Tag: Features

Britain’s health workers stage biggest-ever walkout as pay negotiations hit stalemate

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Tens of thousands of nurses and ambulance workers joined Britain’s largest-ever health sector strike on Monday – the latest walkout to cause disruption at the National Health Service. Public support for striking staff remains high, but negotiations with the government over pay increases have reached a stalemate.

This week is set to be the most disruptive in the 75-year history of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS), according to National Medical Director Stephen Powis.

The start of the week was set to be especially fraught as nurses and ambulance staff staged strikes on the same day, leaving the health service tens of thousands of workers short. Nurses will continue striking on Tuesday, followed by physiotherapists on Thursday and another round of strikes for ambulance staff on Friday.  

This week’s industrial action is the latest in a series of historic walkouts among Britain’s health workers that have grown in scale over the past three months – an extraordinary scenario in a country that views its universal healthcare system almost as more of a national religion than a public service.  

“Nurses are seen as the angels of the health system, and it’s unprecedented for them to actually strike,” said Tony Hockley, senior visiting fellow in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics. “They’ve threatened a few times over the years but it’s never happened before.”  

Top of nurses’ demands is a pay increase to counter Britain’s soaring inflation rate, which as of December 2022 was at 9.2 percent – the worst it has been in four decades. 

Working conditions are also in the spotlight. “NHS Staff do not reach the decision to vote to strike lightly,” said NHS Workers Say No, a grassroots campaign group, in a statement. “We have had enough of our patients receiving unsafe care in an understaffed and underfunded service.”  

‘Pay, recruitment and retention’ 

Amid a cost-of-living crisis, soaring prices have hit health workers especially hard. Nurses in the UK are among the worst paid in Europe, according to OECD data. The average salary for a nurse of between £33,000 – £35,000 (€37,000 – €39,000) has lagged behind pay growth in the public and private sector, and failed to match inflation for the past 10 years.  


In early 2022, 14 percent of nurses were found to be relying on food banks run by charities that support the NHS.  

Low pay is exacerbating poor working conditions. “Pay, recruitment and retention are the biggest issues,” said Hockley. “The main driver of poor working conditions is staff vacancies but nurses are finding it hard financially to stay in the NHS. It’s losing experienced staff because they’re going to work in supermarkets.” 

Some 25,000 nurses have left the profession over just the last year, according to the Royal College of Nurses, and the shortfall of nursing professionals could reach almost 40,000 in 2023.

“They are saying that the NHS is in a serious crisis,” said Dr Jennifer Crane, lecturer in health geography at University of Bristol. “And that to strike is to show care because staff are flagging that their departments are too short-staffed to look after patients.” 

‘A special case’ 

When strikes began in December 2022, the Royal College of Nurses initially asked for a pay rise of 5 percent above inflation and has since said it could meet the government “half way”. The trade union wrote to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Saturday asking him to bring the nursing strike “to a swift close” by making “meaningful” pay offers. 

Meanwhile, Sunak said in a TalkTV interview last week that he would “love to give the nurses a massive pay rise” but said the government faced tough choices and that it was funding the NHS in other areas, such as by providing medical equipment and ambulances.  

So far, weeks of pay negotiations between workers’ unions and the government have been fruitless. The government has argued that pay increases would be unaffordable and would cause prices to rise even further – and, in turn, increase interest rates and mortgages. 

The health worker walkouts are part of a wave of industrial action sweeping Britain. Since last summer, around 500,000 public and private sector workers have staged strikes disrupting schools, universities, transport networks and the civil service. 

This has contributed to the deadlock with health staff. “The government is very concerned that it will get an inflationary pay cycle in the public sector generally,” said Hockley. “Even though there might be a special case in the NHS, where there are huge vacancy problems, it’s worried about having a special case that then spills over to every other public sector.” 

Saving the NHS 

In April an annual public sector pay review is likely to result in pay rises across a variety of services, although there is no guarantee how much health workers may receive. Pay increases in 2022 were criticised by unions for being far below what was needed to “save the NHS”.  

For now, the government in England is “resolute” about putting off pay increases until spring, “and it seems adamant to stick to that if, politically, it can weather it”, Hockley said.  

“Even if people see their own healthcare disrupted in the strikes, many people have a deep love for the NHS as an ideal and are likely to believe NHS staff when they say that [they need] to fight for change,” said Crane.  

Throughout Britain, ministers are also starting to take a divided approach. Health unions in Scotland paused strikes this week after the Scottish government agreed to start annual pay reviews early, among other measures. 

In Wales, many health worker strikes were averted on Monday after Health Minister Eluned Morgan offered eight health unions an extra 3 percent on top of the additional £1,400 (€1,570) already promised.  

Nursing unions in England said on Monday they would stop the strikes if Sunak made them the same offer. Otherwise, they are determined to continue. 

“They are adamant that they can’t go on providing unsafe care,” Hockley said. 



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Female genital mutilation: ‘Women circumcise little girls for men’

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In France, nearly 125,000 women have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). The fight against this practice has led to the creation of psychological and surgical care over the last 40 years but the subject remains taboo. FRANCE 24 provides an overview of the situation on the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, February 6.

Excision: The cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia, her clitoris, her inner labia. “Cutting is a form of violence committed against little girls. It is one of the most serious types of sexual violence,” says Dr Ghada Hatem, an obstetrician-gynaecologist, in front of a crowded room at Hospital Delafontaine in the French suburb Seine-Saint-Denis. The practice, which some describe as “traditional”, “religious” or even “mandatory”, is difficult to eradicate, including in France, where it is nevertheless punishable by law.

Diaryatou Bah was circumcised when she was 8-years-old, in Guinea Conakry where she lived before coming to France: “It happened one morning. A woman came and took me outside. I found myself surrounded by aunts, neighbours and my grandmother. Two held my feet while two others help my hands. They covered my face with leaves. No one explained what was going to happen to me.” 

The founder of the “Espoirs et combats de femmes” (“Hopes and dreams of women”) association and author of the book “They stole my childhood from me”,  Bah remembers certain details vividly.

“I’ll never forget the knife and the feeling when the woman cut me. My own scream. I am 37 and I still remember the details. I knew I was going to endure the procedure one day because it was what every little girl went through; that was the ritual. All the women in my family have undergone the practice.” 

What followed was “indescribable pain and three weeks without being able to walk”. She took a long time to understand her experience, she says.

“Until the age of 20, I thought all the women in the world went through the same procedure.”

Risk of FGM increased by Covid pandemic, war in Ukraine

Bah’s story is similar to the one shared by millions of little girls in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Out of the 200 million women who have been victims of FGM worldwide, 125,000 who have undergone the procedure live in France, according to statistics published by the Weekly Epidemiological Bulletin (BEH) in July 2019. The overall number of victims could even be revised upwards, according to projections by the United Nations.

The Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine account for the increasing number of women suffering FGM. “In Africa, some circumcisers have begun to re-adopt the ritual. Families do not have enough to eat, schools are being closed and the solution is to marry off their daughters,” says Isabelle Gillette-Faye, sociologist and director of GAMS (Group for the Abolition of Sexual Mutilation, Forced Marriage and other traditional practices harmful to the health of women and children).  Globally, she adds, we have gone from a risk of 2 million victims of FGM per year to 3 or 4 million by 2030.

Despite the gloomy predictions, and even if she says it is necessary to remain “attentive”, Gillette-Faye prefers to concentrate on the achievements of 40 years of prevention and education. In France, the first cases of FGM appeared at the end of the 1970s. Men from Sub-Saharan Africa who had come to France to work also brought their wives. Paediatricians from the Maternal and Infant Protection (PMI) service discovered the first mutilated girls during medical examinations. In 1982, a three-month-old girl died in hospital in Paris following an excision. A wave of shock rippled across France. The little girl’s doctors filed a civil action lawsuit.

