Another example of a gilded bronze statue of Hercules. Credit: Mary Harrsch / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0
The Vatican’s largest ancient statue is undergoing restoration, the AP reported. The 4-meter-tall gilded Hercules is believed to have stood in Pompeii’s theatre in ancient Rome.
Restorers in the Vatican Museum’s Round Hall are removing centuries of dirt from the gilded Hercules.
For more than 150 years, the statue, 4 meters high, has been placed in a niche. It does not attract attention among other antique exhibits because of the dark color it has acquired over time.
After removing a layer of wax and other materials from a 19th-century restoration, Vatican experts understood its true value.
The gold plating is extremely well preserved, said restorer Alice Baltera. The statue is cast in bronze. It was discovered in 1864 in a villa near the “Campo dei Fiori” in Rome. Pope Pius IX added the work to the papal collection.
It is dated between the 1st and 3rd centuries. To distinguish its later origin, it bears “family” names: that of the Pope – Mastai, and that of the banker in whose villa it was found – Righetti.
The statue is accompanied by a marble plaque with the inscription FCS – an abbreviation of the Latin phrase “fulgur conditum summanium” (“Here lies buried the thunderbolt of Sumanus”).
That means she was struck by lightning, said Claudia Valeri, curator of the Greek and Roman antiquities department at the Vatican Museum.
Sumanus was an ancient Roman deity of thunder. The Romans believed that any object struck by lightning was imbued with divine power.
People fined in Turkey for not following the rules during the COVID-19 pandemic will be able to request a refund of the amount paid, reports the electronic edition of the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet.
According to a decision of the Constitutional Court, the administrative fines imposed during the coronavirus pandemic in connection with the obligation to wear masks and other prohibitions will be able to be reinstated. The decision, taken in connection with an appeal to the Constitutional Court, was published in the Turkish State Gazette.
In this way, persons who have paid administrative fines imposed on them during the pandemic period will receive back the amounts they paid.
In relation to those who have not paid the fines issued to them, the tax authorities will not take any follow-up action and the penalties will be automatically deleted.
Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-wearing-diy-masks-3951628/
MAP -- Tropical tuna targeted, Bloom complains of flagrant fraud by French vessels
Tuna // Press release by Bloom – On 31 May, BLOOM and Blue Marine Foundation have lodged a complaint with the Public Prosecutor at the Paris judicial Court against all 21 vessels in the tropical tuna fishing fleet registered in France, for illegally switching off their AIS(Automatic Identification System)locator beacons.
French tropical tuna vessels are breaking the law
Switching off a geolocation instrument is prohibited by international, European and national law. Specifically, apart from small-scale fishing, all vessels must have their AIS beacons switched on at all times, both at sea and in port.(1) The French tropical tuna vessels are on average over 80 metres long and are all — without exception — breaking the law: between 1 January 2021 and 25 April 2023, these vessels switched off their beacons 37% to 72% of the time.(2)
It is therefore impossible to know where these vessels are operating, sometimes for weeks at a time. This leaves them free to fish in prohibited areas, such as certain exclusive economic zones or marine protected areas.
By lodging a complaint, BLOOM and Blue Marine Foundation are seeking to put an end to this unacceptable situation and obtain full transparency on the fishing activities of French tuna shipowners. Illegal behaviors like these are not marginal. These 21 vessels represent only 0.4% of the French fleet but account for around 20% of the country’s annual catches.(3)
Furthermore, European tuna vessels in African waters are subsidised to the tune of a dozen million euros a year under fishing agreements negotiated by the European Union. These ships have been plundering African waters with complete peace of mind since the end of the 1970s.(4)
In addition European tuna fishing depends almost exclusively on the use of the highly controversial ‘fish aggregating devices’ (FADs). FADs are floating rafts that are responsible for the deaths of millions of immature tuna each year, which never get the chance to reproduce, as well as vulnerable and rare species such as sea turtles and sharks.(5)
With our complaint, we are divulging that, as well as destroying sealife, these highly subsidised fishing vessels operate with complete disregard for the law.
