Japan show provides glimpse of robots as future of rescue efforts

By AFP
October 26, 2023

Visitors to the Japan Mobility Show will get a vision of the future of rescue in the disaster-prone country, including exoskeletons

 - Copyright AFP Kazuhiro NOGI

Etienne BALMER

With a drone camera, a survivor is spotted in the rubble. A robot on tracks brings him water while rescuers in exoskeletons clear an escape route for an autonomous stretcher to take her to safety.

This is the futuristic vision on display at the Japan Mobility Show, aiming to exhibit how technology can help and sometimes replace humans in a country short of workers and no stranger to disasters.

But so as not to alarm people, the imaginary tragedy is unleashed by Godzilla, who has unleashed catastrophe in Japanese disaster films since the 1950s.

In Japan nearly 30 percent of the country’s population is aged 65 and over.

“Because of the decline of the population there are fewer and fewer people available for dangerous tasks,” said Tomoyuki Izu, founder of Attraclab, a local start-up specialising in autonomous mobility.

“My idea is to help people such as firefighters with my machines,” Izu, 61, told AFP.

It was Attraclab that co-developed the small delivery robot squeezing through the cardboard rubble at the Japan Mobility Show and designed the remote-control stretcher on wheels or tracks.

For now the Japanese government favours “traditional equipment” for relief efforts, he said at the event, which opens to the public this weekend.

But Izu believes there will be a market for more advanced technology in the future.

“There’s a lots of anime with humanoid robots in Japan, and therefore people love them. But these kinds of autonomous vehicles are still very strange for them,” he said.

Since 2016, Japan’s Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has been developing Kaleido, a robust humanoid robot capable of delicately lifting and moving injured people.

– ‘Shortage of labour’ –

“In the future this robot will be able to save people, or go to dangerous zones, like fires,” said Itsuki Goda from the robotics division of KHI.

He conceded, though, that the machine needs more development on its scanning capabilities to get through difficult terrain.

“We need more years of development if we want to use it in real situations, where conditions are always different,” he told AFP.

Kaleido’s current load capacity of 60 kilograms (132 pounds) will be increased very soon with a new prototype, promised Goda.

Price is also an issue.

Right now this robot is “maybe 10 times more expensive than a human, but if we produce 10,000 of them per year, the price will go down rapidly”, Goda added.

Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, another niche segment has exploded: robots to clear up disaster areas that are difficult or dangerous to access.

Engineering firm Sugino Machine presented a powerful but small robotic arm rigged on crawlers that can work in areas that emergency workers cannot go.

The machine was built in 2018 for a nationally run atomic research agency, as Japan continues the work to decommission the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

“This can be used for initial damage assessment or to remove debris or to remove heavy items that people cannot lift,” Akira Inujima from Sugino Machine told AFP.

Various tools can be attached to its arm, such as image, temperature or radioactivity sensors, or a high-pressure water lance.

“We have a shortage of labour. It is difficult to go all robot. But we can offer solutions to help people’s work,” he said.

“After Fukushima, we have been able to continue technological development because there has been project after project (heavily supported by the government), like removing debris, that needs our work,” Inujima said.

“It’s important to continue this work and not make this fade away.”

Argentina’s Milei repels women voters, fires up disgruntled men

By AFP
October 24, 2023

In September, with Milei on the up and up in opinion polls, thousands of Argentine women marched in defense of abortion, a right they feared he would take away

 - Copyright AFP/File Emiliano Lasalvia

Leila MACOR

In Argentina, where women have made some recent gains but are still fighting for full equal rights, anti-establishment presidential candidate Javier Milei has divided the electorate with an unashamedly machismo stance.

Some love him for it. Others are appalled.

The libertarian outsider who unexpectedly surged to the front of the presidential race in an August primary, had a poorer-than-expected showing in Sunday’s first election round, coming second behind center-left candidate Sergio Massa.

“There was a very strong mobilization of women against Milei,” whose rhetoric “was not only anti-feminist but also anti-woman,” political scientist Ivan Schuliaquer of the San Martin University in Buenos Aires told AFP.

Milei does not hold back when it comes to chauvinistic tropes.

“I’m not going to be apologizing for having a penis!” he said in an interview last year.

