Why Germany's disaster management works from the bottom to the top

Unlike many other countries, Germany's civil protection and disaster management system is deeply rooted in communal and municipal structures. The current flood catastrophe has disclosed major shortcomings.


Air-raid alarm sirens are still crucial for Germany's civil protection system


When the first floods hit southwestern Germany last week, local emergency managers were the first to initiate rescue operations on the ground. But it would soon become apparent that the unfolding natural disaster was more than what they could cope with, and that responses would have to be coordinated at a higher level in the emergency chain of command.

It was high time the crisis managers of the affected counties and municipalities took over, coordinating assignments of police, firefighters and paramedics to help save lives and provide assistance where needed.

Germany has a total of 294 counties and 107 self-governing municipalities, including major cities such as Potsdam, Cologne and Leipzig. In big emergencies, county governors can request assistance from other, less affected, regions to pool their crisis-fighting capabilities in task forces. Those are usually set up and run by a regional state government, of which there are 16 in Germany's federal state-based political system.

The Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance is Germany's highest authority in preventing and mitigating natural disasters

The role of the central government

It is only when crisis management at the federal state level fails that the central government in Berlin is allowed to step in with the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK). But for BBK to actively engage in a crisis, the respective community or municipality first needs to declare a state of emergency. And only then, Germany's armed forces can join rescue efforts, or Federal Police forces are allowed to maintain law and order.

Another organization frequently assigned to emergencies or natural disasters in Germany is the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW). THW crews boast special technical capabilities and expertise to provide effective assistance, notably in flood disasters and earthquakes. The agency's 80,000-strong membership is primarily made up of semi-professional volunteers, who are often also assigned to relief operations abroad, for example in bringing utilities like water and electricity back online.

During the ongoing flood crisis in Germany, THW's pumping crews successfully prevented several dams from bursting.

Thousands of Germans spend their free time on disaster relief drills

Germany's army of volunteer helpers

Volunteerism is also a prime hallmark of the work of millions of other rescuers and helpers organized in associations such as the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund (ASB) — a charity and relief organization — the German Red Cross (DRK), the DLRG German Life Saving Association, and church-based humanitarian organizations such as the Johanniter Unfall Hilfe or the Malteser Hilfsdienst.

In Germany's most populous federal state, North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), almost 400 volunteer fire brigades are part of the state's fire protection structure and complement the about 30 fully professional fire brigades.

According to figures released by the national government, there are more than 1.7 million German volunteers involved in civil protection activities, meaning that they are not paid for their engagement.

Crisis communications

Monitoring water levels in German rivers and lakes is the task of flood control centers, which are also run by each of the 16 federal states. They are supposed to set off alarms in the event of likely flooding. Cross-border waterways, like the Rhine River, however, are overseen by international commissions.

The German Meteorological Service (DWD) is charged with weather forecasting and uses a three-tier warning system: Early Warning, Forecast/Premonition, and specific County Warnings.

Weather alarms are often spread among the general public via the NINA app developed by BBK. It informs users anywhere in Germany about the dangers in the vicinity of where they are. In the current catastrophe, though, it turned out that only a few Germans have NINA installed on their mobile phones.

The Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS) has developed the free-of-charge NINA app to inform people through their mobile phones

There's mounting criticism at the moment of how BBK handled public warnings during the floods. BBK chief Armin Schuster was blamed for informing populations in the affected regions too late. In an interview for public German radio, he rejected the criticism, saying BBK's alarm infrastructure worked completely well.

"Between Wednesday [July 7] and Saturday [July 10], we were sending out a total of 150 successive notifications," he said, adding that DWD's weather forecasts were also "to the point" in warning of heavy precipitation well in advance. "But you can never be so precise as to say exactly which location is hit with how much rainfall and for how long," he said.

Watch video 02:01 German officials slammed for inadequate flood warnings

A system in need of reforms

Communications among German rescue organizations work on channels that are different from push notifications on people's mobiles. A mobile digital network, established and maintained by the government, covers 99% of German territory, ensuring that communication can be maintained even when telecom infrastructure is severely impeded.

In addition, there are still old-fashioned air-raid sirens installed on public buildings in Germany, with most of them dating back to the Cold War era, or even further to World War II. Many of them have been removed in recent years to save maintenance costs. Now, there are calls, however, to bring those sirens back on again. Some experts say sirens make no sense because they would need electricity that's often not available in disaster scenarios.

