COLOMBO: Experts on Wednesday warned that a stricken container ship that caught fire 13 days ago off Sri Lanka causing one of the worst ecological disasters in the country’s history could now create an oil spill crisis.
Rescue teams have been working around the clock to tackle the blaze on the cargo vessel which was carrying hundreds of tons of chemicals and microplastic.
Locals living along the coastal belt have been advised not to eat fish from the waters until further notice, with a temporary ban in place since last week.
Douglas Devananda, Sri Lanka’s minister of fisheries and aquatic resources development, told Arab News: “We have advised fishermen in these areas not to go fishing as the people cannot eat the fish in the affected areas.”
A massive cleanup operation involving thousands of troops and Sri Lankan navy personnel continued on Wednesday as workers removed debris from beaches near the capital Colombo, including in the popular tourist spot of Negombo.
Other areas worst affected included Panadura, Moratuwa, Mt. Lavinia, and Hendala along 80 kilometers of coastline. The region is home to more than 1 million people and famous for its jumbo prawns, crabs, lobsters, seer fish, salmon, and sprats which the local fishing community relies on for a livelihood.
“There are some 5,000 fishermen who have been asked to refrain from fishing until further notice. They are being paid around $30 allowance with other relief measures, such as the distribution of dry rations, also being considered by the ministry,” Devananda added.
The Singapore-registered MV X-Press Pearl burst into flames on May 20 when it was nearly 9.5 nautical miles northwest of Colombo after setting sail from Gujarat, in India.
Since then, the Sri Lanka Navy and Indian Coast Guard have been trying to extinguish the fire, which destroyed most of the nearly 1,500 containers on board, 81 of which had “dangerous goods” inside.
The three-month-old, 186-meter-long ship also had 25 metric tons of nitric acid and other chemicals onboard along with 28 containers of plastic raw material which dispersed into the sea.
While the cause of the fire has not yet been established, Sri Lankan authorities suspect an acid leak could have been the trigger.
“The fire in the vessel has been completely doused,” Navy spokesman Indika De Silva told Arab News on Wednesday, adding that Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa had ordered rescue workers to “try and move the ship into deeper seas.”
De Silva said: “They are encountering some difficulties since the vessel is stuck. If that is the case, there will be a possible oil spill from the vessel.”
Sri Lanka’s Minister of Fisheries Kanchana Wijesekera recently warned that hundreds of metric tons of oil leaking into the ocean would cause “widespread ecological damage” to marine life and coastal communities.
On Wednesday, a team of navy divers was sent to inspect the vessel’s hull. De Silva said there were concerns over the ship’s stern resting low on the waterline due to a suspected leak.
However, one of the biggest worries was the prospect of fish and other wildlife swallowing the millions of plastic pellets that had fallen into the sea.
Dharshani Lahandapura, chairman of the Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA), told Arab News: “This is the worst maritime environmental disaster ... ever since the island has not faced such a situation of this magnitude.”
“Every day we are deploying around 1,000 workers to clean the affected areas with the assistance of the tri-forces and other environmental agencies of the country.”
She noted that her department had been collecting tons of waste materials that were being stored in a safe place and said that the MEPA would be concentrating on “delicate areas in the seas to protect mangroves, corals, and marine wildlife.”
Meanwhile, Sri Lanka has launched a criminal probe into the fire and the resulting marine pollution.
On Tuesday, a Colombo court issued an order preventing the ship’s captain, chief engineer, and deputy engineer from leaving the island while its 25-member crew have been evacuated and quarantined at local hotels.
The court also ordered the vessel to be examined by a government-appointed analyst and for its documents, charts, and recordings to be confiscated.
Police spokesman, Ajith Rohana, told media that the country’s criminal investigations department had taken statements from the vessels’ crew, the harbor master, the ship’s local agents, officials from the wildlife department, and the MEPA, as part of the investigation.
Oil spill fears grow over stricken cargo ship off Sri Lankan coast
https://arab.news/j2tzu
Oil spill fears grow over stricken cargo ship off Sri Lankan coast
- Experts warn of ‘worst environmental disaster’ in country’s history
Azerbaijan says Russia pledged to punish those responsible for plane crash
The AZAL Embraer 190 jet crash-landed in Kazakhstan on December 25, killing 38 of the 67 people on board.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has demanded that Moscow accept responsibility for mistakenly firing on the plane as it tried to make a scheduled landing at Grozny airport in south Russia.
Russia has not confirmed that one of its air-defense missiles hit the plane, though President Vladimir Putin told Aliyev in a phone call over the weekend that the systems were active at the time and that he was sorry the incident took place in Russian airspace.
Azerbaijan’s prosecutor general reported on Monday that the head of Russia’s Investigative Committee had told Baku: “Intensive measures are being carried out to identify the guilty people and bring them to criminal responsibility.”
