Gender equality: Most people are biased against women, UN says

A new study shows that almost 90% of people worldwide are biased against women and around half perceive men to make better leaders. And nearly 30% of people think it's justified for a husband to beat his wife.

Women around the world still suffer from widespread gender bias, according to a newly-published report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

The study measures how people's social beliefs inhibit gender equality in areas including education, politics and the work force. It contains data from 75 countries, covering over 80% of the world's population.

Pedro Conceicao, director of the Human Development Report Office at UNDP, said that while progress has been made in giving women the same access to basic needs as men in education and health, gender gaps remain in areas "that challenge power relations and are most influential in actually achieving true equality."

Read more: Women and security policy: Representation rising, but parity far off

Figures reveal gender divideThe UNDP analysis found that despite decades-long efforts to close the gender divide, around half of the world's population feel that men make better political leaders, while over 40% think men make better business executives and have more right to a job when work availability is limited. Almost 30% of people think it's justified for a husband to beat his wife.

Women hold only 24% of parliamentary seats globally and they make up less than 6% of chief executives in S&P 500 companies, the study showed.

Countries with the highest numbers of people showing any kind of bias against gender equality are Jordan, Qatar, Nigeria, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. The countries with the lowest levels of gender bias are Andorra, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

World in Progress: Human rights lawyer Kate Kelly: 'Equality is not a feeling'

Over half of the world's women are restricted by law from certain jobs. In nearly 20 countries they still need permission from their husbands to work. Even in the US, the Constitution doesn't protect women from discrimination based on gender. A Q&A with Kate Kelly, human rights lawyer for Equality Now and host of the podcast "Ordinary Equality," about the state of women's rights across the globe.

Noise pollution threatens health of one in five Europeans

One in every five Europeans is suffering from noise pollution so bad that it could harm their health, according to a new study. Road traffic was cited as the main cause, with the problem expected to grow worse.


The European Environment Agency said Thursday that noise levels were so bad in the European Union that the bloc was failing to meet its own standards.

"Notably, the objective set for 2020 ... of decreasing noise pollution and moving towards the WHO recommended levels for noise exposure will not be achieved," the agency said in a statement.

Noise levels for some 113 million Europeans are increasingly higher than those set by the World Health Organization (WHO), a report showed.

About a fifth of Europeans suffer long-term traffic noise so loud that it could damage their health, the EU's environmental watchdog said.

Rapid urban growth was cited as a major factor, with noise from roads the worst source of noise pollution. The sound of rail traffic, airplanes, and heavy industry were also blamed.

Read more: How can we recapture the silence?

Early deaths from heart disease

Worse still, the agency found that the problem was projected to increase "because of increased future demand for mobility."

Both the EU and WHO consider long-term noise levels above 55 decibels to be potentially damaging to health.

Read more: United in noise: How species deal with our racket

Exposure to noise pollution caused 12,000 premature deaths, the study said, and contributed to 48,000 cases of heart disease caused by a narrowing of the arteries. It was estimated that 22 million people were suffering "chronic high annoyance" and that 6.5 million people suffered chronic high sleep disturbance.

Noise was also said to be a contributing factor to cognitive disorders in 12,500 children across Europe.

Possible solutions included a reduction in traffic speeds and the introduction of smoother, less noisy road surfaces, the study found. It also encouraged more cycling, walking and use of electric vehicles.

German teen Naomi Seibt, the darling of climate change deniers 

IS A MEMBER OF THE AfD GERMANY'S FAR RIGHT PARTY AS ARE HER PARENTS

The German climate crisis sceptic Naomi Seibt in June 2019. 

© screengrab from YouTube
Text by:Sarah LEDUC

At 19, Naomi Seibt is on her way to becoming the voice of climate sceptics. Close to the far right in her home country of Germany, she has also been propelled by the Heartland Institute, an American think tank supported by allies of US President Donald Trump.

Climate sceptics have found their muse: Naomi Seibt, a German woman who denounces “climate alarmism” in videos she posts on her YouTube channel. In December, the Heartland Institute, an American think tank engaged against scientific consensus on climate change, gave Seibt top billing during its one-day forum on “climate reality”, which took place on the margins of COP 25, the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid, Spain.

One month later, the institute featured Seibt in a video posted on its own YouTube channel, entitled “Naomi Seibt vs. Greta Thunberg: Whom Should We Trust?”

“Greta Thunberg took the world by storm with her doomsday climate predictions,” reads the video’s description. “Naomi Seibt, a rising star, advocates for proper scientific discourse over climate change. Who seems like the more reasonable advocate to you?”

‘I don’t want you to panic’

The media has cast Seibt as the “anti-Greta”, and it’s difficult to avoid the comparison. The activists are both eloquent and close in age: The Swedish Thunberg is 16, and Seibt is 19. Thunberg warns unceasingly of climate crisis, while Seibt warns against "climate change alarmism".

