User:Lukewarmbeer/sandbox

Follow the science
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ihuman/follow-science-just-not-one-inequality-bias-and-uk-science-advice-0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/02/11/follow-science-year-3-pandemic-begins-simple-slogan-becomes-political-weapon/

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-02-23/-follow-the-science-is-a-slogan-not-a-policy

https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/vinay-prasad/89856

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jep.13491

History of the Jews in Kraków

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/krakow-cracow

General Government: The General Government (Generalgouvernement) was a German zone of occupation in Poland. It included the part of German-occupied Poland that was not directly annexed to Germany, attached to German East Prussia, or incorporated into the German-occupied Soviet Union.

Bold is done (If not in a heading) = THE KRAKOW (CRACOW) GHETTO DURING THE HOLOCAUST =

Jewish Population of Krakow
'''From the first recorded presence of Jews dating from the early 13th century the population continued to grow. In the Polish census of 1931of a total population of about 250,000 almost one-quarter (55,515) identified themselves as Jewish .'''

'''By the beginning of WW2 the Jewish population had grown to approximately 70,000. reflecting the concentration of Jews migrating to the city from the countryside together with Jews deported from the Wartheland District part of occupied Poland that was directly annexed to the 'Greater German Reich'.'''

German Occupation of Krakow
John Komski describes Krakow after the outbreak of World War II John, who was born to a non-Jewish Polish family, graduated from an art academy. Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, John was in Krakow. Food became scarce in Krakow, with long lines of people waiting for whatever food was available. John decided to join the resistance against the Germans. By early 1940, he and two of his friends felt that they were in danger and decided to try to escape to France. John was caught and arrested during this escape attempt. He survived imprisonment in the Auschwitz camp, where he was classified as a political prisoner and his uniform was marked with a red triangle.

Upon the German invasion of Poland, the German army occupied Krakow in the first week of September 1939. The German military authorities initiated immediate measures aimed at isolating, exploiting and persecuting the Jews of the city. On October 26, 1939, that part of German-occupied Poland which the Germans did not annex directly came under rule of civilian occupation authorities under the leadership of Hans Frank, the former legal counsel to the Nazi Party. Appointed Governor General by Adolf Hitler, Frank established his headquarters in the Wawel Castle in Krakow, which the Germans designated as the capital of the General Government View This Term in the Glossary (Generalgouvernement). On Frank's staff was SS General Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger who as Higher SS and Police Leader commanded all SS and police personnel stationed in the General Government.

Krakow was also the capital of Krakow District in the General Government. View This Term in the Glossary The first District Governor was SS Major General Otto Wächter. When Wächter took over Galicia District in 1942, SS Major General Richard Wendler, SS chief Heinrich Himmler's brother-in-law, was the District Governor until his reassignment to District Lublin in July 1943. The SS and Police Leaders for District Krakow were: SS Lieutenant General Karl Zech until 1940, SS Colonel Julian Scherner from 1941 until February 1944, and SS General Theobald Thier from February 1944 until the German evacuation in January 1945. The Commander of Security Police and SD for District Krakow was SS Lieutenant Colonel Max Grosskopf. The German Security Police established their headquarters near the Montelupich Prison.

Like elsewhere in the General Government, View This Term in the Glossary the German occupation authorities required Jews in the city of Krakow and the surrounding areas to report for forced labor (October 1939); form a Jewish Council (November 1939); identify themselves by means of a white armband with a blue Star of David, View This Term in the Glossary worn on the outer clothing (December 1939); register their property (January 1940-March 1940); and to be concentrated in ghettos (September 1940-March 1941).

Krakow Ghetto
In May 1940, the Germans began to expel Jews from Krakow to the neighboring countryside. By March 1941, the SS and police had expelled more than 55,000 Jews, including refugees from the German-annexed District Wartheland; about 15,000 Jews remained in Krakow. Moving into the Krakow ghetto The German army occupied Krakow, Poland, in September 1939. In March 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto in Krakow. In this footage, Polish Jews are forced to move into the Krakow ghetto. They wear the required armbands, used to distinguish the Jewish population from the rest of the city's residents. By late 1941, there were some 18,000 Jews imprisoned in the Krakow ghetto.

The Germans established several factories inside the Krakow ghetto, among them the Optima and the Madritsch textile factories, where they deployed Jews at forced labor. Several hundred Jews were also employed in factories and forced-labor projects outside the ghetto. Among the businesses utilizing Jewish forced laborers was the firm German Enamelware Factory (Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik), owned by Oskar Schindler, located in Podgorze, and later moved to Plaszow.
 * National Center for Jewish FilmIn early March 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto, to be situated in Podgorze, a southern suburb of Krakow, rather than in Kazimierz, the traditional Jewish quarter of the city. By March 21, 1941, the Germans had concentrated the remaining Jews of Krakow and thousands of Jews from other towns in the ghetto. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Jews lived within the Krakow ghetto boundaries. They were were enclosed by barbed-wire fences and, in places, by newly built stone walls, some shaped to resemble tombstones. Streetcars traveled through the ghetto but made no stops within its boundary. In March 1942, the Germans arrested 50 intellectuals in the ghetto and deported them to Auschwitz concentration camp, where the camp authorities registered all of them as prisoners on March 24.

