Gaza’s transport grinds to a halt amid spare parts crisis

By Mohammed Nashbat with Euronews Arabic

Published on 28/04/2026 - 

Severe restrictions on spare parts entering Gaza have paralysed transport, fuelled a black market and sent repair and travel costs soaring for residents, Euronews has learned.

Amid the limited flow of goods into Gaza, a near-total lack of spare parts imports has paralysed transport across the Strip.

As part of the ceasefire terms, at least 600 lorries a day should be permitted to enter Gaza.

Data from the Government Information Office in Gaza indicate that the actual number of lorries entering is less than half of that figure.

Of the more than 3,000 commercial and humanitarian lorries that have entered Gaza since the ceasefire began, only one has carried spare parts.

The shortage of spare parts has left many cars parked and many engines idle, local business owners say.

"The buses are parked and the cars are parked, we have no tyres, no batteries and no oil," Mahmoud Sami, owner of a bus company in the Maghazi area of central Gaza told Euronews.

Sami's buses once ran daily routes, but operations have largely stopped as costs have surged to unprecedented levels.

Car repair shop in the Gaza Strip. Mohammed Nashbat

According to current prices, a single bus tyre can cost up to 20,000 shekels (€5,725), while a battery may cost 15,000 (€ 4,295) shekels or more.

Sami added that some drivers have resorted to swapping tyres between vehicles just to keep a few running, as purchasing new parts is no longer feasible.

Tyres at exorbitant prices

A comparison of conditions before and after 7 October 2023 shows a deterioration in the market, in both availability and pricing.

The problem is no longer just high costs, but the market has shifted from relative abundance before the war to a severe shortage.

A Palestinian stands in front of a car tyre in the Gaza Strip. Mohammed Nashbat

Mohammed Emad, a mechanic from Nuseirat camp, said that the cost of car repairs, which used to range between 2,000 shekels (€575) and 2,500 shekels (€715), now exceeds 17,000 shekels (€4,865).

As for engine oil, the price per litre has risen from about 300 shekels (€85) to more than 1,000 shekels (€285), with sharp fluctuations due to the ongoing regional conflict

Desperation sets in

Economist Ahmed Abu Qamar said that the shortage of spare parts — or when they are allowed in, the lack of regulation — has enabled the black market to set prices.

These imbalances reflect directly on the citizens, he warned. Fares to travel between camps in central Gaza, for example, rose from one shekel to five.

Khaled al-Naami, owner of a car workshop in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip Mohammed Nashbat

For the parts that are permitted in, they do not meet 5% of market demand and often do not meet industry standards, Automotive Spare Parts Association Chairman Rushdi al-Khor said.

This reality has pushed many to seek out temporary solutions, such as using improvised components, old or second-hand auto parts, or used oil. Specialists warn that using old parts, especially braking systems and tyres, increases the likelihood of accidents.

Vehicles recycling motor oil

The shortage of spare parts and oil is not only impacting civilians and owners of commercial vehicles but also emergency response teams.

The spokesperson for the Civil Defence Authority in Gaza, Major Mahmoud Basal, warned that the agency's operational capacity has fallen to just 10%. He noted Gaza City had only three operational vehicles remaining.

In August 2025, the Civil Defence reported that 60% of its vehicles across the Strip had gone out of service due to shortages of fuel and spare parts.

The agency also revealed that teams had to resort to using used motor oil for their vehicles, despite it causing significant engine damage and shortening their operational lifespan.

The agency warned that if the situation deteriorates further, teams may have to reach incident sites on foot or rely on civilian vehicles.

Car spare parts in Gaza Mohammed Nashbat

With ongoing restrictions on the entry of goods and aid, the shortage of spare parts is expected to worsen, leaving residents dependent on increasingly limited transport options for daily life.

Economists have warned that if the situation persists, it could result in near-total paralysis of the transport and services sector, undermining people’s access to hospitals, essential services and workplaces.

 

Finland becomes first in Europe to run full lithium mine-to-refinery cycle

By Lucy Davalou & AFP

Published on 28/04/2026 - EURONEWS

Europe’s first complete lithium mine begins operating in Syväjärvi in western Finland. The strategic resource is critical for manufacturing modern electronics.

