EU to withhold funds for Poland over Turow coal mine

The European Commission is punishing Poland after Warsaw ignored a court order to pay a daily fine over the Turow coal mine near the Czech border.



Polish miners have staged demonstrations against the EU order to shutter Turow

The European Commission said Wednesday that it is moving to withhold millions of euros in funds intended for Poland after leaders there refused to pay legal fines over the Turow coal mine near the Czech border.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) last year ordered Poland to close the mine, with the Czech government claiming that it drains groundwater from Czech villages and causes pollution.

Poland has refused to shut down the mine, saying it boosts the economy and helps the country meet its energy needs. Warsaw claims the EU does not have the legal authority to order the closure of the mine.

The ECJ has imposed a fine of €500,000 ($567,000) per day as long as Poland operates the mine.

Despite ongoing talks between Warsaw and Prague to resolve the coal mine dispute, the Polish and Czech governments have so far failed to reach an agreement.
How much does Poland receive from the EU?

European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari said Wednesday that Brussels is utilizing an "offsetting procedure" for EU payments to Warsaw after a payment deadline expired on Tuesday.

Warsaw's first payment totals €15 million ($17 million), in addition to €30,000 in interest.

"What the Commission needs to do now is to identify a suitable or appropriate payment against which the compensation can be made," Ujvari said. The Polish government will then be given at least 10 working days to respond.

"Following that, the Commission will deduct the amount concerned from the payment identified," Ujvari said.

According to EU figures from 2018, Poland pays the EU €3.98 billion per year and annually receives €16.35 from the bloc.

Escalating tensions between Poland, EU

The move by the European Commission is the latest escalation in the ongoing feud between Brussels and Warsaw.

Poland currently faces additional fines of €1 million per day since October after Warsaw refused to follow EU rulings regarding the Polish judicial system.

The ECJ has ordered Poland suspend the disciplinary chamber of the Polish Supreme Court, which it says violates EU judicial standards.

The EU is also refusing to grant Poland pandemic post-recovery funds because of Warsaw's noncompliance with ECJ orders.

wd/sms (AP, dpa)

Romania: Right-wing extremists target German mayor

Last week, right-wing extremists stormed the city hall in Timisoara, targeting the German mayor. The far-right party behind the violence is becoming more popular and causing a major political problem.

 

Dominic Fritz, the mayor of the western Romanian city of Timisoara

The rioters entered the building through the back entrance, yelling "shameful, shameful" as they demanded to see the mayor.  Although masks are compulsory indoors, no one was wearing one and there were no police to stop the crowd. Only a single employee of city hall stood in their way as they screamed "come out, you dirty dog," referring to the city's mayor. After a quarter of an hour of verbal aggression, they finally left the building.

That was the scene that played out in the western Romanian city of Timisoara last Friday. Dozens of supporters of the right-wing extremist party, the Alliance for Romanian Unity (AUR), which picked up just under 10% of the vote and is the fourth-largest group in parliament, gathered in the city center. Also present were members of the notorious neo-Nazi group, New Right (ND).

Also on hand was AUR leader George Simion, who together with fellow marchers, targeted the German mayor of the city, Dominic Fritz. In September 2020, Fritz became the first local politician with foreign citizenship to be elected mayor of a Romanian city. The country does not need "this kind of a foreigner," Simion shouted, and announced the formation of what he called an "anti-Fritz league."

The demonstrators chanted "Fritz remember, this is not your city!" as Simion led the roaring crowd into city hall by way of the back door since the front door was locked. There are videos on Facebook that document the events.

'A message against tolerance and openness'

Simion and his party's storming of city hall  has sparked a great deal of outrage in Romania. The prominent journalist and political commentator, Cristian Tudor Popescu even compared the marches with those of Nazi storm troopers back in the 1920s and 30s.

The mayors of 23 Romanian cities signed a statement declaring their solidarity with Dominic Fritz and have urged authorities to take tougher action against rioters. The leader of the progressive green anti-corruption party, Save Romania Union, Dacian Ciolos, even went so far as to blame the local authorities, saying in a Facebook post that the AUR's actions essentially took place with their "permission and support."

The city's mayor, Dominic Fritz told DW that the march on city hall was "a message against the city of Timisoara with its multicultural and pro-European character. It is also a statement against my election victory, because it was a symbol of tolerance and openness in this city. The nationalists want to give the impression that there is no majority for this. But, at least in Romania's big cities there is this majority, which people now are trying to intimidate," Fritz said.

Not the first time

The violent storming of city hall in Timisoara by right-wing extremists and nationalists is particularly sad from a symbolic standpoint.  The uprising against the Ceausescu dictatorship began in this same city in 1989, and a large number of people lost their lives. Ever since, Timisoara, Romania's third-largest city, sees itself as a symbol of a free and European Romania. Even during the darkest days of post-communist nationalism in the country, the city repeatedly stood up for freedom and liberalism .

Tanks in Timisoara — the uprising against the Ceausescu dictatorship began here in December 1989

The events in Timisoara were probably among the most disturbing organized by the AUR so far, but they were by no means the party's first. Just a few weeks ago, AUR supporters, together with COVID conspiracists and anti-vaccine protesters, stormed the courtyard of the parliament in the capital Bucharest, where police officers managed to stop them from actually entering the building.

For some time now, the AUR has played a pivotal role in organizing violent anti-coronavirus protests nationwide.

AUR climbing in the polls

In addition, the party made headlines just days ago, demanding that the Holocaust and the murder of Romanian Jews not be taught in schools. This was not the first time the party has been active in Timisoara: last March, the party's supporters demonstrated in front of Mayor Dominic Fritz's private apartment, yelling racist and xenophobic slogans while protesting the mayor's coronavirus restrictions. 

Although the AUR has failed to mobilize more than a few dozen people for such events —  a maximum of 2,000 people have showed up for their anti-coronavirus protests — many observers say the party poses one of the biggest political problems for Romania. The AUR, whose acronym means "gold" in Romanian, was founded in September 2019, and entered parliament just a year later with 9% of the vote – surprising almost all forecasters.

Since then, the party's polling numbers have been going through the roof. It is currently polling at just under 20% nationally and, in some surveys, it's the second strongest party behind the Social Democrats.

Anti-Hungarian but pro-Orban

For years now, Romania has had no notable right-wing nationalists to speak of when compared with Hungary, Poland, and most other central and southeastern European countries. That was partly because parties like the Social Democrats filled the apparent void on the right with right-wing nationalist and xenophobic positions of their own.

