World

Gas now flows to Romania from a new Black Sea platform operating in waters where mines and warships have been spotted.

The dangerous reminders of the war raging nearby in Ukraine underscore Romania’s determination to cut its reliance on Russian natural gas imports.

With fears growing across the European Union that Moscow will cut gas shipments in retaliation for EU support to Ukraine, countries are scrambling to find alternative supplies.

“Romania is taking a decisive step to ensure its energy security… at a time when international gas supplies are threatened by the war in Ukraine,” Prime Minister Nicolae Ciuca said on Tuesday as he inaugurated a processing plant belonging to Black Sea Oil & Gas (BSOG) in the southeastern village of Vadu.

While Romania has significant reserves on land and at sea, it still has to turn to Russia in winter to cover around 20 percent of its consumption.

Backed by American private equity firm Carlyle Group LP and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, BSOG began two weeks ago to tap into underwater deposits, becoming the first new offshore Black Sea development in the past 30 years.

The $400-million platform extracts three million cubic metres of gas per day. It is due to recover one billion cubic metres per year for 10 years, or around 10 percent of Romania’s needs.

“Today we are facing an emergency in terms of energy supply. We must put our old devils in the closet… and start producing locally,” said Thierry Bros, an expert on energy and the climate at Sciences Po university.

“We must relaunch the projects in the Black Sea, relaunch the growth of production in Norway, in the United Kingdom we must think of launching the production of shale gas and in France the production of mine gas” he told AFP.

– Mines and warships –

In Vadu, BSOG CEO Mark Beacom said he hopes that the “state-of-the-art” infrastructure put in place by his company will be used for future gas or renewable energy projects in the Black Sea.

But the invasion of neighbouring Ukraine by Russia has complicated the situation. 

“We are not in a war zone, but we are close enough and it clearly has an impact,” he said.

“We’ve had mines detected close to the platform, we’ve had warships that go close to our platform and we’ve had airplanes circling our platform,” he added.

BSOG holds two concessions about 120 kilometres (65 nautical miles) from the Romanian coast, part of which, ironically, was recovered in 2009 by Bucharest from Ukraine, following a decision by the International Court of Justice in The Hague. 

While Romania is counting on offshore gas reserves estimated at 200 billion cubic metres of gas, investors nevertheless remain cautious. 

The Austrian group OMV and its Romanian partner Romgaz have yet to decide whether they will go ahead with the Neptun Deep project to tap between 42 billion and 84 billion cubic metres of gas. 

– End of guaranteed energy? –

Bucharest hopes the two groups will launch extraction as soon as 2026, which would allow Romania to “become completely independent in terms of gas” and export the excess to its neighbours, said Energy Minister Virgil Popescu.

According to a 2018 study by auditing firm Deloitte, offshore gas could bring in $26 billion in tax revenue to Romania’s government over a planned 23-year period of operation. 

After much delay, parliament finally amended in May a law unfavourable to offshore investments, which had notably prompted ExxonMobil to withdraw from the Neptun Deep project at the end of 2021, after having invested around $2 billion there jointly with OMV.

“If we want to win against the Russians, we need energy,” said Bros, warning that the time when “energy was guaranteed” within the EU may be over.

Walk around the German Alpine village of Oberammergau, and the chances are you’ll run into Jesus or one of his 12 disciples.

Of the 5,500 people living there, 1,400 — aged from three months to 85 — are participating this year in the once-a-decade staging of an elaborate “Passion Play” depicting the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Dating back to 1634, the tradition has persisted through four centuries of wars, religious turmoil and pandemics — including the most recent Covid-19 crisis which caused the show to be postponed by two years.

“I think we’re a bit stubborn,” says Frederic Mayet, 42, when asked how the village has managed to hold on to the tradition.

Mayet, who is playing Jesus for the second time this year, says the Passion Play has become a big part of the town’s identity.

The only prerequisite for taking part in the five-hour show, whether as an actor, chorister or backstage assistant, is that you were born in Oberammergau or have lived here for at least 20 years. 

“I remember that we talked about it in kindergarten. I didn’t really know what it was about, but of course I wanted to take part,” says Cengiz Gorur, 22, who is playing Judas.

– ‘Hidden talent’ –

The tradition, which dates back to the Thirty Years’ War, was born from a belief that staging the play would help keep the town safe from disease.

Legend has it that, after the first performance, the plague disappeared from the town.

In the picturesque Alpine village, Jesus and his disciples are everywhere — from paintings on the the facades of old houses to carved wooden figures in shop windows.

You also can’t help feeling that there is a higher-than-average quota of men with long hair and beards wandering the streets. 