Finland has become the first country in Europe to host a full lithium production cycle, from mine to refinery, according to the Geological Survey of Finland.

The Syväjärvi open-pit mine in Kaustinen will produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide, a critical material for modern electronics, ranging from electric vehicles to smartphones.

The appetite for lithium is often compared to the demand for oil at the dawn of the 20th century — and Finland holds some of Europe's largest reserves of it.

Reducing reliance on Asian and Australian imports

Keliber CEO Hannu Hautala said the project would reduce Europe's dependence on lithium imports from Asia and Australia.

"It develops and increases the independence from imports from, for example, Asian countries and Australia," he said.

The mine is scheduled to be fully operational within two years. Trucks will transport ore to a nearby concentrator plant, producing a sand-like concentrate that is then taken to a refinery to make battery-grade lithium hydroxide.

"The lithium hydroxide will go to the European battery industry," Hautala said, declining to name any specific clients.

The €783 million project is operated by Keliber Oy, a Finnish mining and battery-materials company.

Sibanye-Stillwater, the South African mining giant, owns 80% of its shares, with the remaining 20% held by the Finnish state-owned Finnish Minerals Group. The European Investment Bank has also provided €150 million in financing.

Sibanye-Stillwater CEO Neal Froneman called the mine "quite small" but said it was "very, very important" from a strategic and technological standpoint, representing the company's first major investment in Europe.

The Keliber project covers more than 500 square kilometres and includes six additional mining sites planned in the area, alongside Syväjärvi.

Related

Locals divided on the project

In the nearby town of Kaustinen, home to just over 4,000 people, feelings about the project are mixed.

"From an employment perspective, it has been positive," said local music teacher Pilvi Järvelä. "But of course, people are also worried about the environmental impact and things like that."

Hautala said the operation is expected to employ around 300 people.

At the refinery, technical director Sami Heikkinen said test runs with water had already begun. If all goes to plan, "we will pack the first bags at the end of this year," he said, describing the final product as resembling "white sugar crystals," stored in 500-kilogram or 1,000-kilogram bags ready for transport.

Once fully operational, the refinery is expected to produce around 15,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium hydroxide annually, roughly 10% of Europe's current demand according to Langbacka, meaning imports will continue to play a significant role. China currently dominates global lithium supply.

While countries such as Portugal and the Czech Republic hold reserves, the Finnish site is the first to bring the entire production chain within a 43-kilometre radius, with the mine, concentrator and refinery all in close proximity.

 

Location, location, location: How the Nile helped an ancient Sudanese city thrive for centuries

University of Michigan

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Panoramic view of Jebel Barkal (ancient Napata), a UNESCO World Heritage site in northern Sudan, with its sandstone outcrop and royal pyramids.

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Credit: Gregory Tucker

ANN ARBOR—The ancient city of Napata, located in what is now Sudan, was a major urban and cultural center of Kush, an ancient empire in Nubia.

University of Michigan archaeologists and earth scientists examined the land underlying the city to determine what geological processes might have led to the city's successful settlement. Their findings suggest Napata, which flourished from about 800 BCE to 100 CE, owed its staying power to a relatively stable Nile, which deposited millennia of clay and built up a thick and fertile floodplain, creating a landscape that reduced flood risk while maintaining access to water.

The U-M study, led by archaeologist Geoff Emberling, geomorphologist Jan Peeters and El-Hassan Ahmed Mohammed, who along with Emberling directs the Jebel Barkal Archaeological Project, is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Napata site is one of The Klinsky Expeditions, a series of five archaeological field projects funded by U-M alum Steve Klinsky.

"Scholars have looked at the association between changes in climate and local environment and their impact on societies, including their political development and economic systems," said Emberling, a research scientist at the U-M Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. "But this hasn't been done in Sudan, and we've missed a key tool to help us not only understand the rise and fall of individual settlements, but also the broader history of the rise and fall of the Empire of Kush. This is really the first systematic geomorphological study in Sudan that relates to these ancient cultures."

