The Ismailía underpass in which the Biscayan cooperative has participated for three years is one of the largest works in Egypt
The construction of the Ismailia tunnels presented great technical difficulty, as they ran under the Suez Canal. / epa
CARMEN LARRAKOETXEA
Over three long years of work, the team has been developed by the Biscayan cooperative group Ondoan to complete one of the largest infrastructure works that have been built in Egypt: the two Ismailia tunnels that serve the new high-capacity highway that runs to 60 meters below the Suez Canal. The city of Ism
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18 kilometers long and plunged 30 meters to the bottom of the Baltic Sea, it will link Denmark and Germany. Its delivery is expected in 2029.
An XXL scale Lego submarine. It is precisely in the land of the giant of children’s beloved bricks, Denmark, that the construction of the longest submerged tunnel in the world begins on Friday. 17.6 kilometers long, it will link Denmark to Germany, between Rodbyhavn, a town in the south of the island of Zealand, where the Danish capital is located, Copenhagen, and Puttgarden, in Schleswig-Holstein.
The two countries have a land border, but the new structure will avoid a detour of 160 kilometers through the Danish region of Jylland or an hour by ferry.
Read also :A giant tunnel boring machine for the Grand Paris Express site
The French giant Vinci heads the consortium of ten companies working on this pharaonic project. The technique chosen is not that of the huge tunnel boring machines that dig a tunnel, as was the case under the Channel or for the new railways linked to the Grand Paris Express, currently under construction. The Danish authorities have opted for a set of concrete elements, which will be towed and then
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The Prado Museum glimpses some light in the dark and long tunnel of the pandemic. The approval of the General State Budgets supposes a respite for the bicentennial institution, asphyxiated by the freezing of some public contributions to its coffers that compromised its short-term plans. Its director, Miguel Falomir, now faces the year that is about to begin with some confidence. Time and circumstances play in your favor. The public contribution almost doubles and it will be able to tackle the ambitious rearrangement of the permanent collection, resume the calendar for the expansion of the Salón de Reinos and recover the exhibitions suspended or postponed by the coronavirus.
The State increases its contribution to the museum from 15 to 28 million euros and extraordinary credits have been approved for the expansion of the Salón de Reinos signed by Norman Foster and Carlos Rubio, the museum’s greatest challenge since Moneo’s intervention in Los Jerónimos. In addition, part of the European funds for technological development will arrive, which will represent another 21 million over five years. «The pandemic emptied the museum rooms and their coffers. We have lived off the savings so far, but they were running out just when the budgets were approved. “The Government perfectly understood the situation we were in and has doubled the contribution to the museum,” Falomir thanks.
“We are going to schedule all the exhibitions that we postpone or suspend due to the pandemic,” he says. “In addition, throughout 2021 we will reorder the permanent collection, which we will see in a quite different way,” he adds. Announces a series of “very important” interventions that “have a lot to do with the redesign that was made because of the pandemic.”
“When presenting ‘Reencuentros’, we said that it was a way of sounding the reception of the public in a different way of seeing the museum’s collections. The response has been very positive and has convinced us that we were on the right track ”, congratulates the director of the art gallery. The part of the 19th century painting will be opened first, “which will change completely”, and “interventions planned for this year and that we have not been able to complete” will be addressed. “At last” ‘Prado 200’ will be created, a project dedicated to “thinking about the museum’s history, homologated with other large foreign museums that have this type of space” and which will be located where the Dolphin Treasure was. The Ionic galleries, parallel to the large central gallery, will also be recovered as exhibition spaces for classical sculpture.
American Art
The exhibition season will start in March with ‘Mythological Passions’, followed by an exhibition dedicated to Marinus van Reymerswale, a great of Flemish painting. But the big bet will be ‘Tornaviaje’, an exhibition “that will welcome American art to the museum, absent from the Prado since its foundation,” according to Falomir. There will also be a small ‘dossier’ exhibition on ‘La Gioconda’ in the Prado, an unknown jewel of the museum “that will allow us to study the working formula of Leonardo’s workshop” and another dedicated to Annibale Carracci. Organized together with the MNAC and the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, “it will rebuild the Roman Herrera Chapel, whose 16 frescoes were removed at the beginning of the 20th century and distributed between Madrid and Barcelona.”
