Women rule on the Greek island of Karpathos


By AFP
Published June 9, 2023

Lord of all she surveys: a sculpture of a woman in traditional costume in Olympos on the Greek island of Karpathos 

- Copyright AFP Louisa GOULIAMAKI

Marina RAFENBERG

“Here it is women who command!” declared Rigopoula Pavlidis, as she sang the virtues of her remote village on the island of Karpathos, one of Greece’s rare matriarchal societies.

Sitting at a desk across the room painting religious icons, her husband Giannis nodded silently.

“My husband can’t do anything without me, not even his tax return,” Pavlidis laughed as she embroidered a traditional dress inside her workshop.

In contrast to most of patriarchal Greece, the women of Olympos play a commanding role in village life.

Isolated from the rest of the Dodecanese island, the spectacular hillside village has safeguarded this centuries-old tradition, which has survived the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century and Italian rule in the 20th.

Until the 1980s, there was no asphalt road to Olympos.

Among the traditions that survive is a Byzantine-era inheritance system that gives a mother’s property to the eldest daughter, said local historian Giorgos Tsampanakis.

Rigopoula, the seamstress, is one of the beneficiaries of the tradition. She inherited 700 olive trees from her mother.

“The families did not have enough property to divide among all the children… and if we had left the inheritance to the men, they would have squandered it,” she said.

Greek women traditionally moved into their new husband’s home upon marriage. In Olympos, the opposite takes place.

And women’s prominence is also reflected in their names.

“The eldest daughter took the first name of the maternal grandmother, unlike the rest of Greece, where it was that of the paternal grandmother,” said Tsampanakis.

“Many women still call themselves by their mother’s surname and not their husband’s,” he added.

The role of women in Olympos was further strengthened in the 1950s when the village men began to emigrate for work — mainly to the United States and European countries — leaving their wives and daughters behind to manage families and farms on their own.


– ‘We had no choice’ –


“We had no choice but to work in the absence of the men. It was our only way of surviving,” recalled 67-year-old Anna Lentakis as she picked artichokes in the hamlet of Avlona near Olympos.

A few years ago, Lentakis ran the Olympos tavern. This has now passed into the hands of her eldest daughter Marina.

“I don’t know if we were early feminists… but I like to say that the man is the head of the family, and the woman the neck,” said Marina, who is in her 40s.

Marina’s daughter Anna is only 13 years old, but she knows that one day she will take up the torch.

“It’s my grandmother’s legacy and I’ll be proud to take care of it!” she said.

But the “feminist” inheritance system only benefits the eldest children, said Alain Chabloz of the Geographical Society of Geneva, who has studied the subject.

“The youngest sons were forced into exile, and the youngest daughters had to stay on the island at the service of the elders. A kind of social caste was created,” he said.

Giorgia Fourtina, the youngest of her family and unmarried, helps her older sister in the restaurant and in the fields.

Fourtina does not feel that Olympos society is particularly progressive: “It’s a small society where a woman alone in a cafe is frowned upon,” she said.

Women “are the ones who maintain the traditions,” said Yannis Hatzivassilis, a local sculptor, who has crafted an iconic statue of an Olympos woman gazing at the sea, waiting for her husband to return.

The older women of Olympos traditionally wear embroidered costumes consisting of flowered aprons, a headscarf and leather boots.

Treasured heirlooms that are part of a girl’s dowry, these costumes can cost up to 1,000 euros ($1,077) and require hours of work.

Irini Chatzipapa, a 50-year-old baker, is the youngest Olympos woman to still wear it every day.

“I taught my daughter to embroider, but except for the holidays, she does not wear it as it’s not adapted to modern life,” she said.

Chatzipapa’s 70-year-old mother chimes in: “Our costume is becoming just folklore for the holidays… Our world is disappearing.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M ECOCIDE

Jury Returns $63 Million Verdict After Finding Chevron Covered up Toxic Pit on California Land

By The Associated Press

June 9, 2023California

A motorist drives near the pumps at a Chevron gas station in Oakland, Calif., on April 25, 2017. (Ben Margot/AP Photo)

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—A California jury has returned a $63 million verdict against Chevron after finding the oil giant covered up a toxic chemical pit on land purchased by a man who built a house on it and was later diagnosed with a blood cancer.

Kevin Wright, who has multiple myeloma, unknowingly built his home directly over the chemical pit near Santa Barbara in 1985, according to his lawsuit.