Kush was an important player in the ancient world, Emberling said. The empire was mentioned in the Bible, by the Greek historian Herodotus, and interacted with Egypt, the Assyrians, Greeks, Persians and with the Roman Empire. After the Egyptian empire collapsed at around 1200 BCE, the Kushite dynasty came into power, based at what's now called Jebel Barkal, whose ancient name was Napata. There, at the foot of an ancient sandstone outcrop, the Kushites built palaces, pyramids and temples. Now, Jebel Barkal is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

"They were part of that whole world system, yet because of a history of relatively lower investment in research in Sudan, some very basic questions haven't been addressed," Emberling said. "We might think we know all we need to know about the Nile because there's been a fair amount of research in Egypt. But in Sudan, the way the Nile works is different."

The gentling of the Nile

In Sudan, the geology of the region creates rapids, waterfalls and islands along the Nile that disrupt travel and fragment settlements, according to Emberling. To understand the geology underlying Jebel Barkal, Peeters led a research team including a group of local Sudanese that drilled 26 sediment cores across the river valley in which the city is situated. 

The team collected samples every 10 centimeters, with the boreholes eventually reaching between five and 13 meters deep. Using a technique called optically stimulated luminescence dating, which dates samples by determining the last time sand grains were exposed to light, the researchers were able to peer into 12,500 years of Nile history.

For the first 8,000 years of this period, the Nile carved its own valley, according to Peeters. Then, about 4,000 years ago, the valley leveled out, allowing the river to start depositing sediment and building up the valley floor. From that time period on, the river has been relatively stable—composing a layer of fertile clay and silt about 10 meters thick. 

The researchers say another geologic feature, the Nile's Fourth Cataract, also helped the river slow and allowed it to drop sediment at the site where Napata would eventually thrive. The cataracts of the Nile are stretches of islands and fast-moving rapids. The Fourth Cataract lies just upstream of Jebel Barkal, and Peeters surmises that much of the river's energy dissipates over the stretch of this cataract, allowing the river to deposit sediment and become relatively stable for 4,000 years.

"Where sediments accumulate shapes where people can live, farm, and carry out cultural and religious practices,” Peeters said. 

The precarity of war

The researchers say this work is ongoing, even as Sudan experiences its current war. Sudanese archaeologists, members of Sudan's antiquities department, known as the National Corporation for Antiquities and Museums, have been carrying out work at Jebel Barkal, guided by Emberling and others abroad.

"Despite all the difficulties and hardship of Sudan, because of the ongoing war, research is continuing through the efforts of our local collaborators," Peeters said. "Their work is central to the project, which places strong emphasis on community engagement and collaboration with Sudanese researcher.

Co-authors include Timotheus Winkels, Pawel Wolf, Tim Skuldbøl, Elizabeth Chamberlain, Saskia Büchner-Matthews and Sami Elamin.

---

Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2529986123 

Article Title

Holocene Nile dynamics shaped the physical and cultural landscape of ancient Nubia

Article Publication Date

27-Apr-2026

Indonesian peacekeeper dies of wounds suffered in Lebanon last month, UNIFIL says

Copyright AP Photo

By Gavin Blackburn

Published on 24/04/2026 - EURONEWS

His death brings the number of peacekeepers killed since the start of the most recent war between Israel and Hezbollah on 2 March to six.

The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, UNIFIL, said on Friday that an Indonesian blue helmet died in hospital of wounds suffered in an attack on his base on 29 March.

"UNIFIL deplores the passing today of Corporal Rico Pramudia, who was critically injured following a projectile explosion in his base in Adchit Al Qusayr on the night of 29 March," the force said in a statement.

His death brings the number of peacekeepers killed since the start of the most recent war between Israel and Hezbollah on 2 March to six.

UNIFIL said at the time of the 29 March attack that one Indonesian soldier was killed and another wounded

A preliminary investigation by the UN found that the soldier was killed by an Israeli tank shell.

The following day, two more Indonesian blue helmets were killed by an improvised explosive device.

The same UN investigation found that Hezbollah was likely responsible.

Indonesia has already urged the UN to launch a thorough investigation into both incidents.