Russia has opened a criminal enquiry into the incident.
But it has not said whether it agrees that the plane was hit by one of its air-defense missiles and has not itself said anything about finding or bringing any perpetrators to justice.
Aliyev had issued a rare forthright condemnation of Moscow — a close partner of Baku — on Sunday.
He said the plane was “hit by accident” but was angry that Russia had apparently tried to hide the cause of the crash.
Demanding that Putin admit responsibility, Aliyev also accused Russia of putting forward alternative theories that “clearly showed the Russian side wanted to cover up the issue.”
Russia said Grozny, in the southern Russian region of Chechnya, was being attacked by Ukrainian drones when the AZAL airliner approached to make its landing through thick fog.
Survivors have described hearing explosions outside the plane, which then diverted more than 400 kilometers (250 miles) across the Caspian Sea toward the Kazakh city of Aktau, where it crash-landed.
Kazakhstan said on Monday it had sent the plane’s black boxes to Brazil, where they will be analyzed by the Aeronautical Accidents Investigation and Prevention Center, a unit of the Brazilian air force.
How Chennai turned India into a chess powerhouse
- World’s youngest chess champion Gukesh Dommaraju is from Chennai
- One school chain, Velammal Nexus, has helped produce 22 Indian grandmasters
NEW DELHI: In a country where the love for cricket is a national obsession, chess is the sport of choice in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, where its city of Chennai is emerging as India’s chess capital.
Over a third of the country’s 85 grandmasters have come from Tamil Nadu, with the majority of them based in Chennai, including 18-year-old Gukesh Dommaraju, the world’s youngest chess champion.
Dommaraju won the title in early December at the Fide World Championship 2024 held in Singapore, defeating titleholder Ding Liren of China, who was 14 years his senior.
Dommaraju is the second Indian to win the World Chess Championship after Viswanathan Anand — India’s first grandmaster — who won it five times and is also from Chennai.
The city’s success in bringing up champions over the years can be traced back to the Velammal Nexus School, which has helped produce as many as 22 grandmasters, including Dommaraju and 2024 Chess World Cup finalist R. Praggnanandhaa.
“Chess players are heroes in Tamil Nadu,” Velavan Subbiah, the main coach at the Velammal Nexus school, told Arab News.
“In Chennai, people prefer to play chess rather than invest in cricket. Viswanathan Anand laid the foundation here. Now Gukesh is the new hero. His win in the world championship has inspired the youngsters and there is new zeal among them to do better.”
The 55-year-old who started focusing on chess after seeing his daughters win grandmaster and FIDE master titles said Velammal not only trains young players but also sponsors those who have financial difficulties.
Now a chain of 15 schools in Chennai, the academy trains about 2,000 students and plans to expand to other parts of India.
“In the future, we want to develop more young achievers,” he said. “It’s our goal to dominate in India in chess.”
In Chennai, family support also plays a major role in nurturing talents, with parents investing their time and money to support the younger generation’s chess pursuit.
After introducing his daughters to the sport five years ago, Kannappan Dinesh has been busy helping them hone their skills and signing them up in local tournaments.
“Kids, if you notice, will get easily addicted to mobile or TV, but if you give them a chance to play chess they will easily perform well,” Dinesh told Arab News.
“For the parents here, it’s an investment. If you invest more time with your kids and invest in their talents, you will be rewarded. I think this attitude separates the parents in Tamil Nadu from other parts of India.”
With both daughters enrolled in Velammal, Dinesh credits the school for “providing all kinds of support.
“They take care of you in all aspects, and the infrastructure that they have supports the kids to grow and learn faster and perform better,” he said, adding that he was more motivated following Dommaraju’s historic win.
“After seeing Gukesh and all, even as parents we feel that (we need to) give our kids a chance.”
Dinesh’s 11-year-old daughter, Ayushi, is already aiming for the stars.
“I want to become a world champion like Gukesh because me and my sisters are passionate about chess,” she told Arab News.
“Gukesh is my true inspiration, and he teaches us that with the right mindset and dedication, we can achieve any goal.”
Nitin Narang, president of the Chess Federation of India, said that Chennai’s emergence as “a Makkah of chess” came from a foundation laid long ago.
“Chennai is often described as the Makkah of Indian chess and rightly so because there has been a lot of effort on the ground by lots of coaches and parents’ sacrifices,” Narang told Arab News.
“What you see today is something that has been going on in Chennai in the last three decades and these are the fruits we bear nationally.”
Taliban orders NGOs in Afghanistan to stop employing women
- The Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan
The Taliban says it will close all national and foreign nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan employing women. It comes two years after they told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly.
In a letter published on X Sunday night, the Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan.
The ministry said it was responsible for the registration, coordination, leadership and supervision of all activities carried out by national and foreign organizations.