In June 1941, Krakow SS and Police Leader Scherner authorized the establishment of two forced-labor camps for Jews on the Jerozolimska Street in the Plaszow suburb of Krakow, one for men and one for women. By February 1943, the SS had established seven other forced-labor camps in Plaszow. Inside or adjacent to the camps were several textile factories; the SS deployed Jews with the Siemens firm and in a brickworks factory and a stone quarry. The Germans deployed Jewish forced laborers on construction projects as well, building or repairing bridges, rail track, and an indoor sports complex. By February 1943, the Jerozolimska Street camp housed approximately 2,000 Jewish men and women.

Operatives of Operation Reinhard, within the framework of which the SS and police planned to murder the Jewish residents of the General Government, View This Term in the Glossary arrived in Krakow in spring 1942. The Germans claimed to be deporting some 1,500 Krakow Jews to the forced-labor camp in Plaszow; in reality the transport was directed to the Belzec killing center. On June 1 and 6, 1942, the German SS and police deported up to 7,000 Jews via Plaszow, where the camp authorities assisted in the murder of approximately 1,000, to Belzec. On October 28, 1942, the Germans deported nearly half of the remaining Jews in the ghetto, approximately 6,000, to Belzec. During the deportation operations, Plac Zgody and the Optima factory were the major assembly points. During the operation the SS and police shot approximately 600 Jews, half of them children, in the ghetto.

Resistance in the Krakow Ghetto
A Jewish resistance movement existed in the Krakow ghetto from the time the ghetto was established in 1941. Its leaders focused underground operations initially on supporting education and welfare organizations. In anticipation of the deportation operations that the SS carried out at the end of October 1942, some leaders in the more radical wing of the underground, two existing resistance groups, the Zionist-oriented Bnei Akiva, led by Laban Leibowicz, Shimon Draenger, and Dolek Liebeskind, and the Socialist Ha-Shomer ha-Za'ir group, led by Heshek Bauminger and Benjamin Halbrajch, merged into one organization, the Jewish Fighting Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ŻOB). Independent of the ŻOB in Warsaw, this merged group prepared to fight the Germans.

Ultimately the ŻOB decided not to fight within the limited confines of the ghetto, but instead to use the ghetto as a base from which to attack targets throughout the city of Krakow. The most important ŻOB attack took place in cooperation with Communist partisans on December 23, 1942, at the Cyganeria cafe, in the center of Krakow, which was frequented by German officers. The ŻOB killed 12 Germans in this attack.

Krakow ghetto fighters also attempted to join partisan groups active in the Krakow region. In successive skirmishes with the Germans, the Jewish underground fighters suffered heavy losses. In the fall of 1944 the remnants of the resistance escaped from Poland, crossing into neighboring Slovakia and then into Hungary, where they joined with Jewish resistance groups in Budapest.

Liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto
The SS and police planned the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto for mid-March 1943, in accordance with the Himmler's order in October 1942 to complete the murder of the Jews residing in the General Government, View This Term in the Glossary incarcerating those few whose labor was still required in forced-labor camps.

On March 13-14, 1943, the SS and police carried out the operation, shooting some 2,000 Jews in the ghetto. The SS transferred another 2,000 Jews—those capable of work and the surviving members of the Jewish Council and the Jewish police force (Ordnungsdienst)—to the Plaszow forced-labor camp. The rest of the Jews, approximately 3,000, were deported to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center in two transports, arriving on March 13 and March 16. At Auschwitz-Birkenau, the camp authorities selected 549 persons from the two transports (499 men and 50 women) to be registered as prisoners. They murdered the others, approximately 2,450 people, in the gas chambers.

After the revolts of Jewish prisoners in the Warsaw ghetto (April-May 1943), Treblinka (August 1943), the Bialystok ghetto (August 1943), and Sobibor (October 1943), the SS guards and their Trawniki-trained auxiliaries murdered virtually all of the remaining prisoners in the Plaszow forced-labor camp between September and December 1943 in several mass shooting operations. The number of Jews murdered by the SS in these shootings is unknown; it may have been up to 9,000. SS and police officials deported the survivors to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Plaszow Concentration Camp
In January 1944, the SS Economic and Administrative Main Office took over the Plaszow forced-labor camp and converted it into a concentration camp. The SS filled the now virtually empty camp with incarcerated Jewish forced laborers from various smaller forced-labor camps in Krakow and Radom Districts and, later in the spring, with Jews deported from Hungary. Among the Jews brought to Plaszow at this time were those forced laborers living near and deployed at Oskar Schindler's German Enamelware Factory.

