Presumed innocent but detained for months pretrial in Germany and EU

One in five people jailed in the European Union hasn't been convicted of a crime — including 12,000 in Germany alone. Studies suggest that pretrial detention is unnecessary in most cases.

A person sits behind the barred windows of the prison in Heilbronn. As in many EU countries,

 a large share of people incarcerated in Germany have not yet been convicted of crimes.

The 19-year-old brought before a Berlin district court in April 2021 was accused of stealing two bottles of La Vie est Belle perfume from Lancome. At the time of his arrest, he was dealing with an addiction to crystal meth and sleeping in train stations throughout Berlin. Because of his homelessness and substance abuse, the magistrate ordered that he be kept in jail until his trial — to ensure that the court would know where to find him.

Variations of this case, as described by the lawyer and journalist Ronen Steinke in his book "Vor dem Gesetz sind nicht alle gleich" (All Are Not Equal Before the Law), happen thousands of times per year in Germany. About 27,500 people were detained pretrial in Germany in 2020, roughly 3% of all people charged with crimes. That meant that in January 2021, for example, 12,000 of the 60,000 people in German prisons were not serving a final sentence, effectively locked up while presumed innocent.

In many EU countries, the proportion of people in prisons and jails before trial is even higher than in Germany. Across the European Union, about 100,000 people are currently being held in pretrial detention, which can range on average from a few months to over a year depending on the country.

Most in pretrial detention accused of minor crimes

There is often a clear pattern to who gets locked up before trial. Though foreign nationals make up just 12% of the general prison population in Germany, according to federal statistics, they represent 60% of people held in pretrial detention. Most people in remand custody are unemployed, and about half were experiencing homelessness at the time of their arrest, one study found.

Over one-third of people held in pretrial detention across Germany are accused of minor crimes such as petty theft or shoplifting. "Usually, they'll steal some combination of a bottle of booze, coffee or an energy drink, and meat salad or sardines," said Christine Morgenstern, a professor of criminal law and gender studies at the Free University of Berlin, who wrote her postdoctoral thesis on pretrial detention in Europe.

Though data is sparse, research suggests that this isn't just a German issue. "We've found a similar pattern in other European countries we studied," Morgenstern said, "even ones with more liberal policies."

In deciding whether to detain people ahead of trials, judges must assess whether the person might tamper with evidence, intimidate witnesses or, most importantly, flee prosecution if released. In 95% of cases in Germany in which pretrial detention was ordered, judges cited flight risk as the main reason.

In theory, judges should make this decision based on the concrete evidence in each individual case. The reality is often different, criminal defense lawyer Lara Wolf said: "We're locking up people based on feelings, assumptions, personal theories." Her doctoral thesis — one of the few empirical studies into flight risk in Germany and the European Union — investigates which individual factors might determine whether someone flees prosecution.

Judges more likely to lock up marginalized people

In the absence of evidence, Wolf's thesis finds, judges form their own theories based on personal experiences and preconceptions. Legal reference works and interviews with judges show that contacts abroad, for example, are generally deemed a factor for increased flight risk, as are homelessness, unemployment and a lack of formal education. A steady job, good education and personal ties are interpreted as decreasing flight risk. Into the late 1980s, some judges advised that homosexual relationships didn't decrease flight risk in the way that heterosexual ones did, as they were considered less committed. The result is that people from marginalized groups are much more likely to be detained before trial.

Wolf analyzed 169 cases throughout Germany in which judges assumed flight risk but the defendant was released for procedural reasons. "I was surprised just how clear the results were," she said. In all but 14 cases, defendants showed up for trial. A lawyer attempting to repeat the research in his own district found that only one defendant of 65 fled. "At this point, something is going so systematically wrong that the whole practice is simply unlawful," Wolf said. "I still find it shocking, the idea that we're locking people up based on feelings, on false assumptions that no one has ever checked."

Both the German Judges' Association and the Berlin Senate Department for Justice, Diversity and Anti-Discrimination declined to comment on the study's findings.

Pretrial detention is often harsher than prison sentences: People get locked up for 23 hours a day and have little contact with the outside world and little to pass the time. Reintegration measures such as paid prison labor and social programs aren't available to people presumed innocent, Morgenstern said. And that is in addition to the jarring experience of being ripped from one's life without a clear idea of what comes next. "It's a very uncomfortable, unstable, frightening personal situation," Morgenstern said.

Almost half the cases of people detained pretrial end without prison sentences

Pretrial detention is a situation that can drag on. About 80% of people held in remand spend more than three months locked up.

German law explicitly states that the time spent in detention before trial must be proportionate to the potential sentence. Time in custody also gets deducted from the final sentence.

But, in almost half of the cases, the trial ends without any prison time. Prosecution statistics show that about 30% of people in pretrial detention have their eventual prison sentences suspended for probation. Ten percent receive only fines, and another 7% are acquitted, sentenced to community service or rehabilitation programs, or have their charges dropped.

There are alternative measures that courts could take. EU legal systems already work together to try defendants in their home countries or extradite them for prosecution rather than locking them up on the spot, but, Morgenstern said, "those options are barely used."

Instead of pretrial detention, some advocate for electronic monitoring of defendants in their homes when possible, a practice common in Italy and Belgium. But Morgenstern said house arrest had not reduced the number of people within the carceral system. "In Belgium, for example, they use these alternatives quite a lot, but then still detain the same number of people," she said. "We call that net widening. When that happens, not much is won in terms of freedom rights."

Reducing pretrial detention could reduce overcrowding

With high numbers of people locked up, pretrial detention also contributes massively to prison overcrowding. Nearly one in three EU countries have more people incarcerated than their official prison capacities allow. This is particularly problematic during the pandemic: Cramped quarters and poor hygiene conditions make prisons an ideal breeding ground for illnesses such as the coronavirus, a DW investigation showed.

If all pretrial detainees were released, almost all EU countries would solve their overcrowding problem instantly. And, though pretrial detention may remain necessary in some cases, reducing the practice would provide some relief to overburdened prisons — and the people incarcerated within them.

Edited by: Milan Gagnon and Gianna Grün

The project is part of a collaboration within the European Data Journalism Network.

Project lead: Civio

Collaborators: Deutsche Welle, Divergente, El Confidencial, EUrologus, OBCT, VoxEurop

BACKGROUNDER

Monroe Doctrine's Shadow Outshines the Summit of the Americas


President Joe Biden, Washington, D.C., U.S., 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @RobertSeghi

Published 1 June 2022
by teleSUR/MS

As Friday June 6 approaches, President Biden's foreign policy is also coming toward a major failure as a result of its refusal to invite Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

For months now, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Bolivia's President Luis Arce, Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves and other Latin American leaders have expressed dissatisfaction regarding the 2022 Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles if the U.S. insists on excluding Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

RELATED:
PM Gonsalves Urges CARICOM States Not To Attend US-Led Summit

Their stance reflects regional opposition to keeping those countries out of the summit, but this is not the first time Washington has tried to impose its will on the entire American continent. In the nearly 200 years since the United States adopted the so-called Monroe Doctrine in 1823, U.S. atrocities in Latin America have overshadowed bilateral relations.