Example of four French vessels regularly switching off their AIS in the Atlantic Ocean. For instance, the STERENN (in blue), a tuna purse seiner belonging to the Compagnie française du thon océanique (CFTO), which disappears from radar the majority of the time. For ease of interpretation, this map only covers a few months for each of the vessels (see legend), not the entire period covered by our study, nor all the vessels concerned.
Total impunity for tuna fishers
This complaint echoes our report “Eyes wide shut”(6) released on the 6th of March 2023, in which we highlighted French Government’s total failure to enforce regulations for tuna vessels. This lack of oversight is why the European Commission opened an infringement procedure against France in June 2021, under Control Regulation 1224/2009 “establishing a Community control system for ensuring compliance with the rules of the Common Fisheries Policy”.(7)
Today, we are providing further proof of the total impunity enjoyed by European industrial fishers: they undermine the environmental ambitions of democratic processes, destroy nature and coastal economies, trample on the law, and are never held to account by an administration that is complicit in their misdeeds.
A series of scandals revealed by BLOOM
These new revelations — based on an analysis of nearly four million lines of data supplied by the company Spire Global(8) — are irrefutable and add to the long list of misconducts carried out by European tropical tuna fishing fleets.
Since November 2022, we have revealed multiple scandals, highlighting the incredible power of French and Spanish business interests and their political allies to destroy life, the climate and democracy:
On 14 November 2022, BLOOM and ANTICOR warned of a case of transfer between the public and private sectors that was causing a clear conflict of interest in the tuna fishing sector.(9) The matter was referred to the National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), which opened an investigation into illegal acquisition of interests on 2 December 2022, which is still ongoing and for which we have given a statement;(10)
At a time when the overall framework for controlling fishing fleets is being renegotiated at a European level, this defector’s mission is crystal clear: to obtain an appalling change in the ‘margin of tolerance’, which would enable the European tuna fishing industry to massively increase its official catches and legitimise years of illegal catches and tax evasion;
In 2015, France indeed granted an exemption to its tuna vessels, allowing them to exceed the regulatory ‘margin of tolerance’, which is why the European Commission opened infringement proceedings against France. Despite the deadlines having long passed and our repeated reminders, the European Commission is refusing, for the time being, to go any further and bring a case against France before the Court of Justice of the European Union. For its part, BLOOM has appealed to the Council of State to have the circular repealed;(11)
The infringement proceedings initiated by the European Commission were also prompted by France’s failure to monitor its tuna fleets. On 6 March, we published an unprecedented analysis showing that the French government had set absolutely no concrete control objectives for its tuna fisheries in 2022 and 2023. Following a favourable opinion from the Commission d’accès aux documents administratifs (Commission for access to administrative documents), we took the case to the Paris Administrative Court to demand transparency and enjoin the French administration to provide us with data on the French tuna fleets (satellite locations, monitoring data, etc.);(12)
In parallel with this sequence of regulations at the European level, another political sequence, this time in the Indian Ocean, has highlighted the hypocrisy of the European Union in African waters, where it is protecting, at all costs, the destructive practices of a handful of French and Spanish companies, in complete contradiction with the opening of its infringement proceedings against France;(13)
A few days before a crucial meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) held in Mombasa (Kenya) from 3 to 5 February, BLOOM published a shocking report highlighting the influence of lobbyists within official European Union delegations throughout twenty years of negotiations on tropical tuna in Africa, between 2002 and 2022. “The EU under the rule of tuna lobbies” highlights, for the first time and in data, the overwhelming dominance of industrial lobbies at the heart of public representation;(14)
While a historic resolution was adopted by the IOTC, instituting an annual 72-day ban on ‘fish aggregating devices’ (FADs), we revealed that the European Commission tried everything to sabotage the negotiations. They threatened Kenya, the historic spearhead of the fight against FADs, with the withdrawal of development aid if they continued to demand constraints that penalised European fishers. Our report “Lining up the ducks” explains how French and Spanish industrial interests lined up their political pawns;(15)
On 11 April 2023, the European Commission formally lodged its objection with the IOTC secretariat so that the resolution would not apply to its vessels,(16) and three days later, France — which has an extra seat on the IOTC thanks to its ‘Iles Éparses’ (a few uninhabited islets in the Mozambique Channel) — did the same.(17) To date, eight objections have been lodged, following relentless lobbying by the European Commission and the tuna lobbies. The resolution only applies to four European-owned vessels out of the fifty or so active in the area. The objective is simple: to reach 11 objections, the threshold that would allow the resolution to be cancelled outright;
On 11 May 2023, BLOOM lodged two appeals with the European Commission and the French Directorate-General for Maritime Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture (DGAMPA) to request the withdrawal of these disgraceful objections.(18) If these informal requests were to be refused, we could reserve the right to lodge contentious appeals, with the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Conseil d’État to have these objections withdrawn.
