It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
White phosphorus munitions fired in eastern Ukraine: AFP
Tue, March 14, 2023 at 4:41 PM MDT·1 min read White phosphorus munitions were fired on Tuesday from Russian positions on an uninhabited area by the town of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine, AFP journalists saw.
Two projectiles were fired five minutes apart at around 4:45 pm (1445 GMT) on a road at the southern edge of Chasiv Yar leading to nearby Bakhmut, the centre of the longest and bloodiest battle of Russia's year-long invasion.
The whistling sound from the projectiles was followed by explosions caused by munitions that released small, burning balls of white phosphorus that slowly fell to the ground.
The balls set fire to the vegetation on both sides of the road on a surface equivalent to the size of a football pitch.
AFP was not able to confirm if the targeted site was a position held by Ukrainian forces, but a green truck with a white cross, a sign of Ukraine's army, was parked by a path in the burned area.
The nearest homes were around 200 metres (656 feet) away from the outer edge of the affected land.
Weapons containing phosphorus are incendiary arms whose use against civilians is banned, but they can be deployed against military targets under a 1980 convention signed in Geneva.
Kyiv has accused Moscow of using them on several occasions since the start of the war, including against civilians, which the Russian army has denied categorically.
epe/rco/am/imm/pvh/dw
CLIMATE CRISIS
Argentina forests burn amid heat wave, drought
Issued on: 14/03/2023
Smoke rising from a forest plantation in Ituzaingo in Argentina's Corrientes province
Buenos Aires (AFP) – Fires in heat wave- and drought-stricken Argentina have devoured some 6,000 hectares (14,800 acres) of forests in the northern Corrientes province in just days, officials reported Tuesday.
Three fires continued to threaten while two others were burning but under control, according to the emergency command center of Corrientes.
No injuries have been reported and the fires have not spread to populated areas, with rains expected Tuesday.
Since the start of the year, with the South American country facing heat wave after heat wave, fires have destroyed more than 100,000 hectares in Corrientes, according to the INTA agricultural technology institute.
Last month, Argentina issued health warnings in several provinces under the worst heat wave in decades, with temperatures close to 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).
The three months from November to the end of January were the warmest such period since 1961, according to the weather service.
While occasional heat waves are normal, climate change has made them "more persistent and more intense," even in Argentina's mountainous Patagonia region, meteorologist Enzo Campetella told AFP last month.
In 2022, forest fires in Corrientes burnt more than a million hectares, according to official figures.
The La Nina cycle of the El Nino weather phenomenon brought historically high temperatures last year, leading to crop losses estimated in the billions of dollars.
OpenAI announces GPT-4 — the next generation of its AI language model
OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT has finally revealed GPT-4, capable of accepting text or image inputs.
By JAMES VINCENT Mar 14, 2023, Illustration: The Verge
After months of rumors and speculation, OpenAI has announced GPT-4: the latest in its line of AI language models that power applications like ChatGPT and the new Bing.
The company claims the model is “more creative and collaborative than ever before” and “can solve difficult problems with greater accuracy.” It can parse both text and image input, though it can only respond via text. OpenAI also cautions that the systems retain many of the same problems as earlier language models, including a tendency to make up information (or “hallucinate”) and the capacity to generate violent and harmful text.
OpenAI says it’s already partnered with a number of companies to integrate GPT-4 into their products, including Duolingo, Stripe, and Khan Academy. The new model is available to the general public via ChatGPT Plus, OpenAI’s $20 monthly ChatGPT subscription, and is powering Microsoft’s Bing chatbot. It will also be accessible as an API for developers to build on. (There is a waitlist here, which OpenAI says will start admitting users today.)
In a research blog post, OpenAI said the distinction between GPT-4 and its predecessor GPT-3.5 is “subtle” in casual conversation (GPT-3.5 is the model that powers ChatGPT). OpenAI CEO Sam Altman tweeted that GPT-4 “is still flawed, still limited” but that it also “still seems more impressive on first use than it does after you spend more time with it.”
The company says GPT-4’s improvements are evident in the system’s performance on a number of tests and benchmarks, including the Uniform Bar Exam, LSAT, SAT Math, and SAT Evidence-Based Reading & Writing exams. In the exams mentioned, GPT-4 scored in the 88th percentile and above, and a full list of exams and the system’s scores can be seen here.