Without denying global warming, a trend which she thinks is overestimated, Seibt questions the impact of human activity on the phenomenon. In the Heartland video, she says that “climate change alarmism, at its very core, is a despicably anti-human ideology”.

She also hopes to reassure the young people who mobilise for the “Fridays for Future” protests initiated by Thunberg. “I would like that young people are not made to fear the future or to believe that the older generations are destroying the planet, that the animals are dying out or that nature is dying,” Seibt said.

Faced with Thunberg’s success, Seibt is inspired by its elements of language and communication. She has altered some of the Swedish activist’s now-famous phrases for her own purposes, transforming, for example, Thunberg’s “I want you to panic”, from the World Economic Forum in January 2019, to an oppositional “I don’t want you to panic. I want you to think.”

However, Seibt doesn’t like being compared to the author of her source material.

“The reason I don’t like the term ‘anti-Greta’ is that it suggests I am an indoctrinated puppet myself,” she told an interviewer.

Freedom of expression, the migrant crisis and the German far right

Seibt claims that, unlike Thunberg, she is not being indoctrinated. She places her fight under the virtuous flag of freedom of expression as against so-called group think, asserting her right to “express scepticism, based on science”.

The German activist says she started “being sceptical” in 2015. “But this had less to do with climate science than with the migrant crisis in Germany.” She claims to be critical of subjects that find consensus in “mainstream media”, such as immigration, feminism, gender theory, socialism, postmodernism and climate change. Issues that are “all linked in a sense and open the way to totalitarianism”.

German media call Seibt a sympathiser of Germany's far-right AfD (Alternative for Germany) party, the third-largest political force in Parliament. She insists she’s not part of AfD; however, her first video posted on YouTube is a poem on courage written for a competition that AfD launched in April 2019. Seibt also was applauded at an AfD meeting in Münster in early February.

Last November, Seibt participated in a conference of the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), a German think tank whose vice president, Michael Limburg, appeared on AfD’s list for the 2017 legislative elections. It was there that the Heartland Institute, which had hosted conferences with EIKE, first noticed her.

Interest from US climate sceptics

But why would an American think tank show so much interest in a teenage German activist? The Heartland Institute receives backing from influential Republicans, as well as Democrat William Happer, a scientist who served on the White House National Security Council between 2018 and 2019. Happer founded the CO2 Coalition, an organisation to defend the “vital role of CO2 in our environment”, and is known for having compared the “demonization of CO2” to the “demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler”.

According to the Washington Post, the Heartland Institute fears that “Germany’s strong will to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is contagious”. The Post reported that a Heartland director wrote that Seibt was the “star” of its Climate Reality Forum in Madrid, and a person who would be well-placed to fight German climate policy.

Suspected of being manipulated despite her intentions, Seibt has responded by adopting Thunberg’s cri de coeur at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York City last September. “How dare you?” Seibt asks in a video entitled “Message to the Media”. Time Magazine named Thunberg its 2019 Person of the Year, and her speech at the UN has millions of views on various YouTube channels; Seibt’s video, thus far, has less than 50,000. The comparison between the two activists ends there.

This article has been adapted from the original in French by Philippe Theise.

South Korea seeks criminal charges against Christian sect over coronavirus spread

03/03/2020
Lee Man-hee, founder of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus speaks during a news conference at its facility in Gapyeong, South Korea on March 2, 2020. © Yonhap via Reuters
Text by:Sébastian SEIBT

Investigators in South Korea are seeking to establish the extent to which 12 executives of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus can be held criminally responsible for the rapid spread in the country of COVID-19, the illness that results from the coronavirus.

He promises his disciples eternal life, fancies himself the new “messiah” and – as of Sunday – finds himself under investigation for homicide by wilful negligence. Lee Man-hee, 80, leads the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, a secretive religious sect often described as a cult and seen as largely responsible for the propagation of COVID-19 in South Korea. Eleven other executives of the movement are also in investigators’ sights.

Authorities want to know whether, due to its unorthodox religious practises and taste for secrecy, the Christian sect has put lives at risk during the coronavirus outbreak. With more than 5,000 people infected and at least 28 deaths to date, South Korea has registered the largest cluster of infections outside of China.

Patient No. 31

When the new coronavirus appeared in China in December, South Korea – a technologically advanced country with a well-organised public health infrastructure – thought it would be able to curtail the spread of the virus. Seoul had already succeeded in containing a 2015 outbreak of MERS, another coronavirus, which had surfaced in the Middle East in 2012.

But that was before South Korea encountered Patient No. 31. A 61-year-old woman who was a member of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the city of Taegu, she is considered to be at ground zero of the explosion of COVID-19 cases. Health authorities believe one in five of the people infected by the coronavirus can be linked to her.