Since Plaszow also served as a transit camp View This Term in the Glossary for the movement of Jewish prisoners from surviving forced labor camps in Poland to camps further west, exact data on the number of Jews whom the SS incarcerated and killed there is not available. In September 1944, there were still 2,200 Jews in Plaszow. The SS evacuated at least 1,500 of them to Gross-Rosen concentration camp on October 15. As of the beginning of 1945, 636 prisoners remained at Plaszow; on January 14, 1945, two days after the Soviet offensive pushed the Germans out of their positions on the west bank of the Vistula River, the SS evacuated these last prisoners on foot to Auschwitz.

After the end of WW2
The Germans evacuated the city on January 17, 1945 and Soviet forces entered two days later.

Following the evacuation of Germans and liberation by Soviet forces some 4,282 Jews resurfaced in Krakow and by early 1946, the population had increased to approximately 10,000 with Polish Jews returning from the Soviet Union.

Subsequently many Jews emigrated and by the early 1990s only a few hundred remained.

Anti-transgender activism
Linehan is noted internationally for his anti-transgender activism and his scepticism about gender self-identification saying he objected to "privileged white people saying you must accept anyone who says they are a woman" and that while "anyone suffering from gender dysphoria needs to be helped and supported", he was concerned by early transgender intervention for children.

He also worries that nowadays “trans is so loosely defined” and too often includes, for example, “a 16-year-old girl who’s got dysphoria.”

“There’s got to be an understanding of the difference between a transsexual who has been through something immense in their lives and someone who’s putting on black fingernail polish and trying to get into the ladies,” he told the UK paper"

Rescource re beginning

Rescource re criticism

Insert rest here

Tidy this bit In an interview with The Times in 2023 Linehan said his marriage ended after his wife, the writer Helen Serafinowicz, was "targeted" over his tweets – with her home address released online by angry social media users. Linehan said: "She was scared. She was justifiably scared. They started to target her. They started to target her family. It just got too much for her.".

However, in a new interview, the comedic writer has opened up about the toll his controversial tweets took as he claimed his life fell apart in the backlash, with his wife leaving him and his glittering comedy career grinding to a halt.

The Father Ted musical, on which Linehan had been depending financially, was cancelled when the production company decided his involvement would make it impossible to stage. Linehan blamed cancel culture for his situation, and said

.Edited to here

He became involved after the 2008 episode "The Speech" of The IT Crowd, written by Linehan, was widely criticised as transphobic and sexist when it was repeated in 2013;[citation needed] critics said it used gender stereotypes and trivialised violence against transgender women. The episode features a man who learns that his girlfriend is transgender and gets into a fight with her. Channel 4 removed the episode in 2020. Linehan felt the joke was "harmless" and says he did not understand the "ferocity" of the response, arguing that a transphobic character did not make him or the episode transphobic.

. He used the social network Twitter to criticise "trans ideology", which he believes misrepresents transgender people and lesbians.

In 2018, Linehan praised anti-transgender protesters at that year's London Pride event who had carried banners and flyers saying that "transactivism erases lesbians", calling them "heroes". Later that year, Stephanie Hayden, a transgender woman, sued Linehan for harassment. Hayden alleged that Linehan had shared photos on Twitter of Hayden's family and her life before transition, suggested she was a criminal and repeatedly misgendered and deadnamed her. Linehan in turn alleged that Hayden publicised several private addresses linked to his family to silence him. Police issued Linehan a verbal warning not to contact Hayden.

In a December 2018 interview with Derrick Jensen, Linehan remarked that "I'm now in a position where I can answer the question honestly of, if you were around at the time of something terrible happening like Nazism, or whatever it happened to be, would you be one of the people who said 'no, this is wrong', despite being opposed?". He also described the trans movement as providing "cover" for "fetishists, con-men, and simply abusive misogynists". In an interview with the BBC television programme Newsnight in February 2020, Linehan said that the Tavistock Centre's practice of treating children with puberty blockers such as Lupron was comparable to Nazi eugenics and experiments on children. Following this interview, Eric Pickles, the United Kingdom Special Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues, accused Linehan of "trivialising the Holocaust".