Speculation about GPT-4 and its capabilities have been rife over the past year, with many suggesting it would be a huge leap over previous systems. However, judging from OpenAI’s announcement, the improvement is more iterative, as the company previously warned.
“People are begging to be disappointed and they will be,” said Altman in an interview about GPT-4 in January. “The hype is just like... We don’t have an actual AGI and that’s sort of what’s expected of us.”
The rumor mill was further energized last week after a Microsoft executive let slip that the system would launch this week in an interview with the German press. The executive also suggested the system would be multi-modal — that is, able to generate not only text but other mediums. Many AI researchers believe that multi-modal systems that integrate text, audio, and video offer the best path toward building more capable AI systems.
GPT-4 is indeed multimodal, but in fewer mediums than some predicted. OpenAI says the system can accept both text and image inputs and emit text outputs. The company says the model’s ability to parse text and image simultaneously allows it to interpret more complex input. In the samples below, you can see the system explaining memes and unusual images:
It’s been a long journey to get to GPT-4, with OpenAI — and AI language models in general — building momentum slowly over several years before rocketing into the mainstream in recent months.
The original research paper describing GPT was published in 2018, with GPT-2 announced in 2019 and GPT-3 in 2020. These models are trained on huge datasets of text, much of it scraped from the internet, which is mined for statistical patterns. These patterns are then used to predict what word follows another. It’s a relatively simple mechanism to describe, but the end result is flexible systems that can generate, summarize, and rephrase writing, as well as perform other text-based tasks like translation or generating code.
OpenAI originally delayed the release of its GPT models for fear they would be used for malicious purposes like generating spam and misinformation. But in late 2022, the company launched ChatGPT — a conversational chatbot based on GPT-3.5 that anyone could access. ChatGPT’s launch triggered a frenzy in the tech world, with Microsoft soon following it with its own AI chatbot Bing (part of the Bing search engine) and Google scrambling to catch up.
As predicted, the wider availability of these AI language models has created problems and challenges. The education system is still adapting to the existence of software that writes respectable college essays; online sites like Stack Overflow and sci-fi magazine Clarkesworld have had to close submissions due to an influx of AI-generated content; and early uses of AI writing tools in journalism have been rocky at best. But, some experts have argued that the harmful effects have still been less than anticipated.
In its announcement of GPT-4, OpenAI stressed that the system had gone through six months of safety training, and that in internal tests, it was “82 percent less likely to respond to requests for disallowed content and 40 percent more likely to produce factual responses than GPT-3.5.”
However, that doesn’t mean the system doesn’t make mistakes or output harmful content. For example, Microsoft revealed that its Bing chatbot has been powered by GPT-4 all along, and many users were able to break Bing’s guardrails in all sorts of creative ways, getting the bot to offer dangerous advice, threaten users, and make up information. GPT-4 also still lacks knowledge about events “that have occurred after the vast majority of its data cuts off” in September 2021
URBAN RENEWAL
Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest region in France at the heart of Paris Olympics
Issued on: 14/03/2023 -
In 500 days on Tuesday, the 2024 Summer Olympics will burst into life in Paris as the teams float down the River Seine on barges in a unique opening ceremony. The spending on the Games is being scrutinised as never before -- venues are focused on Seine-Saint-Denis, the poorest area in France.
Lawsuit filed in bid to halt Alaska oil drilling project
Environmental groups filed a lawsuit seeking to halt an oil drilling project in Alaska approved by the Biden administration
The Biden administration is approving a scaled-back version of ConocoPhillips' $7 billion oil and gas drilling Willow project in Alaska, the US Department of Interior said on Monday, drawing cheers from Alaskan officials and the oil industry but criticism from environmental advocates. FRANCE 24's Environment Editor Valerie Dekimpe tells us more.
Issued on: 14/03/2023 -
Washington (AFP) – Environmental groups filed a lawsuit on Tuesday seeking to halt a controversial oil drilling project in Alaska approved by the Biden administration.
The Interior Department gave the green light on Monday to US energy giant ConocoPhillips to drill for oil at three sites in the federally owned National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska's pristine western Arctic.
Environmental groups had urged President Joe Biden, who vowed during the 2020 White House race not to approve any new oil and gas leases on public lands, to reject the so-called Willow Project.
The six groups that filed the suit in US District Court accused the Interior Department and other agencies of violating the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act and other laws by authorizing the project.
