Volcano erupts on Canary Island forcing thousands to evacuate

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 20 September 2021

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LA PALMA, CANARY ISLAND - Thousands of residents fled their homes on Spanish Canary Island of La Palma on Sunday after a volcano erupted, sending lava shooting into the air and streaming in rivers towards houses.

Authorities had begun evacuating the infirm and some farm animals from nearby villages before the eruption, in the Cabeza de Vaca area.

Video footage showed fountains of lava shooting hundreds of metres into the sky, and at least three orange rivers of molten rock pouring down the hill, tearing gashes into woods and farmland, and spreading as they reached lower ground.

It came after intensified earthquake tremors.

“I was scared,” local resident Isabel Fuentes told Spanish television TVE. “For the media it is something spectacular, for us it is a tragedy.”

She added: “I was 5 years old when the volcano last erupted (in 1971). You never get over a volcanic eruption.”

Just before the eruption, authorities evacuated about 40 people with mobility problems and farm animals from the villages around the volcano.

Soldiers were deployed to help with the evacuation, the defence ministry said, and it is expected that more residents will be evacuated from surrounding towns.

Mariano Hernandez, the president of La Palma island, told Canary Islands Television there were no immediate reports of injuries or deaths from the eruption. He said there were five eruption points, of which two were spewing magma.

Authorities raised the threat level to yellow on Monday, requiring residents in at-risk zones to be prepared to evacuate.

It followed a 3.2-magnitude earthquake that was recorded just 100 metres below the surface on Saturday, while several more tremors were detected on Sunday morning, the largest at a magnitude of 3.8.

In total, more than 6,600 small earthquakes have been registered in the Cumbre Vieja area since the latest earthquake activity began on 11 September.

On Sunday morning alone, the National Geographic Institute (IGN) said 327 earthquakes had been detected.

The Scientific Committee of the Volcano Risk Prevention Plan said stronger earthquakes were “likely to be felt and may cause damage to buildings”.

The committee of experts also noted that a stretch of the island’s southwest coast was at risk from landslides and rockfalls.

La Palma’s last eruption was in 1971 when one man was killed while taking photographs near the lava flows.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez cancelled his trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly so he could travel from Spain’s mainland.

Socialist Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo to run for president

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 13 September 2021

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PARIS - The socialist mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, has announced a bid for the French presidency, saying that as a woman with working-class, immigrant roots she will try to repair the anger and divisions in French society and win back low-income workers disillusioned with the left.

"The Republican model is disintegrating before our eyes," Hidalgo told supporters gathered on the docks in Rouen, Normandy.

The 62-year-old has centred her campaign on "overcoming class prejudice" and is the favourite to win her party's nomination.

“The Republican model is disintegrating before our eyes,” she told supporters at the docks in Rouen, a city in Normandy about 75 miles northwest of the capital.

“I want all children in Franceto have the same opportunities I had.”

Ms Hidalgo joins a growing list of politicians challenging President Macron, who has not yet announced his re-election bid but is widely expected to do so.

The far-right National Rally Party’s Marine Le Pen also confirmed on Sunday her third tilt at the highest office in the land.

Both women are vowing to become France's first female president.

Ms Hidalgo is the daughter of Spanish immigrants, who fled Andalucia to escape Franciso Franco's dictatorship.

She grew up near Lyon, and during her speech on Sunday, cited her “humble” beginnings on a housing estate in order to appeal to workers and those who have marched for more “social justice”, including the gilets jaunes (yellow vests).

Ms Hidalgo said her experience as a working-class woman with immigrant roots would help to heal divisions in French society.

“Here in the port of Rouen, I think of my dad who worked in the shipyards of Cadiz and my mother, a seamstress,” she said.

Ms Hidalgo is perhaps best known for her campaign in her current job to reduce the number of cars and increase bicycles in Paris, making the city greener.

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What does the jailing of Maria Kolesnikova mean for Belarus?

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Written by northsouth

Category: Europe

Published: 07 September 2021

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LONDON - Maria Kolesnikova, a prominent opposition party activist in Belarus who has spoken out against the country’s despotic leader, Alexander Lukashenko, has been sentenced to 11 years in prison, alongside her lawyer, Maxim Znak, who was jailed for 10 years.

The pair have been detained since their arrest 12 months ago and were charged with conspiring to seize power, creating an extremist organisation and calling for actions damaging state security.

The decision has already been widely condemned and marks the latest move by the Lukashenko regime to lash out at its critics following its disputed election “victory” last summer, which saw mass protests erupt across Belarus in anger at a contest believed to have been compromised by widespread fraud and vote rigging in favour of a strongman leader often labelled “Europe’s last dictator”.

Why has the opposition leader been sent to jail?

A classical flutist and Baroque music scholar, Kolesnikova, 39, had previously been the campaign manager for Viktor Babariko, an ex-banker who had planned to run against Lukashenko in August 2020’s disputed presidential election prior to his own arrest the preceding June on questionable money laundering and tax evasion charges that in turn saw him jailed for 14 years.

The detention of Babariko prompted Kolesnikova to join forces with Veronika Tsepkalo and Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the wives of the two other barred candidates.

Tikhanovskaya, an English teacher by trade, duly launched her own presidential bid and promised a fresh, female-led start for the former Soviet satellite state, which has been ruled by Lukashenko, an old-fashioned strongman often branded “Europe’s last dictator”, since July 1994.

On Election Day last year - 9 August - Lukashenko quickly declared a landslide victory for himself despite accusations of widespread electoral fraud and vote rigging, leading to weeks of angry mass protests inspired by Tikhanovskaya’s claim that she believed she had received between 60-70 per cent of the vote, the largest gathering of which saw 200,000 come together as one.

Despite international condemnation from the US, EU, the UK and Canada and heated anti-government demonstrations outside of the Independence Palace in Minsk, Lukashenko was subsequently inaugurated for a sixth term on 23 September and has been carrying out a vendetta against his critics ever since.

Tikhanovskaya and Tsepkalo were forced to flee the country.

“For many, Maria has become an example of resilience and the fight between good and evil. I’m proud of her,” Kolesnikova’s father, Alexander, told the Associated Press (AP) on Monday. “It’s not a verdict, but rather the revenge of the authorities.”

His daughter has indeed become a protest icon, known for her fearless appearances at political rallies and in facing down lines of riot police.