World News
Croatia adopts the euro and joins the Schengen area
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Steph Deschamps / January 1, 2023
Croatia was counting the hours Saturday before switching to the euro and entering the Schengen area of free movement, two major steps for this small country that joined the European Union in July 2013. And it was at midnight that the country said goodbye to its currency, the kuna, to become the twentieth member of the euro zone. At the same time, Croatia becomes the 27th state to join the Schengen area, a vast zone in which more than 400 million people can travel freely without internal border controls.
This Sunday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will come to Croatia to mark the two events. Croatian leaders regularly emphasize the expected benefits for this Balkan country of 3.9 million people.
Joining the euro zone and the Schengen area are “two strategic objectives for further integration into the EU,” conservative Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic insisted Wednesday. For experts, the changeover to the euro will help protect the Croatian economy, one of the weakest in the EU, in a world subject to galloping inflation, a serious energy crisis and geopolitical insecurity since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
In november, inflation reached 13.5 per cent, compared to 10 per cent in the euro zone. Eastern European countries that are members of the EU but not in the euro zone, such as Poland and Hungary, have proved even more vulnerable to rising inflation. “The euro certainly brings economic stability and security,” said Ana Sabic, a Croatian central bank official.
The benefits of joining the euro will be felt by all segments of society – individuals, companies and the state, she insists. In particular, experts cite the elimination of exchange rate risks and better borrowing conditions in the face of economic difficulties. The euro is already very present in Croatia. About 80 per cent of bank deposits are denominated in euros, the Mediterranean country’s main partners are in the euro zone and tourism, which accounts for 20 per cent of GDP, is driven by a large European clientele.
Croatia has received four times as many tourists as it has inhabitants this year. Joining the Schengen zone will also give a boost to tourism. The long lines at Croatia’s borders with its European neighbors, Slovenia and Hungary, will be a thing of the past. This Sunday, 73 border crossings will close. At airports, the change will take place on March 26, for technical reasons.
At the same time, the situation at the country’s borders with its non-EU neighbors – Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia – will not change much: Croatia already applies the Schengen rules there. Cracking down on illegal immigration remains a major challenge. Since the country joined the EU, it has inherited the onerous task of protecting an external land border of more than 1,350 km, most of which is with Bosnia.
Croatia is on the so-called Western Balkan route, which is used by migrants, but also by traffickers of arms, drugs and human beings. The border with Bosnia is the most difficult to manage, not only because of its length, but also because of its rugged terrain. After the decline in illegal crossings due to the health crisis, Croatia registered 30,000 illegal migrants in the first ten months of 2022, an increase of 150 percent over the same period last year.
Croatians have mixed feelings about joining the euro and the Schengen area: while they are generally happy about the end of border controls, the change of currency inspires mistrust. “We’re going to cry for our kuna, prices are going to explode,” laments Drazen Golemac, a 63-year-old pensioner in Zagreb. “Nothing changes on January 1, everything has been calculated in euros for two decades anyway,” said Neven Banic, an employee. Croatians have been counting in euros for a long time for the price of valuable goods, such as cars or apartments.
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Eva Deschamps / October 31, 2023
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, 63 employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) have already lost their lives in the Gaza Strip. Ten aid workers have been killed in the last 72 hours, according to this new toll released by the agency on its website on Monday.
At least 22 UNRWA staff were also injured. Since October 7, 44 UNRWA facilities have also been destroyed. Of its 22 health centers, only nine are still operational, the UN agency said, warning that the provision of health care is made even more difficult by the very low fuel supply.
The UN agency had previously reported that several of its warehouses had been looted. “Due to the very limited aid available and overcrowded shelters, growing tensions are being reported within the displaced communities,” it stressed. Some 672,000 refugees are living in 149 UNRWA facilities across the Gaza Strip, “in increasingly difficult conditions”. “The ability to provide vital assistance was further hampered by the 36-hour communications blackout between October 27 and 29”, UNRWA added.
In all, an estimated 1.4 million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip. Over 120,000 of them have taken refuge in public buildings such as hospitals and schools.
“The aid currently available is insufficient to meet the most basic needs of displaced people and the communities hosting them”, warns the UN agency.
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Sylvie Claire / October 31, 2023
This research into mammal reproduction in space could prove crucial for future solar system exploration missions.
Mouse embryos were grown on board the International Space Station (ISS) and developed normally, according to a Japanese study published in the scientific journal “iScience” on Saturday, October 28.
This is “the very first study to show that mammals might be able to thrive in space”, claim Yamanashi University and the Riken National Research Institute.
The researchers, including Teruhiko Wakayama, a professor at Yamanashi University’s Center for Advanced Biotechnology, and a team from the Japanese space agency Jaxa, sent frozen mouse embryos aboard a rocket to the ISS in August 2021. The astronauts thawed the embryos at an early stage, using a specially designed device, and cultured them on board the station for four days.
The experiment “clearly demonstrated that gravity had no significant effect”, noted the researchers. After analyzing the blastocysts (cells that develop into fetuses and placentas) that were returned to their laboratories on Earth, they observed no particular changes in the state of DNA and genes.
“In the future, it will be necessary to transplant blastocysts grown in microgravity on the ISS into mice to see if the mice can give birth,” in order to confirm that the blastocysts are normal, say Yamanashi University and the Riken Institute.
This research could prove crucial for future space exploration and colonization missions. As part of its Artemis program, NASA plans to send humans back to the Moon to learn how to live there in the long term, and to prepare for a trip to Mars in the late 2030s.
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Steph Deschamps / October 25, 2023
The world’s oldest dog died last weekend in Portugal. Bobi, a purebred Rafeiro de l’Alentejo, was 31 years and 165 days old, reports the British public broadcaster BBC on Monday.
Last February, Bobi entered the Guinness Book of Records as not only the oldest living dog, but also the oldest dog of all time.
The old record had been held for almost 100 years by Bluey from Australia. He died in 1939 at the age of 29 years and five months.
Bobi has spent his entire life with the Costa family in the village of Conqueiros, near the west coast of Portugal.
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