In pics | More than 60,000 people demand climate action in Swiss capital in 'rare protest'

Source:Agencies
Written By: Nishtha Badgamia | Updated: Oct 01, 2023, 


Tens of thousands protesters gather in Bern

More than 60,000 protesters gathered in the Swiss capital Bern on Saturday (Sep 30) demanding tougher policies to combat climate change ahead of the nation election, said the organisers, according to news agency Reuters.


Rare large protest in Switzerland

Notably, such large protests are rare in Switzerland and indicate growing public frustration with the pace of policy making to combat climate change and global warming considering the ample evidence of its impact.



'Losing hope'

"Many have been losing hope because the government is approving new roads and delaying the climate law. But today we were powerful," said Georg Klingler from environmental campaigners Greenpeace who took part in the march, as quoted by Reuters.

The protest also comes days after a study by the Cryospheric Commission of the Swiss Academy of Sciences found that glaciers in Switzerland, this year, suffered their second worst melt rate after record depletion in 2022, lessening their comprehensive volume by 10 per cent in the last two years.



'We need change': Green Party


Switzerland's Green Party, which has boosted its presence in the parliament after the last elections, does not have a seat in the ruling cabinet said that more than 60,000 people took part in the march on Saturday.

"Parliament, with its bourgeois majority, is preventing rapid, consistent and effective climate protection," said the Green Party, as quoted by Reuters.

"We need a change at the next elections," said the party, referring to the upcoming legislative poll which will take place on October 22.

;

Swiss policies on climate 'insufficient': Climate Action Tracker

Recently, research consortium Climate Action Tracker found Switzerland's policies are deemed "insufficient". If approved by voters, Bern could move ahead with a draft climate law in June that has sought to cut emissions to net zero by 2050 as it seeks to comply with its global commitments.

In the law takes effect, the government will give financial incentives for firms and consumers to switch to renewables, but the law will not take effect until 2025.

Image shows demonstrators lighting flares next to the House of Swiss Parliament during a national protest for climate justice in Bern, on September 30, 2023.




Volume of Swiss glaciers shrinks by 10%


The glaciers in Switzerland, this year, suffered their second worst melt rate after record depletion in 2022, lessening their comprehensive volume by 10% in the last two years, a report said on Thursday (Sept 28).

In 2022, Switzerland's glaciers shed six per cent of their overall volume and this year, they lost another four per cent, "representing the second largest decline since measurements began", the Cryospheric Commission of the Swiss Academy of Sciences found in a new study.

The study further warned that the situation could only worsen in the coming years.
(Photograph:AFP)

BUTCHER OF KURDISTAN

Turkey Says 'Neutralised' Many 

Militants in North Iraq Air Strikes

By Reuters

|

Oct. 2, 20

23, 

 

Turkey Says 'Neutralised' Many Militants in North Iraq Air Strikes

More

Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament as he attends the reopening of the Turkish parliament after the summer recess in Ankara, Turkey, October 1, 2023. Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Handout via REUTERS

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish air strikes in north Iraq late on Sunday "neutralised" many Kurdish militants and destroyed their depots and shelters, Turkey's defence ministry said, hours after a Kurdish group claimed responsibility for a bomb attack in Ankara.

Two attackers detonated a bomb near government buildings in Turkey's capital on Sunday morning. Both attackers were killed and two police officers were wounded.

The outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group claimed responsibility for the attack.

"A total of 20 targets were destroyed, consisting of caves, bunkers, shelters and depots used by the separatist terrorist organisation," the ministry said, adding that many militants were "neutralised", a term used to mean killed.

The operations were conducted in the Metina, Hakurk, Qandil and Gara regions of northern Iraq at 9 p.m. (1800 GMT) and that every measure was taken to avoid harm to civilians and the environment, the ministry said.

Earlier on Sunday, CCTV footage obtained by Reuters showed a vehicle pulling up to the Interior Ministry's main gate and one of its occupants quickly walking toward the building before being engulfed in an explosion. The other stayed on the street.

The bomb killed one attacker and authorities killed the other, the interior minister said. The blast rattled a district that is home to ministerial buildings and the nearby parliament in what was the first attack in the capital in years, coinciding with the opening of the new parliamentary session.

The ANF News website, which is close to the PKK, cited the group as saying in a statement that a team from its Immortals Battalion unit had carried out the attack.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. It launched an insurgency in southeast Turkey in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

The bomb on Ataturk Boulevard was the first in Ankara since 2016, when a spate of deadly attacks gripped the country.

Video afterwards showed a Renault cargo vehicle parked at the scene with windows shattered and doors open, amid debris and surrounded by soldiers, ambulances, fire trucks and armoured vehicles.

A senior Turkish official told Reuters the attackers had hijacked the vehicle and killed its driver in Kayseri, a city 260 km (161 miles) southeast of Ankara, before carrying out the attack.

During a series of bloody incidents in 2015 and 2016, Kurdish militants, Islamic State and other groups either claimed or were blamed for a series of attacks in Turkish cities.

(Reporting by Daren Butler; Editing by Robert Birsel)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters

\

PHILIPPINES
Marcos, Duterte suffer 'significant erosions' in approval scores: Pulse Asia

ABS-CBN News  

Oct 02 2023 

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte lead the launch of Brigada Eskwela at the V. Mapa High School in Manila on August 14, 2023. 

