Police raid conspiracy theorist group ‘Kingdom of Germany’


By AFP
May 13, 2025


German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt addresses a press conference in Berlin - Copyright Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR)/AFP -

German authorities on Tuesday banned an extremist group called the “Kingdom of Germany”, raided multiple locations nationwide and arrested four of its leading members.

The group is part of a right-wing conspiracy theorist movement known as the “Citizens of the Reich” (“Reichsbuerger”), which rejects the legitimacy of the modern German republic.

Among those detained was the group’s self-proclaimed “king” Peter Fitzek, 59, a former chef and karate instructor.

He founded the organisation, which has claimed to have about 6,000 members.

Long dismissed as malcontents and oddballs, the Reichsbuerger have become increasingly radicalised and are considered a security threat by German authorities.

Hundreds of security forces searched properties in seven states linked to the group, known in German as “Koenigreich Deutschland”.

The interior ministry said that over the past 10 years, the group had established “pseudo-state structures and institutions”, issuing its own currency and identity papers and running an insurance scheme for its members.

The ministry declared the dissolution of the group, which it accused of “attacking the liberal democratic order” of the federal Republic of Germany.

Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said that the members of the group had “created a ‘counter-state’ in our country and built up economic criminal structures”.

“In this way, they persistently undermine the legal system and the Federal Republic’s monopoly on the use of force.”

Authorities said the association had financed itself primarily through prohibited banking and insurance transactions for its members as well as donations.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Karlsruhe said Fitzek was arrested along with three other suspected ringleaders of the group, which was classified as a criminal organisation.

– ‘Supreme sovereign’ –

As the “so-called supreme sovereign,” Fitzek had “control and decision-making power in all key areas”, the Prosecutor’s Office said.

“The Kingdom of Germany considers itself a sovereign state within the meaning of international law and strives to extend its claimed ‘national territory’ to the borders of the German Empire of 1871,” it added in a statement.

Fitzek, who once ran unsuccessfully to enter parliament, anointed himself as “king” in 2012 in an elaborate ceremony complete with a crown and sceptre.

He told AFP in an interview in 2023 that founding the organisation was the only answer to the “mass manipulation” he saw in German society.

His followers tend to be people with a “pioneering spirit” who “want to make a positive change in this world”, Fitzek told AFP in Wittenberg, the group’s original base in eastern Germany.

In Tuesday’s raids, police searched locations in the states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia.

There were around 23,000 members of the Reichsbuerger movement in 2022, according to Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

More than 2,000 of them were considered potentially violent.

While Reichsbuerger members subscribe to an ideology similar to that of the Kingdom of Germany, the Reichsbuerger movement is made up of many disparate groups.

In 2022, members of a group including an ex-MP and former soldiers were arrested over a plot to attack parliament, overthrow the government and install aristocrat and businessman Prince Heinrich XIII Reuss as head of state.

Another high-profile case saw a group of Reichsbuerger members charged with plotting to kidnap the then health minister, Karl Lauterbach, in protest at Covid-19 restrictions.

Europe’s biggest ‘green’ methanol plant opens in Denmark

By AFP
May 13, 2025


The Danish green methanol site will produce fuel for the likes of toy-maker Lego, pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk and shipping group Maersk - Copyright AFP SAUL LOEB

Camille BAS-WOHLERT

Europe’s largest “green” methanol plant opened in Denmark on Tuesday, boosting the continent’s emissions reduction efforts — with customers ranging from shipping giant Maersk to toymaker Lego and pharmaceutical firm Novo Nordisk.

Sitting next to northern Europe’s biggest solar panel field and a large transformer station in the Danish countryside, the site will produce e-methanol, a synthetic fuel made from renewable energy and carbon dioxide.

The site, called Kasso, is only the third e-methanol plant in operation in the world after locations in China and the United States, according to the French Bureau of E-fuels.

“Our strategy is to scale up. The next plant will be three times bigger,” said Jaime Casasus-Bribian, head of projects at Danish company European Energy, which co-owns the plant with Japanese firm Mitsui.

The facility will produce up to 42,000 tonnes of e-methanol per year, the equivalent of 50 million litres.

The e-methanol will serve as fuel for Maersk ships, raw material for Lego’s colourful plastic bricks and a component for Novo Nordisk’s insulin injection pens.

While the plant is a milestone for Europe, it is small on a global scale.

Maersk alone would need two million tonnes of green methanol each year by 2030 if it were to reduce its fleet’s carbon footprint by just 10 percent, according to its own estimates.

Laura Maersk, the company’s first container ship to sail on e-methanol, will fill up at the neighbouring Aabenraa port every quarter, enough to allow it to sail for one month.

“This is an encouraging initiative in terms of the sector’s potential development,” Yann Lesestre, the author of an international report on e-fuels, told AFP.

He said, however, that it was too small to be of major significance.

“The feedback from the project will be interesting to verify the proper functioning of the technology on a commercial scale,” he said.

