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/2024

  • Spain’s apocalyptic floods show two undeniable truths: the climate crisis is getting worse and Big Oil is killing us | Spain | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/02/spain-apocalyptic-floods-climate-crisis-worse-big-oil-cop29

    Governments continue to focus on economic speed rather than climate safety. They have been slow to reduce the risks and prepare societies, but many, including the UK, have been quick to lock up those who scream warnings and who hold up traffic. The legal system is effectively compelling citizens to accept catastrophe.

    #climat #profits

  • UN should consider suspending Israel over ‘genocide’ against Palestinians, says special rapporteur | Israel | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/31/un-should-consider-suspending-israel-over-genocide-against-palestinians

    UN should consider suspending Israel over ‘genocide’ against Palestinians, says special rapporteur

    Francesca Albanese, who was stopped from appearing at US Congress this week, said Israel defied UN resolutions

  • Meloni’s government passes new law to save Albania migration transfer policy

    Move by Italian PM overturns ruling by a Rome court that could have blocked deal to curb migrant arrivals

    Italy’s far-right government has passed a new law to overcome a court ruling that risks blocking the country’s multimillion-dollar deal with Albania aimed at curbing migrant arrivals.

    On Friday, a court in Rome ruled to transfer back to Italy the last 12 asylum seekers being held in the new Italian migration hub in Albania. The ruling has cast doubt on the feasibility and legality of plans by the EU to explore ways to establish migrant processing and detention centres outside the bloc as part of a new hardline approach to migration.

    The group of individuals, who had arrived at the port of Shëngjin from Lampedusa onboard a military vessel last week, were among the 16 people transferred for the first time to the designated facility in Gjadër under the agreement between Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the Albanian prime minister, Edi Rama, aimed at holding men who are intercepted in international waters while trying to cross from Africa to Europe.

    Four of the 16 men were immediately sent back to Italy on Thursday, including two who were underage and two who were deemed as vulnerable.

    The remaining 12 individuals whom the Rome judges ordered be transferred back to Italy were returned via the port of Bari on Saturday in a blow to Meloni that risks turning the initiative into what aid workers and opposition groups have deemed a “complete failure” and a “financial disaster”.

    Meloni’s party, the far-right Brothers of Italy, angrily condemned the decision on social media, blaming “politicised magistrates” who “would like to abolish Italy’s borders. We will not allow it.”

    Italy’s justice minister, Carlo Nordio, attacked the judges, saying “the definition of a safe country cannot be up to the judiciary”.

    The dispute that has sparked the clash revolves around the definition of what constitutes “safe countries” of origin. The 16 asylum seekers hailed from Egypt and Bangladesh, countries deemed safe by Italy, and therefore, according to the government, they should have been repatriated to their countries of origin.

    However, the judges ordered their transfer to Italy, saying the men could be at risk of violence if repatriated, effectively upholding the 4 October ruling of the European court of justice that the Italian government appeared to have overlooked. As a general rule, EU law takes precedence over conflicting national laws.

    The EU court made it clear that a country not entirely safe cannot be deemed safe, underlining that the condition of insecurity, even if limited to a specific part of the country, such as a certain region, could lead to the entire country being deemed unsafe.

    The council of ministers approved the decree after an emergency meeting held late Monday afternoon. The aim of the new law is to draw up a new list of safe countries, which can be updated every six months, and to allow a court of appeal to reconsider rulings that order the transfer of asylum seekers to Italy. From now on, the country of origin will be a primary condition for repatriation. Meloni’s government hopes in this way to bind the magistrates’ decision to government decrees and not to international laws.

    “In compliance with the ruling of the European court of justice, countries that contain unsafe territorial areas are excluded from the list: Nigeria, Cameroon and Colombia,” said the undersecretary to the presidency of the council, Alfredo Mantovano, in a press conference at Palazzo Chigi after the council of ministers’ meeting.

    Meloni said: “We will continue to work tirelessly to defend our borders.”

    The row between the judges and the government escalated further on Sunday when Meloni published excerpts on social media of a letter sent by one prosecutor to a group which includes judges.