The woman first went to hospital on February 7 after a minor traffic accident. During that exam, she complained of a pain in her throat. She then returned to hospital a few days later for treatment of a persistent fever.

Doctors twice recommended that she submit to coronavirus screening. Both times, the woman refused, the New York Times reported. But her health continued to deteriorate and, 10 days later, she could no longer refuse testing; on February 17, doctors examined her more closely and diagnosed a COVID-19 infection. They were never, however, able to establish how she had been exposed to the virus.

In the meantime, the patient had managed, twice, to leave the hospital temporarily to attend the Sunday gatherings of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus. Each time, she had contact with a thousand fellow faithful, the Japan Times noted.

“Her behaviour is not surprising to people familiar with the church,” said Chung Yun-seok, a South Korean expert on religious cults. “To them, getting sick is a sin because it prevents them from doing God’s work.”

Cult of secrecy

The discovery of a hotbed of infection in Taegu and the link made with the Shincheonji Church of Jesus was a turning point in South Korea’s coronavirus battle. Authorities then came up against the very secretive practises of the sect. Aware of the group’s poor image within the country, the faithful often keep their membership secret from their relations, even from their parents.

“To Shincheonji members, their priority is not the safety issue but rather protecting" the church, Ji-il Tark, a Busan Presbyterian University theology professor who studies the group, told the Wall Street Journal. As such, in the province of Gyeonggi, the local government had to rely on some 200 volunteers from the movement in order to contact other followers, CNN reported, because Shincheonji members often don’t take phone calls from non-members.

The detective work necessary to identify everyone who came into contact with an infected member of the sect is all the more difficult under those circumstances. Church executives were accused of a lack of forthrightness: officially, they offered assurances that they were cooperating completely, but messages sent to members – later seen by South Korean media – advised them to lie about their membership in Shincheonji Church if contacted.

The group’s religious practises also lent to the rapid spread of the virus. They meet often in small halls, where they are huddled close together. Members aren’t allowed to wear any accessories on their faces – like glasses or protective masks – because they are considered insults to God, several former members of the movement told South Korean media.

Moreover, participating in weekly meetings is mandatory – rain or shine, and even in case of illness. Members of the movement must clock in when they arrive and when they leave a “working session”, which allows executives of the group to monitor devotees’ diligence. A cold or early signs of flu would not be considered sufficient to exonerate a member from doing his or her duty to preach the Good Word.

Petition to dissolve the movement

The movement is considered particularly aggressive in its proselytising. Several places of Catholic worship in the country have posted signs at the door forbidding access to Shincheonji Church of Jesus members, who are suspected of seeking to poach worshippers for their cause during mass, the South China Morning Post reported.

Sect leader Lee was vehemently criticised for his reluctance to cooperate fully with authorities in their efforts to slow the epidemic. For weeks, he refused to take the blame, saying even as recently as last week that COVID-19 was the work of those “jealous of the Shincheonji Church’s success”.

But after the launch of an official inquiry, the octogenarian finally came forward with a public apology, recognising that “although it was not intentional, many people have been infected”.

But is that mea culpa simply too little, too late? A petition signed by more than a million people has been presented to the South Korean government requesting the dissolution of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which counts more than 200,000 members.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

Eighty years after millions fled the German army, revisiting the ‘Paris Exodus’

04/03/2020

Millions of Parisians fled the French capital in June 1940. © LAPI/Roger Viollet
Text by:Charlotte WILKINS

In the summer of 1940, millions of Parisians fled the French capital in a matter of days to escape the advancing German army. Eighty years after “l’exode de Paris”, an exhibition at the Liberation of Paris Museum puts a neglected part of French history in the spotlight.

Bumper to bumper, roads thick with vehicles and their human cargo, they fled in the millions. Some wheeled bicycles laden with possessions. Others carried cardboard suitcases bound with string. Children helped push carts piled high with bags and bedding. Others carried canaries in cages or were covered in heavy fur coats.

Two million Parisians poured out of the capital in the early days of June 1940, swelling the numbers of those already on the road to eight million, a mass movement of people that promptly became known as “the exodus”.

The Parisians had packed in a panic, fleeing the advancing German army. They’d seen footage of the bombings in Spain. They’d heard the rumours about the Germans – that they were vicious brutes who would rape the women and cut their children’s hands off. And many were still traumatised by the memories of the First World War, when France’s Western Front saw years of trench warfare and the deaths of 1.3 million men.

The affluent residents of the city's 8th and 16th arrondissements (districts) were the first to leave. They fled by car with their mattresses tied to the roofs. Others sat tight and waited for instructions from their bosses. But soon, they too, gripped by the contagious fear, packed up and left, seeking to put as much distance between themselves and the Germans as possible.