The project has received a 53-million-euro ($59-million) subsidy from a Danish green investment fund.

– China world leader –

According to Lesestre’s report, the European e-methanol sector accounts for 19 percent of planned capacity worldwide, compared to 60 percent in China.

The Jiangsu Sailboat site in China has been operational since 2023 and produces 100,000 tonnes annually.

Denmark — a pioneer in renewable energy, in particular wind power — has touted its swift development of the project, opening the plant less than two years after receiving the construction permit.

“It’s a very, very important stepping stone in this whole transition of scaling up the production capacity,” said Camilla Holbech, the head of renewable energies, green transition and international cooperation at the Green Power Denmark association.

“Stepping into green fuels is very, very important because in that way we can decarbonise sectors that cannot a priori run on electricity,” Holbech said, citing shipping as an example.

The significant cost gap between this new industry and the fossil fuel industry explains the number of smaller-scale projects, she said.

E-methanol production costs could rival those of fossil fuels by 2040 if there is massive investment, according to a report by Green Power Denmark.

While the US and Chinese e-methanol plants use recycled carbon, the Danish site uses biogenic carbon, which is carbon found in natural materials, such as trees, plants, and other forms of biomass.

E-methanol is made by combining biogenic CO2 and green hydrogen, itself produced by electrolysis, which involves splitting water molecules using an electric current from renewable energy sources, in this case solar power.

UK lab promises air-con revolution without polluting gases

By AFP
May 12, 2025

A 'solid refrigerant' used by Barocal at their headquarters in Cambridge 

- Copyright AFP VALENTIN FLAURAUD

Olivier Devos

The soft, waxy “solid refrigerant” being investigated in a UK laboratory may not look very exciting, but its unusual properties promise an air-conditioning revolution that could eliminate the need for greenhouse gases.

The substance’s temperature can vary by more than 50 degrees Celsius (90 degrees Fahrenheit) under pressure, and unlike the gases currently used in appliances solid refrigerants, it does not leak.

“They don’t contribute to global warming, but also they are potentially more energy efficient,” Xavier Moya, a professor of materials physics at the University of Cambridge, told AFP.

Approximately two billion air-conditioner units are in use worldwide, and their number is increasing as the planet warms.

Between leaks and energy consumption, the emissions associated with them are also increasing each year, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

Moya has been studying the properties of these plastic crystals in his laboratory at the prestigious UK university for 15 years.

On his work surface, a large red and grey machine, topped with a cylinder, tests how the temperature of a substance changes under pressure.

The aim is to identify the best refrigerants among this class of materials, which are already used by the chemical industry and are relatively easy to obtain, even if the exact composition of the crystals eventually selected remains secret.

The phenomenon is invisible to the naked eye, but these crystals are composed of molecules that spin on their own axis.

When the substance is squeezed, that movement stops and the energy is dissipated in the form of heat.

When released, the substance cools its surroundings in what is known as the “barocaloric effect”.

– Chilled cans –

“We’re expecting demand for air conditioning to increase hugely, globally, between now and 2050,” Cliff Elwell, a professor of building physics at University College London, told AFP.

He believes barocaloric solids have the potential to be as efficient as gas, if not more so.

“But whatever we introduce as new technologies always has to hit the basic requirements,” which include being compact and quiet enough for use in homes and cars, he said.

Alongside his research at Cambridge, Moya founded the startup Barocal in 2019 to turn his research group’s discoveries into tangible products.

It employs nine people and has its own laboratory, which is currently a modest container in a parking lot.

But the startup is attracting interest and in recent years has raised around €4 million ($4.5 million), notably from the European Innovation Council — an EU program involving the UK — and Breakthrough Energy, an umbrella group of initiatives founded by US billionaire Bill Gates to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It plans to increase its workforce to 25 or 30 this year.

The first air-conditioner prototype is the size of a large suitcase and hums quite loudly when a hydraulic circuit increases or decreases the pressure inside the four crystal-filled cylinders. But it works.

A small refrigerator is attached to the system, and the cans of soda inside are perfectly chilled.

– Cheaper bills –

The prototype has “not really been optimised yet for either mass, volume, or even sound”, acknowledged Mohsen Elabbadi, a materials engineer at Barocal.

But the performance of the units they are working to perfect will eventually be comparable with those running on gas, he promised.

While the company is currently focusing on cooling, the technology could also be used to produce heat.

Several teams are studying these materials around the world, but the Cambridge team is a pioneer in the field, according to Breakthrough Energy, which estimates that these devices have the potential to reduce emissions by up to 75 percent compared with traditional units.

Barocal hopes to launch a first product on the market within three years, according to commercial director Florian Schabus.

These will initially be cooling units for “large shopping centres, warehouses, schools” and even “data centres”, he said.

The company reasons that the ultimate promise of cheaper bills will convince businesses to stump up the higher initial costs.

