Thursday, February 15, 2024

Mining, batteries manufacturing: The hidden costs of the green transition to workers’ health

The European Union needs critical raw materials for its transition to a world of wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars. But extracting and processing these materials is a dirty business that can be harmful to health. By exposing lithium-battery workers to industrial toxins, is the EU poisoning the Green Deal?

Published on 15 February 2024 at 09:00
Arthur Neslen - HesaMag (Brussels)
 
Alex Falcó Chang | Cartoon Movement

Anton (not his real name) was overjoyed when he got a job as an operator at the SK Innovations (SKI) car battery plant in Komárom, Hungary, in 2020. "I was happy because the money was good, especially for that region." The gigafactory had just opened and, at the height of the Covid pandemic, the work was light. Within six months though, Anton had left the company after a urine test showed that he had levels of nickel three times above the safety limits.

Nickel accumulation has been linked to lung fibrosis, kidney and cardiovascular diseases, and cancer of the respiratory tract. There is also a high incidence of nasal and lung cancer among workers exposed to the material. "I have kids and I want to raise those kids," explains Anton.

More : Lucas Chancel: ‘Those who are most affected are those who pollute the least’

As the continent ramps up its critical raw materials (CRM) industry in the face of a climate crisis nearing existential proportions, Anton’s experience could soon be replicated across Europe. CRMs such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite are crucial for the clean energy technologies needed to stave off climate breakdown – from wind turbines to electric car batteries. But their supply chains are currently limited and scarcities are expected in the next decade.

As a result, new EU legislation in the form of the Critical Raw Materials Act proposes that by 2030, 10% of Europe’s CRM extraction, 40% of its processing and 15% of its recycling be done domestically – to ease dependence on third countries, many of which have poor human rights and environmental records.

Hungary will benefit more than most from this. By 2031, it is expected to be the second biggest producer of car batteries – and the single biggest producer of "tier 1" batteries, which can be used in Europe – according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI), a market analyst. BMI has stated that this is partly because Hungary offers cheaper labour and land costs than western Europe.

EV’s revolution health costs are yet to be calculated

Meanwhile, the health costs of the electric car revolution are yet to be calculated. According to the European Environment Agency, Europe has 23% of the world’s new cancer cases, despite only making up 6% of the world’s population, in part because of "chronic exposure to some pharmaceuticals, pollutants and other occupational and environmental carcinogens." And yet according to recent reports, under industry pressure the European Commission appears to be retreating from plans to ban hazardous chemicals. Plans to more strictly regulate substances such as lithium could be the next under review.

In fact, according to BMI, the Hungarian government gave SKI a 209 million euro subsidy to build another battery plant in Iváncsa. There, 300 workers who had been denied protective equipment went on strike in June 2023 after an outbreak of vomiting, diarrhoea and rashes, according to some reports of the wildcat action. According to others, the issue of unpaid wages was a deciding factor. Many trade unions say that it is not always possible to identify illnesses caused by cocktails of CRMs with chemicals, and that a lack of regulatory vigilance has added to the problem.

The critical raw materials that Anton was working with – nickel, cobalt and manganese – accumulated into "a thick layer of dust" that settled all over the factory. "Everyone in the plant knew that there was a dust problem because they had to clean it all the time and use vacuum cleaners on the electronic devices," he says. "But we were only given Covid medical masks and rubber gloves for protection. I knew someone whose nickel levels were five times higher than normal, but in the Hungarian system – which is corrupt – no one cares about a few dead workers. The whole system is structured in favour of these companies."

‘Every time you attack workers rights, support for the Green Deal in particular – and climate policies in general – goes down’. 
Marc Botenga, Left Party MEP

"No occupational exposure limit for lithium has been established, beyond existing safe work practices," says Glen Mpufane, the mining director for the IndustriAll Global Union. "The same goes for cobalt and it may well be that, given the latent exposure of workers to their toxicity and cancer risks, somewhere down the line, workers will face the consequences, as they did with silicosis and black lung cancer in coal mines."