But the AUR isn't just your garden-variety right-wing party. It is also explicitly anti-Western, Euroskeptic, anti-Semitic, anti-minority, homophobic, and pro-Putin, and wants to unify with the Republic of Moldova, which, in the past, was part of Romania.

The party's aggressive anti-establishment  events, which reach hundreds of thousands of people via social media,  increasingly resonate with voters dissatisfied with mainstream politics and a state of constant political crisis in Romania.

Paradoxically, the AUR is reaching out to Victor Orban's Fidesz party and other right-wing nationalists on a European level, while at the same time taking a more chauvinistic position domestically when it comes to the Hungarian minority in Transylvania, which includes approximately 1.2 million people.

George Simion of the AUR has professed his admiration for Hungarian leader Viktor Orban

An example of this was when George Simion led anti-Hungarian protests in the Uz Valley in the eastern Carpathian Mountains back in June 2019, just prior to the AUR's founding. During those protests, nationalist Romanian hooligans vandalized a cemetery with Hungarian and Romanian war graves while George Simion was busy declaring his admiration for the Hungarian leader, Viktor Orban. He even went so far as to call himself the "Orban of Romania" with the AUR now saying it wants to become a member of a new European alliance of right-wing nationalists and extremists, which Viktor Orban helped to initiate.

Just fines so far

Dominic Fritz, the mayor of Timisoara, is concerned about the rise of the AUR, above all, because he thinks it reflects a "profound crisis of confidence and a decline in political culture," which is evident in many other European countries. Fritz is not worried about his personal wellbeing however. "I feel safe in the city," he says, "because there are hardly any people in Timisoara itself who take part in events like the one on Friday. The rioters mostly come from outside."

It is unclear  whether the violent events at Timisoara's city hall will have far-reaching consequences for Simion or the other rioters. So far, authorities have only imposed minor fines  for violating mask requirements and for disturbing the public order.

This story was originally written in German.

Holocaust survivor: 'Babies are the best revenge against the Nazis'

Once an inmate at Auschwitz, Lily Ebert never

thought she would make it out alive. Now at 98,

she has 35 great-grandchildren and has become a

star on TikTok.

   

Lily Ebert is an Auschwitz survivor

Becoming a great-grandmother is special for anyone, Londoner-by-choice Lily Ebert told the British news agency PA in view of her family's latest offspring.

But for her, as a Holocaust survivor, it is all the more special, she said. "I never thought I would achieve this. I had to survive first of all and then to achieve this age… (the Nazis) wanted to kill us and we showed (them) that they could not," British media reported her as saying.

"Babies are the best revenge against the Nazis," Ebert said in a statement posted on Twitter by her great-grandson, Dov Forman. The Holocaust survivor recently welcomed her 35th grandchild.

Born in Hungary, Ebert is one of the few living eyewitnesses of the Holocaust and regularly recounts her experiences in talks and at events. "I promised myself: As long as I live, I will tell my story to future generations," she told PA news agency.

To help spread her message wider, her great-grandson Dov Forman has been running an account on the social media platform TikTok for almost two years — and it's very popular with younger generations. Around 1.6 million people follow Lily Ebert and Dov Forman on their channel, which has garnered 23.1 million likes and counting.

The family duo came up with the idea when Ebert was unable to give talks at schools during lockdowns in the UK due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Lily Ebert has been raising awareness about the Holocaust

Holocaust remembrance on TikTok

On TikTok, Ebert shares short videos about her life and openly talks about the horrors of being in Auschwitz. "It was hell. They played music while they killed people" she has said. In videos on the platform, she asks how it is possible that Nazi women who worked as camp guards were willing to kill children, then go home to care for their own offspring as mothers. She also talks about how harshly prisoners were punished if they tried to help others who were too sick to work. 

After Auschwitz, Ebert's life went on. Some aspects of her daily life are shown on the TikTok channel, such as her tradition of making challah bread each week. Her 18-year-old great-grandson posts videos of her making the Jewish bread, traditionally eaten on Shabbat, the seventh day of the week or Saturday, or on other holidays.

The Nazis deported Lily Ebert from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1944, where her mother and two younger siblings were murdered. Ebert and her older siblings, meanwhile, were considered fit for work and managed to survive. She was a forced laborer at a munitions factory near Leipzig when U.S. soldiers arrived in April 1945, freeing her and her fellow prisoners. She had only narrowly escaped the SS death march.

Only 20 years old at the time, she remembers when an American soldier, having nothing else to write on, scrawled words of encouragement on a banknote and gave it to her. "A start to a new life. Good luck and happiness," it read. 

This new life began in Switzerland. Eventually, she emigrated to Israel, where she met her husband. The family has lived in London since 1967.

Ebert and her grandson, Dov Foreman (pictured) run a popular TikTok account

Ebert's message of tolerance

Ebert's greatest concern is keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive so that nothing like it happens again, she has said on TikTok. Together with her great-grandson, Ebert wrote her story in a book titled "Lily's Promise: How I survived Auschwitz and Found the Strength to Live." With a foreword written by Charles, the Prince of Wales, the book stormed the British bestseller list.

For her 98th birthday on December 29, 2021, her great-grandson posted photos on Twitter of Ebert and her youngest grandchild surrounded by countless birthday cards. "I never expected to survive Auschwitz. Now, at 98, I celebrate surrounded by my family - the Nazis did not win," she said.

This article was translated from German by Sarah Hucal. 

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Wannsee Conference: Screenplay for the Holocaust

On January 20, 1942, details about the extermination of Europe's Jews were discussed. Even 80 years later, the minutes of the Wannsee Conference send chills down the spine.

The villa in Wannsee is now a memorial

In March 1947, as officials from the German Foreign Ministry tried to justify their actions at the Nuremberg Trials, Robert Kempner made a coincidental discovery. Amid the masses of documents left behind by the Nazis, a cover page piqued the curiosity of the assistant US chief counsel. A stamp in red ink is clearly legible on the page: "Secret Reich Matter."

Under the nondescript title "Minutes of Meeting," 15 pages serve as evidence of the systematic execution of European Jews. It is a record of the Wannsee Conference, which took place on January 20, 1942. It is the 16th set of minutes — the only one remaining of a set of 30.