"ConocoPhillips' massive oil and gas project presents a real threat to the wildlife, ecosystems, and communities of Arctic Alaska," said Mike Scott of the Sierra Club, one of the complainants in the suit.
"If they're allowed to break ground, the Willow Project would be a disaster for the climate, the effects of which would be felt for decades," Scott said in a statement.
Reacting to the Biden administration's approval of the project on Monday, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan said that legal efforts to stop the project had been expected.
"We are prepared to defend this decision against likely frivolous legal challenges from the same Lower 48 NGOs who've consistently tried to kill the Willow Project," Sullivan said.
Alaska lawmakers lobbied strongly for approval of the drilling plan, defending it as a source of several thousand jobs and a contributor to US energy independence, with production of 180,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak, or some 576 million barrels over 30 years.
The Willow Project will add 239 million metric tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere over the next 30 years, according to Interior Department calculations, equivalent to the annual emissions of 64 coal-fired power plants.
Biden has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005, with the goal of achieving a net zero emissions economy by no later than 2050.
The Biden administration is approving a major oil project on Alaska's petroleum-rich North Slope that supporters say represents an economic lifeline for Indigenous communities in the region but environmentalists say is counter to President Joe Biden's climate goals. FRANCE 24's Science Editor Shirli Sitbon is joined by Richard Johnson, lecturer at Queen Mary University, to discuss the environmental impact of the project.
New research claims Leonardo da Vinci was son of a slave
GILDAS LE ROUX
Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of the "Mona Lisa" and a symbol of the Renaissance, was only half-Italian, his mother a slave from the Caucasus, new research revealed on Tuesday.
Da Vinci's mother had long been thought a Tuscan peasant, but University of Naples professor Carlo Vecce, a specialist in the Old Master, believes the truth is more complicated.
"Leonardo's mother was a Circassian slave... taken from her home in the Caucasus Mountains, sold and resold several times in Constantinople, then Venice, before arriving in Florence," he told AFP at the launch of a new book.
In the Italian city, she met a young notary, Piero (Peter) da Vinci, "and their son was called Leonardo".
The findings of Vecce, who has spent decades studying da Vinci and curating his works, are based on Florence city archives.
They have formed the basis of a new novel -- "The Smile of Caterina, the mother of Leonardo" -- while also shedding new light on the artist himself.
Any new discovery about da Vinci is hotly contested by the small world of experts who study him, but Vecce insists the evidence is there.
Among the documents he found is one written by da Vinci's father himself, a legal document of emancipation for Caterina, "to recover her freedom and recover her human dignity".
- 'Spirit of freedom' -
This document is dated 1452, and was presented Tuesday at a press conference at the headquarters of publishing house Giunti in Florence.
It was written by "the man who loved Caterina when she was still a slave, who gave her this child named Leonardo and (was) also the person who helped to free her", Vecce said.
His assertion offers a radical change of perspective on da Vinci, who was believed to have been the product of an affair between Peter da Vinci and a different woman, young Tuscan peasant Caterina di Meo Lippi.
Born in 1452 in the countryside outside Florence, da Vinci spent his life travelling around Italy before dying in Amboise, France in 1519, at the court of King Francis 1.
Vecce believes the difficult life of his "migrant" mother had an impact on the work of her brilliant son.
"Caterina left Leonardo a great legacy, certainly, the spirit of freedom," he said, "which inspires all of his intellectual scientific work".
Da Vinci was a polymath, an artist who mastered several disciplines including sculpture, drawing, music and painting, but also engineering, anatomy, botany and architecture.
"He doesn't let anything stop him," Vecce said.
Some may consider the idea that this epitome of a "Renaissance man" was the product of such a union too good to be true.
But Paolo Galluzzi, a da Vinci historian and member of the prestigious Lincei scientific academy in Rome, said it is "by far the most convincing".
Speaking to AFP, he highlighted the quality of the documents discovered by his colleague, adding that there "must remain a minimum of doubt, because we cannot do a DNA test".
Galluzzi said he was also not surprised.
The period into which da Vinci was born marks "the beginning of modernity, the exchanges between people, cultures and civilisations which gave birth to the modern world", he said.
glr/ar/ea
Polish court convicts activist for helping woman get abortion pills
Justyna Wydrzynska sentenced to community service after telling court she sent pills to victim of domestic violence
“I do not feel that I am facing the court alone,” said Justyna Wydrzynska at the hearing on Tuesday. “Behind me are my friends and hundreds of women I have not had the luck to meet yet.”
