Earthquake, war and economic decline – an update on Syria

As the humanitarian crisis following the earthquake in Turkey and Syria unfolds, the situation is further complicated by the ongoing conflict in Syria, frosty relations between Damascus and Ankara and geopolitical positioning by Russia, Iran and the West.


In Syria, the humanitarian crisis caused by the recent earthquake follows years of war, economic decline and hardships. Although large-scale battles have been avoided and frontlines have remained mostly frozen since 2020, the humanitarian situation within the country has continued to deteriorate, with a growing number of people in need of humanitarian aid.

“The latest UN estimate is that 15.3 million people, or about two thirds of Syria’s current population, will require some level of support in 2023”, says Aron Lund, analyst. And that was before the earthquake.

While the situation is most dire in the northern areas controlled by rebel groups supported by Turkey, the earthquake also affected many government-controlled areas, complicating the relief efforts.

“It is likely that the regime of Bashar al-Assad will try to leverage the crisis and use its position to force an easing of the sanctions. At the same time most of the aid to rebel-held areas was previously shipped via Turkey, under a complicated system mandated by the UN Security Council.”

The long-term effect the February earthquake will have on the conflict remains to be seen, but for millions of Syrians the situation was bleak even before the disaster.

Economic turmoil

The Syrian lira is in a continuous downward spiral and the economy is in tatters, mostly as a result of war, sanctions, and a bank crisis in neighbouring Lebanon, which has spelt economic disaster for the import-dependent nation. The war in Ukraine has triggered an international spike in food and fuel prices and led aid money away from the country.

Before the disaster, the balance of power after the Ukraine invasion seemed to favour Turkey and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A preoccupied Russia, though still supporting the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, maintains a good relationship with Turkey, and Western powers led by the US are reluctant to anger Erdoğan.

Russia, with support from Iran, has used its position to push for resumed dialogue between Ankara and Damascus to find a solution, with some success according to Lund.

“Given that there is a lot of propaganda from all sides it is difficult to know what is being discussed. Any constructive solution or deal will be negotiated behind closed doors,” he says.

A meeting between the Turkish and Syrian foreign ministers held in Moscow in late December 2022, should be seen as a sign that the process of normalizing relations between the two enemies was, at least before the quake, moving forward.

“I think deals will be made eventually,” says Aron Lund. “Turkey and Syria are still formally enemies, but both Erdogan and Assad can see they have mutual interests and are pragmatic enough to reach agreements, even if they cannot fully resolve the conflict.”

‘New world order is taking shape’: Azerbaijan’s president

‘We are witnessing most serious East-West conflict since end of Cold War,’ Ilham Aliyev says at Non-Aligned Movement Contact Group meeting

Burc Eruygur |02.03.2023

ISTANBUL

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Thursday said that a “new world order is taking shape” as he addressed the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Contact Group meeting in the capital Baku.

“Now the world is witnessing the most serious East-West confrontation since the end of the Cold War, with repercussions for the remaining part of the world. As the second largest international institution after the UN, NAM should play a more visible and efficient role in the international arena and actively participate in reshaping the new world order,” Aliyev said.

He said that the international security architecture that has existed for decades is currently undergoing radical changes, adding that multilateralism is at stake with “the erosion of international law norms and principles" further threatening international order.

“More cases of violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity and intervention in the internal affairs of states are observed. The decisions of the leading international organizations are not either implemented or the selective approach and double standards are being applied,” he said.

Aliyev said that the NAM must unite to eliminate the growing trend of neo-colonialism, adding that the organization “strongly” supports the sovereignty of the Union of Comoros over the island of Mayotte, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, and that the NAM calls on Paris to “respect the rights of the New Caledonian people and other peoples in French overseas communities and territories.”

“The French-administered territories outside Europe are nasty remains of the French colonial empire. We also call on France to apologize and admit its responsibility for its colonial past and bloody colonial crimes and acts of genocide against NAM member countries in Africa, South-East Asia and other places,” the Azerbaijani president said.

Aliyev said that one permanent seat should be given to the NAM in the UN Security Council, in addition to supporting the idea of granting permanent seats to African countries, adding that the UN body is “reminiscent of the past and does not reflect the current reality.”

He said that the UN Security Council is “inefficient,” adding that four resolutions adopted by the UN body on the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian forces from Azerbaijan’s territory were ignored for nearly three decades.

“In 2020, Azerbaijan itself restored its territorial integrity and historical justice by military-political means and enforced the Security Council resolutions' implementation. Probably, it was the first case in the world since the establishment of the UN,” he said.

The Non-Aligned Movement was formed in 1961 under the leadership of then Yugoslavia when the world began to polarize between East and West. It currently has 120 members.

Women of Iran's Evin prison, locked up amid protests, remain defiant

Agence France-Presse
March 02, 2023

In this 2006 file image, a guard at Evin prison walks down the corridor of the women's ward in Tehran, Iran. © Atta Kenare, AFP

"Listen to this! One. Two. Three!" Down the crackling phone line from the women's wing of Tehran's Evin prison, a chorus of prisoners then launch into raucous song. It's a Persian rendition of the Italian protest song "Bella Ciao".

"All for one and one for all!" they sing, laughing in shared defiance in support of the "Woman, life, freedom" protests that have shaken Iran's clerical authorities for five months.

The audio clip of the January telephone call, released on social media by a daughter of one of those held, has become a symbol of the courage of the women held in Evin prison and their refusal to stop campaigning even behind bars.

Many such as environmental activist Niloufar Bayani, arrested in 2018, have been held for several years. Others including the activist Narges Mohammadi, tipped by supporters as a Nobel Peace Prize contender, have spent much of the past decade in and out of jail.

Some were arrested well before the women-led protests sparked by the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd who had been detained for allegedly violating the strict dress code for women. But their numbers swelled in the ensuing crackdown.

Several women have been released in recent weeks, including Alieh Motalebzadeh, a journalist and women's rights campaigner whose daughter posted the viral clip of the "Bella Ciao" protest song, and French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah.

