The Conference of European Churches (CEC) organised a training for its Member Churches in Italy, addressing security and safety risks, threats, and challenges in the country. The training was held on 24 June in Rome, as part of theSafer and Stronger Communities in Europe (SASCE)project, carried out by CEC, and funded by the Internal Police Fund of the European Commission.
“It is important to make the Protestant churches in Italy aware of the security of places of worship while promoting our vision of religious freedom for all,” said Rev. Daniele Garrone, president of the Federation of Protestant Churches in Italy (FCEI). “We found the presentation about SASCE’s work made by CEC Executive Secretary Dr Elizabeta Kitanovic very clear and instructive”.
Participants in the training discussed a number of topics, including security threats related to foreign soldiers returning home from North Africa, neo-Nazi extremists, and foreign fighters from the Western Balkans crossing Italy on the way to the other European countries, as identified by the authorities. They discussed the impact of such threats on Jews, LGBTQ communities and migrants, among others.
They agreed that the security and safety challenges in Italian society need to be tackled on various fronts, including political, legal, social, as well as European.
“The SASCE project has the merit to make religious leaders and the staff of local churches aware of security issues, taking into account even small threats,” said Rev. Mirella Manocchio, president of the Evangelical Methodist Churches in Italy (OPCEMI). “Also, with regard to the European authorities, the project strengthens great coordination and offers more attention to minorities or smaller religious realities, which are fragile and less protected.”
The SASCE training was also conducted with the Evangelical Methodist Church in Bologna and Modena, attended by the church leadership, including Rev. Giuseppina Bagnato and Richard Kofi Ampofo. It was noted that some Italian congregations suffered serious security and safety challenges. The CEC reporting mechanisms were therefore warmly welcomed.
Rev. Peter Ciaccio, a pastor from Trieste, engaged in extensive work on human rights and religious freedom, was nominated as Italian ambassador for SASCE Italy.
Italy’s largest trade union, FLC CGIL, has written to all of the Italian deputies in the European Parliament to highlight the ongoing discrimination against non-national university teaching staff(Lettori) in the country’s universities. The letter calls on the MEPs to denounce domestic measures which continue to impede the correct implementation of the Lettori case law of the EU Court of Justice(CJEU).
The FLC CGIL lobbying of the Italian MEPs is the latest in a series of initiatives which has seen the union improve its standing among Lettori. It represents a personal victory for national FLC CGIL Lettori co-ordinator, John Gilbert, an American-born lecturer at UniversitĂ di Firenze, who has worked tirelessly to keep the rights of the non-national workers before the conscience of his union and to change a mindset that in the past had tended to subordinate Lettori EU rights to domestic labour arrangements.
Using its impressive national organization for the benefit of non-nationals, FLC CGIL, together with ASSO.CEL.L, a Lettori association founded at “La Sapienza” University in Rome, organized a nationwide Census of the beneficiaries of the 2006 enforcement ruling last year. University-by-university, the Census documented to the Commission’s satisfaction that the settlements prescribed under the ruling for the reconstruction of Lettori careers had not been made. Just as important, the Census puts in place a framework by means of which eventual payments by the universities to the beneficiaries over the course of the infringement proceedings can be monitored and communicated to the Commission.
Irish MEP Clare Daly has consistently championed the Lettori case at the European level. Welcoming the FLC CGIL representations to her fellow parliamentarians, she commented to The European Times:
Of the domestic measures which have so far impeded the correct implementation of the successive Lettori CJEU sentences, the most brazen by far is the Gelmini Law of 2010. For obvious reasons, member states introduce legislation to give effect to CJEU rulings within their domestic legal order. For equally obvious reasons legislation enacted solely to interpret a CJEU ruling should be immediately suspect.
The 2010 Gemini Law interprets the Court ruling in such a way as to greatly reduce Italy’s liability to the Lettori. Prior to the enactment of the law decisions in the local courts were largely favourable to Lettori, with settlements for the reconstruction of their career following the criteria set out in the 2006 ruling. Subsequently, they were unfavourable, with the Italian judges using the Gelmini interpretation as a reference point, rather than the CJEU ruling itself.
