Workers across Turkey go on strike as inflation bites

AFP , Wednesday 23 Feb 2022

Soaring inflation in Turkey has propelled a wave of strikes unlike any the country has seen since the 1970s, as workers demand more money to counter the shrinking value of their pay.

Workers of Yemeksepeti Banabi motorcycle couriers attend the weekly speech of the main opposition Republican People s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu to his MPs in the Turkish Parliament in Ankara on February 15, 2022. AFPShareSupermarket warehouse worker Bekir Gok was sacked this month -- alongside 256 of his colleagues -- for demanding an extra four Turkish liras (30 US cents) per hour, the equivalent of a loaf of bread.

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However after the workers at the Migros supermarket chain went on strike, they won back their jobs as well as salary rises and other demands, giving inspiration to dissatisfied employees across the country.

"We were asking for the price of a loaf of bread! It's nothing compared to what we've helped them earn since the pandemic began," Gok said.

Turkey's annual inflation rate officially reached 48.7 percent in January, and workers have struggled to keep up with the sky-rocketing cost of living.

Industrial action is rare in Turkey, where the major strikes that marked the 1970s remain a distant memory for most -- a military coup in 1980 led to a crack down on union activities.

However the country has seen more than 60 strikes, factory occupations, protests and boycott calls involving at least 13,500 workers in less than two months, according to the independent Labor Studies Group.

One of the most prominent recent strikes was launched on February 1 by motorcycle couriers for the food delivery company Yemeksepeti Banabi.

"We put our own lives in danger doing this work. We're not working in a four-walled office, we deliver packages in snow and rain," said Izzet Baskin, a 27-year-old delivery worker for the company in the capital Ankara.

'No hope left'

His colleague Ferhat Uyar said that "we can't think or see ahead".

"We have no hope left. We continue this resistance to try and get ahead of the issues," the 27-year-old said.

After paying his rent and energy bills, Uyar said he is unable to afford the products he delivers, such as takeaway coffee from Starbucks.

Yemeksepeti Banabi delivery couriers currently receive 4,253 liras ($305) a month, now the minimum wage after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan increased the rate by 50 percent for 2022.

But the Turk-Is union said last month the poverty level was 13,844 liras. The Banabi workers are on strike demanding less than half that figure: 5,500 liras.

German company Delivery Hero bought Yemeksepeti Banabi for $589 million in 2015.

Freight workers' union Nakliyat-Is, which is supporting the delivery workers on strike across Turkey, said nearly 100 couriers were killed in the past three months, compared with 190 deaths in all of 2020.

"These are workplaces where there is no supervision of employees' health or security," the union's Ankara representative Bayram Karkin said.

To make their demands heard, the riders -- instantly recognisable in their fluorescent pink jackets and helmets -- blocked roads with their motorcycles.

The company then made an overnight administrative change to officially register the workers under the "office" label rather than as transport workers, so they could not be members of the Nakliyat-Is union, Karkin said. There is an ongoing legal case challenging the move.

There were calls on social media for a boycott against companies accused of ignoring employee demands, and unions say Yemeksepeti Banabi saw a drop of 70 percent in orders.

The success of delivery workers at Turkish e-commerce company Trendyol has also inspired many seeking more pay.

After being offered a pay rise of 11 percent, they went on strike in late January. After three days, they accepted an increase of 39 percent.

New worker 'spring'

Basaran Aksu, the organising coordinator of the Umut-Sen union, said this could just be the beginning.

"The results of collective bargaining will come out soon in April or May, and we'll see a rise in concerns about livelihoods and the future. I believe this will lead to a rise in workers' movements," Aksu told AFP.

Neslihan Acar, of the DGD-Sen union which represents Migros employees, said that "workers' conditions have deteriorated with the pandemic".

Migros, which claimed the striking 257 supermarket workers had "occupied" its warehouses, welcomed back the employees in a statement after the deal was resolved on Sunday.

Aziz Celik, a labour lecturer at Kocaeli University, said workers' protests would continue for as long as the cost of living was high.

"Workers who seek to unionise in the private sector face a lot of pressure, they are sacked," Celik said.

But despite the difficult conditions, DGD-Sen's Acar was confident that change is coming.

"Anger is accumulating. The workers will create their own spring."

Lebanon thwarts IS bomb plot targeting

Hezbollah bastion

AFP , Wednesday 23 Feb 2022

Lebanon has thwarted a plan by the Islamic State group to carry out three suicide bombings targeting Shia religious compounds in Beirut's southern suburbs, the interior ministry said Wednesday.

File photo: Members of the Lebanese security forces deploy during an anti-government protest in the capital Beirut. (AFP)

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"A terrorist group had recruited young Palestinian men in Lebanon to carry out major bombing attacks using explosive belts" and other munitions, Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi told a press conference.

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"Three separate targets were to be hit at the same time," the ministry said, in an operation Mawlawi said would have caused a large loss of life.

Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (ISF) said the instructions for the bomb plot came from an IS operative based in the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain al-Hilweh, who is in touch with fellow Sunni extremists in Syria.

The instructions were passed to an undercover ISF agent who had successfully managed to infiltrate IS networks in Lebanon.

On February 7, the ISF agent was instructed to prepare attacks on a Shia religious compound in the Al-Laylaki neighbourhood, the Imam al-Kazem compound in Haret Hreik and the Al-Nasser mosque in Beirut's Ouzai suburb, the ISF said.

He was given three explosive vests and other weapons to conduct the attacks on February 16, the ISF added.

Beirut's southern suburbs, a stronghold of Shia militant group Hezbollah, saw a wave of bombings in 2013 and 2014 carried out by Al-Qaeda linked militants in retaliation for Hezbollah's intervention in the civil war in neighbouring Syria on the side of the Damascus government

According to the ISF, the planned attack by IS was meant to "pay homage" to the group's slain leader Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, killed in a US raid on his home in rebel-held northwestern Syria last month.

