Onélica Andrade, who has worked on climate change in Brussels since 2016, is one of 13 pledged delegates for Democrats Abroad, the official branch of the Party for the 9 million US citizens living outside the United States. Andrade was born in Venezuela, and moved to the US as a teenager.

“I am thrilled and honored to represent Democrats Abroad at the Convention. I ran to be a delegate because I want to do everything within my power to contribute to the election effort. The tolerant country that welcomed me and my family is at risk and I cannot sit idly by. I want to wake up on November 4th and feel that I have done my utmost to ensure a blue White House and Congress.”

This year’s Convention is a radically different event from those of years past. Typically a massive, week-long event with tens of thousands of Democrats flocking to a single city, the Convention was moved to a fully on-line event to protect the health and safety of the delegates and the surrounding community during the Covid-19 pandemic. Andrade and her fellow Delegates, who come from all over the world, from Kathmandu to Kigali, have already begun rallying together on Zoom calls, downloading ballots to vote on the Party Platform and for the Biden/Harris ticket.

“We’re very pleased to have someone from our small, yet active, chapter participate in the Convention for the very first time”, says Democrats Abroad Belgium Chair, Pauline Manos. Julia Bryan, Democrats Abroad Global Chair, adds, “Onélica is a member of the youngest, most diverse, delegation we have ever elected. Each member brings their own unique perspective to the table through their experiences in the US and abroad.” More details on the Convention and speakers are available here. Vice-President Biden and Senator Harris will address the Convention on August 20th (from 3-5am CET on August 21st).

About the Democratic National Convention

Taking place Aug 17-20, 2020 the 2020 Democratic National Convention will be a “Convention Across America” with virtual events and online engagement to engage Americans all over, while protecting the health and safety of delegates and the surrounding community. For more information: https://www.demconvention.com/

The post Delegate from Belgium taking part at the US Democratic National Convention appeared first on Brussels Express.

During his second trip, in July of 1959, he visited Brussels. The journey began in Naples and went on to include destinations such as Pompeii, Paestum, Rome, Tarquinia, Venice, Florence, Chartres, Lascaux, Paris, among many others. I became aware of all this last month, when I visited the Mark Rothko exhibition at the Kunst Historisches Museum in Vienna, which showed a selection of works spanning his whole artistic career. From the early, figurative paintings of the 1930’s and 40’s, to his more reflective and abstract canvases of the late 50’s and 60’s. Rothko’s children, Kate and Christopher, were closely involved in the exhibition’s design and some of the paintings were on loan from their own private collections.

At the end of a long hallway, where three of Rothko’s paintings from the late 1940’s were exhibited, I saw a large reproduction of the Queen Elizabeth’s logbook on the wall. Queen Elizabeth was the name of the ship on which Rothko had returned to the United States after his 1959 trip to Europe. “Names and descriptions of alien passengers embarked at the port of Southampton,” appeared at the top. The date of departure was 20th of August, 1959, and the destination New York. With ticket number C.60073, the name of Mark Rothko is typed in capital letters, followed by those of his wife Mell and daughter Kate, all of them reported as being “In Transit from Brussels.” The line intrigued me. Why in transit? I had never known that Rothko had spent time in Brussels. What had he seen and done during his stay?

The journey started on June 15th, 1959, when the family sailed, tourist class, on the USS Independence, which seven days later called in at the port of Naples. Rothko had been counting the days to pack his suitcase and leave on vacation. The year before, 1958, he had been working on one of the most important series of paintings ever commissioned to him, The Seagram Murals, which were destined for the restaurant of the Four Seasons hotel. The building had been designed by Philip Johnson and Mies van de Rohe, two of the most renowned architects of the time. Rothko eventually refused to bring the project to completion and broke his part of deal — he gave back the advance in a fit of disgust stating, “Anybody who will eat that kind of food for those kinds of prices will never look at a painting of mine.”

At the Kunst Historisches Museum I was able to see one of the Seagram Murals, currently at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, as well as several of the mural sketches he painted during the preparation period for the commission. Many scholars believe that the style that came to characterize Rothko’s late paintings, including the Seagram Murals, was deeply marked by something that Rothko saw during his first trip to Florence in 1950: Michaelangelo’s Laurentian Library.