Milei is antiabortion — a right granted to Argentine women only in 2021 — does not support equal pay and has suggested scrapping the women’s ministry if he becomes president.

On the question of femicide, he has demanded “equality before the law” — meaning that targeting a victim for their gender should stop being considered an aggravating circumstance in sentencing.

Over 250 women fell victim to femicide in Argentina in 2022.

While many women are alarmed, Milei’s utterances have found resonance with some men, and polls show his voters were mainly male.

“There has been a lot of patriarchal reaction to Milei’s ideas,” leftist presidential candidate Myriam Bregman said on national radio after garnering less than three percent of the vote Sunday.

“They (Milei’s male supporters) feel their privileges are being brought into question.”

– ‘Green tide’ –

At Milei’s final campaign rally, a supporter told AFP that feminists in Argentina “sound like a broken record.”

The supporter, 57-year-old manual laborer Moises Achee, said he was also “against them changing the Spanish language” to make provision for gender inclusive pronouns.

“I don’t want them to impose things on me that I don’t accept… So we go with Javier Milei!”.

Argentina has been a Latin American leader in gay marriage and identity legislation, with a 2021 law allowing non-binary people to mark their gender with an “X.”

Abortion, too, has been legal in the country since 2021 until the 14th week of pregnancy.

In September this year, with Milei on the up and up in opinion polls, thousands of Argentine women marched in defense of abortion, a right they feared he would take away.

The feminist movement gained prominence in Argentina in 2015 with massive countrywide protests against femicide.

The push for abortion came later, and the so-called “green tide” named after the green bandannas donned by demonstrators, subsequently spread across Latin America and beyond.

“Argentina is the door to the fight for human rights in the region,” said Soledad Vallejos, a journalist specializing in gender issues who helped found the anti-femicide movement “Ni Una Menos.”

As such, if conservatives “can change the minds of Argentines, (this too) will spread across the region,” she told AFP.

– ‘Deeply reactionary’ –

The emergence of the “green tide” had a strong counter-reaction in Argentina, igniting an angry clapback in conservative, and male, sectors that took to WhatsApp groups and social media in anger.

“There was an overreach of feminism in whose eyes you were guilty just for being a man,” Milei’s director of digital communication, Agustin Romo, told elDiarioAR, an online newspaper, in August.

This, in turn, elicited a reaction “even in nonideological men and women. Or in women who realized they had gone overboard,” ventured Romo, a former online influencer.

As voices became more and more divided in the period from 2017 to 2019, a libertarian economist became a popular guest on Argentine TV, generating good ratings with his sometimes radical rants. It was Milei.

Then came the Coronavirus pandemic and the fight over vaccine and mask mandates — further uniting the anti-establishment crowd.

According to philosopher Ricardo Forster, Milei’s “seemingly rebellious” discourse, so attractive to people who feel marginalized in an increasingly polarized world, was in fact a “deeply reactionary” harkening for old-fashioned, conservative values.

“Something about masculinity is at stake… that is expressed in the growth of the extreme right in many parts of the world,” Forster told the Perfil newspaper, comparing the Milei phenomenon with Donald Trump in the United States and Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.

For Schuliaquer, while the divide between Argentina’s traditional rival parties used to be one of class, the pending political contest between Milei and the incumbent Peronist movement will be one of “gender and generation.”

Some S.African miners return to surface after underground dispute

By AFP
October 25, 2023

Police and security forces patrolled the area Tuesday evening as about 100 miners sang protest songs outside the mine

 - Copyright AFP/File Yuichi YAMAZAKI

Some of the miners who stayed underground for more than two days in a standoff between rival South African labour unions began returning to the surface Wednesday, their representatives said.

The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM), one of the two unions involved, said 107 of the more than 500 workers who had failed to emerge from the Gold One mine in Springs, east of Johannesburg, after a night shift on Monday morning “have come back to the surface”.

“They are currently at the medical station for further check-ups,” NUM spokesman Livhuwani Mammburu told AFP.

NUM and management at the mine had alleged the workers were being “held hostage” by members of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), a rival union.

AMCU denied the allegations saying the miners were staging a “sit-in” protest.

“I am told that they overpowered those that were holding them hostage and ran away,” the NUM’s Mammburu said of the 107 who made it out Wednesday.