Barocal is eventually aiming for retail prices similar to traditional units, allowing it to launch in the residential market.


As world heats up, UN cools itself the cool way: with water


By AFP
May 11, 2025


As more people want to stay cool in a planet that is steadily heating up, energy experts point to water-based system as a good alternative 

- Copyright AFP ANGELA WEISS

Amélie BOTTOLLIER-DEPOIS

Deep in the bowels of the UN headquarters, a pump sucks in huge amounts of water from the East River to help cool the complex with an old but energy-efficient mechanism.

As more and more people want to stay cool in a planet that is steadily heating up, energy experts point to this kind of water-based system as a good alternative to air conditioning. But in many cases they are hard to set up.

The system has been part of the New York complex since it opened in the 1950s, chief building engineer Michael Martini told AFP during a tour of the cooling equipment.

The system, overhauled with the rest of the complex from 2008 to 2014, cools the UN center using less energy than a conventional air conditioning system. UN policy is to bring the air temperature down to about 24 degrees Celsius, or 75 degrees Fahrenheit.

In summer in New York, the river running beside the UN headquarters — it is actually a salt water estuary — stays much cooler than the surrounding air, which can reach 100 degrees. So cooling the building eats up less energy.

As many as 26,000 liters per minute (7,000 gallons) of water flow through fiber glass pipes to the complex’s cooling plant, which uses it and a refrigerant gas to produce cold.

The system has two independent loops to prevent contamination of the water that flows back into the river at a higher temperature, said the head of the cooling system, David Lindsay.

Looking at the gleaming glass tower of the UN headquarters and the dome of the General Assembly, you would never know that the East River serves this purpose for the UN and is more than just part of the scenery.

The UN’s New York headquarters is not its only building that depends on water.

In Geneva, its Palais de Nations features a cooling system that uses water from Lake Geneva. And the UN City complex in Copenhagen, which houses 10 UN agencies, depends on cold seawater that almost eliminates the need for electricity to cool the place.

This a huge benefit compared to the estimated two billion air conditioning units installed around a world.

– Why so rare? –

With the number of air conditioners due to increase so as to help people who are more and more exposed to dangerous temperatures, energy consumption for the purpose of cooling has already tripled since 1990, says the International Energy Agency, which wants more efficient systems.

Examples of these are centralized air conditioning networks using electricity, geothermal systems or ones that use water, like the UN complex in New York.

This latter system “has not been deployed as much as it should be for the issues we face today,” said Lily Riahi, coordinator of Cool Coalition, a grouping of states, cities and companies under the aegis of the United Nations.

Some big organizations have been able to run such systems on their own, like the United Nations or Cornell University in New York State, which relies on water from Lake Cayuga.

But for the most part these systems require a lot of coordination among multiple stakeholders, said Riahi.

“We know it’s technically possible, and we know actually there are many cases that prove the economics as well,” said Rob Thornton, president of the International District Energy Association, which helps develop district cooling and heating networks.

“But it requires someone, some agent, whether it’s a champion, a city, or a utility or someone, to actually undertake the aggregation of the market,” he said.

“The challenge is just gathering and aggregating the customers to the point where there’s enough, where the risk can be managed,” Thornton said.

He cited Paris as an example, which uses the Seine River to run Europe’s largest water-based cooling grid.

These networks allow for the reduced use toxic substances as coolants, and lower the risk of leaks.

And they avoid emissions of hot air — like air conditioning units spew — into cities already enduring heat waves.

But hot water from cooling units, when dumped back into rivers and other bodies of water, is dangerous for aquatic ecosystems, environmentalists say.

“This challenge is quite small, compared to the discharge from nuclear plants,” said Riahi, adding the problem can be addressed by setting a temperate limit on this water.

Indians buy 14 million ACs a year, and need many more


By AFP
May 11, 2025


A record 14 million AC units were sold in India last year, with a ninefold increase in residential ownership forecast by mid-century - Copyright AFP Sajjad HUSSAIN

Abhaya SRIVASTAVA

Aarti Verma is about to join the growing ranks of Indians installing air conditioning, scraping together savings to secure relief from sometimes deadly temperatures that can reach nearly 50 Celsius.

A record 14 million AC units were sold in India last year, with a ninefold increase in residential ownership forecast by mid-century. That will give millions safer and more comfortable conditions at work and home.

But it will also drive demand for electricity that is generated mostly by burning climate-warming coal, and increase the hot AC exhaust air expelled into the country’s stifling streets.

For Verma, the priority is securing some immediate relief.

Her sales and marketing work means she must visit multiple stores a day, battling blazing heat.

“Coming home after a long day I want some comfort,” said the 25-year-old, who earns 30,000 rupees ($350) a month and will pay 50,000 rupees ($584) to install air conditioning in her spartan two-room home.

“Earlier I would sleep on the terrace, but these days it’s so hot even in the night, AC has become a necessity,” she told AFP in a poor neighbourhood of the capital Delhi.

