He’s lived in a Cape Cod dune shack for nearly 80 years. Now this 94-year-old artist faces eviction

By Eli Masket, CNN
 Tue June 27, 2023

Salvatore Del DeoRomolo Del Deo
CNN —

Salvatore Del Deo is a 94-year-old artist and Korean War Veteran who has made a dune shack in Provincetown, Massachusetts, his part-time home for the past 77 years.

“Frenchie’s Shack,” named for Del Deo’s friend who built the rustic dune dwelling in 1942, is where the nonagenarian has spent part of the year since 1946, according to his son, and it’s where he thought he would spend the rest of his life.

Those plans might change.

Salvatore received an eviction notice from the National Park Service in March. The land the shack sits on became federal property in the 1960s, and arrangements made with Jeanne “Frenchie” Chanel, the shack’s original owner, have since expired, according to the park service.

“Mr. Del Deo has been occupying the property without a permit since the passing of the individual who held a life estate for use of that dune shack. We have worked with Mr. Del Deo to grant him additional time to make necessary arrangements to vacate the dune shack,” the National Park Service said in a statement.

Frenchie's ShackTatianna Del Deo

The eviction notice came as a shock to the Del Deo family, said Romolo Del Deo, Salvatore’s son. “I responded to the park and explained to them that this was first of all horrible policy and secondly an error,” Romolo told CNN in a phone interview. He says Chanel willed the property to his family years ago.

Salvatore’s dune shack is one of more than a dozen such small dwellings on the Cape Cod National Seashore, which has a long and storied history as a home for activists and artists, said Romolo.

Salvatore has deep ties within Provincetown, including his founding of two local restaurants, Sal’s Place and Ciro & Sal’s, and his late wife was active in preserving the historic shacks.

Salvatore was originally ordered to vacate the property in 30 days. But with the help of family friend Michela Murphy, whose family now owns Sal’s Place, the Del Deos were able to extend the eviction notice by 60 days, until June 27, Murphy said.
Dune shacks for lease

The eviction notice came shortly before the National Park Service announced a leasing program for eight other dune shacks.

The park service has opened those eight historic properties to 10-year lease proposals, according to their website, and moved to make them available to new prospective occupants – a plan that has earned criticism from some locals. Lease proposals can be submitted through July 3, according to the National Park Service announcement.

“Federal regulation requires that the lessee pays, at minimum, fair market value rent,” the park service website says.

The shack occupied by Salvatore was not part of the eight shacks offered up to the public for lease by the park service, which frustrated his son.

“Our shack was not even on the list of properties that we could bid on presently,” said Romolo. But the property is likely to be offered for lease by park service in the future.

“What the park service seemed to be doing was attempting a kind of coup d’état,” said Romolo. “They were going to uproot the oldest continuous family living on the dunes and disconnect them from the community, and then later on evict everybody else.”

Frenchie's ShackTatianna Del Deo

In the 1960s, the land that makes up the Cape Cod National Seashore became federal property. The tenants were granted a variety of lifetime leases, according to the park service, which now owns 18 shacks.

“When the land became federal property in the 1960s, tenants of the shacks were granted a variety of lifetime estates, either through the current occupant’s lifetime or the lifetime of their children,” the park service said in a statement.

One of these tenants was Frenchie Chanel. According to Romolo, she attempted to pass ownership of the dune shack to the Del Deo family upon her death in 1983. The transfer of the property to the Del Deo family has not been acknowledged by the park service, Romolo said.

In a use plan for the historic dune shacks published by the park service in 2011, the Chanel shack is listed with a “Reservation” that extends through the “life of daughter.”

Romolo said the shack was passed to one of Chanel’s daughters, who left Provincetown more than a decade ago and recently passed away, likely prompting the park service to question the shack’s occupancy.

The remaining members of the Chanel family have no issue with Salvatore’s occupancy of the shack, Romolo says.
A long history on the dunes

Many of the shacks date back decades before the dunes became part of Cape Cod National Seashore.

Salvatore has spent part of nearly 80 consecutive years on what is now the Cape Cod National Seashore, except for his military service in Korea and during colder months, when the shacks become essentially uninhabitable.

Salvatore and Josephine maintained the shack over the years, and at one point even rebuilt it after a severe storm.

Frenchie's Shack interior.Tatianna Del Deo

“In the 1970s, the original shack that Frenchie built was nearly destroyed, so we built, essentially, a superstructure, and rebuilt the entire shack,” said Romolo. Park service documents make note of the Del Deo rebuild in 1976.

Josephine, who died in 2016, is known locally for her efforts in maintaining the shacks and establishing the seashore as a park.

At one point, the dune shacks were under threat of being destroyed by the government, but Josephine, along with other activists, helped to get them registered as historic places so they would not be demolished, Romolo said.

When the park service issued the eviction notice, Romolo said his family felt “betrayed.”
Organizing against eviction

Michela Murphy, the Del Deo family friend, started an online petition to halt the eviction, which now has over 10,000 signatures.

“He is going to be 95 in August. Giving him a lifetime lease is not a huge commitment from the park service,” Murphy told CNN in a phone interview.

Romolo said he was surprised by the amount of support his family has received. “It’s not like this is my circle of friends,” said Romolo.

US Rep. Bill Keating shared a letter on social media requesting that Salvatore be allowed to maintain his residence in the shack. Massachusetts Sen. Edward Markey and Sen. Elizabeth Warren were listed as co-signers.

“Even where the transfer of a lifetime lease to another party may not be possible, we respectfully request that the National Park Service consider all available options to legally allow Mr. Del Deo to reside in Frenchie’s Shack,” said the letter.

Protesters gathered near the shacks on June 15, the day that the park service scheduled for prospective tenants to visit the properties, though Salvatore’s shack was not up for lease. According to Murphy, due to high demand, the visits had to be spread out over eight days.

Salvatore Del Deo

Murphy said that the shacks had been portrayed “like a vacation rental,” which she believes is inaccurate.

