Milosevic spymasters face final verdict at UN court


By AFP
Published May 30, 2023

Former Serbian spy chiefs Jovica Stanisic (L) and Franko Simatovic (R) were convicted of war crimes in 2021 - Copyright ANP/AFP Michael Kooren

Two of late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic’s spy chiefs face an appeals judgment Wednesday in the final Hague war crimes trial from the 1990s Bosnian conflict.

Former state security service boss Jovica Stanisic, 72, and his deputy Franko Simatovic, 73, were jailed by a UN court for 12 years in June 2021.

They were convicted of backing a Serb death squad that terrorised the Bosnian town of Bosanski Samac in 1992 with killings, rapes and looting.

Stanisic and Simatovic have both challenged their convictions for the war crime of murder and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, forcible transfer and deportation.

Prosecutors have appealed against the pair’s acquittal on several other charges, and asked for a longer sentence.

The case has been running for two decades, making it the longest and the last at the UN tribunal dealing with crimes from the wars that tore apart Yugoslavia after the fall of communism.

They were cleared at an initial trial in 2013 but the court ordered a retrial.

A five-judge panel at the court, known as the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (MICT), will hand down its appeal judgment from 11:00am (0900 GMT) Wednesday, it said in a statement.

The MICT has taken over cases left over from the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which closed in 2017 after bringing key suspects to justice over the Balkans wars.

– ‘Campaign of terror’ –

Suspects including Bosnian Serb political leader Radovan Karadzic and military chief Ratko Mladic have previously been convicted by the original international court, while Milosevic himself died in custody in The Hague in 2006.

But the case of Stanisic and Simatovic has dragged on far longer.

The two spymasters were arrested in 2003 and acquitted in 2013 after a five-year trial, but the ICTY ordered a retrial in 2015 after a public outcry.

Judges in 2021 convicted the pair of helping train and deploy Serb forces during the takeover of Bosanski Samac in April 1992.

Serb forces launched a “campaign of terror” to drive out non-Serbs involving rapes, looting and the destruction of religious buildings in the town, judges said.

They also held Bosnian Muslims and Croats in six detention centres were they were subjected to forced labour, repeated beatings, torture, and sometimes killings.

But judges said there was not enough evidence to prove prosecution claims that Stanisic and Simatovic were part of a concerted plot led by Milosevic to drive out Croats and Bosnian Muslims and create a Serb homeland.

Lawyers for the defendants say the 2021 judgment failed to show that the pair exerted any control over the Serb forces that brutalised Bosanski Samac.

The Balkans wars left about 130,000 people dead and millions displaced.

Tensions continue to simmer in the region, with clashes erupting on Monday in northern Kosovo between ethnic Serbs and NATO-led peacekeepers.

Former Kosovan president Hashim Thaci is currently on trial for war crimes at a separate tribunal in The Hague.

UN special envoy for Myanmar to step down: UN chief spokesman


By AFP
Published May 31, 2023

UN Special Envoy for Myanmar, Noeleen Heyzer (C), seen here visiting a Rohingya refugee camp on August 23, 2022, is stepping down in mid-June 2023, according to the United Nations - Copyright AFP/File FAYEZ NURELDINE

The United Nations special envoy for Myanmar will step down in June, a spokesman for the UN chief told AFP Wednesday, after an 18-month tenure in which she was criticised by the junta and its opponents.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military seized power in February 2021, ending a brief democratic experiment and sparking clashes with ethnic rebel groups and anti-coup fighters.

Diplomatic efforts led by the UN and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc to resolve the crisis have so far failed to stem the bloodshed unleashed by the coup.

Noeleen Heyzer, who was named envoy by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in October 2021, “will conclude her assignment on 12 June” when her contract ends, Stephane Dujarric said.

Guterres “is thankful to Ms. Heyzer for her tireless efforts on behalf of peace and the people of Myanmar,” the spokesman said, adding a new envoy would be appointed.

Heyzer, a Singaporean sociologist, was tasked with urging the Myanmar junta to engage in political dialogue with its opponents and end a bloody crackdown it launched after toppling the government of Aung San Suu Kyi.

She visited the Southeast Asian nation last August and met junta chief Min Aung Hlaing and other top military officials in a move criticised by rights groups as lending legitimacy to the generals.

But she was denied a meeting with detained democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi and later irked junta officials who accused her of issuing a “one-sided statement” of what had been discussed.

She later vowed not to visit the country again unless she was allowed to meet Suu Kyi, who has since been jailed for a total of 33 years by a closed-door junta court.

