IT'S SPREADING

Bird flu found in backyard flocks in New York, Maine

Highly contagious avian influenza was previously found mostly in commercial poultry; infected birds were killed

Sheila Flynn

The US Department of Agriculture announced this weekend that a “highly pathogenic” strain of bird flu had been found in non-commercial backyard flocks in both Maine and New York counties, which are roughly a seven-hour drive apart.

Samples from both flocks were tested at the Cornell University Animal Health Diagnostic Center, part of the National Animal Health Laboratory Network, and confirmed at the APHIS National Veterinary Services Laboratories (NVSL) in Ames, Iowa.

The USDA did not specify which types of birds were carrying the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), which can “infect poultry (such as chickens, turkeys, pheasants, quail, domestic ducks, geese, and guinea fowl) and is carried by free flying waterfowl such as ducks, geese and shorebirds,” the department explains.

No human cases have yet been reported of the bird flu in the US and there is no immediate public health concern, USDA said.

The flocks tested positive in Knox County, Maine, on the Atlantic coast, and Suffolk County, NY – home to the Hamptons.

State officials in both Maine and New York quarantined the affected premises, and “birds on the properties will be depopulated to prevent the spread of the disease”, the USDA said. “Birds from the flock will not enter the food system.”

In both cases, federal and state authorities “are working jointly on additional surveillance and testing in areas around the affected flock. The United States has the strongest AI surveillance programme in the world, and USDA is working with its partners to actively look for the disease in commercial poultry operations, live bird markets and in migratory wild bird populations”.

The virus had already been detected in commercial flocks, infecting turkeys in Indiana, chickens in Kentucky and a mixed-species flock in Virginia.

In a release issued earlier this month, the CDC wrote: “Ancestors of these HPAI A(H5N1) viruses first emerged in southern China and led to large poultry outbreaks in Hong Kong in 1997, which resulted in 18 human infections.

“The outbreak was controlled, but the HPAI A(H5N1) virus was not eradicated in birds and re-surfaced in 2003 to spread widely in birds throughout Asia, and later in Africa, Europe, and the Middle East, causing sporadic human infections. HPAI A(H5) viruses were detected in North America in 2014 causing widespread poultry outbreaks and wild bird mortality events in Canada and the United States before disappearing in 2016.

“Since 2003, 19 countries have reported 865 human infections and 456 deaths with HPAI A(H5N1) virus to the World Health Organization (WHO) as of January 21, 2022. The most recent human infection with HPAI A(H5N1) virus wa was reported in the United Kingdom in January 2022 in association with exposure to domestically kept infected birds.”

Humans can become infected if the virus enters the body through a person’s eyes, nose or mouth or is inhaled, the CDC said – but prolonged exposure to birds places certain individuals at higher risk. The severity of infection has ranged from mild to death, the CDC said.

“The spread of avian influenza A viruses from one sick person to another is very rare, and when it has happened, it has not led to sustained spread among people,” the centre added.

Transparency watchdog boss: Conflict of interest reports ‘serious’ for Munich Security Conference

Call for ‘higher degree of integrity’ at global gathering after POLITICO report on chairman Ischinger.

Ischinger told German media separately that the suggestions of conflicts of interest were "absurd" | Thomas Kienzle/AFP via Getty Images

BY MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG
February 20, 2022 7:17 pm

BERLIN — Indications that outgoing Munich Security Conference Chairman Wolfgang Ischinger used the conference to further his personal business interests “are serious” and the forum needs to take steps to prevent such activity in the future, Transparency International Chief Executive Daniel Eriksson said.

“The accusations are serious and they should be treated seriously by the Munich Security Conference,” Eriksson told Bavarian state broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk in an interview from the conference Sunday. “This type of behind-the-scenes dealmaking should become a thing of a past.”

Eriksson was responding to evidence of conflicts of interest, detailed by POLITICO last week, between Ischinger’s role as chairman of the nonprofit annual conference and his myriad business activities with sponsors and others connected to the event.

Ischinger told German media separately that the suggestions of conflicts of interest were “absurd” and that he has a “clean conscience.”

Considered to be the most important event of its kind in foreign policy and security circles, the conference drew to a close on Sunday after three days of discussions about global flashpoints, such as Ukraine, and keynote addresses by the likes of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Behind the scenes, Ischinger’s business activities and the shadow the controversy has cast on the conference was a subject of intense debate, several attendees said.

Ischinger said before this year’s conference that he would hand over the day-to-day running of the event to a successor at the conclusion of this year’s gathering, but will remain involved as the chairman of its board.

