'Mega-strike' disrupts travel in Germany

BY AGENCE-FRANCE-PRESSE

Mar 27, 2023 11:58 PM

  

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BERLIN, Germany - A major strike brought much of Germany's air traffic, rail service and commuter lines to a halt on Monday as workers demand wage hikes in the face of brisk inflation.

Workers at airports, ports, railways, buses and metro lines throughout much of Europe's top economy heeded a call by the Verdi and EVG unions for the 24-hour walkout.

The EVG union hailed the mass walkouts as a success.

"We assume that the employers will have understood this clear signal and will now finally present negotiable offers," said EVG's deputy chairwoman Cosima Ingenschay.

Berlin's usually bustling central train station was mostly quiet, after the national railway cancelled long-distance and regional links across the country.

Arrival and departure boards at Frankfurt airport, the nation's biggest, and Munich airport showed rows of cancelled flights.

Freddie Schwarze, who was on strike at Munich airport, said: "We are ready for more strikes in any case. We have started and we won't stop. That's for sure."

Georg Bachmaier, who works at the Federal Waterways and Shipping Office, said he had joined the walkout because "we can no longer afford our lives".

"When we go shopping, we have to think do we buy this or not, we need the money to finance our lives and that's why we're here."

As the industrial action was largely publicised, many commuters had switched to other modes of transport.

Cashier Steffi Wisser, 46, voiced understanding for the strike.

"People must be made aware of the enormous work done by strikers," she said. 

For retiree Gloria Bierwald, 73, "the strike goes too far".

"What the strikers are asking for is relatively exaggerated. I am of the opinion that people should be satisfied when they have a job."

- Ill-tempered dispute -

To prevent supply gaps, Transport Minister Volker Wissing had ordered states to lift restrictions on truck deliveries on Sunday, while asking airports to allow late-night takeoffs and landings "so stranded passengers can reach their destinations".

Verdi represents around 2.5 million public sector employees, while EVG represents 230,000 workers on the railways and at bus companies.

The rare joint strike marks an escalation of an increasingly ill-tempered dispute over a pay packet to blunt the impact of surging inflation.

Employers, mostly the state and public sector companies, have so far refused the demands, instead offering a rise of five percent with two one-off payments of 1,000 ($1,100) and 1,500 euros, this year and next.

Verdi is demanding a rise of 10.5 percent in monthly salaries, while EVG is seeking a 12-percent increase for those it represents.

- 'Massive impact' -

Martin Seiler, head of human resources at state-owned rail company Deutsche Bahn (DB), has described the nationwide strike as "groundless and unnecessary" and urged the unions to return to the negotiating table "immediately".

The German airport association, which estimated about 380,000 air travellers would be affected, said the walkout "went beyond any imaginable and justifiable measure".

Employers have accused labour representatives of contributing to a wage-price spiral that will only feed inflation, while unions say their members have been asked to bear the burden of the soaring cost of living.

As in many other countries, people in Germany are struggling with high inflation -- it hit 8.7 percent in February -- after Russia's invasion of Ukraine sent food and energy costs soaring.

Similar strikes have taken place in Britain, where public and private sector workers have taken industrial action as inflation remains stubbornly above 10 percent.

Germany's "mega-strike", as local media have dubbed it, follows industrial action in recent months in several sectors, from the postal service to airports and local transport.

A third round of salary negotiations for public sector workers began on Monday.

Earlier in March, airports in Bremen, Berlin, Hamburg and Hanover cancelled more than 350 flights after security staff walked out. Bus and metro staff in Frankfurt also staged a strike.

Some unions have succeeded in winning big pay increases.

Postal workers obtained average monthly increases of 11.5 percent earlier in March, and in November IG Metall, Germany's biggest union, won hikes totalling 8.5 percent for almost four million employees that it represents.

Spielberg channels inner child at Berlin film festival

by Agence-France-Presse

Steven Spielberg (AFP)

BERLIN (AFP) – Three-time Academy Award winner Steven Spielberg on Tuesday said childhood trauma had shaped almost all of his work as he prepared to accept a lifetime achievement award at the Berlinale film festival. 

Spielberg, 76, said he was “obviously… very traumatised” by the experience of conflict in his family home and his parents divorce.

That was why “I’d be attracted to subjects like ‘Empire of the Sun’,” in which a young boy is torn away from his family in China and sent to a Japanese war camp, he said. 

