Greek forces continue to use inhumane tactics to push irregular migrants, including women and children, into Turkish territorial waters in the Aegean Sea.

The Turkish National Defense Ministry shared a video with Anadolu Agency on Sunday of Greek Coast Guards pointing guns at refugees, battering and pushing them into Turkish territorial waters.

Footage captured at different times shows that Greece’s forces brutally pushed back irregular migrants, including women and children.

The coast guards can be seen clearly in the footage, dragging migrants’ boats into Turkish territorial waters.

The Greek forces also used dangerous maneuvers and attempted to sink the migrant boat to prevent it from passing.

The footage also includes moments when Greek forces opened fire in the air and around the boat.

Turkey has been a key transit point for asylum seekers aiming to cross into Europe to start new lives, especially those fleeing war and persecution.

Turkey and human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Greece's illegal practice of pushing back asylum seekers, saying it violates humanitarian values and international law by endangering the lives of vulnerable migrants, including women and children./agencies

  After the relevant authorities dealt successive heavy blows to fictitious companies and profiteers from the visa trade, this suspicious activity has resurfaced while the country is barely breathing from the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic, reports Al-Qabas daily. The daily monitored the return of the visa trade phenomenon, especially with the spread of advertisements on social media through which brokers are offering work permits and commercial visit visas, as well as facilitating transfer of residency, with each transaction having a cost. A remarkable observation was that the brokers relied on a new angle to recruit workers, which is the commercial visa, the price of which has reached KD 400, with duration of only one month, and is non-transferable. The cost of a transferable commercial visa is up to KD 1,000.

According to the daily, the price of a free work visa ranges between KD 1,500 and KD 1,700. The person who purchases it obtains a residency title that is linked to his academic qualification, if any. Other brokers did not stop their activity with the promotion of free work visas. They went on to announce the availability of the facility of residency transfer between companies with government, civil or craft contracts, with the transfer cost ranging between KD 500 and KD 650. For the visa of a “driver” position, the cost is KD 700.

According to an official source from the Public Authority for Manpower (PAM), the majority of brokers of shell companies are active in Egypt and India for attracting job seekers in Kuwait. He highlighted the continued pursuit of these shell companies and visa-traders, indicating that the referral of about 2,000 such companies to the prosecution since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic revealed hundreds of those involved in the introduction of marginal workers into the country. The source stressed that the Labor Protection Sector and the Inspection Department deal daily with dozens of complaints, adding that investigations are underway to figure out if there is a link between them and the visa trade phenomenon. The daily contacted an official of a travel and tourism agency in Egypt.

Affirming that it holds a license in Cairo, he indicated the availability of commercial visas for those who wish to travel to Kuwait, but these visas cannot be converted into residencies. When a security source was asked about this announcement, he said, “This type of visa allows the holder to convert it into a residence permit on the applicant’s file only. However, it seems that the file approved for granting visas does not contain a sufficient labor estimate. It is therefore used on a monthly basis for new visits.”

The source highlighted that there is a vigorous follow-up of the matter related to issuing and transferring commercial visas. He said, “In the event of suspicions revolving around the files, coordination is carried out with the Public Authority for Manpower. Accordingly, measures are taken in this regard”. Despite the repeated warnings issued by the Public Authority for Manpower regarding the lack of the so-called “free” work permit in the country, the brokers, using fake accounts, still delude their victims, especially young individuals who wish to come to Kuwait, into thinking that the opportunity to work with this type of visa is distinct and they can work anywhere in the country.

The cost of a free visa ranges between KD 1,500 and KD 1,700 and has a duration of one year. It was clear in the repeated advertisements that there are other countries that have become more willing for workers to reach them, such as the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar, to work there, given that the visa system is easier than the system in Kuwait where government procedures have become very severe in an attempt to fight the phenomenon of visa trading.

It was clear from the comments on social media of an ongoing dialogue between brokers and those wishing to obtain work visas to Kuwait that the conditions of PAM regarding issuing new work permits, linking them to academic qualifications, and estimating the need for each file of employment, have proven to be a dilemma for the visa-traders. In some adverts, they stipulated the necessity of having an academic qualification certificate stamped and certified by the Kuwaiti embassy and higher education authority in the country of issuance in order to be able to issue the permit with the required title. According to an official source from PAM, there will be zero tolerance for the phenomenon of residency trade. Random recruitment of workers into the country will not be allowed. He stressed that protecting employment and improving Kuwait’s reputation is a top priority for the labor protection sector and the inspection department, where complaints are daily dealt with and investigated to determine the causes of labor problems, as well as to figure out if there is a link between them and the visatrade. The source highlighted the continuous coordination with the Residency Affairs Investigations Department of the Ministry of Interior in this regard./Arab Times

Unquestionably, tree-planting has become a national and international prerequisite that necessitates the concerted efforts of governmental and nongovernmental organizations. The Middle East Green Initiative and the recently held climate change conference, known as COP26, came to serve the ultimate goal of coordinating action to boost green areas worldwide and stop the rise in global temperatures. The Middle East Green Initiative was launched in March with a view to growing 50 billion trees and boosting forests in the Middle East region.

