Forced abroad, Russian independent media continue fight against censorship

Russia has sentenced a former star journalist to jail and revoked the license of a Kremlin-critical newspaper, further tightening the screws on independent media. Getting uncensored information is harder than ever.

Russian journalist Ivan Safronov was sentenced to 22 years in prison

Can you still get independent information and news in Russia? Hasn't everything been censored and shut down since the invasion of Ukraine in February, at the very latest? Such questions have surfaced again against the backdrop of two recent court verdicts in Moscow. 

On Monday, a court found Ivan Safronov, a 32-year-old former star journalist and advisor at the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, guilty of treason. The charges were ostensibly related to an article he had written about the Russian arms industry. 

The severity of his sentence — 22 years in jail — is unusual even by Russian standards, DW columnist Ivan Preobrashensky wrote for DW's Russian-language website. It suggests that "independent journalism in Russia [is] as good as dead."

Russian political expert Dmitry Oreshkin echoed the view. "It sends a clear signal to everyone — keep quiet," he told DW. The sentence punishes Safronov for daring to "talk about the actual circumstances," he added.

Riga: A new home for exiled Russian media

The same day Safronov's ruling was handed down, a different court revoked the print license of Novaya Gazeta, a renowned newspaper that is critical of the Kremlin. Its editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. The paper had already suspended operations in March after receiving warnings from Roskomnadzor, Russia's media oversight agency. The decision regarding the print license came just days after the death of one of the newspaper's founding members: Former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. 

Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner

Founded in 1993, Novaya Gazeta was for decades considered a flagship publication in Russia. In a statement, the newspaper's editorial team compared the court ruling to "newspaper murder" and promised to carry on: "Intellectual freedom will spread where and how it chooses." 

For most media critical of the Kremlin, this means going abroad. Part of Novaya Gazeta's editorial team founded an offshoot in April in Latvia's capital, Riga.

This is also where Dozhd, or TV Rain, the most famous Kremlin-critical online television network, has been broadcasting since August. It, too, ceased operations in Russia just a few days after the invasion of Ukraine; its website was blocked. At the time, Russia's media laws were being drastically tightened. Today, whoever criticizes the war in Ukraine risks a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

The liberal radio station Echo of Moscow, one of the few voices that was critical of the Kremlin, was shut down around the same time as TV Rain. Up until then, it had been allowed to broadcast nationally. Many of its employees have since left Russia and now run their own channels through social media.

Novaya Gazeta and TV Rain are following in the footsteps of Medusa, one of Russia's most popular online outlets. It was founded by liberal Russian journalists in the Latvian capital in 2014, after Russia's annexation of Crimea. 

When Dozhd, or TV Rain, closed down in 2022, Russia lost its last independent television station

Using YouTube to evade censorship

For these media companies and many others, YouTube is playing an increasingly important role. Anyone in Russia seeking independent information cannot avoid turning to the video platform. That's because Russian authorities cannot selectively block it. With over three million YouTube subscribers, TV Rain is the most successful exiled Russian-language broadcaster. The messenger app Telegram is also a popular source for uncensored news. 

It is also possible to use VPN (virtual private network) software to sidestep the actual censorship. Content from Deutsche Welle, which has been blocked in Russia since early 2022, is available in this way. British newspaper The Times reported in June that the number of VPN users in Russia had reached 24 million, 15 times the amount prior to the invasion of Ukraine.

In Russia, free speech barely exists anymore. Only a select few online media dare to produce critical reports. The Kommersant newspaper, where Ivan Safronov used to work, wrote an open letter addressed to him: "We did not hear any public evidence of your guilt and we are sure: In another time, in another country, you would have been acquitted."

The paper's editorial team praised his behavior during his two-year pre-trial detainment, describing him as a model of "integrity," and promised to wait for him. Safronov denies all charges.  

This article has been translated from German.

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Heat pumps: What are they and how do they work?

Heat pumps are being touted as a climate-friendly option to keep homes warm as people look for alternatives to oil and gas. DW explains the mysteries behind them.

Heat pumps work like a fridge in reverse

Around half of Germany's homes are heated by natural gas and a quarter with oil. As the country transitions away from fossil fuels in the face of the climate crisis, many are looking for alternatives.

Heat pumps are one technology being widely discussed. But how do they work exactly?

A heat pump extracts warmth from outside air, the ground or a nearby source of water to generate heat using something called evaporative cooling. You’ll know how satisfying it is putting a cold cloth on your skin in sweltering temperatures. It's the same effect. The cold water evaporates, becomes gaseous and you cool down. 

Here's the science behind it: The transition from water to vapor requires a lot of energy. To change state, the water molecules draw that energy from their surroundings, in this case warm skin. That process brings about the cooling effect. Conversely, much of this energy is released as heat back into the air once the evaporated water becomes liquid again. 

