Emperor penguins perish as ice melts to new lows: study

Paris (AFP) – Colonies of emperor penguin chicks were wiped out last year as global warming eroded their icy homes, a study published Thursday found, despite the birds' attempts to adapt to the shrinking landscape.


Issued on: 25/04/2024 - 

The study by the British Antarctic Survey found that record-low sea ice levels in 2023 contributed to the second-worst year for emperor penguin chick mortality since observations began in 2018

 © SARAH DAWALIBI / AFP/File


The study by the British Antarctic Survey found that record-low sea ice levels in 2023 contributed to the second-worst year for emperor penguin chick mortality since observations began in 2018.

It follows a "catastrophic breeding failure" in 2022, signalling long-term implications for the population, the study's author Peter Fretwell told AFP.

Emperor penguins breed on sea-ice platforms, with chicks hatching in the winter between late July and mid-August.

The chicks are reared until they develop waterproof feathers, typically in December ahead of the summer melt.

But if the ice melts too early, the chicks risk drowning and freezing.

Fourteen of 66 penguin colonies, which can each produce several hundred to several thousand chicks in a year, were affected by early sea-ice loss in 2023, said the study published in the Journal of Antarctic Science.

The result is "high if not total levels of mortality", Fretwell said.

Yet 2023 "wasn't as bad as we feared", he said.

A record 19 colonies were affected the year before.
On the move

The study also found that several colonies, particularly those ravaged the previous year, had moved in search of better conditions onto icebergs, ice shelves or more stable sea ice.

While such moves offer a hopeful sign that the birds can adapt to the changing environment, Fretwell warned it was a "temporary solution".

"Penguins are limited in the amount of adaptation they can do. There are only so many places they can go," he said.

Instead, Fretwell said humans needed to adapt by reduce planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions that are contributing to ice melt to mitigate the main threat facing the species.

Both 2022 and 2023 were the first years to see the area of sea-ice fall below two million square kilometres (770,000 square miles) since the beginning of satellite records.

That marks a decine of about 30 percent from the 1981-2010 average.

There are about a quarter of a million breeding emperor penguin pairs, all in Antarctica, according to a 2020 study.

"If you get multiple bad years, it is going to start to drive the population down over time," Fretwell said.

The study noted that if greenhouse gas emissions continue at current levels, the penguin population is expected to decline by 99 percent by the end of the century.

© 2024 AFP

The real star of the Paris Olympics: the Seine


Paris (AFP) – The Seine will play a starring role in this summer's Paris Olympics, with the opening ceremony set to take place on the river, which will also host swimming events.


Issued on: 25/04/2024 - 

The river Seine will host the opening ceremony of the summer Paris Olympics

 © Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP/

Here are things you need to know about the storied waterway.

From Vikings to D-Day

From wars to revolutions and the Covid-19 pandemic, most of the seismic events in French history have played out along the banks of the Seine.

The Vikings travelled up the river on their longboats in the 9th century, torching Rouen in 841 and later besieging Paris.

In 1944, Allied forces bombed most of the bridges downstream of Nazi-occupied Paris to prepare the ground for the D-Day landings which led to the liberation of western Europe.

A little over a decade later, a young Queen Elizabeth II was treated to a cruise on the Seine for her first state visit to France after taking the throne.

It was also to the Seine that Parisians flocked in 2020 when allowed out for air during the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

- Monet's muse -

French impressionist master Claude Monet spent his life painting the river from different viewpoints.

Claude Monet's "La Seine a Argenteuil" shown in Hong Kong in 2010

 © Ed Jones / AFP/File

Hollywood starlet Doris Day, British rock singer Marianne Faithfull and US crooner Dean Martin all sang about it.

And during one of her raging rows with her songwriter partner Serge Gainsbourg, singer and actress Jane Birkin jumped into it.

The Seine has long inspired artists, authors, musicians... as well as legions of couples who have sworn their undying love by chaining personalised padlocks to the bridges of Paris.

- Barging ahead -

Taking a cruise on the Seine is on most visitors' bucket lists, but the Seine is also a working river, used to transport everything from grain to Ikea furniture to the materials used for the construction of the Olympic Village.

A barge passes along the river Seine in Paris 

© JACQUES DEMARTHON / AFP/File

Around 20 million tonnes of goods are transported on France's second-busiest river each year -- the equivalent of about 800,000 lorry-loads.
Diving in


Swimming in the Seine, which was all the rage in the 17th century when people used to dive in naked, has been banned for the past century for health and safety reasons.

Parisians could be diving back into the Seine in 2025 © - / AFP/File

But that's all about to change, with France spending 1.4 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to clean it of faecal matter and other impurities before the Olympics.

The open-water swimming events and triathlon will start at Pont Alexandre III, a marvel of 19th century engineering near the foot of the Champs-Elysees, with the Eiffel Tower looming in the background.

Beyond the Games, Paris wants to open the river to bathers, with President Emmanuel Macron promising he'll lead the charge and take the plunge.
Mind the python


Cleaning up the Seine also has its macabre side. Between 50 and 60 corpses a year are fished out of the water.

Dredging of the river in recent years has also come up with voodoo dolls with pins stuck in them, a (dead) three-metre-long python, an artillery shell dating back to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and the trophy of the Six Nations rugby tournament, dropped during a victory party on the river after France's win in 2022.

© 2024 AFP

The guardian angels of the source of the Seine

Source- Seine (France) (AFP) – The river Seine, the centrepiece of the Paris Olympics opening ceremony in July, starts with a few drops of water in a mossy grotto deep in the woods of central France.

25/04/2024 - 

The Celtic goddess Sequana gave her name to the river 

© ARNAUD FINISTRE / AFP


And not a day goes by without Jacques and Marie-Jeanne Fournier going to check the source only a few paces from their door.

"I go there at least three times a day. It's part of me," 74-year-old Marie-Jeanne told AFP.

Her parents were once the guardians of the source, and now that unofficial mantle has fallen on her and husband Jacques.

Barely 60 souls live in the village of Source-Seine in the wooded hills north of Dijon.

By the time the tiny stream has reached the French capital 300 kilometres away it has become a mighty river 200 metres (219 yards) wide.

But some mornings barely a few damp traces are visible at the source beneath the swirling dragonflies. If you scratch about a bit in the grass, however, a small stream quickly forms.

The source -- one of two spots where the river officially starts -- bubbles up through the remains of an ancient Gallo-Roman temple built about 2,000 years ago, said Jacques Fournier, 73.

Celtic goddess

But you could easily miss this small out-of-the-way valley. There are few signs to direct tourists to the statue of the goddess Sequana, the Celtic deity who gave her name to the river.

In the mid-19th century Napoleon III had a grotto and cave built "where the source was captured to honour the city of Paris and Sequana," said Marie-Jeanne Fournier.

Her parents moved into a house next to the grotto and its reclining nymph in the early 1950s when she was four years old.

Her father Paul Lamarche was later appointed its caretaker and would regularly welcome visitors. A small stone bridge over the Seine while it is still a stream is named after him.

"Like most children in the village in the 1960s," Fournier learned to swim in a natural pool in the river just downstream from her home.

"It was part of my identity," said Fournier, who has lived all her life close to rivers. She retired back to Source-Seine to run a guesthouse because "the Seine is a part of my parents' legacy".

The Olympic flame is due to be carried past the site on July 12 on its way to Paris.

The couple will be there to greet it, but as members of the Sources of the Seine Association, they are worried how long the river will continue to rise near their home.

Every year the grotto has become drier and drier as climate change hits the region, where some of France's finest Burgundy wines are produced.

"My fear is that the (historic) source of the Seine will disappear," said Marie-Jeanne Fournier. "Perhaps the source will be further downstream in a few years."

© 2024 AFP

Paris dream of swimming in the Seine finally within reach

Paris (AFP) – Going for a dip in the Seine on a hot summer's day has been the pipedream of many a Parisian since swimming in the river was formally banned a century ago.

Issued on: 25/04/2024

Taking the dive: Paris has spent big on making the Seine River clean enough to swim in

 © Emmanuel DUNAND / AFP/

But floating on your back under the Eiffel Tower could very soon become reality thanks to the Paris Olympics.

The river will be the star of the opening ceremony of the Games on July 26 and will host the triathlon and the swimming marathon. Then, if all goes well, next summer Parisians and tourists will be able to dive in too.

Like Zurich and Munich before it, Paris has been reclaiming its river with one of three new urban "beaches" to open under the windows of its historic town hall next year, with another almost at the foot of the Eiffel Tower.

Nearly 30 more -- complete with pontoons, showers and parasols -- are planned for the suburbs and along the Marne, which flows into the Seine just east of the French capital.

Once regarded as an open-air dump, former French president Jacques Chirac first floated the idea of swimming in the Seine in 1990.

But it was the current mayor Anne Hidalgo who really ran with the idea, making it a pillar of her Olympic bid in 2016.