In Hungary, where unions expect employment in the CRM sector to rocket from around 7,000 now to as many as 40,000 within a decade, the setup has been exacerbated by a lack of regulatory enforcement. Unions say that it would take 160 years for the current health and safety inspectorate to visit every company. Balazs Babel, the vice president of Hungary’s metalworkers union Vasas says: "We need better protection for workers. That’s for sure. This is a very, very dangerous field of work. Where there is a suspicion of exposure to dangerous materials, then workers should be provided with ventilation and all the protective gear they need."

During SKI’s safety training session in Komárom, Anton says that he asked the company’s health representative about the safety of one of the chemicals he was working with: N-Methyl-2-Pyrrolidone (NMP). "They said: 'It’s not dangerous at all. You can even drink it and you wouldn’t have any problem'", he remembers. However, NMP, which is suspected of being reprotoxic, had been added to the EU’s restricted substances list two years before. SKI did not respond to a request for comment.

Battery plants boom

Europe’s expansion of a domestic CRM industry will not be limited to Hungary. For the world to hit net zero targets by 2050, cobalt and neodymium demand may rise by 150%, copper and nickel by 50-70%, and graphite and lithium by 600-700%, according to the International Energy Agency. Where electric batteries are concerned, Germany is expected to become Europe’s largest producer, followed by Hungary, Poland, France and Sweden.

Peter Froven, an official for Sweden’s IF Metall union said that while his country’s gigafactories only employed a few thousand workers at present, they were ‘popping up like mushrooms’ and by 2030 their workforce could multiply by a factor of ten. "We have fears that they're building so fast that they're basically burning out the workforce," he says. "I mean, you’ve got production one day, you're stopping the next, and you're also learning how to do the new processes safely while you're doing it."

"Building a battery requires the cleanest area you can find. It has to be completely dust-free. And if you're simultaneously constructing the building around this area, then of course you'll have problems with missed deadlines because there's leakage of dust into the batteries. There's also a very fast pace, which means mistakes are easier to make. We’ve had chemical leaks, quite bad cuts, chemical skin burns, things like that.’ After workers at one plant were sprayed with chemical slurry used to fill up batteries, IF Metall faced the inevitable problem of trying to identify which substances had been in it. ‘It’s like the Coca Cola recipe," Froven jokes.
‘Mining remains one of the world’s most hazardous occupations. This is one of the industries with the most extreme accidents, lots of chronic disease, and illness. These things still happen in Europe’. – Sophie Grenad, adviser to IndustriAll

Such incidents have stoked calls for the European Commission to tighten regulatory oversight of substances used in the CRM sector. Occupational exposure limits for hazardous materials are set at EU level and transposed by EU members, but national implementation often leaves much to be desired. Sophie Grenade, an adviser to IndustriAll, says that social partner agreements such as Nepsi – which was established between unions and employers to counter silica exposure – were helping to improve the situation on the ground. Partly funded by the EU, Nepsi is considered complementary to binding occupational exposure limits.

However, campaigners such as Friend of the Earth Europe say that an industry that spends 21 million euros a year on lobbying in Europe, and has held on average two meetings a week with EU policymakers since 2014, creates its own gravity, dragging down legal protections for workers and the public alike.

Lithium labelling

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has recommended a "reprotoxic" classification for lithium, obliging greater regulatory protections for workers. But it is unclear whether the Commission will over-ride this for the greater good of a smooth and profitable roll-out of electric vehicles. The Commission has asked ECHA to launch another public consultation on the question and will not give any information about timing nor on the grounds it could use to over-rule ECHA.

Responding to a request for comment, an EU official who declined to be identified told HesaMag: "The Commission is committed to better protect[ing] human health and the environment, as part of an ambitious approach to tackle pollution from all sources and move to a toxic-free environment. In this sense, the Critical Raw Materials Act takes these concerns very seriously and puts in place a framework that will ensure that such environmental concerns are well assessed."

Other substances such as nickel and cobalt have been labelled by ECHA as suspected reprotoxins and carcinogens, but as Vasas vice president Babel puts it: "It’s not enough that we have laws, we need enforcement of these laws." This is reaffirmed by IndustriAll’s Grenade: ‘We need regulation and strong standards that are absolutely binding and not just “narrative”’.

Buried treasure?