India is the world’s fastest-growing AC market, despite only about seven percent of households currently owning units.

The boom could mean the world’s most populous country needs to triple electricity production to meet demand, experts say.

The nation of 1.4 billion people is already the world’s third-biggest producer of climate-warming greenhouse gases, burning through one billion tonnes of coal in 2024-25, according to a government statement.

– Brutal summer –

“AC penetration across India is primarily driven by weather conditions, a growing middle class, favourable consumer financing options and widespread electrification,” said K.J. Jawa, the India chief of Japanese AC manufacturer Daikin.

“Today, ACs are no longer regarded as a luxury indulgence, but a productivity and need investment –- as a good night sleep is imperative for our mental and physical wellness,” he told AFP.

Verma had to pay 13,000 rupees ($150) as a down payment, with the rest divided over monthly instalments.

“I could have bought gold with that money which would have been a good investment but I gave priority to the AC,” she said.

According to the meteorological department, 2024 was India’s hottest year since thorough records began in 1901, with sizzling temperatures following a global pattern of extreme weather driven by climate change.

A heatwave in May 2024 in New Delhi saw temperatures match the capital’s previous record high: 49.2 Celsius (120.5 Fahrenheit) clocked in 2022.

The brutal summer heat can melt tarmac on the roads and puts millions of people at risk, with nearly 11,000 people dying due to heat stroke in India between 2012 and 2021, according to government data.

Public health experts say the true number of heat-related deaths is likely in the thousands but because heat is often not listed as a reason on a death certificate, many casualties don’t get counted in official figures.

Ironically, the refrigerants inside AC units and the coal-generated electricity that powers them only exacerbate global warming. Widespread AC use also raises outdoor temperatures by expelling indoor heat.

Studies — including by the World Health Organization and UN-Habitat — show that the heat-generating motors inside AC units can themselves push up temperatures in urban areas by a degree Celsius or more.

– Energy ratings –

Before buying an AC, Verma relied on a traditional air cooler — a noisy fan-run device that blows cool air off water-soaked pads.

But filling the cooler with water and making sure it did not become a haven for disease-carrying mosquitoes required great effort.

Sales are brisk at Imperial Refrigeration in Delhi’s old quarters, with a steady stream of customers braving the afternoon heat.

Japsahib Singh Ahuja, 22, whose family owns the 50-year-old business, said sales have more than tripled in the last five years, thanks to first-time consumers and AC “replacement cycles”.

“ACs these days don’t last long, because there are so many pollutants in Delhi air that lead to corrosion and gas leakage from the equipment,” he explained.

Delhi and the surrounding metropolitan area, home to more than 30 million people, consistently top world rankings for air pollution.

Air conditioning will account for a quarter of India’s emissions and nearly half nationwide peak electricity demand by 2050, according to the UN Environment Programme’s Cool Coalition.

But India has so far declined to sign up to the coalition’s Global Cooling Pledge to reduce the sector’s climate impact.

Still, there are signs of hope, with Indians increasingly buying energy-efficient AC units, according to Ahuja.

Energy-saving inverter ACs now dominate the market, and companies set a default temperature of 24 degrees Celsius.

“Energy ratings are now mandatory,” said Ahuja. “We will surely see long-term benefits.”

Medical charity condemns Israel’s use of hunger as ‘weapon of war’ in Gaza


By AFP
May 13, 2025


The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) in late April said it had depleted all its food stocks in Gaza - Copyright Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR)/AFP -

Chloe ROUVEYROLLES-BAZIRE

A months-long Israeli blockade is worsening acute malnutrition in the Gaza Strip, medical charity Medecins du Monde warned on Tuesday, accusing Israel of using hunger as “a weapon of war”.

Israel halted all aid from entering the war-ravaged Palestinian territory on March 2, days before resuming its offensive triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

The United Nations and aid agencies have repeatedly warned of a growing humanitarian catastrophe for the roughly 2.4 million people in Gaza, amid dwindling supplies of everything from fuel and medicine to food and clean water.

Aid reaches Gaza mainly through Israeli-controlled entry points, though the flow has fluctuated — even before the March shutdown.

After more than a year and a half of war, acute malnutrition in Gaza has “reached levels comparable to those seen in countries facing prolonged humanitarian crises spanning several decades,” said Medecins du Monde.

MDM said data from six health centres it runs in the Palestinian territory highlighted “the human responsibility for hunger in Gaza”.

“Acute malnutrition rates among pregnant and breastfeeding women and children depend on the Israeli authorities’ decisions to allow or block humanitarian aid,” it said.

The medical charity said the peaks in acute malnutrition it observed in 2024 “coincided with the sharpest decline in the monthly number of trucks delivering aid to Gaza”.

MDM said it saw a peak in child acute malnutrition of 17 percent in November, during a significant reduction of humanitarian aid.



