Pope: Canada trip ‘pilgrimage of penance’ for Indigenous abuses

Pope Francis says he hopes the upcoming trip will help communities affected by abusive residential schools to heal.

Pope Francis is set to visit Canada to apologise for abuses committed at residential schools

 [File: Alessandra Tarantino/AP Photo]

Published On 17 Jul 2022

Pope Francis has said an upcoming visit to Canada will be a “pilgrimage of penance” that he hopes will help to heal wounds left in Indigenous communities by Roman Catholic priests and nuns who ran abusive residential schools that sought to forcibly assimilate children.

During the July 24 to July 30 trip, Francis is set to make good on a promise to apologise to victims on their home territory for the church’s role in the state-sanctioned schools, which aimed to erase Indigenous cultures, ripping about 150,000 First Nations, Inuit and Metis children from their homes, and subjecting some to abuse, rape and malnutrition in what a Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission dubbed in 2015 “cultural genocide”.

“Unfortunately in Canada many Christians, including some members of religious orders, contributed to the policies of cultural assimilation that in the past gravely damaged native populations in various ways,” Francis said at his weekly address to people in St Peter’s Square on Sunday.

“I am about to make a pilgrimage of penance, which, I hope that with the grace of God can contribute to the path of healing and reconciliation that already has been started,” he said.



The schools were at the centre of discussions between the pope and Indigenous envoys who visited the Vatican in March and April. The meeting resulted in a long-sought apology from the pope, but Indigenous leaders also pushed for the pope to visit their homeland.

Recalling the meetings, Francis said on Sunday he had expressed “my pain and solidarity over the evil that they endured”.

The 85-year-old pontiff will visit Edmonton, Maskwacis, Lac Ste Anne, Quebec, and Iqaluit in Canada’s Arctic territory. He is scheduled to deliver nine homilies and addresses and say two masses.



Thousands are believed to have died while attending the residential schools, which operated between 1831 and 1996.

The discoveries of unmarked graves at former residential school sites across Canada in recent years have prompted renewed calls for accountability – and an apology from the Catholic Church in particular.

Last year, the remains of 215 children were found at the former Indian Residential School in Kamloops in the western Canadian province of British Columbia. The school closed in 1978.

In early July, the Canadian government and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) reached a $15.5bn final settlement on compensation for Indigenous children who were discriminated against for years in the provision of government services.

KEEP READING
‘I needed to be here’: Indigenous delegates speak their truths
US, Canada commemorate missing and murdered Indigenous women
Canada: Final settlement reached on Indigenous child compensation

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

 

SO ENOUGH ALREADY

UK military chief says Putin health rumours are ‘wishful thinking’

Russian President Vladimir Putin has kept a low profile in recent weeks. — Reuters pic

Sunday, 17 Jul 2022 9:28 PM MYT

LONDON, July 17 — The head of Britain’s armed forces has dismissed as “wishful thinking” speculation that Russian President Vladimir Putin is suffering from ill-health or could be assassinated.

As the Conservative party chooses a successor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Admiral Tony Radakin also said Britain’s next leader should be aware that Russia poses “the biggest threat” to the UK and that its challenge would endure for decades.

“I think some of the comments that he’s not well or that actually surely somebody’s going to assassinate him or take him out, I think they’re wishful thinking,” the chief of the defence staff said of Putin, in a BBC television interview broadcast today.

“As military professionals we see a relatively stable regime in Russia. President Putin has been able to quash any opposition, we see a hierarchy that is invested in President Putin and so nobody at the top has got the motivation to challenge President Putin,” Radakin added.

“And that is bleak.” Russia’s land forces may pose less of a threat now, after suffering setbacks in the war in Ukraine, the military chief said.

The invasion has killed or wounded 50,000 Russian soldiers and destroyed nearly 1,700 Russian tanks, as well as some 4,000 armoured fighting vehicles, he estimated.

“But Russia continues to be a nuclear power. It’s got cyber capabilities, it’s got space capabilities and it’s got particular programmes under water so it can threaten the underwater cables that allow the world’s information to transit around the whole globe.” Ukraine will dominate military briefings for Johnson’s successor when he or she takes office on September 6, Radakin said.

“And then we have to remind the prime minister of the extraordinary responsibility they have with the UK as a nuclear power, and that is part of the initiation for a new British prime minister.” Radakin was meanwhile grilled about a BBC investigation that found commandos in Britain’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) corps killed at least 54 Afghans in suspicious circumstances a decade ago, but that the military chain of command hushed up concerns.