'Basic rights and freedoms'

But campaigners have rejected the amnesty as a PR stunt and key figures remain detained. They include Bayani and Mohammadi and also environmental campaigner Sepideh Kashani, arrested in the same case as Bayani, the labour activist Sepideh Gholian, journalist Golrokh Iraee, arrested in the protest crackdown, and German-Iranian Nahid Taghavi.

Also held in Evin are Fariba Kamalabadi and Mahvash Sabet, two members of the Bahai faith not recognised by the Islamic republic who were detained in July and are now serving a 10-year prison sentence apiece for the second time in their lives.

These women remain deprived of their freedom because Iran's clerical authorities under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "tremble at their words", said Jasmin Ramsey, deputy director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).

"The hijab headscarf is a pillar of the Islamic revolution and so is the subjugation of women. They hate it when women speak out and say 'I can do anything!'" she told AFP.

Ramsey dismissed the recent amnesty, saying: "The doors of Iranian prisons are revolving when it comes to political prisoners... The prisons will swell when there are more protests."

Of those who remain jailed, she said: "Many need medical help and their basic human rights have been violated for so many years."

The CHRI is now leading a petition signed by almost 40 other rights groups and directed at the current European Union presidency holder Sweden urging EU nations to summon Iranian ambassadors in unison for International Women's Day on March 8.

The ambassadors should be told to "stop detaining and committing violence against women who are calling for basic rights and freedoms in Iran" and to "end the physical and sexual violence against women detainees and protesters", it said.

'Sound of a revolution'

Mohammadi, a member of the chorus in the "Bella Ciao" song, has in the last months emerged as among the most outspoken of those held, denouncing the conditions in Evin and vocally supporting the protests.

"Narges does not stay silent. This is not acceptable for the Iranian government," her Paris-based husband Taghi Rahmani told AFP in October.

In December, she released an open letter from prison denouncing the sexual assault of detainees and detailing shocking cases of women being raped by their interrogators.

"I believe that we, the brave, resilient, lively and hopeful women of Iran, will come to the streets and will continue to fight despite the government's repressive and violent measures and despite the danger of assault and even rape."

Sepideh Gholian, who is serving a five-year sentence on national security charges after supporting a strike by workers, in a lacerating letter published by BBC Persian in January described the methods used by interrogators to force confessions and the screams heard within the prison.

"Today the sounds we hear... across Iran are louder than the sounds in interrogation rooms; this is the sound of a revolution, the true sound of 'Woman, life, freedom'," she said.

The women have also launched appeals published on the Instagram account of Mohammadi for the Islamic republic to halt executions, after four men were hanged in cases related to the protests.

"The women have shown they are voices of change, freedom and equality. One reason Narges is still there is they (the authorities) are scared of her. She makes them quiver," said Ramsey.

(AFP)

Giving out Bibles with aid in Turkey is ‘opportunistic’ and ‘not the way of Jesus’

Churches in earthquake region reprimand faith organisations

byREBECCA PAVELEY

02 MARCH 2023

Homeless evacuees in Kilis, southern Turkey, last week

CHRISTIANS in Turkey have pleaded with faith groups and charities not to distribute Bibles as part of relief efforts in areas of the country recovering from the powerful earthquake three weeks ago, which also struck parts of northern Syria (News, 10 February).

Church leaders in Kahramanmaras, close to the epicentres of the two earthquakes which killed more than 50,000 people on 6 February, have branded those who distributed Bibles along with aid “opportunistic”.

Ilyas Uyar, an elder in the Protestant Church Foundation of Diyarbakir, told the magazine Christianity Today: “This is not the way of Jesus; it is opportunistic and doesn’t work. We say we are Christians all the time, but it is disgusting to connect this to aid.”

He also reported that a group of Christians from Italy came to offer help, but filmed and took pictures and then moved on.

Guidance for those wanting to help with aid efforts has been drawn up by the Association of Protestant Churches in Turkey (TeK). Its guidance prohibits the sharing of Bibles and other evangelistic materials, and urges aid organisations to work with the local church to co-ordinate aid. There should also be no political commentary, and no use of unauthorised photos, it said.

TeK has urged people to work through the First Hope Association: a relief foundation set up by Turkish Christians. Its chairman, Demokan Kileci, told Christianity Today that the area was also seeing an influx of humanitarian tourists, who fly over, stay in hotels, and visit the affected areas, using up scarce resources.

First Hope is working with Samaritans Purse, whose field hospital is treating patients pulled from the rubble after the disaster, as well as those with long term medical conditions, with a rotating crew of hundreds of disaster relief specialists.

More detail is emerging of the scale of the destruction in terms of lost heritage buildings. The city centre of Antakya, the site of the ancient city of Antioch, has been almost completed flattened, and places of worship for Christians, Jews, and Muslims destroyed. The fate of some of the more remote heritage sites, such as the monastery of St Simeon Stylites the Younger, close to the Syrian border, is still unknown. In total, about 54,000 buildings are thought to have been destroyed or damaged.

Aftershocks, some powerful, continue to strike the region, and there have been four new earthquakes since 6 February, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority reports.

Donations to the emergency appeal by the Disasters Emergency Committee for survivors reached more than £100 million last week.

Another Illusion Falls in Turkey

The aftermath of the the February 6 earthquakes is a marker of how deeply politicized Erdoğan’s leadership has left Turkey that the tragedies did not put even a day’s pause on politics.

WRITTEN BY
Nate Schenkkan
Senior Director of Research, Countering Authoritarianism
@nateschenkkan


A photo of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan is seen near the rubble of a collapsed building after a massive earthquake devastated the southern region of the country. 