MILITARY AGGRESSION

The history of the U.S. development is also a story of Latin American resistance marked with blood and tears. After its founding, which entailed dispossessing North American Indians of their own land, the U.S. embarked on a policy of expansion against Mexico.

Through war, the United States appropriated half of Mexico's territory, including all or part of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. Mexico lost significant mineral resources, impacting its economic development.

At the end of the 19th century, the U.S. launched another offensive, taking possession of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean Sea through the Spanish-American War, and occupying Cuba.

At the turn of the 20th century, frequent U.S. military aggressions in Latin America gradually brought regional countries into its sphere of influence. In 1903, the U.S. forcibly leased Guantanamo, turning it into the first U.S. military base abroad. To this day, Washington refuses to return this port to Cuba.

In 1915, Washington sent troops to occupy Haiti under the guise of "protecting the diaspora" from local unrest. It did not withdraw until 1934. The United States occupied the Dominican Republic from 1916 to 1924 to collect debts contracted by Dominican governments. U.S. troops again swarmed the island in 1965, when civil war in the Dominican Republic toppled the pro-American government, and Washington sent some 40,000 soldiers to "restore order."

In 1989, the U.S. sent elite troops to invade Panama under the guise of "protecting the lives and property of American citizens," overthrowing the military government and attempting to attain permanent control of the Panama Canal.

ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION

In 1904, American writer O. Henry used his experience in Honduras to write his novel "Cabbages and Kings," in which he exposed the ruthless plunder of U.S. monopolies in Central America and the Caribbean, and coined the term "banana republic," referring to countries under the control of Washington, and whose economies invariably depended on a single crop.

By 1930, the United Fruit Company controlled around 1.4 million hectares of land in Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama and over 2,400 kilometers of railways, as well as the countries' customs, telecommunications and other essential services.

In 1947 alone, U.S. business accounted for as much as 38 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in Honduras, 22.7 percent in Guatemala, 16.5 percent in Costa Rica, and 12.3 percent in Panama. Exploited and looted by Washington, these countries have become its economic vassals as suppliers of raw materials and dumping grounds for U.S.-made basic goods, with economies that lag far behind.

In addition, Washington imposed and continues to impose indiscriminate sanctions and tariffs on several Latin American countries, further restricting the region's economic development. In 1962, the U.S. launched a trade embargo against Cuba that grew into a full-on blockade of the island nation, leading to over US$150 billion in economic losses as of mid-2021.

"The blockade suffocates our economy, causes shortages, hinders development and constitutes the greatest violation of Cubans' rights," said the island's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

Venezuela has also suffered from the impact of over 430 sanctions imposed since 2015 by the United States and its allies, with losses to its economy of more than US$130 billion. The sanctions have caused a 99 percent drop in Venezuela's revenues, and negatively impacted all social, and economic spheres.

IN SHADOW OF MONROE DOCTRINE

Entering the 21st century, as Latin American countries recovered from recurring political and economic crises, their relationship with Washington began to be characterized by contradictions and conflicts.

In 2011, the region's 33 countries established the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the first regional organization in the Americas to forgo the participation of the U.S. and Canada. Faced with the continuing decline of its influence, the United States was forced to adjust its policy towards Latin America.

"The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over," then Secretary of State John Kerry declared in 2013 at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS), announcing the dawn of a new era of "common interests and values" between the United States and the region.

But that doesn't paint a true picture. Uncle Sam's shadow still lurks behind many Latin American political developments, said Adalberto Santana of the Center for Research on Latin America and the Caribbean at Mexico's National Autonomous University.

Washington's fingerprints are all over the 2009 military coup in Honduras, the ouster of Paraguay's Fernando Lugo in 2012 and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff in 2016, and the forced resignation of Bolivia's Evo Morales in 2019.

"For the last 200 years our country has operated under the Monroe Doctrine, embracing the premise that as the dominant power in the Western hemisphere, the United States has the right to intervene in any country that might threaten our alleged interests. Under this doctrine we have undermined and overthrown at least a dozen governments," said Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders in February.

At the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, the United States, then the global epicenter of the pandemic, summarily deported undocumented Central American migrants without the usual safeguards, increasing the risk of spreading disease in countries with fragile healthcare systems.

What's more, in response to Latin American countries' reasonable demands for help to tackle the pandemic, the United States chose to ignore them or even block their cooperation with countries outside the region, falsely alleging "debt traps" or "neocolonialism," politicizing a healthcare issue and forcing them to take sides at the expense of their own development.

The United States fails to see that Latin America and the Caribbean have changed and the Monroe Doctrine can no longer be reinstated, said Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

As Biden heads to Summit of the Americas, focus shines on leaders who won't be there


President Joe Biden departs the White House in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to travel to Los Angeles, Calif., for the Summit of the Americas. Photo by Yuri Gripas/UPI | License Photo

June 8 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden headed west to California on Wednesday to open the Summit of the Americas -- an event that officials hoped would be a shot in the arm for the administration on the international stage, but may instead turn out to be a pain in the neck.

The summit was intended to include leaders from South America to Canada and produce meaningful actions on various concerns, such as COVID-19, immigration and climate change.

Biden left Washington, D.C., just before noon EDT and was scheduled to arrive in Los Angeles roughly five hours later. After arrival, he's scheduled to meet with delegation heads from other countries and will speak at the summit's inaugural ceremony at 8:15 p.m. EDT.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a former Senator from California, will also attend the summit and speak Wednesday evening.

As Biden went to Los Angeles on Wednesday, however, much of the focus so far has been on leaders who have said they won't be there.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who's said to be a fan of former President Donald Trump, says he's not going because Biden's White House did not invite some leaders of the 35-nation Organization of American States.

Leaders from Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were not invited to the summit, which is being hosted this year by the United States. Biden's administration has previously said that it would only invite countries that are committed to democracy and human rights. Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua have been criticized for their records on those issues.

"Looking at the current situation in Cuba, in particular with trials of civil society leaders and similar situations in Nicaragua and Venezuela, we felt that the most appropriate decision was to maintain our own commitment to democracy and human rights in our hemisphere," Assistant U.S. Secretary of State Brian Nichols said according to NPR.

