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Annak idején, 2020-ban sokat emlegetett kifejezés volt a maszkdiplomácia. Kína, a koronavírus-fertőzés globális elterjedésének okozójának imidzse helyett az egész világot védőeszközökkel ellátó jótevő országnak próbálta feltüntetni magát. Mára eljött az oltóanyag-diplomácia ideje.

Két éve dolgozik a kormány a magyarországi hadiipar újraélesztésén, e szempontból hat területre osztották Magyarországot. A repülőgépipar központja Békéscsaba és Gyula lehet – mondta Palkovics László innovációs és technológiai miniszter.

A tárcavezető Gyulán megtekintette az épülő Airbus gyárat, Békéscsabán pedig a repülőtér fejlesztése mellett szakképzési kérdésekről egyeztetett. A látogatás végén kifejtette, hogy a gyártelepítés sikeréhez fejleszteni kell a békéscsabai repülőteret, emellett biztosítani kell egyetemi és szakképzési szinten is a megfelelő repüléstechnikai oktatói tudást, továbbá szükség van a képzési eszközpark fejlesztésére és a már elvándorolt szakemberek visszacsábítására – húzta alá.

A békéscsabai repülőtér fejlesztésének előkészítésére tavaly év végén 154 millió forintot biztosított a kormány, jelenleg dolgozzák ki a részletes terveket, információk szerint szó van a futópálya 1800, illetve 2500 méteres meghosszabbításáról is. A tényleges munkálatok várhatóan jövőre indulnak. Ezzel kapcsolatban Palkovics úgy fogalmazott: a repülőteret alkalmassá kell tenni cargo és business utazásokhoz is, ez magával hozza, hogy sport céloknak is meg fog felelni.

A Békéscsabai Szakképzési Centrum (BSZC) Trefort Ágostonról elnevezett tagintézményében e hónapban indult el a közel 2,2 milliárd forintos fémipari képzőközpont kialakítása, amely a térség legmodernebb méréstechnikai és anyagvizsgáló laboratóriuma, automatizációs és szimulációs kabinetje lesz. A központ létrehozásának szükségességét kifejezetten a Gyulára települő Airbus-beruházás vetette fel, a cég számára itt képzik majd a szakembereket. Ide mintegy egymilliárd forintból olyan eszközöket telepítenek, amelyek kezelését jelenleg főként külföldön lehet megtanulni.

A miniszter elmondása szerint egyetemi szinten a Békésben jelen lévő Gál Ferenc Egyetem és partnerei, a Budapesti Műszaki Egyetem, a Debreceni és a Szegedi Tudományegyetem “meg tudják jeleníteni a képzés elemeit”. A tárcavezető reményét fejezte ki, hogy Békéscsabán és környékén tíz év múlva olyan környezet alakul ki, mint amilyent Kecskeméten a Mercedes beruházása indított el. “A kormányzat ehhez minden támogatást megad” – hangsúlyozta.

Mucsi Balázs, a BSZC főigazgatója elmondta, a nagy gyárakkal és a beszállítókkal zajló tárgyalásokon egyértelműen látszik, hogy leginkább magasan képzett szakemberekre van szükség, ezért szeretnék erősíteni a technikumi és az okleveles technikusi képzéseiket, és a tudásközpontok révén hidat képezni a felsőoktatási intézményekkel.

Szarvas Péter, Békéscsaba polgármestere elmondta, a repülőtérnek regionális szerepet szánnak, zéró emissziójú, úgynevezett Greenportot terveznek kialakítani, amely a legkorszerűbb irányítástechnikával és kiszolgáló létesítményekkel rendelkezik.

Görgényi Ernő, Gyula polgármestere azt emelte ki, hogy a városban a relégyár 1979-es megnyitása óta nem jött létre termelő üzem, így a város, és a térség számára is kiemelten fontos az Airbus-gyár építése, amely már folyamatban van, és a tervek szerint 2022 tavaszán a termelés is elindulhat. A kormányzati támogatással létrejött beruházás az ipar és a szakképzés együttes fejlesztését jelenteni, amely a magasabb bérekkel a térség vonzerejét is növelni tudja – húzta alá. Úgy fogalmazott: “Gyula és Békéscsaba legszebb napjai csak ezután következnek”.

Takács Árpád Békés megyei kormánymegbízott hangsúlyozta, a kormányhivatal – lévén kiemelt beruházásról van szó – valamennyi hatósági eljárást, engedélyezést, szakhatósági véleményt soron kívül, gyorsított eljárásban végez.

The post Hadiipar újraélesztése: hat területre osztották Magyarországot appeared first on .

