HRW: Ethiopian forces 'shelled civilians' during Tigray war

Human Rights Watch has accused Ethiopia's army of breaking international law by shelling civilian populations during their offensive against Tigray separatists. The watchdog called for a UN investigation.



Ethiopian forces killed at least 83 civilians at the outbreak of an armed conflict in the country's Tigray region that displaced thousands of people, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Thursday.

The NGO accused the army of breaking international law by "indiscriminate shelling of urban areas" in November last year.

"Artillery attacks at the start of the armed conflict struck homes, hospitals, schools, and markets in the city of Mekele, and the towns of Humera and Shire," the New York-based organization said.


Ethiopia's army has denied allegations of rights abuses in the past.

A HRW report said the strikes left more than 300 people injured, including women and children.

The activists cited "credible reports of widespread abuse, including apparent extrajudicial killings, pillage and arbitrary detention" and called for a UN investigation.

The Ethiopian government has not yet commented on the claims.
What happened in Tigray?

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced the military operations in early November against the leadership of Tigray’s governing party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

He said at the time that the strikes were in response to TPLF-orchestrated attacks on federal army camps.

Abiy declared victory after pro-government troops took the city of Mekele in late November.

PM Abiy, seen here on the right, won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for ending a long-running conflict with Eritrea.

At the time, Abiy said that no civilians were killed as his forces entered cities in the province, insisting that the Ethiopian military did all it could to avoid such casualties.

The TPLF has vowed to fight on, although many of its leaders have been killed or captured.

But aid workers warn that prolonged insecurity has hampered the delivery of badly-needed humanitarian assistance.

Watch video 01:51 Ethiopia: Violence displaces hundreds of thousands at border with Sudan

Rift between PM and Tigray party

Tensions between the federal government and the TPLF soured in recent months after a major rift that emerged over the prime minister's decision delay to national elections in March 2020 .

The TPLF ignored the order and held their own regional poll in September.

The Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) once dominated federal politics in the country.

The Tigray party had started as a guerrilla movement and took power in a revolution in 1991. It established a multi-ethnic coalition which played a key part in the national government for many years.

They complain of persecution under Abiy, an ethnic Oromo, who ordered the arrest of dozens of their former senior military and political officials in a crackdown on corruption.

In 2019, Abiy reorganized the ruling coalition into a single party which the TPLF refused to join.

bj,jf/dj (AFP, Reuters)

Brazil: Relaxed gun laws could lead to more violence

The number of legal firearms sold in Brazil has grown by 65% during President Jair Bolsonaro's time in office. He has loosened gun laws, saying it will increase security. But experts disagree.


Bolsonaro made looser gun laws one of his campaign pledges — and it seemed popular with many

Jair Bolsonaro pledged to relax Brazil's gun laws during his election campaign. The idea was that citizens could fight the rampant crime and violence in the country with their own weapons. Since being elected president, he has issued several decrees to make good on his promise. It is now much easier to buy and carry firearms in Brazil.

Civilians are allowed to keep up to four guns at home or in the workplace. They have access to high-caliber guns that used to be restricted to the military or the police. They can now purchase much more ammunition, too. And the import tax on firearms was recently abolished.
Real number of weapons much higher

Brazilian police often uncover huge caches of weapons in drug raids

Two years into Bolsonaro's term, the relaxation of Brazil's gun laws has led to a 65% increase in firearms ownership. While there were about 700,000 firearms in legal private ownership in 2018, hunters, collectors and citizens who want to defend themselves now own 1.2 million weapons. This data was obtained from the federal police and the military as part of research conducted by the Brazilian daily newspaper O Globo.

In the US, there are reportedly more firearms than inhabitants. In Germany, there are over 5 million registered firearms for a population of 83 million.

In Brazil, however, the number of registered firearms is probably just a fraction of the actual number of firearms circulating in the country, according to economist Thomas Victor Conti, who teaches at Sao Paulo's renowned Insper Institute. "Some studies estimate that the real number could be 10 to 15 times higher," he told DW, adding that the firearms in question were either illegal weapons used by organized criminals or weapons that had simply not been registered by private individuals.

It is precisely the volume of illegal weapons that many Brazilians blame for the rampant violence and exorbitant murder rate in the country — tens of thousands die a violent death each year. Many feel that providing "good citizens" with more weapons, as Bolsonaro wants to do, is unlikely to help solve these problems.