– ‘Moral bankruptcy’ –



Aid access is limited to Israeli-controlled crossings, with the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt closed since the Israeli army took control of the city in spring 2024.

Israeli authorities have closed the crossing points since March 2, saying they want to force Hamas to release hostages.

The security cabinet in early May approved the “possibility of humanitarian distribution, if necessary” in Gaza, but insisted there was “currently enough food”.

The UN’s World Food Programme in late April said it had depleted all its food stocks in the territory.

“We are not witnessing a humanitarian crisis but a crisis of humanity and moral bankruptcy with the use of hunger as a weapon of war,” said Jean-Francois Corty, president of MDM.

“The failure of other countries with the power to pressure the Israeli authorities to lift this deadly siege is unacceptable and could be seen as complicity under international law,” he added.

In April, one in five pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly one in four children MDM observed were suffering or were at high risk of acute malnutrition, the charity said.

The MDM report also detailed the domino effect of dwindling food reserves, as well as the destruction of agricultural facilities and sanitation systems, on the malnutrition crisis.

The organisation said it could not officially declare famine underway due to a lack of comprehensive data covering the entire Palestinian territory.

The UN- and NGO-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification warned Monday that Gaza was at “critical risk of famine”, with 22 percent of the population facing an imminent humanitarian “catastrophe”.

Rights groups take UK govt to court over Israel arms sales


By AFP
May 13, 2025


Rights groups accuse the UK government of breaching international law by supplying fighter jet parts to Israel - Copyright POOL/AFP Gavriil GRIGOROV, Nhac NGUYEN

Laurie CHURCHMAN

Rights groups and NGOs took the UK government to court on Tuesday accusing it of breaching international law by supplying fighter jet parts to Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Supported by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and others, the Palestinian rights association Al-Haq is seeking to stop the government’s export of UK-made components for Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets.

Israel has used the US warplanes to devastating effect in Gaza and the West Bank — both Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories — and the head of Amnesty UK said Britain had failed to uphold its “legal obligation… to prevent genocide” by allowing the export of key jet parts to Israel.

Around 50 protesters gathered outside court ahead of the hearings, waving Palestinian flags and placards with the words “STOP ARMING ISRAEL: STOP THE GENOCIDE”.

The plane’s refuelling probe, laser targeting system, tyres, rear fuselage, fan propulsion system and ejector seat are all made in Britain, according to Oxfam, and lawyers supporting Al-Haq’s case said the aircraft “could not keep flying without continuous supply of UK-made components”.

Opening their case against the government, lawyers said the UK’s trade department had allowed exports of F-35 parts knowing there was a “clear risk” they would be used to commit violations of international law.

It is not certain when a decision could be made following the four-day hearing at London’s High Court, which marks the latest stage in a long-running legal battle.

Lawyers for the Global Action Legal Network (GLAN) have said they launched the case soon after Israel’s assault on Gaza began, following the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel by militants from Hamas.

Israel has repeatedly denied accusations of genocide.

The lawyers said the UK government had decided in December 2023 and again in April and May 2024 to continue arms sales to Israel, before suspending licences in September 2024 for weapons assessed as being for military use by the Israeli army in Gaza.

The new Labour government suspended around 30 licences following a review of Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law.

But the partial ban did not cover British-made parts for the advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets.

A UK government spokesperson told AFP it was “not currently possible to suspend licensing of F-35 components for use by Israel without prejudicing the entire global F-35 programme, due to its strategic role in NATO and wider implications for international peace and security”.

“Within a couple of months of coming to office, we suspended relevant licences for the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) that might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of International Humanitarian Law in Gaza,” they said.

– ‘UK not a bystander’ –

The government insisted it had “acted in a manner consistent with our legal obligations” and was “committed to upholding our responsibilities under domestic and international law”.

But GLAN described the F-35 exemption as a “loophole” which allowed the components to reach Israel indirectly through a global pooling system.

Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer for GLAN, told a briefing last week the UK government had “expressly departed from its own domestic law in order to keep arming Israel”, with F-35s being used to drop “multi-ton bombs on the people of Gaza”.

The 2023 attack in southern Israel by militants from Palestinian group Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 52,862 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry, whose figures the United Nations deems reliable.

The figure includes at least 2,749 who have died since Israel ended a two-month ceasefire in mid-March.

“Under the Genocide Convention, the UK has a clear legal obligation to do everything within its power to prevent genocide,” said Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive.

“Yet the UK government continues to authorise the export of military equipment to Israel — despite all the evidence that genocide is being committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

“This is a fundamental failure by the UK to fulfil its obligations.”

Al-Haq’s general director Shawan Jabarin said: “The United Kingdom is not a bystander. It’s complicit, and that complicity must be confronted, exposed and brought to account.”