Michelangelo's three 'pietas' united in historic first



The exhibition is the first time Michelangelo's famed "Pieta" will be displayed with two other sculptures by the Renaissance giant of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of Christ (AFP/Vincenzo PINTO)

Gildas LE ROUX
Wed, February 23, 2022

It is admired the world over as an exquisite depiction of maternal grief. But Michelangelo's "Pieta" has overshadowed two other moving sculptures on the same subject by the Renaissance giant.

That is why Florence's Opera del Duomo museum in Italy is putting on display together for the first time all three versions of the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of her son Jesus Christ.

The Tuscan museum's original "Bandini" goes on show Thursday alongside casts of the "Pieta" and "Rondanini", which are on loan from the Vatican Museums.


Positioned to face each other in an intimate setting, there are striking contrasts between these variations, which mark different phases in the life of the artist, who died aged 88 in 1564.

The museum's director, Timothy Verdon, said it was a unique opportunity to "observe Michelangelo's intellectual maturation on the theme of the sacred".

The exhibition, which runs until August 1, "highlights the link between life and art in this religious sculptor, who served the popes for most of his career".

- Purity -

The "Pieta" housed at the Vatican -- masterfully executed when Michelangelo was not yet 25 years old -- amazed his contemporaries, who were dazzled by the beauty of this virgin, clothed in billowing drapery.

The artist rejected criticism that his Mary was too youthful, saying purity kept women beautiful.

Mary cradles her 33-year old son, whose serene expression suggests he could almost be sleeping in a nod to the coming resurrection -- the rising of Jesus from the dead in Christian belief.

This sculpture was damaged by a Hungarian hammer-wielding attacker in 1972, and the restored work of art is now protected behind bulletproof glass.

Centuries earlier, Michelangelo himself -- dissatisfied with the "Bandini", his second pieta -- attacked it with a hammer, leaving marks which can still be seen today on Jesus' shoulder and Mary's hand.

This version was done when the then-72-year old artist was suffering from depression. Convinced death was near, Michelangelo took a vow of poverty and placed religion at the centre of his life.

He lent his own features and beard to the character of Nicodemus, who dominates the "Bandini", shielding Jesus, Mary Magdalene and Mary, who here has lost her earlier timeless beauty.

Michelangelo's cast of so-called "Rondanini" Pieta was begun when the artist was nearly 80 years old and was found in his home in Rome (AFP/Vincenzo PINTO)

- Evolution of style -

The "Rondanini" is without doubt the most surprising: stunningly modern, this stripped-down sculpture, about two metres high, was begun around 1552, when the artist was nearly 80 years old.

It was found in his home in Rome, where he worked until his death.

Juxtaposing the three works "allows us to measure the evolution of Michelangelo's style over the 50 years that separate the first pieta from the other two, and the even more drastic and striking change between the last two," said Verdon.

The last pieta feels unfinished and far removed from the aesthetic canons of the time, but experts also see it as a message of faith and the importance of looking beyond appearances to the essential.

Gone is the rich drapery, gone are the supporting characters.

Mary and her son, whose faces and bodies are reduced to sketches, are once again represented alone in an extreme simplicity that reinforces the spiritual power of Michelangelo Buonarroti's last work.

glr/ide/yad

US launches biggest yet auction for offshore wind

US officials launched the biggest yet auction for offshore wind developments similar to this site being built in Le Havre, France (AFP/Sameer Al-DOUMY) (Sameer Al-DOUMY)

Wed, February 23, 2022

Bidding began Wednesday in the biggest US offshore wind energy auction yet, involving nearly 500,000 acres off the coasts of New York and New Jersey.

Through 13 rounds of bids by mid-afternoon, companies had offered $817 million for leases on on six tracts up for grabs, according to data from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

The agency, part of the US Department of the Interior, has said it could extend the bidding process through to Friday.

Development of all six tracts could generate as much seven gigawatts of wind energy, enough to power some two million homes, the agency said.

Nearly 25 firms were authorized to participate in the auction, including European companies Avangrid Renewables, Equinor ASA and EDF Renewables Development, as well as US groups Invenergy and Arevia Power.

"People are excited because this is the first lease sale that has been held by the federal government since 2018," said Lesley Jantarasami, an energy specialist at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a US think tank.

Jantarasami noted that the Biden administration has set a goal of producing 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.

"For a long time, everybody has been saying it's poised to take off," she said, alluding to the interest of European companies in the US offshore market.

"But we had not seen the federal government take concrete action to make this a reality," she said.

In 2018, 11 companies bid on three tracts across 390,000 acres near Massachusetts. That sale raised $405 million following 32 rounds of bidding.

jum-jmb/hs

Melting glaciers, fast-disappering gauge of climate change





Patagonia's glaciers are retreating faster than anywhere else in the world 

(AFP/PABLO COZZAGLIO)

Alberto PEÑA, Pablo COZZAGLIO
Wed, February 23, 2022

A crack widens in the San Rafael glacier in Chile's extreme south, and a ten-storey iceberg crashes into the lake by the same name -- a dramatic reminder of the impacts of global warming.

In the lake San Rafael, about 100 icebergs float today, pieces broken off from the glacier that 150 years ago stretched out over two-thirds of the body of water now free of ice cover.

The San Rafael glacier is one of 39 in the Northern Patagonian Ice Field (3,500 square kilometers or 1,350 square miles), which with the Southern Patagonian Ice Field (11,000 km2) in Chile's Aysen region forms one of the world's biggest ice masses.

