SPACE RACE 2.0

UAE spacecraft to explore asteroid belt beyond Mars

Issued on: 05/10/2021 -

A screen broadcasting the launch of the "Hope" Mars probe on July 19, 2020 at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai 

Giuseppe CACACE AFP/File

Dubai (AFP)

The United Arab Emirates will launch a spacecraft to explore a major asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, officials said Tuesday, after a UAE probe reached the red planet early this year.

The five-year journey from 2028 will traverse 3.6 billion kilometres (2.2 billion miles), with the unmanned craft drawing on gravity assists from Earth and Venus to reach the main asteroid belt beyond Mars, officials said.

"The mission will make its first close planetary approach orbiting Venus in mid-2028, followed by a close orbit of Earth in mid-2029," the UAE Space Agency said in a statement.

"It will make its first fly-by of a main asteroid belt object in 2030, going on to observe a total of seven main belt asteroids before its final landing on an asteroid 560 million kilometres from Earth in 2033."

The UAE -- made up of seven emirates including the capital Abu Dhabi and Dubai -- is a newcomer to the world of space exploration.

In September 2019, the oil-rich country sent the first Emirati into space as part of a three-member crew that blasted off on a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan.

Then in February 2021 its "Hope" probe successfully entered Mars' orbit on a journey to reveal the secrets of Martian weather, in the Arab world's first interplanetary mission.

The UAE also has plans to send an unmanned rover to the moon by 2024.

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the UAE's de facto leader, said that the launch of the new project sets an "ambitious" new goal for the country.

"The UAE is determined to make a meaningful contribution to space exploration, scientific research and our understanding of the solar system," he tweeted.

Inequality, inflation hurting pandemic recovery: IMF

Issued on: 05/10/2021 

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva, pictured in January 2020, has warned that inequality, inflation and debt threaten the global economic recovery

 Fabrice COFFRINI AFP/File

Washington (AFP)

The global economic bounceback from the Covid-19 crisis will downshift this year as countries struggle with rising prices, high debt loads and divergent recoveries in which poor nations are slipping behind wealthier ones, the leader of the IMF warned on Tuesday.

While the Washington-based crisis lender has hundreds of billions of dollars in new firepower to help countries recover from the catastrophe, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said factors from rising food prices to unequal vaccine access were taking a toll.

"We face a global recovery that remains 'hobbled' by the pandemic and its impact. We are unable to walk forward properly," Georgieva said in a speech delivered virtually from Washington to Bocconi University in Milan.

The IMF will release new growth forecasts next week, but Georgieva warned "we now expect growth to moderate slightly this year" from the six percent forecast in July, and "the risks and obstacles to a balanced global recovery have become even more pronounced."

These include a widening divergence between rich countries and poor countries in the trajectories of their recovery from the pandemic.

"Economic output in advanced economies is projected to return to pre-pandemic trends by 2022. But most emerging and developing countries will take many more years to recover," Georgieva said.

"This delayed recovery will make it even more difficult to avoid long-term economic scarring -- including from job losses, which hit young people, women and informal workers especially hard."

- More firepower -

Georgieva's speech comes ahead of the fall meetings of the IMF and World Bank, where the former will unveil its latest World Economic Outlook offering forecasts on an array of topics.

Since their previous report in July, the IMF's tool kit for dealing with global crises was greatly expanded with a $650 billion increase in cash reserves for member nations known as Special Drawing Rights.

These reserves, $275 billion of which went to emerging and developing nations, give countries funds to draw on as their economies recover. In her speech, Georgieva calls on countries that don't need them to channel them into the fund's anti-poverty programs.

Georgieva likened the global recovery from the pandemic to "walking with stones in our shoes" and said it could get off track.

Italy and other European nations are seeing their economies accelerate but the world's economic titans the United States and China are experiencing slowing momentum, she says.

"By contrast, in many other countries, growth continues to worsen, hampered by low access to vaccines and constrained policy response," Georgieva said, adding "this divergence in economic fortunes is becoming more persistent."

- Debt equal to GDP -

One reason for this is inflation, which has crept up across the world. Food prices have risen by more than 30 percent over the past year, Georgieva said, and energy prices have also increased.

The fund expects the spikes to abate next year, but they'll continue in emerging and developing economies, Georgieva said.

Then there's global public debt, which she estimated has hit nearly 100 percent of GDP.

