Paris mayor tells residents to 'exist in harmony' with city's rats

Rebecca Rosman

 Jun 10 2023

AP
A rat runs next to a Maillol statue in The Tuileries gardens of the Louvre Muesum in Paris.

After years spent trying to eradicate Paris’s rat population, the city’s socialist leader has changed tack, telling residents it is time to cohabitate with the rodents.

Anne Hidalgo’s administration has announced the creation of a special committee tasked with examining how the city’s 2 million inhabitants and 6 million rats can exist in harmony.

“With guidance from the mayor, we have decided to set up a committee to look into the question of cohabitation,” said Anne Souyris, the city’s deputy mayor for public health, during a Council of Paris meeting.

Souyris, a member of France’s Les Ecologistes Party, said the committee would have to come up with a solution that would be “as effective as possible” and also “not unbearable” for Parisians.

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The announcement comes nearly six years after the city launched a failed €1.5 million (NZ$2.63m) plan to curb the city’s rats.

Critics of the new approach accused Hidalgo’s administration of failing to take the rodent problem seriously.

“Anne Hidalgo’s team never disappoints,” said Geoffroy Boulard, mayor of the city’s 17th arrondissement. “Paris deserves better.”

Boulard has long been a vocal critic of the city’s “proliferation of rats” and what he cites as a lack of funding to tackle the issue, comparing the previous €1.5m plan to New York’s US$32m rat fund.

AP
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has been accused of not taking the city’s rat problem seriously.

But animal rights groups applauded the announcement in Paris, and said it came after more than two years of lobbying city officials.

Amandine Sanvisens, the co-founder of activist group Paris Animaux Zoopolis, said it would be “cruel” and “ineffective” to spend millions of euros on trying to eliminate the city’s rats.

She cited the use of anticoagulants – one of the city’s most common methods for killing rats – which causes internal bleeding and a slow and painful death.

“The rats also become more resistant [to anticoagulants] over time, so it doesn’t work,” Sanvisens said.

AP
A Paris city employee puts a dead rat in a garbage can.

Some of the “cohabitation” methods Sanvisens has proposed include investing in 100 hermetically sealed garbage cans across the city to limit the rats’ access to food, and using a rat oral contraception called ContraPest.

Already used in the United States, the drug reduces fertility.

Ocean temperature surge signals climate shift

June 10, 2023

THE WASHINGTON POST – A rapid surge in global ocean temperatures in recent months is raising the specter of a climate pattern shift that could accelerate planetary warming and supercharge trends that already are fuelling extreme storms, deadly heat waves, and ecological crises on land and sea.

On the heels of a new annual heat record set in 2022 – the latest in a string of record-setting years – average ocean surface temperatures around the globe have spiked since early March. Excluding polar regions, they are about two-tenths of a degree Celsius warmer than scientists have ever observed at this time of year via satellite data.

Translation: What might seem like a small uptick in temperature can have profound effects.

“Averaged over the planet, that’s a really big anomaly,” saidresearch scientist at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Australia Alex Sen Gupta.

A transition to the climate pattern known as El Niño is probably behind the warming trend, scientists said. They won’t be sure of that until more time passes and the pattern takes shape. What’s already certain: as greenhouse gas emissions drive a steady surge in global temperatures, the planet will continue to set new climate and weather precedents, and oceans will grow ever hotter.



A school of fish swim through a break in the coral along the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. 

“You’ve got this relentless rise of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere,” said senior scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Michael McPhaden. “We just know unless that turns around in some way, we will continue to set records.”

Historically, El Niño is known for accelerating global warming, with devastating effect. The pattern is marked by warmer-than-average surface waters in the Pacific Ocean that have domino effects on weather around the world. The last major El Niño drove the planet to record heat in 2016. The legacy of El Niño includes severe drought in places such as Indonesia and southern Africa, increased precipitation along the southern United States (US), and diminished Atlantic hurricane activity.

Strong El Niños can also trigger ecological disasters and deadly weather extremes: drought and wildfires that cause rainforest loss, ocean warming that kills aquatic life and bleaches corals, rapid loss of polar ice, and a surge in transmission of diseases such as the plague.

Now, scientists see signs of another El Niño brewing as Pacific waters off Ecuador and Peru quickly warm up. It is there that El Niño got its name, because the warming is known to disrupt the region’s fishing industry around Christmas.

Climate forecasters estimate a 62 per cent chance El Niño develops sometime between May and July, and a 90 per cent chance it arrives by the end of the year.

It would be a stark change after three years dominated by El Niño’s counterpart, La Niña – an unusually long stretch that scientists say ended in February. That extended La Niña may be contributing to the rapid warming being observed now, Kevin Trenberth, an ocean expert and scholar at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said in an e-mail.

In contrast to El Niño, La Niña is associated with cooler-than-normal surface waters in the tropical Pacific. That means a lot of the oceans’ heat is “buried” in deeper waters during La Niña, Trenberth said.

