Is Greece failing to deploy EU-funded surveillance system at Turkish border as intended?

A recent incident involving asylum-seekers on the Greek-Turkish border raises questions about how Greek authorities use EU-funded surveillance technology for search and rescue missions, a DW investigation has found.

Detect and deter: one of the electronic surveillance pylons near the 

Greek-Turkish border that aims to detect migrants and deter them

 from crossing into Greece

On August 15, a group of 38 Syrian and Palestinian men, women and children were picked up by Greek authorities in the Evros region on the Greek-Turkish border and taken to a nearby refugee center for processing. Their rescue marked the end of an internationally-reported, weeks-long ordeal during which the asylum-seekers said they had been stranded on a small, unnamed islet in the Evros River — the natural border between Greece and Turkey.

The islet, which is located near the Greek village of Kissari, is in a restricted military zone that is inaccessible to civilians. While stranded, some of the asylum-seekers were in contact with civil society groups and journalists, sending their GPS coordinates and pleas for help.

For weeks, those attempting to help from afar provided the Greek police with GPS coordinates, which were confirmed by live locations and metadata in photos and other material the asylum-seekers had sent. Greek authoritiesreleased media statements saying that they had made "successive investigations, with every suitable technical means," but had been unable to locate the group.

Greek and international media outlets reported that a young Syrian girl traveling with the group died while awaiting rescue.Officials from the center-right administration of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis have questioned the story of the young girl's death and maintained that Greece responded to the incident in accordance with EU and international law.

Could the asylum-seekers have been rescued sooner?

Less than two kilometers (about a mile) away from the group's shared location, on a hill overlooking sunflower and wheat fields and the road that runs parallel to the islet, stands a surveillance pylon equipped with radar, heat sensors and cameras. This tech-laden pylon is believed to be part of the newly-expanded surveillance system that Greek police could have used to locate the asylum-seekers on the islet.

In recent years, Greece has poured millions into high-tech systems — including drones, sensors and cameras — aimed at tracking down and deterring migrants attempting to enter the country irregularly. Although parts of the Automated Border Surveillance System (ABSS) have existed for years, Greek authorities, with funding from the EU, recently undertook a €15 million project (just under $15 million) to expand the system in the Evros border region.

An investigation by DW, in cooperation with independent researchers who exclusively shared material and findings with DW, strongly suggests that a prompt rescue of the group could have been possible with Greece's newly-expanded state-of-the-art surveillance system. This would contradict police statements on this and similar search and rescue missions in the region.

Did Greek authorities know where the asylum-seekers were?

"It's absurd that the Greek police and government in this incident, and similar ones earlier this year, say that they cannot locate people on islets. They have the technology, and the area is heavily patrolled by both police and army," said Lena Karamanidou, an Evros native with an in-depth knowledge of the region and an expert in asylum policies, who spent months mapping the previously undisclosed locations of the pylons that make up the ABSS.

Karamanidou — formerly affiliated with Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland and currently an independent researcher — has contributed to several major journalistic investigations and reports on alleged human rights abuses in Evros.

Migrants protesting near the Greek parliament against alleged pushbacks

 and border violence. Greece has repeatedly and strongly denied that its forces

 are involved in pushbacks

As part of the mapping effort, Karamanidou reviewed historical satellite imagery together with Phevos Simeonidis, an independent researcher whose work often features in media reports, and Laszlo Kovacs, who works with border monitor groups on a voluntary basis. Karamanidou verified the existence of the pylons during field research in the region, using images of pylons publicized in the Greek media as a reference.

Surveillance pylons close to the islet where asylum-seekers were stranded

DW confirmed the location of several pylons when reporting from the region in April and July of this year. DW also analyzed historical satellite imagery, reviewed dozens of Greek and EU records — some obtained through public records requests — and conducted on-the-ground field work over several months in Evros as part of the investigation.

A measurement — which factors-in elevation levels — of the distance between one of the identified pylons and the islet in question, paired with an analysis of publicly-available technical specifications contained in police documents, suggests that the system should have been able to detect the refugees and ensure their prompt rescue.

The islet on the River Evros on the Greek-Turkish border where a group 

of 38 asylum-seekers said they were stranded is located in a restricted military zone

DW contacted Space Hellas S.A., the Greek private company contracted to expand the ABSS, to ask whether the system delivered to Greek police matches technical descriptions in police documents and in Greek media reports. The company declined to comment, citing confidentiality.

The total 'sealing of the Evros border'

Covering what they described as the ABSS's completion with much fanfare last fall, Greek media noted that it marked the total "sealing of the Evros border." The all-seeing system, they proclaimed, can even spot activity several kilometers into Turkish territory, a capability also described in technical police documents.

The Greek Police were repeatedly contacted by DW and invited to comment on the findings of the investigation over the course of more than two weeks. A police spokesperson pointed DW to press releases, which did not specifically address the questions asked.

Round-the-clock surveillance

The revamped system, according to Greek police documents, gives Greek authorities the ability to stay "informed in real time" and "with great accuracy" on the "conditions in the field for the entire length of our country's river border with Turkey."

Greece has built a steel wall along the Evros river, the natural border between

 Turkey and Greece, to prevent migrants from entering the country irregularly

Data from the pylons, including video streams and radar tracks, are fed to local and regional monitoring centers, which are staffed to survey the footage round the clock. Information is ultimately fed to the National Coordination Center in Athens that is part of the European Border Surveillance Network (EUROSUR), an EU project aimed at facilitating information-sharing between border management authorities and Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency. 