“I’m sure had my parents not gotten a divorce, I would not have chosen ‘Empire of the Sun’ as a film to direct,” he said. 

The Hollywood A-lister also spoke of still feeling the same inspiration he did “as a little kid” when he makes films today.

“All those decades later, I feel… the same level of excitement when I find a book or a script or come up with an original idea that I think could make a good movie,” he said. 

– ‘Heart of a child’ – 

French director Francois Truffaut had ultimately persuaded him to make “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” by telling him he had “the heart of a child”, Spielberg said.

“Truffaut was the one that said, you gotta make a picture with kids,” he said.

Spielberg is to collect an honorary Golden Bear for his life’s work on Tuesday evening at the Berlinale, Europe’s first major cinema showcase of the year.

The festival is also screening a retrospective of his work, including classics such as “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Jaws” and “Schindler’s List”, as well as his latest project, the semi-autobiographical film “The Fabelmans”.

“The Fabelmans” tells the mostly true story of Spielberg’s own childhood and introduction to film-making in post-war America.

The film, starring Paul Dano and Michelle Williams, has already received wide critical acclaim, picking up top nods at both the 2023 Golden Globes and Critics Choice Awards. 

It has also been nominated for five Oscars.

Talking about the film, Spielberg said it was the “most emotional” project he had ever worked on.

“I was telling a story with a lot of funny parts but with a lot of parts that were very traumatising,” he said.

The star director also revealed that he is pressing ahead with a television mini-series about Napoleon, based on a screenplay by Stanley Kubrick.

The project, first floated in 2013, is being planned as “a seven-part limited series”, he said.

Rising seas threaten exodus of ‘biblical’ scale — UN

by Agence-France-Presse

An aerial photo taken on February 14, 2023 shows the Waiohiki bridge and surrounds inundated by the Tutaekuri River after Cyclone Gabrielle made landfall near the city of Napier. New Zealand declared a national state of emergency on February 14 as Cyclone Gabrielle swept away roads, inundated homes and left more than 100,000 people without power. (STR/AFP)

UNITED NATIONS — The UN Secretary-General warned Tuesday that global warming could force a mass exodus “on a biblical scale” as people flee low-lying communities and called for legal frameworks to be implemented in preparation, especially for refugees. 

“The danger is especially acute for nearly 900 million people who live in coastal zones at low elevations — that’s one out of ten people on Earth,” Antonio Guterres told the UN Security Council.

“Low-lying communities and entire countries could disappear forever… We would witness a mass exodus of entire populations on a biblical scale,” he said.

It is not only small island states at risk as sea levels rise, he added.

Countries such as Bangladesh, China, India and the Netherlands are all in danger, Guterres said, while “mega-cities on every continent will face serious impacts” — from Cairo to Jakarta to Los Angeles to Copenhagen.

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The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says sea levels rose by 15-25 centimeters (6-10 inches) between 1900 and 2018.

If the world warms by just two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to the pre-industrial era, then those levels will rise again by 43 centimeters by the year 2100.

But if it warms by three or four degrees Celsius, sea levels could rise by as much as 84 centimeters, the IPCC says.

The problem must be addressed “across legal and human rights frameworks,” Guterres warned.

Rising sea levels means shrinking land mass, he said, which could drive possible disputes over land and maritime space.

“The current legal regime must look to the future and address any gaps in existing frameworks,” including in international refugee law, he said. 

It must also provide for the future of states that face losing their land territory completely.

Guterres said the Security Council has a “critical” role to play in addressing “the devastating security challenges arising from rising seas.”

The issue has been controversial in the past: In 2021, Russia vetoed a resolution linking climate change and global security, which was supported by the majority of the Council members.

List of key Golden Globe 2023 winners

by Agence-France-Presse

Steven Spielberg (AFP)

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Here are the winners in key categories for the 80th Golden Globe Awards, which were handed out on Tuesday.

“The Fabelmans” won for best drama film and best director, putting Steven Spielberg’s semi-autobiographical movie in good position ahead of the Oscars on March 12. “The Banshees of Inisherin” won for best comedy film.