Closing these gaps will require measures including increasing Covid-19 vaccine availability, but Georgieva said "a bigger push" is required to meet the IMF and World Bank targets of 40 percent vaccination worldwide by the end of this year and 70 percent in the first half of 2022.

She also called on countries to seize the opportunity to make economic reforms aimed at cutting carbon emissions, building digital infrastructure and establishing a global minimum tax to curb the offshoring of corporate taxes.

Georgieva spoke amid the fallout from an independent investigation last month that found that during her time at the World Bank, she was among top officials who pressured staff into changing data to China's benefit in the 2018 edition of its closely watched Doing Business report.

© 2021 AFP

Pink October: "Breast cancer is now the most common cancer around the globe"

In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Dr. Benjamin Anderson, WHO Medical Officer leading the Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI), joins France 24 to share rich insight into breast cancer awareness, prevention, early diagnosis and detection, and effective treatment. Like with any disease, explains Dr. Anderson, "there are certain risk factors that we can control: weight control, exercise, avoiding excess use of alcohol, avoiding tobacco... These are all things that will help."

Volcano evacuees face huge reconstruction challenges

Issued on: 05/10/2021 -

Small boats are moored in the port of Tazacorte as the volcano spews lava, ash and smoke -- but locals don't want to leave 

JORGE GUERRERO AFP

Los Llanos de Aridane (Spain) (AFP)

The lives of thousands may have been devastated by the volcano's eruption on La Palma island, but many are starting to dream of returning home and starting to rebuild.

It has been more than two weeks since La Cumbre Vieja began erupting, forcing more than 6,000 people out of their homes as the lava burnt its way across huge swathes of land on the western side of La Palma in Spain's Canary Islands.

And there is no legislation that prevents them from going back to their homes in the Aridane valley, a fertile agricultural area that is home to 20,000 people that has borne the brunt of the eruption, with the lava destroying more than 1,000 buildings.

Unlike Italy's Mount Etna or Mount Fuji in Japan, which have one central vent, the volcano on La Palma makes a new fissure each time it erupts, meaning it isn't possible to set up a clearly defined exclusion zone.

"It wouldn't be much help, because these type of volcanos erupt wherever they want," said Manuel Perera, an architect and head of urban planning in Los Llanos de Aridane, the worst-hit area on the western side of the island.

During the last two eruptions on La Palma in 1949 and 1971, there was very little damage, largely because the population density was much lower.

What is clear is that nobody wants to leave.

"I'm not going anywhere," insists Pedro Antonio Sanchez, a 60-year-old resident whose banana plantation was damaged in the eruption but who is determined to stay put.

Pensioners Margaretha and Luis wait on their boat in the La Palma port of Tazacorte, where they fled following the eruption

 JORGE GUERRERO AFP

"There are whole populated areas like Todoque and others that have disappeared and many residents, who have roots there, want to stay in the area," Canary Islands' regional leader Angel Victor Torres told local newspaper El Diario de Avisos on Monday.

The only regulation regarding the right to rebuild has to do with the cooled lava, which must be respected as "a protected natural space" -- meaning no-one can build on it, Perera says.

But the authorities appear to be taking a more flexible approach.

"A draft bill is being prepared that will classify this land as suitable for development in order to allow the orderly reconstruction of areas that have been destroyed," Torres said.

- 'Life on Mars' -

The Atlantic archipelago, which is located off the northwestern coast of Africa and counts seven islands, has undergone huge changes as a result of volcanic activity over the past 12,000 years.

"This is just what happens in the Canary Islands and many people from the mainland do not really understand. They are not islands facing a volcanic threat, they are volcanic islands," wrote journalist Alfonso Gonzalez Jerez in Sunday's El Dia newspaper.

"The Canary Islands are not surviving in spite of the volcanoes: it is the volcanoes that have created the Canaries."

Although it is scientifically impossible to predict when the eruption will end, some experts have spoken of several weeks based on previous experience.

Despite the Cumbre Vieja volcano spewing lava, ash and smoke as here in Los Llanos de Aridane on La Palma, life is continuing almost as normal in much of the island 

JORGE GUERRERO AFP

And it could take the lava six to nine months to cool, Borja Perdomo, regional head of infrastructure, said this week, quoting experts.

Some residents have asked the authorities not to impose any restrictions on the area but experts say it would be impossible to build any houses there in the short term.

"It would be like being on Mars," explained Perera.