Two French soldiers serving in UNIFIL were killed in an ambush on 18 April, which French authorities and the UN have blamed on Hezbollah. The group denies any involvement.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon has carried out peacekeeping duties between Israel and Lebanon since 1978 but has found itself caught in the crossfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah. UNIFIL comprises nearly 8,200 troops from 47 countries.

A ceasefire between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah has been in effect since 17 April, which the US said on Thursday night had been extended by three weeks.

Macron urges Israel to withdraw from Lebanon as Salam calls for €500m in aid

French President Emmanuel Macron held talks with Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam in Paris late on Tuesday, with both leaders using the meeting to push for stability in southern Lebanon and to rally support for a country reeling from weeks of war.


Issued on: 22/04/2026 - RFI

France's President Emmanuel Macron shakes hands with Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam at the Elysee Presidential Palace in Paris on 21 April 2026. AFP - LUDOVIC MARIN

Speaking after their meeting, Salam said Lebanon would need €500 million over the next six months to address the humanitarian fallout from the conflict, as a fragile 10-day ceasefire with Israel continues to hold.

The Lebanese authorities have put the death toll from six weeks of fighting at 2,450, with at least 7,650 wounded, since early March.

The meeting at the Élysée Palace focused on maintaining the ceasefire and reaffirming France’s backing for Lebanon’s territorial integrity, while also looking ahead to renewed negotiations between Beirut and Tel Aviv.

Macron struck a firm but balanced tone, urging Israel to “renounce its territorial ambitions” in Lebanon while insisting that Hezbollah must stop firing into Israeli territory and be disarmed “by the Lebanese themselves”.

He also called for a broader agreement that would guarantee “the security of both countries” and lay the groundwork for a possible normalisation of relations.

For his part, Salam said Lebanon was seeking the “complete withdrawal” of Israeli forces from its territory, alongside the return of prisoners and displaced civilians, as part of the talks set to resume in Washington later this week.

Israel’s ‘buffer zone’

Even as Macron hardened his public language, French officials have continued to strike a more measured tone. The Élysée has described the Israeli military’s “buffer zone” in southern Lebanon as “temporary”, stopping short of calling for its immediate removal.

Israeli forces have pushed deep into the region, drawing what officials describe as a defensive “yellow line” aimed at shielding northern Israeli communities from cross-border fire.

French officials have suggested that, for now, stabilisation takes precedence over territorial adjustments. The buffer zone, they argue, is intended as a short-term security measure rather than a permanent redrawing of borders.

“The issue today is not to shift these lines,” an Élysée official said, stressing instead the need to prevent a resumption of hostilities.

The expectation in Paris is that the question of territory will be resolved through negotiations – with Lebanon’s “territorial integrity” ultimately restored as part of a lasting peace agreement.

France has also pushed back against suggestions it should remain on the sidelines. Despite reported Israeli reluctance to involve Paris directly, Macron’s advisers insist France is uniquely placed to support Lebanon in implementing the disarmament of Hezbollah and reinforcing state authority in the south.

Map of the Israeli occupation zone in Lebanon © reuters

UNIFIL attack underscores tensions

Tuesday’s meeting came in the shadow of a deadly ambush on UN peacekeepers last week, where a French soldier serving with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was killed over the weekend, with three others wounded.

Macron blamed Hezbollah for the attack but stressed that France itself had not been specifically singled out. “They didn’t target them because they were French,” he said earlier this week. “They targeted them because they were on a mission to stand alongside the civilian population.”

The incident has sharpened concerns about the risks facing peacekeepers even as the ceasefire holds. France has said it is ready to maintain its commitment on the ground in Lebanon even after the UNIFIL mission is due to end at the close of the year.

The UN Security Council has condemned the attack in the strongest terms and reaffirmed its full support for the mission. Hezbollah, which opposes the Lebanon–Israel talks, has denied involvement.

UNIFIL Chief of Staff Major General Paul Sanzey saluting the coffin of late French UNIFIL peacekeeper Sergeant-Chef Florian Montorio during a tribute ceremony on the tarmac of Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport prior to the repatriation of his remains to France, 19 April 2026 AFP - HANDOUT

Beruit open to peace

Alongside France’s diplomatic push, Lebanon’s leadership has signalled a willingness to pursue a negotiated end to the conflict, despite strong domestic opposition.