Some 1.4 billion euros has been spent on colossal public works to counter pollution, with Hidalgo vowing to swim in the Seine herself in late June. French President Emmanuel Macron says he too will take the plunge -- but is coy about saying exactly when.

Swimmers take an illegal dip in the Seine during a heatwave in 1946 

© - / AFP/File

For many it feels like a long-held fantasy is finally within reach -- a return to an 18th-century idyll when Parisians splashed naked in the Seine.
Failed water quality tests

But there is a big if to all this: the sometimes sharp fluctuations in the Seine's water quality after storms.

Disastrous Olympic test events last August have raised doubts over whether the triathletes and marathon swimmers will be allowed to race for gold in the river.

Most of the events had to be cancelled because the water failed to meet European standards on two bacterias found in faeces.

Unusually violent downpours and a faulty valve in the sewage system were blamed.

But it prompted the reigning Olympic marathon champion Ana Marcela Cunha to call for a "plan B".

"The health of athletes should come before everything," the Brazilian great told AFP.

A test event for the Olympic triathlon race in the Seine in August 2023 

© Bertrand GUAY / AFP/File

What happened to lifeguard Gaelle Deletang will not reassure her.

The 56-year-old, a member of the French capital's aquatic civil defence team, got "diarrhoea and a rash" after swimming in the Seine in central Paris this winter, with the river looking decidedly brown in March as flood water poured over some of its banks.

Several other volunteers "had a bug for three weeks... and everyone had stomach upsets", she added.

Young adventurer Arthur Germain -- who happens to be the mayor of Paris's son -- also came across "zones where I had trouble breathing" from both industrial and agricultural pollution when he swam the whole 777-kilometre length of the Seine in 2021.

In deepest rural Burgundy -- days before he got anywhere near Paris -- he measured levels of faecal matter well above EU limits for swimming. Further north he swam past farmers spraying pesticides by the riverbank.

His "worst day", however, was a few kilometres downstream from the capital as he passed a sewage works at Gennevilliers.

Sofas, scooters and corpses

Yet there was progress in the summer of 2022, when the Seine passed EU water quality tests at three test points in Paris, only to fail at all 14 in the capital last year.

With five big anti-pollution plants due to come on stream in the weeks leading up to the Games, Paris mayor Hidalgo was bullish on Tuesday, saying the "quality of the water will be right up there.

"We are going to make it despite all the scepticism," she declared.

His 20-metre (65-foot) catamaran Belenos sucks up rubbish from dead leaves and plastic bags to bicycles.

Delorme, 36, has seen it all. "Scooters, sofas, dead animals, and once or twice a year, human corpses. You get used to it," he told AFP.

But year after year, the rubbish the boat hoovers up has been falling, from a high of 325 tonnes to 190 tonnes in 2020.

The push to make the Seine swimmable for the Olympics has accelerated a French government plan to limit waste water and sewage getting into both it and the river Marne.

A 2018 law obliges the boats and barges that line the Seine to be hooked up to the city's sewers to stop them flushing directly into the river. Officials said by March almost all were following the rules.

"Uncontrolled flushing has a major impact on faecal bacteria in the river," said Jean-Marie Mouchel, professor of hydrology at the Sorbonne University.

Another problem was leakage from sewage pipes from some 23,000 homes in the suburbs, with shower and toilet water being discharged directly into the environment.

Barges that flushed directly into the Seine have been forced to connect to the Paris sewage system 

© ALAIN JOCARD / AFP

But by going door-to-door offering subsidies to get them fixed and threatening penalties if they were not, four out of 10 of these faulty connections have so far been corrected.

"We have gone from 20 million cubic metres to two million cubic metres of discharges into the Seine per year in recent years," said Samuel Colin-Canivez, head of major works for the Paris sewer network.

- The return of fish -

Hydrologist Jean-Marie Mouchel has seen big signs of improvement in the river's health, with better "oxygenation, ammonium and phosphate levels".

While the Seine "has not become a wild river again", it now has "more than 30 species of fish, compared with three in 1970", said the professor.

Bill Francois, who fishes up to five times a week near Pont Marie in the historic heart of Paris, caught a surprisingly large catfish the day he talked to AFP -- the likes of which he never expected to find in the Seine.

Angler Bill Francois lands a beauty under the Pont Marie bridge in central Paris 

© Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP

The 31-year-old physicist also hooked a small perch, which are becoming more and more numerous. Half a century ago "there were none left", he said.

Other fish that need far higher water quality are also returning, he said, as well as "insects, crustaceans, little shrimps, sponges and even jellyfish".

For microbiologist Francoise Lucas, who has been following efforts to clean the Seine for years, the weather will ultimately decide the fate of the Olympic events on the river

"Everything that could be done (technically) has been done," Lucas told AFP.
Massive treatment plants

Upstream from the capital, one of the newly modernised sewage plants is using an innovative treatment method based on performic acid -- an "organic disinfectant" -- according to Siaap, the body that deals with the Paris region's waste water and sewage.

Paris: wastewater discharge into the Seine during heavy rainfall © Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA, Sabrina BLANCHARD / AFP

It insists the acid is safe and "rapidly disintegrates even before coming into contact with the natural environment."

Not far away, a new stormwater control station is also coming online. Dug deep underground at Champigny-sur-Marne to the southeast of Paris, it is designed to stop the river being polluted by heavy downpours.

As well as catching the stormwater, it filters and cleans it to remove floating debris and counters bacteria with ultraviolet lamps before the water is released into the Marne.

And as a final safety net to avoid a recurrence of the nightmare Olympic test events last summer, a huge new stormwater cistern is opening at Austerlitz on the eastern edge of central Paris. Fifty metres (164 feet) wide and 30m deep, it can hold the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools worth of water.

A veritable underground cathedral, it is there to stop stormwater flooding the sewers and overflowing into the Seine.

The huge new Austerlitz stormwater reservoir in central Paris 

© Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP

Even so, "statistically there are a few rainstorms a year for which it won't be totally sufficient", admitted prefect Marc Guillaume, Paris's top state official.
Urban beaches

"We had forgotten about the Seine," said Stephane Raffalli, mayor of the riverside Paris suburb of Ris-Orangis, where one of the nearly 30 new urban beaches will open next year. "There are people who have lived here for years who have never walked along the banks of the river."

Yet suburbanites were still swimming in the Seine until the 1960s and right up to the 1970s in the Marne, where riverside lidos called "Little Trouville" or "Deauville in Paris" did their best to summon up the holiday atmosphere of English Channel beach resorts.

In Champigny-sur-Marne, the old "beach" had "a kind of small pool where children were able to touch the bottom," recalled 74-year-old Michel Riousset. "Everyone had their own cabin."

Back to the future: the beach on the Marne at Champigny-sur-Marne in 1936. It is due to reopen again next year

 © - / AFP/File

Ris-Orangis hopes to have its old river pool complete with cabins, first built around 1930, back in service next year.

"We have conducted pollution studies over a long period, and it is safe" to swim in the river, the mayor insisted.

With climate change, and the prospect of summer temperatures hitting 50 degrees Centigrade (122 Fahrenheit) in Paris, the need for somewhere to cool off in summer has never been greater.

But some have already taken the plunge. On a warm evening last July about 20 swimmers were enjoying the Seine off the Ile Saint Denis, where the Olympic Village has been built.

Josue Remoue swims in the river three times a month from May to October.

"I've never been sick," said the 52-year-old civil servant. "The water is dodgier at the edge, generally I don't linger there." And he never "goes underwater".

Remoue takes to the water on Sundays or in the evening to avoid barge traffic.

Swimmers plunge into the Seine near the Olympic Village on the Ile Saint Denis just outside Paris 

© Geoffroy Van der Hasselt / AFP/File

On the night AFP joined his group, the water was a bit earthy but not murky. With the temperature at 25C, the scene along the riverbank was almost bucolic despite the nearby tower blocks.

"It's completely different from swimming in a pool," said Celine Debunne, 47, as she emerged from "a super two-kilometre swim.... I love swimming like this."

© 2024 AFP

CLIMATE CRISIS

Heatstroke kills 30 in Thailand this year as kingdom bakes

Bangkok (AFP) – Thailand issued fresh warnings about scorching hot weather on Thursday as the government said heatstroke has already killed at least 30 people this year.

: 25/04/2024 - 

A vendor sweats as he pulls a vegetable cart at Khlong Toei Market in Bangkok on Thursday 

© MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP

City authorities in Bangkok gave an extreme heat warning as the heat index was expected to rise above 52 degrees Celsius (125 degrees Fahrenheit).

Temperatures in the concrete sprawl of the Thai capital hit 40.1 C on Wednesday and similar levels were forecast for Thursday.

A wave of exceptionally hot weather has blasted parts of South and Southeast Asia this week, prompting schools across the Philippines to suspend classes and worshippers in Bangladesh to pray for rain.