Military police had already established “that did not happen” but would look again if concrete new evidence emerges, he said. — AFP

'Those people': French minister's LGBTQ remarks spark anger

Minister for regional relations Caroline Cayeux poses before the Bastille Day parade
Thursday, July 14, 2022 in Paris. Pressure is mounting on a French government minister
to quit over comments stigmatizing homosexuality and LGBTQ people, in the latest challenge
to President Emmanuel Macron's leadership. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)

Angela Charlton, The Associated Press
Published Sunday, July 17, 2022 9:36AM EDT

PARIS (AP) — Pressure is mounting on a French government minister to quit over comments stigmatizing homosexuality and LGBTQ people, in the latest challenge to President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership.

Caroline Cayeux’ remarks have hurt and angered many – including her colleagues — and prompted broader discussion around persistent discriminatory attitudes by people in power.

More than 100 prominent figures published an appeal Sunday in the newspaper Journal du dimanche questioning why she's still in government. Signatories included parliament members, senior officials, an Olympic medalist, doctors, artists, an ex-prime minister, a former top Macron adviser and others from within Macron's centrist political camp.

Cayeux was asked in an interview this week about her opposition to France’s 2013 law authorizing gay marriage and adoption, and comments at the time saying they were “against nature.” Speaking Tuesday to broadcaster Public Senat, she said she was being wrongly painted as prejudiced.

“I maintain my remarks. I always said that if the law were voted, I would apply it," she said. "I have a lot of friends among all those people, and I’m being targeted by an unfair trial. This upsets me.”

The remarks set off shockwaves among LGBTQ people and those who fight against discrimination and abuse, and provoked calls for her resignation. A legal complaint was filed against her for public insult.

Cayeux then tweeted her regrets, saying her words were “inappropriate," and sent a letter to anti-discrimination groups to apologize. She told newspaper Le Parisien that the comments “do not at all reflect my views."

Many question the sincerity of her change of heart, and say the damage has been done.

“How can we believe that the government will respect equality among everyone, will commit to fighting discrimination and guarantee gender freedom?" asks an online petition by LGBTQ groups calling for the resignation of Cayeux and two other government members who opposed the gay marriage law. The petition calls them “spokespersons for hate and rejection.”

But her bosses appear to be sticking by Cayeux. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said Friday that Cayeux’s remarks were “clumsy” but welcomed her apology, and said Cayeux would be “vigilant” going forward to support the fight against anti-LGBTQ discrimination.

The issue has divided the government at a time when Macron is politically weakened after losing his majority in parliament.

Transport Minister Clément Beaune, who is gay, called Cayeux's comments “extremely hurtful.” Government spokesman Olivier Veran called them out of touch with the times.

In Sunday's published appeal, the signatories called on the government to set a better example and defend France's values of equality.

They celebrated “those people” that Cayeux referred to, noting that LGBTQ soldiers were among those marching in Thursday's Bastille Day parade in Paris, and LGBTQ people work in local and national government and France's security forces.

“We are proud of all those people who, through their dignified and discreet behavior, know how to serve the Republic better than she does," it concluded.

Tory contest shows government levelling up agenda is dead, Lisa Nandy to say


Shadow minister to say PM hopefuls are vying ‘for the mantle of Margaret Thatcher, promising tax cuts for the wealthy’

Nandy will use a speech in Darlington to say Labour would press ahead with handing power to communities outside London and the south-east. 

Photograph: Gary Calton/The Observer


Heather Stewart

Mon 18 Jul 2022 

The shadow communities secretary, Lisa Nandy, will claim the Conservative leadership contest has shown the government’s commitment to levelling up is dead, as she announces plans to give local communities the right to buy up assets such as empty shops.

Nandy will use a speech in Darlington to say Labour would press ahead with handing power to communities outside London and the south-east in an attempt to rebalance the UK’s economy.

“Those voices in the Tory party who tried to advance the levelling up agenda have been roundly defeated and now the ugly truth of this is on full display as leadership contenders vie for the mantle of Margaret Thatcher, promising tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation, and more managed decline across Britain,” she is expected to say.

“In short, the Tories’ commitment to levelling up is dead. But levelling up is not dead. Not for the millions who voted for change – and who need and deserve to see it delivered.”

She will announce that a Labour government would create a new “community right to buy”, giving local groups first refusal on bidding for high street shops that have been vacant for a long time, as well as assets earmarked as important by the council, such as football clubs, pubs and playing fields.


Communities are already allowed to bid for these so-called assets of community value, but as well as first refusal Labour would also give them a year to raise the funds, up from the current six months.

Labour has also asked Mark Gregory, a former chief economist at Ernst & Young, to lead a commission on how communities can best bring public and private sector funding together to generate revenue that can be used locally.

