Latest news with #AgenceFrance-Presse
Gulf Today
5 hours ago
- Business
- Gulf Today
Europe's lithium quest hampered by China and lack of cash
Alvaro Villalobos, Agence France-Presse Europe's ambition to be a world player in decarbonised transportation arguably depends on sourcing lithium abroad, especially in South America. Even the bloc's broader energy security and climate goals could depend on securing a steady supply of the key mineral, used in batteries and other clean energy supply chains. But Europe has run into a trio of obstacles: lack of money, double-edged regulations and competition from China, analysts said. China has a major head start. It currently produces more than three-quarters of batteries sold worldwide, refines 70 per cent of raw lithium and is the world's third-largest extractor behind Australia and Chile, according to 2024 data from the United States Geological Survey. To gain a foothold, Europe has developed a regulatory framework that emphasises environmental preservation, quality job creation and cooperation with local communities. It has also signed bilateral agreements with about 15 countries, including Chile and Argentina, the world's fifth-largest lithium producer. But too often it fails to deliver when it comes to investment, say experts. "I see a lot of memoranda of understanding, but there is a lack of action," Julia Poliscanova, director of electric vehicles at the Transport and Environment (T&E) think tank, told AFP. "More than once, on the day that we signed another MoU, the Chinese were buying an entire mine in the same country." The investment gap is huge: China spent $6 billion on lithium projects abroad from 2020 to 2023, while Europe barely coughed up a billion dollars over the same period, according to data compiled by T&E. At the same time, the bottleneck in supply has tightened: last year saw a 30 per cent increase in global demand for lithium, according to a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). "To secure the supply of raw materials, China is actively investing in mines abroad through state-owned companies with political support from the government," the IEA noted. China's Belt and Road Initiative funnelled $21.4 billion into mining beyond its shores in 2024, according to the report. Europe, meanwhile, is "lagging behind in investment levels in these areas", said Sebastian Galarza, founder of the Centre for Sustainable Mobility in Santiago, Chile. "The lack of a clear path for developing Europe's battery and mining industries means that gap will be filled by other actors." In Africa, for example, Chinese demand has propelled Zimbabwe to become the fourth-largest lithium producer in the world. "The Chinese let their money do the talking," said Theo Acheampong, an analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations. By 2035, all new cars and vans sold in the European Union must produce zero carbon emissions, and EU leaders and industry would like as much as possible of that market share to be sourced locally. Last year, just over 20 percent of new vehicles sold in the bloc were electric. "Currently, only four percent of Chile's lithium goes to Europe," noted Stefan Debruyne, director of external affairs at Chilean private mining company SQM. "The EU has every opportunity to increase its share of the battery industry." Shifting supply chains But Europe's plans to build dozens of battery factories have been hampered by fluctuating consumer demand and competition from Japan (Panasonic), South Korea (LG Energy Solution, Samsung) and, above all, China (CATL, BYD). The key to locking down long-term lithium supply is closer ties in the so-called "lithium triangle" formed by Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, which account for nearly half of the world's reserves, analysts say. To encourage cooperation with these countries, European actors have proposed development pathways that would help establish electric battery production in Latin America. Draft EU regulations would allow Latin America to "reconcile local development with the export of these raw materials, and not fall into a purely extractive cycle", said Juan Vazquez, deputy head for Latin America and the Caribbean at the OECD Development Centre. But it is still unclear whether helping exporting countries develop complete supply chains makes economic sense, or will ultimately tilt in Europe's favour. "What interest do you have as a company in setting up in Chile to produce cathodes, batteries or more sophisticated materials if you don't have a local or regional market to supply?" said Galarza. "Why not just take the lithium, refine it and do everything in China and send the battery back to us?" Pointing to the automotive tradition in Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, Galarza suggested an answer. "We must push quickly towards the electrification of transport in the region so we can share in the benefits of the energy transition," he argued. But the road ahead looks long. Electric vehicles were only two percent of new car sales in Mexico and Chile last year, six percent in Brazil and seven percent in Colombia, according to the IEA. The small nation of Costa Rica stood out as the only nation in the region where EVs hit double digits, at 15 percent of new car sales.
