Childhood vaccinations stall globally, WHO warns

Over 14 million children did not receive a single shot of the key DTP triple vaccine in 2023, more than in previous years. The rate of childhood vaccinations has slowed since pre-pandemic levels.

Three out of four unvaccinated infants risk getting measles, UNICEF says

Ebrahim Hamid/AFP/Getty Images

An additional 2.7 million children remain un- or under-vaccinated in comparison to pre-pandemic levels, the United Nations has warned.

This stall in immunizations has created dangerous coverage gaps that enable outbreaks of diseases like measles, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported on Monday.

The number of children without a single dose of the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) triple vaccination increased from 12.8 million before the pandemic began to 14.5 million last year, the report said.

The share of children receiving the triple shot stood at 84% in 2023, the same as the previous year, and down from the 86% recorded in 2019.

"The latest trends demonstrate that many countries continue to miss far too many children," UNICEF chief Catherine Russell said in a statement.
Why are childhood vaccinations declining?

More than half of the world's unvaccinated children live in 31 countries with fragile, conflict-affected settings. Children from unstable or violent countries are especially vulnerable to contracting preventable diseases, due to lacking access to security, nutrition and health services.

Children in these countries are also much less likely to receive follow-up shots that are necessary for full efficiency.

The number of children who did not receive even a single dose of the DTP vaccine rose to 14.5 million in 2023, up from 13.9 million in 2022 and 12.9 million in 2019.

Monday's report also found that 6.5 million children did not get their third DTP dose.

"We are off track," World Health Organization vaccine chief Kate O'Brien said. "Global immunization coverage has yet to fully recover from the historic backsliding that we saw during the course of the pandemic," she added.

O'Brien said that skepticism over vaccines in wealthier countries — which exploded during the COVID-19 pandemic — also impacts other regions, for example, when people with migration backgrounds based in Europe spread misinformation in their home countries.


Measles outbreaks on the rise

More than 300,000 measles cases were confirmed in 2023 — nearly three times as many as a year earlier, UNICEF Association Director of Immunization Ephrem Lemango said.

Around 103 countries with low vaccination coverage of 80% or lower have suffered measles outbreaks in the past five years. By contrast, 91 countries with strong measles vaccine coverage experienced no outbreaks.

"Alarmingly, nearly three in four infants live in places at the greatest risk of measles outbreaks," Lemango said, pointing out that 10 crisis-ridden countries, including Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan, account for more than half of children not vaccinated against measles.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called measles outbreaks the "canary in the coal mine, exposing and exploiting gaps in immunization and hitting the most vulnerable first."

sp/ab (dpa, AFP, epd)

Pakistan government seeks to ban Imran Khan's party

Haroon Janjua | Farah Bahgat

The government says there is enough evidence to have Pakistan's largest opposition party Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) banned. But analysts say the move "could lead to uncertainty and chaos."

Khan's legal woes have sparked nationwide protests by PTI supporters

Image: Rizwan Tabassum/AP/Getty Images


Pakistan's Information Ministry on Monday said the government would move to ban the political party of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan.

"The government has decided to move a case to ban the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, (PTI). We will consult the Cabinet and the Supreme Court if required in this case," Atta Tarar, the information minister, told DW.

"We believe that there is credible evidence that PTI should be banned," Tarar told reporters in Islamabad, citing allegations against Khan including leaking state secrets and inciting riots.

Zulfikar Bukhari, an adviser of Imran Khan, told DW that "the government is shooting their own foot" with the plan.

"Recently a verdict by the Supreme Court also endorsed PTI as the largest party in the National Assembly," he said.

Why is Imran Khan in jail?

Khan, who served as prime minister from 2018 to 2022, has been jailed for nearly a year.

Monday's announcement comes days after a court overturned Khan's conviction and ordered his release in a case relating to his third marriage. However, Khan remains in jail on charges of inciting riots.

The former prime minister faces multiple charges in more than 100 cases. His sentences and convictions in several cases have been either suspended or overturned by the courts.

Khan claims that the cases are politically motivated and seek to prevent his return to power.

Top court recently ruled in PTI's favor

The PTI was barred from contesting elections earlier this year, forcing its members to stand as independents. The candidates then emerged as the largest single group in parliament, with 93 lawmakers.

