Beautitul Pyongyang, North Korea (Video) 2017

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The party city grows up: how Berlin's clubbers built their own urban village

What if a city allowed a huge regeneration project to be led, not by the wealthiest property developer, but by the club owners who put on the best parties in town? With the opening of Holzmarkt, Berlin is about to find out

For the first decade of the 21st century, the industrial wasteland between Berlin’s Ostbahnhof station and the river Spree was earmarked for a huge urban regeneration project – one that would show that the German capital could keep up with London and New York. Where flowing water had once marked the divide between communist and capitalist spheres of influence were to be a phalanx of high-rise blocks made of shiny glass, some of them 80 metres tall, containing luxury apartments, hotels and offices.

But tomorrow, that same 12,000m2 patch of land will open with an altogether different look: an urban village made of recycled windows, secondhand bricks and scrap wood, containing among other things a studio for circus acrobats, a children’s theatre, a cake shop and a nursery where parents can drop off their children while they go clubbing next door. There’s even a landing stage for beavers.

The Holzmarkt development is the result of an unprecedented experiment in a major world capital: what if a city allowed a new quarter to be built not by the highest bidding property developers or the urban planners with the highest accolades, but the nightclub owners who put on the best parties in town?

Juval Dieziger, 42, and Christoph Klenzendorf, 43, used to run Bar25, an institution which started as a silver ‘68 Nagetusch trailer serving up whisky and techno and grew into a nightclub in the style of a Western saloon underneath the old Jannowitzbrücke station.

Along with nearby Berghain, Bar25 was one of the legendary venues that fostered post-millennial Berlin’s status as a party capital. With the site due to be regenerated by holding company SpreeUrban, Bar25 closed its doors with a five-day party in 2010.

But when talks between SpreeUrban and investors collapsed two years later and the plot of land was put out for tender, Dieziger and Klenzendorf spotted an opportunity to reclaim their old stomping ground.

A Swiss pension fund called Abendrot, which had been born out of the anti-nuclear movement, beat off competition from hedge funds and bought the site for over €10m (£8.5m), then leasing it back to a cooperative founded by Bar25 regulars.

Dieziger and his co-conspirators had been part of the protest movement against the original plans on the sunny northern side of the river, which culminated in locals blocking a boat tour for investors with an armada of rubber dinghies. But he felt simply being against gentrification wasn’t enough.

“We were different. We had attitude,” he said, walking across the building site a few days before its grand opening. “If your position is that you are always against everything that is changing in this city, then you’ll eventually get overrun and left behind. You have to learn to use the system to your advantage”.

The aim was create a self-sustaining microcosm: if one of the acrobats injures her back while training in the studio, she can drop off her children at the nursery and visit a chiropractor one floor up. In return, her troupe are required to host all their premiers at the events venue or the KaterHolzig nightclub on the site, thus raising cash that feeds back into the collective system.

The canteen, which serves a lunch menu for €6 to the approximately 300 people working on the site during the day, doubles up as an upmarket restaurant in the evening, serving expensive wines and a seven-course menu conceived by a Noma-trained chef.

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“We wanted to disable the mechanisms of the race-to-the-bottom economy and create as many synergies as possible,” said Dieziger. “We didn’t want to build the kind of market economy where those offering the cheapest products for the cheapest conditions win out. If one of the businesses here struggles, then the others may have to help out.”

Not all of the team’s original vision has survived four years of planning applications. Bread is baked on-site, though a plan to grow the restaurant’s vegetables in allotments by the river Spree fell foul of hygiene regulations. A 24-hour-nursery for parents who worked night shifts turned out to be too complicated to organise; a proposal for 12-floor high-rise buildings made entirely out of wood sent health-and-safety officers into fits.

“It was a learning curve for us: we had to learn to obey the rules we used to ignore”, said Dieziger after over 80 visits to the Berlin building authorities. “If I had known eight years ago how much work this would require, I wouldn’t have done it.”

The project’s ambition, to show that a city can grow up without losing its soul, also required a number of self-inflicted commercial restraints: neither the cooperative nor the Abendrot foundation are contractually allowed to sell the property for their own profit. According to Dieziger, the value of properties in the area has risen ten-fold in the four years since the first cut of the spade.

In the Bar25 days most of the staff lived in self-made shacks and caravans next to the club, but in its reincarnation the site doesn’t contain any permanent housing. Eleven refugees are currently sheltered on the site, and there are plans for temporary student accommodation and a guest house, but none of the people behind the project live on the site.

“If we had decided to live here as well, then everyone would have wanted to live here”, said Dieziger. “So we had to say no. Owning a home can make people very selfish.”

In contrast to Berghain, housed in an austere former power plant, Bar25 used to pride itself on its openness. Door policy was as strict and unfathomable as anywhere in Berlin clubland, but parties at Dieziger and Klenzendorf’s venue, which opened only during the summer months, took place as much outside as indoors. “Less testosterone and more love,” was the owners’ motto.

In a village with four entrances and no gates, that attitude could pose a potential problem. The nearby RAW complex – another jumble of derelict buildings turned creative hub and party mile – has in recent years begun to draw stag-dos and tourists, who in turn have attracted drug dealers and pickpockets.

Holzmarkt’s management are not planning advertise or market the development in a conventional way – word of mouth, they hope, will act as a natural filter for the kind of people their experiment attracts. The village’s layout may also act as a natural barrier to it being overrun: without a central thoroughfare and only a meandering cycling path along the river, it’s the kind of place you can amble around but not race through.

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The challenge in the first few months will be whether Holzmarkt can recreate the Bar25 experience without bringing in a bouncer or some sort of village police. If their experiment succeeds, they could achieve something that Berlin under the old SpreeUrban plans would have never even imagined: not to catch up with London and New York, but to build a new model for other major cities to follow.

“Everyone is welcome, but of course we hope that people show some respect,” said Dieziger. Over the years, even Berlin’s veteran hedonists have learned to appreciate that excess is defined by limits. The people living in the apartments across the river from their club had his personal mobile number, he said. That way they didn’t have to call the police when the music got too loud.