BBK chief Armin Schuster has conceded that Germany's disaster protection system is in need of repair, and promised reforms after a national emergency warning day went miserably wrong in May 2020. A main plank in the reform is bringing back the good old sirens.

"Just three months into the reform, I'm positively surprised to see how committed the regional governments are in providing public funding for reinstalling sirens," Schuster said recently. Until the end of this year, he promised to come up with a catalog of German regions potentially at risk of disaster to determine "where, and how much will need to be invested." Part of the new early-warning system, he noted, will be air-raid sirens and smartphone apps.

This article has been adapted from the original German

How much COVID misinformation is on Facebook?

 Its execs don’t want to know

Data scientists proposed investigating the problem but were turned down.

TIM DE CHANT - 7/20/2021


For years, misinformation has flourished on Facebook. Falsehoods, misrepresentations, and outright lies posted on the site have shaped the discourse on everything from national politics to public health.

But despite their role in facilitating communications for billions of people, Facebook executives refused to commit resources to understand the extent to which COVID-19-related misinformation pervaded its platform, according to a report in The New York Times.

Early in the pandemic, a group of data scientists at Facebook met with executives to propose a project that would determine how many users saw misleading or false information about COVID. It wasn’t a small task—they estimated that the process could take up to a year or more to complete—but it would give the company a solid understanding of the extent to which misinformation spread on its platform.

The executives listened to the data scientists’ pitch and then reportedly ghosted them. The data team’s proposal wasn’t approved, and they were never given an explanation for why it was silently dropped.

FURTHER READINGBiden blasts social media after Facebook stonewalls admin over vaccine misinformationThe revelations come as Facebook has drawn fire from the White House for its role in the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines that prevent it. “They’re killing people,” President Joe Biden said about the role of social networks in the spread of misinformation. “Look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. They’re killing people.”

Biden later walked back his comments slightly, but they revealed the administration’s frustration with social media platforms—and with Facebook in particular—over their response to the pandemic. For weeks, the White House pressed Facebook for details on how the company is combating COVID vaccine misinformation. The social network offered some details but gave unsatisfying answers to other requests. 

It’s unclear why Facebook isn’t sharing information about its efforts to fight misinformation. The company has surveyed its users about vaccine acceptance—Facebook says 85 percent “have been or want to be vaccinated”—and it says it has taken down 18 million pieces of misinformation related to COVID-19 since the pandemic began. That’s about 40,000 pieces of content per day.

FURTHER READING Sweeping internal Facebook memo: “I have blood on my hands”

Perhaps Facebook hasn’t shared those details because it’s not confident in its own approach. Without a more comprehensive view of how misinformation spreads on Facebook, it’s probably extraordinarily difficult to devise an effective counteroffensive. Removing 18 million pieces of content isn’t nothing, but it’s likely an insignificant number given that back in 2012, when Facebook had less than half the users it has today, the company said it processed 2.5 billion pieces of content per day.

Facebook’s unwillingness or inability to understand the scope of COVID misinformation on its platform was apparent in comments it gave to The New York Times, in which it blamed its nescience on the lack of a “standard definition” for pandemic-related misinformation. “The suggestion we haven’t put resources toward combating COVID misinformation and supporting the vaccine rollout is just not supported by the facts,” said Dani Lever, a Facebook spokeswoman. “With no standard definition for vaccine misinformation, and with both false and even true content (often shared by mainstream media outlets) potentially discouraging vaccine acceptance, we focus on the outcomes—measuring whether people who use Facebook are accepting of COVID-19 vaccines.”

For researchers who study misinformation, that explanation isn’t sufficient. “They need to open up the black box that is their content ranking and content amplification architecture," Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told The New York Times. "Take that black box and open it up for audit by independent researchers and government. We don’t know how many Americans have been infected with misinformation.”

Sierra Leone abolishes the death penalty

BEFORE THE USA DOES

Sierra Leone's president said he would sign the abolition of capital punishment, fulfilling a personal campaign pledge. Some 99 people in the country are currently sitting on death row.



Sierra Leone's 1991 constitution had allowed the use of the death penalty for aggravated robbery, murder, treason and mutiny

Lawmakers in Sierra Leone voted on Friday to abolish the death penalty, becoming the latest African country to ban the practice.

Sierra Leone's 1991 constitution had allowed the use of the death penalty for aggravated robbery, murder, treason and mutiny.

After Friday's vote, capital punishment will now be replaced with life imprisonment or a minimum 30-year jail term.

