Agreement reached to end strike that shut down a vital Great Lakes shipping artery for a week

It’s the first time that a strike has shut down the vital shipping artery since 1968

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A deal was reached Sunday to end a week-long strike that had shut down a major shipping artery in the Great Lakes, halting the flow of grain and other goods from the U.S. and Canada.

Around 360 workers in Ontario and Quebec with Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, walked out Oct. 22 in a dispute over wages with the St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp.

Seaway Management said ships will start moving again when employees return to work at 7 a.m. Monday.

“We have in hand an agreement that’s fair for workers and secures a strong and stable future for the Seaway,” CEO Terence Bowles said in a statement Sunday.

Unifor said a vote to ratify the deal will be scheduled in the coming days.

“Details of the tentative agreement will first be shared with members and will be made public once an agreement is ratified,” said a union statement.

The strike shut down 13 locks on the seaway between Lake Erie and Montreal, bottling up ships in the Great Lakes and preventing more ships from coming in.

The St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes are part of a system of locks, canals, rivers and lakes that stretches more than 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) from the Atlantic Ocean to the western tip of Lake Superior in Minnesota and Wisconsin. It carried over $12 billion (nearly $17 billion Canadian) worth of cargo last year. Ships that travel it include oceangoing “salties” and “lakers” that stick to the lakes.

WXYZ Detroit 7, MI
Great Lakes cargo ships halted as striking workers shut down St. Lawrence Seaway
Duration 2:33   View on Watch

It’s the first time that a strike has shut down the vital shipping artery since 1968.

The Chamber of Marine Commerce estimated that the strike, which took place during one of the busiest times of the year for the seaway, caused the loss of up to $100 million per day in economic activity across Canada and the U.S.

“We are pleased that this interruption in vital Seaway traffic has come to an end, and we can focus once more on meeting the needs of consumers around the world,” chamber president Bruce Burrows said in a statement Sunday.

The Associated Press

 St. Lawrence Seaway strike ends after tentative deal reached

Story by Financial Post Staff • 16h

A Unifor sign outside the St. Lambert Lock in St-Lambert, Que., amid the St. Lawrence Seaway strike on Oct. 23. A tentative deal has been reached to end the strike.© Provided by Financial Post

Tentative deal reached to end strike at St. Lawrence Seaway: Unifor

A strike that shuttered operations through the St. Lawrence Seaway for the past week has come to an end as both the union and employer announced on Oct. 29 they had reached a tentative contract with help from federal mediators.

The St. Lawrence Seaway Management Corp. says ships are expected to start moving this morning after it reached a tentative deal with Unifor to end a strike by workers that brought the system to a halt.

The company says workers will be back on the job as of 7 a.m.

Neither the St. Lawrence Seaway management nor Unifor — which represents about 360 seaway employees — shared details of the proposed agreement, but both sides were under pressure to resolve the strike that halted the shipment of cargo through the heavily-travelled corridor.

The premiers of Ontario and Quebec had called on Ottawa to intervene if federally mediated talks failed to bring about a quick end to the walkout by Unifor members at most of the seaway’s 15 locks.

But on Sunday evening, both the union and the seaway authority issued statements saying a tentative deal had been achieved.

“I am so proud of the unity of our members along the seaway as they joined together to secure better wages and working conditions for all,” Unifor Quebec Director Daniel Cloutier said in the union’s news release.

The Seaway Management Corp. said it will begin implementing its recovery program immediately and will start “passing ships progressively” as of Monday, adding employees will be back on the job by 7 a.m.

Terence Bowles, chief executive of the Seaway Management Corp., said the agreement was “fair for workers” and “secures a strong and stable future for the seaway.”

“We know that this strike has not been easy for anyone, and value the patience and co-operation of our marine industry bi-national partners; carriers, shippers, ports, local communities and all those who depend on this vital transportation corridor on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border,” Bowles said in a statement from the seaway authority.

Unifor said details of the tentative agreement will first be shared with members and will be made public once it has been ratified in a vote that will be scheduled in the coming days.

Wages have been a key sticking point in the job action, which shut down the seaway last weekend.

The seaway is a major trade route connecting the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean.

Bloomberg

BC

Inside Vancouver’s Decision to Scrap Its Living Wage Commitment

Story by The Canadian Press  • 

 Internal emails suggest City of Vancouver staff felt “significant anger and disillusionment” after city council voted to scrap the municipality’s living wage policy this year.