• Film

Best film, drama: “The Fabelmans” 

Best film, musical or comedy: “The Banshees of Inisherin”

Best director: Steven Spielberg, “The Fabelmans”

Best actor, drama: Austin Butler, “Elvis”

Best actress, drama: Cate Blanchett, “Tar”

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Best actor, musical or comedy: Colin Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin”

Best actress, musical or comedy: Michelle Yeoh, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best supporting actor: Ke Huy Quan, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”

Best supporting actress: Angela Bassett, “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”

Best screenplay: Martin McDonagh, “The Banshees of Inisherin”

Best music, original score: Justin Hurwitz, “Babylon” 

Best music, original song: “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR”

Best non-English language film: “Argentina, 1985”

Best animated feature: “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio”

• Television

Best drama series: “House of the Dragon”

Best drama actor: Kevin Costner, “Yellowstone”

Best drama actress: Zendaya, “Euphoria”

Best musical or comedy series: “Abbott Elementary”

Best musical or comedy actor: Jeremy Allen White, “The Bear”

Best musical or comedy actress: Quinta Brunson, “Abbott Elementary”

Best supporting actor, television: Tyler James Williams, “Abbott Elementary”

Best supporting actress, television: Julia Garner, “Ozark”

Best limited series or TV movie: “The White Lotus”

Best limited series or TV movie actor: Evan Peters, “Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”

Best limited series or TV movie actress: Amanda Seyfried, “The Dropout”

Best limited series supporting actor: Paul Walter Hauser, “Black Bird”

Best limited series supporting actress: Jennifer Coolidge, “The White Lotus”

Half of world’s glaciers expected to vanish by 2100: study

Published January 6, 2023, 8:06 AM

by Agence-France-Presse

WASHINGTON, United States — Half of the Earth’s glaciers, notably smaller ones, are destined to disappear by the end of the century because of climate change, but limiting global warming could save others, according to a new study.

In this file photo taken on September 21, 2021, an ice block drifts after breaking away from the Nordenskiold glacier, near Pyramiden, in Svalbard, a northern Norwegian archipelago. Half of the Earth’s glaciers, especially the smallest ones, are doomed to disappear because of climate change by the end of the century, a new study revealed on january 5, 2023, but limiting global warming to a minimum could still save the others. The work, published in the prestigious journal Science, provides the most accurate projections to date of the future of the world’s 215,000 glaciers. Olivier MORIN / AFP

The findings, published in the journal Science on Thursday, provide the most comprehensive look so far at the future of the world’s 215,000 glaciers. 

The authors emphasized the importance of restricting greenhouse gas emissions to limit the consequences from glacier melt such as sea level rise and depletion of water resources.

To help orient policy makers, the study looked at the impact of four scenarios on glaciers, where global mean temperature change is 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), 2.0C, 3.0C and 4.0C.

“Every degree increase produces more melt and loss,” said Regine Hock of the University of Oslo and University of Alaska Fairbanks, a co-author of the study.

“But that also means if you reduce the temperature increase, you can also reduce that mass loss,” Hock told AFP. “So in that sense, there is also a little bit of hope.”

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Even if global temperature rise is limited to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels — the most ambitious goal of the Paris Agreement — the researchers estimated that 49 percent of the world’s glaciers would vanish by the year 2100.

That would represent about 26 percent of the world’s glacier mass because the smallest glaciers would be those first impacted.

Global mean temperature is currently estimated to be increasing by 2.7C which would result in a near-complete loss of glaciers in Central Europe, Western Canada and the continental United States and New Zealand.

“Regions with relatively little ice like the European Alps, the Caucasus, the Andes, or the western US, they lose almost all the ice by the end of the century almost no matter what the emission scenario is,” Hock said. “So those glaciers, they’re more or less doomed.”

‘Up to the policy makers’ 

Under the worst-case scenario — global temperature rise of 4.0C — giant glaciers such as those in Alaska would be more affected and 83 percent of glaciers would disappear by the end of the century.

Glacier loss would also exacerbate sea level rise.

“The glaciers that we are studying are only one percent of all ice on Earth,” said Hock, “much less than the Greenland ice sheet and the Antarctic ice sheet.

“But they have contributed to sea level rise almost just as much as the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet together in the last three decades,” she said.

Warming of 1.5C would lead to an increase in average sea levels of nine centimeters while temperatures 4.0C higher would cause 15 centimeters of sea level rise.

“It doesn’t sound very much, nine centimeters up to 15 centimeters,” Hock said, “but it’s not global sea level that is that much of a concern.

