hello and welcome to focus on europe. it's wonderful to have you with us. six months after devastating earthquakes shook turkey, the nation continues to confront the herculean task of providing housing and clean water to all the affected residents. 50,000 dead, and countless houses and villages destroyed: when the massive earthquake hit turkey and syria in february this year, it quickly became evident that the survivors would have to suffer the terrible consequences of the tragedy for a long time. many of them lost relatives.

in fact, some people lost all the possessions that they ever owned. the southern town of was hit particularly hard, and at the time, president erdogan's government promised the residents that new houses would be constructed as soon as possible. in some places, reconstruction is being done hastily, but in others, many victims still have no other choice but to live amidst the rubble. survivors are worried about their future, like zübeyde kahraman. she fears that she might never be able to lead a normal life again. when zübeyde kahraman misses her sister zeynep, she comes here even if it brings back painful memories. the quakes in early february tore zübeyde's family apart.

"i lost everything that day - my faith, my trust, my hope and my joy of life. zeynep was someone who drew happiness from the little things. she had a lot of energy, and she was always smiling." the quakes had buried zeynep under the rubble of her house in the province of hatay. as rescuers were trying to save her zübeyde held out, waiting and hoping. after more than four days, zeynep was finally pulled out - alive. indescribable moments of relief for zübeyde. but only briefly. her sister died shortly after in hospital. six months later, grief has increasingly turned into despair for zübeyde. she lives in a small container, right next to her damaged home. with one of her sisters and her mother.

"i sleep here, my sister sleeps on the floor. the three of us share this closet sorry, it's a bit messy, i didn't have time to clean up. this is the fridge. we get some of the food via donations. it's a makeshift life. i can't see a future for myself. we are just struggling to survive. so many people have fled this area, and those who stayed are somehow trying to give each other strength, by helping each other." the quakes were the most destructive in modern turkish history.

more than 50,000 people died, according to official figures. entire cities in southeastern turkey were damaged beyond recognition. hundreds of thousands of people still live in containers or tents. reliant on aid. from food to bottled water. and doctors are warning of an unfolding health catastrophe. huge plumes of dust have been created by demolished buildings. contaminants such as asbestos, mercury and lead are poisoning nearby waterways as well as the local inhabitants. we are seeing an increase in eye infections due to the dust, but also more asthma attacks, lung diseases. we know that the dust contains toxins like asbestos. and what does asbestos do?

it can cause lung cancer and stomach cancer in the longn term. president recep tayyip erdoan came under fire for his initial response to the disaster. he has promised rapid reconstruction. hundreds of thousands of new homes within one year. construction sites like this one have sprung up across the region. time is our biggest opponent, we try to finish the projects as fast as we can. because we think the more people we can get into new homes as quickly as possible, the better it will be for us and for everyone here. but many fear that it will all take much longer before they again have a roof over their heads. we try to have hope, but it's very difficult. it's been six months, but the rubble is still here, nothing has changed." the heat is really bad.

and we feel exhausted from all the destruction, the debris and the dust. we are afraid of getting sick. we have absolutely nothing. we need help and support from the government - otherwise there is no future. i am alive, but i feel like i am dead. zübeyde also often feels left alone and wonders when things will start to feel a bit more normal again. amid the rubble of her sister's old house - it's very difficult, she says, to imagine a new beginning. wind and waves are as much a part of the north sea islands as the fine sand on the beaches. however, due to climate change, the existence of the lovely dunes on the dutch island of ameland are under threat. particularly during the winter months, waves increasingly wash

away sand into the sea. and then during peak tourist season the sand has to be brought back from the sea to the beaches. that's an endless and a futile exercise. but there seems to be no other way to save the island from losing its beautiful sand. the north coast of ameland - a seemingly endless white beach. but the beautiful nature that has attracted tourists for decades is increasingly under threat. this coast is known for being dynamic - the once uniform stretch of sand dunes is more and more broken up. gaps dug in regular intervals allow sand to be carried inland. a measure against climate change. we have 200 years' worth of tables documenting storms. that's the information we have, but it's basically useless now.”

in the netherlands, the 1990 coastlines are protected by law. but every fall and winter, ameland loses large parts of its beautiful beaches. when tourist season approaches, the beaches need to be filled up - with more than three-million cubic meters of fine sand mined just off the coast of ameland, by this ship. we only have small areas where we are allowed to mine sand. they are selected such that the sand should be in good condition, good quality. also the disturbance, to minimize it. so we are only allowed to mine it at more than 20 meters water-depth, and all that kind of stuff. sand is brought to the coast day and night. and since it's a fairly quick operation, it doesn't really affect tourism in the region. in fact, it has become an attraction in itself.