Early in his career Rothko had been fascinated by Greek myths, the construction of temples, the origins of European art. At the Metropolitan and at the Modern Museum of Art (MoMA) in New York he sat for hours studying Rembrandt, Vermeer, Miro, Matisse, all of them revered by the native of Daugavpils. The soft brush strokes, the ephemeral vanishing light so characteristic of his canvases are reminiscent of Pierre Bonnard’s work, which Rothko is known to have seen in 1948 at the MoMa. At the Kunst Historisches Museum some of the paintings reveal the undeniable influences, the colors, the motives and the exploration of techniques.

His attitude towards European art changed, however, as attested by what his close friend, the poet Stanley Kunitz, recalled when describing the painter’s “vehemence about the European scene, his flat rejection of it.” This was the mid 1950’s. Stanley Kunitz, who wrote poetry until he was a hundred, was also Jewish and knew Rothko well. Life seemed to have joined the paths of these two talented yet darkened-by-tragedy souls: both of them had grown up without a father — Kunitz’s had killed himself six weeks before Stanley was born, while Rothko’s had died of colon cancer when Rothko was only 10. By the time Rothko boarded the USS Independence in 1959 they had become so close that Kunitz was listed as one of the beneficiaries in Rothko’s will – the others were Rothko’s two brothers, his sister Sonia, Mell’s two sisters, and the sculptor Herbert Ferber.

As time went by, Rothko’s ambivalent attitude towards European art seemed to become more intense. Kunitz recalled him saying, “We have wiped the slate clean. We start anew. A new land. We’ve got to forget what the Old Masters did.”

In Brussels, Rothko met with the Belgian painter and poet, Anne-Marie Levine, who invited him over for dinner. Levine’s father, upon meeting Rothko, suggested that he ought to see some of the great works of art the country had to offer, for instance Rubens, Brueghel, Ensor. Rothko shrugged and declared that he was “not interested in painting.”

Rather than seeing Belgian art, Rothko had a different motivation to come to Brussels: his nephew Kenneth Rabin was living there. Kenneth was Sonia Rothko’s son, who had started a career in the US Foreign Service in 1955. After serving in Canberra and Perth, he was posted to Brussels for a number of years before moving to Manila. It was thanks to the postcards that Rothko had sent to his nephew that a great part of his journey can be outlined — he sent a postcard to Kenneth from Venice indicating he expected to be in Paris on July 15th and shortly after he would leave for Brussels. I found myself wanting to know more about Kenneth Rabin, the house he had lived in, what he had told his uncle about his experience in Brussels. I contacted the Jewish museum, I emailed Anne-Marie Levine, I called the US Embassy but to no avail. All I could find out was that Mr. Rabin had died in 2006 at the age of 81 in Portland, Oregon, the city where Rothko had moved to after leaving Latvia in 1913.

The 10-year-old boy’s first experiences in America were not easy. On the train journey from New York to Oregon, he had to carry a sign around his neck that read, “I don’t speak English.” A few months later his father died. All of these events marked the artist’s view of the world, all of which can be seen in the way he chose to express his wounded sensibility on the canvas. In 1958, during a lecture at the Pratt Institute, he said that the main ingredient of his work was “a clear preoccupation with death, the intimations with mortality.” He was forever interested in the spiritual, in the tragic nature of existence which he understood to be a part of his life.

***

From the second floor of the Royal Library of Belgium I can see pigeons perched on the shoulders of King Albert’s statue. On the esplanade, long-haired teenagers push off from the ground with one foot and gain speed before crouching on their skateboards for a moment, then they jump. The noise bounces off the building nearby. A group of chatty and distracted tourists follows a woman holding an unopened umbrella high in the air. I stand by one of the large windows in the periodicals section of the library with one goal in mind: find out if the Belgian press reported anything on Rothko’s 1959 visit.

Sitting in front of a table equipped with a magnifying glass and a small projector, I look at microfilmed pages of Le Soir newspaper from July of 1959. “Cyclists battle on the 46th Tour de France,” says nearly every front page. I find news of Richard Nixon’s imminent visit to Moscow, the different stages of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie’s trip to Belgium. I read notes about the new slats of wood and paint for the Château Malou in Woluwe Saint Lambert, a report on the shopkeeper in Liege who tried to strangle his wife, the festivities of the Belgian National Day. I read about Fidel Castro’s accession to power in Cuba and the armed conflict in Nyasaland, but nothing about Rothko. About an hour and a half later I give up thinking that either the press didn’t know about his trip or they didn’t care enough about him at the time.

What I do wind up finding in the Royal Library is the catalogue of Rothko’s exhibition at the Centre for Fine Arts (Palais des Beaux Arts) in January of 1962, the same exhibition that Rothko had gone to set up himself in 1961 at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. A review article in Le Soir dated Tuesday January 9th, 1962, complains about the size of Rothko’s paintings stating that for American artists, painting those “skyscraper-like” canvases was in their genes.

