Category: General

Italy received 62,484 applications for asylum in the first six months of the year according to figures released by the European Union Agency for Asylum (EUAA) on Tuesday.

This is around 12% of all asylum applications lodged across the EU and Norway and Switzerland (EU+).

The main countries of origin of applicants in Italy were Bangladesh, Egypt and Pakistan.

In total in the first half 2023, some 519,000 applications for asylum were lodged in the EU+, up by 28% compared to the same period in 2022.

This was the highest level for this time of year since the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015-2016.

Germany received the most applications in the first half of 2023, at 154,677, or around 30% of the total, followed by Spain (86,786, 17%) and France (81,158, 16%).

At the end of June 2023, the number of asylum cases awaiting first instance decisions reached 682,000.

“On the basis of current trends the number of applications could exceed a million by the end of the year,” said EUAA. (ANSA).

Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)

An Italian court has ruled that reports by victims of sexual violence are to be considered credible even years after the alleged offence has taken place, Il Messaggero newspaper reported on Tuesday.

“The credibility of the victim of a crime of sexual violence is not undermined by the fact that many years have passed between the beginning of the unlawful act and the reporting of the facts,” ruled Perugia appeal court judges, upholding the conviction of a man accused of raping his partner’s niece.

The young woman had filed a complaint six years after the alleged offence took place. (ANSA).

Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)

The Juvenile Court of Trento in northern Italy has approved the adoption of a child by the non-biological parent of a same-sex couple recognised in Canada but not in Italy, a local newspaper reported on Monday.

The child, aged nearly four, was born through surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy.

The adoption request was filed in March in consideration of serious health problems on the part of the biological father.

In March the right-wing government of Giorgia Meloni drew criticism from the opposition and rights activists after it instructed city mayors to stop registering the children of same-sex couples using a procedure based on the transcription into Italian civic registers of the foreign birth certificates of children conceived via surrogacy or assisted fertility, which is only available to heterosexual couples in Italy, citing a ruling by the Court of Cassation, Italy’s highest court.

Meloni’s right-wing Brothers of Italy (FdI) party has also presented a bill currently before parliament making surrogacy a universal crime.

This means that it would be punishable by law even if committed abroad, but only for Italian citizens. (ANSA).

Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)

Cyprus and Greece are likely to face ‘increased migration activity” from Turkey in the period 2023/2024, EU border agency Frontex says in a risk analysis, published on Monday.

“Developments on the ground” in a number of countries of origin and transit, driven by “global macroeconomic factors” including persistent inflation and global recession, will “negatively impact” on the socioeconomic conditions of large populations and herald an increase in migration flows to Europe, Frontex notes.

By 2023/2024, it is “likely” that the Eastern and Central Mediterranean routes leading respectively from Turkey to Greece and Cyprus and from north Africa to Italy “will see increased migration activity and a higher share of total migration flows to the external borders of the EU,” the risk analysis adds.

Last month the EU border agency reported that the Central Mediterranean remained the most active route into the EU in 2023, with over 89,000 detections reported by national authorities in the first seven month of the year, a rise of 115% over the same period in 2022.

This was the highest total on this route for the period January-July since 2017.

Conversely, during the same period arrivals on the Eastern Mediterranean route were said to have fallen by 29% compared to 2022.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Italians’ gas bills rose 2.3% in August on July but Italian household spending on gas fell 12% over the last year, energy market regulator ARERA said Monday.

It said the monthly gain was wholly due to a rise in natural-gas prices.

As for the yearly fall, it said spending for a typical household was 1,472 from September 2022 to August 2023, down 12.1% on the previous twelve-month period, net of taxes-. (ANSA).

Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)

Major online platforms risk fines and sanctions if they violate the new European law on digital services that came into force end of August and which, inter alia, makes online platforms legally responsible for the content posted on them. A competent EU source provided further clarifications on the Services Law package, on Monday, during an informal technical briefing for journalists.

The source said that the Digital Services Act (DSA) started to be implemented at the end of August for the 19 largest online platforms and online search engines designated by the European Commission in April 2023. These 19 platforms range from social media like TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, online marketplaces like Amazon Marketplace and there are also some other platforms like Google Maps and Wikipedia.

The source explained that the Digital Services Act aims to empower and protect online users, including minors, by requiring designated agencies to assess and mitigate systemic risks when it comes to illegal content online and provide robust mitigation tools.

The Digital Services Act was adopted by the Commission in December 2020 along with the Digital Market Act (DMA), and this essentially formed the two cornerstones of the Commission’s digital legislation.