Jonathan Cellona, ABS-CBN News

MANILA — The approval ratings of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Vice President Sara Duterte fell in the third quarter of 2023, according to a Pulse Asia survey released on Monday.

Approval for Marcos Jr.'s work declined in the Philippines as a whole to 65 percent in September from 80 percent in June.

His approval rating was also down in all areas and classes (-14 to -15 percentage points and -12 to -29 percentage points, respectively), Pulse Asia noted.


Duterte's ratings dropped to 73 percent from 84 percent overall, as well as in Metro Manila (-12 percentage points), the rest of Luzon (-13 percentage points), Class ABC (-18 percentage points), and Class D (-11 percentage points).

"Although the President and the Vice-President continue to enjoy majority approval scores at the national level and across geographic areas and socio-economic classes, both experience significant erosions in their respective approval ratings during the period June 2023 to September 2023," the pollster said.

Both Marcos and Duterte enjoyed majority trust ratings at 71 percent and 75 percent, respectively.

Screenshot from Pulse Asia media release

'DISAPPOINTED, BUT HOPEFUL' SUPPORTERS

Around the time that the Sept. 10 to 14 survey was conducted, Congress was deliberating on the 2024 national budget that included P4.8 billion in proposed confidential funds and intelligence funds for some government agencies, including Marcos and Duterte's offices, Pulse Asia noted. Tulfo says Marcos approved Sara Duterte's confidential fund request
OVP spent 2022 confidential funds in 11 days, says lawmaker; COA seeks more explanation

It said other key developments during this time included Chinese incursions into the West Philippine Sea and an increase in the prices of rice and vegetables.
DA exec says rice prices 'stabilizing' after price caps
Buy PCG ships, fund state schools with reallocated confidential funds: Bayan Muna

Based on current data and trends during the previous Duterte administration, a decrease in Marcos Jr.'s "is unavoidable if the problems persist," said De La Salle University political science professor Anthony Lawrence Borja.

"It becomes a matter of how low it will go, and if distrust and disapproval towards his subordinates can cushion the impact. Filipinos have a curious capacity to separate subordinates from the leaders they support in terms of placing blame for perceived failures," he told ABS-CBN News.

Explaining Marcos and Duterte's ratings decline in different geographic areas, Borja also noted that national problems like inflation could "wash away regionalistic-tribal loyalties."

"Regionalism or ethno-linguistic tribal loyalty is but one factor. As far as recent studies go, I think it plays a heavier role during elections. However, in propping up a regime, national problems and issues can’t easily be placed within regionalistic containers," Borja said.

Meanwhile, the gap between approval and trust ratings could "point to disappointed but hopeful supporters," he said.

To shore up support, government messaging and projections "must convince the public that it can still perform despite the persistence of economic problems," he added.

OTHER LEADERS

The same Pulse Asia survey found that half of adult Filipinos had a positive assessment of the work done by Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri.

Half of respondents were unable to say if they approved or disapproved of the performance of Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexander Gesmundo.

House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez obtained "essentially the same approval and indecision ratings (41 percent versus 44 percent)," Pulse Asia said.

The poll had 1,200 respondents and a ± 2.8 percent error margin.

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Mourners hail dead Russian mercenary Prigozhin as hero of the people

Mourners mark 40 days since death of Wagner chief Prigozhin

By Guy Faulconbridge

MOSCOW (Reuters) - At memorials to Yevgeny Prigozhin, who was killed in an unexplained plane crash exactly 40 days ago, dozens of mourners hailed the mutinous mercenary chief as a patriotic hero of Russia who had spoken to truth to power.
Mourners mark 40 days since death of Wagner chief Prigozhin and commander Utkin© Thomson Reuters

The private Embraer jet on which Prigozhin was travelling to St Petersburg crashed north of Moscow killing all 10 people on board on Aug. 23, including two other top Wagner figures, Prigozhin's four bodyguards and a crew of three.




Mourners mark 40 days since death of Wagner chief Prigozhin and commander Utkin© Thomson Reuters

It is still unclear what caused the plane to crash two months to the day since Prigozhin's failed mutiny. The Kremlin said on Aug. 30 that investigators were considering the possibility that the plane was downed on purpose.

At his grave in the former imperial capital of St Petersburg, his mother, Violetta, and his son, Pavel, laid flowers. Supporters waved the black flags of Wagner which sport a skull and the motto "Blood, Honour, Motherland, Courage".

In eastern Orthodoxy, it is believed that the soul makes its final journey to either heaven or hell on the 40th day after death.

At memorials in Moscow and other Russian cities dozens of Wagner fighters and ordinary Russians paid their respects, though there was no mass outpouring of grief. Russian state television was silent.



Mourners mark 40 days since death of Wagner chief Prigozhin© Thomson Reuters

"He can be criticized for certain events, but he was a patriot who defended the motherland's interests on different continents," Wagner's recruitment arm said in a statement on Telegram.


"He was charismatic and importantly he was close to the fighters and to the people. And that's why he became popular both in Russia and abroad," it said.

Prigozhin's mutiny posed the biggest challenge to President Vladimir Putin's rule since the former KGB spy rose to power in 1999. Western diplomats say it exposed the strains on Russia of the war in Ukraine.



Mourners mark 40 days since death of Wagner chief Prigozhin© Thomson Reuters

'LEADER'

After months of insulting Putin's top brass with a variety of crude expletives and prison slang over their perceived failure to fight the Ukraine war properly, Prigozhin took control of the southern city of Rostov in late June.

