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During last week alone, people across the country experienced catastrophic emergencies. Hurricane Ida left millions of Louisiana residents without power or without access to food and water. Flash floods in New Jersey and New York caught many people off guard. Near Lake Tahoe, which straddles the California-Nevada border, some residents evacuated in less than an hour after an evacuation order as fires threatened their homes. In August, flash floods ravaged central Tennessee, and in February, millions of people in Texas were left without electricity and water after a winter storm. Unfortunately, climate scientists warn that weather emergencies such as these may be the new normal, as climate change leads to heavier rains, stronger hurricanes, more tornadoes and bigger wildfires. The average number of climate- and weather-related disasters per decade has increased nearly 35% since the 1990s, according to the World Disasters Report. No matter where you live, every home should have a ‘go bag’ and a ‘stay bin.’ The go bag is what you grab when you have to leave the house in a hurry, whether it’s to get to the emergency room or to evacuate. The stay bin is a two-week stash in the event you have to hunker down at home without power, water or heat. Creating a go bag and a stay bin does not make you an alarmist or someone who lives in fear of the apocalypse. It just means you’re prepared. Over the years, I’ve learned the hard way that emergencies can happen. One night while living in London, I came home to a wrecked apartment because an upstairs neighbour had left his water running. (I was able to rescue my passport and my cats, but I lost everything I owned.) Years later, I had to evacuate my Pennsylvania home three times — twice because of Delaware River flooding and once because of Hurricane Sandy. The first time my house flooded, I was completely unprepared as the floodwater was just feet from my driveway. I had to grab my four small dogs, some clothes and whatever else seemed important and get out of there quickly. I couldn’t get home for two weeks. It was then that I realised I needed a real home-evacuation plan, not just for me and my daughter, but also for my pets. (I was better prepared when I evacuated before Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast a few years later.) The Go Bag The hardest part about creating a go bag is getting started. You don’t need to do it all at once. I started with a Ziploc bag and placed my passport, birth certificates and other important documents inside. Then I added an extra pair of reading glasses. Last year, I added a phone charger to my go bag because an ER doctor told me it’s the most requested item in the ER. I also added some masks, which we all need now because of COVID-19, but you might also need a mask if you’re fleeing a fire or a chemical spill. I remember on 9/11, after the first tower fell, a New York City bakery distributed hundreds of masks to those of us stranded in the area to protect us from breathing in the ash and fumes. Recently, I upgraded my go bag to a more sturdy Stasher reusable silicone bag and added some emergency cash (small bills are best). I also added a list of phone numbers to reach family members and friends in the event that I end up in the ER. The list is useful if your phone battery dies, too. On 9/11, I used a pay phone to reach my mom in Dallas, because it was the only phone number I could remember. Some people treat their go bags like a survival kit and add lots of extras such as multipurpose tools, duct tape, fire starters, portable cooking stoves and a compass, among other things. But I prefer to keep it simple. I assume that if I need my go bag, it’s because I have a short-term emergency, not because it’s the end of civilisation as we know it. Once you’ve collected the basics, consider using a backpack or duffel bag to hold a few more items that could help in certain types of evacuations. Add a flashlight and batteries and a small first-aid kit that includes dental-care items. You should also have a few days’ supply of your essential medications. Pack a few water bottles and granola bars for the traffic jam on the evacuation route or the long wait in the ER. An extra set of car keys is a great addition, but extra car keys are expensive, so if you don’t have them, just make it a habit to leave your keys in the same place so you can find them in an emergency. If you have a baby, add diapers, wipes, bottles, formula and baby food to your go bag. If you have pets, add leashes, portable bowls, some food and copies of veterinary records, in case you have to take your pets to a kennel while you stay in a shelter or hotel. Some people add a change of clothes to their go bag, but I prefer to keep my go bag small and light. Once you’ve created your family’s primary go bag with documents and other essentials, you may want to pack personal go bags for children. I recently ordered one more item: a $3 whistle. “No one wants to think about being trapped during a natural disaster, but it does happen,” wrote Wirecutter, a product recommendation site owned by The New York Times Co. “Screaming for help might get a rescuer’s attention, but the high-pitch shrill of a whistle is far more likely to cut through the din of a wildfire, windstorm or sirens.” The Stay Bin If you need to hunker down, you probably already have a lot of the essentials for a stay bin. It’s a good idea to gather these items and put them in one place — such as a large plastic bin or two — so they don’t get used. If you’ve created a go bag, you’ve got a head start, because many go-bag items could be needed in a stay-at-home emergency. The stay bins should also have a two-week supply of bottled water and nonperishable food, pet food, toilet paper and personal hygiene supplies. Flashlights, lanterns, candles, lighters and firewood are important. (Wirecutter recommends a head lamp.) A battery-powered or crank weather radio as well as a solar phone charger will help you cope with power outages. Extra blankets are a good idea. Other items that are often recommended are duct tape, a multipurpose tool, trash bags for sanitation, and hand wipes and sanitiser. If your prescription plan allows it, order an extra supply of your medications or ask your doctor for free samples. The city of Milwaukee has a helpful checklist for your go bag. The website ready.gov has a checklist to help you build your stay bin, and the American Red Cross has more advice on emergency preparedness. My go bag and stay bin are still works in progress, but I feel better knowing that I’m more prepared than I used to be. I’ve also created a crisis notebook in the event of a health emergency. My advice is to just get started today with what you have handy and work on acquiring more items over time. A little planning and preparation go a long way in any emergency. © 2021 The New York Times Company

Internet search and advertising leader Google Inc is increasingly looking at the energy sector as a potential business opportunity, the New York Times reported. Engineers at Google are hoping to unveil tools soon that could help consumers make better decisions about their energy use, the paper said. Google has hired engineers who are conducting research in renewable energy, former government energy officials, scientists and even a former NASA astronaut, whose experience with electronic gadgets is being put to use to develop energy tools for consumers, the Times said. It added that the company's philanthropic unit, Google.org, is considering large investments in projects that generate electricity from renewable sources. "We want to make money, and we want to have an impact," Dan Reicher, director for climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org, told the Times. But with a recession looming and oil prices dropping, investors might pressure Google to curtail its clean energy ambitions, the paper said. Calls to Google seeking comment were not immediately returned.

The much-awaited decision was a return to tradition in which the central bank’s top official is reappointed regardless of partisan identity — a norm bucked by former President Donald Trump, who appointed Powell instead of renominating Janet Yellen. The stakes in the choice are unusually high. It reflected a general view by Biden and his top aides that Powell has done well in supporting the economy through the pandemic recession and its halting recovery. It is also a bet that Powell is the right leader to steer the Fed through an economically and political treacherous storm of price increases, which administration officials are convinced will dissipate next year. Biden will also nominate Lael Brainard, a Fed governor whom many progressive groups had championed to replace Powell, to serve as the Fed’s vice chair. Renominating Powell — who won bipartisan support moments after the announcement — also spares the White House what might have been a bruising confirmation battle if the president had instead chosen Brainard, who has fewer Republican supporters in the Senate than Powell. Inflation has picked up sharply this year, with consumer prices increasing at the fastest pace in more than three decades in the year through October. The central bank is charged with keeping consumer prices stable while striving for maximum employment, and striking that balance could require difficult policy choices in the months ahead. While taming inflation falls to the Fed, Biden has been suffering politically as prices rise for food, gas and airplane tickets. The president has repeatedly tried to reassure Americans that his economic policies will ultimately calm inflation, a message he is expected to repeat during remarks Tuesday. His Fed decisions in recent weeks have become tangled in the politics of price increases, particularly as the president pushes Senate Democrats to coalesce around a $2.2 trillion climate change and social policy bill that Biden says will ease inflationary pressures in years to come but that Republicans warn will stoke higher prices immediately. Biden said he was certain that both Powell and Brainard would work to stabilize inflation and keep the economic recovery on track. “I’m confident that Chair Powell and Dr Brainard’s focus on keeping inflation low, prices stable and delivering full employment will make our economy stronger than ever before,” Biden said in a statement Monday. Powell’s reappointment suggests that the White House, which has a chance to fully reshape the Fed, is not aiming to completely overhaul the institution. The Biden administration already has one vacant governor role to fill, and two more seats will open early next year, giving Biden room to appoint at least three of seven governors. The president must also fill several leadership roles, including the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, a powerful position given its influence on bank oversight. Biden has been under pressure from progressives and moderate Democrats to pick a diverse slate of leaders for the Fed who would prioritize tough bank regulation and do what they could to address climate change risks in the financial system. Powell has come under criticism for being slow to address climate change and for backing measures that have chipped away at some post-crisis financial rules. In his statement Monday, Biden said he expected Powell, along with Brainard, to “address the economic risks posed by climate change and stay ahead of emerging risks in our financial system.” Whether that will be enough to appease Powell’s critics remains to be seen. The Fed chair’s tenure has been criticized by some progressives, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, who has called Powell “a dangerous man.” On Friday, Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-RI, and Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., released a statement opposing Powell’s reappointment. But Republicans, who supported Powell when he was nominated as chair by Trump, are likely to vote to confirm him again. Moments after the nomination was made public, Sen Patrick Toomey, R-Pa, released a statement saying he would support Powell’s nomination. Biden’s decision was influenced by a complicated economic moment. Inflation has jumped higher thanks to booming consumer demand, tangled supply lines and labor shortages that have helped to push the cost of used cars, couches and even food and rent higher. Yet millions of workers are missing from the labor market compared with before the pandemic. As a result, the Fed may be left balancing its two key goals as it charts its future policy path. So far, the central bank has decided to slow its large bond-purchase program, a first step toward withdrawing monetary policy support that will leave it more nimble to raise interest rates next year if reigning in the economy becomes necessary. The federal funds rate has been set to near-zero since March 2020, keeping many types of borrowing cheap and helping to fuel home and car purchases and other types of demand that in turn set the stage for strong hiring. Raising it could cool off growth and weaken inflation. Yet trying to slow price gains would come at a cost. Workers are still trickling back after severe job losses at the onset of the pandemic, and the Fed is hoping to give the job market more space and time to heal. That is especially true because continued waves of infection may be keeping many people from searching for work, either out of health concerns or because they lack child care. Navigating the next steps will be no easy task. Powell, a Republican, was first appointed by President Barack Obama as a Fed governor, then elevated to chair by Trump, whose decision to replace Yellen as Fed chair upended a long-standing tradition in which presidents reappoint Fed chairs of the opposite party who had done a good job. Before the White House’s decision, some economists had argued that it would be valuable to restart that pattern. Doing so, the logic went, would signal that the Fed is a technocratic body that sets prudent economic policy without taking into account political considerations. Plus, Powell is often lauded for his track record as chair, which has seen the central bank pursuing full employment with vigor. The Fed guided the economy through the start of the coronavirus pandemic, unveiling a series of market rescue programs that kept Wall Street functioning and averted a financial disaster that could have cascaded through the economy. But Powell had faced opposition from some progressive Democrats, first over his history of voting for changes that made financial regulation looser for banks, and later because of an ethics scandal that took place while he was overseeing the central bank. Two of the Fed’s 12 regional presidents made significant financial trades for their private accounts in 2020, when the Fed was actively rescuing many markets from pandemic fallout. Powell has said he defers to the person Congress has confirmed to the bank supervision role to set the agenda when it comes to regulatory matters. The Fed has unveiled new ethics rules since news of last year’s financial activity broke. Presidential nominees to the Fed Board and Fed leadership positions must first pass through a Senate committee, then through a vote on the Senate floor. © 2021 The New York Times Company

ZANESVILLE, Ohio, Mon Oct 27, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Republican presidential nominee John McCain on Sunday fought to distance himself from unpopular President George W. Bush and Democrat Barack Obama attempted to attach them at the hip on a day of fierce campaigning. "Do we share a common philosophy of the Republican Party? Of course. But I've stood up against my party, not just President Bush but others, and I've got the scars to prove it," McCain told NBC's "Meet the Press" on a day he held events in both Iowa and Ohio. Obama quickly seized on McCain's comment in a speech in Denver, saying McCain was "finally giving us a little straight talk, and owning up to the fact that he and George Bush actually have a whole lot in common." "We're not going to let George Bush pass the torch to John McCain," Obama told a crowd of more than 100,000 supporters who jammed a downtown Denver park and sprawled up the steps of the Colorado state capitol building. McCain, in his "Meet the Press" interview and at his campaign events, shrugged off opinion polls showing him far behind Obama in the campaign, saying he senses the race is tightening just over a week ahead of the Nov. 4 election. It was the 41st anniversary of the day Navy flyer McCain was shot down over Vietnam, starting a 5-1/2 year stint as a prisoner of war. "A long time ago, today, I had a bad experience and I spent some time in what many of you know as the Hanoi Hilton," McCain said. "I've fought for you most of my life in places where defeat meant more than returning to the Senate. I will fight for you, my friends." Obama and his campaign have attempted to tie McCain to Bush at every opportunity, citing the Arizona senator's record of voting with the president 90 percent of the time. Flush with campaign cash, the Obama campaign released a television advertisement that shows footage of McCain with Bush as the announcer says, "He's out of ideas, out of touch, and out of time." McCain said that while he respects Bush, he has disagreed with him on a number of important issues, by opposing increased government spending, challenging Bush on his Iraq strategy and demanding tougher action to address climate change. "For eight years, we've seen the Bush-McCain philosophy put our country on the wrong track, and we cannot have another four years that look just like the last eight. It's time for change in Washington, and that's why I'm running for president of the United States," Obama said. OBAMA LEADS IN IOWA Obama leads McCain in national opinion polls and in polls in many battleground states, including Iowa, which Bush won in 2004. A new Courier-Lee Enterprises poll gave Obama a 54 percent to 39 percent edge in Iowa. A Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released on Sunday, however, suggested a tightening race overall. It said Obama leads McCain by 49 percent to 44 percent among likely U.S. voters in the daily tracking poll. In this poll the Illinois senator's lead has dropped over the last three days after hitting a high of 12 points on Thursday. Some Republicans have complained that McCain's campaign has seemed to lurch from issue to issue and has put in jeopardy not only Republican attempts to hang on to the White House but also many seats in the U.S. Congress. "We're doing fine. We have closed in the last week," McCain said, adding that if the trend were to continue, "We'll be up very, very late Election Night." "I see intensity out there and I see passion, so we're very competitive here and I'm very happy of where we are and I'm proud of the campaign I've run," he said. McCain gave a strong vote of confidence to his vice presidential running mate Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor who has energized the Republican base but has come under withering criticism on a variety of issues. Many Americans do not consider her ready to be president. McCain's choice of Palin as his running mate was at first welcomed as a boon to his campaign but the scrutiny of her has been tough and some conservatives have said they do not believe she is sufficiently experienced to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. "I don't defend her. I praise her. She needs no defense," McCain said of Palin. He dismissed questions about the Republican National Committee's purchase of $150,000 in clothes for her and her large family for wearing if they needed it while campaigning, saying a third of the clothes had been returned and the rest would be donated to charity. McCain said Palin lives a "frugal life." "I'm so proud of the way she ignites the crowds. The way she has conducted herself in my view is incredibly admirable," McCain said.

Big polluting countries must aggressively cut greenhouse gases and listen to ideas from small nations to reverse global warming, activists and left-wing leaders concluded on Thursday at a meeting billed as an alternative to the failed Copenhagen summit. The gathering in Bolivia's Cochabamba region was meant to give voice to countries and environmental groups that said they were excluded from an active role at the Copenhagen summit in December, when world leaders negotiated behind closed doors. Activists say the big industrial powers sabotaged the Copenhagen summit by not agreeing to major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and insist the next big climate change meeting in Mexico in December must include other voices. The Cochabamba summit called for leading industrial nations to cut emissions by 50 percent, a much more ambitious goal than the pledges of cuts from 7 percent to 16 percent in the Copenhagen Accord. "Developed countries ... in the meeting of heads of state in Mexico in December, they've got to listen to the people, take decisions to better the lives of all," Bolivian President Evo Morales told the summit. Earlier in the summit, Morales drew controversy when he said eating chicken fed with hormones causes "sexual deviation" in men and that European men lose their hair because they eat genetically modified food. Capitalism, genetically modified food and global warming were all targets at the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which drew some 20,000 environmentalists and representatives from 90 governments. Representatives from indigenous groups from all over the world took part in the meeting in the small village of Tiquipaya, which was free and included concerts, theater, a handicrafts market and artists painting murals. SMALL COUNTRIES COULD BACK RESOLUTIONS Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador, which belong to a leftist group of Latin American countries, as well as Sudan and Saudi Arabia, have been strong critics of the Copenhagen accord. "Climate change is a crisis that was created in the north and its effects are overwhelmingly lived in the south. If you acknowledge that simple fact of justice and decency, that means that southern countries are no longer begging for aid," said Canadian author Naomi Klein. Klein, a prominent activist against global warming, said Cochabamba could help cement an alliance among nations that are already suffering the effects of climate change. "That's a much more empowered position" which calls for "a lot more unity between developing countries," she said. The Cochabamba meeting resolved that an international tribunal should be created to hold those to blame for global warming accountable. It also called for a global referendum on climate change and the creation of a fund to help affected nations cope with global warming. The resolutions are not binding, but countries and social organizations who took part in the summit have pledged to drum up support for them ahead of December's United Nations summit on climate change in Cancun, Mexico. Alicia Barcena, the top UN representative at the meeting, told reporters on Tuesday it was time for the organization to admit it had excluded grassroots groups from the Copenhagen summit, but she was pessimistic about Cancun. "Rio+20 should be our goal, because I don't think Cancun will solve the problems," she said. Late last year, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution agreeing to hold the Rio+20 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.

Predatory imported fish including trout, bass and carp are crowding out many local species in one of the few places in the world still rich in biodiversity. First introduced in the 18th century and hugely popular with both local and foreign anglers, these fish form an integral part of a burgeoning recreational fishing industry, estimated to contribute some 18 billion rand ($2.6 billion) to the South African economy. But they are invasive and have already made several species in the area extinct. One site in the Cape Floristic Region where indigenous species are fighting for survival is the Bot River, a tourist attraction which flows through wetlands housing waterfowl and wild horses in a fertile valley of wine farms. "It's a sad river at the moment," said Dean Impson, aquatic scientist at Cape Nature Conservation. "These are sad rivers from an ecological point of view because they are like little deserts, the alien fish are in them and they've eliminated most, if not all, of the indigenous fish." A new plan to rid local rivers of the fish has sparked a fresh environmental debate, and could pit the interests of fishing and tourism against those keen to preserve indigenous species. Some conservationists are hoping to use a controversial natural poison to eradicate the invaders as part of a global effort to save the freshwater fish, which experts say are among the most threatened group of animals on earth. Impson is among conservationists who -- with backing from the World Bank -- hope the biodegradable poison Rotenone can help shield the Western Cape from alien fish. Other ecologists fear Rotenone, an insecticide and piscicide derived from the roots of beans, could do more harm than good in the fragile freshwater ecosystems. Although it targets a narrow range of species it also kills insects and in rare circumstances, humans; so poses high risks for an area which is also home to a rich diversity of higher plant species, they say. A UN study last year said human activities are causing the biggest wave of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago. Global warming, pollution, expanding networks of cities and roads, a growing human population and invasive species -- such as rabbits in Australia -- are putting many native species under pressure. In North America at least 150 species of fish are critically endangered or extinct, said professor Jenny Day, head of the freshwater research unit at the University of Cape Town. In East Africa's Lake Victoria, as many as 200 species have been wiped out by just one fish, the Nile Perch. "Extrapolated on a global scale, thousands of species of fish are likely to become extinct in our lifetime," said Day. Many types of local fish in rivers running through the Cape Floristic Region have also fallen victim to the alien species, which were still being introduced up to the 1960s as angling and foodstock from Asia, Europe and North America. Much smaller than the newcomers, and having evolved without naturally occurring predators, nine out of 19 indigenous species in the Western Cape are listed as critically endangered. These include the Cape Galaxias, a relic of the ancient polar supercontinent of Gondwana which included most of the land of the southern hemisphere and broke up around 65 million years ago. The fish's closest relatives are found in Chile, Australia and New Zealand. Another four species are listed as vulnerable in a region with an exceptionally high number of fish found nowhere else in the country. South Africa's Cape Action for People and the Environment group is spearheading the battle against alien fish with support from the World Bank's Global Environment Facility, which helps countries fund projects to protect the environment. A study set for June will determine Rotenone's impact on aquatic biodiversity and whether it has any adverse social or economic effects. If approved, Rotenone could be used. If Rotenone is not approved, conservationists may turn to other methods such as electro-fishing, where an electric current is used to stun and catch fish. Conservationists may in any case soon have another battle on their hands with local fisherman who re-stock rivers cleared of alien fish for their lucrative industry. Eugene Kruger, editor of SA Bass magazine, said the threat from the alien fish was exaggerated. "They have only impacted on inconsequential little fish in the streams of the Western Cape," Kruger said. FACTBOX-Animals, plants under threat from global warming May 22 is the UN's International Day for Biological Diversity, focused in 2007 on how global warming may drive many species of animals and plants to extinction. Following are facts about the diversity of life on earth: * Scientists have no clear idea of how many species -- from algae to blue whales -- live on earth. Estimates range from about 5 to 100 million. There are about 1.8 million named species so far. * Humans are responsible for the worst spate of extinctions since the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago, according to a UN report in March 2006. It blamed destruction of habitats, expanding cities, pollution, deforestation, global warming and the introduction of "invasive species". * "Climate change is forecast to be become one of the biggest threats to biodiversity," the UN Convention on Biological Diversity said in a statement marking May 22. * "Approximately 20-30 percent of plant and animal species assessed so far are likely to be at greater risk of extinction if increases in global average temperature exceed 1.5 to 2.5 Celsius" (2.7 to 4.5 Fahrenheit), according to a report in April 2007 by the UN climate panel. Beyond that, it said ecosystems would face ever more wrenching changes. * World leaders agreed at a 2002 UN summit in Johannesburg to "achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth." * A global "Red List" of endangered species documents about 800 extinctions since 1500, from the flightless dodo to the Golden Toad of Costa Rica. Experts believe the real number is far higher. * About 12-13 percent of the world's land area is in protected areas but only about 0.5 percent of the seas.

India must ban incandescent light bulbs in favour of more energy efficient light sources, environmental group Greenpeace said on Monday, adding the ban would cut the nation's greenhouse gas emissions by four percent. Currently contributing to around three percent of total global emissions, India is already amongst the world's top five polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Experts say the populous Asian nation's carbon emissions, like those of China, are set to rise steeply due to its rapid economic development. "With India's growing population and ambitious economic plans, carbon emissions will rise to three times more than current levels by 2050," K. Srinivas, Greenpeace's climate change campaigner, told a news conference. "It is therefore essential that India looks at becoming more energy efficient. And one way of doing this is through replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights or CFLs which use much less energy and will cut emissions by four percent." Experts say unchecked greenhouse gas emissions could see temperatures rising between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius (3.2 and 7.8 Fahrenheit) in the 21st century. The Indian subcontinent is expected to be one of the most seriously affected regions in the world by global warming, which will mean more frequent and more severe natural disasters such as floods and droughts, more disease and more hunger. Srinivas said CFLs -- although eight times more expensive than the yellow incandescent bulbs that have been in use virtually unchanged for 125 years -- use 80 percent less energy and would save households and industries money. Approximately 20 percent of electricity generated in India is consumed by lighting, he said, adding that switching to CFLs would also help address the country's growing power needs. In February, Australia announced it would be the first country to ban the light bulbs, saying they would be phased out within three years. However, there are concerns about the mercury content in CFLs by environmentalists, who say disposing of them could present serious health risks due to the toxicity of the heavy metal. Global demand for CFLs remains relatively low, accounting for only 10 percent of the world's market share in light sources. India uses 640 million incandescent light bulbs every year compared to 12 million CFLs, Greenpeace said.

No US law curbing climate-warming emissions is likely until President George W Bush leaves office in 2009, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, Democratic chairman of the powerful energy committee, said on Tuesday. Major climate change legislation "is less likely than not" with Bush as president "given the position that he's taken in opposition to any mandatory limits on greenhouse gases," Bingaman told the Reuters Environment Summit in Washington. The fact that 2008 is a presidential election year reduces the chance that a US bill to fight global warming will become law, he said. Bingaman, a New Mexico senator who has sponsored a measure to limit emissions of greenhouse gases that warm the planet, said Bush's stance is hurting US standing in the international community. Calling last week's White House-sponsored meeting of the world's biggest greenhouse polluters a non-event, Bingaman said he heard complaints privately from delegates who called it a waste of time. "For the United States to have a leadership role in this whole discussion, we're going to have to do something ourselves to demonstrate our own commitment to dealing with the problem," Bingaman said. "Until that happens, until we can adopt a cap and trade system economy-wide or take some significant step to start controlling greenhouse gas emissions, we're not going to be deferred to in any serious way by the international community on this subject." The White House supports voluntary curbs on emissions and standards set by each country, rather than a global agreement for mandatory limits, which most other countries want. Bingaman said the notion of voluntary limits is "not a credible argument" and is similar to voluntary speed limits for drivers. "If you want something to work, you have to put in mandatory limits," he said. The issue of global warming is growing in the U.S. public view, he said, but has not been debated much in the early days of the presidential campaign, at least partly because most Democratic candidates agree on the topic and Republicans are largely keeping quiet about it. "If the president were to change his position and embrace the idea of mandatory limits ... on greenhouse gases, I think you'd see several Republicans immediately follow that policy who are now holding back," Bingaman said. As to various state measures geared to limiting global warming, he said these were helpful at this stage. "When there's a failure of leadership by the central government, the states sometimes step in and fill that void," he said. At some point, Bingaman said, the federal government will need "to come up with a system that works well."

Despite sweeping economic reform and openness to social change, the party does not tolerate criticism and its leader, Nguyen Phu Trong, has intensified a crackdown on dissidents and activists since being re-elected in 2016. At least 16 people have been arrested, detained or convicted this year for anti-government posts on Facebook, a spokesman for rights group Amnesty said. Another 12 political prisoners are behind bars on similar charges. Pham Van Diep, a 54-year-old activist from the northern province of Thanh Hoa, was jailed for nine years for spreading "distorted information defaming the Communist Party and the Vietnamese government," the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) said. "He also spread fake and baseless news about the country’s policies, which caused Facebook users and residents to misunderstand the party and the government," it added. The posts were uploaded between April 2014 and June 2019, and he was jailed for 21 months in Laos for spreading anti-Vietnamese literature there in 2016, it added. Diep is the third person jailed this month, following a music teacher jailed for 11 years on Nov. 15 over similar anti-state posts on Facebook, and a 38-year-old man jailed over broadcasts of 33 live video sessions. The broadcasts aimed to "encourage people to participate in protests during national holidays", a court said. Late last month, a 54-year-old architect was jailed for a year over similar accusations of anti-government posts on Facebook. Widely used in Vietnam, Facebook serves as the main platform both for e-commerce and the expression of political dissent. In May, it said it had boosted more than sixfold the content in Vietnam to which it restricted access in the last half of 2018. Amnesty International and New York-based Human Rights Watch urged Hanoi to halt a crackdown on an independent publisher, and decried curbs on freedom of expression that leave people facing arrest and jail for voicing their opinion. "This crackdown has further exacerbated the prevailing climate of fear in Vietnam," the groups added in a statement on Wednesday.

Five months later, Garcia and her daughter are still in the Mexican border city of Nogales, where she has found work at a restaurant. “We are waiting patiently for the US to open,” she said on a recent day while filling orders for breaded chicken, enchiladas and tacos. Isilda was in a side room, making collages from magazine cutouts while her mother worked. San Juan Bosco, a shelter in Nogales, where the two are staying, has hosted many migrants for “five, six, even 10 months,” said Maria Antonia Diaz, a longtime volunteer. They are among tens of thousands of migrants lingering now in Mexican outposts — some who have taken jobs and rented apartments — waiting for the day, expected soon, when the United States fully opens its doors again to asylum-seekers. The situation on the southern border is reaching a critical stage, according to federal and state officials who must accommodate the incoming migrants. Even before the scheduled lifting next week of the Title 42 public health rule, which has allowed the government to swiftly expel nearly 2 million migrants over the past two years, US Border Patrol agents are encountering near-record numbers of people who either crossed on their own or were allowed to enter under various Title 42 exemptions. A total of 234,088 migrants crossed the southern border in April, topping March’s 22-year high of 221,444, including a record 34,821 from Cuba and 20,118 from Ukraine. Lifting Title 42 could send an even bigger surge of up to 18,000 migrants a day, administration officials say. Though a federal court could temporarily halt the lifting of the public health order — postponing the day of reckoning — the key challenge for the Biden administration in the coming months is finding a way to deter the thousands of migrants who head for the United States not because of imminent threats of violence or persecution — threats which the United States is legally and morally obligated to address — but in search of jobs and a better future. The official intent of Title 42, originally put in place under the Trump administration, was to slow the transmission of the coronavirus across the border. But it quickly became a powerful tool to slow immigration. “There has never been a public health justification for using Title 42 authority in the battle to contain COVID-19,” said Wayne Cornelius, director emeritus of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. A group of migrants crosses the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 16, 2022. Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times “It was an obscure rule,” he said, “part of a multipronged effort to curb immigration to the US”. A group of migrants crosses the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 16, 2022. Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times The Biden administration has faced pressure from progressives to halt the expulsions and offer refuge to migrants who have legitimate claims of persecution in their home countries. It announced in April that the order would be lifted on May 23, with stepped-up plans to handle the new arrivals. But the large number of migrants predicted to cross in the weeks after the order is lifted has given pause, with even some Democrats advocating a go-slow approach. Whether the policy is terminated next week or not, the United States is likely to see large numbers of people at the border for the foreseeable future. Turmoil around the globe is pushing migrants from Venezuela to Colombia; from Nicaragua to Costa Rica; and from everywhere near and far to the United States, where jobs are plentiful and prosperity and security seem within reach. “Despite who is in charge and what policies are in place, there are global and regional forces that are going to lead to a continuation of migration,” said Eileen Díaz McConnell, professor of global migration at Arizona State University. These forces, she said, include climate change, economic and political upheaval, organised crime and domestic abuse, as well as the fallout from the global health crisis. To handle the expected surge, the Homeland Security Department has unveiled a plan to focus new resources on the border, and Alejandro N Mayorkas, the agency’s chief, has vowed that people without a legal basis for entering the country will face detention, deportation and other consequences that have been frozen during Title 42. A new programme to adjudicate border asylum cases within one year, rather than through the backlogged immigration courts that often take six to eight years, aims to discourage families with weak claims from journeying north. “We are elevating the enforcement consequences we bring to bear on individuals who don’t qualify” to remain in the United States under the law, Mayorkas said during a visit to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas on Tuesday. Any US effort to prevent an overwhelming influx will depend on how well countries throughout the region, especially Mexico and Guatemala, manage their borders. Migrants from around the world travel through those countries en route to the United States. Mexico also plays a crucial role in deciding which migrants it takes back after their expulsion from the United States. In April, more than 4 out of 10 border encounters by agents were with migrants from countries beyond Mexico and Central America’s Northern Triangle, an unprecedented share. And many have been allowed to enter the United States despite Title 42, which has excluded about 60% of the migrants who crossed the border since it took effect in 2020. On a recent day, three busloads packed with male migrants, mainly from India, Senegal and Georgia, arrived at Casa Alitas shelter in Tucson, Arizona, within a three-hour span. Most of them had spent a few days in detention and then had been released with ankle monitors and orders to report to court later for deportation hearings. Among those standing in line for assistance booking tickets to destinations across the country was Bassir, 30. He had flown from Senegal to Brazil, where he began a trek over land to reach the Mexico-Arizona border, he said. As he traversed the Darien Gap, a lawless stretch of jungle near the border of Colombia and Panama, bandits put a pistol to his head, and stole his watch and $350. But after being intercepted by border agents and spending a few days in detention, he was finally looking at a chance to get a job in the United States, only wondering aloud, “How long will they keep this thing on my foot?” A bustling market on May 14, 2022, in Piedras Negras, Mexico, a border town where many migrants are waiting to cross into Texas. Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times A 20-year-old man named Preet Singh, headed for Los Angeles, said that his parents in India had paid $16,000 to guides who ferried him through Europe and Mexico to the United States. A bustling market on May 14, 2022, in Piedras Negras, Mexico, a border town where many migrants are waiting to cross into Texas. Tamir Kalifa/The New York Times The numbers at the US border reflect an escalating range of global tumult that increasingly has ended up at America’s door, said Adam Isacson, a scholar at the Washington Office on Latin America, who started studying the border in 2000. “The world cratered during the pandemic,” Isacson said, “and this internationalisation of crossers intensified.” It is a trend unlikely to reverse. “There is little reason to think the world will become more stable, peaceful and prosperous in the next 10 years,” he said. Because the rapid expulsions under Title 42 have enabled many single adults to make repeated tries until they succeed in eluding US border authorities, administration officials have predicted that the total number of encounters by agents could decline after Title 42 is rescinded, despite the expected arrival of thousands of new asylum-seekers who have been waiting on the other side. But deterring large numbers of people from arriving with dubious asylum claims will be one of the central challenges in the months after Title 42 is lifted. Even if many claims are quickly rejected under the administration’s new fast-track policies, it will take time for word to get back that people are being denied protection and deported. And any messaging by the US government will compete with that of a sophisticated smuggling industry that adapts quickly to shifting policies. “It’s not just individual migrants; there is a system that responds to policy changes,” said Díaz McConnell of Arizona State. The only certainty is that the longer it takes for Title 42 to be lifted, the more migrants will amass on the Mexican side, creating a bottleneck that raises the potential for overcrowding and disruption when it ultimately ends. A Mexican woman named Betzaida and her three children are among hundreds or more displaced families from Guerrero, a Mexican state convulsed by cartel violence, who have been waiting in Nogales for Title 42 to end. The family is renting an apartment and receiving assistance from the Kino Border Initiative, a nonprofit that provides meals, clothes and legal services to migrants. “We never considered leaving Mexico. We had a stable life,” said Betzaida, who did not want her last name published out of fears for her safety. That changed, she said, when gang members, determined to seize their property, kidnapped and beat her husband unconscious. “All we want to do is disappear from Mexico so that they can’t find us,” she said. Similar scenes are playing out in Mexican border towns from the Pacific coast to the Gulf of Mexico. Magdala Jean, 33, and her husband came from Haiti. They have been waiting with thousands of other migrants in the cartel-controlled border city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas. In Port-au-Prince, they said, they felt unsafe amid a spate of shootouts by gangs that now control broad swaths of the capital. They also could not find jobs. Camping out in Mexico has been their best option, she said. “We want to wait, so that we’re not turned back,” she said. About 280 miles away, in the small town of Piedras Negras, Mexico, men, women and children in tattered clothes trickled into Primera Iglesia Bautista, a shelter in a nondescript building a block from the international bridge leading to Eagle Pass, Texas. They said that there were many people behind them. Israel Rodriguez, the pastor at the shelter, said that not only have more people been arriving in the past few weeks, but also they are coming from different countries than in the past. “People will continue coming. It’s the oldest story,” he said. “They have crossed mountains, lakes and rivers and they are not going to turn back because a law is lifted or added. Nothing stops them.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Leaders of the world's biggest rich and developing countries meet on Thursday to seek ways to nurture the economic recovery and build safeguards against future catastrophes. US President Barack Obama, hosting his first Group of 20 summit, laid out an agenda that includes tackling one of the thorniest problems in the modern global economy -- how to even out massive imbalances between export powerhouses such as China and the deeply indebted United States. Short-term expectations for the summit were low. While there appeared to be consensus on principles such as building a more balanced world economy and clamping down on risky lending practices by banks to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis, there was little agreement on how it should be done. The two-day meeting in this Pennsylvania city, which has seen its own economic hard times as its once mighty steel industry lost ground to global competitors, starts with various bilateral talks on Thursday. Obama hosts a reception and working dinner in the evening. It is the third gathering of the G20 leaders since a meeting soon after the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank that ushered in a severe global recession. Even countries that had escaped the banking crisis were hit by a steep drop in global trade, a stark reminder that the world economy is closely intertwined. Now that the recession in many countries appears to be ending, the G20 must sustain the sense of urgency seen in April when it agreed to work together to rescue the world economy and pledged hundreds of billions of dollars to finance the International Monetary Fund's crisis-fighting efforts. There are plenty of distractions this time. Obama has his hands full with domestic policy headaches such as his drive to reform the U.S. healthcare system. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an election on Sunday. DON'T COUNT ON U.S. CONSUMPTION US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who is expected to meet with G20 officials on Thursday, said the world should grasp that the United States must increase its savings, meaning that countries that were counting on US consumption to drive their own growth would have to look elsewhere. "If they learn anything from this crisis, it's that basic imperative," he said on Wednesday. But some countries were uncomfortable with setting any strict limits on how large the trading imbalances could be, and chafed at the idea of the G20 or the International Monetary Fund meddling in domestic economic policy. Geithner insisted that was not the intention, but given those concerns it was unlikely that the G20 would commit this week to anything beyond basic ideas about rebalancing. Illustrating the scale of the problem, China's private consumption equals little more than a third of its economy, while in the United States and Britain, consumption accounted for nearly three-quarters of the economy in boom times. By contrast, Chinese and Indian households last year saved about 40 percent and 32 percent of their disposable incomes. The US savings rate was just 3.2 percent. Many European leaders were pushing for the G20 to put greater emphasis on cracking down on lavish pay packages and bonuses for bankers whose risky investments later turned bad. They also wanted to see more progress from the United States in addressing climate change, although it was unlikely that much would be accomplished at this meeting. The clock is ticking for the United States to come through with some tangible policy before an international meeting on curbing global warming in Copenhagen in December. Emerging economies such as Brazil, which were caught in the downdraft of the financial crisis even though their banks had limited direct exposure to bad assets, were keen on forging agreement on tougher regulatory rules at this G20. "A senseless way of thinking and acting, which dominated the world for decades, has proved itself bankrupt," Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said of the economic models that soft-pedaled on regulation.