The party claimed that there was widespread vote-rigging on election day to prevent it from winning a majority of seats in parliament. Last week, Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled that the PTI was improperly denied at least 20 seats in parliament.
Khan was ousted in a parliamentary no-confidence vote after falling out with Pakistan's powerful military generals who had once backed him.


What does this mean for Pakistan?

The government's step to ban PTI would throw the country further into political instability and uncertainty. The plan is also expected to be overturned by the Supreme Court in the coming days, said Haroon Janjua, DW's correspondent in Islamabad.

Zahid Hussain, a political analyst, told DW that the step would be "a disaster" that would "lead to the government's own downfall."

"There are very few incidents in Pakistan when a political party has been banned. The decision could lead to uncertainty and chaos. I believe the ban will be rectified by the Supreme Court."

Osama Malik, a constitutional expert, told DW that the previous PTI government had "created an unfortunate precedent" by banning the Islamic extremist party TLP under anti-terrorism laws by declaring it a militant organization. "The same precedent could be used against PTI," he said.

However, Malik noted that the proper legal procedure to ban a political party would be for the Cabinet to declare it as working against state interest, and within 15 days send a reference to the Supreme Court, which will then decide the fate of a political party.

Edited by: Rana Taha

SPECIESISM

Romania approves bear cull increase after hiker death

Romania plans to double its bear cull quota to almost 500 following the death of a young hiker who was mauled to death. Environmental groups argue the measure won't impact the rate of bear attacks.

Romania's parliament has approved a measure to kill double as many brown bears this year after a young hiker died in an attack on a Carpathian trial

Romania's parliament on Monday approved the culling of almost 500 bears this year in a bid to avoid attacks on people.

The measure was passed following the death of a 19-year-old hiker who was dragged away by a bear in the Carpathian mountains in central Romania last week.
What do we know about the bear culling measure?

Romania has annual kill quotas to control the size of the country's bear population.

In 2023, the country had a killing quota of 220. A measure was approved by Romanian lawmakers on Monday to increase that number to 481 in 2024.

Romania has Europe's largest population of brown bears outside of Russia.

The Romanian Environment Ministry estimates their number at up to 8,000.

Romania has an estimated bear population of around 8,000

Image: Frauke Scholz/imageBROKER/picture alliance

Environment Minister Mircea Fechet said in March that 26 people had been killed by bears in the last 20 years.

Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu summoned lawmakers for a special parliamentary session to deal with increasing bear attacks after the killing of the young woman. They also held a minute's silence in her honor.

Lawmakers argued that the bears' overpopulation" had led to an increase in attacks.

Environmental groups denounce planned cull

Environmental groups have condemned Romania's plans to cull more animals, with wildlife experts arguing that bears will continue to scavenge in cities as urban development eats into their habitat, climate change limits their food sources and people feed them.

"The law solves absolutely nothing," World Wildlife Fund (WWF) biologist Calin Ardelean told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

He argued that the focus should be shifted towards "prevention and intervention" and dealing with what he referred to as "problem bears."

The Romania-based private conservation group Foundation Conservation Carpathia told the Reuters news agency that the number of attacks "fluctuates yearly" and is not directly related to the rise in bear population.

Israel hits Gaza from land, sea and air as Hamas pulls out of truce talks

Israel struck the southern and central Gaza Strip on Monday and carried out raids that killed "a number of" militants, the Israeli military said, as hopes faded for a truce and hostage release deal being secured any time soon. Hamas announced on Sunday it was pulling out of truce talks after an Israeli strike targeting the head of the group's military wing, Mohammed Deif, killed scores of Palestinians.


Issued on: 15/07/2024 -

A wounded Palestinian girl is brought to be treated at the al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp after the Israeli military bombardment of a UN-run school, turned shelter, in Nuseirat, central Gaza. © Eyad Baba, AFP

Israel hammered the Gaza Strip from the air, sea and land Monday as the war in the Palestinian territory showed no sign of abating, with Hamas saying it was pulling out of truce talks.

