Venice trials 78 anti-flood inflatable barriers
Venice: The city has conducted a trial run of an ambitious anti-flood system of 78 inflatable barriers in the hope of protecting the city from devastating high tides.
Premier Giuseppe Conte pressed a button that activated compressors to pump air into the bright yellow barriers, which then started rising from the sea.
The project was supposed to be up and running in 2011 but now the date is 2021, although Mr Conte expressed hope it could be ready by this autumn.
The movable flood gates are attached by hinges to cement blocks on the seabed along three openings from the sea into the Venice lagoon.
After high-tide danger ceases, seawater is pumped into the gates to make them heavy so they can be lowered.
Mr Conte praised the project, saying it is designed to safeguard Venice’s “marvellous architectural, artistic and historical heritage”.
Last November, Venice suffered its worst flooding in more than 50 years.
Floodwaters on November 12 invaded St Mark’s Basilica and also poured into homes, hotels and stores.
Netherlands: The Dutch Government is to take Russia to the European Court of Human Rights for its alleged role in the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine six years ago.
The move is intended to support individual cases being brought to the European court by relatives of some of the 298 people who were killed.
A Buk surface-to-air missile fired from territory controlled by pro-moscow Ukrainian rebels blew the Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight out of the sky on July 17, 2014.
“Achieving justice for 298 victims of the downing of flight MH17 is and will remain the government’s highest priority,” said Foreign Minister Stef Blok.
Stockholm: A court has acquitted Sweden’s former ambassador to China of exceeding her authority in negotiations with a foreign country.
Stockholm District Court ruled yesterday the prosecutor could not prove Anna Lindstedt, Sweden’s envoy to
Beijing from 2016 to
2019, had gone beyond her jurisdiction and “negotiated in a diplomatic matter with someone who represented the interests of the Chinese state”.
The key issue in the trial was the allegation of whether or not Ms Lindstedt negotiated with persons who could be regarded as China’s direct representatives.
The Swedish Prosecution Authority said the ambassador was indicted on a charge of “arbitrariness during negotiations with a foreign power”.
The charge resulted from a January 2019 meeting Ms Lindstedt, 60, brokered between the daughter of a Swedish publisher detained in China and two Chinese businessmen with links to China’s Communist Party about the publisher’s possible release.
The prosecution alleged China wanted to curtail Sweden’s democratic freedoms by trying to influence Angela Gui, the daughter of publisher Gui Minhai, to stop criticising how China handled the case concerning her father.