The impact of lost tourism revenues, falling remittances and travel and other restrictions linked to the coronavirus pandemic are expected to leave some 130 million people acutely hungry this year, adding to around 135 million already in that category. "COVID-19 is potentially catastrophic for millions who are already hanging by a thread," said Arif Husain, chief economist and director of research, assessment and monitoring at the World Food Programme (WFP). "We all need to come together to deal with this because if we don't the cost will be too high - the global cost will be too high: many lost lives and many, many more lost livelihoods," he told reporters at a virtual briefing in Geneva. Husain said it was critical to act quickly in order to prevent people already living hand-to-mouth, such as food vendors in Kenya, from selling their assets as it could take them years to become self-reliant again. In some cases, such as when farmers sell their ploughs or oxen, it could have knock-on effects for food production for years to come, he added. "These were the people we were concerned about – those who were OK before COVID and now they are not," he said, adding he was "really worried" about people living in countries with little or no government safety nets. "Acute food and livelihood crisis" is category three of five UN phases meaning a "critical lack of food access and above usual malnutrition". Category 5 means mass starvation. UN officials did not give a geographical breakdown of the growing needs, but said that Africa was likely to be hardest hit. WFP expects to need $10-$12 billion to fund its assistance programmes this year compared to a record $8.3 billion raised last year, Husain added. It plans to pre-position food stocks over the coming months in anticipation of growing needs. Of those already deemed acutely hungry, many are in conflict zones such as Syria or in countries badly hit by the impact of climate change, according to a UN report. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, desert locusts in east Africa had destroyed crops and boosted the number of people reliant on food aid.

WASHINGTON, Feb 03(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Ten new species of amphibians -- including three kinds of poisonous frogs and three transparent-skinned glass frogs -- have been discovered in the mountains of Colombia, conservationists said Monday. With amphibians under threat around the globe, the discovery was an encouraging sign and reason to protect the area where they were found, said Robin Moore, an amphibian expert at the environmental group Conservation International. The nine frog species and one salamander species were found in the mountainous Tacarcuna area of the Darien region near Colombia's border with Panama. Because amphibians have permeable skin, they are exposed directly to the elements and can offer early warnings about the impact of environmental degradation and climate change, Moore said. As much as one-third of all amphibians in the world are threatened with extinction, he said. "Amphibians are very sensitive to changes ... in the environment," Moore said in a telephone interview. "Amphibians are kind of a barometer in terms of responding to those changes and are likely to be the first to respond, so climate change ... impacts on amphibians heavily." Amphibians also help control the spread of diseases like malaria and dengue fever, because they eat the insects that transmit these ailments to people. The new species discovered in Colombia include three poison frogs, three glass frogs, one harlequin frog, two kinds of rain frogs and one salamander. 'NOAH'S ARK' IN COLOMBIA The expedition that turned up the new amphibians also recorded the presence of large mammals like Baird's tapir, which is considered endangered in Colombia, four species of monkeys and a population of white-lipped peccary, a pig-like creature. "Without a doubt this region is a true Noah's Ark," said Jose Vicente Rodriguez-Mahecha, the conservation group's scientific director in Colombia. "The high number of new amphibian species found is a sign of hope, even with the serious threat of extinction that this animal group faces in many other regions of the country and the world," Rodriguez said in a statement. The area where the new species were found has traditionally served as a place where plants and animals move between North and South America. While the terrain is relatively undisturbed now, its landscape faces threats from selective logging, cattle ranching, hunting, mining and habitat fragmentation. Between 25 and 30 percent of the natural vegetation there is being deforested. Moore said protecting the Tacarcuna area where these amphibians were found could also benefit local people by preserving an important watershed. "We don't go in there and try and tell them to protect the forest for frogs," Moore said. "It's more a case of working with them to find more sustainable long-term solutions that will protect these resources that are ultimately benefiting them."

China should cut its carbon intensity every year by 4 or 5 percent if it wants to achieve a goal of low-carbon development by 2050, state media on Thursday cited a thinktank report as saying. In September, Chinese President Hu Jintao promised to put a "notable" brake on the country's rapidly rising carbon emissions, but dashed hopes he would unveil a hard target to kickstart stalled climate talks. Hu, the leader of the world's biggest emitter, told a UN summit China would pledge to cut "carbon intensity", or the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each dollar of economic output, over the decade to 2020. The official China Daily said the China Council of International Cooperation on Environment and Development would submit a report to the central government on cutting carbon intensity. "If China is to meet the target of year-on-year emissions cuts of between 4 and 5 percent, it will need to reduce energy intensity by between 75 and 85 percent by 2050," the newspaper wrote, paraphrasing the report. "In addition, the proportion of manufacturing industry within the national economic structure would need to be cut from the current 50 percent to around 30 percent by the middle of the century," it added. "By 2030, more than half of new energy demand should be met by low-carbon energy and by 2050, all new energy should be clean energy," the newspaper said. "In addition, carbon capture and storage technology should be promoted by 2030." The China Daily said the report was the first time a high-level think-tank had made concrete proposals to cut emissions since Hu's September address. The think tank said China should reform its environmental tax system. "It says the time is ripe for the country to begin to collect taxes from companies that emit pollutions and carbon dioxide because of the burning of fossil fuels." The report comes ahead of a major UN climate gathering in Denmark in December. The United Nations wants the Dec. 7-18 Copenhagen meeting to yield a broader, and tougher, legally binding agreement by all nations to fight climate change but negotiations have largely stalled, dimming hopes of success.

Forty years after he helped rescue the world from growing famine and a deepening gloom over the future of food supplies, Monkombu Sambasivan Swaminathan is once again agitating for revolution -- this time a perpetual one. The 82-year-old scientist, dubbed here the father of the Green Revolution for helping development a hybrid wheat seed that allowed Indian farmers to dramatically increase yields, says the current food crisis offers the world a chance to put farmers on the right road to unending growth. In the twenty-first century's "Evergreen Revolution", as he calls it, conservation farming and green technology will bring about sustainable change that could allow India to become an even bigger supplier of food to the world. "I'm very happy now, because in every crisis is an opportunity," he told Reuters at his government apartment in the heart of New Delhi, a perk of his membership in India's upper house. "This time it will lead to an evergreen revolution." That would be welcome news for the millions of impoverished people and food-importing nations who are struggling to cope with the surge in basic crop prices over the last year, caused in part by protectionist trade bans by some exporters, including India. This year's near trebling in the price of rice -- the main staple for most of the world's poor -- has driven the issue home. It has triggered riots in Haiti and raised the risk of starvation for the hundreds of millions who depend on subsidized foods. With anxiety over food supply running higher than anytime since the 1960s, the former Cambridge scholar is busier than ever, just as passionate and in high demand. "My wife says I have a one-track mind," he said during an interview squeezed between a meeting with an analyst from Asian brokerage CLSA and a consultation with a pack of regional politicians. His wife Mina, a women's rights campaigner who met Swaminathan in Cambridge over 50 years ago, enforces quiet time during his daily siesta, part of a regime that helps give him the energy and focus of a man several decades his junior. A slight stoop and white hair are rare signs of his advanced age. TAKING CUES FROM 1960s Today's crisis is still far from that of the 1960s, when China was engulfed in deadly famine and India barely got by on hand-to-mouth imports, reviving the grim Malthusian view that the world's population was expanding too quickly to feed itself. Back then, Swaminathan, a young scientist who turned down plumb positions in academia and the government to work in agriculture research, helped cross-breed wheat seeds that allowed India to more than treble its annual crop in just 15 years. U.S. production has risen only about a third since then. Scientists in the Philippines had also developed a super strain of rice at the same time, and better irrigation and use of fertilizer helped pull India back from the brink of famine. But Swaminathan says that some seeds of the current crisis were sown in his own revolutionary heyday. "The Green Revolution created a sense of euphoria that we have solved our production problem. Now we have a plateau in production and productivity. We have a problem of under investment in rural infrastructure," he says. With genetically advanced seeds, farmers overlooked the potential ecological damage of heavy fertilizer use, the drop in water tables due to heavier irrigation and the impact of repeated crop cycles on soil quality. He believes we've learned from those lessons, and the next wave of improvements will have environmental considerations at their core, without the need to return to the genetics lab. "A short-term gain will have to be a long-term disaster in agriculture," says Swaminathan, who held a series of leadership roles in world agriculture organizations before establishing his non-profit Chennai-based M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation 20 years ago to promote farm growth that will aid the poor, particularly women, and bio-diversity. COURSE MEAL But not all his ideas are popular. Some abroad are unimpressed by his focus on India's self-sufficiency as the primary goal, and those at home question the cultivation of more easily grown foods such as courser grains rather than finer, more costly wheat or rice. "Would you eat them?" India's food secretary T. Nand Kumar asked earlier this week. Not that Swaminathan has given up on the staples. In a world threatened by rising temperatures, he says India should grow more rice rather than wheat, the latter of which India was forced to import over the past two years. "Wheat is a gamble in temperatures... Rice is going to be the savior crop in the era of climate change," he said. With a host of measures suggested to kickstart the struggling sector, Swaminathan believes farmers should be allowed to play a pivotal role in leading the change, though he regrets it took a crisis to finally shift the world's attention back to the land. "Only when disasters come, farmers become important."

The Rome-based organisation says it helps some 97 million people in about 88 countries each year, and that one in nine people worldwide still do not have enough to eat. "The need for international solidarity and multilateral cooperation is more conspicuous than ever," Berit Reiss-Andersen, chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told a news conference. The WFP is a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict, and the COVID-19 pandemic, which the WFP says could double hunger worldwide, has made it even more relevant, she said. "Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos," the Nobel committee said in its citation. "There is an estimate within the World Food Programme that... there will be 265 million starving people within a year, so of course this is also a call to the international community not to underfund the World Food Programme." WFP runs a logistics service that has dispatched medical cargoes to over 120 countries throughout the pandemic to help governments and health partners fighting COVID-19. It also has provided passenger services to ferry humanitarian and health workers where commercial flights were unavailable. 'WOW! WOW! WOW!' WFP Executive Director David Beasley, travelling in Niger, posted a video statement on social media. "It's because of the WFP family," he said. "They are out there in the most difficult, complex places in the world, where there's war, conflict, climate extremes – it doesn't matter. They are out there and they deserve this award ... "This is the first time I've been speechless ... This is unbelievable," he said. "And wow! Wow! Wow! Wow!" In a written statement, he added: "Today is a reminder that food security, peace and stability go together. Without peace, we cannot achieve our global goal of zero hunger; and while there is hunger, we will never have a peaceful world." In Geneva, WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri told reporters: "Everything went into shutdown following nationwide and global restrictions following COVID-19. The WFP stepped up to the plate, we were able to connect communities. At one point, we were the biggest airline in the world, when most, if not all, commercial airlines had ground to halt." Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, said the Norwegian Nobel Committee had wanted to send a message of both hope and "support for international cooperation". "Hunger, like climate change, the pandemic and other issues, is a world problem that can only be properly addressed through cooperation. The World Food Programme is an institution of global cooperation," he told Reuters. "Unfortunately, in too many quarters, especially among the great powers, there is a declining appetite for cooperation," he said, adding that world hunger was increasing again, having declined for several decades until 2016.

But the abbot, the Venerable Ambalangoda Sumedhananda Thero, barely registered the blast. Waving away the mosquitoes swarming the night air in the southern Sri Lankan town of Gintota, he continued his tirade: Muslims were violent, he said, Muslims were rapacious. “The aim of Muslims is to take over all our land and everything we value,” he said. “Think of what used to be Buddhist lands: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Indonesia. They have all been destroyed by Islam.” Minutes later, a monastic aide rushed in and confirmed that someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail at a nearby mosque. The abbot flicked his fingers in the air and shrugged. His responsibility was to his flock, the Buddhist majority of Sri Lanka. Muslims, who make up less than 10 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, were not his concern. A demonstration organized by a Buddhist monk in support of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s handling of the Rohingya crisis in Yangon, Myanmar, Oct. 14, 2017. Incited by a politically powerful network of charismatic monks, Buddhists have entered the era of militant tribalism, casting themselves as spiritual warriors who must defend their faith against an outside force. Incited by a politically powerful network of charismatic monks like Sumedhananda Thero, Buddhists have entered the era of militant tribalism, casting themselves as spiritual warriors who must defend their faith against an outside force. A demonstration organized by a Buddhist monk in support of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s handling of the Rohingya crisis in Yangon, Myanmar, Oct. 14, 2017. Incited by a politically powerful network of charismatic monks, Buddhists have entered the era of militant tribalism, casting themselves as spiritual warriors who must defend their faith against an outside force. Their sense of grievance might seem unlikely: In Sri Lanka and Myanmar, two countries that are on the forefront of a radical religious-nationalist movement, Buddhists constitute overwhelming majorities of the population. Yet some Buddhists, especially those who subscribe to the purist Theravada strain of the faith, are increasingly convinced that they are under existential threat, particularly from an Islam struggling with its own violent fringe. As the tectonic plates of Buddhism and Islam collide, a portion of Buddhists are abandoning the peaceful tenets of their religion. During the past few years, Buddhist mobs have waged deadly attacks against minority Muslim populations. Buddhist nationalist ideologues are using the spiritual authority of extremist monks to bolster their support. “The Buddhists never used to hate us so much,” said Mohammed Naseer, the imam of the Hillur Mosque in Gintota, Sri Lanka, which was attacked by Buddhist mobs in 2017. “Now their monks spread a message that we don’t belong in this country and should leave. But where will we go? This is our home.” Last month in Sri Lanka, a powerful Buddhist monk went on a hunger strike that resulted in the resignation of all nine Muslim ministers in the Cabinet. The monk had suggested that Muslim politicians were complicit in the Easter Sunday attacks by Islamic State-linked militants on churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, which killed more than 250 people. Monks pray in the Bengala monastery in Yangon, Myanmar, Oct. 4, 2017. Incited by a politically powerful network of charismatic monks, Buddhists have entered the era of militant tribalism, casting themselves as spiritual warriors who must defend their faith against an outside force. In Myanmar, where a campaign of ethnic cleansing has forced an exodus of most of the country’s Muslims, Buddhist monks still warn of an Islamic invasion, even though less than 5% of the national population is Muslim. During Ramadan celebrations in May, Buddhist mobs besieged Islamic prayer halls, causing Muslim worshippers to flee. Monks pray in the Bengala monastery in Yangon, Myanmar, Oct. 4, 2017. Incited by a politically powerful network of charismatic monks, Buddhists have entered the era of militant tribalism, casting themselves as spiritual warriors who must defend their faith against an outside force. Because of Buddhism’s pacifist image — swirls of calming incense and beatific smiles — the faith is not often associated with sectarian aggression. Yet no religion holds a monopoly on peace. Buddhists go to war, too. “Buddhist monks will say that they would never condone violence,” said Mikael Gravers, an anthropologist at Aarhus University in Denmark who has studied the intersection of Buddhism and nationalism. “But at the same time, they will also say that Buddhism or Buddhist states have to be defended by any means.” Thousands of people gathered in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, in May as Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk who was once jailed for his hate speech, praised the nation’s army. Since August 2017, more than 700,000 Rohingya have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh. Behind it all was a campaign of ethnic cleansing by the army and its allies, with Buddhist mobs and the country’s security forces subjecting Rohingya Muslims to slaughter, rape and the complete erasure of hundreds of their villages. Ashin Wirathu has rejected the nonviolent teachings of his faith. Military-linked lawmakers deserved to be glorified like Buddha, he said at the rally. “Only the military,” he continued, “protects both our country and our religion.” At another protest last October, Ashin Wirathu slammed the decision by the International Criminal Court, or ICC, to pursue a case against Myanmar’s military for its persecution of the Rohingya. A Sri Lankan Buddhist bows in front of Sitagu Sayadaw, one of Myanmar’s most revered Buddhist leaders, in Delgoda, Sri Lanka, Nov. 18, 2017. Incited by a politically powerful network of charismatic monks, Buddhists have entered the era of militant tribalism, casting themselves as spiritual warriors who must defend their faith against an outside force. Then the monk made a startling call to arms. “The day that the ICC comes here is the day I hold a gun,” Ashin Wirathu said in an interview with The New York Times. A Sri Lankan Buddhist bows in front of Sitagu Sayadaw, one of Myanmar’s most revered Buddhist leaders, in Delgoda, Sri Lanka, Nov. 18, 2017. Incited by a politically powerful network of charismatic monks, Buddhists have entered the era of militant tribalism, casting themselves as spiritual warriors who must defend their faith against an outside force. Monks like Ashin Wirathu inhabit the extremist fringe of Buddhist nationalism. But more respected clerics are involved as well. At 82 years old, the Venerable Ashin Nyanissara, known more commonly as Sitagu Sayadaw, is Myanmar’s most influential monk. As hundreds of thousands of Rohingya were fleeing their torched villages, Sitagu Sayadaw sat in front of an audience of army officers and said that “Muslims have almost bought the United Nations.” The army and monkhood, he continued, “could not be separated.” Sitagu Sayadaw was pictured in May on a Facebook page linked to the Myanmar military, grinning among soldiers. He has offered up his faith’s greatest sacrifice: an army of spiritual soldiers for the national cause. “There are over 400,000 monks in Myanmar,” he told the commander of Myanmar’s armed forces. “If you need them, I will tell them to begin. It’s easy.” “When someone as respected as Sitagu Sayadaw says something, even if it is strongly dismissive of a certain group, people listen,” said Khin Mar Mar Kyi, a Myanmar-born social anthropologist at the University of Oxford. “His words justify hatred.” When suicide bombers linked to the Islamic State blew up churches and hotels in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday, Buddhist nationalists felt vindicated. “We have been warning for years that Muslim extremists are a danger to national security,” said Dilanthe Withanage, a senior administrator for Bodu Bala Sena, the largest of Sri Lanka’s Buddhist nationalist groups. “Blood is on the government’s hands for ignoring the radicalisation of Islam,” Withanage said. After a few years of moderate coalition governance, a fusion of faith and tribalism is again on the ascendant in Sri Lanka. The movement’s champion is Gotabaya Rajapaksa, a former defense chief who is the leading candidate for president in elections due this year. Rajapaksa has pledged to protect religion in the country with the longest continuous Buddhist lineage. He is determined to reconstruct Sri Lanka’s security state, which was built during the country’s nearly three-decade-long civil war with an ethnic Tamil minority. From 2005 to 2015, Sri Lanka was led by Rajapaksa’s brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, an unabashed nationalist who justified the brutal end to the civil war by portraying himself as the nation’s spiritual savior. Temples decorated their walls with pictures of the Rajapaksa brothers. Money flowed for radical Buddhist groups that cheered on sectarian rioting in which Muslims died. One of the founders of Bodu Bala Sena, or the Buddhist Power Army, was given prime land in Colombo, the capital, for a high-rise Buddhist cultural center. The national telecom service added Bodu Bala Sena’s theme song to its collection of ringtones. Last year, Bodu Bala Sena’s leader, Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, was sentenced to six years in prison. But in late May, amid a changing political climate, he received a presidential pardon. On Sunday, he presided over a meeting of thousands of monks intent on making their political presence felt in the upcoming elections. Before his imprisonment last year, Gnanasara Thero placed his campaign in a historical context. “We have been the guardians of Buddhism for 2,500 years,” he said in an interview with The Times. “Now, it is our duty, just as it is the duty of monks in Myanmar to fight to protect our peaceful island from Islam.”   ©2019 New York Times News Service

Promising that “America will be back” once Donald Trump leaves office, Biden won a standing ovation at the Munich Security Conference from delegates who find the president’s brusque foreign policy stance hard to like. But their elation also exposed the weakened state of Western diplomacy in the face of Trump’s assertiveness, according to European diplomats and politicians who were present. Biden’s successor, Mike Pence, was met with silence at a reception in the palatial Bavarian parliament on Friday evening after he delivered his signature line: “I bring you greetings from the 45th president of the United States, President Donald Trump.” His four-day trip to Europe succeeded only in deepening divisions with traditional allies over questions such as Iran and Venezuela and offered little hope in how to deal with threats ranging from nuclear arms to climate change, diplomats and officials said. Misgivings about Washington’s role in the world are being felt by ordinary people as well as foreign policy specialists. In Germany and France, half the population see US power as a threat, up sharply from 2013 and a view shared by 37 percent of Britons, the Washington-based Pew Research Center said in a report before the Munich foreign policy gathering. Asked about European anxiety over Trump’s leadership style, a senior US official on Pence’s Air Force Two plane said the vice president’s Munich conference speech on Saturday at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof would “help give them a different perspective”. “TIT-FOR-TAT” But if the Europeans did not like the “America First” message, there was no concerted response to it. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was on her own after a last-minute cancellation by French President Emmanuel Macron. That caused some to lament the failure of the West to uphold the rules-based international order that Washington itself championed in the 70 years that preceded the arrival of Trump in the White House. “The tit-for-tat logic is unfortunately prevailing ... I think that takes us back to the question of enlightened leadership,” said Thomas Greminger, secretary general of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, a security and human rights watchdog. “We need leaders again who do not believe exclusively in short-termism,” he told Reuters. It fell to China to aid Merkel in her defense of the post-World War Two order, as the country’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi, spoke in flawless English for over 20 minutes about the virtues of open trade and global cooperation. Pence’s message was, in fact, that the pillars of US foreign policy were being rebuilt on a different foundation: isolating Iran, containing China, bringing American troops home and requiring European powers to fall into line. BROKEN NARRATIVE? After using a speech in Warsaw on Thursday to accuse Britain, France and Germany of trying to undermine US sanctions on Iran, Pence called in Munich for the European Union to recognize Venezuelan congressional leader Juan Guaido as president over Nicolas Maduro, whom he called a dictator. That drew an angry response from Spain’s Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, who said the European Union could acknowledge Guaido as interim president until new elections, in line with the Venezuelan constitution. French foreign minister Jean-Yves LeDrian said he was mystified by US policy on Syria after Trump’s decision to withdraw troops because it would only benefit Iran, which Washington wants to be tough on. European diplomats and officials also took issue with Pence’s insistence that EU governments stay away from Chinese telecoms companies as they build the latest generation of mobile networks, preferring first to have an internal discussion about the potential risks and US claims of Chinese espionage. “US pressure has a tendency to make us do the opposite. US pressure is counterproductive. It’s best that they don’t try and pressure us,” a senior French diplomat said. Whatever the threats, officials seemed to be mainly talking past each other. Kumi Naidoo, global head of Amnesty International, said security was often defined too narrowly, failing to address the wider dangers of climate change. “The narrative here at the Munich Security Conference is broken. They are talking about the right topics but in the wrong language. The mentality here is that security is only a national issue,” Naidoo told Reuters. Leaving for Washington, Pence was unfazed, telling reporters his trip had been very successful. “We’re advancing the interests of the free world, and we’ve made great progress.”

At the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, or CERN, outside Geneva, Switzerland, scientists still delight in describing the diverse array of peoples — Israelis and Iranians; Hindus, Muslims, atheists and Catholics — who worked side by side a decade ago to discover the Higgs boson, the key to mass in the universe. Astronauts take pride in the fellowship of the cosmos symbolised by ceremonial exchanges of bread and salt when crews arrive at the International Space Station. These ties are now being threatened as opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to grow in scientific circles — even in Russia, where use of the word “invasion” in regard to Ukraine is now a crime. Conferences and academic exchanges have been cancelled. Open letters from winners of the Nobel Prize and other groups have proliferated. The Russian and American space programs, which have been intertwined for 30 years, now seem destined to go their separate ways. Last week the waves of condemnation reached CERN, long an avatar of the dream of international collaboration. In a meeting of its governing body, the CERN Council, last Tuesday, the lab said it would not engage in any new collaborations with the Russian Federation “until further notice” and suspended it from its observer status at the lab. “CERN was established in the aftermath of World War II to bring nations and people together for the peaceful pursuit of science,” read a statement released by the council March 8. “This aggression runs against everything for which the Organisation stands.” This followed an announcement in late February that the International Congress of Mathematicians, scheduled for St Petersburg, Russia, in July, would instead be held virtually. The Congress, which occurs every four years, is the biggest gathering in math. An in-person assembly and awards ceremony will happen at a place to be determined outside Russia. Protests have not been confined to the West. On Feb 24, Russian scientists and science journalists posted an open letter to the website Troitskiy Variant, an independent science publication in Russia, calling the invasion of Ukraine “unfair and frankly senseless.” “Having unleashed the war, Russia doomed itself to international isolation, to the position of a pariah country,” the letter noted. “This means that we, scientists, will no longer be able to do our job normally: After all, conducting scientific research is unthinkable without full cooperation with colleagues from other countries.” Some 7,750 Russians have signed the letter, according to Andrei Linde, a Stanford cosmologist from Russia and one of the signatories. After the Russian parliament made it a criminal offence worth as much as 15 years in prison to call the invasion of Ukraine anything but a “special military operation,” the letter disappeared from that website, but it can still be found on the Wayback Machine. A subsequent post, which Linde steered me to and translated, listed the signers of the letter but not the letter itself. “There is nothing criminal in the text of the letter,” the new post read. “However, due to the new legislation, which actually introduces the most severe censorship, we remove the text of the letter, leaving signatures, believing that it is important for the signatories to let people know that they have not kept silent.” That post, too, has disappeared. “It’s so depressing,” Linde said. Another embarrassment for Russia came when Oleg Anisimov, a climatologist at the State Hydrological Institute in St Petersburg who headed the Russian delegation to a Feb 27 meeting of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, interrupted his talk before the representatives from 195 nations to apologise to the citizens of Ukraine for the attack. “Let me present an apology on behalf of all Russians who were not able to prevent this conflict,” Anisimov said at the meeting. “Those who know what is happening fail to find any justification for the attack.” The condemnation from CERN was particularly stinging in its symbolism. The laboratory was formed in 1954 to help bind a war-torn Europe, and the effort has been splendidly spectacular. Its Large Hadron Collider rules the roost in particle physics; the collider’s discovery of the long-sought Higgs boson a decade ago resonated globally. And the World Wide Web was invented at CERN, to allow physicists to easily share their data. In all, scientists from 100 nations and territories participate in the lab’s operations. The laboratory is governed by a council of 23 member states, each of which sends two delegates, a scientist and a diplomat. Each state has one vote. Russia is not a member but, like the United States and Japan, it has held observer status, meaning it could send delegations to meetings but not vote. Ukraine is among seven associate members. Expelling a member or observer state requires a two-thirds vote; the count is confidential. Eliezer Rabinovici, a theoretical physicist at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem who is the president of the CERN Council, called its meeting “extraordinary.” “I am overwhelmed by decisions to be taken,” he said in an email in the days before the meeting occurred. “I think what happened now took many many by surprise,” Rabinovici recalled afterward. “They could not believe that some atrocities could happen in 21st-century Europe.” He described “some tension” with delegates wanting “to express their sympathy and their anger” but concerned about harming the collaborative ethos of CERN in the long run. Fabiola Gianotti, director-general of CERN, recalled in a statement that CERN’s mission was to build bridges between countries. “In times of aggression, war and political divide,” she said, “science and the arts can play the role of keeping communication channels open. Such channels will be essential to building back when the time comes.” The decision elicited support from a sample of physicists contacted by phone and email. “In comparison to what is going on in Ukraine, suspension of the observer status of the Russian Federation at CERN is a relatively minor issue,” Linde said. Pierre Ramond, a physicist at the University of Florida and one of the innovators of string theory, wrote: “CERN’s decision was necessary. The lack of any would have been a black mark: CERN is more than a scientific marvel, it was and remains the first symbol of the post-WW2 new Europe.” Kip Thorne, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology who won a Nobel Prize in 2017 for the discovery of gravitational waves, has working relationships with Russian astrophysicists that date from the 1960s. “I believed then and I believe now that those contacts are of high importance,” he said in an email. “However, what Putin and the Russian military have done in the name of the Russian Federation is so egregious that I strongly support the CERN Council’s decision.” But Lisa Randall, a theoretical physicist at Harvard, said in an email: “Unless the scientists are responsible for the actions of their country, it is unfair and contrary to the international collaborative spirit of CERN to make this move.” What all this means for individual scientists at CERN is unclear. In a note to the lab, Gianotti insisted that nobody was being sent home and that ongoing collaborations were being maintained, at least for now. Joseph Incandela, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who led one of the teams that discovered the Higgs boson, elaborated. “Those who are here can continue to come to the lab and do their work,” he said. “Those who come in from Russia can still get here via somewhat more circuitous flight paths if they are allowed to do so by Russian authorities. They are not restricted from entering CERN.” Thus far, CERN’s plans to restart the Large Hadron Collider in April, following three years of repairs and improvements, remain on track, according to Mike Lamont, CERN’s director for accelerators and technology. So the promise of a narrow bridge of communication survives. In an email, Michael Turner, a physicist with the Kavli Foundation in Los Angeles and past president of the American Physical Society, stressed the value of these informal working relationships. “Scientists are often very influential members of their societies,” he noted, and their interactions are a reminder “of the humanity of all individuals, even those in countries whose leaders are doing outrageous things.” “That being said,” he added, with regard to Russia’s actions, “I think the entire world is trying to figure out what to do.” ©2022 The New York Times Company