Shells rained down on the neighbourhoods of Tal Al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajlin and Al-Sabra in Gaza City, AFP correspondents reported, while eyewitnesses said the Israeli army had shelled the Al-Mughraqa area and the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Read more

After 10 months of war, the humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘is absolutely atrocious’

Paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent said they had retrieved the bodies of five people, including three children, after Israeli air strikes in the Al-Maghazi camp, also in the central Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, eyewitnesses reported Israeli gunship fire east of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and shelling and Apache helicopter attacks in western areas of the southernmost city of Rafah.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it was continuing its activity throughout the coastal territory, and said it had conducted raids in Rafah and central Gaza that killed "a number of" militants, as well as air strikes throughout the strip over the past day.

It also said its naval forces had been firing at targets in Gaza.

Talks on hold

The school in Nuseirat was the fifth UN-run school being used as a shelter to be hit by Israel in just over a week.

 © Eyad Baba, AFP

The relentless bombardments came as prospects dwindled for a truce and hostage release deal being secured any time soon.

Hamas, the Iran-backed Islamist group that Israel has been fighting in Gaza for over nine months, said on Sunday it was withdrawing from ceasefire talks.

The decision followed an Israeli strike targeting the head of Hamas's military wing, Mohammed Deif, which the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said killed 92 people.

Deif's fate remains unknown, with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu saying there was "no certainty" he was dead while a senior Hamas official told AFP that Deif was "well and directly overseeing" operations.

Speaking after the strike on Al-Mawasi, a second senior official from the militant group cited Israeli "massacres" and its attitude to negotiations as a reason for suspending negotiations.

But according to the official, Haniyeh told international mediators Hamas was "ready to resume negotiations" when Israel's government "demonstrates seriousness in reaching a ceasefire agreement and a prisoner exchange deal".

Israel has been fighting on the ground in Gaza since October, having besieged the territory after the surprise Hamas attack on October 7. 

© Menahem Kahana, AFP

Last week, US President Joe Biden had suggested a deal might be close, saying at a NATO summit that both sides had agreed to a framework he had set out in late May.

Hamas on Monday lashed out at the US, accusing it of supporting "genocide" by supplying Israel with "internationally banned" weapons.

"We condemn in the strongest terms the... American disdain for the blood of the children and women of our Palestinian people... by providing all types of prohibited weapons to the 'Israeli' occupation," a statement from the Hamas government media office said.

Talks between the warring parties have been mediated by Qatar and Egypt, with US support, but months of negotiations have failed to bring a breakthrough.
School hit

The war was sparked by Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The strike that hit a displacement camp in Al-Mawasi killed at least 92 people, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. 

© Bashar Taleb, AFP

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.


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Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,664 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.

The war and accompanying siege have devastated the Palestinian territory, destroying much of its infrastructure, leaving the majority of its 2.4 million residents displaced and causing a dire shortage of food, medicines and other basic goods.

Among the devastated facilities have been multiple schools. On Sunday, Israeli forces struck a UN-run school in Nuseirat camp that was being used as a shelter for displaced people but which the military said "served as a hideout" for militants.

The civil defence agency in Gaza said 15 people were killed in the strike, the fifth attack in just over a week to hit a school used as shelter by displaced Palestinians.

(AFP)

Swatch profits plunge as China luxury crisis bites

Zurich (AFP) – Swiss watch group Swatch saw its first half profits plunge due to the luxury market crisis in China and warned Monday the key market was likely to remain difficult throughout the rest of the year.


Issued on: 15/07/2024 - 

Swatch is waiting for better days in China, as are most luxury brands given the deepening economic malaise in the world's number two economy

 © FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP/File

Profits tumbled 70.5 percent to 147 million Swiss francs ($164 million) on a 14 percent drop in sales to 3.4 billion francs.

Known for its brightly coloured plastic watches, Swatch also owns a number of luxury brands including Longines, Omega and Tissot, and said it was a drop in demand for upscale products that hurt its performance.

The decline in sales was "triggered by the sharp drop in demand for luxury goods in China" including Hong Kong and Macau, said the company.

Analysts surveyed by Swiss financial news agency AWP had expected a much higher net profit of 354 million francs.

Swatch shares were down 9.3 percent approaching midday while the Swiss SMI index was up 0.4 percent.

"Swatch Group is most exposed to Chinese middle-class consumers, who are clearly on the back foot," Bernstein analyst Luca Solca said in a note to clients.