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The Guardian

Emmanuel Macron’s campaign team bans Russian news outlets from events

Russia accuses French presidential candidate of discrimination after spokesman confirmed Sputnik news agency and RT TV channel were denied access

Russia has accused French presidential candidate Emmanuel Macron’s campaign team of discriminating against its media on Thursday, saying it had trampled on the freedom of the press by banning Russian news outlets from its events.

In Paris, a Macron spokesman confirmed that the Russian state-funded Sputnik news agency and RT TV channel had been barred from having media access to him, describing them as a “two-headed entity” which issued Russian state propaganda and fake news.

Macron, a pro-European Union ex-banker and centrist, is widely seen as the favourite to win the French presidency on 7 May by beating far-right leader Marine Le Pen.

Macron has taken a hard line on EU sanctions imposed on Moscow over the Ukraine crisis, whereas Le Pen, an admirer of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, is a eurosceptic who backs the lifting of sanctions and takes Russia’s side on Ukraine.

The Kremlin has been irritated by accusations from Macron’s camp that its campaign’s networks, databases and sites have come under attack from locations inside Russia, fuelling suspicions that Russia is trying to undermine Macron’s campaign in order to help Le Pen.

The Macron spokesman referred to the two news outlets’ “systematic desire to issue fake news and false information”.

“Spreading lies methodically and systematically – that’s a problem,” he said.

“If this creates problems with the Kremlin, it will be the subject of an open discussion in the event of the candidate (Macron) being elected,” the spokesman said.

Moscow has rejected allegations of meddling, and on Thursday Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova dubbed “outrageous” the move by Macron’s team to refuse accreditation to Sputnik, RT and the Ruptly video agency last Sunday.

Zakharova said Moscow viewed the ban as “deliberate and bare-faced discrimination against Russian media by the presidential candidate of a state that has historically been vigilant when it comes to free speech”.

She called on the relevant French authorities and international organisations to ensure that freedom of the press was upheld in the second round of voting.

The Macron spokesman gave no specific examples of Russian media spreading fake news. But a 4 February report by Sputnik quoted a pro-Putin centre-right French legislator as saying Macron was a puppet of US political and financial elites and that revelations about his private life would soon be made public.

The report appeared to play a part in Macron being forced on 7 February to deny rumours of an extra-marital gay relationship.

Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT, said on social media that the Macron campaign was refusing to accredit her organisation and the others for the second round as well however.

“So this is how gracelessly freedom of speech ends in a country which prides itself on its freedoms almost more than it prides itself on its Camembert and brie,” said Simonyan.

Last February, when political parties were squaring off for the first round of the election, Richard Ferrand, the head of Macron’s En Marche! party, accused Sputnik and RT of spreading fake news with the aim of undermining Macron’s campaign.

RT has issued several statements denying suggestions that it is part of a campaign to spread fake news in relation to Macron and the French election.

Russia’s Putin granted an audience to Le Pen in the Kremlin last month, bestowing a level of international recognition that had until then eluded her in the countdown to the election. But the Kremlin says it is not backing any candidate in the election, which it says is purely a matter for the French people.

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The Guardian

French presidential election 2017: France on extra high alert for May Day as protesters march against Le Pen

France will be on extra high alert on Monday as workers and protesters use the traditional 1 May marches to stage a show of force against the far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen.

Up to 250 events have been planned across France on a day of symbolic importance in the Front National calendar when it holds its annual gathering to honour the party’s heroine, Joan of Arc.

In Paris, union leaders and political militants have urged a massive turnout to march between three of the capital’s most symbolic squares: from Place de la République to Place de la Nation via Bastille, in opposition to the FN and Le Pen.

The challenge for the city’s forces of law and order will be keeping the two sides apart in an already extremely volatile atmosphere and when the country is still under a state of emergency put in place after the November 2015 terrorist attack.

Police have said their biggest concern was of a potential lone act similar to that on the Champs Elysées 10 days ago when a man armed with an automatic rifle shot dead a police officer, Xavier Jugelé, and injured two of his colleagues.

In Paris, more than 9,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers will be on duty and have been authorised to stop and search vehicles and pedestrians and to conduct identity checks in four central arrondissements. 

The first event will be the massing of FN supporters at 7.30am at the Palais Royal in the central 1st arrondissement, where the party founder, Jean-Marie Le Pen, will lay a wreath at the statue of Joan of Arc on her horse. Supporters will then march along rue de Rivoli ending at Pyramides where Jean-Marie Le Pen will give a speech. The crowd is expected to disperse at about 1pm. 

The communist newspaper L’Humanité wrote that as in 2002, when Jean-Marie Le Pen was in the second round of the presidential vote, “workers’ day will have a particular importance this Monday. Almost all unions have called for demonstrations not just to combat the FN but also to reclaim social progress during these marches.” It added: “The unions are unanimously against the extreme right.”

France’s main unions were unable to agree on a plan for the “day of mobilisation” and will hold separate events. Four other unions are holding a joint march leaving Place de la République at 2.30pm, at which up to 40,000 are expected to be kept in order by 2,000 police.

“The demonstration shouldn’t pose any particular problem. We’re just a little worried about radical movements joining in the workers’ celebration to upset events,” a police spokesperson told Le Figaro.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, of the hard-left France Insoumise (Unbowed France) movement, who was defeated in the first round presidential vote last Sunday, will be present at the afternoon march.

Other demonstrations are planned for Toulouse, Nice, Marseille, Lille, Poitiers and other cities.

On Monday evening, the second round favourite, Emmanuel Macron, will hold a rally at Paris Event Centre, in La Villette in the west of the capital. Le Pen is holding a rally starting at midday at the Exhibitions Park at Villepinte, in the north-east of Paris.