Heat pumps, fridges, and air conditioners all exploit these transitions. Refrigerators cool down on the inside and get warm on the outside. For heat pumps it’s the opposite.

In the case of heat pumps, a special refrigerant circulates in a closed pipe system. Refrigerants evaporate at very low temperatures, sometimes below minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 Fahrenheit). 

Heat from the ground or air, for example, warms the refrigerant, which then evaporates in the circuit. A compressor squeezes the molecules of the refrigerant gas together, further increasing its temperature. When it then liquifies again, it releases the extra heat into the heating system. That means heat pumps can be used to warm or cool a home, office, or any other indoor space.

Water, air source, or geothermal heat pump: Which is best?

While there are different kinds of heat pumps, they all work on the same principle of extracting thermal energy from the environment.

Water heat pumps can use groundwater or water from rivers or lakes. Air-source ones run on regular air pulled in from outside or hot exhaust air produced at industrial sites or data centers.

For geothermal heat pumps, probes are drilled 100 meters (328 feet) or more into the ground, depending on the density of the rock. The deeper the borehole into the ground, the warmer it gets.

Groundwater heat pumps are more efficient, but also more expensive. The air-source variety work almost anywhere but can be noisy.

In the process of heating a building, heat pumps can cool down groundwater by 4 degrees, or reduce the air temperature around it by 10 degrees.

Can heat pumps also heat in cold weather?

Even on cold winter days, there's enough thermal energy underground, in the air or groundwater to heat a building. In Scandinavia, for instance, many people heat with air-source heat pumps even during severe winters. These extract heat energy from the air at temperatures as low as minus 20 Celsius.

Still, they require more energy to operate in the cold and work better in warmer weather. Heat pumps are also kitted out with heating rods that use electricity, as a backup.

How much electricity do heat pumps consume?

While most of the energy is taken from the environment, the devices do require additional power to run the electric motor for the compressor, pumps and fans. In good conditions, one kilowatt-hour of drive electricity can generate around six kilowatt-hours of heat. An 80-square meter insulated apartment needs less than 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

Heat pumps are more efficient in new insulated buildings, especially ones with underfloor heating and large radiators. In older homes in Germany, air-source heat pumps generate about three kilowatt-hours of heat from one kilowatt-hour of electricity, according to a study by the Freiburg-based Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. Using groundwater as the energy source generated, on average, four times as much heat in comparison. 

In principle, heat pumps can generate temperatures of more than 70 degrees Celsius. That means they can also heat uninsulated houses with old radiators. But the device's electricity consumption would then be significantly higher.

A cheap combination: Powering a heat pump with solar panels on a roof

Is it cost-effective to use solar power for heat pumps?

Solar energy from your roof is cheaper than from the power grid and is also climate friendly. But solar modules generate much less electricity in colder conditions. So more would be needed to produce the same amount of electricity during the winter heating season. Or you would have to buy additional electricity.

Can heat pumps also cool?

Modern pumps can switch from heating to cooling mode. In that case, the thermal energy from inside buildings is simply transferred to the outside air or groundwater. Likewise, modern air conditioners can also heat.

Are refrigerants harmful to the climate?

Most of them are. Chemical refrigerants called hydrofluorocarbons have traditionally been the dominant choice for coolant used in heat pumps and air conditioning systems. These are up to 4,000 times more harmful to the climate than CO2 if they get into atmosphere, which can happen through leakage or incorrect disposal.

More and more heat pumps are now being sold with the climate-friendlier refrigerants propane, CO2 or ammonia. The European Union is phasing out the use of HFCs in heat pumps and air conditioners in favor of the greener alternatives.

Colombia's territorial battle between Indigenous and Black communities

COLONIALISM PITS THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER

Juan Sebastian SERRANO
Thu, September 8, 2022 a


Cattle nonchalantly graze near a dilapidated farm on partly charred and abandoned sugarcane fields.

In the fertile Cauca valley in Colombia's southwest, Nasa Indigenous people have been forcibly occupying farmland, claiming to be putting to an end damaging monoculture in the country's main sugarcane growing area.

These sudden eruptions have provoked serious tensions with manual laborers from the sugarcane industry, who are often Black and find themselves chased off their land and out of work.

It seems that a new conflict is about to break out in the Corinto valley, where everyone is claiming "ancestral" lands.

"How can they (the Nasa) claim this land belongs to them if our ancestors lived here their whole lives," one of the local Black leaders told AFP.

Many Black communities have lived in the region for more than a century.

The Nasa want to "build their houses on top of ours," he added, hitting out at the "violence" brought by the occupiers.

Close to 2,500 people of African descent, "small- and medium-scale sugarcane producers, live in Severo Mulato, a village bordering several occupied areas.