The deepening economic malaise in the world's second-largest economy is being keenly felt by luxury firms, with Burberry ditching its chief executive on Monday after posting "disappointing" results mainly due to weak performance in China.

Swatch explained the poor performance by its decision to renounce layoffs and maintain its production capacity to be able to respond to a rebound in the market.

It said other measures it has taken to cut costs would begin to bear fruit in the second half of the year.

Overall, Swatch said "it expects the situation to improve strongly in the second half of the year."

But the Chinese market will likely remain challenging for the entire luxury goods industry until the end of the year, it said.

"However, China's potential remains intact," said Swatch.

"The current situation presents the Group's brands in the lower price segment with excellent opportunities for further growth and market share gains," it added.

The company pointed to the Swatch brand bucking the negative trend and increasing its sales in China by 10 percent.

© 2024 AFP

As Europe prepares for summer holidays, WHO warns that the Covid-19 era is far from over

With three out of four Europeans planning on travelling over the summer, the era of border closures, mandatory testing and vaccine certificates seems a half-remembered nightmare to many. But with more than 1,700 people still dying every week across the world from Covid-19 and vaccine coverage declining among at-risk populations, according to the WHO, the pandemic isn't something that can just be spoken about in the past tense.


Issued on: 15/07/2024 - 

A sign telling tourists to wear face masks on Patong Beach in Phuket, Thailand on August 14, 2021. 

© Jack Taylor, AFP

By :Paul MILLAR

As European countries prepare for the summer holidays, lockdown seems like a very long time ago. Three out of four Europeans are planning on travelling between June and November this year, according to the European Travel Commission, with most respondents saying they were planning on taking multiple trips over the summer. It’s a six percent rise compared with the same period last year – a sign that the world’s beleaguered tourism industry has found a firmer footing after its brush with obliteration during the worst years of the Covid-19 pandemic. More than half of those travellers will be making the trip by plane.

Whether or not they’ll be wearing masks on those flights is another question entirely. Following – or in some cases before – the WHO’s decision to declare the end of Covid-19 as a public health emergency in May last year, almost every country in the world has lifted travel restrictions requiring travellers to show proof of vaccination before boarding a flight, undergo Covid-19 testing on arrival and sometimes spend weeks in mandatory quarantine to reduce the risk of bringing the plague across their borders. Airlines have similarly loosened their once-stringent restrictions, largely leaving the wearing of masks up to passengers’ individual consciences.

No one reading this article needs to be told why the world seems so keen to return to a time when people can – depending, still, on where they were born – move freely across borders without worrying about being stranded far from their families or left languishing at the mercy of vast and clinical medical bureaucracies. But while the world is set on moving on, the WHO is still calling on countries not to forget the lessons learned throughout the pandemic.

On Thursday, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that more than 1,700 people across the world are still dying every week from Covid-19, warning that vaccine coverage was dangerously declining among people aged over 60 and in frontline health workers – two of the groups most at risk of dying due to Covid-19 infection.

The virus is still making headlines. The Tour de France has reinstated protective measures to “limit health risks” after several riders, including the UK’s Tom Pidcock and Spain's Juan Ayuso, were forced to abandon the race after testing positive for Covid-19. Masks are now mandatory for anyone coming into contact with the competitors or their teams. With millions of people expected to travel to Paris for the Olympics and Paralympics in the coming weeks, it could be a worrying precedent.

Read moreFrance sees a slight rebound in Covid-19 with the emergence of ‘Eris’ variant

A WHO report published in June 2024 found that 4.9 million older adults across 60 countries had received a vaccine dose in the first quarter of the year, corresponding to a 0.42 percent uptake rate. Among healthcare workers, this figure was just 234,000 people across 40 reporting countries – an uptake rate of 0.17 percent.

"WHO recommends that people in the highest-risk groups receive a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of their last dose," Ghebreyesus said at a press conference in Geneva.

Dr Nilufar Ahmed, a psychologist and senior lecturer in social sciences at the University of Bristol, said that declining media coverage of the virus and limited public health messaging had likely played a part in the drop in vaccinations.

“I think from a psychological point of view it just hasn’t been in the news as much,” she said. “That’s partly because of the effectiveness of the first vaccination campaign, which was so successful that it made people feel they are fully vaccinated.”