An intricate image of Jesus graces the stage of the open-air Passion Play theatre, where the latest edition of the show is being held from mid-May to October 2.

“What has always fascinated me is the quality of the relationship between all the participants, young and old. It’s a beautiful community, a sort of ‘Passion’ family,” says Walter Lang, 83.

He’s just sad that his wife, who died in February, will not be among the participants this year.

“My parents met at a Passion Play, and I also met my future wife at one,” says Andreas Roedl, village mayor and choir member.

Gorur, who has Turkish roots, was spotted in 2016 by Christian Stueckl, the head of the Munich People’s Theatre who will direct the play for the fourth time this year.

“I didn’t really know what to do with my life. I probably would have ended up selling cars, the typical story,” he laughs.

Now, he’s due to start studying drama in Munich this autumn.

“I’ve discovered my hidden talent,” he says.

– Violence, poverty and sickness –

Stueckl “has done a lot for the reputation of the show, which he has revolutionised” over the past 40 years, according to Barbara Schuster, 35, a human resources manager who is playing Mary Magdalene.

“Going to the Passion Play used to be like going to mass. Now it’s a real theatrical show,” she says. 

In the 1980s, Stueckl cut all the parts of the text that accused the Jews of being responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, freeing the play from anti-Semitic connotations. 

“Hitler had used the Passion Play for his propaganda,” Schuster points out. 

The play’s themes of violence, poverty and sickness are reflected in today’s world through the war in Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic, says Mayet, the actor playing Jesus.

“Apparently we have the same problems as 2,000 years ago,” he says.

For 83-year-old Lang, who is playing a peasant this year, the “Hallelujah” after Christ has risen for the final time in October will be a particularly moving moment. 

“Because we don’t know if we’ll be there again next time,” he says, his eyes filling with tears.

From ocean depths to mountain peaks, humans have littered the planet with tiny shards of plastic. We have even absorbed these microplastics into our bodies — with uncertain implications.

Images of plastic pollution have become familiar: a turtle suffocated by a shopping bag, water bottles washed up on beaches, or the monstrous “Great Pacific Garbage Patch” of floating detritus.

Millions of tonnes of plastic produced every year, largely from fossil fuels, make their way into the environment and degrade into smaller and smaller pieces.

“We did not imagine 10 years ago that there could be so many small microplastics, invisible to the naked eye, and that they were everywhere around us,” said Jean-Francois Ghiglione, a researcher at the Laboratory of Microbial Oceanography in France.

“And we could not yet envisage finding them in the human body”.

Now scientific studies are increasingly detecting microplastics in some human organs — including “the lungs, spleen, kidneys, and even the placenta,” Ghiglione told AFP.

It may not come as much of a shock that we breathe in these particles present in the air, in particular microfibres from synthetic clothing.

“We know that there’s microplastics in the air, we know it’s all around us,” said Laura Sadofsky, from the Hull York Medical School in the UK.

Her team found polypropylene and PET (polyethylene terephthalate) in lung tissue, identifying fibres from synthetic fabrics. 

“The surprise for us was how deep it got into the lungs and the size of those particles,” she told AFP.

In March, another study reported the first traces of PET found in the blood.

Given the small sample of volunteers, some scientists say it is too early to draw conclusions, but there are concerns that if plastics are in the bloodstream they could be transported to all organs.

– Breathing in plastics for years –

In 2021, researchers found microplastics in both maternal and foetal placental tissue, expressing “great concern” over the possible consequences on the development of the foetus. 

But concern is not the same as a proven risk.

“If you ask a scientist if there is a negative effect, he or she would say ‘I don’t know’,” said Bart Koelmans, professor in Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality at Wageningen University.

“It’s potentially a big problem, but we don’t have the scientific evidence to positively confirm what are the effects, if any.”

One hypothesis is that microplastics could be responsible for certain syndromes that weaken human health.

While scientists have recently identified their presence in the body, it is likely that humans have been eating, drinking and breathing in plastics for years.

In 2019, a shock report by the environmental charity WWF estimated that people are ingesting and inhaling up to five grams of plastic per week — enough to make a credit card.

Koelmans, who contests the methodology and results of that study, has calculated the amount is closer to a grain of salt.

“Over a lifetime, a grain of salt per week is still quite something,” he told AFP.

While health studies on humans have yet to be developed, toxicity in certain animals reinforces concerns.

“Small microplastics invisible to the naked eye have deleterious effects on all the animals that we have studied in the marine environment, or on land,” said Ghiglione.