"It's the worst place on the whole island for reconstruction because it could be months or even years until it cools down."

So far the lava has covered more than 1,000 acres (434 hectares) of land, and when it cools, it will have "an irregular surface with steep drops that is very uneven," he said.

"It's terrain that is very difficult to work with."

- New fertile land? -

Despite the ongoing eruption, life is carrying on as normal in most of the island, except for the disruption caused by damaged and destroyed roads.

The lava has covered less than 8.0 percent of the Aridane valley and this is where the biggest changes will take place, starting with the rehousing of those who have lost their homes.

A petrol station covered with ash at Jedey on La Palma -- which has gained 75 acres of surface area due to the lava pouring off a 500-metre stretch of coastline into the sea, creating a vast delta

 JORGE GUERRERO AFP

The island has also gained another 75 acres of surface area due to the lava pouring off a 500-metre stretch of coastline into the sea, creating a vast delta that will be used at some point in the future.

At that site, which lies just down the coast from the newly-created lava delta, locals went to work levelling the surface using little more than picks and shovels, with the resulting land one of the most fertile areas for growing bananas.

© 2021 AFP

#WATERISLIFE

Five billion could struggle to access water in 2050: UN

Issued on: 05/10/2021 - 

A dried up river bed in the al-Huwaiza Marshes, on the Iraq-Iran border.There has been around a 30 percent increase in the amount and duration of drought since 2000, according to the UN's World Meteorological Organization 

Asaad NIAZI AFP

Geneva (AFP)

More than five billion people could have difficulty accessing water in 2050, the United Nations warned Tuesday, urging leaders to seize the initiative at the COP26 summit.

Already in 2018, 3.6 billion people had inadequate access to water for at least one month per year, said a new report from the UN's World Meteorological Organization.

"We need to wake up to the looming water crisis," said WMO chief Petteri Taalas.

"The State of Climate Services 2021: Water" report comes just weeks before COP26 -- the UN Climate Change Conference being held in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12.

The WMO stressed that over the last 20 years, the levels of water stored on land -- on the surface, in the subsurface, in snow and ice -- had dropped at a rate of one centimetre per year.

The biggest losses are in Antarctica and Greenland, but many highly-populated lower latitude locations are experiencing significant water losses in areas that traditionally provide water supply, said the WMO.

The agency said there were major ramifications for water security, as only 0.5 percent of water on Earth is useable and available fresh water.

"Increasing temperatures are resulting in global and regional precipitation changes, leading to shifts in rainfall patterns and agricultural seasons, with a major impact on food security and human health and well-being," said Taalas.

- 'We cannot wait' -

Meanwhile water-related hazards have increased in frequency over the past 20 years.

Since 2000, flood-related disasters have risen by 134 percent compared with the previous two decades.

"We have seven percent more humidity in the atmosphere because of the current warming and that's also contributing to the flooding," Taalas told a press conference.

Most of the flood-related deaths and economic losses were recorded in Asia, where river flood warning systems require strengthening, said the WMO.

At the same time, there has been around a 30 percent increase in the amount and duration of drought events since 2000, with Africa the worst-affected continent.

Taalas urged countries at COP26 to raise their game.

He said most world leaders were talking about climate change as a major risk to the welfare of mankind, but their actions were not matching their words.

"We cannot wait for decades to start acting," he said.

"That's also a message for countries like China which has said that they would like to become carbon neutral by 2060 but they don't have a concrete plan for the coming decade."

He said the top priority at COP26 was stepping up ambition levels in climate mitigation, but more work was also needed on climate adaptations, as the negative trend in weather patterns will continue for the coming decades -- and the coming centuries when it comes to the melting of glaciers and sea levels rising.

© 2021 AFP

France demonstrations: Unions calling for public sector wages increase • FRANCE 24 English

Employees and the unemployed called for a strike on Tuesday 5 October throughout France to demand "urgent answers", in particular on the question of wages, and put social questions back at the heart of the debate, just over six months before the presidential election. FRANCE 24's Andrew Hilliar reports from Paris.

1921-2021

PEN celebrates 100 years of fighting for freedom of speech

PEN stands for "Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors, Novelists." 

The writer’s association has long championed human rights, whether in Belarus or Nazi Germany. A new publication celebrates its history.

For the last 100 years, PEN has been championing freedom of speech

Suppressing freedom of expression of the written word has been a hallmark of numerous regimes throughout history — whether in countries such as China, Turkey or Iran today, or the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany in the past. Writers often face persecution, imprisonment and even death in such countries.