Customer data stolen in Marks & Spencer cyberattack

By AFP
May 13, 2025


The data stolen could include names, dates of birth and home addresses of its customers, Marks & Spencer said - Copyright AFP

 Hector RETAMAL

British retailer Marks & Spencer said on Tuesday that some personal data of its customers was stolen in a cyberattack that has crippled its online services for weeks.

M&S operations have since Easter been hampered by a ransomware sting which has forced the retailer to suspend online sales, contactless payments instore and even recruiting operations.

“We are writing to customers informing them that due to the sophisticated nature of the incident, some of their personal customer data has been taken,” the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

The information stolen could include names, dates of birth, home addresses and telephone number, it said.

M&S added that the data taken did not include “useable payment or card details”, nor account passwords.

There is “no evidence” that the data taken has been shared, it said in the statement.

The retailer did not specify how many of its shoppers had been impacted.

It said there is “no need for customers to take any action”, but warned them to be wary of emails or text messages that include links to click.

M&S said it has reported the incident to relevant government authorities and law enforcement.

A wave of cyberattacks have hit British retailers in recent weeks, including luxury department store Harrods and the Co-op food chain.

Scottish refinery closure spells trouble for green transition


By AFP
May 11, 2025


Andrew Petersen, a mechanical maintenance technician who was recently made redundant from the Grangemouth Oli Refinery - Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks

Akshata KAPOOR

Andrew Petersen is a third-generation oil refinery worker from a small, industrial Scottish town.

When he was growing up, working at Grangemouth refinery meant you “had a job for life”.

But last month “everything changed”, Petersen told AFP near the refinery, its giant cooling towers looming in the background.

On April 29, owner Petroineos announced it had ended operations at the refinery after more than a century, triggering the first of a phased wave of redundancies, including Petersen’s.

The closure of the UK’s oldest and Scotland’s only refinery will result in more than 400 job cuts, which locals say the impoverished adjoining town of Grangemouth can ill afford.

Petroineos — a joint venture of British chemical giant Ineos and the Chinese state-owned PetroChina -– says the refinery was losing around $500,000 (£376,600) a day as a result of changing market conditions and carbon-cutting measures.

It will be replaced by an import terminal, employing just 65 of the workforce including Chris Hamilton, who currently works as a refinery operator.

Since Petroineos announced its intention to wind down operations in 2023, workers like Petersen and Hamilton who are members of the Unite trade union have been campaigning to “Keep Grangemouth Working”.

The campaign was not against ending polluting refinery work, but sought to “future-proof” the site and transition to low-carbon options such as Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) without job losses, explained Hamilton.

However, Petroineos told AFP the “existing regulatory, policy and fiscal framework did not support low-carbon manufacturing” at Grangemouth, or any of the UK’s other industrial clusters.

A recent report by Scotland’s Just Transition Commission (JTC) concluded that Grangemouth had seen an “accountability breakdown” on the part of the government and Petroineos.

As a result, for the last six months, Petersen and his colleagues have been shutting down the refinery’s units one-by-one.

“It was really tough,” said Petersen. “You got the feeling you’re almost digging your own grave.”

– Just transition –

Located between Glasgow and Edinburgh on the Firth of Forth, the refinery, which first opened in 1924, is part of a sprawling industrial site.

Petroineos and the UK government this year published Project Willow, a feasibility study into low-carbon futures for the site.

However, its suggestions — including SAF production or plastic recycling — would take years to implement and billions of pounds of investment.

And £200 million pledged by the UK government for the site is contingent on private investment, which is not yet forthcoming.

“With the refinery closing… workers can’t wait a decade,” Grangemouth’s Westminster MP Brian Leishman told AFP.

“A real, proper, just transition means that you take the workers and their communities along with you,” he added.

JTC commissioner Richard Hardy told AFP that the refinery’s “car crash” closure was a “litmus test for just transition”.

He argued that the UK and devolved Scottish governments needed to do more to bridge the gap between shuttering polluting industries and the transition to greener energy — which will accelerate closer to Britain’s 2050 net zero target.

Just last month, the UK had to step in to save hundreds of jobs at a British Steel plant after its Chinese owners decided to shut down the furnaces.

Leishman had called for the government to do the same for Grangemouth.

One of the UK’s six remaining crude refineries, Grangemouth was the primary supplier of aviation fuel to Scotland’s main airports and a major petrol and diesel supplier in the central belt.

“Being in charge of our own destiny, for me, that’s just plain common sense,” said Leishman.

– ‘Ghost town’ –

Built around the refinery and once known as Scotland’s “boomtown”, Grangemouth has seen a steady decline in recent years.

The population has fallen in the last decade to about 16,000 residents, with more expected to leave with the refinery’s closure.

Petersen said he would likely move elsewhere, and had even considered the Middle East.

There are options there, he said: “But just not here.

“It’s going to turn into a ghost town,” he added.

In the run-down town centre dotted with half-shuttered shop fronts, the local butcher Robert Anderson said he was already losing business.

“We don’t see them anymore”, he said of the workers in their high-visibility vests.