His fighters shot down a number of Russian aircraft, killing their pilots, and advanced towards Moscow before turning back 200 km (125 miles) from the capital.

Putin initially cast Prigozhin as a traitor whose mutiny could have tipped Russia into civil war, though he later did a deal with him to defuse the crisis.

Mourners spoke of respect for Prigozhin.

"He was a real authority, a leader," Mikhail, a serviceman in Russia's armed forces who refused to give his second name, told Reuters.

Moscow resident Marta, who also refused to give her surname, said the people believed in Prigozhin but that Wagner had been "decapitated" by the deaths of him and co-founder Dmitry Utkin.

"Hope for justice died with him," she said. "People believed in him."

Pro-Wagner groups posted a video of Prigozhin flying to Mali where, after a thunder storm, he met a senior commander known by his call sign "Lotus" - Anton Yelizarov - who is now reported to be leading the group.

Opponents such as the United States cast Wagner as a brutal crime group which plundered African states and meted out sledgehammer deaths to those who challenged it.

Putin was on Friday shown meeting one of the most senior former commanders of the Wagner mercenary group and discussing how best to use "volunteer units" in the Ukraine war.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Alison Williams)

Tent-dwelling migrants join protest over Portugal's housing prices

Reuters / Updated: Sep 30, 2023

Thousands of people in Portugal took part in protests against soaring rents and house prices, driven by gentrification and tourism. The average monthly wage in Portugal is around €1,200 ($1,268), making apartments unaffordable for many. Rents in Lisbon have increased by 65% since 2015, while sale prices have risen by 137%. Migrants and precarious workers are particularly vulnerable, with Brazilians, who make up 40% of Portugal's migrant community, earning around 20% less than Portuguese workers. The housing crisis has led to overcrowding and discrimination in access to housing for migrants.Read More


Sale prices have skyrocketed 137% in that period, according to housing data specialists Confidencial Imobiliario. (Reuters)

LISBON - Marcia Leandro moved to Portugal from Brazil six months ago with a goal: to train as a chef. But Portugal's housing crisis curbed her dreams and forced her to live in a tent.

Leandro, 43, and Andreia Costa, her neighbour in an improvised tent camp on an empty plot on the outskirts of Lisbon, marched alongside thousands of Portuguese on Saturday in a protest against soaring rents and house prices stoked by growing gentrification and record tourism.

Portugal is one of Western Europe's poorest countries with an average monthly wage of around 1,200 euros ($1,268), and a 65% increase in Lisbon rents since the start of the tourism boom in 2015 has made apartments unaffordable for many.

Sale prices have skyrocketed 137% in that period, according to housing data specialists Confidencial Imobiliario.

Migrants and other precarious workers are particularly vulnerable. Brazilians, who make up 40% of Portugal's migrant community, on average earn around 20% less than Portuguese, according to the Migration Observatory. Many receive less than the official monthly minimum pay of 760 euros.

Leandro used to pay 230 euros a month for a bunk bed in a shared room in Lisbon, but when she lost her job as a cleaner she could no longer rent. Other options were too expensive. The tent cost her 160 euros and, now newly-employed, she remains there.

"I'm just living here to save money ... I'm here so I can achieve my dream," she told Reuters outside her two-compartment blue tent where she sleeps and keeps belongings. She'd like to rent a one-bedroom flat, but prices are "absurd", she said.

At Saturday's rallies in Lisbon, Porto and other cities, protesters carried banners reading "Housing is a right!" and chanted slogans criticising the Socialist government for what many see as defending landlords and not the people.

Some were dressed up as the moustachioed, top-hat wearing mascot of the board game Monopoly.

"The housing situation is completely unsustainable," said Dinis Lourenco, 31, one of the Portuguese protesters.

"Salaries have to increase significantly so people can pay the rent, there have to be rent controls, a solution for rising interest rates," he said.

Lourenco and other critics say measures announced by the government earlier this year that include curbs on Airbnb short-term rentals are not enough to tame the crisis, exacerbated by various factors including wealthy foreigners ploughing money into property and a chronic shortage of affordable housing.

"People are suffocating because of housing," said Leandro's neighbour Costa, also from Brazil. Half of her 800 euro monthly wage used to go towards renting a dwelling in her landlord's garden. Her goal now is to buy a caravan - ideally before the winter.

The 2021 census showed that nearly 38% of Portugal's foreign population lived in overcrowded households, and various rights groups have said migrants often face discrimination in access to housing.

Slovakia's poll winner defies European consensus on Ukraine

Slovakia holds early parliamentary election© Thomson Reuters

By Jan Lopatka and Jason Hovet

BRATISLAVA (Reuters) -Slovakia's pro-Russian and anti-liberal election winner Robert Fico was poised on Sunday to begin coalition talks to form a government likely to join Hungary in opposing the European Union's military aid for Ukraine.



Slovakia holds early parliamentary election© Thomson Reuters

The 59-year-old former prime minister's SMER-SSD party scored nearly 23% of Saturday's parliamentary poll, earning the president's nod to start talks to replace a technocrat government that has been backing Kyiv against Russia's invasion.



Michal Simecka, leader of the Progressive Slovakia party, Peter Pellegrini, leader of the HLAS party, and Robert Fico, leader of the SMER-SSD party, stand next to each other after a televised debate at TV TA3© Thomson Reuters

"We are not changing that we are prepared to help Ukraine in a humanitarian way," said Fico, whom analysts consider to be inspired by Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban who has frequently clashed with the EU.