    In it, Judge Marco Patarnello warned that Meloni was “stronger and much more dangerous” than the former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who faced frequent legal woes and who repeatedly attacked the judiciary.

    Rightwing politicians said the letter proved the legal bias against the government.

    Critics said however that Meloni did not post the rest of the text, in which Patarnello said “we must not engage in political opposition, but we must defend jurisdiction and the citizens’ right to an independent judge”.

    On Monday, the president of the judiciary’s union, Giuseppe Santalucia, said: “We are not against the government, it would be absurd to think that the judiciary, an institution of the country, is against an institution of the country like political power.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/21/meloni-rushes-to-pass-new-law-to-save-albania-migration-transfer-policy

    #Italie #Albanie #externalisation #accord #migrations #asile #réfugiés #frontières #decret #pays-sûrs

    –-

    ajouté à la métaliste sur l’#accord entre #Italie et #Albanie pour la construction de #centres d’accueil (sic) et identification des migrants/#réfugiés sur le territoire albanais...

    https://seenthis.net/messages/1043873

    • CPR in Albania. Paesi “sicuri” per decreto legge

      I fatti sono noti: il fermo dei primi migranti, che la Libra, nave della Marina militare italiana, aveva portato in Albania non è stato convalidato dal tribunale di Roma. Nel CPR albanesi, secondo quanto stabilito dagli accordi con il governo di Tirana, potrebbero finire solo uomini adulti provenienti da paesi “sicuri”.
      Paesi “sicuri” sono quelli inclusi in una lista stilata dal governo.
      In base al parere della Corte europea giustizia sulla direttiva UE in materia di paesi “sicuri” che stabilisce che non possono esservi paesi assolutamente sicuri per tutt*, il tribunale di Roma ha obbligato il governo a trasferire in fretta in Italia e furia il gruppetto di uomini provenienti da Bangladesh ed Egitto, rinchiusi nel CPR di Gjader.
      La risposta del governo non si è fatta attendere. Ieri è stato emesso un decreto legge, quindi immediatamente in vigore, sino alla scontata convalida del parlamento, in cui viene definita per legge la lista dei paesi “sicuri”.
      Nei fatti il governo se ne infischia del merito e va dritto allo scopo: selezionare, rinchiudere e deportare esseri umani in eccesso per mantenere il consenso nel proprio elettorato.

      https://radioblackout.org/2024/10/cpr-in-albania-paesi-sicuri-per-decreto-legge

    • L’Italie publie un nouveau décret sur les « pays sûrs » pour sauver son accord avec l’Albanie

      Le gouvernement italien a publié lundi un nouveau décret visant à sauver son accord avec l’Albanie, qui prévoit l’externalisation des demandes d’asile dans ce pays voisin. L’exécutif a dévoilé une nouvelle liste de pays considérés comme « sûrs » pour envoyer les ressortissants originaires de ces États vers l’Albanie, sans être contrecarré par une décision de justice. Mais les juristes estiment que cette modification législative risque quand même de poser de nouvelles questions juridiques.

      Le gouvernement italien contre-attaque. La coalition au pouvoir, alliant droite et extrême droite, a adopté lundi 21 octobre en Conseil des ministre un décret qui inscrit dans la loi 19 pays considérés comme « sûrs » par Rome pour y rapatrier les migrants.

      Un moyen pour le gouvernement de sauver son accord avec l’Albanie, mis à mal par une décision de justice vendredi. Un tribunal romain a en effet invalidé la rétention des 12 premiers migrants arrivés sur le sol albanais mercredi 16 octobre, après avoir été interceptés en Méditerranée par les autorités italiennes. Ces hommes, originaires d’Égypte et du Bangladesh, ont dû être rapatriés en Italie trois jours plus tard.

      Les juges italiens se sont appuyés sur un récent arrêt de la Cour européenne de justice (CJUE), qui estime que le Bangladesh et l’Égypte ne sont pas des pays sûrs, contrairement à l’Italie.