At the time, even though excision was not mentioned, FGM was considered a crime punishable by 10 years in prison and a €150,000 fine, according to article 222-9 of the penal code. The law applies whether or not FGM took place in France or during a vacation in the country of origin, as long as the victims live on French soil.

“Families find it difficult to understand that the law applies in France even if they have their children circumcised outside the national territory and regardless of their nationality,” says Gillette-Faye.

Since the 1980s, nearly 30 circumcisers or parents of mutilated girls have been put on trial in France. In April 2022, a 39-year-old mother received a five-year suspended prison sentence for the excision of her three oldest daughters, including one who is mentally handicapped, between 2007 and 2013. The procedures took place during the girls’ visits to their grandmother in Djibouti, a country where FGM has been banned since 1995.

“Up until then, we had only been talking about West Africa. We discovered that families from East Africa could be judged, condemned and owe damages to their children for having practiced FGM even if the procedure took place outside the national territory,” says Gillette-Faye, who attended the trial.

Silence prevails

What accounts for the persistence of this tradition despite the laws against it?

For uprooted families, perpetuating this tradition allows them to cling to their cultural identity.

“Many use the religious argument that it is written in the Koran,” says Dr Ghada Hatem, also founder of La Maison des femmes (The House for Women) in the Parisian suburb of Seine-Saint-Denis. She adds that the practice does not exist in any of the books of the three Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. There is also the fantasy that a “pure” woman is an excised woman, that it increases fertility and that the child has a better chance of being born alive.

As for the taboo about openly discussing FGM, it is almost omnipresent within the family and the community of origin. “In the community silence prevails, as always in the case of violence, guaranteeing that the practice will be maintained,” says Hatem. “Girls are excised without an explanation. Over there [in the country of origin], what is not normal is an uncircumcised girl. She is seen as impure and above all, she will not be able to marry. In order for her to remain a virgin until marriage, she must be circumcised,” confirms Bah.

Sometimes these women are unaware of their excision. “I see women on a daily or at least weekly basis who have undergone FGM. Some of them do not even know they have had it,” says Agathe André, a midwife at a public hospital in Nanterre, near Paris. “There is no easy way to say it but it is important that we inform them, especially when they give birth to a little girl. They will potentially return to their country of origin and they must be made aware that in France, the practice is forbidden.”

“Many women don’t know if they are excised because they were in the cradle when they went through the procedure,” says Gillette-Faye. Very often, they only discover what happened to them during a visit with their gynaecologist or sometimes during childbirth. “I have patients who were very angry. Some had given birth four times in France and no one ever told them anything,” says Hatem.

Do some doctors and women stick their head in the sand when it comes to FGM? Certainly. Fear also plays a role. As with other cases of violence against women, doctors must measure their words in order not to accentuate or awaken sometimes buried trauma. “If you approach the subject in an inappropriate, humiliating or critical way, you will do a lot of harm to the young woman you’re dealing with,” says Hatem, who trains health workers in best practices.

“As soon as you start talking about ‘normal’ vulvas, you do damage,” adds Gillette-Faye, speaking from her own experience and also referring to reconstructed genitals seen in pornographic films. “It’s a form of aggression against mutilated women who already have a tendency to beat themselves up because they tell themselves that they are not normal.” 

For Hatem, a victim expects above all that “you explain to her what FGM is, what has been done to her, the consequences, if she can live normally and what you can offer her”.

Repairing lives

Victims sometimes suffer silently for many years. FGM can lead to sexual problems such as a lack of desire and/or pleasure, and shame. The trauma runs deep. Excision, forced marriage, rape, abuse – “The average fate of a little girl in Sub-Saharan Africa is often a continuum of violence,” says Hatem.

To help them rebuild their lives, repairing the anatomy of FGM victims is possible. In 1984, Dr Pierre Foldès, an urological surgeon and co-founder of Doctors without Borders, developed the only surgical method to repair the clitoris. “Everything is absolutely repairable…,” says Foldès. “The technique is reliable and there is an extremely low failure rate.”

The traditional circumcisers do not cut everything. “There is scarring that hides what remains of the clitoral glans. The technique consists of finding all these dead parts and gently removing them,” Foldès explains. “In this process, the clitoral stump is pulled upwards by the scarring and the pubic bone. When these abnormal adhesions are removed, the clitoris will descend and reposition itself normally.”

In 35 years, Foldès has performed reconstructive surgery on 6,000 women and his waiting room is always full. The victims sometimes come from very far away. And they’re ready to wait as long as it takes for an appointment.

All eyes on men

Having surgery is far from the end of the ordeal. “The goal is not to restore the clitoris but to restore normal sexuality,” says Foldès, who also helped found Women Safe & Children, the first care centre to provide full recovery for women victims of violence, in the Paris suburb of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. “We must consider all aspects of the trauma, treat each and accompany the victims throughout. If we operate, we have to accompany the patient for two years. We will treat the patient, teach her how to live with a normal organ and try to rebuild her sexual life. When you take time, the healing process works better.”

Repairing a woman’s mutilated genitals without repairing her mental health inevitably leads to failure. “Some women are disappointed because they do not see any improvement. Often, it is because their healing process is not optimal,” says Foldès. “Some women’s condition deteriorated after their operation…,” says Gillette-Faye. “Sometimes they skip steps and go to a plastic surgeon. There is a real market for cosmetic surgery. At GAMS, we have chosen to promote global care.”

To help eradicate FGM, all eyes are now on men. In Belgium, GAMS has launched awareness campaigns called “Men speak out”.

In France, the national federation also works with the association Femmes Entraide et Autonomie (FEA) (Mutual aid and autonomy for Women).

“We have to leave behind the notion that this is a women’s problem and that men don’t have to be involved,” says Gillette-Faye.

“We need to involve men so that they say ‘I will not marry a woman who has been circumcised’,” says Hatem. “Women circumcise little girls for men. If men say no, they will stop getting circumcised.” 

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ChatGPT: Use of AI chatbot in Congress and court rooms raises ethical questions

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User-friendly AI tool ChatGPT has attracted hundreds of millions of users since its launch in November and is set to disrupt industries around the world. In recent days, AI content generated by the bot has been used in US Congress, Columbian courts and a speech by Israel’s president. Is widespread uptake inevitable – and is it ethical?

In a recorded greeting for a cybersecurity convention in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog began a speech that was set to make history: “I am truly proud to be the president of a country that is home to such a vibrant and innovative hi-tech industry. Over the past few decades, Israel has consistently been at the forefront of technological advancement, and our achievements in the fields of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI), and big data are truly impressive.”

To the surprise of the entrepreneurs attending Cybertech Global, the president then revealed that his comments had been written by the AI bot ChatGPT, making him the first world leader publicly known to use artificial intelligence to write a speech. 

But not the first politician to do so. A week earlier, US Congressman Jake Auchincloss read a speech also generated by ChatGPT on the floor of the House of Representatives. Another first, intended to draw attention to the wildly successful new AI tool in Congress “so that we have a debate now about purposeful policy for AI”, Auchincloss told CNN. 


Since its launch in November 2022, ChatGPT (created by California-based company OpenAI) is estimated to have reached 100 million monthly active users, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. 

The user-friendly AI tool utilises online data to generate instantaneous, human-like responses to user queries. It’s ability to scan the internet for information and provide rapid answers makes it a potential rival to Google’s search engine, but it is also able to produce written content on any topic, in any format – from essays, speeches and poems to computer code – in seconds.  

The tool is currently free and boasted around 13 million unique visitors per day in January, a report from Swiss banking giant UBS found.

