One of the biggest seed banks in the world could soon be replaced by a housing development. (Al Jazeera)

One of the world’s largest and most important seeds banks, in Pavlovsk near St Petersburg, Russia, has come under threat of obliteration to make way for new private housing development. The historic Pavlovsk Experimental Station, started in 1926 by Russian botanist and agricultural scientist Nikolai Vavilov, is an agricultural experiment station and gene bank containing some 5,000 different varieties of fruits and berries. An estimated 90% of the collection is found in no other seed bank or research collection in the world, meaning that if development moves forward, these varieties are most likely to be lost forever. To highlight the gravity of this, that includes more than 1,000 varieties of strawberries alone!

If the site is closed down it will be a massive blow to Europe’s biodiversity and our already fragile ecology. Perhaps all is not yet lost though; President Medvedev tweeted two weeks ago that the issue of the closure will be, in his own words, “scrutinised”. Well, he has been talking about food security and agriculture for a while, most recently stating that “There will be no food shortages.” Now all there is left is to start connecting the dots..

More here, here and, if you’re a twitterer, here: @kremlinrussia_e.

Some late night thoughts to new friends in Almería. Thanks.

San Isidro de Níjar, April 2010.

From the New York Times’ Lens blog on June 2, 2010, this image by Sebastian Scheiner. Caption reads:

“Israeli youths released doves and balloons during a rally in support of the military after a deadly raid by Israel’s navy on an aid flotilla bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip.”

On June 4, 2010, an article in The Guardian has the following image by by Vadim Ghirda:

Vadim Ghirda/AP

followed by the news that independent autopsy reports many of the dead aboard the aid flotilla were shot in the head (≈executed) at close range.

“Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.

Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.

The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.

The findings emerged as more survivors gave their accounts of the raids. Ismail Patel, the chairman of Leicester-based pro-Palestinian group Friends of al-Aqsa, who returned to Britain today, told how he witnessed some of the fatal shootings and claimed that Israel had operated a “shoot to kill policy”.

He calculated that during the bloodiest part of the assault, Israeli commandos shot one person every minute. One man was fatally shot in the back of the head just two feet in front him and another was shot once between the eyes. He added that as well as the fatally wounded, 48 others were suffering from gunshot wounds and six activists remained missing, suggesting the death toll may increase.

The new information about the manner and intensity of the killings undermines Israel’s insistence that its soldiers opened fire only in self defence and in response to attacks by the activists.

“Given the very disturbing evidence which contradicts the line from the Israeli media and suggests that Israelis have been very selective in the way they have addressed this, there is now an overwhelming need for an international inquiry,” said Andrew Slaughter MP, a member of the all party group on Britain and Palestine.

Israel said tonight the number of bullets found in the bodies did not alter the fact that the soldiers were acting in self defence. “The only situation when a soldier shot was when it was a clearly a life-threatening situation,” said a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London. “Pulling the trigger quickly can result in a few bullets being in the same body, but does not change the fact they were in a life-threatening situation.”

Protesters from across the country will tomorrow march from Downing Street to the Israeli embassy to call for Israel to be held to account for its actions.

Earlier this week, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said the government would call for an inquiry under international auspices if Israel refuses to establish an independent inquiry, including an international presence.”

]]> http://timbuktu.dk/archives/1734/feed 0 http://timbuktu.dk/archives/1730 http://timbuktu.dk/archives/1730#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 22:35:14 +0000 Thomas Elsted http://timbuktu.dk/?p=1730

Amen.

Photo by dad.

Just to keep things flowing a bit, a small announcement: I graduated from art school a couple days ago with the opening of the exhibition Afgang 10 at the Aarhus Art Building, shown above. The work on show consists of the last two months’ material from Spain and around. It’s not much, at most a preliminary storyboard intending to connect themes and stories, but if you’re in town (or country), feel free to drop by for some cultural enrichment before June 13. There are five other graduating artists on the show, and it’s very odd altogether, but I think in a good way.

Thanks to family and friends who came for the opening from near and far away – it meant a lot to me. That’s my dear brother right there in the front. Can you tell?

No, it didn’t snow.

Warehouse workers in the alhóndigas, greenhouse farmers’ marketplace.

Time for an update on where this is all coming from; El Ejido. This is where I am, a town in the southern Spanish province of Almería, the center of intensive agriculture known as the ‘sea of plastic’ – named after the thousands of hectares of plastic covered greenhouses that produce very much of the vegetables found in Europe’s supermarkets. It is also a hub for cheap immigrant labour and, it would appear, racial segregation – whether intended or unintended. Figures vary from source to source, but we have been told that there are as many as 140.000 immigrant workers here, which as far as I can tell outnumbers the Spanish population.

Oh, and I’m here with Lucas, didn’t I tell? Lucas has based himself in Spain for the time being, working out of Galicia up in the leafy north, on issues of farming and food production, among other things. When he started talking about El Ejido months back, around the same time I decided to try and do some work about immigration along Europe’s southern border, our ways seemed destined to meet here. So for the past five days we’ve been bumming around the region, among greenhouse after greenhouse, meeting people involved in various steps in either production or immigration, or both. Though we’re realizing there is very much work to be done here, and that it would take much more time than we have right now, we surely haven’t been lazy. Lots and lots of good walking, and more ahead in the next few days. It’s a very strange landscape.

More soon…

Market price chart in the alhóndigas, greenhouse farmers’ marketplace. Price of end-season cucumber: €0.18 per kilo.