Ahmed said that beyond vaccination levels, other public health measures that had been recommended – if not mandatory – throughout the earliest years of the pandemic were also struggling to find public support.

“It’s very low in public communications,” she said. “We see very few people masking, and the response if you see someone wearing a mask is that you assume they must have Covid – not that they’re wearing it as a preventative measure.”

But these measures could still save lives. A study published in May 2024 strongly suggested that wearing masks on long-haul flights played a significant role in stopping the spread of Covid-19. On flights without enforced masking, long-haul flights saw a 25.93-fold increase in Covid-19 transmission rates compared with short flights. On flights with strict masking policies, though, no transmission was detected.

“Our findings … suggest that aircraft-acquired transmission is not inevitable if masking is strictly enforced,” the study read, stressing that the data analysed was taken from before the outbreak of the more contagious Delta and Omicron variants and mass vaccination campaigns. “On long haul-type flights where enforced masking took place and meals were served, there were no reported aircraft-acquired cases during contact tracing and follow-up.”

04:58 science © FRANCE 24

The true death toll of those early years of the pandemic remains stubbornly out of reach. The WHO reported earlier this year that as of May 26, 2024, there had been more than 775 million confirmed Covid-19 cases and more than 7 million deaths across the world since the virus was first detected in Wuhan, China in late 2019. That figure likely hides a grimmer reality – the same report says that, judging by viral loads found through wastewater surveillance, the real case load could be anything from two to almost 20 times higher.

“Covid-19 remains a major threat, and WHO urges Member States to maintain, not dismantle, their established Covid-19 infrastructure,” the report concluded.

For Ahmed, the disconnect between these WHO warnings and the public messaging around the virus across many countries reflected a “real reduction” in the messaging around how deadly Covid-19 could be.

“It needs exceptional care because we still don’t know the long-term effects, and what we do know is it has a number of associated illnesses, and we still don’t know the implications of that,” she said. “So treating it as exceptional feels like the most appropriate way forward.”

“Otherwise it becomes something like the flu, which is deadly, but we think of it as something that is only deadly for certain populations, and which we start to talk about as though it’s just a bad cold – when it fact the flu kills thousands of people.”

For its part, the WHO is still recommending that travellers wear a well-fitting mask, clean their hands regularly, get tested prior to travelling if they show Covid-19 symptoms and, if sick, consider staying home. And while being fully vaccinated is no longer a pre-requisite to most international travel, it still comes first on the WHO’s list of travel advice.

Ahmed said that pushing for more stringent public health measures around Covid-19 was a hard sell for governments desperate to distance themselves from the darkest days of the pandemic.

“It’s been difficult to keep that message because it’s always felt like an imposition on people. It’s something that people felt restricted their freedom – the messaging was not, ‘let’s manage the illness’,” she said.

“It’s very difficult for people at this time of year to think about the pandemic and the lockdowns – it still weighs heavily on people,” she said. “For some people, the avoidance of it is almost the avoidance of getting back to those days of lockdown.”

Pro-Palestinian activists held after protest at UK war memorial

London (AFP) – UK police on Monday arrested two pro-Palestinian demonstrators after a protest at Britain's Cenotaph war memorial in central London.


Issued on: 15/07/2024 -

Two people were arrested after the protest at the Cenotaph war memorial in central London 

© CARLOS JASSO / AFP

A Palestinian flag was laid in front of the Cenotaph and "180,000 killed" spray-painted on the ground in front of the monument, photos and video footage showed.

The Cenotaph is the focus every year of of national events to commemorate Britain's war dead.

"Two women were quickly arrested on suspicion of criminal damage and are in custody," the Metropolitan Police said on X, adding that damage was caused to the road and not to the monument itself.

In a statement, the Youth Demand group said its supporters had taken action to "commemorate the thousands killed in Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza".

It said Youth Demand was calling for a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the new UK government to halt all new oil and gas licences granted since 2021.

Supporters planned to disrupt the State Opening of Parliament by head of state King Charles III on Wednesday, it added.

Youth Demand last month staged a protest at the constituency home of former prime minister Rishi Sunak.

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's surprise October 7 attack on southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom are still in Gaza including 42 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,584 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to data provided by the Gaza health ministry.