The Nasa don't accept sugarcane plantations. They say these dry out the land and enrich only the sugar barons living in Cali, one of Colombia's main cities.

- 'Fighting with stones' -

Since the June election of Gustavo Petro, the country's first ever leftist president, Indigenous people have stepped up forceful occupations and confiscations of land in Cauca, which is already one of the worst affected areas by the violence brought by armed gangs and drug traffickers.

Police say there have been 30 occupations of farmland, including nine in the last month.

Hugely popular amongst Indigenous people, Petro has promised an "agrarian reform" to redistribute land in a country where a small landowning elite controls the majority of territory.

Territorial access is at the heart of the bloody six-decade long conflict that has ravaged Colombia.

During the 1960s, it was the main factor motivating farmers in their armed struggle against the state.

In the following decades, right-wing paramilitaries violently displaced thousands of families in favor of major landowners and cattle ranchers.

Indigenous people have now occupied land in seven of Colombia's 32 provinces.

It has been condemned by the government, which said the police would intervene.

The Nasa "cut down anything they like ... they build cabins, burn" the sugarcane, and destroyed five hectares of crops, said the Black leader.

After the abolition of slavery in 1851, Black people bought land in exchange for their work.

Now, most of their descendents grow sugarcane to sell to the major exporters in the region.

"When we faced up to (the Indigenous people), we had to fight with stones because we didn't have any other weapons," he added.

- Getting the valley back -

Just a year ago, the Severo Mulato settlement lay next to a sugarcane farm.

Some 400 "landless" Indigenous families descended from the mountains and took over the land.

In the abandoned homes, infested with mosquitoes, Nasa women and children crowd around wood fires living off vegetables grown in small plots.

"We came and put our lives (at risk) for the right to a piece of land," argues the group's leader, his face masked for fear of persecution.

He said the large scale farmers had forced Indigenous people "into the mountains" by colonizing the cultivable land.

With a growing population, they had to cut down the forest to grow food, to the detriment of local fauna and flora.

That's why they decided to "reclaim" the valley -- and to destroy the sugarcane to plant bananas, rice and corn in its place.

Indigenous reserves account for 20 percent of Cauca.

But the Indigenous people complain that these lands are mostly uncultivable forest.

The Indigenous people have established a territory of 1.5 hectares, blocked off from police intervention by tree trunks.

The Black villages are nearby in the valley.

It is a powder keg.

The union of sugarcane exploiters has complained about the loss of "close to 6,000 jobs."

The industry was responsible for "the development of these communities" according to Juan Carlos Agudelo, a spokesman for the sugarcane workers.

The poverty rate in Cauca of 58 percent is largely above the national average of 39.5 percent.

"Communities that have no schools, no homes, that have no running water. Where is the development?" asks the Indigenous leader.

jss/vel/das/hba/bc/mdl

All eyes on army as Brazil heads for elections

Marcelo SILVA DE SOUSA
Thu, September 8, 2022 


With President Jair Bolsonaro trailing in the polls and regularly alleging Brazil's voting system is plagued by fraud, all eyes are on the military and the role it could play in the country's deeply divisive October elections.

The far-right president, an ex-army captain, has enthusiastically courted the military's support and has put it forward as a referee in the elections, raising fears he could seek an armed intervention if he loses.

However, experts say that while Bolsonaro has the backing of some in the military, it is highly unlikely the institution would get involved in anything resembling a coup.

Bolsonaro, who openly admires Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, has drawn the army into politics on an unprecedented scale, naming more than 6,000 active-duty or retired service members to jobs in his administration, all the way up to Vice President Hamilton Mourao, an army reserve general.

That mix of military and politics was on full display Wednesday as Brazil celebrated the 200th anniversary of its independence from Portugal with the 67-year-old commander in chief presiding over a combination of military parades and campaign rallies by his supporters.

"Bolsonaro believes it strengthens him to cultivate close ties with the armed forces and put on displays of military strength," said Carlos Fico, a military history expert at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

- Enlisting the army -

Bolsonaro, who trails leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) heading into the October 2 election, has never presented concrete evidence of electoral fraud.

But he has sought to enlist the military in his crusade against Brazil's electronic voting system.

The armed forces regularly provide logistical support for elections, but the president has pushed to expand that to new levels, insisting they act as referees.

When the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) bowed to his wishes by inviting the military to take part in a special Election Transparency Commission, Bolsonaro hailed the move.

"The armed forces are responsible, they're credible in the eyes of the public and they're not going to play a merely decorative role in this election," he said.

"They're going to do the right thing."

Hewing to Bolsonaro's line, the nine military members on the commission presented it with a list of nearly 100 points questioning supposed vulnerabilities in the electronic voting machines Brazil has used since 1996.