Conti is also of this opinion. "Most experts have concluded that more weapons means more violence. There is no difference between illegal and legal weapons; they are part of the same market. If there are more legal weapons in circulation, it also indirectly increases the number of weapons available for the black market."

Gun violence is frequent in Brazil

Against common sense

By relaxing the gun laws, Bolsonaro is also acting contrary to indications from Brazil's recent past. The murder rate decreased slightly for several years after

the acquisition and possession of firearms were more strictly regulated when the "Estatuto de Desarmamento" (Statute of Disarmament) came into effect at the end of 2003 and financial incentives were introduced for the voluntary surrender of weapons.

Until 2003, Brazilians over 21 years of age had been able to buy firearms and carry them without too much red tape. In his PhD thesis about the causes and consequences of crime in Brazil, the economist Daniel Ricardo de Castro Cerqueira argued that the effect of the disarmament law was particularly noticeable in the state of Sao Paulo because the new restrictions were implemented effectively and combined with other measures.

Conti, in his turn, pointed to other contributing factors that should not be ignored: "These problems are complex and cannot be resolved with gun laws alone. Unemployment, poverty and the lack of access to education also play a role, as well as limited investment in public safety and in investigating violent crime."

Instead of addressing these factors, however, Bolsonaro has promoted self-defense. He encourages citizens to offer armed resistance if someone breaks into their house, for example. Yet, according to the polling institute Datafolha, two-thirds of Brazilians are against civilians owning firearms.

Right-wing populist Bolsonaro is keen to relax Brazil's gun laws

Rise in fatalities likely

For Conti, it makes little sense to arm ordinary citizens, considering that their attempts to defend themselves are likely to backfire. "A criminal always has the advantage of the element of surprise," he explained. "And, what's more, he's likely to be more heavily armed and to start shooting earlier if he thinks that his potential victim is also armed."

In addition, he and others warn that incidents of domestic violence, family disputes or other conflicts are more likely to end in fatalities if there is an increase of firearms possession among civilians.

Bolsonaro has put forward a number of bills to further relax gun laws. Congress will decide whether to pass them into law. Conti hopes that lawmakers will take scientific evidence and Brazil's previous experiences with tighter gun laws into consideration. "Of course, it is possible to have a democratic debate as to whether a private individual should have the right to own a gun for self-defense," he said.

"However, it is mendacious to peddle easier access to firearms as an issue of public safety considering thelevel of violence in Brazil."



This article was translated from German.

Ozone layer recovery back on track after China slows CFC-11 production

Good news: The international treaty to protect the ozone layer appears to be getting results. New analyses have shown that China has successfully cut the illegal production of ozone-destroying chemicals.


Setbacks caused by the illegal emissions were expected to be 'negligible'


In recent years, scientists had been alarmed by a sudden unexplained rise in ozone-attacking chemicals in the atmosphere. Higher levels of trichlorofluoromethanes, also known as CFC-11, were showing up in air samples — despite being officially banned worldwide since 2010.

Scientists were worried that this surge was slowing efforts to fix the thin protective layer in the Earth's atmosphere which absorbs most of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. Unfiltered exposure to the sun's rays can contribute to DNA damage and increase the long-term risk of skin cancer and other health issues.

Ozone recovery efforts back on track

But on Wednesday, two studies published in science journal Nature reported that atmospheric concentrations of CFC-11 had once again dropped significantly. By late 2019, levels were falling by about 1% a year — the fastest on record, according to the report — showing that the world was back on track to repairing the damage to the Earth's ozone layer by mid-century.

Using data and measurements from air-monitoring stations in South Korea and Japan, scientists were able to determine that the largest source of the global increase in "rogue emissions" attributed to factories in eastern China were no longer active.

Stephen Montzka, an atmospheric chemist at US scientific agency the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in Boulder, Colorado who led one of the studies, said the setback caused by the illegal emissions was expected to be "negligible."

WORLD CITIES WITH AMBITIOUS PLANS TO TACKLE AIR POLLUTION
Chengdu makes it easier to walk
China's biggest cities are choking from the effects of air pollution. In Chengdu, the fifth largest city, officials are trying to make walking easier and quicker than driving in one new upscale residential area. The plan is for at least 50 percent of the roads in the area to be car free. It'll be possible to walk to vital amenities in 15 minutes. China is building nearly 300 eco-cities in total. PHOTOS 123456

Meg Seki, acting executive secretary of Ozone Secretariat at the UN Environment Program (UNEP), credited the reversal to international cooperation and action in line with the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.