Starting in 1974, Chevron subsidiary Union Oil Company of California had operated a sump pit for oil and gas production, a process that left the carcinogenic chemical benzene on the property, court papers said.

Wright bought the land and built the house in 1985. Nearly three decades later, he was diagnosed with the cancer that attacks plasma cells in the blood and can be caused by benzene exposure, court documents said.

The jurors in Santa Barbara on Wednesday returned the $63 million verdict, said Jakob Norman, an attorney for Wright. Norman called the case a “blatant example of environmental pollution and corporate malfeasance.”

Chevron said Union Oil Company would appeal the judgment.

“We strongly disagree with the jury’s decisions to award compensatory and punitive damages,” Chevron said in a statement Thursday.

Wright’s cancer is in remission, his attorneys said, but he regularly undergoes chemotherapy treatments to hold the illness at bay.

“They cut corners, and my life was turned upside down as a result,” Wright said in a statement provided by his attorneys. “Chevron’s continued denial of the harm they caused is a shameful reminder that this company values only profits, not people.”

Smoke from Canadian wildfires forecast to reach Norway

CGTN
10-Jun-2023

Norwegian officials said the smoke from Canadian wildfires that has enveloped parts of the U.S. and Canada in a thick haze is expected to pour into Norway on Thursday.

Atmosphere and climate scientists with the Norwegian Climate and Environmental Research Institute (NILU) used a forecast model to predict how the smoke would travel through the atmosphere.

The smoke has moved over Greenland and Iceland since June 1, and observations in southern Norway have recorded increasing concentrations of aerosolized particles, the independent research institution said.

"We may be able to see some haze or smell smoke," Nikolaos Evangeliou, a senior NILU researcher, said. "However, we do not believe that the number of particles in the air here in Norway will be large enough to be harmful to our health."

Kjetil Tørseth, research director with NILU, said that with "the increasing temperatures due to climate change, forest fires are likely to be more common and of a larger magnitude."

Traffic heads into Washington, D.C. under hazy conditions as seen from the View of DC observation deck, June 8, 2023. /CFP


"So I think these kind of episodes are to be more common in the future. And they do, of course, have an impact on climate," he said. "We are especially interested to see the effects on the Arctic, where soot deposition onto snow and ice might actually increase the local warming."

Canada and the east coast of the U.S. have experienced hazardous levels of pollution from the Canadian wildfires, mainly in the eastern province of Quebec. Massive tongues of unhealthy air extended as far as the U.S. Midwest. The smoke has affected millions of people, led to flight delays at major airports, caused the postponement of Major League Baseball games and prompted people to fish out pandemic-era face masks.

Canada has asked for help fighting more than 400 blazes nationwide.

(Cover image via CFP)

PIRACY

MEXICO

Armed Group Closes Highway and Steals Luxury Vehicles From A Tractor Trailer

By Sol Prendido 6/09/2023 1

Due to the Federal Police having been withdrawn from the highways, daylight robberies and executions on the road are something that happens in Mexico. The National Guard doesn’t attend the calls, they only come to cordon off the area. And in most cases not as first responders in the country.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, June 7, a group of armed robbers intercepted a tractor-trailer carrying luxury vehicles on the Aguascalientes-Leon highway.

All the units were taken and at the moment, the corresponding authorities in the area haven’t made any statement on the matter.

However, a video has been disseminated through social networks showing the maneuvers carried out on the highway to steal all the vehicles transported by this trailer; those involved blocked the road in both directions.

This robbery took about half an hour and after blocking the highway in both directions, they operated calmly.

No security personnel arrived at the scene to provide adequate support and prevent the robbery. So far there are no further details about the case.

"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat

Water on Boil: Weaponization of Water in Contemporary Geopolitics

June 10, 2023
By Rahul M Lad

MODERNDIPLOMACY.EU

Image source: war.ukraine.ua

Authors: Rahul M Lad and Prof. Ravindra G Jaybhaye*

A huge Kakhovka dam in the Russian-controlled area of southern Ukraine has been devastated on June 6, unleashing a flood of water in Southern Ukraine. The military of Ukraine and The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are accusing Russia with blowing up the dam, but Russia has placed the responsibility on Ukraine. Simultaneously, the tensions between Afghanistan and Iran have risen to the point where recent border incidents have left both countries on high alert. The Helmand River is the main source of discontent in a disagreement over shared water resources, which is the root of this conflict.

