Olympics: Convicted CHILD rapist booed at first volleyball match

Jonathan Crane in Paris07/28/2024

Steven van de Velde, a Dutch beach volleyball player, did not receive a warm reception before his Olympic debut. His participation in the Paris Games is controversial due to a 2016 child rape conviction.


https://p.dw.com/p/4ipst

Steven van de Velde wasn't given a warm welcome when his name was announced before the match

Image: Tom Bloch/Beautiful Sports/IMAGO

With cameras pointing at him, Steven van de Velde warmed up for his first match of the beach volleyball tournament at the Paris Olympics, alongside his playing partner Matthew Immers.

Under normal circumstances, such a warmup session would be of little significance and even less interest. But Van de Velde's participation at these Olympics is anything but normal.

In 2016, the Dutchman was convicted of raping a 12-year-old British girl whom he had met on Facebook in 2014 when he was 19. He received a four-year prison sentence but served only 12 months in the UK before being transferred back to the Netherlands, where he served just one month, as there, the crime was seen as less severe.

Away from the glare of the public, the warmup session was to be the calm before the storm.

Van de Velde, now 29, was loudly booed when he was introduced to the crowd by name before his country's pool match against an Italian pair on Sunday, although the Dutch fans in attendance tried to drown out the negative noise with some cheers.
Van de Velde's participation shows 'attitude of entitlement'

As the booing suggested, Van de Velde's participation in Paris has caused widespread anger and concern, with a petition calling for him to be disqualified from the Games nearing 100,000 signatures.

Sarah McGrath, CEO of Women for Women France, told DW it was "unacceptable that Van de Velde has been allowed to come to France to compete."

McGrath, whose organization supports victims of gender-based violence, added that Van de Velde's decision "to continue with this participation, despite calls from survivor advocate groups, shows an attitude of entitlement and a total lack of concern for the harm this will cause rape survivors."

The Dutch Olympic Committee argues that Steven van de Velde (right) deserves to compete; not everybody agrees

Image: Pro Shots/IMAGO

However, sports authorities in the Netherlands have stood by Van de Velde, who returned to international competition soon after his release from jail.

In a statement released ahead of the Games, the Dutch Olympic Committee said that the player's return to action was made possible thanks to a "specialist treatment programme" and that Van de Velde had met "all the stringent risk assessment thresholds, checks and due diligence."

He is not living at the Olympic village with the other athletes to ensure a "safe sporting environment for all participants" and has been given a pass from the usually obligatory media duties.

Those instead fell solely to Immers, Van de Velde's 23-year-old teammate, who told reporters after the match that the pair were "disappointed" by the attention that the incident has created.

"What's in the past is in the past," Immers said. "He had his punishment and now he's really kind. For me that's a big example that [he] grew and learned a lot from it. Of course, what happened in the past is not good."

Olympic officials won't block Van de Velde's participation

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has so far chosen not to intervene, saying it was the responsibility of the Dutch Olympic Committee to pick its team.

However, that is despite the IOC's own rules giving it the final say on who competes at the Games.

Asked by DW at Saturday's daily press briefing if the IOC felt comfortable and happy with the idea of a convicted rapist taking part in the Olympics, the organization's spokesperson, Mark Adams, said: "To characterize it as comfortable and happy would not be correct."

Adams added: "This crime occurred 10 years ago. There's a great deal of rehabilitation that's taken place and there's also very strong safeguarding in place. We feel that the statement they [the Dutch Olympic Committee] have given us is correct and we will continue with the situation as it is."

For McGrath, sports authorities have failed to "fully grasp what a serious crime the rape of a child is," and she questioned their leadership and judgement.

"The International Olympic Committee must open an investigation into how this was allowed to happen and use this as a wakeup call," she said.
'Victims must bear a lifetime of trauma'

Some argue that Van de Velde deserves a second chance, having served his time and undergone "professional counselling." In an interview with Dutch public broadcaster NOS in 2018, he called the incident the "biggest mistake" of his life.

The Dutch Olympic Committee says there's no risk of a relapse into his previous behavior, and one of its press officers told reporters after the Italy match that the incident shouldn't be brought up at the Olympics.