Justice as the only horizon… of justice!
Throughout this campaign, we have found nothing but closed doors as far as political leaders are concerned. Afraid of having to explain this disastrous situation: the French Permanent Representation has never found the time to receive us; the same goes for the European Commissioner for the Environment, Oceans and Fisheries, Virginijus Sinkevicius, and his Director-General Charlina Vitcheva, despite having been sought out for several months.
We have therefore pinned our hopes on justice to put an end to the exceptions enjoyed by tuna fishers, on the fringes of the law and the rule of law.
The willful blindness of governments and European institutions to the malpractices of a handful of industrialists has led us to take legal action once again. By reporting the widespread extinction of AIS beacons by French tuna vessels, we are continuing the fight against these illegal practices and the unprecedented impunity enjoyed by industrial fishers.
At a time when biodiversity is collapsing and climate change is a matter of urgency, it is high time that the Member States and European institutions started to protect public interest and common goods, rather than calling for a break on environmental constraints.
On Tuesday 30 May 2023, the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament agreed, after five years of negotiations and amendments, on a revision of the Control Regulation dating from 2009.(19)
From the little information we have received, there is unfortunately little doubt that the French and Spanish tuna vessels have been fully satisfied, and our latest revelations clearly show that France is still very ostensibly letting its tropical tuna fleet do as it pleases, without any constraints. We encourage the European Commission to summon up the courage to take France to the European Court of Justice without further delay. Adopting regulations is not enough; they must be implemented.
REFERENCES
(1) The provisions relating to automatic ship identification systems are set out in regulation V/19 of the 1974 International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea, known as the “SOLAS Convention”, itself supplemented by the regulations of the International Maritime Organisation, in particular paragraph 22 of Resolution A.1106 (29). These provisions have also been codified at European Union level. Article 10 of European Regulation 1224/2009 states: “In accordance with Annex II Part I point 3 of the Directive 2002/59/EC, a fishing vessel exceeding 15 metres’ length overall shall be fitted with and maintain in operation an automatic iden tification system which meets the performance standards drawn up by the International Maritime Organisation according to chapter V, Regulation 19, section 2.4.5 of the 1974 SOLAS Convention”.
(2) For each of the French vessels, we identified between 20 and 61 AIS beacon extinctions of more than 48 hours, for a total of 308 to 591 days.
(8) Spire Global is the world leader in satellite vessel tracking. Their data is used, among other things, by the Global Fishing Watch platform (https://globalfishingwatch.org).
Chronic underfunding over the past decade, and resultant severe austerity measures, mean UNRWA is already operating with a $75 million shortfall, putting its lifesaving programmes across the Middle East at risk.
“As I address you today, I do not have the funds to keep our schools, health centres and other services running as of September,” Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told a pledging conference at UN Headquarters in New York.
UNRWA was established in 1949 as a temporary agency to provide aid to Palestinians following mass displacement from land that became Israel, making it one of the first UN humanitarian operations.
