Kurdish-led forces in Syria recapture prison from ISIL

SDF say they recaptured Ghwayran prison in Hassakeh a week after ISIL fighters attempted a major jailbreak.

Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces fighters take their positions at the defence wall of Ghuwayran Prison in Hassakeh, northeast Syria

 [Hogir Al Abdo/AP Photo]

Published On 26 Jan 2022

Kurdish-led forces in Syria say they have regained full control of a prison in northeast Syria, a week after a breakout by ISIL (ISIS) fighters left dozens dead.

Farhad Shami, a spokesperson for the US-backed forces, said on Wednesday in a Twitter post that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had taken over the al-Sina’a – or the Ghuwayran – prison in the city of Hassakeh.

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The days of operations had “culminated with our entire control” over the prison, he said, adding that all remaining ISIL fighters had surrendered hours after 500 had given themselves up following clashes in some buildings.

The brazen ISIL jailbreak attempt and ensuing clashes left more than 180 dead in the armed group’s most high-profile military operation since the loss of their so-called caliphate nearly three years ago.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, the deceased included some 124 ISIL fighters, 50 Kurdish fighters and seven civilians. The death toll could rise, however, as Kurdish forces and medical services gain access to all parts of the prison following the end of the attack. 

Some ISIL group fighters, who surrendered after clashing with the Kurdish-led forces, at Ghuwayran Prison, in Hassakeh, northeast Syria [SDF via AP Photo]

Kurdish forces had cut off food and water to the jail for two days to pressure holdout ISIL fighters to give themselves up, the observatory said.

The prison was thought to hold approximately 3,500 ISIL detainees when the initial attack was first launched on January 20 with explosives-laden vehicles steered by suicide bombers.

With US and other foreign forces stepping in to support Kurdish elite units, the neighbourhood around the prison was secured and the besieged fighters inside the prison started turning themselves in.

There was no mention in the statement of the 850 children and minors caught in the crossfire when the SDF began to storm the prison on Monday.

The UN and international aid organisations had expressed fear about the fate of the minors living alongside the nearly 5,000 prisoners in the overcrowded jail.

‘An international problem’

The prison is the biggest facility where the SDF has kept thousands of detainees. The relatives of many prisoners say they were arrested on flimsy charges for resisting the SDF’s forced conscription.

The Kurdish-led group has denied these allegations.

Meanwhile, thousands of Hassakeh residents were forced to leave their homes after at least 100 ISIL fighters stormed the facility last Thursday, in their biggest show of force in years.

In one mosque located at a safe distance from the chaos, hundreds of women and children were huddled together in the biting winter cold.

“We want to go back home,” Maya, a 38-year-old mother trying in vain to pacify her youngest, told the AFP news agency, adding that “there is no bread, water or sugar here.”

Many Kurdish officials, as well as Western observers, have warned the jailbreak should serve as a wake-up call.

Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have long criticised the Kurdish-led forces that control large swaths of northeast Syria for holding children in overcrowded, makeshift prisons in inhumane conditions.

Kurdish authorities have said that more than 50 nationalities are represented in Kurdish-run prisons holding more than 12,000 ISIL suspects. They have long warned they do not have the capacity to hold, let alone put on trial, all the ISIL fighters captured in years of operations.

“This issue is an international problem,” the administration’s top foreign policy official, Abdulkarim Omar, told AFP on Wednesday. “We cannot face it alone.”

He called on the international community to “support the autonomous administration to improve security and humanitarian conditions for inmates in detention centres and for those in overcrowded camps”.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

EXPLAINER: Who are the kids trapped in Syria prison attack?

By ZEINA KARAM

A boy plays with a broken sword, at al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group, in Hasakeh province, Syria, May 1, 2021. Hundreds of minors are believed to be holed up in Gweiran Prison, which has been at the center of an ongoing violent standoff between Islamic State group militants and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters after IS fighters stormed the prison on Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. A distressing series of voice notes sent by an Australian teenager from the prison in northeast Syria underscores the plight of thousands of forgotten children that remain trapped in detention facilities in Syria and Iraq. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)

BEIRUT (AP) — A distressing series of voice notes sent by an Australian teenager from a prison in northeast Syria underscores the plight of thousands of forgotten children who remain trapped in detention facilities in Syria and Iraq.

Hundreds of minors are believed to be holed up in Gweiran Prison, which has been at the center of a violent standoff between Islamic State group militants and U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters that began a week ago.

The Kurdish-led forces said Wednesday they took control of the last section of the prison controlled by Islamic State militants and freed a number of child detainees used as human shields. It ended a weeklong assault by the extremists on one of the largest detention facilities in Syria.

