| Danube in danger: toxic Soviet timebombs String of disasters waiting to happen at sites across great river's basin, says World Wide Fund for NatureFrom the Black Forest to the Black Sea, the Danube meanders for almost 1,800 miles through 10 countries, its course punctuated by areas of great beauty and industrial disasters waiting to happen.The torrent of toxic sludge devastating tracts of western Hungary and the risk of heavy metals leaching into the great waterway have highlighted the dangers posed by the rusting heavy industrial plants lining the river's banks.In the past decade alone, it has been accosted by Nato bombs, oil spills and cyanide poisoning. The neglect that appears to have been the source of the problem at the Ajka tailings dam has environmentalists worried that there are dozens of other "ticking toxic timebombs" primed to explode and wreak havoc with Europe's biggest river basin."There are a string of disasters waiting to happen at sites across the Danube basin," said a spokesman for the World Wide Fund for Nature.The organisation has used EU data and studies to compile lists and maps of pollution hot spots in the Danube area. Hungary has many vulnerable industrial sites but so do Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.In Hungary, anxiety is focused on another red sludge reservoir on the banks of the Danube at Almasfuzito, 50 miles north of Budapest. The waste here is similarly produced by turning bauxite into aluminium. Seven pools hold 12m tonnes of hazardous waste, including an estimated 120,000 tonnes of heavy metals."The pools have not been covered by clay to block leaking of water," said the WWF. "The pools are more or less in direct contact with the ground water table and indirectly with the Danube. "An unusually high level of toxic metals as well as fluoride were detected in the monitoring wells several times recently."With 83 million people inhabiting the 19 countries that form the Danube basin, the river is the lifeblood and artery of central and south-eastern Europe.There is no sign yet that the Hungarian calamity has affected the river, with all countries on the Danube monitoring the water's pH levels every three hours and feeding the information to an office in Vienna for analysis."All the results show the water is quite clean," said Mihaela Popovici, a pollution expert at the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube river (ICPDR) in Vienna. "We're much more relaxed than we were a few days ago."Many of the threats to the river's health are part of the legacy of communism. Soviet bloc regimes promoted heavy industry including the mining of bauxite, uranium and gold and placed large oil refineries along the waterway with scant heed for the environment.The ICPDR has identified 160 hot spots in the river basin, more than 40 of which are classified as high risk.Romania occupies a third of the basin, by far the biggest national chunk, and is seen as particularly problematic.It is home to the most extensive and precious wetlands in Europe, the Danube delta, which is judged especially vulnerable.The worst Danube disaster occurred in Romania a decade ago when a wall collapsed at a goldmine in the north-west region of Baia Mare, dosing the river with cyanide and heavy metals and poisoning drinking water across the Balkans.The biggest goldmining project in Europe is underway in Romania, also using cyanide extraction methods.In May the European parliament voted by a margin of 10-1 for an EU-wide ban on the technology, arguing that this "is the only safe way to protect our water resources and ecosystems against cyanide pollution from mining activities".But no EU ban has yet been decided.Despite the alarm about the environmental risks, experts say things are improving. Until 2004 only two Danube states, Germany and Austria, were in the EU. The figure is now eight, meaning that stiffer European regulations and standards governing mining safety, industrial plant licensing and pollution are in force."It's good to have better regulations but implementation is always a problem. That's what we've seen in Hungary," said Andreas Beckmann, Danube project co-ordinator at the WWF.He said there had been huge progress in improving environmental disaster zones across the region since the collapse of communism in 1989."Many areas were also left relatively untouched. If there are great wildernesses left in Europe, they are in the east not the west."HungaryPollutionSerbiaRomaniaBulgariaCommunismMiningIan Traynorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Interiors: From nécessaire to ooh-la-la – postwar French furniture design The postwar years saw unprecedented creativity in French design, driven first by the aftermath of bomb damage and then by the consumer boom of the 50s and 60sIn the France of 1945 – a country of ruined cities, bombed-out morale and an economy smashed to smithereens – it was all about the basics: tables to eat off, chairs to sit on and kitchens in which mothers could feed their children. In the crescendo of rebellion before May 1968, experimentation was key, and plastics took the place of wood. And by the early 1970s, permissiveness prevailed: beds were on the floor, sofas became "sprawlers" and chaise longues were orange and made of foam. Louis XVI, one imagines, would not have known where to look.If it is possible to tell the story of a country through its furniture, then an exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris does just that. By charting the different designs that kitted out homes across France throughout this period of sudden and profound change, the exhibition shows how the finest table legs and most exquisite lamps are shaped not only by their craftsmen, but also by the cultural and economic influences of the time. And if the change is so radical that it seems to be a tale of two countries, that is perhaps not surprising. Try to picture Charles de Gaulle reclining in a bubble chair – it's no easy task.Beginning with the immediate postwar reality, the Mobi Boom exhibition transports the visitor from the centre of Paris to the northern city of Le Havre, a place so bombarded during the war that 5,000 inhabitant were killed and 12,000 homes destroyed. When, after liberation, towns and cities across France found themselves in need of a new housing plan, the old sea port became a prototype for reconstruction. Auguste Perret, the architect and devotee of reinforced concrete, designed modernist blocks of flats that were at that time the model for collective modern living: they made up for a lack of space with light, fitted kitchens and bathrooms, not to mention unembellished oak cupboards, simple storage space and elegant, high-backed chairs. When in 1947 the government announced its aim to create 20,000 such apartments a month, mass-produced furniture seemed the way forward."I think the state realised it had to give an impetus," says Dominique Forest, curator of the exhibition. From that moment on, the chairs and tables that designers René Gabriel and Marcel Gascoin were creating in Le Havre would become the staple for 1950s French households, which were embracing the rationalist dream. "They saw it as a golden age," Forest says. "It all came together: it