It was 2016, and a deal had been struck by the Arizona-based mining giant Freeport-McMoRan to sell the site, located in Congo, which figures prominently in China’s grip on the global cobalt supply. The metal has been among several essential raw materials needed for the production of electric car batteries — and is critical to retiring the combustion engine and weaning the world off climate-changing fossil fuels. Perriello, a top US diplomat in Africa at the time, sounded alarms in the State Department. Kapanga, then the mine’s Congolese general manager, all but begged the American ambassador in Congo to intercede. “This is a mistake,” Kapanga recalled warning him, suggesting the Americans were squandering generations of relationship building in Congo, the source of more than two-thirds of the world’s cobalt. Presidents starting with Dwight D Eisenhower had sent hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, including transport planes and other military equipment, to the mineral-rich nation. Richard Nixon intervened, as did the State Department under Hillary Clinton, to sustain the relationship. And Freeport-McMoRan had invested billions of its own — before it sold the mine to a Chinese company. Not only did the Chinese purchase of the mine, known as Tenke Fungurume, go through uninterrupted during the final months of the Obama administration, but four years later, during the twilight of the Trump presidency, so did the purchase of an even more impressive cobalt reserve that Freeport-McMoRan put on the market. The buyer was the same company, China Molybdenum. China’s pursuit of Congo’s cobalt wealth is part of a disciplined playbook that has given it an enormous head start over the United States in the race to dominate the electrification of the auto industry. But an investigation by The New York Times revealed a hidden history of the cobalt acquisitions in which the United States essentially surrendered the resources to China, failing to safeguard decades of diplomatic and financial investments in Congo. Perriello, who has since left government, said he learned of the plan in 2016 to sell Tenke Fungurume not long after touring the mine. The owner had a tarnished reputation for its operations in other countries. But he was convinced that American ownership was good not only for the United States but for the people of Congo. Freeport-McMoRan got largely favourable reviews on the ground, was employing thousands of Congolese and had built schools and health care clinics and provided drinking water. “What can we do?” Perriello recalled asking Linda Thomas-Greenfield — who was then an assistant secretary of state with responsibility for Africa and is now President Joe Biden’s ambassador to the United Nations — about keeping the mine under American control. Perriello said he raised the issue with the National Security Council as well. (A spokesperson for Thomas-Greenfield said she remembered the sale of the mine but not the conversation with Perriello, and several members of the NSC also said they could not recall such a conversation.) The only serious bidders were Chinese companies, leaving no doubt about the consequences of standing by. “They were able to move swiftly and quicker than anybody else could,” Kathleen L Quirk, Freeport-McMoRan’s president, said in an interview. “So we got the deal done.” Freeport-McMoRan had been determined to sell. The company, one of the world’s largest copper-mining outfits, had made a catastrophically bad bet on the oil and gas industry just before oil prices tanked and the world began to shift to renewable energy. With debt piling up, the company saw no option but to unload its Congo operations. The American response, in essence, was nothing because it was a straight financial transaction. The country has no oversight of transactions by American companies abroad. The crisis, exposing significant blind spots of US leaders, was just the kind of opportunity the Chinese government excels at exploiting, according to previously unreported documents and emails and interviews with diplomats, mining executives, government officials and others in China, Congo and the United States. Over the past year, as the clean energy transition has accelerated, the US government and the private sector have moved more rapidly to recover from past mistakes, scouring the world for new cobalt supplies and deploying cobalt-free batteries in some shorter-range electric cars. But all that falls far short of Chinese efforts to take over resources critical to a green future, including cobalt, lithium and others. Cold War Gamesmanship Nixon stood outside the White House with the first lady one morning in August 1970. President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire was about to pay a visit. It had been a decade since Zaire, now Congo, had secured independence from Belgium, and as the leader of a country abundant in natural resources, Mobutu found himself with considerable global clout. Not only did he control those resources, but he had emerged as a key intermediary for the United States in its efforts to keep the Soviet Union from making inroads in Africa. Access to minerals and metals in Congo had been a top priority for the United States since at least World War II. Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939 urging him to stockpile Congolese uranium, used in the first atomic bombs. By the mid-1960s, the CIA had set up one of its most extensive operations in the country, secretly bankrolling a small army of mercenaries and Congolese troops. The agency ran missions with the help of US warplanes to suppress Soviet-backed rebels. Mobutu, a former army sergeant who would become a corrupt dictator, saw the Americans as an ideal partner in his bid to grow the country’s mining wealth. With an eye to developing Tenke Fungurume, he reached out to a prominent New York diamond merchant named Maurice Tempelsman, according to a series of now declassified cables, to discuss giving him mining rights in the area. But just before his trip to Washington in August 1970, Mobutu made a surprise announcement: He had decided to contract a Belgian company to develop the mine. Washington went into crisis mode as it tried to wrestle back the concession, and its generosity knew no bounds. “Whatever Mobutu wants, give it to him,” Herman J Cohen, an American diplomat in Congo at the time, recalled Nixon signalling to his administration. Hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid had been sent to Mobutu. Now Nixon agreed to give him several C-130 transport planes. The campaign reached a tipping point at a black-tie dinner for Mobutu at the White House, according to Cohen. After the meal, Tempelsman took Mobutu for a private boat ride on the Potomac. Word soon came that the Americans were getting the mining concession. A ‘Grand Reopening’ Mark Mollison, a mining engineer from New York City, climbed into a Toyota Land Cruiser in southeastern Congo, where he had traveled to visit Tenke Fungurume. It was by then an abandoned construction site. Mollison was amazed. He saw hilltops with bald spots where copper and cobalt poked through the surface. “The ore was 10 times as rich as what we were mining in Arizona,” Mollison recalled. It was the late 1990s, and Mollison belonged to a new wave of mining executives who had arrived to pick up the pieces left by the Tempelsman group two decades earlier. After spending $250 million, the group had pulled out when it ran into a series of hurdles, including anti-government rebels who shut down a railroad needed to ship the cobalt and copper to the sea. Kissinger, the secretary of state, helped craft a cable to apologize to the Congolese government in January 1976, explaining that the United States “deeply regrets” the “mothballing” of the project. Interest rekindled many years later after Mobutu was overthrown. The rebel leader, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, had recently seized valuable land near Tenke and Fungurume, the two towns that gave the mine its name. “Everybody thought, 'Boy, this is the grand reopening, a new awakening of Congo,'” Mollison said. Western mining executives and their Wall Street bankers arrived in the region. The investors gathered at a hotel as Kabila’s representatives secured financial commitments for mining access. A memo written by one banker summed up Kabila’s perspective: “Rules of the game: you give and I give.” Lundin Group, a Canadian mining company, was so determined to seal a deal that it agreed to give the rebels $50 million. Mollison’s job, when he arrived several months later, was to evaluate if his company, now called Freeport-McMoRan, should partner with Lundin to finish what Tempelsman had started at Tenke Fungurume. Freeport-McMoRan would later publicise that undertaking as the biggest private investment ever in Congo. “What’s this place going to need?” Mollison recalled wondering. “Electric power. Lots of it. Roads. Plenty of water.” Freeport-McMoRan eventually landed a controlling 57.75% stake in the mine, while Lundin got 24.75%. Congo’s state mining enterprise, Gécamines, kept 17.5%. By the end of 2007, after yet another civil war in Congo, the project got fully underway. Freeport-McMoRan went on a building spree. It helped construct a highway so cobalt and copper could be exported to other parts of Africa. It spent $215 million to refurbish an aging hydroelectric plant. “It was very impressive,” said Pierrot Kitobo Sambisaya, who worked as a metallurgist at the mine for a decade. Freeport-McMoRan had developed one of the most modern and productive cobalt and copper mines in the world. But Freeport-McMoRan made a monumental blunder. Instead of doubling down on mining, it ventured into fossil fuels, spending $20 billion in 2012 to buy two oil and gas companies. When oil prices plummeted, Freeport-McMoRan found itself mired in debt. “It breaks my heart to do it,” Richard Adkerson, Freeport-McMoRan’s CEO, told Wall Street analysts in May 2016 when he announced the company would sell Tenke Fungurume. The top bidder was China Molybdenum, which offered $2.65 billion. The news troubled executives at the mine, including Kapanga, the general manager, who had also worked as a Congolese presidential adviser and diplomat. He phoned the American ambassador, James Swan. “Tenke Fungurume is the jewel in the crown,” Kapanga said he told Swan, worried the United States was inexplicably letting go of its biggest private investment in Congo. Swan declined to comment when contacted by The New York Times. The focus at the time for American diplomats in Congo centred on trying to urge President Joseph Kabila out of office. He had taken over after his father was assassinated in 2001 and spent much of the next 15 years looting millions of dollars from the public treasury. No Lessons Learned The sale of Tenke Fungurume closed in November 2016. It drew little attention in the United States outside the financial news media. Early in his administration, President Donald Trump signalled that challenging China’s efforts to dominate mineral supplies might be a major focus. His administration issued reports on cobalt and the potential for supply shortfalls, taking note of the Tenke Fungurume sale. Nonetheless, history repeated itself. Freeport-McMoRan still owned an undeveloped site that contains one of the world’s most important untapped sources of cobalt. When the company indicated late last year that it intended to sell the site, known as Kisanfu, there was next to no reaction from the US government. “Nobody even talked about this,” said Nazak Nikakhtar, who until January served as the Commerce Department assistant secretary in charge of tracking critical mineral supplies. “It is horrible.” The sale, to China Molybdenum for $550 million, went ahead as announced, a month before Trump left office. With it, the last major US investment in Congo’s cobalt and copper mines evaporated.   © 2021 The New York Times Company

TOKYO, Japan, Sun Jul 6, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - President George W Bush promised on Sunday to be constructive in talks on global warming but said a deal was impossible unless fast-growing China and India agreed to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is high on the agenda of the annual summit of the Group of Eight rich nations that starts on Monday at a luxury hotel on the lush northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. "I'll be constructive. I've always advocated that there needs to be a common understanding and that starts with a goal," Bush told a news conference after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, the host of the three-day summit. "And I also am realistic enough to tell you that if China and India don't share that same aspiration, then we're not going to solve the problem," said Bush, who turned 62 on Sunday. China, India and 12 other countries will join the regular members of the G8 -- the United States, Japan, France, Britain, Germany, Canada, Italy and Russia -- for parts of the summit. Global inflation driven by soaring food and fuel prices will be high on a crowded agenda, as will efforts to alleviate African poverty. Leaders are also likely to condemn the violence that preceded last month's presidential election in Zimbabwe and will discuss North Korea's nuclear program. EMPTY SLOGAN Developing nations including China and India want rich states to shoulder most of the burden of cutting greenhouse gases under a planned pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. U.N.-led talks on a new framework are due to conclude in Copenhagen in December next year. But wide gaps within the G8 as well as between rich and developing countries have raised doubts about the chances for progress beyond last year's summit in Germany, where G8 leaders agreed to "seriously consider" a global goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. South Africa, which is also at this year's summit, highlighted the divisions by demanding that rich countries go much further and reduce their emissions by 25-40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020 and by 80-95 percent by 2050. "Without mid-term targets and without a baseline, the target of 50 percent by 2050 is an empty slogan with no substance," Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk told reporters. Japan wants the leaders to agree to the 2050 goal but without specifying a base year. "Climate change is one of the most serious challenges mankind faces," said Fukuda, who is hoping to forge a strong summit statement on the issue to hoist his poor poll ratings. Analysts and diplomats have said that the G8 leaders were likely to craft a fuzzy agreement on a long-term goal to allow Fukuda to save face, but that real progress will likely have to wait until a new U.S. president takes office in January. "I don't think we're expecting a deal. That will come under the United Nations' auspices in Copenhagen next year," Canadian Environment Minister John Baird told reporters en route to Japan. "What we hope is that we can get some momentum toward a solid progress on climate change," Baird said. POLICE ON ALERT Tokyo and Washington say specific interim targets are not on the table in Hokkaido, although leaders are likely to acknowledge the need for advanced countries to set them. Flanked by Bush, Fukuda said that Japanese and U.S. views on global warming were gradually converging. "As the chair of this G8, I have been asking for his support and I think he has shown his understanding," the Japanese prime minister said. With the attendance of several African leaders, this is the largest gathering since rich-country summits began at the Chateau de Rambouillet outside Paris in November 1975. Then, as now, leaders are confronted by a spike in the cost of oil, which hit a record high of $145.85 a barrel on Thursday. Oil has soared 50 percent so far this year. "Rising oil and food prices are having a serious impact on the global economy and we agreed that prompt steps are needed to tackle that," Fukuda said. "Our economy is not growing as robustly as we'd like," said Bush, who is attending his eighth and final G8 summit. One difference from the early summits is that security is now stifling. Japan has mobilized 21,000 police to protect the leaders and prevent thousands of anti-G8 activists who have poured into Hokkaido from disrupting the summit. Some have taken up residence in three camps near the hotel. "We feel honored that my camp was chosen as the site. From what I'm hearing, I support their activity," said Akeji Takai, the owner of one of camps.

The purchase three years ago, in Exeter, promised to make his sprawling community a major hub for what seemed like Canada’s next big growth industry — legal pot — and the high-paying jobs it would bring. But before any of the 200 or so anticipated jobs in the greenhouse were filled — or before a single marijuana seed was even sown there — it became apparent that Canada was already growing far more marijuana than the market wanted. After sitting idle for two years, the 1-million-square-foot greenhouse was sold last year for about one-third of its original purchase price of 26 million Canadian dollars, or $20.75 million. Exeter’s experience with the greenhouse — high hopes, followed by disappointment — mirrors the broader Canadian story with the business side of legal pot. Analysts say one reason the sunny projections have failed to materialise is the tightly regulated distribution system introduced by Canada, which largely bans advertising and marketing. The halting rollout of stores in some provinces — particularly Ontario — is also a factor. Plus, surveys have suggested that many Canadians are simply not interested in adopting a new vice. “We were looking forward to it,” said the mayor, George Finch, standing outside Exeter’s 19th-century Town Hall. “Sounded too good almost, eh? It’s too bad. So it may well revert to vegetables again.” When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government legalised marijuana in 2018, a primary goal was to create a more equitable justice system — not a major new business sector. Investors, however, thought otherwise, and in the time leading up to legalisation, a “green rush” swept the Toronto Stock Exchange. Money poured into companies starting up to service not only the Canadian market but also eyeing other opportunities, particularly the US market, where more states were embracing legalisation. Long-dormant greenhouses were renovated and sold for record prices like the one in Exeter, and new indoor growing facilities popped up across the nation. Newspapers that had been cutting back on staff hired journalists to cover new marijuana beats. Like plastics in the film “The Graduate,” marijuana seemed destined to become Canada’s next big thing. The investment craze produced a strong echo of the dot-com stock boom of the late 1990s. And it ended with the same collapse. Even with a slight recovery propelled by the spreading legalisation in the United States — New York legalised marijuana last month, and voters in four states backed legalisation in November — one marijuana stock index is still down about 70% from its peak in 2018. And 2 1/2 years after legalisation, most marijuana producers in Canada are still reporting staggering losses. A major new competitor is looming as well; Mexico’s lawmakers legalised recreational pot use last month. So the business climate for Canada’s growers could become even more challenging. “There’s probably going to be a series of shakeouts,” said Kyle Murray, vice dean at the University of Alberta School of Business in Edmonton. “Things were way overblown. It’s very similar to the dot-com boom and then bust.” Canopy Growth, the country’s largest producer, lost CA$1.2 billion, or about $950 million, in the first nine months of its current operating year. Layoffs have swept the industry. Large producers have merged in a bid to find strength in size. The lights have been permanently switched off in many greenhouses in several provinces. The big bets on marijuana, analysts said, were made on the assumption that marijuana sales in Canada would mirror the sharp spike in liquor sales that occurred in the United States after the end of Prohibition. “Everyone thought that in Canada, the industry was going to move further, faster, and that hasn’t happened,” said Brendan Kennedy, chief executive of Tilray, a major grower based in Nanaimo, British Columbia, that lost $272 million last year. “One of the challenges around competing with the illicit market is that the regulations are so stringent.” Kennedy is among the few leaders in Canada’s marijuana industry still standing. As losses piled higher and stocks tumbled, most pioneers were shown the door. When a planned merger between Tilray and Ontario-based Aphria goes through this year, creating what is likely to be the world’s biggest cannabis company, Kennedy will remain as a director, although he will no longer be at the helm. In Ontario, the plan at first was to handle sales through a branch of the government-owned liquor store system, the way it is done in Quebec. But when a new Conservative government came to power in 2018, it swiftly canceled those plans, which left only online sales through a provincial website. Since then, the province’s plans have changed two more times, making for an uneven introduction of privately owned shops. Even after a recent increase in licensing, Ontario still has approved only 575 shops. By comparison, Alberta, which has about one-third of Ontario’s population, has 583 shops. While initial hopes for marijuana wealth were overly optimistic, Murray said he was confident that a viable business will emerge, with the rising number of Ontario shops one sign of that. That prices have dropped closer to parity with street prices should also help legal sales. “None of this means that it’s a bad market,” Murray said of the poor start. “Too much money and too many companies were involved initially. Eventually there will be some companies that are very successful for a long period of time. And if we’re lucky, they become global leaders.” One comparative bright spot has been British Columbia, previously the heart of Canada’s illegal marijuana industry. There, sales in legal stores grew 24% from June to October 2020. And in Quebec, while the government-owned cannabis store operator, Société Québécoise du Cannabis, lost nearly CA$5 million during its first fiscal year, it has since become profitable. Largely disappointed at home, some of the larger growers in Canada have pointed to foreign markets, particularly for medical marijuana, as their next great hope. But many analysts are skeptical. Mexico’s recent move toward creating the world’s largest legal market could doom most marijuana growing in Canada, said Brent McKnight, a professor at the DeGroote School of Business at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Trade agreements will likely make it impossible for Canada to stop imports from Mexico, while Mexico’s significantly lower labor costs and warmer climate potentially give it a competitive advantage. “That would certainly put some downward pricing pressure on local growers,” he said. And as Canada’s industry is forced to consolidate to survive, some worry about who will lose out as large, publicly traded companies come to dominate the space. Long before legalisation, many of the first shops to defy Canadian marijuana laws were nonprofit “compassion clubs” selling to people who used cannabis for medicinal purposes. The current system’s emphasis on large corporate growers and profits has squeezed many people from minority communities out of the business, said Dr Daniel Werb, a public health researcher and drug policy analyst at St Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Werb is part of a research group whose preliminary findings have shown that “there is a marked lack of diversity” in the leadership of the new, legal suppliers, he said. Sellers in Indigenous communities, too, have been left in limbo, generally not subjected to police raids but also outside the legal system, although Ontario has begun licensing shops in some of those communities. “I get more and more concerned about, on the one hand, the lack of ethno-racial diversity and, on the other hand, a lack of imagination around the fact that this didn’t have to be a wholly for-profit industry,” Werb said. “It seems like there was a missed opportunity to think creatively.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

The U.S. fight against climate change isn't just for Democrats any more. Democrats used to own the environmental issue, grabbing votes from party loyalists and independent voters when they stressed their plans to curb global warming. This could be the year Republicans, the party of President George W. Bush, use climate change as a rallying cry at election time. It could also differentiate Republican presidential contenders from Bush administration policies that have left the United States isolated among the world's biggest developed countries. Climate change can draw support from outside the party ranks, former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said. Republicans could use the help after losing control of both houses of Congress in 2006. "Republicans lost in 2006 because independents abandoned our party," Mehlman said at a political discussion several weeks before the Feb. 5 "Super Tuesday" vote. "How do we earn the confidence back of independents? This (climate change) is an issue on which not only you can do it, but it's an issue on which you can do it consistent with conservative values," Mehlman said. Economic conservatives, traditionally Republicans, view technological solutions as a way to create wealth and jobs. Some corporate leaders have backed a federal limit on carbon emissions to prevent a patchwork of state laws. Religious conservatives, often aligned with the Republicans, embrace cutting carbon emissions as an aspect of human stewardship of divine creation. National security conservatives argue that reducing dependence on foreign oil would cut off funding for anti-U.S. elements in the Middle East and elsewhere. This stance is at odds with the current administration, which is alone among major industrialized countries in opposing the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol. Bush has said the Kyoto plan, which expires in 2012, would put the United States at a disadvantage if fast-growing developing countries like China and India were exempt from its requirements. Republican Sen. John Warner has taken the lead on Capitol Hill, co-sponsoring a bill to cap the carbon dioxide emissions that spur climate change. Arizona Sen. John McCain, front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, sponsored an earlier climate change bill. BIPARTISAN SUPPORT Former Republican Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister now running for president, has been light on specifics to combat climate change but has said that whatever is causing it, humans must act to clean it up. By contrast, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won last month's Republican primary in Michigan -- where his father served as governor and where the Big Three automakers are based -- after taking aim at McCain's support for increased fuel efficiency, saying this would hurt the U.S. auto industry. In California, the biggest prize of "Super Tuesday," Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has headed a campaign to set tougher-than-federal emissions standards for cars, light trucks and sport utility vehicles, and that plan has been taken up by 16 other states. To do this, the states need a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has yet to be granted. McCain, Huckabee and Romney said at a candidates' debate they supported the waiver, though Romney later modified his answer. In the presidential race, where "change" has become a mantra for candidates in both major parties, Democrats Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois have strongly supported cap-and-trade plans to limit emissions of climate-warming carbon. "The clear bipartisan support for capping global warming pollution should be a wake-up call for Congress," said Tony Kreindler of the non-partisan group Environmental Defense. Polls generally show U.S. voters rank climate change below the top tier issues, such as the economy and the war in Iraq, a finding disputed by David Sandretti of the League of Conservation Voters. "Pollsters put the environment in this little box and pretend that it doesn't bleed over into other issues," Sandretti said in a telephone interview. He noted, as Mehlman did, that climate change is tied to national security, and added that it was also linked to the U.S. energy future. "You can't address global warming without dealing with the energy issue, and the energy issue pervades all aspects of America's political life," Sandretti said.

The Bentlys are restoring the manor as their home. Beyond an entrance hall bristling with deer antlers is a gloomy interior with a grand stairway and extravagantly flowered wallpaper, time-dimmed and peeling. Camille Bently brings out the estate’s old game books, handwritten records of the thousands of grouse, deer, pheasant and duck that were once shot at Kildrummy each year. The game books also note the hunters’ names and the conditions for each day’s shoot. Camille reads one entry – “Birds did not want to fly today” – and snorts: “No shit.” Camille and Christopher, a multimillionaire property developer from California, bought Kildrummy in 2020 for £11 million, or about $15 million. The estate has dense timber forests, wind-raked moors, a botanical garden and that atmospheric castle. It also has a history that the Bentlys, both avid conservationists, are determined to forget. Wealthy people have long come to Kildrummy to shoot grouse and other game, an elite pastime that involves intense management of the land. Heather-clad moors are partially burned to improve breeding conditions for the grouse, whose predators are trapped, poisoned and killed. In 2015, a Kildrummy gamekeeper was jailed for four months after he was secretly filmed battering a rare hawk to death. The Bentlys have banned trapping and sport shooting at Kildrummy and aim to turn the estate into a semi-wilderness where dwindling species are revived and protected. “There’s been too long a history of abuse on this land,” Christopher says. “It’s just got to stop.” The Bentlys join the growing ranks of so-called “green lairds” – climate-savvy millionaires and billionaires who are transforming how the Scottish Highlands are managed and valued. Traditional hunting estates such as Kildrummy that once changed hands largely on the value of their “bag counts” – the amount of game bagged each year – are increasingly coveted for their “natural capital”: the value of assets such as forests that absorb carbon or habitats that sustain biodiversity. A view of wind turbines on the uplands of Kildrummy Estate, in Kildrummy, Scotland, Britain, September 7, 2021. Picture taken September 7, 2021. Reuters Galbraith, a leading Scottish property agent, said the value of some hill ground in Scotland has doubled in recent years, driven by a surge in interest from private and corporate investors looking to meet their climate commitments by planting forests or reviving biodiversity. A view of wind turbines on the uplands of Kildrummy Estate, in Kildrummy, Scotland, Britain, September 7, 2021. Picture taken September 7, 2021. Reuters The political climate is also changing for the old estates. The Scottish government said last year that grouse shooting and muirburn – the practice of burning heather to encourage new shoots that provide nutrition for the grouse and insects for their chicks – will soon only be permitted under licenses, and that burning on carbon-rich peatland will be banned outright. Muirburn has transformed the Highlands; viewed from above, they are tiger-striped with burnt areas. Amid a fervour for Scottish independence, the rise of the green lairds has revived debates about who owns Scotland’s land and what they’re doing with it. Campaigners say fewer than 500 people own more than half of Scotland’s private land, and many of them are foreigners. The UK’s largest private landowner is Danish billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen, who owns the global clothing chain Bestseller – and 221,000 acres of Scotland. An additional 100,000 acres belong to Swedish-born sisters Sigrid and Lisbet Rausing, heirs to the Tetra Pak fortune. Povlsen and the Rausings also have ambitious plans to restore habitats and boost wildlife. Sigrid Rausing notes that she and her sister are British citizens. Tim Kirkwood, CEO of Wildland Limited, Povlsen's conservation and hospitality company, says it would be harder for nature to respond to its efforts without the company owning multiple and often adjoining estates. “Anyone from anywhere can buy as much land as they like,” says Andy Wightman, a longtime campaigner for land reform and the author of a book and website called Who Owns Scotland. Most Scots, he says, don’t object to foreign landowners, but they dislike the poorly regulated system that allows the sale of such vast areas. There is, Wightman says, “a level of incomprehension that important assets, which impact upon local economies and the environment, should be just sold to the highest bidder – no questions asked.” Scotland has “an historically iniquitous pattern of land ownership,” and its government will introduce a bill in 2023 that will help tackle it, says Mairi McAllan, Scotland’s Minister for Environment and Land Reform. The Scottish government wants what it calls “a more diverse pattern of land ownership,” meaning more community-owned land or land held for the public good by the public sector. McAllan believes the focus should be on how the land is used, rather than whether owners are foreign or not. “The test should always be: Are the people who live and work in this area benefiting from it?” Scotland's land should "absolutely" be used to mitigate climate change, she adds, but in a way that people support. By accelerating the decline of traditional hunting estates, which employ hundreds of people, Scotland’s green lairds also open themselves to the charge that rewilding means de-peopling. Some hunting estates and their supporters accuse rewilders of undermining the grouse shooting and deer stalking industry, and thereby taking away the jobs that industry supported. This has historical resonance: The forcible eviction of tenants in the 18th and 19th century to make way for sheep grazing led to rural depopulation and emigration from Scotland. The so-called Highland Clearances still fuel nationalist sentiment today. British veteran climate campaigner Jeremy Leggett stands with his whippet Sho in front of a solar panel installation on his Bunloit Rewilding estate, Scotland, Britain, September 8, 2021. Picture taken September 8, 2021. Reuters “We're investing heavily in nature restoration on our land and seas,” McAllan says. “But we have to do it in a way which is not, frankly, tantamount to a second Clearances.” British veteran climate campaigner Jeremy Leggett stands with his whippet Sho in front of a solar panel installation on his Bunloit Rewilding estate, Scotland, Britain, September 8, 2021. Picture taken September 8, 2021. Reuters 'HAVE WE MISSED A TRICK OR IS IT ALL A SCAM?' Jamie Williamson greets his guests in a short-sleeved shirt, grubby shorts and hiking boots. “Sorry I don’t have my kilt on,” says the affable, energetic 74-year-old, who is trailed everywhere by his springer spaniel, Annie – “a good listener who never complains or answers back.” Williamson runs Alvie & Dalraddy, a traditional sporting estate on the western edge of the Cairngorms National Park. He’s deeply sceptical about the green lairds and their rewilding plans. “What they feel is we’ve managed the land badly, and we should go back to nature. But this land – nearly all of Britain – has been managed in one form or another, whether it’s for grouse shooting or sheep and cattle.” Williamson is struggling to maintain his revenue from grouse and deer shooting on an estate surrounded by prominent rewilding projects. One of them is Glenfeshie, the estate owned by Povlsen, the Danish billionaire. Sitting at the heart of Williamson’s 13,000-acre estate is Alvie House, a shooting lodge that the Williamson family have lived in for five generations. Its drawing room has a baby grand piano, an outsized fireplace flanked by stag heads, and floor-to-ceiling shelves. One row of books includes a faded volume of “The Grouse in Health and in Disease”; another row opens up to reveal a secret drinks cabinet. Back in the 1930s, when his grandfather ran it, the estate’s income came mostly from high-spending guests who shot grouse or stalked deer. In the recent past, Williamson’s customers might have bagged 200 birds a day. Now, after several years of unpredictable weather – drought, late frosts – the grouse population has “effectively collapsed,” he says. Gunfire occasionally booms across the estate, but it’s coming from a clay pigeon shooting range, not the moors. “We’re at an all-time low for grouse,” Williamson says. Alvie & Dalraddy relies on other sources of income, including a caravan park and campground, and tourist attractions such as zip wires and quad biking. The estate also has pastures, timber forests, a quarry and an operation supplying wood chips for biofuel. Williamson, who has a PhD in forestry, is scathing about plans to restore the Caledonian Forest that rewilding groups suggest once covered much of Scotland. “It’s a myth,” he says. Much of Scotland’s tree cover disappeared thousands of years ago because of climatic changes, he says. Williamson cites statistics from the British government's forestry agency that show only about 4% of Scotland was covered in trees in 1350; by 1905, it was 4.5%. He accuses rewilders of trying “to recreate some romantic period in the past.” Alvie & Dalraddy shares a border with Kinrara, the 9,300-acre estate that BrewDog, a Scottish brewery, bought for £8.8 million earlier this year. BrewDog has banned blood sports and has vowed to plant a forest “capable of pulling one million tonnes of carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere,” its co-founder, James Watt, said in March. It aims to plant what it calls The Lost Forest. “It’s been 5,000 years since trees were there,” Williamson says. “It’s been lost for a long time. And it wasn’t gin-soaked lairds who cut them all down.” American property developers and conservationists Camille and Christopher Bently pose whilst reading old game books at their Kildrummy Estate, in Kildrummy, Scotland, Britain, September 7, 2021. Picture taken September 7, 2021. Reuters Williamson says planting native woodlands in Scotland won’t avert climate change so long as Scots import cheap timber from countries that wreck their own ecosystems to provide it. “If we want to sort global warming, we’ve got to make ourselves more self-sufficient in timber products,” he says. “So if you’re planting trees that will never be harvested, it’s slightly self-defeating.” American property developers and conservationists Camille and Christopher Bently pose whilst reading old game books at their Kildrummy Estate, in Kildrummy, Scotland, Britain, September 7, 2021. Picture taken September 7, 2021. Reuters Another growing source of friction between landowners is deer, which roam freely across the land unless fences prevent them. Rewilding estates cull deer to protect their tree-planting projects, but this can reduce the number of deer on nearby shooting estates, along with those estates’ incomes. Williamson worries about the impact of BrewDog’s plans on his neighbouring estate. “If BrewDog decides they’re going to just slaughter all their deer . . . that would destroy our deer-stalking,” he says, adding that BrewDog needs to use gamekeepers to control foxes and other predators. “If they don’t put gamekeepers in, and the foxes and everything build up, that would destroy most of our grouse shooting.” In a statement, BrewDog said it had an active dialogue with Williamson’s Alvie estate and had written a deer management plan for Kinrara with its neighbours and NatureScot, the government’s nature agency. BrewDog also said it would consult with its neighbours and other bodies before any predator control, which would only be done by qualified wildlife managers to benefit Kinrara’s conservation objectives. Williamson is sensitive to any threats to his revenue because – unlike deep-pocketed green lairds – he says he has no accumulated wealth to fall back on. Media reports suggest that Povlsen has sunk millions of pounds into nature restoration projects at Glenfeshie and other landholdings. Povlsen's rewilding company, Wildland Limited, said it has made “very substantial investments” in its estates but couldn't give an exact sum. The Bentlys say they expect to sink as much money into Kildrummy in the first few years as they did buying it. Williamson says Galbraith, the Scottish property agent, recently valued 9,600 acres of his high ground at £5.7 million, mostly because of natural capital. While Galbraith declined to comment on what it said was “client-confidential information,” Williamson was incredulous at such a high valuation. “They valued it on what they thought they could sell in carbon credits,” he says. “Most of the land is not deep peat, and it won’t grow any trees because it’s too high. It’s bare moorland. Scree.” Yet Williamson, a businessman who is constantly looking out for new revenue streams, seems reluctant to entirely dismiss ideas such as natural capital. “Have we missed a trick, or is it all a scam?” he asks. “To my mind, it looks like a Ponzi scheme. But you never know.” REWILDERS Christopher and Camille Bently know that Scots can be wary of Americans with grand plans and deep pockets. Thirty miles from their estate, former U.S. President Donald Trump outraged locals by bulldozing part of a pristine beach to build a golf course he said would revitalize the region, but hasn’t. “Camille and I fell completely and utterly in love with Scotland, and that’s why we’re here today,” Christopher says. “We’re very aware that we’re strangers in a strange land.” Camille, 39, has striped dungarees and dirty boots, and wears her red hair in a tightly wound bun. She seems both repulsed and fascinated by Kildrummy’s history. In early 2020, on her first tour of the rundown estate, she climbed a staircase to find herself face to face with one of the previous owner’s trophies: a stuffed lioness with two stuffed cubs. “I was physically taken aback and really had to bite my lip,” she says. “Because who does that? Who shoots a cub?” Christopher Bently, 52, sold his father’s antique coin collection for $40 million to set up the Bently Foundation, which funds conservation efforts worldwide. The foundation is directed by Camille, his second wife, whom he married in 2015 in a neo-gothic mansion on the Scottish island of Bute. The Bentlys bought Kildrummy sooner than they had planned, alarmed at how fast the price of Scottish estates was rising. They wanted to put down roots and “do the right thing” for the climate, Christopher says. “The world is on the verge of a catastrophic environmental collapse. We’re seeing the very early effects of that, and it’s going to get worse fast.” Christopher has heavily tattooed arms, a trimmed white beard and a fedora perched on his bald head. He doesn’t look much like a Scottish laird, although his vocabulary is authentic – he says burn, not stream; glen, not valley – and he can pronounce Ardhuncart, the neighbouring shooting estate, like a local (“Ard-HUNK-art”). The Bentlys tour the estate in a specially converted electric Land Rover. They drive through lowland pastures to a hillside where a dense plantation of Sitka spruce – a fast-growing, non-native tree used for commercial timber – is being felled to make way for the planting of native woodland. These woodlands store more carbon, and sustain more flora and fauna, than single-species timber plantations. Some new woodland has already been planted, then fenced off to deter deer from eating the saplings. Hundreds of deer roam Kildrummy and neighbouring estates, their numbers once kept artificially high so that hunters could pay to shoot them. The Bentlys have reluctantly begun culling the deer. “We love animals,” Christopher says, “and to learn that deer were a pest and a serious threat to our planting program took a while to set in.” The Land Rover trundles up to Kildrummy’s old grouse moors. They are instantly recognizable by the huge patches where the heather has been burned. Traditionally, peatlands have also been drained and burned to improve grazing for sheep and deer. Peatlands are huge carbon sinks, but when they’re damaged or dried out, they can emit carbon dioxide through oxidization or peat fires. Supporters call muirburn a time-honoured land management technique that benefits other species and prevents wildfires by removing a surfeit of combustible heather. Critics say muirburn damages the peat, threatens biodiversity and triggers wildfires. According to the Grouse Moor Management Group, an independent body commissioned by the Scottish government, “the wider impacts of muirburn are highly contested,” with studies offering varying and sometimes contradictory results. Even large parts of the Cairngorms National Park are given over to sport shooting. Cairngorms is Britain’s biggest national park, where rivers tumble from snow-dusted mountains through rocky tundra and ancient forests. By the park authority’s own 2014 estimate, 44% of its acreage is heather moorland, some of it managed to produce grouse and deer for sport shooting. The Bentlys say they aren’t against hunting, only against damaging the environment to support it. Kildrummy was heavily managed to create “extremely favourable conditions for grouse – which was extremely unfavourable for everything else,” Christopher says. “It’s beyond conservation because first we need to restore it to a state to be conserved. It’s been neglected for so long.” Kildrummy’s game books record a steady decline in the number of grouse shot in the 2000s. They stop at 2015, the year the estate’s gamekeeper was jailed in the goshawk incident. Birds of prey are protected in the UK, although Scotland’s minister for rural affairs and the environment, Mairi Gougeon, said last year they were still “killed or disappear in suspicious circumstances on or around grouse moors.” A 2020 report by the League Against Cruel Sports Scotland, an animal welfare group, estimated that up to 260,000 wild animals in Scotland were killed each year to protect grouse populations. One of the seven estates featured in the report was Kildrummy. Under the Bentlys, that era is over, although they have kept handwritten records titled “estate vermin.” These list the thousands of animals – rabbits, foxes, weasels, hedgehogs, wildcats, birds of prey – trapped, poisoned or shot at Kildrummy since the 1960s. Reviving these species and restoring their habitats is the Bentlys’ immediate priority. A timber plantation is cut down to make way for a native woodland on Kildrummy Estate, in Kildrummy, Scotland, Britain, September 7, 2021. Picture taken September 7, 2021. Reuters CLIMATE CAMPAIGNER A timber plantation is cut down to make way for a native woodland on Kildrummy Estate, in Kildrummy, Scotland, Britain, September 7, 2021. Picture taken September 7, 2021. Reuters Another green laird, Jeremy Leggett, is a longtime climate campaigner who made his millions from solar power. Leggett, who is English, recently bought Bunloit, an estate on the steep banks of Loch Ness. Leggett lives and works in what was once Bunloit’s schoolhouse. The building has large windows, high ceilings and a floor made from giant stone slabs. The views of the loch are stunning, although Leggett, who is 67, emits the restless vibe of someone who doesn’t do much staring out of windows. “Jeremy could have just retired and played golf all day,” says one of his rangers, “but he looks like a man who hasn’t slept for a week.” Leggett hopes that research at Bunloit will kick-start a land-management revolution in Scotland and beyond that will help avert climate meltdown and biodiversity collapse. On the day that Scotland records its highest September temperature since 1906, Leggett tells Reuters he aims to precisely measure the increase in carbon sequestration and biodiversity at his estate – now renamed Bunloit Rewilding. He says he will make the data public, as part of an effort to “beat this monster problem that threatens our collective future”: climate change. Bunloit was previously the private shooting estate of a wealthy doctor. Among its range of habitats – peatlands, pastures, timber plantations – is a forest of ancient oaks where the branches sprout with tree lungwort, a rare, lettuce-like lichen that only thrives in the cleanest air. The forest seems empty, but Bunloit’s camera traps have captured images of wild boar, badgers, deer, pine martens, owls and foxes. The tranquility is occasionally shattered by Royal Air Force jets swooping low across the loch’s unruffled water. Leggett left Oxford University in the 1970s with a doctorate in earth sciences, then taught at Imperial College in London. He also did research that was partly funded by the oil industry, which he says made him “an early convert to the perils of climate change.” He quit teaching in 1989 to become a climate campaigner for Greenpeace International, then quit Greenpeace to found Solarcentury, a pioneering solar energy company. Back then, Leggett says, he got used to being told that he was “a rootless dreamer and that solar would never be making energy for grown-ups.” Now, solar is the cheapest form of energy and its deployment is soaring. “So I thought: Why not have a go at helping create that kind exponential growth elsewhere in the survival story, by taking carbon down out of the atmosphere?” Leggett took the £3.3 million he got from the sale of Solarcentury in 2020, raised millions more, and bought Bunloit and a second Scottish estate for £7 million. Then, partnering with start-ups and other experts, he has deployed advanced technologies to build a granular picture of Bunloit’s carbon stores and biodiversity. Drones equipped with lidar, or laser imaging, have flown over the estate to create 3D models of trees, right down to the last branch and leaf. These are used to calculate the volume of wood and therefore the volume of stored carbon. Initial results suggest that native broadleaf trees store up to 100% more carbon than suggested by the less sophisticated models currently being used. In total, Bunloit stores between 845,472 and 1,234,334 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, the standard unit for measuring emissions of greenhouse gases. Of this, its peatlands alone could hold about a million tonnes, which is equal to about 2% of Scotland's carbon emissions in 2019. But Bunloit’s neglected peatlands also emit carbon, making the estate a net source of greenhouse gas emissions – about 240 tonnes of them annually. By restoring the peatlands, felling conifer plantations and planting more broadleaf trees, Bunloit aims not only to reverse this but also save about 60,000 tonnes over the next century. A British biotech company called NatureMetrics helped Bunloit measure its biodiversity using another advanced method: eDNA sampling. Dozens of soil samples were tested for organic traces of fungi and fauna, to establish which species were present on the estate. The survey, which was complemented by information from camera traps and rangers, provided baseline data against which Leggett can measure Bunloit’s progress. The research at Bunloit will be used to create an online platform or database that provides what Leggett calls “good verification science” to landowners, policymakers, scientists and investors. He hopes to encourage financial institutions to stop lending to projects that he says destroy nature, such as oil fields or coal mines, and start lending to those that repair it. Leggett acknowledges the criticism that, by hastening the demise of shooting estates, rewilding is simply replacing one elite for another, greener version. He has set up a company called Highlands Rewilding Ltd that will buy and restore Beldorney, his other Scottish estate. Thousands of smaller investors will be encouraged to buy shares via crowdfunding, and Leggett hopes the majority of these “citizen rewilders” will be Scots, particularly Highland Scots. With its remote location, youthful staff and intense leader, the Bunloit estate feels a bit like a cult hunkering down for an imagined apocalypse. Except a real catastrophe is now looming, and Leggett feels there is no time to lose. The interview is interrupted by the sound of a plane’s engine. This time, it’s not a fighter jet “practising for World War Three,” as Leggett puts it, but a small turbo-prop of the kind that ferries high-end tourists up and down the loch. Leggett doesn’t look up.