"We are prepared to help with the reconstruction of the state but you know our opinion on arming Ukraine," he added at a news conference.

Fico's campaign call of "Not a single round" for neighbouring Ukraine resonated in the nation of 5.5 million.

Slovakia is a member of the NATO military alliance, which is backing Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin, but many of its people are sympathetic to Moscow's line that the West wants to annihilate it.

Slovakia's Pro Russia Robert Fitzroy was in pole position to
Reuters
Slovakia's Pro-Russia former PM Fico wins election

Fico said Slovakia has bigger problems than the Ukraine issue, including energy prices and living costs, but his party would do everything possible to start peace talks.

Sloviakia's liberal Progresivne Slovensko (Progressive Slovakia, PS) party came second in Saturday's vote with almost 18% of votes and wants to stay the course on backing Ukraine.

So Fico may well look to the moderate leftist HLAS (Voice) party, which came third with nearly 15% of votes, as a partner along with the nationalist, pro-Russian Slovak National Party.

He said coalition talks could take two weeks.

HLAS leader Peter Pellegrini has said ammunition supplies to Ukraine are good for Slovakia's defence industry and the party has backed the EU stance against the invasion.

Fico's record of pragmatism may mean he tones down his rhetoric going forward, analysts and diplomats say, especially in a coalition with HLAS.

Slovakia has already donated to Ukraine most of what it could from state reserves - including fighter jets - and Fico has not clarified whether his party would seek to end commercial supplies from the defence industry.

ANTI-LIBERAL SHIFT

A Fico-led government would signal a further shift in central Europe against political liberalism, which would be reinforced if the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) wins an election in Poland later this month.

Hungary's Orban congratulated Fico on Sunday with a post on X social media platform saying: "Guess who's back!"

"Always good to work together with a patriot," he added.

Fico, who campaigned strongly against illegal migration in the run-up to Saturday's election and criticised a caretaker government for not doing more, said re-starting border controls with Hungary would represent a top priority.

"One of the first decisions of the government must be an order renewing border controls with Hungary," Fico told a news conference. "It will not be a pretty picture," he said, adding force would be needed on the 655 km (400 miles) border.

The migrants, predominantly young men from the Middle East and Afghanistan, mostly come via the so-called Balkan route, entering Hungary from Serbia despite a steel fence that Orban had built after the 2015 refugee crisis that rocked Europe.

Slovakia's PS party, which is liberal on green policies, LGBT rights, deeper European integration and human rights, also plans to court HLAS.

"We believe that this is very bad news for Slovakia," PS leader Michal Simecka told a news conference of SMER-SSD's victory. "And it would be even worse news if Robert Fico succeeds in forming a government."

Born to a working-class family, Fico graduated with a law degree in 1986 and joined the then ruling Communist party.

After the 1989 fall of Communist rule, he worked as a government lawyer, won a seat in parliament under the renamed Communist party, and represented Slovakia at the European Court for Human Rights.

Fico has run SMER-SDD since 1999.

** Click here for an interactive graphic on election results:

(Reporting by Jan Lopatka and Jason Hovet; Writing by Jason Hovet and Michael Kahn; Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Andrew Cawthorne)

Pro-Russia ex-PM leads leftist party to win in Slovakia's parliamentary elections

Updated October 1, 2023
By The Associated Press

Chairman of Smer-Social Democracy party Robert Fico, center, adresses the results of an early parliamentary election during a press conference in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023.

Darko Bandic/AP

PRAGUE — A populist former prime minister and his leftist party have won early parliamentary elections in Slovakia, staging a political comeback after campaigning on a pro-Russian and anti-American message, according to complete results announced Sunday.

Former Prime Minister Robert Fico and the leftist Smer, or Direction, party had 22.9% of the votes, or 42 seats in the 150-seat Parliament, the Slovak Statistics Office said.

Public and exit polls predicted a tight race but in the end, Fico won relatively big after his campaign — considered aggressive and the most radical of his career — attracted voters who favored the far-right.

With no party winning a majority of seats, a coalition government will need to be formed. The president traditionally asks an election's winner to try to form a government, so Fico is likely to become prime minister again. He served as prime minister in 2006-2010 and again in 2012-2018.

Fico said he was ready to open talks with other parties on forming a coalition government as soon as President Zuzana Caputova asks him. Caputova said she will do it on Monday.

"We're here, we're ready, we've learned something, we're more experienced," he said.

Saturday's election was a test for the small central European country's support for neighboring Ukraine in its war with Russia, and the win by Fico could strain a fragile unity in the European Union and NATO.

Fico, 59, has vowed to withdraw Slovakia's military support for Ukraine in Russia's war if his attempt to return to power succeeds. "People in Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine," he said.

The country of 5.5 million people created in 1993 following the breakup of Czechoslovakia has been a staunch supporter of Ukraine since Russia invaded last February, donating arms and opening the borders for refugees fleeing the war.

Slovakia has delivered to Ukraine its fleet of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets, the S-300 air defense system, helicopters, armored vehicles and much-needed demining equipment.

The current caretaker government is planning to send Ukraine artillery ammunition and to train Ukrainian service members in demining.

Winning approval for sending more arms to Ukraine is getting more difficult in many countries. In the U.S. Congress, a bill to avert a government shutdown in Washington, D.C., excluded President Joe Biden's request to provide more security assistance to the war-torn nation.