“They didn’t mention that there have been families that have been living here for generations and maintaining it,” said Murphy. “The only reason that these shacks were able to stand against the sand for so many years is because these people stood for them.”

Romolo believes that the leasing program is misguided and that even well-intentioned wealthy lessees would not be able to successfully maintain their shacks in the harsh winters or connect to the community.

“This is a piece of American history and culture,” said Romolo.

The Del Deo family would be willing to negotiate, said Romolo, and would be willing to pay annual fees, so long as the family is allowed to retain the shack.

“Nobody’s committed a crime, nobody’s violated anything, we’re just doing what we’ve always done before the park existed,” Romolo said.

The Del Deo family will host a sit-in at the shack from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ET Tuesday, the day of the eviction deadline.

“Let him live out his days there,” said Murphy.

How Big Is the Cyber Insurance Market? Can It Keep Growing?

By Tom Johansmeyer 

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

The cyber insurance market may be small, new, and volatile, but it could also become an important form of economic security. In fact, the Biden administration appears to be counting on that. Cybersecurity strategy could be improved with a better understanding of the basic characteristics of the cyber insurance market, particularly its size, the size of the cyber reinsurance market on which it depends, where future risk capital could come from, and at what price. Publicly available data on the size and reach of the cyber insurance and reinsurance, or re/insurance, market is thin and often dated. Views on how much premium is written or coverage is outstanding often have to be cobbled together from disparate sources, with subsequent projections built on a shaky foundation.

This piece seeks to provide a better starting point for such analysis. Using a mix of formal and informal research methods—hardly ideal but utterly practical—I’ve pulled together industry-wide estimates for cyber re/insurance premiums and coverage outstanding, as well as a view on historical growth. Further, given the strategic role that the insurance-linked securities (ILS) market could play in bringing breadth and depth to the cyber re/insurance market, I’ve included a few thoughts on the scope of cyber ILS so far, as well as how that market could continue its growth trajectory.

Sources and Methods

It’s notoriously difficult to form a comprehensive and accurate view of the global cyber insurance market. At best, publicly available data reports tend to focus on the overall U.S. market, which may represent only 55 to 60 percent of the cyber insurance industry worldwide, according to both formal interviews and private discussions. While the data afforded by the likes of A.M. Best and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners tends to be the best available, it still leaves some nontrivial gaps. Company reports can range from pure propaganda to the high-quality research often produced by the Swiss Re Institute and Munich Re NatCatSERVICE. Again, such reports are helpful but still offer only a partial view.

While the following view of the cyber re/insurance market size and composition is hardly perfect, it aims to advance our collective understanding of the market as it stands today and where it could go tomorrow—while also offering something more than the “anecdata” currently shared by word of mouth. The methods used to compile the data below are mixed, beginning with a review of publicly available sources, as described above, to provide a foundation for the private sources of information gathered. This foundation was supported by interviews with seven cyber insurance executives, 10 cyber reinsurance executives, and 10 ILS managers on a wide range of cyber re/insurance market dynamics. The formal research and interviews focusing on market size and composition are supplemented by informal conversations with re/insurance and ILS market players.

The results below consist of both point estimates and ranges. In an inexact exercise, the latter can help frame the probable, and the included point estimates can be supported sufficiently based on the underlying conversations or publicly available sources. This piece is an attempt to document the side conversations that occur in any market environment and present them in a manner in which they can help with further analysis, cyber insurance market growth, and even improved cybersecurity, given the role of insurance in economic security and the stated reliance on the private sector in the latest U.S. National Cybersecurity Strategy.

(Ecole polytechnique, https://www.flickr.com/photos/117994717@N06/40466246635/; CC BY-SA 2.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/legalcode

Global Cyber Insurance Premiums and Limit Outstanding

Global cyber market premiums tend to be easier to ascertain in retrospect, and time adds at least a bit of certainty. As a result, recent estimates are most likely to defy consensus, with those for 2023 being the most volatile by nature. The year is still in progress, and market conditions could influence the final result. Conversations with the market players and experts suggest that global cyber insurance premiums could end this year at up to $15 billion. Recent rapid rate increases, however, have slowed—which isn’t a surprise—meaning that a more modest outcome of around $13 billion is more realistic.

For 2022, it’s also fairly difficult to estimate because it’s so recent, but global cyber insurance premiums range from Swiss Re’s $10 billion to Munich Re’s $11.9 billion to as much as $14 billion. Several private sources put the 2022 estimate at around $10-12 billion. These numbers also square with independently calculated estimates of worldwide reinsurance premiums (more on this below). Even at the low end of the 2022 range, global cyber premiums clearly climbed sharply from the 2021 Swiss Re estimate of $8 billion, itself up from only $5.5 billion in 2020.

The high rate of market concentration may contribute to some of the volatility of industry estimates. Despite the high rate of premium growth recently, the cyber insurance market remains highly concentrated. The five largest insurers account for as much as a third of the worldwide total, according to estimates gathered from formal interviews, in conjunction with the market size estimates above. Market share could vary from the range above, but the point nonetheless remains. Further, focus on cyber insurance premiums masks the fact that revenue growth does not mean an increase in protection for end insureds. In fact, premiums have grown far faster than the protection offered for cyber risks.

The amount of cyber insurance limit outstanding is even harder to estimate than premiums. Informal private conversations yield a 2022 range of around $360-500 billion. The estimates at the higher end come from sources who believe that the market shares of the largest players are relatively low, while the lower estimates reflect a belief that market concentration is quite high. A working estimate of $400-450 billion seems to be the right fit, as it would reflect an average rate on line (ROL)—or cost of insurance—ranging from around two and a half percent to a little more than three percent, which seems indicative of the recent rate increases that led to such significant premium growth. There’s still room for people to disagree reasonably, but the range of the potential 2022 premium suggests a limit outstanding of at least close to $400 billion and pretty far down from $500 billion.