IS fighters stormed the prison on Thursday, aiming to break out thousands of comrades who simultaneously rioted inside. The attack is the biggest by IS militants since the fall of the group’s “caliphate” in 2019.

Dozens from both sides have been killed in the clash, which has drawn back in U.S.-led coalition forces who have come to the aid of their Kurdish allies. Thousands of civilians living nearby have been displaced.

The fighting appears to have left multiple child inmates killed or wounded, though numbers are not known.

Human Rights Watch provided The Associated Press with a series of audio messages sent by the 17-year-old Australian from inside the prison in which he appealed for help, saying he was injured in the head and was bleeding. The boy says his friends got killed and he has seen bodies of kids aged 8 to 12.

But who are these kids, and why are they there?

‘CUBS OF THE CALIPHATE’

Some of the kids were children when their parents plucked them from their own countries after they decided to join the so-called Islamic caliphate declared in 2014 over parts of Syria and Iraq. Others were born there. Many attended IS-run schools where they were trained for combat.

While IS carried out massacres against residents and enslaved many of the women and girls, they also sought to re-educate young boys and tried to turn them into jihadi fighters. They recruited teens and children using gifts, threats and brainwashing. Boys were turned into killers and suicide bombers. IS videos showed kids carrying out beheadings or shooting captives in cold blood.

It was all part of a concerted effort to build a new generation of militants. They called them cubs of the caliphate.

Most were later captured by Kurdish-led forces during the U.S.-backed campaign that brought down IS three years ago, thrown into squalid, overcrowded detention centers and where they continue to languish.

Others were put in squalid camps in northeast Syria that hold families of suspected IS fighters, where they are exposed to violence, exploitation and abuse. Once they become teenagers deemed old enough to separate from their mothers, they are transferred to one of the detention centers where they join the fighters. The age cut-off rules are not exactly clear. Some as young as 12 were reportedly in Gweiran Prison, despite warning from rights groups that these youngsters are too young to be in adult facilities or to be held at all without justice.

Letta Tayler of Human Rights Watch estimates 600 minor boys, around half of them Iraqis and other non-Syrians, were inmates in the prison. Most are between 14 and 17 years old, though some are as young as 12, Tayler said. It is not clear how many of the boys in prison were trained by IS or whether any have committed any crimes.

WHY THEY ARE STILL THERE

Mostly because their governments have refused to repatriate them.

Kurdish authorities have asked countries to repatriate their nationals, saying keeping thousands of detainees in cramped facilities is putting a strain on their forces and creating a new generation of militants.

“None has even been brought before a judge to determine whether they should be detained,” Tayler said. “These children, some we are told as young as 12, should never have been placed in this squalid overcrowded prison where their lives are clearly at risk to begin with. Their countries should have brought them home to help them rebuild their lives long ago.”

But home governments often see the children as posing a danger rather than as needing rescue.

Some former Soviet bloc states have let some of their citizens back in, but other Arab, European and African countries have repatriated only minimal numbers or have refused.

Kurdish authorities run more than two dozen detention facilities scattered around northeastern Syria holding about 10,000 IS fighters. Among the detainees are some 2,000 foreigners, including about 800 Europeans.

The foreign detainees have never been brought before a court, making their detention arbitrary as well as indefinite.

In addition, some 27,500 children are locked up at the sprawling al-Hol camp, which houses families of IS members.

Most of them not yet teenagers, they are spending their childhood in limbo under miserable conditions with no schools, no place to play or develop, and seemingly no international interest in resolving their situation.

___

Associated Press writer Sarah El Deeb contributed from Beirut.

Afghanistan's LGBTQ community faces growing attacks by Taliban: report

A report by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action said LGBTQ people in Afghanistan were targets of violence and sexual harassment. Many of them are not in a position to flee persecution.


Many queer Afghans reported being stopped at checkpoints by the Taliban

LGBTQ people in Afghanistan are facing a rise in attacks and an increasingly desperate situation under Taliban rule, according to a report released Wednesday by Human Rights Watch and OutRight Action International.

The report, entitled "'Even If You Go to the Skies, We’ll Find You': LGBT People in Afghanistan After the Taliban Takeover" interviewed 60 queer Afghans in late 2021. Most were still living in Afghanistan, while a few had escaped to nearby countries.
Queer individuals face violence, harassment

Many of the interviewees reported attacks, sexual harassment, and receiving threats from the Taliban since the religious extremist group seized power in August last year.