      Nouvelle liste de pays « sûrs »

      Afin de se conformer à la législation européenne, l’exécutif italien a exclu aujourd’hui trois pays parmi les 22 de sa liste précédente de « pays sûrs ». Désormais, le #Cameroun, la #Colombie et le #Nigeria en sont exclus. Toutefois, la nouvelle liste, qui a vocation à être mise à jour annuellement, comprend toujours le #Bangladesh, la #Tunisie et l’#Egypte.

      Le décret ministériel, dont l’entrée en vigueur est immédiate, vise « à garantir que le recours à la demande de protection ne soit pas largement exploité pour échapper à la justice », a déclaré le ministre de l’Intérieur, Matteo Piantedosi.

      Mais ce nouveau texte suffira-t-il à contrer la justice, comme le souhaite la Première ministre Giorgia Meloni ? Selon des juristes, cette modification législative risque de poser de nouvelles questions juridiques, et même avec ce décret, c’est bien la législation européenne qui prévaut malgré tout.

      « Magistrats politisés »

      La décision de la justice italienne est un revers cinglant pour la cheffe du gouvernement, qui a fait de la lutte contre l’immigration irrégulière sa priorité.

      « Je ne crois pas qu’il soit de la compétence des juges de décider quels pays sont sûrs et lesquels ne le sont pas, c’est une compétence du gouvernement », avait-t-elle déclaré, alors que son parti avait dénoncé une décision « absurde » et fustigé des « magistrats politisés ».

      De son côté, le ministre de la Justice Carlo Nordio a dénoncé « un arrêt de la Cour de Justice européenne qui est complexe, très détaillé et qui n’a probablement pas été bien compris ni bien lu ».

      L’accord avec Tirana, qui a du plomb dans l’aile, était pourtant présenté comme un exemple à suivre au sein de l’Union européenne (UE). Depuis quelques jours, les États membres - dont certains veulent appliquer le modèle italien - ont les yeux rivés sur l’Italie, et sur sa possibilité ou non d’externaliser les demandes d’asile dans un pays hors UE.

      https://www.infomigrants.net/fr/post/60711/litalie-publie-un-nouveau-decret-sur-les-pays-surs-pour-sauver-son-acc

    • Italy: What next for the government’s Albania plan?

      The Italian government’s plan to process asylum seekers in Albania has hit a stumbling block. The government insists it will go ahead anyway, but if it is contrary to EU law, can it really proceed? InfoMigrants asked an expert from the Italian juridical association ASGI.

      Italy claims its Albania plan is in step with European policy, but Italian judges have ruled that legally, it contravenes European and human rights law. Where does the plan go from here?

      An Italian naval ship, the Libra, is currently docked in Sicily. According to the Italian news agency ANSA, the ship is waiting for orders to move just outside Italy’s national waters, to take more migrants rescued on their way to Italy towards the centers in Albania.

      But given the decision by Rome’s tribunal last week, ordering migrants taken to Albania back to Rome to have their claims processed, can the Albanian system really work?

      Lucia Gennari is a lawyer and associate with ASGI, the Italian Association for Juridical Studies on Immigration. InfoMigrants put some of its questions to her:

      IM: The Italian government says it wants to go ahead, but can it, legally speaking?

      LG: Well, they passed a new decree on Monday. So, it seems that the way they are hoping to move ahead is to enshrine a list of safe countries of origin in law. But we know that judges are not obliged to apply [Italian] laws that might go against European Union principles and judgments and directives.

      To us the passing of this decree seems to be less about substantially changing things, from a legal perspective, and more about signaling that if there is a decision in the future where a judge rules that the person who comes from a country on the list should have their asylum claim heard anyway, they can accuse the courts of being politicized and trying to interfere with the policies of government.

      What they did with this decree was remove countries from the list that had territorial exceptions, arguing that the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) ruling referenced by the Rome Tribunal applied only to these territorial restrictions. This is true, but also the ECJ was very clear that for a country to be considered safe, it has to “uniformly and systematically respect” human and civil rights.

      There is also an ongoing case before the ECJ on this very topic. It is very likely that there will be a second [European] decision that will exclude the possibility of considering a country safe when there are exceptions for certain categories of people. We have for example Bangladesh, which has a lot of exempted categories of people.