Global Cyber Reinsurance Premiums and Limit Outstanding

Historically, estimating the global reinsurance premium in the cyber market was as easy as halving the insurance estimate. A Swiss Re report put the rate at which insurers cede cyber to reinsurers at 45 to 50 percent, although some private sources say it could be as high as 55 percent. That would put the 2022 global reinsurance premium at $7 billion, 2021 at close to $5 billion, and 2020 at a bit under $3 billion. The year to come is more difficult to forecast, as some structural factors have changed the amount of reinsurance that insurers may consume.

Until this year, insurers have largely relied on quota share structures, through which reinsurers basically share proportionately in the business written by the insurers they cover. On the one hand, some non-proportional reinsurance covers made it into the market, but they represented a small slice of overall cyber reinsurance risk transfer. So-called event covers, which provide reinsurance protection for insurers when there is a single catastrophic cyber loss event, on the other hand, were few and far between. In 2023, however, event covers have begun to gain some traction. Because they consume less capital than quota shares, the move to more event cover may appear to cost the cyber reinsurance sector some growth.

The increased use of non-proportional reinsurance—including event covers—makes it difficult to estimate cyber reinsurance premiums by halving cyber insurance premiums, particularly because some larger cyber insurers have integrated more event covers into their risk transfer strategies. If we take 2022’s cyber insurance premium at $10-14 billion, then the worldwide cyber reinsurance premium would be something less than $5.5-7 billion, and probably closer to $5-5.5 billion. What’s interesting, though, is that nominally smaller cyber reinsurance growth could enable disproportionately faster cyber insurance market growth, since insurers would be able to keep more of their attritional business, hedge out the catastrophic exposure, and use their capital more efficiently.

Market concentration appears to have been alleviated to some extent by the entry of new reinsurers into the sector. The five largest reinsurers accounted for more than 80 percent of worldwide premiums in 2021, and for 2022, that concentration fell to 50-60 percent. The sharp drop is implied by two underlying factors evident especially in the formal interviews. One is the entry of new participants, or reinsurers, into the market. Admittedly, this did little to alleviate the previously high rate of market concentration directly. The second factor is that smaller and mid-sized reinsurers not only saw rate increases from their quota share business but also saw those rate increases as a reason to lean further into the cyber reinsurance market, a move further encouraged by the post-ransomware lull (at least in terms of insured losses, if not actual attacks) beginning in the second half of 2021. However, even these expansionary forces have been dulled by access to additional capital.

Several reinsurers revealed in their formal interviews that they would need access to retrocession (reinsurance for reinsurance companies) to support further growth. While some reinsurers already write retrocession—“retro,” as it’s known colloquially—they don’t offer much capacity. Further, many prospective buyers would like to see retro come from outside the reinsurance sector as a way to protect against systemic risk. Even with the changes over the past year, cyber reinsurance remains highly concentrated. A few changes in business strategy could cause a meaningful chunk of that risk capital to be diverted to other classes of business. That’s why reinsurers need access to a separate source of retro capital, and that points directly to the ILS market.

The Nascent Cyber ILS Market

ILS refers to a segment of the global re/insurance industry that uses capacity from the capital markets. As insurers lay off risk to reinsurers, both insurers and reinsurers may package up risk into a variety of formats to secure protection from these outside sources of capital. Initially seen as an outlet for retro in the property-catastrophe space, the ILS market has evolved to take on additional risks, although natural catastrophe is still the bulk of what the sector covers. In fact, the role that the ILS market initially played in “peak peril” risk transfer—the most difficult systemic risks, such as a hurricane in Florida or a typhoon in Japan—is seen as a model for how it could operate in the cyber re/insurance market, where peak perils could be viewed as cloud outage and self-replicating malware.

The cyber re/insurance market has sought ILS involvement for years, even before my early efforts to help develop the Property Claim Services (PCS) Global Cyber industry loss index in 2017. In fact, the PCS team (which I led at the time) began working on the loss index to support the forms of alternative risk transfer that ILS managers would want to consume. It has taken time for protection buyers to understand some of the quirks of ILS risk transfer—from collateral management to minimum ROLs—with early trading consisting of small, bespoke transactions with little opportunity to scale. But that’s changing—quickly.

The cyber ILS market has achieved a limit outstanding of as much as $1 billion, roughly a 100 percent year-over-year increase. The fact that it is still a hair less than one percent of the $104.9 billion in ILS capital currently under management suggests not just that cyber ILS is still small but also that it has plenty of room for growth. The fact that cyber is a diversifying risk for ILS managers focused heavily on natural catastrophes could make it an increasingly attractive class of business for some.

Further cyber re/insurance market maturation will be necessary to enable access to more ILS capital. Interviews suggest that further improvements to event definition will help, as well as the issuance of liquid instruments (with the recent cyber catastrophe bond being a good first step). Finally, cyber risk and event modeling, according to most interview participants, need to continue to advance in order to more fully meet the needs of ILS managers. The good news is that the market is generally headed in the right direction and simply needs to continue to refine what it already does.

How to Raise the Stakes Responsibly

Cyber re/insurance market growth is certainly important in its own right. It’s possible to claim dismissively—or even derisively—that an expanded cyber re/insurance market is simply a way to drive more profit into the insurance industry. Of course it is. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Successful businesses are good. Successful insurers continue to provide financial protection to society. That’s a worthy enough aim in itself. But the stakes are far higher than commercial success. Cyber re/insurance has emerged as a key pillar for cybersecurity, just as re/insurance has long been a largely unsung contributor to economic security. As the most recent U.S. National Cybersecurity Strategy reveals, cyber re/insurance plays a direct role in economic security and could play a larger one as time passes.

The quantification of the current state of the global cyber re/insurance market explored here—as well as the support offered by the ILS sector—provides a crucial reference point for further strategic planning, be it corporate or state security. Much of the analysis produced has had to rely on tenuous assumptions, optimistic projections, and, frankly, guesswork. It’s tough to operate under those circumstances. With at least a preliminary view of the size and composition of the global cyber re/insurance market, the analysts, scholars, and other stakeholders looking at the cyber re/insurance market hopefully will be able to apply their talent to greater effect.

