Month: March 2025

 

 EU Preparedness Union Strategy to prevent and react to emerging threats and crises

 

Today the Commission and High Representative launch the Preparedness Union Strategy to support Member States and enhance Europe’s capability to prevent and respond to emerging threats.

It comes as the European Union is facing increasingly complex crises and challenges that cannot be ignored. From growing geopolitical tensions and conflicts, hybrid and cybersecurity threats, foreign information manipulation and interference, to climate change and increasing natural disasters, the EU needs to be ready to protect its citizens and the key societal functions that are crucial for democracy and daily life.

Concretely, the Strategy includes 30 key actions and a detailed Action Plan to advance the Preparedness Union’s objectives, as well as developing a ‘preparedness by design culture’ across all EU policies.

President Ursula von der Leyen said: “New realities require a new level of preparedness in Europe. Our citizens, our Member States, and our businesses need the right tools to act both to prevent crises and to react swiftly when a disaster hits. Families living in flood zones should know what to do when the waters rise. Early warning systems can prevent regions hit by wildfires from losing precious time. Europe stands ready to support Member States and trusted partners in the neighbourhood to save lives and livelihoods.”

Key objectives and actions of the Strategy include:

Protecting Europe’s Essential Societal Functions:

• Develop minimum preparedness criteria for essential services such as hospitals, schools, transport, and telecommunications.
• Enhance the stockpiling of critical equipment and materials.
• Enhance climate adaptation and availability of critical natural resources such as water.

Promoting Population Preparedness:

• Encourage the public to adopt practical measures, such as maintaining essential supplies for a minimum of 72 hours in emergencies.
• Integrate preparedness lessons into school curricula and introduce an EU Preparedness Day.

Enhancing Crisis Response Coordination:

• Establish an EU Crisis Hub to improve integration among existing EU crisis structures.

Strengthening Civil-Military Cooperation:

• Conduct regular EU-wide preparedness exercises, uniting armed forces, civil protection, police, security, healthcare workers, and firefighters.
• Facilitate dual-use investments.

Full press release: https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/news-stories/news/eu-preparedness-union-strategy-prevent-and-react-emerging-threats-and-crises-2025-03-26_en

 

Greece, Mati wild fire Trial: Prosecutor’s Verdict Expected in Deadly 2018 Tragedy

 

One of the world’s deadliest fires in which 104 people died

In a significant development in the trial over the devastating 2018 Mati wildfire, which claimed 104 lives and left dozens injured, the prosecutor of the Athens Three-Member Appeals Court for Misdemeanours, Stamantina Perimeni, has recommended guilty verdicts for 12 of the 21 defendants.

A prosecutor has recommended the conviction of 12 officials, including former regional and municipal leaders, for their role in the 2018 Mati wildfire that killed 104 people and severely injured 57.

The case, now being retried after an appeal overturned the initial ruling, expands accountability to political figures previously acquitted.

Prosecutor Stamatina Perimeni identified negligence by former Attica governor Rena Dourou, ex-Rafina mayor Evangelos Bournous, and former civil protection secretary Ioannis Kapakis.

The prosecutor reaffirmed the guilt of six officials previously convicted, including former fire chief Sotiris Terzoudis, while recommending the acquittal of nine others, including ex-Marathon mayor Ilias Psinakis, due to insufficient evidence of direct responsibility.

Defence and prosecution attorneys will present their closing arguments next week.

A verdict could be issued by late April, determining whether justice will be served for one of Greece’s deadliest wildfires.

The first-instance court previously convicted only six of the 21 defendants, imposing sentences of up to five years, which were later converted into fines. The decision led to widespread criticism and a full appeal of the ruling.

 

The event.

The fire, which broke out on July 23, 2018, turned into a catastrophic blaze that overwhelmed emergency responders and residents alike. It started in Penteli and rapidly spread through Eastern Attica, resulted in 104 deaths and left over 200 injured, marking it as the second deadliest wildfire in the world.

As the flames engulfed homes and roads, many victims perished in the inferno, while others drowned attempting to escape by sea. The trial has centred on whether authorities took appropriate preventive and operational measures or if negligence contributed to the scale of the disaster.

A series of wildfires in Greece, during the 2018 European heat wave, began in the coastal areas of Attica in July 2018. 104 people were confirmed dead from the Mati fires. The fires were, at that time, the second-deadliest wildfire event in the 21st century, after the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires in Australia that killed 173. Over 700 residents were evacuated or rescued, mainly from the seaside settlements located north of the port town of Rafina, namely Kokkino Limanaki and Mati, where rescuers found 26 corpses trapped just meters away from the sea, apparently hugging each other as they died.