(Photo by Celestino Arce/NurPhoto via Getty Images)


On February 5, 2023, Turkey’s attention was on politics. After five years under the new superpresidential system that President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has designed around himself, the main opposition was gearing up to announce a unity candidate representing six parties for elections that Erdoğan said would be held May 14. Already, Erdoğan was mobilizing his powers to shape the field, passing a new law criminalizing “disinformation,” implementing new electoral laws to disadvantage his opponents, and engineering spurious criminal charges against the mayor of Istanbul, one of his more potent rivals.

Then, in the early hours of February 6, an enormous pair of earthquakes struck southern and central Turkey, with the shocks spanning 11 provinces and reaching into bordering Syria. The earthquakes destroyed entire neighborhoods in the major Turkish cities of Antakya, Gaziantep, Malatya, and Kahramanmaraş. At the time of writing, the combined death toll in Turkey and Syria was more than 53,000, with over 45,000 people killed in Turkey. This staggering figure continues to climb as teams recover bodies. More than one million people in Turkey are living in temporary shelter; millions more have left the region and sought refuge elsewhere in the country.

It is a marker of how deeply politicized Erdoğan’s leadership has left Turkey that the earthquakes did not put even a day’s pause on politics. Instead, they raised the stakes in what already felt like an existential election. With an unusual but still fragile level of unity, the “table of six” parties from the opposition will be working together to unseat Erdoğan, who has led Turkey as either prime minister or president since 2003. Especially since moving to the presidency in 2014, Erdoğan has rebuilt the state around himself, eliminating rivals within his party (two of whom now lead parties among the table of six), amending the constitution, and imprisoning some of his most prominent critics. Erdogan argued that he was reducing inefficiency and strengthening the capacity of the state to serve the people, who in turn would lift the state to greatness: “You will see the power of the Turk,” as the nationalist slogan goes.

Then the earthquakes struck. Tens of thousands of buildings erected in contravention of Turkey’s building codes collapsed, and in many cases, it took the state four days to even reach those buried in the rubble. As people in the earthquake zone waited in vain for aid to arrive, they did not see power. Instead they asked, “Where is the state?”

The shock of the earthquakes led immediately to frantic discussion of whether to postpone the elections. Turkey’s recently amended constitution is crystal clear: the first round of presidential elections must be held by June 18. There is no exception for natural disasters made in the text. One of Erdogan’s few remaining allies from his party’s golden days, former deputy prime minister Bülent Arınç, floated the idea of postponing them. “Constitutions are not sacred texts,” he wrote. The opposition, as well as many prominent civil society voices, denounced the statement as calling for a coup. After two weeks of uncharacteristic silence on the topic, on February 28, Erdoğan announced he would stick with his pre-earthquake plan. Elections will be held on May 14.

The devastation of the earthquakes and the state’s stumbling response have shredded the narrative that Turkey under Erdogan had cast off the disregard for life, as well as the inefficiency and incompetence, of previous governments. Even with less than three months remaining before elections, it remains too soon to say whether this will produce a change in government. What is sure is that yet again, the strongman’s gift for efficiency has been proven an illusion.

ECOCIDE

Search on for sunken Philippine tanker leaking industrial fuel

The Princess Empress sank with 800,000 litres (210,000 gallons) of industrial fuel oil that is leaking into the sea.

This Philippine Coast Guard image shows an aerial view of an oil spill in waters off Naujan, Oriental Mindoro province, Philippines, on March 1, 2023

[Philippine Coast Guard/EPA-EFE]

Published On 2 Mar 2023

Authorities in the Philippines are racing to find and secure a sunken tanker ship loaded with 800,000 litres (210,000 gallons) of industrial fuel oil that has started to leak into waters rich in coral and marine life.

The Princess Empress was travelling from Bataan province, near the capital, Manila, to the central province of Iloilo on Tuesday when it developed engine trouble and sank in rough seas.end of list

The Philippine Coast Guard initially reported that a spillage spotted in the sea was diesel fuel from the stricken vessel’s engines and not the ship’s cargo of industrial oil.

But the coastguard said on Thursday that tests of water samples showed that some of the industrial oil had leaked into the sea off Oriental Mindoro province.

The spill had spread over 24sq km (9 square miles) by Wednesday, the coastguard said previously. It is not known how much diesel fuel and how much of the industrial fuel oil cargo is in the water.

“A ship’s structural integrity may be compromised during sinking, and it may develop a hole through which oil will leak under pressure,” said Philippine Coast Guard spokesperson Rear Admiral Armand Balilo, according to local news site GMA News Online.

The cargo of fuel oil was loaded directly into the tanker and was not in sealed containers, Balilo said, noting that the Princess Empress sank in waters more than 400 metres deep (1,300 feet), which was too deep for divers to reach.

Oriental Mindoro provincial Governor Humerlito Dolor said a search was under way to find the tanker and plug the leak.

“The coastguard made assurances to us that they are ready to syphon off the oil once they identify [the location],” Dolor told local media. “Unfortunately, after two aerial surveillance [flights], we still can’t find the exact location of the ship.”

The coastguard has deployed oil spill booms to try to contain the leaking fuel and has sprayed chemicals to break down the oil in the water. Fishermen and tourism operators along the coast depend heavily on the waters for their livelihoods and there are concerns these could be at risk.

The Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources said 21 marine protected areas were endangered by the oil spill, including the Verde Island Passage (VIP), which is considered to be one of the most diverse and productive marine ecosystems in the world, the Philippine Star digital edition reported.

The waters of the VIP strait provide food and sustain the livelihoods of more than two million people, according to environmental groups.

Oil has been spotted along a roughly 60km (37-mile) stretch of water between Naujan and Bongabong municipality, said Ram Temena, Oriental Mindoro disaster operations chief.

“We have many fish sanctuaries along the coast,” Temena said.

“It could have a huge impact due to the possibility that the oil could attach to the coral reefs, affecting the marine biodiversity.”

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Oil from sunken tanker swamps central Philippine coast


Philippines oil leak from tanker. (Twitter)

AFP, Manila
Published: 02 March ,2023

Clean-up efforts were under way on the blackened coasts of a central Philippine island Thursday after spillage from a sunken oil tanker washed ashore, the country’s environment minister said, as fears of economic and environmental harm grew.