Other nations that won't attend the summit in Los Angeles include Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

President Biden did not invite leaders from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela (pictured) to attend the summit in Los Angeles, due primarily to their past records on issues like democracy and human rights, White House officials said. File Photo by Miguel Gutiérrez/EPA-EFE

The White House said in a statement on Tuesday partners at the summit plan to "push back against the threats to our democracies by fortifying democratic institutions, investing in civil society, strengthening independent media, and following through on a regional digital transformation that is transparent and equitable."

According to administration officials, $477 million has been dedicated so far to implementing the Inter-American Action Plan on Democratic Governance -- which aims to fortify democracy and human rights, fight corruption and support the rule of law in the Western Hemisphere.

Working with Congress, the administration said $75 million will be invested over three years to help empower 300 locally based, community-led civil society organizations.

Another piece of Biden's "democratic renewal agenda" at the summit will be the launch of the Voices Initiative, which intends to promote digital democracy and counter digital authoritarianism, promote freedom of expression and strengthen independent media.

Biden also supports the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online Harassment and Abuse, and Canada and Chile are expected to join the United States in the effort.

At the summit, which runs through Friday, Biden is expected to announce key investments in Central America, explore problems related to immigration and cooperate on continued recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Summit of the Americas is held every three years and is hosted by various nations in the OAS. The last summit was held in Peru in 2018. The Los Angeles summit was originally scheduled for last year, but was postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Biden’s Summit of the Americas Is Unfruitful - Evo Morales

Bolivia's Former President denounced the exclusion of Latin American countries from the Summit of the Americas. Jun. 7, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/@ejutvPrevious
Next
Published 7 June 2022
by teleSUR/MS

Former Bolivian President Evo Morales said that the IX Summit of the Americas was "stillborn" due to the decision of the Biden Administration not to invite everyone to the meeting.

RELATED:

Citizens of the Americas Reject Biden's 'Summit of Exclusion'

"The latest version of the misnamed Summit of the Americas is born dead by the absence of several brother presidents who reject the arbitrary and unilateral exclusion of Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua by the United States," Morales posted on his Twitter account Tuesday.

On the other hand, the Andean leader has praised the decision of some presidents of the region not to attend the summit, which began on Monday in Los Angeles. According to international media reports, at least eight presidents would not participate in the event in protest against the U.S. exclusion policy, among them Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and the actual Bolivian President Luis Arce.

Morales has also accused the current U.S. administration of charging him with provoking division instead of promoting integration. This Tuesday, Joe Biden's Administration confirmed that it had not invited any political representative from Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela to the summit.


The IX Summit of the Americas, which takes place in the U.S., was stillborn. U.S. President Joe Biden dividing instead of integrating the region's countries denounced former Bolivian President Evo Morales (2006 -2019) on his official Twitter account.

After the United States, host of the IX Summit of the Americas, announced in early May its initial decision regarding the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, countries it accuses of not respecting "democracy," the Mexican president was the first to threaten to boycott the event, should any member be excluded. Other Latin American leaders joined López Obrador's step.

On Monday, López Obrador, in addition to refusing to attend the Summit of the Americas, blamed U.S. authorities for the failure of the meeting for having "a policy of closed-mindedness and not openness."Despite Biden's attempts to avoid the summit's failure, experts predict that the event could become an embarrassment for the U.S. president due to the high-impact boycott.

Regarding the agenda of the event, detractors and strategists have questioned what progress can be made at the summit - in which migration will be a central issue - if Mexico and some of the Central American countries are the source of most of the irregular migration to the U.S. are absent.

The Summit of the Americas Displays Imperialist Exclusion: Cuba



A woman protests against the exclusion of Cuba from the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles, U.S., June 7, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @PeoplesSummit22

Published 7 June 2022

Behind the U.S. decision to exclude Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela from the Summit of the Americas lies arrogance and fear of inconvenient truths being expressed.

From June 6 to 10, the 'Summit of the Americas' is taking place in Los Angeles, California. President Joe Biden's administration did not invite Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to this meeting, despite the fact that several Latin American leaders requested to avoid any form of ideological discrimination. The statement that Cuba issued regarding the Los Angeles meeting is reproduced below.

RELATED:

President Maduro Repudiates US Discrimination Against Venezuela

The U.S. government, abusing its privilege of being the host country, decided at a very early stage to exclude Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the 9th Summit of the Americas to be held in the city of Los Angeles this month of June. It has refused to attend to the just claims of many governments to change that discriminatory and unacceptable stand.

There is no single reason that justifies the anti-democratic and arbitrary exclusion of any country of the hemisphere from this continental meeting, as warned by the Latin American and Caribbean nations at the 6th Summit held in Cartagena de Indias in 2012.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermúdez announced last May 25 that he would not attend the meeting. This was Cuba’s final decision if all countries of the hemisphere were not convened on an equal footing.

Arrogance, fear of inconvenient truths being voiced, determination to prevent the meeting from discussing the most pressing and complex issues in the hemisphere, and the contradictions of its own feeble and polarized political system are behind the U.S. decision to once again resort to exclusion in order to hold a meeting with no concrete contributions yet beneficial for imperialism’s image.



It is a well-known fact that the U.S. government has engaged in intensive high-level efforts with governments of the region seeking to reverse the intention of many of not attending the meeting unless all countries are invited. Such efforts included immoral pressure, blackmail, threats and dirty deceptive maneuvers. These are all common practices that reflect imperialism’s traditional disdain for our countries and deserve the strongest rejection.

Cuba appreciates and respects the honorable, brave and legitimate stand of many governments in defense of the full and equal participation of all countries.

The leadership of Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador deserves special recognition. We highlight the clear stand of CARICOM member countries from the outset against such exclusions, as well as the firm stance of Bolivian president Luis Arce Catacora and of the president of Honduras Xiomara Castro. The position of Argentine as chairman of CELAC expresses the majority view of the region against a selective Summit, as expressed, both publicly and in private, by many governments of South and Central America.

Such genuine and spontaneous solidarity in reaction to this U.S. discriminatory action against countries of the region reflects the sentiment of the peoples of Our America. The United States underestimated the support Cuba enjoys in the region, when it attempted to impose its unilateral and universally rejected hostile policy towards Cuba as a consensus regional position, however, the debate on the invitation process proved them wrong.

The 21st ALBA Summit held in Havana last May 27, showed the unequivocal repudiation of exclusions and discriminatory and selective treatment.

Such exclusions confirm that the United States conceived and uses this high-level dialogue mechanism as an instrument to further its hegemonic system in the hemisphere, just like the Organization of American States (OAS), the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) and other bodies established in the 20th century to curb independence, limit the sovereignty of nations in the region and thwart Latin American and Caribbean unity and integration aspirations.

They are part of the efforts to implement the Monroe Doctrine and promote exclusion as a dividing strategy for clear political, electoral and domination purposes. One cannot speak of “The Americas” without including all the countries of the hemisphere. Our region demands cooperation, not exclusion; solidarity, not meanness; respect, not arrogance; sovereignty and self-determination, not subordination.