A family flees Paris in June 1940 with all their worldly goods. © Roger Viollet

Only the elderly and the infirm remained, along with those, such as Paul Léataud, who were “determined to stay” and didn’t want “to risk finding nothing left when I get back”.

Scenes of chaos

The Liberation of Paris Museum’s first temporary exhibition draws on archive material: film reels and photographs, posters and newspapers, drawings and reminiscences to retrace the lives of those who fled.

It vividly captures the scenes of chaos. Photos showing station platforms thick with people trying to catch the last trains out of Paris sit alongside children’s drawings of the crowds at Gare de Lyon.

Harried mothers push bicycles laden with children, crowds gather outside makeshift evacuation notices and newspapers – which were briefly obliged to suspend printing – report on the escalating German offensive throughout Europe.

A drawing by a schoolgirl, Christiane Crosnier, shows refugees in Montoire sur le Loir, moving south on 17 June 1940. © Christiane Crosnier

Some scrawl graffiti on walls: “We lost Robert, Going to Poitiers”. Others recalled forgotten children crying by the side of the road or brutality encountered on the route. Some remembered lying face down in ditches or hiding in the woods to cheat death.

The refugees “brim over the pavements and appear to want to fill houses to bursting. All vestiges of apathy, reserve and self-control have gone", recalled Jean-Marc de Foville.

Photos of children carrying gas masks sit alongside aerial shots of a deserted, silent Paris as a seemingly endless line of people snaked out of the capital, and French democracy crumbled in a matter of days.

For the government, taken by surprise by the advancing German army, had made no official evacuation plan.

For months, ever since France declared war on Germany on September 3, 1939, the Western Front had sat quiet and the so-called “phoney war” had lulled the French into a false sense of ease.

But on May 10, the Germans invaded Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. On June 3, Paris was bombed for the first time. A week later, the Germans were just 30 kilometres from Paris and the government packed up and left, leaving the Parisians to fend for themselves.

Some fled on foot, others by bicycle as a trail of human cargo wound its way into the French countryside. © LAPI / Roger Viollet

‘People were abandoned’

“It wasn’t France’s finest hour,” said Hanna Diamond, the exhibition’s curator and author of “Fleeing Hitler: France 1940.”

“People were abandoned,” said Diamond, who explained that the exodus had been “glossed over” and buried in the events that followed, the more heroic narratives of Occupation, Resistance and Liberation.

“However we look at it, nobody knew what to do – the government fled… Who wants to hear about a humiliating defeat?”

Once out of the city and when the panic began to dissipate, some refugees described an almost holiday-like feeling of being on the road, a buoyancy that quickly faded when the petrol ran out and food supplies ran short. Cars were abandoned, railway stations were stacked high with lost property, and fur coats were of no use in those warm June days.

Women's faces etched with fear and fatigue during the flight from Paris. © The LIFE Picture Collection via Carl Mydans

Mothers became separated from their children, handing over exhausted toddlers to soldiers in lorries, or to others offering lifts, only to find that soldiers took a different path to the one they had expected.

The Red Cross estimated that some 90,000 children were separated from their parents during the exodus. Family reunions were made even harder to organise by the fact that many of the children were too young to communicate much about their parents, and the babies could say nothing at all.

Some officials, like Jean Moulin, the prefect in Eure-et-Loir, in Chartres, in whose memory the Liberation of Paris Museum is named, refused to leave his post.

Some refugees and French soldiers pillaged villages to survive. Others took advantage of the refugees streaming south with farmers selling glasses of water to those on the road.

But no one exploited the exodus more than Marshal Philippe Pétain, who became chief of state of Vichy France and collaborated with the Nazis in sending thousands of French Jews to the death camps in the years that followed.

‘My heart goes out to you’

As France was poised to fall to the Germans and the refugees continued to make their way south, Pétain was appointed prime minister of France. On June 22, 1940 he signed an armistice with Germany, offering collaboration between the Nazis and his newly appointed Vichy regime, established when the government relocated from Paris to the southern city of Vichy.

But in the uncertain days of June 1940, Pétain, known as the “Lion of Verdun” after his legendary role in the First World War, reassured the refugees that he was with them in their hour of need.

“‘You know, my heart goes out to you, refugees on the road. I'm here with you. I'm not like some who’ve gone to England,” said Pétain, in a dig at Charles De Gaulle, who led French opposition to the Nazis from London. “I’m here, I'm sharing this with you.”

Understanding the exodus is key to understanding the Vichy regime, explained Diamond, for whom the flight from Paris was a “foundational myth”.

“Pétain was this very well-established figure – and people thought, ‘Now the war is over for us, it’s a return to order’. They didn't know that that would mean an authoritarian regime and German occupation at the time, they were just terribly relieved that their ordeal was coming to an end, and we can really understand that.”