The move to end the death penalty will affect some 99 people who were sitting on death row as of June 2021.

'An affront to civilized society'

Although no execution has been carried out in Sierra Leone since 1998, with death sentences often commuted, the country had frequently come under fire from rights groups for not completely abolishing the practice.

"Today, I have fulfilled a governance pledge to permanently abolish the death penalty in Sierra Leone. I thank citizens, members of Parliament, development partners, and rights groups that have steadfastly stood with us to make history," President Julius Maada Bio said on Twitter.

The diamond-rich former British colony has been ravaged by poverty and a 1991-2002 civil war that claimed 120,000 lives. In 2006, a truth and reconciliation commission set up to investigate the conflict had called for abolishing the death penalty, saying it was "an affront to civilized society."
Death penalty in decline in Africa

According to Amnesty International, some 108 countries across the world had completely abolished the death penalty by the end of 2020, while 144 had abolished it in law or in practice.

Two other countries in Africa abolished the death penalty recently; Malawi banned it in April this year, while Chad ended the practice last year.

In practice, capital punishment is on the decline in Sub-Saharan Africa, with recorded death sentences falling by 6%, from 325 in 2019 to 305 last year, while executions were down 36%, falling from 25 in 2019 to 16 in 2020.

jcg/sri (AFP, Reuters)

Watch video 02:35 Child marriage on the rise in Sierra Leone

DW RECOMMENDS


German foreign minister: 'We can learn from Sierra Leone'

During a visit to the West African country, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has praised Sierra Leone, once ravaged by civil war, for its democratic progress.

Waiting for benefits from Sierra Leone's giant 'peace diamond'

A year ago, a 709-carat diamond was unearthed outside a remote village in eastern Sierra Leone. DW's Abu-Bakarr Jalloh reports on how little villagers there have benefited from the find.

 

Amnesty 'categorically' backs Pegasus findings amid denials

An Indian minister has slammed the leaked surveillance list as "fake news." Kazakhstan said there was no "evidence" and Morocco said it planned to sue, as the Pegasus fallout showed no signs of easing up.

 

Amnesty is standing by the findings of the Pegasus project

Amnesty International stood by its investigation over governmental abuse of spyware on Friday, as countries continued rushing to dispute the claims made.

The deputy head of Kazakhstan's presidential administration, Dauren Abayev, said media reports on the list of targets leaked to rights groups were no more than "rather intriguing information without any evidence."

A federal minister in the External Affairs Ministry of India called the Pegasus list "fake news" and said the index, which includes hundreds of Indian politicians and journalists, is being used to undermine the democratic institutions of the country.

Meenakshi Lekhi, recently appointed as Minister of State, blamed opposition parties, many of whose members are on the leaked surveillance list.

And Morocco has instructed a lawyer to file a defamation case over the investigation.

But Amnesty released a statement saying it "categorically" stood by its investigation.

"The data is irrefutably linked to potential targets of NSO Group's Pegasus Spyware. The false rumors being pushed on social media are intended to distract from the widespread unlawful targeting of journalists, activists and others that the Pegasus Project has revealed," it said.

What is the Pegasus list?

The index identifies persons of interest to clients of Israeli spyware firm NSO. Those clients included governments from around the world, who, in turn, were able to gain access to information via a targeted individuals' mobile phone.

The software is able to switch on a phone's camera or microphone and harvest its data and is now at the center of a growing storm after a list of about 50,000 potential surveillance targets was leaked.

Amnesty, which led the investigation with Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based non-profit organization, shared its information with several media outlets, publishing the reports last weekend.

French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, has changed his cellphone and number after a French media report said he was potentially targeted by the Pegasus spyware, a presidency official said Thursday. 

Global: Scale of secretive cyber surveillance 'an international human rights crisis' - new briefing

NSO Group is complicit, as their technology enabled violations revealed in the Pegasus Project

“This is a dangerous industry that has operated on the edges of legality for too long, and this cannot be allowed to continue” – Agnès Callamard

The vast scale of violations perpetrated through secretive cyber surveillance has exposed a global human rights crisis, Amnesty International warned today, in a new briefing published following the revelations of the Pegasus Project investigation.

The briefing, Uncovering the Iceberg: The Digital Surveillance Crisis Wrought by States and the Private Sector, reveals the devastating impact of the poorly-regulated spyware industry on human rights worldwide.  

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General, said:

“In the last few days, the world has rightly been outraged by the systematic targeting of human rights activists, journalists and lawyers revealed by the Pegasus Project.