It is known that the documents to be adopted at Los Angeles are completely divorced from the real problems facing the region and that beyond the effort to grant the OAS supranational prerogatives to decide upon the legitimacy of electoral processes and to compel Latin American and Caribbean governments to impose repressive, discriminatory and excluding actions against migrants, these documents are useless and vague.

We know that, like in the past, the voice of Latin America and the Caribbean will resound during those days in Los Angeles with the admirable and principled absence of relevant leaders who enjoy political and moral authority and the recognition of their people and the world.

We are also fully confident that the leaders of the region, who choose to attend, will argue with dignity that the United States cannot treat our peoples as they used to in the 20th century. Cuba supports the genuine efforts to promote integration throughout the hemisphere based on civilized coexistence, peace, respect for diversity and solidarity.

Cuba has a widely acknowledged record of unreserved support and contribution to all legitimate proposals for actual and concrete solutions to the most pressing problems faced by our peoples. The reality we are presented with today is far from such aspirations.

 

Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Not to Be in the Americas Summit


Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, June, 2022. 

| Photo: Twitter/ @EmbaCuba_Pol
Published 3 June 2022
by teleSUR/MS


"I'm not going to go because I don't see what is to be gained from it... Our friendship has to be grounded in elemental respect and, truth be told, our U.S. friends have failed us," PM Golsalves said.

Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves confirmed that his country will not send representation to the Summit of the Americas to be held in Los Angeles from June 6 to 10.

"I'm not going to go because I don't see what is to be gained from it," Gonsalves said and explained his stance by recalling that U.S. President Joe Biden did not invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua to the meeting, alleging that these countries are not "democratic." Washington's decision to exclude those nations has also been questioned by the governments of Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, Argentina, Honduras, Chile, and Panama.

"Our friendship has to be grounded in elemental respect and, truth be told, our U.S. friends have failed us. Besides, they profoundly ignored that matter," stressed Gonsalves, who is one of the longest-serving leaders of the 15-member group. of The Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

He maintained that although the representatives of the countries of this intergovernmental organization will be present at the Los Angeles summit, they will show their disagreement with Washington's veto of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.


"You can't have a Summit of the Americas with just a few people. You must include everyone," Gonsalves insisted, adding that the hemisphere is slipping backwards in its search for consensus. In this regard, he recalled that Cuba was invited to the 2015 Summit of the Americas, where Barack Obama and Raul Castro very respectfully shared the same space.

"Why are we fighting these 20th century battles in the third decade of the 21st century? Our U.S. friends are wrong on this matter. I respect President Biden very much, but I cannot agree with his administration on this issue," Gonsalves said, adding that his country's relations with Washington remain at an excellent level as always.

Last week, CARICOM leaders held a virtual meeting to discuss their attendance at the U.S.-convened meeting in Los Angeles, but were unable to reach a consensus on the matter.

Amazon's indigenous leaders make plea at Americas summit

Wed, June 8, 2022,


The custodians of the primal forests that stretch across eight Latin American countries said national leaders gathering in Los Angeles this week had to listen to them if they wanted to save the Amazon.

Indigenous leaders from across South America are in the United States for the Summit of the Americas, a semi-regular gathering of heads of state from the Western Hemisphere.

But, they say, many are not being allowed into the meetings where the land their people have called home for centuries is being discussed.

"In these important events, where there are governments in power, we should be hearing from indigenous people from different countries," said Domingo Peas, from the Achuar community in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Peas, a member of the Confederation of Indigenous Nations of the Ecuadoran Amazon, traveled by boat, car, bus and plane over more than two days to get from his remote community of some 100 families to Los Angeles.

But when he arrived, he was told he would not be able to participate in the event, despite its having climate change as a major topic.

"Indigenous voices are not being heard at the summit, indigenous delegates are being denied entry," said Atossa Soltani, founder and president of the NGO Amazon Watch.

Not hearing what they have to say would be a huge mistake, she told AFP.

"Indigenous peoples not only have the solutions to our climate and biodiversity crisis, they are the original inhabitants.

"The reason we have these incredibly intact forests in Latin America, is because indigenous peoples for centuries and millennia have been taking care of the forests.

"They need to be at the table. They have something to teach the modern world."

The Summit of the Americas is being held in the United States for the first time since its inaugural edition in 1994.

The gathering, which was intended to showcase US President Joe Biden's engagement with the vast continent to the south, has floundered because a number of significant figures are not here.

Most conspicuously, Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whose co-operation is key if the Biden administration wants to get a handle on immigration, said he would stay away because leaders from Venezuela, Nicaragua and Cuba had not been invited.

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro, however, is expected to attend.

Soltani said Bolsonaro, whose country contains the lion's share of the Amazon needs to rein in the rampant commercial exploitation of the forest.

"The fate of the Amazon is in the hands of these world leaders who are gathering here this week. That is the fate of all of us. This is the future for our children, it's the future for life on this planet," she said.

pr-hg/st

British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian tribal expert Araújo Pereira are missing in the Amazon. What happened? And who's looking for them?

By Alicia Perera

ABC AUSTRALIA

Dom Phillips, right, and Brazilian tribal expert Bruno Araújo Pereira have gone missing in the Javari Valley. (AP Photo/Joao Laet)

A British journalist and a Brazilian Indigenous expert have gone missing in a remote and dangerous part of the Amazon rainforest that is home to the world's largest population of uncontacted tribes.

An association representing the region's Indigenous peoples said Dom Phillips and Bruno Araújo Pereira had been threatened during a two-day reporting trip to the Javari Valley, in western Brazil near the country's border with Peru.

Brazil's navy has sent a search and rescue team to look for the pair and authorities are investigating their disappearance.
Who are the two men missing in the Amazon?

Mr Phillips, 57, is a British freelance journalist who has written for The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times and other outlets.

He has written extensively about the Amazon and is currently writing a book about the rainforest's preservation with support from the Alicia Patterson Foundation, which awarded him a year-long fellowship for environmental reporting.

He has lived in Brazil for more than a decade and currently lives in Salvador in the state of Bahia.

The men were expected to arrive on Atalaia do Norte on a small boat.(AP Photo/Fabiano Maisonnave)

Mr Pereira is one of Brazil's most knowledgeable experts on isolated and uncontacted tribes.

He is a previous advisor for the Union of Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley (UNIVAJA) and is currently on leave from a post with Brazil's Indigenous affairs agency.

The men disappeared while returning from their reporting trip in the Javari Valley, in Brazil's Amazonas state.

They were last seen at 7am on Sunday in the Sao Rafael community.

They were expected to travel from the area to the city of Atalaia do Norte, about an hour away, on a small boat, but did not show up.

