boards?) in Education Governance

Of the thirteen papers presented at Fordham's Rethinking Education Governance for the 21st Century symposium last December, one that had particular resonance for me was Rick Hess and Olivia Meeks' analysis of the school district dilemma.
We have nearly 14,000 of them in this country and they control billions of dollars worth of taxpayer money. Lots of people hate them; many believe that they are a large part our education system's deterioration. But as Gene Maeroff writes, in his brilliant new book, School Boards in America: A Flawed Exercise in Democracy, "of all the institutions in the country with jurisdiction over large chunks of money and the ability to influence the nation's future, boards of education are surely the most obscure and least understood." (I am trying to make them less obscure by soliciting essays from reform-minded school board members about their experiences in the trenches. See here.)
Hess and Meeks do a brilliant job of taking us by the hand and leading us gently through the weeds of school board governance -- it's a fascinating history -- and the foothills of the popular alternative of mayoral control, leading us to a mountain top, from where we can see, in the distance, a cloud of sorts, an education system where we "organize schooling around function rather than geography." It's an amazing view -- and it doesn't have to include school boards, not because they are bad, but because they will be mostly irrelevant.
Our current problem, Hess and Meeks argue, is that "every school district is asked to devise ways to meet every need of every single child in a given area," and it doesn't work. Districts are simply not capable of "build[ing] expertise in a vast number of specialties and services" or "juggl[ing] a vast array of demands [that] require them to become the employers of nearly all educators in a given community."
The two education researchers are too practical to suggest the end of geography (i.e. all virtual all the time), but they understand that current school district impotence is a symptom of a problem, not its cause. Importantly, their analysis of the causes also makes them doubtful that suggested alternatives to school boards, like mayoral control, move us in the right direction. They write:

[T]he critiques voiced by those ready to abolish or overhaul boards seemingly imply tacit approval of the antiquated, geographically configured school district itself. Instead of addressing the fact that the ship itself is taking on water, those pursuing governance reforms have focused on who should be at the helm. While a good captain is undoubtedly preferred to a bad captain, reformers serious about righting the ship must be ready to address the bigger challenges.

The chances that current suggestions for fixes -- such as making board elections more relevant and reducing the influence of unions in them, or mayoral control -- "will be the bearers of revolutionary change in governance are," say the authors, "slim, at best." The only reasonable way of governing 21st century schools is by freeing them of place-based constraints.
Thus, you would have education providers -- each offering their own set of specialties and services -- roaming the country (virtually or otherwise), providing their services directly to schools or sets of schools. We're stuck with a department store model of education when Amazon may be showing us the future:

A glance at catalogues from the early 1900s shows the one-stop-shop business mentality of the era. The Sears, Roebuck and Co. catalogue, for instance, features firearms, baby carriages, jewelry, saddles, and even eyeglasses with a self-test for ― old sight, near sight, and astigmatism. That's no longer the way providers in most sectors are organized....
Today we push thousands of districts to embrace and implement unwanted programs. If the private sector operated in this fashion, Amazon.com would have restricted its clientele to residents of Washington state, while would-be imitators from across the country flocked in to learn its secrets and then return home to emulate them....

Instead of encouraging school districts to emulate successful charter management organizations, for instance, policymakers might focus on enabling and encouraging CMOs like KIPP to open schools more readily in order to satisfy local demand.
Hess and Meeks even foresee the possibility of "competing boards" in a given locale; or "empower[ing] non-profit or for-profit networks that might contract directly with a state" to provide educational services. Or, a third approach "is to do away with districts altogether. One could imagine states turning every school into a charter school."
I emailed Rick over the recent holiday and he was gracious enough to elaborate on his ideas in a couple of emails. "The disease is really twofold," he explained. "Progressive bureaucracy and the perils of place-based governance." The latter, he says, "prohibits specialization, makes it enormously tough to recruit like-minded professional staff or to cater to families who have shared concerns and needs."
A "portfolio management" governance system that could be part of the future, writes Rick, would, for instance, "allow districts to work with focused organizations to each recruit the professional who can serve the families for whom its approach makes sense." (Lest one think this is just another cockamamie idea of the radical right, see the work that Paul Hill and his Center on Reinventing Public Education are doing.)
The digital revolution, which is just now beginning, is clearly part of the new education world that Hess and Meeks see on the near horizon. Certainly, the World Wide Web opens amazing opportunities of organizing education around function not geography.
"The giant challenge" here, as Rick explained in his email, is that we have "no assurance that these providers will cover everywhere, and, as with utilities, we have a desire to see schooling available everywhere. One solution is the gradual expansion of virtual options. But the other is having localities play a role in attracting providers, coordinating them, or providing schools if no one else wants to."
He thinks the portfolio approach is "the BIG STRETCH in today's thinking about governance," but it's also the one he believes is "the minimum" that needs to be done to accomplish the shift to an education governance system that is truly in line with the necessities of the 21st century.