Hannah Barclay, a homelessness support worker, told AFP that the refinery employed many of her friends.

For a “lot of people here, uni and college and further education, it is not an option,” said the 19-year-old.

The refinery closing is “taking away so much opportunity for people”, and leaving behind an “uncertain” future.

“It’s just quite disheartening to see all these young people who should be really excited for the future, who are just scared.”

Ocalan: founder of the Kurdish militant PKK who authored its end


ByAFP
May 12, 2025


Kurdish demonstrators carry an image of PKK founder Abdullah Ocalan - Copyright POOL/AFP Mikhail KLIMENTYEV, Thibault CAMUS

Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), is an icon to many Kurds but a “terrorist” to many within wider Turkish society.

After a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths, the PKK said on Monday it was disbanding and ending its armed struggle.

The move came after Ocalan issued a historic call on February 27 for his fighters to lay down their arms in a major step towards ending the decades-long conflict.

Now 76, Ocalan has been held in solitary confinement since 1999 on Imrali prison island near Istanbul.

But since October, when Turkey tentatively moved to reset ties with the PKK, Ocalan has been visited several times by lawmakers from the pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party.

For many Turks, the PKK leader is public enemy number one.

He founded the group in 1978. Six years later, it began an insurgency demanding independence and later broader autonomy in Turkey’s mostly Kurdish southeast.

A Marxist-inspired group, the PKK was blacklisted as a “terror” organisation by Ankara, Washington, Brussels and many other Western countries.

– An olive branch –

Attitudes began shifting in October when ultra-nationalist MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, a close ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, offered Ocalan an olive branch if he would publicly renounce violence.

The next day, the former guerrilla, who embodies the decades-long Kurdish rebellion, received his first family visit in four years.

He sent back a message saying he alone could shift the Kurdish question “from an arena of conflict and violence to one of law and politics”, later offering assurances he was “ready to… make the call”.

Ankara’s move came shortly before Syrian rebels overthrew ruler Bashar al-Assad, upending the regional balance of power and thrusting Turkey’s complex relationship with the Kurds into the spotlight.

– From village life to militancy –


Ocalan was born on April 4, 1949, one of six siblings in a mixed Turkish-Kurdish peasant family in Omerli, a village in Turkey’s southeast.

His mother tongue is Turkish.

He became a left-wing activist while studying politics at university in Ankara and was first jailed in 1972.

He set up the PKK six years later, then spent years on the run, launching the movement’s armed struggle in 1984.

Taking refuge in Syria, he led the fight from there, causing friction between Damascus and Ankara.

Forced out in 1998, he moved from Russia to Italy to Greece in search of a haven, ending up at the Greek consulate in Kenya, where US agents got wind of his presence and tipped off Turkey.

He was arrested on February 15, 1999, after being lured into a vehicle in a Hollywood-style operation by Turkish security forces.

Sentenced to death, he escaped the gallows when Turkey started abolishing capital punishment in 2002, living out the rest of his days in isolation on Imrali prison island in the Sea of Marmara near Istanbul.

For many Kurds, he is a hero whom they refer to as “Apo” (uncle). But Turks often call him “bebek katili” (baby killer) for ruthless tactics that include the bombing of civilian targets.

– Jailed but still leading –

With Ocalan’s arrest, Ankara thought it had decapitated the PKK.

But even from his cell he continued to lead, ordering a ceasefire that lasted from 1999 until 2004.

In 2005, he ordered followers to renounce the idea of an independent Kurdish state and campaign for autonomy in their respective countries.

Tentative moves to resolve Turkey’s “Kurdish problem” began in 2008 and several years later Ocalan became involved in the first unofficial peace talks, when Erdogan was prime minister.

Led by then spy chief Hakan Fidan — who is now foreign minister — the talks raised Kurdish hopes for a solution with their future within Turkey’s borders.

But the effort collapsed in July 2015, sparking one of the deadliest chapters in the conflict.

The government has defended its de facto silencing of Ocalan, saying he failed to convince the PKK of the need for peace.

Seen as the world’s largest stateless people, Kurds were left without a country when the Ottoman Empire collapsed after World War I.

Although most live in Turkey, where they make up around a fifth of the population, the Kurds are also spread across Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Turkey’s widescale use of combat drones has pushed most Kurdish fighters into northern Syria and Iraq, where Ankara has continued its raids.

White S.Africans resettled in US did not face ‘persecution’: govt


By AFP
May 12, 2025


White Afrikaners make up most of South Africa's 7.3 percent white population - Copyright AFP Tauseef MUSTAFA

The white Afrikaners who have accepted resettlement in the United States did not face “any form of persecution” in South Africa, the foreign ministry said on Monday.

It came hours after a first group of 49 white South Africans flew out of Johannesburg following US President Donald Trump’s offer to grant refugee status to white Afrikaners.