That’s how former chief equity officer Aftab Erfan described the reaction from staff after the city announced in March it would no longer guarantee a living wage, effectively cutting the guaranteed minimum pay for security guards, food vendors, janitors and other low-wage workers. Erfan left the job four months later.

“The internal communication is being experienced as confusing and inconsistent,” wrote Erfan on March 8. “What’s being explained is not actually making sense to staff, which is leading to all kinds of stories being made up.”

City manager Paul Mochrie said he was “not surprised” at what Erfan heard.

“Of course, I am not in a position to disclose anything,” Mochrie wrote in his reply. He offered to help clear up “consistent questions or misperceptions.”

“If folks simply disagree with the policy decision that is their prerogative and I am not sure if there is anything we can do about that,” Mochrie wrote.

Those emails are part of a cache of internal communications on Vancouver’s decision to scrap its living wage policy six years after it became one of the movement’s champions.

Those records, obtained by researcher Alicia Massie via freedom of information legislation and shared with The Tyee, indicate city managers discussed moving away from the hourly living wage months before city council voted to end that policy in a closed-door meeting this January.

The decision was condemned by labour groups, who said it was aimed at cutting costs at the expense of the city’s poorest workers.

“This is a giant step backward, and I think this puts a dark cloud over folks who work for the city,” Coun. Pete Fry said.

In 2017, Vancouver became the single biggest employer in B.C. to guarantee a living wage.

That meant it pledged to pay all staff and staff of contractors a minimum hourly wage calculated by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives and Living Wage for Families BC.

That wage is based on what a family of four people and two breadwinners needs to afford housing, basic necessities and some recreational activities.

The wage almost always increases each year but has gone down on a few occasions.

The hourly living wage in Vancouver increased from $20.52 to $24.08 in 2023, a record 17.6 per cent jump driven by inflation, food prices and high housing costs.

At the City of Vancouver, chief procurement officer Alexander Ralph warned that spike would force the city to increase payroll spending on both contracts and some full-time staff.

Patrice Impey, the city’s chief financial officer, reacted with alarm.

“I think the living wage group... will need to revisit their formula to allow for multi-year adjustments vs. annual adjustments which are quite disruptive to the marketplace,” she wrote in a Nov. 17, 2022, email.

The city proposed transition to a policy based on guaranteeing wages equal to a five-year average of the living wage.

The city made that request formally the next month. Anastasia French, provincial manager for Living Wage for Families BC, said the city asked her organization if it could keep its certification by instead paying a rolling average of living wages from preceding years.

She said her organization told the city that wasn’t possible. French said it wasn’t fair for low-wage workers, who were seeing their own spending on fuel, food and housing rapidly increase.

“The five-year fixed rates don’t really address the fact that their costs are going up right now,” French said. She said they offered the city extra time to meet the certification requirements.

Instead, city council voted to scrap the living wage commitment and move to a five-year rolling average.

The city’s new minimum wage, based on that formula, was $20.90 — a 1.9 per cent increase over the previous year, well below the rate of inflation and less than what it had already been paying its employees and service providers.

A number of part-time staff like civic theatre attendants, food vendors and parks staff did see their wages go down as a result. So did staff for at least nine contracted companies, including three security firms, janitors and 18 traffic control workers who are also Downtown Eastside residents, according to the FOI records obtained by Massie.

Those records peg “estimated impact” of continuing the living wage program for those nine city contractors at less than $1.7 million, though the city has not confirmed that figure.

The city has not publicly revealed how many workers lost out because of its decision or what it might have cost taxpayers to continue the living wage policy.

That information was shown to Vancouver city councillors at their January meeting. But since it was held in camera, councillors are legally bound not to release those details, nor can they be obtained via freedom of information request. The vote tally is also secret, though it is understood Mayor Ken Sim’s ABC party voted in support with the three remaining councillors in opposition.

Sim’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The secrecy of that meeting frustrated Massie, a Simon Fraser University PhD student who also works for Service Employees International Union Local 2. That union represents some private sector janitors who work for companies contracted by the city.

“If they have nothing to hide, why are they continuing to stonewall access to this very basic information?” Massie said. If it is true that this doesn’t affect a lot of people, that this was necessary for the city to do, why can’t we know the details? Why are they trying to hide it from us?”