INSTANT KARMA

Matthews Immers and Steven van de Velde lost their opening match 2-1 to their Italian opponents

Image: Koen van Weel/ANP/IMAGO

"The general matter of sex convictions … is definitely a much bigger issue than sport," said John van Vliet, the press officer.

"But in his case, we've got a person who has been convicted, did his sentence and did everything afterwards to be able to compete again."

However, McGrath dismisses such attitudes as "misguided."

"Van de Velde was not convicted of theft of a car, he was convicted of raping a child," she said. "A child who was so distressed by the rape that she self-harmed.

"Van de Velde's participation tells survivors once again that a man's career and reputation is more important than their trauma; victims must bear a lifetime of trauma but perpetrators can go on to have successful high-profile careers representing their country."

In some acknowledgement of the seriousness of the situation, Immers expressed concern for Van de Velde's victim when asked by DW how he thinks she feels when watching him compete.

"For sure, it's not nice," he said.

Edited by: Chuck Penfold

Sixth Edition of ‘The Evidence’: We Need a New Approach to Preventing Sexual Violence  

By Joe Sweeney

July 26, 2024  231

In this month’s installment of The Evidence newsletter, journalist Josephine Lethbridge explores recent research into sexual violence prevention programs and interviews experts on why it’s time to take a new approach. 

Between 1985 and 2015, rates of sexual violence on U.S. university campuses remained constant. Worryingly, these figures may have increased in recent years. 

This is despite the millions that universities and the US government have spent on prevention programs. Officials and researchers have been left wondering: why have these significant financial investments failed to produce the intended real-world impact? 

A recent meta-analysis covering all previous global research on sexual violence prevention programs has the answer. 

Up until now, the prevailing belief has been that changing people’s attitudes was key to lowering rates of sexual violence.  

This is reflected in the approaches taken by many awareness programs. A central focus of these programs is on dispelling “rape myths” like “some women deserve to be raped” and “when women say no, they really mean yes.”  

But as new research demonstrates, these interventions have not lowered rates of sexual violence because changing a person’s beliefs does not encourage them to act differently.  

So, what lessons can we learn from this meta-analysis?  

For some, this discovery is a “damning wake-up call to the field of sexual violence prevention.”  

Yet for Elise Lopez, one of the authors of an accompanying comment piece, there are reasons to be positive about the findings.  

Talking about the potential impact of the study, Lopez said, “When you identify a fundamental flaw, you can stop recreating the wheel and instead grasp the opportunity to create something new.” 

Ana Gantman, who co-authored the study, reflected on past prevention programs. She commented: “Changing people’s perceptions is still important! But this just isn’t the right lever to pull to reduce sexual violence rates.”  

Read this month’s full newsletter. An archive of previous issues can be accessed through Social Science Space. 

Sage – the parent of Social Science Space – sponsors The Evidence, a bold new feminist newsletter that covers everything you need to know about the latest social and behavioral science research into gender inequality. The newsletter makes research accessible and understandable, empowering readers to respond to today’s crises by making changes in their communities, their workplaces, or in the laws of their country. 

Joe Sweeney
Joe Sweeney is a corporate communications at Sage. Prior to working for Sage he earned a master’s degree in English literature, with a focus on photography, architecture, and fiction writing from 1900—present.View all posts by Joe Sweeney

 

President Biden Is Getting Serious About Supreme Court Reform

It's hard not to read his op-ed in The Washington Post without imagining that an expanded Court may be the gun on the table in Act One.

By Charles P. PiercePublished: Jul 29, 2024 

Tom Williams//Getty Images

Somebody in the White House woke up over the weekend and discovered that they had been transported to the golden sunshine and verdant fields of DGAF Island. After several decades spent in the throes of Institutional Love as regards the Supreme Court, the president who, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, couldn't bring himself to investigate fully the entire array of charges against Clarence Thomas, and who oversaw the elevation of William Rehnquist to Chief Justice and the virtually unanimous installation on the Court of Antonin Scalia, now has called for the most sweeping reform of the Supreme Court since FDR tried to pack it. Or, perhaps, since the Judiciary Act of 1801. And he is not shy about the reasons why. From The Washington Post:

But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 to grant presidents broad immunity from prosecution for crimes they commit in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. The only limits will be those that are self-imposed by the person occupying the Oval Office. If a future president incites a violent mob to storm the Capitol and stop the peaceful transfer of power — like we saw on Jan. 6, 2021 — there may be no legal consequences. And that’s only the beginning.