These two separate incidents confirm that water will remain continue to be one of the contested resource in future. Water, unlike other natural resources, endowed with the ability to move spatially. This unique feature makes it likely to be contested. But the aforementioned incidents, particularly the destruction of the dam, implies the severity of the conflict manifold. Although historically, countries have not often used water as a catalyst for conflict, the aforementioned events have forced humanity to reconsider this in the near future. The use of water as weapon against the adversaries is thus, dangerous trend.

Russia-Ukraine War and Use of Water as a ‘Weapon’

The Russia-Ukraine conflict has seen the use of water as a weapon immediately following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea. Following annexation, Ukraine built a dam along the North Crimean Canal, a primary source of water to the Crimean peninsula which accounts for 85 percent of the peninsula’s water supply. This almost cut off all water access to the Crimean Peninsula, which is under Russian control, and diverted water to the Kherson region of Ukraine. This move was intended to punish Russian aggressiveness and force a Russian retreat—a strategy that was clearly unsuccessful. Since then, the conflict got culminated in the destruction of a Kakhovka dam, potentially escalating it into uncharted territory. The massive Dnipro River in Ukraine is blocked off by the dam, creating a sizable water reservoir. The dam itself is hundreds of metres broad and 30 metres high.

The reservoir it contains holds an estimated 18 cubic kilometres of water, about the same volume as the Great Salt Lake in Utah. Bursting the dam might cause a wall of water to flood settlements below it, including the nearby town of Kherson. The use of water as a weapon resulting in a number of issues, such as water scarcity, energy issues, flooding, hydroelectricity production, and Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant cooling system issues, among others. The canal system that irrigates much of southern Ukraine, including Crimea, would undoubtedly be devastated as a result.

Iran-Afghanistan Conflict

The two Asian countries, Iran and Afghanistan, locked in a water dispute over river Helmond. Clashes erupted once again between Afghan and Iranian border security forces in the Afghan border province of Nimruz on 27 May 2023, resulting in the deaths of two Iranian security forces and one Taliban border guard. Both sides blamed each other for the incident, with the Taliban accusing Iran of firing first and Iran accusing the Taliban of violating a water-sharing treaty.

A water allotment treaty signed between Iran and Afghanistan in 1973 is the only mechanism available for the water sharing of the Helmond river. According to this Helmand Water Treaty, Afghanistan should annually share 850 million cubic metres of water from Helmand with Iran, at twenty-two cubic meters per second with an option for Iran to purchase an additional four cubic meters per second in “normal” water years. But, Iran accusing Afghanistan for the disregarding the principles outlined in the treaty. “In recent years, this treaty has not been adhered to by Afghanistan’s rulers, including the Taliban,” CIP’s Toossi told Al Jazeera, adding that Kabul has delivered only “a fraction of the agreed amount”. Amid these tense situation, Iran Warns Afghanistan by saying that The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its rights to take necessary measures and emphasizes the full responsibility of Afghanistan in this regard. So far, both sides have committed to ease the tension by expressing need to engage in dialogue.

These kind of incidences underlines the dangerous trend of water weaponization in the tense situation against the adversaries. Some countries find it lucrative because water as a military tool can have a disastrous impact across the border.

Weaponization of Water and International Law

As per the principle 4 of ‘The Geneva List of Principles on the Protection of Water Infrastructure’, the parties to the conflict should refrain from using water infrastructure and water-related infrastructure as a means of warfare. Furthermore, Principle 6 makes it clear that infrastructure related to water is assumed to be a civilian object and as such cannot be attacked or damaged unless it is being used for military purposes.

The Madrid Rules of 1976 by the International Law Association addressed the use of water infrastructure and water itself in the context of armed conflict. To safeguard the civilian population and the environment, the rules outline two particular prohibitions: a) When it would result in disproportionate suffering for the civilian population or significant harm to the ecological balance of the area in question, diverting rivers for military objectives should be outlawed. Any diversion that is carried out with the intention of endangering or destroying the fundamental ecological balance of the affected area, the minimal circumstances for the survival of the civilian population, or the intent to terrorise the populace should be forbidden (Article III). b) When there are serious risks to the civilian population or significant harm to the ecological balance of the area, it should be forbidden to cause floods or interfere with the hydrologic equilibrium in any other way (Article V).

During the drafting of the UN Watercourses Convention, it was proposed by the Special Rapporteur at the time to include provisions on employment of water and water infrastructure as means of warfare. Even though these proposals were later excluded from the draft convention, the paragraphs of the draft Article 13 exclusively curb to use water as weapon against civilians.