Massie began filing freedom of information requests. Many records she sought — like notes from the meeting itself — were completely redacted under access laws.

But others offer hints about how the decision came to be, and the backlash that followed.

It appears councillors discussed basing their new wage off 10- and 15-year rolling averages, which would have resulted in a much lower wage.

Mochrie also told senior city officials he expected the wage would come down in future years, something French said she did not believe was true and had never communicated to the city.

The decision also drew concerns from Erfan, the chief equity officer, who told Mochrie that council’s decision would reverse the city’s progress towards meeting its equity goals.

“This decision is definitely a step back for equity no matter how it is justified,” wrote Erfan. She declined to be interviewed for this story.

In her annual equity report to council in June, Erfan noted the city’s approach to wages no longer met the provincial standard for a living wage, though she said that could change if the living wage decreased.

The city should pay all employees “at minimum a living wage” to maintain its standing in this area, Erfan wrote.

OneCity Coun. Christine Boyle has opposed the decision to scrap the living wage commitment and says she shares concerns that the decision will harm the city’s most disadvantaged workers.

“It was very reasonable of her [Erfan] to be clear about the impacts of that decision,” Boyle said. “It’s an important piece of meeting the city’s own goals.”

City policies mean councillors can’t bring a motion on the living wage until a year after the last vote. When that happens, Boyle says she plans to bring a motion to reinstate the wage.

Fry said he supports reinstating the wage. “Some of the people doing this work are doing incredibly difficult work. We ask a lot of them. And I don’t feel right shortchanging them,” he said.

Like Massie, Fry and Boyle say they’re also frustrated by the secrecy around the vote.

In camera meetings are often used to discuss legally and financially sensitive information. But once a decision is made public, Fry believes there’s no reason to withhold the information council was given.

After Boyle revealed how she had voted, Sim responded by submitting a complaint about her to the city’s integrity officer, who confirmed Boyle had acted appropriately — but only after she spent $7,000 in legal fees.

“The whole process has been incredibly frustrating,” she said.

Massie plans to keep digging. In the meantime, she says, she wants the city to do an about-face.

“They are doing the dirty, messy, gross work that none of these senior leaders at the city would want to be doing, and they’re doing it for a wage that isn’t even enough to live in the city of Vancouver,” Massie said.

Zak Vescera, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Tyee

Tesla Employees In Sweden Refuse To Join Strike, Say There's No Need For It

Story by Dan Mihalascu • 

Tesla Service© insideEvs.com Copyright

Local trade union IF Metall failed in its attempt to organize a walkout as Tesla workers are apparently happy with their employer.

Tesla dodged a strike in Sweden on October 27 at its service centers after employees refused a walkout proposed by local trade union IF Metall.

IF Metall had announced a strike initiated by its members at Tesla Service centers across Sweden, citing the carmaker's refusal to sign a collective bargaining agreement as the reason behind the action.

"This conflict is about our members' wages, pensions, and insurances. And in the end, it is about the playing rules on the Swedish labor market," IF Metall's head of collective agreements, Veli-Pekka Saikkala, said.

The union had stated that about 120 Tesla mechanics would walk off the job on Friday, which could have been potentially disruptive for Tesla's operations in Sweden.

However, the EV maker's Swedish workforce did not adhere to the strike call and Friday saw very little participation in IF Metall's action. According to industry observers cited by local media reports, the planned walkout was virtually unattended.

Despite IF Metall's strike call, vehicles were still being repaired at Tesla Service centers, and customers were still dropping off and picking up their vehicles as usual. Furthermore, no bookings had to be rescheduled as a result of the strike, Tesla Club Sweden reported (via Teslarati) after visiting Tesla's Infra City site.

The outlet asked Tesla's employees why they didn't join the planned walkout, and some of them reportedly said the working conditions and wages surpassed those of their previous workplaces so they did not see the need to strike.

One employee noted that Tesla also provides stock options, which helped him buy his first apartment, while another pointed out that the median age of Tesla's workforce is lower than average and that working conditions are better than what this age group normally gets at other workshops. He also said that there's low staff turnover due to strong strong cohesion and well-being in the workplace.

Interestingly, the employees who explained why they didn't join the walkout wished to remain anonymous due to concerns about potential repercussions – from the union, not Tesla.

Overall, only a small number of union members across the country chose to take part in the strike, with most IF Metall members employed at Tesla Sweden opting to stay at work.