Part of its mass appeal is “extremely good engineering ­– it scales up very well with millions of people using it”, says Mirco Musolesi, professor of computer science at University College London. “But it also has very good training in terms of quality of the data used but also the way the creators managed to deal with problematic aspects.”  

In the past, similar technologies have resulted in bots fed on a diet of social media posts taking on an aggressive, offensive tone. Not so for ChatGPT, and many of its millions of users engage with the tool out of curiosity or for entertainment. 

“Humans have this idea of being very special, but then you see this machine that is able to produce something very similar to us,” Musolesi says. “We knew that this this was probably possible but actually seeing it is very interesting.” 

A ‘misinformation super spreader’?

Yet the potential impact of making such sophisticated AI available to a mass audience for the first time is unclear, and different sectors from education, to law, to science and business are braced for disruption.    

Schools and colleges around the world have been quick to ban students from using ChatGPT to prevent cheating or plagiarism. 

>> Top French university bans students from using ChatGPT 

Science journals have also banned the bot from being listed as a co-author on papers amid fears that errors made by the tool could find their way into scientific debate.  

OpenAI has cautioned that the bot can make mistakes. However, a report from media watchdog NewsGuard said on topics including Covid-19, Ukraine and school shootings, ChatGPT delivered “eloquent, false and misleading” claims 80 percent of the time. 

“For anyone unfamiliar with the issues or topics covered by this content, the results could easily come across as legitimate, and even authoritative,” NewsGuard said. It called the tool “the next great misinformation super spreader”. 

Even so, in Columbia a judge announced on Tuesday that he used the AI chatbot to help make a ruling in a children’s medical rights case. 

Judge Juan Manuel Padilla told Blu Radio he asked ChatGPT whether an autistic minor should be exonerated from paying fees for therapies, among other questions.  

The bot answered: “Yes, this is correct. According to the regulations in Colombia, minors diagnosed with autism are exempt from paying fees for their therapies.” 

Padilla ruled in favour of the child – as the bot advised. “By asking questions to the application we do not stop being judges [and] thinking beings,” he told the radio station. “I suspect that many of my colleagues are going to join in and begin to construct their rulings ethically with the help of artificial intelligence.” 

Although he cautioned that the bot should be used as a time-saving facilitator, rather than “with the aim of replacing judges”, critics said it was neither responsible or ethical to use a bot capable of providing misinformation as a legal tool. 

An expert in artificial intelligence regulation and governance, Professor Juan David Gutierrez of Rosario University said he put the same questions to ChatGPT and got different responses. In a tweet, he called for urgent “digital literacy” training for judges.

A market leader 

Despite the potential risks, the spread of ChatGPT seems inevitable. Musolesi expects it will be used “extensively” for both positive and negative purposes – with the risk of misinformation and misuse comes the promise of information and technology becoming more accessible to a greater number of people. 

OpenAI received a multi-million-dollar investment from Microsoft in January that will see ChatGPT integrated into a premium version of the Teams messaging app, offering services such as generating automatic meeting notes. 

Microsoft has said it plans to add ChatGPT’s technology into all its products, setting the stage for the company to become a leader in the field, ahead of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. 

>> Alphabet, Amazon and Apple results: Tech earnings hit by gloom 

Making the tool free has been key to its current and future success. “It was a huge marketing campaign,” Musolesi says, “and when people use it, they improve the dataset to use for the next version because they are providing this feedback.” 

Even so, the company launched a paid version of the bot this week offering access to new features for $20 per month.

Another eagerly awaited new development is an AI classifier, a software tool to help people identify when a text has been generated by artificial intelligence.

OpenAI said in a blog post that, while the tool was launched this week, it is not yet “fully reliable”. Currently it is only able to correctly identify AI-written texts 26 percent of the time.

But the company expects it will improve with training, reducing the potential for “automated misinformation campaigns, using AI tools for academic dishonesty, and positioning an AI chatbot as a human”.  



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US secures key military deal with the Philippines to counter Beijing’s growing regional influence

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The Philippines signed an agreement with the United States on Thursday that will allow American soldiers free access to four of its new military bases at a time of growing unease in the Indo-Pacific region over China’s burgeoning influence.

The deal, which was sealed during a February 1 visit to Manila by the US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, means more US troops near China and would enable Washington to better monitor Chinese movements in the disputed South China Sea and around Taiwan.

Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr granted the US army access to four additional military bases, mainly in the north of the archipelago. American soldiers, who already have access to five Philippine military bases, would also use these bases for joint training, storing equipment and supplies and building facilities, but not to establish a permanent presence.

Back to pro-Washington

The benefit of this military agreement for Washington may seem obvious: “It allows, first of all, to complete the military encirclement of China in the China Sea region. In the north, the United States can use the American base in Okinawa, Japan, and the bases in South Korea, while in the south, American power can now be asserted from the bases in the Philippines,” said Danilo delle Fave, a specialist in security issues in Asia and associate researcher at the International Team for the Study of Security (ITSS) in Verona, an international group of experts in international security issues.

More importantly, it signals a return to a pro-Washington stance for a country that occupies a key geostrategic position at a time when the US and China are waging a war of influence in the Indo-Pacific region. The US administration can “finally say again that it can count on the Philippines in the event of a conflict with Beijing”, said Tom Smith, an expert on the Philippines and security issues in Southeast Asia at Portsmouth University.

Historically, the archipelago has had a love-hate relationship with the US. On paper, Manila is Washington’s oldest regional ally by virtue of a military cooperation agreement dating back to 1951.

But the reality is far more complex. Firstly, because of serious issues linked to the huge US-owned military bases – handed over in the early 1990s – that damaged the reputation of the US military. “There were cases of sex trafficking and prostitution that have left their mark,” Smith said.

Nor was the Philippines of particular strategic importance to the US in the East-West confrontation that dominated the Cold War years.

But Washington again began to make diplomatic overtures towards Manila “after the September 11 attacks, because the Philippines was viewed as a potentially useful ally in the fight against Islamist terrorism”, Smith said. The US army started training Filipino soldiers to better fight the Abu Sayyaf terrorist movement, which has a strong presence in the southern Philippine islands.

A bridge between regions

Since then, the Philippines’ strategic value has only increased. The country has “regained the same importance as it had during the Second World War”, said delle Fave. At that time the Philippines was the main land barrier between Asia and the United States. During the Second World War it blocked the way to Japan, whereas today it limits the scope of China’s operations.

In the eyes of both Washington and Beijing, “the Philippines is a bridge between the two regions – America and Asia – and whoever is favoured by Manila can assert themselves more easily on one side of the Pacific or the other”, delle Fave explained.

Under the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte between 2016 and 2022, the US watched nervously as its oldest Asian “ally” edged closer to China. The controversial former Philippine leader openly courted Beijing, proclaiming his ideological allegiance to the Chinese regime, while repeatedly criticising former US president Barack Obama.

Duterte offered his allegiances to Beijing in exchange for some promises of investment in infrastructure and the abandonment of Chinese claims to the Spratly Islands, which have been at the heart of Sino-Philippine tensions since the 1990s.

Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who has led the Philippines since June 2022, had pursued a similar foreign policy strategy and sought to “deepen collaboration with Beijing” when he visited there in early January.

Into the arms of the Americans

But just three weeks later, the Philippine government made an unexpected 180° turn by signing a new military agreement with the US. “The failure of Duterte’s diplomatic approach is essentially due to Chinese intransigence regarding Beijing’s territorial claims on the Spartleys,” delle Fave explained.