According to the European Space Agency satellite images show San Rafael to be one of the world's most actively calving glaciers and the fastest-moving in Patagonia, "flowing" at a speed of about 7.6 kilometers (4.7 miles) per year -- "receding dramatically under the influence of global warming."

Glaciers are bodies of slowly-moving ice on land that can be several hundred or several thousand years old.

Seasonal glacier melt is a natural phenomenon that with global warming has accelerated "significantly," Jorge O'Kuinghttons, a regional head of glaciology at Chile's water directorate, told AFP.

Patagonian ice fields in Chile (AFP/Nicolas RAMALLO)

- 'Excellent indicator' -

At the moment, Patagonia's glaciers are retreating faster than anywhere else in the world.

"Glaciers are an excellent indicator of climate change," said Alexis Segovia, another government glaciologist who works in the remote region of southern Chile.

All but two of Chile's 26,000 glaciers are shrinking, he said, due to rising temperatures caused by manmade greenhouse gas emissions.

Melting glaciers also add to sea level rise (AFP/PABLO COZZAGLIO)

It is a vicious cycle.

Ice-covered surfaces of Earth reflect excess heat back into space, and if these are reduced through melting, temperatures rise even more.

Melting glaciers also add to sea level rise, which increases coastal erosion and elevated storm surges.

And water dammed by glaciers can be released by a sudden collapse.

"Areas are being flooded these days that were never flooded before," said O'Kuinghttons.

To learn more about what to expect in the future, glaciologists study the evolution of Chile's glaciers, which contain a frozen record of how the climate has changed over time.

According to the WWF, more than a third of the world's remaining glaciers will melt before 2100 even if mankind manages to curb emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

There are about 100 icebergs in San Rafael lake (AFP/PABLO COZZAGLIO)

- The heat is 'strong' -

East of San Rafael, on the lake General Carrera that is shared by Chile and Argentina, small-scale sheep and cattle farmer Santos Catalan has been living on the forefront of the change.

To augment his income, he criss-crosses the lake in a wooden boat with glacier-watching tourists.

Over the last 15 to 20 years, he told AFP, the landscape has become a lot less white as the ice has melted and snow dwindled.

"Things have changed a lot," he said. "The heat is very strong."

apg-pc/pb/ltl/jb/mlr/

BirdLife Cyprus sees ‘worrying’ spike in migratory bird killings

Conservation group BirdLife Cyprus reported on Wednesday a “worrying increase” in illegal bird trappings last year, blaming authorities for reducing fines for killing protected species. 

Updated 23 February 2022
AFP

"This sadly comes as no surprise, following a shameful relaxation of the Cyprus bird-protection law in December 2020," the group said

Autumn is when trappers target migratory birds, especially Blackcaps and other migrant songbirds

NICOSIA: Conservation group BirdLife Cyprus reported Wednesday a “worrying increase” in illegal bird trappings last year, blaming authorities for reducing fines for killing protected species.

“This sadly comes as no surprise, following a shameful relaxation of the Cyprus bird-protection law in December 2020,” the group said in a statement.

It has systematically monitored bird trapping levels for the past 20 years in the Republic of Cyprus and a British military base area on the Mediterranean island.

Its autumn 2021 report showed a big increase in trapping levels with so-called “mist nets” within the survey areas compared to 2020.

Autumn is when trappers target migratory birds, especially Blackcaps and other migrant songbirds.

Late last year, activity using mist nets — which are barely visible and designed to entangle the birds — was 132 percent higher than for autumn 2020.

At Dhekelia, a British base area, mist netting activity showed an increase of 46 percent from 2020.

Last year’s increase is similar to the past four years but significantly lower than the peak 2016 trapping season when 2.3 million songbirds were killed.

“These recorded trapping levels amount to just over 600,000 birds that might have been illegally trapped and killed in the autumn of 2021 within the survey areas,” said BirdLife Cyprus.

“This troubling increasing trend in trapping activity comes after a series of retrograde steps on a policy level that sent a general message of decriminalizing bird trapping.”
It said fines that were reduced from 2,000 euros (about $2,200) to 200 euros “are non-deterrent and non-punitive, and clearly not proportionate to the profit one would make by illegally selling these birds.”

The illicit trade in migratory birds is estimated at 15 million euros per year, although it has been illegal for decades. Critics blame lax enforcement.

In a letter to the Cyprus government last October, the European Commission expressed concern and urged Nicosia to annul this law amendment and restore the fines starting at 2,000 euros.

“The state’s objective should be the protection and conservation of our natural heritage, starting from re-instating a strict and deterrent law,” said the group.

“Cyprus is very likely to be taken to the EU Court of Justice for the insufficient protection of migratory birds, as highlighted in the Commission’s letter.”

GOING, GOING, GONE

Belarus independence 'under threat' by Russian troops: opposition
AFP - 
© JOEL SAGET



The presence of tens of thousands of Russian troops inside Belarus, which the West fears could be used to invade Ukraine, represents a threat to Belarusian independence, the country's exiled opposition leader said Wednesday.

Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who the West believes was the true winner of August 2020 presidential elections that kept autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenko in power, told Agence France-Presse that her country now needed to fight "for our independence" as well as "against dictatorship".

She also expressed horror that a referendum in Belarus this weekend could give Lukashenko the legal means to house Russian nuclear weapons in the country.

Lukashenko was prepared to sacrifice the country's sovereignty because he was "grateful" for the Kremlin's support in the aftermath of the 2020 vote that prompted mass protests, said Tikhanovskaya, who now lives in Lithuania.

"We want to be friends with our neighbours but we do not want to be the appendix of another country," she said during a visit to Paris.

"We see that our independence now is under threat... We see the threat of a slow occupation of our country."