The stated aim of the surveillance infrastructure of which the ABSS is a part, which is laid out in formal documents, is to "prevent and combat illegal crossings" into Greece and to ensure "the protection and saving of migrants' lives."

Minister claims no surveillance data on the stranded asylum-seekers

During an August 30 meeting in parliament, Civil Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos appeared to suggest that the ABSS had been used in the search and rescue operation but said that there was "no data on the electronic surveillance system that people were [on the islet]." He provided no further details, and his office did not respond to emails seeking clarification.

Civil Protection Minister Takis Theodorikakos (archive photo) has said that

 the ABSS was successfully deployed in efforts to stop 36,000 people from

 entering Greece through the Evros border in August alone

At the same time, Theodorikakos said, the system had been successfully deployed in multi-pronged deterrence efforts to stop 36,000 people from entering Greece through the Evros border in August alone.

Ministry says Greece fulfilled its humanitarian duty quickly

The Greek Ministry of Migration and Asylum directed DW's queries on the ABSS to the Greek police. "It is evident that our country quickly fulfilled its humanitarian duty, offering health care and the possibility of submitting an asylum request to the group of 38 migrants as soon as they entered Greek territory," the migration ministry wrote to DW in an e-mail through the government's foreign media office.

Frontex has no access to the ABSS

When asked about the search and rescue mission and the ABSS system, Frontex wrote in an e-mail to DW: "We offered our support to Greek authorities but were assured that they had the situation under control." Frontex has been rocked by a series of media investigations alleging that the agency was aware of illegal pushbacks by Greek authorities and was even able to monitor some of incidents from its own surveillance systems. Greece has strongly denied allegations that its forces are involved in pushbacks.

Lena Karamanidou says that the Greek authorities have the technology to

 locate people on islets in the River Evros

"The Automated Border Surveillance System in Evros is operated by Hellenic Police and Frontex has no direct access to it," a Frontex spokesperson wrote, adding that the agency would only be deployed to assist authorities based on observations made by the national coordination center in Athens, rather than the local and regional centers in the Evros region.

EU Commission regrets loss of life

DW contacted the European Commission regarding the findings of this investigation.

"The EU Commission regrets any loss of lives and we recall the fundamental importance of ensuring all measures are taken to prevent such tragedies, as on the Evros river islet," an EU Commission Spokesperson for HOME Affairs wrote in response to a request for comment on DW's findings that the ABSS could have been used for a prompt rescue. "We welcome the efforts carried out by Greek authorities locating 38 people and providing aid while transferring them to a temporary accommodation. We have been in contact with the Greek authorities to stress the importance of taking the necessary measures to find appropriate solutions in the case at stake."

Member States must ensure principles are respected

75% of the expansion of the ABSS was financed through the EU's internal security fund.

Greek Minister for Migration and Asylum Notis Mitarachi has accused Turkey

 of violently forcing asylum-seekers to cross the Greek border and has said Greece

 will further step up security in the Evros region in response

The EU spokesperson said that any activity financed by the EU budget must be implemented in full compliance with international law and the EU charter of fundamental rights. "In cases of identified non-compliance, the EU Commission can reject requests for cost reimbursement declared in relation to the respective activity," the spokesperson wrote, adding that it is up to Member States to ensure that principles are respected and to carry out investigations following allegations of non-compliance.

Surveillance in the Evros region

"The Evros region is one of the most high-risk, unregulated testing grounds for new border technologies. Ranging from sound cannons to aerial surveillance to high-tech fencing, these technologies are sharpening the already violent Greece-Turkey border," said Petra Molnar, associate director of the Refugee Law Lab at York University who studies the impact of border technologies on people on the move.

Stepping up surveillance and security in the Evros region has risen as a priority for Greece and the EU since the events of March 2020, when thousands of people, many at the encouragement of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to the Evros border and attempted to enter Greece to seek asylum.

During a visit to Evros in 2020, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen

 (right, pictured here with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in 2021) thanked

Greece for being "our European shield"

Greece accused its neighbor of orchestrating the ordeal to put pressure on the EU. During a visit to Evros at the time, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thanked Greece for being "our European shield."

Precarious situation for asylum-seekers

The case comes at a time of heightened tension between Greece and Turkey and a time when human rights groups and journalists are reporting an increasingly precarious situation for asylum-seekers and refugees in Turkey.

Greece and Turkey accuse each other of political foul play at the expense of asylum-seekers. Human rights organizations and international media have been reporting on systematic pushbacks for years and the fact that asylum-seekers are deprived of their right to apply for asylum in Europe after irregularly crossing the Greek-Turkish border. Greek authorities accuse the Turkish side of violently pushing asylum-seekers towards Greece. The group of asylum-seekers recently stranded on the Evros islet also alleges that it was pushed back and forth between the countries several times.

Greece is obligated to help

The Greek authorities, after claiming that they were not able to locate the group, later announced that the asylum-seekers were on Turkish territory, and that the corresponding authorities had been informed. While the group was stranded in July, lawyers petitioned the European Court of Human Rights, which issued temporary measures ordering Greek authorities to rescue the people and give them access to the asylum procedure. Greek authorities failed to comply, despite appeals from Greek and international civil society groups.