The opening page of the Palais des Beaux Arts catalog acknowledges the generous support of John de Menil, the Franco-American businessman and philanthropist who a couple of years later would commission the artist’s final major project: The Rothko Chapel in Houston.

Towards the end of the 1960’s Rothko began to suffer from depression, a condition that would worsen because of his heavy drinking. On the night of April 20th, 1968, he suffered an aneurysm and was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. At the emergency ward the doctors detected high blood pressure, early signs of cirrhosis. The painter had suffered a “dissecting aortic aneurysm,” they determined. The days that followed were laden with anxiety and fear. Rothko became paranoid. His poor health coupled with the mood swings caused the relationship with his wife Mell to deteriorate and on January 1st, 1969, the couple split up for good. A little over a year later, on the morning of February 25th, 1970, his body was found in a pool of blood in his 69th street studio in New York. He had taken his life.

At the Kunst Historisches Museum I sat in front of one of the Seagram Mural sketches and admired the colors for a long while. Ruby and burgundy bleeding in and out of each other. I couldn’t stop staring at it. In the silence of the room I thought of Stanley Kunitz’s poem, The Artist, which he wrote after the death of his friend:

His paintings grew darker every year.
They filled the walls, they filled the room;
eventually they filled his world –
all but the ravishment.
When voices faded, he would rush to hear
the scratched soul of Mozart
endlessly in gyre.
Back and forth, back and forth,
he paced the paint-smeared floor,
diminishing in size each time he turned,
trapped in his monumental void,
raving against his adversaries.
At last he took a knife in his hand
and slashed an exit for himself

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I have to start from the beginning. Before being blown away by the sculpted, pristine sentences found in his novel, The Echo Maker, I was enthralled by another text: Richard Powers’s recount of the trip he made to Belgium in the autumn of 2005, his research on phantom limbs and neuropsychology.

For three weeks he was a writer in residence at Passaporta House of Literature in Brussels. “I and my wife, who had never before stepped foot in the Low Countries, found ourselves in a brilliant apartment on the Oude Graanmaarkt,” he wrote. “We do not live in our muscles and joints and sinews; we live in the thought and the image and the memory of them. All this is what I came to Belgium to write about.”

I read and re-read his essay Among the Missing, my eyes following the clean strokes of a long-distance swimmer across the page, the way his thoughts cut through a whirling river of ideas. His observations, his musings, all of them had been laid on page. Then came his voice.

In early 2017, The New Yorker released a podcast where Powers read and discussed Steven Millhauser’s story, A visit, with New Yorker fiction editor, Deborah Tribesman. “We’ve become incredibly good at talking about people trying and failing to get a long with others,” he said. “Somehow the notion that we are also at war with or contesting the world with other creatures who don’t look like us, who don’t think like us, has been lost.” Humanity, the natural world, those are some of the themes he explores in his latest book, The Overstory.

In the context of Festival America, Powers visited Paris and Brussels in the fall of 2018, and despite a long line of commitments, he kindly agreed to continue the dialogue with me from a distance. Our conversations focused on humans and nature, trees, sustainability, changes in human consciousness, corruption, mindfulness and art.

***

Mauricio Ruiz: Of the three sources of drama: Man against man, Man against himself, Man against nature, the latter has atrophied or nearly disappeared from literature. Why is that? Does this reveal a collective attitude of apparent human control over nature?

Richard Powers: Stories about humans—both as individuals and societies—attempting to come to terms with a hostile, indifferent, or merely inscrutably different nature persist in Europe and North America into the late 19th century. Except for occasional and often nostalgic works of historical fiction, “environmental” dramas seem largely to disappear with the rise of Modernism.

The reasons are many and complex, but they come down, finally, to the foundational beliefs of Modernism itself: the belief that we have defeated “nature” and that technology now gives us unlimited dominion over all other living things on the planet. We have come to believe that we’re the only game left in town, that we can have things our own way, with no opposition. As a result, it began to seem to us that figuring out what we wanted to have and how to have it—that is, the problems of psychology and sociology—seemed to be the only interesting questions left of narrative art to address. It became rare for any novel to travel beyond those two domains and ask, again, the larger question of how human beings might live sustainably within the planetary systems that we imagined ourselves to be exempt from. Meaning became a merely subjective, invented, personal thing. Human exceptionalism, like its economic model, neoliberalism, grew entirely ascendant in public thought. There seemed to be no alternative.