On Thursday, several hundred masked and black-clad anti capitalist and anti-FN demonstrators – reportedly mostly students – threw stones at police who used teargas to break up their protest. Protesters shouted: “Not Marine nor Macron, not homeland nor bosses” – a repudiation of Le Pen’s nationalism and Macron’s image as a friend to bosses and big business.

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The Guardian

Women Fighting ISIS: 'Hundreds of us will die in Raqqa’: the women fighting Isis

She had heard the stories about how Islamic State fighters could glide like ghosts into Kurdish militia bases during the dead of night, but nothing prepared her for the bedlam when it happened. It was 3.40am on 12 February when Isis attackers scrambled over the perimeter defences of the base north of Raqqa. Kimberley Taylor was convinced it would be overrun. Grabbing her Kalashnikov, she began firing at the shapes. Beyond the corner of the nearest building cowered an enemy fighter. Suddenly he rushed towards her. As their eyes met, he yanked the cord on his suicide belt.

Night-time along the shifting frontline of northern Syria is a fraught affair. Absolute silence, punctured by periods of pandemonium. Isis can strike from anywhere, shadows that melt in and out of the darkness. Taylor’s base was six miles behind the front, among the lush floodplains of the Euphrates. Everyone there knew that the Isis fighters’ latest tactic was tiptoeing into the huts of sleeping Kurdish fighters and blowing themselves up. Taylor, who survived the suicide attack, counted herself lucky.

“Well, kind of. I was completely covered in human remains, which was pretty horrific,” said the 28-year-old in her gentle Lancashire accent. Later, when the sun rose, Taylor admitted to being both disgusted and fascinated by a human exploding, particularly how hair was blown clean from the scalp.

Taylor, born in Blackburn 28 years ago, is a footsoldier for the YPJ – a Northern Kurdish or Kurmanji acronym for the Women’s Protection Units – an all-female force that is part of the offensive to liberate Raqqa. Fighting alongside a coalition of Arab and Assyrian Christian militias, the YPJ is steadily encircling the capital of Isis’s proto-state, supported by US airpower.

Standing among the ruins of a bombed command post 25 miles north of Raqqa, Taylor looks more like a guerrilla fighter from the Spanish civil war than a combatant at the sharp end of the international coalition to eradicate the world’s arguably most feared terrorist organisation. She has no army boots and instead marches to battle in a pair of size five secondhand Chinese-made trainers, bought for £6 in the Kurdish town of Qamishli. She has no body armour or helmet, so wraps an emerald and orange embroidered keffiyeh around her forehead to, she says, help express her femininity. She watches the war through a pair of Specsavers glasses.

Taylor, though, does have military fatigues and a flak jacket that carries four magazines (30 rounds each) and two grenades. She also carries a small bag that contains bandages, a sealable dressing for chest wounds and a tourniquet. Few have a tourniquet and Taylor knows she is fortunate – without one, a wounded soldier could bleed to death in the remote villages where they are fighting. Most crucial is her rifle – made in 1978 in Soviet-era Poland, and which looks like it has been involved in every war since.

Taylor said she was prepared for death. She does not carry any lucky charms, but has the motto “One life” inked in Thai script on her left forearm. Although she had it done in a beach shack on Koh Samui in Thailand 10 years ago, it serves as a reminder that life is fragile, that every day matters.

The pre-op briefings for the Raqqa offensive did not dilute the dangers that lay ahead. Casualties were predicted to be “significant”. Already Taylor had noticed how Isis fighters were retreating from the villages that dot the river valley around Raqqa, withdrawing back to the city for the group’s final showdown. “They’ve been preparing for this for so long. Hundreds and hundreds of us will die in Raqqa, I’m going to lose so many friends.” She paused and exhaled slowly: “What we’ll find inside the city will be unlike anything we’ve seen.”

At first the north-eastern corner of Syria when approached from Iraq seems a peaceful, plentiful land. Fields of wheat stretch to the horizon, towns bustle with hawkers, trading beneath huge portraits of the Turkish-Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, leader of the militant PKK, and whose philosophy of direct democracy and feminism has been adopted wholesale by the neighbouring Syrian Kurds.

Soon other faces appear on billboards –the faces of young martyrs, features blanched by the sun, a reminder that this nascent Kurdish region is fighting for its very existence. The Kurds have proved adroit at forging a homeland – albeit fragile – from the chaos of Syria’s war, a conflict in its seventh year that has left the country fractured, destabilised the entire region, left 470,000 dead and forced five million to flee.

Further west along the M4 highway, the grasslands surrender to the advancing desert. Signs of conflict appear. Soon you enter territory formerly ruled by Isis and only recently liberated. Destroyed, deserted villages line the road. Checkpoints become more frequent, the faces of the militia operating them increasingly taut. Enormous earth berms and ditches 10ft deep begin to border the desolate desert highway that cuts across this remote swath of northern Syria. These embankments are to halt Isis’s souped-up “bomber cars”.

Resembling something from Mad Max, these vehicles terrify everyone. Laden with explosives and encased within welded metal sheets, rockets bounce off them harmlessly, a Kalashnikov is as useful as a child’s catapult. They can reach 50mph and deliver the same fury as a 500lb bomb from a coalition jet.

The checkpoint searches become more forensic, travel documents triple-checked. We learn that a fresh batch of bomber cars has been dispatched north from Raqqa.

We are headed to the frontline of Isis’s de facto capital. It is dug in there, primed for a climactic encounter as its self-proclaimed caliphate implodes after little more than three years. Latest assessments suggest that more than 100,000 civilians remain inside Raqqa, along with 5,000 Isis fighters. Advancing towards them from the north and east are about 3,000 largely Kurdish and Arab fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Another front of up to 2,500 are pushing from the south-west, picking their way through the town of Tabqa towards the city.

Intelligence assessments and spies inside Raqqa confirm prodigious defences. Speaking at an SDF command post 20 miles north of the city, Arab commander Jihan Shix Ahmad said: “Documents show Daesh [Isis] have planted many, many explosives; barrels containing bombs are all over the city.”