Along with Malta, Poland’s anti-abortion laws are among the most restrictive in Europe, allowing for termination only in the event of incest, rape or a risk to the mother’s health. Helping a woman obtain an abortion is also illegal.
JustynaWydrzynska, a member of Abortion Dream Team (ADT), an activist group helping Poles access drugs to facilitate terminations abroad, had faced up to three years in prison.
She told the court in Warsaw that she had sent pills to a woman who was a victim of domestic violence, according to the Facebook page of ADT.
The woman had called an abortion line asking for help with terminating her pregnancy. Activists referred Wydrzynska to the case, after which she mailed drugs she already had at home to her.
“The pills which I had for my personal use and which I had sent to Ania are the safest way to terminate a pregnancy in Poland at the moment,” the pressure group quoted Wydrzynska as saying.
“I didn’t want Ania to risk her life by taking dangerous steps since a solution is so easy and medically safe.”
While abortion was freely available in Poland under the communist regime, the procedure became heavily restricted in 1993. Further restrictions were introduced in January 2021, making the procedure legal only in cases of a crime, such as rape or incest, or when the pregnancy risks the woman’s life or health.
However, the law criminalises only abortion-providers, meaning that self-managed abortions – a popular method of terminating pregnancies – are not criminalised. ADT helped more than 9,000 people in Poland access medical abortion in 2022.
ADT activists are careful to work within the limits of Polish law. They give advice on how to order abortion tablets from countries such as the Netherlands, where the medication can be legally purchased. ADT activists do not handle any packages themselves.
Ania’s case was an exception, Wydrzyńska said. The woman told her that she was pregnant and facing domestic violence. Her husband had prevented her from travelling to Germany to access an abortion. Her pregnancy was advancing and due to the early days of the Covid pandemic she did not know if she would be able to obtain tablets from abroad.
“I knew that Ania was in an extremely desperate situation, and I had a set of pills for my own personal use,” Wydrzyńska said in court. “I do not feel guilty. Hearing the details of Ania’s situation in this courtroom has only strengthened my conviction that I made the right choice.”
The package with the medication was found by Ania’s husband who notified the police. Days later Ania miscarried.skip past newsletter promotion
Wydrzyńska said she would appeal against the sentence.
”We are strong, and together we are even stronger,” ADT wrote in a public statement. “We will never stop supporting each other and we won’t stop helping with abortions.”
Margolis, from Human Rights Watch, said: “This alarming and appalling ruling demands action from the European Union to stop Poland’s cruel and concerted targeting of reproductive rights and their defenders … Poland’s government has shown that it will go to dangerous lengths in its attack on women’s rights.” SNP leadership candidates urged to commit to abortion clinic buffer zones
Keina Yoshida, a senior legal adviser at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement: “Her prosecution sets a dangerous precedent for the targeting of human rights defenders in Poland who are working to advance reproductive rights and challenge Poland’s de facto ban on abortion.”
Agnès Callamard, the secretary general of Amnesty International, said: “Today’s conviction marks a depressing low in the repression of reproductive rights in Poland, a rollback for which women and girls – and those who defend their rights – are paying a high price.”
She added: “Justyna should have never been put on trial in the first place because what she did should never be a crime.
“By supporting a woman who asked for help, Justyna showed compassion. By defending the right to safe abortion in Poland, Justyna showed courage. Today’s craven judgment shows neither. The conviction must be overturned.”
Washington (AFP) – It is a documentary that evokes the underground abortion networks of the 1960s but the story involves the present day.
"Plan C," airing this week at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, is about a group of risk-taking women determined to provide access to a safe method of abortion.
Their tool: the abortion pill.
"Plan C" is both the name of the documentary and the organization at the center of the film.
It traces the uphill battle faced by the women between 2019 and 2022 to make the abortion pill more widely available to women in need.
On the one hand, the pandemic expanded the use of telemedicine and allowed for the abortion pill to be dispatched by mail.
On the other hand, abortion -- and the pill -- have now been banned in about a dozen states following a US Supreme Court ruling last year.
"Unfortunately, the anti-abortion folks have largely won," "Plan C" director Tracy Droz Tragos told AFP.
And, she added, "we haven't hit rock bottom here in the United States."
"But more folks know that medication abortion exists, more folks are resisting and making sure that people have access to it," she said. "So there is a workaround to it, there is an answer back."