Tom Johansmeyer is a Ph.D. candidate in international conflict analysis at the University of Kent, Canterbury, where he is focused on the cyber insurance protection gap as an economic security problem. He was recently the head of PCS at data/analytics firm Verisk, where he led the development of risk and loss quantification tools for cyber, political violence, and other natural and man-made events.

Korean cosmetics firm to use genetic testing to customize skincare

By Kim Kyoung-ae & Kim Tae-gyu, UPI News Korea

Dubbed My Skin Solution, Amorepacific's service will be provided in conjunction with LabGenomics, a Korean healthcare company specializing in molecular diagnostics. 

Photo courtesy of Amorepacific

SEOUL, June 27 (UPI) -- South Korea's leading cosmetics maker, Amorepacific, said it will offer beauty consulting and products based on direct-from-consumer genetic testing.

Dubbed My Skin Solution, the service will be provided in conjunction with LabGenomics, a Korean healthcare company specializing in molecular diagnostics.

Customers 19 and older can obtain the customized skincare service by purchasing from its website a gene test kit costing around $77.

Once the kit arrives, the customer swabs the inside of their cheek and put the resulting gene sample inside a tube to send to LabGenomics.

The turnaround for the test is expected to be about a week, during which LabGemomics will study the 11 genes related to skin aging, pigmentary deposit, and acne, as well as 58 other genetic characteristics like obesity and diet, the company said.

"The test will allow the customers to learn what condition their skin is in at the moment, as well as its genetic features -- all the information necessary for tailored skin management," an Amorepacific official told UPI News Korea.

"They will be invited to visit our dedicated office in central Seoul, where we can offer them detailed analysis, along with skin-management guides based on the genetic information we gleaned," he said.

Amorepacific has no plans to offer the service outside the country yet, due to regulations restricting at-home gene testing in many foreign countries.

South Korea ranks among the Top 10 cosmetics markets in the world, with annual sales at $15.71 billion in 2021, according to Expert Market Research.

The market is expected to grow by more than 5% annually to $21.54 billion by 2027.

RELATED Skincare company Murad agrees to pay $3.3M to settle Iran sanctions violations

Although AmorePacific has always been the dominant player in Korea, its sales and profit had decreased recently, its bottom line halving to $114 million in 2022 from the previous year due primarily to lackluster performance in China.

To counter the slide, the company has been aggressively expanding in other markets, including the United States, and adopting new technologies that could help enhance its push.

AmorePacific is not the first Korean company to incorporate direct-to-customer gene testing, which was enabled after the revision of laws in 2021.

A new law allows government-certified entities to engage in direct-to-customer gene testing.

South Korea's largest mobile carrier, SK Telecom agreed to a partnership for genome analysis business with the genetic testing company Macrogen in 2021.

Lotte Healthcare formed a similar partnership, joining forces last year with Theragen Bio to tap into the genetics-testing business.

Detractors worry that the private gene-testing can lead to unexpected consequences.

"Direct-to-customer genetic testing encompasses everyone. I'm not sure the government has done sufficient review of its effects on the whole population," Hanyang University Professor Shin Young-jeon said in a phone interview.

"There are concerns that companies are using the technology commercially and taking advantage of it without a full understanding."

June on course to be the hottest yet recorded in Britain

Previous mean average record of 14.9°C

set in 1940 and 1976

The UK is set for the hottest June ever recorded. Getty

Simon Rushton

Jun 27, 2023

June is shaping up to be the hottest June in British recorded history.

Cooler weather forecast for this week is unlikely to bring the average temperatures down enough for the record not to be broken.

Provisional data will be confirmed on July 3. The previous mean average record of 14.9°C was set in 1940 and 1976.

The Met Office has not recorded a June as hot as the current year since it began collecting temperature data in 1884.

Mike Kendon, a climate information scientist with the Met Office, said: “With only a few days of near-average temperatures forecast for the remainder of the month, overall, this June will turn out to be provisionally the hottest June on record for the UK for both mean and average maximum temperature.

READ MORE

Twenty minutes to impact: Solar storms could wreak power grid havoc on Earth

“Meteorologically, June started with high pressure over the UK bringing often settled and dry conditions with plenty of sunshine.

“Once that high pressure subsided, warm, humid air took charge over the UK, with 32.2°C the highest temperature recorded so far this month and high temperatures for the vast majority of the UK.

“What has been particularly unusual is the persistent warmth for much of the month, with temperatures reaching 25°C widely for at least two weeks, and at times 28°C to 30°C – whereas we would more typically expect maximum temperatures in the high teenagers or low 20s at this time of year.”

Last Sunday, the UK hit another temperature peak for the joint hottest day of the year so far.

The temperature rose to 32.2°C in Coningsby, Lincolnshire, matching this year's record set on June 10 in Chertsey, Surrey.

Coningsby is also where the UK's hottest temperature of 40.3°C was recorded on July 19 last year.

Climate change, driven by human use of fossil fuels, is bringing hotter, drier weather to the UK as well as greater disruption to traditional rainfall patterns.

Drought warnings have been issued for much of the UK and Ireland, according to data from the Copernicus satellite, with a hosepipe ban introduced on Monday for South East Water customers in Kent and Sussex.

The Met Office graph shows the mean average daily temperature for June 2023. PA

South West Water customers in Cornwall have been subject to a hosepipe ban since August last year which has since been extended to others in Devon.

Along with parts of East Anglia, the region has not left drought status since the extreme heat last summer which saw 40°C bring destructive grass fires and more than 3,000 excess deaths during the heatwaves.

Four of the top 10 warmest Junes have occurred this century: 2018 (14.8°C), 2003 (14.5°C), 2006 (14.5°C) and 2017 (14.4°C).

Mr Kendon said: “While the UK has always had periods of warm weather, what climate change does is increase the frequency and intensity of these warm weather events, increasing the likelihood of high-temperature records being broken, as we saw for 2022's annual temperature for the UK.