The UNIVAJA said the two men were the only two people who would have been travelling on the boat.

What's the Javari Valley? Is it dangerous?

The Javari Valley or Vale do Javari is a region about the size of Ireland which is home to the highest number of uncontacted Indigenous people in the world.

Several thousand Indigenous people live in the area in dozens of villages.

The area is under threat from a range of groups, including illegal miners, loggers, hunters and groups that grow coca, the plants that provide the raw material for cocaine.

It has been the site of multiple shootouts between hunters, fishers and government agents and is also a major route for the smuggling of cocaine from Peru into Brazil.

Journalists from regional media outlets have been murdered in the Amazon in recent years and reports of threats against reporters have resulted in limited access to some areas dominated by criminal activity.
Were there any warnings? Were the pair threatened?

UNIVAJA has said Mr Phillips and Mr Pereira received threats in recent days, but it isn't yet clear what kind of threats were made against them.

Mr Pereira has previously been threatened by illegal fishermen and poachers and is in the habit of carrying a gun.

Survival International, an NGO responsible for defending tribal peoples, said threats had been directed at Mr Pereira because of his years of work with Indigenous tribes.

They said those threats "[make] the need for immediate action to locate him and Dom all the more pressing".

Who's looking for them?

Brazil's federal police, Amazonas state civil police, the national guard and the navy have all been mobilised to search for the men, with the effort to be coordinated by the navy.

The navy's 10-person search and rescue team is expected to arrive at Atalaia do Norte around 7pm local time before heading to the area the pair were last seen.

The UNIVAJA has also dispatched two search parties to look for the men.

However, federal police have said there is no information at the moment on their whereabouts or even a theory about what might have happened.

Video shows uncontacted Amazonian tribesman

An indigenous Brazilian group trying to protect the Amazon rainforest from logging releases footage of an uncontacted tribesman, who sniffs a machete before running off into thick forest.

Read more

 
WATCH
Duration: 44 minutes 30 seconds

 

Bruno Pereira: the dedicated defender of Indigenous rights missing in Brazil

Indigenous expert last seen travelling with British journalist Dom Phillips was ousted from official role after Bolsonaro took office

Bruno Pereira ‘is a great ally of the indigenous movement and that is why he came to work with these organisations,’ one colleague said.

 Photograph: Daniel Marenco/Agência O Globo


Andrew Downie in São Paulo and Caio Barretto Briso in Rio de JaneiroWed 8 Jun 2022 14.52 BST

There’s an unwritten rule among Amazonian explorers that says the image of a lone swashbuckler, pack on their back and machete in hand, is something to be avoided at all costs. Bruno Pereira agreed 100%.

Pereira, 41, is the indigenous expert who disappeared on Sunday after travelling into a remote corner of the Amazon jungle with the British journalist Dom Phillips. The two men have not been seen since Sunday morning.

A former colleague of Pereira’s at the government’s Indigenous agency Funai described him as caring, dedicated – and totally committed to the traditional peoples of the Amazon.

“The Funai explorers don’t like to be called heroes,” said his friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“But there’s no way to agree with that modesty. These people are heroes and Bruno is one of them. Whether Bruno is alive or dead, his bravery lives in every single person who has accompanied his case since he disappeared. It’s there in every Brazilian who clamours for justice.”

Pereira was removed from his position as Funai’s point man for uncontacted tribes in what was seen as a politically motivated move soon after far-right president Jair Bolsonaro came to power. His firing in late 2019 came shortly after his team had helped make one of the biggest illegal mines in the Amazon region inoperable.


Brazil’s uncontacted tribes face 'genocide' under Bolsonaro, experts warn

Bolsonaro wants development at all costs and soon after he came to power progressives like Pereira, who put Indigenous peoples’ traditional ways ahead of the loggers, hunters and miners who covet their land, were ousted from the agency.

Bolsonaro also slashed budgets and staff, “there was no more gas, police protection, absolutely nothing left,” said Antenor Vaz, the former Funai leader in the area where the pair are missing.

“The dismantling meant transferring committed people to other areas away from the field and appointing people that had no connection with Indigenous issues. An evangelical pastor came in to coordinate the work that Bruno used to do.”

The turmoil at Funai marked the end of Pereira’s government career and Pereira went on to work with the Observatory for the Human Rights of Isolated and Recent Contact Indigenous Peoples (OPI), an umbrella organisation of the 26 Indigenous groups in the Vale do Javari, a remote area on Brazil’s western border with Peru.

The area is almost as vast as Ireland and Wales combined and is home to one of the biggest concentrations of uncontacted tribes in the world.


Lost tribes: the 1,000km rainforest mission to protect an Amazon village

Pereira’s work there has consisted in helping Indigenous communities organise and monitor their land. The pristine forest area is targeted by illegal hunters and fishers, miners and drug traffickers who covet its natural resources.

In addition to fundraising, the father of three has also run workshops in communities under threat.

Any invasions are reported to Funai and law enforcement agencies in the hope they will take action to rebuff the invaders. It is a job that has become more difficult since Bolsonaro began weakening state funding and oversight.

“Indigenous organisations and their allies such as Bruno are doing what Funai isn’t able to do: defend isolated Indians,” said Maria Emilia Coelho, a friend and colleague of Pereira’s at OPI. “Bruno is a great ally of the Indigenous movement and that is why he came to work with these organisations.”

Throughout his career Pereira has advocated a policy of non-contact with isolated tribes, following in the footsteps of celebrated anthropologists and explorers such as Orlando Villas Boas and Sydney Possuelo.

The policy dates from the 1980s and aims to leave uncontacted tribes in peace, unless they face imminent danger. If threats from invaders such as loggers or miners become too serious to ignore, attempts are made to secure their land and protect the reservations from outsiders.

A Brazilian military rescue team searches for Bruno Pereira and Dom Phillips on the Javari river, Brazil, on Tuesday. 

Photograph: Amazon Military Command/AFP/Getty Images

“The atmosphere has got so much worse in recent years because you have a president who foments violence,” said Fábio Ribeiro, OPI’s executive coordinator. “People who use these tactics gain in confidence with a government like this one. Bolsonaro has supported illegal mines and the impunity has grown massively. We can see that happening in front of our eyes. The number of invasions has increased hugely.”

Pereira has faced regular threats but with a serenity based in the knowledge he was doing crucial work for peoples he loved and respected. He has expressed pessimism about Brazil’s political direction – but knew how to shift the focus away from himself and on to the people that mattered, said Ribeiro.

“He’d see this as a situation that calls the world’s attention to what is going on in Indigenous land; the impunity, the violence, the government’s disregard for basic rights,” Ribeiro said. “And, of course for a new policy to protect isolated groups and their land.”