Plan C, the organization, was founded by two women, Francine Coeytaux and Elisa Wells, in 2015 to disseminate information about the abortion pill, also known as RU 486.
Plan A is contraception. Plan B is the "morning after" pill which is taken by a women after intercourse to avoid becoming pregnant.
Plan C is abortion.
Coeytaux and Wells began their efforts by testing pills that could be purchased on the black market on the internet to verify that they were authentic.
During the pandemic, with the abortion pills becoming more difficult to find, they put out a call for doctors willing to prescribe them by telemedicine and send them to patients by mail.
"After talking to, you know, like 150 providers, we ended up with maybe five," Wells told AFP.
Plan C provided them with technical help setting up telemedicine businesses or the cost of medical licenses.
The doctors were operating in a judicial grey area until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said the abortion pill can indeed by mailed to patients.
That gave rise to a number of telemedicine services.
In June 2022, however, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion giving states the freedom to set their own rules.
Even as access to abortion pills became more restricted, a supplier agreed to continue to send them to Republican-led states where abortion had been banned, notably Texas.
An underground network formed.
"It's like running a drug cartel, in order to help people," said a woman in the film who remained anonymous to protect her identity.
Fear is palpable throughout the movie -- fear for the women using the pills and fear for those who are helping them.
Fear too for what might happen if the flow of pills is cut off entirely and women seeking to end a pregnancy are left with no solution.
Details of how the network operates are deliberately not revealed.
Faces are blurred, voices disguised and locations obscured.
"The fact that it has to feel like this nefarious underground thing is unconscionable," Droz Tragos said. "It's a tragedy."
"I hope we did enough and those folks stay safe," she added. 'A form of resistance'
Finding a platform to distribute a film on such a hot-button issue has been difficult.
Some said it was "too political" and they needed to be "nonpartisan," said Droz Tragos, whose previous documentary about abortion was met with critical acclaim.
The director said she hopes "Plan C" delivers a message of hope to those who watch it, that they come away with the understanding that "they're not alone, that there is a network there to provide an option if they need it."
Since the film was made, another threat has emerged: a conservative federal judge in Texas is weighing whether to impose a national ban on the abortion pill, which was approved by the FDA more than two decades ago and has been proven to be safe and effective.
"We remain hopeful that even in the face of these unjust restrictions that access is possible and will continue to be possible," Wells said. "We believe that it's a form of resistance and that it will prevail."
City of blight: Paris visitors alarmed at trash strike
Tue, 14 March 2023
Portuguese tourist Fabio Figueirado wanted to admire beautiful buildings on a romantic getaway in Paris, but instead he and his girlfriend have found themselves navigating pavements piled high with garbage.
"I've never seen a city with so much trash on the street," said the 25-year-old, near a mound of bulging bin bags across the road from the city's main opera house.
"They must collect it once a week or something, it's not very nice at all."
Tourists flock to Paris for fairy-tale walks and iconic monuments, but piles of uncollected trash because of strikes against a pension reform are spoiling the experience for many foreign visitors.
The French capital's municipal garbage collectors have been on strike since last week as part of nationwide action against the deeply unpopular bill to hike the retirement age and increase contributions for a full pension.
The walkout has left 6,600 tonnes of rubbish piled up on sidewalks in around half of the capital, according to city authorities.
Sitting near the Notre-Dame cathedral, Martha Velasquez, 52, was tucking into an ice-cream with her family not far from another stream of black bags.
"I think it's really sad to see so much trash here in this beautiful city," said the visitor from Colombia.
"It's been several streets that we see piles of trash."
- 'I'll be poor' -
The capital's municipal garbage collectors and cleaners on Tuesday voted to extend their walkout until at least next Monday, a union representative told AFP.
Garbage collectors and truck drivers are opposed to their retirement age being pushed back from 57 to 59 if the new law is passed, the CGT union says.
They also want a wage increase so that they receive a slightly higher pension.
Murielle Gaeremynck, 56, is among those striking.
She said she had been working for more than two decades as a city garbage worker.
But when I retire, "I know I'll be poor," she said, explaining her pension would be less than 1,200 euros (around $1,200) a month.
Nabil Latreche, 44, said he and other municipal collectors had a gruelling job and deserved a decent retirement.
"We work whether there's rain, snow or wind," he said.
"When we're riding behind the truck, we breathe in all sorts of fumes. We often get sick from work."