it's only a couple of minutes. i think now they will connect the pipe. during the discharging, they will just add a pipeline length over there.” the sea has swallowed two or three hundred meters of beach, nearly tearing away the sunset” beach pavilion. the owner recalls: we drove over here, which was risky in itself. we stood on the deck by the shore. all we could do was watch and wait. egbert is glad to have sand under his feet again. he would have liked things to move faster, but there wasn't a way. he says they're coming back in two years to pour a bit more sand on - just to play it safe. but is there an end in sight?

ameland isn't some shifting dune in the sea. the island has been inhabited for over a thousand years. but even when the going gets tough, the frisians love their home - as do the many tourists who visit. the idyllic charm has to be preserved - even if moving the sand racks up costs in the millions. but don't they have to pay for it?” actually, the dutch government is responsible for monitoring the coast, and they pay for it too.” there are initiatives to make ameland more stable, too: through so-called green beaches. what an amazing view! forester marjan veenendaal loves the mix of the sandy beaches, the heaths and the moorlands. the points where saltwater meets freshwater, dry meets wet, or

lime-rich soil meets low-lime soil, that's where you have the most beautiful plants and birds.” but diverse landscapes are more than just beautiful: they also help protect the island from storms. artificial intelligence - this technology is changing entire industries, and it is penetrating deep into our lives. europe wants to be at the forefront of ai. the european union is striving to enact stricter laws to safeguard user data in comparison to its counterparts in the usa and china. in the bulgarian capital, sofia, the eu is investing millions of euros to promote artificial intelligence. researcher dessislava petrova-antonova is among those who are diligently working to shape europe's future in this field. in the center of sofia, this computer scientist is on a hunt. a hunt for data: we are on one of the busiest crossroads in

sofia, in district lozenets. district lozenets is our study area. we have six lidar sensors that perform laser scanning of the crossroad. we use this data to monitor the traffic on the crossroad. what's over there? what's that? that's the air quality station. it measures air pollutants, and also noise levels and rain levels, wind speed and wind directions. see the noise levels: during the weekend, there is no noise, because there is no traffic. but now, the noise level is very high. my name is dessislava petrova-antonova. i'm leading the city digital twin pilot project. and the aim of this project is to create a digital twin of sofia city. petrova-antonova and her team are working on a digital replica

of a central neighborhood in bulgaria's capital, sofia. to do that, they are collecting data all across the city. now we are very close to one of the tallest buildings in the district. this is the hotel marinela. this is one of our use cases here. we are using the 3d model of this building to perform 3d simulations. data like this is used to build a virtual model of the neighborhood. that helps the researchers to understand, for example, how the wind moves through the architecture of the city, or where air pollution is particularly bad. then, they use ai to come up with suggestions for how to make the neighborhood more livable: from ways to save energy to how to improve walkability.

and they test these suggestions in their computer model to see how effective they are before being implemented in the real world. the main purpose of the digital twin is to guide this decision making process in the city. in the digital twin, you can simulate 'what if' scenarios: what will happen if i change the street, or what will happen if i construct a new building here? the mistakes should be made in the digital twin, not in the real city. the researchers we're meeting in bulgaria aren't the only ones attempting to use ai to improve life in their hometown: cities from santiago de chile to hyderabad in india are working on similar initiatives. these smart cities” are one of a few visible symptoms of an otherwise invisible revolution: ai technology has long become a part of our world, with ai algorithms deciding now,

for instance, what we see on social media. and in europe, at least, people will be using ai under a strict new rulebook being brewed up in brussels. in many ways, the european union is considered the global stronghold of privacy. the bloc already has much stricter data protection rules than competitors like china and the us. officials here have spent years drafting what's considered the world's most comprehensive legislation on ai. the idea: regulating uses according to the risks they pose. and we are told that those risks are real. ai has been shown to replicate biases or supercharge desinformation. for artificial intelligence is a black box. and so the way you want to mitigate this risk is to ask the developers to document their data sets, give the

information to the user of that artificial intelligence system about how that artificial intelligence system works. the question now is: do the companies developing ai technology consider this approach a blessing - or a curse? "we are designed to be a game changer. that's what the commission expects from us - to change the research system in bulgaria. in sofia, the digital twin cities” project is part of a broader big data initiative called gate.” it was founded in 2019, in cooperation with a university in sweden, and co-financed with 30 million euros in eu seed funding. my name is sylvia ilieva and i'm the director of gate institute. her center is doing research on how to apply artificial intelligence to develop real-life solutions.

we defined four application areas in the beginning. in addition to future cities, other application areas are digital health. researchers at gate are using ai to better understand cognitive diseases like alzheimer's. they are also looking into how to use technology to detect and fight disinformation online. and the last application area is 'smart industry' where we will offer some data services for companies. all of those projects rely on vast amounts of data to become effective - data that's often difficult to obtain in privacy-savvy europe. it's a big challenge and it's a challenge because of the people, because of the mindset of the people. and yet, ilieva believes that the eu's approach of establishing strict rules to emerge as the world's leader in trustworthy ai is the right path forward.