Tikhanovskaya said she believed there were now some 30,000 Russian troops in Belarus -- ostensibly there for carrying out military drills -- as well as even more units of military hardware.

"Lukashenko was supported by the Kremlin and now he is showing his loyalty to the Kremlin -- he is grateful for the support he got, and now he is giving lands for military drills to show this loyalty," she said.

"But it's not in our national interest. People do not want these troops on our lands, we do not want to be a country that is an aggressor to our Ukrainian brothers."

The military exercises were supposed to end last weekend but Minsk then announced that the troops would remain to carry out more manoeuvres for an unspecified duration.

The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv lies just 150 kilometres (90 miles) south of the Belarusian border, while the northern Ukrainian city of Chernigiv is a mere 60 kilometres (40 miles) east of Belarus.

- 'Threat to Europe' -

Tikhanovskaya urged Western powers to denounce the February 27 referendum on constitutional reform called by Lukashenko, who has been in power for almost three decades and is accused of brutally repressing the 2020 post-election protests.

Opposition activists say there are now over 1,000 political prisoners in Belarus.

Tikhanovskaya said the most concerning aspect of the referendum was proposed changes to Belarus' neutrality that would allow it to house Russian nuclear weapons.

"It shows us where Lukashenko wants to go. He can use our territory for nuclear weapons and this will be a huge threat to Europe," she said.

Lukashenko had already raised the prospect earlier this month that Belarus could host nuclear weapons.

"All countries must declare they do not accept any result of this referendum, it is illegitimate. If something happens with a nuclear weapon, Lukashenko will bear all the responsibility," said.

"We want to be neutral," she added, noting that the presence of Russian troops in Belarus also represented a risk for Lukashenko, who was dependent on the Kremlin rather than popular support to stay in power.

"The illegitimate leader understands this is a threat to himself as well," she said. "He is weak and he may also think that one day when the Kremlin does not need him, they can get rid of him."

sjw/js/jj

Disbelieving but fretful, Kyiv hears nearing drumbeats of war



The level of anger at Russian President Vladimir Putin is palpably rising on the streets of Kyiv as the threat of war nears (AFP/Sergei SUPINSKY)


Daphne ROUSSEAU
Wed, February 23, 2022


Every hour, from dawn til dusk, Ukraine's soulful national anthem echoes across Kyiv's expansive Maidan Square, just as it did in 2014.

Back then, it was a rousing call to join the masses braving the bitter cold on the square during Kyiv's historic -- and ultimately bloody -- pro-EU revolution. Today it is playing again as the former Soviet republic girds for all-out war.

Russia has amassed more than 150,000 Russian soldiers on Ukraine's borders, according to US estimates.

Russia's parliament has approved sending its "peacekeepers" into parts of Ukraine's east that Moscow has recognised as independent statelets and President Vladimir Putin's rhetoric is sounding militant.

But on the spring-like streets of sunny Kyiv, no one stops to look at the giant screen showing pixelated images of the country's yellow and blue flag, the anthem blasting from speakers.

"Everything will be fine," said Zoya Rozuman, a cleaning lady, her blue outfit partially unzipped on a warm afternoon.

"I don't think the Russian people, those who live around Moscow and Vladimir, want our sons to die. And we don't want their sons to die."

Instead of worrying about the war, the 59-year-old plans to spend the coming weeks tending her garden.

- War footing -

The anthem started playing on Tuesday, when Russian lawmakers sitting 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Ukraine's eastern front in Moscow unanimously authorised the use of military force abroad.

In the Kremlin, Putin is coy about his plans, telling reporters that the deployment of Russian forces would "depend on the situation on the ground".

But the nearing drumbeats of war have many in Kyiv worried, even it they do not think that the Ukrainian capital itself will come under attack.

"We are afraid of war, but we are ready to fight, because this is a defensive war," said Atantoliy Tarasenko, 74.

Like many others, the pensioner still seethes that his Western-backed government "did not lift a finger" to keep Russia from annexing Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014.

Now, Moscow has recognised the independence of two eastern Ukrainian regions that began waging a deadly insurgency at around the same time.

The government in Kyiv says it is ready to fight, with the defence ministry warning of "hardship" and human "losses".

Students and workers have started receiving emailed instructions from their schools and bosses about how to prepare for the worst, including what to stockpile and where to find the nearest bomb shelter.

- Anger at Putin -

Oleg Koras, 38, has joined a "territorial defence" unit in Kyiv.

But despite going to training twice a week, he acknowledged feeling slightly helpless.

"If the bombs start falling on our city, what can you do but jump in a shelter," he said, before adding: "But then we will know how to respond."

Besides nerves, a palpable level of anger is rising at Putin, who has tried to keep Ukraine under Russia's influence for the past two decades.

Putin's tactics sparked two pro-Western revolutions -- one in 2004 and the other a decade later -- and are bringing the two countries dangerously close to war today.

"He is not someone you can reach deals with," said Maksym Dizhechko, a 41-year-old lawyer.

"He is like this huge kid in shool who beats everyone up, and who only understands things when he gets punched back."

The sentiment was shared by Ksenya Baliy, a 31-year-old DJ.

"I still feel hatred toward that man. I don't think he deserves to be where he is," she said. "I want him to disappear as soon as possible from our beautiful planet."

Yet the cultural and familial links between the two neighbours linger, rising up above the fury at political figures.

Volodymyr Khroviy, 39, identifies himself as a "Russian from Ukraine", with his family living on the other side of the border.

But his home is Ukraine, Khroviy says, "and if they come with their tanks and weapons, I will certainly not be pleased to see them".

dar-zak/dt/yad

On Ukraine border, Russian soldiers await orders

Russian servicemen and armoured vehicles stand on a road in Russia's Rostov region. PHOTO: EPA-EFE

ROSTOV REGION, RUSSIA (AFP) - In a roadside cafe a few dozen kilometres from the border between Russia and rebel-held areas in Ukraine, some Russian soldiers were eating as they rested, the smell of frying in the air.