On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents — including Roe v. Wade — the court is mired in a crisis of ethics. Scandals involving several justices have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence, which are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law. For example, undisclosed gifts to justices from individuals with interests in cases before the court, as well as conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, raise legitimate questions about the court’s impartiality.

Hi there, Ginny Thomas. Yes, those are footsteps you're hearing. Why do you ask?

The president's prescription for straightening out this ethical and political landfill is made up of some easily understandable solutions.

First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute.

Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.

Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced...Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.

No, he's not calling for an expanded Court, but nobody can feel the ambition behind this plan and not think that an expanded Court may be the gun on the table in Act One. And, yes, even these common sense reforms stand less of a chance in this current Congress than the Wilmot Proviso does, and it died in the Senate almost 180 years ago. But the issue us clearly engaged for this campaign, It gives downballot Democrats something very substantial to run on. And it ties the current Court securely to MAGA World with iron bands. After all, the GOP has a vice-presidential candidate who doesn't believe in anything at all about governing, and a presidential candidate who doesn't understand anything at all about governing. Go ahead, says the president, who is still the president, from under a shady tree on DGAF Island. Run against ethics. Run against yet another policy favored by huge majorities of the voting public. I'll just sit here, so contentedly, and watch the river flow.

Related Story

• J.D. Vance Sucks

Charles P. Pierce

Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976. 

Charlie Kirk: “Kamala Harris seeks to kidnap your child via the trans agenda”

Kirk: “This is pure, unadulterated Marxism. The destruction of the nuclear family as we know it. ... Kamala Harris is in favor of this.”

Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 07/29/24

From the July 29, 2024, edition of The Charlie Kirk Show, streamed on Rumble

CHARLIE KIRK (HOST): President Trump then zeroed in on a very, very effective attack vector against Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris will now have to answer for the idea that teachers in California are not allowed to tell parents when their kids are medically transitioning. So, let's pretend you are a 6th grade teacher in Orange County, California, in Huntington Beach, California- you're a 6th grade teacher and a kid begins to identify as Steve instead of Susie. As a 6th grade teacher in Huntington Beach, California, you are not allowed to call up the parent. You are not allowed to notify the parent. This is pure, unadulterated Marxism. The destruction of the nuclear family as we know it. Where parents are no longer even allowed to know that their kids are being called by different names receiving medical treatments. Kamala Harris is in favor of this.

Kamala Harris and her gang of California radicals and mobsters have been pushing for the state to have more power than parents. President Trump exploited this and attacked it. And every Christian in the country, you better understand that if Kamala Harris becomes president, she will nationalize this California law and make it so that the state can kidnap your child under trans-related issues. Kamala Harris seeks to kidnap your child via the trans agenda.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FAMILY VALUES 

NPR reporting makes clear the actual scope of California's new law:

California became the first U.S. state to bar school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child's gender identification change under a law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The law bans school rules requiring teachers and other staff to disclose a student's gender identity or sexual orientation to any other person without the child's permission. Proponents of the legislation say it will help protect LGBTQ+ students who live in unwelcoming households. But opponents say it will hinder schools' ability to be more transparent with parents.

The legislation comes amid a nationwide debate over local school districts and the rights of parents and LGBTQ+ students.

“This law helps keep children safe while protecting the critical role of parents,” Brandon Richards, a spokesperson for Newsom, said in a statement. “It protects the child-parent relationship by preventing politicians and school staff from inappropriately intervening in family matters and attempting to control if, when, and how families have deeply personal conversations.”

The new law comes after several school districts in California passed policies requiring that parents be notified if a child requests to change their gender identification. That led to pushback by Democratic state officials, who say students have a right to privacy.

In Sudan’s catastrophe, food runs out as guns flow freely

The effects of the war in Sudan can be measured in superlatives: the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis, largest education crisis and biggest hunger crisis.