They said Taliban fighters stopped individuals at checkpoints for their clothes not conforming to gender norms, or for being too "Western." Private messages on cell phones were checked for proof of them being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or gender non-conforming.

Two men reported being raped or blackmailed into sex by Taliban members. Many said they also knew of other LGBTQ individuals who had gone missing or had been killed.

A man named in the report as "Ramiz" said he was kidnapped by Taliban members and had to face sexual violence and assault at their hands.

"From now on, anytime we want to be able to find you, we will. And we will do whatever we want with you," they reportedly told him while releasing him.

Interviewees said they had erased their presence on social media, while some reported the Taliban had infiltrated LGBTQ groups and dating apps to entrap them.

Homosexuality was illegal under previous President Ashraf Ghani as well. However, the situation had vastly deteriorated under the Taliban. Some of those interviewed said they had received threats from neighbors, friends and family, and were at risk of being exposed to the Taliban.

A Taliban judge had told German tabloid Bild in 2021: "For homosexuals, there can only be two punishments: either stoning, or he must stand behind a wall that will fall down on him."

Economic losses

"A lot of queer people have lost their jobs. Even if they hide themselves, the problem is they need to feed themselves," said Nihan, a trans woman who had to leave her job at a print shop after the Taliban took over in August 2021.

Sex work, dancing and entertaining were common professions for trans people, but the situation has become far more dangerous during the Taliban regime, the report said.

Afghanistan is already facing an economic and employment crisis, with dozens at risk of starvation during the winter.

"The Taliban is very unlikely to ever accept fully the rights of LGBT people but at least some international pressure and attention to the rights of LGBT people could deter some of the worst abuses," Heather Barr, associate director of women's rights at Human Rights Watch, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

She said most LGBTQ Afghans were likely to remain in the country, as opposed to fleeing persecution.

The report said women and queer individuals, who already face a barrier to movement, were less likely to escape for fear of being noticed. Many said they were not in a position to leave behind loved ones, and some feared being deported back to Afghanistan.

"I have no documents. People are saying I will have to go back to Afghanistan, but if I go back they will kill me," a trans woman who had escaped with the help of a smuggler said in the report.

Edited by: Rebecca Staudenmaier

Mexico: Journalists protest killings of colleagues

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has led calls for Mexican authorities to give more protection to reporters after the deaths of three journalists already this year.


So far in 2022 in Mexico three journalists have been murdered

Mexican journalists began nationwide protests Tuesday following the killings of three journalists in the space of two weeks.

Demonstrators are demanding authorities do more to protect journalists despite a government program meant to do just that.

Photographers placed their cameras on the ground outside Mexico City's National Palace, while candles were lit in tribute to those who had lost their lives.

Protests were also held in the states of Veracruz, San Luis Potosi, Durango and Nayarit. Reporters held up placards reading "Not one more journalist killed,'' and "the truth can't be killed.''

Three journalists killed in Mexcio in two weeks

Two journalists were killed in the border city of Tijuana in the first weeks of the year. Crime photographer Margarito Martinez was shot dead outside his home on January 17, while reporter Lourdes Maldonado Lopez was found shot dead in her car on Sunday.

Two of the murdered journalists requested protection before their deaths

Jose Luis Gamboa was stabbed earlier this month in the state of Veracruz.

According to Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Gamboa had been a strong critic of local government corruption and officials with links to organized crime.

The media advocacy group tweeted about the murder of Lopez, who was meant to be "under state protection." RSF called for "a rigorous investigation and to ensure the protection of her family."

What protection is there for reporters in Mexico?

Mexico introduced a government protection plan for journalists since 2012. According to government figures, just under 500 people are receiving protection.

The two journalists murdered in Tijuana had reportedly both requested protection before they were killed.

Martinez had received threats from someone with alleged links to criminals and had been waiting for protection.

"The mechanism has failed again when journalists feel most vulnerable," reporter Sonia de Anda told AFP news agency.

Watch video12:36 Mortal danger for Mexico's reporters

Pressure to protect press freedom in Mexico

As media professionals protested on Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for tougher action.

"We call on Mexican authorities to strengthen the protection of journalists, in particular, to take further steps to prevent attacks on them, including by tackling threats and slurs aimed at them," said Guterres's spokesman Stephane Dujarric.

The country's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, addressed journalists at a briefing on Tuesday and said the perpetrators would be punished.

The odds appear to be stacked against there being justice. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which is a non-profit organization promoting press freedom, 95% of murder cases remain unsolved.

Mexico and India topped its list as the most dangerous places for journalists in 2021.