 

CA: University of Redlands holds Geography Kids Camp

From Redlands Daily:  University of Redlands holds Geography Kids Camp

About 20 fifth- and sixth- grade students from Lugonia Elementary School learned about geography in a hands-on, all-day camp at the University of Redlands on Saturday. 

The university makes extensive use of Geographic Information Sciences expertise and technology in its curriculum, research and operations, and hosts the educational camp at every summer.
The students explored their neighborhoods, country and world using traditional maps and online computer applications.

A key application that was used in this year's event was Esri's ArcGIS Explorer Online.
To finish the day, the students created a movie that showcased their research of an assigned foreign country.
University of Redlands faculty members Carol Franklin and Catherine Walker have partnered on this event since its inception seven years ago.

Three University of Redlands students assisted with the camp, two of them from the Master of Science in Geographic Information Systems program and another one from the teaching credential program in the university's School of Education.

Another key player in the camp was Kristin Alvarez, a School of Education associate professor who died Jan. 26 after battling cancer.

She was an advocate for spatial learning in the classroom and enjoyed working with young people as they explored together the wonders of the world around them, the U of R said in a news release.
As soon as she joined the University of Redlands in 2009, Alvarez became involved with Geography Kids Camp. She helped organize the event and taught a portion of the activities.


It was one of her last wishes that the camp continue after her death, and her memorial contributions were made in honor of the program.

The camp is free and is funded strictly through donations.



 

Research and Markets: Re-Presenting GIS

From BusinessWire:  Research and Markets: Re-Presenting GIS

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/glr48x/representing_gis) has announced the addition of John Wiley and Sons Ltd's new report "Re-Presenting GIS" to their offering.
The increasingly widespread use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) has meant that a version of geography' has been exported to many other disciplines and walks of life where this technology has been found to be useful. In the analysis of geographic information, geography' is often short hand for the spaces and distances used to explain or model some phenomenon. Typically, it is the usefulness of this, in turn almost entirely a consequence of the phenomenon of spatial autocorrelation, which explains the evident popularity of GIS.
The academic underpinning of GIS, Geographical Information Science is not merely a technical subject; it poses difficult theoretical questions on the nature of geographic representation and whether or not there exist limits on the ability of GIS to deal with certain objects and issues. This book attempts to synthesize the different strands of debate between technical GIS issues and social-theory of GI Science representation by looking at the conceptual and applied aspects of the subject in one cohesive volume.
This is the first book to present the debate surrounding technical GIS and theory of representation from an inside' GIS perspective.
The chapters have been split into three distinct sections exploring objects, time and space; their interaction with each other and with GIS
Re-presenting GIS is aimed at:
- advanced students (undergraduate and postgraduate) taking courses in GIS
- academic researchers in GI Science and Computer Science with interests in the modelling of spatial information and
- practitioners involved with GIS who need an accessible guide to current thinking in GI Science research.
Key Topics Covered:
List of Contributors.
Preface.
1. Re-presenting Geographical Information Systems
PART I: NOT JUST OBJECTS.
2. Not Just Objects: Reconstructing Objects
3. Social Dimensions of Object Definition in GIS
4. The Linguistic Trading Zones of Semantic Interoperability
5. GIS, Worldmaking and Natural Language
6. Land Use and Land Cover: Contradiction or Complement
7. Transformation of Geographic Information using Crisp, Fuzzy and Rough Semantics
8. Uncertainty and Geographic Information: Computational and Critical Convergence
PART II: NOT JUST SPACE.
9. Not Just Space: An Introduction
10. The QSS Framework for Modelling Qualitative Change: Prospects and Problems
11. Network Geography: Relations, Interactions, Scaling and Spatial Processes in GIS
12. The Nature of Everyday Experience: Examples from the Study of Visual Space
PART III: TIME AS WELL.
13. Time As Well: An Introduction
14. Spatio-Temporal Ontology for Digital Geographies
15. Modeling and Visualizing Linear and Cyclic Changes
16. What about People in Geographic Information Science?
17. Dynamic Spatial Modelling in the Simile Visual Modelling Environment
18. Telling Stories with Models: Reflecting on Land Use and Ecological Trends in the San Pedro Watershed
PART IV: NOT THERE' YET?
19. Conclusion: Towards a Research Agenda
Index.
For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/glr48x/representing_gis

 

Bid to win protected status for Irish salmon

What use is geography in the real world? Where here, it's all about economics.