BRUSSELS, Fri Jun 5, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Poor countries will need to be given about 100 billion euros ($142 billion) a year by 2020 to help them cut emissions in the fight against climate change, a draft report for European Union finance ministers shows. The report, obtained by Reuters, comes after the EU laid out plans to hold competitive tenders for the funding from richer countries, during which poor nations would present their most cost-effective projects for cutting carbon emissions. Both documents reveal an EU vision taking shape in the run-up to global climate talks in Copenhagen in December. Finance ministers will fine-tune the bloc's position at a meeting next Tuesday. The key issue in Copenhagen will be finding the finance needed to persuade developing nations to cut emissions, and further funding to help them adapt to a problem they say has been caused by rich, industrialised nations. Between half and two-thirds of the cheapest options for cutting greenhouse gases up to 2020 or 2030 are in developing countries, the EU's Economic Policy Committee and the Economic and Financial Committee say in the document on funding needs. Environmentalists see the document as proof that Europe's economic experts recognise the need to support poor nations in the fight against climate change. "The question is now whether the finance ministers will ignore their own experts, or will endorse this clear recognition of the needs in developing countries," said Greenpeace campaigner Joris den Blanken. DEFORESTATION Emissions cuts by poor nations would partly pay for themselves because cleaning up power generation and industry also reduces their consumption of expensive fossil fuels, but an extra 100 billion euros a year of investments would still be needed by 2020. This would include 71 billion euros to clean up industry and energy sectors, 18 billion to halt the destruction of rainforests and 5 billion to curb emissions from agriculture. Although the numbers look huge, they are less daunting when compared to the $300 billion of subsidies for fossil fuels in the developing world each year or the $250 billion of agricultural subsidies among OECD states, the report said. On top of the cost of cutting their own emissions, poor nations will also need help with the costs of adapting to climate change. Such funding could help develop drought-resistant crops, build levees against rising sea levels or find new sources of fresh water as rising temperatures deplete the glaciers on which millions depend for summer meltwater. "The precise cost of adaptation in developing countries is very difficult to estimate, due to uncertainty about the precise scope of global warming, its specific regional and local impact..." said the report. But it delivered a rough estimate that adaptation costs in all developing countries could be 23-54 billion euros per year in 2030.

But keep going - you'll have to drive another 13,500 miles (21,725 km) before you're doing less harm to the environment than a gas-guzzling saloon. That's the result of a Reuters analysis of data from a model that calculates the lifetime emissions of vehicles, a hotly debated issue that's taking centre stage as governments around the world push for greener transport to meet climate targets. The model was developed by the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago and includes thousands of parametres from the type metals in an electric vehicle (EV) battery to the amount of aluminium or plastic in a car. Argonne's Greenhouse Gases, Regulated Emissions and Energy Use in Technologies (GREET) model is now being used with other tools to help shape policy at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the California Air Resources Board, the two main regulators of vehicle emissions in the United States. Jarod Cory Kelly, principal energy systems analyst at Argonne, said making EVs generates more carbon than combustion engine cars, mainly due to the extraction and processing of minerals in EV batteries and production of the power cells. But estimates as to how big that carbon gap is when a car is first sold and where the "break-even" point comes for EVs during their lifetime can vary widely, depending on the assumptions. Kelly said the payback period then depends on factors such as the size of the EV's battery, the fuel economy of a gasoline car and how the power used to charge an EV is generated. NORWAY'S A WINNER Reuters plugged a series of variables into the Argonne model, which had more than 43,000 users as of 2021, to come up with some answers. The Tesla 3 scenario above was for driving in the United States, where 23% of electricity comes from coal-fired plants, with a 54 kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery and a cathode made of nickel, cobalt and aluminium, among other variables. It was up against a gasoline-fueled Toyota Corolla weighing 2,955 pounds with a fuel efficiency of 33 miles per gallon. It was assumed both vehicles would travel 173,151 miles during their lifetimes. But if the same Tesla was being driven in Norway, which generates almost all its electricity from renewable hydropower, the break-even point would come after just 8,400 miles. If the electricity to recharge the EV comes entirely from coal, which generates the majority of the power in countries such as China and Poland, you would have to drive 78,700 miles to reach carbon parity with the Corolla, according to the Reuters analysis of data generated by Argonne's model. The Reuters analysis showed that the production of a mid-sized EV saloon generates 47 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile during the extraction and production process, or more than 8.1 million grams before it reaches the first customer. By comparison, a similar gasoline vehicle generates 32 grams per mile, or more than 5.5 million grams. Michael Wang, senior scientist and director of the Systems Assessment Center at Argonne's Energy Systems division, said EVs then generally emit far less carbon over a 12-year lifespan. Even in the worst case scenario where an EV is charged only from a coal-fired grid, it would generate an extra 4.1 million grams of carbon a year while a comparable gasoline car would produce over 4.6 million grams, the Reuters analysis showed. 'WELL-TO-WHEEL' The EPA told Reuters it uses GREET to help evaluate standards for renewable fuel and vehicle greenhouse gases while the California Air Resources Board uses the model to help assess compliance with the state's low-carbon fuel standard. The EPA said it also used Argonne's GREET to develop an online program that allows US consumers to estimate the emissions from EVs based on the fuels used to generate electric power in their area. The results of the Reuters analysis are similar to those in a life-cycle assessment of electric and combustion-engine vehicles in Europe by research group IHS Markit. Its "well-to-wheel" study showed the typical break-even point in carbon emissions for EVs was about 15,000 to 20,000 miles, depending on the country, according to Vijay Subramanian, IHS Markit's global director of carbon dioxide (CO2) compliance. He said using such an approach showed there were long-term benefits from shifting to electric vehicles. Some are less positive about EVs. University of Liege researcher Damien Ernst said in 2019 that the typical EV would have to travel nearly 700,000 km before it emitted less CO2 than a comparable gasoline vehicle. He later revised his figures down. Now, he estimates the break-even point could be between 67,000 km and 151,000 km. Ernst told Reuters he did not plan to change those findings, which were based on a different set of data and assumptions than in Argonne's model. Some other groups also continue to argue that EVs are not necessarily cleaner or greener than fossil-fueled cars. The American Petroleum Institute, which represents over 600 companies in the oil industry, states on its website: "Multiple studies show that, on a life-cycle basis, different automobile powertrains result in similar greenhouse gas emissions." Argonne National Laboratory is funded by the US Department of Energy and operated by the University of Chicago.

Several hundred protesters had converged on the Champs Elysees where they faced police sent to prevent them from reaching the nearby presidential Elysee Palace. Some protesters sang the national anthem while others carried signs with slogans saying "Macron, resignation" and "Macron, thief". For more than a week, protesters clad in the fluorescent yellow jackets that all motorists in France must have in their cars have blocked highways across the country with burning barricades and convoys of slow-moving trucks, obstructing access to fuel depots, shopping centres and some factories. A protester wearing yellow vest, a symbol of a French drivers' protest against higher fuel prices, stands on the red light on the Champs-Elysee in Paris, France, Nov 24, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier They are opposed to taxes Macron introduced last year on diesel and petrol which are designed to encourage people to shift to more environmentally friendly transport. Alongside the tax, the government has offered incentives to buy green or electric vehicles. A protester wearing yellow vest, a symbol of a French drivers' protest against higher fuel prices, stands on the red light on the Champs-Elysee in Paris, France, Nov 24, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Security forces are concerned that far-left and far-right extremists may infiltrate the demonstrations, escalating the crowd-control challenges. Around 30,000 people are expected to protest in Paris alone, Denis Jacob, secretary general of police union Alternative Police, told Reuters. "We know there are ultra-right and ultra-left infiltrators. You can also expect gangs from the suburbs and 'black-blocks'," he said, referring to a militant protest force. Some 3,000 police officers have been drafted in to work in Paris on Saturday, city hall said, with security forces having to handle a demonstration against sexual violence, a soccer match and a rugby game in the capital on the same day. Protesters wearing yellow vest, a symbol of a French drivers' protest against higher fuel prices, stand up in front of a police water canon during clashes on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, France, Nov 24, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Last Saturday, when nearly 300,000 people took part in the first yellow vest demonstrations countrywide, retailers' daily revenue fell 35 percent, according to consumer groups. Protesters wearing yellow vest, a symbol of a French drivers' protest against higher fuel prices, stand up in front of a police water canon during clashes on the Champs-Elysees in Paris, France, Nov 24, 2018. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier PROTESTS SPREAD The unrest is a dilemma for Macron who casts himself as a champion against climate change but has been derided as out of touch with common folk and is fighting a slump in popularity. Despite calls for calm from the government, the yellow vest protests have spread to French territories abroad, including the Indian Ocean island of Reunion, where cars were set on fire. The unrest has left two dead and 606 injured in mainland France, the Interior Ministry said on Thursday. While the movement, which has no leader, began as a backlash against higher fuel prices, it has tapped into broader frustration at the sense of a squeeze on household spending power under Macron's 18-month-old government. Since coming to power, Macron has seen off trade union and street demonstrations against his changes to the labour rules, and overhauled the heavily indebted state rail operator. Foreign investors have largely cheered his pro-business administration. But political foes have dismissed him as the "president of the rich" for ending a wealth tax, and voters appear to be growing restless, with the 40-year-old president's popularity slumped at barely 20 percent.

The national weather office predicted three more days of torrential downpours in the southern state of nearly 70 million people. "There will be no respite," Laxman Singh Rathore of the India Meteorological Department told reporters on Wednesday. No deaths were reported in the latest floods, but since heavy rain set in on Nov. 12 there have been 150 deaths in Tamil Nadu. More than 200 people were critically injured over the past 24 hours in Chennai, a senior home ministry official said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has blamed climate change for the deluge, injecting urgency into the debate at global climate talks in Paris and highlighting the vulnerability of tropical nations like India to extreme weather. Physician Rupam Choudhury said he and a friend had to wade through neck-deep water to reach high ground from where an army truck brought him to his hospital in the heart of Chennai. Dr A Ramachandran's Diabetes Hospital was running out of oxygen for patients and diesel for power generators, he said by telephone. Most mobile networks were down in the city and food supplies running low. Chennai, India's fourth most populous city, is a major auto manufacturing and IT outsourcing hub. Ford Motor, Daimler, Hyundai and Nissan told workers to stay at home, while U.S. listed outsourcing firm Cognizant shut its 11 local offices. Flights stopped Airlines suspended flights into Chennai's flooded international airport, causing wider disruption to air travel. "The biggest challenge is to find a way to clear the inundated airport and main roads," said Anurag Gupta at the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in New Delhi. Passengers stranded at the airport said they did not know when they would be able to fly, or where to stay if they could not. "All of us here are getting agitated because none of the hotels nearby are vacant. Where do we go?" traveller Vinit Jain told Reuters Television. In a limited initial relief effort, four helicopters dropped food, water and medicines, while fishing boats commandeered by the military were collecting stranded residents. A major relief effort by 5,000 soldiers was promised within 24 hours. "The entire state machinery has collapsed. Most officials are forced to sit at home. It's a very frustrating situation," said a home ministry official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorised to speak on the record. Weather experts say the seasonal northeast monsoon was responsible for the flooding in the city of six million, but was amplified this year by El Nino, a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean that can have far-reaching climate effects. Tamil Nadu is a major rice and sugar cane producing region, and a senior member of a local farmers' association said floods had washed out up to four agricultural districts. Relief effort Modi has ordered rescue teams and paramilitary forces to launch an extensive relief and rescue operation in Chennai. He had blamed climate change for the heavy rains that hit the southern state last month, tweeting before attending the UN climate summit in Paris this week: "We are feeling the impact of fast-paced climate change." Hundreds of divers and army rescue teams entered inundated homes, taking the injured to hospital. Authorities said more than a million people were affected by the flooding, with some residents bemoaning the slow response of the relief teams. Social media networks carried many appeals for help, while others offered assistance. Siddarth, a popular Tamil film actor who goes by one name, was coordinating a relief effort on Twitter. "The police want to help but there are no boats. We are trying not to panic," said Ramana Goda, who took refuge at a police station after fleeing his home with his family overnight.

Jerry Brown, who is chair of the California-China Climate Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, was the toast of the town at the 2015 Paris climate conference and again in 2017 in Bonn, Germany, when Donald Trump, the president at the time, was a no-show. Arnold Schwarzenegger has gone to three climate summits, two of them after he had termed out. In 2009, The Guardian reported that he arrived at the Copenhagen summit “with 10 men in black with wires sprouting from their ears, a phalanx of cameramen and a perma-tan.” Newsom — a father of four young children — skipped Madrid in 2019, stayed home with the rest of the world in 2020 when that summit was cancelled and announced Friday that this year, because of “family obligations,” he would be a virtual participant only. Earlier, he had said that he and his wife would attend the 12-day gathering to promote California’s progress in phasing out gasoline-powered vehicles and other climate policies. So has California cooled on global warming summits? The state is still sending nearly two dozen lawmakers and environmental officials to Glasgow, Scotland, for the talks, known as the 26th session of the Conference of Parties, or COP26. The California delegation will be led by the lieutenant governor, Eleni Kounalakis, who served during the Obama administration as the US ambassador to Hungary. But for many environmental experts in the state, COP has become an annual reminder that the summit is geared toward nations, not “subnational” governments like California’s — and that conventions alone won’t fix global warming. “I’ve got to be honest, I’ve been working on climate policy my entire adult life and I don’t think people should waste much time on these international meetings,” said Danny Cullenward, a Stanford-trained energy economist and lawyer who directs policy at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that evaluates climate programs. “They’re a forum, and important things can and will happen there, but those things are brought to the forum by the countries and other actors who participate. They’re not crafted and distributed from the meeting out to the rest of the world.” Cullenward said the summit had become emblematic of the failure of governments — including California’s — to deliver near-term progress. California’s tough standards on clean electricity and auto emissions have been major success stories in curbing greenhouse gas pollution, and the state has committed to a 40% reduction in emissions by the end of this decade. An aggressive executive order by Newsom bans new gas-powered car and truck sales starting in 2035, and recent regulatory actions aim to ban new permits for fracking and new oil and gas drilling near schools, homes and health facilities over the next few years. But the state’s working goal for full carbon neutrality is not statutorily binding and not set to happen until 2045, long past the point of political accountability for most current officeholders. Environmentalists and legislators have complained that the state climate regulator has focused on that long-term date in its planning process, potentially to the detriment of near-term actions. Meanwhile, the planet is warming, and California is being slammed by climate-driven wildfires, floods, megadroughts and blistering heat waves. “People love to pledge targets,” Cullenward said. “The problem is, we focus too much on the pledging and not enough on the getting it done.” Brown and Schwarzenegger are impatient, too. Last week, at a conference organised by state air quality regulators, Schwarzenegger said that the COP summit’s emphasis on the long view had distracted from the immediate need to stop polluting. “What does a promise and a pledge mean in the end?” he said. “Nothing. It’s just over and over, year after year, they make these pledges and they come out to declare victory, but then nothing is getting done.” Schwarzenegger will participate this week in a virtual chat on climate and the economy with a co-founder of LinkedIn, one of the summit’s corporate attendees, according to a spokesman, and may appear at a climate-related event at the Schwarzenegger Institute at the University of Southern California. In an interview, Brown said he was staying home because the state’s delegation was already “robust” and because he had stopped travelling out of state during the coronavirus pandemic. California, he said, will play an important role in Glasgow because nations need state and local governments to help them reach their targets. However, he agreed on the need for action. “This is a moment to bite the bullet, not gum the marshmallow,” Brown said. “This is an existential threat.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

But in its long-awaited announcement, Aramco, the world's most profitable company, offered few specifics on the number of shares to be sold, pricing or the date for a launch. Bankers have told the Saudi government that investors will likely value the company at around $1.5 trillion, below the $2 trillion valuation touted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman when he first floated the idea of an IPO nearly four years ago. Aramco also did not mention what measures it has taken to beef up security following unprecedented attacks on its oil plants in September. Sources have told Reuters the oil company could offer 1%-2% of its shares on the local bourse, raising as much as $20 billion-$40 billion. A deal over $25 billion would top the record-breaking one of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba in 2014. "Today is the right opportunity for new investors to reap the benefits of Aramco's ability to achieve value, and boost it on the long-term," Aramco Chairman Yasir al-Rumayyan told a news conference at the company's headquarters in the eastern city of Dhahran. The company will spend the next 10 days talking to investors and sounding out their interest and the price range will follow, he said. The IPO is designed to turbocharge Prince Mohammed's ambitious economic reform agenda by raising billions to build non-energy industries and diversify revenue streams. Rumayyan said a decision on an international listing for Aramco shares will be made in the future, without giving a time frame or venue for the overseas listing. "Selling a small piece of Aramco in a captive market gives the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) more control to prop the value of Aramco up over its fair value," said Gary Ross, CEO at Black Gold Investors. Confirmation of the sale of shares in the oil giant, whose formal name is Saudi Arabian Oil Co, comes about seven weeks after the crippling attacks on its oil facilities, underlining Saudi Arabia's determination to push on with the listing regardless. Amin H Nasser, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, speaks during a news conference at the Plaza Conference Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia November 3, 2019. Reuters Aramco said it does not expect the Sept 14 attack, which targeted plants at the heart of Saudi Arabia's oil industry and initially halved its production, would have a material impact on its business, operations and financial condition. Amin H Nasser, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, speaks during a news conference at the Plaza Conference Center in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia November 3, 2019. Reuters Aramco accounted for about one in every eight barrels of crude oil produced globally from 2016 to 2018, it said on Sunday. Its net income for the third quarter of 2019 amounted to $21.1 billion, according to Reuters calculations, dwarfing the income for the same period of oil giants like Exxon Mobil Corp , which was just over $3 billion. Rumayyan said the valuation should be determined after the investor roadshow. CEO Amin Nasser told the same news conference that Aramco plans to release the prospectus on Nov. 9. To help get the deal done, Saudi Arabia is relying on easy credit for retail investors and hefty contributions from rich locals. "Whatever this local round achieves, with domestic players being strong armed into investing, international investors are still going to value this well below the expectations of (Crown Prince) Mohammed bin Salman," said Rory Fyfe, managing director at Mena Advisors. LURING INVESTORS The Saudi stock market fell 2% on Sunday after the Aramco announcement. The benchmark index is down nearly a fifth since May as local institutions sold shares to prepare for the Aramco deal, fund managers and analysts say. Salah Shamma, head of investment, MENA, at Franklin Templeton Emerging Markets Equity, said some local investors could be selling other shares in order to shift investments to Aramco, but this could well be a case of "short-term pain for long-term gain." To comfort investors, Aramco said on Sunday the state will forgo its right to receive a portion of cash dividends on shares, giving priority to new shareholders. Aramco is also cutting royalties it pays to the state. Effective Jan. 1, 2020, it will adopt a progressive royalty scheme, with a marginal rate set at 15% up to $70 per barrel, 45% between $70 and $100, and 80% if the price rises higher. The firm said the Saudi market regulator, which approved the application to list on Sunday, issued an exemption for non-resident institutional foreign investors to subscribe. Saudi investors would be eligible to receive bonus shares - a maximum of 100 bonus shares for every 10 allotted shares. At a valuation of $1.5 trillion, Aramco would still be worth at least 50% more than the world's most valuable listed companies, Microsoft and Apple, which each have a market capitalisation of about $1 trillion. But a 1% sale would raise "only" around $15 billion for Saudi coffers, ranking Aramco as the 11th biggest IPO of all time, Refinitiv data show. "Some perspective on the Aramco IPO for the overall Saudi diversification story is needed: the likely Aramco IPO proceeds will be less than the Aramco dividends the government received in the first half of 2019 alone," said Hasnain Malik, head of equity strategy at Tellimer. THE 'RIGHT TIME' The promised listing has had Wall Street on tenterhooks since Prince Mohammed flagged it in 2016. Aramco mandated 27 banks to work on the deal including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley. "I think this is the right time for us to take Aramco to be a public company...we wanna go IPO and we wanna go now," Rumayyan told reporters on Sunday when asked about the timing. Initial hopes for a blockbuster international listing of about 5% were dashed when the share sale was halted last year amid debate over where to list Aramco overseas. Aramco said the IPO timetable was delayed because it began a process to acquire a 70% stake in petrochemicals maker Saudi Basic Industries Corp. IPO preparations were revived this summer after Aramco attracted huge interest in its first international bond sale, seen as a pre-IPO relationship-building exercise with investors. But a listing announcement expected on Oct 20 was delayed after advisers said they needed more time to lock in cornerstone investors, three sources told Reuters. A growing movement to fight climate change and embrace new "green" technologies have put some fund managers, particularly in Europe and the United States, off the oil and gas sector. A bond sale in April forced the secretive company to reveal its finances for the first time, including net income of $111 billion -- over a third bigger than the combined net income of the five super oil majors. Those companies have been raising payouts to shareholders to counter rising pressure from climate activism. Aramco said on Sunday it intended to declare aggregate ordinary cash dividends of at least $75 billion in 2020. At a valuation of $1.5 trillion, this would mean a dividend yield of 5%, below that offered by rival Royal Dutch Shell . Shell's dividend yield is over 6%, according to Refinitiv data.

What you won’t hear mentioned is the word "sanctions". Or "punishment". For all their efforts to get 200 governments to commit to the toughest possible cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, climate negotiators have all but given up on creating a way to penalise those who fall short. The overwhelming view of member states, says Christiana Figueres, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, is that any agreement "has to be much more collaborative than punitive", if it is to happen at all. "Even if you do have a punitive system, that doesn't guarantee that it is going to be imposed or would lead to any better action," Figueres said. To critics, the absence of a legal stick to enforce compliance is a deep - if not fatal - flaw in the Paris process, especially after all countries agreed in 2011 that an agreement would have some form of "legal force". They warn that a deal already built upon sometimes vague promises from member states could end up as a toothless addition to the stack of more than 500 global and regional environmental treaties, while the rise in global temperatures mounts inexorably past a UN ceiling of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit), with the prospect of ever more floods, droughts and heatwaves. International climate court? That fear finds its sharpest expression in a proposal from Bolivia’s socialist government for an International Climate Justice Tribunal with powers to penalise countries that break commitments. Diego Pacheco, Bolivia’s chief negotiator, said anything less would be "dangerous to Mother Earth". But the idea is a non-starter with almost every other country going to the Paris talks, from Nov 30-Dec 11. Even the European Union, which has long argued for a strong, legally binding deal, is increasingly talking about a “pledge and review” system under which national commitments would be re-assessed every five years against a goal of halving world emissions by 2050. Elina Bardram, head of the European Commission delegation, insisted that strong compliance mechanisms were vital. "Weak rules would undermine the whole structure," she said. However, many developing nations oppose reviews of their goals, wanting oversight to be limited to the rich. Nick Mabey, chief executive of the E3G think-tank in London, says a Paris deal is likely to be more like international agreements limiting nuclear weapons than accords under the World Trade Organization, which can impose sanctions. A watchword of nuclear non-proliferation - "trust but verify" - could be the basis, he said. Yvo de Boer, the United Nations' former top climate official, said he remembers the moment when he realised that the principle of sanctioning countries for non-compliance was dead. In 2001, as a senior member of the Dutch delegation, de Boer attended a closed-door meeting of environment ministers in Bonn, Germany, that was designing rules to enforce the UN's 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which obliged about 40 rich nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Empty Act He recalled being struck by the strength of objections, even from once-supportive countries such as Australia and Japan, to any attempt to punish those who fell short of emissions commitments. "The agreement was to be legally binding, but it became very clear that a lot of countries didn't want sanctions," he said. Despite the opposition, a sanctions regime was agreed later in 2001. It required any developed country that missed its greenhouse gas targets between 2008 and 2012 to make even deeper cuts in the future. But even those sanctions were an empty act of bravado by rich nations angered by US President George W Bush's decision in March 2001 to stay out of Kyoto, said Jan Pronk, a former Dutch environment minister who chaired the Bonn meeting. "There was a political feeling that the United States cannot just kill something that is so important internationally," Pronk recalled. But now that even the flawed Kyoto agreement had expired, he added, "sanctions don't mean anything any more". He noted that Japan, Russia and Canada - which was set to break its pledge - have simply abandoned Kyoto in recent years, without suffering sanctions. "Kyoto was the high-water mark for the idea of sanctions in climate agreements," said Alex Hanafi of the US Environmental Defense Fund. "Race to the top"? Both China and the United States, the two top carbon emitters crucial to any effective agreement, made clear from the start of the current negotiations they would not agree to any form of international oversight. The US position instead speaks of a collective "race to the top", in which countries push each other to see who can be the greenest. Nor do the loose commitments being made by countries lend themselves to easy enforcement. Russia's pledge, for example, says only that limiting emissions to somewhere between 70 and 75 percent of 1990 levels by 2030 "might be a long-term indicator". All countries agree that the emissions curbs pledged so far are too small to get the world on track to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius. That means a strong mechanism will be needed for ratcheting up pledges after Paris. Critics say that simply shaming outliers will not ensure compliance and that, unless there are costs for non-compliance, any country can share in the global benefits of reduced temperature rises while leaving the hard work of emissions cuts to others. But Figueres, the UN climate chief, believes that cuts in greenhouse gases can serve countries' economic self-interests. China, for instance, can improve the health of millions by shifting from coal-fired power plants that cause air pollution. And sharp falls in the costs of solar and wind power also mean that greener technologies can help, rather than hinder, economic growth, benefits that were not so evident under Kyoto, she said. The Paris accord also holds out carrots for participation by developing nations, including a new mechanism to fund loss and damage from hurricanes, droughts or rising sea levels. De Boer, who now works for the Global Green Growth Institute in South Korea, said that ditching sanctions was, ultimately, part of the price of getting a broad, global agreement. "The sting has been taken out of the process ... That means the chances of a deal are much better."