In today's edition of the Capitals, find out more about Croatia and Finland finding a new COVID-strain, Austria's interior ministry threatening to sue an activist, and so much more.

L’artiste compositeur guinéen Moussa Sandiana Kaba alias « Grand P » aime beaucoup les femmes. En effet, le jeune comédien malien Souleymane Keïta connu sous le nom de scène Kanté, avait fait une vidéo sur les réseaux sociaux dans laquelle, il demandait à Grand P de laisser tranquille sa femme. le chéri à Eudoxie Yao […]

L’article Grand P a-t-il encore trahi Eudoxie pour la femme de Kanté ? est apparu en premier sur Afrik.com.

Written by Magdalena Pasikowska-Schnass,

© Fundació Mies van der Rohe, 2021

The EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture (also known as the EU Mies Award) was launched in recognition of the importance and quality of European architecture. Named after German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, a figure emblematic of the Bauhaus movement, it aims to promote functionality, simplicity, sustainability and social vision in urban construction.

Background

Mies van der Rohe was the last director of the Bauhaus school. The official lifespan of the Bauhaus movement in Germany was only fourteen years. It was founded in 1919 as an educational project devoted to all art forms. By 1933, when the Nazi authorities closed the school, it had changed location and director three times. Artists who left continued the work begun in Germany wherever they settled.

Recognition by Unesco

The Bauhaus movement has influenced architecture all over the world. Unesco has recognised the value of its ideas of sober design, functionalism and social reform as embodied in the original buildings, putting some of the movement’s achievements on the World Heritage List. The original buildings located in Weimar (the Former Art School, the Applied Art School and the Haus Am Horn) and Dessau (the Bauhaus Building and the group of seven Masters’ Houses) have featured on the list since 1996. Other buildings were added in 2017.

The list also comprises the White City of Tel-Aviv. German-Jewish architects fleeing Nazism designed many of its buildings, applying the principles of modernist urban design initiated by Bauhaus.

Barcelona Pavilion – Mies van der Rohe Foundation

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the last director of this educational, artistic and experimental school, personified the vitality of Bauhaus. Forced to leave Germany in 1938, he moved to Chicago where, as head of the Illinois Institute of Technology, he helped to develop the ‘second’ Chicago School of Architecture, pushing back the limits of the original Chicago School’s approach to simplified form and ornamentation and the technological achievement of the day – 10-storey skyscrapers.

Not limiting himself to the design of simplified, rectilinear skyscraper buildings, van der Rohe pursued his work on the aesthetics of pavilions, already begun in Europe. Together with Lilly Reich, who was responsible for the interior design, he had created the German Pavilion for the 1929 International Exposition in Barcelona. The building, now known as the Barcelona Pavilion, represented the new aesthetics of simplicity, clarity and open spaces, embodying its architect’s guiding principle – ‘less is more’. The pavilion was dismantled once the exposition ended in 1930, but in 1983, work began to rebuild it on the basis of photographs and original drawings and plans. Barcelona City Hall set up the Fundació Mies van der Rohe to accompany the process. Three years later the pavilion became the foundation’s headquarters.

Mies van der Rohe award and EU prize

In 1988, two years after reconstruction of the Barcelona Pavilion was completed, the first edition of the biennial Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture was launched as a joint initiative of the European Commission and the Mayor of Barcelona. In 2001, the European Commission launched a call for proposals for a ‘European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture’. It was won by the Fundació Mies van der Rohe, whose vision for the award included the idea to recognise the work of young architects at the beginning of their professional careers.

Since then, the foundation has been co-organiser of the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture, which is awarded every other year for outstanding architectural works built across Europe (with a main prize of €60 000), and includes an ‘Emerging Architect Special Mention’ (€20 000). The prize is co-funded by the Creative Europe programme, the EU programme supporting culture. Nevertheless, despite recent efforts to popularise it through a dedicated app, and its logo featuring on the websites of winners, finalists, architectural studios and national architectural associations, the prize has a relatively low profile in the EU.

Selection criteria and jury

The award ceremony is held in May in the Barcelona Pavilion, headquarters of the Mies van der Rohe Foundation. A group of independent experts, the member associations of the Architects’ Council of Europe (ACE), other European national architects’ associations and an advisory committee nominate architectural works. The jury then evaluate all the nominations and present a selection of shortlisted and then finalists’ works. The opinions of the users of the architectural works are also taken into consideration.

The selection includes not only private homes and public housing, museums and cultural installations, but also educational, health and sports facilities, as well as large-scale infrastructure projects and transport systems contributing to the construction of European cities. The idea behind the prize is to promote sustainable architectural practice. It reflects the original inspiration of the Bauhaus movement of combining the social, cultural and economic aspects of architecture and the arts.