In other countries, including Germany, France, and Spain, populist parties skeptical of intervention in Ukraine also command significant support. Many of these countries have national or regional elections coming up that could tip the balance of popular opinion away from Kyiv and toward Moscow.

A liberal, pro-West newcomer, the Progressive Slovakia party, took second place, with 18% of the votes, or 32 seats.

Its leader Michal Simecka, who is deputy president of the European Parliament, said his party respected the result. "But it's bad news for Slovakia," he said. "And it would be even worse if Robert Fico manages to create a government."

He said he'd like try to form a governing coalition if Fico fails.

The left-wing Hlas (Voice) party, led by Fico's former deputy in Smer, Peter Pellegrini, came in third with 14.7% (27 seats). Pellegrini parted ways with Fico after the scandal-tainted Smer lost the previous election in 2020, but their possible reunion would boost Fico's chances to form a government.

Pellegrini replaced Fico as prime minister after he was forced to resign following major anti-government street protests resulting from the 2018 killing of journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancee.

Pellegrini congratulated Fico on his victory but said that two former prime ministers in one government might not work well. "It's not ideal but that doesn't mean such a coalition can't be created," he said.

Another potential coalition partner, the ultranationalist Slovak National Party, a clear pro-Russian group, received 5.6% (10 seats).

Those three parties would have a parliamentary majority of 79 seats if they joined forces in a coalition government.

Fico opposes EU sanctions on Russia, questions whether Ukraine can force out the invading Russian troops and wants to block Ukraine from joining NATO. He proposes that instead of sending arms to Kyiv, the EU and the U.S. should use their influence to force Russia and Ukraine to strike a compromise peace deal.

Fico's critics worry that his return to power could lead Slovakia to abandon its course in other ways, following the path of Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and to a lesser extent of Poland under the Law and Justice party.

"It can't be ruled out that he will be looking for a partner who uses similar rhetoric, and the partner will be Viktor Orbán," said Radoslav Stefancik, an analyst from the University of Economics in Bratislava.

Orbán welcomed Fico's victory.

"Always good to work together with a patriot," he posted on X, the former Twitter.

Hungary has — uniquely among EU countries — maintained close relations with Moscow and argued against supplying arms to Ukraine or providing it with economic assistance.

Fico repeats Russian President Vladimir Putin's unsupported claim that the Ukrainian government runs a Nazi state from which ethnic Russians in the country's east needed protection. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish and lost relatives in the Holocaust.

Pro-Russian politician wins Slovakia’s parliamentary election

By Ivana Kottasová, Sophie Tanno and Heather Chen, CNN
 Sun October 1, 2023

A party headed by a pro-Kremlin figure came out top after securing more votes than expected in an election in Slovakia, preliminary results show, in what could pose a challenge to NATO and EU unity on Ukraine.

According to preliminary results released by Slovakia’s Statistical Office at 9 a.m. local time, Robert Fico’s populist SMER party won 22.9% of the vote.

Progressive Slovakia (PS), a liberal and pro-Ukrainian party won 17.9%.

Fico, a two-time former prime minister, now has a chance to regain the job but must first seek coalition partners as his party did not secure a big enough share of the vote to govern on its own.

Speaking after his victory, Fico said he “will do everything” in his power to kickstart Russia-Ukraine peace talks.

“More killing is not going to help anyone,” Fico said.

Negotiations are unlikely to be welcomed in Ukraine, as for now they would likely involve proposals in which territory is ceded to Russia – a non-starter for Kyiv.

The moderate-left Hlas party, led by a former SMER member and formed as an offshoot of SMER following internal disputes, came third with 14.7% of the vote, and could play kingmaker.

With seven political parties reaching the 5% threshold needed to enter the parliament, coalition negotiations will almost certainly include multiple players and could be long and messy.

While not a landslide, SMER’s result is better than expected – last opinion polls published earlier this week showed SMER and PS neck and neck.

Fico has pledged an immediate end to Slovak military support for Ukraine and promised to block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions in what would upend Slovakia’s staunch support for Ukraine.

Michal Šimečka, the leader of PS, said the result was “bad news for the country.”

“The fact of the matter is that SMER is the winner. And we of course respect that although we think it’s bad news for the country. And it will be even worse news if Mr Fico forms the government,” he said at a news conference early on Sunday.

Slovakia’s President Zuzana Čaputová said before the election that she would ask the leader of the strongest party to form the government, meaning Fico will get the first stab at forming a government.

Fico and SMER have not yet commented on the results.

Šimečka said his party will do “everything it could” to prevent Fico from governing.

“I will be in touch with other political leaders of parties that were elected to parliament — on an informal basis — to discuss ways of preventing that,” he said. “We think it will be really bad news for the country, for our democracy, for our rule of law, and for our international standing and for our finances and for our economy if Mr Fico forms the government.”

Peter Pellegrini, the leader of Hlas, said his party was “very pleased with the result.”

“The results so far show that Hlas will be a party without which it will be impossible to form any kind of normal, functioning coalition government,” he said, adding that the party will “make the right decision” to become part of a government that will lead Slovakia out of the “decay and crisis that (the country’s previous leaders) got us into.”

Hlas has been vague about its position on Ukraine in the election campaign. Pellegrini has previously suggested Slovakia “had nothing left to donate” to Kyiv, but also said that the country should continue to manufacture ammunition that is shipped to Ukraine.
Serious consequences for the region

Slovakia, an eastern European nation of about 5.5 million people, was going to the polls to choose its fifth prime minister in four years after seeing a series of shaky coalition governments.