As El Niño develops, it may be bringing that heat back to the surface.

That suggests the spike in ocean temperatures may ease as the heat is released through evaporation, Trenberth added. Similar warming was observed in early 2014, but El Niño did not arrive until fall 2015, eventually strengthening dramatically into the following year.

Trenberth said the recent shifts are “indeed signaling the likely beginning of the next major basin-wide El Niño event developing this year and likely leading to new highs in global mean surface temperatures in 2024”.

Specific impacts from the rapid warming are not yet known, but they may be limited so far, given that the heat of summer is winding down in the Southern Hemisphere and has not yet arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, said Regina Rodrigues, who studies marine heat wave impacts at the Federal University of Santa Catarina in Brazil.

When marine heat waves hit during the summer, they can cause massive die-offs among aquatic creatures and vegetation.

The recent surge in ocean temperatures, while startling, follows on a decades-long trend of rising heat in the world’s oceans, which scientists say have absorbed 90 per cent of the excess heat in the Earth’s system in recent decades due to rising greenhouse gases.

The ripple effects of hotter oceans can be far-reaching and dramatic. Warmer water raises the odds of ocean heat waves in certain regions of the globe, with potentially catastrophic consequences for marine life.

A warmer ocean also means an expanding ocean, raising sea levels that affect coastlines and worsen flooding. Warmer water at the top levels of the ocean can also help fuel more intense storms and the torrential rainfall that accompanies them.

“Those upper sea surface temperatures have really serious consequences for any storm that comes along,” Trenberth told The Post in a January interview.

In part, that is because more heat amounts to more moisture in the air, which can supercharge any storms that materialise.

For every degree Fahrenheit that the air temperature increases, the atmosphere can hold about four per cent more water.

Scientists have found that ocean warming, while strong and steady overall, varies around the globe – with particularly rapid increases in heat in the Atlantic region off the US coastline. This is amplifying coastal sea level rise and may also be implicated in a strong warming trend affecting the coastal northeastern US on land.

But research has continued to mount that on the whole, the oceans are steadily growing warmer.

A study published in October in Nature Reviews found that the upper reaches of the oceans have been heating up around the planet since at least the 1950s, with the most stark changes observed in the Atlantic and Southern oceans.

The authors wrote that data shows the heating has both accelerated over time and increasingly has reached deeper depths. That warming is likely irreversible this century, the scientists said, and will almost certainly continue to worsen if humans don’t make significant and rapid cuts to greenhouse gas emissions.

In its most recent assessment, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wrote that it is “virtually certain” that the upper levels of the oceans have warmed over the past half-century and “extremely likely that human influence is the main driver”.

Human-caused emissions “are the main driver of current global acidification of the surface open ocean”, the panel wrote.

The greenhouse gas emissions that humans have produced since 1750 “have committed the global ocean to future warming,” the IPCC authors found. Over the remainder of the 21st Century, the group said, ocean warming will probably be several times what it has been over the past five decades.

All of those trends make the prospect of a new El Niño, and its warming influence, more alarming. Scientists suspect climate change is making El Niño more extreme, less predictable and potentially more consequential for the planet.

“The energy accumulated in the water from increasing the heat in such a drastic way during El Niño years does not dissipate easily,” said David Costalago, a marine scientist with the advocacy group Oceana. Costalago said that may only add to the exponential increase in warmth fuelled by human-driven climate change.

Regardless of whether El Niño officially materialises this year, the climate will continue to change, McPhaden said.

“These ups and downs related to La Niña and El Niño, they are temporary,” he said. “The real issue is the rising greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, which are going up and up and up.”

Azerbaijani authorities to close criminal case against a number of NGOs begun in 2014

• JAMnews

• Baku

The Azerbaijani authorities are closing a criminal case against a number of non-governmental organizations which began in 2014. Several people were arrested as part of this case. Lawyer Elchin Sadigov considers the closure of criminal cases to be a positive development. “The forced closure of the criminal case against 5-6 NGOs does not speak of good will or a change in the essence of the government,” human rights activist Intigam Aliyev said.

The investigative department of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan closed the criminal case against several non-governmental organizations, which was started back in 2014. The Azerbaijani edition of Radio Liberty, citing a source in the prosecutor’s office, notes that the process of closing cases began in May 2023.

The source added that the heads of the organizations were recently invited to the investigative department. They were informed that the case had been closed.

Take statements and close the case

“According to Article 39.1.2 (lack of corpus delicti) of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the case is closed. In this regard, the heads of the organizations against which the criminal case was initiated, apply with statements, on the basis of which the cases are closed,” the prosecutor’s office said.

Mirvari Gahramanli, the head of the public association Organization for the Protection of Oil Workers’ Rights, confirmed this information with Radio Liberty. The human rights activist said that she was invited to the department by the Deputy Head of the Investigation Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office, Gasim Mammadov, and she was asked to write a statement: “In the statement, I indicated that I asked to close the case due to the lack of corpus delicti. I was told the case was closed.”

