Study: Climate change, agriculture cut insect populations in half in some areas


A study published Wednesday found that populations of insects, like this brown argus butterfly, have been cut by as much as half in some areas due to agriculture and climate change.

 Photo by krzysztofniewolny/Pixabay


April 20 (UPI) -- Climate change and agriculture are threatening insect biodiversity, and in some areas have cut insect populations by half, according to a study published Wednesday.

The study, which appeared in the scientific journal Nature, found that rising temperatures and changes in the way land is used are linked to widespread drops in insect populations around the world.

A team from the University College London's Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research analyzed nearly 20,000 insect species around the world.

They discovered that in regions with high-intensity agriculture and significantly warming climates, the number of insects was 49% lower than in habitats with no recorded climate change.

Impacted areas also experienced worsening biodiversity -- the number of insect species in those places were 29% lower than habitats with recorded climate change.

Insect populations in tropical ecosystems were hit the hardest by human influences, researchers found.

"Losing insect populations could be harmful not only to the natural environment, where insects often play key roles in local ecosystems, but it could also harm human health and food security, particularly with losses of pollinators," Dr. Charlie Outhwaite, the study's lead author and a research associate at UCL, told Science Daily.

"Our findings may only represent the tip of the iceberg as there is limited evidence in some areas, particularly in the tropics, which we found have quite high reductions in insect biodiversity in the most impacted areas."

In areas with low-intensity agriculture -- especially those with plenty of surrounding natural habitat -- losses to insect populations were much lower, researchers found.

Even in areas with rising temperatures, having at least three-fourths of the land occupied by natural habitat significantly buffered insect population decline.

In those areas, the number of insects dropped by only 7%, compared to a nearly two-thirds reduction in comparable areas with only one-fourth of natural habitat cover.

"The environmental harms of high-intensity agriculture present a tricky challenge as we try to keep up with food demands of a growing population," Dr. Tim Newbold, senior author and principal research fellow, told Science Daily.

He added that insect pollinators are especially vulnerable to agricultural expansion.

"Careful management of agricultural areas, such as preserving natural habitats near farmland, may help to ensure that vital insects can still thrive," Newbold said.

Glass windows kill billions of birds a year. Scientists are working to change that

Conservationists are trying to convince governments and building owners around the world to introduce changes to stop birds from flying into reflective glass. Experts say the solutions are surprisingly simple.


Glass buildings stop many migrating birds dead in their tracks

Divya Anantharaman points her flashlight under the wooden benches surrounding an office tower near Wall Street. At this time, the streets of New York are still the exclusive domain of early risers. But starting her weekly search and rescue mission at this ungodly hour is essential, she says.

She's looking for the victims of notorious bird killers: glass skyscrapers. When daylight breaks, doormen will sweep the sidewalks clean, and evidence of the dead will be lost.

Anantharaman volunteers for NYC Audubon, an urban conservation group that monitors bird deaths from window collisions. She inspects every dark corner on her route, looking through planters, careful not to miss a collision victim she could rescue. At the end of her round, she finds a dead bird beneath a gleaming glass overpass connecting two buildings.

It's an American woodcock, she thinks, a relatively common migrating bird with a long beak. Every spring, woodcocks pass through New York after spending the cold months in Alabama and other Gulf coast states. This bird is stiff, which means it recently died, Anantharaman says. "The eyes are still so clear — this may have happened minutes ago." She snaps photos, takes a solemn moment to close the eyelids with her thumb and puts the corpse into her pink backpack.

A casualty of a window collision in New York City

A billion birds and counting

Every year, 90,000 to 230,000 birds crash into New York buildings, NYC Audubon estimates. The city's concentration of illuminated buildings is a dangerous obstacle for winged travelers, especially during the spring and fall migration seasons.

New York sits on a migration route to South America, where many birds spend the winter. Since birds navigate using stars, artificial nighttime light attracts and disorients them. Believing they are flying toward starlight, the birds detour and land in the middle of an unfamiliar metropolis.

"The biggest problem is reflective glass," NYC Audubon biologist Kaitlyn Parkins says. "Birds don't see a reflection of a tree. To them, it's a tree. They fly at it, can accelerate very quickly and often die immediately."

In the US, where most of the research into bird collisions has been done, buildings are responsible for the deaths of up to 1 billion birds every year, the pioneering ornithologist Daniel Klem calculated in the 1990s. But glass windows are deathtraps all over the world.

"Birds are vulnerable to glass wherever birds and glass are found together. They don't see the bloody stuff," Klem says. He adds that it's not skyscrapers but rather low- and midrise buildings that pose the biggest threat.

Klem, now a professor at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania, considers window collisions a fundamental issue for the conservation of birds. "As a threat, I would put collision right after habitat destruction," he says. "What's so insidious is that windows kill indiscriminately. They also take the fittest in the population. We can't afford to lose any individual, let alone good breeders."

Volunteer Divya Anantharaman picks up a dead woodcock on the streets of New York

An international problem

In recent years, conservation groups and scientists have taken up the cause. Binbin Li leads one of two groups monitoring window strikes in China. She is an assistant professor of environmental sciences at Duke Kunshan University and earned a PhD at Duke in the US. There she met the leading researcher of the university's bird collision project.