A SMER-led government could have serious consequences for the region. Slovakia is a member of both NATO and the European Union, was among the handful of European countries pushing for tough EU sanctions against Russia and has donated a large amount of military equipment to Ukraine.

But this will likely change under Fico, who has blamed “Ukrainian Nazis and fascists” for provoking Russia’s President Vladimir Putin into launching the invasion, repeating the false narrative Putin has used to justify his invasion.

While in opposition, Fico became a close ally of Hungary’s Prime Minister Victor Orban, especially when it came to criticism of the European Union. There is speculation that, if he returns to power, Fico and Orban could gang up together and create obstacles for Brussels. If Poland’s governing Law and Justice party manages to win a third term in Polish parliamentary elections next month, this bloc of EU troublemakers could become even stronger.

Meanwhile, the liberal PS party had been pushing for a completely different future for Slovakia – including a continued strong support for Kyiv and strong links with the West.

Fico previously served as Slovakia’s prime minister for more than a decade, first between 2006 and 2010 and then again from 2012 to 2018.

He was forced to resign in March 2018 after weeks of mass protests over the murder of investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée, Martina Kušnírová. Kuciak reported on corruption among the country’s elite, including people directly connected to Fico and his party SMER.

The campaign was marked by concerns over disinformation, with Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s top digital affairs official, saying in advance the vote would be a “test case” of how effective social media companies have been in countering Russian propaganda in Slovakia.

Polls suggest Fico’s pro-Russia sentiments are shared by many Slovaks.

According to a survey by GlobSec, a Bratislava-based security think tank, only 40% of Slovaks believed Russia was responsible for the war in Ukraine, the lowest proportion among the eight central and eastern European and Baltic states GlobSec focused on. In the Czech Republic, which used to form one country with Slovakia, 71% of people blame Russia for the war.

The same research found that 50% of Slovaks perceive the United States – the country’s long-term ally – as a security threat.

TAIWAN 
Lawmakers call for investigation into indigenous submarine controversy

A PROVINCE OF CHINA

09/29/2023

Taiwan's first Indigenous Defense Submarine "Narwhal" is on display at a ceremony in Kaohsiung Thursday on Sept. 28, 2023. CNA file photo

Taipei, Sept. 29 (CNA) Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators on Friday urged prosecutors to look into a controversy involving the construction of Taiwan's first Indigenous Defense Submarine (IDS), which was unveiled Thursday amid the country's goal to strengthen its deterrence against the Chinese navy.

Prosecutors should open an investigation following allegations that an opposition legislator and arms dealers tried to hinder the IDS project and even leaked information to China, according to DPP lawmakers Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) and Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬).

The controversy not only concerns national security but also people's trust in legislators and so requires further investigation, Cheng said in a Facebook post, adding that failure to do so would be negligent on the part of the Ministry of Justice.

According to local media reports, IDS program convener Huang Shu-kuang (黃曙光) recently accused a lawmaker of "continually sabotaging" construction of "Narwhal," a submarine prototype with a price tag of NT$49.3 billion (US$1.53 billion).

While Huang did not name the legislator, he reportedly said that person had tried to obstruct the government's acquisition of key parts from foreign suppliers during the building of Narwhal, adding that local arms dealers also leaked information about the submarine to a Chinese embassy after failing to win the bid.

However, when asked by reporters to identify the lawmaker during the launch ceremony on Thursday, Huang only replied "guess yourselves."

In a more explicit accusation later that day, former arms dealer and advisor to the navy Kuo Hsi (郭璽) identified the individual allegedly behind the sabotage and leaking information to China as Kuomintang (KMT) lawmaker Ma Wen-chun (馬文君), a member of the Foreign and National Defense Committee.

Calling Ma a "traitor to the country," Kuo said he welcomes any lawsuit from Ma if what he said is not true.

In response, Ma accused Huang of using Kuo as henchman to attack her and others who questioned the future development of the project before a prototype submarine has proved successful.

Several lawmakers across party lines have in recent years called for parts of IDS funding to be withheld, with Ma considered a major critic against the program.

"(Huang) started the fire to grab media attention and then hid behind the scenes," Ma said, accusing him of pushing through a budget for seven more submarines to be earmarked, "before the prototype itself even touched the water."

Huang said on Sept. 25 that Narwhal will undergo a harbor acceptance test on Oct. 1, followed by a sea acceptance test, and hopefully be delivered to the Navy before the end of 2024.

(By Hsiao Po-yang, Su Lung-chi and Lee Hsin-Yin)

Enditem/AW

RAIL IS SAFER

‘Multiple people’ dead, evacuations ordered after Illinois crash involving semitruck carrying toxic ammonia

2023/09/30

Five people died in an Illinois crash involving multiple vehicles, including a semitruck carrying ammonia, according to police. - Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

A crash involving multiple vehicles — including a semitruck carrying ammonia — in south-central Illinois has killed “multiple people” and prompted the evacuation of parts of an Effingham County village, authorities said Saturday morning.

The incident happened Friday night on Route 40 east of Teutopolis, just before 9 p.m. local time, Effingham County Sheriff Paul Kuhns told reporters during a Saturday news conference.

Teutopolis is a village of around 1,600 people located 90 miles southeast of state capital Springfield.

The incident caused “a large plume, cloud of anhydrous ammonia on the roadway that caused terribly dangerous air conditions in the northeast area of Teutopolis,” Kuhns said.