Eriksson called on Ischinger’s successor, Christoph Heusgen, to show a “higher degree of integrity” to ensure that the conference avoids conflicts of interest going forward.

NEW ZEALAND

Over 100,000 sign petition asking protestors to “go home”

February 21, 2022

Report from RNZ

The organiser of the “Go Home” petition aimed at the anti-mandate protestors at Parliament says the protestors have made their point and it’s time for them to leave. Nearly 104,000 people have signed the change.org petition since it was started last Monday.

Organiser James Black – which isn’t his real name – told Morning Report the protestors are a minority, as most New Zealanders support the vaccine mandates.

He says he wanted to give the majority of New Zealanders the opportunity to voice their opposition to the occupation.

Black says he has received threats since starting the petition, but the support has been overwhelming.

Wellington Hospital says any outbreak of Omicron at the protest will add to an already stretched emergency department.

Chief Medical Officer Dr John Tait said the hospital had plans in place to deal with an influx of sick, infectious people, but planned surgeries and outpatient clinics would be delayed.

He said anyone with Covid symptoms at the protest should go home and contact their GP or community health service.

 

Paralysing Afghanistan: Washington’s Regime Change Agenda

Monday, 21 February 2022, 4:37 pm
Article: Binoy Kampmark

Nation states are habitually doomed to defeat their best interests. Conditions of mad instability are fostered. Arms sales take place, regimes get propped up or abandoned, and the people under them endure and suffer, awaiting the next criminal regime change.

Nothing is more counter-intuitive than the effort to isolate, cripple and strangulate the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. For all the talk about terrorism and concerns about failing regimes, the Biden Administration is doing every bit to make this regime fail and encourage the outcome it decries. Along the way, a humanitarian catastrophe is in the making.

Prior to the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, foreign aid constituted a mainstay of the economy, covering roughly three-quarters of public spending. After August 15, an almost immediate cessation of funding took place, led by the United States, and those less than noble institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But it did not stop there. Billions of dollars in Afghanistan’s own funds were frozen. (For the US alone, this amounted to $9.4 billion.)

This particularly nasty bit of statecraft was justified by UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson as necessary to coerce the Taliban into good conduct. Releasing such reserves was “no guarantee that the Taliban will actually use it effectively to solve problems.”

Johnson should know, given his government’s profligate tendency of waste and dissoluteness during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ever one to relish hypocrisy, he claimed that Britain and its allies needed “to ensure that that country does not slip back into being a haven for terrorism and a narco-state.” Ironically, the sanctions and asset freezing regime will be an incitement to just that.

The move did not only paralyse the Central Bank of Afghanistan but impose dramatic limits on the use of bank accounts by Afghans. Loans have been left unrepaid, the amount in deposits has declined, and the liquidity crisis has become acute. In November 2021, the UN Development Programme observed that the economic cost of a banking collapse in the country “would be colossal.”

The UNDP also remarked that the banking situation had to be “resolved quickly to improve Afghanistan’s limited production capacity and prevent the banking system from collapsing.” Unfortunately, the organisation’s Afghanistan head, Abdallah al Dardari, was wishing to do the impossible. “We need to find a way to make sure that if we support the banking sector, we are not supporting the Taliban.”

This foggy-headed reasoning typifies much policy towards Afghanistan, dooming humanitarian programs and other measures of assistance. It also renders Washington, and its allies, culpable in fostering famine, starvation, and death. As long as they can focus their attention on the wickedness, and lack of competence, of the Taliban regime, this monumental bit of callous gangsterism can be justified. The Afghan civilian can thereby be divorced from the government official disliked and disapproved of by foreign powers.

With pestilential force, this contorted line of thinking finds its way into the heart of the US State Department, which has expressed its desire to cooperate with the UNDP and other institutions “to find ways to offer liquidity, to infuse, to see to it that the people of Afghanistan can take advantage of international support in ways that don’t flow into the coffers of the Taliban”.

In January, the crisis was becoming so grave as to compel the UN Secretary General António Guterres to describe a landscape of catastrophe: the selling of babies to feed siblings, freezing health facilities overrun by crowds of malnourished children and people “burning their possessions to keep warm.” Without a full-fledged effort by the international community, the Secretary warned, “virtually every man, woman and child in Afghanistan could face acute poverty.”

A modest request was made: that Afghanistan receive $5 billion in aid. The UN chief has also urged the release of international funding to pay the salaries of public sector workers and aid the distribution of health care, education “and other vital services.”