At noon on that day, 15 men who had accepted an invitation from Reinhard Heydrich — head of the dreaded Reich Main Security Office — arrived to a lavish villa in the posh Berlin suburb of Wannsee. The temperature outside was -12 degrees Celsius (10 F), and the frigidness behind what was discussed within the walls of that villa still sends chills down one's spine today.


'NEVER AGAIN': MEMORIALS OF THE HOLOCAUST
Dachau
The Nazi regime opened the first concentration camp in Dauchau, not far from Munich. Just a few weeks after Adolf Hitler came to power it was used by the paramilitary SS "Schutzstaffel" to imprison, torture and kill political opponents to the regime. Dachau also served as a prototype and model for the other Nazi camps that followed.
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Guests included SS officers, state secretaries and heads of Nazi administrative authorities. Although the names were not the most familiar ones, almost all the men were young and well-educated. Half of them held a doctoral degree — yet most importantly, every one of them was very ambitious.

For people without a comprehensive knowledge of history, the Wannsee Conference is seen as the committee responsible for the Holocaust. But this is wrong in two ways.

Firstly, no decision was made on that day. Secondly, the mass extermination of Jews had already begun.

Heydrich brought together representatives of all relevant institutions, such as the foreign and transport ministries, to discuss coordination of the planned deportations and mass murders. He also sought to put all of the participating authorities under his leadership.

As recorded in the minutes, this was the group's first act: Heydrich's appointment as commissioner for the "final solution" of the Jewish question in Europe. For him, a major step up the career ladder.

'Regarding: The final solution of the Jewish question,' reads the top line of the Wannsee Protocol
Half a million Jewish victims before the Wannsee Conference

Months before the fateful meeting on January 20, 1942, hundreds of thousands of Jews had already fallen victim to the organized mass extermination of Hitler's "final solution," particularly in parts of the Soviet Union that had been captured by German troops in the summer of 1941.

By the time the Wannsee Conference was held, approximately 500,000 Jews — including women and children — had already met their deaths, mostly by firing squad.

The intention to exterminate Jews had been signaled long before 1942. On January 30, 1939, Hitler had already used a clearly defined vocabulary in his prophecy of the "destruction of international Jewry" in the event of a war.

When the war against the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) began on June 22, 1941, resulting large swaths of the region being overrun, within months millions of non-German Jews found themselves living in the realm of Nazi Germany.

Holocaust expert and historian Michael Wildt called this a turning point in the extermination policy for Jews. Simply deporting from the Nazi realm the more than 11 million Jews who were documented in the minutes of the Wannsee Conference was no longer feasible. "In order to get rid of the Jews, the plans became accordingly more monstrous and gigantic," Wildt said.

A list of countries with their numbers of Jews, including a total

Coded language, clear intentions

The 15-page minutes do not actually provide details of how the Nazis planned to get rid of the Jews. Though ambigious, "evacuation to the east" expresses what is meant: Extermination of the Jews.

Years later, Adolf Eichmann, a leading collaborator of Heydrich and participant in the Wannsee Conference, openly confessed this. During his trial in Jerusalem in 1961, Eichmann recounted events in the villa. He said, "Different methods of killing were discussed there."

Even though the only remaining copy of the minutes contains disguised formulations, the document is still an exception with regard to the clarity of the intentions, said historian Peter Longerich.

This is evidenced by the fact that the crime of the century enjoyed the support of all conference participants: the SS, Justice Ministry, Interior Ministry, Foreign Ministry, the arms industry — and of course, the National Socialist Party.

Yet still, even after 1945, high-ranking Nazis had the audacity to claim that they hadn't known anything. They included leading Nazi party members like Hermann Göring and Alfred Rosenberg, a significant Nazi ideologue and minister for the occupied eastern territories.

Apart from the extermination of the Jews, Reinhard Heydrich was pursuing yet another plan only a few months before he himself was assassinated. If the Soviet Union were defeated, the high-ranking Nazis wanted to employ masses of Jews as road workers.

"Although undoubtedly a large part will have diminished due to natural decline," is written on Page 7 of the minutes. Whatever was left of the "remains" would have to be "treated accordingly."

This is an updated version of an article first published January 19, 2017. It was originally written in German.

Eichmann In Jerusalem A Report On The Banality Of Evil By Hannah Arendt : Hannah Arendt : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

 

 

Germany takes on Telegram to fight extremism

Extremists use the messaging service to stoke hate and violence. The German government plans to get tough on Telegram — but, even if Berlin gets the firm to cooperate, this alone will not solve the problem, experts warn.


German authorities struggle to prevent incendiary messages from being spread via messaging service Telegram

In January 2022, a member of Germany's Querdenker ("lateral thinkers") protest movement posted a photo on the messaging app Telegram of Manuela Schwesig, the premier of the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

"She will be taken away … either by a patrol car or by a hearse, but she will be taken away," the caption read. Weeks earlier, protesters had marched towards Schwesig's house to protest contact restrictions, but were stopped by police before they could reach it.

Within days, authorities announced that they would investigate the death threat. But when the state's interior minister, Christian Pegel, was interviewed by public broadcaster NDR, he acknowledged that finding the author would not be easy.

"At least if we count on Telegram cooperating with us, this will be difficult," he said.

The incident illustrates how Europe's largest economy struggles to fight hate speech and threats against politicians, journalists and activists circulating on the app.

Unlike other social media platforms including Meta's Facebook or Google's YouTube, the company has refused to cooperate with authorities — prompting the German government to announce tough measures.

"Telegram, like everybody else, has to adhere to our laws" or could face millions in fines, German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, of the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

German Justice Minister Buschmann has threatened Telegram with hefty fines

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a Social Democrat (SPD), added in an interview with Die Zeit that her government might consider blocking the app as an "ultima ratio," or last resort.

And while technology experts say that turning up the heat on Telegram is overdue, they warn that tougher rules alone are not likely to solve the problem.

"We also need much more expertise among the police and prosecutors to tackle the problem," said Josef Holnburger, the co-director of the nonprofit Center for Monitoring, Analysis, and Strategy (CeMAS).
How did Telegram turn into a hotbed of hate?

Telegram's refusal to cooperate with authorities is, in many ways, ingrained in its DNA.

The company was founded in 2013 by Russian entrepreneurs Pavel and Nikolai Durov on the promise that users could communicate beyond the reach of governments.

Watch video 05:39 Germany threatens to get tough on Telegram

Since then, Telegram has provided refuge to dissidents from Belarus to Iran, helping them to organize their work and exchange information about government repression.