"In Evros, a new wave of invasion is already being planned, under a supposedly

 humanitarian mask," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said 

during a parliamentary debate in August

"If the state is aware of a risk to an individual and it can reasonably act to prevent the risk, then it is obligated to do so," said Omer Shatz, a lecturer in international law at Science Po Paris and legal director of the NGO Front-LEX. "Even if the group was on Turkish territory but the Greek authorities watched their situation through cameras [and other technology], they were obliged to take the necessary measures to save the child's life and secure the safety of others."

Asylum-seekers claim illegal pushbacks

Since March, the European Court of Human Rights has issued at least 17 interim measures ordering Greek authorities to rescue people in distress in Evros. Greek police have complied with fewer than half. In some of these cases, asylum-seekers allege that they were illegally pushed back to Turkey.

In recent days, the rescue of the group has unleashed a fresh wave of familiar rhetoric from Greek government officials, who blame Turkey for forcing asylum-seekers onto Greece's doorstep in order to antagonize the country and the European Union.

Athens suggests Turkey behind wave of asylum-seekers

"In Evros, a new wave of invasion is already being planned, under a supposedly humanitarian mask," Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during a parliamentary debate in August.

Appearing on Greek TV, Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi said Turkey is violently forcing asylum-seekers to the Greek border in the expectation that civil society organizations, journalists and the European Court of Human Rights will intervene to compel Greece to rescue people. This, Mitarachi said, was a new tactic with which Turkey was weaponizing asylum-seekers to create a "backdoor" into Europe, and test Greece's improved deterrence capacities.

In response, Mitarachi said, Greece would further step up security in the Evros region by expanding a border fence and upgrading surveillance systems, including drones, cameras and other equipment in the area.

This investigation was made possible with the help of funding from the Pulitzer Foundation.

Edited by: Keno Verseck and Aingeal Flanagan

Forced abroad, Russian independent media continue fight against censorship

Russia has sentenced a former star journalist to jail and revoked the license of a Kremlin-critical newspaper, further tightening the screws on independent media. Getting uncensored information is harder than ever.

Russian journalist Ivan Safronov was sentenced to 22 years in prison

Can you still get independent information and news in Russia? Hasn't everything been censored and shut down since the invasion of Ukraine in February, at the very latest? Such questions have surfaced again against the backdrop of two recent court verdicts in Moscow. 

On Monday, a court found Ivan Safronov, a 32-year-old former star journalist and advisor at the Russian space agency, Roscosmos, guilty of treason. The charges were ostensibly related to an article he had written about the Russian arms industry. 

The severity of his sentence — 22 years in jail — is unusual even by Russian standards, DW columnist Ivan Preobrashensky wrote for DW's Russian-language website. It suggests that "independent journalism in Russia [is] as good as dead."

Russian political expert Dmitry Oreshkin echoed the view. "It sends a clear signal to everyone — keep quiet," he told DW. The sentence punishes Safronov for daring to "talk about the actual circumstances," he added.

Riga: A new home for exiled Russian media

The same day Safronov's ruling was handed down, a different court revoked the print license of Novaya Gazeta, a renowned newspaper that is critical of the Kremlin. Its editor-in-chief, Dmitry Muratov, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021. The paper had already suspended operations in March after receiving warnings from Roskomnadzor, Russia's media oversight agency. The decision regarding the print license came just days after the death of one of the newspaper's founding members: Former leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev. 

Dmitry Muratov, editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta and the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner

Founded in 1993, Novaya Gazeta was for decades considered a flagship publication in Russia. In a statement, the newspaper's editorial team compared the court ruling to "newspaper murder" and promised to carry on: "Intellectual freedom will spread where and how it chooses." 

For most media critical of the Kremlin, this means going abroad. Part of Novaya Gazeta's editorial team founded an offshoot in April in Latvia's capital, Riga.

This is also where Dozhd, or TV Rain, the most famous Kremlin-critical online television network, has been broadcasting since August. It, too, ceased operations in Russia just a few days after the invasion of Ukraine; its website was blocked. At the time, Russia's media laws were being drastically tightened. Today, whoever criticizes the war in Ukraine risks a prison sentence of up to 15 years.

The liberal radio station Echo of Moscow, one of the few voices that was critical of the Kremlin, was shut down around the same time as TV Rain. Up until then, it had been allowed to broadcast nationally. Many of its employees have since left Russia and now run their own channels through social media.

Novaya Gazeta and TV Rain are following in the footsteps of Medusa, one of Russia's most popular online outlets. It was founded by liberal Russian journalists in the Latvian capital in 2014, after Russia's annexation of Crimea. 

When Dozhd, or TV Rain, closed down in 2022, Russia lost its last independent television station

Using YouTube to evade censorship

For these media companies and many others, YouTube is playing an increasingly important role. Anyone in Russia seeking independent information cannot avoid turning to the video platform. That's because Russian authorities cannot selectively block it. With over three million YouTube subscribers, TV Rain is the most successful exiled Russian-language broadcaster. The messenger app Telegram is also a popular source for uncensored news. 

It is also possible to use VPN (virtual private network) software to sidestep the actual censorship. Content from Deutsche Welle, which has been blocked in Russia since early 2022, is available in this way. British newspaper The Times reported in June that the number of VPN users in Russia had reached 24 million, 15 times the amount prior to the invasion of Ukraine.