Nandy is expected to say: “This is the first step on the way to greater financial autonomy for our towns, villages, and cities. The only conditions attached are that it must raise revenue to be used and passed down through the generations, and that it must be driven by the wishes of the community, held in common, and used for the common good.

“Because what is needed is not a Hunger Games-style grants system where we have to go cap in hand to Whitehall, but financial autonomy.”

Her intervention comes after the shadow education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, said Labour had nothing to fear from any of the Conservative leadership candidates.
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Asked by Sophy Ridge on Sky News which contender her party was most concerned about, Phillipson said: “I’m not worried about any of them. I don’t think we’ve got anything to fear from any of the candidates, and the reason for that is that all of them 

“And over those 12 years, what have we seen happen in our country? We’ve seen our vital public services, whether that’s schools or hospitals, get worse and worse. Britain is completely stuck. You can’t renew your passport, more and more people going to food banks, rising levels of child poverty.”

Labour strategists have been taken aback by the extent to which cabinet ministers have been ready to disown the record of a government in which they are still serving.

In particular, the foreign secretary, Liz Truss, who has the backing of the Boris Johnson loyalists Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg, has questioned the way her party has managed the economy.

“Now is the time to be bold,” she said at her campaign launch last week. “We cannot have business-as-usual economic management which has led to low growth for decades.” Comments such as this are being stored up by Labour for future election campaigning.

Some senior Labour figures had been concerned by the potential electoral appeal of Penny Mordaunt, who has performed well among focus groups, but have been reassured by her failure to set out detailed policy.

“She’s very superficial,” said one shadow minister, adding that Tom Tugendhat could present more of a challenge to Labour, but had no chance of winning. Tugendhat trailed in fifth position in Thursday’s second round of voting.

Keir Starmer will have one of his final opportunities for an extended debate against Johnson on Monday after the government tabled a motion of confidence in itself. The decision followed a row last week after Labour laid a motion of its own asking MPs to express whether they had confidence in a government led by Johnson.

The government initially declined to allow the parliamentary time for Labour’s motion to be debated – before tabling one of its own, more narrowly worded to exclude a reference to Boris Johnson.

Monday’s motion will almost certainly be handily won by the government, which still holds a working majority of 73 despite several recent byelection losses.

Opinions
Ameri-coup: A brief history of US misdeeds

On John Bolton’s admission that he ‘helped plan coups d’état’ and the US’s casual approach to upending nations.

Belen Fernandez
Contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
Published On 16 Jul 2022

In 2019, John Bolton as national security adviser publicly supported Venezuelan opposition calls for the military to remove socialist President Nicolas Maduro [Vladislav Culiomza/Reuters]

There is an old joke about why there are never coups d’état in the United States of America: because there is no US embassy there.

Granted, the joke’s foundations have been somewhat shaken now that former President Donald Trump stands accused of inciting an “attempted coup” in January 2021. Not everyone is on board with the “coup” designation, however – even among Trump’s critics.

In a recent interview with CNN about the congressional investigation into the matter, longtime US diplomat and former Trump national security adviser John Bolton – whose moustache “Trump never liked”, as the Associated Press reported – declared it a “mistake” to see the insurrection as a “carefully planned coup d’état”. In short, according to Bolton, Trump was simply too incompetent to pull off something of that magnitude: “As somebody who has helped plan coups d’état – not here, but, you know, other places – it takes a lot of work.”

Of course, US involvement in foreign coups is not exactly a news flash, and plenty has been written on the subject. See, for starters, former New York Times bureau chief Stephen Kinzer’s book Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq – or the Washington Post’s finding in 2016 that “the US tried to change other countries’ governments 72 times during the Cold War”.

But the nonchalance with which Bolton delivered his admission just serves to underscore the United States’ rather casual approach to upending nations and wrecking lives en masse. This institutionalised lack of empathy is, to be sure, also on display in regular international episodes of sustained US military slaughter.

And yet given the apoplexy into which the US establishment enters whenever other countries are perceived to be meddling in affairs that are not their own, the blasé imperial attitude becomes all the more mind-numbingly hypocritical. Nor is perennial US bleating about “democracy” easily reconcilable with, you know, coups d’état.

In the CNN interview, the only specific point Bolton cared to highlight on his own coup-planning curriculum vitae was that of Venezuela in 2019, which “turned out not to be successful”. Not to be confused with the 2002 US-backed coup in Venezuela that briefly ousted Hugo Chávez, the 2019 operation entailed efforts to replace elected president Nicolás Maduro with a right-wing character named Juan Guaidó, who had spontaneously auto-proclaimed himself interim president of the country.