But this hands-off philosophy has also turned the messenger into a safe haven for conspiracy theorists and extremists — in particular after many were banned from larger social media platforms.

When Facebook and Instagram deleted the accounts of the right-wing Identitarian Movement group in 2018, many users in Germany followed it to Telegram, according to a data analysis by CeMAS. The same phenomenon happened when Facebook blocked a group of radical opponents to the coronavirus restrictions in the spring of 2020.

At the same time, Telegram has became increasingly popular in Germany: Between 2018 and 2021, the share of messenger users who regularly use Telegram rose from 7% to 15%, according to a survey by German data analysis company Statista.


This, experts say, is what turned Telegram into the key platform where opponents of coronavirus restrictions organize their protests — many of which spilled over into violence.

In August 2020, for example, a mob tried to force its way into the German parliament after false rumors spread on Telegram that authorities had breached the constitution when they broke up the demonstration.

One year later, a journalist was pulled from his bicycle and beaten during a protest in Berlin after his picture had circulated on Telegram.

And in December 2021, protesters used the app to organize a march with flaming torches to the house of a regional politician in the small eastern German town of Grimma.

Telegram did not reply to an interview request and a list of questions submitted by DW.

From a messaging service to a social network

Germany is not alone with its Telegram problem.

Around the world, hate and illegal content is increasingly spread via the messaging service. But it seems no coincidence that the debate over how to fight it is taking place in Germany.

The country has some of the world's strictest laws on what can and cannot be said. Forged in the late 1950s, these hate speech rules were a response to the country's Nazi past — acknowledging that the rise of National Socialism had been fueled by incendiary propaganda. To this day, inciting hate and violence can land you in court in Germany.

In 2017, Germany passed a law to apply that approach to the internet as well. The Network Enforcement Act, known as NetzDG, requires big social media platforms to quickly take down illegal material or face high fines.

In the years that followed, it was unclear if Telegram would have to adhere to the rules due to a provision for messaging services — but this has since changed.

A spokesperson for the German Justice Ministry told DW that the office "considers Telegram a social network." This is due to the fact that since its inception, the messaging service has introduced several features of the big platforms.


Public channels, like that of author Eva Herman with over 200,000 subscribers, make Telegram a social network, German authorities say

Although Telegram today still shares similarities with messaging services such as WhatsApp, it acts in many ways as a social network: In public channels, for example, users can post content to an unlimited number of followers.

"This is why the requirements of the NetzDG are binding for Telegram," the Justice Ministry spokesperson said. This includes a new rule, set to take effect in February, that will force platforms to report particularly serious cases of illegal content, such as death threats or incitement of the masses, directly to law enforcement.
No easy solutions

Berlin's challenge now is to make Telegram adhere to its rules.

To date, there are only very few confirmed instances when Telegram did work with authorities, such as cooperation with European police agency Europol to fight terrorism propaganda, announced in 2019.

In April 2021, the German government sent two letters to the company's operational headquarters in Dubai, demanding that Telegram appoint a contact person in Germany and make it easier for users to flag illegal content — two key requirements of the NetzDG.

The company never replied.

Behind the scenes, officials have since been in contact with the government of the United Arab Emirates to ramp up pressure on Telegram.

If additional attempts to get the company to cooperate fail as well, Berlin could charge Telegram with fines of up to €55 million ($63 million).

Watch video 02:23 Germany: Highest number of crimes by right-wing extremists in 20 years

On the political stage, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser made headlines when she floated the idea of banning the app entirely as a last resort.

But technology experts say that this would be both technically difficult, and possibly even unconstitutional.

Yet they also caution that, even if authorities get Telegram to cooperate, this will not eliminate the root causes of why hate speech is circulating on the app.

"You don't solve problems from the analog world by regulating the digital sphere," said Ann Cathrin Riedel, the chair of the Association for Liberal Internet Policy.

"Radical thoughts do not disappear when you block a messenger service — people just move on to another platform."

Equally important, Riedel said, is to make people understand that whatever they write online can have the same consequences as the things they say in person.

Holnburger added that German law enforcement needs to get better at monitoring what's being said on messaging services.

"Say there's a robbery in a park; then police can't go to the park owner and ask for the names of the robbers," he said. "They need to conduct their own investigations to find them, and the same is true for digital spaces."

Too often, he added, police today still rely on academics, journalists or activists to flag illegal content to them — which was also the case when it came to the death threat against State Premier Manuela Schwesig.

The comment only gained attention after a regional lawmaker posted a screenshot on Twitter.

"I don't think that police would have noticed otherwise," Holnburger concluded.

Edited by: Kyra Levine

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing, to stay on top of developments as Germany enters the post-Merkel era.

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‘Two-state solution is only solution’: An interview with Mona Juul, Oslo Accords’ architect and Norway’s UN envoy

A DEMOCRATIC ONE AND A ZIONIST ONE

The Norwegian Ambassador speak to JNS about her term as president of the U.N. Security Council this month, including her renewed focused on the peace process, Israeli settlements and Palestinian incitement.

BY MIKE WAGENHEIM

Mona Juul, President of the Security Council for the month of January 2022 and Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations, briefs reporters on the programme of work of the Security Council for the month. Credit: UN Photo/Mark Garten.
(January 18, 2022 / JNS) She helped lead the backchannel effort to get Israeli and Palestine Liberation Organization leaders in the same room to hash out an interim agreement that was to serve as a basis for peace. Nearly 30 years later, the Oslo Accords are seen alternately as historic or tragic, with plenty of blame—or credit, depending on one’s perspective—to go around for the agreement’s failure to lead to a durable political settlement.

But Mona Juul, now Norway’s ambassador to the United Nations, told JNS that she is determined not to let the prospect of peace die. And she’s using her pulpit this month as president of the U.N. Security Council to focus in on the conflict.

“We think from the Norwegian side, absolutely that the situation on the ground between the Israelis and the Palestinians, 30 years after the Madrid Conference, merits increased focus on the need for the Israelis and the Palestinians to get back into the negotiating table,” she told JNS in a discussion at the Norwegian Mission to the United Nations. Juul was referring to the 1991 bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in Madrid that eventually led to the exchange of letters and the subsequent, secretive Oslo Accords discussions that Juul facilitated, together with her diplomat husband, Terje Rød-Larsen.

“It’s obvious the two-state solution is the only solution, and there are prescriptions on what that solution could look like. What is lacking, of course, is the necessary political will on both sides to compromise and to find that common solution,” she added.