More than 100 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000. Only a small percentage of cases have ended in a conviction.

kb/rt (AP, AFP)

Child abuse scandal: Germany's Catholic Church fights for its future

Former Pope Benedict XVI has apologized for giving false testimony during a child sexual abuse probe. For many Catholics, the statement isn't enough; they are bitterly disappointed and demand an admission of guilt.


German bishops are struggling to position themselves in light of most recent revelations on cover-ups


A perfect blue sky hangs over Aachen Cathedral. The crisp winter sunlight illuminates more than 12 centuries of church history, constructed on Charlemagne's orders and the site of coronations of dozens of Germany's kings and queens.

But all is far from well behind the ornate facade here in the city on Germany's western border with Belgium and the Netherlands. In his Sunday sermon, Aachen Bishop Helmut Dieser spoke of wrath and disappointment, outrage and dismay, suffering and doubt.

He was referring to the reactions expressed in response to a Munich law firm's report, published on Thursday, into the church's handling of clergy who for decades covered up the sexual abuse of children.

The report includes grave allegations against former Pope Benedict XVI. As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he was the head of the Munich diocese from 1977 to 1982. During that time, he took part in a meeting where he and others discussed the future of a priest accused of repeated misconduct who, it was agreed, would be transferred from Essen to Munich. Where he continued to abuse children.

Inability to admit guilt

"What appalls me and leaves me distraught, but also angry, is the incalculable extent of individual suffering and, inexorably linked with it, the extent of the failure for which church leaders, bishops and their staffs were and are responsible," said Bishop Dieser in his sermon.

"And beyond that, there is the inability to recognize one's own guilt and ask for forgiveness, or at least to express regret and pain for one's own part in the tragedy."

Even as Dieser delivered his sermon on Sunday, Benedict was still standing by the claim that he had not attended the gathering at which the Essen priest's future was decided.

However, after it became clear that his name was in the official list of participants, the former pope revised his statement on Monday, speaking of a "mistake" and claiming that he had not acted "out of bad faith."
Even a former pope can be found guilty

But there are many in the Catholic Church who have run out of patience with such statements.

"It can't remain the case that those responsible hide their shame by pretending to know nothing about what was going on, or claiming that things were done differently back then," said Dieser.

"This was the very same thinking that prevented perpetrators from being stopped and left children exposed to abuse!"

Even a former pope must be called to account for his guilt, and he must confess to that guilt, "not only in prayer, and not only when he goes to confession," the bishop said.

THE LIFE OF GERMAN POPE BENEDICT XVI
'We are pope'
"We are pope" reads the headline of Germany's leading tabloid, "Bild." On April 19, 2005, the College of Cardinals elected 78-year-old Joseph Ratzinger to succeed John Paul II as the 265th pope. Taking the name Benedict XVI, the first German pope in nearly 500 years displayed humility while assuming the papal throne: "The cardinals have elected me, a modest laborer in the Lord's vineyard."
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Ordinary passers-by were also shared their outrage to DW outside Aachen Cathedral on Monday.

"It's time for priests to take a stand," one elderly man demanded. He and his wife are in no doubt that the abuse scandal, and the fact that it was for decades covered up, have done almost irreparable damage to the Catholic Church.

"I'm sure that now more than ever people will turn their backs on the church," said the woman.
People of faith must justify their acts

These days, little remains of the euphoria with which many in Germany welcomed the election of a German pope as the head of the Catholic Church. "We are pope!" proclaimed the headline of Germany's biggest tabloid back in 2005.

Now, however, that enthusiasm has faded, and a growing number of German bishops are calling on Benedict to admit the full extent of his guilt in the child abuse scandal.

The situation is unbearable for many of the faithful, says Georg Bätzing, the bishop of Limburg, who also serves as chair of the German Bishops' Conference. They find themselves having to justify to family and friends "that [those complicit] are still members of this institution."

Regardless, all must face up to the damage done by "disastrous behavior" at the very top, among the church leaders, "and right up to the former pope."

And he goes on: "I understand everybody who is tortured by doubt in the church and the leaders of our church. And when I look at the facts that have emerged in Munich, then I can only say that I am ashamed of this church."
Systematic failure to take responsibility

That clear choice of words from Bätzing gives some encouragement to lay members of the Catholic Church. "I see many among the bishops who have the best of intentions. It would be far from fair to tar them all with the same brush," says Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics.

She, too, is shocked and appalled about the extent of the cover-up: "The systematic failure to take responsibility," with which the church has reacted to the abuse scandal, must now come to an end, she told DW.