– Rebuffed –

Backed by major allies and arms suppliers Russia and China, the generals have rebuffed several attempts to kickstart dialogue with opponents of its putsch.

Former UN special envoy, Swiss diplomat Christine Schraner Burgener, was blocked by the junta from visiting the country and was the target of regular broadsides in Myanmar’s state-backed media.

Cambodian Foreign Minister and ASEAN envoy for Myanmar Prak Sokhonn visited Myanmar twice but both times the military denied him visits with Suu Kyi.

More than 3,500 people have been killed in the military’s crackdown since the coup, according to a local monitoring group.

More than one million people have been displaced by the violence, according to the United Nations.

It is written: why France holds to analysing handwriting


By AFP
Published June 1, 2023

Copyright AFP Ludovic MARIN
Eric RANDOLPH

Caroline de la Tournelle says her ability to decipher handwriting has influenced whether hundreds of people got jobs, helped police track death threats and even saved a child that was being abused.

Graphology remains a controversial topic, and has fallen out of favour in recent years — even in France, where it was widely used in the 20th century to gain psychological insights into individuals, especially for job applications.

But in the right hands, practitioners and their clients say it can be a useful tool.

“When I look at a piece of writing, I have to enter into it, it takes time. Some are warm, welcoming; others are harsher, more reserved,” said Paris-based de la Tournelle, who has more than a decade in the profession.

“Pressure is always the first thing I look at,” she said, running her fingers softly over an example. “How hard they pressed, how the writing moves, how it is organised… it all has meaning.”

Not long ago, it was common in France for job applicants to undergo handwriting evaluations. Though largely replaced by psychometric tests, some firms have recently returned to graphology.

“I tried other things, but they were no good. Graphology finds the main characteristics of a person — not everything but a lot,” said Marc Foujols, manager of a Paris real estate firm.

– ‘Impressive’ –

Christophe Dherbecourt, who has 25 years in human resources at a communications firm in the French capital, said it allows him to ask candidates “the right questions”.

Twice his firm rejected an applicant when handwriting analysis by de la Tournelle supported suspicions that they would be difficult employees.

“Of course, you can have graphologists who say any old rubbish, but she captures people well,” Dherbecourt said.

“It’s impressive what you can pull out. I had it done when I was hired here — they showed me the results and I felt it was 80 percent right.”

Studies have debunked claims by leading exponents of graphology in the past, and it has attracted fraudsters and charlatans over the years.

But Tracey Trussell, of the British Institute of Graphologists, said “don’t diss it until you’ve tried it”.

“It’s like a plumber — it’s only as good as the person doing it,” she said.

“People say it’s not a science, but year one of our training is all about measuring and assessing on a scientific basis.”

– ‘Crazy stories’ –

“Our writing comes from the heart, from our cardiac movement, through the nervous system and to the end of our fingers and through the pen,” said de la Tournelle.

“We are full of nuance, but three things never change” — how emotional and energetic we are, and how much we rely on outside stimuli to act.

Other aspects of the profession are beyond dispute, and of use to the police.

De la Tournelle began her career in the small town of Brive in southwest France and worked with local cops to match handwriting samples.

She helped find the culprits behind death threats, messages written with lipstick on mirrors, marker pens on office walls and even scratched into a car door.

“Crazy stories of greed, revenge, hate. Life can be like that in a small village,” she said.

She also interprets drawings, including for children, and this gave rise to her most shocking case, when a woman brought in her three-year-old granddaughter.

“Everything bad was in there — very angled, everything purple, everything bunched on the right…” said de la Tournelle.

She conferred with her graphology teacher and they brought in a court-appointed psychologist who found the child was being abused by her mother. The psychologist now comes to her for other family cases.

Leading UK industries seeing the biggest increase in wages

By Dr. Tim Sandle
Published May 31, 2023

Businesses in London. Image: Tim Sandle

Mining and quarrying is the sector that has seen the biggest increase in wages between January 2022 and January 2023, within the U.K. This is followed by those employed in administrative services.

In third place comes employees placed in the amalgam of professional, scientific and technical services, according to an assessment by Trading platform CMC Markets. The company analysed data from the UK government’s Office for National Statistics, and have provide this output to Digital Journal.

Across all sectors the average regular pay growth for the private sector was 6.9 percent in December 2022 to February 2023, and 5.3 percent for the public sector. For the most part, wage increases have been at a level below the rate of inflation. This is a situation that has fuelled industrial unrest in the U.K.

