Berlin museum pokes fun at German bureaucracy

Julie Gregson Berlin

DW

TODAY

For two months, a Bureaucracy Museum in Berlin has taken a wry look at one of Germany's most serious challenges. So why does the country have such a problem with red tape? And how can it set itself free?

In Germany, citizens spend hours waiting in public offices

Image: Julie Gregson


Germany is notorious for its bureaucracy. One of the central pledges of the center-left government was to slash through the thicket of laws and rules. But many feel the new legislation due to be agreed by parliament at the end of June falls far short of what is necessary.

Now, the Initiative for a New Social Market Economy (INSM), a market-liberal lobbying organization, has created a pop-up museum designed to turn up the heat on the German government — complete with a marketeer's take on an S&M bondage-style dark room.

"There is bureaucracy in all countries, but this has become the No. 1 disadvantage for Germany as a business location — ahead of taxes and energy prices," said Thorsten Alsleben, managing director of the INSM, which is financed by the employers' associations of the metal, electrical and automotive industries.

Alsleben said that was reason enough for 58% of companies to decide against investing in Germany, accusing German politics and bureaucracy of killing innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.

A hollowed tree symbolizes the 52 trees felled daily for paper to feed German bureaucracyI

mage: Julie Gregson

A waiting game

German bureaucracy is time-consuming — for companies and for individuals. Many services, such as applying for a driver's license or an identity card, involve in-person appointments, and just getting a slot can be difficult.

According to the Bureaucracy Museum, visits such as these take 2 hours and 21 minutes on average. And overall, small and medium-sized businesses devote on average 13 hours a week to their paperwork.

The word paperwork is well-chosen here. Museum visitors enter through a display resembling a hollowed-out tree, to symbolize the 52 trees felled each day for the paper to feed the central government's administrative machine.

Delays and dizzying digital diversity

Germany is a laggard in terms of digitalization compared to other European nations, and e-government is one of its worst-performing areas. The continued prevalence of fax machines in government offices has become a symbol of this failure.

In response to an EU ruling, a law was introduced in 2017 obliging authorities to make some 580 services digitally accessible by the end of 2022. But only 81 were fully up and running at the start of 2024, with 96 partially up. Why so little, so late?

Blaming federalism is too easy, Corinna Funke, from the agency GFA Public, told DW. Canada and other federal nations are outperforming Germany in the digital competitiveness rankings.

Germany's approach, she said, remains too decentralized, spawning a dizzying variety of software and hardware for similar services in different places and rival platforms.

Fax machines are still widely used in Germany

Image: Julie Gregson

"In the digital space, quality depends heavily on having a single platform everyone knows, with the same templates, design, one-stop shops and common standards," Funke said.

She also blames the slow pace of digitalization on a lack of public service culture, adding that this had historical roots. While the rule of law and efficient administration processes were established under Prussian rule, in Anglophone countries, the Nordic states and the Netherlands, democracy came first.

"This is where these different self images come from — of public servants on the one hand and bureaucrats, or state servants, on the other," Funke said. "The most important values and norms in the administrations of bureaucratic countries are not so much efficiency or being citizen-friendly or saving taxpayers money. It is very often about implementing the law."

An application to build a wind turbine fills some 60 ring bindersI

 Bernd Weißbrod/dpa/picture alliance

Number of laws out of control

Sometimes there are bewildering contradictions, said Alsleben. "The work health and safety office might tell a bakery that they need to install tiles with non-slip ridges, then the health office says smooth ones are needed for the sake of hygiene," he added.

And the number of laws and regulations has spiraled out of hand, he added. At the Bureaucracy Museum visitors can pick out their least favorite ones and have them put through the paper shredder.

Alsleben said risk aversion and distrust of businesspeople were to blame. "That leads to the attempt to try to cover every single possible case in regulation," he said. Alsleben believes there are too many lawyers and legal experts in parliament and the administrative apparatus and not enough people with business experience.

The INSM is calling for workshops in which policymakers and small and medium-sized enterprises test the practicability of planned legislation.
Lobby groups and creative bureaucrats

Ines Mergel, professor of public administration at the University of Konstanz, said the private sector was partly responsible for so many laws itself.

"Lots of lobbying goes into policymaking," she said. "Often, civil servants and policymakers have created a rather broad policy and then every time something goes wrong we also need an addition to that policy — to also capture all the exceptions. Lots of laws have evolved over time, and it was never the intent to regulate as much as possible, but it is a societal process that happens between all these different actors."

Is bureaucracy stalling the energy transition?  03:26

Better communication and less top-down government would also help the functioning of the public sector, Mergel said. "I would like more conversation and cooperation across the levels of government."

German bureaucracy can drive people mad but perhaps it's just a bit too easy to make civil servants into the nation's whipping girls and boys. Johanna Sieben, the head of the Creative Bureaucracy Festival, said that, at the local level in particular, underfunding and staff shortages are also obstacles to change.

The festival is an international event held in Berlin that was set up to encourage change from within the government. It showcases good practice examples.

The wheels of German bureaucracy may move slowly, but the pop-up museum will not be around for long. It will be consigned to history on June 25 and hopes to take a large chunk of red tape with it. Only time will tell if that €500,000 investment was well spent.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

Would another earthquake reroute the Ganges River?

Fred Schwaller

DW

June 24, 2024

2,500 years ago, an earthquake changed the course of one of Earth's largest rivers, totally altering the landscape. Could it happen again?

The Ganges River was rerouted by a high-magnitude earthquake 2,500 years ago, and experts say it could happen again

Image: Payel Samanta/DW

A study has found a major earthquake 2,500 years ago caused one of the largest rivers on Earth to suddenly change course.

The high-magnitude earthquake completely rerouted the main channel of the Ganges River in what is now densely populated Bangladesh, and completely changed the surrounding landscape.

While it is "normal for river channels to move with time, this was an absolutely extreme event. The river moved to an entirely new area," said lead author Elizabeth Chamberlain of Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, is the first evidence of a large river delta being completely relocated by an earthquake.

The study authors warn that Bangladesh is vulnerable to big quakes and that it is possible for the Ganges River to relocate again if another high-magnitude earthquake hit the region.