The international community, or at least a portion of it, is certainly not listening. Sanctions continue to be the mainstay of the treatment of Afghanistan, as orchestrated through the UN Security Council. Perversely, this is done, in the words of the Australian Department of Trade and Foreign Affairs to “promote the peace, stability and security of Afghanistan.” This is darkly witty stuff indeed, given that sanctions are, by their very purpose, designed to destabilise and target governments, while impoverishing the populace and creating desperation.

What President Biden has done this month is tinker with the freezing order by decreeing the release of $7 billion. But there is a huge catch: half of the funds will be reserved to satisfy legal claims brought by the families of US 9/11 victims; the rest will be placed in a designated humanitarian fund for Afghanistan. In doing so, a foreign government has effectively determined how to deal with a country’s national assets and foreign reserves, effectively initiating a de facto theft.

Many a famine and societal collapse has been a product of engineered circumstances. “This impending mass murder of Afghan civilians,” argue the undersigned luminaries of a note published in CounterPunch, “is preventable.” For those on a list including Noam Chomsky, Richard Falk and Tariq Ali, the Biden Administration should “immediately end these cruel and inhumane policies by lifting the sanctions, unfreezing Afghanistan’s foreign assets, and increasing humanitarian aid.”

For those wedded to the canard and moral excitement of the “rules-based” order, causing a degree of horrendous harm comes as second nature. Having lost Afghanistan, as every great power has tended to do, revenge is being sought.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

© Scoop Media

 

A New European Citizens Initiative Aims To Push The EU To Ban Trade With Illegal Settlements

Monday, 21 February 2022, 7:06 am
Press Release: The Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy

More than 100 civil society organizations launch a drive for 1 million EU citizens’ signatures to stop European trade with illegal settlements in occupied territories

An initiative for EU legislation that will end illicit trade and profits from war crimes and human rights abuses

Brussels, 20 February 2022 - Marking the World Day of Social Justice on February 20 a coalition of more than 100 civil society organizations, has launched a European Citizens Initiative (ECI) to stop trade with illegal settlements in occupied territories.

An ECI is an official instrument for democratic participation of citizens in EU policy making. If an ECI garners one million signatures from EU citizens over 12 months the European Commission must consider and debate the petition’s demands. This ECI demands EU legislation that will outlaw trade with illegal settlements, anywhere and at all times, including trade with Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestine. The coalition calls on every EU citizen concerned about human rights, social justice and fair trade to sign the petition.

Even though illegal settlements constitute a war crime under international law, the EU allows trade with them. In the case of Israel’s settlements, the UN Security Council has called on states to render them no assistance, and the European Union has repeatedly declared that they constitute a flagrant violation of international law. Nevertheless, the EU continues to trade with them, which has emboldened their ongoing expansion.

Tom Moerenhout, a legal scholar and one of the initiators of the ECI:

“The EU has been shamefully inconsistent in its respect of the rule of law. Indeed, the European Commission first rejected registration of our Citizens Initiative but had to change its position after we successfully sued the Commission before the European Court of Justice. The Commission has since acknowledged it can implement a general rule to stop illegal settlement trade that is considered a general measure in respect of international and EU law rather than a sanction.”

This European Citizens Initiative is carried out by the #StopSettlements coalition, which includes prominent civil society organizations in the field of human rights, environmental and social justice, trade unions and politicians who unite against profits from annexation and occupation to protect human rights, fair trade, and international peace.

© Scoop Media

Canada's Communist Party's warn Emergencies Act will ‘suspend civil and democratic rights’

The warning comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invokes the act to end anti-vaxxer protests paralysing the country

People gather outside a police station in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on Sunday, February 13, 2022, demanding authorities remove truck drivers and other protesters who have taken over the area around Parliament Hill to demonstrate against Covid-19 restrictions

CANADA’s communists have slammed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the anti-vaxxer protests paralysing the country, warning that such a move will “suspend the civil and democratic rights of everyone in Canada.”

Mr Trudeau invoked the Act, which gives the federal government broad powers to restore order, on Monday, but ruled out using the military.

His government threatened to tow away vehicles to keep essential services running, freeze truckers’ personal and corporate bank accounts, and suspend the insurance on their rigs.

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is also the finance minister, said the government will also broaden its anti-money-laundering regulations to target crowdfunding sites that are being used to support the blockades.

Mr Trudeau did not indicate when the new crackdowns would begin, but he said the emergency measures “will be time-limited, geographically targeted, as well as reasonable and proportionate to the threats they are meant to address.”

For more than two weeks, hundreds and sometimes thousands of protesters in trucks and other vehicles have clogged the streets of the capital Ottawa and besieged Parliament Hill, railing against vaccine mandates for truckers and other Covid-19 precautions while condemning Mr Trudeau’s Liberal government.