European court decision
In 2014 the Investigation Department of the General Prosecutor’s Office of Azerbaijan initiated a criminal case against branches and representative offices of a number of foreign non-governmental organizations and local NGOs.
In the same year, the head of the Institute for Peace and Democracy Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunus, the head of the Legal Education Society Intigam Aliyev and others were imprisoned. They were accused of fraud, abuse of office, tax evasion and other criminal acts, although they themselves did not plead guilty to the charges.
The European Court of Human Rights in its verdict pointed out that these persons were punished not on the charges, but for political reasons.
The Azerbaijani government claims that no one in the country is persecuted for their political views, and all prisoners are punished for specific crimes.

“This criminal case was used to persecute NGOs”

In response to a request from MeydanTV, the press service of the Prosecutor General’s Office did not specify which criminal cases against which NGOs are considered closed.

Elchin Sadigov

Lawyer Elchin Sadigov noted that he defended in court in 2014 two organizations accused in this case:

“In 2020, the case against one of those organizations was closed, I don’t want to name it. But the case against the Foundation for the Support of the Open Society Institute was not closed, it continues to this day. Bank accounts, the property of this organization were arrested, and there was an appeal to the ECHR on this issue.”

Sadygov considers the closure of criminal cases to be a positive moment:

“But according to the information I have, the case against the Open Society Institute Support Fund did not stop.”

According to the lawyer, in 2014 many NGOs and donor organizations were held accountable:

“We can say that this criminal case was used to persecute NGOs. Rasul Jafarov, Intigam Aliyev, Leyla Yunus were arrested, and subsequently the case against Khadija Ismailova was transferred to a separate proceeding. Aziz Orujov was arrested in the same case.”

Released political prisoner fired from work in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijani political prisoner Abid Gafarov, who was released from prison last week, was fired from his job at an oil company

“All this is necessary for fairy tales about “reforms”, “dialogue” “

Human rights activist and former prisoner of conscience Intigam Aliyev says that no one summoned him to the prosecutor’s office, they also did not offer to write a statement about closing the criminal case:

Intigam Aliyev

“And they did right, because I’m not going to beg anyone.”

Aliyev recalled that the ECtHR made a decision on the political motivation of his arrest, as well as the falsification of criminal cases against his organization:

“The government is obliged to carry out individual and general measures based on the implementation of those decisions. You illegally arrest people, forbid them to leave the country for years, close their offices, close their accounts, spread lies and slander against them, and then say, go ask me for a favor.”

“What will change even if the case is closed?! Civil society in the country – independent media, the NGO sector, political parties – has been destroyed. All the steps taken by the authorities show that whom they cannot frighten, buy, they see in them their enemies.

The forced closure of the criminal case against 5-6 NGOs does not reflect good will or a change in the essence of the government. All this is necessary for fairy tales about “reforms”, “dialogue”, in order to restore damaged relations with international organizations. So that they continue to turn a blind eye to gross violations of human rights in the country, they allocated money,” Intigam Aliyev said in an interview with MeydanTV.

Exxon Bets on China Chemicals Growth Even as US Relations Sour

Kevin Crowley and Ari Natter





(Bloomberg) -- Exxon Mobil Corp. is forging ahead with a multi-billion-dollar petrochemical complex that’s the cornerstone of its growth strategy in China, even as political tensions push other corporations to reassess their exposure there.

Exxon executives have made multiple trips this year to check progress on the project in Huizhou, China, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified while discussing internal matters. The facility is the biggest of a dozen or more new projects in the country being developed by companies that will produce ethylene, a plastic feedstock, according to S&P Global. It is designed to allow for expansion beyond its initial build-out, according to six people who worked on the project.

The prize is a major stake in the top growth market for petrochemicals, which supplies the plastics, resins and fibers used by China’s manufacturing industry to make everyday consumer products that end up in homes all over the globe. But diplomatic strain between the US and China — over the Asian country’s friendship with Russia, spying claims, and policy toward Taiwan – has intensified the strategy’s risks.

Exxon’s commitment to the new facility stands in contrast with some other companies’ moves, with the likes of Apple Inc., Nike Inc. and Adidas AG as well as auto-parts makers diluting their supply-chain exposure in China by investing in nearby countries like Vietnam and Thailand.

Read More: China Auto-Parts Makers Join Apple in Offshore Factory Push

Many executives are growing more pessimistic about the relationship between Washington and Beijing, according to an American Chamber of Commerce in China survey published in April.

“Business sentiment has definitely soured as the relationship turns more adversarial,” said Nikhil Celly, a professor of international business at the University of Houston. “Previously, almost every company said China was a great place to invest, but now they’ll be more careful, especially with future investments.”

Still, Exxon has powerful incentives to proceed with its investment there. The company views demand growth in petrochemicals, which are derived from fossil fuels, far outlasting that of oil, which it expects to effectively flatline through 2050. Chemicals such as ethylene and polypropylene, the building blocks of plastic bottles, food packaging and medical instruments, are much harder to replace with low-carbon alternatives. Exxon expects global demand for chemicals to increase 42% from 2017 to 2030, compared with just 5% for gasoline.