"Thank you, we'll come back," said one of them as he got up after finishing his cheburek - a type of fried turnover filled with meat and onion.

Another soldier knocked at the door of a small room where an AFP team sat working - the only civilian customers seen on Wednesday (Feb 23) at the cafe.

"Do you want to buy some dry rations?" he asked.

On a screen above showing music videos, some soldiers could be seen running in a muddy field. But it was just a video of the 1980s British rock classic In The Army Now by Status Quo.

Outside in the village, soldiers were everywhere - some wearing camouflage hats, others in army-issue grey synthetic fur hats.

They smoked in the parking lot, drank their coffee or kept busy working on the military vehicles on flatbed train wagons parked in railway sidings stretching for hundreds of metres.

The wagons carried rocket launchers, artillery pieces and fuel tanks.

On the road leading to the border, empty heavy military trucks and a convoy of military green-coloured vehicles crossed paths.

Russia's Rostov region, which borders the self-proclaimed separatist republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, was silent and shrouded in heavy fog on Wednesday - a Russian public holiday celebrating the military.


After being crossed in recent days by thousands of refugees leaving the separatist statelets one way and military convoys heading the other way, the region is now in a mood of tense anticipation.

Russia has massed some 150,000 soldiers on Ukraine's borders, according to Western estimates.

Russian servicemen and armoured vehicles are pictured in 

Russia's Rostov region, on Feb 22, 2022. 

PHOTO: EPA-EFE PHOTO: EPA-EFE

It has said it is prepared to send in troops, ostensibly to protect Donetsk and Lugansk after recognising their independence this week, raising fears of an all-out war with Ukraine.

The separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, which has dragged on since 2014, has already claimed more than 14,000 lives.
'Afraid to go back'

A group of middle-aged men passed the time playing football.

Valery Belik, a 52-year-old retired policeman wearing a cap reading "No Fear", was in goal.

"Of course, we are all worried for the People's Republic of Donetsk, for Lugansk.

"It's a shame for people who are suffering the terror of a war that Ukrainian authorities have unleashed," he said, echoing the Kremlin message of Russia coming to the aid of the separatists against supposed Ukrainian aggression.

Russian military vehicles are seen on train platforms in Russia's southern Rostov region, some 50km from the border with the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, on Feb 23, 2022. PHOTO: AFP

On the way to the border, a bus was parked on the side of the road.

"I went to pick up my Russian passport," said Grigory, a 35-year-old mechanic from Shakhtarsk, located in one of the rebel regions.

"I am a bit afraid to go back, we hear shooting and explosions," he said. "But my family is there. I won't leave. My work, my whole life are there."

Nearer to the border, the streets empty out.
'Everything is so frightening'

In the last village before the border, Valentina Druzhinenko, a 75-year-old pensioner, sat on a bench with her neighbour.

She had mixed feelings about Russian President Vladimir Putin's move to recognise the independence of the separatists this week.

"I understand the consequences, they will be terrible," she said.

"Our grandchildren will not be able to handle them.

"But if Vladimir Putin did it, it means it was necessary. I respect and love him."

Her neighbour, Maria Yagnuk, born in 1941, spoke in Ukrainian about having lived under Nazi occupation in the area during World War II.

"How can we not be afraid? Who can not be afraid? I myself was born during the war.

"We don't even watch the news. Everything is so frightening."

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Sanofi, GSK to seek approval for COVID vaccine candidate

Wed., February 23, 2022

* Seeking approval as primary vaccine regimen and booster dose

* Full trial results expected to be published later this year

* Two doses 100% effective against severe COVID-19

* Booster dose raises neutralizing antibodies across platforms (Adds details on prospective deliveries, background on vaccine class)

PARIS, Feb 23 (Reuters) - French drugmaker Sanofi and its British partner GlaxoSmithKline are seeking regulatory approval for their COVID-19 vaccine to be used as a booster, as well as a standalone two-dose shot, after several setbacks.

The companies said on Wednesday they intended to submit data to regulators from a late-stage trial of the vaccine, and another testing it as a booster, with full results for both studies expected to be published "later this year."

Sanofi, which plans to produce the vaccine in France, Italy and the United Sates, is hoping for a comeback after falling behind in the race for COVID-19 shots, while GSK, the world's biggest vaccine maker by sales, has not developed its own candidate and is instead contributing its adjuvant technology to developers.

Sanofi-GSK's shot relies on a conventional protein-based approach, compared with the newer mRNA technology used in established COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.

It is similar in technology to one of Sanofi's seasonal influenza vaccines, and is coupled with GSK's adjuvant, a substance that increases the effectiveness of a shot. It is also easier to store and transport than some rival shots.

The protein technology, which is also behind the recently approved COVID-19 shot from Novavax, has been in use since the mid-1980s, leading public health experts to hope that some of those who have shunned mRNA shots might opt for a vaccine class with a decades-long safety record.

The companies said final analysis of the booster trial, which included participants previously given shots based on mRNA technology or adenovirus viral vectors, showed it could increase neutralising antibodies by 18 to 30 times.

"We are confident that this vaccine can play an important role as we continue to address this pandemic and prepare for the post-pandemic period," said President of GSK Vaccines, Roger Connor.

Early data from the late-stage trial of the vaccine as a standalone two-dose shot showed it was 100% effective against severe COVID-19 and hospitalisation, with 75% efficacy against moderate or severe disease.

"No other global Phase 3 efficacy study has been undertaken during this period with so many variants of concern, including Omicron, and these efficacy data are similar to the recent clinical data from authorized vaccines," said Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president for Sanofi Vaccines.