In Russia, free speech barely exists anymore. Only a select few online media dare to produce critical reports. The Kommersant newspaper, where Ivan Safronov used to work, wrote an open letter addressed to him: "We did not hear any public evidence of your guilt and we are sure: In another time, in another country, you would have been acquitted."

The paper's editorial team praised his behavior during his two-year pre-trial detainment, describing him as a model of "integrity," and promised to wait for him. Safronov denies all charges.  

This article has been translated from German.

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Heat pumps: What are they and how do they work?

Heat pumps are being touted as a climate-friendly option to keep homes warm as people look for alternatives to oil and gas. DW explains the mysteries behind them.

Heat pumps work like a fridge in reverse

Around half of Germany's homes are heated by natural gas and a quarter with oil. As the country transitions away from fossil fuels in the face of the climate crisis, many are looking for alternatives.

Heat pumps are one technology being widely discussed. But how do they work exactly?

A heat pump extracts warmth from outside air, the ground or a nearby source of water to generate heat using something called evaporative cooling. You’ll know how satisfying it is putting a cold cloth on your skin in sweltering temperatures. It's the same effect. The cold water evaporates, becomes gaseous and you cool down. 

Here's the science behind it: The transition from water to vapor requires a lot of energy. To change state, the water molecules draw that energy from their surroundings, in this case warm skin. That process brings about the cooling effect. Conversely, much of this energy is released as heat back into the air once the evaporated water becomes liquid again. 

Heat pumps, fridges, and air conditioners all exploit these transitions. Refrigerators cool down on the inside and get warm on the outside. For heat pumps it’s the opposite.

In the case of heat pumps, a special refrigerant circulates in a closed pipe system. Refrigerants evaporate at very low temperatures, sometimes below minus 50 degrees Celsius (minus 58 Fahrenheit). 

Heat from the ground or air, for example, warms the refrigerant, which then evaporates in the circuit. A compressor squeezes the molecules of the refrigerant gas together, further increasing its temperature. When it then liquifies again, it releases the extra heat into the heating system. That means heat pumps can be used to warm or cool a home, office, or any other indoor space.

Water, air source, or geothermal heat pump: Which is best?

While there are different kinds of heat pumps, they all work on the same principle of extracting thermal energy from the environment.

Water heat pumps can use groundwater or water from rivers or lakes. Air-source ones run on regular air pulled in from outside or hot exhaust air produced at industrial sites or data centers.

For geothermal heat pumps, probes are drilled 100 meters (328 feet) or more into the ground, depending on the density of the rock. The deeper the borehole into the ground, the warmer it gets.

Groundwater heat pumps are more efficient, but also more expensive. The air-source variety work almost anywhere but can be noisy.

In the process of heating a building, heat pumps can cool down groundwater by 4 degrees, or reduce the air temperature around it by 10 degrees.

Can heat pumps also heat in cold weather?

Even on cold winter days, there's enough thermal energy underground, in the air or groundwater to heat a building. In Scandinavia, for instance, many people heat with air-source heat pumps even during severe winters. These extract heat energy from the air at temperatures as low as minus 20 Celsius.

Still, they require more energy to operate in the cold and work better in warmer weather. Heat pumps are also kitted out with heating rods that use electricity, as a backup.

How much electricity do heat pumps consume?

While most of the energy is taken from the environment, the devices do require additional power to run the electric motor for the compressor, pumps and fans. In good conditions, one kilowatt-hour of drive electricity can generate around six kilowatt-hours of heat. An 80-square meter insulated apartment needs less than 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

Heat pumps are more efficient in new insulated buildings, especially ones with underfloor heating and large radiators. In older homes in Germany, air-source heat pumps generate about three kilowatt-hours of heat from one kilowatt-hour of electricity, according to a study by the Freiburg-based Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. Using groundwater as the energy source generated, on average, four times as much heat in comparison. 

In principle, heat pumps can generate temperatures of more than 70 degrees Celsius. That means they can also heat uninsulated houses with old radiators. But the device's electricity consumption would then be significantly higher.

A cheap combination: Powering a heat pump with solar panels on a roof

Is it cost-effective to use solar power for heat pumps?

Solar energy from your roof is cheaper than from the power grid and is also climate friendly. But solar modules generate much less electricity in colder conditions. So more would be needed to produce the same amount of electricity during the winter heating season. Or you would have to buy additional electricity.

Can heat pumps also cool?

Modern pumps can switch from heating to cooling mode. In that case, the thermal energy from inside buildings is simply transferred to the outside air or groundwater. Likewise, modern air conditioners can also heat.

Are refrigerants harmful to the climate?

Most of them are. Chemical refrigerants called hydrofluorocarbons have traditionally been the dominant choice for coolant used in heat pumps and air conditioning systems. These are up to 4,000 times more harmful to the climate than CO2 if they get into atmosphere, which can happen through leakage or incorrect disposal.

More and more heat pumps are now being sold with the climate-friendlier refrigerants propane, CO2 or ammonia. The European Union is phasing out the use of HFCs in heat pumps and air conditioners in favor of the greener alternatives.

Colombia's territorial battle between Indigenous and Black communities

COLONIALISM PITS THEM AGAINST EACH OTHER

Juan Sebastian SERRANO
Thu, September 8, 2022 a


Cattle nonchalantly graze near a dilapidated farm on partly charred and abandoned sugarcane fields.