"First, I thought this was only a problem at Duke, or in the States — I could not imagine seeing it here in China," she says. But, after her return, she got reports of three dead birds on campus within a month.

With a group of students, she now counts birds killed in flight on campus in Suzhou. Many of the victims, she notes, are found under glass corridors, just like the woodcock Anantharaman found in New York.

Li started a national survey to get a clearer picture of the problem. Three major migration pathways cut through China, but data on fatalities along these routes is still limited. "We realized that bird collision is not well-known in China, not even in academia," Li says.

'Just change the glass and turn off the lights'

In Costa Rica, Rose Marie Menacho had to convince her professors to let her investigate bird collisions as a PhD student eight years ago. "They didn't know much about this subject, didn't know it was a real problem," she recalls. "Even I was a bit shy saying I was studying this. I was a little ashamed because I thought it was not so big."

To understand the scale of the problem in the tropics, she now works with about 500 volunteers. Some store feathered corpses in their freezers, others send her reports and photos. "Not only migrating species collide," she says. Her volunteers recovered vibrantly colored quetzals and toucans with flamboyant oversize beaks. Both are local species.

A dead woodcock found on the streets of New York City

"Collision kills many birds who already have to deal with habitat loss, climate change, pesticides, et cetera," says Parkins, the biologist. "And it's so easy to solve — just change the glass and turn off the lights."

With the data they gather, Parkins and her team are trying to convince the owners of glass buildings to act. Usually, they don't need to replace any glass. Special foil can make it less reflective — and saves energy for heating and cooling. Markings on the windows can help birds see the structure. In one example, after a bird-friendly renovation of the Javits Convention Center, volunteers have found about 90% fewer dead birds around the building.

New York City adopted legislation in January to require public buildings to turn off lights at night during migration seasons. Since last year, architects must also use bird-friendly designs for all new buildings such as ultraviolet coating on glass, which is visible to birds but not to humans.

New regulations are a good start

On the sidewalk in front of Brookfield Place, an enormous office and shopping center on the southern tip of Manhattan, Rob Coover inspects a small bird. Daylight is still scarce, but he has already searched for dead birds for half an hour.

He checks carefully behind the piles of chairs the workers of a coffee shop will soon use on their terrace. Twice already he has bent over a tiny, stiff corpse to take photos. Now he again takes rubber gloves and plastic sandwich bags out of his backpack to pick up and preserve a body.

Rob Coover snaps photos of a victim of a window collision

Coover once found 27 birds in a single morning. A fellow volunteer made international headlines when she picked up 226 lifeless birds around One World Trade Center in a single hour last September.

"It's quite depressing, all these dead bodies," Coover says. Sometimes he finds a survivor and takes the wounded animal to a bird sanctuary. Dead bodies usually go into his freezer until he has time to take them to the headquarters of the conservation group, where they are collected and some are distributed to museums. "Before the pandemic, I went to work after my rounds and put them in the office freezer." No one ever noticed, he adds.

In the United States and Canada, volunteers are active in several communities, and the list of local governments enacting legislation to protect birds from buildings is growing. According to the nonprofit American Bird Conservancy, New York's law is one of the most effective additions. After studying bird collisions for almost half a century Daniel Klem is delighted. He finally sees the growing awareness he has been hoping for.

"Climate change is also a very serious issue — nobody is interested in distracting from that. But it's very complex, and it is going to take us a while to figure things out and convince people to do things responsibly," he says. "Bird collisions, that's something we could solve tomorrow. It's not complex; we just have to have the will."

Edited by: Ruby Russell

NYC doormen's union, residential owners agree to avert first strike in 31 years

By Ashley Williams

Residential apartment buildings are seen on the lower east side of New York City. The expected strike on Thursday would have been the first for residential building workers in the city in more than three decades. 

File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

April 20 (UPI) -- A strike that would have seen thousands of residential doormen in New York City walk off the job this week appears to have been averted by a tentative agreement on a new contract, union and realty officials said.

The deal was reached by the local 32BJ Service Employees International Union and the city's Realty Advisory Board on Tuesday. About 32,000 residential building workers voted for the strike over concerns about their contract, which expires Wednesday. The strike would have occurred Thursday.

The workers said they weren't seeking a large pay increase, but rather they wanted recognition for their roles as front-line workers.

As part of the tentative deal, workers at more than 3,000 buildings in New York City -- superintendents, doormen, handymen and porters -- will receive a 12.6% wage increase over four years, the Realty Advisory Board on Labor Relations said.

"We got a deal done that protects healthcare, with no premium sharing. We got a deal done that protects paid time off. We got a deal done that provides the economic security our members need in a time of rising inflation," 32BJ President Kyle Bragg said in a statement.

"We got a deal done that our members have earned and deserved. This contract honors the indispensable contributions that 32BJ members made throughout the [COVID-19] pandemic and includes pay bonuses -- a powerful recognition of our members' sacrifice."

The raise, which includes a onetime $3,000 bonus to counterbalance inflation impacts, will be the largest that 32BJ members have ever received, Bragg noted.

Union membership still must approve the agreement, which would run through April 20, 2026.

The deal also provides protected paid sick leave and vacation time and 100% employer-paid healthcare. Wages will rise by an average of $62,000 annually for doormen by the end of the contract.