© 2024 AFP

Syrians in government-held areas vote for new parliament

The vote is expected to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad's ruling Baath party in power, and pave the way for a possible constitutional amendment to extend his term.

The poll is taking place as Syria's economy continues to deteriorate after years of conflict

Polls opened on Monday in government-held parts of Syria for a legislative election that was likely to yield no surprises.

The election is the fourth to take place in Syria amid an ongoing war, which started in 2011 following mass anti-government protests and a brutal clampdown on demonstrations by security forces.

Candidates' campaigns largely revolved around general slogans, such as national unity and prosperity, in a country ravaged by a conflict involving foreign armies and jihadists.

Many people called for an election boycott in the southern province of Sweida, where anti-government protesters have regularly rallied over the past year. Online footage showed demonstrators seizing ballot boxes off a truck in a bid attempt to stop them from arriving at polling stations.

How does the election work?

The Syrian government has approved 1,516 candidates to run for the 250-seat People's Assembly.

Syrians are eligible to vote with an identity card from the age of 18. There are 8,150 polling stations in 15 voting districts in government-held parts of Syria.

People living in the Kurdish-controlled northeast, the jihadist-run city of Idlib in the northwest or along the northern border with Turkey under the rule of Ankara-backed rebels effectively cannot vote.

However, voters in government-held areas can elect candidates vying for seats representing non-government-controlled regions.

Millions of Syrians who have sought refuge abroad after the war broke out cannot vote.

What is expected?

Elections in Syria rarely have surprising results, as the country has been run by the same family for decades.

Analysts say the number of candidates put forward by President Bashar Assad's Baath party is just above the margin of members needed to propose a constitutional amendment, protect the president from being accused of treason and veto legislation.

There are no real opposition parties competing, and all the independent candidates are seen as either loyal to the regime or unthreatening.

Under current laws, Assad faces term limits that would end his presidency in 2028. The coming parliament is therefore widely expected to pass a constitutional amendment to extend his rule.

fb/rmt (AFP, AP)

No surprises expected as Syrians vote in parliamentary poll

Damascus (AFP) – Syrians in government-held areas were voting Monday in their fourth parliamentary election since civil war erupted in 2011, a poll expected to keep President Bashar al-Assad's ruling Baath party in power.


Issued on: 15/07/2024

More than 1,500 people are standing for 250 seats in the largely rubber-stamp parliament, according to Syria's Supreme Judicial Elections Committee 

© LOUAI BESHARA / AFP

The election came amid overtures from Ankara towards Damascus, after ties were severed following the start of Syria's war in 2011, with Assad saying he was open to meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan depending on the encounter's "content".

Voting was calm in most areas, but a war monitor and a local media outlet reported anti-election protests in southern Sweida province, the heartland of Syria's Druze minority, which has seen regular demonstrations for almost a year.

The Baath party -- in power since 1963 -- and its secular left-wing and Arab nationalist allies are running virtually unopposed, with independents the only alternative.

More than 1,500 people are standing for the largely rubber-stamp parliament, according to Syria's Supreme Judicial Elections Committee.

Assad's Baath party is expected to secure most of the 250 seats in the legislative ballot, which is held every four years.

The Baath party -- in power since 1963 -- and its secular left-wing and Arab nationalist allies are running virtually unopposed in the vote 

© LOUAI BESHARA / AFP

"We have to take responsibility for electing good people and not repeating the mistakes of the past in voting for old names who can't change anything," said health ministry employee Bodoor Abu Ghazaleh, 49, voting in Damascus.

Rania Deeb, a state electricity company employee, called the election "a real opportunity for citizens to express their views and choose representatives who can achieve change and the required reforms", amid long years of war and a gruelling economic crisis.
Protests in south

In Sweida province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said demonstrators attacked polling stations in several areas.

Since 2020, protests against deteriorating economic conditions have erupted sporadically in Sweida, but the latest wave started in August after the government cut fuel subsidies, with demonstrators also demanding "the fall of the regime".

"Some protesters smashed or set fire to ballot boxes," said the Britain-based Observatory.

The Syrian presidency published images of Bashar al-Assad voting at a polling booth in Damascus 

© - / Syrian Presidency Facebook page/AFP

Footage posted by local news outlet Suwayda24 showed dozens of protesters in Sweida city, one holding a sign reading "Only the corrupt vote for the corrupt".