In January 2019, Linehan expressed concern over the news that Mermaids, a charitable advocacy organisation for transgender children and teenagers, was to receive a £500,000 lottery grant to open clinics around the United Kingdom. He posted to the blogging website Mumsnet encouraging its users to lobby the National Lottery Community Fund to reverse its decision. The grant was reviewed and went ahead.In response to Linehan, YouTuber Hbomberguy held a 57-hour fundraising livestream that raised £270,000 more for Mermaids. In the same year, the British journalist Dawn Foster accused Linehan and others of targeting a National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children(NSPCC) employee who had been responsible for the charity hiring the model and activist Munroe Bergdorf, a transgender woman. Foster called the online abuse "transphobic" and "flatly homophobic". The journalist Chris Godfrey called the treatment of the employee "insidious homophobia".

In June 2020, Linehan criticised comments made about the author J. K. Rowling after she made comments that were called transphobic. He linked to a blog post featuring screenshots of abuse Rowling had received, describing those who wrote them as "ignoring the abuse received by women who speak out against gender ideology" and "literally useless". Hozier, tagged in Linehan's tweets due to his trans-rights advocacy, responded by saying Linehan was conducting an "obsessive little culture war".

On 27 June 2020, Linehan's Twitter account was permanently suspended following what Twitter called "repeated violations of our rules against hateful conduct and platform manipulation". In December, Linehan evaded the suspension with an account posing as a transgender man. He used the account to accuse Colm O'Gorman of being "a traitor to women, gay people and yourself" for signing an open letter published by the Transgender Equality Network of Ireland. The account was banned but Linehan said he had created another. Linehan's Twitter account was restored in December 2022, following the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, who relaxed many of Twitter's content policies.

In February 2021, Linehan created a fake account on the lesbian dating app Her and publicly posted screenshots of non-binary people and trans women using it. The developers of Her clarified that transgender women are welcome on the app. In March 2021, Linehan gave oral evidence to the Communications and Digital Committee of the House of Lords on the subject of freedom of expression online. He said he had used his platform on Twitter to bring attention to what he described as "an all-out assault on women, on their words, their dignity and their safety".

In an interview in the Irish Independent that month, Linehan ruled out working with Channel 4 again as they would not return the controversial IT Crowd episode to broadcast, and he said he would not work with the BBC as they had depicted a transgender lesbian couple, which Linehan described as "a heterosexual couple", in a CBeebies video. Ahead of the 2022 Australian federal election in May, Linehan used his online platforms to rally international support for the Liberal Party candidate Katherine Deves, who had attracted controversy for anti-trans comments.

In a September 2022 interview, Linehan said that his anti-transgender activism had led him to question the safety of COVID-19 vaccinations and the scientific consensus on climate change "because I've been lied to so conclusively by all the people I used to trust".

'''Do we really report this kind of thing. Surely it's news?'''

In April 2023, Linehan was again banned from Twitter, following his appearance at an anti-trans event in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Linehan had tweeted the words "Durr imm gonna kill em" in response to a Twitter user who referenced counter-protestors at the Belfast event. Linehan's account was reinstated days later.

United Kingdom[edit]
A 15 May 2022 rally organised by Keen was interrupted by a woman, posing as a speaker, who took the microphone to say: "I just wanna say that I am a cis female and I recognise trans women in women's spaces as alright, and I don't think we need to protest that, I don't think we need the vitriolic hate. Trans women are women!" The microphone was eventually recovered by Keen after the woman was chased by rally organisers and the crowd booed and chanted. Allie Crew, an artist whose work the speakers stood in front of during the rally, tweeted in response to it: "I am greatly saddened that my work was re-appropriated like this and I do not share their views. I promote all human rights". Keen said in response that counter-protesters had blocked access to the Emmeline Pankhurst statue.

On 19 June 2022, Keen and approximately 60 supporters held a rally in Bristol, which was met by approximately 100 counter-protestors organised by Bristol Against Hate. Avon and Somerset police said police separated the groups by forming a line, and that "while both groups at times raised their voices, there were no physical confrontations. The right to protest is a fundamental democratic right and we are pleased to have been able to facilitate both these demonstrations."

On 18 September 2022, a rally in Brighton organised by Keen as part of a speakers tour was met by hundreds of counter-protesters. Sussex police reported three arrests, including a 50-year-old man who attended the event to support Keen and later admitted in court to assault of a counter-demonstrator.

At a Standing For Women rally in Newcastle upon Tyne on 15 January 2023, speaker Lisa Morgan referred to "the big lie", including that it was "first described by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf", and said "The big lie is that trans women are women." Queer.dereported Keen appeared "visibly and audibly in a good mood" after the speech, based on a YouTube video of the event posted to Keen's account. A spokesperson for Cabaret Against The Hate Speech, a Scottish LGBT collective, announced plans to counterprotest Keen's speaker event scheduled for 5 February in Glasgow, and stated "she was using Nazi theory, the big lie which was what they used against the Jews, to justify her transphobia. At no point did anybody on Keen's team or Keen challenge that. No one in the group did anything afterwards, they didn’t apologise, they were actually trying to justify it."