The international treaty, agreed in 1987 to ban the production of ozone-depleting chemicals, has been signed by almost every country in the world. CFC-11, once used in refrigerants, as propellants in aerosol cans and in polyurethane foam insulation, has been officially banned since 2010.

"The [Montreal] treaty did its job," Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance & Sustainable Development, an advocacy group based in Washington, told Nature. "Whoever the offending parties were — including most definitely China — they got their act together."

"China also did its part in strengthening its policies, regulations, monitoring and enforcement," Seki told DW.

Watch video 04:49 China grows its economy fast

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment in Beijing could not be reached for comment. But in an April 2020 press release, the ministry announced the first results of a two-month crackdown on the illegal production and use of CFC-11. The campaign resulted in an executive with a thermal insulation firm near Shanghai being sentenced to 10 months in prison and fined 50,000 yuan (€6,400/$7,700). The company was also fined 700,000 yuan and had to forfeit more than 1.4 million yuan in profits since 2017.

"The Chinese government has always attached great importance to international environmental conventions and has been resorting to strict law enforcement as a major guarantee to safeguard the achievement China has made in implementing these conventions," the ministry said in a statement after the sentencing.

Construction industry crackdown

The illegal emissions first came to light in May 2018, when researchers with NASA and the NOAA noticed an unexplained spike in atmospheric concentrations of CFC-11 dating back to 2013. From 2002 and 2012, according to Nature, CFC-11 emissions fell by about 0.85% a year. But from 2013 that figure was cut almost in half, to about 0.4% — the result of about 13,000 metric tons a year of newly produced CFCs in the atmosphere.

China's booming construction industry contributed to an increase in CFCs

Scientists and researchers with the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) were able to trace around 60% of the illegal emissions to eastern China. Posing as buyers, EIA investigators found the use of CFC-11 was widespread in China's plastic foam sector. The banned chemical is cheaper than the alternatives and was found to be widely used to produce more effective insulators for the booming construction industry.

"Our investigations revealed widespread illegal use of CFC-11 in China as a blowing agent for the production of polyurethane (PU) foams," said Clare Perry, a climate campaign leader with EIA. "The information we provided kickstarted a nationwide inspection and enforcement action by China, which has clearly been successful."

'Wake-up call' for Montreal Protocol

According to EIA, companies admitted to mislabeling the banned CFC-11 as hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) compounds and other chemicals. China, which joined the Montreal Protocol in 1991 and said it successfully ended the industrial use of CFCs in 2007, questioned the conclusions of the EIA study. Nevertheless, the government said in mid-2019 it would boost monitoring efforts and impose penalties on companies caught illegally producing the chemical.

"The action taken in 2018 by China in response to our investigations appears to have led to an immediate reduction of CFC-11 emissions," said Perry. "This issue should be a wake-up call to the Montreal Protocol — the failure to detect the illegal CFC-11 production and use prior to its scientific discovery compels a very serious look at the current monitoring, reporting and verification systems."

Watch video 01:42 Whatever happened to ozone hole?

Perry told DW the parties to the Montreal Protocol were already talking about how to expand the atmospheric monitoring network, but said more change was necessary. "They need to consider how they can ensure long-term compliance and enforcement, particularly considering the challenges of taking on new controls of HFCs with the Kigali Amendment."

The Kigali Amendment, which entered into force in 2019, aims to also phase out the use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which were developed to replace CFCs in the 1990s but act as potent greenhouse gases and contribute to climate change.

"Addressing the existing gaps in monitoring, and filling those gaps strategically with new monitoring stations, would help to improve the detection of regional emissions of ozone depleting substances," said Seki of UNEP.

At the projected recovery rates, UNEP has said the ozone layer over the Northern Hemisphere and the regions around the equator "will heal completely" by the 2030s, the Southern Hemisphere by the 2050s and the polar regions by the 2060s.

How global warming can cause Europe's harsh winter weather

Climate deniers are using a spell of unusually cold weather in Europe to incorrectly argue that CO2 emissions are not warming the planet.



Large parts of Germany have been blanketed in snow


As Germans shiver through double-digit negative temperatures and more than 80 centimeters (30 inches) of snow in parts of the country, climate science deniers have taken to social media to argue that global warming is a hoax.