“It’s mostly associated storm surges,” she said, which have the potential to cause “a lot more damage.”

The disappearance of glaciers will also have an impact on water resources because they provide freshwater for some two billion people.

“The glaciers compensate for the loss of water in summer when it’s not raining much and it’s hot,” Hock said.

The study’s projections, which are more pessimistic than those of UN climate experts, were reached through observations of the mass of each glacier through the decades and computer simulations.

Despite the alarming findings, Hock said “it is possible to reduce the mass loss by human action.

Antibiotics shortages as surging illnesses spur demand

By Agence France-Presse

PARIS: Europe and North America have seen shortages of the key antibiotic amoxicillin and other medications as surging illnesses particularly among children have increased demand for the drugs.

Hospitals in many countries have come under pressure from a rising number of illnesses including what has been dubbed a "tripledemic" of Covid-19, influenza and the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) which causes bronchiolitis.

But ramping up production of antibiotics has proved difficult for drug makers, particularly for cheap generic medicines that offer a slender profit margin.

What and where?

Amoxicillin is a member of the penicillins antibiotic family and is used to treat a range of bacterial illnesses, including chest and ear infections, often in children.

In France, the medicines regulator ANSM said last month that there are "strong supply tensions" for the version of amoxicillin most used by children, warning the situation could last until March.

Spain's medicines agency also warned last month of potential amoxicillin shortages.

Germany, too, has sounded the alarm about shortages of a range of drugs including amoxicillin and other antibiotics.

Last week, the UK government issued "serious shortage protocols" for three penicillin-based antibiotics.

The move came after at least 19 children died from Group A Streptococcus (Strep A), amid reports that doctors and parents are struggling to find antibiotics to treat the illness.

Outside of Europe, amoxicillin has been on the US Food and Drug Administration drug shortage database since October.

The FDA told AFP that it "is currently working with the approved manufacturers and others in the supply chain."

Other countries including Canada and Australia have also recently put amoxicillin on their list of drugs for which pharmacists are authorized to find substitute treatments.

What is causing the shortages?

Winter in the northern hemisphere has brought a particularly nasty influenza season as well as spikes in other viruses such as RSV. The surge comes after two years in which Covid measures such as quarantines, self-isolation and mask-wearing significantly decreased the rate of such illnesses.

Pharmaceutical companies who had cut back production because of the previously falling demand are now scrambling to meet skyrocketing orders, causing delays.

The producers of the drugs' active ingredients have also struggled with shortages.

Sandoz, the generic drug division of Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, told AFP that the "stock shortages at our competitors also contribute to the unexpectedly high sales of our drugs, and therefore to additional supply difficulties."

Sign of a wider problem?

Antibiotics are old drugs whose patents have often fallen into the public domain, meaning that generic versions can be sold cheaply.

Drug makers therefore have little monetary incentive to produce such antibiotics. Indeed, even generics producers can struggle to maintain a significant profit.

Thomas Borel, the scientific director at LEEM which represents French drugs firms, said there had been insufficient investment from the industry "in view of the growing demand for this type of medicine."

He added that the economic model makes it difficult for drug makers "to recover their costs" when it comes to antibiotics.

Another issue is that only around 10 firms, most of them in Asia, still produce the active ingredients for amoxicillin.

Solutions?

In the short term, national health authorities have recommended that pharmacists and doctors substitute the drugs in short supply with other medications whenever possible, as well as limiting treatment duration.

Manufacturers including Britain's GSK have also ramped up production speed.

Sandoz said it has hired more staff and invested in upping production at its Kundl site in Austria.

More broadly, some industry specialists have called for a new business model that combines the needs of patients and those of the companies that produce such cheap drugs.

LEEM's Borel said "the pharmaceutical industry must be considered to be a strategic sector in which public authorities must be more vigilant than they have been in recent years."

Plastic recycling remains a ‘myth’: Greenpeace study

by Agence-France-Presse

WASHINGTON, United States — Plastic recycling rates are declining even as production shoots up, according to a Greenpeace USA report out Monday that blasted industry claims of creating an efficient, circular economy as “fiction.”

Pixabay

Titled “Circular Claims Fall Flat Again,” the study found that of 51 million tons of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4 million tons were recycled, or around five percent. 