Today, nearly six million people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, depend on its services, which are almost entirely funded by voluntary contributions. Nearly a third of registered Palestine refugees live in camps.
UNRWA is seeking $1.6 billion for its operations this year. Mr. Lazzararini said an additional $75 million is urgently needed to provide food for over a million people in Gaza. Another $30 million is required to maintain cash and food assistance to 600,000 people in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
Despite its essential role, “we allow UNRWA to remain trapped in financial limbo,” he said in remarks delivered by his Chef de Cabinet, Courtenay Rattray.
The UN chief was also deeply concerned that some of the largest and most reliable donors have indicated that they might be reducing their support.
“Let’s be clear: UNRWA is on the verge of financial collapse. The consequences of further budget cuts would be catastrophic,” he warned.
UNRWA Student Parliamentarian Ahmad Abu Daqqa from the Gaza Strip addresses the 2023 UNRWA Pledging Conference.
Finding hope in education
More than a half a million young Palestinians are enrolled in UNRWA schools, two of whom made impassioned pleas at the pledging conference.
Ahmad Abu Daqqa attends a boys’ school in the Gaza Strip, where a blockade has been in place for more than 15 years.
“We, the students of the Gaza Strip, seek hope amidst despair,” he said, conveying a message from his peers. “We only find it in education and learning, despite the numerous difficulties and obstacles we face, like living in a conflict and war zone.”
UNRWA Student Parliamentarian Leen Sharqawi addresses the UNRWA Pledging Conference in New York.
UNRWA students are proud of their education, heritage and culture, added Leen Sharqawi, 15, who attends a girls’ school in Jordan. They also have big dreams.
“We are not just Palestine refugees,” she said. “We are children who dream of becoming global citizens and who want to help the world become a better place. Good education is what will allow us to do this.”
In a statement on Friday, the experts said that emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence-based biometric surveillance systems, are increasingly being used “in sensitive contexts”, without individuals’ knowledge or consent
“Urgent and strict regulatory red lines are needed for technologies that claim to perform emotion or gender recognition,” said the experts, who include Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism.
The Human Rights Council-appointed experts condemned the already “alarming” use and impacts of spyware and surveillance technologies on the work of human rights defenders and journalists, “often under the guise of national security and counter-terrorism measures”.
They also called for regulation to address the lightning-fast development of generative AI that’s enabling mass production of fake online content which spreads disinformation and hate speech.
Real world consequences
The experts stressed the need to ensure that these systems do not further expose people and communities to human rights violations, including through the expansion and abuse of invasive surveillance practices that infringe on the right to privacy, facilitate the commission of gross human rights violations, including enforced disappearances, and discrimination.
They also expressed concern about respect for freedoms of expression, thought, peaceful protest, and for access to essential economic, social and cultural rights, and humanitarian services.
“Specific technologies and applications should be avoided altogether where the regulation of human rights complaints is not possible,” the experts said.
The experts also expressed concern that generative AI development is driven by a small group of powerful actors, including businesses and investors, without adequate requirements for conducting human rights due diligence or consultation with affected individuals and communities.
And the crucial job of internal regulation through content moderation, is often performed by individuals in situations of labour exploitation, the independent experts noted.
More transparency
“Regulation is urgently needed to ensure transparency, alert people when they encounter synthetic media, and inform the public about the training data and models used,” the experts said.
The experts reiterated their calls for caution about digital technology use in the context of humanitarian crises, from large-scale data collection – including the collection of highly sensitive biometric data – to the use of advanced targeted surveillance technologies.
“We urge restraint in the use of such measures until the broader human rights implications are fully understood and robust data protection safeguards are in place,” they said.
Encryption, privacy paramount
They underlined the need to ensure technical solutions – including strong end-to-end encryption and unfettered access to virtual private networks – and secure and protect digital communications.
“Both industry and States must be held accountable, including for their economic, social, environmental, and human rights impacts,” they said. “The next generation of technologies must not reproduce or reinforce systems of exclusion, discrimination and patterns of oppression.”