“Not only does it expose the risk and harm to those individuals unlawfully targeted, but also the extremely destabilising consequences on global human rights and the security of the digital environment at large.

“NSO Group is just one company. This is a dangerous industry that has operated on the edges of legality for too long, and this cannot be allowed to continue.

“Now, we urgently need greater regulation over the cyber surveillance industry, accountability for human rights violations and abuses, and greater oversight over this shadowy industry.”

State and corporate responsibility

For years, Amnesty has warned of the dangers to human rights posed by the  surveillance industry generally, and the specific cases of unlawful targeted surveillance facilitated by NSO Group specifically. 

States have binding obligations under international human rights law to protect human rights from abuse by third parties, including private companies that operate outside their borders. 

According to international legal standards, a company may be complicit in human rights violations if it meets two main criteria: that through its business activities it helped in the commission of the violation, and that the company knew or should have known that its acts would help in furthering the violation. 

It is clear that NSO technology enabled the violations revealed in the Pegasus Project, and especially given that targeting has been found linked to the same countries in which NSO has previously been found, a reasonable person ought to have known the abuses were likely.

Agnès Callamard added: “Private companies like NSO Group have shown they will flout their human rights responsibilities with impunity, all the while profiting from human rights abuse.

“By allowing NSO software to be used without taking adequate steps to protect our rights, states worldwide have allowed an unlawful system to flourish resulting in rampant human rights violations and abuses on a grand scale.

"The fact that world and other political leaders themselves may have come into the spyware technology’s crosshairs will hopefully serve as a long overdue wake-up call for them and states worldwide to step up and regulate this industry.

“If world leaders are being targeted in this way then it further confirms that everyone’s rights, including human rights activists, journalists and lawyers, are at risk.

“Meaningful control of the spyware industry is now urgently needed to stop further violations. All legal steps must be taken to unveil the full extent and nature of NSO complicity in human rights abuses.”

Amnesty is calling for an immediate moratorium on the export, sale, transfer and use of surveillance technology until there is a human rights-compliant regulatory framework in place.

NSO Group is licensed to export Pegasus software by the Israeli Ministry of Defence. Amnesty is calling on the Israeli government to revoke existing export licenses to NSO Group, given the risk its spyware could be used for human rights violations. In addition, NSO Group should immediately shut down clients’ systems where there is credible evidence of misuse.

Amnesty is also calling on NSO Group to publish a human rights compliant Transparency Report that discloses incidents of misuse of their products, destination countries, contracts, and other information necessary to fully investigate the possible occurrence of human rights abuses linked to their business.

Background

The Pegasus Project is a ground-breaking collaboration by more than 80 journalists from 17 media organisations in 10 countries coordinated by Forbidden Stories, with the technical support of Amnesty who conducted cutting-edge forensic tests on mobile phones to identify traces of the spyware.

NSO Group has insisted that Pegasus software is legally used to “collect data from the mobile devices of specific suspected major criminals”. However, our recent investigation has proven that there is parallel use of the tool against civil society that is in clear violation of international human rights law.  

NSO Group’s targeted digital surveillance tool is inherently prone to human rights violations, given its design and the lack of checks in place to ensure its proper deployment. States have wilfully used Pegasus to unlawfully target individuals, completely violating their right to privacy.

Pegasus severely impacts the right to privacy by design: it is surreptitious, particularly intrusive, and has the capacity to collect and deliver an unlimited selection of personal and private data.

NSO Group has not taken adequate action to stop the use of its tools for unlawful targeted surveillance of activists, lawyers and journalists, despite the fact that it either knew, or arguably ought to have known, that this was taking place.

NSO Group said in a series of statements that it “firmly denies… false claims” in the report. It wrote that the consortium’s reporting was based on “wrong assumptions” and “uncorroborated theories”, and reiterated that the company was on a “life-saving mission”. A fuller summary of NSO Group’s response is available here.

View latest press releases

GERMANY
The history of Nord Stream

The Nord Stream pipeline between Russia and Germany has caused much transatlantic strife in its two-decade history. But Angela Merkel's dogged separation of trade and politics won out in the end.


Schröder (far left), French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Merkel, Medvedev, and others open the Nord Stream pipe in 2011

Ten days before the German election in 2005, as the race between Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his challenger Angela Merkel was reaching its climax, the chancellor decided to hold a meeting with a man who had become a good friend: Russian President Vladimir Putin.