In the last six years, Beijing not only refused to compromise but failed to increase investments in the Philippines. The January trip was a way for Marcos Jr. to offer China one last chance before “recognising that the US offer is the most attractive to Manila”, said Smith. The US offer included a promise to defend the Philippine fleet if it is attacked by the Chinese in the disputed South China Sea, a potential key flashpoint.

China’s uncompromising stance appears to have driven the Philippines into the arms of the Americans, but it could come back to bite them. Not only will Beijing find it more difficult to play hardball in the South China Sea now that there are US troops stationed in the Philippines, but these new bases are just over 300 km from Taiwan, strengthening the US’s ability to intervene if a conflict erupts between China and Taiwan.

“China preferred the certainty of having a foothold on the islands it claims rather than a pledge of allegiance from a country that has already changed its mind several times,” said delle Fave.

The Chinese are far from having had their final say.

Beijing authorities on Thursday denounced the signing of the new military agreement, saying it would contribute to fuelling tensions in the region. But “raising the tone on the Chinese side is only the first step”, according to Smith. He believes that China will want to prove that it can continue to navigate safely in Philippine territorial waters. This will likely lead to more incidents involving Chinese and Filipino vessels. But for the time being, none of the countries involved – China, the Philippines and the United States – seem to have any interest in seeing such incidents escalate into a full-blown security crisis.   

This article is a translation of the original in French.

 

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Ukraine launches a wave of anti-corruption busts ahead of EU summit

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Ukraine on Wednesday announced searches of government buildings and the homes of high-profile ministers and oligarchs as part of a clampdown on corruption. The move comes ahead of a gathering of European leaders in Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s path towards EU membership. 

Among those targeted by coordinated searches on Wednesday were residences linked to influential billionaire Igor Kolomoisky and former interior minister Arsen Avakov. Law enforcement also raided tax offices in the capital and senior customs officials were fired, said the head of Zelensky’s party David Arakhamia. 

These are the latest in a string of high-profile efforts to tackle corruption in recent weeks.  

In the midst of war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has upped the ante in an internal fight against corruption, pledging to make as many personnel changes “as necessary” even at the highest levels of office. 

“People in the government who do not meet the basic requirements of the state and society should not occupy their seats,” he said in a video address on Tuesday.  

Zelensky was elected in 2019 on an anti-establishment and anti-corruption platform. Yet efforts to ongoing efforts to stamp out misconduct have been overshadowed by the Russian invasion almost a year ago.

Ukraine currently ranks a low 116 out of the 180 countries listed for perceived corruption, according to anti-corruption group Transparency International. 

 

Ukraine’s ongoing fight against corruption has included implementing major government and judicial bodies to tackle misbehaviour. © FRANCE 24

 

Multi-million-dollar fraud 

Investigators from the Ukraine’s security service SBU released images of a search from the home of Kolomoisky, who was barred from entering the United States over allegations of corruption and undermining democracy. 

Prior to the Russian invasion, Kolomoisky was one of the country’s richest men, with holdings in a slew of industries, including media, aviation and energy. 

The security service said the search had been launched over an investigation into the embezzlement of 40 billion hryvnia (about $1.1 billion) from energy holdings.

Last week Ukrainian authorities fired around a dozen senior figures, including defence officials and a top aide to the president’s office. 

One such official was former deputy defence minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who worked on logistical support for the army. The ministry has been accused of signing food contracts at prices up to three times the market rates. 

The SBU also said it had uncovered a scheme by the head of the Kyiv tax office involving “multimillion-dollar” fraud schemes. They accuse the official of having abused a position of authority. 

Additionally, the government has also seized stakes in the energy companies – oil producer Ukrnafta and refiner Ukrtatnafta – as part of moves to consolidate the war effort. 

More dismissals are possible. The State Bureau of Investigation and the Prosecutor General’s Office said Wednesday they had informed several senior officials they were under investigation for crimes including misappropriation of state funds and misuse of state property. 

“Every criminal who has the audacity to harm Ukraine, especially in the conditions of war, must clearly understand that we will put handcuffs on him,” said Vasyl Maliuk, the head of the SBU, on Wednesday. 

Speed vs integrity 

Renewed efforts to tacks corruption are thought to be aimed at appeasing EU leaders who arrived in Kyiv on Thursday for a summit to discuss Ukraine’s bid to join the EU. 

Ukraine currently has EU “candidate status”, with Brussels saying strengthening the judiciary, fighting corruption and curbing the clout of powerful oligarchs are key conditions for joining. 

“Ukraine wants to show it can present a stable government that can deliver at the negotiating table, that can demonstrate the value systems and the commitment to transparency that are needed to be able to be part of the EU,” says Dr Melanie Garson, associate professor of international security and conflict resolution at University College London, UK. 

Yet, among EU member states, there are widely divergent views on how fast the process will go. Ukraine’s strongest cheerleaders – including Poland and the Baltic states – insist Kyiv is making big strides against corruption and progress could come quicker than expected.  

But others insist that while making Ukraine a candidate sent the right symbolic message of support in light of the war, working through the nitty-gritty of the major reforms needed would be long and arduous. 

“The EU needs to strike a balance between speed and integrity,” says Joel Reland, research associate at UK in a Changing Europe. “It clearly wants Ukraine to be given fast-track membership but, at the same time, it can’t totally compromise on its principles of membership, which define the integrity of the EU.” 

Even so, French President Emmanuel Macron warned last May it could take “decades” before Ukraine meets the criteria and achieves full membership. 

The upper hand 

In the meantime, demonstrating values such as transparency is not just a question of values. 

In 2016, then US vice president Joe Biden withheld loan guarantees from Ukraine until the country’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin was dismissed as part of a push for anti-corruption reforms developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. 

In 2023, countries providing crucial military and financial aid to Ukraine still have “the upper hand to force their position”, says Garson, associate professor of international security and conflict resolution. “Zelensky is very aware of this and is trying to reiterate increased bipartisan support across the world.” 

Although the public dismissal of figures – including a high-level defence official – in the midst of war may seem like a risk, not tacking corruption during wartime can have even more serious long-term consequences.   

Funding for reconstruction and recovery efforts can be “drastically undermined by wrongdoers pocketing funds, both during the war and after”, said Transparency International in its 2023 report. 

“The visibility that the work has been done to make this a place where donors don’t feel their funds are going into the pockets of oligarchs is really important,” adds Garson. “There needs to be confidence in government funds coming in and from external investors – it’s critical to long-term strategic rebuilding.” 

(with AFP) 

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From Ancient Egypt to Gainsbourg and Picasso: The Paris exhibits to see in 2023

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Paris is gearing up for a new year of must-see exhibits, from a rare chance to view the sarcophagus of Pharaoh Ramesses II to a Harry Potter “experience” or a deep dive into rival Impressionists Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas.

The Pablo Picasso museum will mark 50 years since the artist’s death while the Centre Pompidou will explore the literary influences that inspired Serge Gainsbourg’s music. Many of the exhibits this year are immersive experiences, as venues look for new and creative ways to approach the classics.

Serge Gainsbourg – Le mot exact (The perfect word)

 

French singer and composer Serge Gainsbourg and his English companion Jane Birkin, taken on January 21, 1969. AFP

 

The legendary French songwriter’s relationship to literature is explored in this exhibition at the Pompidou Centre’s public library. For the first time, manuscripts from Gainsbourg’s home on rue de Verneuil in Paris will be shown alongside books from his personal collection. Gainsbourg, who wrote more than 500 songs throughout his career, is considered one of France’s great wordsmiths and melodists, with lyrics that were deeply influenced by literature and poetry.

Serge Gainsbourg – Le mot exact at the Centre Pompidou runs from January 25 – May 8.