Members of the self-styled Freedom Convoy have also blockaded various US-Canadian border crossings, though the busiest and most important — the Ambassador Bridge connecting Windsor, Ontario, to Detroit — was reopened on Sunday after police arrested dozens of demonstrators.

A statement from the Communist Party of Canada warned that the Emergency Act would effectively suspend the Charter of Rights, and called into question the Ottawa police’s handling of the protests.

“Police inaction in Ottawa stands in stark contrast to harsh repression against Indigenous peoples whenever Indigenous sovereignty clashes with the capitalist theft of land and resources,” the party said.

“All this demonstrates that new policing, surveillance and repression powers will ultimately be used against the labour and people’s movements as opposed to the far right.

“Big business may think the Emergencies Act is a good idea — eliminating both border delays and the right to strike. But working people — the labour, democratic, and civil rights movements — must speak up to oppose this sledgehammer to democracy.”

COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA (MARXIST-LENNINIST)

In the News

February 19, 2022

Current Developments Related to Declaration of Public Order Emergency

Parliamentary Debate

On February 16, a motion was tabled in the House of Commons to confirm the February 14 declaration of a public order emergency by the Prime Minister under the Emergencies Act. [More]

Financial Measures Applied Under the Emergencies Act

While debate was taking place in the House of Commons, February 17, on whether or not it will approve the Liberal’s invoking of the Emergencies Act and the related regulatory powers, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland announced to the media rather than the House that she had ordered financial institutions to comply with its regulations. [More]

Canadian Civil Liberties Association Launches Lawsuit

On February 17, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) announced it will pursue litigation to challenge the federal government’s use of the Emergencies Act. [More]

Standoff in Ottawa Continues Despite Police Measures to Clear Out Protestors

Police in Ottawa made over 100 arrests on Friday, February 18 and at least 47 more by 2:00 pm on Saturday, news agencies report. In addition, a total of 38 vehicles have been towed and others are reported to have left voluntarily. [More]

For Your Information

Regulations for Implementation of Emergencies Act

The regulations put in place following the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act were published in the Canada Gazette on February 15, 2022. [More]

End 'deafening silence' over state persecution of Julian Assange in Britain's media, UN expert demands



JULIAN ASSANGE would be free within days if the mass media ended its “deafening silence” over persecution of the Wikileaks founder, a UN expert claimed today.

UN special rapporteur on torture Nils Melzer accused major news outlets of failing to play their role as the “fourth estate” to inform the public about the implications of the case against Mr Assange on press freedom and the rule of law.

The UN official said he had previously believed the press would “jump on” evidence pointing to “political persecution and gross judicial arbitrariness” in the case. But instead he has faced a “wall of silence.”

“This man has become so untouchable because of the narrative that has been created, but there is no evidence of that,” Mr Melzer told a media briefing organised by the Foreign Press Association on Friday on his new book The Trial of Julian Assange.

“[The press] are not able to play their role as the fourth estate and inform the public about due process violations that are being played here behind the curtains. That really what I found is extremely concerning.”

Mr Melzer’s book details the findings of his two-year investigation into Mr Assange’s case. In it he accuses Britain, the US, Sweden and Ecuador of “grave and systematic due process violations,” judicial bias and manipulating evidence.

He also accuses the US and British authorities of colluding to secure a conviction against the Wikileaks founder, who is facing extradition to the US due to his publication of confidential documents exposing war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“If the US succeeds in prosecuting this man and sending him to a supermax prison for the rest of his life this will have an enormous chilling effect on free press,” he warned.

Mr Melzer initially declined to get involved in the case when approached in 2018, writing that his perception of Mr Assange had been distorted by prejudice due the “demonisation” of Mr Assange by the authorities and the press.

Eventually changing his mind, Mr Melzer visited Mr Assange at high-security Belmarsh prison in 2019, where he has been held for more than three year in solitary confinement.

Following an examination he concluded that Mr Assange’s treatment was tantamount to “psychological torture.”

Despite the grave findings, Mr Melzer said the British authorities have refused to co-operate with him to clear up the allegations or initiate an investigation required by international law, which he described as “profoundly shocking.”

Similarly, he said he was “very alarmed” by the “muted” response of the press to his findings.

Giving an example, Mr Melzer said he had given televised interviews to the BBC and Sky News in 2019 on his report, warning against the extradition of Mr Assange, that were subsequently removed “without trace” from the web.

When he called the BBC to ask why the interview had been taken down, he said he was told that the topic was not newsworthy.

“This attitude to me reflects an unwillingness to actually look at the elephant in the room,” he said.