The use of water infrastructure as a means of warfare is not specifically regulated by international humanitarian law; however, during armed conflicts, the right of the parties to the conflict to choose methods and means of warfare is not unlimited.

The aforementioned International laws have direct or indirect references regarding the possible use of water as a weapon. The essence of the laws is to prevent the use of water as a means of warfare, and to ensure that access to water resources is not restricted or denied as a tactic of war.

Stopping the Water Weaponization Tide

It is absolutely necessary to find practical answers to this problem since humanity cannot afford to use water as a weapon. When national governments are the primary offenders of water weaponization, Marcus King and Emily Hardy of Georgetown University claim that international law can be a helpful tool.These laws and treaties might include inter alia the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques (ENMOD), Additional Protocol II of the Geneva Conventions on deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure, and the Geneva List of Principles on the Protection of Water Infrastructure. But, one drawback of these agreements is that each pact has a small number of signatories, and nations with access to significant water resources like Syria, Turkey, and China are absent. However, the consensus of the majority of countries is required in order to forbid governments from using water as a weapon. To start, all members of the United Nations Security Council, notably the permanent members, should be required to sign and approve these kinds of agreements. Because it looks unusual when the nations in charge of upholding global peace and tranquilly aren’t parties to security-related agreements.

Additionally, there should be strict penalties for any country found to be using water as a weapon, including economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. It is also crucial to establish an international body that can monitor and investigate any suspected cases of water weaponization. This body should have the power to impose sanctions on offending countries and provide assistance to affected populations. Moreover, it is essential to raise awareness about the dangers of using water as a weapon and promote peaceful resolution of conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy. Finally, investing in water infrastructure and management can help prevent conflicts over water resources in the first place. By prioritizing cooperation over competition, we can ensure that water remains a source of life rather than a tool of destruction.

*Prof. Ravindra G Jaybhaye, currently working as a Professor in the Geography Department, at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. His research interest includes Ecotourism, South Asian Studies, Remote Sensing and GIS, Solid Waste Management, Sustainable Development, etc.

Rahul M Lad
I am Rahul Mahadeo Lad, Senior Research Fellow in the Geography Department at Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune, India. I am pursuing Doctorate on "Geostrategic Assessment of Transboundary River Water Sharing in South Asia Region. My research interests include transboundary river water sharing, South Asian studies, geopolitics, water politics over shared river water, International relations etc.

Brussels, My Love? 

Industry vs. nature - who needs to breathe more?

 Copyright Euronews
By Méabh Mc Mahon & Elly Laliberte •

10/06/2023 - 

In this edition of Brussels, my love?, we discuss a proposal for a nature restoration law that hit a roadblock this week when centre-right politicians called on the European Commission to go back to the drawing board.

This week, we were joined by Ladislav Ilčić, a Croatian MEP with the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, Chloé Mikolaijack, a climate and social hustice activist, and Mario Nava, Director-General of DG Reform at the EU Commission.

In a heated debate, industry vs. nature went head to head with the nature restoration law at the centre of the discussion. The proposed law - that aims to better protect and bring back nature in Europe - has been controversial thus far.

“Industry and nature, they used to be actually in contradiction, but they do not necessarily need to be in contradiction,” said Nava.

Not all of the panelists shared Nava’s optimistic outlook. “I will vote against it. I have to say that this approach was so unrealistic, that this approach brought the European Union to an energy crisis,” said Ilčić.

Activist Mikolaijack’s responded to the MEP, “I think it's important to remember that what we're talking about here is the nature restoration law rights, and the science is very clear about what we need to do,” she said. “ It's not a debate about science. It's a political debate ahead of the 2024 elections.”

The panel also discussed corporate sustainability due diligence, which aims to hold European companies (and those doing business in Europe) accountable for their environmental impact. The directive may even be able to impose sanctions.

“I think it's about time that it comes into law because we've had so many, so many scandals and so many terrible events, such as oil spills happening elsewhere, which were the responsibility of European companies, and they were never held accountable. So I think it's really great that it's finally on the table.” said activist Mikolaijack

MEP Ilčić made it clear he would vote against this directive, arguing it would bankrupt Europe. “And that is what is going to happen if the European Union continuously will go in this direction of socialism, of imposing some values to the economy,” he said.

Watch ‘Brussels, my love?’ in the player for more.