Booby-traps are expected in the unlikeliest places: piles of rubbish, parked motorbikes and rigged Pepsi cans. Tripwires are strung behind the doors of innocuous-looking apartments. That Raqqa has been so generously mined does not surprise Taylor. Creeping through the villages alongside the Euphrates, where the land is so lush it reminds her of Lancashire, she has stumbled across numerous bomb factories. Inside, gigantic vats of chemicals, mixing agents and bundles of wires are piled high, the smell so noxious it made her gag. “You can’t breathe; if you stay inside too long you get a massive headache.”

Complicating the offensive are new reports that Isis has herded huge groups of civilians into pens outside the city gates. Susan Kobani, 38, one of the most senior officers overseeing the Raqqa operation, whose command hierarchy is dominated by women, said: “Daesh put civilians in two camps around the city. They are strategically placed so the SDF cannot attack from certain areas.” If the civilians attempt to escape, they are shot.

In Raqqa’s centre, Ahmad reveals that people have been shepherded on to the top three floors of the apartment blocks where Isis has located its headquarters to act as human shields against coalition airstrikes. Informants say that beneath Raqqa is alabyrinthine tunnel network from which fighters can move and instigate counterattacks from behind the frontline. Some tunnels, dug by civilians as punishments, are crammed with explosives.

Officially, no one is allowed to leave Raqqa. From the accounts of those who have reached the nearest refugee camp 25 miles away in the desert, it is quickly evident that the city is in lockdown.

Wearing the regulation black burqa of Isis, and obviously elated, Safiya Rashid told how she ignored a recent Isis directive threatening to behead anyone who attempted to cross the Euphrates. Others, too, had dismissed the warning. Two nights earlier Abdul Omar, 29, pulled himself along a rope someone had surreptitiously tied across the river. “The current was strong, but I was dying staying in the city,” he said.

Isis sentries patrol the riverbanks and shoot anyone in the water. Some people attempt to swim across and are never heard of again. Engineer assistant Abdul Kardalazi, 31, was another who got lucky. “My family hired a small boat from a smuggler, but it was very dark and all their shots missed.”

Ahmed Alogla, 60, from Aleppo, bribed an Isis guard with $200 to turn a blind eye to the dinghy holding his family. “I have nothing, no possessions, but I have my freedom,” he beamed.

Those not prepared to risk the river must take their chances traversing the treacherous land to the north. There, Isis has sown a colossal minefield, and only a handful of smugglers know the narrow corridor that leads to safety.

Ama Noor, 28, a builder from Raqqa, paid $300 for his family to be guided. They left Raqqa at 11pm and arrived at their destination after 10am, waiting until dawn to trek the final stage so they wouldn’t be shot by friendly forces. Mohammed Neheter, 31, arrived at the refugee camp at midday, his smock still filthy after scrambling along the banks of irrigation ditches to avoid Isis snipers. Sitting down with his family, Neheter couldn’t stop hugging his children. “Daesh said, ‘We will kill you if you leave’, but we had no food, no work, sometimes no water.”

The reality of the new economics of survival is that only the poorest are left stranded in Raqqa, unable to afford the smugglers’ demands.

Some risk their lives regardless. Three days previously, a boy was found stumbling north, close to the hamlet of Ghazili. According to Kardalazi, he had left Raqqa with two adults who tried to navigate the minefield at night without a guide. One was killed, while the other lost both legs. The boy tried to drag him but eventually the man persuaded him to go on alone. Since his arrival, the child had become mute and had taken to silently following a refugee family who shared their food. No one knows his name.

Others portray a city barely functioning, the only viable livelihoods being trading food or exchanging US dollars on the black market. One woman, Aanisah, suggested Isis was loosening its grip, becoming less pious ahead of the impending battle. “Before, they were very strict about wearing the niqab, but less now because the fighting is nearer.”

At night, power failures plunge the city into darkness, its streets deserted except for Isis fighters and those contemplating a bid for liberty.

Already it is evident that Raqqa holds terrible secrets. Ahmad revealed that they had obtained documents detailing that large numbers of women were imprisoned as slaves. “They show that hundreds of women are being held inside Raqqa.” So far the YPJ has liberated 137 of them.

For the female warriors like Taylor, the prospect of emancipating such victims is electrifying. Killing Isis was part of the day job, she said, but what really drove her forward was the thought of liberating abused women. Ahmad, almost shouting, added: “We are not fighting to kill, we are fighting for freedom.”

For the YPJ fighters, their ambitions for female emancipation are far greater than eliminating Isis. Ultimately they want to annihilate the patriarchal structure that they say oppresses women, and rebuild an equal society. “It’s an ideological fight against the patriarchal system, it starts with fighting the mentality of Daesh, then the mentality of the male, the patriarchal mindset,” said Kobani.

Taylor had no military experience before joining the YPJ. She had always loathed violence and shudders when recalling fights in British pubs. Born in Darwen, near Blackburn, a market town struggling for identity in the post-industrial economy, Taylor always wanted to make a difference. She wanted to become a professional humanitarian, possibly set up an NGO to help the disenfranchised. In the summer of 2015, she decided to travel to Iraq and witness first-hand the reality of refugee life. The plight of Yazidi women, raped and kept as sex slaves by Isis who had seized their homeland, changed her future. “Mothers were literally trying to give me their babies to take back to Europe. They were totally serious, begging me. I had to do something.”

She entered Syria in March last year, joining the Kurdish militia’s international brigade of about 100 volunteers, largely a motley bunch of leftists, socialists and anarchists from the US and Europe, of whom a dozen or so are British. Some were lured by the dogma of Öcalan, a former communist who now preaches a similar brand of feminist, anarcho-libertarianism to Noam Chomsky. Some just wanted to kill Isis.

Now Taylor finds herself squaring up against an opposing, larger cohort of foreign fighters, schooled in a strain of nihilistic jihadism. Asayish (security) police officials in northern Syria believe 1,500 foreign fighters have retreated inside Raqqa, dozens of whom are British, some of the 850 UK nationals who have travelled to fight in Syria.