Column by Ishaan Tharoor
July 29, 2024
WASHINGTON POST

Soldiers from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces ride by a destroyed tank belonging to the Sudanese Armed Forces in El Geneina, the capital of West Darfur, Sudan. (Diana Zeyneb Alhindawi for The Washington Post)

One of the worst famines in decades is on the verge of breaking out in Africa’s third-largest country. Sudan is in the grips of more than 15 months of ruinous civil strife that’s led to untold calamity and horror. Though casualty figures are far from clear, the top U.S. envoy to the region recently suggested that some 150,000 people may have been killed since the conflict between two rival warlords exploded last year. Now, the United Nations claims that some 750,000 people are on the brink of starvation. Western officials liken what’s unfolding to the famine in Somalia in 2011, where a quarter of a million people died, half of whom were children.

The war’s vast effects are already measured in superlatives: Sudan is home to the world’s biggest internal displacement crisis, with some 11 million people forced by the fighting to flee their homes. Sudan is home to the world’s largest education crisis, with most schools shuttered and some 19 million children unable to attend classes. And it’s home to the world’s biggest hunger crisis: An estimated 26.6 million people — more than half the population — is “food insecure,” according to U.N. agencies, while 14 areas in the country have been declared “at risk of famine.”

The country is being torn apart by forces loyal to two former allies — Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, top commander of the Sudanese military, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, universally referred to as Hemedti, chief of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a faction that traces its antecedents to the genocidal campaigns of the Janjaweed militia in the western Darfur region two decades ago. Rather than burying the hatchet, both sides seem bent on further bloodying their enemies as the war sprawls across the country after flaring in the capital, Khartoum, in April 2023.

They blame each other for the suffering unleashed on the civilian population, with numerous reports of massacres, mass rapes and other atrocities. Bombardments and airstrikes indiscriminately flatten neighborhoods. There are documented cases of war crimes, particularly involving the RSF and allied militias slaughtering ethnic non-Arabs in towns and cities they’ve seized. Widespread looting and violence wrecked harvests across Sudan’s agricultural sector, and relief groups complain of severe difficulties bringing aid into the country.

A team of my Washington Post colleagues recently toured through five cities in Sudan and recounted the scale of the disaster. “In the emergency wards, the hennaed hands of mothers fanned the twig-like ribcages of babies struggling for breath, and other parents told of sleeping children killed in their beds when artillery shells crashed into their neighborhoods,” my colleagues reported. “Prisoners and soldiers alike spoke of young men shot far from home, their corpses decaying in the heat, before they were flung in unmarked graves.”

The warring parties have agreed to participate in fresh negotiations, facilitated by a joint U.S. and Saudi-led effort and slated to be held in Switzerland next month. “The talks in Switzerland aim to reach a nationwide cessation of violence, enabling humanitarian access to all those in need, and develop a robust monitoring and verification mechanism to ensure implementation of any agreement,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement last week.

The conflict has been punctuated by myriad false dawns, with repeated cease-fires and truces barely lasting days, even hours, after they’re clinched. Aid organizations warn that the Sudanese military — which represents the faction formally recognized as Sudan’s government by the United Nations — is impeding the flow of critical food assistance into western areas of the country controlled by the RSF. What supplies do cross the border are often subject to diversion or looting, while the RSF’s rampages across Sudan’s breadbasket regions contribute to the food shortages.

For relief groups, access to imperiled communities and the resources needed to help them are both scarce. A Paris donor conference in April pooled some $2 billion in pledges for Sudan — just half of the figure requested by the United Nations — but the promised funds have yet to fully materialize.

“In a survey released last week, Mercy Corps said that one quarter of children in central Darfur state were so malnourished that they could soon die,” reported the New York Times. “Experts say that only the World Food Program, the world’s largest humanitarian organization with a budget of $8.5 billion last year, has the resources and expertise needed to ramp up an emergency operation at scale. But without unimpeded access to the border, providing aid is proving extremely challenging.”

The war rages on, shaped by a thicket of conflicting geopolitical interests. “The [Sudanese military] is currently supported politically or materially by Egypt, Iran and Ukraine,” noted Ilhan Dahir of the United States Institute of Peace. “Meanwhile, the RSF is allegedly supported by the Wagner Group, a Russian mercenary outfit, and the UAE, which has reportedly sent arms to support Hemedti in an effort to ‘roll back Islamist influence’ in Sudan as a part of the Emirates’ larger strategy in the region. Continued external interference in Sudan is likely to prolong the war.”