Major nations failed to reach agreement on Thursday to set up huge marine protected areas off Antarctica under a plan to step up conservation of creatures such as whales and penguins around the frozen continent. The 25-member Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) agreed, however, to hold a special session in Germany in July 2013 to try to break the deadlock after the October 8-November 1 meeting in Hobart, Australia. Environmentalists criticized the failure to agree new marine protected areas in the Ross Sea and off East Antarctica, home to penguins, seals, whales and seabirds as well as valuable stocks of shrimp-like krill. "We're deeply disappointed," Steve Campbell of the Antarctic Ocean Alliance, grouping conservation organizations, told Reuters at the end of the CCAMLR annual meeting. He said that most resistance had come from Ukraine, Russia and China. Environmentalists said that the United States, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand were among countries pushing for agreement on new protected zones. Some fishing fleets are looking south because stocks nearer home are depleted and some nations worry about shutting off large areas of the oceans. CCMALR comprises 24 member states and the European Union. "This year, CCAMLR has behaved like a fisheries organization instead of an organization dedicated to conservation of Antarctic waters," said Farah Obaidullah of Greenpeace. Among proposals, a US-New Zealand plan would have created a 1.6 million sq km (0.6 million sq miles) protected area in the Ross Sea - about the size of Iran. And the EU, Australia and France proposed a series of reserves of 1.9 million sq km (0.7 million sq miles) off East Antarctica - bigger than Alaska. Last week, Hollywood actor Leonardo di Caprio launched a petition to protect the seas around Antarctica with campaigning group Avaaz, saying "the whales and penguins can't speak for themselves, so it's up to us to defend them." Governments in 2010 set a goal of extending protected areas to 10 percent of the world's oceans to safeguard marine life from over-fishing and other threats such as pollution and climate change. By 2010, the total was 4 percent. CCAMLR said in a statement that members had identified several regions of the Southern Ocean that warrant high levels of protection. "These important areas can provide a reference for scientific research on the impacts of activities such as fishing, as well as significant opportunities for monitoring the impacts of climate change in the Southern Ocean," it said.

New technologies such as robotics must also not be allowed to replace humans with "soulless machines," he said in a message to the World Economic Forum in Davos. "To all of you I appeal once more: 'Do not forget the poor!'", he said. The pope, who wrote a major encyclical on climate change and protection of the environment last year, also urged business leaders to see to it that the planet does not become "an empty garden." The annual Davos meeting brings together many of the world's wealthiest and most powerful people to consider issues such as economics, climate change and war, with an eye to working on solutions to them. It has been criticized by anti-globalization activists and others, however, as a forum for organizations that have been responsible for the problems in the first place. They are boosted by reports such as one from charity Oxfam estimating that 1 percent of the world's population owns 99 percent of the wealth. Francis, who has made the defense of the poor a hallmark of his papacy and has in the past called money "the dung of the devil", said businesses and wealthy societies must acknowledge their role in creating poverty. "Weeping for other people's pain does not only mean sharing in their sufferings, but also and above all realizing that our own actions are a cause of injustice and inequality," he said in the text of a message read for him by a top Vatican cardinal. "Once we realize this, we become more fully human, since responsibility for our brothers and sisters is an essential part of our common humanity. Do not be afraid to open your minds and hearts to the poor. In this way, you will give free rein to your economic and technical talents, and discover the happiness of a full life, which consumerism of itself cannot provide," he said. Francis, the first pope from the global south, has in the past excoriated unbridled capitalism, calling for the redistribution of wealth and for economic policies that put people above profits, positions that have prompted criticism from economic leaders. "We must never allow the culture of prosperity to deaden us, to make us incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain, and sensing the need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own," he said in the message read by Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana, the Vatican's justice minister. *Robots* Francis addressed the theme of this year's Davos meeting, "Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution," in which digital technology, artificial intelligence robotics and autonomous vehicles are expected to become ubiquitous in developed economies. "In the face of profound and epochal changes, world leaders are challenged to ensure that the coming 'fourth industrial revolution', the result of robotics and scientific and technological innovations, does not lead to the destruction of the human person – to be replaced by a soulless machine," he said. Business and economic leaders had a duty to prevent "the transformation of our planet into an empty garden for the enjoyment of a chosen few." "I urge you, then, to take up anew your conversation on how to build the future of the planet, 'our common home', and I ask you to make a united effort to pursue a sustainable and integral development," he said.

The two-week annual conference is due to finish on Friday but often runs overtime as countries squabble over wording and hammer out their differences on how to push forward lagging climate action. Wednesday's provisional texts urged countries to step up their targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by the end of 2022, acknowledging that current pledges fall short of what is needed to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius and avert the worst impacts of climate change. Aubrey Webson, U.N. ambassador for Antigua and Barbuda and chair of the Alliance of Small Island States, said the deal needed to be strengthened to help the most vulnerable, particularly with finance to adopt clean energy and cope with climate change impacts. "We won't get the ambition on emissions (cuts) we need for 1.5C if we don't scale up the provision of finance," he warned in a statement, noting "long overdue" money to deal with growing climate loss and damage was particularly key. One of the texts noted "regret" that developed countries have yet to meet a promise to channel $100 billion a year in climate finance to poorer nations starting from 2020 - something they have now promised to do by 2023. The text urged governments to accelerate efforts to meet the goal sooner. Abul Kalam Azad, Bangladesh's special envoy for the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), a club of 55 vulnerable nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America, said there was "no excuse" for meeting the already overdue $100 billion goal later than 2022. "Without financial support little can be done to minimise damaging effects for vulnerable communities around the world," he said. He noted the CVF wants negotiators at COP26 to mandate that financing options for "loss and damage" - from impacts such as higher seas, and stronger storms, droughts and floods - be studied and then presented at COP27 next year. That ask has not been included in the decision texts so far. Vanessa Nakate, a young Ugandan climate activist, also called for a separate fund to help vulnerable countries like hers cope with losses, adding they would experience "suffering, suffering, suffering" if warming tops 2.4C. "You cannot adapt to starvation, you cannot adapt to extinction, you cannot adapt to lost cultural heritage and you cannot adapt to lost biodiversity," she said, calling for loss and damage to be put at the centre of the COP26 negotiations. 'CHALLENGING' Mohamed Adow, the director of Power Shift Africa, a Nairobi-based think-tank, said the COP26 decision text was currently "a very lopsided document". Its dominant advances include a push to accelerate emissions reductions, and it calls for action to phase out the use of coal and fossil fuel subsidies, the first time such an appeal has appeared in negotiating text at the talks. "But on the key demands of vulnerable countries there is very little," he told journalists. "On helping these countries adapt to climate impacts and deal with permanent loss and damage it is very fuzzy and vague." A 2022 deadline in the text for all countries to come back with stronger emissions reduction targets was welcomed by many, although some developing nations wanted that targeted mainly at large-emitting nations that have submitted weak national action plans this year. Some climate campaigners said the text lacked a needed commitment to revise emissions-cutting goals every year, given the urgency of the changes needed. The conference's overarching aim is to "keep 1.5 alive" - a reference to the Paris Agreement's most ambitious goal to pursue efforts to limit average global temperature rise to 1.5C above preindustrial times. But a leading tracker for national climate policies this week said the world will hit 2.4C of warming this century with current plans for 2030 emissions cuts - if they are fulfilled. “This draft deal is not a plan to solve the climate crisis. It's an agreement that we’ll all cross our fingers and hope for the best," said Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace International. "It’s a polite request that countries maybe, possibly, do more next year." Alok Sharma, the British official leading the COP26 talks, said the UK government was aiming for a "high ambition" outcome from the summit. But there was still "a lot" of work to do to achieve a satisfactory outcome on finance in line with the hopes of vulnerable countries, he noted. He said he hoped new pledges this week would smooth the way. "We all know what is at risk if we do not reach an ambitious outcome. Climate-vulnerable countries on the frontline of the climate crisis will continue to bear the brunt before it engulfs us all," he added.

Police picked up Disha Ravi from her home in Bengaluru and took her to Delhi for questioning over her alleged role in disseminating the document in the months-long protest outside the Indian capital. A Delhi police source said that Ravi had been arrested in connection with a sedition case against the alleged authors of the "toolkit" on how to help the farmers. Sedition carries a penalty of life imprisonment in India. On Sunday a court ordered Ravi into custody for questioning for five days, prompting outrage on social media and among the farm unions. "Disha Ravi's arrest is the latest escalation in India's crackdown on free expression and political dissent, as it seeks to stifle the farmers' mass protests," said Shashi Tharoor, a member of parliament from the main opposition Congress party. Ravi could not be reached in custody and her family was not immediately available for comment. Police have been cracking down on the farmer protests, centred on the outskirts of Delhi, after thousands stormed the iconic Red Fort on India's Republic Day last month. Activists planned protests against Ravi's detention across the country and the hashtag #IndiabeingSilenced was trending on Twitter. Ravi is one of the leaders of the Indian arm of Thunberg's Fridays for Future campaign movement. The Swedish teenager had shared a "toolkit" for people who wanted to help the farmers and said it had been created by those on the ground at the demonstrations. The protests against farm reforms have drawn international support with pop star Rihanna and Meena Harris, a niece of US Vice-President Kamala Harris and activist, drawing attention to the months-long campaign. On Sunday, Meena Harris noted Ravi's arrest and pointed to a Twitter thread on activists being targeted in India. India's government says the reforms are meant to modernise India's antiquated agriculture produce markets and blame vested interests and outsiders for misleading the farmers.

US singer Rihanna, climate change activist Greta Thunberg and US lawyer and activist Meena Harris, the niece of Vice-President Kamala Harris, made comments on social media drawing attention to the plight of farmers who have been on a months-long campaign against reforms. "Before rushing to comment on such matters, we would urge that the facts be ascertained, and a proper understanding of the issues at hand be undertaken," the Indian foreign ministry said.

In announcing the decision, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said anyone would have “to be deaf or blind” not to see or hear the roiling anger on the streets over a policy that Macron has defended as critical to combating climate change. “The French who have donned yellow vests want taxes to drop, and work to pay. That’s also what we want. If I didn’t manage to explain it, if the ruling majority didn’t manage to convince the French, then something must change,” said Philippe. “No tax is worth jeopardizing the unity of the nation.” Along with the delay to the tax increases that were set for January, Philippe said the time would be used to discuss other measures to help the working poor and squeezed middle-class who rely on vehicles to get to work and go shopping. Earlier officials had hinted at a possible increase to the minimum wage, but Philippe made no such commitment. He warned citizens, however, that they could not expect better public services and lower taxes. “If the events of recent days have shown us one thing, it’s that the French want neither an increase in taxes or new taxes. If the tax-take falls then spending must fall, because we don’t want to pass our debts on to our children. And those debts are already sizeable,” he said. The so-called “yellow vest” movement, which started on Nov. 17 as a social-media protest group named for the high-visibility jackets all motorists in France carry in their cars, began with the aim of highlighting the squeeze on household spending brought about by Macron’s taxes on fuel. However, over the past three weeks the movement has evolved into a wider, broadbrush anti-Macron uprising, with many criticizing the president for pursuing policies they say favor the rich and do nothing to help the poor. Despite having no leader and sometimes unclear goals, the movement has drawn people of all ages and backgrounds and tapped into a growing malaise over the direction Macron is trying to take the country in. Over the past two days, ambulance drivers and students have joined in and launched their own protests. After three weeks of rising frustration, there was scant indication Philippe’s measures would placate the “yellow vests”, who themselves are struggling to find a unified position. “The French don’t want crumbs, they want a baguette,” ‘yellow vest’ spokesman Benjamin Cauchy told BFM, adding that the movement wanted a cancellation of the taxes. Another one, Christophe Chalencon, was blunter: “We’re being taken for idiots,” he told Reuters, using a stronger expletive. The timing of the tax U-turn is uncomfortable for Macron. It comes as governments meet in Poland to try to agree measures to avert the most damaging consequences of global warming, an issue Macron has made a central part of his agenda. His carbon taxes were designed to address the issue. But the scale of the protests against his policies made it almost impossible to plow ahead as he had hoped. While the “yellow vest” movement was mostly peaceful to begin with, the past two weekends have seen outpourings of violence and rioting in Paris, with extreme far-right and far-left factions joining the demos and spurring chaos. On Saturday, the Arc de Triomphe national monument was defaced and avenues off the Champs Elysees were damaged. Cars, buildings and some cafes were torched. The unrest is estimated to have cost the economy millions, with large-scale disruption to retailers, wholesalers, the restaurant and hotel trades. In some areas, manufacturing has been hit in the run up to Christmas. CHANGE FRANCE? Macron, a 40-year-old former investment banker and economy minister, came to office in mid-2017 promising to overhaul the French economy, revitalize growth and draw foreign investment by making the nation a more attractive place to do business. In the process he earned the tag “president of the rich” for seeming to do more to court big business and ease the tax burden on the wealthy. Discontent has steadily risen among blue-collar workers and others who feel he represents an urban “elite”. For Macron, who is sharply down in the polls and struggling to regain the initiative, a further risk is how opposition parties leverage the anger and the decision to shift course. Ahead of European Parliament elections next May, support for the far-right under Marine Le Pen and the far-left of Jean-Luc Melenchon has been rising. Macron has cast those elections as a battle between his “progressive” ideas and what he sees as their promotion of nationalist or anti-EU agendas. Le Pen was quick to point out that the six-month postponement of the fuel-tax increases took the decision beyond the European elections.

The ballot is the first major popularity test for the junta led by Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who has suppressed political activity during the two years since he seized power in a 2014 coup. Ahead of the vote polls suggested a small lead in favor of accepting the new constitution, but most voters were undecided. Polling stations closed at 1600 local time (0500 ET). Preliminary results based on a count of 95 percent of the votes are expected at around 2100 local time (1000 ET). "Voting in all areas was orderly," said Supachai Somcharoen, chairman of the Election Commission, after voting ended. The junta has said the constitution is designed to heal more than a decade of divisive politics in Thailand that has dented growth and left scores dead in civil unrest. Critics, among them major political parties, say it aims to enshrine the military's political role for years to come. Prayuth has said he will not resign if Thailand rejects the constitution and that an election will take place next year no matter what the outcome. "I urge everyone to come out and vote... to decide on the future of the country," Prayuth told reporters after casting his vote at a polling station in northwest Bangkok early on Sunday. Around 200,000 police were deployed for the vote. Of 21 cases of voters tearing ballot papers, some were deliberate and others accidental, said Boonyakiat Rakchartcharoen, deputy secretary-general of the Election Commission. Two students were detained and charged on Saturday in the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum for handing out leaflets urging voters to vote against the referendum, police said. The junta, formally known as the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), banned debate about the constitution and campaigning ahead of the vote. The authorities have detained and charged dozens of people who have spoken against it, including politicians and student activists. Jatuporn Prompan, chairman of the anti-government United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship group, said the referendum should not have been held under those conditions. "We condemn the Constitution Drafting Committee and NCPO for holding a referendum under a climate of fear in the kingdom," Jatuporn told reporters. The vote comes amidst concern about the health of King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 88. The military has for decades invoked its duty as defender of the deeply revered monarch to justify its interventions in politics. DECADE OF TURMOIL Critics say the charter is the military's attempt to make good on their failure to banish former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his brand of populism from Thai politics after the coup that removed him in 2006. Thaksin lives in self-imposed exile but retains a strong influence, particularly with his rural support base in the north. His sister Yingluck swept to power with an electoral landslide in 2011, and her government was ousted by Prayuth n the 2014 coup. Yingluck, who was banned from politics for five years in January 2015 after a military-appointed legislature found her guilty of mismanaging a rice scheme, also voted on Sunday. "I'm happy that I could still exercise my rights as a (Thai) person," Yingluck told reporters after she voted. Thaksin called the charter a "folly", saying it would perpetuate the junta's power and make it impossible to govern Thailand. Reuters interviews with senior officers showed the military's ambition is to make future coups unnecessary through the new charter by weakening political parties and ensuring the military a role in overseeing the country's economic and political development. Under the constitution, which would be Thailand's 20th since the military abolished an absolute monarchy in 1932, a junta-appointed Senate with seats reserved for military commanders would check the powers of elected lawmakers. "I want the country to get better," said farmer Thongyoon Khaenkhaomeng at a polling station in a school in the northeastern city of Khon Kaen. He voted in favor of the constitution because he wanted Thailand's divisions to end, he said. Nearby, voters queued to cast their ballot at the rebuilt city hall, which was burnt down during political unrest in 2010. Day laborer Decha Shangkamanee said he had voted against the charter because he disliked the junta, but did not expect the referendum to make much difference. "I know that nothing really changes today with the way the country is ruled," he said.

After the bloody Liberation War for nine months in 1971, Bangladesh achieved victory and the right to call their homeland a country on the world map following his declaration of independence. Bangladesh celebrated the golden jubilee of independence and the birth centenary of Bangabandhu through the sixth day of a 10-day programme on Monday. Author Selina Hossain, Education Minister Dipu Moni and State Minister for Foreign Affairs Md Shahriar Alam took part in a discussion at the National Parade Ground in Dhaka on the theme “Banglar Mati, Amar Mati” (Bengal’s Soil, My Soil). Nepal's President Bidya Devi Bhandari joined her Bangladesh counterpart Md Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to celebrate the occasions. Sheikh Mujib laid the foundation of the secular Bengali nationalist identity in the world, said Selina. She noted that Bangabandhu demanded to change the name of then East Pakistan to Purbo Bangla in his address to the assembly on Aug 25, 1955. “I will not dishonour my Bengali nation in my death. I will not beg for pardon. While I pass, I will scream: Joy Bangla, Free Bangla, Bengali is my nation, Bangla is my language, the land of Bangla is my place,” she quoted from the speech Bangabandhu delivered upon returning home after he was freed from a Pakistani jail. Shahriar quoted from Bangabandhu’s Jun 7, 1972 address to a rally at the Suhrawardy Udyan, then the Racecourse Ground: “Today I can say that I am a Bengali; I can say that Bengali is a nation; I can say that Bangla’s soil is my soil.” “The killers have snatched him away from us, but we still tread the path he has shown to us. He is the everlasting source of our inspiration,” said Dipu Moni. Bhandari said Bangabandhu has not only won the hearts of Bengalis, he is also a revered leader of this region. “As an excellent orator, organiser and crusader, Bangabandhu won the hearts and minds of the people of Bangladesh and attained the goal of creating a new nation. He is a revered leader of this region,” she said. Hamid called on politicians to start a new chapter in politics by putting aside partisan differences and working for the welfare of the country's poorest and most vulnerable people with the spirit of independence and the principles of Bangabandhu. Marking the twin occasions, Hasina called on world leaders to emphasise sustainable development and warned the adaptation process will fail to provide lasting protection to the most vulnerable countries unless the current trend of climate change is stemmed. An orchestra of instrumentalists performed in the second session of the programme. Nepalese artists performed their traditional dance, among other attarctions.   A Jatrapala or folk theatre drama titled ‘Ma, Mati O Manush’ was also presented at the programme. As many as 100 folk singers performed in chorus afterwards. President of the Maldives Ibrahim Mohamed Solih and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka Mahinda Rajapaksa have already visited Bangladesh to join the celebrations, while Prime Minister of Bhutan Lotay Tshering and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are among the invitees.

The Maldivian president and ministers held the world's first underwater cabinet meeting on Saturday, in a symbolic cry for help over rising sea levels that threaten the tropical archipelago's existence. Aiming for another attention-grabbing event to bring the risks of climate change into relief before a landmark U.N. climate change meeting in December, President Mohamed Nasheed's cabinet headed to the bottom of a turquoise lagoon. Clad in black diving suits and masks, Nasheed, 11 ministers the vice president and cabinet secretary dove 3.8 meters (12 feet, 8 inches) to gather at tables under the crystalline waters that draw thousands of tourists to $1,000-a-night luxury resorts. As black-and-white striped Humbug Damselfish darted around a backdrop of white coral, Nasheed gestured with his hands to start the 30-minute meeting, state TV showed. "We are trying to send our message to let the world know what is happening and what will happen to the Maldives if climate change isn't checked," a dripping Nasheed told reporters as soon as he re-emerged from the water. The archipelago nation off the tip of India, best-known for luxury tropical hideaways and unspoiled beaches, is among the most threatened by rising seas. If U.N. predictions are correct, most of the low-lying Maldives will be submerged by 2100. "SOS" MESSAGE Nasheed and the ministers used a white plastic slate and waterproof pencils to sign an "SOS" message from the Maldives during the 30-minute meeting. "We must unite in a world war effort to halt further temperature rises," the message said. "Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth." World leaders will meet in Copenhagen to hammer out a successor agreement to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, and industrialized nations want all countries to impose sharp emissions cuts. "We have to have a better deal. We should be able to come out with an amicable understanding that everyone survives. If Maldives can't be saved today, we do not feel that there is much of a chance for the rest of the world," he said. The developing world wants rich countries to shoulder most of the burden, on the grounds they contributed most to the problem. Nasheed and the cabinet trained for two weeks and were assisted by professional divers to pull off his latest eye-catching move related to climate change. Nasheed, barely a month after entering office last year, declared he would establish a sovereign fund to relocate his country's 350,000 people if sea levels rise, but later admitted it was not feasible given the state of the Maldivian economy. Earlier this year, he vowed to make the Maldives carbon neutral within a decade by switching to renewable energy and offsetting carbon emissions caused by tourists flying to the Maldives.

Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi risks losing his northern power base of Milan to the left for the first time in two decades after local elections that have shown just how fragile his centre-right coalition is. Around 6 million Italians are eligible to vote in mayoral contests in 90 towns and six provinces on Monday, but the focus is squarely on the main battlegrounds in the financial capital Milan and the southern port of Naples. Voting began at 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) on Monday with results expected in the evening after the polls close at 1300 GMT. With the government preparing to bring forward plans to slash the budget deficit by some 40 billion euros ($57 billion) after ratings agency Standard and Poor's cut its outlook for Italy's A+ rating to "negative" from "stable", the stakes are high. Defeat in his hometown of Milan would be a serious blow for a premier already weakened by a series of sex scandals, corruption trials and a sluggish economy and could call into question his government's ability to push through painful cuts. Despite mountainous public debt of about 120 percent of gross domestic product, Italy has largely avoided the financial market turmoil seen in Greece and Portugal but the S&P warning earlier this month was a reminder of the price of inaction. "This is the real dilemma. Will the current government be able to manage it?" business daily Il Sole 24 Ore asked in an editorial on Monday. Berlusconi suffered a drubbing in the first round of voting on May 15 and 16, when an uninspired centre left easily held on to power in Turin and Bologna and forced the centre right into run-offs in Naples and Milan, its longtime stronghold. A loss would almost certainly deepen a rift with his main ally, the Northern League, and could provoke challenges to his otherwise unquestioned leadership of the centre right, although senior ministers have ruled out any change of course before the next national elections in 2013. "I don't see any possibility of an alternative government. And I don't think anyone wants early elections," Defence Minister Ignazio La Russa, one of Berlusconi's most faithful lieutenants, told daily newspaper La Stampa. "ISLAMIC GYPSYLAND" In Milan, where Berlusconi made his business fortune and launched his political career, outgoing centre-right mayor Letizia Moratti trailed with 41.6 percent of the first-round vote against leftist Giuliano Pisapia's 48 percent. "I have seen the climate is changing, Milan is really changing," Milan resident Cinzia Zarotti said after she cast her vote on Monday. Regional issues including transport and the chronic garbage crisis in Naples have weighed on voters' choices but the flailing national economy has overshadowed the polls. Italy has been one of the euro zone's most sluggish economies for over a decade, with more than a quarter of its youth unemployed and the average Italian poorer than he or she was 10 years ago. Berlusconi's government last month was forced to trim its growth forecast for the year to 1.1 percent from 1.3 percent and cut next year's outlook to 1.3 percent from 2.0 percent. S&P's lowered its outlook on Italy for failing to cut its debt and boost growth, although worries of an immediate impact on the markets eased after the Treasury sold long-term bonds near the top of its target range on Monday. [ID:nLDE74T0BE] After being punished for initially characterising the vote as a referendum on his popularity and policies, Berlusconi has since blanketed the airwaves with trademark tirades against his longtime enemies: the left and "communist" magistrates. Milan will become an "Islamic gypsyland" if the left wins, he predicted. Leftist voters lacked a brain anyway, he said, prompting Internet spoofs and a lawsuit from an offended voter. A rant against Italian magistrates to a surprised US President Barack Obama at the Group of Eight summit in Deauville, France prompted Economy Undersecretary Daniela Melchiorre, a former magistrate, to resign in protest.

That wasn't exactly President Barack Obama's message in his second inaugural address on Monday.In a spirited defense of government's role as a protector of society's most vulnerable people, the Democratic president signaled a determination to protect costly social programs that have been targeted by Republicans seeking to reduce growth in the $16.4 trillion US debt.In a series of implied jabs at uncompromising conservatives who have fostered gridlock in Congress and cast him as an un-American socialist, Obama essentially portrayed such critics as being outside the mainstream of US politics."We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate," Obama said during his 18-minute speech.Laying out a broad vision for his second four-year term, Obama delivered a speech that struck many of the themes that ran through his re-election campaign.Chief among them: a call to increase opportunities for the middle class and "reject the idea that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future."Such comments struck a nerve with some Republicans, who saw them as a sign that Obama might be unwilling to make significant cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid healthcare programs and the Social Security retirement program - and that the president might seek more tax increases on the nation's richest people.Cutting back on those "entitlement" programs is widely viewed as a significant part of reducing the budget deficit."It was a speech outlining vigorous support for expanding the size and reach of government - at a time when there is a national call for, and bipartisan support of, reduced Washington spending," said Don Stewart, spokesman for Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate minority leader.READY FOR A FIGHTObama begins his second term having stared down Republicans on tax and spending issues at the end of December, achieving a deal that raised taxes on the country's highest earners.The stage is now set for the next round of fiscal wrangling: Obama wants to revamp the tax code to eliminate a myriad tax loopholes while fending off Republicans' demands for deep spending cuts.His graying hair and lined face providing proof, Obama appears battle-hardened after his first term, now accustomed to the idea that Republicans will fight him at nearly every turn and determined to muscle as much of his agenda as possible through the divided Congress.In defending social programs, Obama offered a subtle reminder of comments last May by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who told supporters at a private fund-raiser that 47 percent of Americans were dependent on government programs and benefits, and therefore were unlikely to support Romney."The commitments we make to each other, through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative. They strengthen us," Obama said. "They do not make us a nation of takers. They free us to take the risks that make this country great."Such talk appeared to foreshadow more ideological fights in Congress over taxes and spending, which have consumed Washington during the past four years.A 'LIBERAL CHECKLIST'Obama seemed to claim a far-reaching mandate in his inaugural address, vowing action on issues such as climate change, immigration and gay rights.Those issues were largely on the sidelines during most of Obama's first term, although he did express support for legalized same-sex marriage.An agreement to revamp the immigration system seems the most likely bipartisan achievement. Obama wants such a deal and so do Republicans in Congress, after having seen Hispanics vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats in the November 6 election.Far less certain is how Obama might follow through on his pledge to address climate change in a significant way."He laid out a very activist agenda," said presidential scholar Thomas Alan Schwartz of Vanderbilt University. "My interpretation would be that he really does feel that the wind is at his back, that he has a very favorable environment to push right now on a wide range of issues."Republicans listening for clues as to what to expect from Obama in the coming months did not hear much conciliatory talk."It was a liberal checklist," said one aide to a senior Republican in Congress. "I didn't hear any outreach to conservatives or the half of the country who didn't think he should be president. He was speaking to the people who voted for him. That's fine, but it wasn't a call for unity. It wasn't a call for smaller government. It was a call for bigger government."Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio said Obama "missed the opportunity to talk about where we can find common ground."'WE CANNOT AFFORD DELAY'Monday's events essentially start the clock ticking for Obama. Realistically he has one to two years to achieve most of his agenda before Washington's attention turns to the 2016 election when America will vote for a new president."We cannot afford delay," Obama said.Still faced with a bitterly partisan environment in which Republicans control the House of Representatives and Democrats lead the Senate, White House officials say Obama will work with Congress when he can and use executive orders to implement policy when possible.At the same time, his presidential campaign apparatus is being rebooted to act as a populist support group to push for his policies.So how much can he get done?Second terms often are marked by overreaching by the president, a misreading of the public mood.For example, Republican George W. Bush pushed for an overhaul of Social Security at the outset of his second term. It quickly ran afoul of public opinion and went nowhere.Obama has acknowledged the risk of a too-ambitious agenda. But having outmaneuvered Republicans on taxes and spending thus far - and with significantly better favorability ratings than they have - Obama appears determined to pursue a large second-term agenda."Certainly he is well-positioned right now," said Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri. "Republicans are having trouble being as aggressive as they have been. I suspect he may be able to cut a few more deals."

Three more US congressmen have joined Congressional Caucus for Bangladesh. The three, Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford and New York congressmen Mike McMahon and Scott Murphy, made announced this at a meeting of internal new alliance, the 'New Democratic Coalition Pact', on Monday. The congressmen pledged to work for protecting the interest of Bangladesh on issues like climate change, environment and proposed Indian move to construct Tipai Dam. Bangladeshi-American Public Affairs Front general secretary Hasanuzaman Hasan and US-based BNP leader Gias Ahmed represented Bangladesh community at the meeting. Congressman Joseph Crowley, who is also co-chairman of Bangladesh Caucus, told the meeting that he was working relentlessly for duty free access of the Bangladeshi readymade garments to the US market. He was also concerned about giving expatriate Bangladeshis a legal status to live and work in US. At present there are some 39 congressmen who have joined the Bangladesh Caucus. Patrick Kennedy, son of late senator Edward Kennedy, who was one of the doughtiest friends of Bangladesh, joined Bangladeshi Caucus in America few days ago.

Kolkata, May 14 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)- Kolkata's red-brick secretariat was built more than 200 years ago for Britain's East India Company, which used trade in opium, cloth and tea to colonise the subcontinent. Distrust of foreign merchants lingers still. For the past year, the sprawling building has been occupied by Mamata Banerjee, the diminutive chief minister of West Bengal who is perhaps the largest obstacle to economic reforms that would allow 21st-century traders free access to India's consumer markets. To supporters who affectionately call her "Didi", or "Big Sister", Banerjee is a hero who ended more than three decades of communist rule in West Bengal. They say she shelters farmers and shopkeepers from the harsh winds of globalisation, while guiding West Bengal towards its rightful place as an economic and cultural powerhouse and India's gateway to Southeast Asia. But after a series of erratic moves, including the arrest of an academic who forwarded a joke email about her to his friends, critics see her as an autocrat in the making. Weekly magazine India Today branded her the "Queen of Democrazy". Banerjee's widely ridiculed antics and disappointment with her administration in West Bengal could hasten the end of her honeymoon with the voters. She is also dependent on the central government to bail West Bengal out of a debt crisis. Together, those factors offer Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a chance to out-manoeuvre someone who, despite being a coalition ally, has stood doggedly in the way of much-needed economic reform. In the past year, India's stellar economic growth has slowed and its current account and budget deficits have ballooned. But the central government's attempts to introduce policies it says would remedy the crisis have been blocked by the very coalition allies it relies on for survival, chief among them Banerjee's Trinamool Congress party. "She's very much on the back foot because of her behaviour," said Bengali political analyst Amulya Ganguli, adding a change may now be "in the offing". "There are signs of mellowing. Perhaps she realizes she has to act responsibly and not say no to everything." A weakened Banerjee could make it easier for Singh's government, whose popularity has sagged amid corruption scandals and high inflation, to push through reform. SLUMS AND iPADS Despite modest beginnings as a poor teacher's daughter, Banerjee was named in April one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world. Last week she was visited by Hillary Clinton, who praised her political achievements after discussing potential US investment in Indian ports. Talking to Reuters in the same sparse room where she received Clinton, Banerjee however gave cold comfort to US merchants who may have thought a visit from the secretary of state would soften her opposition to foreign supermarkets such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. operating in India. "Never," Banerjee said emphatically. She said she welcomed private investment to create jobs in areas such as tourism and industrial projects, even for hospitals, but would always oppose policies that destroy jobs for farmers and small retailers. "There are some areas I cannot go," she said, clad in a white saree. "I cannot tell the people you just go from your work, you must be jobless because of this." She said she would remain opposed to raising the price of heavily subsidised fuel and rail fares. That is bad news for Prime Minister Singh, whose failure to rein in the deficits and reverse the slowdown has tarnished his reputation as the architect of reforms that transformed India's slow-coach economy 20 years ago. "They talk about price rises only for the common people, you have to nurture other options also, you need to look at other ways out, how you can develop business, how you can find more funds," said Banerjee, whose 19 MPs give Singh's Congress party a majority in parliament. Unmarried and still living in her tin-roofed family house in a Kolkata slum, Banerjee is facing her own financial crisis in the state government, which could give Singh more leverage on his stalled reform agenda. Saddled with India's highest state debt of nearly $40 billion - mostly inherited from her communist predecessors who had ruled from 1977 until elections last year - Banerjee is struggling to pay teachers' salaries and is seeking a three-year moratorium from the central government. Although she proudly brandishes her iPad, Banerjee is drawn to the frugal tradition of Indian independence hero Mahatma Gandhi. She says she takes no government salary, or perks such as a car and residence. Such personal austerity has not stopped her hiring some 90,000 new teachers and police, despite the state's debts. The cost has raised eyebrows but her finance minister, Amit Mitra, said it was nominal because of low wages. Mitra, a harried-looking former head of India's premier industry chamber, FICCI, said the state's tax take was up 20 percent last year thanks mainly to enforcement. PAST GLORY Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, was Britain's beachhead in India and flourished as an intellectual and industrial capital long after the colonialists were expelled. One of the world's richest cities in the 19th century, Kolkata today is more reminiscent of Cuba's Havana with its faded tropical grandeur and 1950s-style taxis. "We want to restore the past glory of this state," said Banerjee, who has promised to make the city as modern as London and has invited companies to help, including to build a 'Kolkata Eye' to rival the British capital's giant ferris wheel. Projects to paint city bridges and buildings blue and install thousands of ornamental street lights Banerjee designed herself to boost civic pride have been pilloried in the media but officials say they are cost effective. New flyovers to ease congested streets, an airport terminal and the mushrooming of middle-class apartments and office buildings are signs that change is on the way. Overtures to private investment began before Banerjee took office, and many have been disappointed that she has not done more to improve the investment climate in West Bengal. BLACK AND BLUE Devoted to Bengali polymath Rabindranath Tagore, a Nobel literature prize winner, Banerjee has her own creative leanings as a painter and poet. But critics point to a darker side of someone who does not appear to tolerate dissent. In a sign of her clout, she recently forced the prime minister to fire his railway minister, one of her own party members, after he announced in parliament that rail fares would go up. "When I announced the increase in fares, everyone thumped the desk," the former minister, Dinesh Trivedi, said from his New Delhi residence. "And suddenly, I was asked to go." The fare rise was supported by unions and economists as necessary to help pay for the modernisation of a railway network whose overcrowded trains and creaking infrastructure are a major drag on economic growth. Then in April, 52-year-old chemistry professor Ambikesh Mahapatra forwarded an email doing the rounds that ridiculed Banerjee's treatment of Trivedi. Police detained him for what Banerjee called 'cyber crimes', but not before a group of about two dozen people confronted him and beat him up. "I didn't realise that I was committing some kind of crime," Mahapatra told Reuters. "There is a sense of fear in my mind. Especially because the government seems so unapologetic." Mahapatra's treatment sparked an outcry. Banerjee, once hospitalised for months after Communist thugs punched her to the ground, defeated the leftists partly by railing against the culture of political violence in West Bengal. Her critics now wonder whether life is any different. "White and blue for the bridges, black and blue for the protesters," said Dwaipayan Bhattacharyya of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. "That appears to be her policy at this moment ... She doesn't have any tolerance for even an iota of dissent." Such behaviour has alienated the educated middle classes who cheered her defeat of the left, Bhattacharyya said. Banerjee was visibly annoyed by the charge she was autocratic, saying the campaign against her was orchestrated by the communists she ousted and maintaining that violence has dropped sharply since she took office. Until now, Anand Sharma, the minister who drove the plan to open up India's retail sector, has seen his ambition thwarted. But change might be coming. "With this scientist arrest, she is losing sheen as a dragon slayer," one very senior government adviser said on condition of anonymity. "Perhaps that gives Anand a little more room, we'll see."