On 5 February 2023, Keen organised a "Let Women Speak" protest in Glasgow's George Square in response to the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Isla Bryson case; hundreds of protesters and counterprotestors attended, and the counterprotestors were organised by the Cabaret Against The Hate Speech.

United States[edit]
In January 2020, Keen spoke at a panel organised by the Women's Liberation Front (WoLF) in New York.

In March 2022, Keen attended the NCAA Division I Women's Swimming Championship in Atlanta and led a group protesting the inclusion of Lia Thomas. She later appeared on Tucker Carlson Tonight, a conservative American talk show, to discuss this protest. On 16 March 2022, Keen was a panelist at an event in New York City titled "How 'Gender Equality' Cheats Women and Girls", hosted by the Center for Bioethics and Culture Network.

On 16 October 2022, Keen began a series of public speaking events organised by Standing for Women in the United States that were intended to tour eleven cities, starting in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles and the second stop in San Francisco, few supporters attended, and there were no counter-protesters nor police at the events. Keen said threats from Antifa led her to cancel the speakers for an event in Portland, Oregon. In a video published on Twitter, an attendee at the Portland event was hit in the face with a pie.

At an event on 26 October in Tacoma, Washington, Keen spoke to about 30 attendees. During the event, about 20 counter-protesters were outside of the plaza where the event was held, and then as their number grew to about 200, counter-protesters entered the plaza. Pepper spray was used on several counter-protesters.

At the 29 October event in Austin, Texas, Keen was observed to have protection from armed security guards, and at the 30 October event in Chicago, Keen said she had uniformed Chicago police officers escort her through crowds. Counter-protestors at the Chicago event rallied at Cityfront Plaza.

On 14 November, nine people were arrested at an event outside City Hall in New York City, after a confrontation between counter-protesters and attendees.

Australia and New Zealand[edit]
In January 2023, Keen announced plans to tour Australia and New Zealand in March. Stephen Bates, the Australian Greens' spokesperson for LGBTQIA+ communities, wrote to Immigration Minister Andrew Giles asking him to revoke Keen's visa and posted the letter online but redacted her name, stating, "I won't be sharing their name because I don’t want to amplify their hate speech."Keen later said she was the subject of the letter.

A petition also launched on Change.org to oppose the visa. By 18 February, the petition was removed, because according to a Change.org spokesperson, the website "received a legal claim on this petition and in order to comply with Australia’s defamation law, we were forced to remove it from the platform." According to LGBTQIA+ rights activist Chris Johnson, who started the petition, there had been more than 11,167 signatures.

Keen's Melbourne event on 18 March was attended by a group of at least 30 neo-Nazis, organised by the National Socialist Network and its leader Thomas Sewell, who were seen performing the Nazi salute on the steps of Parliament House and displaying a banner that read "Destroy Paedo Freaks". Overall attendance at the event was estimated to be between 300 to 400 supporters at the anti-transgender protest led by Keen, and about twice as many counterprotesters.

Regarding neo-Nazi presence at the 18 March Melbourne event, following the event Keen said "They're absolutely not associated with me whatsoever. I absolutely abhor anything to do with Nazis. It's preposterous they even exist in 2023." The prime minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, later made a statement that included, "In Melbourne on the weekend we saw an anti-trans rally, which is really disrespectful of who people are, and then it was joined by a bunch of people who were essentially doing Nazi salutes and slogans ... That of course should be condemned by all Australians".

Following her Melbourne event, Keen's permission to enter New Zealand was put under review by Immigration New Zealand on 20 March. In response, the centre-right National Party's deputy leader Nicola Willis argued that Keen should be allowed into the country on free speech grounds. By contrast, the left-wing Green Party's immigration spokesperson Ricardo Menéndez March opposed Keen's entry on the grounds that her presence would endanger the rainbow and Muslim communities. The review decided to allow her to enter New Zealand. On 23 March, a coalition of rainbow support groups filed for a judicial review of the decision to allow Keen to enter New Zealand. The following day, the High Court at Wellington ruled the decision was lawful. Keen being escorted from her Auckland event by police On 25 March, a rally organised by Keen in central Auckland was also attended by counter-protesters, estimated to number in the thousands, who made noise and chanted loudly before her appearance; tomato juice was poured on Keen by intersex activist Eliana Rubashkyn, and Keen left the area with a police escort before she could speak. The rally was also attended by a small group wearing Azov Battalion and Boogaloo Boys insignia, as well as a member of the white nationalist Action Zealandia group and members of right-wing groups including the New Conservative Party and Voices for Freedom.

Keen later said in a live-streamed video on her YouTube channel that she might not go to her Wellington event, scheduled for the following day, and Let Women Speak NZ subsequently announced the Wellington event was cancelled.