 

Host Méabh Mc Mahon with Ladislav Ilcic, Mario Nava and Chloé Mikolajczak, -

PARTY  OF SOCIALISM AND DEMOCRACY (PES)
Thanks to progressive leadership, EU is making progress on the Pact on Migration and Asylum

June 10, 2023
Future of Europe & Neighbourhood3 minute read



European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson at the Kakavia Border Crossing Point in Albania. 20 February 2021. Photograph: EC - Audiovisual Service


After years of deadlock on a common EU approach on asylum and migration policy, thanks to the leadership of progressive European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, EU member states have reached – by a large majority – an agreement on two key files.

At the Justice and Home Affairs meeting, ministers backed two key pillars of the reform of asylum and migration: the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation (AMMR), which covers member states’ solidarity efforts towards countries of first entry and the so-called Dublin rules, and the Asylum Procedures Regulation (APR), which organises responsibility and creates an asylum procedure at the border.

The political agreement – endorsed by a margin wider than anticipated, with only Hungary and Poland opposing the final draft – allows the EU Council to start negotiations with the European Parliament on the files.

PES President Stefan Löfven said:
“Thanks to Commissioner Johansson, and the mobilisation of our PES governments, we are finally making progress on progressive plans for a common EU approach on asylum and migration policy. The EU must now swiftly find an agreement on the whole Pact before the end of this political mandate. Socialists and democrats are determined to make sure we get all files of the Pact adopted before the EU elections.

“This agreement paves the way to a common approach based on mandatory solidarity and shared responsibility. It proves that there is trust and political will to face the challenges together and turn them into opportunities. Progressives are determined to move the EU from an ad hoc, crisis-driven approach, to a safe, sustainable, fair, and predictable system.”

Last month, the Migration and Integration Network of the PES called for the adoption of the Pact during this mandate. At its meeting in February, the PES Presidency also adopted unanimously a declaration in support of the Pact.

The first file agreed in the EU Council – the APR – establishes a common procedure across the EU that member states need to follow when people seek international protection. The regulation contains a border procedure rule which allows for the quick assessment, at the EU’s external borders, of whether applications are unfounded or inadmissible.

The other file – AMMR – aims to replace the current Dublin regulation. The AMMR determines which member state is responsible for the examination of an asylum application. It also establishes a new migration management and solidarity mechanism which would assure a more even distribution of migrants across the EU.

The most innovative element of the Pact – spearheaded by Commissioner Johansson – is a system of “mandatory solidarity” which means that all member states must act in solidarity in times of migratory pressure, but with flexibility on the specific nature of their contribution. The choices are built around three options: accepting a number of relocated asylum-seekers; making a financial contribution; and providing operational support, such as infrastructure and personnel.

Germany’s Pro Asyl calls EU migration deal ‘outsourcing’ refugee protection

• BY AMU TV
• 
  

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Germany’s Pro Asyl organisation on Friday criticized an EU migration deal and warned it could serve as a blueprint for other parts of the world.

“What was decided yesterday de facto is a coalition of the unwilling who are saying ‘we’ll call it asylum reform but in fact, we will outsource the protection of refugees to third countries outside of Europe,” said the organisation’s Karl Kopp. 

Pro Asyl has been lobbying for the interests and rights of asylum seekers for decades.

Kopp said what the EU called “historic” was in fact “a terrible sign to the world: a big club of 27 democracies says ‘refugee protection, yes, but please not here.”

The agreement would introduce a new expedited border procedure for those deemed unlikely to win asylum to prevent them from lingering inside the bloc for years. 

Poland and Hungary – among the EU’s loudest voices against accepting sea immigrants – opposed the deal, saying the bloc’s national leaders should return to the matter when they meet later in June. That, however, did not scupper the majority deal.

The Association of Germany’s Districts, Landkreistag, welcomed the “long overdue” decision and said the districts’ “capacities to accommodate and especially to integrate the refugees are exhausted.”

“We have taken in one million refugees from Ukraine and we still have a lot of the refugees who came here in 2015 and 2016 and just in the first four months of this year, we have taken in 100,000 refugees from Afghanistan, Syria, Turkey and northern Africa,” Kay Ruge of the Landkreistag told Reuters Television.

Source: Reuters

TURKISH OPPRESSION OF THE KURDS

Court rejects requests for release of defendants in Kobanê Case

The court board rejected the requests for release of the defendants in the Kobanê Case.