The Realty Advisory Board negotiates collective bargaining agreements on behalf of building owners with unions that represent their maintenance and operating employees.

Board President Howard Rothschild called the agreement a show of the industry's "respect for our essential workers."

"The agreement builds on the important work [we] and 32BJ accomplished together throughout the pandemic, protecting jobs and maintaining solid health benefits," Rothschild said according to WABC-TV.

The city's residential workers carrying an increased workload during the pandemic was a key consideration of the negotiation process, both sides said.

"As people were contracting the virus rapidly at a maddening pace, our members continued to go to work every day to make sure the homes that they work in, the apartment buildings they work in, that the tenants that lived there were both safe and secure," Bragg said according to Spectrum News.


The deal covers workers in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island who serve roughly 1.5 million residents.

The strike on Thursday would have been the first for residential building service workers in the city since a 12-day walkout in 1991.

Germany: Left party leader Hennig-Wellsow steps down

A little over a year after taking over the leadership of the Left party, Susanne Hennig-Wellsow is stepping down, citing private reasons and a need for party renewal. She also criticized the party's handling of sexism.

Susanne Hennig-Wellsow is stepping down after leading the Left party for a little over a year

The co-leader of Germany's socialist Left party, Susanne Hennig-Wellsow, has announced that she is resigning "with immediate effect."

In a statement published online, the 44-year-old politician said there were a number of reasons behind her decision, including the "handling of sexism" in the party's ranks and the need for "new faces" to drive the Left's renewal.

Hennig-Wellsow also cited her young son, saying her "private situation" did not allow her to commit the necessary time and energy to the party.

"The Left also needs a chairwoman who is there for the party, with everything she has," the statement said.

 
Reports of sexual violence

Hennig-Wellsow criticized the Left's handling of sexism accusations, saying it exposed "glaring deficits" in the party.

"I apologize to those affected and support all efforts to make the Left a party in which sexism has no place," she said.

Last week, a report in German news magazine Der Spiegel detailed allegations of sexual violence in the Left party in the state of Hesse over a number of years. According to the report, the former partner of Janine Wissler, who is Hennig-Wellsow's fellow co-leader, was among those accused. In one alleged instance, a woman said she was filmed having sex when she was underage.

The party's federal executive board is expected to discuss the matter later on Wednesday

Watch video  25:49 Interview with Janine Wissler from the Left Party

Poor performance

Hennig-Wellsow also lamented the party's poor results in last year's federal election, which saw the Left suffer their worst showing since their official formation in 2007.

"A truly fresh start has failed to materialize," Hennig-Wellsow's statement said. "We were unable to deliver on the promise of being part of a forward-looking policy change because of our own weakness."

"Too few people believed that we were willing and able to actively shape this country for the better," she said.

Hennig-Wellsow led the Left party alongside Janine Wissler after taking over from former co-leaders Katja Kipping and Bernd Riexinger in February 2021.

nm/fb (AFP, dpa)

India: Court halts demolition of Muslim properties in Delhi

Government critics accuse the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP of using so-called demolition drives to intimidate the country's Muslim minority. But authorities say they are only targeting illegal structures.

A number of shops were destroyed in the Jahangirpuri demolition operation

India's Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered authorities in New Delhi to stop tearing down Muslim-owned shops and other structures near the site of recent communal clashes.

The order came after paramilitary forces and bulldozers moved into Jahangirpuri ⁠— a low-income, predominantly Muslim neighborhood in the capital's northwest ⁠— and razed several shops as well as the walls around a mosque.

The demolition followed clashes between Muslims and Hindus in the area over the weekend, leading to at least 20 arrests.

Authorities have responded to recent outbreaks of violence in other parts of the country with similar demolition drives.

A man weeds through what is left of his shop after it was razed by bulldozers

'A demolition of constitutional values'

Critics allege these operations are an attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to intimidate India's Muslim minority, which makes up around 14% of the population.

Rahul Gandhi, a leader of the opposition Congress party, called the drive "a demolition of India's constitutional values'' and "state-sponsored targeting" of low-income groups and minorities.

BJP leaders and hard-line Hindu groups affiliated with the party, however, say they are not targeting any particular religious group but are only enforcing the law.

Raja Iqbal Singh, mayor of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, which is ruled by the BJP, said there was no connection between the demolitions and the weekend clashes. Authorities were just tearing down "illegal buildings that have encroached onto the roads,'' he said.

The Supreme Court's decision followed a petition accusing municipal authorities of not giving local residents or shopkeepers advance warning.

The stay on the demolition will remain in force until a hearing scheduled for Thursday.

India has seen a spike in small-scale confrontations between Hindus and Muslims at religious processions in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, a number of homes and shops were torn down in the central state of Madhya Pradesh and western Gujarat state in the aftermath of communal violence there. Both states are ruled by the BJP.

Sweden: Far-right anti-Islam politician taps into backlash against immigration

A recent outbreak of violence in Sweden has drawn attention to a little-known politician who stages offensive provocations against Muslims. Experts say his rise comes amid a hardening of attitudes towards immigrants.