President Joseph Aoun has said the talks with Israel aim to halt hostilities, end the occupation of southern regions, and enable the Lebanese army to deploy fully along the internationally recognised border.

“I have chosen negotiations,” Aoun said, expressing hope that diplomacy could “save Lebanon” from further devastation.

His stance has exposed deep internal divisions, with Hezbollah sharply criticising the talks, warning that direct negotiations risk undermining national consensus, although it has indicated support for maintaining the ceasefire.

(with newswires)

Shadow of failed 1983 agreement haunts new Israeli-Lebanon talks

EXPLAINER

As Lebanon prepares to resume direct discussions with Israel, the ghost of the May 17 Agreement of 1983 – a deal that was signed but never implemented – is haunting the new round of negotiations. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam are facing a smear campaign from Hezbollah, which has already rejected any compromise and issued thinly veiled threats against the country's leadership.

Issued on: 23/04/2026 -
FRANCE24
By: Marc DAOU  

This file photo shows Chief Lebanese negotiator, Antoine Fattal, right, chief Israeli negotiator, David Kimche, left, and US Special Envoy Morris Draper, smiling as they shake hands in Khalde, Lebanon, on May 17, 1983. © Bill Foley, AP

Since the announcement of a new round of direct talks between Lebanon and Israel scheduled for Thursday, following a first meeting in Washington in early April, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have been the targets of a smear campaign orchestrated by Hezbollah supporters.

The head of state, who is banking on the talks to secure an Israeli army withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a final demarcation of the shared border, was even the target of an implicit death threat issued by officials from the Shia party.

The threat was taken seriously in Beirut given the pro-Iranian movement’s track record, with several of its members convicted by the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) over the 2005 assassination of former prime minister Rafic Hariri.

Senior Hezbollah official Nawaf Moussaoui warned in an interview with the party's Al-Manar television channel on Saturday that if the Lebanese president "wants to take decisions unilaterally, he is no more important than Anwar al-Sadat" – a reference to the Egyptian president who was assassinated in 1981, three years after signing a peace deal with Israel at Camp David.

Moussaoui added that any negotiation or agreement between Israel and Lebanon would be "rejected, unrecognised and thrown in the bin, like the May 17, 1983 agreement".

A deal that never took effect

That security agreement – never implemented – was officially signed by Israel and Lebanon under US auspices at Khaldeh, near Beirut, during the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). Lebanon, then led by President Amine Gemayel (1982-1988), was at the time simultaneously occupied by both the Israeli and Syrian armies.

Ambassador Antoine Fattal headed the Lebanese delegation, while the Israeli team was led by diplomat David Kimche, with both sides facing US President Ronald Reagan's envoy Morris Draper, Under-Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

The deal resulted from 35 Israeli-Lebanese meetings in late December 1982 and held alternately in Lebanon and Israel. Comprising a dozen articles, it was meant to be a first step towards lasting peace between the two countries.

Its preamble proclaimed "the termination of the state of war" between the two neighbours, who under article 2 committed to "settle their disputes by peaceful means".

Chief Israeli negotiator David Kimche, right, gestures as he speaks with Antoine Fattal, Lebanon's chief negotiator in Khalde, Lebanon, on March 1, 1983. © Eddie Tamerian, AP


The text provided for the creation of a security zone in southern Lebanon, a timetable for the withdrawal of Israeli forces and a commitment by each side not to allow its territory to be used as a base for "hostile or terrorist activity" against the other.

It even suggested future negotiations on "agreements on the movement of goods, products and persons and their implementation on a non-discriminatory basis".

Although ratified by the Lebanese parliament, the agreement was never promulgated by President Gemayel. In March 1984, it was abrogated by the council of ministers under pressure from Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and his Lebanese allies at the time – Druze warlord Walid Joumblatt and Nabih Berri, head of the Shia Amal militia and Lebanon's parliament speaker since 1992 – all of whom were hostile to any agreement with Israel.

