News for the Week of 4/4-4/10

The Deal Made Between Turkey and the European Union

Turkey and the EU Have a Plan for the Migrant Crisis. 

Here's Why it's a Mess.

         This informative article written by Danae Leivada, a reporter for The Huffington Posts, explains the deal made between the E.U. and Turkey concerning the fate of the migrants who are currently residing in Greece and points out the flaws of the plan made for the migrants. According to the deal Greece can send back any migrant who in their country who does not apply for asylum or whose asylum papers are not accepted, and in return for every one refugee sent back to Turkey the E.U. will take in a Syrian who officially registered in a  Turkish refugee camp. Critics worry that this deal violates the UN Refugee Convention, which mandates that countries who have signed it examine the application of all asylum seekers, because it is believed that Greece does not have the ability to quickly and efficiently process asylum applications like the deal requires, and Greece can rule asylum applications inadmissible if the asylum seeker reach Greece through a "safe third country". There was disagreement over weather or not Turkey was considered a safe third country because of human rights concerns ,but thankfully on Friday(April 8) Greece's parliament voted on a bill regulating the asylum process that did not recognize Turkey as a safe third country. Despite that fact that this concern has been resolved the other still remains. Greece is suffering through its own economic and social crisis, and has not been able to properly deal with the hundreds of thousands of people arriving on their shores and the 12,000 migrants currently refusing to leave the tent camp in Indomeni who refuse to move to government run facilities despite worsening condition because they fear they will be sent back to Turkey, Greece is now expected to deal with much of the implementation of the EU-Turkey deal . Detention centers are already filled beyond capacity, leading to food shortages, poor sanitation and a lack of accommodation, and asylum proceedings are slowed down by limited office hours and daily limits on registration, and now Greece is required to detain migrants in closed centers after they arrive in the country. The E.U. has allotted $332.4 million to support Greece this year and the union vowed to provide material assistance to build the infrastructure it needs and send personnel to implement the agreement, but despite this and the start of deportations on Monday, most EU staff has not yet arrived on the Greek islands. Many critics fear that the promise to take in migrants in non binding because of the security fears of the E.U. caused by the terrorist attacks in Brussels and Paris. And although the plan is meant to curb the number of refugees traveling on unsafe sea crossings to Greece and trafficking rings it will only increase the number of other routes that migrants will take.
                I completely agree with all of the concerns already stated in the article but I also worry that Greece will use this deal as an excuse to get rid of any of the 'excess' migrants in its camps. Greece already has more migrants than it can handle. There is not enough space for everyone in camps, not enough personnel to prevent conflicts within the camps, and not enough personnel to properly examine asylum requests. Greek authorities could uses this deal to send any migrant with even the slightest blemish on their record back to Turkey. Conditions in Greece and Turkey can only get worse as more and more migrants arrive in the two countries and with Greece's lack of resources it will be impossible for them to hold up their end of the deal. Migrants will be stuck in one unsafe environment or another unless a better solution to the migrant crisis is found.

Leivada, Danae. "Turkey and the EU Have a Plan for the Migrant Crisis. Here's Why It's a Mess."
The Huffington Post. The Huffington Post, 2 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/turkey-eu-plan-migrant-crisis_us_56fea8dce4b0a06d58059711?utm_hp_ref=
worldpost-europe >. 

A Deal That Puts Lives at Risk

                 This editorial from The New York Times reports on the beginning of the deportation of people from Greece to Turkey as part of the deal between the E.U. and Turkey(Which is described in the article before this one.), despite the fact that Turkey was ruled a unsafe country for the refugees to return to because of several humanitarian concerns and the fact that the United Nation refugee agency has said that there is not sufficient safeguards to protect people. Amnesty International released a report documenting the abuses refugees face in Turkey such as the round up of men, women, and children who are then sent back to Syria, and the shooting of desperate refugees trying to cross the boarder into Turkey, but as bad as Turkey is Greece is not much better as an alternative. Last month the United Nations refugee agency stopped supporting Greek authorities in refugee processing centers, claiming that they had become "detention centers" and "Greece does not have sufficient capacity on the islands for assessing asylum claims, nor the proper conditions to accommodate people decently and safely.".  The E.U. has promised Turkey billions of euros as part of the deal to help them do better but due to the increasingly authoritarian rule of Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogen the writer speculates whether or not the money will be used as is intended.