"Although infrequent, the risk of such an event could be huge, especially because Bangladesh hosts one of the most densely populated landscapes on the planet," said Chamberlain.

How an earthquake rerouted the Ganges River

The Ganges begins as streams in the Himalayas and flows for 2,500 kilometers (1,600 miles), eventually combining with other major rivers, including the Brahmaputra and the Meghna.

It's a huge delta river system that empties into a wide stretch of the Bay of Bengal, spanning Bangladesh and India.

As with other rivers, the Ganges periodically changes course due to the natural erosion of its riverbanks.

This process takes decades to occur, but "the Ganges-Brahmaputra river system has moved several times over the past 6,000 years," said Christoph von Hagke of the University of Salzburg, Austria, who also took part in the study.

The researchers used satellite imagery to spot the former main channel of the river around 100 kilometers south of the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka.

The team had been exploring the area when they found signs of historical earthquakes — such as vertical dikes of light-colored sand cutting up through horizontal layers of darker mud.

Chemical analysis of the sand and mud showed several eruptions happened at the same time, about 2,500 years ago. The eruptions were estimated to be magnitude 7 to 8 — about the same as the earthquake which hit Turkey and Syria in 2023.

The team, led by Elizabeth Chamberlain (center), collected mud from the ancient Ganges River channel and used optically stimulated luminescence dating to analyze it

Image: Mahfuzur Rahman

The vast Ganges-Brahmaputra river system is located close to an active plate boundary and is a tectonically active region.

"This proximity brings frequent major earthquakes," said Till Hanebuth, a specialist in geosciences at Coastal Carolina University in the US. Hanebuth was not part of the study.

Bangladesh is particularly susceptible to catastrophic earthquake events due to its proximity to seismic zones.

While the region is not currently thought to be at risk, the researchers said it was possible for an earthquake to be strong enough to reroute the Ganges in the next few hundred to 1,000 years.

Ganges rerouting would be 'catastrophic for the region'

The researchers said their study showed it was entirely possible for delta rivers to be dramatically rerouted if they are hit by high-magnitude earthquakes.

"It was indeed a very extreme event — in fact two extreme events occurred. An earthquake of magnitude 7 to 8 is already extreme, but it caused redirection [known as avulsion] of the main channel of the Ganges," said von Hagke.

Von Hagke said a new event of the same size would be catastrophic for the region because it would hit "a super densely populated region."

River breaching and relocation does not only depend on earthquakes — they can also be caused by extreme weather, said Hanebuth.

"Abrupt river avulsions could be caused by a major monsoon or cyclone flooding event, or the collapse of a major river dam," Hanebuth said, adding that while such could be caused by natural events, they were also "largely human-made."

Experts say a huge earthquake could reroute the Ganges in the future and that the effect on local communities would be 'catastrophic'

Image: Sanjay Kanojia/AFP/Getty Images

Can earthquakes be predicted?

Von Hagke said researchers needed to know more about the likelihood of large-scale river avulsion events in the future, particularly those from earthquakes.

The hard part, he said, was that scientists cannot predict when earthquakes will occur, or how big they will be when they do hit.

"For different earthquake scenarios, one could estimate landscape changes and then possible effects on rivers and water masses. But we cannot pinpoint the timing of an event that only happens every few hundred to a few thousand years," said von Hagke.

Chamberlain said, however, that knowing it was possible for earthquakes to completely reroute rivers, and the Ganges in Bangladesh in particular, meant that researchers could now begin to understand and predict how seismic events occur.

"We hope this knowledge can be helpful for hazard planning and mitigation before a modern event," she said.

The Ganges isn't the only river facing earthquake-related hazards. Others include China's Yellow River, Myanmar's Irrawaddy, the Klamath, San Joaquin and Santa Clara rivers on the US West Coast, and the Jordan River, which spans the borders of Syria, Jordan, the Palestinian West Bank and Israel.

Edited by: Zulfikar Abbany

Primary source:Cascading hazards of a major Bengal basin earthquake and abrupt avulsion of the Ganges River. Published in the journals Nature Communications by E.L. Chamberlain, S.L. Goodbred, M.S. Steckler, et al. 2024 (www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47786-4)

Are Saudi Arabia's plans for a non-oil future too grand?

Cathrin Schaer

DW

TODAY

Ski slopes in the desert and a city of mirrored skyscrapers: Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 was always going to be expensive. But is it too expensive? Recent events seem to suggest the oil-rich nation can't afford it all.

The skyscraper city, known as The Line, was supposed to accommodate 1.5 million people; now it will only have space for 300,000

Image: Balkis Press/ABACA/picture alliance

When the plans were announced, many onlookers marveled at their scale and grandeur. Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030 — the country's plan to diversify away from its dependence on oil revenue — included everything from a ski slope in the desert, to a whole city just for sports and entertainment, to a car-less, carbon-neutral mega-city, Neom, in the middle of the desert.

Vision 2030 was also about changing perceptions of Saudi Arabia on the international stage. The various projects being cast as a sign of modernization in the religiously conservative country, which is ruled by an authoritarian royal family that brooks little political or social dissent.

However since the ambitious plan was announced in 2015, things have changed a lot. Over the past few months, ministers in the Saudi government have explained how Vision 2030 is being reduced in scope.

Last December the country's Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said some Vision 2030 projects would be delayed. In April, at a Riyadh meeting of the World Economic Forum, al-Jadaan said Saudi Arabia was adapting to current circumstances.

Saudi Arabia's finance minister: "There are challenges. We’ll change course, we’ll adjust, we’ll extend some of the projects, we’ll downscale some projects"

Image: Tu Yifan/Xinhua/picture alliance

For example, a gigantic, shiny line of mirrored skyscrapers in the desert called The Line — one of Neom's most important sub-projects — is being reduced from the original 170 kilometer-long arc to just over 2 kilometers.

This isn't the first adjustment to Neom either. The project was supposed to be finished by 2030 but now looks likely to take a further 20 years. It was supposed to cost around $500 billion (€468 billion) but Neom's budget may go as high as $2 trillion, observers said.