ANF
ANKARA
Saturday, 10 Jun 2023

The decision to reject the requests for release of the defendants in the Kobanê Case was taken on the 25th hearing. The trial is held at the Sincan Prison Campus and is against 108 people, including the former co-chairs of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) and Central Executive Committee (MYK) members. 18 of the defendants are in prison.

The court, which unanimously rejected all the requests for the release of the imprisoned defendants and the removal of judicial control measures for some of those outside.

It also decided to write a warrant to the Parliament regarding the request for the abolition of the judicial control decision and the suspension of the trial, due to the election of Sırrı Süreyya Önder as a member of parliament for the 28th term.

The next hearing in the Kobanê Case will be held on 3 July.

Background

The Kobanê Case was filed in 2020 against 108 people, including the HDP’s former co-chairs, Mr Selahattin Demirtaş and Ms Figen Yüksekdağ, current co-chair Ms Pervin Buldan, several current and former HDP deputies and mayors, and all the members of the HDP’s Central Executive Board of 2014. This case was launched as a counter move by the Turkish government just two weeks after the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights made its final judgment demanding immediate release of Selahattin Demirtaş. The indictment in the Kobani Case is based on a twitter message posted by the HDP on 6 October 2014. This called for democratic protests in solidarity with the people of Kobanî, a Kurdish town in Northern Syria that was fighting against the attacks of ISIS, and also against Turkey’s embargo on the town. The prosecutor is calling for all the defendants to be given aggravated life sentences (without parole) 38 times for the crimes of “destroying the unity of the state and the integrity of the country” and “premeditated murder” for the people who lost their lives in the Kobanê protests. Seventeen politicians are currently being held in pre-trial detention for this case.

The Kobanê case is closely linked with the closure case filed against the HDP, for which it serves as a pretext. In the closure case, the prosecution is mainly based on the alleged role and responsibility of the HDP in the murders that occurred during the Kobani protests in 2014. We should stress that the Grand Chamber of the ECtHR has already examined these allegations in the case of Selahattin Demirtaş and concluded that neither Demirtaş nor the HDP had any responsibility for the murders.

In the first hearing of the case, the court board was changed before the hearing started. On the first day of the hearing, the court was filled with law enforcement officers, even in the sections reserved for lawyers. While the trial was pending, the president of the court was dismissed and put under house arrest on the grounds that he was a member of a criminal organization. The court has so far taken multiple decisions that directly violate, or even deny, the right to defense, and therefore the right to a fair trial. These unlawful decisions include the continuation of the hearings in two-week periods without a break, secret witness statements full of contradictions, and the limitation of the duration of the defense to one day for the defendants and their lawyers. The court decided to send the file to the prosecutor for his obiter dictum without even an interrogation of the defendants, including of the HDP’s former co-chairs Figen Yüksekdağ and Selahattin Demirtaş.

The 24th hearing of the trial took place at the Ankara 22nd Heavy Penal Court on April 14. At this hearing, before the interrogations of the politicians on trial were completed, the court asked the prosecutor to submit his final opinion. In response to this situation, the politicians on trial left the courtroom together with their lawyers. The prosecutor read out loud the 5,000-page opinion against the defendants, which took eight hours. In his final opinion, the prosecutor has ignored all the evidence that was put in the file in favor of the politicians on trial. The prosecutor deliberately distorted the evidence in the file and openly declared that he had given a political opinion, ignoring all evidence for the defense. The prosecutor has sought aggravated life imprisonment for all politicians on trial, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, over their alleged involvement in the 2014 Kobane protests. He has also demanded that arrest warrants be issued for 12 defendants who are standing trial without arrest and that the jailed politicians be kept imprisoned.

The next hearing is scheduled for 3 July 2023 for the defense against the final opinion of the prosecutor by the politicians on trial and their lawyers. 

The British scientist who helped free mother wrongly jailed for killing her children

Prof Peter Schwartz’s genetic research was instrumental in securing Kathleen Folbigg’s release after 20 years behind bars

By Nick Squires

IN ROME

THE TELEGRAPH

10 June 2023

Prof Peter Schwartz played a vital role in casting reasonable doubt over Kathleen Folbigg’s original convictions

 CREDIT: Italian Institute for Auxology

LONG READ

On the morning of June 5, Prof Peter Schwartz, a world-renowned cardiologist, was sitting at his table enjoying his breakfast of tea and kippers.