Gulf Today
5 hours ago
- General
- Gulf Today
Bangladeshi workers risk lives in shipbreaking yards
Antoine Guy, Agence France-Presse Mizan Hossain fell 10 metres from the top of a ship he was cutting up on Chittagong beach in Bangladesh — where the majority of the world's maritime giants meet their end — when the vibrations shook him from the upper deck. He survived, but his back was crushed. 'I can't get up in the morning," said the 31-year-old who has a wife, three children and his parents to support. "We eat one meal in two, and I see no way out of my situation," said Hossain, his hands swollen below a deep scar on his right arm. The shipbreaking site where Hossain worked without a harness did not comply with international safety and environmental standards. Hossain has been cutting up ships on the sand without proper protection or insurance since he was a child, like many men in his village a few kilometres inland from the giant beached ships. One of his neighbours had his toes crushed in another yard shortly before AFP visited Chittagong in February. Shipbreaking yards employ 20,000 to 30,000 people directly or indirectly in the sprawling port on the Bay of Bengal. But the human and environmental cost of the industry is also immense, experts say. The Hong Kong Convention on the Recycling of Ships, which is meant to regulate one of the world's most dangerous industries, is set to come into effect on June 26. But many question whether its rules on handling toxic waste and protecting workers are sufficient or if they will ever be properly implemented. Only seven out of Chittagong's 30 yards meet the new rules about equipping workers with helmets, harnesses and other protection as well as protocols for decontaminating ships of asbestos and other pollutants and storing hazardous waste. Chittagong was the final destination of nearly a third of the 409 ships dismantled globally last year, according to the NGO coalition Shipbreaking Platform. Most of the others ended up in India, Pakistan, or Turkey. But Bangladesh — close to the Asian nerve centre of global maritime commerce — offers the best price for buying end-of-life ships due to its extremely low labour costs, with a minimum monthly wage of around $133 (115 euros). Chittagong's 25-kilometre stretch of beach is the world's biggest ship graveyard. Giant hulks of oil tankers or gas carriers lie in the mud under the scorching sun, an army of workers slowly dismembering them with oxyacetylene torches. "When I started (in the 2000s) it was extremely dangerous," said Mohammad Ali, a thickset union leader who long worked without protection dismantling ships on the sand. "Accidents were frequent, and there were regular deaths and injuries." He was left incapacitated for months after being hit on the head by a piece of metal. "When there's an accident, you're either dead or disabled," the 48-year-old said. At least 470 workers have been killed and 512 seriously injured in the shipbreaking yards of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan since 2009, according to the Shipbreaking Platform NGO. No official death toll is kept in Chittagong. But between 10 and 22 workers a year died in its yards between 2018 and 2022, according to a count kept by Mohamed Ali Sahin, founder of a workers' support centre. There have been improvements in recent years, he said, especially after Dhaka ratified the Hong Kong Convention in 2023, Sahin said. But seven workers still died last year and major progress is needed, he said. The industry is further accused of causing major environmental damage, particularly to mangroves, with oil and heavy metals escaping into the sea from the beach. Asbestos -- which is not illegal in Bangladesh -- is also dumped in open-air landfills. Shipbreaking is also to blame for abnormally high levels of arsenic and other metalloids in the region's soil, rice and vegetables, according to a 2024 study in the Journal of Hazardous Materials. PHP, the most modern yard in the region, is one of few in Chittagong that meets the new standards. Criticism of pollution and working conditions in Bangladesh yards annoys its managing director Mohammed Zahirul Islam. "Just because we're South Asian, with dark skin, are we not capable of excelling in a field?" he told AFP. "Ships are built in developed countries... then used by Europeans and Westerners for 20 or 30 years, and we get them (at the end) for four months. "But everything is our fault," he said as workers in helmets, their faces shielded by plastic visors to protect them from metal shards, dismantled a Japanese gas carrier on a concrete platform near the shore. "There should be a shared responsibility for everyone involved in this whole cycle," he added. His yard has modern cranes and even flower beds, but workers are not masked as they are in Europe to protect them from inhaling metal dust and fumes. But modernising yards to meet the new standards is costly, with PHP spending $10 million to up its game. With the sector in crisis, with half as many ships sent for scrap since the pandemic — and Bangladesh hit by instability after the tumultuous ousting of premier Sheikh Hasina in August — investors are reluctant, said John Alonso of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Chittagong still has no facility to treat or store hazardous materials taken from ships. PHP encases the asbestos it extracts in cement and stores it on-site in a dedicated room. "I think we have about six to seven years of storage capacity," said its expert Liton Mamudzer. But NGOs like Shipbreaking Platform and Robin des Bois are sceptical about how feasible this is, with some ships containing scores of tonnes of asbestos. And Walton Pantland, of the global union federation IndustriALL, questioned whether the Hong Kong standards will be maintained once yards get their certification, with inspections left to local officials. Indeed six workers were killed in September in an explosion at SN Corporation's Chittagong yard, which was compliant with the convention. Shipbreaking Platform said it was symptomatic of a lack of adequate "regulation, supervision and worker protections" in Bangladesh, even with the Hong Kong rules. The NGO's director Ingvild Jenssen said shipowners were using the Hong Kong Convention to bypass the Basel Convention, which bans OECD countries from exporting toxic waste to developing nations. She accused them of using it to offload toxic ships cheaply at South Asian yards without fear of prosecution, using a flag of convenience or intermediaries. In contrast, European shipowners are required to dismantle ships based on the continent, or flying a European flag, under the much stricter Ship Recycling Regulation (SRR). At the Belgian shipbreaking yard Galloo near the Ghent-Terneuzen canal, demolition chief Peter Wyntin told AFP how ships are broken down into "50 different kinds of materials" to be recycled. Everything is mechanised, with only five or six workers wearing helmets, visors and masks to filter the air, doing the actual breaking amid mountains of scrap metal. A wind turbine supplies electricity, and a net collects anything that falls in the canal. Galloo also sank 10 million euros into water treatment, using activated carbon and bacterial filters. But Wyntin said it is a struggle to survive with several European yards forced to shut as Turkish ones with EU certification take much of the business. While shipbreakers in the EU have "25,000 pages of legislation to comply with", he argued, those in Aliaga on the western coast of Turkey have only 25 pages of rules to respect to be "third-country compliant under SRR". Wyntin is deeply worried the Hong Kong Convention will further undermine standards and European yards with them. "You can certify yards in Turkey or Asia, but it still involves beaching," where ships are dismantled directly on the shore. "And beaching is a process we would never accept in Europe," he insisted.