As Taylor’s unit advances towards the city, they have met village residents who describe large groups of foreign fighters who cannot speak Arabic and who were heading for Raqqa. “They saw many fighters, they were everywhere. Some had Chinese-looking faces, some spoke English.”

Taylor admits it will be “weird” if she comes face to face with a Briton on the opposing side. Even weirder if she meets someone she grew up with. “I bet someone from my school is in there,” she said, nodding south along the Euphrates. “What happens if I capture someone from Lancashire? Quite a few people from there have come over. We have to understand why these people are fighting for Daesh.”

Taylor is anxious about the civilians stranded inside Raqqa, and what Isis might do to them when it realises the game is up. She remains haunted by another night attack, this time when Isis stormed a YPJ command post last month, three miles from the front. Caught up in the chaotic crossfire was a 12-year-old girl, shot through the pelvis. Her mother carried the child over to Taylor, who began trying to patch her up. “But everything had come out of her body, all of her guts, her innards. The doctor and I were trying to fill the massive gap, stuff it with gauze and bandages, but it was impossible.”

She remembers that every time she looked up, the mother was staring back expectantly, nodding encouragement. But Taylor couldn’t help. The girl turned cold and pale and began throwing up. An ambulance arrived but it was four hours to the nearest hospital. As they left, Taylor recalls the mother still nodding, hoping everything would go back to the way it was.

It was 11am on the hottest day of the year so far and Taylor was in high spirits. Moments earlier she had received notice she was being posted to a new tarbur – platoon – that would spearhead the assault on Raqqa. Later that day she would be driven by minivan to the western front, 12 miles from the city centre. Her chance of becoming one of the first fighters into Raqqa had improved greatly. “Daesh had better be ready,” Taylor grinned, cigarette dangling from her mouth.

Overhead came the rumble of coalition jets, pounding Isis positions further down the valley. Morning briefings suggested it had been a busy night: Isis had sent a fleet of bomber cars to positions just south. “They killed six friends,” Taylor said, looking over the SDF’s battle-scarred 93rd Brigade headquarters.

The base occupied the summit of a knoll above the desert crossroads town of Ain Issa and served as a neat microcosm of modern Syria. Once a Syrian regime garrison, jihadis from al-Qaida’s al-Nusra Front overran it in 2013, and a year later came Isis, who themselves were driven out by Kurdish forces 12 months later. Most of its structures had been obliterated by airstrikes. Amid the rubble lay the belongings of dead fighters, odd sandals, a pair of smashed sunglasses, a single Berghaus walking boot. A stretcher lay abandoned between piles of bricks.

Life on the frontline begins at 5am with a breakfast of tinned chicken, a curiously colourless substance with the texture of tripe. Occasionally tins of sardines show up, but there is always an inexplicably generous supply of Dairylea cheese triangles. Cigarettes are another constant. Everyone smokes. Arden, carrying a “Made in London” label, is the frontline brand of choice.

Showers are a luxury. Weeks without washing is normal. Dysentery is common, stomach gripes routine. Toilets are a hole in the desert, loo paper a thing of memory. Taylor remembers exploring a palatial Arab home south of the town of Tal Saman that had been commandeered by Isis fighters but now stood abandoned. Upstairs she found a sit-on toilet – her first in a year – and told her unit she would catch them up.

Much of the war against Isis is spent waiting for Land Cruisers to take them to the next battle. They spend the time singing and dancing. Taylor’s favourite Kurdish song is Freedom Fighter – Servanê Azadiyê – a paean to fallen friends. Her unit once made her sing an English song – she chose Bob Marley’s One Love but could only remember the chorus. Taylor loves life on the frontline, making a difference, being equal. She relishes the thought of killing men who have abused women, and loves that there is no sexism or objectification. “For the first time in my life I feel men respect me for who I am. Back home, men feel they have the right to beep their horn purely because I have a vagina.” She loves the fact that it is women who tell the United States where and when to carry out coalition airstrikes and that overnight commander Kobani had directed 16 airborne bombing raids, vapourising at least one prominent Isis position.

Her achievements made Taylor wish that western feminism was more potent. “There’s an obsession with minor issues like terminology, rather than realising the whole system is patriarchal. Sure, women have personal freedoms, but western society is not free.” She said she felt safer in northern Syria than in Britain.

Shortly before dusk, Jac Holmes, a bearded IT specialist from Bournemouth, appeared at the base. Taylor and Holmes embraced: they hadn’t seen each other for months. The 24-year-old had arrived from Tabqa, the scene of ferocious battles a dozen miles south-west of Raqqa. During his time in Syria, Holmes had been fired at more than 40 times, hospitalised once when a bullet burst through his right arm.

Holmes spoke softly. As a sniper, he said, it was important to stay calm. But even for him, a non-smoker upon his arrival in Syria, a stressful day can now entail consumption of 45 Ardens. “It can get pretty real out there,” he laughed. A union jack patch was fixed on the right shoulder of his militia uniform, his blood type (A-) scrawled on a spare magazine pouch. A toothbrush dangled out of his back pocket. Holmes had been away from England’s south coast for nearly eight months and figured the Raqqa op might keep him busy for many more. During that period he had become increasingly impressed with his adversaries. “They’re very good, extremely motivated, well trained and very experienced,” he said, fiddling with his lucky charm, a set of white prayer beads he found in a home near Qaltah, Raqqa province.

As with Taylor, talk of Raqqa brought thoughts of mortality. He had lost more friends than he could count, Kurdish and foreign. “At one point I had a list but ... ”One was 20-year-old Ryan Lock, from Chichester, who shot himself before Christmas when cornered by Isis at the onset of the Raqqa offensive. Holmes said he would do the same if surrounded, but “preferred to die fighting”. Taylor didn’t miss a beat: “Of course.”