But in the end, the TSE concluded that most of the critiques were "opinions," and denied allegations such as the existence of a "dark room" where votes are tabulated.

- 'Political theater' -

However, experts say military support for Bolsonaro has its limits.

"There's not the slightest chance (the military) will play any role outside the one established in the constitution," said reserve general Maynard Santa Rosa, former secretary for strategic affairs under Bolsonaro.

Even though Bolsonaro enjoys close ties with top military figures, such as Defense Minister Paulo Sergio Nogueira, and has picked former defense minister Walter Braga Netto as his running mate, Fico, the military history expert, said those two "have no troops under their command."

"There is no generalized movement by active duty service members worried about verifying the electronic voting system," he said.

Fico added that any election-related unrest from the security forces was more likely to come from the police, a group "very influenced by 'Bolsonaro-ism.'"

Bolsonaro's campaign team has pushed him to tone down his rhetoric on the election system, fearful of alienating moderate voters.

But an aide close to the president, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted Bolsonaro was unlikely to listen.

"It's part of his persona. It's political theater," the aide said.

"Without that, he wouldn't be Bolsonaro."

msi/jhb/md

Bolsonaro turns Brazil’s bicentennial into campaign rally

By CARLA BRIDI and MAURICIO SAVARESE

yesterday

1 of 19

President Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters in Copacabana beach during the country's bicentennial independence celebrations, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro transformed the nation’s bicentennial Wednesday into a multi-city campaign event, but didn’t use his appearances to undermine the upcoming election as his opponents had feared.

Bolsonaro, who trails former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in polls before the Oct. 2 vote, drew tens of thousands of supporters to rallies in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. The armed forces put on military displays in the cities, with the president attending.

The far-right Bolsonaro has stacked his administration with military officers and repeatedly sought their support, most recently to cast doubt on the reliability of the nation’s electronic voting system, which raised fears his speeches on Independence Day would be filled with fresh attacks. The far-right nationalist held back from doing so, and instead focused on attacks on da Silva and his leftist Workers’ Party.

Bolsonaro compared da Silva to autocratic leftist leaders in Venezuela and Nicaragua and called Brazil’s former president “a gangster.”

“We will have a much better administration with us being elected, with the grace of God,” the president said in a speech in Rio.

His prior efforts to sow doubt about the voting system has prompted widespread concern among his opponents that he may follow former U.S. President Donald Trump ’s footsteps in rejecting election results.

Bolsonaro arrived at the military display in Brasilia accompanied by at least one of the business executives who allegedly participated in a private chat group that included comments favoring a possible coup and military involvement in politics, and who is being investigated by Federal Police for possibly financing anti-democratic acts.

The crowd, decked out in green and yellow, chanted against da Silva, who wants to return to the post he held in 2003-2010.

Later, da Silva said he had never used Independence Day for electoral ends.

“Brazil needs better luck. It needs a government that takes care of people. A person who talks about harmony, love, economic growth, industrialization, job creation, pay increases,” da Silva said. “Brazil needs love, not hatred.”

Other presidential candidates also criticized Bolsonaro’s electoral use of the country’s independence bicentennial, and party leaders have suggested they will take the case to electoral courts.

Speaking at a rally after the parade in Brasilia, Bolsonaro made no reference to Brazil’s struggle for independence and instead focused on his achievements while his supporters made clear they came to support their candidate.

“We came for democracy, we want a free country, with no corruption or robbing, we want a country with clean elections,” said farmer Marcelo Zanella, 46, who drove some 800 kilometers (496 miles) from the state of Tocantins.

Tens of thousands also gathered on Sao Paulo’s main downtown boulevard. Due to a downpour and the fact Bolsonaro wasn’t scheduled to appear, turnout was apparently smaller than last year’s.

Later, Bolsonaro attended another military display in Rio along Copacabana beach — where his supporters often hold demonstrations. It entailed rifle salutes, cannon fire, flyovers, paratroopers and warships anchored offshore. He delivered his speech from a sound truck, on the back of which a draped banner read: “CLEAN AND TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS.”

Bolsonaro, a former army captain and lawmaker for decades before winning the 2018 presidential election, has spent most of his first term locking horns with Supreme Court justices, some of whom are also top members of the electoral authority.

He has accused some judges of hamstringing his administration and favoring da Silva. That has effectively turned those figures and their institutions into enemies for Bolsonaro’s base.

When Bolsonaro launched his reelection bid July 24, he asked supporters for “one last” show of support on Independence Day.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, said Bolsonaro needed to energize his campaign and reach out to undecided voters.

“He needed something new and failed to do that. Bolsonaro once more only spoke with his supporters, indeed many of them, and with that the window might be closing for other voters to join him,” Melo said.

Since his campaign began, Bolsonaro has softened his tone. In the southern city of Curitiba last week, he told supporters to lower a banner demanding a military coup.