On 26 March, Keen left New Zealand saying it was the "worst place for women she has ever visited" and described the media as corrupt and dishonest. JK Rowling tweeted that a mob “had assaulted women standing up for their rights”.

Rallies, speaker events, and protests[edit]
On 5 February 2023, Keen organised a "Let Women Speak" protest in Glasgow's George Square in response to the passage of the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Isla Bryson case; hundreds of protesters and counterprotestors attended, and the counterprotestors were organised by the Cabaret Against The Hate Speech.This next is a classic example of why I am unhappy with how this article has developed.

It has has three citations:

The Pink news, little better than a propaganda opinion piece which bears no relation to the news coverage of the other two but has given our text most of it's 'thrust' The headline....

"Cis woman interrupts anti-trans protest and instantly becomes an icon: ‘Trans women are women!’"

One, far more balanced and new reporting type article from The National That portrays the rally from both sides.

"Glasgow gender critical rally met with trans activist counter-protest"

One from the Herald - I'd say more

"Hundreds join rally against gender recognition reforms"

= Algerian Green Dam = This article is about the Algerian initiative. For the initiative in Africa see Great Green Wall (Africa) and in China, see Great Green Wall (China).

The Algerian Green Dam refers to a project initiated in Algeria in the 1960s to plant millions of trees to stop desertification; specifically, to stop the northward advancement of the Sahara Desert.

The project has progressed and evolved through the 1970s, 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s. The green barrier is located in the pre-Saharan area in Algeria, it stretches between the Moroccan border in the West to the Tunisian border in the East (~ 1000 km in long), and between isohyets 300 mm in the North and 200 mm to the South of Algeria (~ 20 km in wide), covering a total area of ~ 3 Mha. The objective of this project is to recover the extent of the already existing forest to stop the sand expansion. Two types of vegetation were planted; Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis), which grows easily in this region, and Alfa (Stipa tenacissima) (Benhizia et al. 2021).

History
The risk of desertiﬁcation threatens the arid and semi arid regions through-out the world. Population growth, urbanization, increase of cultivated land areas, overgrazing, and deforestation adding to the eﬀects of climate change exacerbates the issues. Alfa grass cover has reduced while the quality of the grasslands itself is becoming increasingly degraded. According to the UNCCD, the recurring droughts and human activities, mainly overgrazing, are the two main driving factors of desertiﬁcation (Le Houérou, 1996 ).

To mitigate this risk, the Algerian authorities developed the Green Dam project as a massive reforestation program aiming to safeguard and to develop the pre-Saharan areas.

Of the 238 million hectares that make the total land area of Algeria, 200 million are natural deserts, 20 million represent the steppe regions threatened by desertiﬁcation, and 12 million are mountainous areas threatened by water erosion. 7million hectares of the 20 steppe regions are highly susceptible to desertiﬁcation and require a short-term intervention. Several natural factors like, decrease in rainfall, high thermal amplitude, dry winds, combined with anthropogenic factors like, cultivation, mechanization, over-grazing, deforestation, accelerate desertiﬁcation.

With the rapid degradation of Alfa grass steppe the need for action became more pressing

The The late President of Algeria, Houari Boumedien,  set up the Green Dam Project .The objective was to establish a 'barrier' of forest spanning the country from east to west in order to halt desertification. The project was halted after his death but subsequently project was relaunched in 1971

Causes of desertification
The process of deforestation and desertiﬁcation has disputed origins.

Land use
As early as 1866 French settlers were complaining to the French Government about arson by indigenous Algerians opposed to French rule This perspective was fed by a wider background drawing on both nlightenment thought as well as evidence of environmental degradation in the colonies and during the French Revolution, early conservationists sincerely believed that Mediterranean pastoralism posed a real and severe ecological threat. They blamed pastoralists for deforestation and its perceived environmental and social consequences. At the turn of the nineteenth century, concern over deforestation was limited to a few disparate voices, and it was dealt with in a handful of laws that were rarely enforced. However, this environmental perspective soon joined forces with political, social, and cultural biases against pastoralism to create a forceful anti-pastoral lobby.

Counter arguments suggest that blaming the indigenous inhabitants for the degradation and subsequent desertification of the landscape, in spite of a lack of evidence that this was the cause, was a Colonial trope to suggest that the original population were incapable of managing their own land and to justify the goals of the Colonia project.

Human factors such as poor agricultural practices are still cited as primary causes of forest fires and deforestation

The War for Independence
Similarly bombing of forests during the French colonial area has also been cited as a cause of deforestation.