Plans by a far-right politician to publicly burn the Quran triggered days of rioting across several Swedish cities

When far-right Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan announced he was organizing a series of meetings across Sweden last week during which he planned to burn a copy of the Quran, Islam's holy book, the reaction was intense.

His first rallies were met by counter-protests with demonstrations escalating into riots across a string of cities. These resulted in burned cars, scuffles and arson that left some police and protesters injured.

While governments in the Middle East spoke out against the planned Quran burnings, Swedish police said Monday that some protesters who joined the riots and were suspected of being behind the violent flare-ups were actually linked to criminal gangs targeting Swedish police and society, not Paludan and his stunt.

In an interview with Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper on Sunday, Swedish Justice Minister Morgan Johansson called Paludan a "right-wing extremist fool, whose only goal is to drive violence and divisions."

Swedish police say some protestors linked to escalating violence were part of criminal gangs targeting law enforcement

Fanning the flames for political gain

In a statement posted by his Stram Kurs (Hard Line) party on Facebook, Paludan said over the weekend he had decided to call off demonstrations in the eastern cities of Linkoping and Norrkoping, both of which saw clashes, because Swedish authorities had, "shown that they are completely incapable of protecting themselves and me."

Some say the days-long unrest played into the hands of Paludan, whose Hard Line party contested the last elections in Denmark in 2019 on an anti-Islam platform but fell just short of the two percent threshold needed to enter parliament.

He is now focusing his attention on neighboring Sweden, where the 40-year-old, who has dual citizenship, plans to stand in September parliamentary elections.

"This is exactly the kind of publicity and violent reaction that Paludan wants so that he can point to it and say: 'this shows what kind of society Sweden has created by being so lax on immigration,'" Anders Widfeldt, a Swedish lecturer in politics at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, told DW.

Paludan is an extreme anti-Islam provocateur testing the limits of Sweden and Denmark's tradition of free speech

Who is Rasmus Paludan?

Widfeldt, who has researched right-wing movements and populism in Scandinavia, said Paludan previously used the same stunts in Denmark.

He has staged offensive protests against Muslims like tossing a book he claimed was the Quran into the air and letting it fall to the ground or wrapping the book in bacon, often in neighborhoods with large immigrant populations.

The lawyer, who grew up in Denmark, first gained notoriety through a series of online videos in which he made derogatory comments on Islam and its followers as well as Black people, and confronted people with his views in immigrant-dominated neighborhoods.

"Paludan argues this is a legitimate protest against what he thinks is an evil ideology," Widfeldt said. "It ties into ongoing debates in Denmark and Sweden about how far free speech can go and what amounts to legitimate critique and what amounts to an illegitimate provocation."

In 2020, supporters of Paludan burned a Quran in the Swedish city of Malmo, sparking violent protests. Paludan was banned from Belgium for a year, from Sweden for two years and expelled from France after signaling his intention to burn a Quran in Paris.

He was convicted and given a suspended jail term in Denmark in June 2020 for a string of offenses including racism and defamation. The criminal lawyer was disbarred for three years as a result.

"His extreme movement is focused on just one single issue and this is banning Islam and deporting all Muslims," Widfeldt said. "Though if you followed that policy, it would amount to ethnic cleansing."

Muslims consider any intentional damage or show of disrespect towards the Quran deeply offensive SO DO CHRISTIANS ABOUT THE BIBLE AND THE JEWS WITH THE TORAH

Hardening attitudes towards immigrants

Experts say the rise of extremists like Paludan has to be seen in the broader context of hardening attitudes towards immigrants in both Denmark and Sweden since the migration crisis of 2015 and 2016, when more than a million people from Africa and the Middle East fled to Europe.

Thousands arrived in the two Nordic countries with Sweden, which has a population of about 10 million, accepting more refugees per capita than any other European country.

"We have a situation where the population has become much more diverse. At the same time, there is a lot of gang violence in Sweden," Anders Hellstrom, a specialist in nationalist and populist movements and a senior lecturer at Malmo University told DW.

"This trope of linking crime and immigration and portraying Sweden as a place of violent immigrants — like Paludan does — is now quite common rhetoric. Russian state-sponsored media have long been peddling it."

In 2017, former US President Donald Trump made an infamous remark about Sweden during a campaign-style rally, suggesting the country's history of welcoming refugees was at the root of a violent attack that actually never happened.

At the time it sparked outrage in Sweden but experts say that link is now more widely accepted.

A 'mainstreaming of extremism'

The backlash against immigration has emboldened the rise of right-wing populism with even mainstream parties picking up far-right talking points and taking a tougher stance on migrants.

Denmark's 2019 elections made clear that the far-right Danish People's Party's anti-immigration agenda had been adopted by several mainstream parties on the left and the right.

In Sweden, the far-right Sweden Democrats, an anti-immigration political party with neo-Nazi roots, is now jockeying to enter government in upcoming September elections. The party wants many of those who have been granted asylum in Sweden in recent years to leave and has called the spread of Islam the country's "biggest threat."

"Once fringe, parties like the Sweden Democrats are all trying to attract the common man and saying 'we are super normal,'" Hellstrom said.

"So we're seeing a mainstreaming of extremism where it's normal to talk about Muslims and immigrants in a way that would have been considered extreme two decades ago. Someone like a Paludan then needs to find an even more extreme message to be heard."