Carlos Ranulfo de Melo, a political scientist at Federal University of Minas Gerais, said this likely reflects campaign strategy to avoid fiery rhetoric and instead focus on the improving economy.

“We will convince those who think differently from us, we will convince them of what is best for Brazil,” Bolsonaro told the crowd in Brasilia.

The president is known for off-the-cuff outbursts. At last year’s Independence Day rally, he pushed the country to the brink of an institutional crisis by proclaiming he would ignore rulings from a Supreme Court justice. He later backtracked, saying his comments came in the heat of the moment, and the boiling tension was reduced to a simmer.

In both speeches in Brasilia and Rio, he made a couple veiled critiques of the Supreme Court, which elicited boos from the crowd.

“The institutional wear-and-tear was present in his speech in Brasilia, but in a less explicit way than last year,” said Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.

There had also been concerns about political violence, which didn’t materialize during the afternoon.

In Rio, it was a scene of adulation. Sound trucks blasted songs exalting Bolsonaro to a crowd packing multiple blocks of the beachside boulevard, spilling onto the sand and down to the waterline. Motorboats and jet skis floated just offshore. When the first paratroopers started gliding down, one group began chanting, “Legend!”, a nickname for the president.

“I came to honor my president,” said Myleni Lima, 50, from the city’s west zone. “I’m going to reeelect him, me and the Brazilian people.”

___ Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. Associated Press journalists Diane Jeantet and David Biller Jeantet in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

Recycling firm battles Jakarta's plastic waste emergency

Thu, September 8, 2022 


As Indonesia's capital Jakarta grapples with overflowing plastic waste and pollution pours into the sea, one burgeoning business is trying to turn rubbish into revenue.

Tridi Oasis Group, which employs 120 people, has recycled more than 250 million bottles since it was founded six years ago.

"I don't see discarded plastic as trash. For me, it is a valuable material in the wrong place," 35-year-old founder Dian Kurniawati told AFP.

Indonesia has pledged to reduce plastic waste by 30 percent over the next three years -- a mammoth task in the Southeast Asian nation of nearly 270 million people where plastic recycling is rare.

The country generates approximately 7.8 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, with more than half mismanaged or disposed of improperly, according to the World Bank.

Kurniawati's company receives plastic from recycling centres across the greater Jakarta area -- which has 30 million people -- at its factory in Banten province outside the city.

Then the company exports recycled plastic to European countries and also distributes it locally to be processed and used as packaging or textiles.

Kurniawati resigned from her consultant job to start the firm, tackling head-on the massive challenges faced by the world's fourth most populous country in dealing with the plastic crisis.

As one of the initiators of the "Beach Clean Up Jakarta" movement, she saw how Jakarta is littered with plastic waste and was frustrated that little was being done to change the situation.

- 'Our problem' -

Hundreds of piles of crushed clear plastic bottles sit piled neatly in the Banten factory, ready to be sorted to make sure no labels or caps are left behind.

The bottles are then cleaned thoroughly to eliminate contamination before being cut into small flakes, ready to be transported to clients for processing and reuse as packaging or textiles.

Fajar Sarbini, a 24-year-old employee, hopes more Indonesians will start recycling.

"People throw away their waste mindlessly, they should at least sort out sharp materials so they won't hurt garbage collectors," he said.

Jakarta does not have a municipal collection system for household waste and has no incineration facilities.

With green trends rising and the will of younger generations to live more sustainably growing, the country is not without hope.

"Indonesia is catching up and the acceleration is quite fast because we got help from social media and youth campaigns," Kurniawati said.

But she said the waste problem facing the country is enormous and the regulation to encourage plastic to be recycled is lacking.

"Plastic waste is our problem and solving it takes a concerted effort from everybody," she said.

"It can't be solved by just the government or recycling companies."

dsa/jfx/skc/mca/ser

Germany to introduce 'green card' to bolster workforce

Faced with a critical shortage of skilled labor, Germany is planning to introduce its version of a green card. It aims to make it easier for non-EU nationals to come to find work.

Sowmya Thyagarajan came to Germany from India in 2016, and now runs her own software company

The German government is introducing its own version of a "green card", the Chancenkarte (literally "opportunity card"), in an attempt to plug its desperate labor shortage. Industry associations have been complaining for some time, and the Labor Ministry has suggested the shortfall is slowing economic growth.

The new "opportunity card," presented by Labor Minister Hubertus Heil in the German media this week, will offer foreign nationals the chance to come to Germany to look for work even without a job offer, as long as they fulfill at least three of these four criteria:

1) A university degree or professional qualification

2) Professional experience of at least three years

3) Language skill or previous residence in Germany

4) Aged under 35 

The criteria are not unlike those used in Canada's points system, though that uses a more complex weight system. And there will be limits and conditions, the minister from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD)  emphasized in media interviews this week. The number of cards will be limited by the German government on a year-by-year basis, according to demand on the labor market, he explained.