What is obvious is that Juul is still serious about pursuing peace, even if the road map on how to get there isn’t any clearer than it was three decades ago.
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On Wednesday, the Security Council will hold its quarterly open debate on the Israeli-Palestinian file. Juul upgraded the meeting to the ministerial level, and the discussion will be chaired by Norway’s foreign minister, Anniken Huitfeldt. Back in October, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield chided the Security Council for placing a disproportionate focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in comparison to other regional issues, and for the fruitlessness of the regular debates, which quickly descend into a pattern of accusations and counterattacks.

Mona Juul, Permanent Representative of Norway to the United Nations and President of the Security Council for the month of January, chairs the Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East (Yemen). Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe

Still, Juul intimated that she has gained some measure of optimism through recent developments, including the December visit of Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to the home of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz, along with additional agreements on building permits, work permits and discussions on economic initiatives.

“I am fully aware of all the challenges [on obtaining consensus on the issue at the Security Council], but we are not giving up the trust that we have in both sides to get back to the table because this situation, as it is now, the status quo is not sustainable in the long run, and we think that only a two-state solution can really solve the conflict,” said Juul, despite Israeli Prime Minister’s public and repeated proclamations that a Palestinian state will not be formed on his watch, coupled with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid’s statement that the government will not pursue a political settlement, per the governing coalition agreements, when he is scheduled to rotate into the prime minister’s chair in late 2023.

She added, “I’m not going to characterize the views of neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian government. They are very capable of expressing themselves. I don’t think we have ever been in a position to push too hard, but we are consistent in our wish for a negotiated settlement.”

Palestinians need ‘to do what is necessary’ to advance peace

The core areas of disagreements—borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the Palestinian so-called “right of return”—remain after all of these years. Interestingly, Juul said in a recent interview with The New Arab that she does not think settlements are an “insurmountable issue.”

“Our position, when it comes to settlement, is very clear—that we think that they are in contradiction with international law, but we have to be pragmatic when we are looking at ways of finding a solution. A solution is a compromise, and I have the trust in the parties that there will always be a way to be found also on this contentious very contentious issue,” she told JNS.

Meanwhile, Norway has twice cut funding to the Palestinian Authority over the last year for issues related to incitement and violence against Jews, including in school curriculum. Juul said it is an example of Norway holding the P.A. to account, insisting that it uphold its end of the bargain when it comes to the pursuit of peace.

“I think we are continuing to send messages to both sides, including to the Palestinian Authority, on the need for them to do what is necessary in order to get back up to the table. And as a coordinator of the donor community, we—together with other countries—require that the Palestinians do their part to reform within the Palestinian Authority, and we are very clear with them about them. But we maintain good relations,” said Juul, telling JNS that she is pushing both the Israelis and Palestinians equally, despite Norway’s positions in the Security Council, which are often much harsher in its assessment of Israel’s conduct.

As Juul indicated, Norway, which serves as the Security Council pen-holder on the Israeli-Palestinian file, coordinates donor assistance to the Palestinians, including to the much-beleaguered United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), the U.N. agency that handles Palestinian refugees and their decedents. The agency has been accused on perpetuating the conflict as well as promoting anti-Semitism and incitement.

“I think the refugee issue is one of the final-status issues that also needs to be resolved in order to have a two-state solution. There have been talks; there have been efforts going on for almost 30 years in order to find a solution. We know that there are also solutions to be found on this issue. I’m not in a position to describe to the Palestinians or the Israelis to tell them how this could be found, but I think it is the only way forward is to get them together and see if they could find a solution,” she said.

So, three decades in, Juul will keep pressing, and her country will attempt to play ringmaster in the Jan. 19 Security Council debate on the issue, which, very much like the peace process itself, continues to produce the same result.

What has changed recently is the signing of the Abraham Accords in September 2020 between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. Thomas-Greenfield intimated that more could be accomplished for peace and security if the Security Council placed an emphasis on the disastrous situations in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen; the fragility of Iraq; and the threat of Iran—as opposed to continuing its laser-focus on every clash or construction plan in Jerusalem. Juul seemed in agreement that the Abraham Accords is beneficial, but largely as a tool to redouble efforts to solve the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“We are pushing for that [an expanded Israeli-Arab circle of peace], and we pushed for the normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates and other Arab states. We have said very much that we welcome those, and we think it could be an opportunity that has to be used,” she said. “So far, we haven’t seen much of that, but I really hope that can be used because we need a solution to this Israeli-Palestinian conflict and we need the support from the region on such a solution.”

US plans $50B wildfire fight where forests meet civilization

By MATTHEW BROWN and JONATHAN J. COOPER

January 18, 2022

 Trees scorched by the Caldor Fire smolder in the Eldorado National Forest, Calif., Friday, Sept. 3, 2021. The Biden administration wants to thin more forests and use prescribed burns to reduce catastrophic wildfires as climate changes makes blazes more intense. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)


BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Biden administration said Tuesday it will significantly expand efforts to stave off catastrophic wildfires that have torched areas of the U.S. West by more aggressively thinning forests around “hot spots” where nature and neighborhoods collide.

As climate change heats up and dries out the West, administration officials said they have crafted a $50 billion plan to more than double the use of controlled fires and logging to reduce trees and other vegetation that serves as tinder in the most at-risk areas. Only some of the work has funding so far.

Projects will begin this year, and the plan will focus on regions where out-of-control blazes have wiped out neighborhoods and sometimes entire communities — including California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, the east side of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, and portions of Arizona, Oregon and Washington state. Homes keep getting built in fire-prone areas, even as conditions that stoke blazes get worse.

“You’re going to have forest fires. The question is how catastrophic do those fires have to be,” Agriculture Sec. Tom Vilsack told the Associated Press in an interview. “The time to act is now if we want to ultimately over time change the trajectory of these fires.”

Specific projects weren’t immediately released, and it’s not clear who would pay for the full scope of work envisioned across almost 80,000 square miles (200,000 square kilometers) — an area almost as large as Idaho. Much of that area is controlled by states, tribes or is privately owned.

Reaching that goal would require an estimated $20 billion over 10 years for work on national forests and $30 billion for work on other federal, state, tribal and private lands, said Vilsack spokesperson Kate Waters.

Vilsack acknowledged that the new effort will also require a “paradigm shift” within the U.S. Forest Service, from an agency devoted to stamping out fires, into one that uses what some Native Americans call “good fire” on forests and rangeland to prevent even larger blazes.