Their claim — which has been repeatedly debunked by climate scientists — is that extremely cold weather shows that carbon dioxide emissions are not warming the Earth.

In fact, the effects of global warming may even have favored the extremely cold temperature.

FRIGID AIR, SNOW HIT PARTS OF EUROPE
Winter arrives in February
As early as December, experts had an inkling about winter weather conditions this year. The polar vortex low-pressure area in the far north became unstable, allowing Arctic air masses to move to Europe. The result: snow, freezing rain and above all, plummeting temperatures in Germany. The sub-zero conditions could hold for the next two weeks. PHOTOS 123456789

Why is it so cold?

The past week's sub-zero temperatures and heavy snowfalls are more than just a cold winter. They are made more likely by the collapse of the polar vortex — a huge ring of cold winds raging in the Earth's stratosphere — at the North Pole.

The polar vortex is closely connected to the jet stream, a band of strong winds about 10 kilometers above the ground. At the polar front, this flows between warm air from the tropics and subtropics, and cold polar air. The pressure extremes that form in this transitional area at lower layers are sometimes referred to in weather reports as the Icelandic low or the Azores high.


The jet stream usually determines the winter weather in Europe: if it is strong and flows from west to east, it brings mild, windy and rainy weather from the Atlantic, and holds the cold air from the Arctic.

But if the jet stream is weak and wavy, the polar vortex also weakens, and sometimes breaks down completely. The cold snap across Europe is the result of a weak jet stream — more precisely a dip — that has caused a strong and long-lasting collapse of the polar vortex.

How can climate change make the weather colder?

Through the burning of fossil fuels, people have heated the planet by more than 1 degrees Celsius (1.8 F) since the Industrial Revolution. The decade from 2010 to 2019 was the hottest on record. Climate change, however, doesn't only lead to higher temperatures, but more extreme weather.

This is where the disproportionate warming of the Arctic comes into play, said Stefan Rahmstorf, head of the Earth System Analysis research department at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Temperatures in the Arctic have risen more than twice as fast as the global average over the past 40 years. "These changes are affecting the weather in Europe." 

Scientists on board the research ship Polarstern found unusually weak sea ice in August 2020

Arctic warming is particularly strong in winter, said Dörthe Handorf, who researches the physics of the atmosphere at the Alfred Wegener Institute of the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI). "As many studies show, this weakens the jet stream."

The wind stream begins to fray, said Handorf, which could lead to more dips that affect temperatures in Europe.
Will climate change make European winters colder?

Climate change won't necessarily make European winters colder because the outbreaks of cold air from the polar vortex are sometimes milder than the current cold snap. The Arctic is also not the only part of the world where air currents are changing because of rising temperatures.

Strong warming over the subtropics also affects the jet stream, said Handorf. While the Arctic warming tends to direct the jet stream southwards and cause cold spells in Europe, the subtropical warming generally sends the band northwards. If this is the case, she said, the winter weather in Europe will be milder. Climate models do not yet know which warming trend will dominate in the future, she added.


Warmer Arctic air can lower temperatures far to the south

The cold spell has hit Europe during COVID-19 lockdowns that have kept people at home
Why global warming can lead to snow

Snow forms when warm, moist air meets very cold air. Over the flatlands in western Europe, the air is rarely cold enough for the volume of snowfall that has blanketed the region this winter.

But on this occassion, an area of high-pressure air called Gisela brought cold Arctic winds to the center of Germany, where it collided with two low-pressure areas called Tristan and Reinhard. As they were carrying warm sea air, the moisture was turned into snow.

Because warmer air holds more moisture, rising temperatures mean air masses will transport more water. This moisture can then become snow wherever it gets cold enough — typically at higher altitudes.

The massive snowfalls in the Alps in the winter of 2019 were also triggered by unusually moist and warm air masses. At that time, said Peter Hoffmann, meteorologist at PIK, the oceans were still quite warm in winter due to the long, hot summer — and so a lot of water evaporated.

The air currents then took it to the Alps, where an enormous amount of wet snow fell at high altitudes, causing chaos on the roads and increasing the risk of avalanches.

Soldiers from the German army had to clear roofs after heavy snowfall hit Bischofswiesen, in southern Germany, in 2019

What's the difference between weather and climate?

Changes in local weather can be different to changes in the global climate. This can cause confusion.