Over the last couple of decades, we’ve increasingly realized that, far from subduing and dominating the planet, we’ve only broken and enraged it. Living systems are coming back with a vengeance to reassert themselves in the face of our abuse. And as we’ve come to realize how insecure our existence on Earth is in fact becoming, that third kind of drama—humans struggling to accommodate a nature hostile to the desires of capitalism and humancentric individualism—is making its way back into our literary fiction. Of course, that conflict never left certain other kinds of “genre” fiction, such as science fiction. It really is only Western literary fiction, with its commitment to private and synthetic meaning, that has had to rediscover the huge truth about human existence that it has been ignoring.

MR: Elsewhere you’ve mentioned an interest in exploring what it would take to effect the transformation in consciousness that humans need, perhaps through science fiction. Could you elaborate a little bit on this transformation, and how it would happen?

RP: To see how a revolution in “tree consciousness” might come about, it helps to look at what caused prior transformations of social consciousness. The cause of abolitionism in the US was furthered at least as much by a single book—Uncle Tom’s Cabin—as it was by all the rational arguments that came before. Child labor exploitation and grotesque food industry practices disappeared, after being exposed by photography and works of popular fiction. The Civil Rights movement and the Anti-Vietnam war movement were concentrated and intensified less by facts and figures and lecturing than by movies and music and poetry and novels. Woman’s Rights, the mainstreaming of LGBT: behind each moment of enlightenment, there are works of art raising the consciousness of individual citizens.

Psychologists have demonstrated through a variety of experiments that people rarely change their mind because of logical urging or intellectual persuasion. What’s needed is an emotional catalyst, an intense affective experience that brings the experience of injustice or exploitation home. For that, an invitation to identification is necessary, a way for an individual to feel as if the drama were happening to her.

The problem is that identification is easier when the Other can be shown to resemble us. “Tree consciousness” will require an art that makes these creatures who live such alien lives on such non-human time frames seem like an essential part of our own stories. Because they are.

It’s interesting to consider that for most of human history, in most of the world’s literatures, people would not have dreamed telling stories without the non-human world at the center. In indigenous tales from every quarter of the Earth, far from being mere resources, plants and animals were essential characters that defined, oriented, and gave meaning to human existence.

MR: You mention that to be able to change someone’s mind, “What’s needed is an emotional catalyst, an intense affective experience that brings the experience of injustice or exploitation home.” In many countries, artists have tried to explore the roots of corruption and nepotism, traffic of influences, hoping to make the individual feel as if the drama were happening to him/her. Yet these problems seem to have metastasized to other strata of society (kidnapping, extortion, etc.) Are artists failing? Or is there something else that is needed before we can see that change of consciousness?

RP: Art will never solve the endless ills that people manage to inflict on each other. But if art were to turn away entirely from those social ills and content itself with indulging the luxury of personal preoccupation, those social crimes of injustice and exploitation would proliferate far faster and farther than they do. Socially engaged art is definitely in the minority; perhaps if more artists were committed to a revolution in consciousness, the changes that art brings about would be even more evident. A television show, a stirring song, a book filled with brutal and indignant truth: each of those things have been known to change laws and tilt the course of history.

MR: There’s an assumption, especially among libertarians, that trees and wildlife are “just property.” Is there a way –besides a world depleted of resources– for people to acquire a different perspective/consciousness regarding the use of resources on the planet?

RP: The answer to that lies in a reexamination of the law’s approach to property and rights. One of my characters, an intellectual property lawyer, comes across a formative article that the real-life jurist Christopher Stone published back in 1972, called, “Should Trees Have Standing?” In it, Stone very presciently points out the problems with a legal system that require loss or damage to a human plaintiff before anyone can bring a suit. Shouldn’t we be able to bring a suit on behalf of a poisoned river or a gutted mountainside, even if there is no human being directly and immediately damaged by it, since we are damaged by it eventually, in the long run? If corporations and universities and ships have legal personhood, why not ecosystems?

It’s an incredibly powerful and provocative idea, one as timely now as ever. When living systems aren’t given standing and legal rights by the law, it’s an invitation to unlimited externalized costs and the kind of abusive damage that will seem as embarrassing and inconceivable to our descendants as human slavery is to us.