Venezuela has long been a thorn in the side of contemporary American empire on account of its refusal to submit to Washington’s hemispheric designs, but it’s the tip of the iceberg when it comes to coup-happy US interference in Latin America and beyond.

Back in 1954, for example, the CIA orchestrated a coup against Jacobo Árbenz, the democratically elected leader of Guatemala, who had proven himself to be irritatingly attentive to the needs of the country’s peasantry and unwilling to permit the predatory US-based United Fruit Company to continue exploiting Guatemalan land as though it was a God-given right.

The coup against Árbenz paved the way for a brutal civil war in which more than 200,000 Guatemalans were killed or disappeared over 36 years. The majority of wartime atrocities were committed by US-supported government forces.

As it so happened, at the time of the coup, key members of the Dwight D Eisenhower administration harboured close personal ties to the United Fruit Company. To hell, then, with the separation of corporation and state.

The previous year, in August of 1953, the CIA “overthrew Iran’s democracy in four days” – as NPR puts it. Like Árbenz, elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh had been insufficiently subservient to the economic preferences of the powers that be. There ensued a long-term reign of torture by the shah of Iran, an avid consumer of US weaponry. As Ervand Abrahamian recalls in his History of Modern Iran, “arms dealers joked that the shah devoured their manuals in much the same way as other men read Playboy”.

The list goes on. There was the 1964 US-backed coup against Brazilian President João Goulart, the 1991 US-backed coup against Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the 2004 US-backed coup against again President Aristide, and the 2009 US-backed coup against Honduras’s Manuel Zelaya – which plunged the country into more or less apocalyptic violence.

Rewind again to 1960 and the US-supported coup against Patrice Lumumba – hero of Congolese independence and the first democratically elected prime minister of the Congo – whose assassination the following year was significantly facilitated by the CIA. Then there was the US-supported November 1, 1963 coup against South Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Diem, who was assassinated the next day.

And there was US support for tyrannical Cuban dictator and coup-monger Fulgencio Batista, who was himself deposed by the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959 – after which the CIA busied itself devising a dizzying variety of plots to kill revolutionary leader and scuba diving aficionado Fidel Castro, including one scheme involving brilliantly painted explosives-laden molluscs.

Obviously, none of these plots panned out, and – what do you know? – Cuba continues to occupy a special place on the appointed nemeses list of none other than John Bolton. In 2002, in his capacity as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security under “war on terror” chief George W Bush, Bolton had the honour of officially adding the diminutive Caribbean island to the “axis of evil”.

Fast forward to 2019, and Bolton warned that the Cuban government would “be next” in line after the demise of Maduro.

And while US malevolence clearly does not always go according to plan, this has not stopped the global hegemon from making life a nightmare for people across the world via military bombs, death squads, crippling embargoes, and other measures that are far less creative but far more destructive than exploding seashells.

As per the aforementioned 2016 Washington Post report on the United States’ 72 attempts at regime change during the Cold War, “meddling in foreign elections is the most successful covert tactic”. Furthermore, the report’s author notes, “covert regime change can devastate the target countries”, rendering them “more likely to suffer civil war, domestic instability and mass killing”. You don’t say.

Now, in the aftermath of Bolton’s would-be revelation, the Post’s Philip Bump takes on the question: “So what coups might John Bolton have been involved in, exactly?” Utilising data from the Cline Center at the University of Illinois, Bump observes that, since Bolton joined the Ronald Reagan administration in 1982, more than 350 coup attempts have transpired internationally – including events “that one might not think of as a coup attempt – like the US-led toppling of the government in Afghanistan” after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Out of the more than 350 attempts, Bump writes, 191 took place while Bolton occupied a position in the US government. Bump has, however, taken the liberty of removing from the equation all attempts that “occurred while Bolton was with [the] Justice [Department] or USAID, assuming that his involvement in any government-led nefariousness would have been limited”. Never mind that USAID, the US Agency for International Development, has been soundly exposed as an intermittent front for CIA operations.

Ultimately, Bump has determined, a mere 131 instances remain in the pool of coup attempts that are potentially eligible for some sort of link to Bolton. And yet, at the end of the day, it’s not really about Bolton at all; it’s about the casual, morally deranged imperialism that he happens to represent.

And as “America’s Century of Regime Change” turns into centuries, it is quite the coup indeed.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Belen Fernandez
Contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine.
Belen Fernandez is the author of Checkpoint Zipolite: Quarantine in a Small Place (OR Books, 2021), Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World (OR Books, 2019), Martyrs Never Die: Travels through South Lebanon (Warscapes, 2016), and The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work (Verso, 2011). She is a contributing editor at Jacobin Magazine, and has written for the New York Times, the London Review of Books blog, Current Affairs, and Middle East Eye, among numerous other publications.