The providential economic injection also makes it possible to resume the calendar for the expansion of the museum. “At the end of November, the Foster and Rubio study delivered the final version of the project, and, apart from the ordinary budget, an extraordinary line of credit has been approved, so that we can meet the deadlines,” says Falomir. In the next few months the work will be put out to tender “and if all goes well and there are no clouds on the horizon, as it seems it will be, by November next year the works could begin” he anticipates. The Prado has been working on the building for a couple of years, restoring the paintings and consolidating some parts of its structure. “We have not stopped even in the hardest moments of the pandemic,” says Falomir. He is confident that the deadlines will stick and that “hopefully in four or five years it will be a reality.” “All taking into account that it is a historical building and that, in these cases, you know when you start, but there can always be surprises,” he concludes.
The Prado Museum glimpses some light in the dark and long tunnel of the pandemic. The approval of the General State Budgets supposes a respite for the bicentennial institution, suffocated by the freezing of public contributions to its coffers that compromised its short-term plans. Its director, Miguel Falomir, now faces the year that is about to begin with some confidence. Time and circumstances play in your favor. The public contribution almost doubles and it will be able to address the ambitious reorganization of the permanent collection, resume the calendar for the expansion of the Salón de Reinos and recover the exhibitions suspended or postponed by the coronavirus.
The State increases its contribution to the museum from 15 to 28 million euros and extraordinary credits have been approved for the expansion of the Salón de Reinos signed by Norman Foster and Carlos Rubio, the museum’s greatest challenge since Moneo’s intervention in Los Jerónimos. In addition, part of the European funds for technological development will arrive, which will mean another 21 million over five years. «The pandemic emptied the museum rooms and their coffers. We have lived off the savings so far, but they were running out just when the budgets were approved. “The Government perfectly understood the situation we were in and has doubled the contribution to the museum”, thanks Falomir.
“We are going to schedule all the exhibitions that we postpone or suspend due to the pandemic,” he says. “In addition, throughout 2021 we will reorder the permanent collection, which we will see in a quite different way” he adds. Announces a series of “very important” interventions that “have a lot to do with the redesign that was made because of the pandemic.”
“When presenting ‘Reencuentros’, we said that it was a way of sounding the reception of the public in a different way of seeing the museum’s collections. The response has been very positive and has convinced us that we were on the right track ”, congratulates the director of the art gallery. The part of the nineteenth century painting will be opened first, “which will change completely”, and “interventions planned for this year and that we have not been able to complete” will be addressed. “At last” ‘Prado 200’ will be created, a project devoted “to thinking about the history of the museum, homologated with other large foreign museums that have this type of space” and which will be located where the Dolphin Treasure was. The Ionic galleries, parallel to the large central gallery, will also be recovered as exhibition spaces for classical sculpture.
American Art
The exhibition season will start in March with ‘Mythological Passions’, followed by an exhibition dedicated to Marinus van Reymerswale, a great of Flemish painting. But the big bet will be ‘Tornaviaje’, an exhibition “that will welcome American art to the museum, absent from the Prado since its foundation,” according to Falomir. There will also be a small ‘dossier’ exhibition on ‘La Gioconda’ in the Prado, an unknown jewel of the museum “which will allow us to study the operating formulas of Leonardo’s workshop” and another dedicated to Annibale Carracci. Organized together with the MNAC and the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, “it will rebuild the Roman Herrera Chapel, whose 16 frescoes were removed at the beginning of the 20th century and distributed between Madrid and Barcelona.”
The providential economic injection also makes it possible to resume the calendar for the expansion of the museum. “At the end of November, the Foster and Rubio studio delivered the final version of the project, and, apart from the ordinary budget, an extraordinary line of credit has been approved, so that we can meet the deadlines,” says Falomir. In the coming months the work will be put out to tender “and if all goes well and there are no clouds on the horizon, as it seems it will be, the works could begin by November next year” he anticipates. The Prado has been working on the building for a couple of years, restoring the paintings and consolidating some parts of its structure. “We have not stopped even in the hardest moments of the pandemic,” says Falomir. He trusts that the deadlines will be maintained and that, “hopefully, in four or five years it will be a reality.” “All taking into account that it is a historic building and that, in these cases, you know when you start, but there can always be surprises,” he concludes.
The controversial Fehmarnbelt tunnel can be built on the German side. The Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has dismissed all six lawsuits against the German-Danish billion project.
The judgment is final. The plan approval decision had withstood the review, said the presiding judge Wolfgang Bier on Tuesday when giving reasons for the judgment in Leipzig. The nature conservation association NABU, several ferry companies and an action alliance, among others, had sued the billion-dollar project promoted by Denmark (Ref .: BVerwG 9 A 7.19 et al.). They doubt that the tunnel would be used sufficiently and fear environmental effects, for example on harbor porpoises and reefs in the straits. However, the envisaged conditions ensure that neither for shipping nor for nature are to be expected major risks or impairments, according to the court. For example, porpoises would not be disturbed by the noise.