“It is particularly telling that of the 12 months of the year, for UK average maximum temperature the records for the warmest months include 2019 (February), 2018 (May), 2015 (December), 2012 (March), 2011 (April), 2011 (November), 2006 (July) and now 2023 (June).

“Statistics such as this clearly tell us of the changing nature of the UK's climate and how it is particularly affecting extremes.”

Provisional confirmation of June 2023’s position in the weather and climate records will be published on Monday 3 July, including confirmation on any provisional records for other regions of the UK.

What’s preventing Syrian refugees’ return home? Distrust of Assad.

|
By Taylor Luck Special correspondent
Dominique Soguel Special correspondent

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
June 27, 2023|RAMTHA, JORDAN; AND BASEL, SWITZERLAND

Some mornings Bassam al-Masri walks to a farm at the edge of Jordan’s northern border town of Ramtha and looks across the Yarmuk River valley into Syria. On a clear day, he can see the mosque where he preached and the remains of his house in Daraa 7 miles away.

Although the Syrian refugee could walk to his hometown in two hours, it remains, for him, as unreachable as ever – no matter the recent reconciliation between Arab states and President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the resulting promises of safe returns.

“The only guarantee that we could return safely is for Assad to go,” says Mr. Masri, among millions of Syrians living in the Middle East and Europe who long to return home but fear they cannot. “As long as he is present, we are permanently separated from our homeland. He cannot be trusted.”

WHY WE WROTE THIS

A story focused on TRUST

After the Arab League reinstated Syria, some Syrian refugees had dared hope for measures to enable their return home. But in interviews and polls, most say they’ve seen nothing that convinces them that now is the time.

In interviews and polls, Syrian refugees say they have seen nothing that convinces them to trust Mr. Assad in the wake of the Arab League’s early May decision to reinstate Syria.

Syria’s membership had been suspended in 2011 following Mr. Assad’s brutal crackdown on dissent in the early days of Syria’s civil war, a conflict that left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced. And a few refugees had dared hope that the Arab world reconciliation would be followed by concrete measures to rebuild trust.

Aziz Taher/ReutersView

But so far not even the “bare minimums” that they would expect are on the table: a general amnesty, reconciliation, transparency on the fate of the missing, and guarantees of a safe return for those who fled.

Without such measures, the vast majority of Syrians in exile say returning home is impossible: Any guarantee by Mr. Assad – regarded as a serial promise-breaker who has shown no contrition for the systematic destruction, torture, and killings under his command – cannot be trusted.

For Syrians whose lives have been upended by war, seeing Mr. Assad invited to events such as COP28, to be held in early December in Dubai, is a shock.

‘The Wounded World’ probes one of W.E.B. Du Bois’ greatest regrets

“It is a massive disappointment for most Syrians living in or outside Syria,” France-based Syrian journalist Samir Tawil says of the diplomatic move. “It’s like the Syrian regime won against the Syrian people, against the Arab world, and against the whole world. But the biggest loser is the Syrian people.”
Present at the beginning

Mr. Masri is intimately familiar with the Assad regime’s record. Daraa’s historic Al-Omari Mosque, where he preached, was a flashpoint for the first protests that erupted in the town in March 2011 over the arrest and torture of 15 teenagers who spray-painted graffiti demanding Mr. Assad’s overthrow.

Police killings of Daraa protesters would spark nationwide peaceful demonstrations – part of the regionwide Arab Spring – that eventually escalated into civil war.

In those first days, Mr. Masri worked with local officials and security services to soothe tensions and reach a peaceful solution. He preached to his flock not to protest. For his troubles, he was tortured and disfigured by regime security services, losing a kidney.

“You can’t believe this regime’s promises or reason with them because they know no way other than oppression and violence. Trust me, I’ve tried,” Mr. Masri says from his Ramtha apartment.

Taylor LuckView caption

With Arab states’ embrace of Mr. Assad, Mr. Masri and many Syrians believe that the dictator feels “protected and promoted,” with no incentive to take responsibility or reconcile with opponents.

“If the Assad regime had any intention to reconcile or offer a guarantee to make us feel safe to return, it could at least tell us the fate of the thousands of our relatives missing in its prisons,” he says. “At the very least tell us who is alive and who is dead so that we can begin to mourn and heal.”

Mr. Tawil, who obtained asylum in Paris in 2016, is also well-versed in the Assad regime’s trustworthiness.

Working for Syrian state television when the revolution erupted, he witnessed his neighborhood cemetery fill with the corpses of peaceful demonstrators while the channel claimed the security forces were battling armed terrorists.

That was one reason he left the country. Helicopter attacks on his neighborhood were another.

“We left as refugees fleeing death,” he says. “There is no guarantee possible that would return us to death. As long as the Assad and intelligence service apparatus remains in place, there is no return possible.”

Photo Courtesy of Samir Tawil

Fear of reprisals


A large majority of Syrian refugees in neighboring states rule out returning, despite facing increasingly dire economic straits. Dwindling humanitarian aid, a shift in international assistance to Ukraine, and post-COVID global inflation complicate their survival. Yet even if they wanted, many would have no home to return to, as war has reduced many areas to rubble.

Many point out that mistrust extends beyond the Assad regime. With Syrian families and neighbors divided by rival armies, militias, and proxy groups, some fear lingering violence as well as reprisal attacks from fellow Syrians seeking to settle old scores.

Shamseh Mustafa has lived in the Jordanian border town of Mafraq with her seven children and extended family since they fled their village outside Aleppo in 2012. When a United Nations funding shortfall earlier this year caused a three-month pause in their rental assistance, her family of 12 was evicted from their apartment. Now they share a rented, bare, 12-foot-by-6-foot room.

With no money for transportation, her two eldest daughters, Baraa, 18, and Israa, 16, and her 8-year-old nephew Ahmed dropped out of school this spring.

The family is in debt and struggles to pay the electricity bill. Still, a return to Ms. Mustafa’s abandoned 2-acre farm and bombed-out house in Syria “is out of the question.”