The companies said they were in discussions for approval of their shot with regulators including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency.

A Sanofi spokesperson added the filing was imminent and would take a few days at most.

He reiterated the French drugmaker's commitment to supply a total of 75 million doses to the EU and Britain, as well as 100 million to the United States, contingent on regulatory approval.

The planned U.S. deliveries would be governed by a $2.1 billion contract with the U.S. government signed in July 2020, he added.

Discussions with the international vaccine-sharing facility COVAX about shipments to lower-income countries are ongoing.

The head of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), Richard Hatchett, said new protein-based vaccines administered with adjuvants could "potentially become the workforce for vaccinations in the future," when asked about the role of late-comers to the vaccine race.

CEPI co-runs COVAX.

Sanofi and GSK surprised investors in December by delaying key results from the vaccine trials to this year, while Sanofi also dropped plans for its own mRNA shot due to the dominance of Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta and Benoit Van Overstraeten in Paris, Pushkala Aripaka in Bengaluru and Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt Editing by Jason Neely and Mark Potter)

BioNTainers and co: The disjointed quest to produce COVID mRNA vaccines in Africa

The European Union-African Union summit brought dissonant news about COVID-19 mRNA vaccine development in Africa, revealing cracks in collaboration between the world's largest drug companies and the WHO.


Two years into the pandemic, only a fraction of the African population has been vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Last week's European Union-African Union summit brought conflicting news about mRNA vaccine production in Africa.

Two days after BioNTech executives announced plans to export a version of its Marburg factory to locations in Senegal and Rwanda via "BioNTainers," leaders of South Africa's WHO-backed mRNA technology transfer hub announced the first six countries chosen to receive the technology to create mRNA vaccines at their own in-country hubs.

Neither development will help speed up vaccination against the coronavirus this year.

Meryame Kitir, Minister of Development Cooperation and Urban Policy of Belgium, said in a WHO press conference she expects the Hub's vaccines will receive approval in 2024.

BioNTech expects their solution will be up and running in two to three years, said COO Sierk Poetting in a press conference following the BioNTainer announcement.

According to leaders of Africa's mRNA vaccine hub, the two events are not related.

The apparent dissonance between the announcements is just the latest in the story of the West's disjointed quest to vaccinate the African continent.
COVAX

By June 2021, more than a year into the pandemic and around the same time the COVID-19 vaccine had become widely available across the West,it was clear something wasn't working.

While Europe and the United States had already been vaccinating citizens for six months, some African countries had only just received their first shipments.

There had been plans in place to avoid this problem, which many global health experts had anticipated from the start. COVAX, the UN-backed global vaccine alliance, was supposed to deliver vaccines to Africa. But those plans got muddled when wealthy countries bought the bulk of the vaccines for themselvesleaving little for low-income countries.

The COVAX alliance had good intentions, but it wasn't working. And with talks to lift patents seemingly infinitely stalled, making Africa-based development of already-existing vaccines all but impossible, African leaders decided to try something new. They would create their own.
Hub Opens

With the help of the WHO, in late June 2021 the world's first mRNA technology transfer hub opened in South Africa with partners Biovac, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a network of universities and the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC).

Their plan was simple: They'd create an mRNA vaccine, then partner with other "hubs" in low-income countries across the world to share the technology, allowing for cheap global production of mRNA vaccines. The plan would free low-income countries of a reliance on their high-income counterparts for vaccine shipments.

COVID-19: Africa plans a vaccine revolution

The Hub decided to use unpatented data from the Moderna vaccine, which the company made available for the duration of the pandemic. From the start, they'd asked the largest pharmaceutical companies for help, Afrigen director Petro Terblanche said. But the companies didn't answer.

Instead of responding to the hub's requests for collaboration, BioNTech-Pfizer announced its own separate plans one month later to help ease access to vaccines on the African continent.

COVID-19 vaccination rates in Africa are lower than in most of the rest of the world

In collaboration with Biovac, a South African biopharmaceutical company, BioNTech would make the vaccines, then send them to South Africa, where they'd be bottled and transported across the continent. Production would start around the second half of 2022, they said.

Four days later, they announced more plans to help vaccinate Africans ― this time not against COVID, but malaria.

Together with the Kenup Foundation, a Malta-based lobbying firm that's been working with BioNTech over the past few years on its EU-funded "eradicateMalaria" campaign, they would develop the first mRNA vaccine against Malaria.Vaccine manufacturing facilities would co-locate with the WHO technology transfer hubs, they said.
'Stop copying Moderna immediately'

Around two weeks later, Kenup executive Holm Keller set off on a journey to South Africa. He visited the technology transfer hub and met with multiple South African health leaders. The trip had nothing to do with malaria ― it was focused on the transfer hub.

Perhaps the leaders Keller met thought this meant BioNTech was ready to collaborate with the Hub in its quest to develop its own mRNA vaccine.

But a report recapping the mission stated the opposite.

"The WHO Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub's project of copying the manufacturing process of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine should be terminated immediately," the report, titled Supporting South Africa's Vaccine Production Hub, said. "This is to prevent damage to Afrigen, BioVac, and Moderna."

The report was first made public in an investigation published in early February by the British Medical Journal.

Two weeks after the mission, on August 27, Kenup officials convened a meeting during the G20 summit on behalf of BioNTech. President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, President Macky Sall of Senegal, President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission and BioNTech CEO Uğur Şahin met in Berlin to discuss the development of manufacturing sites to produce mRNA vaccines against Malaria, TB and COVID-19.

Once built, BioNTech's "BioNTainers" will be able to produce up to 50 million vaccine doses per year.