Delays and budget overruns

Other aspects of Vision 2030 haven't gone as planned either. Some of the more ambitious projects were meant to attract foreign investors to Saudi Arabiabut the desert kingdom is having a hard time doing that and levels of foreign direct investment have remained lower than forecast. Analysts say that regional instability — such as the conflict in Gaza — and a lack of Saudi regulatory transparency is keeping investors hesitant.

Although Saudi Arabia always expected to foot much of the bill for Vision 2030, it is now being forced to pay for almost all of it.

For 2023, the Saudi government forecast foreign direct investment at $22 billion (around €21 billion) but it only reached $19 billion

Image: Coust Laurent/ABACA/picture alliance

Much of that funding comes via the Public Investment Fund, or PIF, one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, fueled by Saudi oil revenues.

In March, the Saudi government transferred 8% of shares in state-owned oil company, Aramco, to the PIF. This means the PIF now holds 16% of Aramco, valued at $2 trillion, making it the fourth most valuable company in the world. Critics have also pointed to the fact that, even though the PIF manages a portfolio of assets worth $940 billion, it only has about $15 billion in funds.

Analysts say this reliance on oil prices is what makes the Vision 2030 projects vulnerable. The International Monetary Fund says the Saudis need oil prices around $96 a barrel in order to achieve Vision 2030. So far this year, the price of a barrel of crude, often used as an indicator for the oil market, has gone from around $70 in January to around $81 this month.

This week, business media outlet Bloomberg also reported that Saudi Arabia had become the biggest issuer of bonds among emerging markets, beating out China for the first time in over a decade.

Government bonds are issued to finance public spending; they're a form of loan on which the issuing government pays interest to bond holders. The Saudis are taking out more of these kinds of loans than ever in order to cover the lack of foreign direct investment, Bloomberg reported. Bankers also told the outlet that Saudi Arabia won't be able to continue issuing bonds at the current pace for too long because the cost of financing them — that is, paying the interest — will become too great.

In mid-June there were reports that Saudi-state funded companies were being asked to make budget cuts

Image: Asmaa ElTouny/TheMiddleFrame/picture alliance

Is Vision 2030 in real trouble?

"With the combination of factors, it's hard not to come to the conclusion that there is a certain degree of economic policy juggling going on [in Saudi Arabia] right now," says Robert Mogielnicki, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, DC.

Some of the recent statements from Saudi officials, stating that timelines may need to be reassessed on certain projects, could even be considered comparatively unusual, he said. "It's something we haven't really heard since the launch of Vision 2030."

However, Mogielnicki argued, "the status of Vision 2030 is not as spectacular, nor as disastrous as a lot of people make out. The reality is that it's somewhere in the middle."

Some aspects of Vision 2030 are working out well. A February "half-time" report by US investment bank Citigroup found that things like female participation in the workforce, locals' home ownership levels and revenues from non-oil related sectors had all seen "significant progress."

Vision 2030 is under construction: Thanks to the plan, Saudi women made up 34% of the labor market in 2023

Image: Taidgh Barron/ZUMAPRESS/picture alliance

In a June statement, after a mission to Saudi Arabia, researchers at the International Monetary Fund concluded that the country's "unprecedented economic transformation is progressing well." They also welcomed "spending reprioritization" around Vision 2030.

Ever since Saudi Arabia launched Vision 2030 launched, the various projects within it have evolved, Mogielnicki explained.

The program was hugely varied and predicated on speedy development. Add the costs of some of the more expensive Vision 2030 projects to the everyday funding required to keep Saudi Arabia running and you can see why there's a need for reassessment happening now, he noted. Some projects, such as the development of green hydrogen, are now seen as more worthwhile, others will be given a longer timeline.

None of this is likely to dent the Saudi ruling family's hold on power either, he noted.

"The Saudis definitely still have a lot of cards to play with, but it's also true that right now they're not operating with the strongest possible hand," Mogielnicki concluded. "It [Vision 2030] has initiated a major and fundamental shift in Saudi Arabia's economic and social trajectories. But there is still a great deal of work ahead."

Cathrin Schaer Author for the Middle East desk.

German center-right gets tough on Ukrainian refugees

Ben Knight

DW

TODAY

Germany's center-right parties are coming up with new ideas to clamp down on Ukrainian refugees. But critics argue the proposals are counterproductive for the country's job market.

Around 1.3 million people with Ukrainian citizenship are living in Germany, most of whom were women and children

mage: Carsten Koall/dpa/picture alliance


Germany's center-right opposition parties — who are leading in the polls — are toughening their attitude toward Ukrainian refugees, with a leading member of Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) now calling for them to be sent back to Ukraine if they don't find a job.

"More than two years after the start of the war, the principle must now apply: Take work in Germany or return to safe areas of western Ukraine," the CSU's parliamentary leader Alexander Dobrindt told the tabloid Bild am Sonntag newspaper at the weekend.

Though the claim has been frequently debunked by migration researchers, Dobrindt repeated the argument that unemployment benefits — known as Bürgergeld, or citizens' income — were keeping Ukrainians from finding work. "We need stronger obligations to cooperate for asylum-seekers when it comes to taking up work," Dobrindt said.

The German Foreign Ministry responded in a regular government press conference on Monday, saying that there were no safe areas in Ukraine.

The argument for restricting the benefits of Ukrainian refugees in Germany was previously made by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) — the CSU's non-Bavarian big sister in German politics — and last week by the smallest party in the Chancellor Olaf Scholz' center-left coalition, the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP).

"Newly arrived war refugees from Ukraine should no longer receive a citizen's income, but should fall under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act," FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai told Bild last Monday. This, he suggested, would force more Ukrainians to find a job.

"We have a shortage of labor everywhere — in the restaurant and construction industries, for example, or in the care sector," Djir-Sarai added. "We should no longer be using taxpayers' money to finance unemployment, but instead we need to ensure that people get jobs."

Both Scholz's center-left Social Democrats (SPD) and his other coalition partner, the Green Party, have rejected the idea.

The CSU's Alexander Dobrindt has stepped up the rhetoric against Ukrainian refugees

Image: dts Nachrichtenagentur/picture alliance

Cutting refugees' benefits is 'naked populism'

Around 1.3 million people with Ukrainian citizenship are living in Germany, according to government figures for March 2024, most of whom are women and children. According to the Federal Interior Ministry, around 260,000 of them are Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60.