The heat index -- a measure of what the temperature feels like taking into account humidity, wind speed and other factors -- was at an "extremely dangerous" level in Bangkok, the city's environment department warned.

Authorities in Udon Thani province, in the kingdom's rural northeast, also warned of blazing temperatures on Thursday.

The health ministry said late Wednesday that 30 people had died from heatstroke between January 1 and April 17, compared with 37 in the whole of 2023.

Direk Khampaen, deputy director-general of Thailand's Department of Disease Control, told AFP that officials were urging elderly people and those with underlying medical conditions including obesity to stay indoors and drink water regularly.

April is typically the hottest time of the year in Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia, but conditions this year have been exacerbated by the El Nino weather pattern.

Last year saw record levels of heat stress across the globe, with the United Nations weather and climate agency saying Asia was warming at a particularly rapid pace.

The kingdom has sweltered through a heatwave this week, with a temperature of 44.2 C recorded in the northern province of Lampang on Monday -- just shy of the all-time national record of 44.6 C hit last year.

Across the border in Myanmar, the temperature reached a blazing 45.9 C on Wednesday, with more of the same expected Thursday.

The chaos and conflict unleashed by the military's 2021 coup has led to rolling power blackouts in much of the country, hampering people's ability to keep cool with fans and air-conditioning.

burs-pdw/cwl

© 2024 AFP

Burkina Faso’s army summarily executed 223 civilians, says Human Rights Watch

Military forces in Burkina Faso killed 223 civilians, including babies and many children, in attacks on two villages accused of cooperating with militants, Human Rights Watch said in a report published Thursday.


25/04/2024 - 

In this file photo taken on October 8, 2022, Burkina Faso soldiers are seen in Ouagadougou during a burial of soldiers killed in an ambush in Gaskinde. 

© Olympia de Maismont, AFP

The mass killings took place on Feb. 25 in the country's northern villages of Nondin and Soro, and some 56 children were among the dead, according to the report. The human rights organization called on the United Nations and the African Union to provide investigators and to support local efforts to bring those responsible to justice.

“The massacres in Nondin and Soro villages are just the latest mass killings of civilians by the Burkina Faso military in their counterinsurgency operations,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Tirana Hassan said in a statement. “International assistance is critical to support a credible investigation into possible crimes against humanity.”

The once-peaceful nation has been ravaged by violence that has pitted jihadis linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group against state-backed forces. Both sides have targeted civilians caught in the middle, displacing more than 2 million people, of which over half are children. Most attacks go unpunished and unreported in a nation run by a repressive leadership that silences perceived dissidents.

The HRW report provided a rare firsthand account of the killings by survivors amid a stark increase in civilian casualties by Burkina Faso’s security forces as the junta struggles to beat back a growing jihadi insurgency and attacks residents under the guise of counterterrorism.

Earlier in April, The Associated Press verified accounts of a Nov. 5 army attack on another village that killed at least 70 people. The details were similar — the army blamed the villagers for cooperating with militants and massacred them, even babies.

Witnesses and survivors told HRW that the Feb. 25 killings were believed to have been carried out in retaliation for an attack by Islamist fighters on a military camp near the provincial capital Ouahigouya, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) away.

The toll of civilian deaths was higher than first described by local officials. A public prosecutor previously said that his office was investigating the reported deaths of 170 people in attacks carried out on those villages.

A Burkina Faso government spokesperson didn’t respond to requests for comment about the Feb. 25 attack. Officials previously denied killing civilians and said jihadi fighters often disguise themselves as soldiers.

More than 20,000 people have been killed in Burkina Faso since jihadi violence linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group first hit the West African nation nine years ago, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a United States-based nonprofit.

Burkina Faso experienced two coups in 2022. Since seizing power in September 2022, the junta led by Capt. Ibrahim Traoré has promised to beat back militants but violence has only worsened, analysts say. Around half of Burkina Faso’s territory remains outside of government control.

Frustrated with a lack of progress over years of Western military assistance, the junta has severed military ties with former colonial ruler France and turned to Russia instead for security support.

(AP)

UN launches fund to shield displaced people from climate shocks

The UNHCR works to protect more than 114 million people forced to flee their homes globally.

By AFP
April 24, 2024

The fund will support support refugees, their host communities and countries of origin hardest hit by climate emergencies - Copyright POOL/AFP Mark Schiefelbein

The United Nations said Wednesday it was launching a new Climate Resilience Fund aimed at boosting protections for “refugees and displaced communities” threatened by climate change.

The UN refugee agency said it aimed to raise $100 million for the new fund by the end of next year to support refugees, their host communities and countries of origin hardest hit by climate emergencies.

The agency highlighted in a statement that climate risks were “strongly correlated with conflict and poverty”, experienced by many refugees.

In 2022, more than 70 percent of refugees and asylum seekers fled from highly climate-vulnerable countries, it pointed out.

“The impacts of climate change are only becoming more devastating, increasingly exacerbating conflict, destroying livelihoods and, ultimately, triggering displacement,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said in the statement.

“Many of the countries that have been the most generous in accepting refugees are also the most impacted by the climate crisis,” he added.

But, he warned, “funding available to address the impacts of climate change is not reaching those forcibly displaced, nor the communities hosting them”.

UNHCR said its new fund would work to ensure that refugees were included in climate-related measures taken nationally and locally.

It would also aim to increase the availability of environmentally sustainable resources in refugee camps and other displacement settings. This would include providing more clean energy to for instance power water, schools and health infrastructure.

It will also support environmental restoration, building climate-resilient shelters and supporting climate-smart livelihoods, it said.

The UN refugee agency said the climate fund would prioritise projects which involve affected communities in their design and implementation, and which promise effects felt locally.

“By reducing exposure to climate-related hazards, securing access to sustainable resources, and promoting inclusion, these projects will deliver tangible improvements in the living conditions, safety, and well-being of refugees and their hosts,” Grandi said.

The UNHCR works to protect more than 114 million people forced to flee their homes globally.

Post-WWII order on ‘brink of collapse’: Amnesty head

By AFP
April 23, 2024

Amnesty International has been critical of Israel and its allies over the war against Hamas in Gaza - Copyright AFP -
James PHEBY

Amnesty International said Wednesday that the post-World War II order was on the “brink of collapse”, threatened by bitter conflict on multiple fronts to the rapid and unregulated rise of artificial intelligence.

“Everything we’re witnessing over the last 12 months is indicating that the international global system is on the brink of collapse,” Amnesty’s secretary general Agnes Callamard told AFP as the group released its annual “State of the World’s Human Rights” report.

“In particular, over the last six months, the United States has shielded and protected the Israeli authorities against scrutiny for the multiple violations committed in Gaza,” she said.

“By using its veto against a much-needed ceasefire, the United States has emptied out the (United Nations) Security Council of what it should be doing.”

Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that triggered the Gaza war resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,183 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

The global rights monitor said that Hamas had carried out “horrific crimes” on Israeli communities bordering Gaza but that Israel had responded with “a campaign of collective punishment”.

“It is a campaign of deliberate, indiscriminate bombings of civilians and civilian infrastructure, of denial of humanitarian assistance and an engineered famine,” Callamard wrote in her foreword to the report.

“For millions the world over, Gaza now symbolises utter moral failure by many of the architects of the post-World War Two system,” she said.

Israel’s allies, including those arming them, were complicit, she said, lamenting a lack of action by international institutions and questioning whether postwar ideals of “never again” were now at an end.

– AI threat –

Other “powerful actors”, including Russia and China, are also “demonstrating a willingness to put at risk the entirety of the 1948 rule-based order”, Callamard warned.

The report documented “flagrant rule-breaking by Russian forces during their continued full-scale invasion of Ukraine… and the use of torture or other ill-treatment against prisoners of war”.

China too had acted against international law, the rights group said, “by protecting the Myanmar military” despite its attacks against civilians.

“Urgent measures” were required “to revitalise and renew the international institutions intended to safeguard humanity”, Callamard said.

“What we are calling for is an urgent reform of the UN Security Council, in particular reform on the right of veto so that it cannot be used in situations of massive human rights violations,” she told AFP.

The rise of AI is also a cause for concern, “enabling pervasive erosions of rights… perpetuating racist policies” and “enabling spreading misinformation”, the report found.

Amnesty accused large tech firms of ignoring or minimising those threats “even in armed conflicts”.

“Tech-outlaws and their rogue technologies” are being left to “freely roam the digital Wild West”, which the report said would likely accelerate human rights violations in 2024 — a year of several key elections, including for the US presidency.

“In an increasingly precarious world, unregulated proliferation and deployment of technologies such as generative AI, facial recognition and spyware are poised to be a pernicious foe –- scaling up and supercharging violations of international law and human rights to exceptional levels,” Callamard said.

“During a landmark year of elections and in the face of the increasingly powerful anti-regulation lobby driven and financed by big tech actors, these rogue and unregulated technological advances pose an enormous threat to us all.”