Forest Service planning documents indicate the work will focus on “hotspots” that make up only 10% of the fire-prone areas across the U.S. but account for 80% of risk to communities because of their population densities and locations.

The recently-passed federal infrastructure bill put a down payment on the initiative — about $3 billion over five years that Vilsack said will get work going quickly.

Wildfire expert John Abatzoglou said lessening fire dangers on the amount of land envisioned under the administration’s plan is a “lofty goal” that represents even more acreage than burned over the past 10 years across the West. But Abatzoglou, a University of California Merced engineering professor, said the focus on wildfire hazards closest to communities makes sense.

“Our scorecard for fire should be about lives saved rather than acres that didn’t burn,” he said.

Vilsack joined Forest Service Chief Randy Moore to announce the plan during an event in Phoenix where he defended its scope as realistic.

“We know from a scientific standpoint precisely where this action has to take place in many of these forests in order to protect communities, in order to protect people,” Vilsack said following the announcement at the Desert Botanical Garden, a popular showcase for cactuses, desert trees and other dry-weather plants.

Dealing with western wildfires is becoming increasingly urgent as they get more destructive and intense. There have been rare winter blazes in recent weeks, including infernos in Montana and Colorado, where a wildfire on Dec. 30 tore through a suburban area and destroyed more than 1,000 buildings, leaving one person dead and a second still missing.

And there’s no signs of a let-up in conditions that keep the risk of wildfires extremely high. A long-term “megadrought” is gripping the region and scientists forecast temperatures will keep rising as more climate-changing carbon emissions are pumped into the atmosphere.

The impact stretches far beyond the western U.S. because massive smoke plumes at the height of wildfire season in the U.S. and Canada spread the health effects across North America — sending unhealthy pollution last summer to major cities from San Francisco to Philadelphia and Toronto.

For decades the primary approach to containing and extinguishing forest fires was to try to stamp them out. The efforts have been similar to massive, military-like campaigns, including planes, fleets of heavy equipment and thousands of firefighting personnel and support workers dispatched to the fire zones.

However, fires are a part of the natural cycle for most forests, so putting them out leaves stands of trees that don’t burn surrounded by dead wood, underbrush and other highly flammable fuels — a worst-case scenario when blazes ignite.

Critics say the government’s plan to use logging to reduce fire damages will hurt both forests and the wildlife and water supplies that depend on them. In South Dakota’s Black Hills, for example, government biologists have said that too many trees dying from a combination of insects, fire and logging have made current timber harvest levels unsustainable.

“The U.S. Forest Service simply cannot log its way out of the climate crisis,” said Adam Rissien with the environmental group WildEarth Guardians.

But Vilsack said a combination of tree thinning and intentionally set fires to clear undergrowth that are called prescribed burns will make the forests healthier in the long run while reducing the threat to public safety.

Forests thinned near Lake Tahoe and its tourism gateway community of South Lake Tahoe were credited with slowing the advance of the massive Caldor Fire last summer that destroyed almost 800 homes and prompted evacuations of tens of thousands of residents and tourists.

A similar phenomenon played out during Oregon’s Bootleg fire last July, which burned more than 600 square miles (1,500 square kilometers) but did less damage in forest that was thinned over the past decade.

“We know this works,” Vilsack said. “It’s removing some of the timber, in a very scientific and thoughtful way, so that at the end of the day fires don’t continue to hop from tree top to tree top, but eventually come to ground where we can put them out.”

___

Cooper reported from Phoenix.

Biden administration launches 'comprehensive response' to wildfires

By Doug Cunningham

FIVE PHOTOS

Jan. 19 (UPI) -- The Biden administration plans to use $3 billion over 10 years from the bipartisan infrastructure law to launch a comprehensive response to a worsening U.S. wildfires crisis.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement Tuesday the new strategy seeks to "significantly increase fuels and forest health treatments to address the escalating crisis of wildfire danger threatening millions of acres and numerous communities across the United States."

To implement the new strategy, the U.S. Forest Service will work with other federal agencies and tribes, states, local communities and private landowners.

The plan, called Confronting The Wildfire Crisis, said work will aim to "engineer a paradigm shift by focusing fuels and forest health treatments more strategically and at the scale of the problem, using the best available science as the guide."

Over 10 years, the plan would treat up to 20 million more acres on National Forest System lands. Another 30 million acres will be treated on other federal, state, tribal and private lands.

A long-term plan for forest management would also be developed.

Many states have had record wildfires in the past 20 years. The report said fires larger than 100,000 acres have become so common that the National Interagency Fire Center has stopped tracking them as exceptional events.

Scenes from California's Caldor Fire   26 PHOTOS

Roseville firefighter Kirk Steven sprays down a tree as he allows fuel to be burned off next to a cabin during the Caldor Fire near Meyers, Calif., on Tuesday. Photo by Peter DaSilva/UPI | License Photo

ECOCIDE

Fishermen protest after eruption causes oil spill in Peru
By FRANKLIN BRICEÑO

1 of 10

Oil pollutes Cavero beach in Ventanilla, Callao, Peru, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022, after high waves attributed to the eruption of an undersea volcano in Tonga caused an oil spill. The Peruvian Civil Defense Institute said in a press release that a ship was loading oil into La Pampilla refinery on the Pacific coast on Sunday when strong waves moved the boat and caused the spill. 

(AP Photo/Martin Mejia)


LIMA, Peru (AP) — An oil spill on the Peruvian coast caused by the waves from an eruption of an undersea volcano in the South Pacific nation of Tonga prompted dozens of fishermen to protest Tuesday outside the South American country’s main oil refinery.

The men gathered outside the refinery in the province of Callao near Lima’s capital. Peru’s environment minister, Rubén Ramírez, told reporters that authorities estimate 6,000 barrels of oil were spilled in the area rich in marine biodiversity.

Under the eyes of police, the fishermen carried a large Peruvian flag, fishing nets and signs that read “no to ecological crime,” “economically affected families” and “Repsol killer of marine fauna,” which referred to the Spain-based company that manages La Pampilla refinery, which processes around 117,000 oil barrels a day, according its website. They demanded to speak with company representatives, but no executive had approached them.

The company did not immediately returned an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

“There is a massacre of all the hydrobiological biodiversity,” said Roberto Espinoza, leader of the local fishermen. “In the midst of a pandemic, having the sea that feeds us, for not having a contingency plan, they have just destroyed a base of biodiversity.”