“We can’t even say the word ‘return.’ There is no safety, no economy, no trust in Syria. There is nothing to return to,” she says. “Even if a miracle from God brought peace and turned Syria into a paradise, what will cleanse the hatred that has been planted in people’s hearts?

“Can you sleep at night knowing that a relative or stranger may come and kill you to settle an old score?” she says. “Bad blood like that cannot cleanse.”
Lebanese pressure

Syrian farmer Ahmed Abu Omar moved with his wife and six children into a plastic tent in Lebanon’s Arsal camp in 2012. The summers have been hot, winters cold. Dependent on humanitarian aid, the family can only afford meat three times a year. Their diet is heavy on rice and pickled goods. The bulk of the budget is taken up by $20 per month rent for the land beneath their tent.

“If we could go back in a dignified and safe way, we would go back,” says Abu Omar, who declined to include his last name for safety reasons.

Photo Courtesy of Ahmed Abu Omar

A political transition and the reconstruction of the country are necessary conditions for his return. A personal obstacle is reclaiming his partially destroyed home – the section still standing is now occupied by fellow Syrians who refuse to vacate and falsely accuse him of rebel activity.

“We were waiting impatiently for the Arab summit in Saudi Arabia,” he shares. “We thought step-by-step things will move forward, but until now, nothing has happened. There has been no release of the detainees. ... Half of Syria is displaced. There’s been no goodwill-building measures. It’s like nothing happened. It’s as if the whole thing gave Assad power.”

Most Syrians in Lebanon feel pressure to leave the country, he says. In a country still reeling with economic crisis and looking for scapegoats, the refugees are subjected to restrictions on their economic participation as well as political rants by sectarian leaders.

But the refugees are frightened of what would await them, he says, particularly the pro-regime gunmen, or shabiha. “The shabiha do whatever they want,” he says, “they are accountable to no one.”

Soheib Ahmed el-Abdu, a chef-turned-humanitarian activist, agrees. “The [pro-Assad] militias will settle scores with any members of the opposition so the situation is not safe, even if there was a political transition,” he says.
Returning, and disappearing

Concerns for the fate of returnees are shared in northern Jordan, where reports of activists going missing as soon as they cross the border have heightened insecurity among the refugees. The border town of Ramtha is awash with stories of friends, relatives, and neighbors who voluntarily returned to Syria – and were never heard from again.

Family members tell the Monitor of missing brothers and cousins who returned to Syria, showing WhatsApp conversations with returnees that abruptly stop, mobile phones disconnected.

The disappeared include one of the first Syrians who crossed back during a grand reopening of the Jordan-Syrian border in October 2018. After he was interviewed by Syrian state television and given sweets by Syrian officials who hugged him as a “lost brother,” he disappeared. He later reemerged in a regime prison where he reportedly remains today.

Unlike Jordan, Lebanon is home to many political players close to Mr. Assad and in favor of sending Syrians back, and there are recent reports that hundreds of refugees had been forcibly repatriated. In April, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International issued a joint statement urging the Lebanese army to stop the summary deportations.

“There are raids and Syrians are being thrown on the other side of the border,” says Mr. Abdu, the activist. “The returns are being carried out in a militia or mafia style, not through political or diplomatic channels.

“Those who were returned, no one knows what became of them,” he says. “Were they detained? Did they get beaten? Nobody knows.”

DECRIMINALIZE ALL DRUGS

Huge Increase in Transnational Crime in Asia ‘Golden Triangle’

By Baher Kamal

In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Credit: Shutterstock.

MADRID, Jun 27 2023 (IPS) - How come that in a world where technology is -or is about to be- able to detect an ant in a jungle, the traffickers of death continue to carry out their lucrative criminal activities everywhere and in all fields, from weapons to prostitution, enslavement and drugs, to deadly fake medicines, through oil, gas and poisoned food.

In the specific case of Asia, a specialised organisation reports the Asian ‘Golden Triangle’ is where historically opium was grown to produce heroin for export, but where, in recent years, the trade of “even deadlier and more profitable synthetic drugs have taken over.”

Transnational organised crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past

Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific

In its June 2023 report, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) informs that East and Southeast Asian synthetic drug supply remains at ‘extreme levels’ and diversifies.

The report, “Synthetic Drugs in East and Southeast Asia: latest developments and challenges 2023”, confirms an expansion and diversification of synthetic drug production and trafficking in the region, while trafficking routes have shifted significantly.

“Thailand, Laos and Myanmar are at the frontlines of illicit trade in Asia dominated by transnational organised crime syndicates.”

 

Methamphetamine, ketamine…

‘High volumes’ of methamphetamine continue to be produced and trafficked in and from the region while the production of ketamine and other synthetic drugs has expanded.

“Transnational organised crime groups anticipate, adapt and try to circumvent what governments do, and in 2022 we saw them work around Thai borders in the Golden Triangle more than in the past,” said Jeremy Douglas, UNODC Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

 

‘Unwanted’ to be seen

“Traffickers have continued to ship large volumes through Laos and northern Thailand, but at the same time they have pushed significant supply through central Myanmar to the Andaman Sea where it seems few were looking.”

Douglas added that criminal groups from across the region also started moving and reconnecting after lengthy pandemic border closures, with late 2022 and early 2023 patterns starting to look similar to 2019.

 

Hidden in “legal products”

Moreover, synthetic drugs containing a mixture of substances and sometimes “packaged alongside legal products” continue to be found throughout East and Southeast Asia, with serious health consequences for those who knowingly, or unknowingly, consume the products.

Moreover, the world drug problem is a complex issue that affects millions of people worldwide.

Many people who use drugs face stigma and discrimination, which can further harm their physical and mental health and prevent them from accessing the help they need, the UN warns on the occasion of the 2023 International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking (26 June).

 

“Unprecedented” increase

The increase in the production of synthetic drugs in recent years has been “unprecedented” according to the UNODC Regional Representative.