It was then that the British-born doctor’s phone rang and he heard the news that Kathleen Folbigg, an Australian woman convicted of murdering her four small children, had been granted an official pardon and released after 20 years behind bars.

He immediately felt “goosebumps” – it was his expert opinion that had played a key role in casting doubt over Ms Folbigg’s original conviction, which led to her being described as “Australia’s worst female serial killer”.

“I was having breakfast and I received a message from a dear friend in London who knew that I had been involved,” Prof Schwartz told The Telegraph.

“It was not unexpected, but it generated a lot of emotion in me. It gave me goosebumps. It makes a big impression on you when you realise the woman has been released from jail largely because of what you have done. I’m really proud of it.”

The geneticist had submitted what he called a “rather strong and direct and blunt” deposition to an Australian review of the case which helped secure Ms Folbigg’s liberation.

He said: “I’ve saved the lives of a few people with CPR, but this was a different story. It was really against the odds.”

Along with other prominent scientists, Prof Schwartz played a vital role in casting reasonable doubt over Ms Folbigg’s original convictions.

Those findings brought to an end a nightmare for the Australian woman. Not only did she witness all four of her children die at a young age, she then spent two decades in jail, wrongly accused of murdering them and reviled by society as a monster.

Kathleen Folbigg has always protested her innocence against her convictions 

REDIT: Pool via AP

It was an ordeal from which Ms Folbigg, now aged 55, has only just been liberated.

In 2003, she was jailed for 40 years for the murders of three of her children – Sarah, Laura, and Patrick – and the manslaughter of the fourth, Caleb.

The infants all died suddenly in the period between 1989 and 1999, aged between 19 days and 18 months.

Prosecutors, basing their evidence in part on highly selective extracts from Ms Folbigg’s diaries in which she wrote of her struggles with motherhood, insisted she had smothered them.

There was no forensic evidence linking her to the deaths and she always protested her innocence. However, she became a figure of hate, a woman who had committed the unthinkable act of killing her own offspring.

After spending much of her sentence in solitary confinement, she received an official pardon this week and was released from jail in the town of Grafton, 200 miles south of Brisbane.

In a brief video message, she said she would grieve for her children “forever, and that she “missed them and loved them terribly”.

Pain of losing children and being jailed

Rhanee Rego, Ms Folbigg’s lawyer, said: “It is impossible to comprehend the injury that has been inflicted upon Kathleen Folbigg – the pain of losing her children and close to two decades locked away in maximum security prisons.”

A fresh inquiry led by Tom Bathurst, a retired Australian judge, accepted that cutting edge research on gene mutations had cast serious doubt over her conviction.

The case illustrated how revolutionary advances in science can make all the difference, coming up with new evidence that can overturn criminal convictions.

An international team of scientists found that Ms Folbigg’s two daughters and two sons suffered from incredibly rare genetic mutations that most likely led to their deaths.

The chances of four children from the same family having such mutations seemed infinitesimally small – and yet scientists showed that it existed.

They found that Ms Folbigg’s daughters shared a genetic mutation called Calm2 G114R, which can cause sudden cardiac death.

Laura and Patrick Folbigg, two of Kathleen Folbigg’s four children she was wrongly convicted of killing 

CREDIT: New South Wales Supreme Court/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock


They also discovered that her sons possessed another genetic mutation which in mice has been linked to sudden-onset epilepsy.

One of her sons, Patrick, suffered from epileptic seizures in the months before his death.

In what has been described as one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in Australian history, scientists concluded there was reasonable doubt that Ms Folbigg had nothing to do with her children’s deaths – simply that she had been dealt an unbelievably bad genetic hand.

Born in Huntingdon during the Second World War to an Italian mother and a Hungarian father, Prof Schwartz is a prominent scientist at the Italian Institute for Auxology, based in Milan, where he studies genetic disorders that can lead to sudden cardiac deaths in children.

In particular, he has devoted 50 years to a condition called the long QT syndrome (LQTS), a disorder that can cause fast, chaotic heartbeats, also known as arrhythmias.

It is very similar to the mutations in the Calm gene that Ms Folbigg’s baby girls suffered from.

Asked how long it took him to realise that there could be a natural explanation for the deaths of the Folbigg children, Prof Schwartz said: “It was immediate. We know that if an infant dies suddenly and they don’t have a knife in the back and they have this genetic mutation, then this is the cause of death.”

He was brought in on the case in 2019 after being contacted by Prof Carola Garcia Vinuesa, a Spanish scientist who had become convinced of Ms Folbigg’s innocence.