In a joint communique , Kenup wrote that prospective locations of the necessary manufacturing sites "are expected to co-locate with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) upcoming Vaccine Hubs."

The report added that "in principle, BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine could potentially also be manufactured in the local facilities for distribution in Africa."
BioNTainer solution

At the African Union-European Union summit around six months later and two weeks after Hub officials declared they’d successfully replicated an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine, BioNTech made its own big announcement.

The company would build BioNTainers ― exact replications of the BioNTech factory in Marburg, Germany ― in Rwanda and Senegal.

When asked in a press conference why the company wasn't collaborating with the Hub, as it had stated it would in the August 27 joint communique and in the July malaria announcement, Poetting replied: "We are actually collaborating with the transfer hubs and we are co-locating with the transfer hubs."

This isn't true, Afrigen director Petro Terblanche told DW. Terblanche has led the Hub to replicate the Moderna vaccine and met with Keller in August.

"They are not co-located with the mRNA hub," Terblanche said. "I am not aware of any other hubs in Africa. They are also not collaborating with the mRNA hub at the moment. I still hope that they will."

WHO officials, when asked by DW why BioNTech wasn't co-locating with the South African hub, and why Poetting said the company was co-locating with the hub when hub officials say it is not, said: "Please ask BioNTech that."

Neither BioNTech nor the Kenup Foundation responded to multiple requests for comment from DW.

The Global Vaccine Inequity and its Consequences
The fastest option?

Poetting said in the press conference that the reasoning behind the BioNTainer solution was speed. It would be faster than other options, he said.

But Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, which aims to expand access to medication and vaccines for those in need, and Alain Alsalhani, from Médecins Sans Frontières, say that's not true.

The two wrote a report in December outliningeight already-existing vaccine manufacturers in Africa where pharmaceutical companies like BioNTech or Moderna could outfit to produce mRNA vaccines.

The BioNtainers will take longer to come into operation in comparison with retrofitting already-existing facilities, Prabhala said. While the BioNTainer solution will take around two to three years, retrofication would only take three to six months, he said.

"In my opinion, BioNTech's announcement is a splashier way of a major multinational making a fairly simple announcement: That it will set up a few regional outposts," Prabhala told DW.

Alsalhani told DW that if it's fully validated by regulators, the BioNTainer concept could be a very fast way to establish new mRNA manufacturing capacity, "but we are not there yet."

He believes the major benefit to the BioNTtainer concept as opposed to the retrofication concept is full control of facilities. BioNTech can determine the price and location of the products sold.
'It boggles my mind'

Terblanche said she's mystified by BioNTech's disinterest in collaboration.

"I do not understand why they did not engage with the Hub," she told DW.

A selfie-worthy occasion: A young woman receives a COVID-19 jab in South Africa

She said it doesn't make sense to her that the company didn't "grab the opportunity" to share their technology with the outposts, which the Hub announced Friday will so far exist in Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia.

"What they are now proposing and planning is going to cost them much more," she said. "To be honest I try to understand this strategy and it boggles my mind."

Terblanche, like Alsalhani, acknowledged the BioNTainer solution is very innovative.

But she said it's the opposite approach to the transfer hub. The hub is focused on sharing technology. The BioNTainers will be fully controlled by the company.

Edited by: Carla Bleiker

German women face large equality gap in child care: study

Over 60% of German working mothers were employed part-time, according to a new study, as women bear the bulk of child care responsibilities. Researchers say the trend is a significant factor in the gender pay gap.

Researchers highlight that progress in gender pay gap and childcare burden 

could be imperiled by the COVID-19 pademic

German women have continued to make strides in key gender equality metrics, but a large gap remains when it comes to child care, according to a study by the Institute of Economic and Social Research (WSI) at the Hans Böckler Foundation published on Wednesday.

In areas such as employment and income, women have made progress. Female labor force participation at the end of 2020 was still 7% lower than men between the ages of 15 and 64, but in 1991 that difference was 21%.

When it comes to education, German women were reaching higher levels on average than men. In 2019, some 41% of women and 39% of men in Germany had a high school diploma or qualification to enter technical college.

But although women are becoming more qualified for their professions, they are still far less likely to be in top-level jobs compared to men. In 2020, only 11% of all board-level positions at Germany's 160 largest listed companies were held by women.

The study also noted the lingering differences in earnings. The average hourly wage for women was most recently €18.62 euros per hour ($21), some €4.16 euros, or 18%, less than that of men.

Germany's wage gap has been shrinking slowly, but women on average also receive 49% lower retirement income than men, when statutory pensions, occupational and private old-age provisions are taken into account.

Children a major burden for working women

Researchers said this could be attributed to many women choosing careers in service-related or lower-paid jobs, while men tend to opt for technical or higher-paying jobs.

But the gender pay disparity is also due, in large part, to women being four times more likely to work part-time to reconcile work and family.

The study points to official figures that show that only 26.7% of couples with children in Germany worked full-time. Some 67.7% of working mothers were part-time workers, compared to 1.9% of men.

In Germany, "women continue to provide the majority of childcare," researchers wrote. They found that while 98% of mothers are currently taking parental leave benefits, only 42% of men did so this year. 

Institutional childcare supply has also reflected the trend of women scaling back on work for childcare. While institutional daycare hours have extended in Germany over the past decade, only 48% of children between the ages of three and six, and just 20% of children under one, were in full-day institutional care. 

"The existing demand for childcare hours in Germany has still not been met," researchers wrote, adding that gender equality could be furthered by an increased supply in full-time daycare for young children.

COVID-19 pandemic could make things worse

Researchers noted that the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic seemed to have helped with the childcare burden. Prior to the pandemic, 62% of women were providing the majority of childcare, but that figure dropped to 53% in April 2020.

