Category: Новини

European maritime companies are ditching their old ships for scrap on Bangladesh beaches in dangerous and polluting conditions that have killed workers pulling them apart, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

Bangladesh’s southeastern Sitakunda beaches have emerged as one of the world’s largest shipbreaking yards, fueling the South Asian country’s booming construction industry and its need for cheap sources of steel.

European firms are among the shipping companies to have sent 520 vessels to the site since 2020, where thousands of workers take apart ships without protective gear.

“Companies scrapping ships in Bangladesh’s dangerous and polluting yards are making a profit at the expense of Bangladeshi lives and the environment,” said HRW researcher Julia Bleckner. “Shipping companies should stop using loopholes in international regulations and take responsibility for safely and responsibly managing their waste.”

Workers told HRW they used their socks as gloves to avoid burns while cutting through molten steel, covered their mouths with shirts to avoid inhaling toxic fumes, and carried chunks of steel while barefoot.

“Workers described injuries from falling chunks of steel or being trapped inside a ship when it caught fire or pipes exploded,” HRW said in its report, published jointly with Belgian-based NGO Shipbreaking Platform.

At least 62 workers have been killed by accidents in Sitakunda’s shipbreaking yards since 2019, Bangladeshi environmental group Young Power in Social Action has said.

Two workers died last week in separate incidents after falling from partially dismantled ships, police told AFP.

‘Little or no attention to worker safety’

The Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association (BSBA), which represents yard owners, said its members had moved to upgrade safety ahead of a new international convention on safe and environmentally sound scrapping, due to enter into force in 2025.

“We are turning our shipbreaking yards into green yards even though it is expensive,” BSBA president Mohammad Abu Taher told AFP. “We are working on it. We supply protective equipment to workers.”

But Fazlul Kabir Mintu, coordinator for the Danish-funded Occupational Safety and Security Information Center, said yard owners operated in a “climate of impunity” because of their outsized influence in local politics.

“There is little or no attention to worker safety in dozens of yards,” he told AFP.

‘Living in misery’

Many ships sent to Sitakunda contained asbestos, said Ripon Chowdhury, executive director of the OSHE Foundation charity that works with shipbreaking laborers.

Asbestos is associated with lung cancer and other life-threatening diseases, but Chowdhury told AFP that workers were forced to mop it up with their bare hands.

He added that his organization had studied 110 shipbreaking workers for exposure to the toxic substance, finding that 33 had tested positive.

“All 33 workers were victims of varying degrees of lung damage,” he said. “Of the victims, three have died, while others are living in misery.”
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At least 50,000 people have fled from their homes in Nagorno-Karabagh into Armenia this week. The exodus comes after the long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan appears to have ended swiftly in Baku’s favor. VOA’s Heather Murdock reports from Armenia, near the border with Nagorno-Karabakh.
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday expressed “unreserved apologies” on behalf of all of Canada after a 98-year-old veteran who served in a Nazi SS unit was honored Friday in the country’s parliament.

Yaroslav Hunka was invited to the legislature by Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, who resigned Tuesday over the incident.

Trudeau said he had reached out to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was on a visit to Canada at the time, in the fallout of the controversy. Both Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, and Trudeau were present for the incident.

Zelenskyy had delivered remarks before Friday’s joint legislative session when Rota described Hunka as “a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero.” Rota pointed him out in the audience, giving way to two rounds of applause from the lawmakers and politicians who were in attendance to show support for Ukraine and Zelenskyy.

Hunka, who is now a Canadian citizen, once fought in the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, an SS unit that declared loyalty to Hitler and battled the Soviet Army for Ukrainian independence.

Rota said that he “subsequently became aware of more information” regarding Hunka’s past and apologized to his fellow members of Parliament.

Rota stepped down after unflinching pressure from activist groups.

Rota didn’t give advance notice to Trudeau or Zelenskyy that Hunka would be invited.

