A North Dakota artist on Wednesday said that he has scrapped his plans for a mural honoring Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg following boycott threats against a Bismarck business.
Shane Balkowitsch had planned to put a 2.1m-tall mural of Thunberg on the brick exterior wall of a bakery. Balkowitsch took the photograph of the teenager when she visited the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in October last year.
Balkowitsch told the Bismarck Tribune that he saw the planned mural as a celebration of art, not a dig at oil or coal companies in North Dakota.
However, after threats of boycotts and possible vandalism appeared when KFYR-TV posted a story about the planned mural on its Facebook page on Tuesday, Balkowitsch said on Wednesday that he had pulled his application with the city.
“There was no motivation other than install a very important piece of history that was captured here in North Dakota, in Bismarck, but I guess Bismarck doesn’t want it,” Balkowitsch said.
Balkowitsch had secured permission for the mural from the bakery and the building’s owner. City planning staff had recommended approval, according to city documents.
“I feel for the bakery,” Balkowitsch said.
“I can’t have some business being threatened for my work,” he said.
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
RSS