  

Afghan girls suffer under school closures

Despite repeated calls on the Taliban to allow girls to attend classes again, the group still has yet to answer. Netizens have taken to the web under the #LetAfghanGirlsLearn campaign to demand back the right to study.

Advocates say the school closures are taking a psychological toll on girls and their families

Since the hardline Taliban took over Afghanistan, the group has imposed numerous limitations on girls and women, one of the most detrimental of which is the ban on education for girls.

Human rights agencies continue to warn of the consequences of school closures in the country. The US-based Human Rights Watch said the ban has created "devastating consequences for them [girls], their families, and the country's future."

During the Taliban's last reign of power, from 1996 to 2001, the Islamic fundamentalist group imposed an array of restrictions on women, requiring them to wear the all-encompassing burqa, and barring them from public life and education.

After they seized power again last August, the hardline government's previous stance appeared to have softened after they announced that there wouldn't be a dress code for women. But the Taliban has so far forced women out of public life and has imposed various limitations on Afghan women and girls.

Hashtag sweeps Twitter

In response, the social media campaign #LetAfghanGirlsLearn is calling on the Taliban to reopen schools for girls.

The Taliban have repeatedly said that they are working on a mechanism to reopen girls' schools, but despite numerous promises, girls above the sixth grade have yet to enter a classroom again. Experts say there is division among top Taliban leadership regarding the issue.

Shahrzad Akbar, the former head of Afghanistan's independent human rights commission, said that she will celebrate when Afghan girls get their rights back. "Every day, I am devastated that girls are kept out of school for one more day in Afghanistan. The stories of these incredible women is a reminder of the potential of Afghan women, what they could do for their country and for the world, if they are given the opportunity," Akbar tweeted.

Women's rights activists, meanwhile, say that school closures have further exacerbated forced marriages and family violence.

Closures take psychological toll

Before the Taliban entered Kabul last year, Sharifa, (name changed) was a ninth grade student in a Kabul school. She was top in her class from third through ninth grade, and had been a role model for other girls in her school. 

During the last 300 days of school closures, her daily routine changed and she has turned to drawing and painting. In her pictures, she draws memories of school, her teachers and her classroom. 

"When I see my school books, notes and meet my classmates, we all remember the good days. But when I see that we are not allowed to enter school, it breaks my heart. With this situation we have lost hope and our future is dark and very painful," Sharifa told DW.

Despite the situation, Sharifa still holds out hope that girls' schools will reopen their doors. "After every sundown there is a hope for a new tomorrow, and that means that we shouldn’t lose hope," she said. 

However, this is the second time that history has repeated itself for this Afghan family. Farzana, Sharifa's mother, said she was a sixth grade student when the Taliban first came to power years prior. "This time, the school closure reminded me of our student life when the Taliban shut down girls' schools," she told DW.

Karima (name changed) meanwhile is an Afghan mother of two girls and a boy in Kabul. She said she is worried about the health and psychological effects of the school closures on her children.

"The school closure has not only affected my children, but me as well. I am not able to attend ceremonies or go out for a break, instead I have to stay home and look after my children. I fear that they will think of harming themselves," she told DW.

LIFE IN AFGHANISTAN UNDER THE TALIBAN
New but old dress code
Although it is not yet mandatory for women to wear a burqa, many do so out of fear of reprisals. This Afghan woman is visiting a local market with her children. There is a large supply of second-hand clothes as many refugees have left their clothes behind.
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Agencies call for action

Ahead of the UN General Assembly this September, activists in an open letter called on relevant parties to take bold and coordinated actions for women's rights in Afghanistan. In the letter, they called on the international community to "increase pressure on the de-facto authorities in Afghanistan to lift the ban on girls' rights to secondary education and women's right to work." They also called on the world to "demonstrate solidarity through action."

The German embassy in Kabul has also joined the call. In an Eid message to Afghans, the German embassy tweeted: "Germany and its international partners will continue to support the Afghan people and speak out for their rights, especially for the rights of girls and women in Afghanistan."

Rina Amiri, the US special envoy for Afghan women, girls and human rights, issued calls to stand with the Afghan people and women: "I ask that men & women, leaders & scholars, clerics & activists in the Muslim world stand with the Afghan people, particularly women & girls who are facing some of the most extreme restrictions in the world," Amiri tweeted.

Edited by: Leah Carter

Hungary: Is this the beginning of the end of Orban's model?

Hungarian leader Orban looks increasingly isolated —his pro-Putin stance has cost him most of his allies in the EU; the bloc could end up blocking all funds. And, there are protests at home for the first time in years.