One organization has notably made it part of its mission to provide support for such freedom fighters. Celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, the international writers's association, or PEN for short, has been providing a safe haven for persecuted authors and championing literary freedom for a century.

"100 years of PEN is an occasion to celebrate as well as to pause, to remember and to mourn," says president of the German PEN Center, Regula Venske.

The fact that writers are still persecuted worldwide means support is needed now more than ever. "The word is the weapon that rulers in authoritarian regimes around the world fear most," Venske told DW. "The first to be arrested are always the writers and journalists." Many brave women and men have supported human rights and paid with their lives, she points out.

President of the German PEN association Regula Venske

In Germany, where the situation is more peaceful, Venske says, literature has slipped somewhat into the entertainment realm where it is an after-work pastime. However, she points out that "the written word is elemental to supporting freedom, truth and human coexistence, in general. That's what it's all about."

This chart shows attacks on writers in 2018, compiled by PEN

Humble beginnings

PEN stands for "Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors, Novelists." It was founded in England in 1921, as a literary circle of friends.

One of the primary organizers was English writer Catherine Amy Dawson Scott, who gathered 40 like-minded people for a founding dinner in a London restaurant on October 5, 1921. During the meal, PEN's first president, John Galsworthy, made a toast in which he said that writers saw themselves as the "trustees of human nature," but that literary culture must stay out of politics. It was the only way, he argued, that PEN could secure its independence.

Within a year, new PEN centers sprang up in Paris, New York, Brussels, Oslo, Barcelona and Stockholm.

By the end of the decade, PEN had more than 40 clubs with over 3,000 members in Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania, South and North America. The London club acted as a hub, while international conferences were held in different locations around the world. A monthly newsletter provided information about the latest happenings.

Jewish-German writer Ernst Toller was among those who encouraged PEN to stand up to the Nazis

PEN against the Nazis

By the mid-1930s, PEN had grown far beyond the borders of Europe and included centers in Johannesburg and Cape Town, Tel Aviv, Buenos Aires, Beijing, La Paz, Baghdad and Tokyo, among other locations. A non-territorial Yiddish PEN emerged with centers in New York, Warsaw and Vilnius.

In its "Appeal to All Governments," PEN first called on rulers in 1931 to respect the "rights of authors imprisoned for religious or political reasons." Further appeals followed, and they were increasingly political in nature.

When the National Socialists took power in Germany, PEN took a stand, triggered by the increasingly harsh persecution of writers, and the censorship and burning of books. At the PEN congress in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in May 1933, Jewish author Ernst Toller, by then living in exile, took the floor and spoke about the consequences of Nazi rule.

PEN organized a 2017 protest in Berlin for filmmaker Oleg Sentzov who was imprisoned in Russia

He mentioned the names of 60 writers whose books had been burned in Berlin two weeks earlier. "Millions of people in Germany are not allowed to speak freely and write freely," Toller said. "The gentlemen invoke the great German spirits," he said, referring to famous German authors used by the Nazis for their propaganda purposes. "But how are the intellectual demands of Goethe, Schiller, Kleist, Herder, Wieland and Lessing compatible with the persecution of millions of people?" he continued.

"Let us not deceive ourselves," Toller said. "These politicians only tolerate us, then persecute us when we become inconvenient. The voice of truth has never been comfortable."

The PEN association has a long history in Germany, where writer Erich Kästner was a former PEN Germany president

A global reach

With the Canby Resolution of (1933), PEN condemned "persecution on the grounds of racial prejudice," while the so-called "Raymond Resolution" of 1934 demanded the right to freedom of expression for all exiled authors. In 1948, PEN created a charter with clear goals analogous to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "Literature knows no frontiers" it states, "and must remain common currency among people in spite of political or international upheavals."

The protection of freedom of art and of expression around the word are still the most important demands of the PEN Charter today.

In the meantime, PEN has become the world's largest literary network, with locations in more than 100 countries. It is still considered to be one of the most important human rights organizations working internationally.

Notable writers PEN has championed include Federico Garcia Lorca, Stefan Zweig, Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Anna Politkovskaya, Hrant Dink and Svetlana Alexievich.

Belarusian author Svetlana Alexievich is among the authors PEN has assisted

Today, PEN maintains several committees for its work. The Writers in Prison committee, for example, campaigns for the release of persecuted authors, publishers, editors, illustrators and journalists. The Writers in Exile scholarship program supports writers who are persecuted in their home countries.