was not only furniture, but also electrical appliances."As part of the exhibition, Forest installed an original 1947 fitted kitchen from Le Corbusier's Cité Radieuse in Marseille, by celebrated designer Charlotte Perriand. With its sliding doors and handy drawers, the kitchen reflects Perriand's assertion that, in an age of limited space, "storage is of the utmost importance". It also tries to maximise a woman's ability to be close to her guests through cut-away panels in the side. "The mistress [of the house] is not separated from her guests," Forest says. "She is not relegated to her kitchen only."As France got back on its feet during the 1950s, boosted by the Marshall Plan and a gradual recovery of economic strength, changes outside the home had a direct impact on what went on inside it. A new generation of designers started to experiment with new materials and shapes, and industrial production brought furniture to the masses like never before. In 1959, a Formica contest was held in the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs; it yielded a sleek, low-lying, cream entertainment unit that spoke volumes about the new preoccupation of the time: leisure. Designed by Antoine Philippon and Jacqueline Lecoq, it boasts a television on one unit, a bar in a second and a turntable in a third. For those feeling peckish, there's also a dish for peanuts.Before long, this new mood of discovery would vanquish the functionality of the immediate postwar period. What had been a question of urgency was now one of creativity and hedonism. Compared with other European countries, France was riding high on a boom in babies, living standards and, yes, furniture. The consumerist society had arrived and, with the rumblings of cultural rebellion that would reach a peak in May 1968, the combination was explosive. "There was definitely a spirit of breaking the [social] codes," Forest says, pointing out brightly coloured, make-them-yourself sofa units marketed as "vautroirs" (from the verb "vautrer", meaning to sprawl).During this period, several furniture advertisements caused "scandals", she adds, because critics deemed them to have subversive undertones (they were probably right). A double-page spread in the groundbreaking Prisunic magazine featured Marc Held's plastic ground-level beds with the word "LOVE" emblazoned behind them. "Another advert for [chair specialists] Airborne showed only bottoms," Forest says. "It caused a scandal at the time, but it was good for showing that what was important was people's bodies, their comfort."Five years after the protests of 1968, the mobi boom – and, more generally, the sustained prosperity of the trente glorieuses – came to an abrupt halt with the oil shock of 1973. Perhaps the gods of interior design looked down on the fluorescent yellow chairs and rotating orange footstools, and decided that enough was enough. In the mid-70s, battered by economic crisis and sudden consumer belt-tightening, some of the biggest names in French design – including Airborne, Steph Simon and Prisunic – closed their doors for ever. Their legacy, however – mass-production, nationwide distribution, cutting-edge creative thinking – has stood firm to this day (plastic beds excepted). • Mobi Boom, The Explosion Of Design In France (1945-1975) is showing at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris until 2 January 2011.HomesDesignFranceLizzy Daviesguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
ICRC urges Pakistan to grant access to detention centres Rare public intervention by ICRC official as south Asia chief says organisation is talking to Islamabad about access to detaineesThe Red Cross is urging Pakistan to give it access to detainees as security forces are rounding up thousands of people in what the authorities describe as law enforcement operations.The head of operations for south Asia for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Jacques de Maio, told the Guardian today: "We are engaged in discussions with the Pakistani authorities with the goal of achieving access to places of detention."Arrests of people described as threats to security throughout Pakistan have not received as much attention or scrutiny as the situation in Afghanistan, where an armed conflict is plain for everyone to see andhumanitarian agencies and western governments are privately deeply concerned about the potential consequences of transferring power and responsibility to Afghan forces and officials.Though this is key to the British and US governments' exit strategy, it could lead to what one official described yesterday as a "fragmentation of the political and security landscape" in Afghanistan against the background of a weak central government in Kabul."Our greatest challenge consists in maintaining access to the areas hardest hit by the fighting, but the multiplication of armed groups is making this much harder for us," Stocker said last week. A concern is that the greater the number of different groups detaining people, the more difficult it will be to gain access to the detainees.De Maio's public intervention, rare for the ICRC, comes at a time when humanitarian agencies and other independent experts in the region are expressing growing concern about the number of the victims the conflicts in Pakistan and Afghanistan are producing.Just last week the ICRC revealed that the number of war casualties taken to Mirwais hospital in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, had hit record levels. The ICRC-supported hospital registered nearly 1,000 admissions with weapons-related injuries in August and September - almost twice as many as during the same months last year, it said."This is just the tip of the iceberg, as those who suffer other sorts of injuries or contract disease as an indirect result of the conflict far outnumber weapon-wounded patients," said Reto Stocker, the head of the ICRC delegation in Kabul.Concern is also growing, experts say, about the legality and pragmatic consequences of British and US forces targeting mid-level Taliban commanders in southern Afghanistan. Over the past three months, more than 300 Taliban leaders have been killed or captured, General David Petraeus, the US and Nato commander in the country, said in London last week. "These are important figures. This is the so-called jackpot – the target of a particular operation", he said.However, well-placed sources warned today that apart from the difficult legal issues involved, and the definition of what constituted "assassination", Taliban commanders who have been killed or captured are being replaced by younger ones more ideologically extreme and much less likely to agree to join any moves towards reconciliation.PakistanAfghanistanHuman rightsRichard Norton-Taylorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Home sales up in Sept. but more troubles ahead By ALAN ZIBEL and JEANNINE AVERSA 2010-10-25T16:08:38ZWASHINGTON (AP) -- Sales of previously occupied homes rose last month after the worst summer for the housing market in more than a decade. And fears over flawed foreclosure documents could keep buyers on the sidelines in the final months of the year.... hosted.ap.org |
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