It is not just drugs which are being trafficked across the region: chemical precursors to manufacture synthetic drugs are being illegally transported into Myanmar in quantities far larger than the drugs that are trafficked out, UNODC further explains.

 

Trafficking also in people, wildlife, timber…

In fact, a myriad of cross-borders issues, including drug and precursor chemical trafficking, migrant smuggling, human trafficking, wildlife and forestry crime, and, in some locations, the movement of terrorist fighters alongside public health and pandemic-related matters.

 

The impact of legalising the use of cocaine

Cannabis legalisation in parts of the world appears to have accelerated daily use and related health impacts, according to the World Drug Report 2022, which also details record rises in the manufacturing of cocaine, the expansion of synthetic drugs to new markets, and continued gaps in the availability of drug treatments, especially for women.

According to the report, around 284 million people aged 15-64 used drugs worldwide in 2020, a 26% increase over the previous decade.

“In Africa and Latin America, people under 35 represent the majority of people being treated for drug use disorders.”

Globally, the report estimates that 11.2 million people worldwide were injecting drugs. Around half of this number were living with hepatitis C, 1.4 million were living with HIV, and 1.2 million were living with both.

Reacting to these findings, UNODC Executive Director, Ghada Waly stated: “Numbers for the manufacturing and seizures of many illicit drugs are hitting record highs, even as global emergencies are deepening vulnerabilities.”

At the same time, mis-perceptions regarding the magnitude of the problem and the associated harms are depriving people of care and treatment and driving young people towards harmful behaviour, said Waly.

 

Key trends by region

In many countries in Africa and South and Central America, the largest proportion of people in treatment for drug use disorders are there primarily for cannabis use disorders. In Eastern and South-Eastern Europe and in Central Asia, people are most often in treatment for opioid use disorders.

In the United States and Canada, overdose deaths, predominantly driven by an epidemic of the non-medical use of fentanyl, continue to break records. Preliminary estimates in the United States point to more than 107,000 drug overdose deaths in 2021, up from nearly 92,000 in 2020.

 

Conflict zones magnets for synthetic drug production

This year’s report also highlights that illicit drug economies can flourish in situations of conflict and where the rule of law is weak, and in turn can prolong or fuel conflict.

Information from the Middle East and South-East Asia suggest that conflict situations can act as a magnet for the manufacture of synthetic drugs, which can be produced anywhere. This effect may be greater when the conflict area is close to large consumer markets.

Historically, parties to conflict have used drugs to finance conflict and generate income. The 2022 World Drug Report also reveals that conflicts may also disrupt and shift drug trafficking routes, as has happened in the Balkans and more recently in Ukraine.

 

A possible growing capacity to manufacture amphetamine in Ukraine

According to the UNODC report, “there was a significant increase in the number of reported clandestine laboratories in Ukraine, skyrocketing from 17 dismantled laboratories in 2019 to 79 in 2020. 67 out of these laboratories were producing amphetamines, up from five in 2019 – the highest number of dismantled laboratories reported in any given country in 2020.”

 

Gender treatment gap

Women remain in the minority of drug users globally yet tend to increase their rate of drug consumption and progress to drug use disorders more rapidly than men do. Women now represent an estimated 45-49% of users of amphetamines and non-medical users of pharmaceutical stimulants, pharmaceutical opioids, sedatives, and tranquillisers.

The treatment gap remains large for women globally. Although women represent almost one in two amphetamine users, they constitute only one in five people in treatment for amphetamine use disorders.

The World Drug Report also spotlights the wide range of roles fulfilled by women in the global cocaine economy, including cultivating coca, transporting small quantities of drugs, selling to consumers, and smuggling into prisons.

 Drone footage captures 'curious' whale swimming alongside kayaker off Sydney coast

Uganda activists file new Paris case over TotalEnergies' East Africa oil pipeline project

Ugandan activists have brought another legal case against French oil giant TotalEnergies, seeking damages over alleged food and land rights violations in the company’s East Africa operations

By RODNEY MUHUMUZA 

Associated Press

June 27, 2023, 

KAMPALA, Uganda -- Ugandan activists brought another legal case Tuesday against French oil giant TotalEnergies, seeking damages over alleged food and land rights violations in the company's East Africa operations.

The civil suit filed in Paris comes four months after the collapse of a similar case brought by activists who wanted to stop TotalEnergies' pipeline project in Uganda and Tanzania, alleging environmental risks and an infringement of rights.

Campaigners who oppose a project they insist violates the Paris climate accord were disappointed when the case was dismissed on procedural grounds before going to trial.

The new litigation cites TotalEnergies’ alleged failure to comply with France’s “duty of vigilance” law and seeks compensation for the company's alleged violations of land and food rights over six years.

TotalEnergies has long denied the allegations.

Five French and and Ugandan civic groups, including the French branch of Friends of the Earth and the Uganda-based Africa Institute for Energy Governance, or AFIEGO, are plaintiffs in the case.

Community challenges stemming from TotalEnergies' projects include under-compensation as well as the "construction of small, inappropriate replacement housing that is not suitable to the family sizes of affected households,” said Dickens Kamugisha, AFIEGO’s chief executive.

TotalEnergies is the majority shareholder in the 897-mile (1,443-kilometer) East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline, which would carry oil from wells in western Uganda to Tanzania's Indian Ocean port of Tanga. Authorities have described it as the world’s longest heated oil pipeline.

Some oil wells are to be drilled within western Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park, where the Nile River plummets 130 feet (40 meters) through a 20-foot-wide (6-meter-wide) gap and the surrounding wilderness is home to hippos, egrets, giraffes and antelopes.

The pipeline would then pass through seven forest reserves and two game parks, running alongside Lake Victoria, a source of fresh water for 40 million people.


That route's ecological fragility is one reason why some activists oppose the project despite assurances from TotalEnergies that the pipeline’s state-of-the-art-design will ensure safety for decades.

Ugandan authorities see the oil drilling project and the pipeline as key to economic development, saying oil wealth could help lift millions out of poverty.