A briefing by rights group Amnesty International last week charted “the constant flow of weapons” into the conflict. The group documented the presence of new arms and ammunition from countries as diverse as China, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, the UAE and Yemen, imported in “large quantities into Sudan” and then proliferating across its battlefields, including in the benighted Darfur region, which is subject to a two-decade-old U.N. arms embargo.

“Our research shows that weapons entering the country have been placed into the hands of combatants who are accused of international humanitarian and human rights law violations,” said Amnesty’s Deprose Muchena in a statement. “It is clear that the existing arms embargo that currently applies only to Darfur is completely inadequate, and must be updated and extended to cover the whole of Sudan. This is a humanitarian crisis that cannot be ignored.”


By Ishaan TharoorIshaan Tharoor is a foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post, where he authors the Today's WorldView newsletter and column. In 2021, he won the Arthur Ross Media Award in Commentary from the American Academy of Diplomacy. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York. Twitter

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Olive oil fraud and mislabelling cases hit record high in EU

Michael Goodier
Sun, 28 July 2024 

THE GUARDIAN

The cost of olive oil has more than doubled since 2018 with production hit by extreme weather caused by the climate crisis and other factors.Photograph: Image Source/Getty Images


The EU had a record number of potential olive oil fraud and mislabelling cases in the first quarter of this year as inflationary pressures fuelled an increase in the hidden market for the kitchen staple.

The cost of olive oil has more than doubled since 2018 with production hit by extreme weather caused by the climate crisis and other factors.

As the price has spiked, so has the number of “cross-border EU notifications”, which include mislabelling, potential fraud, and safety cases involving contaminated oils.

In the first quarter of 2018, just 15 such cases were recorded by the EU. That rose to a record 50 cases in the first three months of this year, more than a threefold increase, according to data released to the Guardian under freedom of information laws.Interactive

However, these cases are only those to have been detected and reported by member states to the EU directorate general for health. The figure omits domestic cases and the true scale of the fraud is probably much higher.

The incident reports included oils contaminated with unauthorised substances such as pesticides, mineral oils and one case where glass fragments were discovered.

There were also many cases where extra virgin olive oil was judged to be adulterated, for example by mixing it with poorer or cheaper quality oils, cases where virgin olive oil was labelled as extra virgin (a more premium unrefined oil with a lower acidity), and several cases of misleading or false origin labelling.

In February, in a typical example, Germany reported a case from Israel of “lampante oil”, a quality considered not suitable for human consumption without further refining, being marketed as “extra virgin olive oil”. Some oils crossed several borders, with Germany reporting a case of “misleading mislabelling of olive oil from Syria, via the Netherlands” in March.

Of the 182 olive oil fraud and non-compliance notifications sent to the EU since the start of 2023, 54 related to products from Italy, 41 from Spain and 39 from Greece.

The EU introduced new rules on conformity checks of marketing standards for olive oil, as well as methods for analysing it, in July 2022.Interactive

A European Commission spokesperson said the higher number of notifications in the system did not indicate an exacerbated risk for consumers. They said: “The yearly higher reported number of notifications are proof of better exchanges of member states’ competent authorities and their vigilance towards fraud in the agrifood chain.

“The commission has zero tolerance for fraud. With a view of providing consumers with good-quality olive oil in the EU, the commission organises annual workshops and fosters collaboration between EU countries to ensure that these checks are correctly implemented and ensures the exchange of relevant information for those working on olive oil.”

Chris Elliott, a professor of food safety at Queen’s University Belfast, said that while the consequences of ingesting contaminated olive oil could be serious, it was very unlikely to appear on the shelves of big supermarkets. He said: “Most people who cheat are likely to do it in areas where there isn’t any monitoring or surveillance. Small businesses or food services are more vulnerable to fraud.”
Liquid gold

Global heating has led to a fall in olive oil production levels in recent years. Crops in Spain, which produced more than half the world’s olive oil in 2018-19, have been hit by drought and heatwaves of more than 40C (104F).