More stories on Tesla and unions

• Tesla Workers Are Union "Members Of The Future," UAW President Says
• Growing Number Of Tesla Giga Berlin Workers Joining Union: Report

Source: Tesla Club Sweden via Teslarati

Air Canada pilots protest international route cuts nationwide

Hundreds of Air Canada pilots stood outside international airports across Canada on Saturday in an informational picket line to protest against international route cuts in and out of the country. Affected cities, include Toronto, Ottawa, Calgary and Halifax. Craig Momney reports. 

Federal Court Approves $23-Billion Settlement For First Nations Child Welfare Discrimination

Story by The Canadian Press  • 

(ANNews) – Canada’s Federal Court has approved a $23-billion settlement agreement to compensate First Nations children and their families for a chronically underfunded child welfare system. 

The ruling is a landmark in implementing Jordan’s Principle, which states that funding First Nations services comes first before sorting out any jurisdictional disputes between various orders of government about who is responsible for the funding. 

In 2019, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordered the federal government to pay $40,000 per person impacted — the largest possible settlement for a human rights violation. 

The federal government initially challenged that settlement before backtracking in the face of a class action lawsuit from the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) and negotiating a deal. 

That settlement, which compensates more than 300,000 First Nations people, was approved by the tribunal earlier this year. 

Noting that no money will ever be enough to compensate for the harms done to First Nations children, AFN Interim National Chief Joanna Bernard said in an Oct. 23 news release that the settlement nonetheless “represents acknowledgment of those harms and decades of wrongdoing,” which constitutes a “step towards healing for those affected and ensuring this is never repeated through upcoming long-term reform measures to the system.”

AFN Manitoba Regional Chief Cindy Woodhouse, who was the AFN’s lead negotiator, called the federal court hearings a “culmination of a years-long process to secure recognition of the harms done by Canada to First Nations children and families.”

One of the lead plaintiffs, Zacheus Trout of Cross Lake First Nation in Manitoba, told CBC News that the decision left him feeling “overwhelmed” and “speechless.”

“I hope this brings a change of how we look at Indigenous people and how we can move forward, reconciling all the differences between non-Indigenous and the Indigenous people right across Canada,” said Trout. “It’s history that’s been made here today.”

In 2021, Trout filed a lawsuit against the federal government for failing to provide appropriate health support for his two children, Sanaye and Jacob. Both children died before they turned 10 as a result of Batten disease — a rare neurological condition. 

“We do not need to be treated as third class citizens in this country and I hope this makes a big statement for the future generations to come,” he said of the settlement. 

Jonavon Meawasige told the CBC about his brother Jeremy, who requires care 24 hours a day, due to cerebral palsy, autism, spinal curvature and hydrocephalus — a debilitating accumulation of spinal fluid in the brain. 

Their mother, Maurina Beadle, took the feds to court in 2013, because they would only pay a portion of Jeremy’s health-care costs, and won. 

Jonavan Meawasige said Beadle, who died in 2019, “would have been really proud of the decision today.”

“I hope this will keep Jeremy inside his home and keep him loved and keep him with the people that he needs to be with,” said Jonavan. 

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu said the government has recognized the “significant harm that discrimination — I would say systemically racist funding —  results in.”

Plaintiff lawyer David Sterns told the CBC that the payments will unlikely be dispersed until the new year, but he added that he is “thrilled” by the fact that they are coming. 

“This could make the difference between having a shelter for some people or being homeless for some people,” he said.

Lawyer Cindy Blackstock, who initiated the fight for federal compensation in 2007, acknowledged that the settlement could serve as “a page turner for the government” in an Oct. 24 interview with the CBC’s Power and Politics. 

Before the compensation is paid, however, mental health and addictions services in Indigenous communities need to have funding in place for “surge capacity … before, during and after the compensation.” 

Blackstock said, ultimately, the government must be held accountable for its commitments.

“We all collectively need to keep our eye on Canada and demand that they stop this discrimination,” she said.

Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Alberta Native News

Alpine Ski World Cup grapples with climate challenges
Andreas Sten-Ziemons
4 hours ago4 hours ago

Global warming is driving up the cost of hosting snow-based sporting events. This has led to a shift in the way winter sports are perceived, something that is also bound to have an impact on the Winter Olympics.