Rescue and security teams were working to get the remaining miners out, he said.

The AMCU’s regional secretary Tladi Mokwena disputed this account, saying all the miners were coming out “willingly” having run out of food.

“Management has closed all the routes for them to receive food. So, we couldn’t allow workers to stay underground without food,” he said.

Police did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

On Tuesday, police spokeswoman Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said officers were “on standby” and monitoring the situation while talks between the mine and the unions were ongoing.

An AFP reporter at the scene on Tuesday evening said police and security forces patrolled the area as about 100 miners, mostly from the AMCU, sang protests songs as they waited for the outcome of the meeting between the mine management and unions.

The dispute revolves around union representation at the mine, where the NUM is currently the only group officially registered.

The AMCU says an overwhelming majority of miners have signed up to join it. But it is yet to be given official representation, which it says is the reason for the protest.

The NUM was founded in 1982 by the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa, a former labour unionist. It remains the nation’s biggest mineworker union.

Which European countries are the most racist

Joshua Askew   Published on 25/10/2023

From schools to the job market, housing and health, black people face "pervasive and relentless" discrimination, an EU report has revealed.

A new report has highlighted "shameful" levels of racism in Europe, comparing countries across the region. 

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) found people of African descent routinely face racial discrimination, harassment and violence in all aspects of their lives wherever they live. 

"Imagine you apply for jobs but never hear back. Imagine you search for a home for your family but are never successful. Imagine you experience harassment or violence that leaves you deeply traumatised," wrote FRA director Michael O’Flaherty in the report. 

"This is the reality for many people in the EU today, just because of the colour of their skin." 

The FRA found that almost half of black people in the EU experienced discrimination - a rise since the last report in 2018. However, it added that much racism is not visible and remains undetected.

Around 6,750 black people were surveyed in 13 member states, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. 

Some of the worst results were recorded in Austria and Germany, where far-right parties are surging in the polls, though racism was "pervasive and relentless" across the bloc.

Approximately two-thirds of black people in Austria (67%) and Germany (65%) said they had faced discrimination in the last 12 months. 

Portugal and Poland were the least racist countries, with 17% and 19% of respondents experiencing discrimination based on their race or ethnicity, according to the FRA. 

"Let us say this yet again: racism has no place in Europe. Being confronted with the true scale of racism is both shocking and shameful. These findings should be a wakeup call for action on equality and inclusion for people of African descent," wrote O’Flaherty in the foreword.

The FRA found that experiences of racism had increased in most European countries between 2016 to 2022. 

Austria and Germany saw the biggest rises, jumping from 42% to 64% and 33% to 64% respectively. In Germany, racism almost doubled. 

France, Luxembourg and Portugal saw black people reporting less racism. 

The FRA revealed racism had a pervasive impact on people's daily lives. One in four (23%) respondents said they had been prevented from renting a property due to their racial or ethnic origin.

A quarter (23%) said offensive or threatening comments had been made to their child in person because of their ethnic or immigrant background. Almost two out of five parents in Ireland (39%), Germany and Finland (both 38%) and Austria (37%) reported this. 

Police practices were also assessed by the FRA. Across the EU, it found that one in four black people had been stopped by officers in the last five years, with about half of those surveyed feeling it was because of racial profiling. 

People observe social distancing as they take part in a demonstration in The Hague, Netherlands, Tuesday, June 2, 2020.Peter Dejong/Copyright 2020 The AP. All rights reserved

Young people of African descent were three times more likely to leave education early in comparison to the wider population, according to the FRA. 

Meanwhile, nearly a third were working in "elementary occupations" (32%) and on temporary contracts (30%) - this last figure is also three times higher than the general population. 

The FRA revealed that black people were overqualified for their jobs. More than a third (35%) of respondents with university-level qualifications were found to be in low or medium-skilled occupations - compared with 21% for the general population.

However, the report's authors warned that much racism "remains invisible". 

"Incidents of racial discrimination, racist harassment and violence often go unreported, denying victims the support they are legally entitled to receive from the institutions meant to protect them,"  wrote director O’Flaherty. 

"People's voices go unheard."