"There is no place for this ruling gang in Syrians' present and future. Enough, leave," another read.

Suwayda24 said one person was wounded after security forces shot "randomly" as a demonstration took place in the city, while a video taken elsewhere in the province showed people throwing ballots on the ground or tearing them up.

Syrian security services have a limited presence in the province, where Damascus has turned a blind eye to tens of thousands of Druze men refusing to undertake compulsory military service.

With help from key allies Iran and Russia, Damascus has regained control of much of the territory it lost early in Syria's war, which began with the repression of anti-government protests.

It spiralled into a complex conflict drawing in foreign armies and jihadists, and has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
'Absurd'

Erdogan said this month he might invite Assad to Turkey "at any moment", in a sign of reconciliation after Ankara backed Syrian rebels seeking to topple the government.

Pro-Turkish forces now control swathes of Syria's northern border.

Assad said Monday that if a meeting with Erdogan "were to lead to results or... achieve the country's interests, I will do it".

But the problem "lies in the content of the meeting", he said, noting that "support for terrorism, and the withdrawal from Syrian territory" of Turkish troops were the "essence of the problem".

Assad also said Monday's election was different from previous votes.

"Today, we are in a transitional phase linked to visions about the role of the state and state institutions in general and policies," he told reporters, and parliament "must be part of this phase".

Syrians in areas held by Ankara-backed rebels, as well as in the Kurdish-controlled northeast and the jihadist-run Idlib bastion in the northwest, are effectively disenfranchised.

Candidates are still running in those regions, but only Syrians living in government-held areas can vote at designated polling booths.

Voting was extended, with polls set to close at 9:00 pm (1800 GMT).

A young man walks past electoral campaign posters in Damascus a day ahead of parliamentary elections in government-held areas of Syria 

© LOUAI BESHARA / AFP

Millions of Syrians who have sought refuge abroad also have no vote.

Syria's exiled opposition last week condemned the election as "absurd", saying that polls organised by the government "only represent the ruling authority".

United Nations-backed attempts to reach a political settlement have repeatedly failed, and talks since 2019 on revising Syria's constitution have also stalled.

© 2024 AFP

Melting ice caps slow Earth's spin, lengthening days at 'unprecedented' rate

A new study says that the melting of the polar ice caps is causing our planet to spin more slowly. As the Earth turns more slowly, the length of day increases, intensifying the effects of a warming climate.


Issued on: 15/07/2024 

This photograph taken in Scoresby Fjord, eastern Greenland, shows a partly melted glacier. © Olivier Morin, AFP

Now a study out Monday shows that the melting of the polar ice caps is causing our planet to spin more slowly, increasing the length of days at an "unprecedented" rate.

The paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that water flowing from Greenland and Antarctica is resulting in more mass around the equator, co-author Surendra Adhikari of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory told AFP.

"It's like when a figure skater does a pirouette, first holding her arms close to her body and then stretching them out," added co-author Benedikt Soja of ETH Zurich.

"The initially fast rotation becomes slower because the masses move away from the axis of rotation, increasing physical inertia."

Earth is commonly thought of as a sphere, but it's more accurate to call it an "oblate spheroid" that bulges somewhat around the equator, a bit like a satsuma.

What's more, its shape is constantly changing, from the impacts of the daily tides that affect the oceans and crusts, to longer term effects from drift of tectonic plates, and abrupt, violent shifts caused by earthquakes and volcanoes.

The paper relied on observational techniques like Very Long Baseline Interferometry, where scientists can measure the difference in how long it takes for radio signals from space to reach different points on Earth, and use that to infer variations in the planet's orientation and length of day.

It also used the Global Positioning System, which measures Earth's rotation very precisely, to about one-hundredth of a millisecond, and even looked at ancient eclipse records going back millenia.

Implications for space travel

If the Earth turns more slowly, then the length of day increases by a few milliseconds from the standard measure of 86,400 seconds.

A currently more significant cause of slowdown is the gravitational pull of the Moon, which pulls on the oceans in a process called "tidal friction" that has caused a gradual deceleration of 2.40 milliseconds per century over millions of years.