Despite costs and little natural snow, the World Cup season begins in October in SöldenImage: Barbara Gindle/APA/picture alliance

A little snow did fall after all on the Rettenbach glacier this past weekend. The glacier, which lies near Sölden, Austria, is where the Alpine Ski World Cup kicked off its new season with two giant slalom races. While the women's event went off without a hitch on Saturday, Sunday's men's competition had to be canceled due to high winds.

Sölden has hosted the opening event of the season since 2000. This year, there wasn't much of a winter feel to the weekend until the very end; the mountains around the glacier were barely covered with snow, the slopes towards the valley were green, the trees sporting the colors of autumn. And even up on the glacier, the thin layer of fresh snow could hardly conceal the problems that Alpine ski racing is facing.

Stored spring snow

"I think the slope is perfect for hosting a World Cup opener," Felix Neureuther told Bavarian media a few weeks ago. "But the end of October is just too early."

Neureuther, who was Germany's top ski racer before he retired from the sport in 2019, is concerned about the event's future, partly because organizers are having to contend with less and less natural snow on the slopes.

To get the Rettenbach slopes ready for last weekend's event, 45,000 cubic meters (nearly 1.6 million cubic feet) of snow that had been stored in depots since April was spread over the course. This is not the first time organizers have had to take such measures to ensure that the season opener could go ahead.

Such circumstances have caused some to question the wisdom of starting the winter season so early. However, the Ski World Federation FIS under President Johan Eliasch has inflated the World Cup calendar to 45 races for both the women and men in recent years, leaving little scope for moving the opener to a later date.

Still, Eliasch surprised Austrian public broadcaster ORF on the weekend when he said: "I also don't understand who is interested in ski racing in October and why we race on glaciers without snow."
On October 19, there was still little snow to be seen on the Rettenbach glacierImage: Johann Groder/EXPA/APA/picturedesk/picture alliance

Eliasch said he hoped that the Austrian Ski Association would be open to moving back the Sölden event.

He had also, however, pushed for races to be held on the Matterhorn in mid-November. At the end of November, the World Cup heads to North America for a couple of weekends before returning to Europe. A race is scheduled for every weekend leading up to Christmas.

This tight schedule forced the October opener in Sölden, as well as all the work that had to be done to get the Rettenbach glacier ready in time. This included the bringing in of excavators to shave off the edge of the glacier in preparation for the application of the stored snow.

That drew harsh criticism from environmentalist groups.
Emotional debate

"The current destruction of nature on the Rettenbach glacier is a disaster. Skiing and conservation are being played off against each other here," Ursula Bittner, an economics specialist at Greenpeace Austria, told Austrian media in September.

The organizers defended themselves, saying it was not a matter of removing the glacier. Instead, they explained, large rocks that had come to the surface as a result of the glacier receding needed to be crushed. Doing so, they argued, meant that less snow was needed to prepare the slope. In other words, the excavator work was in the interest of sustainability.

This illustrates just how emotional and complicated the dispute is between environmental interests and the million-dollar downhill skiing business. It is also indicative of a growing problem for outdoor winter sports in general.

Winter Olympics without winter

The Winter Olympics are no exception. When Sochi, a Black Sea resort with a subtropical climate hosted the 2014 Games, the ski resorts were located dozens of kilometers away. Major construction projects were undertaken to build not only the ski runs but also the infrastructure for traveling between the two locations.

Beijing, the host of the 2022 Winter Games, isn't known for its heavy snowfall either. The same goes for the two Olympic ski resorts, which were located in a region that is cold enough, but hardly gets any precipitation.
Dearth of suitable hosts

"Fewer and fewer countries are capable of hosting the Winter Olympics in the first place," Jules Boykoff told DW. The political scientist from Pacific University in Oregon has been critically examining the Olympic Games and their impact on society and the environment for years.

Jules Boykoff is critical of many aspects of the Winter Games

Image: Privat

International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach, too, is well aware of the problem.

"By 2040, there remain, practically, just 10 national Olympic committees who could host these snow events of the Olympic Winter Games," Bach told the recent IOC Congress in Mumbai, based on the findings of a study on future viability.

As a result, the IOC is considering implementing a rotation system for hosts, comprising only a few locations that are all but guaranteed to regularly have the required amount of snow in February.
Too expensive, environmental concerns

As Boykoff noted, the lack of reliable snow is not the only challenge facing the games, with residents of numerous cities having rejected the idea of hosting a Winter or Summer Olympics from 2013 through 2018.