As Die Zeit newspaper reported at the time, there was a very good reason why Schröder had decided to leave the heat of campaigning just before the election: He was no longer sure he was going to win, and he had some urgent business to sort out that he did not trust his successor to get done.

An idea that had first been floated in the mid-1990s was therefore finally sealed on September 8, 2005, with the joint declaration of intent signed by the German and Russian heads of government. There would be a new natural gas pipeline running directly from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, bypassing all the transit countries that had been irritating Russia with their demands up till then. Russia would now be free of the transport fees charged by Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Baltic nations for the pipelines crossing their territory — and also of the leverage those countries might have over Russia.

Schröder promptly lost the election, and a few days after his chancellorship ended, he joined the board of directors of the pipeline's new operating company, which would soon be renamed Nord Stream. "This is, so to speak, a baby of the special friendship between Gerhard Schröder and Vladimir Putin," as Anna Kuchenbecker, senior director and strategic partnership specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), put it.

Some describe Nord Stream as a project 'born of this friendship'

Complex motivations

So it was left to Schröder's successor to oversee the completion of the project, though the ensuing diplomatic strife appears to have been worth it, because it was under Merkel's tenure that the project was doubled in 2015, with the beginning of Nord Stream 2.

The two pipelines represent a vast undertaking. Nord Stream is now the longest sub-sea pipeline in the world, stretching 1,224 kilometers (760 miles) from the northern German town of Greifswald to the Russian port of Narva Bay. The first pipe was inaugurated in 2011, and pumps 55 billion cubic meters (1.9 trillion cubic feet) of natural gas to Europe every year. The second project, Nord Stream 2, began construction in 2018 and was completed this year, doubling that capacity.

For Germany, the economic benefits are not as obvious as they are for Russia, but still real enough. Industry leaders could rely on a steady energy supply (some feared that Ukraine's infrastructure might not hold up), and the German energy companies who took part, like E.ON, were rewarded with excellent relations to Gazprom and so the hope of being involving the exploitation of natural gas in Siberia.

Watch video04:24 German transatlantic coordinator: Nord Stream 2 deal a 'good sign'

Diplomatic headaches

But it came with strife for Germany — especially the security concerns of Ukraine and the Baltic nations, and the ties with the US. For Sascha Lohmann, a researcher in transatlantic relations at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), the Nord Stream story has always been tied to the US perception of Russia as a threat.

"On the US side what has remained constant is the perception that the potential to use this economic interdependence as a weapon has been there since the early days of the Cold War, and basically hasn't changed," he told DW.

In the early 2000s, however, German politicians had developed a contrary, more liberal theory — that more economic interdependence between Russia and western Europe would create peace in the long run. As trade increased, democracy would inevitably prevail.

That notion was debunked in the second decade of the 21st century. In 2012, Putin switched roles again with the more liberal Dmitry Medvedev and returned to the Russian presidency. Then in 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, sparking a war in eastern Ukraine. The subsequent decimation of Russia's opposition and human rights activists have only underlined this new approach. That changed western attitudes, most notably in the US Congress. "Congress became much more active after the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine," said Lohmann.

The US attitude to Nord Stream has been guided by its perception of Russia as a threat

While both the administrations of Barack Obama and Donald Trump were reluctant to impose sanctions on Russia, Congress "was in the driving seat" on US sanctions policy, said Lohmann. "What has changed is the threat perception of Russia among the policy-makers in Washington," he said.

Idealism out, compartmentalization in

Against the increasing threat of US sanctions, it seems odd then that Merkel's administration blessed the deal to build Nord Stream 2 in June 2015. "I find that actually harder to explain than Nord Stream 1," said Kuchenbecker. But by then, too, Germany had potentially more acute energy worries: the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan in 2011 precipitated the country's decision to phase out nuclear power.

"I also think that in Merkel's politics, in light of the role of Germany as a super-export nation, also pushed for so-called compartmentalization — the idea that trade and politics should be separated," added Kuchenbecker.

On top of that, while Obama was in power, Merkel had a friend in the White House who could be counted on not to push too hard against Nord Stream 2. That changed with the openly hostile attitude adopted by Donald Trump and his ambassador in Germany, Richard Grenell, who in January 2019 went so far as to send threatening letters to German companies involved in the pipeline.

Merkel's stance since 2015 remained the same however: Nord Stream 2 might have geopolitical implications, but it was basically an economic project. And by and large, the latest compromise suggests that Germany's economic interests have prevailed.