A group of young YPJ fighters turned up. Among them was Mahabad Kobani, 18, who had requested to be forwarded to the Raqqa front and was waiting to hear back. That she had a chance was itself a minor miracle. One night before Christmas 2014 she was ambushed in an olive grove outside the town of Kobani by Isis fighters and shot seven times. She was pronounced dead, a martyr. “When they found I was alive everybody was totally shocked.” After a year recovering in hospital, she felt desperate to fight again.

“I am not worried about dying, I’ll jump in the way of bullets if my friends are in danger,” she said. Her best friend, Amara Rojhilat, 21, fought in Aleppo defending the Kurdish district of Ashrafiya from jihadis in 2013. Burdened with inferior weaponry, they forced back al-Nusra rebels in savage street-to-street fighting. “Eventually we made them accept peace,” she smiled, and reached for Kobani’s hand. Together they sang Servanê Azadiyê.

Even before the black flag of Isis is removed from Raqqa’s central square, thoughts are turning to what happens next. Politicians for Rojava, the Kurdish-controlled region of northern Syria, hope a deal with the White House can be struck as a reward for eliminating Isis from its headquarters. One persistent rumour suggests Donald Trump will visit Raqqa to congratulate SDF fighters once liberation is complete. But his military backing has yet to evolve into political collateral and the expanding Kurdish-led enclave, currently about the size of Wales, is generating tension on all borders.

Directly south lies more Isis territory. To the west is the Free Syrian Army, a rabble of Islamist factions, including the al-Nusra Front. North is Turkey, the nemesis of Syrian Kurds, whose president’s increasingly autocratic rule is likely to spell further military action against them. On Tuesday, Turkish airstrikes destroyed Kurdish command centres, killing about two dozen fighters in Syria and Iraq. Finally, to the east lies the Kurdistan regional government of Iraq (KRG), which accuses its Syrian neighbours of presiding over an oppressive regime that has forcefully displaced Arab settlers, razed villages and recruited child soldiers. A year ago the KRG shut the one bridge over the Tigris to Rojava. Entry to the region for the world’s media has been near impossible since. During the eight months preceding the border closure, 260 journalists gained entry. During the last 12 months only the Observer has secured official permission.

The anxiety that US commitment to the campaign against Isis may ultimately prove illusory extends to those on its frontline. Footage showing convoys of US armoured vehicles entering Rojava to help liberate Raqqa mystify Taylor. “But it’s all for them, they don’t give it to us. They are announcing support, but come on! Give us some proper weapons!” Speaking in the town of Tal Tamr, Kurdish commander Azad Garyae, 29, in charge of logistics for a brigade of 2,500 men that has lost 500 fighting the Syrian regime, al-Nusra and Isis, also pleaded for more equipment. “If we are to match Daesh, we need heavy weaponry, anti-tank missiles, otherwise many more will die.”

More immediately, security concerns dominate daily life in Rojava. Tightening the noose on Raqqa has caused its own security conundrum. Isis suicide bombers are starting to move north masquerading as refugees, says the YPJ. Men clad in burqas have been intercepted, confirms Ahmad.

At a rapidly growing refugee camp outside the former Isis stronghold of Mabrouka, local police chief Haj Hassan Abed Khalil, 55, confirmed Isis was on the march. “We have intelligence from Raqqa that many people related to Daesh are moving towards here.”

Spies inside the city, he said, were forwarding tip-offs that trucks laden with explosives had left and were heading north. Details of the manufacturer and colour of one truck had been radioed ahead. Checkpoint soldiers were ordered to shoot the driver if it failed to stop 15 yards from them.

Large crowds of refugees were particularly suspicious, added Abed Khalil. Isis members, beards shaved and black garb discarded, forced groups to migrate, allowing them to blend in more effectively.

On 17 April the mood inside the refugee camp at Mabrouka was brittle: a group of men became agitated and we were advised to leave. An hour later a senior intelligence officer from the Asayish police in the nearby town of Sari Kani flagged down our car and said: “There are many, many Daesh inside Mabrouka and we are carrying out investigations to stop them leaving. But we must also help with the humanitarian issue. What can we do?” The previous day a suicide bomber had targeted refugees outside Aleppo, killing at least 100.

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The Guardian

EU leads attacks on Trump's rollback of Obama climate policy

Europe poised to take baton from US as leader in global efforts to fight climate change, with America’s commitment to Paris accords at risk

The European Union has led criticism of Donald Trump’s effort to unravel Barack Obama’s measures to combat climate change, suggesting that Europe will now take the lead in global efforts.

The US president signed an executive order on Tuesday aimed at eliminating the clean power plan, Obama’s landmark policy to set limits on the amount of greenhouse gases that power plants emit. America’s commitment to the Paris accord of nearly 200 countries now hangs in the balance.

Miguel Árias Cañete, the EU’s climate action commissioner, said: “We regret the US is rolling back the main pillar of its climate policy, the clean power plan. Now, it remains to be seen by which other means the United States intends to meet its commitments under the Paris agreement.”

He added: “The continued leadership of the EU, China and many other major economies is now more important than ever. When it comes to climate and the global clean energy transition, there cannot be vacuums, there can only be drivers, and we are committed to driving this agenda forward.”

The EU has the most ambitious emissions reduction target, Árias Cañete said. “We will stand by Paris, we will defend Paris, and we will implement Paris.”

Christiana Figueres, former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, said Trump’s action risked putting the US on the back foot. “I don’t know anyone who wants to breathe dirty air, who wants to worry about their water source, or who wants to leave a dangerous world to their children,” she said. “And because we are all united by these common desires, I am optimistic that Paris will endure, with world leadership remaining resilient in its commitments to Paris.”

The president’s executive order also throws out the government’s method for counting the benefits of cutting carbon pollution and abandons a moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. Reaction on Washington’s Capitol Hill broke down along party lines, with Republicans welcoming the move towards energy independence.