“The silence is deafening. If the main media organisations joined forces I believe this case would be over within days.

“The media is not here to entertain us — it is here to empower us, it is the fourth estate for a reason and it is important that they keep fulfilling that societal role.”

Mr Melzer noted that the BBC had kept the report on its website and in a radio broadcast, but that this would not have achieved the same global impact as the televised interview.

The UN official, who has been in the role since 2016, added that there was “no legal basis” for keeping Mr Assange locked up and that evidence for charges over computer hacking had been “fabricated.”

Mr Assange revealed some of the “most grave crimes” committed by governments, Mr Melzer added, including the murder of civilians and torture, however no-one has been prosecuted even with video evidence.

“That really is shocking, where you can see that war crimes are not being prosecuted but those who expose them are being prosecuted.

“That displays a systemic problem of enormous proportions.

“We cannot have legitimate dissent and exposure of serious government’s crimes resulting in impunity for officials and life sentences for witnesses and whistleblowers and journalists. This is extremely dangerous.”

A BBC spokesperson said: “The BBC covered this story on a number of its platforms. An interview with Nils Melzer was broadcast live on our international news channel, which is available in 465 million homes around the world, and his comments were featured prominently on our news website, which is available both within and outside of the UK.”

DISASTER CAPITALI$M REFUGEE'S

Planned Greek refugee camp is in ‘high-risk’ fire zone next to landfill


Experts say the location of Lesbos’s new refugee camp is remote, prone to wildfires and would be ‘nearly impossible’ to evacuate


Sebastian Skov Andersen & Gabriel Geiger
15 February 2022

The aftermath of the fire at the Moria refugee camp in September 2020 |
Nik Oiko/ZUMA Press Inc / Alamy Stock Photo

The unpaved road leading to the site of the future refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos is long and winding, snaking through dry forest terrain for roughly ten kilometres. Far from any towns, and adjacent to a domestic landfill site, this remote area, which is at risk of wildfires, projects a far from subtle message: out of sight, out of mind.

The planned refugee camp is one of five new EU-funded, high-security, multi-purpose reception and identification centres (MPRICs), promised as part of the European Union and Greek government’s new pact on migration to replace the current camps on the country’s islands. The agreement was announced in September 2020, just days after the notorious Moria refugee camp on Lesbos burned down.

According to the pact, the new refugee camps must ensure, among other things, the right to “health” and “security” for the asylum seekers living in them. In practice, this has translated into prison-like conditions, with barbed-wire fences and concrete walls surrounding the camps, and 24/7 surveillance.

In November 2020, Greek media, citing government sources, reported that the new camp on Lesbos would be built at Vastria, adjacent to the island’s largest landfill dump, at the far edge of the municipality of Mytilini and inside a large, protected forest. A month later, the European Commission published a ‘memorandum of understanding’ regarding a new “pilot” camp on Lesbos. The objective of the pilot, the commission wrote, was to “channel the necessary support to the Greek authorities for completing and operating, by September 2021, an up-to-standard fully functioning MPRIC on Lesvos with a capacity of 5,000 people”.

However, construction of the Lesbos camp was postponed without explanation – it is now expected to open in September this year – while the new camps on the islands of Chios, Kos, Leros and Samos opened last year.

“A new era is beginning,” claimed Greek migration minister Notis Mitarachi at the opening ceremony for one camp. “We are extricating our islands from the migration problem and its consequences.”

Last week, island residents protested at Vastria, after the construction company charged with building the camp began moving machines to the site overnight. Police reportedly arrested four people for defacing construction equipment and some machinery was even lit on fire. The same day, the governor of the North Aegean region, Costas Moutzouris, announced that he would be appealing to the Council of Europe against the construction of the camp.

Wildfire danger

Humanitarian organisations and forestry and fire experts expressed alarm to openDemocracy at the remote location of the planned Lesbos camp – especially in the wake of Greece’s record heatwave last summer, which forced mass evacuations on the mainland and some islands.

Lesbos residents received emergency warnings via SMS prohibiting them from entering forests because of the wildfire risk, and firefighter trucks were stationed at intervals along mountain roads. With Moria’s destruction by arson still fresh in people’s minds, the potential threat of wildfires to the new camp seemed overwhelming, according to local media.

Natural hazards expert Michalis Diakakis from the University of Athens said the proposed location is a “high-risk zone” for wildfires, due to its low altitude, minimal summer rainfall and dense, highly flammable pine forests.