As in previous wars, the guerrillas were almost exclusively based in the mountains of northern Algeria, where the forest and scrub cover were well-suited to guerrilla warfare Colonel Gilles Martin describes War in Algeria: The FrenchExperience "Vast, mountainous, woody, and lightly populated, Algeria offered terrain favourable to guerrilla warfare." In attempts to tackle the issue of forest cover being used by guerrillas French forces bombed and used napalm to reduce the cover available.

Climate Change
Yet another cause, often cited more recently, is climate change.

"Although Algeria has experienced a gradual decline in rainfall since 1975, the frequency of floods has increased, which has led to increased costs and damages.

According to PreventionWeb, Algeria ranks 18 of 184 of the most exposed countries to drought. An estimated 3,763,800 (about 10%) of its population is exposed to droughts.

Algeria experienced a record heat wave in June of 2003, with temperatures over 40°C for 20 consecutive days that resulted in an estimated 40 deaths. Such events are projected to increase in a warming climate."

Complex causes
Contemporary research has demonstrated that the Sahara is not expanding, as is still fre- quently believed, but that it expands and contracts based almost entirely on rainfall.

Other studies have found that the causes are more complex and that the climate context of North Africa was very similar some 3000 years ago to that of today.

Objectives
The main objective of the Green Dam is to combat desertiﬁcation. Afer a few years of implementation, the program developed into a multi-sector project, including:


 * Protection and enhancement of existing forest re-sources
 * Recovery of missing forest stand• Reforestation
 * Development of agricultural and pastoral land
 * Fght against sand encroachment and for dune ﬁxation
 * Resource mobilization in surface and groundwater
 * improvement of accessibility to desertiﬁcation prone areas

Implementation
The program of the Green Dam has been implemented in four distinct stages:


 * 1) From 1970 to 1982, soil restoration and protection groups (SRPG) were formed and assigned to the military regions in a way to cover the entire area of the Green Dam
 * 2) Between 1970 and 1979, seven (07)Groups of the National Service (GNS) were formed.Following an evaluation of the GNS. Between 1979 and1982 that aimed to address the problems pertaining to the forestry sector, groups of forestry (GF) were formed within the GNS. During that period empha-sis was put on reforestation and infrastructures, ther eforestation were carried out by the Aleppo pine.•
 * 3) From 1982 to 1990, an inter-ministerial agreementbrought the project owner (ex: State Secretary ofForests) and the project implementer (High Commis-sion of National Service) to cooperate, with clear separate roles, pertaining of the organization, control, ﬁ-nancing and protection of the forest heritage. Aeran evaluation of the achievements of this period, gapswere gradually overcome and improvements weremade, by the diversiﬁcation of restoration activities(opening tracks, protection against soil erosion) andspecies (Cypress, Acacia, Atriplex).•
 * 4) From 1990 to 1993 the Department of Defense with-drew from the Green Dam project, leaving the totalityof its implementation to the National Forestry Agency.• From 1994 to 2000 the Government revived the GreenDam project with the launching in November 1994 o fa new program

Problems, criticism
A scientific study published in 2021 concluded that parts of the Algerian Green Dam are deteriorating for several reasons and concluded that current planning to restore the Green Dam should diversify approaches.

A study titled Monitoring the Spatiotemporal Evolution of the Green Dam in Djelfa Province, Algeria (published in 2021) examined Land degradation and desertification (LDD) changes and their effect on the Moudjbara plantations during the last 47 years (from 1972 to 2019). Using freely available data (Landsat imagery) and geographic information systems the study found that the green dam project had been effective for a few years but, after this period, pine plantations underwent a considerable deterioration.

The degradation was attributed to forest clearing, livestock overgrazing, and the proliferation of the pine caterpillar processionary.

These factors have destroyed much of the reforestation. The study predicted that, should the degradation continue at the same rate, the green dam project will disappear during the next few decades, in the analyzed region.

For effective control of LDD in Algeria, the study concluded that, in order to move the project forward successfully:


 * The institutional approach has to be reviewed and science has to play a more important role in guiding policies.
 * The authorities should care about what people want and what nature needs. The focus only on tree planting often does not serve the livelihood demands of the local people.
 * The use of this practice (tree planting) as a key approach to stop the encroachment of sand on dryland where trees do not naturally grow, and where shrubs or grass are the native and natural land, needs to be reviewed since woody vegetation encroachment could affect the functioning of this fragile ecosystems. Scientific research has demonstrated that natural recovery is much more effective in restoring degraded arid steppes
 * Moving away from the singular tree planting focus to diversifying desertification control methods and adopting the application of dune stabilization methods (including mechanical, chemical and biological methods) is effective in reducing sand and dust storms
 * The implementation of sustainable grazing management practices, such as “grazing exclusion”, is necessary to enable the natural recovery of the degraded steppes.