Provisional figures from the International Olive Council (IOC) show global production levels are expected to fall to 2.4m tonnes in 2023-24, down 27% from 2018-19 and lower than the 2.6m tonnes in projected consumption levels.

As a result, prices have shot up. One hundred kilos of extra virgin olive oil from Jaén in Spain cost €787 in November last year, up from €262.50 five years earlier, making olive oil a more attractive market for fraudsters.

Elliott said climate-driven inflation was often behind rising levels of fraud: “Whenever we see fluctuations in prices of a commodity it’s always a clear sign of increased fraud in the next few months, as it provides an opportunity for people to cheat.

“Olive oil is one example. There has also been massive increases in things like chocolate where cocoa production is a massive issue; because of climate change there will be big increases in things like coffee. The more processed a food is, the more likely there will be fraud.”Interactive

The Italian central inspectorate of quality protection and fraud prevention of agrifood products (ICQRF) completed a programme last year that seized 380 tonnes of oil products worth more than €2m and reported 17 people to the judicial or administrative authorities for serious violations related to false or missing labelling, or fraudulent marketing of non-extra virgin oils as “extra virgin”.

In November, Italian authorities seized 550,000kg of oils declared as olive oil but which actually consisted of a blend of vegetable oils. The value of the seized goods was approximately €250,000.

Liquid gold? Olive oil fraud cases hit record high in EU

Amber Murray
Mon, 29 July 2024

CITY AM


Olive oil fraud complaints hit record high


The number of cases of fraudulent olive oil referred to the EU hit a record high this year after inflationary pressures fuelled black market activity.

The price of olive oil has more than doubled in the last five years on climate-related supply pressures and environmental shocks.

There were 50 reports to the European Union of mislabelling, potential fraud and safety cases, such as contamination related to olive oil, in the first three months of this year, according to data obtained by the Guardian. In 2018, the number was just 15.

Officially, fraud is where someone mixes another oil with extra virgin oil and passes it off as the genuine article.
A lucrative business

Increases in the price of olive have pushed it to become the most-stolen item in Spanish supermarkets, according to security company STC.

Late last year, gangs were found using this stolen olive oil to make diluted, fraudulent versions of the product.

“The faking of extra virgin olive oil is a common practice. A mix of various factors, such as the general inflation of prices, reduced olive oil production and increasing demand, have created the perfect breeding ground for fraudulent producers,” Europol said in a statement at the time.

The International Olive Council has predicted that just under 2.3m tonnes of olives will be produced in 2024, down slightly from last year’s yield of 2.5m tonnes but significantly lower than the 3.4m tonnes produced in 2022.

The change is largely an effect of global warming: unusual stretches of hot weather are bad for olive trees, and will impact the quality and yield of the crops. In Italy, too, a severe virus has affected the yield of trees in the production hub of Puglia.

However, part of the reason fraud reports have risen is simply a better complaints process, health consultant and author of Olive Oil for Dummies, Dr Simon Poole, said.

“There has always been fraud in the olive oil world,” Poole said. However, it is an increasingly regulated world, he said, and “standards are enforced”.

The EU, which accounts for 53 per cent of global olive oil production and 67 per cent of global production, introduced new checks on marketing standards for olive oil in July 2022.

“You will always find people trying to cut costs or increase profits, particularly at times when the price of olive oil is rising,” Poole said. But more is being uncovered because the authorities in places like Spain, Portugal and Italy and Greece “do clamp down heavily on fraud in the industry”.
Is your olive oil real?

It’s unlikely that fraudulent olive oil will end up on your local supermarket shelf.

“The supermarket chain supply is usually reasonably good and so deliberate fraud would be unlikely to end up in the supermarket,” Poole said.

“[Fraud] is more likely to happen in unregulated markets,” he added. Unregulated – or less regulated – markets can include small businesses, or simply areas where there isn’t any surveillance.

‘Fake’ olive oil in the supermarket is more likely to be oil that only just passes the standards of quality at production, and then goes off on supermarket shelves or in our cupboard, Poole said. This isn’t illegal, and wouldn’t be referred to the EU.

“If you taste an extra virgin olive oil that is fruity and it has some bitterness and some pungency, then it’s likely to be the genuine article,” Poole said.