While average temperatures have warmed to record-breaking levels — making regional heatwaves and wildfires more intense — climate change does not make temperatures everywhere rise. In the past 20 years, for example, winters in many areas of temperate latitudes have not been much warmer than the long-term average, said Handorf.

Complex weather systems such as the polar vortex, for instance, could be cooling parts of Europe even as the Arctic warms. And though February may be particularly cold this year, January — compared to the long-term average — might have been too warm.

"Although we don't always see warming regionally or locally, we have no signs that global warming is weakening," said Handorf. "On the contrary."

The changing jet stream also affects summer temperatures, she added. "There are studies that show we also have a more meandering jet stream in summer. And these meanders, these bulges, tend to remain more stationary." In other words, just like a cold spell in winter, the heat can last for an unusually long time in summer.

If hot Saharan air then reaches Europe through the jet stream, as it did in June 2019, for example, it can cause a long heat wave. During such scorching weeks and months, it seems obvious that the climate crisis is upon us — but the same it true when it snows.

This article was adapted from German by Ajit Niranjan

Lebanon multi-faith service for slain activist sparks row

Issued on: 11/02/2021 - 

Family and friends of slain Lebanese activist and academic Lokman Slim attend a memorial ceremony in the garden of the family residence in Beirut's southern suburbs, a week after he was found shot dead in his car JOSEPH EID AFP

Beirut (AFP)

A multi-faith memorial service for Lebanese activist Lokman Slim, who was killed last week, triggered a row Thursday after a Shiite cleric was attacked on social media for taking part.

Slim, an academic and leading secular voice from the Shiite community, was routinely criticised and often threatened over his stance against the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah.

The service, broadcast live by several channels, included a reading from the Koran and hymn-singing. It was attended by friends, family and diplomats, including US ambassador Dorothy Shea.

Many praised the service as an expression of co-existence between Lebanon's many sects but it also invited criticism.

Ali al-Khalil, the Shiite cleric who read the Koran, came under attack on social media from Hezbollah loyalists and later apologised for attending the event.

"I apologise to all brothers and sisters who watched me on television channels I should not have appeared on," Khalil said in a video widely circulated online.

"I should not have... put myself in a position that invites suspicion.

"My (political) orientation is known," he said, referring to his support for the Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Activists on social media saw the apology as further evidence of the kind of pressure the movement exerts on dissenters or anyone perceived as cosying up to its enemies.

"They made him apologise because he prayed for Lokman Slim," the BlogBaladi activist page said on Facebook, referring to the Shiite group.

Christian supporters of the Hezbollah-allied Free Patriotic Movement also objected to the service, but for different reasons.

"This is clear heresy and an insult to sanctity," said one social media user who identified as an FPM supporter and took issue with the choice of music.

"Christian rituals dictate that Good Friday hymns are to be chanted exclusively at funerals for Christians," he said.

Several other FPM activists on Twitter echoed his grievance.

Lokman was widely hated by Hezbollah loyalists who accused him of being a Western puppet.

He was found shot dead in his car on February 4 in Lebanon's Hezbollah-dominated south.

The Shiite group has denounced the murder and called for an investigation.

© 2021 AFP

Saudi woman activist's family credits Biden for release
Issued on: 11/02/2021 - 

Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul, here pictured in an August 06, 2019 photograph released on her Facebook page, has been released after nearly three years' imprisonment - FACEBOOK/AFP/File

Riyadh (AFP)

The family of Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul said Thursday US President Joe Biden's election win helped secure her release after nearly three years' imprisonment, but cautioned she was still far from free.

Hathloul, 31, was provisionally released in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.

She had been detained in May 2018 with about a dozen other women activists, just weeks before the kingdom's historic lifting of a decades-long ban on female drivers -- a reform they had long campaigned for.

"I would say thank you Mr President that you helped my sister to be released," Alia al-Hathloul told a virtual press conference.

"It's a fact that Loujain was imprisoned during the previous administration, and she was released a few days after Biden's arrival to power.

"Biden's arrival helped and contributed a lot in my sister's release."

Biden, inaugurated last month, has pledged to intensify scrutiny of powerful Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's human rights record after the kingdom received something of a free pass under his predecessor, president Donald Trump.

Saudi Arabia, which has detained hundreds of activists, clerics as well as royal family members, abruptly accelerated some political trials -- including that of Hathloul -- after Biden's election win late last year.

On Wednesday, Biden welcomed the decision to release her, saying it was "the right thing to do".

The US State Department said the activist should never have been jailed.