Germany has disadvantages in attracting skilled workers: Language and bureaucracy top the list

"This is about qualified immigration, an unbureaucratic process, and that's why it's important that we say that those who have the opportunity card can earn a living while they are here," Heil told the WDR public radio station on Wednesday.

There are certainly some improvements here, according to Sowmya Thyagarajan. She came to Hamburg from India in 2016 to do a Ph.D. in aviation engineering and is now CEO of her own German company, Foviatech, which creates software for streamlining transportation and healthcare services.

"I think this points system could be a very good opportunity for people coming from abroad to work here," she told DW. "Especially due to the depleting young population in Germany." At the moment, Thyagarajan said, her company gives preference to Germans and EU nationals when recruiting, simply because of the bureaucratic hurdles involved for anyone else.

Labor Minister Hubertus Heil wants to boost immigration of skilled labor

New points, new hurdles

Some are not impressed with Heil's opportunity card at all. "It's setting up unnecessarily high hurdles and makes the system more complicated," said Holger Bonin, research director at theInstitute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Bonn.

To Bonin, Heil's points system will simply require more bureaucracy.

"Why don't they make it much simpler? Give people a visa to look for work, and if they don't find anything within a certain amount of time they have to leave?" he said. "To add extra points to that just makes it more complicated — if these criteria are important to employers, they can decide that during the recruitment. They won't need a card as a pre-selection."

Indeed, Bonin argues that some of the criteria Heil names might not actually be that important to employers in Germany: For instance, if they're an international company that communicates mostly in English, they won't care whether applicants can speak German or have lived in Germany.

That is borne out by Thyagarajan, who had a varying assessment of how useful the four criteria were: Qualifications and language skills were both important, she said, but she was less certain about the practicality of age restrictions. "Age of less than 35, I'm not sure about that — you don't have to be young, it really depends on how they're actually skilled." As for the three years' experience, Thyagarajan is also skeptical, since in some cases a degree provides the necessary expertise: "For some job profiles you don't require experience, but for some, you do indeed have to be experienced."

Cultural and structural problems

Germany's skilled labor shortage has been an issue for some time. Gesamtmetall, the Federation of German Employers' Associations in the Metal and Electrical Engineering Industries, says that two out of every five companies in its sector are seeing production hindered by a lack of staff. The Central Association for Skilled Crafts in Germany (ZDH) says that the country is missing around 250,000 skilled craftspeople.

The number of skilled people emigrating to Germany from non-EU countries to work has risen over the last few years, but it is still relatively low. According to the Mediendienst Integration, the number of qualified workers entering Germany was just over 60,000 in 2019, just 12% of all migration from non-EU countries to Germany in that year.

Germany has a few cultural disadvantages compared to other Western nations hoping to attract skilled workers: German is less universally spoken than English. "Skilled workers are almost always looking to get into countries that speak English," Thyagarajan said. "To some extent, it's important (that our employees speak German), because this is Germany, at least a working proficiency."

Another issue is that German employers traditionally set a higher store by certificates and qualifications, and these are often not recognized in Germany, or take months to approve. "Those problems won't be solved by introducing an opportunity card," Bonin said.

There are other systemic problems for German employers: Germany's federal system means different local authorities sometimes recognize different qualifications, and Germany's reliance on paper bureaucracy, with employees, often needing translations of their certificates approved by notaries. This too is a concern that Heil is attempting to tackle.

"I think it's very, very necessary that, apart from a modern immigration law, to thin out the bureaucratic monster of recognizing qualifications," he told WDR. To that end, he said, he would like to see a central agency that can approve qualifications quickly and back offices in Germany that can support overworked consulates abroad.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

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

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Today many German companies support diversity in the workplace and are making efforts to create better opportunities for women and people of color. But socioeconomic background is a factor that often goes overlooked.  

How Germany's new immigration law gives refugees hope

Thousands of rejected asylum-seekers in Germany are left fighting a tangle of bureaucracy for years. DW's Ben Knight has met two for whom a new law will offer the chance to stay longer.  

• Date 08.09.2022

Canada's Trudeau set to announce inflation relief for low incomes - source

By Steve Scherer

Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau speaks a day after multiple people in the province of Saskatchewan were killed and injured in a stabbing spree, in Ottawa.

© Reuters/PATRICK DOYLE

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to unveil measures on Thursday to provide inflation relief to low-income families, a government source said, confirming reports in domestic media.

Inflation eased to 7.6% in July from an almost four-decade high of 8.1%. But the Bank of Canada is still concerned about rising prices and is promising further interest rate hikes after increasing them to their highest level in 14 years on Wednesday.