The oil spill off Naujan town on Mindoro island reached the shores of the next four municipalities on the island’s east coast around noon Thursday, and appeared to be flowing further south, Environment Secretary Maria Antonia Loyzaga said in a statement.

As it sailed into rough seas off Naujan on Tuesday, the Princess Empress sank with its cargo of 800,000 liters (210,000 gallons) of industrial fuel oil.

Another vessel rescued the 20 crew members on board, but the Princess Empress leaked some of its cargo into the sea after initially spilling diesel fuel which had been powering the vessel, the Philippine Coast Guard said.

Environment personnel “are now focusing on coastal clean-up” given the extent of the affected shoreline, Loyzaga said.

Divers will meanwhile assess the impact on reefs, mangroves and sea grasses, as “possible contamination might actually affect the viability of these systems.”

She added: “We expect that these efforts will require personnel who will need to work over a period of time.”

The spill had spread over 24 square kilometers (nine square miles) of water by Wednesday, the coastguard said previously.

It is not known how much diesel fuel and industrial fuel oil is in the water.

Provincial governor Humerlito Dolor said a search was still under way for the stricken tanker, estimated to be 460 meters (1,500 feet) under the sea.

“The coastguard made assurances to us that they are ready to syphon off the oil once they identify (the location),” Dolor told local media.

“Unfortunately, after two aerial surveillance (flights) we still can’t find the exact location of the ship.”

In the meantime, the coastguard has deployed oil spill booms to try to contain the material and sprayed chemicals to break down the oil.

Fishermen and tourism operators along the coast depend heavily on the waters for their livelihoods.

Oil has been spotted along a roughly 60-kilometre stretch of water between Naujan and Bongabong municipality, said Ram Temena, disaster operations chief in the affected province of Oriental Mindoro.

“We have many fish sanctuaries along the coast,” Temena said.

“It could have a huge impact due to the possibility that the oil could attach to the coral reefs, affecting the marine biodiversity.”

Bongabong municipal disaster officer Michael Fanoga said fishermen had complained of a “foul smell” about two kilometers offshore.

“If it spreads in the shoreline, our beaches will be destroyed as well as the remaining coral,” Fanoga said.

Sunken Philippine tanker leaks industrial fuel oil into sea

Published: 02 Mar 2023 -

In this handout photo received from the Philippine Coast Guard and taken on March 2, 2023, a coast guard personnel collects water sample from of an oil spill in the waters off Naujan, Oriental Mindoro. Photo by Handout / Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) / AFP

Manila: A sunken Philippine tanker carrying 800,000 litres (210,000 gallons) of industrial fuel oil has leaked some of its cargo into the sea, authorities said Thursday, as they raced to find the vessel and contain the spill.

The Princess Empress was travelling from Bataan province, near the capital Manila, to the central province of Iloilo on Tuesday when it had engine trouble and sank in rough seas off Oriental Mindoro province.

The Philippine Coast Guard initially reported the spillage was diesel fuel, which had been powering the vessel, and not industrial fuel oil from the ship's cargo.

But water sample test results showed some of the cargo had also leaked into waters off Naujan municipality, the coast guard said Thursday, sparking concern for the region's rich marine life and coral reefs.

The spill had spread over 24 square kilometres (nine square miles) of water by Wednesday, coast guard said previously.

It is not known how much diesel fuel and industrial fuel oil is in the water.

Provincial governor Humerlito Dolor said a search was still underway for the stricken tanker, estimated to be 460 metres (1,500 feet) below sea level, and stop it leaking.

"The coast guard made assurances to us that they are ready to syphon off the oil once they identify (the location)," Dolor told local media.

"Unfortunately, after two aerial surveillance (flights) we still can't find the exact location of the ship."

In the meantime, the coast guard has deployed oil spill booms to try to contain the material and sprayed chemicals to break down the oil.

Fishermen and tourism operators along the coast depend heavily on the waters for their livelihoods and there are concerns these could be at risk.

Oil has been spotted along a roughly 60-kilometre stretch of water between Naujan and Bongabong municipality, said Ram Temena, Oriental Mindoro disaster operations chief.

"We have many fish sanctuaries along the coast," Temena said.

"It could have a huge impact due to the possibility that the oil could attach to the coral reefs, affecting the marine biodiversity."

Some spillage has washed up on the shores of at least two villages in Naujan and one in Pola municipality.

Resort worker Andrea Riva said she and her colleagues were "keeping our fingers crossed" that the waves did not bring the spillage to the waters off Pinamalayan municipality, south of Pola.

Bongabong municipal disaster officer Michael Fanoga said fishermen had complained of a "foul smell" about two kilometres offshore.

"If it spreads in the shoreline, our beaches will be destroyed as well as the remaining coral," Fanoga said.

Greek rail workers strike over conditions after deadly crash

COSTAS KANTOURIS and DEREK GATOPOULOS, 

Associated Press
March 2, 2023

1of14Cranes remove debris after a collision in Tempe, about 376 kilometres (235 miles) north of Athens, near Larissa city, Greece, Thursday, March 2, 2023. Emergency workers are searching for survivors and bodies after a passenger train and a freight train crashed head-on in Tempe, central Greece just before midnight Tuesday. It was the country's deadliest rail crash on record.Vaggelis Kousioras/APShow Mor

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THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Rescuers using cranes and heavy machinery on Thursday searched the wreckage of trains involved in a deadly collision that sent Greece into national mourning and prompted strikes and protests over rail safety. The death toll from Wednesday's head-on crash involving a passenger train and freight carrier remained at 43 as crews continue to check the burned out and twisted rail car remains for more bodies. More than 50 people remained hospitalized, most in the central Greek city of Larissa, some in serious condition. Railway workers' associations called strikes, halting national rail services and the subway in Athens, to protest working conditions and what they described as a lack of modernization of the Greek rail system.