Environmental law in the U.S. has gone in a very different direction since Stone’s article appeared. In fact, in two years of the Trump administration, we have returned to a level of environmental abuse not permitted here for decades. But that return to the wild west can be only temporary, since it is, in fact, little more than the self-willed blindness of suicidal behavior. Meanwhile, countries such as Bolivia and New Zealand have brought Stone’s idea to reality and have implemented the idea of extending basic rights to living systems.

MR: As I read your answers two words came to my mind: Corporations and Lobbying, especially when I read passages such as, “Human exceptionalism, neoliberalism… Shouldn’t we be able to bring a suit on behalf of a poisoned river or a gutted mountainside.” The push for the accumulation of wealth seems to trample any concerns for the environment (Trump, Koch Brothers, among many). Can liberalism and capitalism and over-consumption coexist with the ideas you’ve mentioned above? If not, what is there to do? Is the battle lost?

RP: Honestly, no: an individualist, human-centric, commodity-defined culture is utterly incompatible with our continued existence on this planet. We must live subordinated to and integrated into the same cycles and limits that govern the rest of the living world. If you believe, like Margaret Thatcher, that “there is no alternative” to neoliberalism, than you will indeed feel that the battle is lost. But most of human cultures throughout most of history have been structured on other principles. The question is not whether we can overthrow the current definition of meaning and social structure. The question is how much catastrophe we will need to endure before we accept the fact that we must live here, in the finite, limited world. We can bring ourselves to heel through unthinkable efforts of collective will, or we can be driven there by biological, material fact.

MR: You left Palo Alto and your teaching post at Stanford for a life in the mountains. What are the differences between a person choosing to live in a city, and another living close to nature?

RP: There is a problem with this question! All of us, everywhere, are living in the thick of nature. In fact, if I had to summarize the vision of The Overstory, it is that there is no separate and exceptional thing called “humanity,” and no independent entity called “nature.” All things are reciprocally bound together; there is really only species that struggles to grasp that! We have been leaving our mark on and altering “wilderness” for as long as we’ve existed, and even our most antiseptic cities are teeming with living things, large and small, that crucially determine what our lives in these densely urban areas are like.

For a person living in the mountains or a person living in the biggest conurbation, the nature of an attentive life is the same: to learn to see what is in front of us, not what we think is or ought to be. There are more than 5.2 million street trees in New York City. If you add to that the shrubs and bushes, there are vastly more woody plants in that city than there are people! But how many people in the city take these creatures seriously? How many realize that the quality of their air and water depends on these plants? How many are aware of the huge increase in their well-being that is being made by these beings who can turn sunlight directly into food and life? How many urbanites are capable of the endless joy in standing in front of a tree and asking, “What is this tree doing that no other tree does? What is it doing that I’ve never seen before?”

Whether in the Smoky Mountains or in the heart of Manhattan, tree consciousness comes down to the same thing: the cultivation of a sensibility that knows that we don’t make the rules, that we’re not alone, and that we are who we are by virtue of the work of all kinds of other living things.

MR: Reading your last answer (How many urbanites are capable of the endless joy in standing in front of a tree and asking, “What is this tree doing that no other tree does?), I was reminded of Merleau-Ponty’s quote: “To see the world…we must break with our familiar acceptance of it.” Some people complain that even if they wish they could stop and see the world, they don’t have the time. They would go crazy if they tried to have an attentive life every day. What is the cost of choosing to tune out many moments/aspects of life? How could one find the “right” balance between an attentive life and one’s daily occupations?

RP: Anyone who claims they don’t have time to slow down is deeply deluding herself. If our lives are frantic, relentless, overdrawn, and blunted with distraction, it is not because of material necessity but because we are searching for meaning in the wrong place. How many minutes of your day go into absolutely essential pursuit of income? How many go into the pursuit of prestige, gossip, overconsumption, social currency, and merely keeping up with “the latest?” Don’t kind yourself: we are making ourselves crazy, not because we have to, but because the things we so frantically pursue are so ultimately ephemeral and unsatisfying. Just stop and look. You can decide, later, as your urge to keep running starts to subside, whether or not you can afford to do so.

The post « I came to Belgium to write about phantom limbs » — An interview with American novelist Richard Powers appeared first on Brussels Express.

An international study assessing the global risks threatening the security of Eurasia macro-region in the framework of the fourth annual meeting of the Astana Club ranked the escalation of tensions between China and the US, and full-scale trade wars as top geopolitical risks in 2019.