The planned Vastria refugee camp is several kilometres from the nearest town | Sebastian Skov Andersen


Diakakis, who is also an adviser to the Greek fire service, said that most wildfires on Lesbos happen in the eastern part of the island, where Vastria is located, because of its dense, tall forests – the proposed new camp is on the edge of the largest forest in the Aegean. To safely operate a camp in such a location would require significant measures to both prevent and extinguish wildfires, including keeping firefighting machinery such as fire trucks and bulldozers on site, clearing vegetation both inside and around the camp, and developing clear evacuation plans and routes.

“The majority of fatalities happen in areas where you have a lot of people trying to get away from a place, [making] it difficult to evacuate,” Diakakis said. “Because of the heavy smoke and toxic gases, people tend to inhale huge amounts and then collapse, and then the fire catches them. Most deaths […] like that are in small areas with a few houses, or in small towns near forests.”

The European Commission’s migration department said they were aware of the issue, adding that the Greek authorities were responsible for ensuring the camp’s safety and that the commission had faith in their ability to do so.

The commission said by email: “[The] local forest authority and the fire brigade will be consulted and provide approval at every stage of planning and implementation of the new centre. To combat the risks associated with a fire starting from within the centre, the installation of a fire protection system is foreseen. […] Evacuation plans and safe evacuation routes are a prerequisite for building facilities for accommodation of any kind.”

The Greek ministry of migration and asylum did not respond to multiple emails from openDemocracy asking if any measures were being taken to ensure the safety of camp residents in the event of a wildfire. Last month, according to Greek media, the country’s parliament voted for an amendment to permit approvals for refugee camp structures on the Greek islands and also in Evros on the mainland. Instead of consulting regional services, the ministry wants to oversee and approve studies carried out by its own directorate of technical services.

Humanitarian organisations and wildfire experts have expressed alarm over the location of the Vastria camp 

| Sebastian Skov Andersen

While there is a wide – but currently unpaved – road connecting the camp to a small motorway to the south, only a small dirt road leads in the other direction. “If you don’t have a warning system in place, then it’s optimal to have two ways out. If you do [have a system], you can usually stick with one. So, if you have a fire coming from the south, you migrate to the north; if you have a fire coming from the north, you migrate to the south,” explained Diakakis. The Greek government has not given any indication as to whether they would improve road access to and from the camp.

Fires have also posed a challenge for the Mavrovouni camp on Lesbos, which was erected as a temporary replacement for Moria. There have been multiple reports of fires there; openDemocracy was able to confirm at least one, in December, by speaking to numerous camp residents who witnessed it. No casualties or major injuries have been reported.
Evacuation ‘nearly impossible’

The NGO Lesvos Solidarity criticised the plans for the new camp, noting that Greek environmental regulations from 2016 set a capacity limit of 750 residents per refugee camp. Larger camps need a comprehensive environmental impact assessment in order to gain a permit. In April 2020, before the burning of Moria and the subsequent migration pact, a ministerial decree increased the limit from 750 to 5,000 – significantly increasing the challenge of evacuation from areas such as Vastria.

Among those who have expressed concern about the new camp’s location is forestry expert Babis Petsikos, formerly of the Aegean University’s environmental department on Lesbos. He has also served as an adviser to Greece’s ministry of Environment and the United Nations’ climate change panel (UNFCCC). His former job dealt with the management and preservation of Lesbos’s forests.

Petsikos said it was “extremely possible” that a fire would break ou​​t in the area. “The lowland pine forest around the camp is the most flammable forest type in the Mediterranean,” he said. “If a fire breaks out, it will be very difficult – if not impossible – to extinguish before everything burns down. And experience shows that fires often break out in and around refugee camps.”

Petsikos added: “This is extremely dangerous for everyone living around there, and we do not know about the safety of people’s lives as we have not seen any fire protection plan.”

The lowland pine forest around the camp is the most flammable forest-type in the Mediterranean

He also noted that, in summer, the island’s winds typically blow from north to south – the same direction as the road from the camp, which is currently the only evacuation route.

According to Thomas Cova, a wildfire evacuation expert and professor of human geography at the University of Utah, a mass evacuation from the proposed location, even with a viable access road, would be “nearly impossible”. “I don’t think an evacuation is feasible,” Cova said. “If you have a thousand-plus people, you wouldn’t have the vehicles to move them and it’s too far from the coast to use a boat.”

The only viable option, according to Cova, is for camp residents to shelter in place. This would require Greek authorities to clear enough vegetation to create a minimum ten-metre gap between the camp and the forest. Creating a camp large enough to safely fit thousands of residents could be a challenge, however, and the risk of smoke inhalation remains.