      The other thing they did, was to include the possibility of appealing at the court of appeal the possibility of administrative detention. Before you could only appeal at the high court, and that takes a long time. So previously, if a judge decided to revalidate the detention of someone, there was no way for the state to restart that detention. The new decree would make that possible.

      So, I think this is how they are hoping to keep going with the Albania protocol.

      IM: The navy has a ship waiting in Augusta, is it possible for the Italian government to send that ship out and pick up more people? Or are they perhaps waiting for nationals from countries that are not Egypt and Bangladesh to try and take them to Albania?

      LG: I don’t know why they are waiting. Perhaps it is because there is currently bad weather in the Mediterranean and perhaps there are not so many departures. I don’t think it is about trying to find nationals from other countries, because the logic will be the same.

      The mechanism is that they collect people who were rescued by other smaller Italian ships. The people are selected on board the rescue ship and some are brought to the Libra and some are sent to Lampedusa and others are sent back to Albania, but they have to be in international waters.

      IM: Does the Italian government’s decree regarding safe countries remind you of the former British government’s attempts to declare Rwanda safe above the ruling of the supreme court?

      LG: Yes, I don’t know in detail the mechanism for Rwanda. I think there are some differences, and perhaps the Italian government learned from the Rwanda plan, which failed completely. There is one crucial difference between Rwanda and Albania, and that is that in the Italian government’s plan, everyone who is brought to Albania, there is this fiction that they are still on Italian territory. All the laws that apply are the same as in Italy. It’s Italian law, the procedures are the same, at least theoretically. I think in practice there are probably a lot of differences, but, the UK wanted to hand over their responsibility of assessment of asylum claims to the Rwandan authorities, and this is a very big difference.

      https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/60808/italy-what-next-for-the-governments-albania-plan

  • US officials attend Gaza aid meetings on site of Israeli prison accused of ‘horrific’ torture
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/14/usaid-gasa-aid-meetings-sde-teiman

    Officials from the US’s main humanitarian agency attend daily meetings on an Israeli military base that also hosts a notorious prison for Palestinian detainees where torture reportedly runs rampant, the Guardian has learned.

    According to three officials with the US Agency for International Development (USAid), Israel’s humanitarian relief hub began operating at the desert military base Sde Teiman on 29 July, with a regular US presence. USAid is tasked with facilitating urgently needed humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

  • Non pas que ce soit la première fois ; mais c’est la première fois qu’un journaliste fait son travail.

    US-made munition used in Israeli strike on central Beirut, shrapnel shows | Lebanon | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/11/us-made-munition-used-in-israeli-strike-on-central-beirut-shrapnel-show

    The building was one of two hit in central Beirut on Thursday night, targeting the senior Hezbollah figure Wafiq Safa, the head of the group’s liaison and coordination unit and responsible for working with Lebanese security agencies. According to Reuters, Safa survived the assassination attempt.

    The Guardian found remnants of a US-manufactured joint direct attack munition (Jdam) in the rubble of the collapsed apartment building on Friday afternoon. Jdams are guidance kits built by the US aerospace company Boeing that attach to large “dumb bombs” ranging up to 2,000lbs (900kg), converting them into GPS-guided bombs.

    The weapons remnant was verified by the crisis, conflict and arms division of Human Rights Watch and a former US military bomb technician.

  • As war and religion rages, Israel’s secular elite contemplate a ‘silent departure’ | Israel | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/06/as-war-and-religion-rages-israels-secular-elite-contemplate-a-silent-de

    (...) Earlier this year, Netanyahu’s former chair of the National Economic Council, Eugene Kandel, joined forces with the administrative expert Ron Tzur to warn that Israel faces an existential threat.

    In a paper calling for a new political settlement, they warned that under a business-as-usual scenario “there is a considerable likelihood that Israel will not be able to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the coming decades”.

    Among the threats they highlighted were rising emigration, particularly among the people who have built up Israel’s hi-tech sector and the schools and hospitals vital to attracting the global elite. “Israel’s locomotive of growth is innovation, and that is driven by a small group of several tens of thousands of people in a country of 10 million,” the paper warned. “The weight of their departure from the country is immense in comparison to their number.”