Special Rapporteurs and other rights experts are all appointed by the UN Human Rights Council, are mandated to monitor and report on specific thematic issues or country situations, are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work.
In a press statement issued late on Friday, the UN Security Council expressed its “deep concern” over the continued clashes, condemning all attacks on civilians, and calling for “rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access throughout Sudan”.
The 15-member body emphasized the need for an immediate ceasefire, and reaffirmed it’s backing for the UN transition mission in Sudan, UNITAMS, to continue it work, despite the collapse of political momentum towards the move to civilian rule, that seemed so close just a few months ago.
The statement urged the mission’s “continued engagement, in full accordance with the principles of national ownership.”
The members of the Security Council underlined the need for strengthened international coordination and continued collaboration. They reaffirmed their firm support to African leaders involved in negotiations, and noted the African Union (AU) Roadmap for the Resolution of the Conflict in Sudan.
The Council also called for a resumption of a credible and inclusive political transition process, that takes into account the contributory role of all relevant Sudanese stakeholders.”
Turmoil on the ground
Since the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces began, more than 1.2 million people have been displaced within the already impoverished country, and hundreds of thousands have fled across neighbouring borders. A rising death toll, rampant looting of humanitarian aid, and rising needs for assistance are growing concerns, UN agencies warned.
The situation was “particularly desperate” in Khartoum, where people were fleeing the violence or were unable to leave, said Patrick Elliott, head of operations for Sudan for the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFCR), briefing journalists at the UN in Geneva, who just returned from a visit to Port Sudan.
Tarik Jašarević, for the World Health Organization (WHO), said the numbers being provided from the Ministry of Health were an underestimate of the overall death toll.
Crippled health sector
Many health facilities are simply unable to function, Mr. Jašarević said, also raising concerns for around 20,000 pregnant women who are currently unable to receive pre-natal care.
Some 11 million people are in urgent need of health assistance in Sudan, including more than 2.6 million women and girls of reproductive age who have barely any access to contraception, pregnancy-related services, or treatment programmes for sexually transmitted infections, or response services for sexual violence, which is reported to be rising as the crisis escalates, according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).
An estimated 260,000 pregnant women in Sudan, including 90,000 expected to give birth in the next three months, could be affected by ongoing fuel shortages and power cuts that have already forced many hospitals to suspend emergency obstetric and neonatal care services, the agency said.
Fuel shortages threaten safe births
“We are running out of fuel,” said Sarah, a midwife at Khartoum’s UN-supported Ombada Hospital. “If the electricity cuts persist, we don’t know how we will be able to assist pregnant women giving birth a week from now.”
The agency is set to distribute 10 metric tonnes of life-saving sexual and reproductive health supplies to hospitals and health facilities, and could expand its pilot project to provide solar power, launched in 2022 in several hospitals in Sudan, to health centres in Khartoum, providing round-the-clock electricity for maternity wards, operating rooms, blood bank refrigerators, incubators, and medicine storage facilities.
Midwives at a UNFPA-supported hospital in Sudan before the crisis destroyed at least two out of three hospitals. (file)
UN food agency condemns looters
The World Food Programme (WFP) condemned on Friday the looting of humanitarian supplies at its distribution hub in south-central Sudan on Thursday, adding to $60 million in assets stolen since the start of the crisis in mid-April.
“This theft of humanitarian food and assets totally undermines these operations at a critical time for the people of Sudan,” the UN agency said. “This must stop.”
The WFP warehouses in El Obeid host one of the agency’s largest logistics bases in Africa and represents a “vital lifeline” for operations in Sudan and South Sudan, according to the agency.
“Millions will be impacted by this attack,” the agency warned, adding that initial reports suggest that food and nutrition supplies, vehicles, fuel, and generators have been looted in the most recent incident.
Since violence erupted, armed groups have attacked and looted WFP and partners’ storage facilities on multiple occasions and aid workers have been killed or injured, the agency said.