Trudeau's Liberal government will boost a tax-free quarterly payment that helps individuals and families with low and modest incomes offset sales tax, which is called the goods and services tax (GST) in Canada, said the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record.

The exact scope of the increase will be announced later on Thursday by Trudeau on the sidelines of a Cabinet retreat in Vancouver at 1230 pm ET (1630 GMT).

The government will also provide a C$500 ($381) onetime top-up to a housing benefit that is provided to low earners who need help paying rent, and it will provide initial details for a dental-care plan for low-income families.

These last two measures were part of an agreement Trudeau made with the opposition New Democrats Party (NDP) in March, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is also due to speak about the measures later on Thursday.

Trudeau's Liberals were left a minority of seats in parliament after last year's election, and the NDP support agreement means that the government could survive until the end of the legislature in 2025, while most minority governments have tended to last only a couple years.

One of the keystones of the agreement is setting up a national dental care system, and on Thursday the government will announce that it will pay for part of the dental visits for children under 12 in households that earn less than C$90,000 per year, the source said.

It is the first step in setting up a permanent dental care plan, according to the source.

($1 = 1.3127 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Murder At Sea: North Korea Killings Roil Politics In South

By Kang Jin-kyu
09/09/22 

Critics accuse South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol of reopening old cases involving the North for political gain

When North Korean soldiers found a South Korean fisheries official in their territorial waters, they shot him dead and burned the body -- an incident so shocking it later prompted Kim Jong Un to apologise.

Details are sketchy -- and mostly classified -- but exactly how and why the official came to be floating in a life jacket above the sea border known as the Northern Limit Line in September 2020 has become a bitter political debate in the South.

Was the 47-year-old official, Lee Dae-jun, a would-be defector fleeing gambling debts, as the government of then-president Moon Jae-in said citing intelligence it then sealed for 30 years?

Or is that version of events actually a high-level smear campaign and cover-up, as the new government of Yoon Suk-yeol has claimed in raiding an ex-spy master's house and launching legal action over the former administration's handling of the case?

The intelligence services claim that their former chief, Park Jie-won, destroyed evidence showing Lee had no plans to move to Pyongyang.

Park told AFP the charges were "political revenge on the former administration", dismissing the allegations as unfounded.

Seoul's new administration has also reopened enquiries into a second explosive case, in which two North Korean fishermen who confessed to killing 16 crewmates at sea were deported in 2019.

Dramatic video showing the pair being dragged seemingly unwillingly through the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and returned to the North was released by Yoon's conservative government.

Moon's government at the time said the brutal nature of the killings meant the men were not entitled to the usual protections afforded to North Korean defectors and could not be considered refugees.

The political fight over the two cases highlights the risks of interpreting classified intelligence and the law in highly partisan ways, analysts say.

Critics argue the hawkish Yoon, who is struggling with record-low approval ratings just months after becoming president, is engaging in old-school red-baiting in a bid to salvage his popularity with disgruntled voters.

"For conservatives, these two cases are an example of liberals taking a subservient approach to the North," lawyer and columnist Yoo Jung-hoon told AFP.

But "the timing of the probe that came right after the change of power raises questions of a political motive behind it," he added.

Supporters of Yoon, a former prosecutor who won a close election in March vowing to get tough on Pyongyang after years of failed diplomacy, say he is simply trying to solve the cases.

"It would be a bigger problem if prosecutors chose to ignore the allegations and bury the cases fearing it would be called a 'political investigation'," Shin Yul, a professor at Myongji University, told AFP.

Legal experts say the cases have exposed contradictions in the country's constitution.

Trying the fishermen in South Korean courts would have been unprecedented, as it was unclear whether local courts had jurisdiction.

One clause of South Korea's constitution describes the country's territory as "the Korean peninsula".

Yoon has suggested that clause meant the men should have been considered South Korean citizens and tried at home.

But the next clause pledges to work for "peaceful reunification" with the North, recognising the reality that there are two distinct countries on the peninsula.

"Seoul has to take a realistic approach when dealing with the North," said Kim Jong-dae of the Yonsei Institute for North Korean Studies.

Yoon's administration has accused Moon's government of sending the fishermen "straight to death row" by repatriating them to the North.

But critics say the president has prioritised "revenge politics" over dealing with more pressing policy issues such as spiralling inflation and a plunging currency.

Seeking to prosecute officials while not presenting "smoking gun" counter-evidence in either case looks suspicious, said Kim Jong-dae.

"The administration is charging ahead with punitive governance with prosecutors on the forefront," he said.

"It's one thing to raise questions and demand answers about how the former government handled the two cases. But investigating ex-officials is a totally different thing that inevitably raises suspicions of political motives."