The scientific breakthrough

Prof Vinuesa is now at the Crick Institute in London, but at the time was the head of the immunology department at the Australian National University. She became involved in 2018 after being contacted by David Wallace, a former student who had since gone into law and was working on the Folbigg case.

She began to investigate the deaths of the children, sending Dr Todor Arsov, a colleague, to visit Ms Folbigg in prison and obtain a DNA sample from her.

They sequenced the Australian woman’s genome and found that she had a mutation in the Calm2 gene that could cause sudden infant death syndrome.

They then found the same mutation in Ms Folbiggs’ two daughters.

“As evidence, I think this finding would carry the same weight as having a confession or an eyewitness to a crime,” Dr Arsov told El Pais newspaper.

Patrick and Caleb were found to carry two rare variants of the BSN gene, which causes lethal epilepsy in mice.

“The theory that she had killed her children had no evidence. The only evidence was circumstantial because she was the one finding them dead,” said Prof Vinuesa.

The science was “irrefutable” in terms of casting doubt over the convictions.
Breaking the stigma

For many people involved in the case, Ms Folbigg was emblematic of how women whose children die in unclear circumstances are often stigmatised and judged.

Dr Hayley Cullen, an associate lecturer in psychology at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and Dr Celine van Golde, a senior lecturer in forensic psychology at the University of Sydney, wrote an opinion piece on the subject for The Conversation website.

They said: “Women who have been wrongfully convicted of murdering their children will not only endure the stigma and discrimination… but they may also be battling with the tremendous grief of losing their child. Prison can stunt the grieving process, which is a necessary psychological response to loss.”

They said data from the US revealed that among wrongfully convicted women, one in three were convicted of crimes that involved harming children.

And women are “three times more likely than men to be wrongly convicted for crimes that didn’t occur”.

Ms Folbigg’s 20 years of wrongful imprisonment followed a deeply traumatic childhood. She was just 18 months old when her father, a criminal and underworld enforcer, murdered her mother, stabbing her 24 times with a carving knife.

As a child, she shuttled between the homes of relatives before finally ending up with foster parents in Newcastle, Australia.

“She came from a very troubled family – her father killed her mother. She was the ideal monster for the public, the ideal scapegoat,” said Prof Schwartz.

The Folbigg case drew parallels with that of Lindy Chamberlain and the dingo baby death 

CREDIT: National Museum of Australia/Channel 5


In Australia, parallels have been drawn with another notorious case of a mother accused of killing her child.

Lindy Chamberlain was sentenced to life in prison in 1982 for allegedly murdering her baby daughter, Azaria, despite insisting the child had been carried off by a dingo while the family were camping near Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock.

She was eventually freed years later when a jacket that had been worn by the little girl was found near a dingo’s lair.

Ms Folbigg’s conviction came at a time when much credence was given to a theory called Meadow’s Law, named after Roy Meadow, the British paediatrician who coined it.

According to his maxim, one sudden death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three must be murder unless there is proof to the contrary.

However, Mr Meadow was later discredited and for a time was struck off the medical register.

Doubt was also cast on the convictions by Prof Peter Fleming, a leading British paediatrician and world-renowned expert on sudden infant deaths.

He was asked by Mr Bathurst whether children could be smothered to death with no signs of injury being left, as had been argued during the trial in 2003.

He said that children who are smothered “wriggle” and “fight vigorously”, with their teeth causing injuries to the inside of their mouths. The Folbigg children did not have such injuries, Prof Fleming said.

“I would find it very hard to believe that somebody could suffocate them by putting something over their face or obstructing their airways and leaving no marks,” he told the inquiry. “I would find that extraordinary.”

‘Australia’s greatest miscarriage of justice’

The Australian Academy of Science, which also played a key role in clearing Ms Folbigg’s name, said her original conviction was “Australia’s greatest miscarriage of justice”.

Anna-Maria Arabia, the academy’s chief executive, said: “What this case has absolutely shown is there’s an absence of a mechanism for the justice system to consider new information, particularly scientific information.”

Halfway across the world, in his house in Milan, Prof Schwartz agreed: “The case shows that errors can be made and that they can and should be corrected.

“It demonstrates the importance of judges relying not on generic experts like cardiologists but on experts on the specific disease that is under investigation. And judges should be open to reviewing cases if new scientific evidence comes to light. I hope it will create a precedent.”

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.