From BBC News Northern Ireland:  Bid to win protected status for Irish salmon

The Irish salmon could soon join an elite club that features Lough Neagh eels, the Armagh Bramley apple and the Comber spud.

An application is under way to win protected geographical indication (PGI) status under European law.
It is the first all-Ireland application for protected status.

The granting of PGI status would mean Irish salmon joins high-quality European products, including Parma ham, Champagne wine and Stilton cheese.

PGI legislation came into force in 1993 and provides for a system for the protection of food names on a geographical or traditional recipe basis.

The scheme highlights regional and traditional foods whose authenticity and origin can be guaranteed.
Under this system a named food or drink registered at a European level will be given legal protection against imitation throughout the EU.

Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Michelle O'Neill said: ""A product, such as the Irish salmon, receiving PGI registration would be good news for the agri food sector and would help local suppliers to market the product domestically and further afield, and would also provide protection against imitation."

 

Where can I go for a tasty lunch near the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington?

From the Telegraph:  Where can I go for a tasty lunch near the Royal Geographical Society in South Kensington?

In the Know question:

I'm going to the Royal Geographical Society's Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition - is there somewhere close by for a tasty lunch?

Answer:

A 10-minute walk away from the Royal Geographical Society in Kensington is Bumpkin, one of a micro-chain of restaurants specialising in seasonal British food. Their current menu includes Loch Duart Scottish salmon, Gressingham duck and a range of artisan cheeses from around the UK.

The Anglesea Arms is located on the street Charles Dickens used to live on and is a great choice for classic British dishes.

For food in keeping with the international flavour of the photography exhibition, try buzzy tapas joint Casa Brindisa for especially good chorizo, or Comptoir Libanais for Lebanese mezze, with tagines and savoury flatbreads.

Sophisticated Japanese restaurant Zuma is also nearby if you’d like a lunch that’s a little more special.

A Treasure Trove of Old Maps at Your Fingertips

From The Constant Traveler:  A Treasure Trove of Old Maps at Your Fingertips

Map lovers, rejoice! The United States Geological Survey, headquartered in Reston, Virginia, is about to complete a massive project to digitize its cache of approximately 200,000 historic topographic maps, previously available only in print or in some cases out-of-print, meaning that people searching for a special old topo had to go to the archive in Virginia to take a look.

Who cares? Geographers, geologists, hydrologists, demographers, engineers and urban planners, to be sure. Also people interested in local history and genealogy, says the USGS. And, if you ask me, travelers who want not only detailed maps for pursuits like walking and biking, but information about what a place looked like in the past. For instance, the course of rivers before impoundment by dams, villages that have grown into cities, vast empty spaces in the West now crossed by superhighways, mountain ranges reconfigured by volcanic eruption.

Some of the oldest maps in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection show the Chicago Loop in 1929; Tooele Valley, Utah, in 1885; New Bedford, Massachusetts, in 1888; Colorado’s Mosquito Mountains in 1886. When taken as a whole, the collection can be considered a National Map, a cartographic library of “last resort,” says archive manager Greg Allord, containing hard-to-find maps when all other sources fail. Allord says that scanning is now complete, though processing may take until September and some maps found in other libraries will eventually be added.

Meanwhile, it doesn’t take much computer-savvy to search the collection by state, scale or original map name. I just tried it, successfully downloading and printing a 1886 topo map of the Escalante River watershed in southern Utah. What will I do with it? I don’t quite know, but it’s free because the collection is in the public domain and making it broadly accessible is part of the program’s mandate.

A few definitions may be useful for laypeople who want to try it out: A topographical map shows physical features and elevations, usually with contour lines. Topo mapping done by the USGS generally divides the country into quadrants, or quads, bounded by two lines of longitude and two lines of latitude; the most popular are 1:24,000 in scale (one inch on the map representing 2,000 feet on the earth surface), available in sheets that show 64 square-mile areas.

Since the advent of digitized maps, new words have been added to the cartographic lexicon like georeferencing (a method of adapting old map information to contemporary computer-based geography, a study now known as Geographic Information System or GIS) and metadata (background map information, sometimes part of the legend), not to mention technical computer terms like Bagit, TIFF, GeoPDF—but let’s not even try to go there.

There was, of course, no such thing as georeferencing when the USGS was created by Congress in 1879, chiefly to locate and describe potential mineral resources in great swatches of the country that hadn’t been closely studied. By then the government had funded several surveys, marking what Clarence King, the first director of the USGS, saw as a turning point, “when science ceased to be dragged in the dust of rapid exploration and took a commanding position in the professional work of the country.”