NABU: concerns have been “wiped away”
The 9th Senate of the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig paved the way for the construction of the tunnel.
In addition, the developer had exercised the necessary care in planning, said the presiding judge. This ensures that the sediment input from the construction work of measuring ships is observed and that the project can be interrupted or stopped if necessary. “We are initially disappointed that the court has not followed our concerns about the protection of the Baltic Sea, porpoises and sea ducks,” said NABU President Jörg-Andreas Krüger after the judgment. The concerns of the conservationists have been wiped away. Karin Neumann from the so-called Beltretter initiative fears dramatic consequences for the island itself and tourism on Fehmarn after the judgment. Many livelihoods are at stake: “The verdict for the Fehmarnbelt tunnel is a scandal. Simply put contracts before European marine protection and other things. We have to let that sink now.” Nevertheless, the initiative wants to see what other options still exist.
Pragmatism among Danish conservationists
Before the verdict was announced in Leipzig, opponents again protested against the construction of the tunnel – a construction that Danish environmentalists view very pragmatically. They are committed to the fact that not a bridge crosses the Fehmarnbelt – as was once planned – but a tunnel through which trains can travel. That is good for the climate. For the pond, where the tunnel is to come to the surface on the Danish side, a significantly larger body of water is created elsewhere to compensate. That is also a good solution, according to the Danish conservationists. You have great understanding for the concerns on the German side, said nature conservationist Michael Loevendal Kruse NDR Info. “But in order for our world to become better, we have to solve the big problems, for example climate change.”
Building law in Denmark for five years
The excavators are already rolling on the Danish side. Construction of the tunnel is planned to start there in early 2021.
In Denmark there has been building law for car and rail tunnels since 2015. Schleswig-Holstein’s neighbor will plan, build and operate the tunnel at its own cost of an estimated 7.1 billion euros. The construction time should be a total of six and a half years. According to previous planning, the tunnel should probably connect Germany and Denmark from 2029 onwards.
Surprise for plaintiff and country
The judgment of the court came as a surprise. NABU, for example, no longer expected that the project would be overturned – but that deficits in planning were criticized in Leipzig. Even Schleswig-Holstein’s Economics Minister Bernd Buchholz (FDP) had declared that the judges would presumably give the planners “homework”. According to the court, the plans now only need to be supplemented for strictly protected reefs in the area of the tunnel route. The planners have already promised a supplementary procedure for this. The decision of the judges in Leipzig shows that transport projects of this size can certainly work in Germany, said Buchholz. With its decision, the Federal Administrative Court made it clear that it is not necessary to go “quasi-scientifically into research” with such planning. It is enough to evaluate things according to the rules of technology and science. The verdict is a “milestone for infrastructure planning in Germany”.
Contract signed in 2008
The planned 18 kilometer long immersed tunnel between Puttgarden on Fehmarn and Rödby on Lolland is one of the largest transport projects in Europe. In 2008, Germany and Denmark signed the State Treaty on the Fixed Link across the Fehmarnbelt – the treaty was ratified a year and three months later. The economy hopes that the construction will give a boost to regional development.
This is how the planned Fehmarnbelt link should run.
The president of the business associations in the north (UVNord), Uli Wachholtz, spoke after the verdict was pronounced “a construction of the century over the Fehmarnbelt, for which the north German economy has been waiting longingly for decades”. Now the other necessary steps would have to be processed quickly and carefully, said Wachholtz. “At last, everyone involved knows what they are about. The opportunities for the region resulting from the fixed link must be used and the risks minimized. The employees in the sectors concerned must not stand in the rain and need clarity,” said Uwe Polkaehn, chairman of the DGB North.
The tunnel is also intended to shorten travel times: between Rödby and Puttgarden from 45 minutes by ferry to around ten minutes by car through the tunnel. According to DB Netz, passenger trains between Hamburg and Copenhagen would only be under three hours on the road instead of more than five hours.
Hinterland connection not part of the procedure
Germany has to pay for the costs of road and rail connections on the Schleswig-Holstein side in the amount of 3.5 billion euros. This includes a risk buffer of 1.1 billion euros. However, the current proceedings only concern the German section of the Baltic Sea tunnel. The German hinterland connection is the subject of a separate approval process. Several municipalities are demanding better noise protection.
Other lawsuits are pending before the European Court of Justice. But it is about Denmark’s state guarantees.