"It doesn't make sense to talk about supporting Ukraine in the best way we can and at the same time to pay for Ukrainians who have abandoned their country," Brandenburg's CDU Interior Minister Michael Stübgen told the newspaper network RND.

But the respected German economist Marcel Fratzscher dismissed the FDP's demand as "naked populism." "No one will be better off, no one will have a single euro more, if Germany treats refugees worse and cuts their benefits," Fratzscher, the president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), told RND on Tuesday.

The government's spokespeople swiftly clarified that the FDP's stance did not reflect that of Olaf Scholz, telling reporters at a press conference last week that there were no plans to change the help offered to Ukrainian refugees. In fact, as they pointed out, EU interior ministers agreed earlier this month to extend Ukrainian refugees' special protection status until 2026.

This status prevents Ukrainians from having to go through a lengthy asylum procedure upon arrival, allows them to freely choose their place of residence, and gives them the immediate right to social benefits, education, and a work permit.

Ukrainian refugees are only entitled to social benefits if their income (and, if applicable, their assets) is not sufficient to cover the cost of living.

How some Ukrainians are dodging conscription  07:36

Access to the labor market

Alexander (name changed), a 37-year-old Ukrainian who spent about a year living on the citizen's income in Berlin, said he could understand the sentiment behind the FDP and CDU's calls, but that the Bürgergeld had been vital to helping him find his feet in a very dark period of his life.

"When I came here I was totally lost, I was mentally lost," he told DW. "Then we went to the job center, and we had the payments, we had the support from them. In my case everything went pretty smoothly."

Receiving Bürgergeld — currently €563 ($603) a month for single people — also meant Alexander, a music producer and sound designer who had a successful business in Ukraine, had access to job counselling and help finding a German language course, all of which ultimately allowed him to get off state support within a year. Under the Asylum Seekers Benefits Act, he would have received just €354 a month, and no help from the job center.

Alexander's story is not unique, according to research done by Kseniia Gatskova, of the Institute for Employment Research (IAB), who coordinated a long-term survey on Ukrainian war refugees in Germany.

"Of course, the citizen's income is important — it allows people to cope with everyday life," she told DW. "But integration means much more — refugees need extensive integration measures, for example language courses and advice in job centers."

According to the Federal Employment Agency in March 2024, more than 700,000 Ukrainians were receiving the basic benefits for jobseekers. This included 501,000 people who were classified as fit to work and 217,000 who were not — these were mostly children.

Some 185,000 Ukrainian refugees are employed and paying social security contributions. In October 2023, a study by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation revealed that integration of Ukrainian war refugees into the German labor market was lagging behind that of other EU countries: While just 18% of Ukrainian refugees had found a job in Germany, in Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark the figure was two thirds or more.

Gatskova stressed that the last two years had shown that the rate of Ukrainians who had found work had grown.

"They are very keen to integrate into the labor market— over 90% of refugees from Ukraine want to work in Germany," she said. "How are people supposed to finance themselves during the period when they have not yet learned the German language, have not had their qualifications recognized and have not yet found a job?"

Not every Ukrainian wants to fight

Germany's aging population means the country is becoming increasingly dependent on foreign labor in several sectors. But what troubles many critics is that many of the Ukrainian refugees are, like Alexander, men of fighting age — though the uncomfortable truth is that many Ukrainian men don't want to fight.

"How people perceive war here, and how a guy from a country where there is war perceives it is very different," said Alexander. "I think if a country promises help, and people need help, that country still needs to help people. In my case, I feel indebted to Germany, and I'm really thankful for that, and I'm going to be paying it back with my taxes."

"I think supporting people when they come to a country for a year or two is pretty good — it's an investment in future labor power," he added. "That will help your country to grow. Another question is: How long should you support these people? For, me it should be one, two, three years maximum."

Researchers like Gatskova believe that, in general, the system needs to be reformed to help more refugees find work, whether they're Ukrainian or not.

"We are calling for the removal of institutional barriers to labor market integration," she said. "The longer asylum procedures, work bans, and mobility restrictions have a negative impact on labor market integration."

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

This article was first published on June 16, 2024 and later updated and republished to reflect news developments.

Is the EU doing enough to prepare for wildfires?

Holly Young

DW

TODAY

Climate change is fueling ever more frequent and intense fires across Europe. What is being done to help the continent navigate a fire-risk future?

In recent years, Portugal has been devastated by forest fires

Image: Joao Henriques/AP Photo/picture alliance

Last summer, flames devoured homes and olive groves as they raged uncontrollably for days in Greece, engulfing an area bigger than New York City and leaving white ash and mourning in their wake.

It was the biggest fire ever recorded in Europe.

While wildfires are a natural annual occurrence, rising temperatures and intensified drought periods are creating drier, fire-prone weather that makes them burn faster, longer and more ferociously.

In Europe, as around the globe, they are becoming more frequent, intense and widespread. In 2023 alone, they scorched an area around twice the size of Luxembourg, causing more than €4 billion ($4.3 billion) in damages and releasing 20 megatons of climate-heating CO2 emissions into the air — equivalent to nearly a third of all annual emissions from international aviation in the EU.

But with rising temperatures expected to increase the risk of wildfires across Europe, is the continent prepared?

Europe is expanding fire response

"Forest fires are getting more and more significant," said Balazs Ujvari, a spokesperson for the European Commission. "More and more we find situations where member states are not able to cope."


The focus of the EU's fire response so far has been the expansion of firefighting capabilities through the EU Civil Protection Mechanism and RescEU program, which lend support to countries dealing with extreme wildfires.

Last year, its fleet of planes, helicopters and firefighters doubled in size, with the fire in Greece mobilizing the biggest EU aerial response operation to date.

Ahead of this year's fire season Ujvari said they have 28 planes, four helicopters and 556 firefighters stationed across four fire-prone countries. A further €600 million has been allocated to further expanding the fleet by the end of the decade.

Ujvari added that the EU can also provide images of affected areas from its Copernicus satellite system to help local authorities monitor and tackle blazes.