The ongoing violence could lead an estimated 2.5 million people in Sudan to “slip into hunger in the coming months”, the agency added.
Warning that acute food insecurity in Sudan could reach record levels, affecting more than 19 million people or 40 per cent of the population, WFP reiterated calls to all parties to the conflict to ensure the safety and security of humanitarian assistance, aid workers, and assets so that the agency’s life-saving work can move forward.
‘Fearlessly’ providing support
Mr. Elliott, of the IFCR, said a team had been established to support the Sudanese Red Crescent, which have been mobilizing daily to help those in need. Emphasizing the bravery of volunteers, who are “fearlessly” providing local support, he said an emergency funding appeal and reports of rising malnutrition were also among grave concerns.
While funding is yet to materialize to address the immediate needs in Khartoum and surrounding areas, he reported good cooperation between UN agencies who continue to reach communities in local areas and provide them with support.
Outside of Khartoum, volunteers were working with communities of internally displaced persons, he said.
However, in Port Sudan, the levels of malnutrition are significant, he added.
Security Council considers UN mission renewal
The UN Security Council is scheduled to meet on Friday afternoon to consider the Secretary-General’s latest reports on the country and take action on the potential renewal of the mandate of the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS).
The 15-member Council had established the special political mission in 2020 for an initial year to assist Sudan, then had renewed it annually. The UN Mission mandate is set to expire on Saturday.
In Port Sudan, emergency food packages are distributed to people fleeing fighting in Khartoum.
Some 1.6 million people in Rakhine, Chin, Magway, Sagaing, and Kachin states are in dire need of assistance after Mocha’s 250 kilometre per hour wind gusts destroyed homes, farmland and livestock.
Speaking from hard-hit Rakhine State capital Sittwe, UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident Representative in Myanmar, Titon Mitra, said that time was of the essence as food reserves were being “completely wiped out”, water sources needed to be urgently decontaminated and the monsoon was just “a matter of weeks away”.
“The international community has to be given widespread access to the affected communities. And that’s a very urgent requirement,” he said.
Last month, the UN launched a $333 million Flash Appeal for Myanmar. While some assistance is coming through, Mr. Mitra said that it was “not anywhere near sufficient” for the time being due to a lack of access and support in rural areas remained “far from adequate”.
“Some regional donors have already provided some support and that’s been channelled through the military logistics as CSOs (civil society organizations) and UN organizations have got limited access at the moment,” Mr. Mitra said.
‘Depoliticization, demilitarization’ of aid
The UN official highlighted that a distribution plan has been submitted to the military authorities, stressing that “it needs to be cleared very soon, so international organizations with their CSO partners can move freely”.
More than two years since Myanmar’s generals staged a military coup, sparking widespread ongoing civil unrest and violence, Mr. Mitra insisted that “this really is a time for the depoliticization and the demilitarization of aid, because the needs are absolutely immense”.
Rural livelihoods in jeopardy
The recovery may take years, he added, pointing out that the majority of those affected were already “the poorest of the poor”.
Concerns are also mounting fast about the future of rural livelihoods, as some 1,200 square kilometres of land flooded due to Mocha, while rains combined with storm surges devastated agriculture and fisheries.
A local resident cleans up the extensive damage to his shop caused by Cyclone Mocha in Sittwe, Rakhine state, Myanmar.
Looming food security crisis
Mr. Mitra warned that the provision of relief itself was “not enough” and that if people are unable to plant food crops within the next few weeks, there could be a “major food crisis” emerging in the coming months.
“Households have completely lost their seed stocks. So we are anticipating, unless there’s an effective response, that food availability and affordability will become huge issues,” he insisted.
Earlier this week, the UN included Myanmar in a list of 18 “hunger hotspots” where critical food insecurity is projected to intensify.
‘Cycle of suffering’
Already before Mocha hit, 80 per cent of people in Rakhine were living in poverty and 200,000 were internally displaced. In 2022, half of the state’s population were cutting down on meals due to the economic crisis, according to UNDP data.
