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mediterranean sea
When the Wealthy Perish at Sea We Mourn, But When the Poorest Perish We Yawn
3,000 deaths of migrants made barely a ripple in most of the world’s major news media. But this summer one single tragedy on the Mediterranean has been making globs of global headlines.
Sep 01, 2024
Over
3,000 migrants fleeing from poverty and conflict, the Council on Foreign Relations recently noted, died last year trying to cross the Mediterranean into Europe.
Those deaths made barely a ripple in most of the world’s major news media. But this summer one single tragedy on the Mediterranean has been making globs of global headlines.
On Monday, August 19, amid a fearsome sudden storm, a boat deemed “unsinkable” sank off the coast of Sicily’s Palermo. Seven of the 22 people on board perished.
What made this sinking so newsworthy? The ship that sank just happened to be a luxury sailing yacht that sported the world’s tallest aluminum mast. And the casualties from that superyacht’s sinking just happened to include the high-tech CEO once hailed as the “British Bill Gates.”
That chief exec, the yacht’s owner Mike Lynch, had envisioned this voyage as a celebration over a decade in the making. Just weeks earlier, after years of legal battling, a federal jury in Northern California had acquitted Lynch and one of his VPs on charges they had artificially inflated the value of Lynch’s software company. That inflating, prosecutors charged, had sealed the firm’s 2011 sale to Hewlett-Packard for over $11 billion, a deal that netted Lynch personally about $800 million.
But within a year after the sale the value of Lynch’s company had tanked by some $8.8 billion, and H-P was referring allegations of accounting improprieties against Lynch to the British Serious Fraud Office and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The referrals would eventually produce a civil-suit victory for H-P and a 2019 criminal conviction of a key exec at Lynch’s firm.
The 59-year-old Lynch and his finance VP Keith Chamberlain would have much better luck in their own criminal trial on similar charges. Unfortunately for them, they’ll never get to enjoy their acquittal. Lynch drowned in the sinking of his yacht, as did Lynch’s top trial lawyer and the chair of financial giant Morgan Stanley’s international arm, a star witness for Lynch’s defense.
What made this Lynch yacht sinking particularly irresistible for the world’s media? On the same day as the sinking, reports surfaced that Lynch’s acquitted co-defendant Chamberlain had just died after a car ran him over while he was jogging. A sheer coincidence? And how could the captain of Lynch’s superyacht and all but one of his crew escape the boat’s sinking alive while Lynch and six other passengers perished? Such juicy meat for endless conspiracy speculation!
But we need not resort to conspiratorial theorizing to understand why Lynch’s $25-million yacht sank so quickly that stormy night. That blame belongs in no small part to climate change, not some cabal of his billionaire corporate rivals.
By this past June, points out a new Financial Times analysis, water temperatures in the Mediterranean had been rising for 15 straight months. Higher water temperatures invite ever more extreme weather events. One such event — a tornado-like waterspout with “ferocious winds” howling at nearly 70 miles per hour — hit right near where Lynch had last anchored his superyacht.
Only 16 minutes passed between the moment those harsh winds first hit the yacht and the moment the yacht sank. That “rapid sinking of such a large, modern and well-equipped yacht,” adds the Financial Times, “has raised concerns over marine safety as extreme weather events occur with more frequency and intensity.”
In other words, the superyachts that typically spend summers in the Mediterranean and winters in the Caribbean better beware.
But the mega-rich who own these yachts have, in one sense, no one to blame but themselves. Our globe remains in overall climate-crisis denial in no small part because our wealthiest have so much to lose if our world gets serious about ending the profligate corporate practices now driving our planet’s climate collapse.
The ranks of these richest include, of course, the fossil-fuel industry’s top execs and investors. But all our super rich, not just the kings of Big Oil, have a vested personal interest in “calming” climate anxiety. Coming to grips with the chaos fossil fuels have already created — and speeding a worker-sensitive transition to a carbon-free future — will take enormous financial resources. The world will only be able to raise those resources if the rich and their corporations start paying their fair tax share.
A tax of between a mere 1.7 and 3.5 percent on the wealth of the world’s richest 0.5 percent, suggests the UK-based Tax Justice Network, could annually raise $2.1 trillion. Most of the world’s richest nations, notes the Tax Justice Network’s Alison Schultz, are shying away from that suggestion.
Notes Schultz: “This needs to change now — the climate can’t wait, and nor can the people of the world.”
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Right to Asylum Must Be Protected in EU, Says Human Rights Coalition
"As this legislative cycle starts, the E.U. can and must do better than abandon its commitment to the global refugee protection regime," said an Amnesty campaigner.