The House speaker, Paul Ryan, said: “Today’s executive order is based on a fundamental truth: energy drives our economy. President Obama disregarded this, and the result was a barrage of regulations that crippled America’s energy industry. That is all in the past now. President Trump’s executive order will help America’s energy workers and reverse much of the damage done.”

The clean power plan had “ravaged coal country”, he added, and deserved a “full repeal”.

There was anger and dismay on the opposite side of the aisle as Democrats lined up to knock Trump’s order, with the notable exception of a senator from a coal-friendly state. They accused the president of denying scientific evidence to favour special interests.

Chuck Schumer, the minority leader in the Senate, said: “If there was any doubt that big oil was back in charge under the Trump administration, today’s executive order lays that to rest. It reads as if it was written in an Exxon boardroom, with no regard for the health and safety of the American people, or the planet.

“This executive order is nothing more than a giveaway to big oil at the expense of the health and safety of our children and the bank accounts of hard-working middle-class families. Simply put, the Trump administration has put the health of the American people and the future of our planet on the back burner all for the sake of lining the pockets of big oil and extreme-right special interests.”

Nancy Pelosi, the minority leader in the House, said: “President Trump and congressional Republicans’ contempt for clean air, clean water, and our clean energy future endangers the health of our children and the strength of our economy. The administration’s spiteful assault on the clean power plan will not bring back jobs to coal country, it will only poison our air and undermine America’s ability to win the good-paying jobs of the future.”

Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, noted that global temperature records had been broken over the past three years. “At a time when we should be urgently investing in clean energy jobs and technology, Trump is giving the worst polluters free rein and pretending it’s all about the economy,” he said.

“True leadership is a president who had the political courage to move aggressively on carbon polluters, while leaving office with the longest streak of private-sector job growth on record. Instead, we have a president who has called climate change a hoax, picked an ExxonMobil CEO as his secretary of state, put a climate science denier at the head of the EPA, and gives a disgraceful handout to his rich friends in the fossil fuels industry.”

Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, a Democratic member of the Bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus and Bicameral Task Force on Climate Change, warned against a withdrawal from the Paris agreement. “Today’s executive order sends a dangerous signal to the world that the United States does not want to lead in one of the greatest fights of our time: combating global climate change,” he said.

The Democratic senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and the Republican senator Susan Collins of Maine co-authored the Super Pollutants Act of 2015, a bipartisan bill to reduce short-lived climate pollutants in the atmosphere. Murphy said: “Future generations will judge President Trump for this attack on our health and our safety. The Republican party is going to extraordinary lengths to deny that this meteor that is global warming is careening toward us.”

But not for the first time, Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a state in coal country that Trump won in a landslide, broke ranks with his Democratic colleagues. “We need to strike a balance between the environment and the economy,” he said. “The clean power plan never achieved that balance. Rolling back this regulation is a positive step towards preventing further job loss, increases to consumer energy bills, and more damage to our economy. We must stop ignoring the damage these regulations caused our energy sector, our economy and our way of life in West Virginia.”

Trump’s attack on the clean power plan will not produce instant results. It faces bureaucratic wrangling and legal challenges that could take years. On Tuesday, a coalition of 23 states, cities and counties declared its intention to resist.

“We won’t hesitate to protect those we serve – including by aggressively opposing in court President Trump’s actions that ignore both the law and the critical importance of confronting the very real threat of climate change,” said the group, led by the New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman.

Industry groups have expressed scepticism about whether the measures will create employment as Trump claims. Robert Murray, chief executive of Murray Energy, the US’s largest private coal producer, said Trump’s moves were unlikely to significantly increase the number of coal jobs.

Chris Wood, CEO of the fishing advocacy group Trout Unlimited, said the executive order would hurt sportsmen, who depend on the resilience of American watersheds, in a multitude of ways. Wood sees the clean power plan as made up of “commonsense” requirements for the energy industry that protect public land for mixed use. 

He said: “We’re not talking about hi-tech wizardry here. It was updating rules that hadn’t been touched in 30 to 40 years. It says, hey, treat your frack water once you’re finished with it. Make sure you have hardened concrete casings so they don’t leak.

With the repeal of the clean power plan, waterways will not only be more vulnerable to avoidable pollution but also to the varied impacts of climate change. Wood added: “Anyone who has seen these big fires in the west understands the effects on fish.”

Watchdogs and pressure groups joined the chorus of condemnation. Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said: “This is an all-out assault on the protections we need to avert climate catastrophe. It’s a senseless betrayal of our national interests. And it’s a short-sighted attempt to undermine American clean energy leadership.

“Trump is sacrificing our future for fossil fuel profits – and leaving our kids to pay the price. This would do lasting damage to our environment and public lands, threaten our homes and health, hurt our pocketbooks and slow the clean energy progress that has already generated millions of good-paying jobs.

“We won’t surrender our children’s future to fossil fuel profits without a fight.”

The alarm was also raised over potential economic consequences. Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a not-for-profit organisation that rallied hundreds of companies to support the clean power plan, said: “By taking this backward step, the US risks a stalled transition to a low-carbon economy, thus giving China and other countries the upper hand as they embrace renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies that are proliferating all across the globe.”

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The Guardian

People's Climate March: thousands rally to denounce Trump's environmental agenda

Thousands of people across the US have marched in rain, snow and sweltering heat to demand action on climate change mass protests that coincided with president Donald Trump’s 100th day in office and took aim at his agenda for rolling back environmental protections.

A sea of protesters taking part in the People’s Climate March swarmed in front of the White House to demand Trump rethink plans to reverse the climate change policies.

Organisers said about 300 sister marches or rallies were being held around the country, including in Seattle, Boston and San Francisco.

A wet spring snow fell in Denver, where several hundred activists posed in the shape of a giant thermometer for a photograph and a dozen people rode stationary bikes to power the loudspeakers. In Chicago, a rain-soaked crowd of thousands headed from the city’s federal plaza to Trump Tower.