An informative publication about the eventful history of PEN was published in Germany, as well as in several other countries, just in time for the organisation's 100th anniversary.

Titled "Pen International: An Illustrated History,"the bookcontains previously unpublished material and includes photos, notes and manuscripts.

"The freedom of the word is not something you fight for once to win forever," the book quotes German writer Juli Zeh. "It is an eternal struggle for the foundations of human togetherness. What task could be more honorable for us writers!"

#ENDWOLFHUNTING
Germany: More wolves being illegally killed, say conservationists

A leading German environment group has called for action, with the number of wolves killed without legal permission on the rise. Anyone caught illegally killing a wolf could face jail or a fine, but prosecution is rare.



Wolves were returned to the wild in 2000, and their numbers are growing

A total of 11 illegally killed wolves have been found in Germany so far this year, the highest yearly number since the animal returned to the wild in the country 21 years ago, a leading German conservation association has said.

The German Society for Nature Conservation (NABU) said that peak was reached with the discovery of three shot animals in the northern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania at the end of September.

NABU added that 64 wolves in all had been killed since their reintroduction, with the number of unreported killings likely much higher.

"Each of these killings is a criminal offense and must be prosecuted," said NABU department head Ralf Schulte. He added that Germany was far from having adequate protections for wolves.

NABU said perpetrators of such killings are not usually caught because German states do not have agencies specialized in the protection of animal species. Lynxes and several species of birds of prey also fell victim to illegal killings, it said.
Growing wolf populations

In total, 128 packs, 39 wolf pairs and nine territorial individuals were detected in Germany during the monitoring year 2019-2020, according to data from the Federal Documentation and Consultation Center on Wolves (DBBW).

The same agency registered 942 attacks by wolves on livestock in Germany in 2020, mostly in the states of Lower Saxony and Brandenburg.

In view of the growing number of wolves in the country, the German Hunting Association (DJV) has called for the protection status of wolves to be lowered from "strict" to "conditional."

However, even such a status would not mean a free-for-all for hunters.

Under the current rules, anyone killing a wolf without a permit could face up to five years in prison or a fine.

tj/wmr (epd, dpa)

'Staff wanted' as pandemic forces hospitality workers to rethink

There are huge staff shortages in Berlin’s restaurants, bars and hotels. The post-pandemic phenomenon is being seen across Europe and elsewhere, including in the US, as workers leave the challenging sector for good.


There has been a huge drop in the number of workers in the restaurant sector

Diners who recently returned to Berlin's restaurants are likely to have noticed a plethora of "staff wanted" signs in the windows of the reopened eateries.

As the long emergence from lockdown continues, Germany's gastronomy and hospitality sector is experiencing a serious shortfall in workers, particularly waiting and kitchen staff.

Restaurants have spent large portions of the past 18 months either fully or partially closed, but owners' relief at being able to reopen has been tempered by the lack of workers.

"It has been difficult because during the lockdown we only needed a small staff: one in the kitchen and one out front to serve the customers for takeaway," says Jonathan O'Reilly, proprietor of Crazy Bastard Kitchen in Berlin's Neukölln district. "Going from that to serving 30 or 40 people at tables means we had to double service staff quickly."

Sebastian Werner Knight (left) and Jonathan O'Reilly outside their restaurant Crazy Bastard Kitchen in Berlin's Neukölln district.

Rebecca Lynch, who runs Salt n Bone in the district of Prenzlauer Berg, says she has never experienced such difficulty finding staff. She spent more than €2,000 ($2,300) on job ads alone during the summer months.

"Normally, we would get 20 or 30 applications for a waiting position," she said. "This time it was silent. We got applications from people who weren't even in the country, who would only relocate if we found them an apartment."

Dramatic shortage of workers

"The staff shortage in the hospitality industry is dramatic," Jonas Bohl, spokesman for Germany's Food, Beverages and Catering Union (NGG), told DW. "In the past year alone, around 300,000 employees left the industry. Many will not come back."

The employment picture in the sector has indeed been dramatically upended by the pandemic. According to figures from the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (DEHOGA), a trade body, the number of those employed in German restaurants and hotels fell by around 15% between the start of the pandemic and September 2020.

These figures are backed up by the NGG, the workers' union, which estimates that around one in six workers (300,000) have left. The question now is how many of those will come back.