Once a welcoming place for refugees, Sweden is worried about rising immigration and strains on its welfare system

'Not everything is going down the drain'

As for Rasmus Paludan's political future in Sweden, experts point out he does not yet have the number of signatures needed to secure his candidacy. Unlike Denmark, Sweden also has a higher four percent threshold to enter parliament.

Anders Widfeldt explained that Paludan's efforts to build a political platform in Sweden had also suffered a setback after revelations by a Danish tabloid that he had been involved in sex chats with young boys. Paludan has claimed it was innocent banter.

Some say it's important to take a more realistic view of developments in recent years.

"Since 2015, we have an extreme polarization in society. But we have regressive as well as progressive forces. You have a Rasmus Paludan but you also have a Greta Thunberg and the 'Fridays for Future' movement. There are reports of immigrants integrating into the labor market," Hellstrom said.

"It's important to have a nuanced picture and not believe that everything is going down the drain."

France: A Le Pen victory a burden on France's budget?

President Macron's economic manifesto doesn't enthuse every French voter. But when it comes to the plans of his opponent Marine Le Pen, economists have said they could have severe financial consequences.


In France's presidential election campaign five years ago, far-right candidate Marine Le Pen's economic program turned out to be one of her weak points.

As in this year's election, she was facing centrist Emmanuel Macron — the current president — in the runoff vote.

During a television debate a few days ahead of the 2017 second ballot, Macron called Le Pen's plans for the country to exit the eurozone and renegotiate European treaties "lethal for [France's] spending power and competitiveness."

Le Pen had difficulties countering his criticism and repeatedly got lost in the numerous dossiers she had piled up on the table in front of her, quoting erroneous pieces of information.

The extremist candidate has now officially dropped her eurozone exit plans. But economists say implementing her manifesto would ultimately lead to the same result — and trigger an international financial crisis.

Le Pen is, like in the 2017 election, depicting herself as "the candidate of [increased] spending power." She has promised to reduce value added tax from 20% to 5.5% for energy products such as fuel, and scrap that tax for certain basic goods.

French consumers may be in for a nasty surprise should Le Pen succeed Macron

Measures that could lead to stagflation

But Philippe Crevel, economist and head of Paris-based policy center Cercle de l'Epargne, has called such measures counterproductive and accused Le Pen of brinkmanship.

"Prices would initially go down, but that would push up consumer demand and ultimately prices, as there are not suddenly more products available on the market," he told DW.

He explained that only higher productivity — i.e. more products generated per input such as labor — could boost spending power, as the additional money could be spent on additional available goods.

Le Pen has equally promised to encourage wage increases by waiving employers' charges on those salary rises. "But that would again cause inflation: To balance out wage increases, companies — especially as they are faced with rising prices for resources also due to the war in Ukraine — would raise product prices," said Crevel.

The economist thinks that, in time, the proposed measures would trigger a stagflation. That's a combination of stagnating growth and high inflation.

"It would be similar to what happened after the oil shock in the 1970s; we would see mass unemployment, which would first of all hit the workers," he said.

An 'absurd' and 'deeply immoral' program

Henri Sterdyniak, economist at the Paris-based left-leaning research center Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques, agrees that Le Pen's program is unlikely to help the less fortunate and calls it "absurd."

"She plans to take down France's wind turbines and give any subsidy money instead to the French. And people under 30 will be exempt from income tax, but why should young good earners not pay taxes? All this doesn't make sense," he told DW.

"Plus, her measures are deeply immoral: Foreigners would be asked to pay up and French nationals would have priority when it comes to jobs, housing or social benefits," he added.

The economist also strongly disagrees with bringing down employers' charges: "Our public debt is excessive, currently at 113% of GDP — we need to finance our social state somehow!" he said.

Sterdyniak has criticized Macron's program for that same reason. The current president pledges to triple the so-called "Macron premium," a €1,000 ($1,080) year-end bonus exempt from taxes and employers' charges that has been in place since 2018.

"This is a dangerous game and hardly compatible with Macron's promise to increase the minimum pension by more than €100 to €1,100," warned Sterdyniak.

Will Macron be able to push through further reforms?

Overall, Macron's manifesto includes fewer concrete measures and is much less detailed than that of Le Pen. He mainly pledges to continue doing what he's been doing since 2017: market-orientated reforms. He also plans to further liberalize the labor market, bring down business taxes and increase the retirement age to 65, from the current 62.

Economist Crevel said a pension reform makes perfect sense, given rising public debt.

"And yet, pushing his plans through should be increasingly difficult as many French are opposed to these," he explained. The president's first term in power was disrupted by numerous demonstrations such as those by the so-called yellow vest movement that blocked the country for months asking for more social justice.

Macron has, meanwhile, already started to water down his plans mainly to convince the 22% of the electorate that chose far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon, who came third in the first ballot on April 10. Macron has announced he could lower the pension age target to 64, and submit his plans to a referendum. He has also said he'd include more ecological measures in his program.

Stanislas Hannoun, head of the campaign for fiscal justice and against inequality at the federation of charitable organizations, Oxfam France, has welcomed these shifts. His group has screened the candidates' manifestos looking for social, ecological and gender justice content.