In the fertile Cauca valley in Colombia's southwest, Nasa Indigenous people have been forcibly occupying farmland, claiming to be putting to an end damaging monoculture in the country's main sugarcane growing area.

These sudden eruptions have provoked serious tensions with manual laborers from the sugarcane industry, who are often Black and find themselves chased off their land and out of work.

It seems that a new conflict is about to break out in the Corinto valley, where everyone is claiming "ancestral" lands.

"How can they (the Nasa) claim this land belongs to them if our ancestors lived here their whole lives," one of the local Black leaders told AFP.

Many Black communities have lived in the region for more than a century.

The Nasa want to "build their houses on top of ours," he added, hitting out at the "violence" brought by the occupiers.

Close to 2,500 people of African descent, "small- and medium-scale sugarcane producers, live in Severo Mulato, a village bordering several occupied areas.

The Nasa don't accept sugarcane plantations. They say these dry out the land and enrich only the sugar barons living in Cali, one of Colombia's main cities.

- 'Fighting with stones' -

Since the June election of Gustavo Petro, the country's first ever leftist president, Indigenous people have stepped up forceful occupations and confiscations of land in Cauca, which is already one of the worst affected areas by the violence brought by armed gangs and drug traffickers.

Police say there have been 30 occupations of farmland, including nine in the last month.

Hugely popular amongst Indigenous people, Petro has promised an "agrarian reform" to redistribute land in a country where a small landowning elite controls the majority of territory.

Territorial access is at the heart of the bloody six-decade long conflict that has ravaged Colombia.

During the 1960s, it was the main factor motivating farmers in their armed struggle against the state.

In the following decades, right-wing paramilitaries violently displaced thousands of families in favor of major landowners and cattle ranchers.

Indigenous people have now occupied land in seven of Colombia's 32 provinces.

It has been condemned by the government, which said the police would intervene.

The Nasa "cut down anything they like ... they build cabins, burn" the sugarcane, and destroyed five hectares of crops, said the Black leader.

After the abolition of slavery in 1851, Black people bought land in exchange for their work.

Now, most of their descendents grow sugarcane to sell to the major exporters in the region.

"When we faced up to (the Indigenous people), we had to fight with stones because we didn't have any other weapons," he added.

- Getting the valley back -

Just a year ago, the Severo Mulato settlement lay next to a sugarcane farm.

Some 400 "landless" Indigenous families descended from the mountains and took over the land.

In the abandoned homes, infested with mosquitoes, Nasa women and children crowd around wood fires living off vegetables grown in small plots.

"We came and put our lives (at risk) for the right to a piece of land," argues the group's leader, his face masked for fear of persecution.

He said the large scale farmers had forced Indigenous people "into the mountains" by colonizing the cultivable land.

With a growing population, they had to cut down the forest to grow food, to the detriment of local fauna and flora.

That's why they decided to "reclaim" the valley -- and to destroy the sugarcane to plant bananas, rice and corn in its place.

Indigenous reserves account for 20 percent of Cauca.

But the Indigenous people complain that these lands are mostly uncultivable forest.

The Indigenous people have established a territory of 1.5 hectares, blocked off from police intervention by tree trunks.

The Black villages are nearby in the valley.

It is a powder keg.

The union of sugarcane exploiters has complained about the loss of "close to 6,000 jobs."

The industry was responsible for "the development of these communities" according to Juan Carlos Agudelo, a spokesman for the sugarcane workers.

The poverty rate in Cauca of 58 percent is largely above the national average of 39.5 percent.

"Communities that have no schools, no homes, that have no running water. Where is the development?" asks the Indigenous leader.

jss/vel/das/hba/bc/mdl

All eyes on army as Brazil heads for elections

Marcelo SILVA DE SOUSA
Thu, September 8, 2022 


With President Jair Bolsonaro trailing in the polls and regularly alleging Brazil's voting system is plagued by fraud, all eyes are on the military and the role it could play in the country's deeply divisive October elections.

The far-right president, an ex-army captain, has enthusiastically courted the military's support and has put it forward as a referee in the elections, raising fears he could seek an armed intervention if he loses.

However, experts say that while Bolsonaro has the backing of some in the military, it is highly unlikely the institution would get involved in anything resembling a coup.

Bolsonaro, who openly admires Brazil's 1964-1985 military dictatorship, has drawn the army into politics on an unprecedented scale, naming more than 6,000 active-duty or retired service members to jobs in his administration, all the way up to Vice President Hamilton Mourao, an army reserve general.

That mix of military and politics was on full display Wednesday as Brazil celebrated the 200th anniversary of its independence from Portugal with the 67-year-old commander in chief presiding over a combination of military parades and campaign rallies by his supporters.

"Bolsonaro believes it strengthens him to cultivate close ties with the armed forces and put on displays of military strength," said Carlos Fico, a military history expert at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

- Enlisting the army -

Bolsonaro, who trails leftist ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (2003-2010) heading into the October 2 election, has never presented concrete evidence of electoral fraud.

But he has sought to enlist the military in his crusade against Brazil's electronic voting system.

The armed forces regularly provide logistical support for elections, but the president has pushed to expand that to new levels, insisting they act as referees.