‘The greatest honor’: Osaka lights Olympic cauldron

By ANDREW DAMPF






TOKYO (AP) — What a moment for Naomi Osaka. For the new Japan. For racial injustice. For female athletes. For tennis.

The four-time Grand Slam winner lit the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics on Friday.

It was a choice that could be appreciated worldwide: In Japan, of course, the country where Osaka was born and the nation that she plays for; in embattled Haiti because that’s where her father is from; and surely in the United States, because that’s where the globe’s highest-earning female athlete lives and where she has been outspoken about racial injustice.

Plus, everywhere in between, because Osaka is a superstar.

But she has often received an uncomfortable welcome in Japan because of her race, with her family having moved to the U.S. when she was 3. Her emergence as a top tennis player has challenged public attitudes about identity in a homogeneous culture that is being pushed to change.

It’s always a mystery until the last moment who gets the honor of lighting the cauldron.

Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima and Hideki Matsui were among the baseball greats who took part in bringing the flame into the stadium. And in a country where baseball is the No. 1 sport, Osaka was not necessarily expected to be given the ultimate honor.

But there she was at the center of the stage when a staircase emerged, the cauldron opened atop a peak inspired by Mount Fuji and Osaka ascended with the Olympic and Japanese flags blowing in the breeze off to her left. She dipped the flame in, the cauldron ignited and fireworks filled the sky.

“Undoubtedly the greatest athletic achievement and honor I will ever have in my life,” Osaka wrote on Instagram next to a picture of her smiling while holding the flame. “I have no words to describe the feelings I have right now, but I do know I am currently filled with gratefulness and thankfulness.”

It capped quite a series of events over the past two months for the 23-year-old Osaka.

Going into the French Open in late May, Osaka — who is ranked No. 2 — announced she wouldn’t speak to reporters at the tournament, saying those interactions create doubts for her.

Then, after her first-round victory, she skipped the mandatory news conference.

Osaka was fined $15,000 and — surprisingly — publicly reprimanded by those in charge of Grand Slam tournaments, who said she could be suspended if she kept avoiding the media.

The next day, Osaka withdrew from Roland Garros entirely to take a mental health break, revealing she has dealt with depression.

She sat out Wimbledon, too. So the Tokyo Games mark her return to competition.

“The Olympics are a special time, when the world comes together to celebrate sports. I am looking forward most to being with the athletes that had waited and trained for over 10 years, for celebrating a very hard year (2020) and having that happen in Japan makes it that much more special,” Osaka wrote in an email interview when she was selected as the 2020 AP Female Athlete of the Year. “It’s a special and beautiful country filled with culture, history and beauty. I cannot be more excited.”

There was a big hint that Osaka might have an important role in the ceremony when her opening match in the Olympic tennis tournament was pushed back from Saturday to Sunday without an explanation earlier in the day.

She was originally scheduled to play 52nd-ranked Zheng Saisai of China in the very first match of the Games on center court Saturday morning. But clearly by lighting the flame as midnight approached, she wouldn’t have had enough rest for an early morning match.

Osaka became the first tennis player to light the Olympic cauldron. She’s also one of the few active athletes to be given the honor. Australian sprinter Cathy Freeman lit the cauldron for the 2000 Sydney Games and went on to win gold in the 400 meters.

Osaka — along with top-ranked Ash Barty — is a favorite to win the women’s singles title in a tennis tournament that also features Novak Djokovic aiming to become the first man to win a Golden Slam by holding all four Grand Slam trophies and Olympic gold in the same year.

Whatever the final results on the court, Osaka has already become part of Olympic history.

___

Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf

___

More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

At Tokyo Olympics, a debt to ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘E.T.’

By JOHN LEICESTER

1 of 12

TOKYO (AP) — Although the name Marty McFly won’t be on the start list for the first Olympic skateboarding competition, the “Back to the Future” character who inspired the immortal lines “What’s that thing he’s on? It’s a board, with wheels!” was a landmark personality for the sport in its groundbreaking journey to the Tokyo Games.

The Olympic debut in Tokyo of BMX freestyle also owes a debt to Hollywood, because it was Steven Spielberg’s movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” that showcased the acrobatic sport’s wow factor to mainstream audiences.

So Tinseltown, take an Olympic bow. Skateboarding starts Sunday with the men’s street competition. The men and women’s medal events in BMX freestyle are on the second Sunday, Aug. 1. Back when the movie blockbusters hit screens in the 1980s, McFly would have needed a time-traveling DeLorean to foresee that these counterculture activities would be welcomed into the Olympic extravaganza unfolding in Tokyo.