He would also reject any attempts to portray himself as a martyr or even a successor to the sertanistas – early explorers – who wrote their names into Brazilian history by dedicating their lives to protecting vulnerable tribes.

“If you say he is the heir to these people it makes it about an individual and it diminishes everyone else’s role,” said Ribeiro. “He is all about putting institutional policies in place. It’s not about person A or person B, it’s about complying with laws and regulations. There are no Indiana Joneses here.”

Threats, Then Guns: A Journalist and an Expert Vanish in the Amazon

Dom Phillips, a British journalist, and Bruno Pereira, a Brazilian expert on Indigenous groups, have not been seen since Sunday. They faced threats before they disappeared.

The journalist Dom Phillips taking notes as he talks with Indigenous people in 

Roraima State, Brazil, in 2019.Credit...Joao Laet/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By Jack Nicas, Ana Ionova and André Spigariol
June 8, 2022

RIO DE JANEIRO — The Javari Valley in the Amazon rainforest is one of the most isolated places on the planet. It is a densely forested Indigenous reserve the size of Maine where there are virtually no roads, trips can take a week by boat and at least 19 Indigenous groups are believed to still live without outside contact.

The reserve is also plagued by illegal fishing, hunting and mining, a problem exacerbated by government budget cuts under President Jair Bolsonaro. Now local Indigenous people have started formally patrolling the forest and rivers themselves, and the men who exploit the land for a living have responded with increasingly dire threats.

That tension was the kind of story that has long attracted Dom Phillips, a British journalist in Brazil for the past 15 years, most recently as a regular contributor to The Guardian. Last week, Mr. Phillips arrived in the Javari Valley to interview the Indigenous patrols for a book. He was accompanied by Bruno Araújo Pereira, an expert on Indigenous groups who had recently taken leave from the Brazilian government in order to aid the patrols.

About 6 a.m. Saturday, the two men were with a patrol, stopped along a snaking river, when another boat approached, according to officials at Univaja, a Javari Valley Indigenous association that helps organize the patrols. The approaching vessel carried three men known to be illegal fishermen, Univaja said, and as it passed, the men showed the patrol boat their guns. It was the kind of threat that Univaja had been recently reporting to authorities.

The following morning, Mr. Phillips, 57, and Mr. Pereira, 41, began their journey home, traveling on the Itaquí River in a new boat with a 40-horsepower engine and enough fuel for the trip. They were scheduled to arrive in Atalaia do Norte, a small city on the border with Peru, at about 8 a.m. Sunday.

The men and their boat have not been seen since.

Over the past three days, various search crews, from Indigenous groups to the Brazilian Navy, have scoured the area; Brazilian politicians and celebrities have called for more action to find the men; and their disappearance has led the morning newspapers and nightly news across the country.

On Wednesday, state police officials said they were questioning a suspect and had seized a boat and illegal ammunition from him. Officials said the suspect’s green speedboat with a visible Nike symbol was seen traveling behind Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira’s boat Sunday morning.

The suspect was one of the fishermen who showed the patrol their guns on Saturday, according to Soraya Zaiden, an activist who helps lead Univaja, and Elieseo Marubo, Univaja’s legal director. They said the man had shot at a Univaja patrol boat months earlier.

“We will continue the search,” Ms. Zaiden said. “But we also know that something serious, very serious, may have happened.”

Mr. Phillips, who also wrote regularly for The New York Times in 2017, has dedicated much of his career to documenting the struggle between the people who want to protect the Amazon and those who want to exploit it. Mr. Pereira has spent years defending Indigenous groups under the resulting threat. Now fears are growing that their latest journey deep into the rainforest could end up as one of the grimmest illustrations of that conflict.

Univaja said that Mr. Pereira “has profound knowledge of the region,” and local officials said that if the men had gotten lost or faced mechanical issues, they likely would have already been found by search crews. Univaja said Mr. Pereira had faced threats in the region for years.

Violence has long been common in the Amazon, but it has largely been between locals. From 2009 through 2020, there were 139 killings of environmental activists and defenders in the Amazon, according to data compiled by a journalism project called Tierra de Resistentes. But hardly any of those attacks were against Brazilian government officials or journalists who were outsiders in the region.

In 2019, a Brazilian government worker was shot and killed in apparent retaliation for his work combating illegal activity in the Javari Valley.

The 1988 murder of Chico Mendes, Brazil’s most famous conservationist at the time, helped spark an environmental movement in the country to protect the Amazon. That movement has faced significant headwinds lately, particularly under Mr. Bolsonaro, who has vowed to open the Amazon to mining, logging and other industry.

Chico Mendes in 1988. He was killed that same year for his conservation work. Credit...Associated Press

Deforestation has increased during his presidency, as his government has weakened many of the institutions designed to protect the forest.

On Tuesday, Mr. Bolsonaro said he prayed that Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira would be found. He also questioned their journey. “Two people in a boat, in a completely wild region like this, is an adventure that isn’t recommendable,” he said. “An accident could happen, they could have been executed, anything.”

Politics also cast a shadow over the government’s response, which many politicians, journalists and other public figures widely criticized as inadequate and slow.

Ms. Zaiden said that Univaja alerted federal authorities to the men’s disappearance midday Sunday. It then took a full day for Brazil’s Navy to send a search team, which consisted of a single boat, when an aircraft would have been far more effective and efficient for searching such a vast, remote area.

By Monday evening, the army said it was still awaiting authorization from the “upper echelons” of the Brazilian government to join the search, before eventually saying it was sending a team.

Alessandra Sampaio, Mr. Phillips’s wife, pleaded with authorities to intensify the search in a video posted online Tuesday morning.

“We still have some hope,” she said. “Even if we don’t find the love of my life alive, they have to be found, please. Intensify these searches.”

On Tuesday, the navy and army said they had deployed aircraft, as well as additional boats in the search. The Ministry of Defense said that the armed forces started assisting the search “as soon as the first information about the disappearance was released.” On Wednesday, a Brazilian judge ruled that the government had failed to protect the reserve and must use aircraft and boats to search for the missing men.

Mr. Phillips and Mr. Pereira knew each other well. In 2018, Mr. Phillips joined a 17-day journey led by Mr. Pereira deep into the Javari Valley — 590 miles by boat and 45 miles on foot — for a story about the Brazilian government’s search for signs of isolated Indigenous groups. “Wearing just shorts and flip-flop as he squats in the mud by a fire,” Mr. Phillips wrote in The Guardian, Mr. Pereira “cracks open the boiled skull of a monkey with a spoon and eats its brains for breakfast as he discusses policy.”