When the Superior Electoral Tribunal (TSE) bowed to his wishes by inviting the military to take part in a special Election Transparency Commission, Bolsonaro hailed the move.

"The armed forces are responsible, they're credible in the eyes of the public and they're not going to play a merely decorative role in this election," he said.

"They're going to do the right thing."

Hewing to Bolsonaro's line, the nine military members on the commission presented it with a list of nearly 100 points questioning supposed vulnerabilities in the electronic voting machines Brazil has used since 1996.

But in the end, the TSE concluded that most of the critiques were "opinions," and denied allegations such as the existence of a "dark room" where votes are tabulated.

- 'Political theater' -

However, experts say military support for Bolsonaro has its limits.

"There's not the slightest chance (the military) will play any role outside the one established in the constitution," said reserve general Maynard Santa Rosa, former secretary for strategic affairs under Bolsonaro.

Even though Bolsonaro enjoys close ties with top military figures, such as Defense Minister Paulo Sergio Nogueira, and has picked former defense minister Walter Braga Netto as his running mate, Fico, the military history expert, said those two "have no troops under their command."

"There is no generalized movement by active duty service members worried about verifying the electronic voting system," he said.

Fico added that any election-related unrest from the security forces was more likely to come from the police, a group "very influenced by 'Bolsonaro-ism.'"

Bolsonaro's campaign team has pushed him to tone down his rhetoric on the election system, fearful of alienating moderate voters.

But an aide close to the president, speaking on condition of anonymity, admitted Bolsonaro was unlikely to listen.

"It's part of his persona. It's political theater," the aide said.

"Without that, he wouldn't be Bolsonaro."

msi/jhb/md

Bolsonaro turns Brazil’s bicentennial into campaign rally

By CARLA BRIDI and MAURICIO SAVARESE

yesterday

1 of 19

President Jair Bolsonaro greets supporters in Copacabana beach during the country's bicentennial independence celebrations, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Sept. 7, 2022. 

(AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro transformed the nation’s bicentennial Wednesday into a multi-city campaign event, but didn’t use his appearances to undermine the upcoming election as his opponents had feared.

Bolsonaro, who trails former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in polls before the Oct. 2 vote, drew tens of thousands of supporters to rallies in Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro. The armed forces put on military displays in the cities, with the president attending.

The far-right Bolsonaro has stacked his administration with military officers and repeatedly sought their support, most recently to cast doubt on the reliability of the nation’s electronic voting system, which raised fears his speeches on Independence Day would be filled with fresh attacks. The far-right nationalist held back from doing so, and instead focused on attacks on da Silva and his leftist Workers’ Party.

Bolsonaro compared da Silva to autocratic leftist leaders in Venezuela and Nicaragua and called Brazil’s former president “a gangster.”

“We will have a much better administration with us being elected, with the grace of God,” the president said in a speech in Rio.

His prior efforts to sow doubt about the voting system has prompted widespread concern among his opponents that he may follow former U.S. President Donald Trump ’s footsteps in rejecting election results.

Bolsonaro arrived at the military display in Brasilia accompanied by at least one of the business executives who allegedly participated in a private chat group that included comments favoring a possible coup and military involvement in politics, and who is being investigated by Federal Police for possibly financing anti-democratic acts.

The crowd, decked out in green and yellow, chanted against da Silva, who wants to return to the post he held in 2003-2010.

Later, da Silva said he had never used Independence Day for electoral ends.

“Brazil needs better luck. It needs a government that takes care of people. A person who talks about harmony, love, economic growth, industrialization, job creation, pay increases,” da Silva said. “Brazil needs love, not hatred.”

Other presidential candidates also criticized Bolsonaro’s electoral use of the country’s independence bicentennial, and party leaders have suggested they will take the case to electoral courts.

Speaking at a rally after the parade in Brasilia, Bolsonaro made no reference to Brazil’s struggle for independence and instead focused on his achievements while his supporters made clear they came to support their candidate.

“We came for democracy, we want a free country, with no corruption or robbing, we want a country with clean elections,” said farmer Marcelo Zanella, 46, who drove some 800 kilometers (496 miles) from the state of Tocantins.

Tens of thousands also gathered on Sao Paulo’s main downtown boulevard. Due to a downpour and the fact Bolsonaro wasn’t scheduled to appear, turnout was apparently smaller than last year’s.

Later, Bolsonaro attended another military display in Rio along Copacabana beach — where his supporters often hold demonstrations. It entailed rifle salutes, cannon fire, flyovers, paratroopers and warships anchored offshore. He delivered his speech from a sound truck, on the back of which a draped banner read: “CLEAN AND TRANSPARENT ELECTIONS.”

Bolsonaro, a former army captain and lawmaker for decades before winning the 2018 presidential election, has spent most of his first term locking horns with Supreme Court justices, some of whom are also top members of the electoral authority.

He has accused some judges of hamstringing his administration and favoring da Silva. That has effectively turned those figures and their institutions into enemies for Bolsonaro’s base.

When Bolsonaro launched his reelection bid July 24, he asked supporters for “one last” show of support on Independence Day.

Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo, said Bolsonaro needed to energize his campaign and reach out to undecided voters.

“He needed something new and failed to do that. Bolsonaro once more only spoke with his supporters, indeed many of them, and with that the window might be closing for other voters to join him,” Melo said.