John Wesley Powell, the great Colorado River explorer and second director of the USGS (1881-94), believed it was impossible to convey geological information without a topographic component, though he came under fire from Congress for the added expense it entailed. As a result, topographical surveying has long been intimately connected to geology in the U.S. (unlike Britain, which has separate divisions for topographical and geological mapping) and the USGS is part of the Department of the Interior. The oldest maps in the USGS collection come from Powell’s time.

It’s fitting to note that the Smithsonian Institution was a supporter of Powell’s surveying expeditions; indeed, he went on from the USGS to serve as director of the Bureau of American Ethnology, later folded into the Smithsonian Office of Anthropology. And even now the connection remains strong with the USGS and the Smithsonian cooperating on the Global Volcanism Program, which publishes a Weekly Volcanic Activity Report detailing geothermic events that may someday require new topos.

 

REVITALIZING JAPAN -- Living on an island arc / Japan's geography gives birth to sought-after technology

From Daily Yomiuri Online;  REVITALIZING JAPAN -- Living on an island arc / Japan's geography gives birth to sought-after technology

The following is the third installment of "Living on an island arc," part of a series of articles examining ways to restore Japan's vitality after the March 11, 2011, disaster. This section examines ways of turning Japan's weak points into strengths.

Plumes of steam 10 meters high rise amid tea plantations on the slope of a 2,000-meter mountain about two hours' drive from Bandung, the capital of West Java Province, Indonesia.

The sulfurous-smelling steam columns gush out of a dozen wells dug by two Japanese companies, Marubeni Corp. and Toshiba Corp., as part of the construction of the Patuha Unit 1 geothermal power plant that is scheduled to open in 2014.

Three Japanese companies--Toshiba, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Fuji Electric Co.--hold about 70 percent of the global market for geothermal power development.

Their dominance springs at least partially from Japan's geography, an arc-shaped archipelago on the western side of the Pacific Ring of Fire. This volcanic environment--called an island arc--has spurred innovation in fields related to volcanic and seismic activity, such as geothermal energy and earthquake-resistant technology.

Steam from beneath the earth often contains sulfur and other impurities, so turbines for geothermal power generation must be built with specially designed material to protect against corrosion. Japanese firms have a decided edge over their overseas competitors in this area.

Indonesia, another island arc in the ring of fire, has even more geothermal energy resources than Japan. Also possessing a rapidly growing economy, demand for power in Indonesia has been rising about 8.5 percent per year.

Indonesia's government plans to expand the country's geothermal power generation capacity from about 800 megawatts in 2010 to 5,000 megawatts by 2025.

According to Atsushi Shibata, chief of the No. 1 overseas power generation project team at Marubeni, "Japan's global technological advantage in geothermal power generation will remain strong for a long time."
The unfortunate tendency for earthquakes in Japan has helped domestic firms compete internationally in the field of geothermal power.
===

Safety is No. 1

Japan International Consultants for Transportation Co., a new firm jointly capitalized by 10 railway operators including East Japan Railway Co., began operations in April.

Many emerging economies have decided to build new railway networks both fueled by and to facilitate red-hot economic growth.

Japan's rail technology has caught the eye of such nations as Brazil, India and Vietnam for its safety even during major earthquakes, as well as the elaborately designed, highly reliable train operation systems.
The high quality of Japan-made train cars and other equipment, however, comes with a big price tag.
Nevertheless, according to Hiroshi Komatsu, director of Japan Consultants' planning and marketing headquarters, "Japan is one of the very few countries that has been successful in operating profitable railways.

"We want to show emerging economies how adopting safe and reliable Japan-developed rail systems can benefit them in the long run," he said.

Japanese infrastructure technologies have gradually taken root in several areas in Taiwan, Japan's neighbor at the southern end of its island arc.

Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR), sometimes called the Taiwan Shinkansen, opened in 2007 and was the first place Japan's Shinkansen technology was employed overseas.

The THSR contract was initially awarded to a consortium of German and French companies, but in wake of a massive earthquake that struck Taiwan in 1999, a consortium of Japanese firms including Mitsui & Co. snatched the contract away, primarily because Taiwan took a second look at Japan's earthquake-resistant technology.

About 120 THSR employees underwent training by Central Japan Railway Co. and other Japanese rail operators.

"The Taiwanese trainees were drilled thoroughly on fundamentals such as on-time train operation and regular equipment inspections," according to one person familiar with the training.

THSR placed orders with Kawasaki Heavy Industries and other domestic train car manufacturers for 48 bullet train cars earlier this year, a contract worth about 19 billion yen.

===
Multifarious edges

In architecture, Japanese contractors including Kumagai Gumi Co. helped build the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan's capital. The 508-meter tower is one of the world's highest at 101 stories and was completed in 2004.
The building features cutting-edge earthquake-resistant technology from Japan, as well as an ultrahigh-quality steel frames crafted by Nippon Steel Corp.