Image

A photo released by the Brazilian military shows an aerial search. On Tuesday, the navy and army said they had deployed aircraft, as well as additional boats in the search. Credit...Amazon Military Command, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

At the time, Mr. Pereira helped lead the government’s efforts to identify and protect such groups. After Mr. Bolsonaro became president in 2019, Mr. Pereira’s department faced cuts and shifting orders from the top, said Antenor Vaz, a former official in the department, stopping them from carrying out the expeditions once critical to protecting the reserve.

“It is a region that is extremely dangerous, especially since 2019 when the illegal actions of loggers, prospectors, fishermen and hunters surged,” Mr. Vaz said.

Mr. Pereira eventually took a leave from his post to help Indigenous groups in the Javari Valley fill the vacuum of enforcement. Those patrols have focused in part on documenting and reporting fishermen who illegally catch pirarucu, a freshwater fish that can weigh as much as 440 pounds and is considered endangered in Brazil.

As the Indigenous patrols organized by Univaja became a front line of enforcement in the Javari Valley, they began to face threats. In April, one man accosted several Univaja workers, telling one that if he didn’t stop reporting illegal activity, “he’d put a bullet in his face,” according to a police report that Univaja filed with local authorities.

Ms. Zaiden shared a letter Univaja received that threatened Mr. Pereira by name, accusing him of sending Indigenous people to “seize our engines and take our fish.” The letter added, “I’m just going to warn you once that if it continues like this, it will get worse for you.”

She said the organization had reported many of the threats to local authorities, asking for help. Marcelo Ramos, a congressman from the region, said that he had confirmed with federal authorities that the group had reported threats within the past week.

“We’ve been demanding action, but unfortunately there’s been no reaction,” Ms. Zaiden said. “Now our greatest fear is that this is the reason for Bruno and Dom’s disappearance.”

Leonardo Coelho contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.

Jack Nicas is the Brazil bureau chief, covering Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. He previously reported on technology from San Francisco and, before joining The Times in 2018, spent seven years at The Wall Street Journal. @jacknicas • Facebook

Violence in the Amazon

British Journalist and Indigenous Expert Are Missing in Amazon After Threats
June 6, 2022

As Bolsonaro Keeps Amazon Vows, Brazil’s Indigenous Fear ‘Ethnocide’
April 19, 2020

‘Guardian’ of the Amazon Killed in Brazil by Illegal Loggers
Nov. 4, 2019

The Lasting Legacy of a Fighter for the Amazon
Nov. 27, 2016

Greenpeace urges Arab nations avert Yemen environmental disaster

A handout satellite image by Maxar Technologies on July 19, 2020, shows a close up view of the FSO Safer oil tanker off Yemen - Handout

Agence France-Presse

June 8, 2022 — Beirut (AFP)

Greenpeace on Wednesday urged the Arab League to drum up funds to rescue a stranded, oil-filled tanker that is rusting off war-torn Yemen, threatening a major environmental disaster.

The environmental group said an urgent meeting was needed for the FSO Safer, after a UN pledging conference last month fell far short of its $80 million target.

The decaying 45-year-old tanker, long used as a floating storage platform and now abandoned off the rebel-held Yemeni port of Hodeida, holds 1.1 million barrels of oil and is in "imminent" danger of breaking up, the UN has warned.

Ghiwa Nakat, executive director at Greenpeace for the Middle East and North Africa, urged the Arab League's secretary-general "to hold an urgent meeting and make concerted efforts to fund the plan to rescue the Safer before it is too late and before disaster strikes."

Nakat said it was "deplorable that the Safer crisis has yet to be resolved due to the lack of financial support".

The Safer contains four times the amount of oil that was spilled by the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster, one of the world's worst ecological catastrophes, according to the UN.

"It is high time to resolve the Safer crisis and make every possible effort to avert the disaster looming on the horizon, particularly since this crisis will affect Arab states first and foremost," Nakat said.

"We trust that the (Arab League) is capable of playing this role and expediting the solution. If disaster strikes, its harsh consequences will affect us all, along with millions of people living in the region who will see their livelihoods, nutrition, health, and environment deteriorate."

Environmentalists warn the cost of the funds needed to carry out the operation is a mere pittance compared to the estimated $20 billion it would cost to clean up a spill in the pristine waters of the Red Sea.

The UN has said an oil spill could destroy ecosystems, shut down the fishing industry and close Yemen's lifeline Hodeida port for six months.

Yemen: Weapons Manufacturers Complicit in Saudi War Crimes


Weapons sellers are accused of being liable for Saudi war crimes in Yemen. Jun. 2, 2022. 

TeleSUR
Published 2 June 2022

A group of NGOs accuses three French arms manufacturers of being responsible for the Saudi coalition's war crimes in Yemen.

On Thursday, Amnesty International France, Sherpa, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and Mwatana for Human Rights filed a lawsuit in the Paris judicial court against Dassault Aviation, Thalès, and MBDA France for their complicity in war crimes in Yemen due to their arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

RELATED:
Yemen's Warring Parties Reach Agreement to Extend Truce

Human rights groups in France have repeatedly demonstrated that Paris' tacit support for the so-called Saudi coalition against Yemen has fanned the flames of conflict and resulted in a major humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

Riyadh's brutal campaign of violence against Yemen, backed by the U.S. and certain Western countries, started in March 2015 to restore fugitive former Yemeni president Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi to power, resulting, after eight years of war, in the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today, turning the impoverished Arab country into a "hellhole."

"Coalition airstrikes have caused terrible destruction in Yemen. The weapons produced and exported by European countries, and in particular by France, have enabled these crimes," clarified the director of the Yemeni organization Mwatana for Human Rights, Abdulrasheed Al-faqih.



According to the four NGOs, the aforementioned French factories have supplied ammunition and maintenance services, worth more than 8 billion euros between 2015 and 2020, to Saudi Arabia and its allies.

‘Hidden world’ of marine life discovered in Antarctic ‘river’ under ice

New Zealand scientists ‘jumping up and down’ at find during investigation of climate-induced melt of ice shelf

New Zealand scientists drilling through Antarctic ice discovered an underwater ecosystem 500 metres down. Photograph: NIWA / Craig Stevens

Eva Corlett in Wellington
THE GUARDIAN

Mon 6 Jun 2022 

Beneath a vast Antarctic ice shelf, in a cathedral-like cavern hundreds of metres high, are swarms of little shrimp-like creatures in a newly discovered underwater ecosystem that, until recently, had remained an ice-locked secret.

A team of scientists from New Zealand discovered the ecosystem 500 metres below the ice in a suspected estuary, hundreds of kilometres from the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf.


Satellite data shows entire Conger ice shelf has collapsed in Antarctica

Antarctica New Zealand supported researchers from universities in Wellington, Auckland and Otago, the National Institute of Water and Atmospherics (Niwa) and Geological and Nuclear Sciences to investigate what role the estuary could play in climate-induced ice-shelf melt.