Wednesday's collision occurred near the small town of Tempe in northern Greece, when a freight train loaded with heavy construction equipment smashed into a passenger service on Greece's busiest line between Athens and the country's second largest city, Thessaloniki. More than 300 people were on board the train, many of them students returning from a holiday weekend and annual Carnival celebrations around Greece.

As Greece reeled from its deadliest ever train disaster, Pope Francis and European leaders sent messages of sympathy. Among them were the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country is recovering from devastating earthquakes last month. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sent a message in Greek, writing “The people of Ukraine share the pain of the families of the victims. We wish a speedy recovery to all the injured.”

A stationmaster arrested following the rail disaster is due to appear in court Thursday as a judicial inquiry tries to establish why the two trains traveling in opposite directions were on the same track.

Transport Minister Kostas Karamanlis resigned following the crash, his replacement tasked with setting up an independent inquiry looking into the causes of the accident.

“Responsibility will be assigned,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a televised address late Wednesday after visiting the scene of the collision. “We will work so that the words ‘never again’ ... will not remain an empty pledge. That I promise you.”

Rage explodes in Greece following devastating train collision

A 24 hour strike and clashes. Victims for now are 46

02 MARCH, 2023



(ANSAmed) - ATENE, 02 MAR - Rage has exploded in Greece following tuesday evening's train collision in the Vale of Tempe, near Larissa. The provisional death count has risen to 46 when 7 carbonized bodies were extracted from the train wreckage.

For the most part the victims are students who were returning to Thessaloniki after the orthodox Carnival. Thursday all train lines are not operating due to a 24 hour strike called by the Pan-Hellenic Train Federation (POS), while protesters clashed with the police in Athens in front of the headquarter of the Hellenic Train, the company that runs passenger and freight trains in Greece. Protests are also ongoing in Thessaloniki and in Larissa. A banner was placed outside the hospital where the wounded were taken, denouncing the deficiencies of the train system that will be covered in the inquiry.

"The lack of care shown over the years by the governments for the Greek train system is the caused this tragic event in the Vale of Tempe. Unfortunately, our continuous requests to hire new staff with a long-term contract, better training but especially the implementation of modern technology for security, were disregarded", states a press release by the POS Union.

The representative of the Fire Department, Giannis Artopioos, declared on public TV that the operation to extract the victims from the train wagons are taking place in very difficult conditions. (ANSAmed).

 

Greece train crash deaths are a result of privatisation and safety cuts

Greek transport minister Kostas Karamanlis has resigned but that should be just the start of the reckoning


Protesters in Athens, Greece (Picture: εργατική αλληλεγγύη/Facebook)

Hundreds of people protested in Athens and Thessaloniki, in Greece, on Wednesday after an horrific train crash killed at least 43 people. The crash came against a backdrop of years of privatisation and safety cuts.

A passenger service and a freight train travelling between Athens and Greece’s second largest city Thessaloniki crashed head on late on Tuesday. Yiannis Ditsas, the head of the rail workers’ union, said the trains had raced towards each other for 12 minutes before colliding.

The exact details of what happened to cause the crash are still unclear—but circumstances paint a picture of serious safety and signalling failures. It is thought that trains going both ways on that section of the line had been diverted onto a single track after an overhead cable was cut.

Some reports say the passenger train was delayed at a station in the city of Larissa for some 20 minutes amid confusion among rail staff about when it should depart. The station master at Larissa is said to have instructed the passenger train to proceed along the same track as the freight train. He has since been arrested.

But Kostas Genidounias, president of the train drivers association, said the collision wouldn’t have happened if the railway had automatic signalling. He told the ERT news channel that these systems hadn’t been working for years.

“We have been complaining for the last few years that the electronic systems do not work and everything is done manually on the Athens-Thessaloniki line,” he said. “Nothing is working. Everything is done with a human factor, manually, manually.

“Not even the indicators, the traffic lights, or traffic control work. If these worked, the train drivers would see the red signal and the trains would stop within 500 metres of each other.

“We’ve said it repeatedly. This would not happen if the safety systems were working. The information is given by the stationmaster via radio.”

The crash has the potential to become a major scandal for the Tory-type New Democracy government, which faces a general election in April. In a grim coincidence, it came just hours before prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was due to visit a remote control signalling centre near Thessaloniki.

Genidounias had posted in response on social media, “K. Mitsotakis will be at the remote control and signalling centre of the railway network of northern Greece tomorrow. Can someone tell us where the signalling and remote control in northern Greece is and where it works?”

The government’s transport minister Kostas Karamanlis has already resigned, apologising for the state of the rail network. “It’s a fact that we inherited the Greek railway in a state that is not fitting for the 21st century,” he said.

“In those three and a half years we made every effort to improve this reality. Unfortunately, those efforts were not adequate to avert such a tragedy.”

In fact, the New Democracy government’s cuts and privatisation policies made the railways more dangerous. In a statement on Wednesday, the radical left coalition Antarsya said the government had subsidised private rail firms as they cut staff and ignored safety warnings.

And Nikos Nikos Kioutsoukis, secretary of the GSEE union, said promised GPS satellite tracking systems, had gone uninstalled for years, even decades. “Modern GPS systems have not been installed yet, they do not work,” he said. “Some have been bought long ago, since 2000.”

Greece’s previous government, led by the once-radical left Syriza, sold the network for 45 million euros in 2017. It did this at the demand of the European Union and International Monetary Fund, which insisted on swingeing austerity and privatisation measures in return for a bailout loan.

New Democracy, and the Labour-type Pasok party supported the selloff. Both of them in previous governments had also overseen cuts and reforms designed to prime the network for privatisation.

Antarsya said the crash amounted to a “premeditated crime by the wretched New Democracy government and the previous Syriza-Anel government.”

It added, “Prioritizing balance sheets over human lives, profits over safety, they placed it in the hands of capital, which exploited a public good—transport—without conditions or limits. Their responsibility is self-evident.”