If swift action by the international community did not materialize, “we risk perpetuating an unending cycle of suffering”, Mr. Mitra warned.
John Gilbert (from FLC CGIL) addresses protesters outside Minister Bernini's offices. Photo credit: Henry Rodgers
Lettori case // 7 of Ireland’s 13 MEPs have signed aRule 138 parliamentary question to Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, asking if the Commission will immediately refer the long-running Lettori discrimination case to the Court of Justice of the European Union(CJEU) for what would be a fifth ruling in the line of litigation which extends back to the seminal Allué ruling of 1989.
The question was occasioned by Italy’s failure to comply with the ruling in enforcement case C-119/04 within the two-month period given by the Commission in its January press release announcing the movement of infringement proceedings to the reasoned opinion stage. Rather than paying the settlements due to Lettori for decades of discriminatory treatment as requested by the Commission, Italy, in a Decree Law of 04 May, “instead legislated for additional time to come up with additional legislation to supposedly meet Treaty obligations it has infringed for over 3 decades”, as the Irish MEPs word it in their question.
In a speech before the European Parliament on Wednesday, Dublin MEP Clare Daly, who drafted the parliamentary question, strongly denounced the ongoing discrimination against Lettori. The points covered in her speech are in continuity with points she has raised in a series of telling questions on the Lettori case to the Commission over the mandate of the present parliament.
7 MEPs co-sign the question to the EU about the Lettori
MEP Daly’s influential, penultimate question, co-signed by 7 of her Irish parliamentarian colleagues and placed shortly before the opening of the infringement proceedings, is framed within the context of the benefits and the accompanying responsibilities of EU membership. Placing the circumstances of the longest-running breach of the parity of treatment provision of the Treaty before the EU conscience, her words, which succinctly define the core principle at stake in the Lettori case, are worthy of citation:
“Italian universities receive generous funding from the EU. Italy has received the biggest share of the Recovery Fund. Surely, the ethic of reciprocation demands that Italy obey the rule of law and implement the most recent CJEU ruling in favour of the lettori: case C‑119/04.”
In one of her first acts in office newly elected FLC CGIL General Secretary Gianna Fracassi wrote to Commissioner Schmit, also calling for the immediate referral of the Lettori case to the CJEU. That FLC CGIL would ask the European Commission to prosecute the country of which it is the largest trade union for discriminatory treatment of non-national workers is most probably a novelty in supranational trade union representations, and the step provides authoritative backing for the Lettori campaign. The letter, which was copied to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Italy’s Minister for Universities, Anna Maria Bernini, has also been sent to all of Italy’s MEPs.
FLC CGIL Union sides with the Lettori
As a percentage of the overall FLC CGIL membership, the Lettori component is negligible. That the union has come to side so strongly and so publicly with the Lettori is due to the tireless work and painstaking persuasion of John Gilbert, a Lettore at the University of Florence. Instrumental in organizing the December protest outside the offices of Minister Bernini, his well-received address to his colleagues on that occasion touched on many of the points raised in the recent FLC CGIL letter to Commissioner Schmit.
If the FLC CGIL request to the Commission to prosecute the country in which it is legally established is novel, the conduct of “La Sapienza” University of Rome-based Asso.CEL.L, an official complainant in the Commission’s infringement proceedings, is atypical of unions too. A policy of not taking contributions has freed Asso.CEL.L from any need to self-promote and in the process won it the confidence of Lettori nationwide.
Its well-designed website, which receives thousands of hits and attendant downloads per year, seeks to educate visitors to the site about what has become a test case of the enforceability of Treaty provisions in the face of opposition from an intransigent Member State. The Census page shows university-by-university the results of the national survey conducted with FLC CGIL, which documented to the Commission’s satisfaction the non-payment of the settlements due to Lettori under CJEU case law.