It was further explained that the reason why the Commission proposed this law was that while online platforms offer great benefits to users, they are also a source of great risks, as has been demonstrated in the past and made reference to platforms with illegal content or dangerous products.

It was also added that online platforms would also be subject to democratically validated rules which would be the same across the European Union. Therefore, the EU source continued, there will no longer be different rules depending on the Member State where a consumer lives and everyone will enjoy the same rights online.

It was also noted that the Commission, as the regulator for these very large online platforms and search engines, will oversee the systems and tackle illegal content and disinformation and will support users’ rights by protecting them. It was stressed that to this end, the Commission is equipped with broad investigative and supervisory powers, including the power to impose sanctions and fines.

Furthermore, it was noted that these agencies had 4 months to comply with the obligations of the Digital Services Act, which includes carrying out and providing the Commission with the first annual risk assessment. The competent source stated that along with this obligation the 19 platforms had other obligations related for example to their terms and services and obligations related to the protection of minors.

At the same time, it was said that for the remaining platforms, which are not very large and therefore have less than 45 million users in the European Union, the national digital service coordinators in each member state would be responsible for the supervisory role.

It was also mentioned that national authorities will have to appoint digital service coordinators by 17 February 2024, when platforms with fewer than 45 million active users will have to comply with all the rules of the Digital Services Act.

The EU source reiterated that the aim is to create a safer online space in which the fundamental rights of all digital service users are protected and a level playing field for businesses across the European Union is created.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Italo-Chinese partnership is more important than the so-called new Silk Road, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said after meeting opposite number Wang Yi in Beijing Monday.

Italy has indicated it may pull out of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) after becoming the first Group of Seven (G7) country to sign up for it in 2019, while saying that the final decision is up to the Italian parliament.

“The tsrategic partnership is much more important than the Silk Road,” said Tajani at a press conference.

“I reiterated to Wang Yi the Italian government’s evaluations and we will have to listen to parliament to decide. The climate was very positive, as it was with the Chinese Minister of Trade”.

Tajani is also deputy premier and the leader of the late Silvio Berlusconi’s centre right Forza Italia (FI) party.

Source: Ansa News Agency (ANA)

The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will be in Nairobi, Kenya, September 5th where she will participate in the Africa Climate Summit (ACS) 2023.

According to a press release issued by the European Commission, President von der Leyen has been invited to deliver a statement during the high-level opening of the Summit.

Later on, she will participate in a panel discussion on the ‘New Global Climate Finance Architecture’, along with the Presidents of Kenya and Ghana, the Prime Ministers of Egypt, the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, the Secretary-General of the UN and the President of the COP28.

On the sidelines of the Summit, President von der Leyen and the President of Kenya, William Ruto, will launch the Green Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap for Kenya, the press release adds. This Green Hydrogen Strategy and Roadmap will be laid out with the support of Global Gateway, the EU’s investment strategy for the world, and it will set out Kenya’s ambitions to develop its own green hydrogen industry in the coming years.

This year’s ACS is co-organised by the Republic of Kenya and the African Union Commission, and it carries as a theme ‘Driving Green Growth and Climate Finance Solutions for Africa and the World’. The Summit will bring together Heads of State and Government, multilateral institutions, civil society, the private sector and the youth, to discuss how to face the challenges the climate change poses to Africa and to prepare the upcoming COP28, which will start at the end of November in Dubai, the press release concludes.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

The President of the House of Representatives Annita Demetriou received on Monday the new Supreme President of AHEPA Savvas Tsivicos with whom she discussed the Cyprus issue, developments in Pyla, Parliament-Congress relations and diaspora issues.

A statement from the Parliament says that the House President congratulated Tsivicos for his election to the highest office of AHEPA, which is very honorable for him and for Cyprus and indicative of the significant role of the Cypriot expatriates, who serve as the best ambassadors of Cyprus abroad.

Demetriou praised AHEPA’s continuous interest and substantial action on issues that concern and affect Cyprus, with the Cyprus problem high on the agenda. She expressed her concerns on Turkey’s intensifying provocations against the Republic of Cyprus, in the light of the recent incidents in Pyla.

She said that the Cyprus problem is an international issue of invasion and occupation, and pointed out the need to immediately resume the peace talks to achieve a just and sustainable solution, in accordance with international law and the relevant UN resolutions.

She said that we must continuously brief the international community and demand its support, on the basis of principles, as is the case for Ukraine.

Demetriou referred to the role of parliamentary diplomacy and the importance of further strengthening the relations between the House of Representatives and the US Congress, noting her upcoming visit to the US.

Tsivicos informed Demetriou on AHEPA’s decision, for the international annual Conference of the organization in 2024 to take place for the first time in Cyprus.