Since his campaign began, Bolsonaro has softened his tone. In the southern city of Curitiba last week, he told supporters to lower a banner demanding a military coup.

Carlos Ranulfo de Melo, a political scientist at Federal University of Minas Gerais, said this likely reflects campaign strategy to avoid fiery rhetoric and instead focus on the improving economy.

“We will convince those who think differently from us, we will convince them of what is best for Brazil,” Bolsonaro told the crowd in Brasilia.

The president is known for off-the-cuff outbursts. At last year’s Independence Day rally, he pushed the country to the brink of an institutional crisis by proclaiming he would ignore rulings from a Supreme Court justice. He later backtracked, saying his comments came in the heat of the moment, and the boiling tension was reduced to a simmer.

In both speeches in Brasilia and Rio, he made a couple veiled critiques of the Supreme Court, which elicited boos from the crowd.

“The institutional wear-and-tear was present in his speech in Brasilia, but in a less explicit way than last year,” said Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.

There had also been concerns about political violence, which didn’t materialize during the afternoon.

In Rio, it was a scene of adulation. Sound trucks blasted songs exalting Bolsonaro to a crowd packing multiple blocks of the beachside boulevard, spilling onto the sand and down to the waterline. Motorboats and jet skis floated just offshore. When the first paratroopers started gliding down, one group began chanting, “Legend!”, a nickname for the president.

“I came to honor my president,” said Myleni Lima, 50, from the city’s west zone. “I’m going to reeelect him, me and the Brazilian people.”

___ Savarese reported from Sao Paulo. Associated Press journalists Diane Jeantet and David Biller Jeantet in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

Recycling firm battles Jakarta's plastic waste emergency

Thu, September 8, 2022 


As Indonesia's capital Jakarta grapples with overflowing plastic waste and pollution pours into the sea, one burgeoning business is trying to turn rubbish into revenue.

Tridi Oasis Group, which employs 120 people, has recycled more than 250 million bottles since it was founded six years ago.

"I don't see discarded plastic as trash. For me, it is a valuable material in the wrong place," 35-year-old founder Dian Kurniawati told AFP.

Indonesia has pledged to reduce plastic waste by 30 percent over the next three years -- a mammoth task in the Southeast Asian nation of nearly 270 million people where plastic recycling is rare.

The country generates approximately 7.8 million tonnes of plastic waste every year, with more than half mismanaged or disposed of improperly, according to the World Bank.

Kurniawati's company receives plastic from recycling centres across the greater Jakarta area -- which has 30 million people -- at its factory in Banten province outside the city.

Then the company exports recycled plastic to European countries and also distributes it locally to be processed and used as packaging or textiles.

Kurniawati resigned from her consultant job to start the firm, tackling head-on the massive challenges faced by the world's fourth most populous country in dealing with the plastic crisis.

As one of the initiators of the "Beach Clean Up Jakarta" movement, she saw how Jakarta is littered with plastic waste and was frustrated that little was being done to change the situation.

- 'Our problem' -

Hundreds of piles of crushed clear plastic bottles sit piled neatly in the Banten factory, ready to be sorted to make sure no labels or caps are left behind.

The bottles are then cleaned thoroughly to eliminate contamination before being cut into small flakes, ready to be transported to clients for processing and reuse as packaging or textiles.

Fajar Sarbini, a 24-year-old employee, hopes more Indonesians will start recycling.

"People throw away their waste mindlessly, they should at least sort out sharp materials so they won't hurt garbage collectors," he said.

Jakarta does not have a municipal collection system for household waste and has no incineration facilities.

With green trends rising and the will of younger generations to live more sustainably growing, the country is not without hope.

"Indonesia is catching up and the acceleration is quite fast because we got help from social media and youth campaigns," Kurniawati said.

But she said the waste problem facing the country is enormous and the regulation to encourage plastic to be recycled is lacking.

"Plastic waste is our problem and solving it takes a concerted effort from everybody," she said.

"It can't be solved by just the government or recycling companies."

dsa/jfx/skc/mca/ser

Germany to introduce 'green card' to bolster workforce

Faced with a critical shortage of skilled labor, Germany is planning to introduce its version of a green card. It aims to make it easier for non-EU nationals to come to find work.

Sowmya Thyagarajan came to Germany from India in 2016, and now runs her own software company

The German government is introducing its own version of a "green card", the Chancenkarte (literally "opportunity card"), in an attempt to plug its desperate labor shortage. Industry associations have been complaining for some time, and the Labor Ministry has suggested the shortfall is slowing economic growth.

The new "opportunity card," presented by Labor Minister Hubertus Heil in the German media this week, will offer foreign nationals the chance to come to Germany to look for work even without a job offer, as long as they fulfill at least three of these four criteria:

1) A university degree or professional qualification

2) Professional experience of at least three years

3) Language skill or previous residence in Germany

4) Aged under 35 

The criteria are not unlike those used in Canada's points system, though that uses a more complex weight system. And there will be limits and conditions, the minister from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD)  emphasized in media interviews this week. The number of cards will be limited by the German government on a year-by-year basis, according to demand on the labor market, he explained.

Germany has disadvantages in attracting skilled workers: Language and bureaucracy top the list

"This is about qualified immigration, an unbureaucratic process, and that's why it's important that we say that those who have the opportunity card can earn a living while they are here," Heil told the WDR public radio station on Wednesday.