"You are seeing a rising tide of people across the political spectrum who do not want to have the Olympics in their city or in their country because of the price tag and because of the environmental effects," he said.

The 2026 Winter Games are to be hosted by Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, where mass protests over exploding costs and ecological concerns convinced organizers to abandon plans to build a new bobsleigh and luge track. These events may be moved to Innsbruck, Austria.

Where the Winter Games go after 2026 is unclear and, if no traditional winter venue steps up, the IOC could soon find itself in a dilemma. Saudi Arabia won the right to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games with a plan to spend $500 billion (€472 billion) to construct venues and infrastructure. Depending upon how well that goes, the Winter Olympics could be the next logical step, as early as 2034.

This article was originally published in German.

Andreas Sten-Ziemons Editor and reporter

China: lonely in space despite lofty ambitions

Dang Yuan

DW


Beijing has extended an open invite to foreign astronauts interested in hitching a ride to its new space station. The US is out, and Europe seems undecided. Could foreigners journey to the "Heavenly Palace" one day?

Three Chinese astronauts blasted off in Shenzhou-17 last week. Could foreigners one day hitch a ride?

Image: Li Gang/Xinhua/picture alliance

In Chinese myths and legends, humans often climb up into the skies and venture into space. Beijing often makes use of these motifs to promote the idea of space as a non-ideological realm, free of Earthly politics.

But ever since the mid-20th century Cold War "Space Race" between the United States and the Soviet Union, the politicization of space has been glaringly obvious. For competing nations, a lot is at stake: technological supremacy, plus the chance to flex economic and innovative clout.
Space titan China

Beijing once again proved its mettle as one of the world's major space powers on Thursday when three taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) set off on the "Divine Ship" Shenzhou-17 for the Chinese space station, Tiangong. After ten minutes of flight time and six-and-a-half hours for docking maneuvers, they arrived safely in the "Heavenly Palace" (the English translation of Tiangong).

After two successful predecessor trial projects, Tiangong-1 (2011-2017) and Tiangong-2 (2016-2019), China started building the new "Heavenly Palace" in 2021. Construction was completed in November 2022. Three spacecraft ― one supply craft and two space capsules ― can dock on the station simultaneously.

Small but mighty

The Chinese press has dubbed the space station the "three-room apartment" for its comparatively compact size. It is around 100 tons lighter than the International Space Station(ISS), which itself weighs in at around 450 tons. Tiangong is designed to operate for 15 years at an orbital altitude of around 450 kilometers (280 miles).

At a recent conference in Azerbaijan, China announced it wanted to double the number of docked modules from three to six in the coming years.

Moreover, China is ready to take foreign space travelers along to Tiangong, the deputy director of the China Manned Space Agency, Lin Xiqiang, said.

"We extend an invitation to the world and welcome all countries and regions committed to the peaceful use of outer space to cooperate with us and participate in the Chinese space station missions," he said.

A taikonaut maintains Tiangong, or the "Heavenly Palace," a great source of national pride for China.

Image: Liu Fang/Xinhua/IMAGO

Blast-off with military honors

China's space program is under the supervision of the military, the People's Liberation Army. Selection and training of astronauts is closely bound up with the army. Of China's 18 taikonauts so far, two of them women, only one civilian was able to fly into space, as a payload expert during the last mission.

But like all the space travelers who went before him, the university lecturer put his right hand on his helmet as a mark of respect for the military and the fatherland when he took off in the Shenzhou-16.

The list of China's achievements to date and future plans is long: placing a lunar probe on the dark side of the moon in 2019, landing a Mars rover in 2021, installing a third space telescope by 2024 (to be docked to the space station for fuel tanking and supply), as well as its first manned moon mission by 2030.

The send-off for the most recent "Heavenly Palace" mission was celebrated with a big ceremony

Image: Li Zhipeng/picture alliance

In the race for space supremacy, the Chinese are hot on the heels of the US' National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). The only other space station apart from Tiangong in operation is the ISS, which has had a permanent crew in space since the year 2000.

China is barred from taking part in the international project due to opposition from the US. With the ISS only foreseen to operate until 2030, Tiangong should soon find itself to be humanity's only outpost in orbit.

"China is already a major power in space and masters the whole spectrum of space disciplines," Thomas Reiter, a former European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut from Germany, told DW.