The pact was among a raft of pledges made at the COP26 summit in the last week. Japan, the world's third-biggest importer of the dirtiest fossil fuel, declined to sign because it needed to preserve all its options for power generation, officials said. Critics called that short-sighted, even as new the prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has agreed to step up other environmental measures. "Despite Prime Minister Kishida pledging to direct increased funding to climate finance, we are disappointed that he failed to address the elephant in the room - Japan's dependency on coal," said Eric Christian Pedersen, head of responsible investments at Danish fund manager Nordea Asset Management. The criticism highlights the shift in Japan's circumstances. It led climate change efforts during the 1990s Kyoto Protocol era, but has been burning more coal and other fossil fuels after the Fukushima disaster 10 years ago left many nuclear plants idle. Not phasing out coal has "positioned Japan to take a leap backwards by signalling thermal power plants can keep running based on new technologies that do not exist," said Kiran Aziz, head of responsible investments at KLP, Norway's largest pension fund. China, the world's biggest source of climate change-fuelling gases, did not sign the pact and President Xi Jinping did not attend the conference. The country has said it would reduce its use of coal for electricity by 1.8 percent over the next five years. Japan has pledged billions of dollars for vulnerable countries and to support building infrastructure in Asia for renewables and cleaner-burning fuels. It has also cut targets for coal use and raised those for renewables. "In Japan, where resources are scarce and the country is surrounded by the sea, there is no single perfect energy source," Noboru Takemoto, an industry ministry deputy director, said. "For this reason, Japan does not support the statement" on coal. The ministry said last year it would accelerate shutdowns of coal-fired plants by 2030, later setting minimum efficiency standards and requiring companies to submit annual updates on phase-outs. But companies are resisting such plans, a senior executive at a major Japanese generator said. "It is being delayed and dragged out because a lot of companies are saying these units still work and are cheaper," the executive said, adding that "a leadership push is needed." A survey of Japanese companies operating old coal power units, including Hokuriku Electric Power and Hokkaido Electric Power, showed that most of them have not decided schedules to shut them down. Hokuriku Electric plans to shut just one 250-megawatt coal unit in 2024, a spokesperson said, "Our coal-fired thermal power plants play an important role," in maintaining stable electricity supplies, the spokesperson said. Hokkaido Electric, which shut two coal units in 2019, has no closings planned, while the other five companies surveyed said they have no firm proposals. Some are looking at using cleaner fuels, such as ammonia, to burn with coal and other technologies to keep them operating more cleanly. "For pro-coal corporate Japan, what's more important is business, not the planet," said Mutsuyoshi Nishimura, a former senior Japanese government official and chief climate change negotiator. "It's sad to see there is no vision for a better, more sustainable and more competitive Japan."

The European Union took a veiled swipe at the United States at climate talks in Bali on Tuesday over Washington's efforts to remove tough 2020 emissions guidelines for rich nations from draft text. UN climate talks in Bali have become dominated by disputes about whether a final text, or Bali roadmap, should omit any reference to scientific evidence that rich nations should axe greenhouse gas emissions by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Any watering down or outright removal of this non-binding range would anger developing nations, who are demanding rich nations do more to cut their own greenhouse gas emissions. The row has overshadowed a separate finance ministers meeting in Bali and 10th anniversary celebrations for the Kyoto Protocol. "I understand that it is still in the text," EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told reporters in Bali. "Of course it is crucial for the European Union, and not only for the European Union, in order to gather an effective fight against climate change we need this range of reductions for developed countries by 2020." "The EU set a target of 30 percent (by 2020) provided that other developed countries come along, or even more than 30 percent if it is necessary," he said. The Bali talks aim to bind all nations to greenhouse gas curbs from 2013 but poor nations want rich countries to do more before they agree. Negotiators are working hard on a formula to draw in the developing world, particularly India and China. The United States called on the meeting on Monday to drop any reference to 2020 guidelines for rich nations, saying it would prejudge the outcome of negotiations. AUSTRALIA VAGUE Australia, whose new government ratified the Kyoto Protocol last week, was vague on whether it supported a 25-40 pct range as a starting point for discussions. "Climate change is the global challenge of our generation," Australia's new Climate Change and Water Minister Penny Wong said on Tuesday in Bali. But Wong refused to confirm if Australia supported the inclusion of what she called an interim emissions reduction target of 25-40 percent by 2020 in draft text. "We are agreed with our friends in the EU and in other nations who say that we need an interim target. Australia agrees with that, but what we have done is we have put in place a process to determine what that target will be and how we propose to meet that." The government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, due in Bali later on Tuesday to make his debut on the world stage, has commissioned an analysis of various ranges of emissions targets. "We need to put a guard rail around the negotiations for the next two years," said Hans Verolme of the WWF environmental group. He said the 25-40 percent range was needed for industrial nations to show they were committed to leading. Finance ministers met in Bali on Tuesday to debate how to fund the fight against climate change, the first such meeting on the fringes of annual U.N. climate talks. The finance ministers, from about 20 nations, will debate issues ranging from the potential for carbon markets to help cut industrial emissions of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels to incentives for people to put solar panels on the roof at home. "This is much too important to leave to environment ministers," said Nicholas Stern, a former World Bank chief economist who wrote a report saying the costs of fighting climate change would be far smaller than those of ignoring the problem. "This is about low-carbon growth, not low growth," he said. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudoyono told the ministers they should play a much larger and more active role in responding to climate change at home and abroad. "Your deliberations today will enhance our understanding of how to integrate climate change into fiscal policies." And an Indian finance official said developing nations should be exempt from binding targets on greenhouse gases under any new global pact beyond 2012 after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires. Kyoto marks its 10th birthday on Tuesday -- it was agreed in the Japanese city of the same name on Dec. 11, 1997. UN backers of the pact plan to celebrate with a birthday cake. -- For Reuters latest environment blogs click on: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/

President Joe Biden’s summit meeting on climate change ended Friday with the United States promising to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and to help other countries do the same. But the real test for the United States will be Washington's ability to steer the rest of the world toward cleaner energy fast enough to avert catastrophe. The limits of America’s influence were clear. Australia, India, Indonesia, Mexico and Russia made no new pledges to cut down on oil, gas or coal. Some countries said that they were being asked for sacrifices even though they had contributed little to the problem, and that they needed money to cope. Away from the summit, the Chinese foreign minister demonstrated the difficulties the Biden administration faces in working with the country most crucial to lowering global greenhouse gas emissions. The minister, Wang Yi, warned that Chinese cooperation would depend on how the United States responded to Beijing’s policies regarding Hong Kong, Taiwan and Xinjiang Province. “Our two countries still have many differences, but still, President Xi attended the climate summit convened by President Biden. So, that is an action taken by China at the top level to work with the United States on climate change,” Wang said at a virtual event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. “If the United States no longer interferes in China’s internal affairs, then we can have even smoother cooperation that can bring more benefits to both countries and the rest of the world.” The United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases in history; China is currently the largest emitter. The Biden administration this week pledged to roughly halve its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 — an ambitious goal that is slightly below the target enshrined in law by the European Union and significantly below that of Britain. China, which argues that its industrialisation began much later than in the West, is still increasing its emissions; it has said it will hit peak emissions by 2030 and draw them down to net zero by 2060. China’s emissions stem largely from burning coal, the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel. The country is, by far, the world’s top coal consumer, and it is building new coal plants at home and abroad, even as the United States and Europe have begun to retire their coal fleets. Chinese President Xi Jinping said at the summit that China would “strictly limit” coal projects in the immediate future and “phase down” coal after 2025. Republicans in the United States immediately criticised the administration because China had not announced new emissions reductions targets. In an interview Friday after the White House summit, the US climate envoy, John Kerry, dismissed that criticism. He said he was optimistic that Beijing would raise its climate ambitions before the crucial climate negotiations sponsored by the United Nations in Glasgow, Scotland, in November and that he hoped China would announce a suspension of its funding for coal projects beyond its borders. “We made a first step with China,” Kerry said. “Now we continue the diplomacy. We’ve got to go deal with China.” Jennifer Hillman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, has been paying close attention to climate diplomacy this week. She said she saw the Chinese president’s participation at the summit as a promising sign. The comments by China's foreign minister the following day were sobering, though, with Wang laying down what sounded like conditions expected in exchange for cooperation with the United States on climate change. “Today was more a realistic picture,” Hillman said. “What I heard from Wang Yi is that there are a lot of prerequisites for this cooperation that are going to be very difficult.” As in all diplomacy, there is a range of carrots and sticks available to the United States to advance climate action. Money is at the heart of it. And there, the pledges at the summit left many people underwhelmed. The United States said it would double climate finance for developing countries to $5.7 billion a year. That represents a fraction of what the world needs, Manish Bapna, interim president of the World Resources Institute, said in a statement. It also lags behind many other rich countries, he pointed out, and “does not meet the needs expressed by leaders of vulnerable countries.” That is all the more important if the United States, along with other Western countries, is to nudge emerging economies to meet their growing energy needs through renewable sources, said Jennifer Tollmann, a Berlin-based policy adviser at the climate research organisation E3G. The United States is in a position to push the World Bank to make climate finance a centrepiece of its lending, for instance, and to respond to demands from many countries to ease their debt burdens so they can use their revenues to deal with climate change. “Statements from various country leaders were very compelling and very clear: ‘We are being left behind. Where is the money?’” Tollmann said. That is a challenge the United States and its allies must confront in the coming months, Tollmann said. Failure to raise huge amounts of capital to address the effects of climate change is “a risk factor,” she said, for the climate talks in November in Glasgow. That is the deadline for all countries to deliver new climate targets. The current targets are nowhere near what’s sufficient to avert the worst effects of warming. The Biden administration’s announcement of $1.2 billion for the Green Climate Fund, which is designed to help poor countries address climate change, was seen by many as a drop in the bucket. The United States and India late Thursday announced a joint effort to “mobilise finance and speed clean energy deployment” to help India achieve its goal to deploy huge amounts of renewable energy capacity by 2030. How much money would be in that package, and whether it would come from public or private sources, was unclear. Much remains unresolved barely three months into a presidency that has vowed to make climate change a centrepiece of its foreign policy. Many important capitals don’t yet have a US ambassador in place, let alone diplomats versed in the science and economics of climate policy. The administration needs the approval of Congress to mobilise money for its domestic climate goals and for overseas development aid that it has promised. There is no political appetite, especially among Republicans, for a carbon tax. And Kerry has said he is “concerned” about a carbon border tax that the European Union is poised to establish on imports that come from countries that do not impose levies on goods that depend heavily on fossil fuels. The administration’s next test of climate diplomacy comes when Biden travels to Britain and Belgium in June for the next meeting of the Group of 7 major industrialised nations, his first overseas trip as president. That is all the more crucial if it expects to move China along. Relations between Washington and Beijing are at their lowest in decades, and even on the issue of climate change, there have been tense exchanges of words. The Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson last week described the reentry of the United States into the Paris climate agreement as a “truant getting back to class.” Kerry said Friday that the comment was “not particularly conducive” to a conversation on climate action, and that he had told his Chinese counterparts just that. Key to any American strategy, analysts said, is breaking out of the isolation of the last four years, which makes the next few months extremely important. “If the United States wants to have significant leverage with China it will have to work with allies,” Hillman of the Council on Foreign Relations said. © 2021 The New York Times Company

US-China relations are at a critical juncture and a summit between their leaders next week must produce "real action, on real issues" such as trade, climate change and North Korean nuclear proliferation, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday. "It is up to both nations to translate the high-level pledges of summits and state visits into action. Real action, on real issues," she said in a major China policy address in Washington. Clinton urged China to let its currency appreciate faster, end discrimination against foreign companies and further open its markets to US manufactured goods and farm products. Some US analysts see Chinese President Hu Jintao's trip as the most important state visit in 30 years, as the leaders of the world's two biggest economies try to put behind them a stormy 2010 and forge more stable ties for the coming years. Her remarks were part of a week of China policy speeches by US Cabinet officials -- and a trip to Beijing by Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- aimed at setting the tone for the Jan. 19 Washington summit between President Barack Obama and Hu. "America and China have arrived at a critical juncture, a time when the choices we make -- big and small -- will shape the trajectory of this relationship," she said. On global problems, the United States wants China to "step up to more of its obligations," Clinton said. "Global recession, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, piracy on the high seas -- these are threats that affect us all, including China. And China should join us in confronting them," she said. Washington and Beijing sparred last year over longstanding issues such as US arms sales to Taiwan, the status of Tibet's Dalai Lama and human rights. They also became embroiled in spats over newer problems including deadly North Korean attacks on South Korea, South China Sea navigation rights, and trade in rare earth minerals. SEEKING HELP WITH NORTH KOREA On North Korea, Washington has held out the prospect of resuming long-dormant six-party talks involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia to curb Pyongyang's nuclear arms programs if Pyongyang ceases attacks that killed 50 South Koreans in 2010 and commits to denuclearization. "It is vital that China join with us in sending North Korea an unequivocal signal that its recent provocations -- including the announced uranium enrichment program -- are unacceptable and in violation of Security Council resolutions," said Clinton, urging Beijing to enforce UN sanctions against its ally Pyongyang. US and Chinese companies will sign a number of business deals when Hu visits Washington, the US Chamber of Commerce said on Friday. Myron Brilliant, a chamber senior vice president, said he was also hopeful Hu's visit would show China is serious about recent commitments to reopen its market to US beef and to fight copyright piracy by increasing the government's use of legal software. Obama, who won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, is in an awkward position as host to the head of a state that has jailed the 2010 laureate, dissident Liu Xiaobo, say activists who have criticized what they see as a muted US approach on China. Clinton acknowledged that many Chinese "resent or reject our advocacy of human rights as an intrusion on their sovereignty," but she said China's UN membership required it to respect universal rights. "We reiterate our call for the release of Liu Xiaobo and the many other political prisoners in China, including those under house arrest and those enduring enforced disappearances," she said. Clinton urged people in both countries to put aside "zero-sum 19th century" thinking about great power rivalries. "Some in the region and some here at home see China's growth as a threat that will lead either to Cold War-style conflict or American decline, and some in China worry that the United States is bent on containing China's rise and constraining China's growth," she said. "We reject those views," Clinton said.

At the start of the second and final week of the UN climate talks in Glasgow known as COP26 - ministers got down to the detail of trying to honour promises to pay for climate-linked losses and damages, and to address how to help nations adapt to the devastating effects of climate change. "We have to act now to help with adaptation and resilience," Obama told a meeting of island nations at the summit, adding that his views on the immediacy of the threat had been shaped by his experience growing up in Hawaii. Obama said too little progress had been made since the 2015 Paris Agreement to try to curb warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and lambasted China and Russia for a lack of commitment in making the Glasgow talks a success. "It was particularly discouraging to see the leaders of two of the world's largest emitters, China and Russia, declined to even attend the proceedings," he said. Their "national plans so far reflect what appears to be a dangerous lack of urgency and willingness to maintain the status quo on the part of those governments, and that's a shame". The failure of rich nations to make good on promises to provide help for developing countries has fuelled mistrust, and is seen as a major obstacle to progress in cutting emissions to limit the impact of rising temperatures. Vanessa Nakate, a 24-year-old Ugandan climate activist attending the Glasgow conference published a video showing Obama had made the same call for action, not words, to help poor nations as long ago as 2009, but with few results in the ensuing years. "Everyone knows what is to be done," said Kenya's Environment Minister Keriako Tobiko. "There have been too much and too many workshops, retreats and conferences. And it is always 'the time is now', 'the time has come'. Actually there's no more time, let's put the money on the table." At a U.N. climate summit 12 years ago in Copenhagen, rich nations promised to hand developing countries $100 billion a year by 2020 to help them adapt to climate change. The target was missed, and at COP26 richer nations have said they will meet the goal in 2023 at the latest, with some hoping it could be delivered a year earlier. In recent weeks and months, rich nations including the United States, Japan, Spain and Italy have raised their "climate financing" pledges, but some still fall short of what international bodies say is a fair contribution. The head of Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency Henry Kokofu said negotiations over funds for adaption and resilience in the nations hardest-hit by climate change were not reflecting the levels of ambition publicly voiced by developed countries. "It's very unfortunate and sad indeed," he said. DIFFERENT PRIORITIES While developing countries want more money to help them adapt to higher temperatures that have caused more frequent droughts, floods and wildfires, developed nations have been focused on channelling finance towards cutting emissions. The cost of both is huge, but it will be even higher unless the Glasgow talks can keep alive the Paris goal of capping global temperatures at 1.5C (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels. Beyond this level the world risks catastrophic climate impacts. "We are nowhere near where we need to be," Obama told the audience, lamenting the lack of progress since Paris. Aside from China and Russia, the Democratic former president also took aim at U.S. lawmakers from the Republican Party, which he said had expressed "active hostility toward climate science" and made climate change a partisan issue. "For those listening back home in the US, let me say this: It doesn't matter if you're a Republican or a Democrat if your Florida house is flooded by rising seas, or your crops fail in the Dakotas or your California house is burning down," he said. With activist Greta Thunberg already dismissing the Glasgow talks as a "failure", richer nations need to firm up and make good on the many pledges they delivered in the first week of the conference, which is scheduled to finish on Friday. Underlining the difficulties, COP26 President Alok Sharma said there was a desire among parties "to continue technical work with a renewed urgency to make progress" on climate finance where there were "a large number of outstanding issues". "My priority now is pace," he added. "There needs to be a sense of urgency in all our negotiations." Potentially more problematic for rich nations than meeting the $100 billion goal is how they should compensate less developed countries for loss and damages caused by historic emissions, an area where concrete pledges have yet to be made. Sharma acknowledged that this was a historically polarising issue, but said he believed "the mood music has changed somewhat. "There is now a practical recognition that action is needed on this topic in the face of growing impacts," he said.

Big polluting countries must aggressively cut greenhouse gases and listen to ideas from small nations to reverse global warming, activists and left-wing leaders concluded on Thursday at a meeting billed as an alternative to the failed Copenhagen summit. The gathering in Bolivia's Cochabamba region was meant to give voice to countries and environmental groups that said they were excluded from an active role at the Copenhagen summit in December, when world leaders negotiated behind closed doors. Activists say the big industrial powers sabotaged the Copenhagen summit by not agreeing to major cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and insist the next big climate change meeting in Mexico in December must include other voices. The Cochabamba summit called for leading industrial nations to cut emissions by 50 percent, a much more ambitious goal than the pledges of cuts from 7 percent to 16 percent in the Copenhagen Accord. "Developed countries ... in the meeting of heads of state in Mexico in December, they've got to listen to the people, take decisions to better the lives of all," Bolivian President Evo Morales told the summit. Earlier in the summit, Morales drew controversy when he said eating chicken fed with hormones causes "sexual deviation" in men and that European men lose their hair because they eat genetically modified food. Capitalism, genetically modified food and global warming were all targets at the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, which drew some 20,000 environmentalists and representatives from 90 governments. Representatives from indigenous groups from all over the world took part in the meeting in the small village of Tiquipaya, which was free and included concerts, theater, a handicrafts market and artists painting murals. SMALL COUNTRIES COULD BACK RESOLUTIONS Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Ecuador, which belong to a leftist group of Latin American countries, as well as Sudan and Saudi Arabia, have been strong critics of the Copenhagen accord. "Climate change is a crisis that was created in the north and its effects are overwhelmingly lived in the south. If you acknowledge that simple fact of justice and decency, that means that southern countries are no longer begging for aid," said Canadian author Naomi Klein. Klein, a prominent activist against global warming, said Cochabamba could help cement an alliance among nations that are already suffering the effects of climate change. "That's a much more empowered position" which calls for "a lot more unity between developing countries," she said. The Cochabamba meeting resolved that an international tribunal should be created to hold those to blame for global warming accountable. It also called for a global referendum on climate change and the creation of a fund to help affected nations cope with global warming. The resolutions are not binding, but countries and social organizations who took part in the summit have pledged to drum up support for them ahead of December's United Nations summit on climate change in Cancun, Mexico. Alicia Barcena, the top UN representative at the meeting, told reporters on Tuesday it was time for the organization to admit it had excluded grassroots groups from the Copenhagen summit, but she was pessimistic about Cancun. "Rio+20 should be our goal, because I don't think Cancun will solve the problems," she said. Late last year, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution agreeing to hold the Rio+20 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro in 2012.

Labor returned to power after nine years in opposition as a wave of unprecedented support for the Greens and climate-focussed independents, mostly women, helped unseat the conservative coalition in Saturday's general election. "I look forward to leading a government that makes Australians proud, a government that doesn't seek to divide, that doesn't seek to have wedges but seeks to bring people together," Albanese said during his first media briefing after taking charge as the prime minister. Although votes are still being counted and the makeup of government has yet to be finalised, Albanese was sworn in by Governor-General David Hurley at a ceremony in the national capital, Canberra so he could attend a meeting of the "Quad" security grouping in Tokyo on Tuesday. India, the United States, Japan and Australia are members of the Quad, an informal group that Washington has been promoting to work as a potential bulwark against China's increasing political, commercial and military activity in the Indo-Pacific. Albanese said the country's relationship with China would remain "a difficult one" ahead of the summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and the prime ministers of Japan and India. Deputy Labor leader Richard Marles and three key ministers - Penny Wong in foreign affairs, Jim Chalmers as treasurer and Katy Gallagher in finance - were also sworn in, with Wong to join Albanese on the Quad trip. WORKING CLASS CARD Labor's campaign heavily spotlighted Albanese's working-class credentials - a boy raised in public housing by a single mother on a disability pension - and his image as a pragmatic unifier. Centre-left Labor is leading in 76 seats in the 151 seat lower house, with a few races too close to call, according to the Australian Electoral Commission. Independents or Green party looked set to win more than a dozen seats as counting of postal votes continued. So-called "teal independents" campaigning in affluent, Liberal-held seats on a platform of climate, integrity and equality, could yet hold significant sway. Independent Monique Ryan said climate was the most important issue to constituents in her seatof Kooyong in Melbourne, which outgoing Treasurer Josh Frydenberg formally conceded on Monday. "We listened to what people wanted, we listened to their values and their desires, and we put together a platform that reflected those," Ryan said. Albanese said he hoped Labor would get enough seats to govern on their own but added he had struck agreements with some independents that they not support no-confidence motions against his government. After his return from Japan, Albanese said, he would act swiftly to implement his election promises, including setting up a national anti-corruption commission and a A$15 billion ($10.6 billion) manufacturing fund to diversify Australia's economy. The swearing-in of the full ministry will happen on June 1, he said. Australian financial markets offered a muted reaction to the election verdict on Monday, with the outcome already priced in and no radical change in economic course expected. "Our economic forecasts and call on the (Reserve Bank of Australia) are unchanged despite the change of national leadership," economists at Commonwealth Bank of Australia said.

Developing countries stand to suffer the worst effects of global warming, and should not have to pay for a problem created mainly by the rich, executives and experts said on Thursday. At a gathering of 2,400 of the world's most powerful people at Davos, a ski resort in the Swiss Alps, leaders from emerging nations said they wanted the United States, European Union and others in the West to be more accountable for the heat-trapping emissions their cars and factories produce. They also asserted their right to stoke their own economies, even if greenhouse gas levels rise as a result. "The U.S., the Europeans, the OECD countries have for the last 30 to 40 years contributed to greenhouse gases much more than us," Rahul Bajaj, chairman of India's second-largest motorcycle maker, Bajaj Auto Ltd., said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. His compatriot Sunil Bharti Mittal, chairman of the telecommunications group Bharti Enterprises, said developing countries needed incentives to react on climate change. "We, as a billion people, are going to be consuming a lot of services and goods that will create emissions. We will need technology, we will need money," he said. On the World Economic Forum's opening day on Wednesday, with falling snow and chill winds ending a balmy start to the Swiss winter, participants voted climate change as most likely to have an impact on the world in years ahead, as well as the issue global leaders are least ready for. Politicians from rich countries have acknowledged the need for action to address the consequences of global warming for developing countries, but have made no major commitments to help. Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam Britain, said poor countries were particularly squeezed by growing calls to limit the use of fossil fuels, which trap solar rays in the atmosphere, contributing to severe storms and ecological damage. They are also most vulnerable to global warming's effects, including irregular rainfall, floods and droughts that have decimated fertile lands and made subsistence farming difficult in much of Africa, as well as Afghanistan, Haiti and elsewhere. "We have already seen that the effects of climate change are hitting poor people hardest and earliest," she said in an interview in Davos on Thursday. In addition to 'big sums of money' that would be required to help countries cope with these impacts, Stocking said emerging countries must be allowed some slack to expand their industries and create wealth. "We must not stop developing countries in their economic development by imposing strict restrictions on carbon emissions that we do not have ourselves," Stocking said. Nicholas Stern, advisor to the British government on climate change, agreed that international aid would be required to help the developing world cope. "This is not about stopping growth. It is about doing things in different ways," he told Reuters Television on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum. Ensuring that emissions-saving technologies reach emerging giants such as China and India, as well as poorer countries, is critical, he said, adding: "I think that rich countries should shoulder the bulk of that cost." Others said that more stringent monitoring of emissions from the Western powers -- by far the biggest source of accumulating greenhouse gases -- would help assuage emerging nations on the need to act. "Maybe we could have an international task force to have some sort of enforcement for the countries that are committed in the Kyoto Protocol, and also for the countries like the United States that are not committed but must reduce their emissions," Brazil's trade and industry minister Luiz Fernando Furlan said.

Coal is the most polluting fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions from burning it are the single biggest contributor to climate change. Weaning the world off coal is seen as vital to achieve globally agreed climate targets. Signatories of the COP26 agreement would commit on Thursday to shun investments in new coal plants at home and abroad, and phase out coal-fuelled power generation in the 2030s in richer countries, and the 2040s for poorer nations, the British government said. "The end of coal is in sight. The world is moving in the right direction, standing ready to seal coal’s fate and embrace the environmental and economic benefits of building a future that is powered by clean energy," British business and energy secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said. Separately, the Powering Past Coal Alliance - an international campaign aimed at phasing out the fuel - said it had secured 28 new members, including Ukraine, which pledged to quit the fuel by 2035. Coal produced roughly a third of Ukraine's power last year. Factors including concerns over planet-warming pollution and a worsening economic profile for coal-fuelled generation have curbed its share in wealthy western countries including Britain, Germany and Ireland over the last few decades. But coal still produced around 37% of the world's electricity in 2019, and a cheap, abundant local supply means the fuel dominates power production in countries including South Africa, Poland and India. These countries will require huge investments to shift their industries and energy sectors onto cleaner sources. The global pipeline for new coal power projects has shrivelled in recent years, although China, India, Vietnam and Indonesia are among those planning to build new coal plants. Britain did not confirm if those countries would be involved in the COP26 coal phase out pledge, or if Vietnman's pledge on Thursday would affect its pipeline of coal projects already in the pre-construction stage. China said in September it would stop funding overseas coal plants, although the pledge did not cover domestic projects. A raft of finance announcements are expected at COP26 on Thursday to accompany the coal pledges - both through new investments in clean power, and funds to support workers and regions that depend on the coal sector for their livelihoods. Countries including Britain and the United States announced a $8.5 billion partnership with South Africa at the COP26 conference on Tuesday, to help the country phase out coal faster.

Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" earned $64.1 million (40.7 million pounds) at U.S. and Canadian theatres during its second weekend, topping box office charts in a sluggish overall market facing Olympic television coverage and the impact of the Colorado shooting. The finale in director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy starring Christian Bale added $122.1 million from international markets and has pulled in $248.2 million overseas since its July 20 debut, distributor Warner Bros. said. Add in cumulative ticket sales of $289 million in domestic markets - the United States and Canada - and the global haul now stands at $537 million for the film that cost its backers some $250 million to make and tens of millions more to market. Sales in U.S. and Canadian theatres dropped 60 percent from its debut weekend, a bigger decline than predecessor "The Dark Knight" or other recent superhero films. In 2008, "Dark Knight" fell 53 percent during its second weekend to earn $75 million domestically, according to Hollywood.com Box Office. This year, summer smash "The Avengers" slipped 50 percent in the weekend following its opening in May, and June release "The Amazing Spider-Man" declined 44 percent. While "Dark Knight Rises" ranks as one of the year's highest-grossing movies, sales are weaker than pre-release forecasts after the opening was overshadowed by the killing of 12 moviegoers at a midnight screening in Aurora, Colorado. Through Sunday, total "Dark Knight Rises" sales in North America ran behind "Dark Knight," which hauled in $313.8 million domestically through its first two weekends. IMPACT OF OLYMPICS, SHOOTING Warner Bros. officials declined to discuss box office and its relation to the shooting for the second week, but industry watchers said the turnout for the Batman film and other movies likely suffered from some moviegoer reluctance after the massacre, as well as Friday's start to the London Olympics. "It's been a double dose of things," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of Hollywood.com Box Office. "The Olympics has been dominating media coverage lately and probably kept a lot of people home Friday night, and then there's the Aurora shooting." He noted that lacklustre reviews for this weekend's new features likely further dampened theatre attendance but predicted that next weekend will see a resurgence. "There will be a bit more distance from the Aurora shooting, the Olympics will become routine, and there's some really exciting films coming out," Dergarabedian said, mentioning upcoming "Total Recall" and "Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days." Overall domestic ticket sales for the weekend came in 25 percent lower than the same weekend one year ago, according to Hollywood.com Box Office. The No. 2 spot belonged to animated children's movie "Ice Age: Continental Drift," with $13.3 million. It beat out comedy "The Watch" and dance movie "Step Up Revolution," both of which made their theatre debuts this weekend. "The Watch" came in third, earning $13 million at domestic theatres. The film stars Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill as men who start a neighbourhood watch group to battle aliens. The movie earned largely negative reviews, with just 14 percent of critics praising the film on website Rotten Tomatoes. "The Watch" also was affected by real-life events. In May, 20th Century Fox changed the movie's title from "Neighbourhood Watch" to distance it from the fatal shooting of black teenager Trayvon Martin by Neighbourhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Florida. Ahead of the weekend, Fox saw the $68 million production pulling in $13 million to $15 million. "We didn't really know what to expect," said executive vice president for domestic distribution at Fox Chris Aronson, speaking on the box office climate, post-shooting. "It's a wild-card weekend for sure." Aronson said he "hopes for a bounceback in the overall marketplace," which he predicted would benefit all films. "Step Up Revolution" finished in fourth place with $11.8 million domestically. The movie about a group of flash-mob dancers in Miami is the fourth in a franchise that has grossed more than $400 million around the world. Its distributor had forecast a domestic opening in the low- to mid-teens. Comedy "Ted" rounded out the top five with $7.4 million. "Step Up Revolution" was released by a unit of Lions Gate Entertainment. "The Watch" and "Ice Age" were released by 20th Century Fox, a unit of News Corp. Sony Corp's movie division distributed "Spider-Man."