Central and northern European countries have experienced more wildfires in recent years

Image: Patricia de Melo Moreira/AFP

Firefighting alone isn't enough

Yet some scientists and policy experts argue the EU could do more to prevent fires starting in the first place.

Around 90% of EU funding for tackling wildfires goes into response, and only 10% into prevention, according to one estimate from German EU lawmaker Anna Deparnay-Grunenberg.

The occurrence of fires that are extremely difficult to bring under control — such as those during Portugal's 2017 wildfire season that burned a total of 500,000 hectares and claimed over 100 lives — highlight the limits of prioritizing fire response, said Alexander Held, senior expert at the European Forest Institute.


"Science and experience tell us that to prevent these disaster fires, it's no use investing in fire suppression because they can't be suppressed. The only thing you can do is avoid them happening or ensure that they don't burn with intensities beyond the threshold of control," said Held.

To do this, the EU needs to push more land-based fire prevention and nature-based solutions, he said. "The more climate change we observe, the more we should actually invest in making the landscape less burnable."
Forest management needs to be ramped up

There are many methods available to establish more sustainable land management and increase the resilience of forests, explained Julia Bognar, head of the land use and climate program at the sustainability think tank Institute for European Environmental Policy.

This includes thinning and spacing trees properly, and reducing floor vegetation through prescribed burning or introducing more grazing animals like cattle and goats that eat the dry shrubs, which act as fuel and help a fire to spread.

Forest fires can spread quickly across monocultures, such as eucalyptus plantations

Image: Laurent Guerinaud/UIG/IMAGO

Shifting away from monocultures, such as the eucalyptus plantations that ignited during Portugal's severe 2017 fires, would also make forests more resilient.

"With more diversity of trees and older growth trees, they have a better capacity for storing water and preventing drought," said Bognar.

Approaches need to be tailored to the climates of individual countries, said Held, explaining in hotter places like southern Spain it would involve prescribed burning while the weather is mild and establishing a mosaic of different land use, including grazed land that keeps the biomass — which turns into fuel when it is dry and hot — at a low level.

"Here [in Central Europe] resilience means promoting broad-leaved forest, mixed forest, shady and wet forests," said Held, adding that technical measures like fire breaks or fuel buffer zones with reduced fuel out along routes in the forest would also help. He added encouraging more people back into rural areas to manage the land — to engage in practices such as organic farming or continuous cover forestry — is also key.

More coordination and long-term solutions needed

There is an increasing amount of fire prevention best practice being shared in Europe, said Bognar. This includes guidelines for sustainable forest management published by the European Commission in 2023. "But there's not necessarily a concerted effort at the EU level to be pressing for these types of changes… so it's really inconsistent across the EU," she said.

Bognar said rethinking the EU approach to rising wildfire threats needs to include more long-term solutions, such as pushing through the proposed Forest Monitoring Framework — which would give a clearer picture of Europe's forests — and implementing the Nature Restoration Law which, despite being watered down and facing resistance from some member states, aims to support fire resilience by increasing forest biodiversity.

Increasing forest resilience could help prevent intense wildfires

 Alexandros Avramidis/REUTERS

While wildfire experts have long lamented how much more financial support there is for firefighting, there are some funds that can be used for prevention, said Held. But he explained there is too little understanding and coordination in how to access this support, and a lack of solid wildfire prevention strategy at the national level.

One notable exception to this, he said, is Portugal.

Since its devastating 2017 fires, the country has shifted its approach to emphasize forest management, including promoting the plantation of native fire-adapted species as well as fuel breaks — artificial areas with less vegetation that act as barriers to stop or slow down fires — and buffer zones around new and existing buildings in risk areas. France has also made changes, introducing legislation last year cracking down on landowners that fail to clear their forests of undergrowth.

But Jesus San-Miguel, senior researcher at the European Commission Joint Research Centre, said a key barrier on the continent is that the European Commission can only give advice and support. Ultimately, it's member states that are responsible for forest management and fire prevention.

"Prevention is a slow process, it is less visible than firefighting," said San-Miguel. "So, when you have many planes fighting, they seem to be really doing a lot but prevention should be prioritized. Because it is so much cheaper."

Edited by: Tamsin Walker

ARTICLE CHARTS/INFOGRAPHICS

Sources:

https://joint-research-centre.ec.europa.eu/jrc-news-and-updates/wildfires-2023-among-worst-eu-century-2024-04-10_en
EU Joint Research Centre information on 2023 wildfires

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_2943
European Commission information on rescEU

https://www.oecd.org/climate-change/wildfires/policy-highlights-taming-wildfires-in-the-context-of-climate-change.pdf
Taming Wildfires in the Context of Climate Change, OECD report

DIVORCE

Gender gap fuels disputes as Japan gets joint custody

Tokyo (AFP) – Masaki Kubota's delight at reuniting with his two sons gave way to heartbreak when the younger, two years old, stared at him uncomprehendingly as if to say: "Who are you?"

Issued on: 25/06/2024 - 04:41

A divorced woman sits on a children's swing set during an interview with AFP at a location in central Japan

 © Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP

It was their first encounter since his wife left with the boys a year earlier -- the kind of painful separation that Japan's new parental custody rules aim to prevent.

The country enacted laws last month allowing joint custody after divorce, replacing a decades-old system where it was granted to only one side, and almost always to the mother.

But the change has proved polarising in a country where campaigners say sole custody acts as a bulwark against forms of domestic abuse courts may fail to recognise.

Rights groups argue that mothers who have escaped economic or psychological violence -- exacerbated by financial inequalities -- risk being dragged back into abusive relationships under joint custody.

Pressure had long been building on lawmakers, including from the United Nations, which recommended in 2019 that Japan allow joint custody "when it is in the child's best interests".

A French father's high-profile hunger strike during the Tokyo Olympics also drew global attention to the issue.

"It's painful -- I'm sorry I cannot be part of their lives and watch them grow," the 43-year-old told AFP.

He says his wife, who left him in 2022, felt she had been disproportionately saddled with domestic duties, but he argues that he contributed where he could.

Having sought access to his sons through the courts, Kubota sewed train and cartoon patches onto his jacket to make them smile at their reunion.

But he was devastated by his son's reaction.

"I felt like I was being erased from his memory," he said.