                "The European Union should suspend deportations from Greece to Turkey until the treatment of refugees in both countries meets international and E.U. legal and humanitarian standards.". I could not agree more with the concluding sentence on this editorial. What is the point of sending migrants back and forth from one unsafe country to another? At this point no matter where the refugees are they are not safe. Many families have been separated and many people have died trying to get somewhere that is not plagued by war, famine, and filth, and now they are being given no choice but to be in the environment they have been trying to escape. The refugees should not be moved anywhere until there is somewhere safe and well equipped to handle the number of people who would be coming into the country.

The Editorial Board. "A Deal That Puts Lives at Risk." The Times Union. The Times Union, 6 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016. 
<http://www.nytimes.com/ 2016/04/07/opinion/ a-deal-that-puts-lives-at-risk.html?emc=edit_ty_20160407&nl=opinion&nlid=
74830742 &_r=0>. 

Fates Diverging, Afghan and Syrian Immigrants Clash in Greece

               In this article written by Liz Alderman for the The New York Times describes the conflict between Syrian and Afghan refugees that has been caused by the recent deal made between the E.U. and Turkey. According to the deal Greece will ONLY grant Syrian refugees asylum into Europe, which has angered the Afghan refugees who were already in Greece because now they are going to be sent back to Turkey. Last Friday at midnight a riot erupted between Afghans and Syrians at a camp in Chios, Greece. Nearly 1,000 Afghans and Syrians were involved in the fight, it lasted six hours before police intervened and ended with 800 refugees broke out of the detention center and marched in protest to the main port. This clash was only the latest one in a series of violent ordeals at migrant camps across Greece. Until the surge of nearly 1 million people into Europe last summer both Syrian and Afghan migrants were eligible for asylum, but due to increase in the number of migrants government reclassified Afghans as economic refugees, lessening their chances of being able to stay in Europe legally and favoring Syrians for entry. The estimated 13,000 Afghans now stuck in Greece resent being labeled job seekers and not refugees seeking safety from the conflict that the United states and Europe helped create in Afghanistan. Both migrants and Greek authorities say that they expect tensions to rise as the deportation program goes on and more and more Afghans are turned away.
               The fact that people continue to turn away people who need help because of racism, prejudices, or stereotypes continues to baffle me. These Afghan migrants are in the same exact situation that the Syrian migrants are in, yet they are refused safety. It is more than likely that some of the Afghan refugees who are sent back to Turkey will then be sent back to Afghanistan because we have already seen that Turkey has sent migrants back to their war torn countries in the past, and even if they are not sent back to Afghanistan they will either find more dangerous routes into Europe.The deal made between the E.U. and Turkey needs some serious changes. It is not fair that the Afghan migrants are being denied the help that they need while they face the exact same dangers in their home countries that the Syrian migrants do. 

Alderman, Liz. "Fates Diverging, Afghan and Syrian Migrants Clash in Greece." The Times Union. 
The Times Union, 8 Apr. 2016. Web. 10 Apr. 2016.  <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/09/world/europe/ 
 fates-diverging-afghan-and-syrian-migrants-clash-in-greece.html?ref=world>. 




Chappatte, Patrick. Chappatte on Sending Migrants Back to Turkey. 5 Apr. 2016. Illustration.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/06/opinion/chappatte-on-sending-migrants-to-turkey.html?emc=edit_ty_20160406&nl=opinion&nlid
=74830742&_r=0>.