“The skateboard associations and the BMX associations should be giving Bob Zemeckis, myself and Steven Spielberg lifetime achievement awards,” joked “Back to the Future” screenwriter Bob Gale in an interview with The Associated Press ahead of the competitions.

Gale co-created and cowrote the hit series with director Robert Zemeckis. They imagined McFly as a skateboarder to help make the character — played by actor Michael J. Fox — stand out.

“Marty McFly was always supposed to be kind of this rebellious kid,” Gale recollected. “We thought it was appropriate that he might still be using the skateboard or may have decided to use a skateboard because everybody told him not to.”

In one of the movie’s signature scenes, McFly uses a makeshift skateboard to outrun and outfox the villainous Biff Tannen. McFly soars on his board over a hedge and races around a town square, sparks flying. Biff and his gang of bullies are humiliated, ending up neck-deep in dung after crashing into a manure truck.

Skateboarding pioneer Tony Hawk was 17 and already a pro when the time-travel movie was released in July 1985. He credits “Back to the Future” for luring a whole generation of kids to skating.

“There are plenty of legendary pros that I know of that started skating because they saw that,” Hawk said in an AP interview.

Skateboarding featured again as an outcast activity two years later in “Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol.” Hawk was part of the stunt crew that skated around downtown Toronto performing jumps and tricks for that movie.




“Back to the Future” was also pivotal for Josh Friedberg, the CEO of USA Skateboarding, who is leading the U.S. team of 12 skaters in Tokyo. The movie and a friend’s return to their Kansas hometown from Florida with a skating video and a board all combined to hook Friedberg for life.

“My head exploded,” he said in an AP interview. “I fell in love with skateboarding that summer and there are billions of kids my age (for whom) the same exact thing happened.

“That movie was fascinating to me as a 13-year-old, with Michael J. Fox skating on his tail and making sparks and escaping the bad guys,” Friedberg added. “There is an entire generation of skateboarders that are the ‘Back to the Future’ generation.”

For the movie’s makers, long before skateboarding was Tokyo-bound and plastered all over the internet and social media, one of the challenges was finding skaters good enough to carry the scenes.

“The stunt guys didn’t know how to skateboard,” Gale recalled.

The hunt took him on a Sunday morning to Los Angeles’ Venice Beach, a cradle for the skating culture that Olympic organizers now hope will entice young audiences to tune in to Tokyo.

“Sure enough, there were these two guys that were just doing these outstanding skateboard tricks,” Gale said. “So I went up to them and I said, ‘I know you are going to think that I am full of it, but I am actually producing a movie and I need a couple of guys.’”

Freestyle BMX pioneer Bob Haro had a similar experience: An out-of-the-blue phone call offering him work as a stuntman on “E.T.,” released in 1982.

Among those inspired by Spielberg’s blockbuster about a stranded alien was future Olympic track cycling champion Chris Hoy. Then only 7, Hoy was instantly smitten by its thrilling chases and took up BMX racing before later switching to track, where his six gold medals made him Britain’s most decorated Olympian.

In the movie’s climactic chase scene, Haro jumped his BMX bike onto the roof and hood of a police vehicle, knocking off its flashing red light.

“It turned, again, millions of kids onto BMX,” Haro said in an AP interview. “Really great timing, too, because the sport of BMX was blowing up at that time and they capitalized on it in a good way.

“For the younger generation, a lot of them, that’s a long time ago,” he acknowledged. “They are having their moment, which is great.”

___

More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2020-tokyo-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

 

  

Ocean Viking: Life and death in the Mediterranean

At least 17 migrants have drowned off the coast of Tunisia after their boat sank in Libya, the Tunisian Red Crescent said Wednesday. Since the beginning of the year, nearly 800 people have died in the central Mediterranean trying to reach Europe. FRANCE 24's Emmanuel Chaze reports on the migration situation in the Mediterranean.

Iran's new oil terminal aims to bypass Gulf chokepoint, say analysts

Issued on: 23/07/2021 - 

Iran opens new oil export terminal Patricio ARANA AFP


London (AFP)

A new Iranian oil terminal that opened this week is a strategic move that enables the major crude exporter to bypass a global chokepoint and boost sales if punishing US sanctions are lifted, analysts say.