China is at the center of that explosive growth. Despite a sluggish rebound from its strict Covid-19 policies, its economy is expected to grow faster than the US or Europe over the long term, supporting demand for plastics in a rapidly developing country of 1.4 billion people. China also accounts for nearly a third of the world’s manufacturing.

The Huizhou complex, dubbed “China 1,” is located in Guangdong province and slated for startup in 2025. Exxon is also setting up a research and development center at the site, its first with pilot plants outside of North America, and is exploring the potential for carbon capture.

Exxon announced the decision to build the China 1 facility in late 2021 – well before this year’s deterioration in US-China relations but after the tit-for-tat trade war under the Trump administration. At the time, chemicals boss Karen McKee called it a “competitive growth platform.” Chinese officials have said the project will cost $10 billion. As with any big commodity project, once the final investment decision is made and money has been committed, there’s rarely any turning back. Still, recent developments do not appear to have curbed Exxon’s appetite for Chinese petrochemicals.

“We are very ambitious and very bullish about our plans in China,” Fernando Vallina, chairman of Exxon’s China division, told state media in February, days after US fighter jets shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon in American airspace. “Our model is not to build just one plant — it’s to build first a complex and then keep on adding phases, keep on investing for many years.”

Exxon says its investment in China is different than those of other US corporations that count the country as a critical part of their supply chains. The Texas oil giant will make chemical feedstock solely for local manufacturers.

“The products we will make there are largely intended for domestic use, meaning there is no parallel to US companies relocating manufacturing from China to secure their supply chain,” the company said in a statement. Ethylene and its derivatives are used in basic industrial processes and not subject to any US government restrictions on supplying China with high-tech or military equipment.

It’s also not alone in deepening its presence in China. Airbus SE and Ford Motor Co. forged closer trade ties with China in recent weeks while German industrial giants including Mercedes-Benz AG, Siemens AG and BASF SE are vowing to maintain links to the world’s second-largest economy. BASF, the world’s largest chemical maker, is building a complex similar to Exxon’s in southeast China.

Read More: German Bosses Defy Scholz’s Plea to Shift Away From China

US Ambassador to China Nicholas Burns recently encouraged business ties as part of President Joe Biden’s policy to maintain economic links, but not at the expense of national security. Biden voiced optimism last month that relations would “begin to thaw very shortly.”

Chinese officials are working hard to prevent US companies from getting jitters, including by meeting in May with JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimon and Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk.

Read More: China Woos Dimon, Musk as Pressure Builds on Xi to Boost Economy

Any future expansions of Exxon’s Huizhou complex could be a decade away and would depend on factors including market demand and financial returns as well as political risks, according to a person familiar with the company’s strategy.

The decision to build the petrochemical plant in China may help protect Exxon from shifting geopolitical winds because its production would be immune from tariffs, sanctions or export levies. This would help it avoid situations like in 2018 when imports of butyl — synthetic rubber — were caught up in Chinese anti-dumping measures at a time of retaliatory tariffs under the Trump administration. Exxon denies dumping any product, including butyl.

Exxon’s global footprint and importance in energy markets give it considerable diplomatic clout independent of the US government in a way few other companies can match. It has operated for decades in countries with autocratic regimes and has shown the ability to pivot quickly when needed, including when it exited Russia last year.

“We have been in China since 1892 so it’s more than 130 years now,” Vallina said in February. “And we plan to be here for another 130 years at least.”

--With assistance from Jacob Gu, Keith Naughton, Ramsey Al-Rikabi and Brendan Murray.

June 1, 2023· Bloomberg Businessweek

HINDU NATIONALIST VIEW

‘Not a hate crime,’ rules Canadian law

 enforcement on Indira Gandhi float

ByAnirudh Bhattacharyya, Toronto

Jun 10, 2023 

The float figured in a shaheedi diwas parade in Brampton on June 4 marking the 39th anniversary of Operation Bluestar.

Canadian law enforcement does not believe that the display depicting the assassination of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi upon a float at a parade in the Greater Toronto Area on June 4 constitutes a hate crime.

Parade float depicting Indira Gandhi's assassination at an event organised by pro-Khalistani supporters in Brampton city of Canada.(Screengrab from video tweeted by @BalrajDeol4)

A statement released from the office of Patrick Brown, the Mayor of the town of Brampton, where the event occurred, said, “Police have looked at the video and it’s their determination it does not constitute a hate crime.”

Brown’s office also said that he was not at the event nor was it a city of Brampton function.

However, the statement added that under Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, “Canadians are guaranteed freedom of thought, belief and expression.”

“Any decision to change Section 2 would be at the Federal level. Police enforce laws. They don’t write them,” it noted.