Finland blames Chinese ship for Baltic Sea gas pipeline damage

By Euronews with AP

Published on 25/10/2023 

-

Finnish police say they have data pointing to the Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel NewNew Polar Bear as the culprit in damaging the pipeline running under the Baltic Sea.

Finnish investigators say they believed an anchor of a Chinese container ship was dislodged and caused the damage to the undersea BalticConnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia on the Baltic Sea earlier this month.

The National Bureau of Investigation, a branch of the Finnish police, said that it has evidence and data pointing to the Hong Kong-flagged cargo vessel NewNew Polar Bear as the culprit in damaging the pipeline running across the Gulf of Finland.

Detective Superintendent Risto Lohi, NBI’s head of the investigation, said in a news conference Tuesday that a 1.5 to 4-meter-wide dragging trail on the seabed is seen to lead to the point of damage in the gas pipeline.

That trail is believed to have been caused by a heavy 6-ton anchor which the Finnish Navy retrieved late on Monday.

“There are traces in the (anchor) which indicate that it has been in contact with the gas pipeline,” Lohi said, citing data from expert analysis.

Whether the pipeline damage was intentional, unintentional or caused by “bad seafaring” is subject of the next phase in the probe, officials said.

What happened to the pipeline?

On 8 October, Finnish and Estonian gas system operators said they noted an unusual drop in pressure in the pipeline after which they shut down the gas flow.

It turned out that the 77-kilometre-long pipeline that runs between the Finnish coastal town of Inkoo and the Estonian port of Paldiski was mechanically damaged in the Finnish economic zone and had shifted from its original position where it is buried in the seabed.

There was widespread initial speculation in Finland that the pipeline damage was intentionally carried out by Russia, in an apparent reaction to Finland's recent NATO membership, although senior leaders did not specifically name Moscow in public. 

Last week, Finnish officials named the NewNew Polar Bear as the prime suspect as the course and positioning of the 169-meter-long ship in the Baltic Sea coincided with the time and place of the gas pipeline damage.

Recent photos published on social media of the Chinese vessel, which called at the port of St. Petersburg in Russia during its Baltic Sea voyage, show the vessel is missing one of its anchors.

The Marine Traffic website shows the ship is currently sailing on Russian northern waters and is presumably heading back to China via the Northern Sea Route.

Finnish investigators said they have tried several times to contact the ship’s captain but without success and are now cooperating with Chinese officials on the case.

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said at a regular government media briefing on Monday that Beijing has called for an “objective, fair and professional” investigation into the damage to the BalticConnector and stressed that the Chinese vessel was sailing normally at the time.

New photos by the Finnish Border Guard showed substantial damage to the 300-million euro gas pipeline that connects Finland to the European gas network. The BalticConnector pipeline was launched for commercial use at the beginning of 2020.

Repair work is expected to take at least until the end of April 2024.

A Finland-Estonia and Sweden-Estonia telecom cable was damaged at the same time as the pipeline.

Finnish authorities say they believe the Finland-Estonia data cable damage is tied to the Chinese vessel as well.

'Ticking time bomb’: How abandoned war weapons are poisoning the Baltic sea

ByMared Gwyn JonesPublished on 29/09/2023 - 

A staggering 300,000 tonnes of deadly wartime weapons lie scattered on the Baltic seabed.

The Baltic, a strategic waterway connecting major European nations, is now one of the most polluted bodies of water on Earth as unexploded grenades, bombs, missiles and chemical agents were hastily abandoned in the ocean following the two world wars.

Sea dumping was then considered a swift, safe and cheap solution to get rid of unwanted munitions with many dumped by the Allied forces in 1945 as they feared a guerrilla uprising in post-Nazi Germany.

For a century, these weapons have been festering at the bottom of the Baltic ocean, slowly leaking toxic chemicals including TNT, mustard gas, phosgene and arsenic. 

As EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius meets ministers from the Baltic states in Lithuania on Friday to discuss solutions, experts tell Euronews that the problem has been ignored for too long.

An ecological disaster

Chemicals released from undersea munitions change the acidity and temperature of the seawater, destabilising ecosystems. They also cause cancer in many species, and remnants of munitions have even been found in fish tissue.

Experts fear consuming fish caught close to dumping sites could lead to a build-up of carcinogens in humans.