Recent developments

Recently the prize has reflected the guiding principle of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to do more with less. The approach corresponds to sustainability criteria, with a preference for building more with less material, at a lower cost. The overall objective is to improve people’s lives and the way people live together.

Nominated projects and winners – A variety of works

Conferences, events and exhibitions are held to promote the ‘technological, constructional, social, economic, cultural and aesthetic achievements’ present in nominated and winning projects.

The examples below bear witness to the recent sustainability requirements and the diverse nature of the projects submitted.

Selected winners of the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture:

• 2019 – Transformation of three housing blocks with 530 homes, Grand Parc Bordeaux, France
• 2017 – DeFlat Kleiburg, Amsterdam, Netherlands, transformation of the original building designed by Siegfried Nassuth in 1971, proposing new forms of ‘affordable housing’
• 2015 – Philharmonic Hall, Szczecin, Poland
• 2003 – Car Park and Terminus, Hoenheim North, Strasbourg, France.

Some of the winners of the Emerging Architect Special Mention:

• 2015 – Luz House, Cilleros, Spain, an extremely low-budget project built inside the stone party walls of an existing structure in a small village to create a contemporary dwelling environment using existing resources
• 2009 – Gymnasium 46°09’N/16°50’E, Koprivnica, Croatia, a mixed-use building combining sports hall and school, transforming the suburban periphery by creating an emblematic place for young people
• 2007 – Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The selection process for the 2021 edition had to be rescheduled because of Covid-19 restrictions. The 449 nominees were however announced in January 2021. The nominations reflect a huge variety of works and approaches and include: a metro line; a natural enclave with watchtowers in the area of a former gravel pit; a kindergarten; the revitalisation of former dragoon barracks; houses and a riding centre; a church; a hospital; a ballet school, a city cemetery, the transformation of a classical religious room into a new space for other activities, a daycare centre, a transport hub, an airport, timber dwellings, a home for the homeless, a graphic arts centre, an Olympic centre, a housing cooperative, a public pool, a waste-to-energy plant with an urban recreation centre; and, coming full circle, the expansion of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, named after a famous Hungarian photographer and designer from the Bauhaus movement.

Read this ‘at a glance’ on ‘EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture / Mies van der Rohe Award: A tribute to Bauhaus‘ in the Think Tank pages of the European Parliament.

Joe Biden will attend his first meeting as US president with Group of Seven leaders on Friday (19 February) to discuss plans to defeat the novel coronavirus, reopen the battered world economy and counter the challenge posed by China.

Les Lionceaux de l’Atlas du Maroc qui se sont difficilement imposés devant les Scorpions juniors de la Gambie (1-0), affronteront leurs homologues du Ghana, ce soir (19h00 GMT), pour le compte de la 2ème journée du groupe C. Une victoire face à la redoutable formation ghanéenne, serait synonyme de qualification pour les jeunes Marocains. Quinze […]

L’article CAN U20 (2021) : le Maroc pour arracher la qualification face au Ghana est apparu en premier sur Afrik.com.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi on Thursday (18 February) secured final parliamentary approval for his government of national unity, allowing him to focus on his country's unprecedented health and economic crisis.

Zuzana Čaputová államfő csütörtökön telefonon mondott köszönetet Alexander Van der Bellen osztrák államfőnek a felkínált segítségért a koronavírus-világjárvány elleni küzdelemben. Mindketten hangsúlyozták az óvintézkedések kiemelt fontosságát.

The Metropolitan of Zagreb and Ljubljana was elected the new patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church on Thursday, the Church has announced. Porfirije was elected during the Assembly at the Church of St. Sava in Belgrade. His predecessor, Patriarch Irinej,...

“We may be looking at the new, Croatian variant, of virus,” said Dr Oliver Vugrek, leader of the team of experts at the Ruđer Bošković Institute, who are still waiting for more data. According to the team’s research – based...

A delegation of the US embassy to Bucharest held talks with the chief prosecutor of Romania’s anti-corruption directorate, where the two discussed the anti-graft fight in Romania and the directorate’s role in the process. They also discussed cooperation between the...

About 800,000 or 16% of adult Bulgarians say they have been infected with COVID-19 although – since they did not disclose the information to their GPs – they are not listed in official statistics, according to data from the Gallup...

Slovakia’s major employers fear that Germany’s new border restrictions, which require truck drivers as of Sunday to present a negative COVID-19 test no older than 48 hours upon entering Germany from Austria or the Czech Republic, could “create major disruptions”,...