In response to the Commission infringement proceedings provision was made in Italy’s Finance Act of 2022 for the release of funds to the universities to co-finance the settlements due to Lettori. In the guidelines recently sent from the Ministry of Higher Education to the universities on how to calculate these settlements, the Gelmini interpretation is legitimized.
It is this reference to the Italian legislator’s interpretation of the 2006 ruling, rather than a reference to the CJEU ruling itself, which FLC CGIL addresses in its letter to the Italian MEPs. Pointing out that the 2006 ruling, like all sentences of the CJEU, stands on its own merits, the union appeals to the MEPs in the spirit of their European mandate to use their influence to ensure that self-serving interpretations of the case-law of the CJEU do not further prolong the discrimination against Lettori.
While the documentation exchanged between the Commission and the member states in infringement proceedings is confidential, what can be gleaned from exchanges between the Ministry of Higher Education and the universities is that Italy is desperate to bring the proceedings to an end. It is evident also that there is confusion on the part of the universities as to how to value their liability to the Lettori.
Ultimately a member state is responsible for the implementation of EU law within its territory. By the deadline of August 05 Italy must now inform the Commission of the measures, it has taken to meet its liabilities to the working and retired Lettori beneficiaries of the 2006 ruling.
Fit for 55 : EU aviation should gradually switch to sustainable fuel, such as synthetic fuel, used cooking oil or even hydrogen, to help EU become climate neutral by 2050.
MEPs on the Transport and Tourism Committee adopted a draft negotiating mandate on the ReFuelEU aviation rules by 25 votes to six and three abstentions on Monday. The adopted text aims to increase the uptake of sustainable fuels by aircraft operators and EU airports to cut emissions from aviation and ensure Europe becomes climate neutral by 2050.
More sustainable fuel options for aircrafts
MEPs amended the proposed definition of sustainable aviation fuel, a term that covers synthetic fuels or certain biofuels, produced from agricultural or forestry residues, algae, bio-waste or used cooking oil.
They included under their definition recyclable carbon fuels produced from waste processing gas and exhaust gas deriving from production process in industrial installations. They also suggested some biofuels, produced from animal fats or distillates, to be used in the aviation fuel mix for a limited time (until 2034). However, MEPs excluded feed and food crop-based fuels, and those derived from palm oil, because they do not align with the sustainability criteria.
The Transport Committee also included renewable electricity and hydrogen as part of a sustainable fuel mix, as both are promising technologies that could progressively contribute to the decarbonisation of air transport. According to the draft rules, EU airports should facilitate the access of aircraft operators to sustainable aviations fuels, including with infrastructure for hydrogen refuelling and electric recharging.
Timeline
MEPs increased the Commission’s original proposal for the minimum share of a sustainable aviation fuel that should be made available at EU airports. From 2025, this share should be 2%, increasing to 37% in 2040 and 85% by 2050, taking into account the potential of electricity and hydrogen in the overall fuel mix (Commission respectively proposed 32 and 63 %).
New fund
Transport MEPs proposed the creation of a Sustainable Aviation Fund from 2023 to 2050 to accelerate the decarbonisation of the aviation sector and support investment in sustainable aviation fuels, innovative aircraft propulsion technologies, or research for new engines. The Fund would be beefed-up by the penalties generated by the enforcement of these rules and from 50% of the revenues of the auctioning of aviation emission allowances under the EU Emission Trading System.
Rapporteur’s quote
EP rapporteur Søren Gade (Renew, DK) said: “I am proud that the Transport committee has decided to upgrade the Commission’s proposal to decarbonise aviation and to make it much more ambitious when it comes to the fuel blending mandate, new fuel generation technologies, the inclusion of many more airports and a truly sustainable definition of sustainable aviation fuels. I hope that this compromise can be supported by a large majority in plenary.”
Next steps
Once Parliament as a whole has approved this draft negotiating position at the July plenary session, MEPs will be ready to start talks with EU governments on the final shape of the legislation.
Background information
Civil aviation accounts for 13,4% of total CO2 emissions from EU transport. ReFuelEU Aviation initiative is part of the “Fit for 55 in 2030 package”, which is the EU’s plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 compared to 1990 levels in line with the European Climate Law.