Zanele Muholi

A photgraph by South African artist Zanele Muholi, named Bester V, Mayotte, provided by the Maison Européenne de la Photographie press pack.
A photgraph by South African artist Zanele Muholi, named Bester V, Mayotte, provided by the Maison Européenne de la Photographie press pack. © Zanele Muholi

More than 200 photographs, videos, installations and archive materials will go on display in the first-ever French retrospective on internationally recognised South African photographer Zanele Muholi. Many of Muholi’s subjects have experienced discrimination, and the artist’s work is inseparable from their activism for the Black LGBTQIA+ community. Muholi emphasises individuality, beauty and humour in striking portraits that challenge stereotypes.

Zanele Muholi at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie runs from February 1 – May 21.

Chagall, Paris – New York

Marc Chagall’s paintings are set to come to life in this digital exhibition that blends projections, animation, music and narration. The immersive experience will explore the Russian artist’s relationship with two cities that profoundly influenced his life and art: Paris, the city where he chose to live, and New York, where the Russian Jewish artist spent seven years in exile from occupied France during World War II.

Chagall, Paris – New York at the Atelier des Lumières runs from February 17 – January 7, 2024.

Picasso Celebration, the collection takes on colour

 

Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is pictured at his home and studio in Mougins, southern France, on October 13, 1971.
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso is pictured at his home and studio in Mougins, southern France, on October 13, 1971. © Ralph Gatti, AFT

 

To mark 50 years since Pablo Picasso’s death, his namesake museum in Paris has invited British designer Paul Smith to oversee a unique exhibition showcasing the museum’s permanent collection in a new light. With a focus on colour, visitors can expect to see a fresh take on well-known masterpieces from one of the 20th century’s most daring and prolific artists.

Picasso Celebration, the collection takes on colour at the Musée National Picasso-Paris runs from March 7 – August 27.

Eternel Mucha

An artwork by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha who is known for pioneering the art nouveau style in the late 1800s.
An artwork by Czech artist Alphonse Mucha who is known for pioneering the art nouveau style in the late 1800s. © Grand Palais Immersif Press Pack

The stylised illustrations of Alphonse Mucha have come to define Art Nouveau and Paris’s Belle Époque period. The Czech artist was living in the French capital working as a poster desiger as he developed his signature style, celebrating natural forms and female beauty. This immersive exhibition will cover Mucha’s own story, his best-known works and his enduring influence.

Eternel Mucha at the Grand Palais Immersif runs from March 22 – November 5.

Manet / Degas

 

People wait outside Paris's Musée d'Orsay on Wednesday December 2, 2009.
People wait outside Paris’s Musée d’Orsay on Wednesday December 2, 2009. © Remy de la Mauviniere, AP

 

Contemporaries, friends and rivals Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas revolutionised painting in the late 1860s to 1880s by depicting daily life at cafes, theatres and racecourses. Although they had much in common, including an undeniable influence on the Impressionist movement, this exhibition explores how their differences in temperament and style impacted their creative work and careers.

Manet / Degas at the Musée d’Orsay runs from March 28 – July 23.

Basquait x Warhol, A quatre mains (With four hands)

Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat sit together in front of a painting.
Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat sit together in front of a painting. © Fondation Louis Vuitton Press Pack

Following on from its 2018 solo exhibition dedicated to American painter Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Louis Vuitton Foundation has dedicated a second exhibition to his collaboration with pop artist Andy Warhol. The pair worked on 160 canvasses together in the 1980s, marrying their disparate artistic styles and creative perspectives. Individual works by each artist will also be on display alongside others representing the downtown New York art scene of the era, including Keith Haring, Jenny Holzer and Michael Halsband.

Basquait x Warhol, A quatre mains at the Fondation Louis Vuitton runs from April 5 – August 28.

Ramsès et l’or des pharons (Ramesses and the Pharoahs’ gold)

The star attraction of this exhibition at Parc de la Villette is the chance to see the sarcophagus of Ramesses II himself, loaned to France by the Egyptian government. Often regarded as the greatest pharaoh of his era, Egyptian art and culture flourished under his rule as he dedicated his reign to building cities, temples and monuments, many of which are still standing. Ancient Egyptian jewellery, masks and artefacts from inside tombs dating back more than 3,000 years will also be on display.

Ramsès et l’or des pharons at the Grand Halle de la Villette runs from April 7 – September 6.

Harry Potter, L’Exposition

Visitors explore a movie set inside Harry Potter: The Exhibition.
Visitors explore a movie set inside Harry Potter: The Exhibition. © S. Ramones, Harry Potter The Exhibition

Harry Potter: The Exhibition will open its doors in Paris this April after showing in the United States and Asia. The immersive experience is set to bring the Potterverse to life with the chance to explore stunning sets from the movies, get sorted into a Hogwarts house, and see famous props and costumes up close. A must for fans of the books and movies.

Harry Potter, L’Exposition at Paris Exo Porte de Versailles runs from April 21.

Treasures of Notre-Dame at the Louvre

 

Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France.
Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, France. © FRANCE 24

 

In autumn the Louvre will host some of the invaluable treasures that survived the 2019 Notre-Dame fire. Currently closed to the public while under reconstruction, this exhibition is a unique opportunity to see artefacts including paintings, manuscripts and engravings that reveal the history of the famous cathedral.

Le Trésor de Notre-Dame at the Musée du Louvre runs from October 19 – February 19, 2024. (Note: No official link yet available

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Families of Beirut blast victims slam infighting over investigation

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The relaunching this week of the investigation into the August 2020 Beirut port blast triggered an unprecedented impasse with the lead judicial investigator and top prosecutor slapping charges against each other. Critics called it a “farce”, but for families of the victims still seeking justice, the parody is wrenching and frustrating.

The investigation into the August 4, 2020, Beirut port blast, which killed 220 people, descended into a legal tug of war this week between Lebanon‘s prosecutor general, Ghassan Oweidat, and Judge Tarek Bitar, the investigating judge assigned to probe one of the largest non-nuclear blasts in history.

The latest twist in the long-running quest for accountability began on Monday, January 23, when Judge Bitar relaunched the investigation, which had been suspended for more than a year due to legal actions launched against him by members of the Lebanese political establishment.

Judge Bitar’s decision to relaunch the investigation was as unexpected as it was fractious since the next day, he issued summonses to several leading figures in Lebanon’s political and security establishment.

The men who were summoned for questioning from February 6 included Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zaiter, two former ministers from Amal, a Shiite political party led by longtime parliamentary speaker Nabih Beri, a powerful figure dubbed Lebanon’s “untouchable” political player.

The other heavyweights on the chargesheet included former Lebanese prime minister, Hassan Diab, Tony Saliba, head of state security and an ally of the country’s former president Michel Aoun, as well as Abbas Ibrahim, head of general security who is considered close to the Shiite power axis comprised of Hezbollah and Amal.

Attorney general files charges against judge

But it was Judge Bitar’s decision to take legal action against Oweidat, the prosecutor general, that sparked a storm that has highlighted the levels of impunity, corruption and state collapse that has plunged Lebanon into a series of devastating crises.

Oweidat had earlier recused himself from any involvement in the blast probe as Judge Bitar had issued an arrest warrant for his brother-in-law, Zaiter, the Amal politician who was once Lebanon’s public works minister.

According to a judicial official quoted by AFP, in 2019, Oweidat had supervised an investigation by the security services on cracks in the Beirut port warehouse where hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate were stored without safety measures since their unloading in 2013. The explosion of the ammonium nitrate led to the August 2020 port blast.

The tragedy – which injured thousands in addition to the 220 killed and destroyed downtown Beirut – is attributed in large part to negligence, corruption and a lack of accountability among Lebanon’s ruling class.