An Italian-flagged ship was loading oil into La Pampilla on Saturday when strong waves moved the boat and caused the spill. Repsol in a statement Sunday said the spill occurred “due to the violence of the waves.”

The eruption caused waves that crossed the Pacific. In Peru, two people drowned off a beach and there were reports of minor damage from New Zealand to Santa Cruz, California.

On Tuesday, northwest of the facility, on Cavero beach, the waves covered the sand with a shiny black liquid, along with small dead crustaceans. Fifty workers from companies that work for Repsol inside the refinery removed the oil-stained sand with shovels and piled it up on a small promontory.

Juan Carlos Riveros, biologist and scientific director in Peru of Oceana – an organization dedicated to protecting the world’s oceans – said that the species most affected by the spill include guano birds, seagulls, terns, tendrils, sea lions and dolphins.

“The spill also affects the main source of work for artisanal fishermen, since access to their traditional fishing areas is restricted or the target species become contaminated or die,” Riveros said. “In the short term, mistrust is generated about the quality and the consumption of fishing is discouraged, with which prices fall and income is reduced.”

Peru’s environmental assessment and enforcement agency estimates that some 18,000 square meters of beach on Peru’s Pacific coast have been affected by the spill.

In a statement, the Peruvian agency said Repsol “has not adopted immediate measures in order to prevent cumulative or more serious damage that affects the soil, water, flora, fauna and hydrobiological resources.” An AP reporter on Monday observed workers dressed in white suits collecting the spilled oil with plastic bottles cut in half.

José Llacuachaqui, another local fisherman leader, who was watching the cleanup, said the workers were only collecting the oil that reached the sand, but not the crude that was in the seawater.

“That is preying, killing, all the eggs, all the marine species,” he said.

Peru demands Spain's Repsol pay for oil spill damage

AFP - 

Peru demanded compensation Wednesday from Spanish energy giant Repsol over an oil spill caused by freak waves from a volcanic eruption near Tonga in the South Pacific.

Authorities sealed off three beaches on Monday after 6,000 barrels of oil were spilled during the offloading of a tanker at the Pampilla refinery off the coast near Lima.

The Repsol oil spill "is the worst ecological disaster in Lima in recent times, and has caused serious damage to hundreds of fishing families. Repsol must immediately compensate for this damage," the attorney general's office said on Twitter.

"This terrible situation has put at risk flora and fauna in two protected areas."

Peruvian authorities found dead marine animals covered in oil.

The spill happened on Saturday at the refinery off the town of Ventanilla in the Lima region, affecting a three-kilometer stretch of beaches.

Refinery officials originally described the spill as "limited" and said it was working with authorities to clean up the beaches.

"Containment barriers that cover all of the affected zones and brigades with specialist sea and land teams have been deployed," said the refinery, which blamed the spill on the freak waves caused by the volcanic eruption more than 10,000 kilometers away.

The refinery could face a fine of up to $34.5 million, the environment ministry said on Monday as prosecutors opened an investigation into the company for environmental contamination.

On Tuesday, the energy and mining regulation body Osinergmin ordered the suspension of operations at the refinery pending an investigation into the causes of the spill.

et/ll/bc/dw

EXPLAINER: Why Tonga eruption was so big and what’s next

By NICK PERRY

FILE - This satellite image provided by Maxar Technologies shows an overview of Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai volcano in Tonga on Jan. 6, 2022, before a huge undersea volcanic eruption. (Satellite image ©2022 Maxar Technologies via AP,

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — People around the world looked on in awe at the spectacular satellite images of an undersea volcano erupting in a giant mushroom cloud in the Pacific. Many wondered why the blast was so big, how the resulting tsunami traveled so far, and what will happen next. New Zealand scientists Shane Cronin, a volcanology professor at the University of Auckland, and Emily Lane, a tsunami expert at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research, help explain.

EXPLOSIVE BUT BRIEF

The eruption on Saturday was incredibly explosive but also relatively brief. The plume rose into the air more than 30 kilometers (19 miles) but the eruption lasted only about 10 minutes, unlike some big eruptions that can continue for hours. Cronin said the power of the eruption of the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha’apai volcano ranks among the world’s biggest over the past 30 years, and the height of the plume of ash, steam and gas was comparable with the huge 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, which killed several hundred people

WHY SO BIG?

The magma inside the volcano was under enormous pressure and had gasses trapped within it. A fracture in the rock likely induced a sudden drop in pressure, allowing the gas to expand and blast the magma apart. Cronin said the crater was sitting about 200 meters (650 feet) below the sea surface, a kind of Goldilocks depth for a big explosion in which seawater pours into the volcano and turns instantly into steam, adding to the rapid expansion and energy of the explosion. Any deeper and the extra pressure of the water would have helped contain the eruption.

FARFLUNG TSUNAMI

Many scientists were surprised that a single eruption could produce a Pacific-wide tsunami of about 1 meter (3 feet) that smashed boats in New Zealand and caused an oil spill and two drownings in Peru. Lane said that oceanwide tsunamis are usually triggered by earthquakes that extend across huge areas rather than from a single volcano, essentially a tiny dot in the ocean. She said other factors may have been at play, such as an underwater flank of the volcano collapsing and displacing water. She said one interesting theory is that the shock wave, or sonic boom, from the volcano that traveled twice around the world may have pumped more power into the tsunami waves.

TONGA MAINLY SPARED

Another mystery is why the tsunami wasn’t bigger and more destructive in Tonga, which sits almost on top of the volcano.

“That’s the million dollar question,” Cronin said. “Looking at the images so far, the level of devastation is less than I was fearing.”

Authorities by Wednesday had confirmed three deaths in Tonga, with concerns remaining about people on some of the hard-hit smaller islands. Dozens of homes were destroyed.

Lane said that Tongans at least got some warning, both from the increased activity at the volcano the day before the eruption and from the incredibly loud bang when it erupted but before the tsunami hit, allowing many to scramble to higher ground. She said reefs, lagoons and other natural features may also have protected parts of Tonga, while amplifying the waves in certain areas.

FALLING ASH

The ash that has coated Tonga is acidic but not poisonous, Cronin said. Indeed, he has been advising Pacific responders that people may still be able to drink from their rainwater supplies even if some ash has fallen in, which will make the water more acidic and salty. He said it was a question of applying the taste test and if water became scarce, it would be better drinking ash-tainted water than stagnant water that might be contaminated with bacteria. New Zealand and other nations are trying to get water and other supplies to Tonga as quickly as possible. Cronin said all of Tonga’s soil comes from volcanic ash and the latest dump of ash would quickly wash into the ground and make the nation more fertile.