She called on governments to “take robust legislative and regulatory steps to address the risks and harms caused by AI technologies and rein in big tech”.

The UK-based rights group also warned that political actors in many parts of the world were “ramping up their attacks on women, LGBTI people and marginalised communities”.

Colombian rebels holding Amazon hostage in peace talks


By AFP
April 23, 2024

Experts say FARC dissidents earn millions by allowing loggers, miners and farmers to deforest the Amazon - Copyright AFP/File Raul ARBOLEDA

David SALAZAR

Colombian guerrilla fighters, who long used kidnapping to raise cash and gain negotiating clout, have turned to a new type of hostage: the Amazon rainforest.

By allowing or preventing logging in areas under their control, fighters of the now-defunct FARC who rejected a peace deal and remain in arms set the pace of deforestation as a means of pressuring the government in peace talks.

In a vast swath of Colombia’s part of the Amazon, each tree felled is approved by the so-called Central General Staff (EMC), as the renegade group calls itself.

Some of its members rejected the 2016 peace agreement that disarmed the bulk of the FARC, once the most powerful guerrilla group on the continent. Others are new recruits.

Environment Minister Susana Muhamad has raised the alarm about an “historic peak” of deforestation just as peace talks that started late 2023 between the EMC and President Gustavo Petro’s government reached a low point.

Forest loss accelerated by about 40 percent year-on-year in the last quarter of 2023 and in the first quarter of 2024, she said, blaming the El Nino weather phenomenon and the EMC.

“Nature is being put in the middle of the conflict and this is a violation of international humanitarian law,” said Muhamad.

Last week, the government said the EMC had split into two factions and negotiations were continuing with just one of them

– Changing the rules –

The Amazon setback is a blow for Colombia’s first leftist president, who took office in August 2022 — the same year deforestation reached a 10-year-low.

Petro had campaigned on an ambitious conservation and climate change program in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries.

Forest conservation is a key goal of peace talks with a variety of armed groups as part of Petro’s quest for “total peace” after decades of conflict in the South American country.

When it was still active, the FARC had punished loggers and kept ranchers out of the forest.

It claimed an environmental motive, but was more likely driven to set up camps and “move fighters without being detected,” Bram Ebus, a researcher at the Crisis Group think tank, told AFP.

The Chiribiquete National Park, Colombia’s largest protected area declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, owes part of its conservation to decades of FARC domination.

After the FARC disarmed, the EMC began a reconquest of the Amazon, initially also placing a ban on logging.

As the peace talks became bogged down, however, the EMC started to “change the rules” to allow tree fellings, said Juanita Velez, a researcher at the Conflict Responses Foundation in Colombia.

“They understand the environmental issue as a way to create a political discourse” to be used in negotiations, she said.

Ebus said the EMC makes millions by allowing third parties to destroy parts of the forest.

Deforestation “generates money… we know that they are taxing” loggers and farmers, he said.

The guerrillas also charge a percentage on production of coca — the leaf used to make cocaine — and on illegal miners advancing ever deeper into the rainforest, said Ebus.

It is unclear what the split within the EMC will mean for the Amazon.

If the upward trend in deforestation continues, as Muhamad predicts, Colombia will host a global biodiversity conference later this year with a major “lung of the planet” — as rainforests are called — in distress.

For Petro, the conference is meant to act as a showcase of Colombia’s natural wealth, but two of his main goals — achieving a lasting peace and protecting the environment — appear to be in trouble, said Ebus.

Instead, it could be argued the Amazon “is under the control of the guerrilla group,” said Ebus.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/world/colombian-rebels-holding-amazon-hostage-in-peace-talks/article#ixzz8YOAC1vFs

Iran cuts Syria presence after strikes blamed on Israel: monitor


By AFP
April 24, 2024

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leads prayers by the coffins of seven Revolutionary Guards killed in an April 1 air strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus - Copyright POOL/AFP Mark Schiefelbein

Iran has reduced its military footprint in Syria after a succession of strikes blamed on Israel, a source close to Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah and a war monitor said Wednesday.

Iran has provided military support to Syrian government forces through more than a decade of civil war but a series of strikes targeting its commanders in recent months has prompted a reshaping of its presence, the sources said.

“Iran withdrew its forces from southern Syria,” including both Quneitra and Daraa provinces, which abut the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the source close to Hezbollah said.

But it still maintains a presence in other parts of the country, the source added.

Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 strike that levelled the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

That strike prompted Iran to launch a first-ever direct missile and drone attack against Israel on April 13-14 that sent regional tensions spiralling.

But Iran had already begun drawing down its forces after a January 20 strike that killed five Revolutionary Guards in Damascus, including their Syria intelligence chief and his deputy, the source close to Hezbollah said.

Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Iranian forces had withdrawn from Damascus and southern Syria.

Iran-backed Lebanese and Iraqi fighters had taken their place, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Iran has said repeatedly that it has no combat troops in Syria, only officers to provide military advice and training.

But the Observatory says as many as 3,000 Iranian military personnel are present in Syria, supported by tens of thousands of Iran-trained fighters from countries including Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Abdel Rahman said that many of Iran’s advisers had left Syria over the past six months, although some remained in Aleppo province in the north and in Deir Ezzor province in the east.

Mass cancellations loom despite French air union cancelling strike


By AFP
April 24, 2024

The main air traffic controllers union cancelled the strike call - Copyright AFP Antonin UTZ

Hundreds of flights were cancelled at French airports Thursday despite the country’s main air traffic controllers’ union dropping a call for a one-day strike after making a deal for higher pay.

In Paris around 75 percent of flights at Orly and 55 percent at Charles de Gaulle airport will be dropped Thursday, the DGAC civil aviation authority told airlines in a notification seen by AFP on Wednesday.

Around 65 percent of services at Marseille airport and 45 percent elsewhere in France will also be cancelled, it added. The impact is expected to be similar to the cancellations expected when the strike was still going ahead.

Earlier Wednesday, the SNCTA union walked back a strike call, saying it had struck a deal for higher pay and other measures with the DGAC.

The union’s demands had come in response to a planned overhaul of French air-traffic control systems.

The DGAC said that despite the strike’s cancellation, the last-minute deal with the SNCTA and the need to finalise details with smaller unions meant there would still be disruptions.

It was unclear whether the two smaller unions which had also backed strike action would follow suit and call off the stoppage.

– ‘Totally unacceptable’ –

With details unclear, European carriers complained of extensive disturbances to air travel — even for flights that had planned to simply fly over France.

“While the withdrawing of strike notice may offer some relief for some passengers, its last-minute nature means that there will still be significant disruption to flights in France and across parts of Europe tomorrow,” said Ourania Georgoutsakou, the managing director of Airlines for Europe (A4E), an industry association.

Ahead of the strike, airlines had been forced to cancel more than 2,000 flights, most of which would have landed or departed from France. Another 1,000 flights would have had to divert away from French air space, A4E said.

German carrier Lufthansa and low-cost airline easyJet warned that their passengers flights over French air space could be affected on Thursday.

“The scale of disturbances caused by this strike movement and the impact it is having on our clients are totally unacceptable, in particular for the hundreds of thousands of clients whose flights will not take off from or land in France,” said easyJet CEO Johan Lundgren.

Unions had called the strike after an initial breakdown of talks, raising new concerns over the risk of action during the Olympic Games in Paris from late July, when millions of visitors are expected.

France’s Casino supermarket chain to axe up to 3,200 jobs


By AFP
April 24, 2024

The job losses come on the back of a huge debt restructuring deal led by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky - Copyright AFP Antonin UTZ

French supermarket group Casino said Wednesday it would axe between 1,300 and 3,200 jobs as part of a reorganisation following its recent takeover led by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.

The revamp comes as the Saint Etienne-based group moves on from the three-decade reign of Jean-Charles Naouri. That ended with the arrival in March of Kretinsky at the head of a group of main creditors who oversaw a debt restructuring deal.

Casino, which lost 5.7 billion euros in 2023, is to sell off hundreds of super- and hypermarket stores across France.

The group said it would consult with unions and other social partners on May 6 to unveil plans to safeguard most of the nearly 30,000 people it employs in France.

Saint Etienne mayor Gael Perdriau said he expected to meet the new management team soon “to consolidate the group’s presence” in the eastern-central city.

Restructuring its operations to emerge from its debt mountain has forced Casino to sell off most of its larger-format shops to rivals Intermarche, Auchan and Carrefour. The group will keep operating its Monoprix and Franprix chains.

Until the end of 2022, Casino employed some 200,000 people worldwide and 50,000 in France. Today that is down to 28,212, the vast majority of those jobs in France.

CEO Philippe Palazzi said in a statement that “this transformation project” would play a key role in putting Casino back on an even keel.

Casino also announced an unusually long, 10-year purchasing alliance with rivals Intermarche and Auchan to “maintain and develop long-term partnerships with the agricultural world and French industrial players”.