"That puts the country on par with the world's other spacefaring nations, the US and Russia," Reiter, who spent a total of 350 days, 4 hours and 55 minutes in space, said.
Ideology in orbit

Fresh success in space is always a good opportunity for the government in Beijing to amp up national pride and distract the public from problems like a lackluster economy or youth unemployment. State television broadcast the blast-off live on its fourth channel, CCTV-4, viewable worldwide.

Viewers in the US are highly sought after, given the rivalry between Beijing and Washington. US laws prohibit NASA from cooperating with its Chinese counterpart.

Is China headed for space domination? 03:14

"In reaching for the stars, China and the U.S. are vying not only for national prestige and global technological leadership, but also for geopolitical influence and military power," Johann C. Fuhrmann, who has headed the Beijing office of Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation since 2021, wrote in a report earlier this year.

India, China's big competitor in Asia, has now also entered the space race. The country announced plans to build its own space station by 2035 and to land on the moon by 2040.

Europe on the fence

In Europe, the ESA discovered the potential of China's ambitious space program early on. With China investing huge amounts in space exploration, many ESA astronauts completed intensive Chinese language programs, including German astronaut Matthias Maurer.

In 2017, Maurer participated in offshore survival training in China with Chinese colleagues to prepare for a possible sea landing. In the end, things turned out differently. Maurer spent 176 days on the ISS from 2021 to 2022.

In January this year, ESA Director General Josef Aschbacher said the agency would focus on its commitments to the ISS for now.

"At the moment, we have neither the budgetary nor political green light to engage in a second space station, in other words the Chinese space station," Aschbacher said at a press conference. Nonetheless, the Chinese space agency CNSA currently counts 10 joint projects with the ESA.

The ISS is expected to be out of use from 2030

NASA/UPI Photo/Newscom/picture alliance

Defusing geopolitical tension

For former astronaut Reiter, international collaboration in space is a good thing.

"Space and science in general should be able to help us keep open channels of communication in situations like this," Reiter said. "Once the dust has settled a bit, we should restart this conversation with China and look for projects."

Space travel necessitates long-term planning, often starting many years before a project's execution. Reiter would like the ESA to prepare the ground for its own astronauts to be able to travel to Tiangong.

"The ESA recently selected its new astronaut corps. Maybe some of them are toying with the idea of learning Chinese so they can be deployed, just in case," he said.

Reiter himself was stationed in the now-deorbited Russian space station Mir for his first space mission. "Everything was written in Russian. People only spoke Russian. On my second deployment to the ISS, it was exactly the same in the Russian modules," he explained.

"We have this large international group of researchers in orbit," Reiter underlined. "If this international cooperation can carry on, then that is something we definitely should support."

This article was adapted from German.

ECOCIDE

Grounded ferry off Swedish coast remains adrift, leaking oil

More oil has leaked from a passenger ferry that ran aground off the coast of southern Sweden a week ago. Due to strong winds, the vessel drifted but ran aground again.

The passenger ferry Marco Polo ran aground off the coast of southern Sweden on October 22

Johan Nilsson/TT/IMAGO

The passenger ferry Marco Polo, which ran aground in the Baltic Sea off the southern Swedish coast a week ago and caused a major oil spill, has started leaking oil again, the Swedish coast guard said on Sunday.

The extent of the new oil leak could not yet be assessed, it added.

The vessel has also come adrift, leading to the evacuation of some of the remaining crew. Due to strong winds, "the vessel drifted in the afternoon and an evacuation (of the remaining crew members) is being carried out by the maritime and air rescue centre (JRCC)," the coast guard said.

It added that the ship then ran aground again, half a nautical mile from its previous position.
What happened to the ferry?

The ferry Marco Polo, operated by TT-Line, first ran aground south of the southern city of Karlshamn on October 22, but was able to continue its journey, only to run aground after another 5 kilometers.

The ship's 75 passengers and some crew were safely evacuated. It has since been stranded near Horvik, about 120 kilometers northeast of Malmo.

Swedish authorities said Thursday that the ship was still stuck and leaking oil, adding that it would likely take days before a salvage operation could begin.

The coastguard said about 25,000 liters of oil and oil spillage had been recovered during the week. According to Swedish authorities, it could take up to a year to fully clean up the spill.