Norway’s government apologizes to Sami reindeer herders

By JAN M. OLSEN

an hour ago

1 of 7
Shareholders open up for Sami Parliament President, Silje Karine Muotka, who will meet with Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland at the Ministry of Oil and Energy in Oslo, Thursday, March 2, 2023.

(Javad Parsa/NTB Scanpix via AP)

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The Norwegian government apologized Thursday to reindeer herders after activists spent a week protesting a wind farm that they say hinders the rights of the Indigenous Sami people in central and Arctic Norway.

“I have apologized to the reindeer owners on behalf of the government,” Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said after meeting with the speaker of the 39-seat Sami Parliament, Silje Karine Mutoka.

“They have been in a difficult and unclear situation for a long time. I’m sorry about that,” he said.

Mutoka said that receiving an apology had been “a wish from my side.”

“It is crucial for us to move forward. It is important that we now have a common perception that we are dealing with a human rights violation,” she said after the meeting, which was scheduled to last for an hour but took 90 minutes.

Although the talks did not yield an agreement to resolve the wind farm dispute, Aasland said “that we are not ruling out any solutions at this time.”

Mutoka is set to meet next week with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who plans to travel to northern Norway for a previously planned visit.

The activists, mainly teenagers, began their protest a week ago and have blocked the entrance to several ministries in Oslo, Norway’s capital, since Monday. On Thursday, police carried activists away from the finance and culture ministries, while others sang a Sami chant.

Police told Norwegian broadcaster NRK that the activists who were taken away will be fined. No details on the size of the fines were given.

At the center of the dispute are 151 turbines at Europe’s largest onshore wind farm, located in the Fosen district, some 450 kilometers (280 miles) north of Oslo. The activists say that a transition to green energy should not come at the expense of the rights of Indigenous people.

They say the wind farm is still operating despite an October 2021 ruling by Norway’s Supreme Court that said the construction of wind turbines violated the rights of the Sami, who have used the land for reindeer for centuries.

After the Supreme Court ruling, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy asked the owners of the two wind farms to establish whether measures could be taken to ensure reindeer herding near the turbines. But the Sami have refused to take part in such a process.

Several of the activists protesting in Oslo donned the traditional bright-colored clothing of the Sami, whom international organizations recognize as Europe’s only Indigenous people because of their unique cultural roots that predate the creation of nation states.

Formerly known as the Lapps, the Sami are believed to have originated in Central Asia and settled with their reindeer herds in Arctic Europe around 9,000 years ago. They traditionally lived in Lapland, which stretches from northern parts of Norway through Sweden and Finland to Russia.

Across the Arctic region, the majority live on the Norwegian side of the border. Between 40,000 and 60,000 Sami live in central and northern Norway.

They once faced oppression of their culture, including bans on the use of their native tongue. Now they have their own parliaments, schools, newspapers and broadcasts in their own language on national radio and television. The nomadic people live mostly modern lifestyles, but still tend reindeer.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/greta-thunberg-joins-protest-over-wind.html

Why Elly Schlein is freaking out Italy’s ‘soft’ socialists

The newly elected leader of Italy’s social democrats is stirring up opposition — in her own party and beyond.

Elly Schlein has been elected as the youngest and first female leader of Italy’s Democratic party 

BY GREGORIO SORGI
MARCH 2, 2023 

Right-wing hardliners could not dream of an easier target than Elly Schlein, the new leader of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party (PD).

A global citizen with a female partner and an upper-middle-class upbringing, the youngest and first female leader of Italy’s most-established progressive party has sparked the ire of the country’s conservatives.

“CommunistElly,” the right-wing newspaper Il Tempo dubbed her after the leadership contest was decided on Sunday. Schlein defeated the favorite Stefano Bonaccini with 53.8 percent to 46.2 percent of the vote.

Far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s allies have been relishing the polarization around Schlein — the two political leaders, though both female, stand for very different values.

“She promised to prioritize the poor, public education and workers,” right-wing commentator Italo Bocchino said in attacking Schlein. “But unlike Meloni, she has never known the poor in her life,” he continued, pointing out how she attended a private school “for rich people” in Switzerland. Nor can Schlein know workers “as she’s never worked in her life,” he ranted.

Schlein’s surprise win has not only fired up her opponents, but also unsettled many in her own party. Fellow social democrats are spooked that Schlein could transform the PD from the broad progressive church it’s historically been into a much more radical sect.

There’s also concern about whether she’ll stand by the party’s support for sending lethal weapons to Ukraine given her self-described pacifist views.

Most skeptics are clinging on — for now — although a few have already jumped ship.

“The PD is over,” declared David Allegranti, a journalist for the Florence daily La Nazione. The expert on the Italian center-left argues that Schlein and many of her allies hail from leftist splinter groups and were not members of the PD until barely a few months ago — discrediting them in their critics’ eyes.

Ex-Cabinet minister Giuseppe Fioroni, among the founding members of the PD, told POLITICO: “Her project has nothing to do with my history and my political culture.” Having foreseen the outcome, Fioroni left the party one day before Schlein’s victory was announced. “My PD is no longer there, this is another party — it no longer belongs to the center left, but to the hard left,” he said.

As a youth leader in 2013, Schlein became the figurehead of Occupy PD, a protest movement set up by disaffected progressives angered over 101 center-left parliamentarians who voted against their own social democrat grandee Romano Prodi’s bid to become the president of Italy.

“With Elly Schlein, the PD has occupied itself,” quipped Allegranti.

Ex-Cabinet minister and PD founding member Giuseppe Fioroni left the party one day before Schlein’s victory, saying that the party “no longer belongs to the center left, but to the hard left” | Claudio Peri/EPA

The young radical

The daughter of a Swiss-based political scientist couple (one Italian and one American), Schlein was raised in Lugano, the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, and spent her teens writing film reviews — her dream at the time was to become a film director — as well as playing the board game “Trivial Pursuit” and the cult 90s video game “The Secret of Monkey Island.”