The release of Hathloul, who is still under probation and is barred from leaving Saudi Arabia, came after her siblings launched a vigorous campaign overseas for her freedom in a major embarrassment for the kingdom.

The siblings posted pictures on Twitter of the smiling activist, who appeared physically weaker and had streaks of grey hair.

When asked what was the first thing her sister did upon her release, Alia said she "bought an ice-cream", a joy denied to her in detention.

- 'Ready to electrocute me' -

In their first post-release video call with the activist on Wednesday, her other sister Lina al-Hathloul said they could not "trust her smile".

"We asked her 'when you were in prison, you said you were fine,'" said Lina.

"She said 'what did you want me to do?... An electric (stun gun was) on my ear... They (prison authorities) were ready to electrocute me'."

Hathloul's family has alleged she experienced torture and sexual harassment in detention, claims repeatedly dismissed by a Saudi court.

In late December, a court handed Hathloul a prison term of five years and eight months for terrorism-related crimes, but her family said a partially suspended sentence -- and time already served -- paved the way for her early release.

The women's rights activist was convicted of inciting regime change and seeking to disrupt public order, in what her family deplored as a "sham" trial.

Saudi authorities have not officially commented on her detention, trial or release.

Her family said the activist is on probation for three years and faces a five-year travel ban, prompting her to refrain from media interviews and limit her presence on social media.

"Loujain is still not free," Lina said.

The activist's parents are also banned from leaving Saudi Arabia, she added.

"With Hathloul banned from travel and threatened with more prison time if she does not stay silent, her ordeal remains a flagrant miscarriage of justice," said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

"Saudi Arabia should quash the convictions against Hathloul that essentially deem her women's rights activism 'terrorism', lift the travel ban, and end her suspended sentence."

While some women activists detained along with Hathloul have been provisionally released, several others remain imprisoned on what campaigners describe as opaque charges.

The detentions have cast a spotlight on the human rights record of the kingdom, an absolute monarchy which has also faced intense criticism over the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in its Istanbul consulate.

© 2021 AFP

Rebels in Senegal's Casamance under pressure after offensive

Issued on: 11/02/2021 - 

Senegalese troops launched an offensive against rebels in Casamance on January 26 

JOHN WESSELS AFP


Kaour (Sénégal) (AFP)

A military offensive in Senegal's southern region of Casamance has thrown separatist rebels on the back foot, raising the prospect that one of Africa's oldest conflicts may finally end.

Thousands have died since the Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces (MFDC) began its fight for independence in 1982.

The poor region had returned to an uneasy calm in recent years.

But Senegal, supported by neighbouring Guinea-Bissau, suddenly launched an offensive on January 26, claiming the capture of several bases and forcing the rebels to fall back.

Several war-weary local residents told AFP that they welcomed the development.

"We very much wish for an end to the rebellion," said Bailo Coly, who has been displaced by the conflict.

"It has done us a lot of harm, delaying the region by 50 years and creating social rifts."

The conflict has rumbled on at a low level for several years, with occasional flareups.

In 2018, 14 young men were slaughtered in execution style-killings north of the regional capital Ziguinchor.

Senegal's army says the latest operation aimed at stopping alleged rebel exactions on civilians and helping displaced people return home.

Another aim is to curb the illegal cannabis and timber trade, which Casamance separatists are thought to control.

Troops captured several simple tin and wood shelters from the rebels under the huge trees of the Blaze forest, which they said had served as bases.

Army officers led media, including AFP, on a tour of the captured bases and displayed dilapidated items they had captured, including mortars, rusty rifles and kitchen utensils.

An expert in Casamance politics, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said that the separatists had been badly outgunned.

But he also added that the MFDC is also losing its emotional appeal among locals.

"Those Casamancais who believe in independence have come to realise, little by little, that this is no longer straightforward," the expert said.

Casamance, home to 1.9 million people, was once part of Portugal's colonies in West Africa, along with what today is Guinea-Bissau.

Adding to this historical distinction is Casamance's location.

It is almost separated from the rest of Senegal by The Gambia -- a remoteness that fed into perceptions of discrimination by the government in far-off Dakar and helped create an independence movement that erupted into violence in 1982.

- Political firepower -

An MFDC fighter who fled to Guinea-Bissau after the offensive, and who requested anonymity, told AFP that the rebels were poorly equipped.

"We withdrew because we could not face the firepower of the Senegalese army," he said.

