Vienna/Gaziantep – Austria is supporting the emergency aid fund of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) with six million euros to help people in the Turkish earthquake region. Funds from the special pot for international food aid have been made available for this purpose, announced Minister of Agriculture Norbert Totschnig (ÖVP) in a broadcast on Saturday. Totschnig traveled to Turkey on Tuesday and visited the earthquake region on Wednesday.
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April 2, 2023
Water: hundreds of demonstrators opposed to STMicroelectronics
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
Posted Apr 1, 2023, 4:48 PMUpdated on Apr 1, 2023, 5:05 PM
Conflicts over water are on the rise. After the announcement of the government’s water plan, several hundred demonstrators – a thousand according to the organizers, between 500 and 800 according to the gendarmes – protested on Saturday in front of the STMicroelectronics semiconductor production site, in Crolles in Isère. They denounce a “grabbing” of water by the company.
They gathered under the slogan “Water, not fleas”. The demonstrators contest the plant extension project, announced last summer by the Franco-Italian company and carried out in partnership with the American GlobalFoundries. According to them, it would be synonymous with excessive water consumption.
The project, worth a total of 5.7 billion euros, must be supported under the France 2030 plan, and by the European Union under the “Chips Act”, a plan to double the production of semi -drivers in the EU by 2026.
A thousand jobs
“We are worried regarding water resources and democracy,” denounces Julien, one of the organizers of the demonstration, who prefers to remain anonymous. The thousand jobs promised with the extension of the site “cannot justify everything”, affirms the activist, who questions the choices in terms of water sharing. In the gathered crowd, another activist, Emilie, “prefers that I have limited access to screen time than to drinking water”.
“We say that there is no problem with water withdrawal, but what regarding the future? asks Sébastien Triqueneaux, researcher at a CNRS institute in Grenoble and member of the Scientists in Rebellion.
The STMicroelectronics site, and the municipality of Crolles in which it is located, are supplied by the drinking water network of the Grenoble metropolitan area, but belong to the neighboring territory of the community of municipalities of Grésivaudan.
Until then, the metropolis of Grenoble, which directly manages its drinking water network, supplied 23,000 m3 per day, or 8.4 million m3/year. But under a purchase agreement signed in October 2021, this flow should rise to 29,000 m3/day by the end of 2023, “allowing to take into account the evolution of needs for the coming years, in particular those of the industries of the territory”, underlines a deliberation of the community of communes of Grésivaudan.
In 2021, according to STMicroelectronics’ environmental statement, 4.23 million m3 had been withdrawn by the plant, with almost all of this volume then discharged into surrounding waterways. In 2019, this volume withdrawn was 3.46 million m3.
Russian, Ukrainian and Western sources note that following the results of the winter offensive, Russia did not achieve its goals of capturing the entire territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions by March 31. According to the BBC, American military analysts write regarding this in their latest report.
Analysts report the following:
- There are indications that the Kremlin may soon reshuffle Russian military command in the wake of a failed winter offensive.
- Russian troops did not achieve success in the Bakhmut area and continued offensive operations along the Avdeevka-Donetsk front line.
- Russian troops continued to strengthen the defenses in the occupied south of Ukraine.
- Russia’s military conscription, which began on April 1, was the largest since 2016.
- The Russian occupation authorities continue to deport Ukrainian children to Russia, ostensibly for rest and rehabilitation.
Disaster in the USA: a violent storm in the South and the Midwest left 26 dead
written by Alexandra Hartman Editor-in-Chief
LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas.- A violent storm with strong winds and rain swept across the southern and midwestern United States east on Saturday, leaving so far 26 dead and dozens injuredaccording to authorities and the media.
At least five people died in Arkansas, according to authorities, as first responders searched through the rubble for more possible victims following the tornadoes that hit the state on Friday. They also reported four deaths in Illinois and three in Indiana. Meanwhile, the Department of Health of Tennessee confirmed seven deaths related to the weather in McNairy County, on the Mississippi border.
The director of the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, Patrick Sheehan, said the number of injuries and the number of structures damaged in several counties had not yet been determined.
Fox News also reported one death in Alabama and another in Mississippi, bringing the total number of fatalities to 26.
In the case of Illinois, three people died in Crawford County following a residential structure collapsedthe state Emergency Management Agency said. These people join the 50-year-old man who died in Belvidere, a city in northern Illinois, following the roof of a theater with 260 people inside collapsed.
Dan Zaccard, a senior Boone County emergency management official, said Saturday that the incident left 40 wounded. The audience at the city’s Apollo Theater was attending a concert by the heavy metal group Morbid Angel, which was performing its “Tour del terror”.
The National Weather Service warned Saturday of thunderstorms moving across the eastern third of the United States that would likely cause power outages and downed trees by winds with gusts of more than 100 km/h.
Tornadoes ripped roofs and walls off many Arkansas buildings, flipped over vehicles and downed trees and power lines in Little Rock and large areas east and northeast of the state capital, authorities said.
On Friday, an extreme spring storm hit much of the United States, threatening storms and tornadoes across the Midwest from Texas to the Great Lakes.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Saturday that there was Five confirmed deaths in the state. “Right now, we have five confirmed fatalities. We have a couple of others that have been reported, but we don’t have confirmation from the local police on the ground. We’re waiting. But right now, across the state, we have five confirmed fatalities,” he stated.
Four of the Arkansas victims were registered in Wynne, regarding 100 miles east of Little Rock, Cross County Coroner Eli Long said. One person died and more than 50 were hospitalized in North Little Rock, he told The Washington Post Madeline Roberts, Pulaski County spokeswoman.
The president of United States, Joe Biden, spoke with Huckabee Sanders and the mayors of Little Rock and Wynne, the White House said in a statement. He also spoke with Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Deanne Criswell.
Huckabee Sanders said that Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in phone calls Saturday, offered the support of the federal government. “Whatever Arkansas needs, we’ve been assured that those resources will be here and on the ground,” he told a news conference.
In Sullivan County, Indiana, three people were killed, Indiana State Police Sgt. Matt Ames said. A state of emergency has been declared in the affected areas, Sheriff Jason Bobbitt said on Facebook.
Fox News, citing Fox Weather, reported that a tornado killed one person in Madison County, Alabama, and another person was killed during a storm in Pontotoc County, Mississippi.
The events came a week following a swarm of thunderstorms unleashed a deadly tornado that devastated the town of Rolling Fork, Mississippi, destroying many of the community’s 400 homes and killing 26 people.
Archyde.com Agency
THE NATION