Before the pandemic, only 5% of fathers provided a majority of childcare, with the figure increasing to 13% once the pandemic got underway. 

But by June 2021, the share of women providing the majority of childcare increased to a higher level than before the pandemic to 71%, while the share of men dropped to 7%.

The pandemic has also shown that women's jobs are less secure and less crisis-proof than those of men. Researchers said women were more affected in 2020 by layoffs and shortened working hours — especially in the lower-income categories of service-sector, so-called "mini jobs" that were hit hard by the pandemic. 

jcg/fb (dpa, AFP)

New project tells Jewish art collectors' stories

The stories of the people whose art collections were looted by the Nazis are rarely told. A new project in Berlin and Munich aims to change this.

Adele Bloch-Bauer — the subject of this Gustav Klimt piece — is one of the Jewish 

collectors whose story is now told

These days, the topic of art restitution is the subject of conferences and debates — be it the Benin bronzes in Berlin or Nazi-looted art. The 2012 Gurlitt case, in which 1,500 works of art were found on properties belonging to the son of a Nazi art dealer, made it clear that the time was finally rife for the restitution debate. Yet little has been told about the people behind the paintings, drawings and sketches.

A new joint project by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Bavarian State Painting Collections aims to close this gap and tell the human stories behind some art restitution cases. "We have been doing provenance research for 20 years, helping with restitutions or initiating them," Bernhard Maaz, director general of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, told DW. "But the great emotional impact of these processes is not often conveyed" he said.

Archive of forgotten fates

Thirty such stories about works of art and their Jewish owners will be told in films during the three-year project. They will trace the artwork's path through the hands of collaborators and illuminate the value they have for their rightful owners and descendants. Ideally, all stories told will end with restitution.

Bernhard Maaz says the emotional impact of restitution processes is not conveyed

The stories of Jewish art collectors are little known, although the paintings associated with them may be famous. Such stolen works include the golden portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer by Gustav Klimt, "Berlin Street Scene" by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner or "The Eye of the Law (Justitia)" by Carl Spitzweg. The stories behind the artworks tell of persecution, expropriation and murder.

The business of the Austro-Czech sugar manufacturer and art lover Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer was "Aryanized," forcing him to flee into exile in Switzerland in 1939. Alone and impoverished, he died shortly after the end of the war. The Hess family owned a shoe factory in the eastern city of Erfurt and had owned what was probably the best collection of German Expressionist art. Thekla Hess and her son Alfred survived the war in exile in London, and large parts of their collection were sold. Thekla's two sisters-in-law and cousin Olga were murdered by the Nazis in Theresienstadt.

Adele Bloch-Bauer was a prominent Jewish art collector who was painted by Klimt

A matter of justice

Painter Carl Spitzweg's 1857 painting "The Eye of the Law (Justitia)" was part of the small collection of the Jewish businessman and art collector Leo Bendel, who was born in Poland, lived in Berlin but fled to Vienna with his wife in 1937. In the same year, he was forced to sell two Spitzweg paintings at rock-bottom prices.

"Justitia" was acquired by a buyer for a museum dedicated to Hitler. During the sale, Bendel was not noted as being of "non-Aryan origin," and for this reason, the painting was classified as "unobjectionable" and was therefore given to the German president's office in 1961. The painting hung in the city of Bonn's Villa Hammerschmidt until 2007. It was then restituted on the basis of research by Bendel's heirs.

It took decades for Carl Spitzweg's painting "Justitia" to be restituted

Leo Bendel was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939 as a Polish Jew, abused and ultimately deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp. He was there with a group of people crammed into a fenced-off part of the concentration camp above the Jewish block next to the area where roll call took place. It became the site of the first intentional mass killing of Jews and Poles in the Buchenwald concentration camp. The name Leo Bendel was also found listed among the dead: He died on March 30, 1940 of "senile debility" as it was written.

Washington Declaration and Provenance Research

The Washington Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, recognized in a joint declaration by Germany and the United States in 1998, have provided the framework in which Nazi-looted art has been treated ever since. In them, Germany pledged to examine its works of art and to identify looted art or to contribute to the investigation. It was more than 50 years after the end of World War II and high time to make amends for Nazi-looted art.

But objects don't tell their stories on their own. The art world has been examining its holdings ever since — albeit with varying levels of commitment — if any. Provenance research, which is historical research on how objects were obtained, is complex. "We're talking about an estimated 600,000 works of art in total, which is huge," Bernhard Maaz elaborates. Provenance research is often time-consuming. "Because every case is an individual case," says Maaz. "This will keep us busy for decades."

The Bavarian State Painting Collections, have been able to restitute 25 works from 17 collections since 1998. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has processed more than 50 restitution requests since 1999, returning more than 350 works of art and around 2,000 books to the rightful owners. These included a drawing by Vincent van Gogh, works by Edvard Munch and "Der Watzmann" by Caspar David Friedrich. Provenance research has been undertaken professionally in Germany since 1998 — but many have questioned if enough is being done.

Businessman Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer was a prominent Jewish collector

More remembrance culture

The importance of Jewish patrons was immense, and not only for Germany's art world. Many of the greatest art treasures were brought in by Jewish collectors. The crowning piece in Berlin's Neues Museum — the bust of Nefertiti — is one such example.

Its excavation was financed by James Simon, who was Jewish, and then donated to the Egyptian Museum in 1920. The memory of James Simon has found an appropriate place in the Neues Museum, but other places of remembrance are still "works in progress," such as Berlin's Johanna and Eduard Arnhold Platz, dedicated to the prominent Jewish patrons and those associated with them in Berlin whose legacy was destroyed by the Nazis.

The core idea of restitution policy is to make amends for the injustices done, if not through the restitution of property, at least through fully acknowledging it.

This article was originally written in German.