Leading experts, Nobel prize laureates, acting and former heads of states, politicians and diplomats from 33 countries across continents, who contributed to the deliberations of the Astana Club, warned against increasing protectionism that risks bringing the globalisation era, marked by a 7-decade-long international liberal order, to an end. This would mean a decline in the growth of the world economy, deepening poverty and increasing unemployment, which in turn could lay the ground for terrorism, migration and separatism. Moreover, the economic interdependence achieved during the globalisation era could be eroded by trade wars and sanctions, the repercussions of which would be dire for the entire world.

The largest platform for dialogue in Central Asia, which took place in Astana, Kazakhstan on 12-13 November 2018, highlighted the world’s rising vulnerability due to tensions in the Middle East, crises in Ukraine, turbulence in the South China Sea, and sanctions against Russia, which may be extended to freeze dollar assets of Russian banks and to ban operations with the Russian state debt.

The consequences of the US withdrawal from a nuclear deal with Iran coupled with sanctions against the country (including on oil trade) could further exacerbate the conflicts in the Middle East, bringing it to the brink of a new round of violence between Sunni and Shiite groups. Instability in the wider Eurasian space could be further provoked by ethnic and religion divisions, which are likely to be fuelled by humanitarian crises in Syria, Yemen and Myanmar. The pessimism caused by these factors could intensify the trade conflicts between the US and its key trading partners, such as China, the EU, Canada and Mexico, while the expansion of protective measures worldwide could potentially render the situation difficult to deal with in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

As the French philosopher Frederic Bastiat once put it, ‘if goods do not cross borders, armies will’. Hence these trends, reminiscent of the inter-war era in the 1930s, are extremely worrying in the wake of the 100th anniversary of the Armistice ending the World War I and its 4 devastating years of bloody conflict. The forerunner of the United Nations (UN), the League of Nations, which was created in the wake of the World War I to achieve international peace and to stop its members from declaring war, had unfortunately failed to avoid another global bloodshed 20 years later.

Echoing these concerns, the Astana Club stressed the need to update international organisations, such as the UN and the WTO, in accordance with the global shift of the balance of powers and the emergence of a multipolar world. Astana, which will host the ministerial meeting of the WTO in 2020, sees the solution to global trade tensions in the creation of uniform and fair rules for trade and investment cooperation under the auspices of the WTO.

The agreements on elimination of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty due to expire in 2021 were also flagged by the Club as two critical issues, which could result in an arms race if they remain unresolved. Moreover, need for a new security architecture, based on the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia, to eliminate the mistrust between regional powers and to decrease the geopolitical uncertainty in the Eurasian region (in cooperation with OSCE and ASEAN) was stressed, in addition to calls for a nuclear-free-world.

Albert Einstein had predicted that a world armed with nuclear weapons cannot allow a new blood-stained outcome to begin building a new world order for the third time from the fragments of the old world, as there will be nothing to build and no one to build. Today there are 15,000 nuclear weapons and 2,000 are on high alert according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. Cyber security could pose a major risk for global stability, with power plants, strategic enterprises and e-governments increasingly becoming the targets of cyber-attacks. Losses from the actions of cyber-criminals are growing dramatically and are expected to exceed 1 trillion dollars.

Global stability is threatened by rising populist rhetoric, which uses the practice of scapegoating aimed at migrants, military enemies and, ethnic and religious minorities. Such nationalist and Eurosceptic discourse can already be witnessed in the EU, following the migration crisis, the Brexit referendum and the contradictions between the old and new members of the Union. With the weakening of globalisation, the threat of separatism (i.e. Flanders, Western Catalonia, Scotland) could also become more imminent.

The wider Eurasian space is home to frozen conflicts, such as Eastern Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh and Afghanistan. These conflicts could exacerbate relations between major powers, whose interests in the region already diverge over the spiral of sanctions, the escalation of tensions in the Middle East (Syrian crisis, political tensions in Iraq, civil war in Libya), and the renewal of an arms race. The economically fragmented ‘Greater Eurasia’, a term pinpointed by the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is divided into different political and economic blocs, such as the European Union, Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Japan-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, and a neutral India with an increased focus on connectedness.

The Astana Club emphasised unifying initiatives, such as open borders for the free movement of goods and people in a Central Asian Schengen, which could contribute to the integration, growth and wealth of the region. The update of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 (once a turning point in the Cold War) to continue the dialogue on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons, was another solution proposed by the Club.

Strategically located on the ancient Silk Road, Kazakhstan is an energy hub at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. It is not surprising that the country, bordering both China and Russia and known for its multi-vector policy as well as its international mediation capacity (i.e. Astana process on Syrian peace), is willing to play an active role to avoid trade wars and other global risks by strengthening political stability, economic cooperation and sustainable development in Eurasia and beyond.