Terrance Long, Founder of the International Dialogues on Underwater Munitions, told Euronews that more public awareness is needed to pressure governments into action.

"Underwater munitions are leaking toxins that are harming marine ecosystems and endangering our sea life. Whether you're a staunch climate change advocate or not, this issue affects us all," Long told Euronews

"The TNT in munitions can burn and bleach corals and create an influx of nutrients that provoke harmful algae blooms. Mustard gas breaks down into inorganic arsenic which spreads across the seafloor, killing everything in its wake. The chemicals also affect the photosynthesis of plankton and the hatching rate of crustacean eggs," he explained.

“That’s the situation in the Baltic today. We cannot save the seas unless we accept the realities in the water," he added.

A sonar camera shows the chemicals ingested by planktonsIMUD

Even though scientists have for decades provided evidence to back such concerns, politicians have been dragging their feet, given the difficulty in defining legal liabilities for the forgotten weapons.

And while the public is acutely aware of the dangers of plastic and microplastic pollution in our oceans, little is known about the dangers of dumped munition for animal and human safety.

Politicians “need to prioritise”

Industrial activities that risk interfering with munitions such as dredging, offshore wind farms and bottom trawl fishing, as well as fears weapons could be retrieved by criminals, have brought the problem to political attention.

Earlier this year, Germany announced a €100 million programme to pilot ammunition recovery and destruction.

The collapse of fish stocks in the Baltic - provoked by a toxic cocktail of munition chemicals, fertilisers, industrial waste and sewage - has also severely impacted the fishing industry and placed pressure on governments to act. In August, the European Commission imposed new catch limits for two fish species in the Baltic.

EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius will meet EU ministers in Palanga, Lithuania on Friday to discuss the state of the Balti

"If we compare behaviours and statements from governments, there is remarkable difference. But above all there is a low level of action," Claus Böttcher, an independent consultant for JPI Oceans, told Euronews.

Terrance Long also feels that states’ failure to include any reference to undersea munitions in the Chemical Weapons Convention shows governments are trying to shrug off responsibility.

"Treaties often demand compromises that can dilute the treaty's effectiveness, particularly when it comes to safeguarding the environment," he explained. "Governments might be protected by treaties, but that doesn't absolve them of the consequences of their actions."

Technological solutions exist

But Böttcher believes there has been positive momentum in the past decade to achieve the paradigm change needed.

Engineers, scientists, policymakers and financiers are finally coming together to identify the best ways of safely destroying the weapons.

Advancements in marine technology, including the use of artificial intelligence, are making detecting and mapping undersea munitions easier. Some munitions are disarmed using water jets before they are removed from the seabed, while others are recovered to be detonated or incinerated on land.

"We've developed technology that prove a clean-up of the ocean floor is possible. Munitions are visible and tangible and can be removed," Böttcher said.

Both experts say conventional and chemical weapons need to be treated with the same level of priority. Weapons also need to be monitored more closely, as some carry a minimal explosive risk due to the unstable condition of the chemicals they contain. 

These technological solutions could also be vital for a clean-up of the Black Sea when the war in Ukraine eventually draws to an end. Although little is known about munition dumping in the region, experts say governments must learn from the mistakes of the past to avoid a disastrous repeat.

Experts welcome potential EU action, but call for a coordinated global response to a problem that touches so many parts of the planet.

"Baltic Sea ministers should seriously consider calling on the United Nations to convene an International Conference on Underwater Munitions," Long said.

"The Baltic Sea is part of what I call the heart and lungs of the planet," he added. "As the earth is all one body, if our heart and lungs are sick, it affects us all."

EU may probe foreign subsidies to support its wind energy sector

By Mared Gwyn Jones & Laszlo Seres

Published on 24/10/2023

An action plan unveiled on Tuesday to boost the EU’s wind energy sector could trigger investigations into foreign subsidies where there is evidence of damage to European industry.

The plans, announced by the European Commission, aim to safeguard the bloc's wind sector from unfair international competition, while also addressing challenges including slugging permitting processes, workforce shortages and limited access to raw materials.

The continent has "lost its leadership" to the Asia-Pacific region as the largest world market for wind "in the space of two years", EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said.

Wind energy is a key source of EU homegrown energy but the sector fears cheap Chinese imports of wind equipment could severely undercut European manufacturers.