Stetter-Karp is among the many who are desperately disappointed with Pope Benedict's role in the scandal: "From my point of view, this has been anything but well-handled. The way that he revises previous claims only when it is impossible to go on denying the truth; what we need to see now, is his taking unqualified personal responsibility for his previous failings."

'Don't tar all bishops with the same brush,' says Irme Stetter-Karp, President of the Central Committee of German Catholics

Reform or fail

The Central Committee of German Catholics is the largest lay organization in the Catholic Church in Germany. Together with the German Bishops' Conference, the committee has set in motion a two-year reform program known as the "Synodal Path," which has emerged as a possible way forward from the abuse scandal.

At the beginning of February, lay members and clerics are set to meet for the Third Synodal Assembly.

"What I hope for from this milestone, this gathering, is either real progress toward reform, or we will find ourselves at a very critical juncture that could ultimately lead to the failure of the Synodal Path," Stetter-Karp told DW.

In her view, the time has come for the truth, and nothing but the truth — and not just admitting that which can no longer be denied. "I think that we are facing a very serious test."

Young people leaving the church in droves

Large numbers of young worshippers are officially leaving the Catholic Church each year. This is having a massive impact on the church's youth organizations, said Gregor Podschun, a member of the executive committee of the Federation of Catholic Youth.

Many young people are no longer sure that they have a spiritual home in the church, and some have approached the federation's youth organization to find out whether they can officially leave the main body of the church while remaining in the youth organizations.

"What we are seeing is a lot of young people beginning to question their faith," Podschun said. They sense that as an institution, the church has very little to do with the Bible.

"So, there's a disconnect between the church as a faith and the church as an institution. And that can lead to people leaving the church although they are still believers."

Podschun wants to keep the doors of the church open for young people who are unhappy with developments in the church. He, too, is exasperated with the way things often seem to be going. "It's not about the church saving itself," he said.

"If we want to ease people's suffering, and if that means tearing down the church as we know it, then so be it. And, after that, the next step can follow: rebuilding the church."

The Munich report did not come as a surprise, Podschun told DW.

"The church has monarchical structures, it's highly centralized, it's a system that exercises power on behalf of the Vatican. So, it's not really surprising how things that would be damaging to the church are covered up."

As a young Catholic himself, he hopes that all the damage and distress will prompt the church "to think seriously about expressing regret, and seek a new course."

This article was originally written in German.

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

EPA acts on environmental justice in 3 Gulf Coast states

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FILE - EPA Administrator Michael Regan poses for a photo for his EPA photographer near a cemetery in a neighborhood next to the Nu Star Energy oil storage tanks, after conducting a television interview, in St. James Parish, La., Nov. 16, 2021. Regan visited low-income, mostly minority communities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas as part of an effort to focus federal attention on communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of enforcement actions Wednesday to address air pollution, unsafe drinking water and other problems afflicting minority communities in three Gulf Coast states, following a “Journey to Justice” tour by Administrator Michael Regan last fall.

The agency will conduct unannounced inspections of chemical plants, refineries and other industrial sites suspected of polluting air and water and causing health problems to nearby residents, Regan said. And it will install air monitoring equipment in Louisiana’s “chemical corridor” to enhance enforcement at chemical and plastics plants between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The region contains several hotspots where cancer risks are far above national levels.

The EPA also issued a notice to the city of Jackson, Mississippi, saying its aging and overwhelmed drinking water system violates the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The order directs the city to outline a plan to “correct the significant deficiencies identified” in an EPA report within 45 days.

In separate letters, Regan urged city and state officials to use nearly $79 million in funding allocated to Mississippi under the bipartisan infrastructure law “to solve some of the most dire water needs in Jackson and other areas of need across Mississippi.″

The actions were among more than a dozen steps announced being taken in response to Regan’s tour last November. Regan visited low-income, mostly minority communities in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas as part of an effort to focus federal attention on communities adversely affected by decades of industrial pollution.

A Toxics Release Inventory prepared by the EPA shows that African Americans and other minority groups make up 56% of those living near toxic sites such as refineries, landfills and chemical plants. Negative effects include chronic health problems such as asthma, diabetes and hypertension.

“In every community I visited during the Journey to Justice tour, the message was clear: residents have suffered far too long and local, state and federal agencies have to do better,” Regan said.

The unannounced inspections of chemical plants and other sites “are going to keep these facilities on their toes,″ he told reporters on a conference call.

Inspections currently are done on a schedule or with advance notice, Regan said, but that is about to change. “We are amping up our aggressiveness to utilize a tool that’s in our toolbox that ... has been there for quite some time,″ he said.