Assad, with no small irony, told Gemayel that the abrogation was "a victory for the peoples of Syria and Lebanon and of the entire Arab nation" and that his country would "remain at Lebanon's side in its struggle for independence and sovereignty" – even as his army remained an occupying force in the country.

In a recent interview with the daily newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour, the former Lebanese president said Israel had not genuinely wanted to implement the May 17 agreement either, accusing it of having added "at the last minute, clauses to the previously negotiated text", including one requiring a simultaneous Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon – effectively giving Damascus veto power.

"It was a way of giving Damascus a veto," he said. "Especially since we had no control over the decision on the withdrawal of the Syrian army."

An Iranian veto?

Asked about this Lebanese-Israeli precedent in relation to the current situation, Sami Nader, director of the Institute of Political Science at Saint Joseph University in Beirut, pointed to a regional context entirely different from that of 1983.

“At the time, only Anwar al-Sadat’s Egypt had signed a peace agreement with Israel,” he explained, noting that the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan later joined the Abraham Accords under US President Donald Trump, while Jordan had signed a peace treaty in 1994. “Today, even Syria, which was once the main obstacle to the May 17 agreement, is ready to sign with the Israelis.”

Syria’s interim president Ahmed al-Charaa said on Friday at a diplomatic forum in Turkey that he was open to direct negotiations with Israel over the occupied Golan Heights if a security deal guaranteed Israeli withdrawal from recently occupied Syrian territories.

"In 1983, Hezbollah, which had just been founded, did not yet have a say in Lebanon. Today it is the main obstacle to such negotiations, as is its Iranian patron, which opposes regional normalisation efforts with Israel," Nader said.

Direct talks between Lebanon and Israel would deprive Tehran of leverage, he added, because Iran wants Lebanon – through Hezbollah – to remain a strategic card.
A 'yellow line' that 'instils doubt'

Nader also noted a "fundamental difference" between the Israeli invasion of 1982 and the current one, "due to the famous yellow line drawn by the Netanyahu government, isolating part of the territory, devastated and emptied of its population".

Israeli authorities say they have drawn a "yellow line" deep inside southern Lebanon, claiming it is intended to protect northern Israeli communities from Hezbollah fire.

In Lebanon, the buffer zone – stretching hundreds of square kilometres from the Mediterranean coast to the Lebanese-Syrian border – is widely seen as a new unilateral border drawn by Israel.

In Gaza, a similar “yellow line” established after the October ceasefire cuts the territory from north to south between a Hamas-controlled zone and another effectively controlled by the Israeli army.

This yellow line "instils doubt about Israeli intentions", Nader insisted. "Because it is reminiscent of a scenario already seen in the Syrian Golan – a scenario of annexation – and no observer can rule out that possibility with the far-right government currently leading Israel."

"Even more than President Gemayel in 1983, President Aoun seems to believe that the only way for Lebanon to rule out such a scenario is to negotiate, that is, to seek peace, and therefore in a sense the disarmament of Hezbollah, in exchange for the conquered territory," he concluded.

"Because the other option, the military one advocated by the Shia party, allows the Israelis to justify their occupation of southern Lebanon."

This article was translated from the original in French by Anaëlle Jonah.

 

New method can reduce risk of violating Sámi rights

Stockholm Environment Institute

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The graph shows the six preconditions required to ensure the rights of the Sami: Continuous and interconnected pastures, access to traditional winter pastures, traditional use of seasonal pastures, grazing peace and access to natural grazing, traditional knowledge is kept alive and Sámi youth can continue traditional livelihood. Current status at top and impact of the Per Geijer project at bottom.

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Credit: SEI

A new method developed by researchers at Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) can help identify and reduce the risk of rights violations linked to industrial projects on the traditional lands of Sámi reindeer herding communities. Based on a case study of LKAB's planned mining project Per Geijer, the method highlights significant risks to human rights.

The report is the result of a research collaboration with the Gabna Sámi reindeer herding community, contributing knowledge on land use and insights into the cultural values linked to natural grazing-based reindeer herding, including the need for reindeer to move freely across extensive, connected grazing lands. These landscapes are essential for safeguarding Sámi rights.