County Coroner Kim Rhode initially told reporters that one person was dead and five others had been taken to nearby hospitals. But in a 6 a.m. update, authorities said the number of fatalities had grown to five, according to local TV station WCLA.

Kuhns later confirmed “multiple” people had died, but said he didn’t have “the exact number.”

People within a mile radius of the crash were asked to evacuate immediately due to the toxic chemical plume. Residents who live west of the crash scene were asked to shelter in place, local radio station 979XFM reported.

Exposure to anhydrous ammonia gas can cause severe respiratory and ocular damage, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A shelter for those asked to evacuate was set up at a nearby school, WTHI-TV reported.

Crews were still working to contain the leak around 9 a.m.

“We have a lot of brave firemen, EMT, hazmat specialists, police officers that are working on the scene as we speak,” Kuhns said.

© New York Daily News

WORD OF THE DAY

Face pareidolia: how pregnant women could help us understand why we see faces in inanimate objects

The Conversation
September 30, 2023 

Pregnant woman (AFP)

Sometimes we see faces that aren’t really there. You may be looking at the front of a car or a burnt piece of toast when you notice a face-like pattern. This is called face pareidolia and is a mistake made by the brain’s face detection system.

But it’s an error that can help us understand the workings of the human mind. A recent study has argued that having a baby may affect this aspect of our brains, suggesting it may vary across our lifetimes.

Many scientific studies exclude pregnant women out of concern that the dramatic changes to their hormone levels may affect results. But researchers from the University of Queensland in Australia realised these hormonal changes can give us interesting insights.

They found women who had had recently given birth were more likely to see face-like patterns than those who were pregnant. The researchers have suggested this might be because of changing levels of the hormone oxytocin. However, the full picture may be more complicated.

People are have evolved to be sensitive to faces and face-like patterns from birth, probably because attention to faces underlies our social interactions and may also help us stay safe (it’s how we tell friends and family from strangers). Monkeys also show face pareidolia, suggesting that we share features of our face-detection system, including the mistakes that it makes, with other species.

It’s well established that chemical messengers in the brain play a role in our social interactions. For instance, oxytocin is often called the “love hormone” due to its links with social bonding and reproduction. Studies have shown that artificially increasing levels of oxytocin, using a nasal spray, causes people to spend longer looking at the eye regions of faces and enhances recognition of positive facial expressions.

Oxytocin levels change naturally within women who are pregnant and after they have given birth. Previous research that compared women at different stages in their pregnancy and postpartum has found that levels of oxytocin and other hormones vary dramatically.

The Australian researchers decided to test whether levels of oxytocin (given its role in face perception) and the likelihood of seeing face-like patterns are related to each other. They predicted that postpartum women would have higher levels of oxytocin than pregnant women, therefore making it easier for them to see faces in face-like patterns.
Seeing faces in objects

The researchers compared two groups of women on a test of face pareidolia. One group were pregnant while the other group had given birth in the last 12 months. During the test, all of the women were shown three types of images: human faces, ordinary objects and illusory faces (objects with face-like patterns in them). The women were asked to respond to the images using an 11-point scale from zero (no, I don’t see a face) to ten (yes, I definitely see a face).

The results showed that the postpartum women did indeed report seeing more faces for the illusory face images (median response was 7.08) in comparison with the pregnant women (median response of 5.30). As expected, these groups didn’t differ much in their responses to the images of human faces and ordinary objects.

The authors concluded that women’s sensitivity to levels of face pareidolia may be heightened during early parenthood, and might encourage social bonding, which is obviously important for mothers and their infants. This increase in sensitivity, according to the researchers, is caused by heightened levels of oxytocin in the months after giving birth.


Seeing faces in objects is known as face pareidolia. Valeriana Y/Shutterstock

The authors of the study noted that they didn’t actually measure their participants’ oxytocin levels. Instead, they assumed oxytocin differences caused the differences in face pareidolia.

However, this means other differences between the two groups may have led to their result. Perhaps pregnant and postpartum women differ in their levels of anxiety, stress, or fatigue, all of which could affect their performance on the task.

It may also be that pregnant and postpartum women who choose to complete online psychology experiments differ in some way that we’re not aware of. Carrying out a follow-up study which compares the same women during pregnancy and after they’ve given birth could rule out some of these alternatives.

There is also another problem with assuming that oxytocin differences underlie the face pareidolia result. While the study’s authors reason that oxytocin levels will be higher postpartum than during pregnancy, this idea isn’t clearly supported by previous research.

In fact, some studies seem to show that oxytocin levels don’t differ from pregnancy to postpartum, are lower postpartum, or that they rise during pregnancy but then fall during the postpartum period. At the very least, these studies seem to agree that women vary greatly in the patterns they show.

Some more than others

While the Australian study focused on pregnant and postpartum women, we know that most people experience seeing face-like patterns. However, there are large differences in how susceptible you might be.

For instance, studies have shown that women report seeing these illusory faces more often than men do, while strong believers in paranormal phenomena and religions show more frequent experiences than sceptics and non-believers. Researchers have even found that loneliness may cause people to see these face-like patterns more often.

Face pareidolia is also less commonly experienced by some groups like those with autism spectrum disorder, as well as genetic disorders like Williams syndrome and Down syndrome.

And we know that some people are “face blind” (prosopagnosic) and can struggle to recognise even their family and close friends. These people also show less sensitivity to face-like patterns.