'Like a slave'

Under the new rules, due to take effect by 2026, sole custody can be maintained in court-identified cases of domestic violence and child abuse.

Divorcing couples decide the terms of their custody under the new rules, which have critics on both sides.

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Single mother Shiho Tanaka, who heads a support group, told AFP her husband pressured her into quitting her job, then used his financial power to treat her 'like a slave' 

© Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP

Some pro-joint custody campaigners say they want clearer frameworks and for Japan to stop tolerating alleged child abductions.

On the other hand, those against it say that in Japan, whose gender wage gap of 21 percent is the worst in the G7 -- almost double that of France -- spousal abuse of less tangible forms is more widespread than commonly thought.

"Being denied money for a living" was the second-biggest divorce trigger for Japanese women in 2023, followed by "mental abuse", judicial data show.

"It was an escape," she said of her decision to leave with her two toddlers, denying it constituted an abduction.

Unless Japan's deep gender imbalances are rectified, "we're nowhere near ready to even discuss joint custody," said Tanaka, now head of a group supporting single mothers.

"Mothers and children who have escaped violence might be dragged back to that abusive relationship under joint custody, because power dynamics don't easily change, even after divorce."

A group of people rally outside Tokyo's National Diet Building against a government plan to allow joint custody after divorce 

© Yuichi YAMAZAKI / AFP

Another 50-year-old divorcee, who took flight with her newborn baby in 2010, said she surrendered her career after two traumatising miscarriages, only to find herself "suddenly poor" with no income of her own.

"The free will I had always had, along with my ability to make my own choices, was no longer respected," she said.

"I felt like I had become a very weak person."

'Feeble' welfare provision

Driving the inequality in part, critics say, is a long-standing tax policy disincentivising dependent spouses, usually wives, from full-time work.

Japanese husbands spend notoriously few hours on household tasks -- just 47 minutes versus 247 minutes for wives on a weekday -- preventing women from re-entering the workforce.

"The majority of women work non-regular jobs," especially after marriage and children, said Yuki Senda, a sociology professor at Musashi University.

"It's extremely difficult for them to be financially independent."

Measures to enforce child support payments such as through penalties are scarce in Japan, and most divorces are finalised without court involvement.

Left-behind father Kubota argues that if parents like him "keep being denied chances to see their children", they lose a sense of duty, such as to pay enough child support.

"Parents feel less responsible when stripped of their authority as parents."

© 2024 AFP

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Whose Family Values? 

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FAMILY VALUES 

 

Afghan Masomah 'proud' to be a voice for refugees at Olympics

Paris (AFP) – Masomah Ali Zada is "proud" to represent "all those who have been forced to flee their country" in her role as chef de mission of the Refugee team at the Paris Olympics, she told AFP.

Issued on: 25/06/2024 - 

Afghan cyclist Masomah Ali Zada says she is proud to represent people like her who have fled their countries 

© Joël SAGET / AFP

The 28-year-old Afghan has transferred seamlessly from Olympic cyclist for the Refugee team at the Tokyo 2020 Games to a managerial role and will be "the spokesperson for the 120 million displaced people round the world."

Masomah will be in charge of 36 athletes hailing from 11 countries and competing across 12 sports at the Games which run from July 26 to August 11.

"It fills me with great ride and is an immense honour to represent, along with this unique and special team, those people who have been obliged to flee their country," Masomah told AFP, speaking in French in a round of interviews at the Paris Games organisers' headquarters to commemorate United Nations Refugees Day.

Masomah has achieved a lot in the eight years since she arrived in France, gaining the right of asylum after being refused a visa in her first application and she recently obtained her masters in civil engineering at Lille University.

Masomah can relate to the refugees having been one herself -- she lived in Iran from the age of two to 10 before returning to Afghanistan.

"I know what it is to be a refugee," said Masomah, her eyes highlighted by eyeliner and her head covered by a black veil.

"I had bad experiences, which led me to wonder whether I would ever be respected and it posed a lot of questions over my future."

Masomah acknowledges she is in a better position than her female compatriots back in Afghanistan.

"When I compare my situation here, in France, where I can live and travel on my own, to that of Afghanistan-based women... I am sad and disappointed to be unable to do anything for them," said a visibly emotional Masomah.

Masomah Ali Zada, pictured at the Paris Olympics' organisers headquarters, had stones thrown at her when she rode her bike around Kabul

 © Joël SAGET / AFP

Since they returned to power in August, 2021, the Taliban has used its austere interpretation of Islam to erode women's rights.

Women have been de facto barred from sports as part of rules based on the Taliban government’s strict interpretation of Islam that have restricted their access to public spaces such as parks and gyms, as well as education and certain jobs.
'Any dream is possible'

Nevertheless Afghanistan will have a six-member team in Paris, three men and three women, after intense talks between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Afghan National Olympic Committee.

The latter has told AFP that all but one of the six team members are based outside the country.

"I am so happy there will be three Afghan women and they will be equal with the men," said Masomah, who added she will go along to cheer them on in their events.

Masomah, who belongs to the historically persecuted Hazara Shiite minority, said she experienced abuse and stigma when out on her bike in Afghanistan after she returned from Iran.

She said people would hurl stones and insults at her as she cycled at great speed around Kabul, but it only served to spur her on and she made the national team aged just 16.

"I grew up amid great inequality and insecurity," she said.

"We lived in fear, but when I got on my bike I felt free. I forgot about problems.

"I had the impression I was empowered, when in Afghanistan one thinks women are incapable of doing certain things," said Masomah, who finally left the country due to the hostility from the conservative elements of Afghan society.

Masomah, though, is keen to pursue a career in sport and one would not bet against her succeeding given how far her determination and courage has brought her so far.

"You must work really hard to fulfil your dream," she said.

"I had to put in three times the effort of a French student: between learning the language, the university courses, and the sport."

The fulfilment of her dream bore fruit in Tokyo.

"I lived my dream when the crowd cried out my name," said Masomah, who came last in the time-trial, one of the rare events, due to Covid restrictions, which spectators were permitted to attend.

"After that I said to myself any dream is possible to realise because I was there."