On Wednesday, Attorney General Oweidat responded to his own indictment by ordering the release of the 17 people detained without trial since the port blast and filed charges against Judge Bitar for “rebellion against justice” and the “usurpation of power”.

The judge was also banned from leaving Lebanese territory and summoned for questioning on Thursday morning, said the Prosecutor General of the Court of Cassation in a statement to AFP.

Responding to the summons, Judge Bitar told reporters on Wednesday he had no intention of appearing for questioning. “I am still in charge of the investigation and I will not relinquish this case. The prosecutor has no authority to prosecute me,” he told reporters.

By Thursday, the crisis had escalated with demonstrators gathering outside the justice ministry in Beirut to protest Oweidat’s “coup” against Judge Bitar.

As protesters attempted to force their way into the justice ministry, police used batons and tear gas, injuring at least eight people, according to local media reports.


Opposition MPs who arrived at the ministry to hold a meeting with Justice Minister Henry Khoury said they were accosted by Khoury’s bodyguards, who tried to take their mobile phones.

Meanwhile one of the 17 detainees released under Oweidat’s orders arrived in the US on Thursday, according to Lebanese daily Naharnet.

Mohammed Ziad al-Ouf, director of the security and safety department and a dual US-Lebanese national, left the country despite travel bans on all the released detainees, the report added.

First judge fired, second faces pressure

The latest developments, slammed as a “judicial farce” by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, has sparked the ire of the families of the victims, who were initially delighted by the relaunching of the Beirut port blast investigation.

“Just 13 months ago, we were fighting for justice to resume its course, so to see Judge Bitar back in action was a great surprise. His courage gave us hope in the Lebanese justice system, even if we never had much confidence in this criminal regime which has, from the beginning, done everything to neutralise the judge,” said Paul Naggear, father of Alexandra, one of the youngest victims of the Beirut blast, in an interview with FRANCE 24.

More than two years after the port blast, the investigation has been stymied by political interference in the judicial process.

Shortly after the blast, the justice minister appointed Judge Fadi Sawan to lead the investigation. But Sawan was taken off the investigation in February 2021 after Oweidat’s brother-in-law Zaiter and his fellow Amal colleague, Khalil, complained that the judge had overstepped his powers.

When Judge Bitar was appointed as a replacement, he also ran into trouble when he attempted to interrogate senior political figures.  Suspects swamped Lebanon’s courts with legal cases seeking the new lead investigator’s removal over alleged bias.

In September 2021, a senior Hezbollah official even threatened to “debunk” Judge Bitar on the grounds that he was politicised, while rumours were circulating that the Shiite pro-Iranian party was involved in the storage of the ammonium nitrate which caused the port blast.

On October 14, armed clashes left six people dead in Beirut on the sidelines of a demonstration organised by Hezbollah and its ally, Amal, in front of the justice ministry to demand Judge Bitar’s removal from the probe.

‘Rule of law is dead in Lebanon’

But Judge Bitar enjoys the confidence of many Lebanese, including the families of the victims who consider him a man of integrity and courage.

“I expected a counterattack by the prosecutor [Oweidat], but not on this scale, and certainly not to put an end to the rule of law, or what was left of it,” explained Naggear. “Because that’s what it’s all about, the rule of law is dead in Lebanon. Faced with the implosion of one of the last institutions that still seemed to work, it’s no longer Judge Bitar or even the explosions of August 4 that are at stake, but everyone and all the ongoing investigations”.

Oweidat’s “offensive against the judge”, Naggear continued, “is actually aimed at those who still believe in justice in this country, and it shows that Lebanon is definitely turning into a banana republic”.

Despite all the difficulties, Naggear wants Judge Bitar to keep at the job and not throw in the towel when “he’s faced with the prosecutor who is acting as a pawn of the regime, even though he had recused himself from the case”.

Judge Bitar’s handling, so far, of a very complex and politicised investigation has won Naggear’s respect. “I have confidence in him because he has worked tenaciously since he was appointed,” explained Naggear. “He has not made any mistakes so far, and he does not hesitate to tackle the big fish. One feels that he has the support of the international judges who are following the case. I notice, for example, that he has taken action again in the last few days after the visit of French judges”.

On January 18, Judge Bitar met with a French judicial delegation that came to Lebanon to investigate the death of two French citizens during the tragedy.

‘Heading towards a direct confrontation’

The families of the victims, however, are worried about what will happen next. Will Judge Bitar be dismissed? How can he continue his work if he can’t get his decisions implemented?

“To be honest, we don’t have many cards left to play from now on except to put maximum pressure on the prosecutor to realise the scope and consequences of his actions that violate our cause and the very essence of justice in Lebanon,” confessed Naggear. “It’s really the limit to see the judge in charge of the investigation being prosecuted by those he decided to prosecute in the investigation!”

Like many families of the victims, Naggear has pegged his hopes for justice on the complaints filed outside Lebanon, where the judicial system is considered too dependent on a political class that has refused to allow an international investigation into the tragedy.

On July 13, relatives of the victims filed a $250 million lawsuit in a Texas court with the support of Accountability Now, a Swiss-based activist group, against TGS ASA, a US-Norwegian geophysical services group, for contracts it reportedly made with Lebanese authorities connected to the port.

TGS ASA is allegedly linked to the chartering of the ship Rhosus, which contained the tonnes of ammonium nitrate that exploded in August 2020.


“We are heading towards a direct confrontation if Judge Bitar is dismissed from the case,” said Naggear. “We must mobilise very quickly to prevent this from happening and to alert the international community to the fact that Lebanon has become a totally failed state,” said Naggear.

This article is a translation of the original in French.

 

 

 



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Women’s football cries foul at French TV’s ‘lousy’ reporting and indifference

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Fans of women’s top football league in France are up in arms at the substandard coverage offered by French television, which they say is symptomatic of broader neglect of the sport in a country that was long a powerhouse of the women’s game in Europe but is now falling behind.

Footballers playing for the world’s richest club could be forgiven for expecting state-of-the-art facilities and maximum exposure – unless they are women. 

When the women’s team of Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) last played a home game, hosting Rodez at their Camp des Loges ground outside Paris, viewers watching on their television screens at home could barely make out the players running about on the dimly lit pitch.  

The next day, football fans who tuned in for the heavyweight clash between Guingamp and Le Havre experienced similar frustration, the spectacle blurred out by raindrops covering a poorly attended camera lens.

Such sub-par broadcasts are all too familiar to fans of D1 Arkema, the women’s top football league in France, according to the online magazine Footeuses, which published an open letter last week demanding “respect and consideration for women’s football in France”. 

The letter soon went viral on social media, prompting a flurry of reactions from disgruntled fans, says Clément Gauvin, who cofounded Footeuses in the wake of the 2019 Women’s World Cup, the first to be hosted on French soil. 


“Some people told us they’d stopped following the women’s game because it had become ‘unwatchable’; others said they stopped playing football altogether because of the lack of facilities and shoddy pitches girls are relegated to,” Gauvin said. 

“We watch women’s football on a daily basis and we have witnessed increasingly worrying signs in recent months,” he added, citing “lousy” television coverage. “You never see this in other sports. The future of the game depends on the quality of the broadcasts.” 

Bring your own scaffolding 

Canal+, which owns the TV rights, says it is aware of the problem, which it blames on “technical” problems it has little or no control over. 

“Of course we are disappointed with the poor quality of the show offered to our subscribers, but unfortunately we are faced with difficulties that do not depend on us,” Thomas Sénécal, the group’s director of sports, told France’s sports daily L’Équipe last week.   