But the new study comes to a surprising conclusion that, if humans continue to emit greenhouse gases at a high rate, the effect of a warming climate will be greater than that of the Moon's pull by the end of the 21st century, said Adhikari.

Between the year 1900 and today, climate has caused days to become around 0.8 milliseconds longer -- and under the worst-case scenario of high emissions, climate alone would be responsible for making days 2.2 milliseconds longer by the year 2100, compared to the same baseline.

That might not sound like a great deal, and certainly not something that humans are able to perceive.

But "there are definitely a lot of implications for space and Earth navigation," said Adhikari.

Knowing the exact orientation of Earth at any given moment is crucial when attempting to communicate with a spaceship, such as the Voyager probes that are now well beyond our solar system, where even a slight deviation of a centimeter can end up being kilometers off by the time it reaches its destination.

(AFP)

Artists, chefs, garbage collector among hundreds carrying the Olympic torch through Paris

Hundreds of people from from a wide variety of backgrounds have carried the Olympic torch through the French capital for two days of celebrations before the Summer Games kick off on July 26.


Issued on: 15/07/2024 - 

Olympic torchbearers pose in front of the Moulin Rouge cabaret on Monday, July 15, 2024. © Louise Delmotte, AP

From the Louvre Museum to the Champs-Elysees, from Paris’ posh districts to working-class neighborhoods, hundreds of people have carried the Olympic torch through the French capital for two days of celebrations before the Summer Games kick off at the end of the month.

Joyful crowds lined up along the route Sunday and Monday.

“I got super emotional,” BMX world champion Matthias Dandois said after carrying the torch in front of the Eiffel Tower. ”I’m from Paris, and I grew up playing so much sport and watching the Olympics, and it was a dream to be a part of it.”

About 10,000 people were chosen to carry the flame across France from the southern city port of Marseille, where it arrived on May 8, to the opening ceremony on July 26. Many are athletes. Others were picked because they represent art, culture and gastronomy, volunteer for charities or are deeply involved in community life.

Dressed in white, they ran at a slow pace to the cheers of spectators.

Francky Mbotto, a 26-year-old middle-distance runner from Central African Republic who lives in Paris, carried the torch near the Arc de Triomphe.

“This is incredible! It’s so emotional. It’s Olympism that is being highlighted,” he said, adding that the relay is meant to deliver a “message of peace.”

Another torchbearer, Eva David, a wheelchair basketball athlete, described it as “a real moment of jubilation.”

Belgian singer Mentissa carried the torch as her songs were played. “Sport and music really bring people together and make us forget our daily lives,” she said.

02:46© FRANCE 24



The torch made its grand entrance in Paris for Bastille Day on Sunday with military horse rider Col. Thibaut Vallette, gold medalist at the 2016 Rio Games. It was handed to a relay by students from the multicultural northern suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis in front of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Former World Cup winner Thierry Henry, who leads France’s Olympic soccer team, later carried the flame down the Champs-Elysees avenue.

Among the torchbearers who attracted the most attention was K-Pop icon Jin, a member of the band BTS, who carried it Sunday evening in front of the Louvre.

“It was an honor to be part of such a meaningful moment,” he said, according to his management agency.

Jin’s relay drew a significant crowd. Sofia Boukhabla, 23, said she had very little interest in watching the Games but rushed with her friends to see Jin. “He is so cute,” she exclaimed.

Late on Sunday, Ludovic Franceschet, a local garbage collector, brought the flame inside Paris City Hall, where it spent the night under high protection. Franceschet, who seeks to raise environmental awareness with hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram, seized the occasion to remind residents and visitors to put their trash in bins.

The torch relay was also the chance to pay tribute to victims of the 2015 attacks in the French capital at the Bataclan concert hall and elsewhere. Lassana Bathily, the Mali-born employee who saved lives during an attack at a kosher supermarket, carried the torch at the Pantheon monument.

Some onlookers found relief from recent chaos in France.

Isabelle Kling, 70, took a detour from her usual dog-walking route to witness the relay. “It almost makes me want to cry, finally seeing the flame. It’s a bit of joy after the disastrous weeks we’ve had,” she said, alluding to the recent elections in France.


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The torch will continue its journey in northern France and through the Paris region before heading back to the French capital.

The Olympic cauldron will be lit after the opening ceremony on the River Seine on July 26.

(AP)