But when they drilled down through the ice and into the river, their camera was swarmed by amphipods, little creatures from the same lineage as lobsters, crabs and mites.

“For a while, we thought something was wrong with the camera, but when the focus improved, we noticed a swarm of arthropods around 5mm in size,” said Niwa’s Craig Stevens.

Shrimp-like creatures in a newly discovered underwater ecosystem underneath the Ross Ice Shelf. Photograph: NIWA / Craig Stevens

“We’ve done experiments in other parts of the ice shelf and thought we had a handle on things, but this time big surprises were thrown up.”


Endurance shipwreck threatened by global heating, says marine archaeologist

While there was a climate change motivation for the work, there was an element of discovery on the expedition, Stevens said.

“We were jumping up and down because having all those animals swimming around our equipment means that there’s clearly an important ecosystem there.”

The Antarctic research site. A network of hidden freshwater lakes and rivers lies below the ice sheets. Photograph: Niwa/ Craig Stevens

The project’s lead, Huw Horgan from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington, was the first to spot the estuary, after spying a groove in the ice while studying satellite imagery of the Ross Ice Shelf.

Researchers have been aware of a network of hidden freshwater lakes and rivers below the Antarctic ice sheets for some time but they have yet to be directly surveyed, Horgan said.

“Getting to observe and sample this river was like being the first to enter a hidden world.”

Instruments had been left in the river to observe its behaviour, he said, while lab researchers would investigate what makes the water unique.

The team’s findings extended further – it had just deployed its mooring a few days before the enormous eruption of Tongan volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai. The team’s instruments detected a significant pressure change as the tsunami made its way through the cavity.

Seeing the eruption’s effects reminded Stevens just how connected the planet is. “Here we are, in a forgotten corner of the world, seeing real-time influences from events that felt worlds away. It was quite remarkable.”

A mega-tsunami in the Pacific north-west? It could be worse than predicted, study says

Scientists find the size of the ‘outer wedge’ of a faultline can magnify a rupture’s impact, worrying news for a fault running from Vancouver Island to northern California

Researchers say their findings add a new element to consider when making tsunami predictions. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP/Getty Images


Hallie Golden in SeattleTue 7 Jun 2022 11.00 BST

Scientists have long predicted a giant 9.0-magnitude earthquake that reverberates out from the Pacific north-west’s Cascadia fault and quickly triggers colossal waves barreling to shore.

But what if these predictions were missing an important piece of information – one that, in certain scenarios, could tell an even more extreme story?

A new study, published last month in the peer-reviewed journal Earth-Science Reviews, points toward such a missing piece. Researchers revealed a previously unknown relationship between the severity of a tsunami triggered by an earthquake and something known as “the outer wedge”, the area between the main earthquake fault and the seafloor.

Sylvain Barbot, a co-author of the study, described the outer wedge as the “garbage bag of subduction zones”, the place where two tectonic plates crash into each other and can produce an earthquake, because it’s where sediment piles up.

The researchers’ findings suggest that the wider it is, the larger the maximum size of the tsunami will be.


Seconds before a 6.2 earthquake rattled California, phones got a vital warning

The connection adds a new element to consider when making tsunami predictions, one that the authors suggest could mean heightened worst-case scenario predictions for some faults, including Cascadia.

“There are places where [the outer wedge is] tiny, so great news,” said Barbot, an associate professor in earth science at the University of Southern California. “And there are places where it’s huge. And that’s the case in the Pacific north-west.”

For about two years, he and co-author Qiang Qiu, of the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, studied 11 “tsunami earthquakes” that have taken place across the world over the past 200 years. These rare events involve less powerful earthquakes (the authors looked at those measuring 7.1- to 8.2-magnitude) that produce huge tsunamis and have long puzzled scientists.

They found a correlative relationship between the maximum tsunami height and the outer wedge. The wider it is, Barbot explained, the more faults there are, the more chances there are to move the seafloor and thus the more extreme the tsunami may be.

“Imagine a bookshelf full of books, and you take the books and you tilt them all 45 degrees … The interface between any book is a fault. And so, in an outer wedge you have all of these books, and all of these faults in between. And they can provide a pathway for the rupture to go up, instead of going left,” he explained.

From there, they used these findings to make tsunami predictions about dozens of other active subduction zones around the “ring of fire”, a nearly 25,000-mile path where most of the world’s earthquakes occur.

Towards the top of that list was the 600-mile Cascadia subduction zone. It runs from Vancouver Island, Canada, down to northern California, and is poised for its next large earthquake. Its last Big One was in 1700, and current estimates point to about a 15% chance of a 9.0-magnitude earthquake in the next 50 years.

A 2015 Pulitzer prize-winning New Yorker article brought widespread attention to the subduction zone, describing its next full-scale quake “as the worst natural disaster in the history of North America, outside of the 2010 Haiti earthquake”.

The Cascadia subduction zone runs from Vancouver Island in Canada (pictured) to northern California. Photograph: Mark Goodnow/AFP/Getty Images

The site, according to the authors, has a fairly large outer wedge (running between 15 and 43km). According to their research, that suggests that the tsunami triggered by the earthquake could reach higher than 200 feet (61 meters). Although there’s a range of predictions for the Big One, that is roughly twice as high as some of the most severe previously considered scenarios.

When compared with the 30 other subduction zones analyzed by the study’s authors, Cascadia was ranked fifth in terms of tsunami severity. It’s behind such subduction zones as Makran (in Pakistan and Iran), Aleutian (in Alaska) and Lesser Antilles (in the Caribbean), according to the authors.

Barbot explained that the findings need to be further validated, but they could ultimately lead not only to changes in tsunami predictions, but also to emergency preparedness in these regions.

“If you prepare for a 30-meter tsunami, and a 60-meter one comes in, you basically need to double the height of your evacuation zones,” he said. “You need to change where you plan to build the infrastructure, like hospitals and schools. It changes also, in a more practical sense, basically the price of insurance for real estate. It changes the risk, essentially, and how it’s spatially distributed.”

But of course, this outer wedge is not the only variable that can influence the size of a tsunami. There are many other factors that come into play, including the slope of the seafloor and the overall topography.

Harold Tobin, director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network and professor of earth and space sciences at the University of Washington, cautioned that while this study reveals an interesting new finding, further research is needed to fully factor in these other variables.

He explained that it would be premature to jump to any conclusions or start modifying how the Pacific north-west or other areas prepare for tsunamis.

“What we need to do is factor in the evidence that this paper has given us to build better models for all of that; to refine and improve the scenarios that are being prepared for,” said Tobin. “But all by itself, it doesn’t mean that we need to suddenly say, ‘OK, there’s double the tsunami hazard as before.’ It just points to one possible mechanism that could mean that the tsunami hazard could be greater than previously thought.”