Her first stint in politics came in 2008, when she cut her teeth working as a volunteer for Barack Obama’s two U.S. presidential election campaigns — heading to Chicago to do so.

“Here, I understood that you don’t need to ask for votes, but mobilize people with ideas,” she recalled to La Repubblica. A decade on, the lesson proved useful for her own leadership campaign.

In a first for the PD’s leadership contests, Schlein won the open ballot after losing by a wide margin in the caucus with party members the week before, demonstrating her capacity to win over voters.

The newly elected leader gained the upper hand over Bonaccini in big cities such as Milan, Turin and Naples, as well as performing well almost everywhere north of Rome — but lost in most southern regions, according to pollster YouTrend.

“There was a wave of support that brought along different kinds of voters, who were united by a strong desire for change,” said Lorenzo Pregliasco, the founder of YouTrend.

However, Pregliasco played down reports of a “youthquake,” and described the leadership campaign as “boring, dull and largely ignored by public opinion.”

End of the party, or a new beginning?

While there are no exact figures on voter turnout available, Italian media reports that around 1.2 million people cast their ballots — which would mark the lowest figures since PD party primaries were first held in 2007.

After becoming a member of the European Parliament with the Socialists & Democrats group in 2014 at the age of 28, Schlein took the unexpected decision to abandon the PD a year later, accusing then-prime minister and PD party leader Matteo Renzi of lurching to the right.

The decision turned out to be prophetic, as Renzi suffered a number of electoral defeats that snowballed into his resignation as prime minister in 2016, and as party leader in 2018.

Pippo Civati, a former parliamentarian and longtime ally of Schlein who is now out of politics, recalled of Schlein in 2015: “We left at the same time because he [Renzi] was making one mess after another.”

Speaking to POLITICO, Civati warned that the newly elected leader could end up having her hands tied by party bigwigs who backed the popular politician without necessarily having any genuine commitment to her radical ideas.

Pundits point out that the conflict in Ukraine could be the trickiest issue for Schlein, whose distant ancestors hail from a village close to modern-day Lviv. There are question marks over whether she will carry forward her predecessor Enrico Letta’s all-out support for the delivery of lethal weapons to Ukraine.

A U-turn by Schlein on support for Ukraine would leave Meloni as the only national party leader in favor of sending arms to the besieged country, fueling concerns among Western allies who see Italy as a weak link.

“A change of line over Ukraine could be the trigger for many centrists to leave the PD,” Allegranti said.

But Civati played down rumors of an about-face, arguing that Schlein is unlikely to oppose the sending of arms to Ukraine.

“We support Ukraine’s right to defend itself, through every form of assistance,” said Schlein in a recent interview with broadcaster La7. “But as a pacifist, I don’t think that weapons alone will end the war.”

POLITICO EU

Three lessons on the regulation of autonomous weapons systems to ensure accountability for violations of IHL

March 2, 2023

States have agreed on the principle that machines cannot be held accountable for violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), but how would accountability be ensured in practice?

In this post, Vincent Boulanin and Marta Bo from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) argue that looking at how responsibility for IHL violations is currently ascribed under international law provides useful lessons for the regulation of AWS.

What if the use of an autonomous weapon system (AWS) during an armed conflict resulted in the death or injury of civilians or damage to civilian objects? Whereas not all harm to civilians is illegal under international humanitarian law (IHL), launching an attack against civilians or civilian objects amounts to a violation. But how could accountability for such a violation be ensured?

We argue that looking at how responsibility for IHL violations is currently ascribed under international law is critical not only to ensuring accountability but also to identifying clearer limits and requirements for the development and use of AWS.
Human responsibility and accountability in the GGE debate

The risks posed by autonomous weapon systems have been the focus of intergovernmental discussions at the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (UN CCW) since 2013. States still disagree on whether and how the development and use of AWS should be (further) regulated, but they have recognized, among other principles, that human responsibility for decisions on the use of weapon systems must be retained, since accountability cannot be transferred to machines.

The question of what this principle entails is critical for the continuation of the policy process on AWS. To date, the expert debate has mainly elaborated on how human responsibility should be exercised – preventively – to ensure compliance with IHL. Less attention has been cast on how accountability would be ensured, in practice, in case of IHL violations involving AWS. The Group of Governmental Experts (the GGE) recognized that the rules governing State responsibility for internationally wrongful acts and individual criminal responsibility for war crimes were the relevant legal framework, but discussed their application in the context of AWS only superficially.

In our view, this represents a major gap in policy conversation, first and foremost because preventing and suppressing IHL violations is part of States’ obligations under Additional Protocol 1 (AP I) to the Geneva Conventions and customary law. We also found that reviewing how these rules apply to IHL violations involving AWS could provide important lessons for the intergovernmental debate on the regulation of AWS.

Here are three lessons we identified in our most recent report on Retaining Human Responsibility in the Development and Use of Autonomous Weapons Systems: on Accountability for Violation of International Humanitarian Law involving AWS.
Three lessons for the regulation of AWS

Lesson 1. Discerning IHL violations in the development and use of AWS will remain challenging without further clarification on what IHL permits, requires, and prohibits

The first lesson is that legal clarification will be needed to ensure that the legal framework governing accountability can be effectively triggered.

The rules governing State responsibility for internationally wrongful acts and individual criminal responsibility for war crimes are linked to IHL. Both the establishment of State responsibility for IHL violations and individual criminal responsibility for war crimes depend on normative standards established by IHL rules. The fact that the debate on IHL compliance in the development and use of AWS is still unsettled presents, in that context, a fundamental challenge. Many questions remain about what IHL requires, permits, and prohibits, for instance in terms of human-machine interaction. This means that the basis for establishing that a State or an individual violates IHL is still, in some cases, unclear, or at least subject to different interpretations.