Uganda is estimated to have recoverable oil reserves of at least 1.4 billion barrels.

HOW WE MISTREAT OUR COUSINS

Heartwarming Video Shows Chimp Caged Entire Life Sees The Sky, Grass For The First Time

ALL OUR RELATIONS

By Marvin Ang
06/27/23 

GETTY IMAGES

KEY POINTS

Vanilla was never allowed outside her five-foot-square cage until she was two years old

In the video, Vanilla gets greeted by a fellow chimpanzee and alpha male Dwight with a hug

Vanilla is settling well and continues to survey the bigger area she was allowed to live in

A video of a chimpanzee seeing the open sky for the first time has recently made rounds online, warming the hearts of online users.

The chimpanzee, identified as 29-year-old Vanilla, was a survivor of New York's Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates (LEMSIP), a notorious laboratory that closed down in 1997.

In the facility, she was never allowed outside her five-foot-square cage until she was two years old when she, along with others of her kind, was transferred to a larger enclosure at a center in California that went out of business in 2019.

The California-based chimpanzee sanctuary, which was also threatened by wildfires, arranged for FedEx to fly Vanilla and her group to the 150-acre sanctuary of the Save the Chimps organization in Fort Pierce, Florida.

In the Sunshine State, she first had a glimpse of the blue sky, visibly enamored by how big the world is than the enclosure she was forced to live in all her life.

Her reaction was captured in a video shared at the symposium of the American Society of Primatologists Friday in Reno by Dr. Andrew Halloran, a resident primatologist of the Save the Chimps organization.

In the video, Vanilla was seen getting greeted by a fellow chimpanzee and alpha male Dwight with a hug, after which she gazed at the sky and explored her new domicile.

"In California, Vanilla lived with a handful of chimps inside a chain-link fence cage with no grass and very little enrichment," Dr. Halloran told the New York Post.

He also said that Vanilla is settling well and continues to survey the bigger area she was allowed to live in.

"When she's not exploring the island with her friends, she can usually be found perched atop a three-story climbing platform surveying her new world," Dr. Halloran added.

Vanilla's new home is also the refuge of 226 other chimpanzees rescued from different laboratories, entertainment industries, exotic pet trades and roadside zoos, per the Post.

Many of the rescued, Save the Chimps said, were previously in solitary confinement and had never interacted with others of their kind before.

READ MORE
Shelter For Traumatised Apes In DR Congo's Strife-torn East
Swiss Region Votes On Giving Primates Fundamental Rights
Copy Or Innovate? Study Sheds Light On Chimp Culture

IBT Fast Start - Let the best of International News come to you
Sign up and stay up to date with our daily newsletter.
You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Dr. Halloran assessed each of the newly rescued chimpanzees' personalities to figure out which of the 12 chimp island communities they best match.

"She gets along with all of the other 18 chimps on her island," Dr. Halloran said of Vanilla.

"[She also] has a particularly playful relationship with the alpha male Dwight — from whom she steals food."

UK nurses fail to hold new strike after insufficient turnout

‘Ballot didn’t reach the required threshold dictated by the 2016 Trade Union Act for a strike mandate to be achieved,' says RCN union

Burak Bir |27.06.2023 - 


LONDON

A strike by nurses in England will not continue as a ballot by unions did not reach the 50% threshold required to take action, the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) union said Tuesday.

Although the majority of nurses voted in favor of the industrial action, the numbers were insufficient as more than 43% took part in the vote.

"To clear the turnout threshold, approximately 140,000 ballot papers needed to be returned in the post and only 122,000 were received by the closing date of Friday 23 June," RCN said in a statement. "With an overall turnout of 43%, the ballot didn’t reach the required threshold dictated by the 2016 Trade Union Act for a strike mandate to be achieved.”

RCN General Secretary Pat Cullen vowed "to fight for the fair pay and safe staffing our profession."

"We have started something special - the voice of nursing has never been stronger and we’re going to keep using it," she said.

Union members rejected a deal in April which would have given them a one-off payment of 2% of their salary, plus a coronavirus recovery bonus of 4% for the current financial year and 5% for next year.

 

Nursing strikes in England paused due to low ballot turnout

The voter turnout did not meet the legal requirement of 50% necessary for strikes to proceed

• Kimberly Rodrigues
 
• 27 June, 2023

FILE PHOTO: NHS nurses hold banners during a strike, amid a dispute with the government over pay, in London, Britain January 18, 2023. REUTERS/Toby Melville/File Photo

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), Britain’s main nursing trade union, on Tuesday (27) announced that it had been unable to obtain a new mandate for strike action in England.

This development temporarily ends the possibility of additional strikes by tens of thousands of nurses, which has already disrupted a healthcare system under significant strain.

According to the RCN, approximately 84% of participating nurses in the ballot expressed support for further strikes.

However, the voter turnout did not meet the legal requirement of 50% necessary for strikes to proceed.

“The fight for the fair pay and safe staffing that our profession, our patients, and our NHS deserves, is far from over,” RCN General Secretary Pat Cullen said.

Cullen said she was meeting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday to discuss the government’s plan for the NHS workforce.

“I know staff morale is low and the staffing crisis is set to worsen without immediate action. I will be telling him this today,” she added.

In April, nurses rejected a 5% pay rise offer by the government which is now being implemented for more than 1 million NHS staff in England after unions representing a majority of workers involved in the dispute voted to accept it.

The National Health Service (NHS) is dealing with record patient backlogs and serious staff shortages, and still faces other strikes involving doctors.

Junior doctors in England last week said they plan to strike for a further five days in July, and a ballot of senior doctors closes on Tuesday.

Hundreds of thousands of workers in Britain including teachers and railway staff have taken strike action over the last year, demanding better pay amid high inflation.

“I hugely value nurses’ work and welcome the end to disruptive strikes so staff can continue caring for patients and cut waiting lists,” health minister Steve Barclay said on Twitter. “I hope other unions recognise it’s time to end their strikes.”