The two-day summit in Tuscany comes as the United States moves a Navy strike group near the Korean peninsular amid concerns over North Korea's nuclear ambitions, and as the West's relations with Russia struggle to overcome years of mistrust. But the civil war in Syria is likely to dominate talks, with Italy hoping for a final communique that will reinforce United Nations' efforts to end six years of conflict. The meeting will give Italy, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and Japan their first chance to grill the new US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on whether Washington is now committed to overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al Assad. President Donald Trump had hinted he would be less interventionist than his predecessors and more willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses if it was in U.S. interests. Given this, the US attack on Syria last week in retaliation for what it said was a chemical weapons attack by Assad's forces on Syrian civilians confounded many diplomats. However, there is uncertainty over whether Washington now wants Assad out, as many Europeans are pushing for, or whether the missile strikes were simply a warning shot. The US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said at the weekend that regime change in Syria was a priority for Trump, while Tillerson said on Saturday the first priority was the defeat of Islamic State. The mixed messages have confused and frustrated European allies, who are eager for full US support for a political solution based on a transfer of power in Damascus. "The Americans say they agree, but there's nothing to show for it behind (the scenes). They are absent from this and are navigating aimlessly in the dark," said a senior European diplomat, who declined to be named. LIBYAN WORRIES The foreign ministers' discussions will prepare the way for a leaders' summit in Sicily at the end of May. Efforts to reach an agreement on statements and strategy ahead of time - a normal part of pre-meeting G7 diplomacy - has gone very slowly, partly because of a difficult transition at the US state department, where many key positions remain unfilled. Some issues, such as trade and climate change, are likely to be ducked in Tuscany. "The more complicated subjects will be left to the leaders," said an Italian diplomat, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press. However, the foreign ministers will talk about Libya. Italy is hoping for vocal support for a United Nations-backed government in Tripoli, that has struggled to exert its influence in the city, let alone in the rest of the violence-plagued north African country. The Trump administration has not yet defined a clear policy and Rome fears Washington may fall into step with Egypt, which supports general Khalifa Haftar, who operates in eastern Libya. The struggle against terrorism, relations with Iran and on-going instability in Ukraine will also come up for discussion, with talks due to kick off at 4.30 p.m. (1430 GMT).

In the lawsuit, 21 activists, ages 11 to 22, said federal officials violated their rights to due process under the US Constitution by failing to adequately address carbon pollution such as emissions from the burning of fossil fuels. The lawsuit was filed in 2015 against former President Barack Obama and government agencies in a federal court in Oregon. In a 2016 ruling, a judge allowed the case to proceed, prompting the government to appeal. The Trump administration, inheriting the case, had asked for the lawsuit to be thrown out or put on hold. The brief unsigned order said the Trump administration’s request was premature. The court did, however, note that the claims made in the ambitious lawsuit are “striking” and the question of whether they can be considered by a jury “presents substantial grounds for difference of opinion.” As such, the lower court should take those concerns into account in handling the case, the order said. The high court’s move followed a Jul 20 decision by the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals that refused to throw out the lawsuit. The high court’s action in the case could be the last official act for Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced last month he would retire effective on Tuesday. Trump has nominated conservative US appeals court judge Brett Kavanaugh to replace Kennedy.

While the 2008 presidential campaign grabs most of the headlines, Republicans hope to buck the odds on another front -- the U.S. Senate, where last year they narrowly lost control to the Democrats. With a 51-49 Democratic majority and 34 seats up for grabs in November 2008, experts say the fight is the Democrats' to lose. They only have 12 seats to safeguard. President George W. Bush's Republicans have to defend 22. "I see all kinds of potential for Democrats out there, I just don't know if it's going to be realized," said Jennifer Duffy, an expert at the Cook Political Report who specializes in Senate races. "I don't think the majority is in play ... The Republicans' goal is to keep their losses at a minimum," she said. Control of the Senate will be crucial to the White House next year, no matter who succeeds Bush. A president's policies can live or die there because major bills routinely require 60 votes to clear potential hurdles and win passage. The prolonged Iraq war, an anemic economy, differences over tax cuts and squabbles over climate change will dominate Senate races, said Anthony Corrado, a government professor at Colby College in Maine. "This is going to be an election where the Republicans are on the defensive," he said, and arguments for change will dominate the political discussion. Duffy said it was by no means guaranteed that Democrats would pick up many seats. An ABC News/Washington Post poll showed support for Democrats dropping 10 points since April to 44 percent. Democrats were voted into power in 2006 largely on a pledge to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq but so far have been unable to deliver. A turning point could be September when Congress is due to consider several anti-war measures. Several Republicans are seen as ripe for knocking out to boost Democrats' lead: Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu. So is a seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Wayne Allard of Colorado. Democrats must also defend a few seats: Sen. Mary Landrieu in Louisiana, Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor and South Dakota's Sen. Tim Johnson who is recovering from brain surgery last December. Republicans have yet to settle on a candidate for Landrieu's seat and political watchers are speculating that former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee could drop his presidential ambitions and instead challenge Pryor. Sen John Ensign, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, thinks his party will do better than some think. "The odds makers would have given the Democrats almost no shot at taking the Senate two years ago and they would have been wrong," he said. "We're of the opinion that you run elections and you see what the results are." Ensign said the Democrats' call for reversing some tax cuts and their opposition to the Iraq war would aid Republicans, who lost six seats and Senate control in 2006. Ensign's Democratic counterpart, Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, counters that the Iraq war, now in its fifth year, would help his party and that Democrats had a history of balancing the budget, which should resonate with voters. "Republicans have lost touch and we're going to sweep in on a mandate of change," said Schumer, head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Republicans could face an even tougher fight if senators like John Warner of Virginia and Pete Domenici of New Mexico retire, putting more seats in play. Yet another hurdle is fund-raising. The Democratic campaign has raised twice the money of its Republican rival during the first four months of 2007, $18.3 million to $9.1 million. In a tight Minnesota race, comedian Al Franken, the leading Democratic challenger, has already raised $1.35 million in the first quarter, a strong showing against the $1.53 million raised by Coleman.

Marathon talks on a new global trade pact collapsed on Tuesday as the United States and India refused to compromise over a proposal to help poor farmers deal with floods of imports. Ministers from other countries expressed incredulity that the trade liberalization talks could have foundered in their ninth day over a technical measure to restrict imports. "Someone coming from another planet would not believe that after the progress made, we would not be able to conclude," Brazil's Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said. "This is a very painful failure and a real setback for the global economy at a time when we really needed some good news," an emotional EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters, adding that developing countries would suffer most. The collapse could hurt business sentiment -- even if it will have no immediate impact on trade -- and could fuel protectionist sentiment, encourage more bilateral trade deals and call into question how the world will deal with complex issues like climate change and the food crisis. The failure to reach a breakthrough at the World Trade Organisation after nearly seven years of talks means the prospects for resuming the Doha talks to free up world trade -- if they can be resuscitated after the setback -- could be put back several years. But WTO chief Pascal Lamy said ministers wanted him to revive the talks quickly and he would not "throw in the towel." $130 BILLION BOOST LOST Lamy said the deal would eventually have saved the world economy $130 billion a year just in lower tariffs. He called ministers from about 35 key WTO players to Geneva last week to seek a breakthrough in the Doha round, launched in late 2001 to boost the world economy and help developing countries export their way out of poverty. Ministers reached about 80-85 percent of an outline deal on the core areas of agriculture and industrial goods, he said. But differences in these areas between rich and poor countries and importers and exporters proved too much to bridge. The final stumbling block, which dominated talks on Monday and Tuesday, concerned the "special safeguard mechanism" -- a proposal to let developing countries raise farm tariffs in the face of a surge in imports or collapse in prices. Developing countries like India and Indonesia said they needed the measure to protect millions of subsistence farmers from unexpected shocks arising from opening up their borders. But the United States feared its agribusinesses would lose new markets just as it made painful cuts in its farm subsidies. Developing country food exporters like Costa Rica and Uruguay said the measure as framed would cut them off from key markets and even reduce existing trade. "It's unfortunate in a development round, the last mile we couldn't run because of an issue concerning livelihood security," Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said. The United States and European Union had also clashed with big emerging countries like India and China over flexible treatment for developing nations in cutting industrial tariffs. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said U.S. offers for the talks remained on the table. "To ensure that the advances we made this week are not lost, the United States will continue to stand by our current offers, but we maintain that they are still contingent on others coming forward with ambitious offers that will create new market access. So far, that ambition is not evident," Schwab said. U.S. ELECTIONS But when or whether the talks could resume remains unclear. Brazil's Amorim said it could take 3 or 4 years. Mandelson said he saw no real chance of resolving core issues in the foreseeable future. Next year's change of U.S. president and EU Commission could sideline the talks or see priorities change. U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has said trade negotiations should include labor and environment standards. "An Obama administration might just say we have to start over with a clean slate," said Gary Hufbauer, senior fellow at Washington's Peterson Institute for International Economics. Even as ministers reaffirmed their commitment to the WTO and open trade, there were fears that Tuesday's setback could fuel protectionist sentiments. "I think it's a strong negative and it really follows on the heels of a retreat from globalization and trade that were really the building blocks for the prosperity of the last several decades. It's scary," said Michael Darda, chief economist at MKM Partners in Greenwich, Connecticut. The WTO's role as umpire of the world trading system is now likely to come more into focus as its 153 members resort to trade disputes rather than trade liberalization negotiations.

When Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo died this week after an 85-day hunger strike, hopes for near-term improvement in US-Cuba relations may have died with him, political experts said on Friday. His death in a protest against prison conditions added to tensions caused by the arrest of an American contractor in Cuba and made the political climate tougher for diplomatic and legislative moves to improve ties with the island, they said. "For the time being all bets are off regarding further progress in US-Cuba relations," said Marifeli Perez-Stable, a Cuba analyst at Florida International University in Miami. Zapata's death prompted indignant statements in Washington, where long-time opponents of communist Cuba said it showed the United States must not appease the government of President Raul Castro by easing the 48-year trade embargo against the island, the cornerstone of US-Cuba policy. "Let us take his sad and untimely death and renew our commitment to assure that the Cuba of the future is rid of the failed ideology which killed this brave man," said Republican Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. Zapata's death makes it harder for supporters of a thaw in relations with Cuba to make their central argument -- that the best way to encourage change in Cuba is to get closer to the island. Coincidentally, new legislation was proposed on the day of Zapata's death that would do just that by ending a general ban on US travel to Cuba and making it easier for Cuba to buy food from the United States. "I have always felt -- and continue to believe -- that if we are truly going to do a better job of standing with the Cuban people, then we need to be closer to them," Democratic Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said in the US House of Representatives. "We need to travel freely to the island to meet and learn from them, and them from us," he said. In the same statement, McGovern expressed his "deepest sorrow and outrage" at Zapata's death, saying the Cuban government could have intervened to prevent it. Spain is facing a similar problem. Spain, which is currently presiding over the European Union, has pushed to remove a clause from the EU's common position on Cuba urging democracy and greater respect for human rights on the island. Havana has said the clause is an obstacle to full normal relations with the 27-nation bloc. NAIL IN COFFIN Under pressure from Spanish media, Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, a socialist and long-time advocate of close ties with Havana, lamented Zapata's death and demanded that Cuba free political prisoners and respect human rights. "That is a fundamental demand of the entire international community," he said in the Spanish parliament. Perez-Stable said Zapata's death would likely put the nail in the coffin of Spain's efforts to improve EU-Cuba ties. "Havana should forget about the EU lifting the common position," she said. Cuba watchers said the dissident's death was a setback for the Cuban government's diplomatic efforts to bring pressure to bear on the United States to drop the embargo. Cuba's small dissident community, meanwhile, vowed to step up demands for democratic change on the island, so that Zapata will not have died in vain. On Friday, five dissidents -- four of them currently in prison -- announced they had begun hunger strikes aimed at forcing the government to free political prisoners. "This death weighs on the heart of all of us," said leading dissident Oswaldo Paya. "This is a before and after. We're not going to use violence, but the government is sending a dangerous message to the Cuban people," Paya said.

The White House on Friday praised former US Vice President Al Gore and the UN climate panel for winning the Nobel Peace Prize for their work to raise awareness of the threat of global warming. "Of course we're happy for Vice President Gore and the IPCC for receiving this recognition," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, referring to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the award with Gore. Gore, a Democrat, has been a vocal critic of the environmental policies of President George W Bush, a Republican who beat him narrowly in a disputed presidential election result in 2000. At a White House-convened summit last month, some of the world's biggest greenhouse polluters called Bush "isolated" and questioned his leadership on the problem of global warming. Bush has rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that sets limits on industrial nations' greenhouse gas emissions, and instead favors voluntary targets to curb emissions. Since leaving office in 2001, Gore has lectured extensively on the threat of global warming. In a statement on Friday, he said the climate crisis was "our greatest opportunity to lift global consciousness to a higher level."

Police detained nearly 1,000 people in Copenhagen on Saturday during mass demonstrations to demand that negotiators at UN talks agree a strong treaty to fight global warming. Tens of thousands of people marched through the city as part of a global "Day of Action" of climate rallies from Australia to the United States, but violence flared at one stage when demonstrators smashed windows and set fire to cars. Riot police detained more than 900 people around the Danish capital after black-clad activists threw bottles and smashed windows. A police spokeswoman said the number had climbed to 968 shortly after 10 p.m. (2100 GMT). Police said four cars were set on fire during the evening. One policeman was hurt by a stone and a Swedish man injured by a firework. "You don't have to use that kind of violence to be heard," said Connie Hedegaard, the Danish minister presiding at the UN talks. She condemned rioters after welcoming the main march at a candlelit vigil outside the conference centre. One activist group accused the police of abuse after they detained around 400 black-clad demonstrators at the back of the march and forced them to sit on a road for hours in near-freezing temperatures, hands bound behind their backs. The main demonstration was led by dancers, drummers and banners proclaiming: "There is no planet B" and "Change the politics, not the climate". Some activists were dressed as penguins with signs reading: "Save the Humans!" They marched to the conference centre on the outskirts of the city, where negotiators from 192 nations are meeting from Dec. 7-18 hoping to agree a new UN climate pact. Organisers said up to 100,000 people took part in the march, hoping their rally and others round the world would put pressure on a concluding summit of 110 world leaders on Thursday and Friday. SNOWMAN In the main march, some held a giant inflatable snowman as a symbol of the threat of largescale melting icecaps and glaciers. The UN panel of climate scientists says the accelerating loss of vital masses of ice, caused by rising temperatures resulting mainly from burning fossil fuels, will lead to rising sea levels, floods, desertification and heat waves. The demonstration won wide praise. "They marched in Berlin, and the Wall fell. They marched in Cape Town, and the wall fell," South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu told a candlelit vigil. "They marched in Copenhagen -- and we are going to get a real deal." "There is a lot to fight for in the remaining week of negotiations," said Kumi Naidoo, chair of the organising group "TckTckTck". Activists want the talks to agree a full legal treaty -- a goal most governments say is out of reach. Elsewhere, thousands of Australians held a "Walk Against Warming". Naidoo said 4,000 events, such as marches or candlelit vigils, were being held from Fiji to Nepal to show support for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. In Copenhagen, Caroline, a Danish girl aged 7, carried a homemade sign saying: "Look after our world until I grow up". "Mountains are changing, glaciers are melting," said Nepalese Sherpa Pertamba, who came to Denmark to demonstrate with a group of 30 mountaineers. "Now is the time to think about future generations." In Sydney, protesters carried placards reading: "I like clean energy and I vote", "No meat, no heat" and "No new coal mines", a reference to Australia's status as one of the world's leading exporters of coal. Inside the conference hall in Copenhagen, delegates claimed progress on some fronts but the hardest decisions on sharing out curbs on greenhouse gas emissions and funding to help the poor are likely to be left for the summit. "We have made considerable progress over the course of the first week," said Denmark's Hedegaard. She said she would hold talks on Sunday with 48 environment ministers. "We still have a daunting task in the next few days," she added. Hedegaard said negotiators had made progress with texts such as defining how new green technologies like wind and solar power can be supplied to developing nations, and in promoting the use of forests to soak up greenhouse gases. But delegates said there were deep splits on raising funds for poor nations and sharing the burden of CO2 cuts. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, said he hoped for more action by all. "China is calling on the United States to do more. The United States is calling on China to do more. I hope that in the coming days everyone will call for everyone to do more."

With a rising world population, an official statement issued in Glasgow said it was vital to curb global warming stoked by farming, deforestation and other land use changes that account for about a quarter of humanity’s planet-heating emissions. On Saturday, the COP26 talks will focus on ways to enlist nature to keep alive a goal of limiting the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7F) above pre-industrial times, the toughest ambition of the 2015 Paris climate agreement. Average surface temperatures are already up about 1.2C. “To keep 1.5 degrees alive, we need action from every part of society, including an urgent transformation in the way we manage ecosystems and grow, produce and consume food on a global scale,” said UK Environment Secretary George Eustice. “We need to put people, nature and climate at the core of our food systems,” he added. The statement said 45 governments would “pledge urgent action and investment to protect nature and shift to more sustainable ways of farming”. Backers include major economies led by the United States, Japan and Germany and developing nations such as India, Indonesia, Morocco, Vietnam, Philippines, Gabon, Ethiopia, Ghana and Uruguay. The statement did not give the total amount of funding, but said the measures would include "leveraging over $4 billion of new public sector investment into agricultural innovation, including the development of climate-resilient crops and regenerative solutions to improve soil health". Among the measures, Britain said it would give a 500-million-pound boost to protect more than 5 million hectares - equivalent to more than 3.5 million football pitches - of tropical rainforests and create thousands of green jobs across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Greenhouse gas emissions from land use range from carbon dioxide released by the burning of forests to clear land for farming, to methane from cows and other livestock as they digest food. HEADLINE PLEDGES Some environmental activists say Britain has shifted the way host countries of climate summits or COPs - formally known as Conferences of the Parties - run the global gatherings, where they usually work behind the scenes to build consensus. Instead, Britain has grabbed headlines this week by announcing new alliances, for instance by more than 40 nations to phase out coal, or another by major investors with $130 trillion at their disposal to boost the green economy. Some climate activists are wary that the high-profile pledges may not be fulfilled. “Important as these announcements may be, they are not legally binding,” said Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, a Kenya-based think-tank. “This cannot be a COP run by press release.” He said the test of the agriculture commitments would be how far they are built into each of the 45 nations’ formal climate action plans. And Jennifer Morgan, executive director of Greenpeace, said the UK media announcements often turned out to be exaggerations. “We actually want to find things to celebrate here, but it’s hard when there is a constant concern that everyone is getting played,” she said in a statement. Matt Williams of the London-based Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit said food and farming had so far been largely missing from the COP26 summit, as well as from many countries' 2030 climate plans. “This deal plants the seeds for food and farming to be considered serious parts of the route to net zero emissions,” he added. The UK-led nature statement noted that land clearance to produce food such as “beef, soy, palm oil and cocoa is a major driver of deforestation”. It said 28 nations that are big consumers of those commodities had joined a Forest, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT) Roadmap launched in February this year. To safeguard the planet’s seas, which are suffering from over-fishing and warming waters, the COP26 statement said more than 10 new countries had signed up to a goal of protecting at least 30% of the oceans by 2030. They are India, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jamaica, St Lucia, Sri Lanka, Qatar, Samoa, Tonga, Gambia and Georgia.

Morrison, the former treasurer under Turnbull, took over as leader of the Liberal Party, the senior partner in the conservative Liberal-National coalition. The coalition has consistently trailed the opposition Labour party in opinion polls in recent months and must call a new election by May 2019. Relations between Trump and Turnbull started badly in February 2017 when Trump berated the Australian leader over a bilateral refugee agreement before abruptly ending their telephone conversation, according to a leaked transcript of the call. Trump described the refugee deal, negotiated by Turnbull and former President Barack Obama, as “dumb”. However, Trump offered Morrison his congratulations on Twitter. “Congratulations to new Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. There are no greater friends than the United States and Australia!” he wrote. Morrison in turn said on Twitter he had spoken to Trump. “Had a great discussion with @realDonaldTrump this morning. We affirmed the strength of the relationship between the US and Australia,” Morrison wrote. A representative from the prime minister’s office said Morrison had invited Trump to visit Australia during what was described as a “warm” conversation. University of Sydney political analyst Rod Tiffen said he did not expect the personal relationship between the two leaders to affect strategic relations. “I don’t think it will make much difference, America has all the initiative in this relationship,” he told Reuters by phone on Saturday. Morrison set to work on Saturday building a new Cabinet, although the only confirmed change so far is the appointment of his Liberal Party deputy Josh Frydenberg, the former energy minister, as treasurer. One of his first tasks will be to try to heal a bitterly divided party that has a parliamentary majority of only one seat. Morrison has ruled out calling an early general election but will face his first electoral test with a by-election for Turnbull’s seat in Sydney. The harbourside electorate has long been regarded as a safe seat for the Liberals. Australia emerges from crisis with a new PM Morrison’s victory marks the chance for a break from a decade of leadership clashes but ideological divisions in the party over issues such as climate change, energy policy, immigration and even globalization remain stark.

Bloomberg has advised friends and associates that he would be willing to spend at least $1 billion of his own money on a campaign for the November 2016 election, the Times said, citing sources briefed on the former mayor's thinking. Bloomberg, 73, has given himself an early March deadline for entering the race, the Times reported, after commissioning a poll in December to see how he would fare against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the Republican and Democratic frontrunners. No independent has ever won a US presidential election. But Bloomberg, who has close Wall Street ties and liberal social views, sees an opening for his candidacy if Republicans nominate Trump or Texas Senator Ted Cruz and the Democrats nominate Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the Times said. Bloomberg, who has long privately flirted with the idea of mounting a presidential run, served as mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. He switched his party affiliation from Republican to independent in 2007 and in recent years has spent millions on national campaigns to tighten US gun laws and reform immigration. One anonymous Bloomberg adviser told the Times the former mayor believes voters want “a non-ideological, bipartisan, results-oriented vision” that has not been offered in the 2016 election cycle by either political party. A well-financed presidential run by Bloomberg would likely disrupt the dynamics of the election, but the billionaire would face significant hurdles in a race that has been in full swing for nearly a year. Though no third-party candidate has ever claimed the White House, several previous bids have affected the overall makeup of the race. In 1992 Texas businessman Ross Perot ran as an independent, a decision that some believe helped Democrat Bill Clinton defeat incumbent Republican George H. W. Bush. Part of Bloomberg's motivation to enter the race stems from a frustration with Clinton's campaign, the Times reported. Clinton has been dogged by questions about her honesty amid an ongoing investigation into her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Sanders, Clinton's chief rival, has recently surged in polling in key early voting states Iowa and New Hampshire. That development has made Bloomberg increasingly worried about a general election between Sanders, a self-described socialist, and Trump or Cruz, both of whom have staked out far-right positions on issues like immigration. Representatives for Bloomberg could not immediately be reached for comment.

Over the last week, rich countries were accused of repeatedly breaking promises. Big polluters traded barbs. And environmental campaigners have cried betrayal, as years of UN climate negotiations to rein in climate-warming carbon emissions and protect the world’s most vulnerable have had little effect. "We have not seen sincerity in the commitments and progress made by developed countries, and have heard far more slogans than practical results," Chinese delegate Gao Xiang wrote in Saturday’s official Shanghai newspaper, Guangming Daily. Emissions are rising, and global temperatures – already 1.1 degree Celsius higher on average than in pre-industrial times – continue to climb. Rich nations that failed to meet a 2020 deadline to extend $100 billion a year in climate finance to poorer nations now say they won't meet that pledge until 2023. Activists have dismissed the first week’s fanfare as “greenwashing,” even as country delegates and UN negotiators are still working on the details for implementing old and new promises. But with the history of climate diplomacy littered with broken promises, many have asked: what needs to change beyond this year’s two-week conference to ensure accountability? TIGHTEN THE RATCHET Negotiators from nearly 200 countries return to the COP26 table on Monday, with just five days left to cut deals needed to cap global warming at 1.5 C - the limit beyond which the world will be courting devastating climate change impacts. Among the big issues to resolve are: setting reliable rules for carbon markets, assessing how industrialised countries should pay for climate-linked losses incurred by the rest of the world, and working out financing to help developing countries adapt. Protesters attend a demonstration against the fossil fuel industry during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 7, 2021. Reuters But one idea has gained traction: making countries review and, if necessary, update their emissions-cutting pledges every year, rather than on the current five-year schedule. Protesters attend a demonstration against the fossil fuel industry during the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), in Glasgow, Scotland, Britain, November 7, 2021. Reuters "It's an emergency. Every five years? That's not treating it like an emergency," said Saleemul Huq, advisor to the 48-country Climate Vulnerable Forum, which began lobbying for more frequent reviews before the Glasgow talks even began. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told delegates last week that, if COP26 fell short, countries should be required to revisit their climate plans every year. US climate envoy John Kerry also backed more regular reviews. "I hope we come out with a very good framework. Whether it's five years (or) less, I can't tell you today," Kerry told journalists Friday. "But I definitely believe it should be as short as we can." Supporters say such a change is crucial. With just 10 years left to bring global emissions down by 45%, which scientists say is vital to keeping the temperature rise in check, countries must be held accountable on an annual basis, they say. "It would be negative in my mind to come out of here with too long a horizon," Kerry said. CAPACITY CHALLENGE For poorer countries with limited government capacity, an annual initiative could prove a strain. "One year is too short," said Chioma Felistas Amudi, the assistant chief scientific officer in the climate change department of Nigeria’s Ministry of Environment. She said many of country pledges, called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), spanned a wide range of policy areas, energy plans, and government initiatives that needed both political will and financial backing. "So a one-year check-in would disrupt the process of implementation," she said. "Five years gives us broader time to implement, and also do the stock-take." Britain's environment minister questioned whether formal changes to the UN process were needed, saying it was already designed for incremental progress. "I am not sure whether the technicality around a ratchet is something that we would push for or would be in the final text" this year, Environment Minister George Eustice told Times Radio. But he didn't rule it out. "When you have these annual events ... there is a lot of referring back to previous agreements."

Parliament has also swung from one to the other in alternating waves of pink, the colour associated with the Socialist Party or its predecessors, and blue, which represents the main conservative party, known today as Les Républicains. But in this month’s presidential election, candidates for both parties cratered. In the first round of voting, Anne Hidalgo, the Socialist candidate, got only 1.75% of the vote. Valérie Pécresse, the Républicain candidate, got 4.78%, far less than the 2017 candidate for her party, François Fillon, who garnered 20.01% — even after a scandal involving a no-show job for his wife. Both Hidalgo and Pécresse were unceremoniously knocked out of the race. President Emmanuel Macron, whose centrist party was created just six years ago, then battled Marine Le Pen, of the far-right National Rally party, and won a second term. The stark collapse of the Socialists and Les Républicains capped a yearslong downward spiral for both parties, which have struggled to persuade voters that they could handle concerns including security, inequality and climate change, experts say. The old left-right division has given way to a new landscape, split into three major blocs. Macron’s broad, pro-globalisation center is now flanked by radical forces: on the right, Le Pen and her anti-immigrant nationalism; on the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a fiery politician who champions state-led policies against European Union rules and the free market. Many now wonder what will remain of the former stalwart political parties. “Before, there was the left, the right — that was clearer,” said Jeanette Brimble, 80, speaking recently on a narrow cobblestone street in the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence. For decades, she voted for mainstream conservatives. This time, pleased by Macron’s shift rightward, she cast a ballot for him. The downfall of the traditional parties, Brimble said, was “a bit disturbing for my generation.” In 2017, Macron’s first election landed an initial blow to the system, shattering the left. With the vote this month, the right is feeling the damage. Macron is set to be in office until 2027; French law limits presidents to two consecutive terms. After that, it is unclear whether the traditional parties will be able to rebound. Dominique Reynié, a political analyst who heads the Foundation for Political Innovation, a research institute that focuses on European and economic policy, said a departure from politics by Macron “would give the traditional governing parties a chance to get back into the game.” But some expect volatility instead. “I don’t believe that traditional parties are going to be reborn on the ashes of La République en Marche,” said Martial Foucault, director of the CEVIPOF political research institute at Sciences Po in Paris, referring to Macron’s party. In France’s increasingly personality-driven politics, disillusioned voters could shift from one charismatic leader to another, regardless of party affiliation, he said. “Citizens want efficiency,” he added. “So they are prone to these electoral movements, effectively leaving the system in total turbulence.” In Aix-en-Provence, a city of 145,000 that has long leaned right, the collapse was striking. Five years ago, Fillon came in first there with 27.45% of the vote. This month, Pécresse came in sixth with 5.5%. Nationwide, the Elabe polling institute found that roughly one-third of those who had voted for Fillon in 2017 chose Macron this time, versus only one-quarter for Pécresse, Fillon’s successor as the candidate of Les Républicains. Even Nicolas Sarkozy, the party’s last French president, from 2007 to 2012, did not endorse her. In a particularly humiliating turn of events, Pécresse came in fourth behind Mélenchon in Versailles, the bourgeois Parisian suburb that she once represented in Parliament. Hidalgo, who has been mayor of Paris for over eight years, got only 2.17% of the capital’s vote. Financial concerns compound the embarrassment. Presidential candidates can get a state reimbursement of up to 8 million euros for funds that they personally contribute to their campaigns. But the amount is much lower — 800,000 euros, or about $865,000 — if they get less than 5% of the vote. Mainstream candidates long considered 5% a low bar, allowing them to take out loans with the assurance that a large chunk of their expenses would be reimbursed once they cleared the threshold. But Pécresse, now personally in debt for 5 million euros, has been forced to appeal for donations. “At stake is the survival of Les Républicains, and beyond that, the survival of the republican right,” she said. (So far she has collected 2 million euros.) Both the Socialists and the Républicains failed to capitalise on anger against Macron, who wooed voters with sweeping promises of pragmatic centrism but whose first term was divisive. Mainstream parties have struggled to address issues like immigration, security, inequality or climate change, experts say, partly because Macron has cherry-picked from their platforms, especially on the right. Alix Fabre, who voted for Fillon in 2017 before turning to Macron, said in Aix-en-Provence that the president’s pro-business policies and those of the mainstream right felt similar. “Most people around me are from the right, and they’ve joined Macron,” she said. Experts also see a deeper disconnect, saying that both parties grew complacent in the belief that their turn in office would always come again. Fixated on internal quarrels and hemorrhaging dues-paying members, they lost touch with ordinary citizens, failing to harness movements like the yellow vest protests, experts said. They have also been unable to offer convincing alternatives to more radical forces like Le Pen. “It’s a constant, lasting failure to represent social conflict,” said Reynié, the analyst. For Foucault, of the CEVIPOF, “these parties haven’t understood what citizens are asking of them, in terms of renewing their platforms and their ideology.” Macron and Le Pen’s parties have issues too. Few see La République en Marche outlasting Macron’s political ambitions. The National Rally has been a Le Pen family affair for decades, marked by eight defeats in presidential elections. France’s traditional political forces still control many cities and other local or regional offices, where voters are more likely to trust familiar faces with day-to-day concerns. In 2021, Macron and Le Pen’s parties failed to win a single one of France’s 13 mainland regions, although Foucault said appearances were slightly misleading, because without American-style midterm elections, the French only have local elections to voice discontent with the government. Corinne Narassiguin, a top Socialist official, said that her party’s disastrous results at the national level marked “the end of a cycle” that started in 2017, after which the party was forced to sell its headquarters in an upscale Paris neighborhood and move to the suburbs. “Voters have made it clear that we’re no longer able to tell them why they should vote for the Socialists at the national level,” she said. The Socialists and the Républicains are now scrambling to shore up support before the legislative elections in June, which will fill all seats in France’s lower house of Parliament. But both face serious challenges. The Socialists, whose strength in Parliament has already shrunk, could end up with even fewer lawmakers as Mélenchon’s party gains prominence. The Républicains are torn between those favoring an alliance with Macron’s party, those wanting to stay independent, and those leaning toward Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant pundit who also ran for president. Marie Ronzevalle, 29, who works in event management in Aix-en-Provence, voted for Macron in 2017 — she liked his vow to “break with traditional codes” — but was disappointed by some of his policies and picked Hidalgo in the first round this year. She said that her family struggled to pick a candidate in this election — unlike her now-deceased grandmother and great-grandmother, loyal Socialists who worked for the party. One of her grandfathers, who always voted for the mainstream right but strongly hesitated this time, even briefly considered a blank ballot. “There is less of that feeling of belonging and automatically giving your vote to a party,” Ronzevalle said. “People are sick and tired of being asked to fit into a box. “They want to see things change,” she added. “But maybe the old parties are no longer the solution.”    © 2022 The New York Times Company

The alliance, the first at federal level between the ideologically disparate Greens, the libertarian Free Democrats, orFDP and Scholz's centre-left SPD, ends 16 years of Merkel-led conservative governments. The three parties enjoy a majority in the lower house of parliament and hope the government will be sworn in early next month after they ratify the 177-page coalition pact. Named after the parties' respective colours, the traffic lightalliance will usher in a new era of relations with Europe, and plans to speed up digitalisation of the continent's biggest economy while maintaining fiscal discipline. At a news conference in Berlin, flanked by the FDP and Greens leaders, Scholz recalled that when the first traffic light was erected at the city's Potsdamer Platz in 1924, many questioned whether it could work. "Today, the traffic light is indispensable when it comes to regulating things clearly and providing the right orientation and ensuring that everyone moves forward safely and smoothly, " he said. "My ambition as chancellor is that this traffic light alliance will play a similarly groundbreaking role for Germany." Merkel leaves big shoes to fill. She has navigated Germany and Europe through multiple crises and been a champion of liberal democracy in the face of rising authoritarianism worldwide. Her critics say she has managed rather than solved problems and leaves her successor tough decisions on many fronts. PACKED AGENDA The incoming government faces immediate challenges, with Europe grappling with the fallout from Brexit, a crisis on the European Union's border with Belarus and surging COVID-19 cases. Scholz, 63, an experienced politician who was finance minister in the outgoing "grand coalition" of the SPD and conservatives, said that fighting the COVID-19 pandemic would be his top priority. But his coalition also has ambitious medium- and long-term plans, including a faster expansion of renewables, an accelerated exit from polluting coal and a hike in the minimum wage, according to its pact. Underscoring its socially liberal bent, the coalition also agreed to allow multiple citizenship, increase regular immigration, reduce the voting age to 16 and make Germany the first European country to legalise the sale of cannabis for recreational use. Greens co-leader Annalena Baerbock, 40, is expected to become Germany's first female foreign minister and Scholz has said he wants a gender-equal government. While Germany's electoral campaign was largely focused on domestic issues, the parties signalled in the coalition pact an openness to reform the bloc's fiscal rules, also known as the Stability and Growth Pact. They also agreed Germany would remain part of NATO's nuclear sharing agreement, a move that will prevent a rift in the Western military alliance at a time of rising tensions with Russia. The incoming coalition will have to balance the Greens' calls for a tougher line on Russia and China on human rights with Scholz's likely preference to avoid confrontation over Taiwan and Ukraine. FDP leader Christian Lindner, 42, is set to take over at the finance ministry and Greens co-leader Robert Habeck, 52, is widely expected to take on a newly expanded economy and climate change ministry. AUF WIEDERSEHEN, ANGELA Presiding over what could be her final cabinet meeting, Merkel bade her colleagues farewell earlier in the day, and Scholz presented the EU's longest-serving leader with a tree to plant in her garden. Merkel, who did not seek re-election after four terms as chancellor, retains a high personal popularity rating but her conservative party is in disarray. It faces a leadership contest after a gaffe-prone campaign by its candidate for chancellor saw it record its lowest ever vote in a federal election. Germany's incoming leader is seen as a competent rather than a charismatic politician who, like Merkel, has moderate views and is adept at dialogue. During the campaign Scholz positioned himself as Merkel's natural successor, even imitating her trademark pose. The challenge will be to build and maintain a consensus between the Greens and SPD, widely seen as natural centre-left partners, and the fiscally hawkish FDP which has historically been closer to Germany's conservatives. The speed with which the parties struck the coalition deal was taken by some market watchers as a good early sign. "If this professional approach continues once the government is actually in office, the country could finally get the reforms and investments it really needs," said Carsten Brzeski, chief economist at ING Germany.