Meanwhile, in response to queries from the Hindustan Times, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada or GAC, the country’s foreign ministry, said it “has nothing further to add to the tweet from Canada’s High Commissioner to India Cameron McKay on June 5th.

That tweet, the only official reaction from a Canadian official so far had said, “I am appalled by reports of an event in Canada that celebrated the assassination of late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. There is no place in Canada for hate or for the glorification of violence. I categorically condemn these activities.”

The float, which has infuriated the Indian Government, figured in a shaheedi diwas or martyrdom day parade in Brampton on June 4, marking the 39th anniversary of Operation Bluestar when Indian forces stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar to flush out separatist leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his supporters. Other tableaux at the event had featured posters of Bhindranwale.

Indo-Canadian organisations have also expressed their outrage over the float. Satish Thakkar, chair of the Canada India Foundation, said that “besides being a hate crime,” it “celebrated an act of terrorism against the democratically elected leader of a country that has been the place of origin for nearly two million law-abiding Indo-Canadians.”

He added that the continuation of such acts will reflect poorly on Canada in the world stage, besides negatively impacting the potential for strengthened relations between Canada and India.

Jaishankar told media in New Delhi on Thursday that the float is linked to the bigger issue of the “space that Canada has continuously” provided to Khalistani elements.

Jaishankar’s remarks came after India’s High Commission in Ottawa sent a formal note to GAC on Wednesday to express displeasure over the float, which displayed mannequins depicting Gandhi and her killers, two members of her security detail.

A senior Indian official described the occurrence as “not acceptable”, adding, “You cannot exceed freedom of expression like this, glorifying the assassination of the leader of a democratic nation.”

• ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  

  Anirudh Bhattacharyya 

  Anirudh Bhattacharya is a Toronto-based commentator on North American issues, and an author. He has also worked as a journalist in New Delhi and New York spanning print, television and digital media. He tweets as @anirudhb.

ANOTHER RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL HORROR

King Charles's charity ‘has insufficient funds’ for child sexual abuse payments

The King’s charity will only pay around £2,000 to each survivor of the Fairbridge farm schools who suffered physical and sexual abuse as children due to the Prince’s Trust ‘insufficient monies’ 

SAT, 10 JUN, 2023 - 
ALANA CALVERT IN MOLONG, AUSTRALIA, PA

Survivors of farm schools where British children suffered physical and sexual abuse are imploring King Charles to intervene after they were told his charity, the Prince’s Trust, had “insufficient monies” to adequately pay compensation.

The Prince’s Trust became liable for the Fairbridge Society in 2012 when it absorbed the charity which for 70 years had sent tens of thousands of British children to farm orphanages in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the former Rhodesia, where they suffered cruelty, mistreatment and sexual abuse.


The Fairbridge Farm School scheme was one of the largest UK organisations to export working class children to its former colonies from the early 1900s to 1980 in a bid to convert a “burden and a menace” to society into “assets” for the Empire.

Subsequent child sexual abuse inquiries in both the UK and Australia found the British Government and the Fairbridge Society were aware of abuse at farm schools in Australia as early as the 1930s


In 2018, then-UK prime minister Gordon Brown condemned the child migrant scheme as “government-induced trafficking” that was a “bigger sex scandal” than the crimes of Jimmy Savile.

In light of these damning findings against Fairbridge, the Prince’s Trust pledged to pay compensation to survivors of the farm schools in 2018. It established a company called Fairbridge Restored and immediately put it into receivership – giving joint administrators Chris Laverty and Alistair Wardell of Grant Thornton UK LLP the task of paying compensation.

In November 2022, the High Court of Justice determined a reasonable amount to each claimant was £204,000 (380,000 Australian dollars).

Administrators have now told survivors they will only receive about 1% of that figure – which would work out about £1,000-£2,000 each.

In a letter sent to 277 claimants in May that has been seen by the PA news agency, Fairbridge Restored’s joint administrators said they had been provided with “insufficient monies to pay all admitted claims in full”.

David Hill at the remains of the Fairbridge Farm School site in Molong, NSW (Alana Calvert/PA)

“For the avoidance of doubt, I would like to highlight that the amount that will be paid will be a small proportion of each admitted claim,” administrators said.

“This is because there are insufficient monies to pay all admitted claims in full, so every creditor with an admitted claim will receive the same small percentage of their claim.

“Our current estimate is that it may be in the order of around 1%. For illustrative purposes, if the dividend were to be 1% and for example, your admitted claim was 100,000 Australian dollars, you would receive a distribution of 1,000 Australian dollars (paid in British pounds sterling).



David Hill, a former child migrant who was sent to the Molong school in New South Wales as a 12-year-old in 1959, called the Prince’s Trust conduct “offensive, hurtful and distressing”.

Mr Hill implored the King to intervene and “correct the injustice” against survivors who have “borne the trauma and scarring from their experiences throughout the whole of their lives”.