This Census is alluded to in the Irish parliamentarians’ question to the Commission. Containing details on the beneficiaries of the ruling in Case C-119/04, their years of service, the more favourable parameters won before local Italian courts, it is a data bank with reference to which the settlements due to the Lettori could easily be calculated and made. It is in this context that the good faith of the recent Decree Law, which yet again defers to future legislation the arrangements for the payments of the settlements to Lettori, must be questioned.
Awaiting the interministerial decree
Lettori, 7 MEPs demand Commissioner Schmit for Justice at EU Court 4
As yet another Pilar Allué Day (the annually commemorated date of 30 May 1989 and Allué’s first victory before the CJEU) goes by, lawyers for Asso.CELL and FLC CGIL still await the publication of the Interministerial Decree promised in the Decree Law of 04 May.
While a press release announces that Minister for Universities and Research, Anna Maria Bernini and Minister for Economy and Finance, Giancarlo Giorgetti, have signed the Interministerial Decree to provide settlements for reconstruction of career, much to the frustration of the Lettori the text of the legislation itself has not been made public.
Whether the reconstruction of career due is in strict accordance with the CJEU ruling in Case C-119/04 , or whether the Interministerial Decree will be yet another measure by means of which Italy again attempts to evade its obligations to the Lettori under the Court case law thus still remains to be seen. Given the track record of misinterpretation of the Court’s ruling, Lettori commemorating Pilar Allué Day this week were understandably sceptical.
Under the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament, the Commission now has 6 weeks within which to reply to the Irish parliamentarians’ question.
Influencers in France can now be jailed if found to have broken new promotion rules after a law was officially passed, CNN reported. The tough new laws aim to protect consumers from misleading or false commercial practices online. They restrict the promotion of lottery games and betting and ban the advertising of goods such as tobacco. For the first time in Europe, this role is defined by law. On Wednesday, the cross-party legislation passed unanimously in a vote in the Senate after moving through the rest of parliament. Influencers are online personalities who have a large following and can set trends. Some of them encourage people to buy the products they advertise, but often don’t declare that they accept money in exchange for promoting them. French lawmakers said they had sought to “clarify the contours” of commercial activity and specify the “responsibilities and obligations” of influencers amid a rise in the number of defrauded online individuals.
Under their new laws, “participants with commercial influence” will not be able to advertise lottery or gambling games on platforms that do not have the capacity to prohibit access to minors.
Along with tobacco products, the advertising of cosmetic surgery, as well as some financial products and medical devices, will be banned. Violations can mean a sentence of up to two years in prison or a fine of up to €300,000. However, there are concerns about the authorities’ ability to monitor compliance with the new rules – especially when influencers’ accounts are visible in France but the person is physically outside the country’s jurisdiction. There are believed to be more than 150,000 influencers in France, according to data from its Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty.
Photo by Atypeek Dgn: https://www.pexels.com/photo/french-flag-against-blue-sky-5781917/
The icon of the Virgin Bogolyubskaya was stolen from the Church of St. John the Evangelist in the center of Moscow, just 350 meters from the building of the Federal Security Service (FSB) on Lyubyanka Street, Russian media reported. However, an interesting clarification is that until about two weeks ago, the icon was located in the church of the Ukrainian city of Khartsysk on the territory of the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, from where it was illegally exported. It was written in 2011. On May 9, 2023, the icon began to flow abundantly, believers took this as a sign and were convinced that it heals. Then the icon was taken temporarily to Moscow.
Now the icon has been taken by several women who have been captured on video. It is assumed that among them there are those who came from the occupied Mariupol. It is also reported that one of the women called the rector of the temple, Father Pavel, and explained that the icon was hers and that’s why she took it. Russian police have launched an investigation:
“Everything was fine until May 30th. It was then that three “demonesses” catched on the security video came to the church on New Square and violated the eighth commandment. According to information from the authorities, one of them has already found a bad name in Mariupol. There she deceived people, posing as a “sister of mercy”, and also robbed temples. For destructive activities, the security service of the Donetsk People’s Republic recommended that she leave the territory and not discredit either the Russian Orthodox Church or Russia. As you can see, it didn’t work.”