When facilities are found to be noncompliant, the EPA “will use all available tools to hold them accountable,″ he added.

A pilot project combining high-tech air pollution monitoring with additional inspectors will begin in three Louisiana parishes: St. John the Baptist, St. James and Calcasieu. The parishes are home to scores of industrial sites and are long plagued by water and air pollution.

President Joe Biden has made addressing racial disparities, including those related to the environment, central to his agenda. He has pledged that at least 40% of new spending on climate and the environment go to poor and minority communities. The administration’s commitment to the issue has come under renewed scrutiny in recent weeks, as two key environmental justice appointees departed. Cecilia Martinez, a top official at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and David Kieve, who conducted outreach with environmental justice groups, both left the White House, putting a spotlight on promises yet to be fulfilled.

Regan, a former environmental regulator in North Carolina, has made environmental justice a top priority since taking over as EPA head last year. As the first Black man to lead the agency, the issue “is really personal for me, as well as professional,″ he told The Associated Press in November.

“I pledge to do better by people in communities who have been hurting for far too long,” he said Tuesday.

Historically marginalized communities like St. John and St. James, along with cities such as New Orleans, Jackson and Houston, will benefit from the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law signed by Biden, Regan said. The law includes $55 billion for water and wastewater infrastructure, while a sweeping climate and social policy bill pending in the Senate would pump more than twice that amount into EPA programs to clean up the environment and address water and environmental justice issues.

As part of its enforcement action, the EPA is requiring a former DuPont petrochemical plant in La Place, Louisiana, to install fence-line monitors to identify emissions from the site, Regan said. The plant is now owned by the Japanese conglomerate Denka.

The agency also said it will push for greater scrutiny of a proposed expansion of a Formosa Plastics plant in St. James and issued a notice of violation to a Nucor Steel plant that emits hydrogen sulfide and other harmful chemicals.

Regan said he has spoken with New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell about Gordon Plaza, a city neighborhood built on the site of a former toxic landfill. Gordon Plaza was designated as a Superfund site in the 1990s, but dozens of mostly Black families still live there.

The EPA will review the site, starting in March, Regan said, and will add nine homes not included in earlier plans to help families move. City officials hope to use money from the infrastructure law to relocate families and build a solar farm on the site.

In Germany, activists rise up to counter vaccine skeptics

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

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People wearing face masks stand next to posters calling for people to stick to coronavirus measures and not demonstrate with right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists, at a counter-rally against anti-vaccination activists at the Gethsemane Church in Berlin, Germany, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022. A growing number of Germans have recently joined grassroots initiatives, local groups and spontaneous demonstrations to speak out against vaccination opponents, conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists who have led protests against COVID-19 measures in Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)


BERLIN (AP) — Stefanie Hoener was at home one night in Berlin when she heard police sirens wailing through her Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood and anti-vaccine protesters shouting angry slurs as they marched down to the Gethsemane Church — a symbol of the peaceful 1989 revolution in East Germany that ended the communist dictatorship.

“That night these people really crossed a line,” Hoener said Monday as she stood with 200 others— many of them neighbors — in front of the red brick church to protect it from anti-vaccine protesters glaring from the other side of the street.

“If today, when everyone is allowed to express themselves freely without having to fear anything, they stand here and say we live in a dictatorship, then I can no longer tolerate that,” Hoener told The Associated Press. “I for one am very happy to have been vaccinated free of charge and to have received financial support from the government during the pandemic.”

The 55-year-old actress is one of a growing number of Germans who have joined grassroots initiatives and spontaneous demonstrations to speak out against vaccination opponents, conspiracy theorists and far-right extremists who have led protests against Germany’s COVID-19 measures.

Across the country, the new counter-protesters have turned out in favor of the government’s pandemic restrictions and a universal vaccine mandate, which will be debated Wednesday for the first time in German parliament.

Tens of thousands have signed manifestos against illegal anti-vaccine demonstrations in cities including Leipzig, Bautzen and Freiberg. Others have formed human chains in Oldenburg or Rottweil to push back far-right protesters, while dozens of medical students recently held a silent vigil outside a hospital in Dresden to protest a rally by far-right vaccine skeptics.

The silent majority in Germany that has obediently reduced their social contacts, got vaccinated and looked out for each other for close to two years to protect themselves and the most vulnerable from COVID-19 seems fed up by the small but loud minority of coronavirus deniers.