Taipei has also introduced Japanese-style systems for tap water.

Since 2008, the Taipei city water department has been adopting "accordion" water pipes that are highly earthquake resistant. The pipes are the same as those used by Tokyo Suido Services Co., a quasi-public corporation that cooperates with the Tokyo metropolitan government.

The "overwhelmingly low" rate of leakage of the Tokyo water system was crucial in the decision to employ Japanese-made pipes, according to Wu Yanglung, head of the Taipei water department. Tokyo's water leakage rate is only 3.1 percent, far below the global average of 25 percent to 30 percent.

Thirty percent of Taipei's water pipes have been replaced with the accordion pipes, bringing the water leakage rate down to 19 percent from 27 percent in 2006. The department plans to increase the proportion of accordion pipes to 90 percent by 2025.

Japan's island-arc shape has helped nurture a wide variety of cutting-edge technologies that can be implemented in projects around the world.

 

These geography apps really stack up

From Chicago Now:  These geography apps really stack up

I am a geography geek, so it should come as no surprise that I got excited about my child finally being tested on all the states and capitals in fourth grade and she was ready for that test in part because of an app on my iPhone.  (Nope, she doesn't have her own phone yet, and that's a whole separate post, or more likely, series of posts.  For now, I am willing to share my phone on occasion for her to use apps that I preapprove.)  Here are three fun geography apps for all levels of worldly kids.

Stack the States was a great learning tool, teaching not only the shape of states, but nicknames, capitals and flags.  It was great for elementary school, but I think it has broad appeal if you want to help your little one or if your bigger one could use a refresher.

My young Tween is ready for a new challenge.  With the Olympics on the near horizon, I've been wanting to focus on world geography.  Her school exposure to world geography has been pretty minimal and while I know it will come, I want her to learn now. Imagine my excitement when I learned that there is Stack the Countries!  The app explains, "As you learn country capitals, landmarks, geographic locations and more, you can actually touch, move and drop the animated countries anywhere on the screen. Carefully build a stack of countries that reaches the checkered line to win each level."

I'm not the only one who likes Stack the Countries, App Store reviewers have awarded 4 1/2 stars out of a possible five.  Common Sense Media, which reviews apps in addition to all other media, gives it a full five stars and points out that it is fun for kids and parents.

If your tween is more geographically advanced, check out the GeoBee Challenge App, from National Geographic.  This includes 1,300 questions from the National Geographic Bee (which I may have spent some time doing as a tween, feel free to call me a geek, it's okay, but it really is great).  The bonus round of the app asks the player to locate what's in a National Geographic photo on the interactive map, although the user does not know where the photo was taken or what is in the picture. It's cool, but it's also tough.

Common Sense Media says it is best targeted at kids age 12 and rates is 3 out of 5 stars, detracting a bit for the fact that the app is "picky." It is an Apple Recommended Back to School App.

These apps can provide some very education screen time and help your child learn about the amazing world around us.

 

Innovative teacher leaves lasting impression on kids

From Canada.com:  Innovative teacher leaves lasting impression on kids

As a high school student it was not uncommon, on the occasions I would be sent out of class for being disruptive, that while wandering the halls of Woodlands Secondary School I would come across Aleta Crawford's geography class, which was easily located by the hoots of laughter emanating from inside.

I'd peer in, if lucky enough to catch an open door, and see her squatting on the desk, telling a feverish story involving monsters and Australian tree frogs to the enraptured students. Or perhaps she would be illustrating how the flow of glaciers functioned by climbing onto a table and slithering off nose-first.

I had only a passing interest in geography, but at the first available opportunity I signed up for her class. I still have a near-photographic recollection of what she taught, thanks to the little word games and jokes associated with the various lessons.

Early on in her career, Crawford made her mark on the school with the innovative implementation of a homework room: a quiet study space for students where they could work and enjoy coffee, tea and snacks and it was all paid for out of her own pocket.

"I don't believe in failure," says Crawford, who in 26 years of teaching doesn't remember ever having a student fail one of her courses. "I believe if someone's struggling, you find out what the heck's going on. If they're not doing homework, why?"

Growing up with a violent and alcoholic father, Crawford says the impetus to provide the space came from the understanding that, like her, some students didn't complete their homework simply because they had no safe place at home in which to do it.

"A lot of people are unaware of how prevalent that kind of a situation is. And kids aren't going to tell you that they didn't do their homework because their dad's a drunk and they're frightened to be beaten."