“He did milk it – he was very good at that,” said Diamond, who added that the archives contain hundreds and hundreds of letters from women writing to Pétain during the Vichy regime asking him to be their child’s godparent.

In the days that followed the signing of the armistice with Germany, refugees began to think about going home. Local governments, overwhelmed by the flood of refugees, encouraged them to do so.

A deserted Paris met with no resistance when it fell to the Germans on June 14, 1940. The refugees returned to the French capital to find German troops marching down the Champs-Élysées and swastikas adorning government buildings – and braced themselves for the next chapter in their wartime history: five years of occupation under German rule.

'1940: Parisian Exodus' runs at the Liberation of Paris Museum until August 30, 2020.

A CLASSIC

Ankara, Athens exploiting refugees for dangerous political game

Thousands of migrants and refugees are sitting at Greece's gates, eager to cross into Europe. But Turkey and Greece are capitalizing on the turbulent border situation to further their own political agendas.

Last Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared he would open the country's border, allowing migrants and refugees to make their way to the Greek frontier. Since then, thousands of people have streamed to Turkey's Pazarkule border crossing with Greece near the Turkish city of Edirne.

Greek border guards, however, have tightened security. They are deploying tear gas and water cannons to drive away migrants and refugees attempting to cross the border. Observers have reported that Turkish authorities have been firing tear gas, as well.

Footage of these dramatic scenes has gone around world — depicting women and children fleeing clouds of tear gas and Greek coast guard officers firing warning shots to force migrant vessels to turn back towards Turkey.

Read more: Migrants at Turkish-Greek border: 'We want another life'

Will 2015 repeat itself?

These images are reminiscent of the 2015 refugee crisis, when, at some point, up to 10,000 refugees and migrants were arriving in Greece each day. Ankara and Athens, however, are capitalizing on these dramatic events unfolding along their border to further their own political agenda.

Ankara is keen to cast a particularly dramatic image of the situation, with Turkey's Minister of Industry and Technology accusing Athens of having granted protection to "terrorists involved in the July 15 coup attempt" on Twitter. The minister added that "this (Greek) government is now shooting down innocent refugees" and that "Greece will never rid itself of this disgraceful episode in its history."

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu has also been commenting on the situation at Pazarkule via Twitter. He recently claimed, for example, "this morning at 11:00 a.m., another person died, and human rights abuses continue unabated." Soylu sends updates as to how many migrants and refugees have supposedly already made it into Greece. Last Wednesday, he claimed that 135,844 individuals had crossed the border. Greek authorities, however, have not commented on these figures.



SYRIA'S IDLIB: A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER
On the run

Traffic is heavy on the roads heading north through the Idlib region toward the Turkish border. Soldiers of the Assad regime are advancing from the south and east, aided by their Russian and Iranian allies. Some Syrian rebel groups are supported by Turkey, which also has soldiers of its own in the region. But ordinary people just want to reach safet

Read more: DW examines new migration tension between EU, Turkey

Turkish media rails against Europe
According to the Human Rights Center of the Istanbul Bar Association, only about 2,000 individuals have gathered at Pazarkule border crossing. DW reporter Tunca Ögreten estimates that no more than 3,000 people are waiting there at this moment.

Turkish pro-Erdogan media outlets have been churning out an endless stream of reports claiming that Greece is callously turning back individuals who have fled hunger, desperation and war. Many Turkish papers are portraying the EU, and Greece in particular, as "cruel" and "brutal" for rejecting migrants and refugees. Yeni Akit, an Islamic fundamentalist Turkish daily, ran a headline claiming: "Refugees are bombed, the West has lost its humanitarian guise." Another stated: "Unscrupulous Europe. Migrants are forced back, without compassion for women and children." Akşam, another Turkish daily, echoed this sentiment, writing: "Europe does not care about this drama. The Greeks let them die. And Turkey's armed forces saved them."


Read more: Are Germany and the EU prepared for a new influx of refugees?

Many Turks are hostile towards refugees

Turkey, which currently hosts some 3.6 million refugees, is keen to share this burden with other countries. Turkish President Erdogan has repeatedly railed against Greece and the rest of Europe for doing too little to help. Since the Turkish economic crisis in the summer of 2018, hostility against the millions of refugees in the country has grown. According to pollster Türkeitrend, 87.1% of Turks are unhappy with the government's policy towards them.

Yet Athens, too, has been casting the border situation in an overly dramatic light. Greek authorities claimed to have prevented 28,000 refugees from breaching the border, saying that merely 220 made it across. Eyewitnesses, however, told DW that between 1,000 and 2,000 individuals crossed into Greece legally.