Karina Gould, Canada’s house leader, told The New York Times that had she known of Hunka’s Nazi ties she would “have never in a million years stood and applauded.”
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Robert Fico — whose party appears tied for the lead in Slovakia’s parliamentary election on Saturday — says he would end military support for Ukraine and block the country’s path to NATO membership, while opposing sanctions on Russia. As Henry Ridgwell reports, Ukraine’s Western allies fear a Fico victory could prompt other countries to question their support for Kyiv following Russia’s 2022 invasion.
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France’s ambassador to Niger left the country early on Wednesday morning, around one month after the military government ordered his expulsion and days after President Emmanuel Macron said the diplomat would be pulled out and French troops withdrawn.

Relations between Niger and France, its former colonial ruler which maintained a military presence in the country to help fight Islamist insurgents, have broken down since army officers seized power in Niamey in July.

The junta had ordered French ambassador Sylvain Itte to leave the country within 48 hours at the end of August in response to what they described as actions by France that were “contrary to the interests of Niger.”

France at first ignored the order, sticking to its stance that the military government was illegitimate and calling for the reinstatement of elected President Mohamed Bazoum, who was toppled in the July coup.

But Macron announced on Sunday that the ambassador would return to Paris and French troops would leave.

Two security sources in Niger said Itte had flown out of the country. The news was later confirmed by the president’s office in Paris.

There have been almost daily protests against France in Niamey since the military took power. Crowds of junta supporters have spent days camping outside a French military base to demand the troops’ departure.

Macron had said Itte and his staff were effectively being held hostage at the embassy.

Anti-French sentiment spreads

Niger is just one of France’s former colonies in West Africa where there has been growing anti-French sentiment both among the population and the authorities, especially in countries where military rulers have seized power.

Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger are now all run by army officers following a spate of coups over the past three years, and anti-French rhetoric has been a recurring feature of their public pronouncements.

Critics of France say that for decades after its former colonies gained independence, it sought to maintain strong economic and political influence through a system of overt and covert diplomacy known as ‘Francafrique.’

The French government says the days of Francafrique are over and operations like the one in Niger were being conducted with the full consent, knowledge and cooperation of local governments, such as Bazoum’s now defunct administration.

While France’s critics accuse Paris of continuing to exert excessive and disruptive influence in the region, some analysts say military juntas are using France as a scapegoat for hard-to-solve problems.

The juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso have already kicked out French forces deployed to help fight a decade-long Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced millions across the Sahel region.

Some analysts have expressed concern that the withdrawal of French troops from Niger could further hamper Western efforts to stem the violence, which has risen since the coups, and bolster Russian influence in the region.
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Russia Wednesday accused the United States and Britain of helping Ukraine carry out an attack last week against the headquarters Russian Black Sea fleet in Russia-occupied Crimea.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing that the attack was “planned in advance using Western intelligence means, NATO satellite assets, and reconnaissance planes.”

Zakharova also said U.S. and British intelligence helped coordinate the missile strike.

While the U.S. and other Western partners have provided military equipment and training to Ukraine, U.S. officials have previously denied playing a direct role in Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion.

When Russia accused the United States of being involved in a May drone attack on the Kremlin, White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby called the claim “ludicrous.”

A television channel run by Russia’s Defense Ministry broadcast undated video Wednesday showing Adm. Viktor Sokolov, the leader of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, saying the fleet was performing successfully.

It was the second consecutive day in which video of Sokolov appeared on Russian television, following a Ukrainian claim that he was killed in the Crimea missile strike.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
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The United States government ramped up its diplomatic efforts and humanitarian assistance for thousands of ethnic Armenians fleeing the Nagorno-Karabakh region. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias reports on how the crisis is evolving, after Azerbaijan regained control last week of the breakaway territory.
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Six young people from Portugal will argue that governments across Europe aren’t doing enough to protect people from the harms of climate change at the European Court of Human Rights on Wednesday, in the latest and largest instance of activists taking governments to court to force climate action.

The lawyers representing the young adults and children claim that the 32 European governments they’re suing have failed to adequately address global warming and therefore violated some of their fundamental rights.