Over the past few months, proprietors such as O'Reilly and Lynch have been tentatively watching to see if the full reopening of business would encourage more applications.

However, just when more staff were needed, fewer seemed to be available. "During July and August, suddenly people were able to travel again," said O'Reilly. "People wanted to take holidays. Some hadn't seen their families in two years."

The staff shortages have been a feature of post-lockdown life in many countries, including in the US (pictured)

The situation is not unique to Germany. Across Europe, the hospitality sector is experiencing a serious staff shortage. Likewise, in the United States, the post-lockdown environment has seen a major lack of workers in the services sector.

Lockdown lifestyle changes

As well as the issue of people taking long-awaited holidays, both O'Reilly and Lynch have recognized a potentially permanent pivot away from the industry by workers who enjoyed a different way of life during long lockdowns.

"A lot of people realized they hated working nights and weekends and that actually working for Zalando (an E-commerce fashion company) from 9 to 5 wasn't the worst thing," says Lynch. "This sector is very stressful. It isn't very secure because you are relying on tips and not actual recognized taxable money. I can understand why a lot of them are not coming back."

O'Reilly, who expanded his restaurant during the winter lockdown says it's demanding work. "It is late nights and not as well paid as office jobs. People had the time to stop and think if this is what they want to do, and a lot of people shifted careers during the lockdown. That's totally understandable and a great thing. There weren't that many people thinking: 'I can't wait for the lockdown to end so I can get back to work really hard in the kitchen.'"

O'Reilly and Lynch prioritize worker rights and conditions in their restaurants. But they say that is far from common across the sector.

"I have heard horror stories about places that don't pay benefits," says O'Reilly. "They have everyone on 'mini jobs' but they are actually working way more than they are supposed to so benefits don't have to be paid. A lot are paying cash in hand."

Lockdowns may have resulted in permanent changes to the hospitality sector, particularly in terms of the treatment of workers

Bohl, from the workers' union, lays much of the blame for the current crisis on restaurants themselves, as well as on DEHOGA.

"For far too long, employers and their association have done far too little to make the industry more attractive," he told DW. "Wages were and are too low, working hours too long and the quality of training too poor. These past failures are now hurting the industry."

Leopold Schramek, a spokesperson for DEHOGA, said the trade body rejects the accusation.

"Securing the need for workers and skilled workers has been at the top of the DEHOGA agenda for years," he told DW. "Together with the companies in the industry, we are working to position the hospitality industry as an attractive employer and trainer, to attract people to the industry and to keep them in the industry. This is only possible with respect and appreciation, with good communication between entrepreneurs and employees and with a trusting atmosphere."

Slow return to normality

While the "staff wanted" signs are likely to be needed for some time to come, there are some indications that the apparently permanent end of lockdown is bringing workers back.

Lynch says that universities finally returning to in-person classes again is huge for the sector, as hospitality has long relied on students' willingness to take on part-time work. She also sees the gradual return of backpacking holidaymakers, willing to work during short stints of travel abroad, as vital.

"I do see light at the end of the tunnel," she said. "I have had this staff drought for months and months, but since September 1 I have received more job applications in a week than I have in the last six months!

The German-Turkish Recruitment Agreement 60 years on

Facing a labor shortage after World War II, Germany designed a program to bring in so-called guest workers. It was a move that had a lasting impact, said President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in a commemoration on Tuesday.

Turkish workers came to Germany to work in the coal mines and other factories


"In the interest of the systematic recruitment of Turkish workers to the Federal Republic." Those were the opening words of the agreement that — when signed on October 30th, 1961 – established an irreversible bond between Germany and Turkey. West Germany needed workers to boost production in its booming economy. Hundreds of thousands of so-called guest-workers grasped the opportunity and made their way to Germany.

Sixty years on, some three million people with Turkish roots live in Germany. Burak Yilmaz is part of the third generation of the migrant community. In 1963, his grandfather traveled by train from Istanbul to Munich. The final destination of his long journey was the Ruhr valley industrial region in Germany's northwest. He first worked as a miner, before getting a job in the railways. According to the terms of the recruitment agreement, the first "guest-workers" were supposed to return to Turkey after a limited stay. But that changed when the German government decided to allow family members to join the workers and begin a new life in Germany.