French nuclear giant slips into the red following Niger-French breakup

French nuclear giant Orano ended the first half of the year with a loss of €133 million, weighed down by difficulties in its mining activities in Niger due to a "highly degraded" political context since a military regime came to power a year ago.


Issued on: 29/07/2024
A man holds a placard reading "Don't touch!!! Uranium is my life" during a demonstration against Frenh nuclear giant Areva on February 6, 2014 in Niamey. © AFP - BOUREIMA HAMA
By:RFIFollow
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At the end of June 2024, the group noted "the deteriorated situation affecting mining operations in Niger," Orano's chief financial officer, David Claverie, said in a statement.

The coup d'état in Niger on 26 July last year led to a halt in imports of critical materials necessary for uranium exploitation in Orano's Somaïr mine, such as soda ash, carbonate, nitrates and sulphur.

And although uranium extraction continued in the first quarter of 2024 "after several months of early maintenance," Somaïr’s sales were unable to resume "due to a lack of logistics solutions approved by the Niger authorities".

The blockage led the mine into "financial difficulty ... weighing on its ability to continue its operations", the statement read.

In late June, Niger decided to withdraw the licence of Imouraren SA, a company jointly operated by Orano, Niger Mining and Korea Electric Power, and which ran the Somaïr mine.

The situation could eventually lead to "insolvency in the short to medium term, in the coming months", Claverie said.

Niger's junta returns French-run uranium mine 'back to public domain'
In better times: Nicolas Maes (L), CEO of French nuclear firm Orano, signs an agreement on the exploitation of uranium with the Nigerien Mining Minister Hadiza Ousseini in Niamey on May 4, 2023. AFP - BOUREIMA HAMA
Growing French reliance on nuclear

According to figures published by the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, 40 percent of France's energy consumption comes from nuclear, 28.1 percent from petrol, 15.8 percent from natural gas, and 12.9 percent from alternative sources such as wind and hydropower.

French electricity company EDF's figures show that nuclear generates 70.6 percent of the country's electricity supply, compared to hydropower on 11.2 percent, wind power 6.3 percent and solar 2.2 percent.

In February last year, French President Emmanuel Macron called for a "nuclear renaissance" in order to "move away from fossil fuel" via the construction of 14 new nuclear reactors.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine later that month encouraged countries to reduce their dependence on Russian gas imports and gave new impetus to developing the nuclear industry.

As a result, France's dependency on uranium is set to grow substantially in the coming years.

France’s Macron calls for a nuclear power ‘renaissance’, building at least 6 reactors
Other sources of uranium

In order to counter the "loss" of Niger and its mining operations, Orano sought to reassure clients about supply security, which "remains ensured thanks to the diversity of its supply sources" in other regions.

According to an infograph by the company published in 2021, France has been gradually moving away from Niger's uranium.

Most of the "yellow cake" now comes from Kazakhstan (2,840 tonnes), with Niger's Somaïr (1,996 tonnes) a solid second until 2023. The Cigar lake mine in Canada also produces 1,788 tonnes.

Macron is shopping for uranium in Kazakhstan after the loss of Niger

More recently, France has been looking into possible cooperation with Mongolia as well.

Despite its troubles in Niger, the group confirmed its outlook for the end of the year, with stable revenues of around €4.8 billion and a pre-tax margin rate on revenue maintained between 22 percent and 24 percent.

(with newswires)

 

Sea levels rise 10 cm since 1993 as ice caps melt

Sea levels have begun to rise and up 10 cm. If temperates continue to rise sea levels could rise by as much as 7 metres according to most models. / bne IntelliNews

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By bne IntelliNews July 29, 2024

Sea levels are now 10 cm higher than in 1993, and the rise is accelerating, according to new high-resolution satellite measurements by NASA.

Sea and land temperatures are at all-time highs and the world just recorded its hottest day since records began on July 21, as the Climate Crisis accelerates faster than scientists predicted.

“Sea level rise is complicated. Land rises and falls. Ocean currents, wind, rivers, etc, affect levels. There is an uncertainty band. But thanks to satellites, which average out levels across the whole earth, that uncertainty is now low and the trend clear,” climate activist Simon Oldridge said in a post on social media.