A political cartoon by Patrick Chappatte for The New York Times

News for the Week of 3/28- 4/3

Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching

Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching is the "Worst In Its History"

           

            This article written by Mindy Weisberger on April 1, 2016 for Live Science is an overview of the coral bleaching occurring in the Great Barrier Reef. According to a statement released March 29th by The Australian Research Council this incident is "the worst mass coral bleaching in its history". In an aerial survey done by the National Coral Bleaching Task Force(NCBT) it was found that the majority of the 500 reefs surveyed were undergoing severe bleaching. The coral bleaching is due in part by the rising temperatures of ocean water and in part by El Niño, and because it is estimated that El Niño will last through 2016 it is not looking good for the corals' recovery. Rebecca Albright told Live Science that it is still too early to tell if there will be any long-term bleaching effects on the coral, but estimates of coral losses show an expected loss of 50%, and the bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef is only a small part of the global bleaching occurring right now. Reefs in New Caledonia, Fiji, and southern Indonesia are all experiencing severe coral bleaching, creating a global bleaching event.
           
            According to the article "the reef contains 400 types of coral and hosts 1,500 types of fish and 4,000 mollusk species, as well as other marine life such as large green turtles and dugongs ("sea cows")" and "covers 134,364 square miles (348,000 square kilometers), making it larger than the U.K., Switzerland and the Netherlands combined", and an incredibly large ecosystem. Currently 95% of this ecosystem's northern reefs corals are severely bleached and up to 50% of them could end up dying, severely damaging the biodiversity in the reef. All of which would be caused in a large part by global warming due to the increase in the amount of green house gasses released into to atmosphere by humans. Because of this I have a hard time being as optimistic as Albright who believes that the reef will bounce back. We have seen the impact of global warming for the last 38 years and little has been done about it and I don't believe that much more will be done any time soon, so even if the corals did begin to recover it seems highly unlikely that they will ever be able to fully recover unless people begin to take climate change seriously and realize that it could have a serious impact on not only many ecosystems around the world but also on the way we live our lives.

Weisberger, Mindy."Great Barrier Reef Coral Bleaching Is "Worst in History"" 
Live Science. Live Science, 1 Apr. Web. 2 Apr. 2016.
http://www.livescience.com/54272-great-barrier-reef-worst-coral-bleaching.html

Coral Destruction to the Great Barrier Reef

         In this article written by the Union of Concerned Scientists for Climate Hot Map they discuss the impact that coral bleaching will have on the Great Barrier reef in the future. It is stated that due to the rise in the amount of CO2 adsorbed by the ocean and in turn the increased acidity of the oceans reefs are eroding faster now than ever before.  It is expected that by 2030 annual bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef will begin if today's trends in pollution, global warming, and rising ocean temperatures continue. As more and more corals die off the amount of species that the reef can support decreases, resulting in a lack of biodiversity on the reef in a decade, and possibly a 95% decrees in this century. If these changes in the Great Barrier Reef actually occur it could significantly harm the local economy by effecting fishing and tourism in the area.

               Not only is coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef effecting the species that live in the reef but also the lives of the people who live around the reef who rely on the resources from the reef. So when are we going to do something to help the reef recover? There is plenty we can do to reduce carbon emissions and prevent global warming, its just a matter of when we do these things. As I mentioned in my summary it is estimated that by 2030 there will be an annual coral bleaching and within the next century a possible 95% decrees in the diversity of the Great Barrier Reef,  meaning continuous damage to the Great Barrier Reef and the resources that come from it. We have 14 years before global warming causes serious damage to the Great Barrier Reef and it is important that we use those 14 years to find ways to protect our environment and help it recover from the damage that has already been done.

The Union of Concerned Scientists. "Great Barrier Reef, Australia. "

Climate Hot Map: Global Warming Effects Around the World. Union of 

Concerned Scientists, n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2016.

 <http://www.climatehotmap.org/about/climate-hot-map.html#team>.