Czech Foreign Minister Tomáš Petříček (Social Democrats), who had planned to travel to Belgium by car to attend consultations with Czech representatives to the EU on 2 March will have trouble crossing the German border as Germany’s entry and transit...

The upper house of the Polish parliament rejected on Thursday the candidacy of Deputy Foreign Minister Piotr Wawrzyk (Law and Justice) for the position of Commissioner for Human Rights, who was already appointed on 22 January.  This means that the...

Cypriot MEP Costas Mavrides (S&D) has sent a letter to EU top diplomat Josep Borrell calling for an EU ban on Turkey’s extremist organisation “Grey Wolves” and its umbrella organisations across the bloc. The MEP has also launched a petition...

By Carole Küng
GENEVA, Feb 19 2021 (IPS)

According to the Sustainable Development Report 2020, Switzerland ranks at a shameful 163 of 165 in terms of so-called spillover effects. This means that Switzerland buys better sustainability scores in a number of areas, placing considerable burdens on other countries and the global environment.

By importing goods and services, we cause air pollution and biodiversity loss in the countries where the goods and services come from, for example by importing feedstuffs and synthetic fertilizers that we need for our intensive agriculture – especially our meat production.

In this way, we are not only concealing our own sustainability shortcomings; we are also limiting the ability of other countries to achieve their global sustainability goals.

What is Switzerland’s role in achieving the sustainability goals?

It is often said that Switzerland is too small to make a difference in the fight for sustainable development. Precisely because of the spillover effects, however, our enormous ecological footprint – and our considerable involvement in global financial flows that are detrimental to sustainability – demand that we increase our global responsibility.

Solutions need strong Swiss leadership. Sustainable Development Solutions Network Switzerland (SDSN), a UN initiative for implementing Agenda 2030 and the Paris Climate Agreement, wants to actively work towards achieving the sustainability goals and advocate for goal-oriented policies.

That is why we are participating in consultations and formulating proposals to improve the current strategy.

What is the general assessment of the strategy plan draft?

A positive aspect is that the strategy reflects a holistic understanding of sustainable development and provides valuable guidelines. However, the major shortcoming is that innovative ideas and goal-oriented solutions are lacking.

The strategy is mainly based on already existent practices and strategy areas, and beyond those it remains vague.

What does this mean concretely? What improvements does SDSN think the strategy needs?

We see this aspect as paramount at this time: Switzerland urgently needs to recognize and assume its global responsibility. This is the greatest leverage for achieving the sustainability goals.

On the one hand, it entails that Switzerland must reduce its global footprint, for example by rethinking consumption. Solutions for how to make life in Switzerland possible while considering the planet’s carrying capacity must be identified.

On the other hand, the strategy presented should address how illegitimate financial flows can be stopped.

Too much is based on voluntary action, which is inadequate – for example, the desire for a more sustainable banking and financial centre: despite progress, reality shows that regulations are necessary so that short-term economic interests do not detrimentally dominate people and the environment.

Moreover, the strategy has no financial plan. We therefore propose, among other things, that the federal coordination offices receive a budget.

Where is further action needed?

It must be ensured that sufficient resources flow into sustainability research and cross-cutting implementation projects. This is because research can identify effective paths to transformation and develop concrete proposals for more sustainable measures.

We also think that strategy should set more ambitious goals. In some cases, they are formulated more weakly than in the 17 global goals or are completely ignored. Here we call for more concrete definitions and recommendations for action for each sustainability goal.

What is the message to the federal government?

We need a strategy that is backed by the economy but also by the community, with goals that are not watered down – certainly not lower than the goals of Agenda 2030. We need a strategy that presents workable, sustainable solutions with a financial plan and effective controlling – not one that only ends up as an administrative report in a federal folder.

 

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The post Switzerland Buys itself Good Sustainability Scores at the Expense of Other Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

Excerpt:

Carole Küng is Co-Director of the Biovision-affiliated network Sustainable Development Solution Network Switzerland (SDSN). The network mobilises research institutes, civil society organisations, political decision makers and industries to develop solutions for implementing Agenda 2030 and the Paris Agreement in Switzerland.

The post Switzerland Buys itself Good Sustainability Scores at the Expense of Other Countries appeared first on Inter Press Service.

An increasing number of Greek artists have for days been reporting cases of sexual harassment in the world of sports, TV and theatre, exposing Greece’s well-hidden secret. A dozen of artists have publicly declared that they have been sexually harassed...

The new Estonian government and its foreign minister, Eva-Maria Liimets, have shown willingness to move towards formally solving the country’s border dispute with Russia and ensure it no longer remains the only EU country without a border treaty with Russia....