- Sign of a 'free country' -
In parts of Paris where pickups have been interrupted, some tourists in recent days have complained of the smell.
But others have been much more understanding.
In a narrow back alley of restaurants near the River Seine, Andrey Naradzetski, 21, posed for a picture in front of a giant heap of rubbish.
But he saw the detritus as a healthy sign of democracy.
"It feels like it's a really liberated, free country because here there are strikes," said the young Belarusian who lives in Poland.
I don't "believe the same situation can happen in my home country."
Not far off, near more overflowing dustbins, US tourist Daniel Gore, 53, said he too respected those striking.
"Paris is usually amazingly clean," he said, on his 13th visit to the city with his wife and daughter.
"This time we obviously noticed a difference -- that there's trash piled up -- but we also know why and we understand."
Jean-François Rial, president of the Paris tourism office, admitted all the rubbish was "not optimal for foreign visitors".
But the ongoing strikes will have "no impact" on tourism numbers in Paris, he told AFP.
burs-ah-jf/adp/rox
Garbage piles up on Paris sidewalks as pension strike continues
PARIS (AP) — The City of Light is losing its luster with tons of garbage piling up on Paris sidewalks as sanitation workers strike for a ninth day Tuesday. The creeping squalor is the most visible sign of widespread anger over a bill to raise the French retirement age by two years.
The malodorous perfume of rotting food has begun escaping from some rubbish bags and overflowing bins. Neither the Left Bank palace housing the Senate nor, across town, a street steps from the Elysee Palace, where waste from the presidential residence is apparently being stocked, was spared by the strike.
More than 5,600 tons of garbage had piled up by Monday, drawing complaints from some district mayors. Some piles disappeared early Tuesday with help from a private company, the TV station BFMTV reported.
Other French cities are also having garbage problems, but the mess in Paris, the showcase of France, has quickly become emblematic of strikers’ discontent.
“It’s a bit too much because it was even hard to navigate” some streets, said 24-year-old British visitor Nadiia Turkay after touring the French capital. She added that it was “upsetting to be honest” because on “beautiful streets … you see all the rubbish and everything. The smell.”
Turkay nevertheless sympathized with striking workers and accepted her discomfort as being “for a good cause.”
Even the strikers themselves, who include garbage collectors, street cleaners and underground sewer workers, are concerned about what Paris is becoming in their absence.
“It makes me sick,” said Gursel Durnaz, who has been on a picket line for nine days. “There are bins everywhere, stuff all over. People can’t get past. We’re completely aware.”
But, he added, President Emmanuel Macron has only to withdraw his plan to increase the French retirement age “and Paris will be clean in three days.”
Strikes have intermittently hobbled other sectors including transport, energy and ports, but Macron remains undaunted as his government presses ahead with trying to get the unpopular pension reform bill passed in parliament. The bill would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 for most people anf from 57 to 59 for most people in the sanitation sector.
Sanitation workers say two more years is too long for the essential but neglected services they render to all.
“What makes France turn are the invisible jobs. … We are unfortunately among the invisible people,” said Jamel Ouchen, who sweeps streets in a chic Paris neighborhood. He suggested politicians go on a “discovery day” to learn first-hand what it takes to keep the city clean.
“They won’t last a single day,” Ouchen said.
Health is a prime concern within the sanitation sector, officially acknowledged with the current early retirement at 57, though many people work longer to increase their pensions. With the exception of sewage workers, there appear to be no long-term studies to confirm widespread claims of shortened life expectancy among sanitation workers.
Still, health reasons were behind Ali Chaligui’s decision to switch out of his job as a garbage collector for an office position in logistics. Chaligui, 41, says he still suffers after-effects 10 years later, like tendonitis, shoulder and ankle problems.
“Monsieur Macron wants us to die on the job,” said Frederic Aubisse, a sewer worker and member of the executive committee of the sanitation section of the leftist CGT union, at the forefront of the mobilization against the pension plan.
The stakes will be high on Wednesday for both the government and striking workers. Unions are organizing their eighth nationwide protest marches since January, and the third in nine days; the action is timed to coincide with a closed-door meeting of seven senators and seven lower-house lawmakers who will try to reach a consensus on the text of the bill. Success would send the legislation back to both houses for voting on Thursday.
But nothing is certain, and the ticking clock appears to have fed the determination of strikers manning picket lines.