The importance of reversing the effects of climate change is tangible across the Middle East and North Africa, where the impact of rising temperatures is already affecting livelihoods and opportunities. The initiative is mainly meant to plant 50 billion trees across the Middle East (including 10 billion at home in Saudi Arabia), through afforestation, restore an area equivalent to 200 million hectares of degraded land reducing 2.5 percent of global carbon levels, and contribute to reducing carbon emissions resulting from hydrocarbon production in the region by more than 60 percent.

The UK hosted the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow on 31 October-13 November 2021, bringing parties together to accelerate action towards the goals of the Paris Agreement and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The main goals of the COP26 are to secure global net zero by mid-century and keep 1.5 degrees within reach and adapt to protect communities and natural habitats. These events, together with previous gatherings, came up with a slew of concrete and effective commitments to increasing afforestation, nature reserves, parks, planting and environmental rehabilitation.

In this context, Kuwait’s Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources (PAAAFR) underlined that it is necessary to grow new types of plants and trees in Kuwait in a bid to ease its hot weather conditions. Therefore, it said in a press release, that it is trying hard to plant the Sidra tree, also known as Ziziphus spina-christi tree or the Christ’s thorn jujube, along highways, main roads and residential and desert areas. Unlike palm trees, the Sidra tree is an evergreen shrub or tree that withstands scorching heat, thrives in the harshest environments and consumes little water, the authority said.

From now on, palm trees would only be planted in houses and farms, rather than along roads or at public parks, the authority underlined, pointing out a plan to grow Sidra trees at nature reserves. It added that contracts pertinent to public parks have been unprecedentedly separated from those bearing on roads and streets in a bid to stave off looming negative impacts on tree-growing projects nationwide. Some 39 old parks have already been rehabilitated on the basis of this fledging separation mechanism which has been put in place for the first time since the authority was established, according to the release.

Furthermore, the authority has created a total of 64 athletic courts and 48 kids play areas as part of its endeavors to reduce buildings and boost afforestation nationwide. All these efforts, together with planting awareness campaigns, are primarily intended to increase countrywide green coverage with a view to providing more oxygen, breaking visual pollution and cutting surging temperatures, it noted. Finally, the authority emphasized that it is committed to throwing much weight behind all initiatives and campaigns by individuals and civil society organizations, along with the private sector, to increase green areas in all governorates. – KUNA

Governments, including democracies, all over the world are resorting to authoritarian ways to control the internet by employing methods like forcing companies to disclose user data and blocking websites, tech experts warned Thursday.

Governments like China and Russia are blocking social media content, requiring firms to submit to data surveillance, and silencing journalists and activists online, panelists told the Thomson Reuters Foundation's annual Trust Conference.

"The digital world is increasingly moving into an authoritarian space," said Alina Polyakova, head of the Center for European Policy Analysis, a U.S.-based think-tank.

Those threats are coming from the Western world too, said Javier Pallero, policy director of advocacy group Access Now.

"A lot of democratic governments are now acting as authoritarians ... it's not just the Russias and Chinas of the world," he added, citing police use of facial recognition in the United States and street surveillance in Argentina.

Most of China's internet and data legislation is about protecting the privacy of the country's nearly 1 billion internet users and safeguarding national security, said Xue Lan, dean of Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University in China.

"The reality is much more complicated and less dramatic than is often portrayed ... governments need to manage digital infrastructure like the internet to manage costs and risks associated with its use."

Digital rights abuses are made worse by power imbalances by tech giants in terms of who can access and control users' data, said Pallero, such as Facebook and WhatsApp being the main portal to the internet in many developing countries.

"That concentration of power can enable violations like surveillance, but it can also be weaponised by certain governments using companies as proxies," he said, citing law enforcement agencies getting access to private communications.

The solution to protect online spaces and users is to redistribute power in the hands of people, panelists said – but as groups rather than individuals.

"We place too big a burden on individuals to make complex decisions about what to do with their data, how algorithms work," said Polyakova.

"Most of us, for example, are constantly asked whether to accept or reject cookies, and we click through without understanding."

Community internet or decentralized networks – where communication services are localized rather than monopolized by government or corporate giants – give users more control over their data and privacy, researchers say.

Others like U.S. economist Glen Weyl have pushed the idea of "data unions" to demand payment for users' data and help address privacy concerns by restricting what information is collected and how it is used.