Related story

Turkish asylum seekers allegedly being pushed back in small boats by Greece

15 December 2021 | Zübeyir Koculu , Anu Shukla

Exclusive: Turkish nationals claim they were illegally put in boats by Greek authorities and returned to Turkey, where they risked persecution

Other problems

The camp’s planned location presents other potential problems. It is several kilometres from the nearest town, and residents’ access to basic services such as grocery shopping and legal aid could be severely limited. The European Commission’s home affairs office told openDemocracy that it expected the Greek authorities to ensure asylum seekers could travel to and from town.

Meanwhile, the potential health risks associated with living so close to a landfill site remain unclear.

Some aid groups remain sceptical. In an email to openDemocracy, Carolien Sloof, field coordinator at the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) project in Lesbos, said the planned camp demonstrates “how securitisation and border control has taken precedence over respect of the dignity, protection and the health of people who seek asylum in Greece”.

“MSF teams have witnessed and documented the human cost of containment on the Greek islands,” Sloof said. “EU bodies, member states and Greece should refrain from inflicting further harm on people seeking safety in Europe for political purposes. This starts with refraining from building centres that will only trap people in prison-like settings on the Greek islands; and rather focus on humane and dignified policies of reception.”

10 global crises to pay attention to in 2022, according to 'The New Humanitarian'

AID NPR
January 11, 2022
JOANNE LU

Roqia Qasqari, 47, who lives in Gero village in Afghanistan's Bamyan Province, has a stockpile of potatoes from an earlier harvest. In 2021, her province and others experienced severe drought, jeopardizing the food supply. Hunger will continue to be an issue in Afghanistan and around the globe in 2022, especially for communities dealing with overlapping crises.

Stefani Glinski/The New Humanitarian

With the ongoing pandemic and the rise of the omicron variant, it's easy to forget that the world isn't battling other major crises right now.

But for The New Humanitarian, an independent nonprofit media outlet that covers conflict and disasters, these "other crises" are always top of mind.

In December, the outlet published its annual list of 10 global crises and trends that it will be watching in 2022. It's been compiling the list for the past five years to spotlight problems likely to drive humanitarian need in the months ahead.

To compile the rundown, The New Humanitarian reached out to analysts, aid workers and reporters from more than 60 countries. This year's list consists of:

The pandemic's poverty and equality hangover

Social media's hate problem

Afghanistan, Haiti, Myanmar: Political upheaval, humanitarian challenges

West vs. the rest: Roadblocks for those seeking asylum

Hunger

Mercenaries and their humanitarian costs

The hidden health risks of climate change

Ethiopia: Endless obstacles to aid

Latin America: Turbulent politics meets COVID fallout

All eyes on the city of Marib, the center of Yemen's conflict

NPR spoke to Josephine Schmidt, The New Humanitarian's Geneva-based executive editor who helped compile the list, about her worries — and hopes — for the year ahead. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you decide which crises make the cut?

It is difficult to compile these lists of crises because you don't want to get into a contest of misery and say, "Well, this crisis deserves to be one of the top 10 and that one doesn't." So we don't do a ranked list.

But what we did was put together a list of crises and topics that we feel attention must be paid to — either because of the sheer scale or because they are hidden or forgotten.

There are so many ongoing crises that get very little media attention and get far from enough financial assistance. We feel it is our duty to bring those crises to the attention of readers.

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What was the most surprising thing on this year's list?

It was very eye-opening to realize how deep and long-felt the reverberations of the pandemic may be, especially for communities dealing with overlapping crises. We call it the pandemic's "hangover effects."

The financial and social impacts of the pandemic are not only making poverty and existing inequality worse, but they're also contributing to unprecedented levels of hunger. Just the sheer scale, depth and breadth of hunger in 2021 really surpassed what we would have imagined.

The pandemic seems to be affecting other crises on the list.

Pandemic lockdowns and supply chain and transport difficulties have also made it more difficult to provide aid in places experiencing conflict right now, including Ethiopia, Haiti and Yemen.

For so many people, when – or if – the pandemic ends, life won't suddenly become less complicated. The pandemic has created deeper need that's going to be difficult to dig out of.

Demonstrators hold a Colombian flag in Plaza Bolívar in the centre of the capital, Bogotá, on May 1, 2021.

Mariano Vimos/The New Humanitarian

Your list mentions that the pandemic has delivered a particularly devastating blow to Latin America.

More than 30% of COVID-19 deaths have been in Latin America, home to a bit more than 8% of the world's population.

Think of the lives capsized by those deaths alone: families losing wage earners, kids orphaned or forced to leave school to work. Jobs lost to the pandemic have pushed millions into poverty, and millions of others have fallen out of the middle class. Hunger is also rising faster than any other part of the world.