Following the death of her mother from cancer when she was 10, Crawford and her five siblings were sent off to live with relatives or taken to orphanages. She grew up in a series of foster homes in Victoria and eventually ended up in a group home, spending her final year of high school as a Rotary Club exchange student in Australia.

Upon returning to Victoria, Crawford was informed her group home had been closed down. Holding down a job at the Royal Jubilee Hospital morgue and supporting two younger brothers who had come to live with her, she managed to complete her high school through Camosun College and went on to get a bachelor's degree in geography with distinction from the University of Alberta.

Teaching wasn't necessarily a calling at first, but she says from the first day of her first class, there was no doubt: she loved it immediately. She chalks part of the "psychological buzz" of teaching up to having a great sense of humour, which is something she says is central to learning and remembering and an essential quality for anyone wanting to go into teaching.

It is this sense of humour, as well as a belief that first-hand experience of a subject is also crucial to learning, that is integral to Crawford's remarkable success. She has been the recipient of multiple awards for her efforts, including CHUB Radio's Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award in 1994, the Rotary Club's Vocational Service award in 1996 and their Paul Harris Fellow award in 1997.

Kenn Joubert, a retired Nanaimo-based psychologist who put Crawford's name forward for the awards, says he first learned about her from a patient who told him a story about his high school graduation.
"As the kids were going through and getting their certificates they were each given a rose," says Joubert. "And as they came off the stage, without warning, some of the kids came to (Mrs. Crawford) and laid their rose in her lap until at the end she was in tears. No one knew they were going to do it, the kids had just planned it themselves," he says.

"You can make or break a person if you're a teacher," says Crawford, likening each student to an egg that needs to be treated with care, love and humour.

"If you have that same student for a number of years, you can either really help them to become a big, fluffy, healthy chicken, or you can create one big scrambled mess of an egg."

 

Children need more geography field trips, says Michael Palin

From Daily Telegraph:  Children need more geography field trips, says Michael Palin

Children should be encouraged to view the natural world firsthand to fire their imagination and encourage them to study the subject in greater depth, it was claimed.

The writer, TV presenter and former Monty Python star suggested that modern children were not being taken out of the classroom as much as those in the past.

He also called for an emphasis on the teaching of geographical facts and figures, insisting that children needed to know "where countries are".

The comments come days after a study showed that pupils in Britain were less likely to take part in science field trips than in most other developed nations.

Research from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that 13 per cent of schools failed to take children out of the classroom on a regular basis – placing Britain joint 27th out of 33 countries in an international science league table.

It came despite conclusions that extracurricular activities were “positively related to student performance”.
Mr Palin said that field trips were also a vital component of geography, insisting that his interest in the subject was fired by good teaching combined with opportunities to "get out of the school building".
In an interview, he said: “I know it's a bit different now, partly because people have got laptops and don't have to go out.

"We need to make sure that good teachers can fire the imagination of the children.
"I'm not saying that they don't have enough field trips. I suspect it's less now, there are all sorts of problems about taking children out of school, and the resources for the school itself."

He added that it was important for children to see things for themselves.

"You have to show them a mountain, show them a power station, show them a nuclear site," he said.
The comments were made ahead of a speech this week to the Prince’s Teaching Institute – a charity established by the Prince of Wales to improve teachers’ grasp of traditional subject knowledge.
Mr Palin, a former president of the Royal Geographical Society, who is more recently known for his travelogues covering the North and South Poles, the Himalayas, Sahara and Eastern Europe, said that children risked "losing the ability to make up their own minds about the rest of the world" without decent geography lessons.

“Geography itself is such a wide-ranging subject," he said.

“It's really about the study of the surface of the earth, it's relative to every single thing we do, what we eat, what transport we take to work, where we live, what houses are made of.

"It's an issue that directly relates to what we know of the earth.”

He said children needed to be given a thorough grounding in "where countries are”.

Once the groundwork is done, schools can move on to issues like "how we share our resources, population growth, food supplies and deforestation", he suggested.

"Teachers have to have a good tale to tell,” he added. “The next generation, future generations, are going to be around for the next, say, 120 years, they're going to have a lot to deal with and geography is key.”

 

Geographers chart the 'next-generation digital Earth'

From PhyOrg:  Geographers chart the 'next-generation digital Earth'

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two versions of the boundaries of the Himalayas, as provided by Google Maps in response to queries from (B) China [Copyright GS(2011)6020 Google, Kingway, MapKing, Mapabc, TeleAtlas], and (C) India (Copyright Google, LeadDog Consulting, Mapabc, TeleAtlas)

The world has gotten smaller and more accessible since applications like Google Earth became mainstream, says UC Santa Barbara Professor of Geography Michael Goodchild. However, there is still a long way to go, and there are important steps to take to get there. His perspective, shared with many co-authors around the world, has been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in a paper titled, "Next-generation Digital Earth."