The issue goes deeper than new battery plants. Europe’s CRM Act will speed up the permitting process for mining, processing, refining and recycling infrastructure, which may be assigned an ‘over-riding public interest,’ according to the proposed legislation. Environmentalists often point out that the health costs of coal mining eclipse those from substances like lithium by an order of magnitude, but there is a caveat: there is a vast difference between the scale of these sectors, and their available data.

The continent has some noteworthy reserves of CRMs, albeit far less than its coal. While Europe has an estimated 79 billion metric tonnes of coal reserves, it has only around 1.3 million tonnes of cobalt reserves, mostly in the Balkans and Turkey, and is thought to contain around 7% of the world’s 98 million tonnes of lithium reserves, in countries such as Portugal, Czechia and Germany. The continent also has significant graphite deposits in Scandinavia, and mined 243,000 tonnes of nickel in 2021.

Extracting these resources can be done in various ways. Lithium, for example, can be mined in open pits or pumped up from underground geothermal reserves in a briny liquid that must be treated to remove it. Sophie Grenade points out that whether it is coal, nickel or some other material being mined, despite industry’s efforts mining "remains one of the world’s most hazardous occupations. This is one of the industries with the most extreme accidents, lots of chronic disease, and illness. These things still happen in Europe. We know that the extraction of lithium and cobalt may cause problems. When it comes to sustainable mining or the responsible use of raw materials, lithium is very corrosive, so there are risks there for explosions. Cobalt is reprotoxic and may cause cancer so we absolutely need strong safeguards for workers, collective rights and occupational exposure limits in line with scientific data." Grenade want to see these written into the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act to ensure that "the clean tech race does not lead to deregulation."

Community protests

Where the dissent of communities and workers is ignored, the results can be explosive. A 2.2 billion euro lithium mine in Serbia planned by Rio Tinto was cancelled in 2022 after mass protests by local people concerned about environmental pollution and water contamination, even though the mine could reportedly have provided 90% of Europe’s lithium needs. Community demonstrations in Portugal – including a new protest camp launched in August 2023 against what would be Europe’s largest open pit lithium mine in Boticas – underline the obstacles facing any expansion of Europe’s CRM industry.

According to Cecilia Mattea, the batteries and supply chain policy manager for Transport and Environment, a campaigning NGO and think tank, the EU’s mining laws are inadequate and in need of reform: "The EU’s mining laws are so outdated that in Spain for example, mine tailing is allowed to sit much closer to the local community than in China or Brazil. It’s simply not acceptable. We should review the EU’s mining laws."
More : The social and environmental costs of European fashion made in Tunisia

Some policymakers fear that even raising these sorts of issues is likely to stir a backlash against electric vehicles which are, after all, powered by the renewable energy the planet needs to avoid catastrophe. But trade unions have countered that ignoring the needs of workers creates the constituency for a backlash by leaving left-behind communities with a sense of grievance that is vulnerable to manipulation. Asked whether workers were still supporting the clean energy transition, Babel answers honestly: "I’m not sure if workers really care that much."

"Every time you attack workers rights, support for the Green Deal in particular – and climate policies in general – goes down," says Left Party MEP Marc Botenga. "Where workers have real health and safety concerns and communities have real concerns about their drinking water it will obviously and very clearly weaken support for climate policies." His colleague, the Left Party MEP Cornelia Ernst, adds: "The Green Deal needs social majorities and these come about when people's living and working conditions improve. A green deal without the workers is not possible."

N. Korea sold illegal gambling websites to S. Korean cybercrime ring

South Korean intelligence named the North Korean “Gyonghung Information Technology Exchange Company” as the group behind the websites

By Laura Geigenberger
- February 15, 2024


A North Korean organization under the Workers’ Party has reportedly created thousands of illegal online gambling websites in cooperation with an unidentified South Korean cybercrime ring, the ROK’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) told Yonhap news agency on Wednesday. The investigation appears to be ongoing.

In the process, the North Korean organization allegedly received KPW 6.5 million (USD 5,000) for each created gambling website and KPW 4 million (USD 3,000) per month to maintain them. In addition, the NIS suspects that the organization received another KPW 1.8 million to 6.5 million (USD 2,000 to 5,000) when the website achieved a high number of users. The transfers in foreign currency were made both via Chinese bank accounts and global online payment services such as PayPal. It is estimated that each member of the organization transferred around KPW 650,000 (USD 500) per month to North Korea.