In a historic summit this week, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will adopt a new Strategic Concept, its first in 12 years, to guide the alliance’s policies in an increasingly uncertain European security environment. However, looming over it is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s objection to membership for Sweden and Finland. Early expectations that Erdoğan would allow himself “to be cajoled, persuaded, and eventually rewarded for his cooperation” have not materialized. A last minute effort to negotiate a breakthrough last week also failed, leaving NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to pin his hopes for a “soon as possible” post-summit resolution of the deadlock.
Erdoğan’s intransigence is widely attributed to domestic political considerations, including a desperate need to divert attention from the dire state of Turkey’s economy as well as boosting his sagging poll ratings by playing to rampant nationalist and anti-Western feelings. As plausible as these explanations are, underlying them is also Erdoğan’s own discomfort with Turkey’s longstanding Western vocation, symbolized by its membership in NATO as well as in the Council of Europe. He is instrumentalizing the issue of Sweden and Finland’s membership to weaken this vocation, if not break it, to eliminate remaining institutional checks on his one-man rule.
It is important that the United States and its NATO allies avoid policies that would play into Erdoğan’s agenda until the national elections — in June 2023 — before writing off a Western-oriented Turkey completely. This could keep alive the prospects of a Turkey able to reconstruct its democracy and its economy, and to better serve its own and the trans-Atlantic alliance’s security interests, in volatile times.
What lies behind Erdoğan’s opposition to Swedish and Finnish NATO membership
Erdoğan first announced that he did not view the NATO membership bids of either Finland or Sweden favorably, on the grounds that they had become “safe houses” for terrorists. This was a reference to the presence and activities of individuals and organizations with ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as well as Gülenists, widely recognized to be theperpetrators of the coup attempt against him in July 2016. The announcement came on May 13 and may initially have been an attempt to divert attention from two events around that time: a political ban of opposition politician Canan Kaftancıoğlu, widely credited for engineering the defeat of Erdoğan’s preferred candidate in Istanbul’s 2019 mayoral elections, and the violent intervention by Israeli police during the funeral of the slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, over which Erdoğan chose to remain uncharacteristically silent. He subsequently intensified his objections by adding that “all forms of arms embargoes,” especially by Sweden, against Turkey’s defense industry go against “the spirit of military partnership under the NATO umbrella.”
Erdoğan has since made it clear that he will not easily relinquish his veto unless these objections are addressed. A flurry of diplomatic activities followed to address what Stoltenberg on numerous occasions defined as Turkey’s “legitimate” concerns, without concrete results. The deadlock appears to result from different definitions of “terrorism” and Erdoğan’s insistence on the extradition of persons including Swedish nationals and a member of the Swedish parliament. It goes without saying that direct material support, as highlighted by several expertsand formerTurkish diplomats, provided to the PKK — recognized by Turkey, the United States, and the European Union as a terrorist organization — is indeed problematic and needs to be resolved. The complication arises from a definition of terrorism in Turkish law that goes beyond criminalizing participation in violent acts and infringes on basic freedom of speech. This loose and often aggressiveframing of the terms terrorist and terrorism is regularly used by Erdoğan and members of his government to silence and repress their critics and opponents.
Erdoğan has since transformed Turkey’s parliamentary system to a presidential one with practically no checks and balances on his power. Growing authoritarianism and repression of critics and opponents has become a defining face of the country, with the sentencing of civil society activist Osman Kavala and Selahattin Demirtaş, former leader of the main Kurdish political party, together with the likelihood that Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoğlu, who enjoys higher poll ratings than Erdoğan, may well face a political ban too.