The killing of South Korean official Lee Dae-jun prompted a rare apology from North leader Kim Jong Un

One of two alleged North Korean mass murderers (C, in black) appears to resist as authorities try to hand him over to Pyongyang officials in 2019

Park Jie-won, ex-director of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, told AFP claims of destroyed evidence were 'political revenge on the former administration'

CLIMATE CRISIS

Heatwave batters Spain's Mediterranean mussel crop

Author: AFP|Update: 09.09.2022 

"There's nothing left," says Javier Franch after a savage summer heatwave decimated this year's mussel crop in northeastern Spain / © AFP

"There's nothing left here," sighs Javier Franch as he shakes the heavy rope of mussels he's just pulled to the surface in northeastern Spain. They are all dead.

With the country hit by a long and brutal heatwave this summer, the water temperature in the Ebro Delta, the main mussels production area of the Spanish Mediterranean, is touching 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit).

And any grower who hasn't removed their molluscs in time will have lost everything.

But that's not the worst of it: most of next year's crop has also died in one of the most intense marine heatwaves in the Spanish Mediterranean.

By the end of July, experts said the western Mediterranean was experiencing an "exceptional" marine heatwave, with persistently hotter-than-normal temperatures posing a threat to the entire marine ecosystem.

"The high temperatures have cut short the season," says Franch, 46, who has spent almost three decades working for the firm founded by his father, which has seen production fall by a quarter this year.

The relentless sun has heated up the mix of fresh and saltwater along Catalonia's delicate coastal wetlands where the River Ebro flows into the Mediterranean.

On a scorching summer morning in Deltebre, one of the municipalities of the Delta, the mussel rafts -- long wooden structures with ropes attached which can each grow up to 20 kilograms (44 pounds) of mussels -- should be teeming with workers hurrying around during the busy season.

The heat has wiped out an estimated 150,000 kilograms of commercial mussels and 1,000 tonnes of young stock / © AFP

But there is hardly any movement.

"We lost the yield that was left, which wasn't much, because we were working to get ahead so we wouldn't go through this," explains Carles Fernandez, who advises the Ebro Delta's Federation of Mollusc Producers (Fepromodel).

"But the problem is that we've lost the young stock for next year and we'll have quite a high cost overrun."

- Millions in losses -

The heat has wiped out 150 tonnes of commercial mussels and 1,000 tonnes of young stock in the Delta, initial estimates suggest.

And producers are calculating their losses at over one million euros ($1,000,000) given they will now have to buy young molluscs from Italy or Greece for next year.

"When you have a week when temperatures are higher than 28C, there can be some mortality, but this summer it has lasted almost a month and a half," with peak temperatures of almost 31C, says Fepromodel head Gerardo Bonet.

Producers in the Ebro Delta say they've never known such devastation

 among their young stock for next year / © AFP

Normally, the Ebro Delta's two bays produce around 3,500 tonnes of mussels, and 800 tonnes of oysters, making Catalonia Spain's second-largest producer, although it remains far behind the output of Galicia, the northwestern region on the colder Atlantic coast.

For years now, the harvest in the Delta has been brought forward, cutting short a season that once ran from April to August.

- 'Tropical' Mediterranean -

Hit by coastal erosion and a lack of sediment supply, the rich ecosystem of the Ebro Delta -- a biosphere reserve and one of the most important wetlands of the western Mediterranean -- is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

And this extreme summer, when Spain endured 42 days of heatwave -- a record three times the average over the past decade, the AEMET national forecaster says -- has also left its mark below the surface of the water.

"Some marine populations which are unable to cope with temperatures as high as these over a long period of time are going to suffer what we call mass mortality," says marine biologist Emma Cebrian of the Spanish National Research Council (CISC).

"Imagine a forest, it's like 60 or 80 percent of the trees dying, with the resulting impact on its associated biodiversity," she says.

The scorching temperatures on land have generated a marine heatwave at sea / © AFP

The succession of heatwaves on land has generated another at sea which -- pending analysis of all the data in November -- may turn out to be "the worst" in this area of the Mediterranean since records began in the 1980s.

Although marine heatwaves are not a new phenomenon, they are becoming more extreme with increasingly dire consequences.

"If we compare it with a wildfire, one can have an impact, but if you keep having them, it will probably mean the affected populations are not able to recuperate," Cebrian said.

Experts say the Mediterranean is becoming "tropicalised", and mollusc grower Franch is struck by the mounting evidence as his boat glides between empty mussel rafts in a bay without a breath of wind.

He is mulling an increase in his production of oysters, which are more resistant to high temperatures, but which currently represent just 10 percent of his output.

But he hopes it will help ensure his future in a sector that employs 800 people directly or indirectly in the Ebro Delta.

"(The sector) is under threat because climate change is a reality and what we are seeing now will happen again," he says worriedly.