Shares in the group were down 0.3 percent mid-afternoon at 0.030 euros.

Deforestation and the risk-based link to cocoa


By Dr. Tim Sandle
April 24, 2024

A new black gold? Biochar from cocoa bean shells - Copyright AFP Axel Heimken

A new investigation has revealed that cocoa beans exported from Côte d’Ivoire to the European Union originate from deforested land in neighbouring Liberia. The matter has been raised at the fifth World Cocoa Conference (which took place between 21-24 April 2024 in Belgium).

This suggests that a European Union law on deforestation needs to be strengthened so that supply chain traceability mechanisms improve significantly. Côte d’Ivoire is the world’s largest producer of cocoa, with 75 percent of its production absorbed within Europe.

With the European Union legal requirement, as of December 2024, it will be illegal to import and market cocoa beans that, after 2020, were harvested on plots of land deforested to create plantations.

The suggestion is based on a field investigation presented by the campaign organisation Initiatives for Community Development and Forest Conservation (IDEF) and it infers that the traceability mechanisms used by some companies involved with cocoa beans are flawed and do not comply with the anti-deforestation regulation in place.

Demand for cocoa beans is increasing globally and they are part of a complex market made up of a variety of parties acting as intermediaries between small, poorly paid cocoa farmers and retailers.

A consequence of the expansion is that thousands of hectares of forest have been destroyed to make way for cocoa plantations.

The findings lead to the investigators to argue that these mechanisms should be replaced by the robust and transparent national traceability system now in place in Côte d’Ivoire.

According to Bakary Traoré, Executive Director of the Ivorian IDEF: “Work is currently underway in Côte d’Ivoire to set up a national traceability system. Under this system, all plots of land in Côte d’Ivoire will be geolocated, and producers will be registered.”

Traoré adds: “A map of producers, including a barcode system, will also indicate what individual farms are able to produce and track their sales. Our investigation shows the importance of speeding up the work begun by the Ivorian authorities.”

Furthermore, Traoré explains: “Current traceability systems were set up by the chocolate companies and are controlled by them. They are not transparent, and our investigation found them to be flawed. To resolve the problem and comply with new European regulations, traders in raw materials will have to change their approach.”

The situation is driving Ivorian growers to migrate to the fertile lands of neighbouring Liberia, home to more than half of West Africa’s remaining tropical forests. This means that new deforestation taking place.

Furthermore, there is also a lack of infrastructure in Liberia for growers to export their beans. As a result, once harvested, the cocoa beans are carried back to Côte d’Ivoire on people’s backs.

The investigators also call on the EU to put in place robust controls as part of the due diligence required by the legislation to help curb this.

Review: The music of Alicia Keys is alive and well in ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ on Broadway

By Markos Papadatos
April 24, 2024

Kecia Lewis and Maleah Joi Moon in 'Hell's Kitchen' on Broadway. 

Photo Credit: Marc J. Franklin

“Hell’s Kitchen” is a new original Broadway musical that features music and lyrics of Alicia Keys. It is being performed at the Shubert Theatre in Manhattan.

It is based on the book by Kristoffer Diaz with music and lyrics by multi-Grammy award-winning artist Alicia Keys.

In “Hell’s Kitchen,” there is a place where the rhythm of the city is music, where every corner has a story, and every window is a kaleidoscope.

Where a girl can step out of her apartment and find the world. In the mid ’90s, in an apartment high above the energy and grit of Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, 17-year-old Ali squints toward the horizon until she can just see the Hudson River.

Despite the warnings of her protective mother, the symphony of the street calls to her, where they promise freedom, excitement, and the possibility of love. Finding herself. When a wise piano teacher helps her find her voice, Ali learns she can make the city her own.

Shoshana Bean showcased her ability to hit the high notes as Jersey, Ali’s mother, while Brandon Victor Dixon was also memorable as Ali’s absentee father Davis, who had the music bug in her family.

Kecia Lewis was the heart and soul of this production (and a revelation) as “Miss Liza Jane,” the catalyst who helped Ali find her voice in piano-playing and expressing herself through music.

For this show, in particular, the role of Ali was played by understudy Gianna Harris, and Lamont Walker filled in for the role of Knuck. Both understudies did an exceptional job filling in for the lead actors, and they did the storyline and the songs justice: Lamont Walker was charming as Knuck, while Giana Harris delivered a bubbly and radiant performance as Ali.
The Verdict

Overall, “Hell’s Kitchen” is an entertaining and fun new original Broadway musical that is a fitting homage to the music of Alicia Keys. There is something in it for everyone.

Its subject matter is timely and relevant, and it is also feel-good escapism. It deserves recognition at the upcoming Tony Awards, and it garners four out of five stars.

To learn more about “Hell’s Kitchen” on Broadway, check out its official website.

Read more: https://www.digitaljournal.com/entertainment/review-the-music-of-alicia-keys-is-alive-and-well-in-hells-kitchen-on-broadway/article#ixzz8YO69sJKR

US conspiracy website Gateway Pundit declares bankruptcy

By AFP
April 24, 2024

The Gateway Pundit is declaring bankruptcy as it faces a string of misinformation lawsuits. - Copyright AFP ROBERTO SCHMIDT

Anuj CHOPRA

US far-right conspiracy website Gateway Pundit is filing for bankruptcy, its founder said Wednesday, as it battles a string of lawsuits alleging it promoted misinformation related to the 2020 election.

Parent company TGP Communications is seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Florida, founder Jim Hoft said in a note to readers, blaming “progressive liberal” lawsuits.

The Gateway Pundit, launched as a blog in 2004, rose to prominence as it trumpeted conspiracy theories about a range of subjects, from mass shootings to Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Two poll workers in the southern state of Georgia — which Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020 — sued the website over false claims they had been involved in ballot fraud.

In December, the same two poll workers won a separate $148 million defamation case against Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani for spreading similar falsehoods.

The Gateway Pundit also faces a lawsuit in Colorado from a former employee of the election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems, over false vote rigging claims.

Last year, Dominion Voting Systems secured a $787.5 million settlement from Fox News after suing over false claims that its machines altered votes.

Defamation lawsuits are increasingly becoming a tool used by citizens and pro-democracy groups in the United States to hold misinformation spreaders accountable.

Radio host Alex Jones, founder of far-right website InfoWars, filed for bankruptcy in 2022 after he was ordered to pay nearly $1.5 billion in damages for calling a 2012 mass shooting in an elementary school –- which left 20 first graders and six adults dead — a “hoax.”

But striking a defiant note, Hoft vowed to continue publishing even as Gateway Pundit comes under financial pressure from “radical left” campaigns that had driven away advertisers.

“We do not expect that to change,” Hoft wrote in his note to readers.

He added the bankruptcy protection was “not an admission of fault or culpability,” but instead a way to reorganize and consolidate litigation “when attacks are coming from all sides.”

Chapter 11 is a US mechanism allowing a company to restructure its debts under court supervision while continuing to operate.

According to the US misinformation watchdog NewsGuard, Gateway Pundit “regularly distorts information” and spreads unfounded conspiracies.

It has consistently ranked among the 20 most popular right-wing websites, according to the Righting, a newsletter that compiles data from the analytics company Comscore.

The site’s account on X, formerly Twitter, has nearly 740,000 followers.

But traffic to a host of pro-Trump conservative websites has plummeted in recent months in part because social media platforms such as Facebook are deprioritizing media articles.

Unique visitors to the Gateway Pundit plunged about 62 percent in February compared to the same month last year, according to the Righting, apparently compounding its financial woes.

As ‘news deserts’ spread, US journalism fights on

By AFP
April 24, 2024

Matti Gellman, seen here inside the Baltimore Banner's newsroom, is launching her career as American journalism is in what experts have called a "perilous" state

 - Copyright AFP ROBERTO SCHMIDT

Sarah TITTERTON

Baltimore Banner reporter Matti Gellman is first to leap in with questions during a recent press appearance by Maryland’s state governor and celebrity chef Jose Andres at an urban farm.

With her notebook wedged under her arm and a Banner-branded baseball cap on her head, Gellman is launching her career as the long decimation of the news industry in the United States reaches what some have called an “extinction-level event.”

She and her colleagues are at the vanguard of a fightback, seeking new and innovative ways to sustain local journalism in the world’s most powerful democracy.

“We’re a start-up, essentially,” says the 26-year-old.

“I felt really inspired by the fact that the Banner was built by people who were sort of disillusioned by the industry and were looking to create something maybe different.”

It’s an optimism rarely found in America’s bleak media landscape, more often characterized by abrupt mass layoffs, a grinding lack of resources — and, finally, an information vacuum.

A study by Northwestern University last year identified 204 counties out of some 3,000 in the US as “news deserts,” having “no newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms or ethnic publications.”

But Gellman’s zeal permeates the upstart Banner, an online non-profit which launched in 2022 to challenge the city’s only remaining newspaper, the Baltimore Sun.