Billions in EU funds could be withheld from Hungarian President Orban due to his democratic backsliding

For more than a decade, Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban has proved to be a major headache to the EU. Brussels has failed to find a way to effectively sanction his anti-democratic transformation of Hungary, getting bogged down instead in discussions about whether to do so and how. Meanwhile, Orban has succeeded in stalling the EU with tactical games or by blackmailing it with vetoes on various foreign policy or budget issues.

But Orban's regime, which now faces headwinds on all fronts, has now come to a turning point. With his Putin-friendly positioning, the prime minister has isolated Hungary within the EU, even falling out with his closest ally Poland. So far, Brussels has remained unexpectedly tough and has not paid out COVID-19 recovery fund money because of allegations of corruption. Furthermore, a decision on whether to impose sanctions on the country as part of the bloc’s new rule of law mechanism is expected in the coming months. A recent new ruling concluded that Brussels would have the option of cutting off all funds to Hungary — cutting off access to billions that the country needs more urgently than ever.

On top of this, there are problems on the home front. It is already clear that Hungary faces a severe economic crisis and that Orban's costly social model, with which he has kept large sections of society in line, is no longer sustainable. Though the prime minister and his Fidesz party won a historic election victory in April, the current international and domestic situation might spell the beginning of the end of the Orban model.

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Watch video03:44

Putin first to congratulate Orban

Failure to condemn the Russian war in Ukraine

Unlike all the other governments in the EU, Orban and his government have yet to unequivocally condemn Russia's war against Ukraine. Moreover, by wildly distorting the facts, Orban seems to believe that it is the West that is actually responsible for the war.

Just a few days ago, he said in a speech that it was perhaps time for Western Europe to understand that the goal should not be to win a war against Russia but to finally achieve peace.

He has repeatedly accused the EU of financing war rather than peace, saying that there are "business circles" at work in the West who are "warmongers," symbolized by US billionaire George Soros. He has also spoken out against the EU sanctions imposed on Russia. The Hungarian government also successfully vetoed an EU attempt to slap sanctions on Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, who has glorified war crimes.

The leaders of Hungary and Russia are particularly close

Poland distances itself from Hungary

Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland's deputy prime minister and the leader of the ruling national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, blew his top a long time ago because of this Putin-friendly attitude, recommending that if his erstwhile staunch ally Orban was blind to Russian war crimes in Ukraine, he should get his eyes tested.

Like in Poland, Orban's Putin-friendly stance could also lead to a realization in Brussels and other individual EU member states, that it is no longer possible to conduct constructive, fruitful negotiations with the Hungarian prime minister, with regard to democracy, rule of law, and fundamental EU values.

That could have consequences for Hungary when the European Commission and the bloc’s member states decide in the coming months on whether funds should be withdrawn from Budapest because it has violated rule of law regulations. So far, the country had been able to rely on the support of certain individual member states. That is no longer certain.

Kaczynski (right) has distanced himself from his erstwhile ally Orban

All EU funds could be cut

The EU triggered a rule of law mechanism procedure against Hungary at the end of April  — the first time that it had done so against an EU member state since the mechanism came into force at the start of 2021. The so-called budget conditionality procedure makes it easier to sanction EU members for breaching the rule of law. Whereas in other procedures, member state unanimity is required, this procedure requires the agreement of a qualified 55% majority of members, representing at least 65% of the bloc’s population.

Last week, a new rule of law report assessing the potential amount of financial sanctions against member states was published in Brussels. It concluded that it would be justified and necessary to stop all EU funding to Hungary because its violations of the rule of law are so serious, longstanding, and systematic that it is not certain that even one euro would be safe from corruption and abuse. 

Merkel did not show enough political will

Though it was the German MEP Daniel Freund who commissioned the report, it was approved by all major factions in the European Parliament, including the Greens, Social Democrats, Liberals, and even the conservative European People's Party (EPP), which Fidesz belonged to until March 2021.

"This report sends out a strong legal signal that there is nothing standing in the way of cutting funding to Hungary entirely," Freund told DW. "Now, the question is whether the Commission will have the political will to implement it." Freund sounded doubtful as he meted out some harsh criticism of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: "Several European Parliament resolutions have accused her of inaction, which is quite exceptional and speaks for itself," he said.

Will Ursula von der Leyen have the political will to sanction Orban (left)

Kim Lane Scheppele, a political scientist at Princeton University in the US and one of the authors of the report, told DW that the EU already had the legal instruments for sanctioning Orban a long time ago. "But the political will was not there and one of the biggest obstacles was former German Chancellor Angela Merkel […]" she said. 