NO GLOBAL COOLING

Huge volcanic eruptions can sometimes cause temporary global cooling as sulfur dioxide is pumped into the stratosphere. But in the case of the Tonga eruption, initial satellite measurements indicated the amount of sulfur dioxide released would only have a tiny effect of perhaps 0.01 degree Celsius (0.02 Fahrenheit) global average cooling, said Alan Robock, a professor at Rutgers University.

WHAT’S NEXT

Cronin envisions two main scenarios for the volcano. The first is that it has exhausted itself for now and will go quiet for the next 10 to 20 years as magma slowly returns. A second scenario is that new magma rises up quickly to replace that which exploded, in which case there might be ongoing eruptions. But he believes the cracks and rifts caused by Saturday’s big explosion will allow more gas to escape, and subsequent eruptions won’t be as big, at least for now. Both Cronin and Lane agree there needs to be much better monitoring of the volcano — and others in Tonga — to help better predict future events.

___

Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland, contributed to this report.

The science behind the Tonga volcanic eruption, tsunami

Jan 18, 2022 6:20 PM EST
PBS NEWS HOUR
By —John Yang
By —Ali Rogin


The first satellite images of the Pacific nation of Tonga after Saturday's volcanic eruption emerged Tuesday. The photos show the islands coated in ash. Despite the violent explosion, the Tongan government has reported just three deaths. The status of two smaller islands in its chain is still unknown. John Yang takes a closer look at the science behind the volcano, its explosion and aftermath.

 Full Transcript

Judy Woodruff:

Today, the first satellite images emerged of the Pacific nation of Tonga following Saturday's volcanic eruption.

The photos show the islands coated in ash. Despite the violent explosion, the Tongan government has so far reported just three deaths. The status of two smaller islands in its chain is still unknown.

John Yang takes a closer look at the science behind the volcano, its explosion and aftermath.


John Yang:

Judy, scientists say the explosion revealed some of the mysteries of underwater volcanoes. It produced a tsunami that was felt on the coasts of Japan and the United States, 5,000 miles away, and triggered an oil spill in Peru. It set off a lightning storm that lasted seven hours and had 400,000 strikes. It was heard as far away as Alaska.

But for all the ways it made itself felt around the world, its damage was relatively confined. Tonga bore the brunt of the volcano's fury, blanketed with ash that is now contaminating its water supply.

Michael Poland is a research geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey's Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington.

Mr. Poland, thanks so much for joining us. As we talk about, it was so dramatic, this event, that huge plume that was visible from space, the tsunami, the atmospheric shockwave which rippled around the globe, but you say that the data actually showed this was a relatively small eruption.

Explain that.


Michael Poland, U.S. Geological Survey:

Yes, it's a very confounding event, in that the amount of material that came out of the ground was not especially huge.

It was perhaps the kind of thing we might see every few years from a volcano somewhere on Earth. But it produced an outsized explosion, really a massive explosion. And that has to have something to do with the interaction with ocean water, and to produce that really massive tsunami.

So it's having really outsized impacts for the amount of material that came out of the ground.


John Yang:

And what was in that material? What did come out of the ground?


Michael Poland:

Well, there was a lot of ash that came out, of course, as with most volcanic eruptions, and SO2 gas, among other types of gas, water vapor, and so forth.

And that sulfur dioxide really allows us to pinpoint where the plume is and how big it is, because we know roughly the amount of sulfur gas that's dissolved in the magma. So it's a bit like opening a soda and having that carbon dioxide come out of the soda. When the gas comes out of the volcano, you get a lot of SO2 that comes out of that magma. That allows us to track the plume and know roughly how big an eruption is.


John Yang:

And you talk about the reaction with the ocean water. Does that also — or what's the explanation for it being heard so far away, heard as far away as Alaska?


Michael Poland:

Yes, that's really difficult to understand at this point.

It had to have something to do with that sort of interaction. Perhaps a large amount of gas-rich magma being suddenly exposed to cold ocean water generated just a really massive explosion, and it was heard obviously, very, very far away. That's something I think is going to be the subject of an awful lot of research in the days, years to come.


John Yang:

And the tsunami, I think a lot of people's familiarity with tsunamis really comes from the 2004 Banda Aceh tsunami, which was the result of an earthquake, of a seismic event.

Is this common, a tsunami also common with volcanic eruptions under underwater like this?


Michael Poland:

Volcanic eruptions that are right underwater or right near the water can generate tsunamis. It's not something we see a lot of. Certainly, we see the earthquake-induced tsunamis much more commonly.

There's a lot of study that went into earthquake-induced tsunami, especially after 2004. And we have come to understand those sorts of processes a lot better than we did before. But volcanic tsunamis being rare give us fewer opportunities to study them.

So we don't understand the volcanic tsunamis quite as well. So a bit like that airwave that traveled around the Earth, this tsunami is also going to be studied quite intently to understand more about what generated it. Was it some displacement of the seafloor? Was it perhaps the impact of an ash plume on the water?

There are many potential mechanisms for why the tsunami was so big. And understanding that is going to be key to being able to forecast these sorts of events in the future.


John Yang:

As I hear you talk, it sounds like there's a lot we don't understand about underwater volcanoes, and that this is suggesting ways or new research, as you say, to examine this one.

What sorts of things will you be looking at and your colleagues be looking at it in this event?


Michael Poland:

I think the key here is that magma-water interaction.

And so there's going to be all kinds of attention paid to how magma and water interact. What happens when you put these two different materials in contact with another really in a dynamic way. So we're going to be looking at modeling studies of those sorts of interactions, studying the ash particles to see whether that can provide some clues as to how the interaction took place, and then modeling this explosion, modeling the tsunami, to try to understand more about the nature of this interaction, because, obviously, there are submarine volcanoes in other places.

And they're tremendously hard to study, because they are obscured. It's relatively easy to study volcanoes on land compared to these underwater volcanoes. But, clearly, they present a hazard. So we need to understand more about that hazard.

This event, as tragic as it is for Tonga, might help us understand these kinds of interactions in more detail. And that will help us in the future.


John Yang:

It's fascinating stuff.

Research geophysicist Michael Poland, thank you very much.


Michael Poland:

My pleasure.