NATO has became another target of Erdoğan’s vitriol as he blames the West for Turkey’s growing economic ills and political isolation. This goes back to the aftermath of the 2016 coup attempt, when members of parliament from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) alleged NATO involvement without presenting a shred of evidence, even calling it a “terror organization.” This allegation has been periodically nurtured by the government even if Erdoğan has personally avoided it. Yet, Erdoğan’s close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, decision to purchase S-400 missiles from Russia, and a relentless diplomatic battle over them with Washington has deeply damaged the reliability of Turkey as a NATO ally. Skepticism about Turkey’s place in the alliance was further aggravated by Erdoğan’s threat to expel 10 Western ambassadors, seven of them from allies, for asking him to implement a European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruling and release Kavala. Instead, Erdoğan chose to categorically dismiss the ECHR decision as well as the Council of Europe’s initiation of disciplinary action against Turkey.
This persistent anti-Western and anti-U.S. narrative has found a receptive mood in a Turkish citizenry deprived of access to alternative discourses. Not surprisingly, the Turkish public in recent years has perceived a greater security threat from the United States than from Russia (see slides 81-83 here). According to Metropoll, a public opinion research company, 65% of respondents in April 2022 did not trust NATO; in January, 39.4% preferred closer relations with China and Russia compared with 37.5% preferring closer relations with the EU and U.S.
The geopolitical realities limiting ErdoÄźan and NATO
Yet despite the anti-Western sentiments that Erdoğan has stirred, he remains spectacularly shy of severing ties with NATO. His intermittent faceoffs over the past few years have not reached a point where he can afford to announce Turkey’s abandonment of the alliance. The loudest that he can speak domestically is when he remains silent at suggestions that Turkey should leave NATO, as his political ally Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party, boldly advocated last month. For Western audiences, he even reiterated in a recent piece in The Economist his commitment to NATO and its expansion. Erdoğan’s ambiguity as to whether he is willing or capable of breaking Turkey from NATO and the broader West demonstrates the limits of his power, and offers an opening for policy considerations.
The Turkish president has found himself in a spot where he must negotiate his discomfort with the West and all that it represents with the reality on the ground. The geopolitical situation surrounding Turkey — and specifically, Russia’s war on Ukraine — is exacerbating the country’s economic ills and adversely impacting its national security. Close to 58% of the Turkish public still believes NATO is needed for Turkey’s security. Erdoğan’s objection with Sweden and Finland joining NATO is a symptom of his aversion to the values represented by Turkey’s own membership in the alliance and other Western institutions, most notably the Council of Europe and European Court of Human Rights. These values and institutions are an impediment to his one-man rule as well as his ideological goal of eventually breaking Turkey’s traditional Western vocation.
But NATO also needs Turkey, as highlighted by a former commander of American forces in Europe who remarked, “I don’t even want to think of NATO without Turkey.” Turkey’s future in NATO will largely depend on the results of the country’s elections next year. The opposition has repeatedly expressed its commitment to revive Turkish democracy even if on foreign policy, so far, they have either stayed out of sight or felt obliged to toe Erdoğan’s nationalist line. Until then it is important not to write off Turkey.
In the case of Sweden and Finland’s accession to NATO, one can expect the two sides to meet eventually in a pragmatic solution. In the event of a failure, key NATO members like the U.S. and United Kingdom appear willing to extend Sweden and Finland bilateral security assurances. Ultimately, keeping Turkey in NATO could once more — just like 70 years ago when it first joined the alliance — serve as a conduit for mutually reinforcing Turkey’s Western vocation and its democracy while benefiting trans-Atlantic security, especially at such challenging times that the new NATO Strategic Concept is meant to address.
The American spacecraft Cygnus yesterday for the first time fully and successfully performed an operation to correct the orbit of the International Space Station. This was reported by NASA. “On Saturday, June 25, Cygnus, the Northrop Grumman spacecraft, performed the first limited orbit correction of the ISS,” the US space agency said in a statement.
The orbit correction maneuver took five minutes and one second, which changed the station’s location by about 800 m at perigee (the point of the lunar orbit closest to the Earth) and by 160 m at the apogee (the point of the lunar orbit farthest from the Earth). The last time NASA tried to use the Cygnus thrusters to correct the ISS orbit was on June 20, but then nothing worked. Cygnus will separate from the station on June 28, launch several cubesats into orbit, and burn up in dense layers of the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean in about two weeks.