© 2024 AFP

More than 20,000 children missing amid Gaza war, NGO says

Issued on: 25/06/2024 

An estimated 21,000 children are missing in Gaza, with many thought to be buried under the rubble of destroyed buildings and presumed dead, according to a report published by Save the Children. Children account for around 40 percent of all deaths in Gaza, the NGO says.

Investigation highlights 'attack on press freedom' in Gaza war

A collaborative investigation by international media outlets on Tuesday shed light on the circumstances behind more than 100 Palestinian journalists and media workers being killed in the Gaza war, some while wearing a press vest.

Issued on: 25/06/2024 

Al Jazeera's bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Al-Dahdouh (C), during the funeral of his son Hamza Wael Dahdouh, a journalist who was killed in Rafah.

 © Mohammed Abed, AFP
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A consortium led by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and involving around 50 journalists from 13 organisations including AFP, The Guardian and the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism group (ARIJ) took part in the four-month probe.

It looked into strikes involving journalists and media infrastructure since Israel launched a devastating offensive in the Gaza Strip in response to Palestinian militant group Hamas carrying out an unprecedented attack in Israel on October 7.

"More than 100 journalists and media workers have been killed," Forbidden Stories' Laurent Richard said in an editorial accompanying the Gaza Project's publication.

"Today's Gaza journalists have long known that their 'press' vests do not protect them," he wrote.

"Worse still, the protective gear might further expose them."

06:03   FOCUS 

© FRANCE 24

Carlos Martinez de la Serna, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, expressed shock at the toll.

"This is one of the most flagrant attacks on press freedom that I remember," he told the investigation.

The Israeli military said it "does not intentionally harm journalists, and that journalists may have been harmed during air strikes or operational activities aimed at military targets".

"Many of the cases mentioned in the report are actually cases of militants who were killed during military activity, but reported as journalists," it added.
'Supposed to identify and protect us'

The probe found that four journalists were allegedly killed or wounded by a drone while wearing a press vest.

Fourteen in total were killed, wounded or allegedly targeted while wearing their protective gear describing them as a member of the "press".

At least 40 journalists and media workers were killed while at home in Gaza, it added.

"Whereas the press vest was supposed to identify and protect us according to international laws... it is now a threat to us," said Basel Khair al-Din, a Palestinian journalist in Gaza who believes he was targeted by a drone strike while wearing a press vest.

ARIJ also surveyed 239 surviving journalists from June 6 to June 16. More than 200 had been displaced from their homes by the war, it found.

Seventy-two said they had lost family members. Of those, 11 reported their own children had been killed.

13:04

SCOOP © FRANCE 24

As part of the probe, AFP looked with other media into a strike on its Gaza bureau on November 2, after its staff had evacuated but while it was still broadcasting a livestream of the war from a camera on its balcony.

They found the strike to likely have been caused by an Israeli tank.

The Israeli military has said the bureau was not targeted but damage to it could have been caused by a "shock wave or shrapnel" from another attack.

AFP global news director Phil Chetwynd has called for a "very clear and transparent investigation" from the Israeli authorities into the incident.
'Completely unacceptable'

He also said that more than 100 journalists and media workers having been killed in the Gaza Strip in such a short time was "completely unacceptable".

"And the thing that worries me most is that it's not causing a scandal. Around the world I don't see the voices of the various governments complaining," he added.

Hamas' attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 42 are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,626 people, also mostly civilians, the health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza says.

Shuruq Asad, spokeswoman for the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate (PJS), said more than 70 media offices had been bombed since the start of the war and she too was taken aback by the lack of global outrage.

"I don't think this would be the reaction of the world if there was 100 Ukrainian journalists killed," she said, referring to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

(AFP)

Media probe finds Israeli tank fire likely hit AFP Gaza office

Paris (AFP) – A collaborative investigation by AFP and international media outlets published Tuesday points to Israeli tank fire likely being the cause of blasts that damaged the global news agency's Gaza bureau on November 2.

Issued on: 25/06/2024 - 

A gaping hole is shown on November 3, 2023 in the Hajji building which houses Agence France Presse (AFP) news bureau in Gaza City, amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas 

© Bashar TALEB / AFP/File

A consortium led by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and involving around 50 journalists from 13 outlets carried out a four-month probe into several strikes involving journalists and media infrastructure since the war in Gaza erupted on October 7.

The strike on the AFP bureau, less than a month into the fighting sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas attacking Israel, did not cause any casualties as staff had evacuated the site.

But the office's 11th-floor server room was severely damaged.

On a balcony on the floor below, an AFP camera was capturing live images of the Israeli offensive in the Hamas-ruled territory and beaming them to viewers around the world.

As the camera kept rolling, it caught the very moments the bureau was hit.

As part of the investigation, journalists and experts pored over archives of this live footage, images of the aftermath of the strike and satellite imagery to try to determine the cause of the blast.

Five experts consulted said the damage to the server room was likely caused by a tank, a weapon not owned by any other party in the conflict apart from Israel.

The Israeli military has said "the building was not targeted in any way", and in June said the incident was under review.

The strike on the AFP bureau, less than a month into the fighting sparked by Palestinian militant group Hamas attacking Israel, did not cause any casualties as staff had evacuated the site 

© Bashar TALEB / AFP/File

Here is a breakdown of what the investigation has revealed:
What happened?

Since 1993, AFP has had a bureau in the Gaza Strip.

In 2015, it moved to the three top floors of the 12-storey Hajji building in Gaza City's Rimal neighbourhood, two blocks from the Mediterranean Sea.

When conflict broke out on October 7, some of AFP's team of seven journalists, one technician and one accountant in the territory had been working for the agency for over two decades.

AFP has been particularly proud of the Gaza bureau, especially in view of the limited presence of foreign press in the Palestinian territory, the agency's global news director Phil Chetwynd said.

Damage incurred from a November 2, 2023 strike on AFP's Gaza office server room, in Gaza City © - / AFP/File

AFP staff "have a great attachment to the people who work there and the very difficult work that they do", he said.

Adel Zaanoun, a journalist whose career with AFP in Gaza spans three decades, said the bureau in the Hajji building, with its view onto the Mediterranean Sea and over large parts of the city, had been useful for coverage, but also "a safe haven in times of war".

"It's our second home," he said.