Athens is eager to signal that its border is sealed and that everything is under control. Some Greek media outlets, meanwhile, have been running sensationalist headlines and stoking fears. Like Kathimerini, a conservative daily morning newspaper, which recently ran the headline: "Permanent danger of asymmetrical war on border." Ultra-nationalist paper Makeleio, in turn, has suggested invading Turkey for a "re-run of 1821." The date refers to the Greek revolution, which brought it independence from the Ottoman Empire.

On the Greek evening news, meanwhile, commentators have been stoking nationalist sentiments and creating the impression that the country finds itself in a war-like situation under siege from "invaders" and "intruders."


Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin announced a temporary ceasefire in Idlib on Thursday after difficult talks in Moscow.

Read more: Turkey and Russia announce temporary Syria ceasefire

Athens vs Ankara

Conservative Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis seems glad to capitalize on the tumultuous border situation to portray himself as a man of action, determined to fight the specter of mass immigration. Indeed, surveys show that a majority of Greeks view this as his most pressing challenge to date. Mitsotakis himself has deployed highly dramatic rhetoric as well, accusing Turkey of being the "world's biggest human trafficker," and saying Greece faces an "invasion of people of unknown origin."

Many migrants and refugees stranded at Pazarkule border crossing share the dream of one day living in Germany, Austria or Scandinavia. What Turkey and Greece, in turn, have in common is that they both instrumentalize the situation for their own political purposes. While Turkey is effectively blackmailing the West, Greece is seizing on the moment to stir up nationalist sentiment.

Germany: Thousands of protesters demand EU open borders

Thousands have gathered in Berlin to demand that German Chancellor Angela Merkel change her stance and support the opening of the EU borders to migrants. Migrants are attempting to cross into Greece from Turkey.

Thousands of protesters gathered in Berlin on Tuesday in front of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's official residence to demand the opening of the border between Turkey and the European Union.

At least three thousand people gathered in Berlin while similar protests were held in Hamburg and Potsdam, according to German media.

The group "Seebrücke" ("Sea Bridge"), which led the protests, wrote online that it stands "against the policy of sealing off the EU and for the opening of the borders." Seebrücke says it wants "safe passages and an end to the criminalization of civil sea rescue."

Read more: Migrants at Turkish-Greek border: 'We want another life'


Protesters at the iconic Federal Chancellery in Berlin

'Toxic' EU-Turkey deal

The protests were organized as thousands of refugees gathered at the Greek border after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced last week that his country would no longer stop migrants crossing into the EU.

Under the so-called refugee deal between the EU and Turkey, both sides cooperated in stopping migrants from crossing into the EU from Turkey.

Protesters on Tuesday described the deal as "toxic” and chanted "We have space!” Police put the number of participants at 3,500, while organizers say more than 8,000 came.


'Europe's borders are not open'

The protests come as German politicians are put under increased pressure to deal with the situation at the Greek border.

Merkel has expressed solidarity with Greece's attempt to hold people back after Greek security forces used tear gas to stop migrants crossing the border. The German chancellor has so far remained firm that the EU's borders are closed.

Read more: Migrants stuck on EU doorstep: What is Germany doing?

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer also tweeted on Tuesday evening in Arabic, discouraging migrants from attempting to cross the border.


"We will support Greece with all our might,” he wrote. "Europe's borders are not open to refugees from Turkey, and this applies to our German borders as well.”

More protests are planned for later in the week.

South Korea's approach to secretive church could backfire, analyst says


Lee Man-hee, founder and leader of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, apologized for the role his organization has played in the COVID-19 epidemic in South Korea on Monday. File Photo by Yonhap/EPA-EFE

NEW YORK, March 5 (UPI) -- A mysterious religious organization in South Korea is in the hot seat following the massive outbreak of the new strain of coronavirus in the country, but placing members of the church under a harsh spotlight may be a counterproductive move, an analyst told UPI.

John Grisafi, a former U.S. Army intelligence analyst and a Ph.D. candidate in religious studies at Yale University, said the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, may be being singled out in a way by local authorities that is counterproductive to efforts to contain COVID-19.

That does not mean Shincheonji should not bear responsibility for widespread infections that began with South Korea's Patient No. 31, who is believed to have attended services while sick, Grisafi said.

Slightly more than half of COVID-19 cases in South Korea can be traced back to the Daegu branch of the church, according to officials.

Actions taken by South Korean authorities, including what local media described as a "007-style" forced entry into Shincheonji headquarters, however, could be deterring church members from coming forward about possible infections.

"The group already feels marginalized," Grisafi said. "Suspicion of them and the feeling they are being persecuted could drive them further underground and have the reverse effect of what [the South Korean government] is trying to accomplish."

The church has reportedly hesitated to disclose a complete list of its members.