Former child migrant and author of The Forgotten Children and Reckoning David Hill at Fairbridge Farm School in Molong, Central West NSW (Alana Calvert/PA)

In a letter to Charles, Mr Hill said: “This is outrageous and grossly unfair and an insult to the victims. It is very distressing for all those former Fairbridge children who have struggled through life with a legacy of childhood abuse.

“Many of them have never been able to live anything approaching normal lives as a result of their experiences at Fairbridge institutions.”

After leaving the farm school at the age of 15, Mr Hill went on to become chairman of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and write two books about the Fairbridge Farm Schools.

The first of these books, The Forgotten Children, spurred survivors of the Molong orphanage to launch a class action against the state and federal governments and the school which had received around 1,000 children between 1938 and 1974.

It found more than 60% of the more than 200 claimants had suffered sexual abuse at the farm and in 2015 they received a record compensation payout of 24 million Australian dollars (£13.6 million).

Robert Stephens, a survivor of the Molong farm school and one of the claimants to compensation from the Prince’s Trust, was eight when he was sent to Australia from Dorset. For nine years he suffered physical and sexual abuse by a number of perpetrators.

Former child migrant Robert Stephens was the first alleged victim of Sir William Slim – Australia’s 13th governor general – to speak publicly (Alana Calvert/PA)



In 2007, he alleged one of the people who abused him as a boy was celebrated British military commander Sir William Slim, the 13th governor general of Australia.

Now 80, Mr Stephens said many Fairbridge claimants were confused by the letter sent to them by administrators which did not make clear they would now only be receiving a “pittance” of the 370,000 Australian dollars (£200,000) they were first promised.

“A lot of claimants couldn’t understand what was going on. They thought they were getting a huge amount of money and for most people it’ll probably be 1,000 or 2,000 dollars,” he said.

“They’re probably going to get a cent to the dollar. That’s about all… it’s a bit of a farce, to be honest with you. You’ve got to question what the Prince’s Trust were actually up to.”

Mr Stephens was the first alleged victim of Sir William’s to speak publicly and it prompted another two former “Fairbridge kids” to come forward to say they had also been molested by the war hero in the back of his black viceregal Rolls-Royce as children.

Robert Stephens (left, pictured aged 14 or 15) was eight when he was sent to Australia from Britain as a child migrant. He spent nine years at Fairbridge Farm School outside Molong in rural New South Wales where he suffered sexual and physical abuse

For the elderly survivors of the farm schools, Mr Stephens said the saga of compensation from the Prince’s Trust was an “insult”.

“After years and years of not only being at Fairbridge, but then the suffering that a lot of Fairbridge kids have had to go through economically, it’s a pittance, an absolute pittance for what a lot of them would have been through in their lives,” he said.

The farm school Mr Stephens and Mr Hill were both sent to had been blacklisted by the UK Home Office in 1956 after a fact-finding mission found the Fairbridge institutions were “unfit for children” but they continued to receive British child migrants for the next two decades.

In 2020, the charity was “named and shamed” by Australia’s then-prime minister Scott Morrison for failing to join the national redress scheme established in response to the country’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

David Hill has written two books about the Fairbridge Farm Schools, The Forgotten Children – published in 2007 – and Reckoning, published in 2022 (Alana Calvert/PA)

In September, Fairbridge survivors learned their wait for compensation from the Prince’s Trust had been delayed by another two years after Fairbridge Restored again extended its administration deadline.

Mr Hill had accused the charity of being more concerned with distancing itself from Fairbridge and its “sullied reputation” than justice for survivors.

“I just think it’s appalling, absolutely appalling. I mean, it’s cruel. People are dying, people are dying and (the Prince’s Trust) promised that they would expedite this and they haven’t. Justice is being denied still,” he told PA at the time.

“It’s been appallingly managed by the Prince’s Trust. They should be ashamed of themselves.

“Prince’s Trust established Fairbridge Restored, gave it the money then put it into administration, which means they’ve done a Pontius Pilate and washed their hands of it. And the administrators – who are lawyers, have got no idea what this is about – have got to spend the money.”

David Hill stands next to the burnt-out remains of one of the cottages British child migrants as young as five lived in at Fairbridge Farm School in Molong (Alana Calvert/PA)

In 2018, Britain’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found both the UK Government and Fairbridge were aware of abuse at farm schools in Australia as early as the 1930s.

The inquiry subsequently found: “Fairbridge UK denied responsibility and was at best wilfully blind to the evidence of sexual abuse contained within its own archives.”

In late 2022, in the IICSA’s final report, child migration was called a “deeply flawed policy that caused lifelong damage to many” – for which the UK Government was found to be “primarily to blame”.

“The children lived in many settings characterised by physical and emotional abuse and neglect, as well as sexual abuse,” the report stated.

“The treatment of many of these children was akin to torture and had lifelong consequences.

“When they tried to report their experiences, the children were disbelieved and intimidated, often with violence.”

The Australian government also listed Fairbridge UK as an offending institution in the final report from its Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

As the organisation liable for Fairbridge UK after absorbing it in 2012, the Prince’s Trust agreed to pay into a National Redress Scheme.