Demetriou welcomed the decision and expressed the Parliament’s readiness to assist.

On Friday August 18, 2023 men of the occupation regime punched and kicked a group of international peacekeepers who obstructed crews illegally working on a road that would encroach on a UN controlled buffer zone.

The attack happened as peacekeepers stood in the way of work crews building a road to connect the Turkish occupied village of Arsos with the mixed Greek Cypriot-Turkish Cypriot village of Pyla, inside the buffer zone.

Members of the Security Council condemned on Tuesday, August 22, 2023, the incidents in the buffer zone, in the village of Pyla, in Larnaca district, with assaults against UN peacekeepers, reiterating their full support for UNFICYP.

They also condemned the attacks on UN peacekeepers and the damage to UN vehicles by Turkish Cypriot personnel and emphasized that “attacks against peacekeepers may constitute crimes under international law and reaffirmed their full commitment to the safety of all UN personnel.”

Cyprus has been divided since 1974, when Turkey invaded and occupied its northern third. Repeated rounds of UN-led peace talks have so far failed to yield results. The latest round of negotiations, in July 2017 at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana ended inconclusively.

Source: Cyprus News Agency

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said that cooperation between Trkiye and Russia in a wide range of areas is going successfully.

‘The multifaceted cooperation between Russia and Trkiye, which is based on the principles of good neighborliness, partnership, and mutual benefit, is successfully developing in all areas,’ Putin told a press conference in the coastal city of Sochi with his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Saying that he and Erdogan discussed key issues in a spirit of bilateral cooperation, Putin said that the talks were held in a ‘constructive and businesslike atmosphere.’

‘We exchanged views on current topics on the international and regional agenda,” Putin said, adding: “Without doubt, today’s talks will serve to further develop Russian-Turkish partnership in all areas.”

Putin went on to express that he and Erdogan noted the continued growth in trade between the two countries, adding that the trade volume rose 86% to a record $62 billion at the end of 2022, which later grew by another 4% in the first half of this year.

‘Russia will always be a reliable, responsible supplier of gas’

Putin also touched on the topic of energy, saying that Russian-Turkish cooperation in the energy sector is of a “truly strategic nature,” and that Russia delivered 21.5 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas to Trkiye via the TurkStream and Blue Stream gas pipelines.

“Russia has always been and will always be a reliable and responsible supplier of gas. We intend to continue to provide the Turkish economy with this cheap but highly efficient and environmentally friendly type of fuel. Moreover, we are ready to export gas in transit through Trkiye to consumers in third countries, where our partners are interested,” Putin said.

Saying that over 10 bcm were transported from Russia to Trkiye this January to August, Putin said that Russian gas giant Gazprom handed over a draft roadmap for implementation of a Turkish gas hub project to the Turkish Petroleum Pipeline Corporation (BOTAS).

“On the agenda is the establishment of a joint working group, the coordination of the legal framework for the operation of the hub, the schemes for trading and transferring purchased gas,” he said.

Putin added that Russian state-owned nuclear energy company Rosatom continues to build the Akkuyu nuclear power plant, and that Russian nuclear fuel was delivered to the plant in April, thus making Trkiye a part of “states possessing peaceful nuclear technologies.”

‘West deceived Russia about humanitarian goals of grain deal’

Putin said that he and Erdogan also discussed the situation surrounding the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which halted in July after Moscow announced it was suspending its participation.

Saying that Russia was “forced” to make this decision due to continuing Western sanctions on Russian agricultural products, Putin argued that the West deceived his country about the humanitarian goals of the grain deal.

“Because of the 32.8 million tons of cargo exported from Ukraine, more than 70% … went to wealthy countries, primarily to EU countries. Whereas the share of states really in need of food aid accounted for only 3%, that is, it is less than one million tons,” Putin said.

“And while Russia clearly provided security guarantees for shipping under this deal, the other side used humanitarian corridors for terrorist attacks on Russian civilian and military facilities,’ he added, referring to Ukraine. ‘This cannot be tolerated any longer.”

Putin went on to say he told Erdogan that Russia will consider revival of the grain deal “as soon as all the agreements on lifting restrictions set out in it are fully implemented for exports of Russian agricultural products.”

“For its part, Russia, despite all the obstacles put in place, intends to continue exporting food and fertilizers, help stabilize prices and improve the situation in the global agricultural industry … In this sense, we also count on the help of the state of Qatar, which, for humanitarian reasons, is ready to support the poorest countries,” he added.

He also said that Moscow is close to finalizing an agreement with six African states for the free supply and procurement of grain, and that their delivery will begin in “the next couple of weeks.”

Source: Anadolu Agency