The government was once again ordering the stoppage of all female work in institutions not controlled by the Taliban, according to the letter.
“In case of lack of cooperation, all activities of that institution will be canceled and the activity license of that institution, granted by the ministry, will also be canceled.”
The Taliban have already barred women from many jobs and most public spaces. They have also excluded them from education beyond sixth grade.
How a driving school program empowers Pakistani women
- Women driving cars or riding pillion on two-wheelers driven by a male relative is more socially acceptable
- The WOW program has been in operation since 2017, but has become increasingly popular in recent months
LAHORE, Pakistan: Pakistani student Laiba Rashid, 22, hopes her life will change once she learns how to drive a motorcycle after undergoing a training program that teaches women how to operate two-wheelers in the bustling eastern city of Lahore.
Although the program is 7 years old, it’s rare to see women driving motorcycles. Women driving cars or riding pillion on two-wheelers driven by a male relative is more socially acceptable in the conservative, Islamic nation.
“I hope this will change my life because I am dependent on my brother to pick me up and drop me to college,” Rashid said on her first day at the Women on Wheels (WOW) driving program offered free by the Lahore traffic police.
She said she wants to buy a motorcycle to go to college, adding that, previously, there were no women drivers in her family. “Now everybody is convinced that women should be independent in their movement to schools, jobs and markets,” she said.
Women driving two-wheelers has been a cultural and religious taboo, said Bushra Iqbal Hussain, a social activist and director of Safe Childhood, an organization advocating the safety of female children.
But more women are now changing the culture, she said, like they did in the 1980s with regular cars, in a bid to reduce their reliance on men to commute.
The WOW program has been in operation since 2017, but has become increasingly popular in recent months as car prices have soared and motorcycles offer a cheaper alternative.
“Stagnant wage growth and high inflation have eroded the purchasing power of the middle class, leaving motorcycles as the only viable option for many households,” said auto sector analyst Muhammad Abrar Polani of investment house Arif Habib Limited.
The cheapest four-wheeler in Pakistan, where the annual GDP per capita is $1,590, costs about 2.3 million rupees($8,265) compared to about 115,000 rupees for the most affordable China-made two-wheeler.
Sohail Mudassar, a traffic warden, said the WOW program has trained at least 6,600 women, and Rashid’s batch was the 86th since it started.
“Women of different ages and segments of society join our camp,” said female trainer Humaira Rafaqat, a senior traffic warden who has trained about 1,000 women. “Young women are quick learners because they are enthusiastic and take risks.”
One of them, Ghania Raza, 23, who is pursuing a doctorate in criminology, said learning to drive a two-wheeler gave her a deep sense of achievement and empowerment: “It was like breaking a glass ceiling,” she said.
Shumaila Shafiq, 36, a mother of three and a part-time fashion designer, said she has been driving her husband’s motorcycle to the market and other places after graduating from the program.
She has designed a special short length abaya, a dress used by conservative Muslim women, to wear while operating the motorcycle.
“Wearing a long abaya with loose fitting poses risks as it may get entangled in the wheels,” she said, adding that she intends to market the design to fellow women riders.
Brace for turbulence: Lessons from a bumpy ‘super year’ of global elections
- Seventy countries, home to half of the world’s populations, held elections this year in which many incumbents perished
- International affairs experts note 2024 elections saw the rise of the right in several countries, including the UK and EU
LONDON: When voters around the globe had their say in 2024, their message was often: “You’re fired.”
Some 70 countries that are home to half the world’s population held elections this year, and in many incumbents were punished. From India and the United States to Japan, France and Britain, voters tired of economic disruption and global instability rejected sitting governments — and sometimes turned to disruptive outsiders.
The rocky democratic landscape just seemed to get bumpier as a dramatic year careened toward its end, with mass protests in Mozambique and Georgia, an election annulled in Romania and an attempt to impose martial law in South Korea.
Cas Mudde, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia who studies extremism and democracy, summed up 2024 in Prospect magazine as “a great year for the far right, a terrible year for incumbents and a troublesome year for democracy around the world.”
INCUMBENTS BATTERED
One message sent by voters in 2024: They’re fed up.
University of Manchester political scientist Rob Ford has attributed the anti-incumbent mood to “electoral long COVID” -– lingering pandemic-related health, education, social and economic disruptions that have made millions of people unhappier and worse off. High inflation, fueled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and mass displacement from that war and conflicts in the Middle East and Africa have added to the global unease.
In South Africa, high unemployment and inequality helped drive a dramatic loss of support for the African National Congress, which had governed for three decades since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule. The party once led by Nelson Mandela lost its political dominance in May’s election and was forced to go into coalition with opposition parties.
Incumbents also were defeated in Senegal, Ghana and Botswana, where voters ousted the party that had been in power for 58 years since independence from Britain. Namibia’s ruling SWAPO party extended its 34 years in power in December -– but only by a whisker.