Shincheonji's secrecy, claims regarding the church's strict attendance requirements -- which may have contributed to the outbreak -- have roiled South Koreans who, according to a recent poll, are overwhelmingly in favor of a government-led raid of the church.

But the group, believed to retain 300,000 members worldwide -- with 200,000 in South Korea alone -- could also be attracting South Koreans in their 20s and 30s who may be struggling, according to local reports. Grisafi says diminished prospects for young people could be playing a role in the rise of groups like Shincheonji.

"Social anxieties, social stresses, economic stresses are a big part of why younger South Koreans, or young people in any country, are being motivated to join a group like that," he said.

"Maybe belonging to a closed special group makes them feel better, feels right to them."

China dilemma

The focus on Shincheonji has shifted the spotlight in South Korea.

China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, has largely faded into the background as COVID-19 has become framed as a "Shincheonji problem."

While more than 2,000 cases in Korea remain unrelated to the church, little attention is being paid to those cases as infections continue to rise in the country.

Last week President Moon Jae-in dismissed the idea of stricter quarantine measures against travelers from China, citing possible trade reprisals from Beijing. Chinese regions, meanwhile, have been actively quarantining South Koreans regardless of health status, according to local reports.

Kyle Ferrier, fellow and director of academic affairs at Korea Economic Institute in Washington, told UPI South Korea is heavily dependent on the global economy. Moon's approach to tackling the coronavirus has also yielded no discernible change in support for his administration ahead of general elections in April.

"Shutting off the borders, even temporarily, because of the coronavirus would disproportionately impact Korea," Ferrier said.

Matthew Shapiro, an associate professor of political science at the Illinois Institute of Technology, has studied trans-boundary pollution affecting both countries. Shapiro says past negotiations demonstrate the challenges of tackling environmental and public health problems affecting the region.

"There's been a lot of finger pointing from Korea to China," Shapiro said of pollution negotiations.

South Korea has said a significant portion -- about 30 percent -- of all fine dust originates from China, but the two sides have been unable to agree even on the science of air pollution.

"China doesn't acknowledge it at all," Shapiro said.

Shapiro also said South Korea learned from its experience with deploying U.S. missile defense system THAAD on the peninsula. China may have retaliated by either discouraging or preventing Chinese tourists from visiting Korea; tourism dropped by 70 percent at one point in 2017.

On the coronavirus, China has begun to indicate it is not interested in accepting responsibility for the global outbreak, which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan and had killed more than 3,200 people worldwide by Wednesday.

Last week, Chinese scientist Zhong Nanshan, dubbed the "SARS hero" by Chinese state media, said the virus might have not originated in China. His statement has since been followed by comments from the Chinese foreign ministry, which claimed there is no confirmation about the origins of the virus.

"Confirmed cases of #COVID19 were first found in China, but its origin is not necessarily in China. We are still tracing the origin," the ministry said on Twitter on Wednesday.

The elite world of French cinema is divided over the 45th César Awards ceremony, the French equivalent of the Oscars. A movie by the controversial and divisive Franco-Polish filmmaker Roman Polanski won three awards, including the coveted Best Director prize. This was a bitter pill to swallow for many, including feminist groups who had called for a boycott of the ceremony. The incident once again ignited a fierce debate about the question of "separating the man from the artist". Does this episode highlight a deep-rooted problem in French society? And are things slowly starting to change?

HERSTORY
 Dublin architects are first two women to share Pritzker prize


Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara, co-founders of Grafton Architects in Dublin, Ireland, won the 2020 Pritzker Architecture Prize. File Photo courtesy of the Alice Clancy

March 3 (UPI) -- For the first time in the Pritzker Architecture Prize's four-decade history, the organization handed out the industry's most prestigious award to two women Tuesday.

The organization named Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara as 2020's winners of what's considered to be the Nobel prize of architecture. They co-founded Grafton Architects in Dublin in the 1978.

"Architecture could be described as one of the most complex and important cultural activities on the planet," Farrell said. "To be an architect is an enormous privilege. To win this prize is a wonderful endorsement of our belief in architecture. Thank you for this great honor."

Farrell and McNamara are known for their designs of educational buildings, including the University Campus UTEC Lima in Peru; the Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole, School of Economics in France; and the Universita Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy.

Often relying on concrete and stone in their structures, the two are known for working in urban spaces and using a modern approach while "honoring history," a news release announcing the win said.

"The collaboration between Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara represents a veritable interconnectedness between equal counterparts," said Tom Pritzker, chairman of The Hyatt Foundation, which sponsors the award. "They demonstrate incredible strength in their architecture, show deep relation to the local situation in all regards, establish different responses to each commission while maintaining the honesty of their work, and exceed the requirements of the field through responsibility and community."

In their home country, Farrell and McNamara designed North King Street Housing and the offices for the Department of Finance, the latter of which used local limestone in thick panels in order to convey a sense of strength.