The flames were so intense that they trapped and burned people inside their houses, cars, or a few meters away from the beach

Boats also recovered corpses from the water, and rescued hundreds of people from beaches and the sea. Two people drowned when the boat rescuing them from a hotel in Mati capsized. Μore than 4,000 residents were affected by the wildfires.

Thousands of vehicles and 40,000 pine and olive trees were burned; the fire destroyed Mati and nearby Kokkino Limanaki. About 400 people waded deep into the sea and waited hours to be rescued. Temperatures reached 800 °C, fanned by gale-force winds.

Access to beaches was difficult due to the steep slopes covering much of the coastline; the seaside was also thickly settled; long stretches of buildings were stacked against each other with only a few narrow routes between them to access the waterside. Those who reached the beaches were forced into the water by the suffocating smoke. While some were rescued by nearby fishing boats, others drowned. Heavy traffic on the roads into Mati delayed firefighters attempting to reach the area. News reports from the days following the wildfire noted that the air fleet struggled to contain the blaze due to strong winds.

When the flames were finally controlled, the vast majority of buildings in Rafina and Mati were damaged.  The fire had ravaged over 4000 homes, leaving hundreds of locals to take shelter in vacant hotels, a summer camp and a nearby army centre.

In March 2019 a report was produced detailing many mistakes made by the authorities: mismanagement by police and fire services, and a lack of coordination between rescue agencies, had caused “chaos and a collapse of the system… criminal mistakes and omissions”

In April 2024, a court convicted and sentenced five former firefighting and disaster response officials were convicted and sentenced to between 15 and 111 years’ imprisonment for multiple counts of criminal negligence resulting in injury and death from the fires. However, the court also allowed the sentences to be served concurrently and set the maximum amount of servable time to five years, and also allowed the defendants to pay a fine in lieu of actual imprisonment before being released.

 

 

 

 

 

World must prepare for new pandemic with surveillance and planning

 

Scientists believe that the world is better prepared to face a new pandemic, given the mistakes and lessons learned from Covid-19, arguing that the future strategy involves surveillance, planning, investment and cooperation.

“As we have more knowledge and experience, we are, in principle, better prepared. But the world has not evolved for the better, particularly in the relationship between politics and public health”, laments, to Lusa, the physicist and science communicator Carlos Fiolhais, in an allusion to the United States, a world power governed by the Covid-19 denier Donald Trump.

Just a few days before the five-year anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of Covid-19 as a pandemic, which has already killed more than seven million people among the more than 700 million infected, Lusa questioned Portuguese scientists about whether the world would be better prepared to face a new pandemic and what the future combat strategy should be.

“First, we must not make the same mistake of forgetting and underestimating again. The way we are ignoring warnings about antimicrobial resistance and the future danger of the spread of bacteria for which we do not have antibiotics should make us reflect on the extent to which we have learned from the pandemic,” says biochemist Miguel Castanho.

According to the researcher at the Gulbenkian Institute of Molecular Medicine and professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Lisbon, “it is necessary to better study how viruses and bacteria adapt to new drugs and vaccines in order to then develop new therapeutic solutions”.

“But we have to do these studies before the next pandemics, like a conscientious student who does his TPC [Homework] before going to class”, he stresses, highlighting that with Covid-19 “we paid dearly” for the “lack of timely planning” and investment in antiviral drugs with wide application.

“There is currently a huge effort to develop broad-spectrum antivirals, including projects by European consortia led by Portuguese scientists (…). When this effort bears fruit, we will be much better prepared for a future viral pandemic because we will be able to use these drugs as soon as the first outbreak of pandemic potential appears”, stresses Miguel Castanho.

The researcher highlights as a “great lesson” from the fight against Covid-19, a respiratory disease declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020, that “cooperation is worth more than competition”.

“While scientific cooperation in the four corners of the world led to the characterisation of the virus in record time, allowing the development of vaccines and medicines to be put into practice, little benefit was gained from the fencing of nations over who would derive the most political and media dividends from the launch of vaccines”, he claims, highlighting, however, the fact that the European Union has shown itself to be a “solidarity space in the acquisition of vaccines and their distribution”.

For physicist Carlos Fiolhais, co-author of the book “Caught by the virus – Facts and myths about covid-19”, because of the “initial delays” in the response to the pandemic “it was convenient to establish international mechanisms for early warning in the event of the emergence of new microorganisms that are potentially lethal to humans”.