The operation against the rebel forest bases began with artillery fire and ended with a ground offensive, which had air support, according to an army officer who requested anonymity.

As well as improved military capabilities, a realignment in West African politics may have played into Senegal's hands.

The Gambia had long been accused of aiding the rebels, for example. But Gambian President Adama Barrow, who came to power in 2017, is considered close to Senegalese President Macky Sall.

Guinea-Bissau has faced similar accusations. But Umaro Sissoco Embalo, another ally of Sall's, took office in the poor former Portuguese colony last year.

The expert in Casamance politics said it was Embalo's ascent which proved "decisive".

- 'Ready to lay down arms' -

The rebels are still believed to have bases in the Ziguinchor region and near the Gambian border.

Colonel Souleymane Kande, one of Senegal's military commanders in Casamance, nonetheless said he thought some MFDC factions "are ready to lay down their arms".

He added that soldiers would remain on the captured bases and any rebel exactions on civilians "will be viewed as a declaration of war."

Solo Sima, a villager, told AFP he was "very happy" with the army's operation.

"I find it hard to realise that the armed men are no longer there because we are so traumatised," he said.

Edmond Bora, an 80-year-old former separatist leader, said he had tried, at the request of villagers, to convince the rebels to negotiate when the army began its offensive.

"We can't continue to shoot each other (and continue) without negotiating for 40 years," he said.

Writing in Le Quotidien newspaper this week, Senegalese political analyst Yoro Dia warned that peace is not guaranteed despite the military gains.

"The army won the war," Yoro Dia said. "It is the politicians who are incapable of winning the peace".

© 2021 AFP

Leftist rebels deny plot to attack Colombian capital


Issued on: 11/02/2021 - 
The National Liberation Army (ELN) is the last active rebel group operating in Colombia 

Luis ROBAYO AFP/File

Bogota (AFP)

National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels on Thursday denied planning an attack on Colombia's capital Bogota, despite a warning from Cuba.

But the leftist guerrillas insisted they would not renounce "military action" against the state.

Colombia's Defense Minister Diego Molano reported on Monday that Cuba had tipped off the government about a plan by the ELN, Colombia's last remaining active armed rebels, to attack Bogota in the "next few days."

On Wednesday, Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez said the capital was taking the threat "very seriously" and had stepped up security.

"After verifying with all guerrilla structures ... we clarify that the information received by the Cuban embassy in Bogota is not part of the ELN's military plans," the rebels' high command said in a statement.

It added, however, that it would be "naive" to expect the rebels to cease their armed operations.

"This must be arranged around a negotiating table with an equivalent behavior on the part of the state," said the ELN statement.

The ELN speculated that the Colombian intelligence services were behind the warning released by the Cuban embassy with the objective of attributing attacks to the guerrillas to increase international pressure on their delegation based in Cuba.

Since 2018, Havana has hosted an ELN delegation that was negotiating a peace deal with former president Juan Manuel Santos (2010-2018).

But right-wing President Ivan Duque called off the talks following a car bomb attack on a police academy in January 2019 that killed 22.

Since then, Duque has demanded Cuba extradite the rebels on its territory to Colombia, but the island nation has refused.

The administration of former US president Donald Trump included that as a reason for putting Cuba back on a list of countries that sponsor terrorism.

The ELN has around 2,300 fighters and an extensive support network in urban centers.

© 2021 AFP

Vestas reveals offshore turbine with world's largest sweep

By Paul Ridden
February 11, 2021

The Vestas V236-15.0 MW offshore turbine will go into prototyping in 2022, followed by serial production in 2024
Vestas

Denmark's Vestas is looking to become an industry leader in offshore wind, and has introduced the V236-15.0 MW turbine to take the fight to GE. The new design's blades offer the largest swept area in the world.

Vestas got into the offshore turbine business over 25 years with the installation of 500-kW V39 units at Denmark's Tunoe Knob wind farm. The size and energy production capacities of turbines has grown steadily ever since, with GE Renewable Energy recently announcing that its world-beating 14-MW Haliade-X will be part of phase C of the Dogger Bank offshore wind project due for completion in 2026. Now Vestas has gone even bigger.


Thanks to its three 115.5-m (379-ft) blades, the new design is reported to have the largest swept area in the world, which adds up to 43,742 m2. It should be good for sites where wind speeds are high too, with Vestas saying that it's "rated to withstand IEC 1 extreme wind conditions up to 50 m/s and IEC T up to 57 m/s."