The South Korean clients resold the gambling websites to third parties, the NIS revealed, allegedly earning several trillion won in the process. To facilitate the transactions between China and the ROK, the South Korean cybercrime ring also apparently provided domestic servers that enabled the North Korean IT specialists to hack into several foreign companies. In addition, the websites and servers were reportedly used to steal personal data, conversations, and identifying information of around 1,110 users by the criminal organizations either disguising their nationality or using phishing techniques such as malicious codes on their websites.

“This is the first time that concrete evidence has been disclosed to the public that North Korea is deeply involved in cyber gambling, which has recently become a serious social problem in South Korea,” the NIS stated. The agency now estimates that “thousands” more North Korean organizations are currently developing cyber gambling schemes and selling them abroad to generate foreign currency for the regime. It is assumed that most of them have settled in China illegally.

The group worked in China in direct violation of U.N. sanctions

In the recently uncovered cybercrime case, the NIS named the North Korean “Gyonghung Information Technology Exchange Company” as the group behind the websites. The 15-member group under the command of Kim Kwang-myeong, a former member of the DPRK’s Reconnaissance General Bureau, is based in the Chinese city of Dandong near the North Korean border. It is believed to be subordinate to the so-called “Room 39” of the Workers’ Party, a secret North Korean party organization designated to preserve the leadership’s foreign currency reserves.

According to the National Intelligence Service, the North Korean IT operatives were staying in the dormitory of a garment factory called “Golden Phoenix Clothing Co., Ltd.” in Dandong, which is owned and operated by a businessman in North Korea. “The North Korean IT organizations, which were established to raise dollars, are mixing with North Korean workers in the region to illegally earn foreign exchange,” the NIS alleges.

In doing so, the regime is in direct violation of the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council’s resolution 2397. Back in 2017, the Council prohibited the regime from stationing workers abroad and instructed all member states to expel North Korean citizens by the end of 2019.

Nevertheless, the BBC estimates that around 100,000 North Koreans were stationed abroad in 2023, mostly in factories and on construction sites in north-eastern China which are operated by the North Korean government. It is estimated they have earned Pyongyang USD 740 million between 2017 and 2023. The number of IT personnel working illegally abroad and/or as employees for international companies under false identities, however, is currently unknown.

The DPRK relies on hacking, virtual assets, and foreign currency to fund its weapons programs

Both the South Korean and U.S. governments as well as the United Nations have repeatedly voiced their suspicions that thousands of North Koreans around the world are working under false identities to earn foreign currency for the DPRK. “They are everywhere, from Asia to Africa, and sometimes even employed by U.S. companies,” said Jung H. Pak, deputy U.S. special representative for the DPRK at the U.S. State Department, at a Korean-American symposium in California on May 24, 2023.

Furthermore, North Korea-linked hacks have been on the rise over the past few years, with cyber-espionage groups such as Kimsuky and Lazarus Group utilizing various malicious tactics to acquire large amounts of crypto assets. The DPRK relies on financial fraud, money laundering, and cybercrime to fund its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. In doing so, it is violating several resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. The White House and the U.N. have also repeatedly claimed that half of North Korea’s weapons development might be funded by cyberattacks and cryptocurrency theft.

According to the U.S. Treasury Department, North Korea has gained about 1.7 trillion KPW (USD 1.2 billion) in virtual assets worldwide since 2017 through cybercrime such as hacking, information theft, and digital extortion methods. Chainalysis, the blockchain data platform, further reported a new record of 20 North Korean hacking incidents last year. The total value of the stolen virtual assets amounted to approximately KPW 1.3 trillion (USD 1 billion) – a significant decrease, however, compared to the record sum of KPW 2.3 trillion (USD 1.7 billion) in 2022.

Edited by Robert Lauler.
Thailand becomes world’s 3rd-largest chicken exporter

Thailand exported over 100,000 tonnes of chicken worth over 100 billion BTH (2.7 billion USD) last year, making the country the world’s third-largest exporter behind Brazil and the US.