“People need to be informed,” managing editor Andrea McDaniels tells AFP, speaking over the buzz of the newsroom, overlooking Baltimore’s harbor.

If not, “they can’t make good decisions in their lives, the schools fall apart, political corruption happens. So we need good journalism.”

– ‘Perilous’ –

For more than two decades, since the internet upended the advertising and print model on which newspapers had been based, the industry has been in crisis.

Even behemoths of American journalism have been affected.

National outlets including The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have laid off hundreds since 2023 alone, while digital organizations including BuzzFeed News and Vice.com shuttered altogether.

But it is at the local level that news has been most shockingly hollowed out, with newspapers vanishing at a rate of more than two a week, according to Northwestern’s 2023 State of Local News report.

The state of the industry is “perilous,” says professor and former journalist Penny Abernathy, who headed the report.

“We lost more than a third of our newspapers over the last 18 years, almost two thirds of our newspaper journalists” since 2005, she adds.

Nearly half of US counties have just one news source, the report said, often a weekly newspaper. And 228 are on a so-called “watch list” at high risk of losing even that.

The impact, experts say, has been significant.

“We all live our lives locally,” says Ellen Clegg, who co-founded another non-profit local news outlet, BrooklineNews in Massachusetts.

“This is where we vote. It’s where we raise our kids, educate our kids,” she continues.

When local issues are not reported on, “you have a nationalization of news that rushes in to fill the vacuum.”

– Energy, innovation –

That means more Fox News, more CNN, more Trump, more Biden. In areas without strong broadband access, it also means people are reliant on their phones — that is, on social media as their primary source of information.

The effect is local and national polarization, Clegg says.

Take school board meetings: instead of asking why a proposed new high school is over budget, or why math test scores are low, parents are “yelling about critical race theory or… transgender issues.”

Repercussions can also be seen at the ballot box, Abernathy says.

When all news is national, all politics become national, too. “It feeds into this political divide,” she explains.

But non-profits like the Banner are not the only green shoots.

This month New York state passed tax credits for local news organizations — a first in a country where public funding of journalism has historically been viewed with suspicion.

Meanwhile studies have shown that rural readers are still willing to pay for products like events, memberships or newsletters — even in an era of free news.

As for the Banner, the importance of its mission was underscored recently when a container ship crashed into a major Baltimore bridge, collapsing it within seconds.

The Banner newsroom leapt into action, and has been lauded for its coverage of the disaster.

Whether it can keep it up all depends on funding — currently a combination of subscriptions and donations.

CEO Bob Cohn is hopeful.

“It does seem like there’s a degree of energy and innovation in this space that’s acknowledging the depth of the problem,” he says.

AfD, the Alternative for Dictators


BY JAKOB HANKE VELA

APRIL 24, 2024


FAR-RIGHT SPYING SCANDAL


NI HAO KRAH: MEP Maximilian Krah, the AfD’s top candidate for the June European Parliament election, is under massive pressure from his party leadership to end his campaign today. It comes after the bombshell arrest of his aide, who stands accused of spying for China’s totalitarian security apparatus.

ICYMI: German police on Tuesday arrested Krah’s long-time collaborator and parliamentary assistant, Jian Guo.“Jian G. is an employee of a Chinese secret service,” the German public prosecutor alleged in a statement.

Implications: Germany’s far-right AfD — which was expected to make big gains in the EU election — already stood accused of being backed by agents of the Russian and Chinese dictatorships seeking to undermine Western democracies. It will be much harder for the party to dismiss that criticism now.

AfD, the Alternative for Dictators: The AfD’s two top candidates for the EU election, Krah and Petr Bystron, are both at the center of investigations over foreign interference. The FBI has questioned Krah over alleged payments from sources close to the Kremlin. Bystron, the No. 2 on the AfD’s list for the EU election, stands accused of having received €20,000 from people with links to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. While he denies the accusations, Spiegel on Tuesday reported on a recording in which Bystron talks about the cash.

PRESSURE MOUNTING: Last night, Krah was summoned to Berlin. Journalists spotted the MEP having dinner at Brasserie Le Paris on Kurfürstendamm — but AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla didn’t want to be seen at a table with him. Instead, as Chrupalla entertained a delegation in the next room, Krah dined with the party leaders’ aides, who, BILD reports, attempted to convince him that his position is untenable.

Crunch meeting this morning: Krah has been called to Chrupalla’s office in the Bundestag at 9 a.m., my Berlin Playbook colleagues report.

Campaign’s over — but Krah to remain AfD’s No. 1: The AfD leadership now has a massive problem. It’s not just that posters with Krah’s face on them are already on the streets. The party can no longer boot Krah or Bystron from running in the EU election, since the electoral list has already been submitted and signed off on. Changes are only allowed for extreme cases — such as death.

Now read this: A far-right takeover is the biggest threat to the future of Europe, according to a POLITICO survey of EU lawmakers. Check out what keeps MEPs up at night here, by Giovanna Coi.

MEANWHILE, IN PARLIAMENT    

MEPS TO CONDEMN AfD OVER RUSSIA, CHINA SCANDALS: In Strasbourg, MEPs are drafting a resolution condemning the AfD and warning that Russia and China have penetrated deep into its ranks.

The opposite of patriots: “The AfD is once again showing its true, unpatriotic face. Anyone who votes AfD in the European elections is voting for more influence from Russia and China,” said MEP Daniel Caspary, from the EPP.

Own up: The Parliament “calls upon the AfD to publicly declare their financial relations especially with the Kremlin without delay and to publicly disclose the purpose and exact amount of all payments originating from Kremlin-linked sources,” reads the draft resolution, seen by my colleague Eddy Wax.

The problem: The resolution is non-legislative and will hardly do anything to help shine light on any illicit financial ties.

Darkness of their own making: Parliament, in large part led by the EPP, has opposed post-Qatargate initiatives for stricter legislation that would have forced MEPs to reveal their finances to an oversight body. The current rules allow MEPs to have extra incomes with no oversight. But why wouldn’t MEPs want more transparency on their side jobs and extra earnings? Read on …

PARLIAMENT QUIETLY REJECTS CALLS TO INVESTIGATE FERBER: The European Parliament has quietly rejected calls to investigate German conservative MEP Markus Ferber following my colleague Bjarke Smith-Meyer’s revelations about his relationship with Dutch businessman Michael Heijmeijer.

MEPs covering for MEPs: Parliament’s group leaders decided not to investigate Ferber — despite huge question marks around his activities and whether he took money from banks to advise them on an EU law he helped write.

So much for transparency: The decision was taken during Parliament’s Conference of Presidents last week — the closed-door meeting of political group chairs and Parliament President Roberta Metsola. The Parliament doesn’t comment on COP discussions and there’s no written record of the decision. However, two people who attended the meeting told POLITICO that the Parliament’s lawyers said an investigation into Ferber wasn’t necessary.

EPP THROWS SHADE AT GREENS OVER HARASSMENT: Meanwhile, the center-right group has put up an amendment to a report on harassment in the workplace — calling out the Greens for “double standards.” The amendment makes reference to the alleged harassment case of “former Green MEP, Malte Gallée” arguing “his group failed to report this case to the relevant internal EP committees and structures.”


Chinese spying claims deepen German far right’s woes


By AFP
April 24, 2024

AfD leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla face damaging allegations about an EU parliamentarian's aide accused of spying for China - Copyright AFP Odd ANDERSEN
Femke COLBORNE

Germany’s far-right AfD fought Wednesday to draw a line under Chinese spying allegations, the latest in a slew of scandals to hit the anti-immigration party in a key election year.

An aide to Maximilian Krah, a member of the European Parliament for the AfD and the party’s top candidate for June’s EU elections, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of spying for China.

The AfD’s leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla summoned Krah to an emergency meeting in Berlin on Wednesday morning.

The controversial politician will not attend a key event this weekend to officially launch the party’s EU vote race “so as not to damage the election campaign and the standing of the party”, they said after the talks.

But Krah himself said he would “remain the leading candidate” in the vote.

German media reported that the party will remove Krah from campaign posters and videos, while keeping him on its list of candidates.

An AfD spokesman declined to comment on the reports when contacted by AFP.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the allegations “very worrying”, without commenting on the case in detail.

After riding high in opinion polls at the end of last year, the AfD has since seen its support hammered by a series of scandals.

– ‘Descending into chaos’ –

The spying claims come on top of other recent allegations that Krah has links to Russia, piling pressure on the party seven weeks before the EU elections and ahead of key regional polls in Germany in September.

Towards the end of 2023, the AfD was polling at around 22 percent — ahead of Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) and second only to the main opposition conservatives.

But one survey this week put it on 16 percent.

In January, an investigation by media group Correctiv indicated members of the AfD had discussed the idea of mass deportations at a meeting with extremists, leading to a wave of protests across the country.