Anything that's taken you by surprise?

One thing that hit harder and faster than we expected was the difficulties with aid access in Ethiopia [which is in its second year of civil war].

In Ethiopia, the very public and sustained vitriol toward aid workers and agencies from the government and its opponents has been alarming. Aid workers have been called spies and terrorists. More than 20 aid workers have been killed. Aid groups have been kicked out.

And civilians pay the price. More than 9 million are hungry in northern Ethiopia alone, with hundreds of thousands edging toward famine, according to the U.N. And in the south and east of the country, the U.N. says that drought will leave another 6 million people in need of assistance this year.

Residents walk past an abandoned tank on a main road in Amhara region, Ethiopia, in 2021, where hundreds of thousands of people have fled recent fighting — and in need of humanitarian assistance.

Maria Gerth-Niculescu/The New Humanitarian

Hunger has been on your list for several years. Have there been any improvements?

I do think there is a glimmer of hope. At the first U.N. Food Systems Summit in September, there were a number of commitments made by world leaders to build more sustainable, equitable and green food systems. If talk translates to action, then those commitments offer some hope for increasing food security globally and reducing hunger.

The New Humanitarian is known for original reporting on humanitarian crises, sometimes in conflict zones. It must be difficult in the best of times. How are you managing during the pandemic?

Due to the pandemic and increased danger in conflict zones, we have had to be very creative in the way we report. When our staff cannot get into places ourselves, we work with local journalists or local citizens via WhatsApp or other [virtual] means.

We really feel the best stories are told by people in and from the communities in which the stories are taking place. So even if we send in our own reporters, we make sure they are not only working with local translators and fixers but also local reporters.

Hundreds of people living in a refugee camp in Aubervilliers near Paris in 2020 were later evicted and sent by bus to reception centers in the Île de France region, before bulldozers razed the settlement to the ground.

Paloma Laudet/The New Humanitarian

What are you looking forward to in 2022?

I look forward to upending the idea that humanitarian news is only about what's broken, what's wrong and what's overwhelmingly hopeless.

For example ...

We've done stories on how women in South Sudan are leading peace-building efforts and how women's groups operating with little to no funding in Colombia are supporting victims of gender-based violence.

Many of the answers to these crises are found in the local communities that are experiencing these problems. We need to ask and listen to them.

How do you regroup after a long day of covering crises?

I take a long, unplugged walk to nowhere in particular. Or at least think about doing that.


Joanne Lu is a freelance journalist who covers global poverty and inequity. Her work has appeared in Humanosphere, The Guardian, Global Washington and War is Boring. Follow her on Twitter: @joannelu

UK
Hadrian's Wall under threat from climate change on 1900th birthday
By Cameron Hill & AP • Updated: 20/02/2022 - 19:36

Dr. Andrew Birley inspects a well near Hadrian's Wall, UK - 

 Copyright AP Photo

For almost two millennia, it has withstood man and beast. But, as it celebrates its 1,900th anniversary this year, archaeologists fear it may be facing its most dangerous foe: climate change.

Hadrian’s Wall, located in northern England, is a Roman fortification stretching from coast to coast. It served as a marker of the north-westerly frontier of the Roman Empire.

Archaeologist Bill Griffiths says it is a striking example of the longevity of structures built by the Romans.

"So Hadrian's Wall is an incredible monument, it runs right across England coast-to-coast 73 modern miles, 80 Roman miles long and you set that in context against other Roman marvels like the Colosseum, the Pantheon and things like that," he notes.

"Everyone knows it, everyone has heard of Hadrian's Wall - it is a real landmark."

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Hadrian’s Wall and its surroundings have long been a rich area of discovery for archaeologists. Many artefacts and treasures have been pristinely preserved in the peat bogs that dominate the landscape.

But climate change has caused these peat bogs to shrink back and dry up.

A well, for example, was hidden underground 30 years ago, but the shrinking bog has left the well exposed in the open air, and vulnerable to complete destruction.

Archaeologists are all too aware that uncovering valuable Roman treasures from this site has become a race against time.

"So 1,900 years ago Hadrian's Wall was built to separate the country and to protect the Roman province of Britain, well quite frankly it's never been under as great a threat as it was then as it is now today through climate change," says Dr Andrew Birley.

"We've got these sensitive areas of archaeology which are under extreme threat from climate change, those small temperature changes which are now increasing to big temperature changes really have the power to damage the preservation of what's going on here."

So, while the world considers how climate change will affect our future, Hadrian's Wall shows the impact it is already having on our past.