"Macron performed really poorly, even if Le Pen looks even worse," Hannoun told DW.

"The president is calling himself progressive — he should walk the walk by for example exempting alimony from tax," he added.

Lisa Thomas-Darbois fears a Le Pen victory would be a heavy burden on France's public budget

Le Pen's plans would 'undermine investors' trust'

Institut Montaigne, a Paris-based think tank close to the employers, has also screened the contenders' manifestos — for their fiscal sustainability.

"Both would increase the burden on the public budget, but Le Pen's plans would mean a bottom line of roughly €101 billion of extra spending compared with an overall cost of €44 billion for Macron's program," Institut Montaigne's Lisa Thomas-Darbois told DW.

"What's more, many of Le Pen's proposals contradict French law and the country's international commitments, which would undermine investors' trust," she said.

"But that trust is crucial to maintain low interest rates for France, which the country relies upon to refinance its public debt," she added.

Le Pen plans to set up a new national fund to nationalize certain strategic sectors such as highways. French companies would be given priority in public tenders. And French products would benefit from a concept of "national preference."

"All those protectionist measures would infringe EU law — the national preference rule for example would mean the government would levy import tariffs," macroeconomist Crevel explained, adding that the plans would eventually lead to a Frexit, France leaving the EU.

"Le Pen seems to bank on the EU ultimately kicking France out, as the country would be going against too many EU rules and create too much instability," he said.

And a Frexit would have international repercussions.

"Several French banks are systemic to the eurozone and their exit from the euro system would cause worldwide ripples; it would trigger an international financial crisis," he warned.

Cracking down on peace: How Russian anti-war protesters face persecution

Russian authorities are attempting to intimidate opponents of the war in Ukraine. Courageous activists in Kazan report what they have been doing and what consequences they face. A report from Tatarstan.

Laws in Russia make it illegal to protest the war in Ukraine in any form, silent or otherwise

A law prohibiting the "discrediting the Russian Armed Forces" has been in force for a little more than a month now. Since then, courts across Russia have investigated more than 300 allegations. Criminal prosecutions have been brought in at least 21 cases. In some instances, the defendants had boisterously called for peace and an end to the bloodshed in Ukraine, in others they held silent protests against the war.

"There is a police station that I always pass on my way to and from work. I have been doing so for the last year-and-a-half and no police officer has ever taken any notice of me. That was also the case for a month after I tied a green ribbon on my backpack," says Alexei from Kazan, whose name has been changed at his request.

'Symbol of an illegal protest'

Activists have been holding peace protests in various cities across Russia since the invasion of Ukraine. They display green ribbons in public squares, or wear them as a sign of silent protest against the war. Alexei was arrested in the center of Kazan, the capital of the semi-autonomous Russian Republic of Tatarstan. He says the green ribbon on his backpack was originally a sign of support for the fight against kidney cancer. But Alexei does not dispute that he was also showing solidarity with opponents of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

"At the police station I witnessed a very interesting situation. The department head kept on calling someone to find out what I should be charged with. First, one report was drafted, then a second, and ultimately, everything was rewritten," Alexei recalls. Finally, he was accused of undermining trust in the Russian Armed Forces "in the presence of citizens." According to the report, Alexei was carrying a black backpack with a green ribbon — an illegal protest symbol.
More and more street arrests

A few days ago, Azat Sabirov and Irina Badertdinova were detained in Kazan. They had swapped supermarket price tags for anti-war slogans. For example, price tags on one shelf for coffee suddenly read: "The Russian army has bombarded the art school in in Mariupol. Some 400 people were trying to shelter from gunfire there." Both are now also accused of "undermining trust in the Russian Armed Forces." But neither their case, nor Alexei's has been brought to trial yet.

Young and old Russians are refusing to stay silent, risking fines and jail to call for an end to violence in neighboring Ukraine

In the meantime, people in Kazan have been reporting more and more detentions on the streets over the past few days. One citizen, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he was stopped because he was wearing a blue scarf and a yellow jacket — the colors of the Ukrainian flag. Another reported that she was arrested because she had put up anti-war flyers in public toilets. Another man still, says he was detained because he was carrying a bouquet of dried blue and yellow flowers.

"When the war began, I attended a vigil. Two police officers came up to me and we had a conversation. We didn't share the same opinion but they did not try to convince me," according to another man, who adds: "When I ended up at the police station a few weeks later, there was no more talk. They wrote a report and were pleased that they were going to get a special arrest bonus." He says none of the police officers used the word "war," but just talked about the Russian army's "special operation" in Ukraine.
Raids and trials

Before the arrests started in Kazan, raids were carried out at the homes of journalists, activists and students. There were three different waves on March 6, 17, and 25. Many of those affected complain they were the victims of police violence.

"During the raids there were dreadful insults, humiliation, threats and beatings to my head and back. I was put in handcuffs and forced to kneel for three or four hours. They threatened to strip my 69-year-old mother naked if I did not tell them where my cellphone was," wrote activist Andrei Boyarshinov, who also lives in Kazan. He passed his report to journalists; DW has attained a copy. Boyarshinov, who is now being held in custody in a prison, is accused by authorities of having publicly called for terrorist acts. He rejects the allegations.