He added that the array of chemicals found in these materials — including dyes, stabilisers, flame retardants — can affect growth, metabolism, blood sugar, blood pressure and even reproduction.  

The researcher said there should be a “precautionary” approach, urging consumers to reduce the number of plastic-packaged products they buy, particularly bottles.

Earlier this year, the United Nations began a process to develop an internationally binding treaty to tackle the global plastic scourge.

It has warned that the world is facing a pollution crisis to match the biodiversity and climate crises.

While the health implications from plastics are not known, scientists do know the impacts of indoor and outdoor air pollution, which experts from the Lancet Commission on pollution and health have estimated caused 6.7 million people to suffer an early death in 2019.

Some 460 million tonnes of plastics were used in 2019, twice as much as 20 years earlier. Less than 10 percent was recycled.

Annual production of fossil-fuel-based plastics is set to top 1.2 billion tonnes by 2060, with waste exceeding one billion tonnes, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said last month.

“People cannot stop breathing, so even if you change your eating habits you will still inhale them,” said Koelmans.

“They’re everywhere.”

Libya’s rival leaders were under growing street pressure Saturday after protesters stormed parliament as anger exploded over deteriorating living conditions and political deadlock.

Libyans, many impoverished after a decade of turmoil and sweltering in the soaring summer heat, have been enduring fuel shortages and power cuts of up to 18 hours a day, even as their country sits atop Africa’s largest proven oil reserves.

The country has been mired in chaos and repeated rounds of conflict since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.

Protesters stormed the seat of the House of Representatives in the eastern city of Tobruk on Friday night, ransacking its offices and torching part of the building.

In both the main eastern city of Benghazi — the cradle of the 2011 uprising — and the capital Tripoli, thousands took to the streets to chants of “We want the lights to work”.

Some brandished the green flags of the former Kadhafi regime.

Calm appeared to have returned to Tobruk on Saturday, though there were calls on social media for more protests in the evening.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on “all actors to refrain from any actions that could undermine stability” and urged them “to come together to overcome the continued political deadlock”, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

UN-mediated talks in Geneva this week aimed at breaking the stalemate between rival Libyan institutions failed to resolve key differences.

– ‘Extremely painful’ year –

Presidential and parliamentary elections, originally set for December last year, were meant to cap a UN-led peace process following the end of the last major round of violence in 2020. 

But voting never took place due to several contentious candidacies and deep disagreements over the polls’ legal basis between the rival power centres in east and west.

In Tripoli on Friday, hundreds came out to demand elections, fresh political leadership and an end to the chronic power cuts.

The sudden eruption of unrest appeared to be spreading to other areas of the country, with Libyan media showing images of protesters in the oasis city of Sebha, deep in the Sahara desert, torching an official building.

A local journalist said protesters in Libya’s third city Misrata were blocking roads after setting fire to a municipal building on Friday night.

After dark, protesters also gathered at several points in Tripoli, shutting down some roads and burning tyres, according to images broadcast by local media.

Interim prime minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah leads a Tripoli-based administration while former interior minister Fathi Bashagha draws support from the Tobruk-based House of Representatives and eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Haftar’s forces said Saturday that they “support the citizens’ demands” but called for protesters to “preserve public property”.

Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui told AFP that “for more than a year, the overwhelming majority of diplomatic and mediation efforts around Libya have been monopolised by the idea of elections, which won’t happen for at least two years, given the failure of the Geneva negotiations.”

This year “has been extremely painful for Libyans” because the country “imports almost all its food and the Ukraine war has hit consumer prices”, Harchaoui said.

– ‘Fragile situation’ –

Libya’s energy sector, which during the Kadhafi era financed a generous welfare state, has also fallen victim to political divisions, with a wave of forced closures of oil facilities since April.

Supporters of the eastern-based administration have shut off the oil taps as leverage in their efforts to secure a transfer of power to Bashagha, whose attempt to take up office in Tripoli in May ended in a swift withdrawal.

“There is kleptocracy and systematic corruption in the east as in the west, as the fancy cars and villas of the elite constantly remind the public,” Harchaoui said, accusing militias from both camps of carrying out “massive” fuel trafficking.

The European Union’s envoy to Libya, Jose Sabadell, said Friday’s events “confirm people want change through elections”.

But he urged peaceful protests, adding that “special restraint is necessary given the fragile situation”.

US ambassador to Libya Richard Norland said that “no single political entity enjoys legitimate control across the entire country and any effort to impose a unilateral solution will result in violence”.

He urged Libya’s “political leaders across the spectrum and their foreign backers to seize the moment to restore the confidence of their citizens in the country’s future”.