Durnaz, 55, is among those on the picket line at an incineration plant south of Paris, one of three serving the capital — all blocked since March 6. He has only been home twice to see his wife and three children. “It’s cold, it rains, there’s wind,” he said.
Even if the bill becomes law, “we have other options,” said Durnaz. “It’s not over.”
“Nothing is written in stone,” Aubisse, the union official, added. He cited an unpopular 2006 law to promote youth employment that was pushed through by then-Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin despite massive student protests that triggered a political crisis. Months later, it was abandoned in a parliamentary vote.
If the pension reform is voted through, “Things will happen,” Aubisse said. “That’s sure and certain.”
Alex Turnbull in Paris contributed.
NYK Recycles First Ship in Bangladesh After HKC Certification
PHP invested $11 million adding the concert areas and training to achieve certification (PHP)
After years of pressure on the shipbreaking sector and specifically in emerging countries such as Bangladesh, the industry is marking a milestone with the first direct sale of a ship from shipping company NYK to PHP Ship Recycling in Chattogram. The beaching of the ship late last week was an important development coming more than three years after the yard became the first in the country to earn certification and as the industry is under financial pressure.
Watchdog groups have been especially critical of the poor overall track record at the scrapyards in Asia and specifically Bangladesh. They point to poor safety records, lack of protection for the workers, and the pollution coming from the yards.
PHP Ship Recycling set out to change this by adhering to the Hong Kong Convention (HKC) adopted by the IMO in 2009. The yard earned a statement of compliance from ClassNK in January 2020 making it the first recognized as a sustainable green ship recycling in Bangladesh. Since then, PHP also became the first ship recycler in the world to earn an ISO certificate for energy management.
“This achievement is no small feat. It is the culmination of 12 years of intensive hard work, building the facility’s concrete floors and concrete slipway, procuring the best equipment, and aggressively training of staff,” said Mohammed Zahirul Islam, Managing Director at PHP. “All of this required an investment of $11 million so far.”
The yard has nearly 500,000 square feet at the edge of the Bay of Bengal. They report an annual recycling capacity of 160,000 MT LDT.
NYK highlights that it also sent an inspection team to the yard to certify it before agreeing to sell any ships for recycling. They said they use stricter standards than the Hong Kong Convention focusing on the environment, safety, occupational health, and respect for human rights. PHP became the first yard NYK certified in Bangladesh in addition to 30 in India, three in China, and one in Turkey.
NYK sold the Kamo (9,433 dwt) a general cargo ship to PHP for recycling. The vessel which was built in 1998 arrived at the yard in Chattogram after a two-week trip from Ras Laffan, Qatar. She was beached on March 9, but according to both the yard and NYK, a representative will remain at the yard to oversee the recycling process to ensure it is conducted following the standards.
This is especially significant for the industry in Bangladesh as the country’s shipbreaking yards have been under pressure. Reports say that as many as 80 percent of the yards have closed in the past three years. In addition to environmental issues, they have been pressured by low prices and financial challenges due to the country’s weak economy.
Based on the potential from gaining green certification, a second yard followed PHP’s model and announced just last week that it had been recognized by ClassNK as being in compliance with the Hong Kong convention. Working with GMS, the largest cash buyer for ships, and GMS’s Sustainable Ship & Offshore Recycling Program, the yard at Shitalpur, Sitakunda was able to complete the necessary staff training. Under the program, employees from S.N. Corporation were offered technical support and guidance throughout the certification process to ensure a supported end-to-end solution for sustainable ship recycling. The yard also added the required concrete slipway and facilities to prevent the spread of contaminants during the recycling process.
The companies are highlighting these achievements as they work to become more competitive in recycling as it is anticipated more ships will be retired in the face of the new environmental standards.
S5 Agency World Helps Support Launch 2 New Methanol-Powered Vessels
S5 Agency World & Proman Stena Bulk’s new methanol-powered vessels
World-leading port services provider S5 Agency World (S5) today announces it has begun providing global hub and port agency support to Proman for its first methanol-fueled tankers.
S5 successfully coordinated two new methanol-powered vessels Stena Pro Patria and Stena Pro Marine – for their first call at the Port of Ulsan.
With more than 360 port-owned offices strategically located in all major maritime hubs, S5 can facilitate port calls worldwide with its global reach. Through its technological advancements, S5’s digital hub solution Simply5 ensures every client has a tailored strategy, while ensuring vessels' activities can be optimised and port calls can be executed more sustainably.