AWS bring also into new light old and unresolved legal disputes around the standards of conduct that would trigger State responsibility or individual criminal responsibility for war crimes (or both). For instance, it has been debated to what extent a violation of the principle of distinction has to be ‘deliberate’ for State responsibility to arise. And it is an open question whether recklessness or omission satisfy the mental and material elements of perpetrating or participating in the commission of a war crime. The fact that AWS are pre-programmed weapons, which are ultimately triggered by the interaction with the environment rather than direct user input, gives these debates new resonance but also new scenarios to deal with. For instance, would a failure to suspend an attack involving an AWS that is expected to harm civilians be considered a deliberate attack on civilians and amount to a war crime?

These questions and controversies underline the need for the policy process on AWS to achieve more precision and a common understanding of IHL compliance. In particular, they invite the GGE to elaborate on standards of intent, knowledge and behaviour that are demanded on the part of the user(s) of AWS. Clarifying what the user(s) of an AWS should be able to reasonably foresee and do to ensure that the AWS attack is directed at a specific military objective and the effects of the weapon are limited as required by IHL would make it easier to determine whether a violation has been committed intentionally or that the user engaged in risk-taking behaviour that could give rise to State responsibility, and individual criminal responsibility or both.

Lesson 2. Elaboration on what constitutes a ‘responsible human chain of command’ could help with the attribution of responsibility

The second lesson is that the policy process needs to unpack the notion of ‘responsible human chain of command’. Elaboration on how such a chain may look could dramatically facilitate the attribution of responsibility, be it to the State or individual.

Some States and experts have expressed the concern that, in the case of a harmful incident involving an AWS for instance, it could be difficult to identify whose conduct is blameworthy given that the operation, performance and effect of an AWS were determined in part by decisions and actions of multiple individuals involved in the development and use of the systems; as well as the interaction of the system with the environment.

We argue in this context that it would be extremely useful if States could elaborate on what a scheme of responsibility for the development and use of AWS could look like. Such a scheme would provide more clarity on how the roles and responsibilities for IHL compliance may or may not be distributed in practice: who should do what, when and where the roles and responsibilities of the different individuals start and end and how might these interact with one another. Such an effort would be doubly beneficial. On the one hand it would strengthen IHL compliance by providing clearer expectations for the users of AWS. On the other, it could make it easier to detect who engaged in unlawful conduct that could give rise to State responsibility, individual criminal responsibility (or both).

Lesson 3. Traceability is a critical component for the regulation of AWS

The third lesson is that traceability – understood here as the ability to trace the operation, performance and effect of an AWS back to people involved in its development and use – should be regarded as a critical component of further regulation of AWS. It should inform the identification of new limits and requirements on the design and use of AWS ­– for two reasons.

First and foremost, traceability is a practical requirement for complying with States’ obligations under international law. Under AP I, States are obliged to repress war crimes, including searching for individuals responsible, and suppressing any other violations of IHL. To be able to perform these obligations, States need to be able to determine whether illegal conduct took place and, if so, identify blameworthy individuals. Second, it is also a practical requirement to assess and impose State responsibility, individual criminal responsibility or both.

If an attack involving an AWS results in the deaths of civilians – both the States with jurisdiction over the incident[1] and other States and institutions that are entitled to investigate the incident, such as the ICC or fact-finding commissions, would need to determine whether the deaths were caused by a technical failure or unlawful conduct on the part of the user(s) and/or developers of the AWS. This demands a practical ability to scrutinize the operation, performance and effect of AWS and trace back whether and how these result from decisions and actions made by people involved in the development and use of AWS.

Certain emerging technologies in the area of AWS, such as certain approaches to artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML), could make the task of investigating the cause of an incident difficult. Machine learning methods, such as deep learning, could offer military benefits but they are also opaque in their functioning. As they stand, current ML techniques used in target recognition software are not explainable which means that a programmer or a user cannot fully understand how they learn to recognize a target type. This opacity could make it difficult to determine after the fact what caused a system to strike civilians or civilian objects. Even in situations where a technical problem can be excluded, attribution problems could also emerge as the operation, performance and effect of the AWS is determined by decisions made by multiple people at different points in time and, in part, depends on the interaction of the AWS with the environment. Tracing back whose conduct is blameworthy could be difficult.

The takeaway here for the regulation of AWS is two-fold. Should States decide to explicitly prohibit AWS that are incompatible with IHL or otherwise posing unacceptable risks to civilians and other protected persons, such a prohibition should make explicit that technical characteristics and forms of human-machine interaction that preclude the ability to trace back the cause of a harmful incident are off-limits. That could include unexplainable machine learning algorithms. Efforts to codify lawful uses of AWS could, on the other hand, make traceability a critical requirement for the design and use of an AWS. On the technical side, that could entail that algorithms on which the targeting functions are based should be transparent, explainable, and interrogable enough to identify legal/illegal conduct and blameworthy individuals. On the organisational side, that could entail, as suggested, developing and using, a scheme of responsibility, but also mechanisms to record and trace back decisions in the development and use of AWS.

Exploring how accountability for IHL violations involving AWS would be ensured may seem to some actors premature if not irrelevant, as the use of AWS, is – depending on one’s understanding of an AWS – not yet an operational reality. With this post we hope to have demonstrated that it is a useful and much-needed exercise for the policy process on AWS, as it provides a lens to explore what is, or should be, demanded, permitted, and prohibited in the development and use of AWS.

[1] On the basis of the territoriality, active personality, and universal jurisdiction principles.

See also

Laura Bruun, Autonomous weapon systems: what the law says – and does not say – about the human role in the use of force, November 11, 2021

Frank Sauer, Autonomy in weapons systems: playing catch up with technology, September 29, 2021

Neil C. Renic, Autonomous Weapons Systems: When is the right time to regulate?, September 26, 2019

ICRC, Neil Davison, Autonomous weapon systems: An ethical basis for human control? April 3, 2018

Vincent Boulanin Senior Researcher, SIPRI  

Marta Bo Associate Senior Researcher, SIPRI