After peaking in 2014 at 10 percent, the trend has been decreasing, especially since China stopped accepting the West’s plastic waste in 2018.

Virgin production — of non-recycled plastic, that is — meanwhile is rapidly rising as the petrochemical industry expands, lowering costs.

“Industry groups and big corporations have been pushing for recycling as a solution,” Greenpeace USA campaigner Lisa Ramsden told AFP.

“By doing that, they have shirked all responsibility” for ensuring that recycling actually works, she added. She named Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever and Nestle as prime offenders. 

According to Greenpeace USA’s survey, only two types of plastic are widely accepted at the nation’s 375 material recovery facilities.

The first is polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is commonly used in water and soda bottles; and the second is high density polyethylene (HDPE), seen in milk jugs, shampoo bottles and cleaning product containers.

These are numbered “1” and “2” according to a standardized system in which there are seven plastic types.

But being recyclable in theory doesn’t mean products are being recycled in practice.

The report found that PET and HDPE products had actual reprocessing rates of 20.9 percent and 10.3 percent, respectively — both down slightly from Greenpeace USA’s last survey in 2020.

Plastic types “3” through “7” — including children’s toys, plastic bags, produce wrappings, yogurt and margarine tubs, coffee cups and to-go food containers — were reprocessed at rates of less than five percent.

Heat waves will make regions uninhabitable

“There are clear limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive,” the report said. File Photo

By Agence France-Presse October 12, 2022 

HEAT waves will become so extreme in certain regions of the world within decades that human life there will be unsustainable, the United Nations and the Red Cross said Monday (Tuesday in Manila).

Heat waves are predicted to "exceed human physiological and social limits" in the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and south and southwest Asia, with extreme events triggering "large-scale suffering and loss of life," the organizations said.

Heat wave catastrophes this year in countries like Somalia and Pakistan foreshadow a future with deadlier, more frequent and more intense heat-related humanitarian emergencies, they warned in a joint report.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) released the report in advance of next month's COP27 climate change summit in Egypt.

"We don't want to dramatize it, but clearly the data shows that it does lead toward a very bleak future," said IFRC Secretary-General Jagan Chapagain.

They said aggressive steps needed to be taken immediately to avert potentially recurrent heat disasters, listing steps that could mitigate the worst effects of extreme heat.

Limits of survival

"There are clear limits beyond which people exposed to extreme heat and humidity cannot survive," the report said.

"There are also likely to be levels of extreme heat beyond which societies may find it practically impossible to deliver effective adaptation for all.

"On current trajectories, heat waves could meet and exceed these physiological and social limits in the coming decades, including in regions such as the Sahel and south and southwest Asia."

It warned that the impact of this would be "large-scale suffering and loss of life, population movements and further entrenched inequality."

The report said extreme heat was a "silent killer," claiming thousands of lives each year as the deadliest weather-related hazard — and the dangers were set to grow at an "alarming rate" due to climate change.

According to a study cited by the report, the number of poor people living in extreme heat conditions in urban areas will jump by 700 percent by 2050, particularly in West Africa and Southeast Asia.

"Projected future death rates from extreme heat are staggeringly high — comparable in magnitude by the end of the century to all cancers or all infectious diseases — and staggeringly unequal," the report said.

Agricultural workers, children, the elderly, and pregnant and breastfeeding women are at higher risk of illness and death, the report claimed.

"As the climate crisis goes unchecked, extreme weather events, such as heat waves and floods, are hitting the most vulnerable people the hardest," said UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths.

"The humanitarian system is not equipped to handle crisis of this scale on our own."

'Previously unimaginable'

Chapagain urged countries at COP27 to invest in climate adaptation and mitigation in the regions most at risk.

CHA and the IFRC suggested five main steps to help combat the impact of extreme heat waves, including providing early information to help people and authorities react in time, and finding new ways of financing local-level action.

They also included humanitarian organizations testing more "thermally appropriate" emergency shelter and "cooling centers," while getting communities to alter their development planning to take account of likely extreme heat impacts.

OCHA and the IFRC said there were limits to extreme heat adaptation measures.

Some, such as increasing energy-intensive air-conditioning, are costly, environmentally unsustainable and contribute themselves to climate change.

If emissions of the greenhouse gases which cause climate change are not aggressively reduced, the world will face "previously unimaginable levels of extreme heat."