In Washington, as temperatures rose above 90F, tens of thousands of people marched from the grounds of the US Capitol and passed the White House en route to the Washington Monument for a rally.

Participants on Saturday said they object to Trump’s rollback of restrictions on mining, oil drilling and greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants, among other things.

Many of the protesters carried signs with slogans such as “The seas are rising and so are we” and “Don’t be a fossil fool.” As the procession passed the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, marchers booed and chanted “shame.“

While a good-natured mood prevailed and there were no signs of violence, many demonstrators said they were angered by the prospect of Trump carrying through on his vow to roll back protections put in place by his predecessor Barack Obama.

“We’re going to rise up and let them know that we’re sick and tired of seeing our children die of asthma,” said Reverend Leo Woodberry of Florence, South Carolina, who spoke during a press conference before the march. “We’re sick and tired of seeing people with cancer because of coal ash ponds. We’re sick and tired of seeing sea-level rise.”

Elsewhere, more than 2,000 people gathered at the Maine State House in Augusta. Speakers included a lobsterman, a solar company owner and members of the Penobscot Nation tribe.

“I’ve seen firsthand the impacts of climate change to not only the Gulf of Maine, but also to our evolving fisheries, and to the coastal communities that depend upon them,” said lobsterman Richard Nelson of Friendship, Maine.

People in the crowd spoke about the importance of addressing climate change to industries such as renewable energy, forestry, farming and seafood.

Trump’s administration is considering withdrawing from the Paris Agreement, which more than 190 countries including the United States signed in hopes of curbing global warming. Trump has also proposed deep cuts for the Environmental Protection Agency and the elimination of many environmental regulations.

In his campaign, Trump called climate change a hoax. Last month he kept a promise to the coal industry by undoing climate-change rules put in place by Obama.

The US protests took place on the same day as similar demonstrations in Britain, Europe and Australia.

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The Guardian

USA: Hard times for Whole Foods: 'People say it's for pretentious people. I can see why'

Lunchtime customers at Whole Foods in Manhattan’s Union Square had little trouble expressing the shortcomings that have led the once high-flying, organic-focused retailer to become linked with a takeover.

“I love the sushi, but I wouldn’t shop here except maybe for a special ingredient,” said Argentinian software designer Benjamin Vinas. “People say Whole Foods is for pretentious people, and I can see why. It’s too expensive. I don’t have the budget.”

Vinas was not the only customer to express a similar point of view. Others said that for their groceries they went several blocks north and west to lower-cost rival Trader Joe’s, where products may not be so exquisitely selected but are, in general, more uniformly discounted.

Maria Johnson, a postgraduate student, said Whole Foods’ pricing, with some items marked competitively and other expensive, was inconvenient.

“I only buy body lotion and lunch here. And maybe spices,” Johnson said. “There are so many different price points you feel like you are missing out on the more fun, expensive things – and when you are shopping for the cheaper, more affordable things, you’re reminded of the things you can’t afford.”

But the views of Manhattan’s grocery shoppers point to only part of the problem for Whole Foods, sometimes called Whole Paycheck, which has been facing a backlash from consumers.

Founded in Austin, Texas, in 1980, Whole Foods Market, to give it its official name, has about 462 locations and a market value of almost $12bn. The chain helped make health food and organic food mainstream, and in its boom years shook up the food retail industry. Whole Foods had grand plans for a UK expansion too, opening its first outpost in Kensington in 2004 with plans for 40 more. But Whole Foods has stalled: like much of the retail sector, it faces economic headwinds including razor-thin margins, competition from other retailers offering organic food, and increasingly price-conscious consumers.

In February, the company announced it would close nine stores: in Chicago, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, and Georgia, and two each in Colorado and California. The closures, which followed six straight quarters of sales declines, represented the first downsizing since 2008. Founder and chief executive John Mackey explained that the business had changed because “the more conventional, mainstream supermarkets have upped their game. The world is very different today than it was five years ago.”

One rival chain, Sprouts Farmers Market, was found to be on average 19% cheaper than Whole Foods. Other rivals, including Kroger, picked up Whole Foods customers. Last month, Barclays advised that Whole Foods had experienced a “staggering” decline in foot traffic that it estimated at 3%, or roughly 14 million customers.

Whole Foods has long been the butt of jokes for its prices – although it disputes it is more expensive than it rivals – and its bougie products. Comedian John Oliver is particularly fond of its asparagus water.

The difficult transition from expensive behemoth to a more nimble grocery store is reflected in its share price, which has dropped by almost half since October 2013. Investors are increasingly petitioning the company to move faster with reforms.

An acquisition would underscore the consolidation of the US food retail industry as the sector prepares to compete against online retailers including Amazon, stores like Walmart and discount chains such as Aldi.

Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported that Cerberus Capital Management, the New York private equity firm that owns Albertsons and Safeway, had initiated talks with bankers about making a bid.

Other potential suitors include Jana Partners, an activist investor group that has amassed a 9% stake. In a regulatory filing, Jana said it wanted Whole Foods to “improve its technology and operations to better compete with larger rivals, shake up its board, and explore how much potential bidders might be willing to pay”.

Jana has proposed nominees to the Whole Foods board, including Glenn Murphy, a former Gap chief executive, and former New York Times food journalist Mark Bittman, who has argued that the chain needs simplifying.

Jana is run by 58-year-old yoga and health food devotee Barry Rosenstein. He has said he wants Whole Foods to learn from national chains while staying true to its mission.

Whole Foods’ own efforts at reform include the expansion of 365 smaller stores offering lower-priced products. The stores will stock about 7,000 items, far fewer than the 35,000 to 52,000 at a typical Whole Foods location.

Outside Trader Joe’s, Brooklyn homemaker Eva Lev said she rarely visits Whole Foods nowadays. “It’s like that Jim Gaffigan joke – Whole Foods on Sunday is just a refugee camp for people with too much money.” Lev added she prefers Trader Joe’s “because it seems like an everyman’s place, and you can still get organic”.

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The Guardian