Latest news with #corridor
The Guardian
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
A poem by Grace Yee: ‘A well-known male poet sniggered at the title. I took this as a sign to keep it'
in this charming quarter, someone always loses a shoe (a sneaker, a croc, a gladiator sandal) on the last day of summer you waited for me by the green gates. I rode up on my bicycle (ticking spokes and trepidations) and you grinned from ear to ear – we are teeth we are cheese we are pets in the city! we stroll around the grounds weakly perpendicular without maps or navigations. you lie spreadeagled on the grass, my wings at your chest, the afternoon around us nonchalant. inside the windows are amber, blue and green, I don't see horses grazing in the fields, I don't hear cicadas mating. the corridor's a hushed limousine, your door yields shelves of braille, and your room is a pink-striped eiderdown – premium economy, you said – I laughed and you pushed me and I shrieked and we fell onto the bed and the eiderdown kicked us off and shook its feathers all around us 'snow' began with a dream I had more than 20 years ago. In the dream there were green gates, a bicycle and a pink-striped eiderdown. At the time, my children were very young and my relationship was breaking down. The dream was a brief reprieve, a mellow not unpleasant yearning. The highlight of my week then was a two-hour poetry class. It was there that I workshopped the first draft of 'snow', with its thinly veiled needs and apprehensions: 'friends', a 'red brick chapel', 'sticky feet' on 'cold linoleum'. I read an early version of the poem at my first ever public reading, an open mic event. There were well-known poets there, most of them men. When I announced the title, one of them sniggered. I took this as a sign to keep the title. When I revisited 'snow' this year, I began with the old dream notes and a journal I kept on a trip last year to my parents' ancestral villages in Guangdong, China. I was looking for in-the-world things to ground the original dreamscape. The 'pets in the city' are the kittens for sale on a street corner near the Qingping Medicine Market in Guangzhou; 'amber, blue and green' is from the stained glass 'four seasons' windows that adorn early 20th-century houses in the countryside near Taishan; and 'shelves of braille' is borrowed from the reading room for the visually impaired at the Baiyun Library. In terms of weight, 'snow' is much lighter than most of the poems I have written over the last few years. It is whimsical. I don't usually do whimsy. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion The final stanza has remained the same since the first draft – except for the phrase 'premium economy'. I like how this stanza begins with flight and ends with down. Australian Poetry Month runs throughout August and includes festivals, events, workshops and a commissioned poem of the day brought to you by Red Room Poetry. Find out more here
Asharq Al-Awsat
2 days ago
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Iran Threatens Planned Trump Corridor Envisaged by Azerbaijan-Armenia Peace Deal
Iran threatened on Saturday to block a corridor planned in the Caucasus under a regional deal sponsored by US President Donald Trump, Iranian media reported, raising a new question mark over a peace plan hailed as a strategically important shift. A top Azerbaijani diplomat said earlier that the plan, announced by Trump on Friday, was just one step from a final peace deal between his country and Armenia, which reiterated its support for the plan. The proposed Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) would run across southern Armenia, giving Azerbaijan a direct route to its exclave of Nakhchivan and in turn to Türkiye. The US would have exclusive development rights to the corridor, which the White House said would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources. It was not immediately clear how Iran, which borders the area, would block it but the statement from Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iran's supreme leader, raised questions over its security. He said military exercises carried out in northwest Iran demonstrated the country's readiness and determination to prevent any geopolitical changes. "This corridor will not become a passage owned by Trump, but rather a graveyard for Trump's mercenaries," Velayati said. Iran's foreign ministry earlier welcomed the agreement "as an important step toward lasting regional peace", but warned against any foreign intervention near its borders that could "undermine the region's security and lasting stability". Analysts and insiders say that Iran, under mounting US pressure over its disputed nuclear program and the aftermath of a 12-day war with Israel in June, lacks the military power to block the corridor. MOSCOW SAYS WEST SHOULD STEER CLEAR Trump welcomed Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the White House on Friday and witnessed their signing of a joint declaration aimed at drawing a line under their decades-long on-off conflict. Russia, a traditional broker and ally of Armenia in the strategically important South Caucasus region which is crisscrossed with oil and gas pipelines, was not included, despite its border guards being stationed on the border between Armenia and Iran. While Moscow said it supported the summit, it proposed "implementing solutions developed by the countries of the region themselves with the support of their immediate neighbors – Russia, Iran and Türkiye" to avoid what it called the "sad experience" of Western efforts to mediate in the Middle East. Azerbaijan's close ally, NATO member Türkiye, welcomed the accord. Baku and Yerevan have been at odds since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting almost all of the territory's 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. "The chapter of enmity is closed and now we're moving towards lasting peace," said Elin Suleymanov, Azerbaijan's ambassador to Britain, predicting that the wider region's prosperity and transport links would be transformed for the better. "This is a paradigm shift," said Suleymanov, who as a former envoy to Washington who used to work in President Aliyev's office, is one of his country's most senior diplomats. Suleymanov declined to speculate on when a final peace deal would be signed however, noting that Aliyev had said he wanted it to happen soon. There remained only one obstacle, said Suleymanov, which was for Armenia to amend its constitution to remove a reference to Nagorno-Karabakh. "Azerbaijan is ready to sign any time once Armenia fulfils the very basic commitment of removing its territorial claim against Azerbaijan in its constitution," he said. MANY QUESTIONS UNANSWERED Pashinyan this year called for a referendum to change the constitution, but no date for it has been set yet. Armenia is to hold parliamentary elections in June 2026, and the new constitution is expected to be drafted before the vote. The Armenian leader said on X that the Washington summit had paved the way to end the decades of conflict and open transport connections that would unlock strategic economic opportunities. Asked when the transit rail route would start running, Suleymanov said that would depend on cooperation between the US and Armenia whom he said were already in talks. Joshua Kucera, Senior South Caucasus analyst at International Crisis Group, said Trump may not have got the easy win he had hoped for as the agreements left many questions unanswered. The issue of Armenia's constitution continued to threaten to derail the process, and it was not clear how the new transport corridor would work in practice. "Key details are missing, including about how customs checks and security will work and the nature of Armenia's reciprocal access to Azerbaijani territory. These could be serious stumbling blocks," said Kucera. Suleymanov played down suggestions that Russia, which still has extensive security and economic interests in Armenia, was being disadvantaged. "Anybody and everybody can benefit from this if they choose to," he said.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Iran Won't Allow Trump-Backed Azerbaijan Corridor, Top Aide Says
Iran opposes the creation of a corridor near the Iranian border linking Azerbaijan to its Naxcivan exclave, proposed as part of a US-brokered Azerbaijan-Armenia peace deal, an aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saturday. Ali Akbar Velayati said the South Caucasus region wasn't 'some no-man's land' that US President Donald Trump can lease, the Tasnim news agency reported. 'Trump seems to think he's a real estate broker and wants to lease a land or region.'
CTV News
12-07-2025
- Business
- CTV News
Relieved: Stephen Avenue construction work has been postponed
Calgary Watch Relief for businesses along Calgary's Stephen Avenue as the city has decided to postpone planned construction work along the popular downtown corridor.
CTV News
23-06-2025
- General
- CTV News
New plans for Graham Avenue
Winnipeg Watch Graham Avenue will soon become a pedestrian corridor between Carlton and Garry Streets. Taylor Brock explains what will be coming to the street.