That is a small rise, but there are gigatonnes of ice at the ice caps that are melting slowly, but steadily. Most of the climate models predict that missing the 1.5C limit on temperature rises will lead to a significant rise in the sea levels by as much as seven metres.

In that event island nations like the Maladies will be submerged. A recent study found that most of the cities on West Africa’s coast will also end up underwater.

And the melting of the icepack at the poles is accelerating. Another recent study found that the deviation of the icepack’s extent from its 1991-2020 mean, as the extent of the ice coverage ebbs and flows due to the changing season, is now five standard deviations away from the average.

A standard deviation is a measure of the change from the average value in a normal, or Gaussian, distribution. Usually, about half of the deviations from the norm are contained in one standard deviation from the mean, and some 95% of the deviations are contained within two standard deviations. To be five standard deviations from the mean is an extremely unlikely statistical event right at the very edge of the normal distribution.

Ghana inaugurates 16.82-MW rooftop solar plant, Africa's largest

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By Kent Mensah in Accra July 29, 2024

Ghana's renewable energy sector received a significant boost with the inauguration of a 16.82-MW rooftop photovoltaic solar plant in Tema, marking the largest single rooftop solar installation in Africa, reports Asaase News. 

The $17mn project, owned by LMI Holding Company Limited, is expected to distribute solar power to clients within the Tema Free Zone Enclave (TFZE) industrial zone.

Also known as the Mega Warehouse Rooftop Solar PV Project, this initiative spans 95,745 km2 (equivalent to 20 football fields) and is projected to generate 24.7 GWh of clean energy annually.

The project was financed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and is poised to play a pivotal role in advancing renewable energy within Ghana's industrial landscape.

During the commissioning ceremony, Minister of State for Energy Herbert Krapah praised LMI Holding for their accomplishment and for situating the project within the TFZE. He highlighted that the project aligns with the government’s energy objectives, enhancing energy security for industrial clients and providing access to clean, reliable, and cost-efficient power, writes Asaase News.

Krapah also acknowledged the IFC's funding and urged the corporation to support other private companies in the solar energy sector. 

LMI Holdings' managing director, Adiai Opoku-Boamah, noted that the project was completed entirely by Ghanaian engineers and technicians, showcasing local expertise. 

He stated that businesses within the Free Zones Enclave would benefit from the power generated, enhancing their green credentials and global competitiveness.

Opoku-Boamah announced that LMI Holdings aims to generate up to 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2030. The company has secured a 2,300-acre land bank at Dawa near Ada in the Greater Accra Region for a future solar park. Over the next six years, LMI Holdings plans to invest over $1bn into expanding its renewable energy programme.

Arrest of Captain Paul Watson in Greenland – answering citizens’ concerns

Citizens are concerned about the arrest of Captain Paul Watson in Greenland.

By Ask EP/ July 29, 2024

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Citizens are concerned about the arrest of Captain Paul Watson in Greenland. Many citizens have written to the President of the European Parliament on this subject since July 2024, asking her to intervene with the Danish authorities to stop Captain Watson from being extradited to Japan.

We replied to citizens who took the time to write to the President:

Extradition is a national responsibility

According to European Union (EU) law, the European Parliament is not authorised to intervene in an extradition process, which is the responsibility of national authorities.

Although there is an EU-Agreement between the European Union and Japan on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, it states that is does not apply to extradition (Article 1).

European Parliament position on whaling

In an October 2022 resolution, the European Parliament calls on Japan, Norway and Iceland to cease their whaling operations. Parliament strongly supports the continuation of the global moratorium on commercial whaling as well as the ban on international trade of whale products.

In an earlier resolution from June 2021, the European Parliament regrets Japan’s withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission and urges Norway and Japan to cease their whaling operations. Parliament also stresses the importance of protecting whale populations, from both a biodiversity and climate perspective.

EU laws protecting whales

The EU has adopted measures to protect cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) against hunting, capture and captivity, and against deliberate disturbance or trading, including cetacean products originating from non-EU countries.

Background

Citizens often send messages to the President of the European Parliament expressing their views and/or requesting action. The Citizens’ Enquiries Unit (AskEP) within the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) replies to these messages, which may sometimes be identical as part of wider public campaigns.