More recently, Krah and another AfD candidate for the EU elections, Petr Bystron, have been forced to deny allegations they accepted money to spread pro-Russian positions on a Moscow-financed news website.

And Bjoern Hoecke, one of the AfD’s most controversial politicians and the head of the party in Thuringia state, is currently on trial in Germany for publicly using a banned Nazi slogan.

Dirk Wiese, a senior politician for the SPD, told the Rheinische Post newspaper the AfD was “descending into chaos”.

“First the allegations of sleazy money payments from the Kremlin, now suspected espionage for China… What’s next, North Korea?” he said.

The AfD’s parliamentary group chief Bernd Baumann slammed the China spying claims as “politically motivated” and put them down to “dirty” electioneering.

“We have become pretty hardened when it comes to accusations, especially in pre-election and election campaign times,” he said, blaming “suspicious reporting” for many of the claims.

– End of an era? –

Asked about the alleged links to Russia, AfD co-leader Chrupalla said that “as long as no evidence and proof is put on the table, we cannot react”.

Chrupalla also remained reticent on the China issue, stressing that no charges had been brought and the party leadership would “wait and see” how the case develops before coming to any conclusions.

But despite the attempts at damage limitation, experts say the scandals could have a profound effect on the AfD’s chances in this year’s elections.

“The party is not managing to go on the offensive at the moment,” said Wolfgang Schroeder, a political analyst from the University of Kassel.

“The AfD is allowing itself to be cornered rather than setting the issues itself,” he said.

The AfD is currently still polling neck-and-neck with the SPD at the national level and in first place in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, all holding regional polls in September.

But Hajo Funke, a political analyst who specialises in the far right, said support for the party has “fallen considerably in some cases” because of the scandals.

“Overall, I believe that the great era of ‘we are doing better and better’ has come to an end,” he told AFP.


Germany: AfD's Krah faces probe on Russia, China 'payments'

Prosecutors are looking at whether German far-right MEP Maximilian Krah received payments from Russian and Chinese sources. This comes just a day after Krah's aide was arrested on suspicion of spying for China.

German public prosecutors have launched two preliminary investigations into the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD)'s top European parliamentary candidate after media reports suggested that he had received payments from foreign powers.

A spokesperson for the state prosecutor in the eastern German city of Dresden confirmed to the AFP news agency on Wednesday that initial probes have been opened against lawmaker Maximilian Krah over "alleged payments" from Russian and Chinese sources.
What payments is Krah alleged to have received?

The purpose of the preliminary proceedings, according to the spokesperson, is to establish "whether or not an initial suspicion of illegal parliamentary bribery" exists.

Krah himself told the regional public broadcaster MDR, which first reported the probe, that he was unaware of the steps being taken and denied any wrongdoing.

The public prosecutor said the probe has been launched "as a result of current public reporting," referring to reports by Spiegel magazine and public broadcaster ZDF last week that Krah had been questioned by the FBI in December 2023 over possible payments from sources close to the Kremlin.

During the interrogation, the US investigators had reportedly confronted Krah with chat messages in which the sanctioned pro-Russian former Ukrainian politician and activist Oleg Voloshyn assured him that the problem with "compensation" for Krah's "technical expenses" had been solved and that, from May, "it would be as it was before February."

The words used suggested that such payment arrangements had been long established, suggestions thqat Krah rejected.

According to the public prosecutor, the second initial probe is investigating "alleged Chinese payments for his role as parliamentarian."

Should the prosecutors in Dresden establish a suspicion of wrongdoing, the preliminary investigations could give way to a formal one. For that to happen, however, Krah's parliamentary immunity would have to be lifted.

Maximilian Krah's pro-Russia connections

Krah's name has cropped up regularly in recent weeks in connection with the pro-Russia online portal Voice of Europe, which was sanctioned by the Czech government at the end of March after Prague said it was a Kremlin-led propaganda tool.

The main figure behind the portal is said to be Viktor Medvedchuk, another pro-Russia former Ukrainian lawmaker and personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin's, as well as Voloshyn.

Medvedchuk, who attempted to flee Ukraine in the days following Russia's full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022, was arrested by the Ukrainian security service in April and exchanged along with 55 other Russian prisoners of war for 215 Ukrainian soldiers captured following the fall of Mariupol.

Krah has had contact with Medvedchuk and Voloshyn for years, according to the reports.

The fresh investigations in Dresden come just one day after one of Krah's aides was charged by the German government with committing espionage for Chinese intelligence agencies.

Krah said he would immediately sack the aide and insisted that he would still lead the AfD ticket in June's European elections.

The prosecutors in Dresden stated that their probe "is not connected" to the Chinese spying case.

TikTok may be banned in the US. Here’s what happened when India did it

The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban.

BY KRUTIKA PATHI

 April 24, 2024


NEW DELHI (AP) — The hugely popular Chinese app TikTok may be forced out of the U.S., where a measure to outlaw the video-sharing app has won congressional approval and is on its way to President Biden for his signature.

In India, the app was banned nearly four years ago. Here’s what happened:

WHY DID INDIA BAN TIKTOK?

In June 2020, TikTok users in India bid goodbye to the app, which is operated by Chinese internet firm ByteDance. New Delhi had suddenly banned the popular app, alongside dozens other Chinese apps, following a military clash along the India-China border. Twenty Indian and four Chinese soldiers were killed, and ties between the two Asian giants plunged to a new low.

The government cited privacy concerns and said that Chinese apps pose a threat to India’s sovereignty and security.

The move mostly drew widespread support in India, where protesters had been calling for a boycott of Chinese goods since the deadly confrontation in the remote Karakoram mountain border region.


MORE ON TIKTOK


What a TikTok ban in the US could mean for you


Senate passes bill forcing TikTok’s parent company to sell or face ban, sends to Biden for signature


The EU ratchets up pressure on TikTok’s new rewards app over risks to kids, warns of suspension

“There was a clamour leading up to this, and the popular narrative was how can we allow Chinese companies to do business in India when we’re in the middle of a military standoff,” said Nikhil Pahwa, a digital policy expert and founder of tech website MediaNama.

Just months before the ban, India had also restricted investment from Chinese companies, Pahwa added. “TikTok wasn’t a one-off case. Today, India has banned over 500 Chinese apps to date.”

HOW DID USERS AND CREATORS REACT?

At the time, India had about 200 million TikTok users. And the company also employed thousands of Indians.

TikTok users and content creators, however, needed a place to go — and the ban provided a multi-billion dollar opportunity to snatch up a big market. Within months, Google rolled out YouTube Shorts and Instagram pushed out its Reels feature. Both mimicked the short-form video creation that TikTok had excelled at.

“And they ended up capturing most of the market that TikTok had vacated,” said Pahwa.

In India, TikTok content was hyperlocal, which made it quite unique. It opened a window into the lives of small-town India, with videos coming from tier 2 and 3 cities that showed people doing tricks while laying down bricks, for example.

But for the most part, content creators and users in the four years since the ban have moved on to other platforms.

Winnie Sangma misses posting videos on TikTok and earning a bit of money. But after the ban, he migrated to Instagram and now has 15,000 followers. The process, for the most part, has been relatively painless.

“I have built up followers on Instagram too, and I am making money from it, but the experience isn’t like how it used to be on TikTok,” he said.

Rajib Dutta, a frequent scroller on TikTok, also switched to Instagram after the ban. “It wasn’t really a big deal,” he said.

HOW IS INDIA’S BAN DIFFERENT FROM THE U.S.

The legislation to outlaw the app has won congressional approval and now awaits a signature from Biden.

The measure gives ByteDance, the app’s parent company, nine months to sell it, and three more if a sale is underway. If this doesn’t happen, TikTok will be banned. It would take at least a year before a ban goes into effect, but with likely court challenges, it could stretch longer.

In India, the ban in 2020 was swift. TikTok and other companies were given time to respond to questions on privacy and security, and by January 2021, it became a permanent ban.

But the situation in the U.S. is different, said Pahwa. “In India, TikTok decided not to go to court, but the U.S. is a bigger revenue market for them. Also, the First Amendment in America is fairly strong, so it’s not going to be as easy for the U.S. to do this as it was for India,” he said, in reference to free speech rights in the U.S. Constitution.

As Chinese apps proliferate across the world, Pahwa says countries need to assess their dependency on China and develop a way to reduce it as the apps can pose a national security risk.

The app is also banned in Pakistan, Nepal and Afghanistan and restricted in many countries in Europe.

“Chinese intelligence law and its cybersecurity law can allow Chinese apps to work in the interest of their own security. That creates a situation of distrust and it becomes a national security risk for others,” said Pahwa.

TikTok to fight US ban law in courts

By AFP
April 24, 2024

US and other Western officials have voiced alarm over the popularity of TikTok with young people, alleging it allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users - Copyright AFP Antonin UTZ

TikTok’s CEO vowed Wednesday to fight in the courts to overturn a newly signed US law that could see the popular app banned due to allegations it is controlled by the China government.