Jul 09, 2024
Nearly 100 human rights organizations came together Tuesday to emphasize that members of the European Union "must guarantee the right to seek and enjoy asylum and uphold their commitments to the international refugee protection system."
The joint statement from groups including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam came as members of the European Parliament prepare for the July 16 plenary sitting, the first meeting scheduled since the bloc's June elections, which resulted in the far-right "Patriots for Europe" becoming the third-largest alliance in the legislative body.
The human rights coalition underscored obligations under Article 18 of the E.U. Charter of Fundamental Rights and expressed concern about "the recent and increasing attempts by the E.U. and its member states to evade their asylum responsibilities by outsourcing asylum processing and refugee protection risk undermining the international protection system."
As the groups detailed:
Italy, for instance, is currently seeking to process asylum applications of certain groups of asylum-seekers outside of its territory, from detention in Albania—which risks leading to prolonged, automatic detention, a denial of access to fair asylum procedures with necessary procedural guarantees, and delayed disembarkation for people rescued or intercepted at sea. Others, such as Denmark and Germany, are assessing the feasibility of this type of arrangement. Fifteen E.U. member states and some political groups have endorsed similar shortsighted measures to shift asylum processing outside E.U. territory and encouraged the European Commission to explore ways to facilitate this through further legislative reform, including through a watered-down 'safe third country' concept.
These attempts must be seen in the context of parallel containment efforts that seek to stem departures and prevent the arrival of asylum-seekers to E.U. territory through partnership agreements with third countries, with little to no attention to the human rights records of those authorities.
The coalition stressed that "as the extensive track record of human rights violations in partner countries such as Libya demonstrates, the E.U. and Member States have no adequate tools and competencies to effectively monitor or enforce human rights standards outside of E.U. territory."
A report published in November by Doctors Without Borders features stories of violence that migrants endured in nations including Libya and Tunisia while trying to get to the E.U. That publication also points out that 2023 was the deadliest year for migration in the Central Mediterranean since 2017, due in part to E.U. countries failing to assist those at risk of drowning.
In addition to sounding the alarm about current E.U. policies and practices, the coalition on Tuesday cited examples including Australia's offshore detention scheme, which "demonstrates how these models have created prolonged confinement and restricted freedom of movement, deeply harming both the mental and physical health of people seeking protection."
The organizations also pointed to an asylum scheme attempted by the United Kingdom—which left the E.U. in 2020 following the 2016 Brexit vote—and Rwanda, which the statement notes "is not yet in effect following the U.K. Supreme Court declaring it unlawful and in any event is unlikely to be operationalized at any significant scale."
The U.K.'s failed attempt to forcibly remove people to the African country was "projected to cost a staggering £1.8 million per asylum-seeker returned," which is equal to €2.13 million or $2.3 million. The coalition called such schemes "not only an unjustifiable waste of public money, but also a lost opportunity to spend it in ways that would truly aid people seeking asylum by investing in fair and humane asylum systems and the communities that welcome them."
Olivia Sundberg Diez, Amnesty's E.U. advocate on migration and asylum, said in a statement Tuesday that "attempts by states to outsource their asylum responsibilities to other countries are not new—but have long been criticized, condemned, and rejected for good reason."
"Just as the U.K.-Rwanda scheme is, rightly, collapsing, the E.U. and its member states should pay attention, stop making false promises, and wasting time and money on expensive, inhumane, and unworkable proposals," she continued. "As this legislative cycle starts, the E.U. can and must do better than abandon its commitment to the global refugee protection regime."
The meeting scheduled for next week will follow the Pact on Migration and Asylum that the European Parliament passed in April and the Council of the E.U. adopted in May. The coalition highlighted that "civil society organizations have been clear about their serious concerns" regarding the reforms while also explaining that "the transfer of asylum-seekers outside of E.U. territory for asylum processing and refugee protection is not provided for in the pact, nor within current E.U. law."
"After the E.U. and member states have spent close to a decade attempting to reform the E.U.'s asylum system, they should now focus on implementing it with a human rights-centered approach that prioritizes the right to asylum per E.U. law and fundamental principles of international refugee law to which they remain bound," the coalition concluded. "They should not, mere weeks after the reform has passed, waste further time and resources on proposals that are incompatible with European and international law."
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World Leaders Urged to Protect Syrian Refugees Amid Lebanon's Crackdown
"Lebanon's authorities must stop summarily deporting refugees to a place where they are at risk of violations, lift restrictions, and end their vitriolic campaign against refugees," said one Amnesty campaigner.