Mainly descendants of Dutch settlers, Trump has said white Afrikaners face “racial discrimination” in South Africa, heightening tensions between the two countries.

“They can’t provide any proof of any persecution because there is not any form of persecution to white South Africans or to Afrikaners South Africans,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola told reporters.

Their claims that white farmers are targeted for murder — despite official data that most victims of killings are young black men in urban areas — have morphed into a myth of a “white genocide”, also repeated by Trump.

The US president, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, said in February he would prioritise access to a refugee programme “for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination”.

“We are glad that a number of organisations, even from the Afrikaner structures, have denounced this so-called persecution,” Lamola said, adding that preparations for a meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Rampahosa were “very advanced”.

“The crime that we have in South Africa affects everyone irrespective of race and gender,” he said.

– ‘Beyond absurd’ –

The 49 left Johannesburg’s main airport on a chartered flight on Sunday and are due to land in the United States on Monday.

Under eligibility guidelines published by the US embassy in South Africa on Monday, applicants must either be of Afrikaner ethnicity or belong to a racial minority in South Africa.

One must also “be able to articulate a past experience of persecution or fear of future persecution,” it said.

The rapid pathway for resettlement comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries over several policy issues, including relations with China and BRICS membership.

America’s biggest trading partner in Africa is also under fire from Washington for leading a case at the International Court of Justice, accusing US-ally Israel of “genocidal” acts in its Gaza offensive, a claim Israel denies.

Many have expressed indignation and bemusement that whites could be assigned victim status in South Africa and that the resettlement stands in stark contrast to the shutdown of all other refugee admissions in the US.

Loren Landau, who studies migration at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said while racism existed in South Africa, there was no evidence of systematic persecution of white people.

On the contrary, “foreigners are targeted by people making it clear that they want Somali, Pakistanis and Zimbabweans out of the country,” he told AFP.

Prominent Afrikaner author Max du Preez said the resettlement was “beyond absurd” as South Africa had bodies to deal with any form of discrimination.

“This is about Trump and MAGA, not about us. Its about their hatred for DEI,” he told AFP, referring to diversity programmes that have become a frequent Trump target.

“The people who have now fled have probably been motivated by financial considerations and/or an unwillingness to live in a post-apartheid society where whites no longer call the shots,” he said.

Whites, who make up 7.3 percent of the population, generally enjoy a higher standard of living than the black majority of the country. They still own two-thirds of farmland and on average earn three times as much as black South Africans.

Mainly Afrikaner-led governments imposed the race-based apartheid system that denied the black majority political and economic rights until it was voted out in 1994.

Nazi files found in champagne crates in Argentine court basement


By AFP
May 12, 2025


The crates contained Nazi-themed postcards, photographs, progapanda material, notebooks and party membership documents - Copyright ARGENTINA'S SUPREME COURT OF JUSTICE/AFP Handout

A hoard of World War II-era Nazi propaganda and membership documents has been unearthed in the basement of Argentina’s Supreme Court, where it has lain, stashed in champagne crates, since 1941.

Seven crates containing postcards, photographs, Nazi propaganda, notebooks and party membership documents were found by staff in the process of moving non-digitized archive material, the court said Monday of the “discovery of global significance.”

A staffer who peeped into one of the crates found material “intended to consolidate and propagate Adolf Hitler’s ideology in Argentina,” said a court statement.

The rest of the boxes were opened last Friday in the presence of the chief rabbi of the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA) and officials of the Buenos Aires Holocaust Museum.

Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, but was also the preferred destination for several top Nazis who fled Germany after the wartime genocide of six million European Jews.

“Given the historical relevance of the find and the potential crucial information it could contain to clarify events related to the Holocaust, the president of the Supreme Court, Horacio Rosatti, ordered an exhaustive survey of all the material found,” the court said.

“The main objective is to… determine if the material contains crucial information about the Holocaust and if any clues found can shed light on aspects still unknown, such as the route of Nazi money at a global level,” it added.

The crates, sent from the German diplomatic mission in Japan to the embassy in Buenos Aires, arrived in Argentina in June 1941 on a Japanese cargo ship.

German diplomats in Argentina claimed they contained personal effects, but the shipment was held up by customs and became the subject of a probe by a special commission on “anti-Argentine activities.”

A judge later ordered the seizure of the materials, and the matter ended up before the Supreme Court, which took possession of the crates.

After World War II, Argentina became a haven for Nazis — thousands of whom are believed to have fled there, according to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish rights group.

They included top war criminals such as Adolf Eichmann — considered a key architect of Hitler’s plan to exterminate Europe’s Jews. He was captured in Buenos Aires in 1960 and sent to Israel where he was tried and executed.

Nazi doctor Josef Mengele, too, hid away in Argentina before fleeing to Paraguay and later Brazil, where he died.

Argentina’s Jewish population was the target of a bombing in 1994 of the AMIA center that killed 85 people and injured 300, just two years after the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires claimed 29 lives.