As winners of the Pritzker prize, the two will receive $100,000 and a bronze medallion.

"Within the ethos of a practice such as ours, we have so often struggled to find space for the implementation of such values as humanism, craft, generosity, and cultural connection with each place and context within which we work. It is therefore extremely gratifying that this recognition is bestowed upon us and our practice and upon the body of work we have managed to produce over a long number of years," McNamara said. "It is also a wonderful recognition of the ambition and vision of the clients who commissioned us and enabled us to bring our buildings to fruition."

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Architecture's top prize awarded to two Irish women

AFP/File / FILIPPO MONTEFORTEYvonne Farrell (L) and Shelley McNamara, pictured in 2018, are the first female duo and first Irish citizens to win the Pritzker Prize in architecture

Dublin-based Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara were awarded the Pritzker prize on Tuesday -- the first time a female duo has scooped architecture's most prestigious award.

The pair gained international fame for their brutalist-inspired structures, pairing strong, heavy materials like stark concrete with delicate human-scale detail like lookout points, meeting places and spots to loiter.

The pair met at university in 1974, and went on to found their firm Grafton Architects in 1978 in Dublin, where they have worked together for four decades.

McNamara, 68, and Farrell, 69, are the first female duo to win a Pritzker, and the first architects from Ireland to be awarded the prize.

"Pioneers in a field that has traditionally been and still is a male-dominated profession, they are also beacons to others as they forge their exemplary professional path," read the jury citation.

Just three women have won Pritzkers before them: Zaha Hadid in 2004, Kazuyo Sejima in 2010 (with Ryue Nishizawa) and Carme Pigem in 2017 (with Ramon Vilalta and Rafael Aranda).

AFP/File / CARL COURTIrish architect Yvonne Farrell, a newly minted Pritzker laureate, poses next to her installation at the Royal Academy of Arts in central London in 2014

In announcing their selection, the jury cited Farrell and McNamara's "integrity" and "generosity towards their colleagues" -- both continue to teach, rare for architects of their repute.

The judges also praised their "unceasing commitment to excellence in architecture, their responsible attitude toward the environment, their ability to be cosmopolitan while embracing the uniqueness of each place in which they work."

The pair say Ireland informed their focus on geography and shifts in climate, resulting in buildings that celebrate detail while remaining modest.

"What we try to do in our work is to be aware of the various levels of citizenship and try to find an architecture that deals with overlap, that heightens your relationship to one another," the Pritzker committee quoted Farrell as saying.

- 'Earth as client' -

In 2008, Farrell and McNamara's celebrated Grafton Building at Milan's Bocconi University was named World Building of the Year at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona, a prize that thrust the pair onto the international stage.

The past four decades have seen them complete projects in Ireland as well as Britain, France, Italy and Peru -- notably designing many educational and civic buildings -- all with nuanced sensitivity to a site's natural elements and needs.

"The collaboration between Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara represents a veritable interconnectedness between equal counterparts," said Tom Pritzker, chairman of the foundation that sponsors the award.

"They demonstrate incredible strength in their architecture, show deep relation to the local situation in all regards, establish different responses to each commission while maintaining the honesty of their work, and exceed the requirements of the field through responsibility and community."

In 2018, Farrell and McNamara curated that year's Venice Architecture Biennale, entitled "Freespace," which they defined as "a generosity of spirit and a sense of humanity at the core of architecture's agenda."

 

AFP/File / FILIPPO MONTEFORTEIn announcing their selection, the Pritzker jury cited Farrell and McNamara's "integrity" and "generosity towards their colleagues" -- both continue to teach, rare for architects of their repute

"We are interested in going beyond the visual, emphasizing the role of architecture in the choreography of daily life," they said in their Biennale announcement.

"We see the Earth as client. This brings with it long-lasting responsibilities."

In 2016, their firm won the inaugural RIBA International Prize, for their University of Engineering and Technology building in Peru, which the judges called a "modern-day Machu Picchu" for its verticality and mix of open and enclosed spaces.

Though acclaimed, the pair have cautioned against the "starchitect" phenomenon that celebrates eye candy and celebrity over structural needs.

Farrell, speaking to Spain's IE University in 2015, instead likened architects to translators, saying "we translate people's needs and their dreams into reality."

"We make the space in which life happens, and I think our profession needs to expand to embrace all the other disciplines of environmental sustainability, of making, of the crisis, of changing people's attitude."

2020: Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara
The Irish duo are the fourth and fifth women to win the prestigious prize in its 41-year history. Their Dublin-based firm, Grafton Architects, is renowned for designs using concrete and stone. The judges lauded the pair for buildings that "maintain a human scale and achieve intimate environments." The Bocconi University (photo) in Milan is one of their acclaimed designs.