Both the EU's competition and internal market commissioners Didier Reynders and Thierry Breton have recently suggested the bloc should investigate Beijing's subsidies for Chinese turbine manufacturers, as it did with its ongoing inquiry into electric vehicles.

"Like we just announced for electric vehicles, I believe it is time we investigate whether such advantageous conditions are due to attractive state-backed financing conditions for Chinese manufacturers that would not be possible in the EU," Breton wrote in September.

But a senior EU official said on Tuesday that any investigation would require evidence that the existence of Chinese subsidies translates into "economic harm" for European production.

"We are in contact with the industry and willing to assess any evidence they would bring," the official said.

The EU has adopted anti-dumping and anti-subsidy instruments in response to increasingly aggressive global trade competition. Upon receiving evidence of damage to European industry, the Commission can launch an investigation and eventually adopt measures to protect European industry, including trade sanctions.

Trade association Wind Europe welcomed the action plan as a "game-changer for Europe's energy security."

"This is good for jobs and growth – and for Europe’s energy security. As Ursula von der Leyen said in her recent State of the Union speech, the future of Europe’s cleantech must be made in Europe," WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson said.
Tackling wind farms' cybersecurity risks

The plan announced on Tuesday also aims to reduce security threats posed by the growth of wind farms in Europe by ensuring auctions - which allow countries to procure clean power at competitive prices - are redesigned to make assessments of cybersecurity risks.

EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said the bloc needed to innovate to ensure "these wind turbines will not collect data in a way that could harm our energy infrastructure."

"We propose that member states use pre-qualification criteria such as momentum, sustainability and cybersecurity requirements to select qualified contractors for participating in auctions," Simson said. "If we spend billions to develop new projects, we should mitigate the risks for implementation, for the level playing field and for security."

"We will not close our markets, but we will take care of our security concerns," she added.

To achieve its ambitious target of ensuring at least 42.5% of its energy mix comes from renewables by 2030, the EU expects wind capacity to increase from 204 GW in 2022 to more than 500 GW in 2030.

To hit these targets, the bloc wants to support its industry by speeding up permitting processes, boosting its skilled workforce and ensuring better access to finance.

Responding to the action plan, WWF called for the Commission to do more to ensure fossil fuel workers can be reskilled to ensure they are not left behind in the energy transition.

“Member states must seek to maximise their wind energy potential to contribute to a just and fair transition. For example, by focusing investment in disadvantaged regions, helping workers in fossil fuel and other declining industries, and ensuring economic benefits for local communities," Arnaud Van Dooren, Climate & Energy Policy Officer at WWF European Policy Office, said.

The Commission hopes that by propping up Europe's wind industry it can cover its own demand whilst also increasing its share in the global market.

Besieged Gaza Strip running short of bread and drinking water

By Euronews correspondent Nebal Hajjo, Gaza Strip.

Published on 26/10/2023 - 06:54

Bakeries in Gaza are running out of bread, drinking water is being rationed and power outages are leaving people without charged phones, making it difficult to connect with friends and relatives.

The Israel military's aerial assault and the government's total blockade of the Gaza Strip is stripping Palestinians of even basic needs.

''We are putting a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said soon after the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October.

Israel's war with the militant group has upended the lives of more than two million people, and killed almost 6,500 civilians, according to Palestinian authorities.

This week, Tel Aviv allowed 54 trucks carrying UN supplies of water, food and medicine to enter Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah border crossing.

The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, told a peace summit in Cairo that what has been delivered is not enough.

''The people of Gaza need a commitment for much, much more – a continuous delivery of aid to Gaza at the scale that is needed,'' Guterres said.

Call for humanitarian ceasefire

He called for a humanitarian ceasefire to rescue Gaza from what he described as a ''godawful nightmare''.

In the Jan Younis refugee camp, people wait in long queues to buy bread. Some of the people living there are displaced from northern Gaza.

One of them, Ibrahim Sorour, said about 80 people are living inside one house.

He desribed the difficulties he has encountered buying bread.

''Every day I come from 4am and wait five hours until I get my share of bread. Every day I hear news of bombing next to bakeries, in the streets, or even in ordinary homes and this makes me afraid to go out.