    The problem precedes the 7 October attacks and the war that followed, as demographic and political shifts have prompted some secular, liberal Israelis to question their future in a state increasingly dominated by religious traditionalists.

    (...) Secular Israelis who prioritise living in a liberal democracy are a shrinking portion of Israel’s population, said Uri Ram, professor of sociology and anthropology at Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

    By 2015, only a minority – although, at 45%, a large one – of the Jewish population in Israel defined themselves as secular, and that is shrinking as religious and ultra-orthodox Jewish families, on average, have more children.

    Data from the first class at elementary schools in 2023 showed that only 40% of children were in the secular stream, he said.

    “There is a growing problem of ‘brain drain’, and it will increase, firstly, if the military risk is not reduced and, secondly, if the state does indeed turn more populist-autocratic,” said Ram, who has researched the struggle for Israel’s future between liberal, mostly secular Israelis like Noam and a group he describes as ethno-religious traditionalists.

    “In these situations, the upper middle classes will send their young generations abroad. Jews are well networked in desired academic and professional markets abroad, and family and work connections will assist the integration of young, educated Israeli immigrants in the desired locations.”

    (...) It is hard to evaluate the scale of departures so far. In 2023, during the prewar domestic turmoil over Netanyahu’s judicial reforms, there was a net departure from Israel of between 30,000 and 40,000 people, the newspaper Haaretz reported.

    Immigration is not only one-way: some Israelis abroad have seen a country in crisis and decided to return. Noam Bardin, a former chief executive of the satnav app Waze, flew back to Israel on 8 October.

    Tech firms drive the economy but only employ 10% of the workforce, Bardim told Haaretz in a recent interview, warning that, without that talent, Israel’s recent years of economic success could unravel. “That’s only 400,000 people, 50,000 of whom comprise the main engine – engineers, senior executives at funds, whom the whole world is trying to recruit. If these people leave the country, we’ll become Argentina.”

    Ciechanover fears the process is accelerating faster than is captured by official statistics or anecdotal observations. It takes time to pass the exams needed to practise in another country, and find jobs, housing and schools. Many colleagues don’t tell friends or family when they start this process.

  • Lebanese healthcare workers fearful as growing numbers killed in strikes | Lebanon | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/03/lebanese-healthcare-workers-fearful-as-growing-numbers-killed-in-strike

    One after another, Israeli airstrikes last week began to hit near hospitals in Lebanon’s south. On Tuesday one airstrike landed next to Bint Jbeil hospital and another hit the outskirts of Tibnine public hospital as ambulances were approaching it. An empty building next to Ragheb Harb University hospital near Nabatieh was hit on Wednesday and then again on Thursday.

    Paramedics say they began to notice a pattern with the strikes: whenever they arrived at a location to start rescue operations, they said Israeli airstrikes would follow. In one case, in the town of Suhmoor in the western Bekaa valley on Monday last week, an ambulance was struck directly after the team left the car. Pictures of the vehicle engulfed in flames circulated in Lebanese media.

    Meanwhile, paramedics have begun receiving strange calls with a voice speaking Arabic on the other end, warning them to evacuate their medical centres, said Rabih Issah, a local commissioner of Islamic Kashafat al-Risala medical organisation that serves much of south Lebanon.

    Last Wednesday, paramedics in two different villages received calls, forcing the workers to stop their work and evacuate, though the buildings were not bombed. Unlike the wave of Israeli calls that warned 80,000 Lebanese to distance themselves from buildings it alleged contained Hezbollah weapons ahead of Israel’s aerial campaign in south Lebanon the week before, these warnings were directed only at the medical workers.

    #zs

  • Elon Musk to present Atlantic Council global citizen award to Giorgia Meloni [23 septembre 2024]
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/23/elon-musk-to-present-atlantic-council-global-citizen-award-to-giorgia-m

    Elon Musk is to present Giorgia Meloni with the Atlantic Council’s global citizen award in New York, as Italy’s far-right prime minister resurrects links with allies of Donald Trump before the US presidential elections.