Police crackdowns are intensifying across Russia say anti-war protesters

Three other Kazan residents, Marina Ionova, Timur Tuchvatullin and Ruslan Terentyev, are accused by authorities of having organized mass unrest after the raids. The allegation is based on a post on the Telegram messaging app channel used by the protest movement in Kazan. In it, a user nicknamed Mickey Mouse had called for violence at the protests. The post has disappeared in the meantime. The activists have not been detained as of yet and their lawyers say the allegations are trumped up. "I cannot say whether all these posts and articles are real. I have only seen one screen shot but it is unclear where it came from," says Ruslan Ignatyev, a lawyer representing Timur Tuchvatullin.
The aim: to silence people

People living in other Russian regions — from Kaliningrad to Magadan — have similar stories to tell. Anti-war flyers, graffiti, clothing in the colors of the Ukrainian flag all discredit the Russian Armed Forces, according to police and judges.

"Such persecution is really happening en masse. People who criticize the military deployment more often and more loudly than others are implicated in different ways in ongoing proceedings. All of that, of course, is simply intended to intimidate. The authorities believe they can silence people with raids and criminal prosecutions," says human rights lawyer Elsa Nizanbekova.

In most cases, people found guilty of "discrediting the operation of the Russian Armed Forces" are simply fined. But anyone found to have committed anti-war "crimes" again within a year of paying their fine can expect to face prison.

This article was originally written in Russian

Opinion: Germany, scapegoat of the Ukraine war

Germany is being criticized by Ukraine and other countries in Europe, but that is unfair says DW's Marco Müller, because Germany is doing more to help Kyiv than almost any other country.


German Chancellor Olaf Scholz faces domestic and international criticism

Demand. Snub. Demand. Snub — that seems to be the pattern Ukraine is currently following in talks with and about Germany. That recently included making clear that German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was not welcome to visit Kyiv after Ukrainian leadership criticized his previous policies on Russia and after Steinmeier admitted having made mistakes.

The template has been very successful. German media are also jumping on the bandwagon. Not a day goes by when Berlin is not shamed publicly, without critical journalists asking members of the German government why we are not finally giving up Russian oil and gas, and why Germany is not supplying Ukraine with all the weapons the country has requested. It is an increasingly annoying and utterly superfluous spectacle.

Germany more supportive of Ukraine than most

For one thing, Germany, along with the US, has been Ukraine's largest donor since the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Second, apart from Ukraine's immediate neighbors, Germany is one of the countries that takes in the most Ukrainian refugees.

Third, Germany is one of Ukraine's top financial backers for arms purchases. Chancellor Olaf Scholz recently announced Germany is shelling out up to €2 billion ($2.1 billion) in military aid. And he has left no doubt that we must stand by Ukraine in the war against Russia.

DW's Marco Müller

In that context, how clever is it of the Ukrainian government to constantly antagonize the German government with new, harshly worded demands? When Germany supplies desired weapons, Kyiv says: That's good, but it should be much more. When Germany announces nothing less than a paradigm shift by turning its back on Russian coal, oil and gas, it says: That's well and good, but it has to happen immediately.

Is a 180 degree turnabout not good enough?

People tend to forget that Germany has made a U-turn of unprecedented magnitude. The Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has been stopped and €100 billion have been earmarked for the German armed forces in a plan Scholz announced shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Germany is paying for arms deliveries to a war zone. The German government is starting to cut its close and extremely important ties with Russia regarding raw materials. The economy minister, a Green party politician, traveled to the Middle East to buy oil and gas while thinking out loud about letting German coal and nuclear power plants run longer than planned. These are all extreme course changes in an incredibly short period of time. What other European countries have changed their policies as drastically as Germany has — and at such high cost?

Scapegoat for other EU nations

Even more irritating than Kyiv's unfriendly attitude, however, is the behavior of other European countries. Those who take no action themselves but hide behind Germany or even point a finger at Berlin — one could get the impression that it is all about image.

French President Emmanuel Macron made several unsuccessful phone calls in an attempt to influence Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin. He also made sure the soccer Champions League final, which was supposed to take place in Russia, will be played in France. The country is not quite as decisive when it comes to bringing refugees to France.

Italy said, publicly and wholeheartedly, that it could immediately do without Russian gas. Meaning that if Europe fails to enact a gas embargo it is because of other member states — read: Germany. Poland, without first coordinating with allies, is publicly pushing to deliver airplanes to Ukraine — but only through the US via an airbase in Germany. If the planes are not delivered, says Warsaw, it is because of the US or Germany. Hungary gets off scot-free — at least in the eyes of the German public — with its Russia-friendly course. Budapest happily accepts cheap Russian gas and, if necessary, says it will foot the bill in rubles.

Discord only benefits Putin

People could get the impression that some EU member states would not mind seeing Germany lose face, or forfeit some of its economic strength and prosperity.

Schadenfreude? Perhaps. But the fact is it always takes two to play the blame game with all its demands and compliance — one party to make loud demands and point fingers and another party to take it lying down.

So why the superfluous spectacle? After all, everyone shares the same goal — ending Russia's war in Ukraine. So why sow discord? It only benefits one person: Vladimir Putin.

This article has been translated from German.