VNA Tuesday, February 13, 2024 
https://link.gov.vn/vBE94ExM

Illustrative photo (Photo: nationthailand.com)

Bangkok (VNA) – Thailand exported over 100,000 tonnes of chicken worth over 100 billion THB (2.7 billion USD) last year, making the country the world’s third-largest exporter behind Brazil and the US.

Chaweewan Kampa, President of the Poultry Promotion Association of Thailand, said Thailand’s 2023 ranking was an improvement from 4th place in 2022.

According to Chaweewan, the Thai government had export promotion measures, and quick decisions to extend the import of soybean meal under a World Trade Organisation (WTO) deal for another year, which helped solve the problem of rising price and shortage of animal feed.

The deal under the WTO’s regulations allows the import of soybean meal at 2% tariff instead of the normal rate of 119%. It also allows import of corn for animal feed at 20% tariff instead of 70% for up to 54,700 tonnes.

However, she pointed out that Thailand was still at a disadvantage due to higher production cost compared to competitors.

Both Brazil and the US are one of the world’s biggest production bases of soybean and corn for animal feed, while Thailand is struggling to meet the domestic needs, she said.

She urged the hai government to consider expanding the term under the WTO deal, especially the import quota limit, to help chicken farmers reduce cost and make Thailand’s product more competitive in the global market.

Meanwhile, Sitthiphan Thanakiatpinyo, President of the Swine Raisers Association of Thailand, said that cost for animal feed is the biggest cost for farmers, and urged the government to prioritise this issue./.

Thailand plans to triple farmers’ incomes

Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has sought approval for the upcoming fiscal budget of 411 billion THB (11.4 billion USD), more than three times higher than the previous budget, aiming to triple incomes of farmers within the next four years.

VNA Thursday, February 15, 2024 
https://link.gov.vn/BFrhXsDQ

Bangkok (VNA) – Thailand’s Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives has sought approval for the upcoming fiscal budget of 411 billion THB (11.4 billion USD), more than three times higher than the previous budget, aiming to triple incomes of farmers within the next four years.

Chantanon Wannakejohn, Secretary-General to the Office of Agricultural Economics, said on February 14 that the ministry is seeking this amount for its short-, medium- and long-term plans to increase farmers' incomes as they are the largest group of workers in the country.

According to Chantanon, the short-term plan will require 81.6 billion THB, which will be used to promote agro-tourism activities, find new markets, deal with fishery problems, solve debt issues, and tackle haze pollution.

It will also be utilised to set up plans responding to the environmental crisis, promote carbon neutrality, and curb meat smuggling, he added.

Chantanon said that an additional 1.4 billion THB will be needed for the medium-term plan, which is designed to introduce advanced farming technologies, such as precision farming systems.

For the management of free-trade agreement discussions with international partners, supporting new environmentally and economically-suitable crop plantations, and aiding the processing of crops, an extra 26.5 billion THB will be required, he noted.

A budget of 301.9 billion THB will be needed for the long-term plan to be allocated for improving water management and crop production and upgrading land titles for farmers.

Chantanon said this year's fiscal budget of 120.6 billion THB will be announced in the Royal Gazette by April while the fiscal budget for 2025 will be forwarded to the Budget Bureau and the cabinet for consideration./.

Elon Musk's SpaceX fined for worker safety violations in US

SpaceX has been fined $50,836 over last 10 years

Feb 15, 2024

What's the story

SpaceX, Elon Musk's aerospace company, has been fined $3,600 (roughly Rs. 3 lakh) by US worker safety officials.The step comes after a mishap at its Redmond, Washington facility resulted in a "near amputation," according to inspection records obtained by Reuters.The incident took place when a heavy material roll fell and crushed an employee's foot.Washington state's Department of Labor and Industries did an inspection following worker complaints and discovered safety violations.

Discovery

Inspectors found inadequate safety measures

During the inspection, it was revealed that the facility lacked proper communication of work rules, a comprehensive safety program, and a system to address violations.Inspectors also found that workers were not urged to wear steel-toe shoes, despite the fact that the rolls of materials being handled had increased in weight from 36.3kg to 136kg, each.An agency spokesperson described the violation as serious due to the risk of injury.