Robert Stephens was the first alleged victim of Sir William Slim to go public with accusations – prompting others to come forward (Alana Calvert/PA)

A year on from establishing Fairbridge Restored for this purpose, it missed the June 2021 deadline.

Fairbridge Restored’s joint administrators from Grant Thornton UK LLP said they did not have an official statement but directed PA to progress reports and other public information on the Fairbridge Restored website.

The Prince’s Trust and Buckingham Palace did not respond to requests for comment.

 

Watch: Rescuers free humpback whale trapped in shark nets off Australian coast

Specialised cutting equipment was used to remove the netting from the whale’s head and pectoral fins.

Turkish state's reduction of Euphrates River water causes diseases to spread

The Turkish state's reduction of the water of the Euphrates River is spreading diseases.

ANF
NEWS DESK
Saturday, 10 Jun 2023

The Turkish state continues to reduce the Euphrates' water, causing the river to dry up and pollution to increase. Little water and the increasing heat cause disease to spread. Hundreds of people who fall ill due to the pollution of the river water apply to the health centers on the banks of the Euphrates every day.

Located on the Euphrates, 30 kilometers west of Kobanê, the residents of the town of Qena use the waters of the Euphrates to drink as well as water their gardens. The Qena Health Center treats 6 to 8 people who are poisoned by river water every day.

Since there is no drinking water network in the district and the water in the wells is too salty to drink, the residents have to take water from the Euphrates River and use it both for drinking and housework. However, in recent years, due to the Turkish state attacks, the amount of Euphrates water has decreased and, as a result, the water has been polluted, increasing the risks to the health of residents.

The director of the Qena Health Center, Dr. Omer Feyad Ehmed told ANHA that most patients who applied to the health center due to water pollution were vomiting and had diarrhoea. Dr. Ehmed said cases of cholera were common last year and urged residents to disinfect the river water with medicines or by boiling it thoroughly until it is clean.

Dr. Ehmed added: "Due to the lack of water and electricity in the region, the residents of the region keep their meals in hot environments. As a result, the cases of poisoning are increasing. Therefore, the food should be eaten immediately and should not be left for too long."

According to reports, the Qena Health Center treats more than 300 cases of poisoning due to pollution every month.

Eladin Kino Eto, spokesperson for the Kobanê canton Health Committee, said that 391 cases of water intoxication were documented last May from the regions around the River, mostly from Sirîn and Qena districts. He also noted that 719 cases of water intoxication were documented last April, and the situation worsened with the arrival of summer.

According to the 1987 agreement signed between Syria and Turkey, Syria's share of the Euphrates water is 500 cubic meters per second, but the Turkish state uses the river water as a weapon against the Syrian people and supplies less than 200 cubic meters of water per second.

Turkey further reduces Euphrates water in summer increasing problems in Northern and Eastern Syria

The difficulties experienced in Northern and Eastern Syria due to the Turkish state cutting off the water of the Euphrates River are getting worse with the arrival of the summer season.

ANF
NEWS DESK
Thursday, 8 Jun 2023

Temperatures are expected to be high in the region this summer. The interruption of the supply of the Euphrates River by the Turkish state will further aggravate the situation of the people of Northern and Eastern Syria. The water problem of the Euphrates River increases every year in the summer months and reaches a catastrophic level.

Since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, the Turkish state started to use the water level of the Euphrates River as a war tool by constantly violating the agreement it signed with Syria in 1987. According to this agreement, the Turkish state must release 500 cubic meters of water per second, and Syria has to share this amount with Iraq.

However, the vacuum and security problem created by the crisis in Syria enabled the Turkish state to control the waters of the Euphrates River on its own, without being accountable to anyone. As a result, the Turkish state is stealing the share of water that is the right of Syrians.

After the Rojava (Tişrîn) Dam and the Tabqa Dam were liberated from ISIS, the Turkish state began to cut off the water of the Euphrates River.

The Turkish state has been cutting off the water of the Euphrates from time to time since 2016. A large amount of water that must flow into Syria has been cut off since 2021, leaving a flow of only 200 cubic meters of water per second.

Deeper crisis in the summer

The amount of water released during the summer season is decreasing and the crisis is getting deeper. Since the natural flow of water decreases after the spring, the Turkish state steals the Syrians' share of the river's water. For this reason, the amount of water passing through Syria and then entering Iraq is further decreasing.

In the summer of 2021, the water level in Tişrîn Dam Lake reached 4 meters. In the Euphrates Dam, which contains 14 billion cubic meters of water in the 80 km long and 8 km wide reserve, it reached 6 meters.

More water is consumed in summer. While 25 cubic meters of water is used for drinking, 75 cubic meters of water evaporates without any benefit. Between 140-160 cubic meters of water is used in agricultural irrigation projects in summer.