Not all of the anti-vaccine protesters in Germany are outright deniers of the pandemic, some are simply afraid of possible side effects of the vaccines or feel that the country’s health authorities have been too pushy. However, radical opponents on the far-right have tried to seize the protest movement for their own purposes.

The new counter-protesters feel that the radical vaccine refusers have been getting outsized media attention and have too much influence on the public debate about how Germany should handle the pandemic.

Even the German president this week called on the country’s silent majority to stand up and protect the country’s democracy.

“Being the majority is not enough. The majority must become politically recognizable. It must not retreat. The silent center must become more visible, more self-confident and also louder,” President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at a panel Monday in Berlin.

Stephan Thiel, a theater director, said he was initially hesitant to join the rally in front of Gethsemane Church on Monday because he didn’t want to mingle with too many people amid quickly spreading virus infections. At the same time, he also felt he had no choice but to express his opinion.

“There are many sensible people who are staying at home because of the virus. I also find it a bit problematic to be here. But we have to be here,” he said, speaking from behind a black anti-virus mask. “We have to show that we are here and that they are not the majority. And I hope that more and more people will come every time.”

Thiel, 51, grew up under communism. He still remembers how millions of East Germans brought down the regime with their weekly demonstrations in 1989. He said he was especially offended that the anti-vaccine protesters tried to exploit the Gethsemane Church’s symbolism as a famous meeting place for opponents of the Communist regime.

“I really don’t like how they try to use that history. That’s also a reason why I came here to make a stand,” he added.

The call for action among pro-vaccine activists comes at a time when German society may become even more polarized as a universal COVID-19 vaccine mandate is up for discussion in parliament. Divisions on that issue cut across party lines. The coalition government has left it to lawmakers to draw up cross-party proposals on whether there should be a mandate and how it should be designed.

So far, at least 73.5% of Germany’s 83 million residents have been fully vaccinated, and 50.8% have already received a booster shot.

For Hoener, who has joined a neighborhood initiative that organizes weekly vigils in front of the church, there’s no question that Germany should introduce a vaccine mandate shortly.

“In Germany, unfortunately, there are not enough people who would get vaccinated voluntarily, so I think it has to be made mandatory,” she said. “Otherwise we will never get rid of this pandemic.”

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Follow all AP stories on the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic

Study: COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 improved air quality, saved 800 lives in Europe

By UPI Staff

An almost empty Marina Street is seen in Barcelona, Spain, during a COVID-19 lockdown on March 21, 2020. Wednesday's report said Barcelona saw one of the largest decreases in air pollution-related deaths during the lockdown in 2020. 

 File Photo by Andreu Dalmau/EPA-EFE

Jan. 26 (UPI) -- Lockdowns during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 led to improved air quality that probably saved hundreds of lives across dozens of cities in Europe, according to a study published on Wednesday.

The lockdowns were responsible for dramatic improvements in air quality because restrictions resulted in fewer vehicles on the road, the study by experts at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said.

As a direct result, researchers said, about 800 fewer people died.

The study examined the air quality in nearly 50 cities across Europe and their corresponding death rates. Some of the top cities where improved air quality resulted in fewer deaths included Paris, London, Barcelona and Milan.

"The study compared government policies from 47 European cities from February to July 2020 and estimated the changes in pollution levels and related number of deaths avoided during the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic," the London school said in a statement Wednesday.

Children ride scooters past the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France,

 during a COVID-19 lockdown on March 26, 2020. 

File Photo by Eco Clement/UPI

"Government measures for COVID-19 such as school and workplace closure, canceling public events and stay-at-home requirements had the strongest effect on reducing [nitrogen dioxide] levels. This is linked to the reduction in road transport and local mobility which is known to be a contributor to NO2 air pollution. Spanish, French and Italian cities had the largest decrease in NO2 of between 50% and 60% during the period."

The European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts funded the research, which was led by a team of statistical health and observation satellite modelers at the London school.

The research was published on Wednesday in Scientific Reports.

Other studies have shown that COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns in 2020 also had a dramatic effect on climate change, as it removed major sources of greenhouse gases from roads worldwide. A United Nations report last September said, however, that carbon emissions quickly returned after the lockdowns were lifted.

U.S. records most unprovoked shark attacks in 2021

Continuing a five-year trend, Florida topped global charts in the number of shark bites with 28 -- representing 60% of the U.S. total and 38% of unprovoked bites worldwide. File Photo by Bill Greenblatt/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The United States led the world with 47 unprovoked shark bites during 2021, the International Shark Attack File reported.