"Now, the Commission has to understand that without exception all state institutions are under Orban's political control, and that unless money is taken away from him, he will continue as before."

Social protests break out in Hungary

In a blogpost, Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs commented: "This new round of bullying on the part of the liberal rabble in the European Parliament is simply political spite and only serves their own political agenda on the margins."

Orban in a speech said that Hungary had been attacked in the European Parliament in scenes akin to "intifada and vivisection." He also indirectly accused the Hungarian opposition of treason for taking part in the procedure, pointing out that EU funding was also used for wage increases for Hungarian doctors and teachers.

This harsh rhetoric is not coincidental. The financial stakes are high for Orban and his government. For years, Hungary has implemented generous social and fiscal policies to keep Fidesz voters on board. Before the parliamentary elections in April, the government handed out tax breaks and financial aid. But this has apparently come to an end.

In the past days, the same government hastily withdrew social measures and tax breaks. It seems that drastic austerity measures are likely to follow.

Angry people have already taken to the streets in the first major social protests in years, prompting daily Nepszava newspaper to write: "These are the signs of the fall."

This article was originally written in German

Russia's Gazprom says no sign of Nord Steam 1 turbine

Russian energy giant Gazprom says it has asked German engineering firm Siemens for the return of a turbine that was being fixed in Canada. There are fears state-owned Gazprom could use the opportunity to cut off gas.

The powerful Portovaya compressor station pressurizes gas to the required level for transport through Nord Stream 1

The Russian gas supplier Gazprom said Saturday it had asked German engineering company Siemens for details about the return of a turbine — under maintenance in Canada — to ensure the delivery of gas from the Nord Stream pipeline to Europe.

Gazprom is conducting maintenance on the pipeline over a 10-day period and has stopped delivering gas through the conduit, which runs beneath the Baltic Sea.
What's the problem?

European countries, particularly Germany — to which the pipeline runs from Russia — are anxious to see if gas supplies are resumed.

There are fears that Moscow could use the annual work on the pipeline — which was scheduled well in advance — to shut down gas deliveries in response to Western sanctions over Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Gas supplies via the pipeline had already dwindled by about 60%, even before the switch-off, with officials blaming problems with the gas pumping turbine.

Moscow has already said the restart of supplies depends upon actions taken by the West, and that it depends on preventing negative effects of unlawful restrictive measures."

Canada has issued a "time-limited and revocable permit" last week that would exempt the turbine from sanctions imposed on Russia by Western nations, but Gazprom says it has seen no evidence that the turbine will be sent.

What is Gazprom saying?

Despite the waiver, Gazprom has said it does not know if the turbine — which is used at a compressor station for Nord Stream 1 — will be returned.

"On July 15, Gazprom submitted an official request to Siemens to obtain the documents... to allow the export of the gas turbine engine of the Portovaya station, a critical facility for the Nord Stream gas pipeline," the firm said in a statement.

"Gazprom is counting on the Siemens Group to unconditionally fulfill its obligations with regard to servicing gas turbine engines on which depend the reliable operation of the Nord Stream pipeline and natural gas supply to European consumers," the company said on Saturday.

What's happening with the turbine?

The turbine is believed to still be in Canada, with a spokesman for Siemens saying company experts were "working intensively on all other formal approvals and logistics."

Ukraine summoned Canada's ambassador on Monday and described the decision to return the repaired turbine as "unacceptable." The World Ukrainian Congress filed a lawsuit asking the Canadian federal court to review the decision in the hope of having it overturned.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responded to the criticism, saying the sanctions "are aimed at Putin and his enablers, and aren't designed to harm our allies and their populations."

Trudeau said the "difficult decision" to allow these parts to be shipped to Germany was taken to avoid a possible major energy crisis in Europe, and to prevent popular support for the West's backing of Ukraine from ebbing away.

Germany's COVID-19 summer spike pushes nurses beyond their limits

German hospitals are struggling as beds fill up and nursing staff falls ill with COVID. Even freshly trained health care workers complain about unsustainable levels of stress and worsening conditions.


German health workers are completely exhausted

It's not easy to reach Georg Goutrié on the phone. But between two night shifts and an early morning shift, the 21-year-old nurse finds a moment to answer. "What day is it? Sunday, right?" he asks with a laugh. For the past month, Goutrié has been working at the mother and child unit at Berlin's Charité hospital. With over 3,000 beds, the university hospital is one of the largest in Europe.

Goutrié's three-year training to become a nurse began right in the middle of the pandemic. During that time, he and other trainees experienced challenges most clinics around the country faced: Entire wards were shut down, with operations postponed and staff moved elsewhere to care for COVID-19 patients.