Based on former vice-president Al Gore's 1992 vision of a digital replica of Earth, the paper examines the world's progress to date, and its prospects for the future.

"The point of this paper is to say, 'Well, how far did we get?'" said first author Goodchild, who specializes in geographic information systems (GIS). The answer? Since Google Earth –– the most popular publicly available program for spinning the digital globe –– not far enough.

Taken from Gore's vision, which outlined in his 1992 book, "Earth in the Balance," and also taken from a Gore speech Goodchild helped to produce for the opening of the California Science Center in 1998, the development of the first iteration of a Digital Earth was rapid, as technology expanded to allow users to view the Earth in a way that had not been possible before. The results fascinated many, who took to maps made by Google and other digital globe-making services –– NASA's WorldWind and Microsoft's Bing Maps, for instance –– to visualize their worlds. Global visualizations and modeling have been responsible for a variety of beneficial efforts, such as the tracking of major weather events and political uprisings, and finding lost people.

But the wider the technology spread, the more obvious certain issues became. For instance, different sources of data provided for these applications resulted in different maps, and different boundaries for the same regions.

"There's no such thing as a true map," said Goodchild, pointing out three versions of the boundaries of the Himalayas on Google Maps, in response to requests from the United States, China, and India. Differences in how the applications measure distance are magnified with each new location mapped. These are issues that could make information from digital globes unreliable, even contentious.

Goodchild sees the next generation of Digital Earth moving away from the top-down experience and giving way to the bottom-up perspective.

"I'm more keen on the next generation going local instead of global," he said. Things that happen to be important to those who live in the area should be part of the area's maps, according to Goodchild, though they may not be the standard political or topographic fare of the traditional globe. Temporal information –– traffic is an example already in use –– also proves to be useful and more relevant to users.

"There's more of a social perspective now, and less emphasis on permanent objects," he said.

However, to take the next steps effectively, the next generation of Digital Earth has to back away from the "exaggerated precision" of the current generation, allowing for uncertainty, and also for the various contexts and environments that a Digital Earth is able to access. Relationships and linkages between objects need to be developed and refined, and a way of archiving the sheer amounts of data must be developed, says the paper.

Additionally, according to the paper, collaboration between multiple infrastructures and open-source partnerships will be necessary for the next generation Digital Earth, as well as a code of ethics that will allow the technology to strike a balance between universal access and universal protection.

"Privacy is less important to the younger generation," said Goodchild, pointing to things like Facebook and similar social media engines, "but we need the ability to opt-out or be invisible. It's getting increasingly difficult."

Despite the move away from ultra-high precision in mapping, however, there continues to be an overarching need for the next generation Digital Earth to be scientifically accurate, and it's the scientific community's job to ensure that accuracy, he said.

"It's the problem we have when major corporations produce scientific software," Goodchild said, citing Google Earth's inclination to satisfy 90 percent of its users. Scientists are part of the remaining 10 percent, he said.

"We ought to insist that scientific standards should be followed," said Goodchild. "Because if we don't, they won't."

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Provided by University of California - Santa Barbara

Red Beans and Rice: A Monday Tradition

From National Gographics Newswatch:  Red Beans and Rice: A Monday Tradition

More »

Team photographer Robert Giglio's mother made these red beans last Monday. A perfect example of the Louisiana custom. Photo by Robert Giglio

To the rest of the country, red beans and rice is a New Orleans tradition. In New Orleans, it is a Monday tradition.

Growing up in Louisiana, I remember seeing Monday specials for red beans and hearing people say they wanted the dish solely because it was Monday.  Red beans on Monday was a generally accepted fact.  It wasn’t until recently that I stopped and thought, “Why Monday?”

The answer came out in the wash.

Before washing machines, women in New Orleans would do laundry by hand — using a crank and wringer, sometimes boiling the clothes.  And on laundry day, they needed to prepare a dinner that didn’t need a lot of TLC. Thus the tradition of making red beans on washday, Monday. My aunt once described the facility of cooking the soft, spicy beans by explaining that they cook themselves when left on a simmer.

I know this practice may sound like a myth.  But, in my 20 some interviews with Ninth Ward residents, the majority has recalled making, eating or smelling red beans on a Monday — without a question prompting them.

Former Ninth Warders Joan Lee, her husband Jefferson Lee and sister Jane Miceli spilled the beans on the custom, whimsically describing the aroma of red beans drifting through the old neighborhood on Mondays.

 

The Dangers of Religious Fanatics

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Timbuktu Location of Timbuktu within Mali

Timbuktu formerly also spelled Timbuctoo and Timbuktoo, is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated 15 km (9.3 mi) north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali. It had a population of 54,453 in the 2009 census.