The entire approach of the Green Dam Project ihas been called into question.
Diana K. Davis in her article Desert 'wastes' of the Maghreb: desertification narratives in French colonial environmental history of North Africa argues that the Green Dam Project is based on the false premise created by "French colonial administrators, scientists and settlers which utilised a negative vision of Maghrebi pastoralists as deforesters and desertifiers of the former granary of Rome to justify and facilitate many of their actions."

By claiming that what the French "encountered when they arrived in Algeria was an environment ruined by centuries of burning an overgrazing by the local Algerians, a justification for curtailing local actions was created" and that "Founded on historical inaccuracies, and environmental misunderstandings and exaggerations, the environmental narrative was constructed early in the nineteenth century, primarily in Algeria, and included all of the Maghreb", effectively a misdiagnosis of the problem, has led to a the wrong conclusions as to the cure.

"This colonial environmental narrative became entrenched in many official publications such as histories and botanical treatises, as well as agricultural and forestry manuals written during the colonial period" This "laid the foundation for much subsequent education, research, policy and practice."

She suggests that "Its (the colonial narrative) persistence defies convincing evidence that most of North been desertified by burning and overgrazing, for the region was probably forested during the last 3 000 years. Far from being questioned" - the colonial environmental narrative appears to be the dominant postcolonial environmental history. It is particularly strong in policies, and projects concerning desertification"

"The spectre of desertification in North Africa, couched in ideology and language concerning deforestation and desertification disturbingly similar to that used years ago, continues to drive inappropriate environmental projects today" One, among many others that remain to be examined, is the green dam. "This has had a very low rate of tree survival and is considered an ecological failue"

Restorative action
Becoming aware of the threat to the green dam, the General Directorate of Forests (DGF) is currently planning to reforest more than 1.2 million ha in the region, under the latest rural renewal policy, by introducing new principles related to sustainable development, fighting desertification, and climate change adaptation. Having learnt lessons from former programs, the DGF has barred plantations with monospecific stands.

A Government meeting chaired by Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad adopted a draft executive decree on the creation of a coordination body in charge of reviving the Green Dam and fighting desertification and is conceived as a catalyst in the development, implementation and assessment The draft decree, presented by the minister of Agriculture and Rural Development provides for the creation of a permanent mechanism responsible for the preparation, implementation and ongoing monitoring of this operation.

In addition to combating desertification, the Algerian Govenmemt has presented this initiative as fight against poverty, through the protection of natural resources, adaptation to climate change, integrated rural development and the promotion of the forestry economy for the benefit of sustainable domestic development as the basis of food security.

Speaking at Echaab daily forum about environment challenges on the occasion of the World Day to Combat Desertification (WDCD- 17 June), the Minister of Environment and Renewable Energy, Fatima Zohra Zerouati, affirmed that the increasing danger of desertification required new scientific and technical mechanisms to revive the Green Dam and fight against desertification.

The launch of the National Reforestation Plan in 2000 has given the forestry sector a new lease of life with a vision that incorporates the productive aspect of reforestation, the industrial aspect, and the recreational aspect.

As of 2021, the government of Algeria was still planning a restoration effort that is to last several years and involve an investment of $128 million. On March 1 2021, Speaking on Algerian radio, Mr. Mahmoudi affirmed that Algeria has decided to seek international funding to carry out the green dam rehabilitation project, within the framework of the African initiative of the "Great green wall ", aimed at combating the effects of climate change and desertification.

To this end, funding of $ 128 million has been provided over a period of seven years, through a triangular formula, namely $ 43 million granted by the United Nations Green Climate Fund, $ 29 million from the United Nations. organization the FAO and an Algerian co-financing of the order of 56 million dollars, he detailed.

In this context, he recalled that the Interministerial Council held in August 2019 had decided as part of the national climate plan to make the Green Dam one of the important tools for climate change mitigation.

"The forest administration is working with the National Bureau of Studies for Rural Development (BNIDER), to launch the rehabilitation project of this green strip and to take charge of all the components, starting with the component. integration of the populations who live in these spaces, "he explained.

Regarding the reforestation operation, the director stressed that the DGF was in the process of carrying out the program drawn up during the year 2019-2020, namely that of planting 43 million trees.

In this regard, he assured that efforts will be redoubled to plant 31 million trees by the end of March, explaining that the delay is due to late rains and the condition of the soil which, according to him, did not allow to consider the planting operation.

Referring to a cooperation project within the framework of the twinning of the DGF with the French, Swedish and Italian forestry directorates, Mr. Mahmoudi indicated that these European countries are interested in cooperating with Algeria with a view to recovering species that weather resistant.

One of the objectives of this cooperation is that of having Algerian plans and seeds to reconstitute the forest areas which are threatened in the southern part of Europe, particularly in the well-targeted area of ​​the Kermes oak, he said.