'WE ARE FROM HERE': TURKISH-GERMAN LIFE IN PICTURES

Self-portrait

In 1990, Istanbul-based photographer Ergun Cagatay took thousands of photographs of people of Turkish origin in Hamburg, Cologne, Werl, Berlin and Duisburg. These will be on display from June 21 to October 31 at the Ruhr Museum as part of a special exhibition, "We are from here: Turkish-German Life in 1990." Here he's seen in a self-portrait in pit clothes at the Walsum Mine, Duisburg.

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'Why we're here today'

"My grandmother worked in a food processing plant. They took their children to school in the morning, did a full day's work, and after that, they ran small grocery stores," says Yilmaz. Their days were work and little else: "The most important thing was to make sure that their children would have a better life."

Yilmaz is glad that his grandparents can tell him what those early years were like. So, what about the anniversary of the Recruitment Agreement? Is it an important milestone? Or is it just another date in the calendar? "No, for me it's a big deal. And not just for me but for the rest of the family and a lot of other people who have a migrant background. After all, it's the reason why we're here in Germany today."

Burak Yilmaz' grandparents came to Germany from Turkey

Made welcome — or shunned?

Yilmaz himself was born in Duisburg in 1987. When he looks back on his childhood, he remembers feeling cut off from the world around him. "The sense I got was that I was an outsider, a problem. You'd hear people saying: 'Go back to where you came from!' The thing was: no matter how you looked at it, it didn't add up. I mean I was born here. I grew up here." Yilmaz is today an educationalist and a writer. When he talks about "Heimat" — or home — he means multiple homes: German, Turkish and Kurdish.

Fact is, Yilmaz and many others do believe that they have found their place in the society around them. But, says Yilmaz: "Racism is still a part of everyday life. There are always pinpricks and provocations, sometimes several times a month." The latest incident, he says, was on September 26th — the day of the general election for Germany's new parliament. He was subjected to racial abuse from the polling registrar — the person responsible for verifying the names in the electoral register: "There are still people who seem to believe that Germany is only for Germans with blonde hair and blue eyes," Yilmaz concludes.

Schools are the key to integration

Is the abuse that Yilmaz experienced at his polling station an isolated incident? No, says Hacı-Halil Uslucan, head of the Center for Turkish Studies and Migration Research at the University of Essen-Duisburg, who points out that around eight in ten respondents with a Turkish background say they experience exclusion at least once a year. "That is, of course, a very high figure," Uslucan concludes.

One area, he says, where the overall development can be described as positive is education: "The first generation that arrived had only had primary schooling. The generation that followed had at least eight to ten years of schooling. Historically, that's incredible, never before had the amount of formal schooling doubled within just one generation."

Adherence to Islam stable

In the third and fourth generations, there has also been a sustained rise in the number of high-school graduates from the migrant community. However, over the same period, the number of high-school graduates outside migrant communities increased by an even higher margin: "The gap is still there. Even when youngsters with migrant roots improve their performance," Uslucan points out. Still today, many children with Turkish roots struggle to get the recommendation they require from their teachers to win a place at a Gymnasium — the highest level of secondary schooling. Yilmaz himself remembers how skeptical his primary school teachers were.

In the past sixty years, there has in many ways been a closing of the gap between the Turkish-German community and the rest of society, says Uslucan: "But there are still significant differences. Not least, when it comes to religion." While German society as a whole has become more secular, the number of people in migrant communities who are devout Muslims has remained remarkably stable across several generations. "What's more, emotional bonds with Turkey are still very, very intense, even in the third generation," says Uslucan. "This is despite the fact that they were born here and in many instances only really know Turkey from what others have told them or from holiday impressions."

Haci-Halil Uslucan, the head of the Center for Turkish Studies and Migration Research at the University of Essen-Duisburg, says most people with a Turkish background say they experience exclusion

Fourth-generation ready to accept responsibility

Today's generation of young men and women with Turkish roots has a more pluralistic approach to identity than what Burak Yilmaz remembers from the 1980s and 1990s: "The fourth generation is hungry. They want more responsibility. They say: this is our country, too!"

So, what happened to exclusion? And discrimination? What does Yilmaz say? Intriguingly, after being abused on election day, the man who was after all born in Duisburg registered a formal complaint. He was told that the official in question would in the future no longer be asked to work on polling day. "And then," he adds: "I offered to be a volunteer for the next election day." So it looks like in the future Burak Yilmaz will find himself ticking off names in the electoral register.

This article was translated from German.

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