In January 2022, average weekly earnings sat at £1,203 for the mining sector. This increased to £1,382 in January 2023, an increase of 12.95 percent. The industry also saw an increase in weekly earnings of 13.82 percent over the past five years.

The administrators saw their earnings increase from £490 to £561 between January 2022 and January 2023, which is a percentage increase of 12.66 percent. The industry also saw a rise of 26.56 percent in five years.

Coming in third place is the professional, scientific and technical services sector. Between January 2022 and January 2023, the average weekly earnings in the industry increased from £854 to £940, a percentage change of 9.15 percent. The study also found the five-year increase to be 27.87 percent, the highest in the top ten.

Taking fourth place on the list is the manufacturing industry for chemicals. Average weekly earnings increased from £817 in January 2022 to £888 in January 2023, a percentage increase of 8 percent. The five-year increase in wages in the industry was also 16.67 percent. Rounding out the top five is the education industry, which has seen weekly earnings rise from £488 in January 2022 to £527 in January 2023, an increase of 7.4 percent. Over the past five years, average weekly earnings have also risen 17.27 percent.

Data for the top ten industrial sectors shows:

#	Industry	Jan 2023 Average Weekly Earnings	Jan 2022 Average Weekly Earnings	Jan 2018 Average Weekly Earnings	1 Year Change	5 Year Change
1	Mining and Quarrying	£1,382	£1,203	£1,191	12.95%	13.82%
2	Administrative and Support Service Activities	£561	£490	£412	12.66%	26.56%
3	Professional, Scientific & Technical Activities	£940	£854	£678	9.15%	27.87%
4	Manufacturing – Chemicals and Man-made Fibres	£888	£817	£740	8.00%	16.67%
5	Education	£527	£488	£436	7.40%	17.27%
6	Manufacturing – Basic Metals and Metal Products	£663	£619	£563	6.64%	15.08%
7	Manufacturing – Engineering and Allied Industries	£770	£720	£697	6.49%	9.48%
8	Electricity, Gas and Water Supply	£805	£756	£671	6.09%	16.65%
9	Other Manufacturing	£619	£584	£516	5.65%	16.64%
10	Information and Communication	£1,075	£1,016	£845	5.49%	21.40%

Saudi charges women’s activist with spreading ‘propaganda’

RELIGIOUS RITES VIOLATE 

WOMEN'S AUTONOMY & HUMAN RIGHTS

Saudi Arabian woman Manahel al-Otaibi walks on a Riyadh street in 2019 without the customary body-shrouding abaya - Copyright AFP/File FAYEZ NURELDINE

Saudi Arabia has charged a women’s rights activist detained since November over her social media posts with launching a “propaganda campaign”, according to court documents seen by AFP on Wednesday.

Manahel al-Otaibi was arrested for social media posts challenging the country’s male guardianship laws and requirements for women to wear the customary body-shrouding abaya.

Public prosecutors accused her of leading a “campaign to incite Saudi girls to denounce religious principles and rebel against the customs and traditions of Saudi society,” according to the documents.

She appeared in front of judges in January and was then referred to the Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) which was established in 2008 to handle terrorism-related cases but has been widely used to try political dissidents and human rights activists.

Otaibi has not yet been convicted or sentenced and no date has been announced for her hearing which could result in a lengthy prison sentence.

Otaibi’s sister — Fouz — who has left Saudi Arabia, was hit with similar charges and risks imprisonment if she returns to the kingdom.

Speaking to AFP, Fouz criticised authorities for “targeting influential women demanding women’s rights in Saudi Arabia.”

“There is a contradiction… as if there are two states,” she told AFP. “A state with Vision 2030, and a state that still applies the old strict rules.”

Vision 2030 is the kingdom’s economic and social reform agenda which has, in the last seven years, led to dramatic changes in the deeply conservative kingdom, including women’s right to drive and the promotion of sports for women.

Still, Saudi Arabia is often criticised for not tolerating dissent and has been in the spotlight in recent months for decades-long prison sentences handed down to two women who tweeted and retweeted posts critical of the government.

London-based rights group ALQST denounced the charges against the al-Otaibi sisters as “yet another example of Saudi Arabia’s empty promises when it comes to reforms”.

“Saudi women still get imprisoned and face sham trials for demanding their rights,” said Lina al-Hathloul, ALQST’s head of monitoring and communications.