    Meloni will receive the prize during a gala dinner on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in recognition of her “groundbreaking role as Italy’s first female prime minister, her strong support of the European Union and the transatlantic alliance, and her 2024 chairmanship of the Group of Seven”.

    Merci the Atlantic Council.

  • New Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon as Hezbollah confirms death of senior commander | Lebanon | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/25/israel-lebanon-strikes-hezbollah-commander-ibrahim-qubaisi-latest-news-
    Strikes across the Israel-Lebanon border
    Airstrikes, artillery fire and drone strikes, 21-24 September 2024

  • Crisis at Jewish Chronicle as stories based on ‘wild fabrications’ are withdrawn | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/sep/14/crisis-at-jewish-chronicle-as-stories-are-withdrawn

    In recent months, there have been suggestions in the Israeli media that stories have been placed in European newspapers, including one in the German tabloid Bild, that are based on fake or misrepresented intelligence, planted as part of an effort to support prime minister Benjamin’s Netanyahu’s negotiating position over Gaza.

  • The pro-Israel groups planning to spend millions in US elections
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/22/aipac-pro-israel-lobby-group-us-elections

    #Aipac traditionally endorsed candidates sympathetic to Israel as a signal for others to fund their campaigns. But in December 2021, the group for the first time in its 70-year history moved into direct financial support for individual political campaigns by launching a super political action committee, the United Democracy Project (#UDP). A Super Pac is permitted to spend without restriction for or against candidates but cannot make direct donations to their campaigns .

    The move was prompted by alarm at the erosion of longstanding bipartisan support for Israel in the US. Opinion polls show younger Democrats have grown more critical of the deepening oppression of the Palestinians, including Jewish Americans, a trend that has only strengthened with the present war in Gaza.

    Aipac has grown increasingly concerned that the election of candidates critical of Israel could open the door to the conditioning of the US’s considerable military aid, erosion of Washington’s diplomatic protection on the international stage, and political pressure to establish a Palestinian state.

    So the UDP is working to block Democratic candidates critical of Israel at the first hurdle – the primaries – in an effort to shore up the claim that there is unswerving support for the Jewish state across Congress. It is also targeting progressive Democratic members of Congress who have pressed for a ceasefire in Gaza.

  • Ça se rebiffe aux US : 40 campus en campagne | The Guardian | 26.04.24

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/26/pro-palestinian-protests-college-campuses

    Pro-Palestine camps spread to 40 US campuses, with hundreds arrested
    Following Columbia’s lead, students across the US are demanding ceasefire and divestment – and hundreds have been arrested.

    Les profs ramassent aussi, s’il/elles posent des questions quand les flics tabassent leurs étudiants devant leur nez.

  • Top Israeli spy chief exposes his true identity in online security lapse | Israel | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/05/top-israeli-spy-chief-exposes-his-true-identity-in-online-security-laps
    https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/d0177a36d4ac7727ebc14863deeeaa354e7a9a24/0_0_2500_1500/master/2500.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

    Exclusive: Yossi Sariel unmasked as head of Unit 8200 and architect of AI strategy after book written under pen name reveals his Google account

  • German living standards plummeted after Russia invaded Ukraine, say economists
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/18/german-living-standards-plummeted-after-russia-invaded-ukraine-say-econ

    18.3.2024 by Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor - Energy price shocks had huge knock-on effect, with real wages falling further in 2022 than in any year since 1950, says report

    The energy shock caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has led to the biggest collapse in German living standards since the second world war and a downturn in economic output comparable to the 2008 financial crisis, a stark assessment has found.

    In a joint paper designed to underline the depth of the economic crisis in Europe’s erstwhile powerhouse, two former economic advisers to the German government have said that real wages in the country slumped further in 2022 than in any year since 1950.

    A failure to protect German industry from the energy price spike may turn the 2020s into “a lost decade for Germany” and further fuel the rise of the populist far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the authors warned in a working paper published by the Forum for a New Economy.