''From my house, even if  there is no bombing, I leave the house at dawn before daylight, and then I hear the sound of reconnaissance planes that are always flying above us. For me, I feel more afraid of this sound that makes me feel that I am always under surveillance. This is real horror, but there is no alternative. We need food and bread,'' he said.

Many Palestinians who followed Israel's orders to evacuate northern Gaza and move south left behind all of their belongings.

''We fled from our homes and did not take anything with us,'' Shifa Tabsh said.

''The next day we learned that our house had been destroyed, and now we have absolutely nothing. No shelter, no mattresses, no pillows, nothing.''

With fuel banned from entering Gaza, there are frequent power outages; drinking water is being rationed.

Saeb Laqan, from the Khan Younis Municipality Water Department, said the Gaza Strip residents are facing a humanitarian catastrophe.

''There is no water to pump into pipes, neither through wells nor distribution at all. We have zero fuel stocks, and there is also no electricity. Therefore we are facing a humanitarian catastrophe if the world and everyone does not intervene,'' he said.

ZIONIST LOGIC

Objective international media reports serve Hamas — Israel's former PM

Yair Lapid, who served as the premier in the Israeli coalition government, has called on international media not to present stories from both sides of Tel Aviv's Gaza attacks


REUTERS

Yair Lapid, leader of Yesh Atid party, delivers a statement in Jerusalem / Photo: Reuters
Former Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid has accused international media outlets of displaying bias in their reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, favouring the Palestinian group Hamas over Israel.

“If the international media is objective and shows both sides, it serves Hamas,” Lapid said Sunday.

“My argument is that the media cannot just claim to bring both sides of the story. If you do that, you are only bringing one — Hamas’s side,” he said, noting “it is an insult to the victims, including the Palestinians.”

“It is an insult to the core idea of journalism,” Lapid added.


Noting that he worked as a journalist for 31 years, Lapid said “I have no problem with criticism of Israel. But when you know that one side lies and one side makes every effort to verify the facts, the least we can expect is that you don't give a never-ending platform to the lies.”

Israel launched a relentless bombardment campaign against Gaza following a surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on October 7, putting the enclave’s residents under total siege and a blockade of food, fuel and medical supplies.

Nearly 7,200 people have been killed in the conflict, including at least 5,791 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis.

Did Europe fail Palestinians by isolating Hamas?


By Mared Gwyn Jones

Published on 18/10/2023 

When Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in January 2006, Europe had a problem.

The Palestinian democracy it had helped build after the 1993 Oslo Accords delivered a result it was deeply uncomfortable with - electoral victory for a group it considered terrorists.

The West immediately boycotted the democratically elected Hamas-led government until it agreed to recognise Israel and renounce violence. Hamas refused and went on to take control of the Gaza strip in 2007.

The European Union has since been one of the biggest donors of critical aid to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, propping up the local economy and preventing its people from plunging into poverty.

But the EU has done this while maintaining a strict policy of 'no contact' with Hamas, refusing to engage with the militant group and channelling aid to Gaza through United Nations (UN) agencies and other organisations it considers outside Hamas’ orbit in order to side-step the government.

In its latest decision in a botched response to the war, the European Commission on Saturday tripled its humanitarian support for Palestinians to €75 million euros. Meanwhile, it is “reviewing” approximately €396 million in unspent development aid to ensure no EU money has inadvertently come into contact with Hamas.

Euronews spoke to two experts deeply divided on the EU’s decision to isolate Hamas, and its impact on the bloc’s diplomatic leverage in the region.
EU aid a "lifeline" for Palestinians

For Dr Matthew Levitt, director of the Reinhard programme on counterterrorism and intelligence at the Washington Institute, the West’s boycott of Hamas was the only viable response to the group’s electoral victory.

"People have the right to vote for whoever they want, but it comes with consequences," Dr Levitt told Euronews.

"Hamas was never part of the solution. We must also remember that the EU and its allies did maintain lines of communication with Hamas leaders after they won the 2006 elections, but it was important for the West at that time to establish how it dealt with terrorists," he added.

The EU and its Western allies’ continued provision of aid was - and still is - a lifeline for vulnerable Palestinians, providing for their essential basic needs, Dr Levitt said.