The method, including the risk assessment framework and the analysis of both current impacts and future risks, was developed by SEI researchers. The study was funded by Formas, NordForsk and Mistra.

"Taken together, we see significant risks of violations of the Sámi reindeer herding community members' right to land and culture, as well as several examples of LKAB failing in its obligation to respect the Sámi community's right to effective participation. In view of the project's extensive impact, explicit consent from the Sámi community is probably needed for the project to be permissible under international Indigenous rights law," says Rasmus Kløcker Larsen, Senior Researcher at SEI.  

Previous research shows that mining and other natural resource extraction often entail risks for both the environment and people, particularly Indigenous Peoples. The new method enables companies to carry out rights-based risk assessments for industrial projects on Sámi lands, helping to prevent rights violations and ensure the protection of Sámi rights.

It identifies six key preconditions for ensuring a Sámi community's collective rights to land and culture when land is subject to competing land-use claims.

"Gabna is already extensively affected by both LKAB's and others' activities around Kiruna. We believe that the Per Geijer project would further cause major or serious impacts on virtually all preconditions examined, as the reindeer herding community’s pastures would be divided,” says Carl Österlin, Researcher at SEI.

“Before further exploitation can be considered, extensive measures are required to ensure sufficient land for reindeer to move freely around Kiruna and for coordinated seasonal migration past Kiruna." 

The method can be applied to projects affecting other Sámi herding communities but must be adapted in dialogue with those affected. There can be considerable differences between Sámi communities in terms of seasonal migration patterns and possibilities to protect or restore conditions for natural grazing-based reindeer herding.

Existing guidelines for risk assessment, current mining industry practices as regards analyses of impacts on reindeer herding and the evidence base used by licensing authorities have often been criticised. The new method offers a way forward, but further development and practical application is needed to ensure adequate assessments of human rights risks in Sápmi in line with international standards.

"Our hope is that the report can contribute to better risk assessments, better protection of Sámi rights and a fairer management of land use linked to energy and mineral policy," says Rasmus Kløcker Larsen.

The report also highlights that:

• Greater transparency is needed regarding the scope of strategic mining projects. At present, such information is not disclosed to researchers, Sámi communities or other stakeholders by either the European Commission or applicant companies.
• It must be clarified what legislative and policy measures politicians and authorities are prepared to take to ensure Sámi rights holders are guaranteed influence over land-use planning before companies apply for permits.

About the report and the case study

The report Assessing how to handle mining projects and their risks to Indigenous rights in a reindeer herding context (in Swedish) explains how a human rights impact assessment (HRIA) can be used to assess and address risks to Indigenous rights linked to reindeer herding.

The case study focuses on of the state-owned mining company LKAB's application for a mining concession for the Per Geijer deposit, one of the first extraction projects in Sweden designated by the European Commission as a strategic project under the Critical Raw Materials Act.

According to the state's ownership policy, LKAB is expected to lead the industry in corporate responsibility. The company was invited to contribute information and to conduct factchecking prior to publication but declined.

The responsibility for ensuring adequate impact assessments for the Per Geijer project rests with LKAB. The company submitted its application for a mining concession in June 2024 and must supplement it with a reindeer herding analysis by 1 May 2026. To date, no HRIA has been carried out for the project.

For more information, please contact:

Rasmus Kløcker Larsen, Senior Research Fellow, SEI, rasmus.klocker.larsen@sei.org
Carl Österlin, Research Fellow, SEI, carl.osterlin@sei.org
Ulrika Lamberth, Senior Press Officer, SEI, ulrika.lamberth@sei.org, + 46 73 801 7053
Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen, Chairman, Gabna Sámi Village, samebygabna@gmail.com

Stockholm Environment Institute is an international non-profit research institute that tackles climate, environment and sustainable development challenges. We empower partners to meet these challenges through cutting-edge research, knowledge, tools and capacity building. Through SEI’s HQ and seven centres around the world, we engage with policy, practice and development action for a sustainable, prosperous future for all. www.sei.org 

 

Materials – but not as we know them

Universiteit van Amsterdam

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Active matter can use internal energy to change its shape and functionality when external forces are applied. The study of active materials is a dynamic, modern field of research. A team of physicists from the universities of Amsterdam, New South Wales and Cambridge have recently arrived at striking conclusions about this very special form of matter.