“We’ve put forward evidence to show that it’s within the power of states to do vastly more to adjust their emissions, and they are choosing not do it,” lawyer Gerry Liston told The Associated Press at the start of the day-long hearing.

Although there have been successful climate cases at national and regional levels — young environmentalists recently won a similar case in Montana — the activists’ legal team said that because national jurisdictions did not go far enough to protect their rights, the group felt compelled to take the matter to the Strasbourg-based court.

Arguing that their rights to life, to privacy and family life, and to be free from discrimination are being violated, they hope a favorable ruling will force the 27 EU member countries, as well as the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Turkey, to accelerate their climate efforts such as building renewable infrastructure and reducing their greenhouse gas emissions.

The court’s rulings are legally binding on member countries, and failure to comply makes authorities liable for hefty fines decided by the court. 

“This judgement would act like a binding treaty imposed by the court on the respondents, requiring them to rapidly accelerate their climate mitigation efforts,” Liston said. “In legal terms, it would be a gamechanger.” 

Liston said a ruling in favor of the group would also help future climate cases taken at domestic level by providing guidance to national courts. 

But the plaintiffs — who are between 11 and 24 years of age and are not seeking financial compensation — will need to convince judges that they have been sufficiently affected to be considered as victims. The group will also need to prove to the courts that governments have a legal duty to make sure global warming is held to 1.5 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times in line with the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

“We have put forward evidence before the court that all of the respondents’ state climate policies are aligned to 3 degrees (Celsius) of warming within the lifetime of the applicants, or in the case of some states, worse than that,” Liston said. “”No state has put forward evidence to counter that position.”

Science is on the activists’ side.

The world is way off track on limiting warming to 1.5 C, scientists say, with global average temperatures projected to rise by 2 to 4 degrees C by 2100 on current trajectories of warming and emissions reductions plans. 

As the world warms, climate scientists predict more frequent and more extreme weather events, from heavier flooding and rainfall to prolonged droughts and heat waves and increasingly intense storms.

The activists said climate change affects their daily lives and their studies, and damages both their physical and psychological well-being. 

They started judicial action in the wake of a series of deadly wildfires in central Portugal in 2017, where four of them live.

“It’s 43 degrees one day, and the next it’s hail, and that’s dangerous because we can’t predict what’s going to happen,” said 15-year-old André Oliveira, adding that the heat wave that hit Portugal in May hindered his schoolwork.

“I had exams and I tried to study for them, but it’s hard to concentrate,” André said. And it’s not just the physical effects, he said. “The climate crisis affects our mental health because it makes us worried about our future. How could we not be scared?” 

André’s sister, Sofia, said her brother suffers from asthma and couldn’t go outside without feeling suffocated when temperatures hit an unusually warm 30 C in winter this year.

“Governments around the world have the power to stop this, and Europe’s governments are choosing not to stop this,” said 23-year-old Catarina dos Santos Mota, another member of the group. “Since we started our action, we have felt the impact of the climate crisis getting worse and worse. In 2023, July was the hottest month on record. It is terrifying to think this is just the beginning.”

It’s the first climate case to be filed with the court. Two other climate cases — one by an association of senior women against Switzerland, the other by a French lawmaker against France — have been brought before the court since. 

Members of the association of elderly people traveled to Strasbourg in support of the young Portuguese. They stood in front of the courthouse before the hearing, alongside a few dozens of other supporters.

“I wish them a future, because they are very young. When they saw everything burning around them, all the catastrophes, they realized they would not have a future,” said Anne Mahrer, the group’s co-president. “We probably won’t be there to see it, but if we win, everybody wins.”

A decision is not expected for several months. It’s still unclear whether the court will deliver its ruling on all three climate cases at the same time. 
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Forty-two thousand women serve in the Ukrainian military, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense recently officially approved a female uniform. Lesia Bakalets has the story from Kyiv. VOA footage by Yevhenii Shynkar.
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