420 day: Berlin pro-cannabis rally demands immediate legalization

Hundreds of marijuana users gathered in the German capital to mark 420, the annual cannabis celebration, to demand legalization of the drug. Germany's new government has promised a new law.



At least 500 pro-legalization protesters gathered in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on Wednesday for 420, the annual April 20 celebration marked by cannabis consumers around the world, to urge the government to move forward with its plans to decriminalize the drug.

The police presence, enough to fill several police vans parked around the demo, prevailed on organizers to turn the German hip-hop and rap music down, but made no overt attempt to trace the many clouds of smoke hanging above the small crowd.

The gathering was made up of activists, rappers, former police officers, patients who use cannabis for treatments and several small business owners who used the opportunity to promote cannabis-friendly products, from "ecological" hemp and beeswax firelighters to an all-in-one cannabis grow kit, complete with fume extractor and power unit.

Martin Montana (left) said the government could decriminalize cannabis tomorrow if it wanted to

Promises but no action

An estimated 4 million people in Germany consume cannabis, and the coalition contract presented by Chancellor Olaf Scholz's new government last December was clear enough about its aims. "We will introduce the controlled distribution of cannabis to adults for recreational purposes in licensed stores," the government promised, before detailing the reasons: "This will ensure quality, prevent the proliferation of impure substances and guarantee youth protection. We will evaluate the law's social consequences after four years."

But five months on and there has been no word or timetable about when legal stores might be opened, and pro-cannabis activists are getting impatient at what they consider unnecessary foot-dragging. After all, the Green party, now a part of the government coalition, has already presented a draft law to the Bundestag in the last few years and seen it defeated.

"All they have to do is sign it," said Martin Montana, dressed in a suit decorated from head to foot with florescent green marijuana leaves. "What's important is protecting young people, making sure it's not dealt in schoolyards — all that's logical, just like with alcohol."

Montana is a former soldier who said he used cannabis to cope with the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. "I need it to control my flashbacks, and for the last 20 years I've managed to do that," he said. "I just want to do that peacefully and legally."

Watch video 01:46 Is Canada a model for German cannabis legalization?

The pro-legalization judge

One of Germany's most famous and passionate legalization campaigners is Andreas Müller, a judge at a Berlin juvenile court, who has been persistently outraged at the amount of police and judicial time he thinks is wasted on prosecuting drug consumers.

"I thought it would happen quickly now, I thought they'd bring a draft law into parliament," the 60-year-old told DW. "There's a Green party draft law ready to go."

But rushing through a law would be counterproductive, according to the government. A spokesman for Burkhard Blienert, the federal commissioner for drugs and addiction, said that several ministries have to be included in framing the law, listing the Agriculture, Economy, Finance, Justice and Foreign ministries as examples. "Each of these houses must make a contribution, and all these contributions have to be minutely coordinated with one another," the spokesman told DW in a statement. "Also the state governments, local authorities, schools, addiction help organizations, and police have to prepare for the altered situation."

"Mr. Blienert regularly emphasizes that rushed jobs would not do justice to the complexity of the plan," the spokesman said. "The aim is to make a success of the agreement on cannabis in the coalition contract that endures beyond a day."

Cannabis-friendly entrepreneurs took to the streets of Berlin on Wednesday

The grinding cogs of government

Müller has absolutely no time for such arguments. "The police don't have to prepare at all! They'll be completely unburdened the very next day, with just one little law!" he said. "I know a lot of police officers, I spent 20 years as a lecturer for the police, and they would be very happy if they didn't have to pursue people."

Two pro-legalization organizations, the German Hemp Association (DHV) and the Network for Legalization, have set up an online stat-ticker — based on criminal statistics and a DHV study on the potential tax revenue of legalized cannabis — that counts the estimated number of "consumption-related" criminal prosecutions and the estimated lost taxes with every second the government fails introduce legal cannabis sales. On April 20, 132 days into the new German government, the ticker stood at over 68,000 prosecutions and over €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion).

A study published last year by the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf calculated that dealing with cannabis-related crime incurred €1.63 billion in police costs in 2020, plus €444.7 million in court costs. Factoring in both savings and tax revenue, the study found, cannabis legalization could bring the state €4.7 billion a year.

Another prominent speaker at Wednesday's demo was Hubert Wimber, former police president in the city of Münster and now head of the German branch of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), an organization of police officers and lawyers.

Watch video 29:01Flipping the Script – Should Germany legalize cannabis?

Wimber said decriminalization was just an initial step. "It's about creating a regulated market with the aim of pushing back and ultimately destroying the black market," he told DW. "That's what we all want as consumers: A transparent market with reasonable criteria for active ingredients and concrete youth protection rules. I know from my experience that criminal markets do not protect young people at all."

Though decriminalization would have an instant effect, and could be done quickly, the process of legalization could take several years, as it would involve setting up the farming, processing, and retail sale of cannabis in licensed stores.

Medicinal cannabis has been legal in Germany since 2017, and, in practice, many cannabis-related prosecutions in Germany are dropped by state prosecutors because the amounts involved are so low. "But at the same time, there are 57,000 convictions in German courts of consumers of illegal drugs," said Wimber. "That's a scandal — consumers don't harm anyone, they don't infringe on the rights of any other people. It's completely absurd."

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