VIDEO: Buchholz: No major hurdles for building the Fehmarnbelt link (6 min)
Further information
The Federal Administrative Court dismissed all lawsuits against the construction of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel. We answer the most important questions. more
15 Min
The Fehmarnbelt tunnel project is controversial. The Federal Administrative Court will soon decide on lawsuits from environmentalists and residents. Can construction start in 2021? 15 minutes
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NDR 1 Welle Nord | News for Schleswig-Holstein | 03/11/2020 | 17:00 o’clock
Dhe Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig paved the way for the controversial Fehmarnbelt tunnel under the Baltic Sea in a surprisingly clear judgment on Tuesday. As the competent chamber announced, it has dismissed six lawsuits with which project opponents had attacked the project legally. This means that the controversial new traffic artery can also be built on the German side. The plan approval decision had withstood the review, said the presiding judge Wolfgang Bier during the reasoning in Leipzig, where the court had specially rented a congress hall to give the many participants and process observers enough space under Corona conditions.
The project aims to bring Northern and Central Europe closer together by crossing the Fehmarnbelt, a strait between the Danish island of Lolland and Fehmarn in the western Baltic Sea, with fixed roads and rails. An almost 18 kilometer long tunnel, so the arguments of the planners, shortens the transit of cars and trucks compared to ferry transport from 45 to 10 minutes. Trains from Hamburg to Copenhagen should only take three hours instead of the previous four and a half hours. The cost of the project is expected to be at least 10 billion euros, with most of it from Denmark. According to the current status, the tunnel should be finished in 2028 or 2029.
Lawsuits from environmental associations and ferry lines
In his reasoning for the judgment, Judge Bier rejected many of the plaintiffs’ arguments. In this way – contrary to what has been suggested by environmentalists – protected porpoises or eiders are not impaired to the extent that a planning stop is necessary. The same applies to specially protected reefs, which were recently found by scientists from the University of Kiel near the planned route on the sea floor. One could not expect an analysis “in the depth of a scientific project” from developers for a building project, he said, so the findings did not retroactively question the planning decisions.
Image: dpa, Femern A / S, Deutsche Bahn
However, that doesn’t mean that the reefs can be ignored, Bier restricted. If the construction project threatens to damage them, the developers would have to reschedule, he said. Another procedure has already been announced. The Danish company Femern A / S is responsible for the project. She has already started the first preparations on the Danish island of Lolland. A large factory is now to be built there to manufacture components for the tunnel, each of which is 217 meters long, 42 meters wide and weighs 73,500 tons. These parts are pulled out into the Baltic Sea, lowered into a ditch dug on the seabed and connected to the element in front of it.
The plaintiffs before the Federal Administrative Court included not only environmental associations, but also the city of Fehmarn and other people affected. Several ferry lines had also sued, including the shipping company Scandlines. Her existence is threatened by the tunnel. Richter Bier said, however, that Scandlines as a company “has no right to maintain the status quo”. The interests of the shipping company are “sufficiently taken into account” in the planning.
Cai Changpan, a 53-year-old Chinese man sentenced to death for drug trafficking, escaped from a prison in the city of Tangerang, in Baten province (Indonesia), before being executed.
According to the local media ‘Jakarta Post’, the man dug a tunnel from his cell, for six months, with stolen construction tools. And there he fled.
“We have confiscated several objects with which he would have made the hole“Indonesian Police spokesman Yusri Yunus told reporters.
(You may also be interested in: The punishment of the ‘sharia’: women who flagellate others).
The authorities have already formed a team to investigate the case, as it is believed that prison staff participated.
(If you visit us from the app you can see the video here).
(You can read: Indonesian doctor rescues abandoned dogs during pandemic).
The director of the Tangerang Penitentiary told the ‘Jakarta Post’ that the tunnel through which the man escaped was 30 meters long and was connected to a sewer outside the prison walls.
Following the incident, Andika Dwi Prasetya, the head of the regional office in Baten province of the Ministry of Human Rights and Law, suggested executing Cai Changpan once he is captured again.
Just enforce the (judge’s) verdict immediately
(Also read: Floods in Indonesia leave 21 dead and more than 30,000 evacuated).
He also said that the Ministry was cooperating with the police and the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) to recapture the fugitive, who had already once been caught trying to escape from his cell.
The man was convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to death in 2017.
The Fehmarnbelt tunnel is intended to connect northern Germany and Denmark. Before that, however, the Federal Administrative Court must decide whether the plans for the huge transport project are legal.
