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In The News

Greece Train Collision, Nigerian Election Result, Mummy In A Bag

Firefighters and rescuers at work Wednesday morning in Tempe, near the northeastern Greek city of Larissa after a train carrying hundreds of passengers collided with an oncoming freight train.

Firefighters and rescuers at work Wednesday morning in Tempe, near the northeastern Greek city of Larissa after a train carrying hundreds of passengers collided with an oncoming freight train. At least 36 people are confirmed dead.

Ginevra Falciani & Laure Gautherin

👋 Ia Orana!*

Welcome to Wednesday, where a collision between two trains in Greece kills dozens, official results are in of Nigeria’s disputed presidential election and a Peruvian mummy winds up in a delivery bag. Meanwhile, German daily Die Welt looks at why the common belief that “talking can’t hurt” is not true for everyone when it comes to psychotherapy.

[*yo-rah-nah - Tahitian]

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🌎  7 THINGS TO KNOW RIGHT NOW

• Dozens killed after two trains collide in Greece: At least 36 people were killed after a head-on collision between a passenger train and a cargo train in central Greece late Tuesday. At least 85 people were injured in what is the country's deadliest rail crash in decades. Investigators have not determined the cause of the crash, which occurred as the passenger train emerged from a tunnel.

• Ruling party wins Nigeria elections: Nigeria’s ruling party candidate, Bola Tinubu, has won the presidential election on Wednesday, after the most competitive campaign in decades and a chaotic, four-day vote count. The result has been disputed by the main opposition party, after the election was marred by sporadic street violence.

• Finland starts construction of Russia border fence: Finland has begun constructing a 200-kilometer (124 mile) wired fence on its border with Russia to boost security and stem the rising numbers of Russians seeking to escape conscription. Finland, which shares the longest European Union border with Russia, is moving closer to joining the NATO alliance, with a vote scheduled Wednesday on a new bill designed to speed up the country's bid.

• After Italian migrant boat wreck, police arrest three alleged traffickers: Italian authorities arrested three people and are looking for a fourth suspect who they believe trafficked up to 200 migrants aboard a wooden boat that smashed apart on rocks off southern Italy on Sunday, killing at least 65 people. Meanwhile, the Italian Coast Guard is under fire for not rescuing the migrants despite knowing the boat's location many hours before the shipwreck.

• Sunak pushes new post-Brexit plan on Northern Ireland trade: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was in Northern Ireland and then met with his own lawmakers to try to convince them of his new deal with the European Union to ease post-Brexit trade.

• Greta Thunberg detained by Norway police: Environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg was twice detained during a demonstration in favor of Indigenous rights in Oslo on Wednesday, with police removing her and other activists from the finance ministry and later the environment ministry.

• Man found carrying mummy in a food delivery bag in Peru: Police discovered a pre-Hispanic mummy, estimated to be between 600 to 800 years old, in a 26-year-old’s food delivery cooler bag in Puno, in southern Peru. The man said he named the remains “Juanita” when speaking to local media, and described them as “a kind of spiritual girlfriend.”

🗞️  FRONT PAGE

Nigeria’s Daily Trust devotes its front page to the results of the country’s presidential elections which saw the victory of ruling party candidate Bola Tinubu with 37% of the vote. The opposition parties have rejected the results as fraudulent, pointing out technological problems that may have hampered the electoral process.

#️⃣  BY THE NUMBERS

799,728

Japan recorded 799,728 births in 2022 — a new record low in a decades-long decline as the country now faces an increasing elderly population, with one of the highest life expectancies in the world. In comparison, Japan had seen more than 1.5 million births in 1982. The country’s government is expected to set up a new agency in April to work on the issue, with plans to potentially double the spending on child-related programs.

📰  STORY OF THE DAY

Talking risks: New research finds psychotherapy can have dangerous side effects

It has long been assumed that psychotherapy can do no harm at worst. But new research makes clear that for some people, it can have very serious, even life-threatening, consequences, writes Katja Ridderbusch in German daily Die Welt.

🧑⚕️ Across Europe and the United States, experts and politicians alike are concerned that people’s mental health is suffering. The coronavirus crisis has made matters worse. According to data from the World Health Organization, since the start of the pandemic, the number of people diagnosed with anxiety and depression has risen by 25%. As a result, more people are seeking professional help.

💬 The efficacy of psychotherapy is now beyond doubt, says Moria Smoski, a clinical psychologist at Duke University in North Carolina. “But recognizing this means that experts now expect psychotherapy to be evaluated according to a medical model” — in clinical studies that analyze working methods, risks, side effects and interactions. Such analysis clearly shows that the common belief that “talking can’t hurt” is not true.

⚠️ Treating serious trauma such as post-traumatic stress syndrome can involve particular risks, explains psychotherapist Smoski. “Having to repeatedly confront the traumatizing experiences can trigger extreme reactions.” In serious cases, patients can develop dissociative disorders, splitting off specific memories of traumatic experiences or whole swathes of their personality that are associated with these experiences.

➡️ Read more on Worldcrunch.com

📣 VERBATIM

“The FBI has for quite some time now assessed that the origins of the pandemic are most likely a potential lab incident.”

— In an interview with Fox News, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the bureau had reached the conclusion that COVID-19 was the result of a leak from a "Chinese government-controlled lab." He added that China "has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate" efforts to identify the source of the global pandemic. However, this theory is not supported by other US or international authorities, which believe the virus likely jumped from animals to humans. Beijing has reacted to the comment, accusing Washington of "political manipulation" and pointing the lack of credibility of such conclusions.

✍️ Newsletter by Ginevra Falciani, Laure Gautherin and Anne-Sophie Goninet


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Economy

Lex Tusk? How Poland’s Controversial "Russian Influence" Law Will Subvert Democracy

The new “lex Tusk” includes language about companies and their management. But is this likely to be a fair investigation into breaking sanctions on Russia, or a political witch-hunt in the business sphere?

Photo of President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Polish President Andrzej Duda

Piotr Miaczynski, Leszek Kostrzewski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Poland’s new Commission for investigating Russian influence, which President Andrzej Duda signed into law on Monday, will be able to summon representatives of any company for inquiry. It has sparked a major controversy in Polish politics, as political opponents of the government warn that the Commission has been given near absolute power to investigate and punish any citizen, business or organization.

And opposition politicians are expected to be high on the list of would-be suspects, starting with Donald Tusk, who is challenging the ruling PiS government to return to the presidency next fall. For that reason, it has been sardonically dubbed: Lex Tusk.

University of Warsaw law professor Michal Romanowski notes that the interests of any firm can be considered favorable to Russia. “These are instruments which the likes of Putin and Orban would not be ashamed of," Romanowski said.

The law on the Commission for examining Russian influences has "atomic" prerogatives sewn into it. Nine members of the Commission with the rank of secretary of state will be able to summon virtually anyone, with the powers of severe punishment.

Under the new law, these Commissioners will become arbiters of nearly absolute power, and will be able to use the resources of nearly any organ of the state, including the secret services, in order to demand access to every available document. They will be able to prosecute people for acts which were not prohibited at the time they were committed.

Their prerogatives are broader than that of the President or the Prime Minister, wider than those of any court. And there is virtually no oversight over their actions.

Nobody can feel safe. This includes companies, their management, lawyers, journalists, and trade unionists.

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