Uruguay’s leftist opposition candidate, Yamandú Orsi, became the country’s new president in a November runoff that delivered another rebuke to incumbents.
In India, the world’s largest democracy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party lost its parliamentary majority in a shock election result in June after a decade of dominance. It was forced to govern in coalition as the opposition doubled its strength in Parliament.
Japanese politics entered a new era of uncertainty after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s governing Liberal Democratic Party, which has ruled almost without interruption since 1955, suffered a major loss in October amid voter anger at party financial scandals. It now leads a minority government.
The UK’s July election saw the right-of-center Conservatives ousted after 14 years in office as the center-left Labour Party swept to power in a landslide. But the results also revealed growing fragmentation: Support for the two big parties that have dominated British politics for a century shrank as voters turned to smaller parties, including the hard-right party Reform UK led by Nigel Farage.
AUTHORITARIANS ADVANCE
Britain is not alone in seeing a rise for the right. Elections in June for the parliament of the 27-nation European Union saw conservative populists and the far right rock ruling parties in France and Germany, the EU’s biggest and most powerful members.
The anti-immigration National Rally party won the first round of France’s parliamentary election in June, but alliances and tactical voting by the center and left knocked it down to third place in the second round, producing a divided legislature and a fragile government that collapsed in a Dec. 4 no-confidence vote.
In Austria, the conservative governing People’s Party was beaten by the far-right, pro-Russia Freedom Party in September, though other parties allied to keep it out of a coalition government.
Nepotism and political dynasties continued to exert influence -– and to be challenged. After messy elections in February, Pakistan elected Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, younger brother of three-time leader Nawaz Sharif. Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest democracy, elected President Prabowo Subianto, son-in-law of the late dictator Suharto.
Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the world’s longest-serving female leader, won a fourth successive term in a January election that opposition parties boycotted. Months later, her 15-year rule came to a tumultuous end: After mass student-led protests in which hundreds were killed, Hasina was ousted in August and fled to India.
In Sri Lanka, voters also rejected a discredited old guard. Voters elected the Marxist Anura Kumara Dissanayake as president in September, two years after an island-wide public movement by an engaged middle class removed the long-ruling Rajapaksa clan.
INTERFERENCE ALLEGATIONS
Covert meddling and online disinformation were growing concerns in 2024. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said that this year it took down 20 election-related “covert influence operations around the world, including in the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the US” It said Russia was the top source of such meddling, followed by Iran and China.
In Romania, far-right candidate Călin Georgescu came from nowhere to win the first round of the presidential election in November, aided in part by a flood of TikTok videos promoting his campaign. Amid allegations of Russian meddling, Romania’s Constitutional Court canceled the presidential election runoff two days before it was due to take place after a trove of declassified intelligence alleged Russia organized a sprawling campaign across social media to promote Georgescu. No date has yet been set for a rerun.
Moldova’s pro-Western President Maia Sandu won a November runoff against her Moscow-friendly rival in an election seen as pivotal to the future of one of Europe’s poorest nations.
Georgia has seen huge protests since an election in October was won by the pro-Moscow Georgian Dream party, which suspended negotiations on joining the European Union. The opposition and the pro-Western president, Salome Zourabichvili, have accused the governing party of rigging the vote with Russia’s help.
UNCERTAINTY REIGNS
Possibly the year’s most seismic result, Donald Trump’s victory in November’s US presidential election, has America’s allies and opponents bracing for what the unpredictable “America-first” leader will do with his second term.
And instability already reigns on several continents as the year ends. Venezuela has been in political crisis since a July election marred by serious fraud allegations which both President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition claim to have won. Amid opposition protests and a harsh crackdown, opposition candidate Edmundo González went into exile in Spain.
In Mozambique, the Frelimo party that has ruled for half a century was declared the winner of an October election that the opposition called rigged. Weeks of ongoing street protests across the country have left more than 100 dead.
South Korea’s conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol — weakened after the liberal opposition retained control in an April election -– astonished the country by declaring martial law in a late-night announcement on Dec. 3. Parliament voted to overturn the decision six hours later, and within days voted to impeach Yoon. The crisis in the deeply divided country is far from over.
Democracy’s bumpy ride looks likely to continue in 2025, with embattled incumbents facing challenge in countries including Germany, where Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote on Dec. 16, triggering an early election likely in February. Canada will also vote in 2025, with the governing Liberals widely unpopular and increasingly divided after almost a decade in power.
Seema Shah, head of democracy assessment at the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, said global surveys suggest support for the concept of democracy remains strong, but the numbers plummet “when you ask people how satisfied they are with their own democracy.”
“People want democracy. They like the theory of it,” she said. “But when they see it actually play out, it’s not living up to their expectations.”