Claim

Worker claimed that safety was overlooked for production

A worker informed inspectors that "safety can get overlooked" as the company's main objective is to "make as much as we can in a short amount of time."The injured employee stated that the machine where the rolls were loaded "had been deliberately set up incorrectly to increase the production rate during the material loading phase."He also alleged that the firm's safety officials lack "reading comprehension and overall competency to implement a safety plan at the Redmond site."

You're 50% through
Problem

SpaceX has a history of injuries and regulatory issues

SpaceX has experienced multiple injuries and regulatory issues, highlighting the limitations of worker safety regulations.Reuters has documented at least 600 previously unreported worker injuries since 2014.Experts in US worker safety argue that fines are limited by law and offer little deterrence for major companies. Additionally, federal and state regulators face a chronic shortage of inspectors.To note, in the last 10 years, SpaceX has been fined a total of $50,836 (around Rs. 42.2 lakh) for various violations.

Silence

NASA refrains from commenting on SpaceX's safety record

NASA, which has awarded SpaceX over $11.8 billion in contracts as a private space contractor, has consistently declined to comment on the company's safety record.Instead, they have only stated that they reserve the right to enforce contract provisions requiring SpaceX to maintain "a robust and effective safety program and culture."

Greece legalizes same-sex marriage despite opposition from Orthodox Church


BY LAUREN IRWIN - 02/15/24 

Supporters of same-sex marriage bill take part in a rally, at central Syntagma Square, in Athens, Greece, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Varaklas)

Greece legalized same-sex marriage after the Parliament passed legislation to do so Thursday, despite pushback from the Orthodox Church.

The country became the first Orthodox Christian country to pass a law legalizing same-sex marriage and equal parental rights for same-sex couples, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

Of the 300 members in Parliament, 176 lawmakers from different parties voted in favor of the bill drafted by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Seventy-six members rejected the bill, while two abstained from voting and 46 were not present at voting, the AP noted.

“The vote has passed: as of tonight, Greece is proud to become the 16th EU country to legislate marriage equality,” Mitsotakis posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “This is a milestone for human rights, reflecting today’s Greece — a progressive, and democratic country, passionately committed to European values.”

Supporters and protestors of the bill gathered outside Parliament on Thursday as lawmakers debated, the AP reported.

“People who have been invisible will finally be made visible around us. And with them, many children [will] finally find their rightful place,” the prime minister told lawmakers earlier Thursday, the outlet reported.

While the bill provides same-sex couples full parental rights, it does not allow couples full rights through surrogate mothers. Advocates have pushed back on the limitation and the lack of provisions for transgender people.

Same-sex marriage is largely supported by residents. Former Prime Minister Antonis Samaras from New Democracy, a conservative governing group, opposes the bill.


He told Parliament that same-sex marriage is “not a human right” and that it is not an obligation for the country to legalize it.

The Church of Greece is the main voice of opposition against the bill, as it disapproves of same-sex marriage. Church officials have argued that the bill could impact traditional family values, and the surrogacy limitation could one day be extended to same-sex couples.

The Associated Press contributed.

Greek Parliament To Vote On Legalising Same-Sex Marriage In First For An Orthodox Christian Country

 By PTI 

| Published: Thursday, February 15, 2024, 

 Greece's parliament is set to vote on Thursday to legalise same-sex civil marriage, in a first for an Orthodox Christian country and despite opposition from the influential Greek Church. Opinion polls suggest that most Greeks support the proposed reform, and the issue has failed to trigger deep divisions in a country more worried about the high cost of living. 

The landmark bill drafted by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis ' centre-right government is backed by four left-wing parties, including the main opposition Syriza. That would secure it 243 votes in the 300-seat parliament.

 Several majority and left-wing lawmakers are expected to abstain or vote against the reform - but not enough to kill the bill.

Three small far-right parties and the Stalinist-rooted Communist Party have rejected the draft law. 

State Minister Akis Skertsos stressed at the opening of the two-day debate Wednesday that most Greeks already accept the idea of same-sex marriages. "We are not deciding on change in this chamber," he said. "It has already happened ... Society changes and develops without requiring parliament's permission." 