The post Astana Club Highlights China-US Trade War As A Top Security Risk appeared first on Brussels Express.

With 28 of 35 races called for the Senate

42 seats for Democrats (-3)
51 seats for Republicans (+3)

With 369 of 435 races called for the House

186 seats for Democrats (+25)
175 seats for Republicans (-25)

Women break record

More than 84 women will hold seats in the U.S. Congress, breaking the current record.

Over 230 women, plenty of them first-time candidates, appeared on the general-election ballots.

The majority of House seats continues to be held by men.

The post US mid-term elections: Democrats take the House, Republicans keep the Senate appeared first on Brussels Express.

Apu is known for his strong accent and his catchphrase « Thank you, come again! »

After more than 30 years, Apu’s character has been characterized as a controversial and racist caricature due to the stereotypical portrayal of the Indian community.

Adi Shankar, who is a Youtuber and a producer, has revealed that Apu’s character might be dropped.

However, Al Jean, the Simpson’s executive producer, has yet to confirm that Apu will be dropped from the show.

The post The Simpsons say: Goodbye, Apu. Thank you and come again? appeared first on Brussels Express.

Last weekend Roger Vendam, a former Belgian Ambassador, organised in Brussels the EU launch of his 250-page book about the foreign affairs aspects of the US President. In 29 chapters, he describes and analyses chronically the consequences of this erratic personality on the world during his first years in office.

Difficult to remember on what subjects and in how many parts of the world he started lighting a fire (incomplete list in alphabetical order): climate, Brexit, EU, Germany, Iran, Jerusalem, Latin America, Korea, Libya, Mexico, Middle East, multilateralism, Qatar, Refugees, Russia, Syria, UN,  Venezuela.

The intention of this book is obvious: to show especially to the US-American public that their new President is not only annoying for their own country but a danger to stability and peace around the globe.

Roger Vendam: Donald J. Trump, a chronicle, the first year of a failing and chaotic Presidency. New York: Page Publishing 2018

The post Book on Trump by former Belgian Ambassador launched in Brussels appeared first on Brussels Express.

Held every year since 2006 in a different city, the Brussels Days aim to promote everything the capital of Europe has to offer, in terms of tourism, investment, technology, professional support, etc. This year’s mission focused on tourism, eco-construction, the Brussels hip-hop scene, gastronomy, new technologies and creative industries (fashion & design). A unique opportunity for different Brussels and US professionals to exchange views and glimpse possible future collaborations.

150,000 employees in the United States depend on Belgian investors while American investments in Belgium generate 126,000 jobs. 22,000 Belgians live in the United States while 40,000 Americans live in Belgium. Brussels and Washington are part (with Dubai and Singapore) of the Global Association Hubs Partnership to collaborate in hosting international associative events.

In the field of tourism the figures are also eloquent. Numerous American tourists travel to the capital. No less than 403,326 overnight stays were recorded in 2017, an increase of 28% over the previous year. Whether for business tourism (45%) or leisure (55%), American visitors are keen to spend a few nights in the European capital. The American market is the 6th largest market in terms of tourism and represents 6% of overnight stays in Brussels.

A number of companies and official American representatives were invited to the event. Over 120 people flocked to the ambassador’s residence. selected people from the Region met Rachid Madrane, the Minister of the Wallonie-Brussels Region in charge of promoting Brussels, at the event. He had already taken part in the talk“The Belgian Aesthetic and the Power of Visual Storytelling” a meeting between the famous Brussels photographer Pierre Debusschere and the New Yorker Katharine Zarella organized by MAD Brussels. During the afternoon, in random fashion, several meetings put the Brussels calendar in sync with New York’s: Alive animation on THE LOT RADIO in Brooklyn, simulcast on KIOSK RADIO in Brussels, with the Brussels band STIKSTOF. The evening ended with an event that paired with handcrafted beers. Over 300 people took part in the various events that day.

On Wednesday 23 May, after “The Algorithm Economy”, a MAD Fashion Business Trip workshop and a workshop between the Brussels and New York authorities on skills exchange regarding passive construction, the winners of the Ice Box Challenge were announced. Since 21 April, two hermetically sealed containers, each containing a ton of ice, had been standing at the crossroads of Broadway and 40th Street these ice boxes was made using classic construction methods and the other a passive method. The results: When the containers were opened on 23 May, the “classic” container still held 7% of the ice originally placed in it while the passive container had42%. The public had been invited to vote on them to win gifts from Brussels, such as a Godiva gift box, tastings of Brussels beers at BXL Zoute, a Brussels restaurant on 22nd Street in New York, a shared bicycle subscription and, of course, a trip to Brussels!