Twitter hinders ‘troll hunters’ battling climate denial

Research shows disinformation about climate change is common online 

- Copyright AFP ISSOUF SANOGO

Roland Lloyd Parry with Anuj Chopra in Washington
By AFP
Published May 31, 2023

For years, a band of science-loving “troll hunters” hounded climate change deniers off Twitter — but Elon Musk’s takeover has upended their efforts, with many ousted accounts back, pushing fresh disinformation.

Despite the threat climate change poses to the planet, disinformation about it has gone largely unsanctioned on Twitter. But a secretive global community of about 25 scientists and activists, calling themselves Team Ninja Trollhunters (TNT), found a roundabout way to tackle it.

Since its founding in 2019, TNT claims to have secured the suspension of some 600 accounts of climate change denialists by reporting them for other infringements, including hate speech, that are officially recognized by the platform as valid grounds for termination.

“If they’re saying something racist or offensive or misogynist, we can get them kicked off,” one Germany-based TNT member, a 45-year-old scientist who asked to be identified as Tom, told AFP in a Zoom interview.

Like other TNT members interviewed by AFP, he requested that his real identity be withheld to avoid online harassment.

TNT members showed AFP archives documenting their campaigns, including a spreadsheet logging thousands of Twitter accounts they reported on grounds ranging from spam and harassment to hate speech and threats. They also shared screenshots confirming numerous suspensions.

“We make sure that we’re as under the radar as possible… to get (climate) deniers and ‘sceptics’ and just generally nasty people reported on Twitter,” a Canada-based member named Peter told AFP.

“We’re more effective if we’re very quiet about it. These deniers are quite often very violent in their responses to climate misinformation being corrected. Intimidation and abuse are very common.”

– ‘Opened the floodgates’ –

That approach appeared to work -– before Musk’s turbulent $44 billion acquisition of Twitter last October. Research by monitoring groups indicates a spike in misinformation on the platform as moderation was gutted and a paid verification system boosted conspiracy theorists.

Adding to the turmoil, self-proclaimed free speech absolutist Musk has restored what researchers estimate are tens of thousands of accounts once suspended for violations, including incitement to violence, harassment and misinformation.

Twitter’s press office and members of its sustainability team who were laid off after the takeover declined to comment.

In one example, TNT reported a Canada-based climate change denier for repeated threatening and offensive behaviour. An online archive of the Twitter account shows it branded climate change a scam and ridiculed activists and scientists to thousands of followers.

“You can call it trolling, I call it having fun with idiot climate alarmists,” he wrote in one exchange.

The account was suspended but the same user appeared to have returned with a different handle, posting “I’m back” in October 2022, and resumed retweeting material denying the causes of climate change.

“We got some fairly big accounts removed” but many came back “when Elon Musk kind of opened the floodgates again,” said Tom.

“We’ve had to change tactics” — less reporting of abusive accounts and more debunking of science claims, he added. “It’s a real struggle to keep up.”

Among other accounts targeted by TNT, a prominent US climate change denier was suspended in 2021 for “spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19”, according to a screenshot posted by one of his followers.

Spreading false information about Covid-19 “is fairly common for science-denial accounts: there’s a lot of overlap due to conspiracy-thinking tendencies for the fact-adverse,” Peter said.

The user returned with a new handle before the takeover and now has a “verified” checkmark, available for sale under Musk. He has posted regularly using the popular denialist hashtag ClimateScam, peddling misleading claims on topics such as arctic ice, temperatures and droughts.

– ‘Hateful conduct’ –

But the TNT’s fight continues.

Despite the reported rise in hate speech on Musk’s Twitter, they scored a rare success this year, successfully booting off a prolific Australia-based tweeter of climate misinformation — on the grounds of “hateful conduct”, according to a screenshot published by a TNT member.

His tweets included claims that the Earth is cooling and that carbon dioxide does not cause warming. The member who reported the account told AFP the tweet for which it was suspended was about “immigration into the UK”.

The group has been prompted to defend its tactics as some TNT members are themselves confrontational, aiming to provoke their targets into stepping over the line.

In one exchange, a TNT member told a prominent climate change denier he sounded like “a lobotomized cackling moron”.

“We’re going after accounts that are doing things that are reportable,” Peter insisted. “We’re not trolling people.”

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

US judge allows potential damages for distress of Boeing MAX victims

BOEING MADE EXPENSIVE SAFETY SOFTWARE 'OPTIONAL'


By AFP
Published May 31, 2023

Family members from the Ethiopian Airlines crash on a Boeing 737 MAX can seek damages for distress suffered in their final moments

- Copyright AFP/File Shelby Tauber

Family members of victims who died in a Boeing 737 MAX crash can seek compensation for the emotional distress their loved ones experienced before the fatal incident, according to a US ruling.