    Isabella Weber, associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, said: “In an age of conflict, climate and geopolitical crisis the rise of the AfD is a wake-up call. The collapse in living standards experienced by Germans is unprecedented since world war two. While it is true that the factors that fuelled the rise of the AfD go beyond economics, it is also impossible to ignore how this unprecedented slump in German living went hand-in-hand with the rising popularity of the far right.”

    Weber served on a high-level expert commission that was charged by the German government with designing an energy price brake for firms and households in 2022. Her co-author, Prof Tom Krebs, was a senior adviser at the finance ministry under Olaf Scholz, now the German chancellor.

    Their findings underline the extent to which Europe’s largest economy is still reeling from the February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The International Monetary Fund forecast for German growth in 2024 and 2025 is that it will be lower than any comparable advanced economy save Argentina.

    The economy shrank by 0.3% in the final three months of 2023 and is expected to contract again in the first quarter of 2024. Two consecutive quarters of falling output are defined as a technical recession.

    Weber and Krebs highlighted that two distinct surges in support for the AfD in the summers of 2022 and 2023 coincide with periods of uncertainty in the German government about how to address the impact of energy price shocks on living standards.

    They calculated that real wages measured against pre-crisis forecasts fell by 4% from April 2022 to March 2023, while output fell by 4.1%. Once the damage to output caused by the Covid crisis is included, actual output at the end of 2023 was about 7% below the pre-crisis trend. Real wages were 10% below their pre-crisis trend in 2023.

    The economists argued that the energy price brake, introduced by Scholz’s coalition government later in 2022, was the right policy response, but that the delay in implementing it, at a time when the market price for gas was skyrocketing, led to a strong increase in AfD approval in the summer after the Russian invasion.

    #Allemagne économie #salaires #guerre

  • Unicef official tells of ‘utter annihilation’ after travelling length of Gaza | Israel-Gaza war | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/unicef-official-utter-annihilation-gaza

    An aid official who travelled the length of Gaza this week has described scenes of “utter annihilation”, with “nothing left” of what were once thriving and crowded cities in the territory.

    “The depth of the horror surpasses our ability to describe it,” said James Elder, a spokesperson with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).

    “As soon as you drive through the north, you get that universal gesture of hunger of people putting their hands to their mouths. A lot of children, women with very gaunt faces. In [the city of] Khan Younis, there is utter annihilation.

    “I’ve not seen that level of devastation in 20 years with the UN. People’s coping capacity in the north has been smashed and in the south it is hanging by a thread,” Elder said in an interview on Friday.

    Elder said that he saw a dozen “skeletal” children at Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the north of Gaza.

    #genocide_joe #états-unis #génocidaires

  • Israel broke international law with tank shelling that killed journalist, UN finds | Israel | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/13/israel-broke-international-law-journalist-killed

    An Israeli tank that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others in Lebanon last year fired two 120mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists” in violation of international law, a UN investigation has found.

    The investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), summarized in a report seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the tank opened fire, killing Issam Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist.

  • European Commission accused of ‘bankrolling dictators’ by MEPs after Tunisia deal

    Members of justice committee say €150m in EU funding went straight to country’s president, Kais Saied

    The European Commission has been accused of “bankrolling dictators” by senior MEPs who have claimed that the €150m it gave to Tunisia last year in a migration and development deal has ended up directly in the president’s hands.

    A group of MEPs on the human rights, justice and foreign affairs committees at the European parliament launched a scathing attack on the executive in Brussels, expressing anxiety over reports that the commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, was about to seal a similar deal with Egypt.

    The Greek migration minister, Dimitris Kairidis, confirmed late on Wednesday that a joint declaration between the EU and Egypt had been agreed and would be formally unveiled when von der Leyen and the leaders of Greece, Italy and Belgium visit Cairo on Sunday.

    The agreement sees Egypt receiving an aid package of €7.4bn (£6.3bn) “mostly in loans” in return for the country “committing to work harder on migration”, he told the Guardian, adding: “I have said, time and again to my colleagues, that we need to support Egypt which has been so helpful in managing migration and so important for the stability of North Africa and the wider Middle East.”