Each turbine is expected to deliver around 80 GWh of energy per year, depending on site-specific conditions, which is said to work out as being enough to power 20,000 European homes.

The V236-15.0 MW also offers the potential to reduce the number of turbines deployed at offshore windfarm level – with Vestas calculating that the "offshore turbine offers 65 percent higher annual energy production than the V173-9.5 MW, and for a 900-MW wind park it boosts production by five percent with 34 fewer turbines."

The company expects the first V236-15.0 MW prototype to be built in 2022, with serial production following two years later. It has a design lifetime of 25 years.

“With the V236-15.0 MW, we raise the bar in terms of technological innovation and industrialization in the wind energy industry, in favor of building scale," said Anders Nielsen, Vestas CTO. "By leveraging Vestas’ extensive proven technology, the new platform combines innovation with certainty to offer industry-leading performance while reaping the benefits of building on the supply chain of our entire product portfolio. The new offshore platform forms a solid foundation for future products and upgrades.”

CORONAVIRUS

WHO virus probe seeks answers beyond Wuhan, discounts lab theory

Although they did not reach definite conclusions, they have all but ruled out the possibility that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.
 

Medical team work at Temple Street in Hong Kong. Photo: Liau Chung-Ren/dpa.

FOREIGNER.FI/DPA
FEBRUARY 10, 2021 

More research is needed to find out whether the novel coronavirus originated in bats in China or in another country, an expert group led by the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday at the end of a month-long investigation in China.

The most likely hypothesis that has emerged is that the virus came from an animal species, moved to a second intermediary species and jumped to humans, WHO animal disease expert Peter Ben Embarek told a press conference in Wuhan, where the Covid-19 disease was first detected in December 2019.

Scientists from China, 10 other countries and UN organizations spent the past weeks examining markets, health facilities and laboratories in and around the city of Wuhan to find the source of the pandemic.

Although they did not reach definite conclusions, they have all but ruled out the possibility that the virus escaped from a Chinese laboratory.

Embarek said that the "laboratory incident hypothesis is extremely unlikely to explain the introduction of the virus into the population," given no laboratory in the area had been working with such a virus.


The novel coronavirus, scientifically known as Sars-CoV-2, is most closely related to viruses found in bats and in pangolins.

"However, the viruses identified so far from neither of these species are sufficiently similar to Sars-CoV-2" to determine the winged creatures as the source and the scaled mammals as intermediary hosts, said Chinese investigation team leader Liang Wannian.
Other countries in Asia

Embarek stressed that further investigations should not only focus on China but on other countries in Asia and beyond.

More work is needed to sample bats and other possible host species abroad, he said.

US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that the "jury is still out" on whether China has provided enough transparency regarding the novel coronavirus.

"Broadly speaking we have expressed our concerns regarding the need for full transparency and access from China and the WHO to all information regarding the earliest days of the pandemic," Price added.

The US under former president Donald Trump pushed the theory that the virus originated in a Wuhan lab, while the administration of President Joe Biden has called for more evidence before concluding an origin of the virus.

Embarek also pointed out that the virus may have been introduced to Wuhan by travellers or through frozen wild animal products from other Chinese regions or countries.

Liang highlighted some studies suggesting that the virus was already present abroad in late 2019, in line with theories of a foreign virus origin that have been propagated by Beijing.

The foreign investigation team members did not confirm such theories, but they said that more data from early cases outside China are needed to map the path that the virus took.

While it is clear that the virus can survive on frozen products, there is no proof yet that anyone has been infected in this way, Embarek pointed out.
Huanan market

The WHO-led mission in China focused on Wuhan's Huanan market where the first cluster of Covid-19 infections appeared in late 2019.

The market sells seafood and farmed wild animals, raising the question whether some of the animals carried the virus.

None of the animal samples from the market have tested positive, Dutch virologist Marion Koopmans told the press conference.

However, some of the species, including rabbits, are known to be susceptible to the virus. There are suspicions that ferret-badgers and bamboo rats that were on offer at Huanan market are also able to catch the virus, according to Koopmans.

Some of these animals have been traced back to regions with bat populations, she said, stressing that further investigations on this issue are needed.

The market was not the only place in Wuhan where people started falling ill with Covid-19 in December 2019, according to the WHO team members. However, they did not find evidence of earlier cases in hospital and pharmacy records.