As a preliminary study, this team’s new finding that postpartum women show increased face pareidolia is certainly an interesting one. If sensitivity to face-like patterns changes across our lifetimes, and is also determined by underlying hormone levels, then measuring face pareidolia could represent a useful tool for monitoring more complex internal changes that might underlie mental health issues.


Robin Kramer, Senior Lecturer in the School of Psychology, University of Lincoln

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Consciousness: why a leading theory has been branded ‘pseudoscience’

The Conversation
September 30, 2023 

Brain

Civil war has broken out in the field of consciousness research. More than 100 consciousness researchers have signed a letter accusing one of the most popular scientific theories of consciousness – the integrated information theory – of being pseudoscience.

Immediately, several other figures in the field responded by critiquing the letter as poorly reasoned and disproportionate.

Both sides are motivated by a concern for the long-term health and respectability of consciousness science. One side (including the letter signatories) is worrying that the association of consciousness science with what they perceive to be a pseudoscientific theory will undermine the credibility of the field.

The other side is pressing that what they perceive as unsupported charges of pseudoscience will ultimately result in the whole science of consciousness being perceived as pseudoscience.

Integrated information theory – often referred to as IIT – is a very ambitious theory of consciousness proposed by neuroscientist Giulio Tononi. It ultimately aims to give mathematically precise conditions for when any system – a brain or some other lump or matter – is or is not conscious.

The theory revolves around a mathematical measure of integration of information, or interconnections, labelled with the Greek letter ϕ. The basic idea is that a system becomes conscious at the precise moment when there is more ϕ in the system as a whole than in any of its parts.

IIT implies that many more things are conscious than we ordinarily suppose. This means it gets close to a kind of “panpsychism” – the view that consciousness pervades the physical universe. Having said that, there are big differences between IIT and the new wave of Bertrand Russell-inspired panpsychism which has recently been making waves in academic philosophy, and which has been the focus of much of my research.

IIT even implies, as pointed out by the computer scientist Scott Aaronson, that an inactive grid of connected logic gates would be conscious.

The signatories of the letter worry that, while certain aspects of IIT may have been tested, the theory as a whole has not. Therefore, they argue, there is little experimental support for these bold and counter-intuitive implications. Opponents of the letter say that this is true of all current theories of consciousness, and reflects challenges with current neuroimaging techniques.

Adversarial collaboration

All of this follows the announcement over the summer of the first results of an “adversarial collaboration” between IIT and another popular theory of consciousness, known as the global workspace theory.

According to this theory, information in the brain becomes conscious when it is in a “global workspace”, which means it is available to be used by many and varied systems throughout the brain – perceptual areas, long-term memory and motor control – for a wide variety of tasks. In contrast, if certain information is only available to a single system in the brain to perform a highly specific task, such as to regulate breathing, then that information is not conscious.

The idea of an adversarial collaboration is that the proponents of each of the rival theories design experiments together, and agree in advance on which results would favour each theory.

The hope is that agreeing in advance about what the results would mean will prevent theorists from interpreting whatever results come up as fitting with their preferred theory. This first round of experimental results turned out to be mixed. Some confirmed certain parts of IIT, and some backed up particular aspects of global workspace theory. On balance, there was arguably a slight advantage to IIT.

The announcement of these ambiguous results was accompanied by the neuroscientist Christof Koch – a prominent proponent of IIT – publicly conceding defeat on a bet he made 25 years ago with philosopher David Chalmers, that the science of consciousness would be all wrapped up by now.


Christof Koch giving a TED talk. CC BY-NC-ND

One factor which may be playing a big role, although it has not been explicitly mentioned in any of these online skirmishes, is that IIT does not merely justify itself through scientific experimentation. It also involves philosophical reflection.

IIT begins with five “axioms”, which its proponents claim each of us can know through attention to our own conscious experience. These include that conscious experience is unified – that we don’t experience, say, colours and shapes separately but as aspects of a single, unbroken experience.

The theory then translates these axioms into five corresponding “postulates” – properties which it claims are required for a physical system to embody consciousness. For example, IIT explains the unity of our conscious experience in terms of the integration of the physical system.

Opponents of IIT may in part be motivated by a desire to sharply distinguish the science from the philosophy of consciousness, thus ensuring the former is perceived – in particular by funders – as a serious scientific enterprise.

Beyond science

The problem is that consciousness is not merely a scientific issue. The task of science is to explain publicly observable phenomena. But consciousness is not a publicly observable phenomenon: you can’t look inside someone’s brain and see their feelings and experiences. Of course, science theorises about unobservable phenomena, such as fundamental particles, but it only does this to explain what can be observed. In the unique case of consciousness, the phenomenon we are trying to explain is not publicly observable.

Instead, consciousness is known about privately, through the immediate awareness each of us has of our own feelings and experience. The downside of this is that it’s very hard to experimentally demonstrate which theory of consciousness is correct. The upside is that, in contrast to other scientific phenomena, we have direct access to the phenomenon, and our direct access may provide insights into its nature.

Crucially, to accept that our knowledge of consciousness is not limited to what we can glean from experiments is to accept that we need both science and philosophy to deal with consciousness. In my new book Why? The Purpose of the Universe, I explore how such a partnership could be achieved.

IIT is not perfect, either in its scientific or its philosophical aspects. But it is pioneering in accepting the need for science and philosophy to work hand in glove to crack the mystery of consciousness.

Philip Goff, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Durham University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.