LeMonde
6 hours ago
- LeMonde
Champagne region employer faces prison sentence in human trafficking trial
French prosecutors on Thursday, June 19, requested two years behind bars for an employer in the champagne sector accused of human trafficking, exploiting seasonal workers and housing them in appalling conditions during the 2023 grape harvest. More than 50 mostly undocumented migrant harvesters lived in accommodation that harmed their "security, health and dignity", according to the prosecution. "We cannot accept any champagne bottle concealing unregulated subcontracting and blatant mistreatment," the prosecutor said. The director, a Kyrgyz woman in her forties, has also been accused of concealed labor, submitting vulnerable or dependent persons to undignified housing conditions and employing foreign nationals without authorization. Communicating with the help of a translator, the main defendant denied she was responsible for the housing conditions and blamed two co-defendants suspected of recruiting the harvesters hailing from Mali, Mauritania, Côte d'Ivoire and Senegal. The prosecutor requested a three-year sentence for those two men, including at least one year without parole. Both Anavim, which provided the housing to the 57 seasonal workers, and a wine cooperative that traded with the company were also tried as responsible parties in court. The prosecutor requested that Anavim be dissolved and the cooperative fined €200,000 euros. The court is to issue a verdict on July 21. Treated 'like slaves' Camara Sikou, one of the laborers, said in court that the workers had been treated "like slaves." Another worker, Modibo Sidibe, told Agence France-Presse: "They put us in an abandoned building with no food, no water, nothing. And then they took us to harvest the grapes from 5 am to 6 pm." Prosecutors said investigators inspected living conditions of the harvesters in September 2023, after a neighbor alerted French police. The accommodation, a warehouse and a house under construction in the village of Nesle-le-Repons, contained "worn and dirty sanitation facilities," bedding strewn on the floor and an outdoor kitchen and living areas unprotected from the weather. The accommodation also failed to respect electrical "security measures," the prosecutor said. Following the inspection, regional authorities ordered the closure of the accommodation, citing "unsanitary" and "undignified" living conditions. According to a report conducted by the labour inspectorate, the accommodation was in a state of "dilapidation" and the toilets and shared living spaces were "disgusting" due to lack of cleaning. Every year, around 120,000 seasonal laborers are brought to the Champagne region to handpick grapes grown across 34,000 hectares and used to make its iconic bubbly. The famed winemaking region's reputation took a hit in 2023 when four grape harvesters died, possibly the result of sunstroke after working in scorching heat.
GMA Network
9 hours ago
- Politics
- GMA Network
Iran fires new missile salvo at Israel, state TV reports
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran fired a fresh salvo of missiles at Israel on Friday, state television reported, on the eighth day of the war between the two foes. A news anchor described "images in the sky over the occupied territories (Israel) of Iranian missiles arriving", as the channel broadcast the footage with military music playing in the background. — Agence France-Presse
LeMonde
10 hours ago
- Politics
- LeMonde
Armenia PM arrives in Turkey for 'historic' visit in bid to mend ties
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan arrived in Istanbul on Friday, June 20, for a rare visit to arch-foe Turkey, in what Yerevan has described as a "historic" step toward regional peace. Armenia and Turkey have never established formal diplomatic ties, and their shared border has been closed since the 1990s. "Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has arrived in Turkey on a working visit," his spokesperson Nazeli Baghdasaryan wrote on Facebook. The visit follows an invitation from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom Pashinyan is scheduled to meet at Istanbul's Dolmabahce Palace in the afternoon, Erdogan's office said. Relations between the two nations have been historically strained over the Armenian genocide, a label Ankara rejects. Ankara has also backed its close ally, Turkic-speaking Azerbaijan, in its long-running conflict with Armenia. Relations between the two nations have been historically strained over the genocide perpetrated against Armenians in the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 – a step in that direction." An Armenian foreign ministry official told Agence France-Presse the pair will discuss efforts to sign a comprehensive peace treaty as well as the regional fallout from the Iran-Israel conflict. On Thursday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev was in Turkey for talks with Erdogan and praised the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance as "a significant factor, not only regionally but also globally." Erdogan repeated his backing for "the establishment of peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia." Baku and Yerevan agreed on the text of a peace deal in March, but Baku has since outlined a host of demands − including changes to Armenia's constitution − before it will sign the document.