S5’s experience and expertise, in the marine fuels sector and understanding of the technical challenges, means it can provide high-quality port services for Proman and Proman Stena Bulk’s new methanol-powered vessels.
As the methanol market continues to evolve globally and more terminals come online, the ongoing challenge for gas carriers will be to ensure they take a strategic approach to time management that allows them to operate vessels efficiently. Using a digital hub solution to manage port calls will ensure S5’s customers can make real-time decisions to optimise their vessels’ performance.
Jason Berman, Chief Commercial Officer at S5 Agency World, commented: “We are delighted to strengthen our long partnership with one of the largest methanol producers in the world and extend our services to its new and growing low-emission joint venture fleet. Our digital solutions, expertise and local knowledge will help Proman to deliver its cargo safely and efficiently at every port call they make worldwide.”
Digitalisation, through the implementation of software to manage port agency processes, eliminates errors in paperwork that arise when port calls are managed in offline silos. By streamlining workloads and ensuring commercial information is readily available to those that need it, S5 works with partners to reduce operating costs, increase efficiencies, and improve profitability on every port call.
Anita Gajadhar, Proman’s Executive Director for Marketing, Logistics and Shipping, said: "S5 makes the lives of our vessel operations teams easier with its global hub solution. S5’s experience and global hub solution allow a harmonious synergy between our commercial operations and technical operations, ensuring all our port calls are managed safely and efficiently. We look forward to continuing to work with S5 as our methanol-fuelled fleet grows.”
S5 has worked with Proman for more than a decade, integrating its technology solutions into Proman’s finance and operations software and acts as a key partner to the business in its operations.
Norwegian Cruise Line is moving forward with plans to begin adapting its newbuilds for the future use of methanol as their primary fuel. The cruise line company told investors during its quarterly update today that it has agreed to design changes with Fincantieri to prepare two cruise ships due for delivery in 2027 and 2028 to accommodate the emerging alternate fuel that would address carbon emissions.
The cruise line said it has agreed to a total of €1.2 billion in additional contract costs to modify a total of four cruise ships being built by the Italian shipyard as part of Project Leonardo, now known as the Prima class. The first ship of the class, Norwegian Prima (143,535 GT) was introduced in August 2022 and she will be followed by a sister ship Norwegian Viva scheduled to begin cruising in August 2023.
Previously, the cruise line reported that it would be increasing the capacity of the four later cruise ships of the class. The design change calls for lengthening the cruise ships from their original 981-foot length by 72 feet increasing passenger capacity to 3,550 people. Today, Norwegian said the third and fourth ships will be about 10 percent larger or a total of approximately 158,000 GT.
“Additional modifications to the final two ships in this class will accommodate the use of green methanol as an alternative fuel source,” Norwegian reported. The fifth and sixth ships will be about 20 percent larger than the first two, or a total of approximately 172,000 GT, to accommodate the changes to prepare the ships for methanol.
“While additional modifications will be needed in the future to fully enable the use of methanol in addition to traditional marine fuel on these ships, this reinforces the company’s commitment to decarbonization,” writes Norwegian. The company is currently working to secure additional export-credit agency-backed financing to cover the costs before finalizing the design changes.
Previously, Norwegian had said it was planning tests and looking to install methanol tanks on some of its cruise ships. The company is working with MAN on a project to retrofit a medium-speed MAN 48/60 engine to make it capable of dual-fuel diesel/methanol operation. CEO Harry Sommer suggested last fall that the company might start by operating ships with methanol when in port, while also looking to incorporate methanol-ready tanks into its future cruise ships.
Construction on the first methanol-ready cruise ship began in 2022 at Meyer Turku in Finland. Germany’s TUI Cruises said that it was adapting the design of its new ship Mein Schiff 7 so that the vessel would be methanol ready when it enters service in 2024. Disney Cruise Line has also said that it expects that the acquired cruise ship Global Dream would operate on methanol when it is introduced in 2025.
Norwegian decided unlike other cruise lines to forgo LNG-fueled newbuilds and instead focus its longer-term strategy on methanol. At the same time, the cruise line said it has already completed tests on three of its ships using biofuel blends. They tested 30 percent biofuel/70 percent marine gas oil (MGO) aboard the Norwegian Star, Norwegian Sun, and Norwegian Epic during November and December 2022.
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