In an order late Tuesday, US District Judge Jorge Alonso rejected Boeing’s arguments to exclude such potential damages in a case involving dozens of family members related to victims on Ethiopian Airlines flight 302.

This was the second of two MAX crashes that together claimed 346 lives.

“A jury could reasonably infer from the evidence that will be presented at trial that the passengers on ET 302 perceived that they were going to crash, horrifically, to their certain death,” said Alonso, a district judge in the Northern District of Illinois.

A trial is set to begin on June 20.

Boeing had argued that victims’ families should not be able to seek compensation because the MAX victims had no time to suffer, as they died immediately.

But Alonso said: “There is sufficient evidence to support a reasonable inference that these passengers experienced pre-impact fright and terror.”

“Therefore, the Court is not inclined to bar evidence of how contemplation of that emotional distress affects the plaintiffs’ grief,” he added.

He ruled that surviving family members can seek damages for their emotional pain, due to the particular distress their loved ones experienced in their final moments.

Robert Clifford, an attorney representing victims’ families, applauded the ruling.

“Boeing’s victims undeniably suffered horrific emotional distress, pain and suffering, and physical impact and injury while they endured extreme G-forces, braced for impact, knew the airplane was malfunctioning, and ultimately plummeted nose-down to the ground,” he said in a statement.

“We look forward to upcoming trials to present this evidence to a jury and ensure Boeing is held fully accountable,” Clifford added.

A Boeing spokesperson said the company is “deeply sorry” to the victims’ families.

“We acknowledged the terrible impact of these tragic accidents and made an upfront commitment to fully and fairly compensate every family who suffered a loss,” the company said.

Boeing added that it has kept its commitment in recent years as it settled “a significant majority of claims” and will continue to work to constructively resolve the remaining cases

Op-Ed: Manchin’s pipeline has no place in the US debt limit deal

By Karen Graham
Published May 31, 2023

 - Copyright AFP OLIVIER DOULIERY

Attaching a controversial pipeline to the debt ceiling deal is a cheap shot to environmentalists and Democratic lawmakers.

On Saturday, right after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) reached a secret agreement with President Biden on the debt ceiling, McCarthy called a little-known congresswoman about a once obscure energy project.

“We got Mountain Valley Pipeline done,” McCarthy told Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.), according to people familiar with the conversation.

Getting the controversial pipeline championed by Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) into the debt ceiling deal came as a surprise to me and a hell of a lot of other people, including environmentalists, and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, spent Tuesday gloating on the radio show, “Talkline,” In an interview, he said, “All of a sudden, [the White House] did their job, they negotiated. And Kevin McCarthy did his job by putting something first and starting this negotiation. So, I applaud both sides.”

The Washington Post says House Republicans and their aides also played a key role in securing language in the debt ceiling deal to expedite the project’s completion, according to people close to the talks, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private deliberations.

The whole deal, in my opinion, is a kick in the face to many groups in Virginia and elsewhere who challenged the pipeline in court and were successful in getting the permits struck down,

CNN News is reporting that as recently as last month, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had struck down permits for the project on the grounds that they violate the Clean Water Act.

“Literally, they are changing the rules as we are playing the game,” Crystal Cavalier-Keck, co-founder of indigenous environmental justice group 7 Directions of Service, told reporters on a Tuesday call.

“Singling out the Mountain Valley Pipeline for approval in a vote about our nation’s credit limit is an egregious act,” Peter Anderson, Virginia policy director with Appalachian Voices, said in a statement Sunday.

And by the way, Virginia lawmakers were among the most vocal in opposing its inclusion in the bill. The 303-mile pipeline would bring gas from West Virginia to southern Virginia.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he will offer an amendment to strip the pipeline from the deal, as did several House Democrats representing Virginia: Reps. Don Beyer, Gerry Connolly, Abigail Spanberger, Bobby Scott, and Jennifer Wexton.

“Senator Kaine is extremely disappointed by the provision of the bill to greenlight the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline in Virginia, bypassing the normal judicial and administrative review process every other energy project has to go through,” a Kaine spokesperson told The Hill in an email.

I am pissed at President Joe Biden, too, If this outrageous charade called the Democratic process is allowed to continue, he might as well forget about his climate crisis goals. You cannot suspend the rules for one company while everyone else has to play by those rules.

If that pipeline is allowed to go through, our nation will be locked into more years of fossil-fuel dependency.

____________________________________________________

Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.