May 27, 2024
Amnesty International on Monday reiterated human rights groups' rising concerns about a Lebanese crackdown on Syrian refugees as the European Union hosted a conference in Brussels focused on "supporting the future of Syria and the region."
The conference comes at right-wing leaders in the E.U. campaign as anti-migrant ahead of the bloc's June elections and after European Commission President Ursula Von Der Leyen in early May announced a three-year, €1 billion ($1.06 billion) assistance package to support "the most vulnerable people in Lebanon, including refugees, internally displaced persons, and host communities," as well as "urgent domestic reforms" and "border and migration management."
The package was seen as part of the E.U.'s efforts to limit migration to Europe, as refugees leave Lebanon and try to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Cyprus and Italy—journeys that often involve crowded, unsafe vessels and lead to deaths.
"Once again, President Von Der Leyen has put her desire to curb the flow of refugees at any cost into Europe before the E.U.'s obligations to protect refugees fleeing conflict or persecution," Aya Majzoub, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said Monday.
"This appears to have emboldened Lebanese authorities to intensify their ruthless campaign targeting refugees with hateful discourse, forced deportations, and stifling measures on residency and labor," she continued. "Yet, Lebanon remains the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita and has struggled to assist refugees amid an acute economic crisis."
"I swear if there is a safe zone in Syria, I would've been the first to return... The regime isn't safe for us."
Less than a week after the E.U. aid package was revealed, Amnesty explained, "the Lebanese General Security announced sweeping new measures against Syrian refugees including restrictions on their ability to obtain residency permits and work in the country, and has stepped up raids, collective evictions, arrests, and deportations."
Rights groups in the region and around the world have condemned the Lebanese moves and stressed that they, along with the United Nations and E.U., have concluded that Syria remains unsafe for refugees—a sentiment echoed by displaced Syrians.
"I swear if there is a safe zone in Syria, I would've been the first to return! Safe, as in not under the control of the [Syrian] regime. The regime isn't safe for us," one Syrian mother told Amnesty, referring to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
"Many like us, if they're granted the capacity to return to the regions not controlled by the regime, they run back, without the need for organized return trips! If I had 1% hope that my husband and I will be safe upon return, I swear we wouldn't stay in such harsh conditions here," added the mother, who requested anonymity for safety reasons.
Alia, another Syrian mother now living in Lebanon, told the BBC that "we live in constant fear and anxiety... Every evening when my son comes back home, his youngest brother hugs him—relieved that he hasn't been arrested."
"I started overhearing people at places like the supermarket or the street saying: 'Look at the Syrians. They are living the good life while we can't afford anything in our own country,'" Alia said. "If only they knew what kind of life we live."
Amnesty's Majzoub argued Monday that "as a show of solidarity, European states should increase the number of resettlements to European countries of Syrian refugees residing in Lebanon."
"Donors at the annual humanitarian conference for Syria and refugee host countries must press the Lebanese authorities to immediately cease their unprecedented crackdown on Syrian refugees and lift abusive measures aimed at pressuring them to leave the country despite the well-documented risks they could face upon their return," she said.
"Human rights organizations unanimously agree: No part of Syria is safe for refugee returns," Majzoub added. "Lebanon's authorities must stop summarily deporting refugees to a place where they are at risk of violations, lift restrictions, and end their vitriolic campaign against refugees. E.U. countries similarly have a legal and moral obligation to refrain from forcibly turning back boats carrying migrants to Lebanon."
Over the past 13 years, Syria's civil war has forced millions to flee their homes. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said that as of March, 7.2 million Syrians were internally displaced and over five million had fled to countries including Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan.
"We're going to be sending a very clear message from Jordan as a host country that we feel that refugees are being abandoned," the Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told reporters while arriving in Brussels for the conference, according toReuters. "Host countries are being abandoned."
With wars raging in Ukraine, Sudan, and the Gaza Strip, U.N. agencies and international humanitarian groups are also stretched thin and having a hard time providing adequate assistance to civilians within Syria. As The Associated Pressreported Sunday:
Living in a tent in rebel-held northwestern Syria, Rudaina al-Salim and her family struggle to find enough water for drinking and other basic needs such as cooking and washing. Their encampment north of the city of Idlib hasn't seen any aid in six months.
"We used to get food aid, hygiene items," said the mother of four. "Now we haven't had much in a while."
"We have moved from assisting 5.5 million a year to about 1.5 million people in Syria," Carl Skau, the U.N. World Food Program's deputy executive director, told the AP. "When I look across the world, this is the (aid) program that has shrunk the most in the shortest period for time."
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