“Over the past four years, we have been doing our utmost to promote the (women’s) league, but we cannot do so alone. We need the French Football Federation (FFF) and the clubs to raise standards and make the league more professional,” Sénécal added. He pointed to inadequate facilities at most of the league’s stadiums, noting that Canal+ crews often “don’t know where to put their cameras, cannot protect them from bad weather and face problems with lighting”. 

Gauvin conceded that the lack of infrastructure is a key factor in the poor coverage, particularly in the smaller stadiums where television crews have to erect scaffolding to get a decent vantage point. When they cannot do so, “the camera necessarily stays at ground level and the picture is terrible”, he acknowledged.  

“However, it’s not only about the facilities. In the men’s game, Canal+ provides more than 30 cameras for a single match. For the women, it’s just two cameras,” Gauvin added. “There is a lack of professionalism on their part too. The commentators often don’t know the women’s game; they get muddled up with the players’ names. The players frequently take to social media to flag their mistakes.”  

Falling behind 

With Canal+’s broadcasting rights set to expire at the end of the season, the lack of bidding rivals has heightened concerns that the broadcaster will do little to raise its game – or indeed raise the stakes.   

Since 2018, the media group has paid €1.2 million per season for TV rights, a six-fold increase on the previous contract. However, the momentum appears to be drying up in France at a time when television rights for women’s football – a key source of income for clubs – are soaring elsewhere in Europe.  

That is particularly the case in England, where Sky Sports and the BBC have agreed to splash out 8 million British pounds (€9.1 million) per season for the women’s Super League, in a lucrative package that includes some free-to-air broadcasting. 

“The fact that Canal+ is yet to make a move with just 6 months to go before the contract expires denotes a lack of interest on its part. There’s a real risk we will end up with a ridiculous price compared to what is happening elsewhere,” said Gauvin, calling on the government to step in and uphold the interests of women’s football. 

A missed opportunity 

France has long been a bastion of the women’s game in Europe, powered by the successes of its two biggest clubs – PSG and Olympique Lyonnais. The latter club has won a staggering eight Champions League titles over the past 15 years. 

“We used to be ahead of other European countries, but the lack of investment in the sport means we are now falling behind,” said Gauvin, pointing to the increasingly unflattering comparison with the development of women’s football in England.  

“Across the Channel, they managed to build on the success of the Euro-2022 tournament they hosted – whereas we failed to do so after the World Cup in 2019,” he added, noting that the top teams in England often play in the same stadiums as the men, regularly drawing crowds of “between 30,000 and 40,000 spectators”, thanks in part to attractive pricing strategies and a strong footprint on social media.  

His words echoed a recent assessment by Les Bleues star Wendy Renard, Lyon’s longtime captain, who lamented France’s “failure to ride the wave of enthusiasm” after the World Cup in 2019. “It wasn’t just Covid – we failed to keep up the momentum and now we’re stagnating,” Renard told L’Equipe, reflecting on a tournament that failed to generate lasting interest in women’s football in France despite raising high hopes of a breakthrough. 


The lack of adequate coverage is not the only culprit. Players also bemoan the poor quality of football pitches, which hinders their play and increases the likelihood of injuries. In its open letter, Footeuses cited a study by the British Journal of Sports Medicine that showed women footballers are twice as likely to sustain serious injuries as their male counterparts. 

“We need to give women’s football the means to succeed,” Gauvin summed up. “If we don’t act, things will only get worse and we’ll fall further behind.”  

This article was translated from the original in French.



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Italy plays on historic heartstrings with Algeria to boost critical energy ties

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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed Algeria as Rome’s “most stable, strategic and long-standing” partner in North Africa as she wrapped up a two-day visit on Monday aimed at securing Italy’s energy supplies and promoting her plan for a “non-predatory” approach to investment on the continent.

Meloni, who leads Italy’s most right-wing government since World War II, was making her first bilateral visit abroad since her election last year, underscoring the importance given to Rome’s relationship with gas-rich Algeria at a time when European nations are racing to wean their economies off Russian gas.

Like all ranking visitors, Meloni began her trip by laying a wreath at the Monument of Martyrs, the hilltop memorial commemorating Algerians who died in the country’s struggle for independence from France. Her own country’s contribution to that struggle was the subject of a later stop in central Algiers, at a garden dedicated to Enrico Mattei, the legendary founder of the Italian energy company ENI, who championed – and bankrolled – Algeria’s independence fight in the 1950s and early 60s.

Meloni was accompanied by ENI’s current boss Matteo Descalzi, the chief architect of Italy’s ongoing pivot from Russian gas to Algerian gas. Their visit to the Mattei gardens was symbolic of a rapprochement dictated both by interest and historical affinity.


“In Algerian eyes, ENI is a lot more than a company. It’s a symbol of Italo-Algerian friendship and of a relationship that dates back to before independence,” said the Algerian political journalist Akram Kharief.

“Algeria is always grateful to its allies. It has not forgotten that ENI was one of the very few companies not to flee during the country’s civil war (in the 1990s),” Kharief added. “As a result, the company enjoys privileged access to Algerian contracts and resources.”

Southern Europe’s gas hub

Since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Algeria’s ample reserves of natural gas have played a key role in reducing Italy’s energy dependence on Moscow, which accounted for 40% of Rome’s gas imports prior to the war. Meloni’s trip to Algiers come on the heels of two visits by her predecessor Mario Draghi, who secured an Algerian pledge to rapidly ramp up gas exports.

Since then, Algeria has replaced Russia as Italy’s top energy supplier and Rome is pushing to further increase its energy imports from Algeria, hoping to act as a hub for supplies between Africa and northern Europe in the coming years. It also wants guarantees that Algeria can live up to its pledges, amid concerns that the country’s creaking energy infrastructure will prove unable to meet the surging demand.

“Gas flows from Algeria increased last year but not by as much as promised. They even dropped in January, forcing Italy to buy more gas coming from Russia,” said Francesco Sassi, a research fellow specialising in energy geopolitics at the Italian consultancy RIE. “Algeria needs huge investment to boost both its production and export capacities amid a steep increase in local consumption,” he added.

On Monday, ENI’s Descalzi signed a raft of agreements with Algeria’s energy giant Sonatrach aimed at increasing Algerian gas exports to Italy. The two companies also agreed to develop projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions and possibly building a pipeline to transport hydrogen to Italy.

Announcing the deals at a joint press conference with Meloni, Algeria’s President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said the aim was for Italy to “become a platform for distribution of Algerian energy products in Europe”. He noted that trade between the two countries had already doubled from 8 billion dollars in 2021 to 16 billion in 2022.

Tebboune said his country wished “to enlarge cooperation (between Algeria and Italy) beyond energy”, pointing to Italy’s fabric of small and medium-sized companies as a model “to help Algeria get out of its dependence on hydrocarbons”.

Italian carmaker Fiat already plans to open to a factory in Algeria and Italy’s Confindustria industrial lobby agreed on Monday to pursue greater cooperation with Algerian business. The two sides also hailed an agreement between the Italian Space Agency and its Algerian counterpart to share knowledge and develop joint projects, while Rome offered its expertise to develop Algeria’s untapped potential in the tourism industry.

The ‘Mattei Plan’

The raft of deals and warm words exchanged during Meloni’s visit reflect a traditional affinity between Rome and Algiers, unburdened by the colonial legacy that plagues France’s relations with the North African country. They also underscore a convergence of interests between two countries that have sensed an opportunity in the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine.

Zine Ghebouli, a scholar on Euro-Mediterranean cooperation and Algerian politics at the University of Glasgow, said Italy has “taken advantage of Europe’s gas crisis to position itself as an energy hub”, giving Rome a solid base to strengthen its clout in the Mediterranean region.