To end these Brussels Days, an exclusive held in the prestigious setting of the Irving Plaza. Entitled“Beats by Brussels”, it featured the Brussels rappers Veence Hanao and STIKSTOF and the young New York rapper, Young M.A. Over 500 people came to the Irving Plaza, filling it to the brim for the occasion. Lastly, some meetings of note took place on Thursday 24 May: a talk on the theme“Scaling up High Performance Buildings: Brussels and New York lead the Way toward more Sustainable Cities”, the New York version of the event organized on 21 May in Washington, a MAD workshop, a lunch with the partners of the Ice Box Challenge and a visit to a passive house on Roosevelt Island. This tightly packed programme allowed the visitors from Brussels to forge some strong links in the key areas around the regional capital.

The post The Brussels Days in Washington and New York appeared first on Brussels Express.

Every city or place has a lot of things to say. But not all of them really communicates with you. Now, New York is a city that has so much to express and will not stop until it gets the message across. It will provoke thought, induce laughter, even rattle your sensibilities. It ultimately reminds you to take a pause, pay attention, stay in the present moment, and appreciate the beauty and fun of the here and now. It’s just what makes NYC, NYC.

Here are some ways the Big Apple has been hijacking my attention and reminding me that I’m on vacation these past few days.

Okay, good to know.

Okay, if you say so.

So this is how it’s going to be when machines take over the world.

Don’t cha, babe.

Something to ponder while sitting on a bench at Central Park.

Waiter, one order of disco fries please. Alors, on danse.

Read the handwriting on the projector!

More awesome, you mean.

“We’re not sure. We haven’t checked with the other cafes yet.”

Don’t forget, it’s Mother’s Day soon.

Perfect. I’m in the mood for some et cetera.

Please stay in business forever.

Ladies, unite.

Have mercy on the plumber, will you?

Where you can have your nails done while checking your email.

So do we. We’re just on vacation at the moment, okay.

Right, mom?

Is it 3 PM yet?!

Pu*%#@, je t’aime aussi!

The post Things you see in New York City appeared first on Brussels Express.

Democrats Abroad will join a diverse cross-section of American students and Belgian residents to demand stronger U.S. gun legislation this Saturday, March 24, at 3 p.m. in Brussels’ Place de la Monnaie. The rally, March for Our Lives, is a sister event to those demonstrations happening in Washington, D.C., and in more than 800 other cities worldwide.

Miles Herszenhorn, a 15-year old high school student from the U.S. currently living in Brussels, is a lead organizer of the event. He is concerned for the safety of his five school-aged cousins living in America, and commented:

“People everywhere are dismayed by gun violence in the U.S. Students around the globe recognize that everyone should feel safe in school, and I hope we send a strong message to American students: The international community hears you and supports you.”

Since the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, which left 17 dead, Democrats Abroad Belgium has been contacted by members and non-members alike who are interested in taking action. They want to express solidarity with the student activists who continue to call for stronger gun legislation. As thousands are preparing to march in Washington and across America this weekend, many believe that U.S. public opinion on gun control has, finally, reached a tipping point.

Pauline Manos, Chair of Democrats Abroad Belgium, said the following:

“Gun control in the U.S. is a non-partisan issue that affects us all. As a mother about to send her son to the U.S. on a study-abroad program, I can’t help but be concerned for his safety. Yet I’m also inspired by these young student activists, who for the first time are presenting a credible challenge to the power of the National Rifle Association. The NRA has blocked sensible gun reform for years, but Democrats Abroad is working hard to register U.S. citizens abroad to vote out the NRA-funded members of Congress in this year’s midterm elections.” 

 Gun control is among the many issues expected to influence the upcoming U.S. midterm elections. American citizens who are at least 18 years old as of Election Day (November 6, 2018 for most elections) can exercise their support for sensible gun legislation.

Herszenhorn reports a great deal of interest in the rally among his peers, who believe that change is long overdue. He added:

“I feel very lucky to live in Belgium. American kids shouldn’t have to move abroad to feel safe in school.”  

Herszenhorn, as well as spokespersons for Democrats Abroad, will be available for comment on Saturday in Place de la Monnaie

The post Youth activists Bring « March for Our Lives » to Brussels for US gun reform appeared first on Brussels Express.