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Canadian businesses see a rise in LinkedIn related scams

By Dr. Tim Sandle
Published May 31, 2023

Image by Tim Sandle, of a computer being used in a workplace.

According to research by NordLayer, a network security solution for businesses, more than half of businesses in Canada (59 percent) experienced at least one LinkedIn scam this year. The most affected were larger companies (65 percent of those polled). Furthermore, 58 percent of medium and 31 percent of small companies have experienced a scam or other fraudulent activity.

Larger companies tend to be targeted the most often due to their data and value. They also have larger networks and databases, which makes them especially vulnerable to attack if their security measures are not up to par.

Almost half of Canadian companies (43 percent) are also aware of a scam on LinkedIn using their organization’s brand name. This type of falsification scam was the most prevalent among big companies (53 percent).

Of these nefarious practices, phishing attempts were the most popular form of scam (at 47 percent). Consequently the interruption to services (45 percent) was the leading outcome of LinkedIn scams.

Other forms of scam include fake job offers (41 percent), fake technology support as well as requests to connect from an unknown person with a suspicious link in the message (38 percent each).

The role played by scammers was to seek information and money or to ruin reputations. Many of these actions were targeted at employees, who are considered to be the weakest links in the cybersecurity chain.

Here Canadian companies named interruption to services (45 percent) and stolen/damaged client contacts (42 percent) as the major service disruptors. Moreover, they also experienced stolen/damaged data (41 percent) and damaged reputation (38 percent).

Based on the attack mode it is important that firms educate their employees about the types of scams that exist and how to recognize them. Companies may also encourage their employees to use two-factor authentication.

It remains important for firms to monitor all activity on their business’s LinkedIn accounts. This means examining the accounts for suspicious activity, such as unauthorized logins or changes to account information.

To arrive at the data set, NordLayer surveyed 500 companies in three countries: the U.S., the U.K., and Canada between March 15 and 25, 2023. Respondents were asked a set of questions about LinkedIn scams in the business-to-business industry. The Canadian portion of the data was extracted and the core findings supplied to Digital Journal.

Rebuilding a school in Ukraine with 3D printing technology


By Dr. Tim Sandle
Published May 31, 2023

There were days of heavy fighting in Krestchenivka, a village recently recaptured from Russian troops in southern Ukraine - Copyright AFP -

In Ukraine over two thousand schools in Ukraine have been damaged in the war, and 330 were destroyed due to the full-scale invasion. A rapid response to the problem of insufficient educational infrastructure in the country is needed. Advances in digital technology are providing a solution.

Team4UA, a humanitarian organization operating on the ground in Ukraine, is bringing technologies into the humanitarian emergency response in Ukraine. This includes implementing technology solutions for the coordination of humanitarian assistance as well as a programme for rebuilding houses, schools, and infrastructure using 3D printing technology.

One of the big projects involves a school and this is set to be the largest one-story educational facility in the world, built with an on-site 3D construction printer. The construction process will last about five weeks and be completed at the beginning of June 2023. The new additional school building is expected to be opened for 100 students in January 2024.

As well as being the largest structure, Lviv School No23 will also be the first educational institution in Ukraine and Europe to be printed on a construction 3D printer. The educational building will have one floor, which will house classrooms, teachers’ rooms, bathrooms, and a hall with an inclusive space capable of accommodating all categories of students, including children with special needs.

3D printing technology has advantages over conventional construction. In particular, construction using a 3D printer is ten times faster and requires the involvement of only two operators. It also stands that 3D technologies allow more accurate and efficient use of resources, reducing material costs.

The charity behind the effort – Team4UA – was founded by Jean-Christophe Bonis and initiated the project with the support of the international technological, humanitarian fund Humanitarian Innovative Technologies (HIT) in partnership with the Lviv City Council.

Supporting the project is Dominique Piotet, a French American digital transformation expert. Piotet says: “We are built on humanity and compassion. We are driven by edgy technology and its high impact on the future of the people and the world.” He says, “We are here to make a global impact, scale with high growth potential, and seek key investors for this extremely innovative project plus, we aim above the mark to HIT the target.”

Another partner is the Danish 3D construction company COBOD and the Danish construction company 3DCP Group, which will lead the printer’s operations on the ground. CEMARK, a CRH company, provides cement for the 3D printing concrete mix. 90 percent of the materials needed for construction are made in Ukraine.

Going forwards, the help of 3D printers, residential housing, offices, factories, infrastructure, bridges, and other structures can be rebuilt much faster than any other construction method can do.