Active matter in the lab

When we think of materials, we usually think of substances like metal, concrete, glass or rubber. What these examples have in common is that they are inactive: when pushed, pulled, shifted or sheared they may move or deform, but only by using the energy that is provided from the outside through the forces applied to them.

There exists another very interesting class of materials: that of active matter. Active matter has energy of its own and can use this energy to respond to external forces – sometimes in rather unexpected ways. Active matter is usually found in the world of biology: think of a flock of birds behaving as one single entity that responds to external inputs like wind, terrain changes or the presence of food or a natural resting place.

Examples do not just come from the world of biology, though: active matter can also be constructed in the lab. Over the past few years, an international team of physicists at the universities of Amsterdam (The Netherlands), Cambridge (UK) and New South Wales (Sydney, Australia) have become experts at using simple ingredients like small motors, rods and rubber bands to construct active materials that have many surprising – and importantly: useful – properties. Two papers by the team have recently been accepted for publication.

Buckling and snapping

Take a paper ticket and compress it between two of your fingers. It will spontaneously lose its stability and buckle one way or the other. Now try to push the buckled state inwards with your other hand. It will resist at first, but then suddenly snap to the other side. The paper ticket is an inactive form of matter: when the external pressure forces it, it will only perform the buckling and snapping once.

As the researchers have now shown, buckling and snapping drastically change when materials become active. To construct an active material that can undergo buckling and snapping, the physicists connected a sequence of rods to form a chain, with small motors attached to the end points wherever two of these rods meet. The job of the motors was to make the interactions within the chain non-reciprocal: when rod A moves, rod B responds differently (by rotating over a different angle, for example) than rod A responds when rod B moves.

The surprising result was that the chains constructed in this way still showed buckling and snapping when external forces were applied, but this time not just a single buckle and snap: the process could repeat, and oscillations could occur. In technical terms, what happened was that the so-called critical point where the system snapped now became a critical exceptional point. In layman’s terms, this meant that the chains now could start to crawl, walk and even dig.

The paper about the results, with joint first authors Sami Al-Izzi from the University of New South Wales and Yao Du from the University of Amsterdam, was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, with an image of one of the buckling chains being used as the cover art for the journal.  The work demonstrates a new route to realizing materials that can act autonomously and have several functions – in particular, for use in flexible, “soft” robots. The active materials may form the basis for smarter robot bodies that operate independently of centralized control.

Sometimes, more is less

From building a bridge to assembling nanomechanical devices, when constructing something, engineers rely on many mechanical principles. One of these is known as Le Chatelier’s Principle, and it roughly states that what happens on a small scale, also happens on a large scale. For example, stiffening the components of a structure will stiffen the structure as a whole.

In recent work, the team of physicists have shown that when it comes to active matter, Le Chatelier’s principle does not always hold. In particular, when the building blocks of an active material become more active, the structure as a whole may actually become less active. The authors have shown this by connecting similar motors and rods, this time not in a chain but in a two-dimensional lattice-like structure. In their experiments they measured how the elasticity of this structure as a whole depended on the properties of the individual building blocks.

The crucial factor that determines the large-scale behaviour turned out to be the percolation of the active microscopic components throughout the material. Compare this to the percolation of water through coffee: when we make coffee, the powder should not be too dense, or the water will not get all the way through. Similarly, when there is a high density of less active components in a material, elastic responses will not always get through, even if all other components are extremely active.

A paper about this research, with first author Jack Binysh from the research group of Corentin Coulais at the University of Amsterdam, was recently accepted for publication in the journal Physical Review X. Binysh and his colleagues anticipate the discovered breaking of Le Chatelier’s Principle to be fundamentally important to researchers working with active microstructures such as biophysical gels, epithelial monolayers, and neuromorphic networks. Their work will be of broad interest across physics, soft matter science, mechanical engineering, life sciences, and robotics.

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Journal

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.5281/zenodo.17513595 

Article Title

Nonreciprocal buckling makes active filaments polyfunctional