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On the front page of the press, this Wednesday, March 1, the distress of the survivors, after the earthquakes which killed more than 50,000 people, in Turkey and Syria, concerns about the food situation in North Korea, the increase of child labor in the United States and the resignation of Noël Le Graët, boss of the French Football Federation (FFF).
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On the front page of the press, the disarray of the survivors, after the earthquakes which killed nearly 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria. More than three weeks after the disaster, nearly two million people have fled Turkey’s quake zone – victims with promise, headline of official newspaper Turkey, that they will not “leave their ancestral homeland”. A patriotic declaration which rubs shoulders with a photo showing President Recep Tayip Erdogan comforting a little girl, under a caption ensuring that a million and a half houses will be built in Istanbul, to rehouse the victims.
On the ground, the reality is much darker. The French newspaper The cross met victims of Antakya (Antioch), a city totally devastated by the earthquakes and whose inhabitants say they are completely left to their own devices and lack everything, including tents. AFAD, the Turkish national disaster management agency, claims to have deployed 335,000 tents since the earthquakes but the victims accuse it of being “too slow, too centralized”, and claim to rely instead on deliveries from Istanbul and its mayor, a figure of the CHP, the main opposition party, who could face Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the presidential election scheduled in 3 months, if the latter does not postpone the ballot.
#ÀLaUne from La Croix:
➡️ Turkey, life after the earthquake
➡️ They asked to change their last name
➡️”Empire of Light”, an ode to the comforting power of images
???? Will the cow of the future be zero methane? pic.twitter.com/tAWcretZhf— The Cross (@LaCroix) February 28, 2023
In Syria, the stories of the survivors are very similar to those of their Turkish neighbors. The testimonies collected by the Lebanese news site Daraj report a spike in the price of tents, the cost of which last week fluctuated between 160 and more than 200 euros, in the Idlib region. Poor quality tents, moreover, made from awnings and insulation fixed together by iron bars.
In the press, too, these concerns about the food situation in North Korea, which could have worsened in recent months. The world relays articles published by the South Korean press, which reports that the Pyongyang regime has devoted an exceptional plenary session to agriculture since Sunday. This meeting could mean a new period of famine, in a country which was already struck, in the 90s, by a famine responsible for several hundreds of thousands of deaths. The Korean press has mentioned, in recent weeks, the deaths of several people who died of starvation. The world specifies however that this information “has not been confirmed” by the South Korean government, even if he also spoke to him of “people who died of malnutrition” in “certain regions”, without further details.
Worrying, too, are these figures on child labor in the United States, where violations of labor rights in this area increased by 37% last year, according to official figures. The Financial Times explains this increase by staff shortages in companies, which increasingly and illegally resort to adolescent workers, in particular to fill the gaps in night shifts. The British daily reports on the recent sentencing of a Wisconsin-based company to a fine of one and a half million dollars for employing more than a hundred children aged 13 to 17.
These children were employed night cleaning meat-packing plants across the country, using hazardous chemicals and “razor-sharp” equipment, with which at least three of them they got hurt. The Financial Times recalls that a number of US states have responded to current labor market pressures, not by seeking to improve child protection, but by lifting restrictions on child labour, such as New Jersey, which passed a law last July to increase the number of hours of work allowed for children over 14.
A word, to finish, of the resignation, yesterday, of the boss of the French Football Federation, Noël Le Graët, implicated, in particular, in several cases of harassment. This resignation made the headlines The Team, who is surprised that the former boss of the FFF will continue, despite everything, to continue to lead the Paris office of FIFA, the International Football Federation. “A good friend can always be useful, and Gianni Infantino (the boss of Fifa) is really a good friend, of those who support you in difficulty”, quips the newspaper. “The last few days let us believe in a burst of lucidity, here we are again faced with the denial of the old days. Graët fired? Yes, but with the congratulations of the jury”, regrets the sports daily.
Forced at the start, Noël Le Graët does not see where the problem is. In an interview with the newspaper, he insists that he has “never harassed anyone” and counterattacks by claiming to be the victim of a “well-organized political-media cabal” and by announcing legal proceedings against the audit of the FFF and against and the Minister of Sports, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra.
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