The annual report, a project of the Florida Museum of Natural History, revealed Monday that there were 73 unprovoked bites and 39 provoked incidents worldwide last year, resulting in nine deaths.

Unprovoked bites are defined as those in which a human is attacked in a shark's natural habitat; provoked bites occur when a person initiates interaction with a shark in some way. The International Shark Attack File investigated 137 alleged shark-human interactions worldwide in 2021. The group confirmed 73 unprovoked shark bites on humans and 39 provoked bites.

Continuing a five-year trend, Florida topped global charts in the number of shark bites with 28 -- representing 60% of the U.S. total and 38% of unprovoked bites worldwide.

Australia followed the United States in the highest number of unprovoked bites with 12 incidents. But three of those resulted in deaths, the most recorded by any nation during 2021.

In one case, a surfer was killed off New South Wales in May. Police said the man seemed to have seen the shark and tried to warn others. Two great white sharks, both measuring nearly 15 feet, were spotted by drones deployed above the waters near the beach.

A separate study by Australia's Taronga Conservation Society reported 17 total shark attacks in that country during 2021 as of late November.

Brazil had the the third-highest number of unprovoked attacks with three, including one fatality, the ISAF report showed.

In the United States, Florida's total of unprovoked attacks were followed in order by Hawaii (six), California (three) , South Carolina (four), North Carolina (three) , Georgia (two) and Maryland (one).

In one attack, a surfer died in late December in the water off Morro Bay State Park in California. His body was found by a fellow surfer shortly after the attack by a great white shark. It was the first fatal shark attack reported in San Luis Obispo County in 18 years.

Tyler Bowling, manager of the ISAF, said, "Shark bites dropped drastically in 2020 due to the pandemic. This past year was much more typical, with average bite numbers from an assortment of species and fatalities from white sharks, bull sharks and tiger sharks."

The report said the 47 unprovoked attacks in the United States "is 42 percent higher than the 33 incidents that occurred in 2020."

Bowling further noted that the number of unprovoked fatal attacks similarly remained high in 2021, with most occurring in the South Pacific. He said there were six confirmed deaths in Australia, New Caledonia and New Zealand while single incidents occurred in South Africa, Brazil and the United States.

Annual fluctuations in shark-human interactions are common, the study said.

Despite 2020's and 2021's spike in fatalities, long-term trends show a decreasing number of annual fatalities, the study said.

"Year-to-year variability in oceanographic, socioeconomic and meteorological conditions significantly influences the local abundance of sharks and humans in the water."

Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research, says there are five ways to minimize the chance of getting bitten by a shark:
Don't go into water alone.
Don't go into water at dawn or dusk.
Don't go into water where's there a lot of fish or where people are fishing.
Don't go into water wearing jewelry.
Try to avoid splashing at the water's surface.

Shortage of semiconductor chips almost sacked some U.S. producers last year, report says


President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor chip during a briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., on February 24, 2021. Biden has met with industry executives and taken action over the past year to ease the shortage of semiconductor chips. File Photo by Doug Mills/UPI 

Jan. 25 (UPI) -- The semiconductor chip shortage left U.S. manufacturers and local buyers with less than five days worth of supplies at times last year, the Commerce Department said Tuesday, urging Congress to take action to bring some relief to the tech sector.

The department's report said that the chip shortage, a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, has seriously affected overseas manufacturing hubs and left U.S. industries vulnerable.

The information included in Tuesday's report came from an assessment that highlights results from a request for semiconductor information.

"The median inventory for consumers ... has fallen from 40 days in 2019 to less than five days in 2021," the report states.

"These inventories are even smaller in key industries. This means a disruption overseas, which might shut down a semiconductor plant for 2-3 weeks, has the potential to disable a manufacturing facility and furlough workers in the United States if that facility only has 3-5 days of inventory."

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the semiconductor supply chain remains fragile and called on Congress to pass a proposal for $52 billion in funding for the chips.

"While we don't expect long-term supply chain disruptions because of Omicron, any disruption has ripple effects," Raimondo said in a statement. "In 2021, auto prices drove one-third of all inflation, primarily because we don't have enough chips.

"Automakers produced nearly eight million fewer cars last year than expected, which some analysts believe resulted in more than $210 billion in lost revenue. It is both an economic and national security imperative to solve this crisis."

Raimondo noted that the report, which included data from 150 companies, found that demand for semiconductor chips has risen 20% from 2019 as bottlenecks narrowed access to them.

The commerce chief added that domestic chip production -- like the new Intel plant planned for Ohio -- will help the United States avoid supply chain shortages that have become commonplace in the COVID-19 era.