The bill would confer full parental rights on married same-sex partners with children. But it precludes gay couples from parenthood through surrogate mothers in Greece - an option currently available to women who can't have children for health reasons.

 Governing New Democracy lawmaker Maria Syrengela said the reform would redress a long-standing injustice for same-sex couples and their children. "And let's reflect on what these people have been through, spending so many years in the shadows, entangled in bureaucratic procedures," she said. 

Polls show that while most Greeks agree to same-sex weddings they also reject extending parenthood through surrogacy to male couples.

 Same-sex civil partnerships have been allowed in Greece since 2015. But that only conferred legal guardianship to the biological parents of children in those relationships, leaving their partners in a bureaucratic limbo. 

The main opposition to the new bill has come from the traditionalist Church of Greece - which also disapproves of heterosexual civil marriage. 

Church officials have centred their criticism on the bill's implications for traditional family values, and argue that potential legal challenges could lead to a future extension of surrogacy rights to gay couples.

The head of the Orthodox Church of Greece, Archbishop Ieronymos, suggested Wednesday that the ballot should be held by roll call. This would enable constituents to see exactly how their lawmakers voted. That's going to happen anyway, following motions later in the day by far-right parties and - independently and for different reasons - Syriza.

 The main opposition leader, Stefanos Kasselakis, who is gay, has threatened disciplinary action against any Syriza lawmaker who doesn't back the bill. 

Church supporters and conservative organizations have staged small protests against the proposed law, and members of far-right groups have called for a demonstration outside parliament later Thursday. 

Politically, the same-sex marriage law is not expected to harm Mitsotakis' government, which won easy re-election last year after capturing much of the centrist vote. 

A stronger challenge comes from ongoing protests by farmers angry at high production costs, and intense opposition from many students to the planned scrapping of a state monopoly on university education. Nevertheless, parliament is expected to approve the university bill later this month, and opinion polls indicate that most Greeks support it.




Families of hostages demand Netanyahu immediately continue hostage negotiations

BY LAUREN IRWIN - 02/15/24 

Liz Hirsh Naftali, great aunt of Abigail Mor Edan, joined by other relatives of people held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip speaks during a bipartisan press conference by lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on January 17, 2024. Some 250 people were taken to Gaza by Palestinian militants during the October 7 attack by Hamas on southern Israeli communities. Israeli officials say 132 of them are still being held captive in the territory, including 27 who are believed to have been killed, according to an AFP tally.
 (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) 


The family members of hostages taken by Hamas demanded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately continue negotiations Thursday, as efforts for a cease-fire have stalled.

“We want a deal. As members of hostage families, we want our family members home immediately. If there’s not a deal immediately, then we want to see the people who need to be at the negotiating table come back to the table,” Abbey Onn, the cousin of one of the hostages, said in a statement. “We need to see Israel at the table with their partners and trying to make diplomacy work.”

Onn and other family members gathered for a virtual press conference Thursday to press Netanyahu after he rejected Hamas’s response to secure the release of hostages in exchange for a pause in fighting.

Netanyahu accused Hamas of dragging the negotiations by having “delusional” demands.

His remarks came after reports that he ordered his Israeli delegation to stop negotiations in Egypt. Israel did not receive a new proposal from Hamas militants in Cairo and called for them to change their proposal, The Associated Press (AP) reported.

Of the more than 200 hostages taken on Oct. 7, there are about 130 remaining, and about a fourth of them are said to be dead, the AP noted.

Family members are concerned that Netanyahu isn’t listening to their demands and argued they must speak with the war Cabinet, as Israeli soldiers prepare to enter the southern city of Rafah in Gaza, which is sheltering more than 1.5 million Palestinians.

Netanyahu has consistently called for Hamas to release hostages and vowed to use military force to demolish Hamas in order to get the remaining hostages back, but relatives are questioning his motives. Since Israel launched its counteroffensive, more than 28,000 Palestinians have died, the Gaza Health Ministry reported.

“If the Prime Minister was committed to releasing the hostages, there would be a team in Cairo negotiating,” Liz Naftali, the great aunt of a former hostage, said in a statement.