It is from the office in the Hajji building that staff initially covered the conflict, with the agency sharing the bureau's address and coordinates with the Israeli military within the first day of the war.

The AFP team left on October 13, the same day Israel demanded all civilians leave Gaza City.

But the camera on its 10th-floor balcony continued filming.

As tanks slowly encircled Gaza in early November, it was live streaming images from the city.

On November 2 around midday local time, blasts rocked the AFP bureau, severely damaging the server room and leaving a gaping hole in one of its outside walls.

The live camera on the balcony on the floor below, connected to solar panels, was not hit and kept rolling.

After a few temporary interruptions, it only stopped coverage definitively on November 12, when no one was around to reboot the transmission system.

A consortium led by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories and involving around 50 journalists from 13 outlets carried out a four-month probe into several strikes involving journalists and media infrastructure since the war in Gaza erupted in October 

© - / AFP/File

AFP on November 4 called on Israel for "an in-depth and transparent investigation" into the exact involvement of its military in the strike.

The Israeli military said there had been an Israeli "strike near the building to eliminate an immediate threat" that "might have caused debris", but "the building was not targeted in any way".
What do the live footage and images of damage show?

Archived live footage from the camera shows bright flashes in the distance several seconds before blasts rock the building, with several experts establishing a correlation between the two.

Five said it was likely tank fire that had hit the building.

Trevor Ball, a former US army explosives expert, said the damage to the server room was consistent with tank fire.

On a scale of one to 10, "I would go with a 10 due to the small amount of damage and fragments consistent with tank rounds," he said.

British ammunition expert Adrian Wilkinson noted the damage inside the 11th-floor server room was consistent with a 120mm M339 "bunker buster shell" containing 2.3 kilos of explosive known to have been used by Israeli tanks during the Gaza war, and not owned by any other party in the conflict.

"No other actor has a weapon system that fires line of sight with a warhead of 2.3 kilos, which is consistent with the damage caused inside the building," he said.

Damage showed "the device certainly detonated inside the building", he added.

"A debris strike would not cause the damage observed," he added, dismissing the Israeli military's claim.

He said the building was likely targeted.

"The weapon type and accuracy inherent in the Israeli tank weapon system means that the weapon hit the target it was aimed at," he said.

"Why it was fired? I cannot comment."

A weapons expert from the French military, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said that there was a "more than a seven out of 10" chance that it was an Israeli tank shell that caused the damage.

"If it had been a different kind of projectile, we would have seen different kinds of shrapnel," he said.

War Noir, an independent weapons researcher who works under a pseudonym, said it was highly probable the live stream footage had caught a tank firing at the building.

"It is very likely that most of the attacks in the streams were caused by a tank gun," he said.

Asked for clarification about the November 2 attack during the investigation, the Israeli military appeared to repeat its previous statement.

"The offices of the AFP agency were not the target of the attack and damage to them could have been caused by the shock wave or shrapnel," it said, without clearly saying to what attack they referred or mentioning the date.

It added the incident was under review.
Remaining questions

Where did the tank fire originate from?

For each strike, the live footage captures a flash, a strike on the building and then the sound of a muzzle blast.

Knowing the speed of sound, consortium journalists calculated the distance between the flash of the weapon going off and the camera that captured the sound of its detonation, placing the origin of fire at around three kilometres (1.8 miles).

Positioning that radius over a satellite map, it located the possible point of departure to a wasteland northeast of the AFP bureau.

While analysis of images could not clearly establish a line of sight from that plot, the investigation could not categorically exclude that one existed.

The ongoing nature of the conflict meant that a journalist could not be sent back there to take extra pictures.

But Israeli tanks were in that area around that date.

Satellite images of the area on November 3, the day after the strikes, show what look like vehicle tracks on that patch of wasteland.

Satellite imagery company Maxar sent partners views of other areas of the city on November 2, the day of the strikes on the AFP bureau, but for the full wasteland area said it did not have "imagery that we can provide".

It also remains unclear why the building was struck.

AFP has no indication that any Hamas members were in the building on November 2 or in the days prior, said global news director Chetwynd.

The team did not hear any unusual activity going on near the camera in parts of the live stream footage that they viewed from November 2 and days before.

It is also unclear if the live stream was being targeted.

But the strikes come within a series of incidents involving the Israeli army and media over the course of the war.

Less than an hour before the strike on the AFP office, a strike hit another tower block nearby called the Ghefari building, on whose 16th floor a local outlet called the Palestinian Media Group (PMG) was also shooting live footage.

Its clients since the start of the war had included international news agency Reuters.

That strike damaged the 16th floor of Ghefari, wounding one of its journalists.

PMG's Hassan Madhoun said a second strike again hit his offices in the Ghefari tower on November 3 from a different direction, and he was certain "it was targeting the cameras".

In southern Lebanon on October 13, an AFP team and reporters from other media outlets including Reuters and Al Jazeera were capturing images of clashes on the Israeli border, when they were also hit, killing a Reuters journalist and seriously wounding an AFP photographer who later had a leg amputated.

Al Jazeera was streaming live from the location at the time.

An AFP investigation in December also pointed to a tank shell only used by the Israeli army in the high-tension border region.

More recently, Israel last month briefly blocked the AP news agency's live video of Gaza from southern Israel.

For Shuruq Asad, spokeswoman for the Palestinian Journalist Syndicate (PJS), the intent of the November 2 strike was clear.

"This is a clear and direct attack on a press office," she said.

"Israel knows the importance of the live streams... how important they are for the international press which use these wire services."

Irene Khan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, said such footage could also sometimes be used as evidence.

"Where there is strong potential for a war crime being committed, obviously the live stream becomes critical evidence," said Khan.
What's next?

Chetwynd, AFP's global news director, called for "a very clear and transparent investigation into both the incident in southern Lebanon and the incident in our bureau in Gaza".

"Any kind of attack in which journalists or media structures are damaged or hurt is extremely serious and in both these incidents there are real concerns that there was some kind of targeting of either individuals or media infrastructure," he said.

UN expert Khan stressed, that even if the offices were empty, "according to international humanitarian law, media infrastructure is civilian infrastructure, so targeting it would be potentially a war crime".

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© 2024 AFP