The spacecraft was launched on February 19 by an Antares launch vehicle from the spaceport on Wallops Island (Virginia) in the Atlantic Ocean. In the first stage of the carrier, Russian RD-181 engines developed by NPO Energomash were installed. Cygnus docked with the ISS on February 21, delivering more than 3.7 tons of various cargoes to the station: food, spare parts and equipment for scientific research, including studying skin aging in weightlessness and the effect of drugs on tumors, as well as a new system for growing plants in orbit
Earlier, Dmitry Rogozin said that the United States still had four RD-181 engines for the Antares rocket, and the Americans would still turn to Russia for new engines. The problem is quite acute, since Roscosmos is not eager to continue work on the ISS project after 2024, although NASA expects to use the ISS until 2030. Accordingly, if Russia withdraws from the project, the Americans will have to adjust the ISS orbit on their own. And you need to do this quite often.
The inspections, which started after the removal of more than 35 Bulgarian drivers from the trucks on Easter, revealed a bunch of irregularities
101 irregularities were found by the labor inspections of Bulgaria and Belgium during an inspection of the companies that sent to Belgium over 35 Bulgarian drivers, taken off their trucks on Easter. This was announced by the European Labor Authority.
The drivers were detained for a day during an operation by the federal police and the prosecutor’s office in Belgium. The investigation is for the use of a social dumping scheme, Nova TV clarifies.
Inspectors have investigated circumstances related to indications of social dumping, as is the case with the investigation. It is alleged that the rights of seven drivers and two mechanics were affected.
Irregularities include non-observance of working hours, weekly rest and accommodation rules. There are 153 verified drivers.
It has also been established that a person from a third country drives a truck for a Bulgarian carrier without an employment contract and with a false driver’s license. The case will also be inspected by the employer registered with us.
The inspections were coordinated by the European Labor Authority.
35 Bulgarian truck drivers were taken off the cabins of their trucks after a massive action by the Belgian federal police on Sunday on Orthodox Easter, the specialized portal Diario de transporte announced. According to an OFFNews inspection, everyone worked on documents for a company registered in Targovishte.
In the early hours of the day, dozens of unmarked police cars and cars surrounded trucks with Bulgarian registration in the Tesenderlo area (Northeast Belgium). All 35 drivers had to leave their trucks immediately, leaving all their personal belongings in them. The Bulgarians were then taken to the police station, where they were interrogated throughout the day, and only in the evening were they taken to a hotel nearby. They were told they could return to their trucks on Monday, but only to pick up their personal belongings from the cabs.
According to Diario de transporte, all the trucks were confiscated by the police and will be material evidence in pre-trial proceedings for violating social and tax laws in Belgium. The Sunday interrogations of the drivers were in connection with the same proceedings. It turned out that all Bulgarians work in a Belgian company and carry out their activities on the territory of Belgium, although they were employed by a fictitious Bulgarian branch with payment of Bulgarian salaries. The branch was made up of so-called mailboxes and did not carry out any activity in Bulgaria, except for the registration of trucks on Bulgarian territory and the conclusion of Bulgarian employment contracts with drivers.
The Belgian carrier, which has opted for such a scheme, is threatened with high financial sanctions, and the owner of the company could even go to prison. In the course of the pre-trial proceedings, evidence was sought of tax evasion in Belgium and the payment of social security contributions.
A gold prospector in the Klondike came across a rare find – an extremely well-preserved newborn mammoth, MediaPortal reported on June 25.
The remains of the mammal have remained in the frozen soil of the Canadian Yukon Territory for more than 30,000 years.
The mummified body from the Ice Age is about 1 meter and 40 centimeters long.
The little woolly mammoth is thought to have died about 30 days after birth
Scientists have extracted the oldest known DNA from the molars of a mammoth that lived in northeastern Siberia 1.2 million years ago, Reuters reported in February 2021.
The teeth from which the DNA was extracted and sequenced are from three mammoths. They are preserved in the permafrost. some of the remains were found in the 1970s, but only modern technology has made it possible to extract DNA.
The oldest of the three teeth was found near the Krestovka River. It is 1.2 million years old. The second of the Adicha Valley is about one million, 1.2 million years old. The third was near the Chukocha River. He is the youngest – about 700,000 years old.