At his current post, Goutrié will likely be spared a similar situation. "My ward now can't be closed. Babies simply arrive when they are ready, and you can't put them at the back of the line." For the time being, however, all patients are being handled as though they were positive COVID-19 cases: in isolation until they get a negative PCR test result.

Many patients who are admitted to hospital, only then find out that they are infected with VOVID-19

Relaxed regulations meet a new omicron variant

Over the last two years, COVID-19 infections have dropped during the summer, when people spend more time outside. This has meant a reprieve for health workers during the warmer months.

But this year is different. Case numbers are rising even in summer and the health system is already approaching its limits, according to the Marburger Bund doctors' association. While in early June the 7-day incidence rate was the lowest it had been all year, numbers have since spiked rapidly.

One explanation is the new BA.5 virus subvariant. Even more contagious than previous variants, experts say that it could spread rapidly well into summer. Those who have been vaccinated or already recovered from an omicron variant infection aren't safe. Two-thirds of COVID infections are now attributable to the BA.5 subvariant.

The spread has been facilitated, as authorities have relaxed prevention measures. People in Germany are no longer subject to contact restrictions or mask requirements in most public spaces. Many are also traveling and attending events once again.

Free rapid tests have been abolished due to the expense. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach said recently that the service had been costing €1 billion ($1 billion) per month. Now people are required to pay €3 at test centers, with some exceptions. It remains to be seen whether this will discourage regular testing.

Hospitals have to cut back as more and more nurses fall ill with COVID

Virus hits hospital workers

A familiar pattern is playing out for nurses once again. With COVID-19 numbers on the rise, they are concerned about fall and winter, when experience shows that infections will continue to multiply. One of the largest clinics in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein already closed two sites at the beginning of July because too many staff were infected with the virus.

"It has hit our employees too — there are higher rates of sickness in our workforce than usual, due in part to the coronavirus," reports the intensive care unit at Hamburg's Agaplesion hospital. As in many other hospitals, a COVID-19 ward has been set up here in addition to the intensive care unit.

"We have already had to reserve beds due to the situation described above. And this in the middle of summer," the hospital's press office wrote to DW. "So we look with concern to the coming fall and winter."
Too many patients, too much responsibility

But COVID-19 is not the decisive issue. The pandemic has highlighted the already precarious working conditions in the care sector, a problem that The Walk of Care initiative, in which nurse Georg Goutrié is also active, has been working to repair since 2016. It unites caregivers of all ages and ranks in a campaign for better financial and structural health care policies.

"In Germany, we average about 13 patients per nurse, while in Holland, for example, there are only five," Goutrié says. "How am I supposed to take responsibility for 13 patients at once and still provide high-quality care?"

Nurses had already been working at their absolute limit for years in both outpatient clinics and hospitals, he stresses. Conditions hit women the hardest because they fill more than two-thirds of the nursing jobs throughout the country.

Those who suffer most can't afford to rest after their paid caregiving ends because the unpaid labor of tending to children and dependents awaits them at home. Many also experience racism or sexism in the workplace, but struggle to find new positions, Goutrié says.

Half of all critically ill patients on respirators do not survive

Low wages, high stress levels

According to the German Economic Institute, the country could see a shortage of around 307,000 nursing staff by 2035.

The problem has been steadily worsening for years. Conditions create physical and emotional strain, and understaffed teams often mean working overtime — on the lowest possible wages.

Anonymous reports by hospital personnel from across the country describe how this feels on a website called "Schwarzbuch Krankenhaus," (Black Book Hospital). Health workers' comments read:

"I didn't even have time to care for the dying!"

"I love my job and I am very proud of it. But I am so shocked by the abysmal care in this facility that I couldn't stand it for more than two years."

"When I broke down crying in the ward, none of the other nurses had even a moment to comfort me."

Burnout or coolout?

Such accounts reveal a wide spectrum of psychological distress. Burnout is a much-discussed topic in nursing. But there is also a phenomenon known as "coolout" that is becoming more common in Germany.

"It's when you don't care about anything. Nothing touches you anymore. It's a state of complete overload. You take care of people in a state of emergency," Goutrié says, adding that this leads to mistakes or even violence towards patients.

In June 2021, politicians vowed to make improvements, launching a nursing reform that came into force this year. It aims to alleviate the skilled worker shortage and job stress with better wages and more onsite decision-making responsibility for nursing staff.

But Goutrié is considering a career change, to maybe start something completely different, even if the idea pains him. "If you see yourself as a caregiver, it makes sense to go into nursing," he says. "But at what cost?"

This article was originally written in German.