Tehran inaugurated Thursday the terminal in Jask, on the Gulf of Oman, allowing tankers to avoid the Strait of Hormuz -- a passage less than 40 kilometres (25 miles) wide at its narrowest point, and where US and Iranian naval vessels have faced off in the past.

Commentators contend the move might not curb global price volatility but could help Tehran ramp up exports if damaging US sanctions are lifted, a move that depends on the future of a 2015 nuclear deal that currently hangs by a thread.

Simmering tensions in the Strait -- a vital shipping lane for about one fifth of world oil -- sparked surging prices early last year before the coronavirus pandemic crushed the market.

Prices then crashed and even briefly turned negative, before rebounding sharply on resurgent demand as economic activity recovered.

If Iran can export oil via Jask it will reduce the number of tankers that pass through "the world's most important chokepoint for waterborne crude," Rystad Energy analyst Bjornar Tonhaugen told AFP.

"This (new terminal) may reduce the risk premium of crude prices," noted Tonhaugen.

"Iran has now a strategic ability to keep some of its oil exports to the world market running in... an extreme event."

But, he cautioned, this in itself will not dampen disruption to the world oil market, as most of the other countries in the Gulf export via oil from terminals located on the inside of the Strait.

Iran is the fourth biggest crude producer within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

- Sanctions issue -

Iran built a 1,000-kilometre (625-mile) pipeline to carry oil from Goreh in the southwestern Bushehr province to Jask.

Its other main terminal is in the Gulf port of Kharg, which is accessed via the Strait.

Iran, at odds with the United States since its revolution in 1979, has faced punishing US sanctions since former US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from a landmark 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

Their forces have been on the brink of conflict twice since June 2019 amid heightened tensions in the Gulf.

But, say analysts, some prospects have emerged for a deal, and this could be another factor behind the Jask terminal.

Tehran has held talks since April in Vienna with the agreements other state parties -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- and Trump's successor Joe Biden has signalled he is ready to return to the accord.

"Iran's oil industry is eyeing an end to sanctions," said PVM Associates analyst Stephen Brennock.

"The fact it is opening (the Jask terminal) now could be a signal to the market that Iran can ramp up quickly once sanctions are removed," remarked analyst Chris Midgley at S&P Global Platts.

burs-bp/rfj/bcp/wai/ri

Cleveland Indians change name to Guardians, after years of uproar

OVER IT'S RACIST BRAND


Issued on: 23/07/2021 - 

Cleveland's Major League Baseball team is dropping its controversial century-old Indians name and rebranding the team as the Guardians -- Chief Yahoo, the mascot seen here, was seen as particularly offensive Jason Miller GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File


Washington (AFP)

Cleveland's Major League Baseball team announced Friday it is renaming itself the Guardians, dropping the more than century-old moniker of the Indians, which Native Americans and other critics saw as racist.

The team made the announcement that it would dump the name it has used since 1915 in a video narrated by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks.

It is the latest in a series of professional or university sports teams in the United States to yield to public pressure over offensive names and logos -- ditching ones such as Redskins, Savages or Redmen -- amid a national reckoning about racism and discrimination.


"It has always been Cleveland that is the best part of our name," Hanks says in the video, which describes the Ohio city as proud of its sports heritage and eager to protect it.

"And now it's time to unite as one family, one community -- to build the next era for this team and this city," he says.

"This is the city we love. And the game we believe in. And together we are all Cleveland Guardians," it says, unveiling the new team logo, with music in the background from the Black Keys, a rock band formed in nearby Akron.

The change will take effect after the 2021 season ends.

The team first announced last summer that it would talk to local community members and Native American groups about the possibility of a name change. In December, it formally said it would drop "Indians" and started a search for a new nickname.

As part of this process, more than 40,000 fans were surveyed.

The new name Guardians reflects a bit of local lore -- so-called Guardians of Traffic carved into pylons at either end of a bridge over the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland.

Native American groups welcomed the name change.

"With today's announcement, the Cleveland baseball team has taken another important step forward in healing the harms its former mascot long caused Native people, in particular Native youth," said Fawn Sharp, president of the National Congress of American Indians.

The most prominent name-changing case of late prior to this was the Washington team in the National Football League, which in 2020 dumped the nickname Redskins and its Indianhead logo. The team has yet to settle on a new name.

Despite the move toward jettisoning names criticized as racist, many persist in big league sports in America, such as the Braves (baseball), Seahawks (football) and Blackhawks (hockey).

© 2021 AFP