Sweden on Friday fined two crew members of the ferry for "recklessness in maritime traffic."

dh/jcg (AFP, dpa)

Hamburg: Several workers killed in scaffolding collapse

Four Bulgarian workers have died after scaffolding collapsed at one of Hamburg's biggest construction sites. The workers were allegedly working on an elevator shaft.

A fire brigade spokesman in the northern German port city of Hamburg on Monday said four workers had died after scaffolding gave way.

Another worker at the site was reported to be critically injured. Initially, the fire department had said five workers at the site had been killed before revising the figure down. 

What we know so far

"Several people are buried under the scaffolding and are considered missing," a fire brigade spokesperson said, with rescue operations said to be "running in high gear." 

 "It is not immediately clear what caused the scaffolding at the construction site to tip over," the spokesperson said.

The workers were believed to have been building an elevator shaft when the collapse, from the eighth floor down, happened at about 9:10 a.m. local time (0810 UTC/GMT).

The city's urban development authority later reported that the victims were all Bulgarian nationals. 

The accident happened at the Westfield-Hamburg Überseequartier — one of the largest construction sites in Hamburg, where a shopping mall, restaurants, offices and hotels are being built.

The district is part of HafenCity, a former port area on the Elbe River that has seen a once scruffy area redeveloped in what is considered Europe's largest urban regeneration projects.

Some 60 rescue workers were deployed to the scene of the accident. The whole construction site, including some 700 workers, was evacuated.

UK
‘This is a prison’: men tell of distressing conditions on Bibby Stockholm


Diane Taylor

THE GUARDIAN
Sun, 29 October 2023 

Photograph: Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images

Asylum seekers brought back to the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset, have said they are being treated in such a way that “we despair and wish for death”.

The Guardian spoke to two men in their first interview since being returned to the barge on 19 October after the vessel lay empty for more than two months. The presence of deadly legionella bacteria was confirmed on board on 7 August, the same day the first group of asylum seekers arrived. The barge was evacuated four days later.

The new warning comes after it emerged that an asylum seeker attempted to kill himself and is in hospital after finding out he is due to be taken to the barge this Tuesday.

A man currently on the barge told the Guardian: “Government decisions are turning healthy and normal refugees into mental patients whom they then hand over to society. Here, many people were healthy and coping with OK spirits, but as a result of the dysfunctional strategies of the government, they have suffered – and continue to suffer – from various forms of serious mental
distress. We are treated in such a way that we despair and wish for death.”

He said that although the asylum seekers were not detained on the barge and could leave visit the nearby town, in practice it was not so easy to do this.

He added: “In the barge, we have exactly the feeling of being in prison. It is true that they say that this is not a prison and you can go outside at any time, but you can only go to specific stops at certain times by bus, and this does not give me a good feeling.

“Even to use the fresh air, you have to go through the inspection every time and go to the small yard with high fences and go through the X-ray machine again. And this is not good for our health.

“In short, this is a prison whose prisoners are not criminals, they are people who have fled their country just to save their lives and have taken shelter here to live.”

The asylum seekers raised concerns about what conditions on the barge would be like if the Home Office did fill it with about 500 asylum seekers, as officials say is the plan. Those on board said it already felt quite full with about 70 people living there.

The second asylum seeker said: “The space inside the barge is very small, it feels crowded in the dining hall and the small entertainment room. It is absolutely clear to me that there will be chaos here soon.

“According to my estimate, as I look at the spaces around us, the capacity of this barge is maximum 120 people including personnel and crew. The strategy of ​​transferring refugees from hotels to barges or ships or military installations is bound to fail.”

He added: “The situation here on the barge is getting worse. Does the government have a plan for shipwrecked residents? Everyone here is going mad with anxiety. It is not just the barge that floats on the water, but the plans of the government that are radically adrift.”

Maddie Harris of the NGO Humans For Rights Network, which supports asylum seekers in hotels, said: “Home Office policies directly contribute to the significant deterioration of the wellbeing and mental health of so many asylum seekers in their ‘care’, with a dehumanising environment, violent anti-migrant rhetoric and isolated accommodations away from community and lacking in support.”

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The Bibby Stockholm is part of the government’s pledge to reduce the use of expensive hotels and bring forward alternative accommodation options which provide a more cost effective, sustainable and manageable system for the UK taxpayer and local communities.

“The health and welfare of asylum seekers remains the utmost priority. We work continually to ensure the needs and vulnerabilities of those residing in asylum accommodation are identified and considered, including those related to mental health and trauma.”