“The overall objective now is to move from energy cooperation to cooperation on the economy, defence and foreign policy,” he added, pointing to Italy’s search for stability in North Africa – and particularly in Libya – to stem the flow of migrants crossing the Mediterranean. 

“Italy has shown positive signs regarding technology transfers, for instance. It will be interesting to see whether increased energy cooperation helps foster progress on other subjects too, including migration, and with other countries in the region, such as Tunisia,” Ghebouli said.

Since taking office just over three months ago, Meloni has repeatedly spoken of a “Mattei Plan” for Africa, named after the ENI founder who challenged Anglo-American oil majors over their exploitation of African resources – and whose death in a plane crash 60 years ago remains shrouded in mystery. She has touted the plan as a win-win partnership that will guarantee Europe’s energy security while addressing the root causes of migratory flows from Africa – namely poverty and jihadist unrest.

The approach “addresses what Meloni’s government sees a vital interest: to stem the flow of migrants,” said Kharief. “Italy has neither the coercive means to fight jihadism nor the economic might to foster development in Africa, but it has a broad plan and it has identified Algeria as its key strategic partner in this endeavour,” he added.

During Monday’s news conference in Algiers, Meloni promoted her plan for “collaboration on an equal basis, to transform the many crises that we are facing into opportunities.” She spoke of a “model of development that allows African nations to grow based on what they have, thanks to a non-predatory approach by foreign nations.”

However, the Italian premier has offered scant detail about her plan for a “virtuous relationship with African countries”. Some analysts have described it as little more than a PR stunt by the far-right leader – and evidence of the current Italian government’s desire to act independently of its European partners.

>> A ‘seismic’ shift: Will Meloni’s Italy turn its back on Europe?

By evoking Mattei’s memory, Meloni not only tugs at Algerian heartstrings. She “also harks harks back to a memory of Italy as a major player in the Mediterranean and the Mideast – constructing a narrative that has no grounding today,” said RIE’s Sassi.

“The Mattei Plan is primarily about playing up Italy’s role in tackling Europe’s energy crisis in order to secure the investments that Italy itself needs,” he said, noting that the country will need to upgrade its own infrastructure in order to serve as energy hub for the continent. “It is natural for each country to play the national card,” Sassi added. “But the current energy crisis can only have a European solution.”



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Artwork rescued from Ukaine war displayed in Paris

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‘The Facets of Freedom’ exhibition at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in Paris is an ode to liberty consisting of works evacuated to France from Ukraine in extremis following the Russian invasion.

The Ukrainian Cultural Centre in Paris recently opened its doors to visitors for a preview of ‘The Facets of Freedom’ exhibition (open to the public from January 19 to March 3). The works displayed “are a manifestation of freedom, whether it be creative, physical, intellectual, sexual or emotional”, said Viktoria Gulenko, the centre’s director.

As the velvety notes of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ accompanying a video display drifted in from an upstairs alcove, visitors peered at the works from the private collection of Tetiana and Boris Grynyov. But while the individual pieces evoked notions of liberty, the collection itself was a piece of a larger picture — that of the mad dash of cultural workers across Ukraine to evacuate artwork after Russia‘s invasion in February of last year.


The opening of the exhibition “Facets of Freedom” in Paris, January 19, 2023. © Grynyov Art Foundation

 “The challenge for us was transporting the collections. It was our personal responsibility to save everything possible. We represent different regions and we had different experiences during the war depending on whether we were in Kyiv, Odesa or Kharkiv,” said Oksana Barshynova, deputy director of the National Art Museum of Ukraine, during a round table discussion with several other art curators and collectors.

For the deputy director, the war in Ukraine did not start in 2022. It began in 2014 when Russia seized Crimea. After Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, Interpol, the international police organisation, announced it was searching for 52 paintings by Ukrainian artists that Russians illegally transferred to the Simferopol Art Museum in March 2014.

 “Ukrainians began thinking about how to rescue art as early as 2014 but we faced numerous difficulties,” said Barshynova. Ukraine, with its 3,500 museums overseen by local, regional or national entities, has a disparate system. Many museums lacked online inventories of their collections. With the government on a war footing, many arts professionals had to act on their own initiative to protect the country’s valuable art.

‘There was never enough scotch tape’

For Maryna Konieva, art historian and a conservator of the Grynyov Art Collection in Kharkiv, finding packing materials for the art was a challenge. There was never enough scotch tape because it was used to cover shattered windows. Personnel was hard to find because “we needed to find people willing to work under constant fire”, she said. Konieva also remembered wrapping up an exhibition dating from the Soviet era in carpets, “because that is all we had”.


In Kharkiv, volunteers move works from the Grynyov Art Foundation to a safe place. © Grynyov Art Foundation

Barshynova recalled the evacuation of icons from the National Art Museum of Ukraine: “Thankfully we had packing material” and “because of our cooperation with the ministry of culture, we had access to a bulletproof train on the Ukrainian National Railway,” she said. Russians fired shots on the train during the nerve-wracking 12-hour long journey but the train’s armour saved the collection.

Dressed in a black and yellow vyshyvanka, a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt, art collector Tetyana Hrynyova had her own particular experience with her collection. “It was the Russian bombing and aerial attacks that incited us to leave Kharkiv,” she said. She went on to explain that her collections were stored in ordinary buildings. After a nearby building was bombed and her windows were shattered, she knew it was time to evacuate.

 “We did not have an armored vehicle but we managed to evacuate our collection because we left discretely,” said Hrynyova. “I am part of a club of private collectors and we have been discussing what we would do in the worst-case scenario since 2014. Private collectors are always ready to save their collections but no one ever knows how they will react when faced with this kind of situation.”

Maria, or “Masha”, Tseloieva, an art commissioner from Odesa, remembered “being mobilized” on February 24 and 25 to evacuate pieces from the Odesa National Fine Arts Museum. She had recently ended her contract after being an employee since 2018 but the museum urgently needed specialists to pack the pieces.

 She joked with her colleagues about “there being no such thing as an ex-museum employee because they could all be deployed at any time in the name of culture”. Everyone was cheerful as they packed the pieces; Masha attributed this to the fact that the inhabitants of Odesa are typically joyful. 

Successful scramble

In the airy, high-ceiling room at the Ukrainian Cultural Centre, the pieces from the Grynyov family collection were a testament to the scramble to save Ukrainian art. Calm and seemingly possessed with an eternal patience, Tetiana Hyrnyova walked from piece to piece, explaining its meaning and answering questions.


A work by Evgeniy Pavlov, one of the founders of the Kharkiv School of Photography. © Grynyov Art Foundation

In a work by Evgeniy Pavlov dated 1970-1990, a black and white photo of a nude male flying in the sky was superimposed above a coloured photo of a crowd carrying Soviet Union flags during an International Workers’ Day parade. “This can be interpreted as a manifestation of sexual freedom,” said Hrynyova. The photo taken in 1970 was not printed until 1990 because of its subversive nature under the Soviet Union.

In another piece, titled “Killed Dream” by Kyrylo Protsenko, a black object dripping a trail of blood, covered with a white sheet, brings to mind all the tragic loss of life that has taken place since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The painting dates back to 1991, giving the viewer an eerie sensation of what the painter foreshadowed.  

A photograph of the painting “Killed Dream” by Kyrylo Protsenko. © Sonya Ciesnik

“For them [the Russians], Russian culture is the only culture that exists. This is why they prohibit our language,” said Hrynyova, measuring out her words. “They think we draw strength from our cultural heritage, and of course we do”.

Hrynyova’s gaze becomes soft as she turns back to the paintings. Her aim, she said, is to “put an end to the false principle that Ukrainian art is of lesser importance”. 

As Ukraine continues its grim existential battle, observers can expect to see the country’s vibrant culture continue to thrive.



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