Starting out as a seasonal settlement, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement early in the 12th century. After a shift in trading routes, Timbuktu flourished from the trade in salt, gold, ivory and slaves, and it became part of the Mali Empire early in the 13th century. In the first half of the 15th century the Tuareg tribes took control of the city for a short period until the expanding Songhay Empire absorbed the city in 1468. A Moroccan army defeated the Songhay in 1591, and made Timbuktu, rather than Gao, their stronghold. The invaders established a new ruling class, the arma, who after 1612 became independent of Morocco. However, the golden age of the city was over and it entered a long period of decline. Different tribes governed until the French took over in 1893, a situation that lasted until it became part of the current Republic of Mali in 1960. Presently Timbuktu is impoverished and suffers from desertification. Several initiatives are being undertaken to restore the historic manuscripts still kept in the city. Meanwhile, tourism forms an important source of income.

In its Golden Age, the town's numerous Islamic scholars and extensive trading network made possible an important book trade: together with the campuses of the Sankore Madrasah, an Islamic university, this established Timbuktu as a scholarly centre in Africa. Several notable historic writers, such as Shabeni and Leo Africanus, have described Timbuktu. These stories fuelled speculation in Europe, where the city's reputation shifted from being extremely rich to being mysterious. This reputation overshadows the town itself in modern times, to the point where it is best known in Western culture as an expression for a distant or outlandish place.

On 1 April 2012, one day after the capture of Gao, Timbuktu was captured from the Malian military by the Tuareg rebels of the MNLA and Ansar Dine.^[2] Five days later, the MNLA declared the region independent of Mali as the nation of Azawad.^[3] The newly declared political entity has not been recognized by any local nations or the international community


From Sydney Morning Herald: Timbuktu's tombs destroyed by militants

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A file picture of a mosque in Timbuktu. Photo: AFP

Islamist militants, swinging pick-axes and shouting God's praise, have destroyed ancient tombs of Muslim saints in Mali's fabled city of Timbuktu, sparking international condemnation.

The rampage of destruction in the UNESCO designated world-heritage city comes after three months of unrest in Mali's remote desert north, which has raised fears of a new Islamist extremist haven in west Africa.
Ansar Dine and other Al-Qaeda-linked militant groups have imposed strict sharia law since sweeping across northern Mali in the chaotic aftermath of a March 22 coup in the capital, Bamako.

"They have raped Timbuktu today. It is a crime," said a source close to a local imam in Timbuktu, known as the "City of 333 Saints".

Witnesses said the Islamists, who regard shrines as idolatrous, had destroyed the tombs of Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi Moctar and Alpha Moya.

In addition to three historic mosques, Timbuktu is home to 16 cemeteries and mausoleums, according to the UNESCO website.

A spokesman for the group, Sanda Ould Boumama, vowed: "Ansar Dine will today destroy every mausoleum in the city. All of them, without exception."

Alissandra Cummins, the chair of UNESCO's executive committee, said: "This is tragic news for us all.
"I appeal to all those engaged in the conflict in Timbuktu to exercise their responsibility - for the sake of future generations, spare the legacy of their past."

Mali's government in Bamako denounced the "destructive fury", comparing it to war crimes and threatened action on the national and international level.

Former colonial power France condemned "the systematic violation of these places of reverence and prayer" and appealed "for an end to this violence and this intolerance".

A witness said that early Saturday morning, about "30 fighters of Ansar Dine moved towards the mausoleum of Sidi Mahmoud" in the city's north.

"Some had guns. They did not shoot. Then they started shouting 'Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!' (God is greatest! God is greatest!) And with pick-axes and hoes, they started to break down the mausoleum."
The Ansar Dine spokesman suggested Saturday's action was in retaliation for a UNESCO decision on Thursday to put the World Heritage site, a cradle of Islamic learning founded in the fifth century, on its endangered list.

"God is unique. All of this is haram (forbidden in Islam). We are all Muslims. UNESCO is what?" he said, declaring that Ansar Dine was acting "in the name of God".

UNESCO's general director, Irina Bokova, confirmed that Islamist militants from the Ansar Dine group had destroyed three sacred tombs in Timbuktu, declaring in a statement that "there is no justification for such wanton destruction".

Witnesses in Timbuktu said that the gangs had destroyed the mausoleum of a saint whose 15th century tomb was already desecrated in May by members of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, another of the groups in control in the north.

The UN cultural agency said its decision to place both the town and the nearby Tomb of Askia in Gao on its List of World Heritage in Danger "aims to raise cooperation and support for the sites threatened by the armed conflict".