The EU contributes at least €82 million to UNRWA, the UN agency providing essential services to Palestinian refugees, every year, and in 2022 alone invested €145.35 million in development aid to pay the salaries and pensions of Palestinian civil servants, invest in hospitals and support vulnerable households.

Palestinians collect food provided by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza City, May 2021

John Minchillo/Copyright 2021 The AP. All rights reserved.

But Dr Tamet Qarmout, head of public administration at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, who worked in Gaza for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), believes that EU aid has also perpetuated a state of Palestinian reliance while "relieving" Israel of its responsibilities.

"Palestinians have been drip-fed aid in order to survive, when what they need is an operation to survive. But no one has been willing to make that decision for them," he explained.

Dr Qarmout also believes that by isolating Hamas, Europe became even more beholden to Israeli interests, allowing Israel to continuously scupper the peace process.

"While generous donors have undoubtedly helped the Palestinian people, they have also paid the price of Israeli occupation, and this cynically and sadly sustains occupation," he added.

"UN agencies also became agents to Israel's security apparatus, but also came under immense pressure because Hamas opposed the arrangement," he said.

Dr Qarmout also told Euronews that because of UN aid workers' role in sustaining the western boycott of Hamas, they were eventually pressured "to share information with Hamas" on what came in and out of the Gaza strip, meaning aid became increasingly politicised.

"The key question Europe needed to ask itself at the time was how to effectively use aid to ensure both parties respected the peace process, on both sides. But the discussion was never opened in European politics, as if it were a taboo," he added.

Former European leaders, including former British premier Tony Blair, have in the past expressed regret at the decision to immediately boycott Hamas in 2007, saying the international community should have engaged the Islamist militants in dialogue.
Sabotage of aid 'possible'

But Dr Levitt says that the West had to establish clear red lines on Hamas.

He also believes that while the immediate priority for the EU right now should be to ensure essential humanitarian aid continues to reach Gaza, it is also right to investigate potential diversion of funds to Hamas.

"There have long been issues of aid to Palestinians being misdirected, in particular EU aid," Dr Levitt said. "The reality is that Hamas controls the Gaza strip, and so the assumption must be that some of the aid coming in is being misdirected. The ability to divert or skim off the top is real."

"There are very good reasons to reassess how aid is delivered, but not whether aid should be delivered," he added.

Members of the European Parliament have in recent years raised concerns about the possible diversion of European funds by Hamas. In a 2021 written question to the European Commission, Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers questioned whether EU funds in the value of €1.7 million to the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) - which has close and well-documented links to Hamas - run counter to the bloc’s anti-terrorism commitments.

In her response, the then-European commissioner for education Mariya Gabriel said the Commission had cancelled grant agreements with IUG in 2021 after it refused to agree to a clause stipulating beneficiaries must ensure no link to persons on the EU’s list of restrictive measures.

Last week, the Israeli Defense Forces targeted the IUG with airstrikes, claiming it was being used as a "training camp" for Hamas militants.

But Dr Qarmout says that despite these claims, "no shred" of evidence or intelligence has been produced to demonstrate any claims that EU funds are being diverted by Hamas, whilst there is plenty of evidence of Israel targeting donor-funded projects in Palestinian territories.

A Palestinian boy takes shelter at UN school after his homes was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes during the 2021 11-day war

Khalil Hamra/Copyright 2021 The AP. All rights reserved.

An uptick in Israeli demolitions of Palestinian infrastructure, including EU-funded projects, was seen in 2021, prompting EU and UK representatives to visit affected communities in the West Bank.

In a 2021 statement, the European External Action Service (EEAS) said 150 donor-funded structures were destroyed by Israeli authorities that year, displacing 656 people, including 359 children, across the West Bank.

Israel has also targeted water wells and pipelines during conflicts, including the 2021 11-day war, despite many water projects being backed by foreign donors.

Although the EU has repeatedly condemned attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians as well as targeted bombardments of critical Palestinian infrastructure, it has never investigated how Israel could have intentionally undermined the EU's own development projects in the region.

On Monday, the European Commission announced it would step up its efforts to bring aid to Gaza by sending flights of UNESCO humanitarian supplies to Egypt, as international efforts to open humanitarian corridors continue.