This means that 240-260 cubic meters of water are consumed every second. However, the water in the reservoirs of the lakes is also decreasing. The water coming from Turkey does not exceed 200 cubic meters per second and does not meet the needs of the region.

The amount of water required to be given to farmers for irrigation is also decreasing, and so are the hours of electricity. On the contrary, the level of pollution in river waters is increasing, and with the increase in temperature, microbes are too. As a result, hundreds of poisonings, diarrhoea and skin diseases occur, especially in the summer.

This situation is expected to affect electricity the most, because the General Directorate of Dams gives importance to drinking water first, then comes agriculture and finally electricity. For this reason, electricity distribution hours will decrease, as there will be water shortages for farmers in the region.

Problems in agriculture

According to many agriculture committees and boards in different regions, the difficulty of obtaining the required amount of water will damage 90,000 hectares of wheat, cereals, orchards and fruit trees in Syria irrigated by river water. Since the summer of 2020, 400 thousand hectares of agricultural land have been left without water. The Dam Administration recently warned that 600 thousand hectares of agricultural land on the banks of the Euphrates River in Syria could be damaged due to the Turkish state's continuous reduction of river water.

Tişrîn Dam Administration announced on 1 March 2023 that the dam was out of service due to the water level and that cities, towns and villages in Northern and Eastern Syria were without electricity. After sufficient water was collected, the dam started working again on 8 March.

KUDRISTAN IRAQ

Armed attack against a member of Mesopotamia Workers’ Association in Sulaymaniyah

Huseyin Arasan, a native of Mardin, was seriously injured and hospitalized after an armed attack in Sulaymaniyah.

ANF
SULAYMANIYAH
Friday, 9 Jun 2023, 17:01

A member of the Mesopotamia Workers’ Association was targeted by an armed attack in the city of Sulaymaniyah in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq). The victim was seriously injured and hospitalized.

The victim of the attack is Huseyin Arasan, a native of Mardin, who was born in Izmir in 1978. He had to leave Turkey due to political persecution and lived in Sulaymaniyah.

Arasan was hit by three bullets and hospitalized with serious injuries. The attack took place in front of the association building. No information on the perpetrator is available yet, and the authorities have not made any statements.

The Mesopotamia Workers’ Association is made up of people who are politically persecuted in Northern Kurdistan and have been recognized as refugees by the United Nations. Many of them have been in Turkish prison for years because their legal political activities have been criminalized by the judiciary, or they are currently facing long prison sentences on so-called terror charges.

Attacks against Kurdish activists and intellectuals continue increasingly in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The Turkish intelligence service MIT and Parastin, the intelligence service of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), are held responsible for the attacks. The target of the attacks are mainly Kurds who have come to southern Kurdistan because of political persecution in Turkey.

Since September 2021, five people have been murdered in targeted attacks. Most recently, Huseyin Türeli was shot dead in a shopping centre in Duhok on 18 April. Jineology (Women’s Science) activist Nagihan Akarsel was shot dead in the street in Sulaymaniyah on 4 October 2022. On 28 August 2022, the Turkish intelligence service MIT killed the author and historian Suheyl Xurşîd Ezîz, a member of the general assembly of the Tevgera Azadî (Freedom Movement), in front of his house in Kifri. On 17 May 2022, Zeki Çelebi was the victim of an armed attack in front of his restaurant in Sulaymaniyah and succumbed to his injuries one day later. On 17 September 2021, a member of the Committee of the Families of Martyrs, Yasin Bulut (Şükrü Serhed), was murdered in Sulaymaniyah. The day before, Ferhad Bariş Kondu from southern Kurdistan was seriously injured in an armed attack in Sulaymaniyah.

KURDISH TURKIYE

Green Left Party and HDP protest detention of eight peace mothers in Antalya

The Green Left Party and the HDP reacted to the detention of eight peace mothers in Antalya, saying that "the policy of repression will never intimidate women or our party."

ANF
ANTALYA
Saturday, 10 Jun 2023,

Peace Mothers Fatma Gün, Emine Tekmenuray, Zekiye Alak, Hülya Ayık, Hüzna Göksel, Ayşe Arslan, Valide Kaplan and Emine Arslan were taken into custody on Thursday morning by an order of the Antalya Chief Public Prosecutor's Office on the charge of "financing an illegal organization". Eight Peace Mothers, who were accused of sending money to prisoners, were referred to the courthouse after their statements at the Antalya Police Department, and were released.

The Greens and Left Future Party (Green Left Party) and Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) Antalya Provincial Organizations made a press statement on the subject in front of the Attalos Statue.

HDP Antalya Provincial co-chair Hülya Hasbay reacted to the detention of the Peace Mothers and said: "This policy of oppression will never intimidate women or our party."

Saying that they will fight against the "hostile attitude", Hasbay added: "Neither the government attacks against our party nor the government's reactionary fascist alliance will intimidate us. We do not remain silent today. We will not remain silent tomorrow. Wherever we are, we stand up for our party and the prisoners' relatives against this repressive regime. "