The legislation gives TikTok nine months to divest from its Chinese parent company ByteDance or be shut out of the American market.

US and other Western officials have alleged the social media platform allows Beijing to collect data and spy on users. It has 170 million users in the United States alone, many of them young.

Critics say TikTok is also a conduit to spread propaganda. China and the company strongly deny the claims.

“Make no mistake, this is a ban. A ban on TikTok and a ban on you and your voice,” TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew said in a video posted on TikTok moments after President Joe Biden signed the bill into law.

“Politicians may say otherwise, but don’t get confused. Many who sponsored the bill admit a Tiktok ban is the ultimate goal.”

Chew called the move “ironic” given that the “freedom of expression on TikTok reflects the same American values that make the United States a beacon of freedom.”

“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” Chew told the platform’s users.

“We will keep fighting for your rights in the courts. The facts and the Constitution are on our side.”

The ban measure was included in a $95 billion foreign aid package, including military assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

The bill, which could trigger the rare step of barring a company from operating in the US market, passed the Senate by a 79-18 vote three days after it cleared the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support.

Under the bill, ByteDance would have to sell the app or be excluded from Apple and Google’s app stores in the United States.

TikTok for years has been in the crosshairs of American authorities, who say the platform allows Beijing to snoop on users in the United States.

The bill passed by Congress also gives the US president the authority to designate other applications as a threat to national security if they are controlled by a country deemed hostile.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, formerly Twitter, came out last week against banning TikTok, saying “doing so would be contrary to freedom of speech and expression.”


TikTok suspends rewards programme after EU probe


By AFP
April 24, 2024

TikTok Lite arrived in France and Spain in March allowing users aged 18 and over to earn points that can be exchanged for goods - Copyright AFP Jade GAO

Raziye AKKOC

TikTok on Wednesday announced the suspension of a feature in its spinoff TikTok Lite app in France and Spain that rewards users for watching and liking videos, after the European Union launched a probe.

The popular video-sharing social media platform, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said the suspension would remain “while we address the concerns that they have raised”.

The European Commission’s top tech enforcer, Thierry Breton, said the EU investigation would continue, stating: “Our children are not guinea pigs for social media.”

TikTok Lite arrived in France and Spain — the only EU countries where it is available — in March. Users aged 18 and over can earn points to exchange for goods like vouchers or gift cards through the app’s rewards programme.

TikTok Lite is a smaller version of the popular TikTok app, taking up less memory in a smartphone and made to perform over slower internet connections.

The European Commission on Monday announced an investigation into TikTok Lite, and threatened to have the rewards programme suspended, raising concerns about the risk to users’ mental health.

The commission demanded TikTok provide more information by a Wednesday deadline, along with any defence against the threatened suspension.

Breton said in a statement that “our cases against TikTok on the risk of addictiveness of the platform continue”.

“We suspect that this (rewards) feature could generate addiction and that TikTok did not do a diligent risk assessment and take effective mitigation measures prior to its launch,” he said.

The probe is the EU’s second against TikTok under a sweeping new law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), that requires digital firms operating in the 27 nations to effectively police online content.

In February, the commission opened a formal probe into TikTok over alleged violations of its obligations to protect minors online.

– TikTok squeezed –

TikTok is also under pressure across the Atlantic.

A bill to ban TikTok cleared the US Congress after the Senate on Tuesday approved legislation requiring TikTok to be divested from ByteDance.

TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, said the company would fight the law — which he said amounted to a ban — in US courts.

The European Commission has refused to comment on the United States’ move. Instead it has focused on the EU’s legal arsenal to bring big tech into line with its rules.

The move against the TikTok Lite rewards scheme was the latest instance of the EU flexing that legal muscle against online platforms.

It is also investigating tech billionaire Elon Musk’s X, the former Twitter, over alleged illegal content.

TikTok Lite users can win rewards if they log in daily for 10 days, if they spend time watching videos (with an upper limit of 60 to 85 minutes per day), and if they undertake certain actions, such as liking videos and following content creators.

TikTok is among 22 “very large” digital platforms, including Amazon, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, that must comply with stricter rules under the DSA since August last year.

The law gives the EU the power to hit companies with heavy fines as high as six percent of a digital firm’s global annual revenues. Repeat offenders can see their platforms blocked in the EU.

Chinese sellers go to TikTok school to reach buyers abroad


By AFP
April 24, 2024

Chinese students at an e-commerce school rehearse selling hijabs and abayas into a smartphone - Copyright AFP Jade GAO

Jing Xuan TENG

Donning hijabs and floor-length abaya gowns over shorts and tank tops, Chinese students at an e-commerce school perform into a smartphone camera as they learn how to sell the clothes to overseas TikTok users.

It is the final day of a two-week course on selling products abroad via the short video app — which despite being blocked in China is a platform more and more Chinese vendors are turning to.

Succeeding on TikTok requires tools for bypassing internet restrictions as well as foreign-language skills, challenges that have prompted a boom in courses and consulting services.

At the school in Guangzhou in southern Guangdong province, an instructor holds up the Middle Eastern-inspired garments to the camera and rattles off prices and sizing information for Muslim buyers in the UK.

“This is chiffon, it’s really breathable!” she gushes in English as her proteges model the goods and sort through racks of satin robes under stark studio lights.

“We teach people which products are selling better, and which markets are more suitable for their current stages,” 27-year-old Wang Yaxuan, another instructor at the school, tells AFP.

Guangdong is home to thousands of factories making a mindboggling variety of products, from the abayas to espresso machine parts to wigs made of human hair.

After decades of producing goods for export, Chinese companies are increasingly seeking to cut out the middleman and market themselves at lower prices, directly to overseas consumers.

Shein, the China-founded fast fashion giant, has effectively taken over the lower-end Western market using this strategy, with TikTok a key facet of its selling network.

TikTok Shop launched in the United States late last year, and e-commerce features have previously been rolled out in places like Britain and Southeast Asia.

A casual scroll on the hugely popular app’s “Live” tab can land users on multiple shopping livestreams within minutes.

But with TikTok unavailable in China — parent company Bytedance operates the more strictly censored sister app Douyin domestically — smaller businesses there are at a disadvantage.

Courses like the one at Mede Education Technology’s e-commerce school help by covering everything from the basics of creating a TikTok account to handling shipping and analysing sales data.

Fees start at around 9,000 yuan ($1,244) for a six-day course.

Students, who range from factory owners to fresh graduates, often take classes for multiple foreign shopping platforms including Amazon and Southeast Asia’s Shopee.



– Information gap –



Qiu Zhouwen, a course participant in his 30s, works for a Guangzhou cosmetics company.

He says his company enrolled him because they are hoping to eventually sell their skincare range through TikTok.

“Information is part of the cost (of doing business) now, and if you don’t have the information that’s appropriate to the market, your cost will be way too high,” Qiu says.

Wang, the Mede instructor, attended university in the United States and says it can be challenging for Chinese sellers to adapt to different consumer tastes abroad.

Chemical manufacturer Donghua Jinlong spawned viral memes on TikTok this month after overseas social media users found absurdist humour in the company’s matter-of-fact videos about industrial-grade glycine featuring AI-generated voiceovers.

There are also significant technical hurdles.

Accessing TikTok from China requires VPN software to bypass the country’s virtual “Great Firewall”, while dodging the app’s own curbs on users manipulating their IP addresses.

VPNs are a legal grey area in China, with authorities occasionally cracking down while generally tolerating their use for business purposes.

TikTok is also caught up in global geopolitical tensions — the US Congress is threatening to ban the app entirely over concerns it could share personal data with the Chinese government.

Wang is unfazed by the prospect of a US TikTok ban.

“Our students are not just selling to the US market… the current trend for TikTok for Southeast Asia is also very good,” she tells AFP.

Wang says it’s not the first time this situation has happened, adding that she feels the United States was trying to “take this huge cake and split up the market”.



– Catchphrases and clicks –



Mede is one of many organisations running TikTok classes, including others based in Guangdong, where authorities have hung up propaganda banners promoting international e-commerce.

Those not willing to shell out steep course fees can also seek advice from e-commerce veterans who have built a following on Chinese social apps by sharing TikTok tips.

Molly Zhao, a 23-year-old TikTok livestreamer, has been selling products including clothing and electronics online since 2022.

Zhao, who studied in Italy and speaks Italian and English, told AFP her foreign-language skills have earned her livestreaming jobs paying as much as 20,000 yuan ($2,760) each month.

She regularly posts videos for domestic viewers on Douyin, covering topics including common English phrases and how to explain shipping rates clearly.

“You must build up the atmosphere,” she explains in one video, adding that using a catchphrase can “make a deeper impression on customers”.

In another video, a smiling, dancing Zhao shares her warmup routine before a livestream session selling gemstones and crystals to US viewers.

“Time to earn Americans’ money,” she says in a deadpan caption. “I’ll put on some music to hype myself up.”