“This is the oldest DNA found,” said evolutionary geneticist Love Dalen of the Center for Paleogenetics in Sweden.
So far, the oldest DNA was from a horse that lived in the Canadian Yukon about 700,000 years ago.
For comparison, our species Homo sapiens appeared about 300,000 years ago.
The extracted DNA has been degraded into very small pieces, and experts have sequenced millions of ultra-short sections to connect the genomes.
Most knowledge of prehistoric creatures comes from fossil research. However, there are limits to them, especially for genetic connections and traits. Ancient DNA can fill such gaps.
Experts have compared this most ancient DNA to a sample of a mammoth that lived much earlier. The mammoth from Krestovka is from a hitherto unknown lineage, separated more than 2 million years ago from the one that led to the appearance of the woolly mammoth. These mammoths appear to have been the first to migrate from Siberia to North America on a then-existing landmass about 1.5 million years ago. Woolly mammoths migrated about 400,000 to 500,000 years ago.
Thousands took to the streets, dissatisfied with the court’s decision
From street protests to social media protests. The United States is in shock after the repeal of a woman’s nearly 50-year constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy. Tennessee is expected to declare abortions illegal in the coming days, followed by others.
Companies such as Amazon, Meta and Walt Disney have announced they will provide financial assistance to their employees who would have to go to another state for the procedure. Meanwhile, a poll shows that most Americans support the right to abortion.
Thousands took to the streets, dissatisfied with the court’s decision.
On Twitter, hundreds compared the situation to Margaret Atwood’s anti-utopian novel The Maid’s Tale, which tells the story of America without women’s rights.
“It turns out that ‘1984’ and ‘The Maid’s Story’ are not anti-utopian literature. They are prophecies.”
Horror author Stephen King also commented: “This is the best Supreme Court the nineteenth century has produced.”
The reversal of the Row v. Wade ruling, which guaranteed the right to refuse pregnancy, leaves it up to each state to decide what legislation to impose. In South Dakota, for example, an abortion ban is being activated, even for rape and incest.
“What I would say is that this was great news in defense of life, every life is precious,” said Christy Noem, governor of South Dakota.
Democratic state governors have begun passing additional legislation to guarantee the right to abortion.
The Kalashnikov Concern is helping to temporarily employ employees of the Lada Izhevsk automobile plant, which was forced to go into idle time, as reported by the Atypical AvtoVAZ group on the VKontakte social network.
On June 23, the first part of the plant’s employees, about 80 people, went to Kalashnikov to see the enterprise from the inside, meet colleagues and apply for temporary employment. Excursions and subsequent consultations were organized on the territory of the Concern for those who wished to find a job.
“Today, unfortunately, we didn’t manage to see much more, but the impressions are already extremely pleasant: a good, high-quality level of organization of the day is a great indicator. When I came here, I expected, probably, only a big salary. Expectations, fortunately, were confirmed. I liked that all the leaders are very active, sociable and positive.”- Pavel Churakov, employee of Lada Izhevsk
Employees are ready to start their work. The interaction of factories will continue. This will help Lada Izhevsk maintain its human resources potential and a decent level of income for employees during the downtime, and Kalashnikov will successfully cope with the increased volume of production under the state defense order.
The MG5 2022 debuted at the Chongqing Motor Show (China). The car turned out to be interesting – mainly due to the combination of design, technical parameters and price. The base version of the MG5 2022 costs only $ 10,150, the top – $ 15,000.
MG5 2022 looks more expensive than its price. The car has a sporty design – it is somewhat similar to the Mercedes-Benz CLS. The MG5 2022 received 17-inch wheels, a virtual instrument cluster, a fairly large display on the front panel, a roundabout system, a number of driving assistants and a system for remote monitoring and control of a number of functions from a smartphone.
The car is equipped with the MEGA Tech petrol engine with volume of 1,5 l and a pipe. It has two power options – 120 and 173 hp. The internal combustion engine can be connected to a conventional five-speed manual transmission, variator or 7-speed robot with two clutches. Consumption MG5 2022 in the basic version with a manual transmission – 5.6 liters.