Furthermore, “the manufacturing processes for new vaccines can still be accelerated now that technical procedures have been perfected.”

“Next time, we should avoid what went wrong – delays and deficiencies in communication, national egoisms that hampered cooperation – and repeat what went well – public health standards and the design and distribution of new vaccines”, argues Carlos Fiolhais, retired professor at the University of Coimbra.

For geneticist Luísa Pereira, “the response to a global challenge” such as a pandemic “should be concerted and ideally more equitable”.

“There must be sequencing of viruses in several global samples to monitor the high dynamism of viral evolution. Some continents and countries were less well prepared to do this in real time. Technological and expert capacity is needed”, argues the researcher at i3S – Institute for Research and Innovation in Health at the University of Porto.

For immunologist Helena Soares, the future strategy involves “strengthening the capacity to identify infection outbreaks locally and to initiate a response at a global level”, taking advantage of “molecular tests by monitoring centers” and the analysis of genetic material from pathogenic microorganisms in sewage and geolocation data from mobile phones.

“These data should be the basis for epidemiological models that allow us to anticipate the possible evolution of the outbreak”, says the researcher from Universidade Nova de Lisboa, adding that “models will also be needed to inform about the adherence of different communities to mitigation and vaccination measures”, measures and resources that “should be shared globally”.

 

 

The history of International Women’s Day: from its origins to the global fight for equality

 

International Women’s Day, celebrated every year on March 8, is dedicated to the fight for equality and achievements of women (and not only women). The movement was made official by the UN in 1975, but it began much earlier.

Ending gender inequality, defending rights and celebrating social, political, cultural and economic achievements. These are some of the goals of International Women’s Day, which is celebrated every year on March 8th. However, this date has not always been the same. In some countries it is a day of street protests, in many it is a public holiday. One thing is certain: it is dedicated to women and the fight for equality. The ‘movement’ was made official by the UN in 1975, but it began much earlier.

The origins date back to the early 20th century. In 1909, the Socialist Party of America celebrated the first Women’s Day on February 28 in honour of the 15,000 women who protested against low wages and harsh working conditions in New York, in the United States, Euronews reports.

The following year, women’s rights activist and advocate Clara Zetkin proposed a large-scale celebration of Women’s Day at an international conference of socialist women in Copenhagen, Denmark. 100 women from 17 different countries were present. The idea of ​​creating International Women’s Day was unanimously ‘approved’.

They postpone motherhood and are the target of inequalities at work: a portrait of women in Portugal

After the celebration in the United States and Clara Zetkin’s proposal, International Women’s Day was celebrated for the first time on March 19, 1911, when 1 million people took to the streets in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.

Celebrations followed in the years that followed, with countries around the world marking Women’s Day. For example, China in 1922, Tunisia in 1956 and Ukraine in 1965.

According to the Portuguese Platform for Women’s Rights , it began to be celebrated on March 8 , when in 1917 Russian female workers went on strike to protest for better living and working conditions and against World War I. The protests demanding “bread and peace” were brutally repressed and marked the beginning of the Russian Revolution.

It was not until 1975 that the UN began celebrating International Women’s Day. It was recognized two years later by the United Nations General Assembly through Resolution 32/142, says the Jacques Delors European Information Centre.

Since then, the UN has been the main driving force behind the day when women’s achievements are celebrated and causes such as the right to vote, equal pay, greater representation in leadership positions and access to education are defended. However, it is a global movement of all those who fight for human rights.

The day is marked with the symbol of the female gender, usually accompanied by the colors purple, green and white. According to the International Women’s Day website, purple symbolizes dignity and justice, green symbolizes hope and white symbolizes purity.

 

“For all women and girls: rights, equality, empowerment” is the theme of International Women’s Day 2025.

The European Parliament will mark the day with a ceremony on Tuesday in Strasbourg. Women fighting for peace, freedom and justice will give speeches, and then MEPs and representatives of the European Council and the European Union will discuss violence against women, gender inequalities and the need for equal participation of women in society.

In Portugal,the President of the Republic warned this Saturday that there are still “realities to be fulfilled on the path to equality”, 50 years after the United Nations began to mark International Women’s Day.

“There are still realities to be fulfilled on the path to equality: equal pay, representation in leadership positions, protection in situations of physical and/or psychological violence or even access to education”, highlighted Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in a note published on the official website of the Presidency of the Republic in which it marks International Women’s Day.