absolutely, yes. it's a matter of trust between us. but not everyone is convinced. we are in a technological race and the first thing that should be moving us is are we part of the technological revolution? otherwise, the risk for europe is to be kicked out of history. this summer, the former politician co-wrote an open letter with over 160 european business executives, warning that the eu's planned ai laws could jeopardize europe's competitiveness. we,for sure, have to be able to protect our citizens from collateral damages, but we have also to ensure our citizens will still be living in a continent that has the same access to technology, that will go on with creating jobs, that will be sovereign in its technological choices. o isn't alone: other industry insiders express similar concerns. and yet, when we talk to digital rights advocates, they stress

that protecting users' rights should always come first. to say that this harms competition, i think it's ludicrous. and i think it shows a very poor understanding of what protecting people means and what democracies mean. look at what's happening with chatgpt, for instance. chatgpt was launched as a test, using us all as guinea pigs, using our data, going over any kind of regulation that already exists in europe to protect, to protect people. now they're being hit by all these lawsuits. so i just don't understand this logic of 'because the others are doing things wrongly, we should be able to do the same thing. at the same time, experts tell us that rules won't be the only factor determining europe's success. another one is money. although private ai investment in europe has been growing in recent years, it still lags behind china and, even more

so, the us. and the challenge is: how do you change that? if we want to get back into the race, we need investors to believe that europe is the right field to invest in technology. so we have to be aware and be very cautious of not overregulating - otherwise, we are threatening the investment, and so we are threatening our own future. back in brussels, eu officials tell us their upcoming ai rules won't place undue demands on innovators. in fact, what we ask companies to do is to simply assess before they put the artificial intelligence system to be used for a purpose that is considered high risk. and to be frank with you, a developer that develops ai for a high-risk intended purpose should do those things already. the bloc itself invested around 4 billion euros in artificial intelligence from 2021 - 2022.

although most of today's cutting-edge ai applications were developed elsewhere, brussels insists europe is well-placed in the race for ai. everybody knows chatgpt. but in reality, there are also models that have been developed in the european union and maybe they are smaller and less known, but they are there. it may be that we have a delay of about a year or so, but we are not so late and we can definitely still catch up. artificial intelligence is here to stay - and experts agree that it will reshape the global balance of power. there will be two categories of companies and countries. the ones that have access to the best ai models and the ones that have not. but perhaps that depends on how you define success. while europe may remain the underdog in terms of investment or innovation, the continent is leading the charge to define the limits of how ai can - and should - be used.

that's why the ai pioneers emphasize the importance of working together. if you want to go fast, then go alone. but if you want to go further, then go together." the bulgarian researchers have big plans for the coming years. here is our new building that we construct. here we will install our big data infrastructure, a lot of technologies. the computer scientist hopes the digital twin of her city she's building will only be a beginning - and that it will inspire others. we want to scale the project, to cover for example the whole city and why not to cooperate with other cities in europe and all over the world. ai is on the rise. now, europe's challenge is to scale up its efforts without

scaling back protections for the people down below. for thousands of years, people have been using the bark of the cork oak. it was apparently also used as an early swimming aid. cork has proven to be an excellent natural material-it aids in sound and heat insulation and is incredibly elastic. a single tree can yield up to 200 kilograms of cork during its lifetime. however, cork farmers in portugal are expressing concern about their harvests, as climate change is also adversely affecting the cork oak forests. for this job, precision is key. it took 11 years for this cork tree to produce its valuable bark. now, it's time to harvest - by axe. "we have to be very careful not to damage the trunk

under the bark. the tree must remain healthy so that future generations keep getting to have cork." but healthy cork trees need a healthy supply of water. and due to increasing drought, the trees are producing ever less bark. and that's not all. "if it doesn't rain here and there, that's not so bad, but these long periods of drought cause the tree to dry out. if it can't renew itself - the tree dies. a worrying trend that could put a real damper on a booming cork industry, which employs thousands in portugal. the versatile material is still used mostly for bottle corks, but that could change. our philosophy is to meet demands by producing cork. it's a more sustainable alternative to other materials. so, cork can be added as a great natural product.” to satisfy

demand, companies are looking for clever ways to reuse the material. leftover pieces are shredded, compacted, and used for insulation, flooring or even for shoes. this tree, it's an autochthonous species from this part of the world, is by far the most well adapted to these climate conditions and we are confident that with a huge amount of scientific research to take this as a management of our forest to be more resilient to these conditions. cork trees their roots store enormous amounts of water, helping prevent forest fires and mitigating desertification. for the arid regions of southern portugal, they are nothing short of a miracle. that's it for this edition of focus on europe. we'll be back next week. until then goodbye and take care.

berlin. opposing sides had met to discuss the future of the dispute of region as residents accuse them of breaking the latest cease-fire. also, your grand president zelenskyy meets joe biden at the white house. they want u.s. support is needed toea