There are certainly some improvements here, according to Sowmya Thyagarajan. She came to Hamburg from India in 2016 to do a Ph.D. in aviation engineering and is now CEO of her own German company, Foviatech, which creates software for streamlining transportation and healthcare services.

"I think this points system could be a very good opportunity for people coming from abroad to work here," she told DW. "Especially due to the depleting young population in Germany." At the moment, Thyagarajan said, her company gives preference to Germans and EU nationals when recruiting, simply because of the bureaucratic hurdles involved for anyone else.

Labor Minister Hubertus Heil wants to boost immigration of skilled labor

New points, new hurdles

Some are not impressed with Heil's opportunity card at all. "It's setting up unnecessarily high hurdles and makes the system more complicated," said Holger Bonin, research director at theInstitute of Labor Economics (IZA) in Bonn.

To Bonin, Heil's points system will simply require more bureaucracy.

"Why don't they make it much simpler? Give people a visa to look for work, and if they don't find anything within a certain amount of time they have to leave?" he said. "To add extra points to that just makes it more complicated — if these criteria are important to employers, they can decide that during the recruitment. They won't need a card as a pre-selection."

Indeed, Bonin argues that some of the criteria Heil names might not actually be that important to employers in Germany: For instance, if they're an international company that communicates mostly in English, they won't care whether applicants can speak German or have lived in Germany.

That is borne out by Thyagarajan, who had a varying assessment of how useful the four criteria were: Qualifications and language skills were both important, she said, but she was less certain about the practicality of age restrictions. "Age of less than 35, I'm not sure about that — you don't have to be young, it really depends on how they're actually skilled." As for the three years' experience, Thyagarajan is also skeptical, since in some cases a degree provides the necessary expertise: "For some job profiles you don't require experience, but for some, you do indeed have to be experienced."

Cultural and structural problems

Germany's skilled labor shortage has been an issue for some time. Gesamtmetall, the Federation of German Employers' Associations in the Metal and Electrical Engineering Industries, says that two out of every five companies in its sector are seeing production hindered by a lack of staff. The Central Association for Skilled Crafts in Germany (ZDH) says that the country is missing around 250,000 skilled craftspeople.

The number of skilled people emigrating to Germany from non-EU countries to work has risen over the last few years, but it is still relatively low. According to the Mediendienst Integration, the number of qualified workers entering Germany was just over 60,000 in 2019, just 12% of all migration from non-EU countries to Germany in that year.

Germany has a few cultural disadvantages compared to other Western nations hoping to attract skilled workers: German is less universally spoken than English. "Skilled workers are almost always looking to get into countries that speak English," Thyagarajan said. "To some extent, it's important (that our employees speak German), because this is Germany, at least a working proficiency."

Another issue is that German employers traditionally set a higher store by certificates and qualifications, and these are often not recognized in Germany, or take months to approve. "Those problems won't be solved by introducing an opportunity card," Bonin said.

There are other systemic problems for German employers: Germany's federal system means different local authorities sometimes recognize different qualifications, and Germany's reliance on paper bureaucracy, with employees, often needing translations of their certificates approved by notaries. This too is a concern that Heil is attempting to tackle.

"I think it's very, very necessary that, apart from a modern immigration law, to thin out the bureaucratic monster of recognizing qualifications," he told WDR. To that end, he said, he would like to see a central agency that can approve qualifications quickly and back offices in Germany that can support overworked consulates abroad.

Edited by: Rina Goldenberg

While you're here: Every Tuesday, DW editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.

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• Date 08.09.2022

Canada's Trudeau set to announce inflation relief for low incomes - source

By Steve Scherer

Canada's Prime Minister Trudeau speaks a day after multiple people in the province of Saskatchewan were killed and injured in a stabbing spree, in Ottawa.

© Reuters/PATRICK DOYLE

VANCOUVER (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to unveil measures on Thursday to provide inflation relief to low-income families, a government source said, confirming reports in domestic media.

Inflation eased to 7.6% in July from an almost four-decade high of 8.1%. But the Bank of Canada is still concerned about rising prices and is promising further interest rate hikes after increasing them to their highest level in 14 years on Wednesday.

Trudeau's Liberal government will boost a tax-free quarterly payment that helps individuals and families with low and modest incomes offset sales tax, which is called the goods and services tax (GST) in Canada, said the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record.

The exact scope of the increase will be announced later on Thursday by Trudeau on the sidelines of a Cabinet retreat in Vancouver at 1230 pm ET (1630 GMT).

The government will also provide a C$500 ($381) onetime top-up to a housing benefit that is provided to low earners who need help paying rent, and it will provide initial details for a dental-care plan for low-income families.

These last two measures were part of an agreement Trudeau made with the opposition New Democrats Party (NDP) in March, and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is also due to speak about the measures later on Thursday.

Trudeau's Liberals were left a minority of seats in parliament after last year's election, and the NDP support agreement means that the government could survive until the end of the legislature in 2025, while most minority governments have tended to last only a couple years.

One of the keystones of the agreement is setting up a national dental care system, and on Thursday the government will announce that it will pay for part of the dental visits for children under 12 in households that earn less than C$90,000 per year, the source said.

It is the first step in setting up a permanent dental care plan, according to the source.

($1 = 1.3127 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Steve Scherer; editing by Jonathan Oatis)