A tiny hill that men have made immense: the Croix-Rousse, in Lyon. The district of canuts, “Voraces”, workers, forgotten, oppressed. The rock where we work, as opposed to Fourvière, the other hill in Lyon, the one where we pray. The poor for once on the balcony, with a view of the city and its sparkles. The Tour climbed the flanks on Saturday for a 14e Insurrectionary stage with great effects, 174 kilometers from Clermont-Ferrand. Dane Soren Kragh (Team Sunweb) wins solo with 15 seconds, while Slovenian Primoz Roglic (Jumbo Visma) still wears the yellow jersey.
La Croix-Rousse is a simple “firecracker” according to cycling language. Very far from the large stock of TNT in the Alps, the Pyrenees or Puy-Mary, the Auvergne pass climbed on Friday and which did not ignite the same flame among the runners. On the old volcano, they pedaled in slow motion, in a vacuum, at the end of everything. The attacks were made from the rear rather than the front: Egan Bernal, the Colombian climber, was sent off with a broken leg. A grandiose climb does not necessarily deliver a grandiose race. This cycling law of nature also applies to Croix-Rousse, barely more than a false flat, 1.4 kilometers of climb at 4.8% average slope, but a launch pad for festive rockets. A hairpin bend on the left turns into a slingshot. Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick Step) accelerates in the curve and overspeed in the opposite line. There is a joyous panic. The Tour on this humble pebble regains a little life.
Cheerfulness in his spleen
Saturday was not a chapter of a novel but a short story written in a tight cafe. Not a grand tour stage but a one-day event, a classic, with its rules, its rhythm, its men. Soren Kragh is a former winner of Paris-Tours, the classic of wind, vines and embankments. The Dane starts 3 kilometers from the finish when his opponents, worn out by attacks and their own nerves, slow down and look at each other. His team, Team Sunweb, had previously clawed the peloton 8 kilometers from the line, in the Côte de la Duchère, barely harder than Croix-Rousse (1.4 kilometers at 5.6%). The Belgian Tiesj Benoot, virtuoso of cobbled races, poses an attack. Peter Sagan and Greg Van Avermaet, Paris-Roubaix winners, are on the lookout. Then the hilly classic hunters, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the others, mingle in the whirlwind: David Gaudu, Marc Hirschi, Lennard Kämna, the experienced Thomas De Gendt and especially Julian Alaphilippe, who sets off for the rise of the Cross. Redhead while there are five kilometers left. The peloton, wrung out by crossing the Forez mountains, under the rhythm of the Bora-Hansgrohe team, is only made up of fifty riders.
The finish is that of a classic too. Quai Jean-Moulin, with a small tunnel, a wide road and the Rhône flowing on the left. The water catches the light. The classic cyclists are worth a lot for their land, their season. So their light. It wasn’t the deceptively warm white of a low-energy light bulb like in July, but a mish-mash of rare old coins, silver on the ground, gold on the horizon, a pressed sun. The race finds a little cheerfulness in its diffuse spleen, a beautiful reflection of autumn. Sunday, between Lyon and the Grand-Colombier (Ain), it will resume the weave of its great languid passes where it still believes it is producing its exploits, including the climb of the Selle de Fromentel and its record passage measured at 22%.
Pierre Carrey special correspondent for the Tour de France in Lyon (Rhône)
Switzerland inaugurated the Ceneri tunnel on Friday. The structure is part of a large European railway project which is delayed by Germany.
The 15.4 kilometer long tunnel “represents the centerpiece of the most important rail corridor between the North Sea and the Mediterranean,” said Confederation President Simonetta Sommaruga in her inaugural address.
After cutting the ribbon, the first train – an International Cargo in transit from Germany to Italy, passed through the tunnel on Friday morning at 11:34 am. The work passes under the Alps, on the Italian border.
Together with the already existing Swiss tunnels of Gotthard and Loetschberg, the Ceneri allows trains to cross the mountain range without encountering steep slopes.
The purpose of these three tunnels is to link the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp to that of Genoa in Italy.
While Switzerland has completed its share of the work and Italy has almost completed its section of the rail link, Germany is lagging behind. The road linking the German city of Karlsruhe to the Swiss border town of Basel has yet to change from two to four lanes. The work is expected to last at least another 15 years as many residents living along the tracks have appealed for the project.
Faced with these delays, Switzerland has started discussions with France on the possibility of using a French rail line in northern Switzerland instead.
In an interview with Italian Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (RSI), Simonetta Sommaruga called on Germany to make additional efforts to shift freight traffic from road to rail. “Switzerland is ahead in this area,” said Sommaruga. “We not only spoke, but acted and we did it for the protection of the environment, for the climate”.