"It's about putting users first – not necessarily as an individual but a member of a community," said Pallero./agencies

With Christmas and the holiday season just around the corner, Europe's plans for the new year appear to have fallen into disarray. Where people were looking forward to embracing festivities and meeting family and friends once again, it now seems unlikely with the continent becoming the global epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic as cases soar to record levels in many countries.

With infections spiking again despite nearly two years of restrictions, the health crisis increasingly is pitting citizen against citizen – the vaccinated against the unvaccinated.

Governments desperate to shield overburdened health care systems are imposing rules that limit choices for the unvaccinated in the hope that doing so will drive up rates of vaccinations.

Austria on Friday went a step further, making vaccinations mandatory as of Feb. 1.

"For a long time, maybe too long, I and others thought that it must be possible to convince people in Austria, to convince them to get vaccinated voluntarily,” Austrian Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg said.

He called the move "our only way to break out of this vicious cycle of viral waves and lockdown discussions for good.”

While Austria so far stands alone in the European Union in making vaccinations mandatory, more and more governments are clamping down.

Starting Monday, Slovakia is banning people who haven't been vaccinated from all nonessential stores and shopping malls. They also will not be allowed to attend any public event or gathering and will be required to test twice a week just to go to work.

"A merry Christmas does not mean a Christmas without COVID-19,” warned Prime Minister Eduard Heger. "For that to happen, Slovakia would need to have a completely different vaccination rate.”

He called the measures "a lockdown for the unvaccinated.”

Slovakia, where just 45.3% of the 5.5 million population is fully vaccinated, reported a record 8,342 new virus cases on Tuesday.

It is not only nations of central and eastern Europe that are suffering anew. Wealthy nations in the west also are being hit hard and imposing restrictions on their populations once again.

"It is really, absolutely, time to take action,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. With a vaccination rate of 67.5%, her nation is now considering mandatory vaccinations for many health professionals.

"All of Germany is one big outbreak,” Lothar Wieler, head of Germany's disease control agency, told reporters Friday. "This is a nationwide state of emergency. We need to pull the emergency brake.”

Greece, too, is targeting the unvaccinated. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a battery of new restrictions late Thursday for the unvaccinated, keeping them out of venues including bars, restaurants, cinemas, theaters, museums and gyms, even if they have tested negative.

"It is an immediate act of protection and, of course, an indirect urge to be vaccinated,” Mitsotakis said.

The restrictions enrage Clare Daly, an Irish EU legislator who is a member of the European Parliament's civil liberties and justice committee. She argues that nations are trampling individual rights.

"In a whole number of cases, member states are excluding people from their ability to go to work,” Daly said, calling Austria's restrictions on the unvaccinated that preceded its decision Friday to impose a full lockdown "a frightening scenario."

Even in Ireland, where 75.9 % of the population are fully vaccinated, she feels a backlash against holdouts.

"There’s almost a sort of hate speech being whipped up against the unvaccinated,” she said.

The world has had a history of mandatory vaccines in many nations for diseases such as smallpox and polio. Yet despite a global COVID-19 death toll exceeding 5 million, despite overwhelming medical evidence that vaccines highly protect against death or serious illness from COVID-19 and slow the pandemic's spread, opposition to vaccinations remains stubbornly strong among parts of the population.

Some 10,000 people, chanting "freedom, freedom,” gathered in Prague this week to protest Czech government restrictions imposed on the unvaccinated.

"No single individual freedom is absolute,” countered professor Paul De Grauwe of the London School of Economics. "The freedom not to be vaccinated needs to be limited to guarantee the freedom of others to enjoy good health,” he wrote for the liberal think tank Liberales.

That principle is now turning friends away from each other and splitting families across European nations.

Birgitte Schoenmakers, a general practitioner and professor at Leuven University, sees it on an almost daily basis.

"It has turned into a battle between the people,” she said.

She sees political conflicts whipped up by people willfully spreading conspiracy theories, but also intensely human stories. One of her patients has been locked out of the home of her parents because she dreads being vaccinated.

Schoemakers said that while authorities had long baulked at the idea of mandatory vaccinations, the highly infectious delta variant is changing minds.

"To make a U-turn on this is incredibly difficult,” she said.

Spiking infections and measures to rein them in are combining to usher in a second straight grim holiday season in Europe.

Leuven has already canceled its Christmas market, while in nearby Brussels a 60-foot Christmas tree was placed in the center of the city's stunning Grand Place on Thursday but a decision on whether the Belgian capital's festive market can go ahead will depend on the development of the virus surge.

Paul Vierendeels, who donated the tree, hopes for a return to a semblance of a traditional Christmas.

"We are glad to see they are making the effort to put up the tree, decorate it. It is a start,” he said. "After almost two difficult years, I think it is a good thing that some things, more normal in life, are taking place again.”/agencies