    Kairidis, who held talks with the Egyptian ambassador to Greece on Wednesday, confirmed there had been no boats leaving directly from Egypt, even if arrivals on southern Greek islands of migrants travelling through Libya had soared this year. “Egypt is not only hosting 9 million refugees, it has been very effective in controlling illegal migration,” he said.

    The MEPs have accused the commission of refusing to answer questions on the deal with Tunisia and worry that it is looking at a series of “ad hoc” deals with other African countries without regard to democracy and rule of law in those countries.

    “It seems that we are bankrolling dictators across the region. And that is not the Europe that we want to see. That is not the place which the EU should be holding in the world,” said the French MEP Mounir Satouri, a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee.

    At a press conference in Strasbourg, he claimed the money – pledged to Tunisia last year as part of a wider pact aimed at curbing a surge in migration to Italy and people-smuggling – had been diverted, saying that the €150m was supposed to have been invested directly in an EU-agreed project but instead had been “transferred to the president directly”.

    Fellow MEPs said there had been an “authoritarian shift” in Tunisia under its president, Kais Saied, but the commissioners had gone ahead with the deal anyway.

    A spokesperson for the EU commission said MEPs were entitled to express their views but that it was better to build partnerships to improve democracy and human rights than to “break off relations” and see the situation deteriorate.

    “What I can say is that we are absolutely convinced of the necessity to work with countries in our neighbourhood, taking into account the realities on the ground,” the spokesperson said. “We know the criticism related to human rights in those countries, and it is obvious that this is an issue and that these are issues that we take up with those countries.”

    The spokesperson added there were “specific mechanisms in place to discuss human rights with the countries in the region, including Egypt”.

    The Danish MEP Karen Melchior, coordinator of the justice committee, said parliamentarians’ concerns about the Tunisia deal were “being continually ignored” and that commissioners refused to answer their questions or take their concerns seriously.

    “How can we continue to have a memorandum of understanding, how can we give budget support without conditionality to Tunisia, when things are going from bad to worse?” she said.

    “To sign an agreement with President Saied, who is continuing to suppress opposition and democracy in Tunisia – this is not the way the EU should be acting. This is not the way that Team Europe should be doing our foreign policy.”

    The chair of the human rights committee, Udo Bullman, attacked what he said was a “hush-hush” deal that had been rushed through.

    “The commission has to explain why there was so much urgency in the agreement of last summer – why it, hush-hush, very quickly before Christmas, [said] it was of the ‘highest urgency’ and just gave the money … without any critical debate,” he said, adding this was a question for the EU’s commissioner for neighbourhood and enlargement, Olivér Várhelyi, and for von der Leyen.

    Michael Gahler, the German CDU MEP who was blocked from visiting Tunisia by the local authorities last year, said the Tunisian people should not be abandoned in the face of “Saied’s autocratic rule” and economic decline.

    “That requires us to make sure that European taxpayers’ money truly benefits the Tunisian people and the civil society … and why it has to be clear that European funding to Tunisia needs to be adequately conditioned to that end,” he said.

    The concerns are being voiced this week as the EU parliament’s five-year mandate draws to a close before elections in June, with MEPs keen to lay down red lines for any future deals the executive in Brussels intends to do.

    Sara Prestianni, the advocacy director for the NGO EuroMed Rights, said she was concerned the EU was about to make a similar “strategic and political” mistake with Cairo, pledging vast sums of money without setting conditions involving enough financial oversight or guarantees on human rights. “It would be an error, particularly if it [the Tunisia deal] is replicated with Egypt,” she said.

    Satouri, who is also the parliament’s special rapporteur for Egypt, said: “We need to ensure democratic procedures are followed before money is disbursed. These are not the private fund of Commissioner Várhelyi. These are European funds.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/13/european-commission-accused-of-bankrolling-dictators-by-meps-after-tuni
    #Tunisie #externalisation #migrations #réfugiés #financement #Kais_Saied #accord

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    ajouté à la métaliste sur le #Memorandum_of_Understanding (#MoU) avec la #Tunisie :
    https://seenthis.net/messages/1020591