NEW YORK, Sep 28 (bdnews24.com/Reuters)--- The United Nations says the rate of animal and plant extinctions is up to 1,000 times higher than inferred in the fossil record, a biological crisis that is the worst since dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago. UN talks in Japan next month aim to set 2020 targets to put the brakes on the loss of species. Scientists say the world needs to act to avoid disasters such as the drying out of the Amazon and ocean dead-zones caused by the build-up of fertilisers. The United Nations says a growing human population, set to hit 9 billion by 2050, needs nature more than ever to ensure we can grow crops, breathe clean air, drink clean water and source new medicines from forests. Following are some facts on species loss and costs. -- Close to 30 countries have lost 90 per cent of their original forest cover. But the rate of deforestation is slowing. In the past decade, the annual loss of forests has averaged 13 million hectares (32 million acres), about the size of England, compared with 16 million hectares (39 million acres) a year during the 1990s. -- Coral reefs in the Caribbean have declined by 80 per cent and globally 30 per cent of mangroves have been lost in the past two decades. -- The IUCN's Red List of threatened species says 22 percent of the world's mammals are threatened and at risk of extinction. Nearly a third of amphibians face the same threat, one in eight birds, 27 percent of reef-building corals, and 28 percent of conifers. -- About a billion people rely on coral reefs and mangroves, vital fish nurseries that replenish fish stocks, a main source of protein. But rising ocean acidification linked to climate change and rising sea temperatures are damaging reefs. Over-fishing and clearing of mangroves is exacerbating the threat to livelihoods. -- The United Nations Environment Programme says annual losses from deforestation and degradation are estimated at between $2 trillion and $4.5 trillion. Yet this could be tackled with annual investment of $45 billion. -- A study by British-based consultancy TruCost this year said the world's top 3,000 listed companies are estimated to cause environmental damage of about $2.2 trillion a year. -- A separate UNEP study says schemes that promote certification of biodiversity-friendly agricultural products could create a market worth $210 billion by 2020 up from $40 billion in 2008.

In a series of some 150 opening speeches at the heavily guarded facility on the outskirts of Paris, most heads of state and prime ministers offered condolences to their French hosts, pivoting quickly, sometimes awkwardly, to the climate talks. Many said the decision to press on with the summit in Paris so soon after the attacks was itself a rebuke to extremists trying to sow fear and disrupt normal life. French President Francois Hollande said the two issues were inseparable, "two big global challenges" to be addressed for the next generation. A few, including US President Barack Obama, went further, linking the threat of heatwaves, floods and drought to the potential for climate refugees and political instability. He warned of a possible future with "political disruptions that trigger new conflicts, leaving more floods of desperate peoples seeking the sanctuary of nations not their own." Prime Minister Charles Michel of Belgium, a nation on high alert after the Nov. 13 attacks in Paris involved at least two suicide bombers from Brussels, also cited climate change as "the cause of tension, inequalities, crises and conflicts." But it was Prime Minister Enele Sopoaga of the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu who made by far the most direct link, voicing an idea that has become a newly contentious aspect of the climate issue: "the effects of climate change ... we strongly believe is also the cause of radicalism and terrorism." "The plight of refugees we see today ... and increasing terrorism and radicalism, represents a small measure of what the world, mankind, will face if we do not tackle climate change." A connection between a warming planet and migrant-related instability has in recent years been cautiously cited in several places as an additional rationale for cutting back on carbon emissions, and has drawn more attention in recent weeks after comments by both US Secretary of State John Kerry and Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. "By fuelling extreme weather events, undermining our military readiness, exacerbating conflicts around the world – climate change is a threat to the security of the United States and, indeed, to the security and stability of countries everywhere," Kerry said in a speech in Virginia on Nov 10. Last week, Britain's Prince Charles said that one of the "major reasons for this horror in Syria" was climate change. He made no mention of those ideas in Paris on Monday, beyond worrying that the world's focus was being diverted by other crises "that can be seen as greater and more immediate threats." The comments have provoked a sharp rebuke from many critics, particularly Republicans in the United States, who see it as a purely political effort to use fears over public safety to drive an unrelated climate agenda. Some studies have made the connection. In 2013, a panel of UN scientists said climate change could "indirectly increase risks of violent conflicts by amplifying well-documented drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks." A paper in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in March said there was evidence that man-made climate change had contributed to a 2007-10 drought in Syria that was a contributing factor to the civil war. Back in Paris, a few speakers made little effort at a graceful segue. After saying that both Israel and France were the victims of terrorism, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went on: "If President (Palestinian President Mahmoud) Abbas is committed to peace he must stop inciting his people against Israel." Shifting tack, he continued: "Today we must focus on the security, not just of the nations of the world, but of the world itself."

Scientists clashed with government officials at a UN panel on climate change on Friday over how strongly global warming is affecting plants and animals and the degree to which humans are causing temperatures to rise. More than 100 nations in the UN group agreed a final text after all-night talks that were punctuated by protests from researchers, who accused delegates of ignoring science and watering down a summary version of the report for policymakers. Environmentalists say governments tried to weaken the report in order to avoid taking strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia were the main culprits at the meeting, delegates said. "It looks like very blatant vested interests are trying to stop particular messages getting out," said Neil Adger from Britain's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. "We give our best to provide the best scientific assessment, but when the wording of that is then changed ... we get very upset. It's three years' work." He said delegates had also tried to weaken the link between greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans and the impacts of global warming worldwide. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) groups 2,500 scientists and is the top authority on climate change. Cynthia Rosenzweig of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies submitted a letter of protest to the IPCC chairman after Chinese delegates insisted on cutting a reference to 'very high confidence' that climate change was already affecting natural systems on all continents and in some oceans, she said. "I did make a statement that the authors strongly felt that the 'very high confidence' level was right," she told reporters after the meeting. "I was protesting because I felt the science wasn't brought forward." She left the meeting after the protest but said she needed a break and had not staged a walkout. The delegates ended up taking out any reference to confidence and revised the text to say: "Observational evidence from all continents and most oceans shows that many natural systems are being affected by regional climate changes, particularly temperature increases." Martin Parry, co-chair of the group preparing the report, denied the document had been weakened as a whole. "I don't think it would be a right story to say it was watered down. Certain messages were lost but I don't think in any respect the message was lost," he said. "When you have big meetings, there is a boiling down to common ground." But although Rosenzweig said she was happy with the compromise, many scientists felt the summary was not as sound as the larger report that they are preparing. "There is some residual frustration amongst the scientists. There's no question about that," said Kevin Hennessy, senior research scientist at the Climate Impact Group in Australia and another lead author. "But we're going to encourage people to drill down to the more detailed information in the technical summary and in the individual chapters."

“We want to go too fast,” said Jean-Pierre Door, a conservative lawmaker with a lot of angry constituents. “People are being pushed to the limit.” Three years ago, Montargis became a centre of the Yellow Vest social uprising, an angry protest movement over an increase in gasoline taxes that was sustained, sometimes violently, for more than year by a much broader sense of alienation felt by those in the outlying areas that France calls its “periphery.” The uprising was rooted in a class divide that exposed the resentment of many working-class people, whose livelihoods are threatened by the clean-energy transition, against the metropolitan elites, especially in Paris, who can afford electric cars and can bicycle to work, unlike those in the countryside. Now as Door and others watch the global climate talks underway in Glasgow, where experts and officials are warning that immediate action must be taken in the face of a looming environmental catastrophe, the economic and political disconnect that nearly tore apart France three years ago remains just below the surface. There are plenty of people in the “periphery” who understand the need to transition to clean energy and are already trying to do their part. But if the theme of COP26, as the Glasgow summit is known, is how time is running out to save the planet, the immediate concern here is how money is running out before the end of the month. Household gas prices are up 12.6% in the past month alone, partly the result of shortages linked to the coronavirus. Electric cars seem fancifully expensive to people encouraged not so long ago to buy fuel-efficient diesel automobiles. A wind turbine that will slash property values is not what a retired couple wants just down the road. “If Parisians love wind turbines so much, why not rip up the Bois de Vincennes and make an attraction of them?” asked Magali Cannault, who lives near Montargis, alluding to the vast park to the east of Paris. For President Emmanuel Macron, facing an election in April, the transition to clean energy has become a delicate subject. He has portrayed himself as a green warrior, albeit a pragmatic one, but knows that any return to the barricades of the Yellow Vests would be disastrous for his election prospects. Each morning, at her farm a few miles from town, Cannault gazes from her doorstep at a 390-foot mast built recently to gauge wind levels for proposed turbines. “Nobody ever consulted us on this.” The only sounds as she spoke on a misty, damp morning were the honking of geese and the crowing of roosters. Claude Madec-Cleï, the mayor of the nearby village of Griselles, nodded. “We are not considered,” he said. “President Macron is courting the Greens.” In fact, with the election looming, Macron is courting just about everyone and is desperate to avoid a return of the Yellow Vests. The government has frozen household gas prices. An “energy check” worth $115 will be sent next month to some 6 million people judged most in need. An “inflation indemnity” for the same amount also will be sent to about 38 million people earning less than $2,310 a month. Gasoline inflation has been a main driver of these measures. Sophie Tissier, who organized a Yellow Vest protest in Paris in 2019, said a heavy police response made it “very hard to restart the movement,” despite what she called “a grave social crisis and rampant anger.” She added that inequalities were so extreme in France that “it prevents us making an ecological transition.” The president touts the realism of his energy proposals. These combine the development of new small-reactor nuclear power with the embrace of wind power and other renewables. To his left, the Green movement wants nuclear power, which accounts for 67.1% of France’s electricity needs, phased out, an adjustment so enormous that it is derided by conservatives as heralding “a return to the candlelight era.” To Macron’s right, Marine Le Pen favours the dismantling of the country’s more than 9,000 wind turbines, which account for 7.9% of France’s electricity production. In the middle, millions of French people, buffeted between concern for the planet and their immediate needs, struggle to adjust. Christine Gobet drives her small diesel car about 90 miles a day from the Montargis area to her job at an Amazon warehouse on the outskirts of Orléans, where she prepares packages and earns about $1,600 a month. Sitting at the wheel outside a garage where her diesel engine had just been replaced at a cost of about $3,000, she mocked the notion of switching to an electric car. “For people like me, electric is just out of the question,” she said. “Everything’s going up, there’s even talk of more expensive baguettes! We were pushed to diesel, told it was less polluting. Now we are told the opposite.” At the start of the Yellow Vest movement, she joined demonstrations in Montargis. It was not just financial pressure that pushed her. It was a sense that “we are not listened to, that it’s those elites up on high who decide and we just suffer the consequences.” She dropped out of the movement when it became violent. At a traffic circle on the edge of Montargis, known as the “peanut roundabout” because of its shape, traffic was blocked for two months, and stores ran out of stock. Today, she feels that little has changed. In Paris, she said, “they have everything.” Anne Hidalgo, the Paris mayor and a socialist candidate for the presidency, wants “no more cars in the city and has no time for people from the provinces who go there to work.” For working-class people like Gobet, who was mentioned in a recent 100-part series called “Fragments of France” in the newspaper Le Monde, calls in Glasgow to stop using fossil fuels and close nuclear power stations appear wildly remote from their daily lives. At 58, she illustrates a generational chasm. The world’s youth led by Greta Thunberg is on one side, convinced that no priority can be more urgent than saving the planet. On the other are older people who, as Door put it, “don’t want the last 20 years of their lives ruined by environmental measures that drive energy prices up and the value of the house they put their money in down.” The area around Montargis has attracted many retirees who want to be close to Paris without paying Paris prices, as well as many immigrants who live on the outskirts of town. Gilles Fauvin, a taxi driver with a diesel Peugeot, was at the same garage as Gobet. He said most of his business comes from taking clients with medical needs to hospitals in Orléans and Paris. The combination of plans to ban diesel cars from the capital by 2024 and pressure to switch to expensive electric cars could ruin him. “Diesel works for me,” he said. But of course, diesel cars produce several pollutants. The question for Yoann Fauvin, the owner of the garage and the taxi driver’s cousin, is whether electric cars are really better. “You have to mine the metals for the batteries in China or Chile, you have to transport them with all the carbon costs of that, you have to recycle the batteries,” he said. In front of him a classic green 1977 Citroen 2CV was being reconditioned and a diesel Citroen DS4 repaired. “This business lives from diesel,” he said. “Around here energy transformation is laughed at. It’s wealthy people who move to electric cars, the people who don’t understand what goes on around here.” Magalie Pasquet, a homemaker who heads a local association against wind power called Aire 45, said her opposition to about 75 new turbines planned for the area has nothing to do with dismissing environmental concerns. She recycles. She is careful about traveling. She composts. She wears two sweaters rather than turn up the heat. She finds the environmental idealism of the young inspiring. But the world, she believes, has put the cart before the horse. “Why destroy a landscape that attracts people to this area when the real energy issue is overconsumption?” she asked. “Local people are not consulted, and even mayors are powerless to stop these ugly turbines.” A friend, Philippe Jacob, a professor of management and marketing also involved in the movement against the turbines, said the Yellow Vest movement had stemmed from rising gasoline prices, falling purchasing power, deteriorating public services, and widespread dissatisfaction with top-down decision-making. “The same is true today, and the situation is very dangerous,” he said. “People have invested their life savings here, and nobody listens when they say planned turbines and biogas plants will mean the region is ruined.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Rains from Hurricane Felix soaked the hill country of Honduras on Wednesday and threatened to trigger dangerous mudslides and flooding after killing four people in neighboring Nicaragua. The storm, which was a powerful Category 5 when it struck the Caribbean coast of Central America on Tuesday, revived memories of Hurricane Mitch, which killed more than 10,000 people in Central America in 1998, many of them in Honduras. The government evacuated 30,000 people as Felix weakened to a tropical storm and swept westward along the length of the country. Almost half of the Honduran capital's 800,000 residents live in areas the government considers dangerous, mostly on the sides of mountains prone to mudslides and avalanches of rock. Others live near rivers that can easily overflow. The city has a history of severe flooding. "Here it rains for two hours and the city floods. They're saying it could rain for 18 hours and we're preparing for the worst," Tegucigalpa Mayor Ricardo Alvarez told Reuters. Felix damaged the Puerto Cabezas port on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast and killed at least four people. Winds tore the roofs off houses and uprooted trees, but the damage was not as bad as expected. "My house felt like it was moving with the wind," resident Julio Mena said. Street lights and phone cables lay on the ground. Thousands sheltered in two schools in the port, home to some 30,000 mostly Miskito Indians. STORMY TIME Felix came on the heels of another Category 5 storm, the most powerful type. Last month, Hurricane Dean killed 27 people in the Caribbean and Mexico. It was the first time on record that two Atlantic hurricanes made landfall as Category 5 storms in the same season, and the fourth time since records began in 1851 that more than one Category 5 formed in a year. In the Pacific Ocean, Hurricane Henriette lashed Mexico's Los Cabos resort on the Baja California peninsula on Tuesday with winds and rain, after killing a foreign tourist on its approach. Despite growing consensus that global warming may spawn stronger tropical cyclones, weather experts believe it is too soon to blame climate change for the back-to-back hurricanes. Felix was due to pass through Honduras on its way to Guatemala, where electoral officials said they had no plans to postpone Sunday's presidential election. Normally busy shopping malls were nearly empty in Tegucigalpa. Stores and businesses closed early so their employees could prepare for the storm. "This scares me because when Hurricane Mitch came, a whole lot of water fell on us," 36-year-old waitress Larisa Flores said. Honduran coffee producers said they did not expect much impact on their crops if Felix keeps to its predicted route, which would take it through the country into Guatemala and then onto Chiapas in southern Mexico. Nicaraguan exporters feared pounding rains could damage their coffee crops. Felix was unlikely to hit the southern Gulf of Mexico, the home of Mexico's major offshore oil fields. Elsewhere in the region, a magnitude 5 earthquake hit the Gulf of California near the tip of the Baja California peninsula late on Tuesday, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. It was centered about 100 miles from Los Cabos, close to the site of a magnitude 6.3 quake that hit on Saturday.

The Bonn Challenge - launched in 2011 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Germany - aims for 150 million hectares (371 million acres) of degraded forest land to be under restoration by 2020 and 350 million hectares by 2030. Already, 61 nations, eight states in Brazil, Mexico and Pakistan, and five environmental groups have made non-binding commitments to restore more than 210 million hectares, about six times the size of Germany, according to an IUCN progress report. Stewart Maginnis, global director of IUCN's Nature-based Solutions Group, said the challenge had proved successful because it was about "problem-solving", not just tree-planting. "Part of the secret sauce is that it has got a relevance to other parts of the economy and other sectors at national level," Swiss-based Maginnis told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. For every $1 spent on forest restoration, at least $9 of economic benefits are generated, said the report, estimating that nearly $76 trillion could be gained each year from addressing land degradation. In 2019, tropical rainforests - whose preservation is considered crucial to curbing climate change - disappeared at a rate of one football pitch every six seconds, according to data from monitoring service Global Forest Watch. Environmentalists say conserving existing forests and restoring damaged ones reduces the risk of flooding, stores more planet-warming carbon and protects biodiversity. Worldwide, there are about 5.5 billion hectares of forest. Countries that have pushed forward with their Bonn pledges recognise that natural solutions like forest restoration are key to meeting national policy goals such as cutting carbon emissions, and boosting land productivity and food security, said Maginnis. Earlier this year, the World Economic Forum - which dedicated its 2020 gathering in Davos, Switzerland, to climate change and sustainability - launched a platform to drive the planting of one trillion trees worldwide. It is backed by a host of public figures, including U.S. President Donald Trump, a long-time climate change sceptic. 'DECENT' JOBS In Asia, India is aiming to increase its forest area and green cover to a third of its total land area by 2030, up from about a quarter, as part of its commitment to reduce carbon emissions and meet pledges made under the Paris climate accord. China, Ethiopia, Malawi, Cameroon and Ivory Coast have also launched large-scale tree-planting efforts with some success. Maginnis said the reforestation drive could also support post-coronavirus economic recovery plans. Preliminary analysis shows that for every $1 million invested in re-planting forests, six times the amount of jobs could be created compared to stimulus measures in other sectors, such as the auto industry during the 2008 global financial crisis, he added. "There is a real potential efficiency in being able to create decent jobs," Maginnis said. Methods used to make the Bonn Challenge a success will likely be replicated to better manage wetlands, rivers, mangroves and coastal areas in the next decade, he added. Former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who oversaw the adoption of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, said the Bonn Challenge provided the evidence needed to mobilise greater investment in reviving forests. "We know that the climate change, biodiversity, health and economic crises have all converged," she said in a statement. "The human, environmental and economic case for increasing global restoration action is key to restoring our future."

PRAGUE, Sun Apr 5, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The United States is ready to take a leading role in tackling climate change, President Barack Obama said on Sunday in a speech in Prague before talks with European Union officials. "In this global effort, the United States is now ready to lead," he said of the fight against climate change and ending dependence on fossil fuels, an area where the 27-nation EU is wants to secure ambitious commitments at U.N. talks later this year.

As India grapples with an unprecedented heatwave, the country's vast majority of poor workers, who generally work outdoors, are vulnerable to the scorching temperatures. "There is too much heat and if we won't work, what will we eat? For a few days, we work and then we sit idle for a few days because of tiredness and heat," Tundre said. Temperatures in the New Delhi area have touched 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit) this year, often causing Tundre, and his wife Lata, who works at the same construction site, to fall sick. That in turn means they lose income. "Because of heat, sometimes I don't go to work. I take days off... many times, fall sick from dehydration and then require glucose bottles (intravenous fluids)," Lata said while standing outside their house, a temporary shanty with a tin roof. Scientists have linked the early onset of an intense summer to climate change, and say more than a billion people in India and neighbouring Pakistan were in some way at risk from the extreme heat. India suffered its hottest March in more than 100 years and parts of the country experienced their highest temperatures on record in April. Many places, including New Delhi, saw the temperature gauge top 40 degrees Celsius. More than two dozen people have died of suspected heat strokes since late March, and power demand has hit multi-year highs. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called on state governments to draw up measures to mitigate the impact of the extreme heat. Tundre and Lata live with their two young children in a slum near the construction site in Noida, a satellite city of New Delhi. They moved from their home state of Chhattisgarh in central India to seek work and higher wages around the capital. On the construction site, labourers scale up walls, lay concrete and carry heavy loads, using ragged scarves around their heads as protection against the sun. But even when the couple finish their day's work, they have little respite as their home is hot, having absorbed the heat of the sun all day long. Avikal Somvanshi, an urban environment researcher from India's Centre for Science and Environment, said federal government data showed that heat stress was the most-common cause of death, after lightning, from forces of nature in the last twenty years. "Most of these deaths occur in men aged 30-45. These are working class, blue-collar men who have no option but to be working in the scorching heat," Somvanshi said. There are no laws in India that prevent outdoor activity when temperatures breach a certain level, unlike in some Middle-Eastern countries, Somvanshi said.

European Union states must meet pledges to boost aid to poor countries, the EU executive said on Wednesday, warning that missing U.N. goals would be a disaster for developing nations and threaten global stability. Progress has been made towards the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, the European Commission said, but each year 11 million children die of curable illnesses, one person in four lacks access to drinking water, 114 million children have no primary education and 584 million women are illiterate. "Missing the Millennium Development Goals would be a disaster for developing countries, a failure for Europe, and a potential threat to global stability," the Commission said. "With seven years remaining, the message for 2008 is that the Millennium Development Goals can be achieved, but for this to happen, increased political and public support will be needed," the EU executive said in a statement. The Commission called on EU states to deliver on pledges to boost development aid to 0.56 percent of Gross National Income (GNI) by 2010 and 0.7 percent in 2015, terming this vital to containing problems like migration, security and climate change. It called on each of the 27 EU states to draw up financial plans showing year by year increases to meet the goals. The European Union is the world's biggest aid donor, committing more than 46 billion euros in 2007, but the total amount fell about 1.7 billion euros from 2006, enough to have financed 4,500 schools or 1,200 hospitals. "SERIOUS FAILURE" Aid and development Commissioner Louis Michel last week called this a "serious failure". The Commission urged more effective aid by avoiding duplication of effort, help to developing countries to use biofuels to fight poverty, and steps to help limit brain drains, particularly in health, education and research. "Fundamental principles of aid effectiveness are not yet being respected," it said, adding that it would put forward proposals to improve the situation state by state. It called for 2 billion euros ($3.15 billion) to be allocated by 2010 to the Aid for Trade programme aimed at helping poorer countries take advantage of export opportunities, with special focus on African, Caribbean and Pacific states. Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said 2008 must be a year of action not just words. "If we want to remain credible, we have to deliver on our promises" he said in a statement. A report last week by the 22 member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said development aid from all the world's biggest donors fell last year, largely due to the end of big debt relief packages. In 2000, 189 U.N. members agreed goals aimed at eradicating poverty, promoting human and social development and protecting the environment. In 2005 EU heads of state agreed targets for 2015 of a halving of extreme poverty, access to primary education by all boys and girls and improved health standards. Aid reached 0.38 percent of the EU's GNI last year, below an interim target for 2006 of 0.39 percent -- which the bloc did fulfil in 2006. The European Commission estimates Official Development Assistance amounted to 93 euros per EU citizen, compared to 53 euros per person in the United States and 44 euros in Japan.

It was the fourth major flooding event in five months, underlining a lack of urban planning in low-income neighbourhoods throughout much of Brazil, where shantytowns are often built on hillsides prone to collapse. The destruction also comes as scientists begin to question whether abnormal rain cycles in Latin America's largest nation could be a result of climate change. As of Sunday afternoon, 56 people had died in the northeastern state of Pernambuco and one died in the neighbouring state of Alagoas, according to a message posted on Twitter by the Federal Civil Defense service, which is in charge of emergency management. Another 56 people in Pernambuco were missing. Between those two states, over 6,000 people had arrived at government-designated aid points and more than 7,000 were staying with friends or relatives, the Federal Civil Defense service said. In a Twitter post, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said he would arrive in Recife, the hard-hit capital of Pernambuco, on Monday morning. "Our government made available, since the beginning, all means, including the armed forces, to help those who have been affected," he wrote. In late December and early January, dozens were killed and tens of thousands displaced when rains hammered Bahia state, also located in northeastern Brazil. At least 18 died in flooding in the southeastern state of Sao Paulo later in January. In February, torrential downpours in Rio de Janeiro state killed over 230.

The Pacific gray whale population, thought by some experts to have rebounded fully from the ravages of whaling, actually is back to a mere fraction of historic levels, scientists said on Monday. Knowing that an examination of genetic variation within a species can help gauge past population numbers, the scientists used a US government tissue collection to analyze DNA samples from 42 gray whales. The genetic variation seen among these whales indicated a past population far bigger than the current 22,000, researchers at Stanford University and the University of Washington wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. They determined that before large-scale hunting of this species began in the 19th century, there were about 96,000 gray whales in the Pacific Ocean -- with as many as many as 118,000 and as few as 76,000. That would mean the current count is 19 percent to 29 percent of the pre-hunting population. The gray whale is a large baleen whale -- a "filter feeder" that feasts on large amounts of small sea creatures -- that first swam the world's oceans perhaps 20 million years ago. "The gray whale population is one of the few baleen whale populations thought to have recovered completely from whaling. In other words, it was thought that there are as many gray whales now as there ever were," Stanford marine biologist Liz Alter, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview. "But when we surveyed genetic diversity we found a much higher level of diversity than we would have expected given the size today, indicating that there once were many more gray whales in the Pacific Ocean than there are now," Alter added. This marine giant was hunted to the brink of extinction, with the population bottoming out at perhaps a few thousand by the end of the 19th century and through the 1920s, the researchers said. The gray whale disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean centuries ago, with some experts blaming whaling. The gray whale migrates along North America's Pacific Coast between arctic seas and the lagoons off of Mexico's Baja California. It was given its name due to the gray patches and white mottling on its dark skin. They are about 46 feet (14 meters) long and weigh up to 40 tonnes. Gray whales feed off the sea bottom, scooping up mud and eating small crustaceans and tube worms found in sediments. The gray whale was given partial protection in 1937 and full protection in 1947 by the International Whaling Commission, the American Cetacean Society said. Once hunted in large numbers, gray whales now attract whale watchers along North America's Pacific coast. The whales are still occasionally hunted. Five Washington state American Indian hunters may face prosecution from their Makah tribe after illegally shooting and killing a gray whale on Saturday with harpoons and a rifle often used to hunt elephants. A number of gray whales have been spotted by scientists in recent years suffering from starvation. The researchers said their findings suggest the whales have less to eat due to changing climate conditions in their Arctic feeding grounds. The researchers said other animals also may have been affected by the diminished numbers of the gray whale. Fellow Stanford researcher Steve Palumbi said Arctic seabirds foraged on creatures dug up by the whales as they fed on the bottom. Palumbi said that 96,000 gray whales would have helped feed more than a million seabirds annually.

A firefighter refused to shake Morrison's hand when he visited the town of Cobargo in New South Wales state on Thursday. Video footage showed Morrison tried to grab the man's hand, who then got up and walked away, sparking an apology from the prime minister. A local fire official explained that the man had lost his house while defending others' homes. Another man blasted Morrison for watching fireworks over Sydney Harbour from his official waterfront mansion, Kirribilli House, while fires raged further south on New Year's Eve. "You won't be getting any votes down here, buddy. You're an idiot," the man shouted. "I don't see Kirribilli burning after the fireworks," he screamed. Morrison said on Friday he didn't take the attacks personally. "I just see it as a sense of frustration and hurt and loss and anger that is out there about what is the ferocity of these natural disasters," he told reporters in Bairnsdale in eastern Victoria state. "And I understand that, and we will seek to provide that comfort and support in whatever way we can," he said. Morrison had walked away from a Cobargo woman who urged him to provide more funding to the town and state firefighters. "This is not fair. We're totally forgotten about down here. Every single time this area has a flood or a fire, we get nothing," another woman shouted as Morrison drove away. Even a state politician from his own Liberal party whose seat is in the region took a swipe at the prime minister. "To be honest, the locals probably gave him the welcome he probably deserved," said New South Wales transport minister Andrew Constance. The prime minister, who won a surprise election victory last May, ended 2019 on a sour note with fires raging across five states while he took off on a family holiday to Hawaii. Facing criticism, he cut the holiday short and apologised for making a mistake. He is now considering cancelling an official trip to India scheduled for Jan. 13 to 16, due to the fire emergency. "I'm inclined not to proceed on that visit," Morrison said on Friday. Australia's coal and gas exports, blamed for adding to global climate change and the conditions stoking bushfires, were expected to be high on the agenda for talks in India. Morrison's government has long supported a controversial coal mine planned by India's Adani Group in Australia.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett urged Japan on Tuesday to use its advanced technology to help China reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, despite Japanese concerns about increasing competition with its giant neighbour. Beckett was speaking to business leaders at a climate change symposium in Tokyo, where she is on a visit for talks with Foreign Minister Taro Aso following a stay in China. "Japanese low-carbon technology is second to none. Now is the time for Japan to capitalise on that," she said. "I know Japanese business has particular concerns about economic competition with China. But we all have more to lose if China does not make the transition to a low carbon economy." China could overtake the United States to become the top emitter of global warming gases as early as this year, but Beijing has rejected caps on its emissions growth for the coming decades and called for more technology transfer. Beckett said her visit to China, where she met Premier Wen Jiabao and other senior officials, convinced her Beijing was more serious about tackling climate change than many believe. "Many outside China seem to misunderstand where China is on this issue," she said. "China's leadership is worried about the implications of climate change on their economy and their social stability." China is also keen to bolster its energy security, she said. "That is why China has set itself such challenging targets on energy efficiency. It is not rhetoric, it is a radical restructuring of the economy." Beckett is set to discuss with Aso ways of extending the Kyoto protocol on climate change, which expires in 2012, and said Japan's role as host of next year's Group of Eight summit of wealthy nations would be vital. An international agreement must be reached by 2009 in order to avoid a damaging gap in regulation, a British official said last week. The United States refused to ratify the Kyoto agreement, which did not set binding emissions targets for China and India. Germany, the host of this year's G8, set to be held next month, wants member countries to agree to halve carbon emissions by 2050 and promote carbon trading.

Hillary Clinton hopes to reassure allies jittery about US policy on North Korea and to set the tone for a productive relationship with China when she visits Asia next week on her first trip as secretary of state. Breaking with tradition, Clinton's inaugural journey will take her to Japan, Indonesia, South Korea and China rather than the United States' historic allies in Europe and the perennial trouble spots of the Middle East. Clinton leaves Washington on Sunday and plans to spend two nights in Tokyo, one each in Jakarta and Seoul, and then two in Beijing before returning to Washington on February 22. While US President Barack Obama has not detailed his Asia policies, analysts said the visit itself was a powerful signal he wants to keep his campaign promise to consult allies such as Japan and South Korea after their perceived neglect by former President George W. Bush. Clinton also hopes to lay the ground to work with China to curb the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran and to cope with the global financial crisis and climate change -- priorities that may mute any critique of the Chinese human rights record, which she famously criticized in a 1995 speech in Beijing. "This, in many ways, should be a listening tour," said Elizabeth Economy, director for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign relations. "We need to hear from the Chinese what ... their priorities are in the relationship with the United States because ... that is how we are going to get any leverage," she added. LONG LAUNDRY LIST Analysts advised Clinton not to confront the Chinese with a series of demands on her first visit as secretary of state. That said, the laundry list is long. The United States would like China to do more to support internal consumer demand and reduce its reliance on exports to generate its growth. It would also like to see the Chinese currency appreciate, making US exports more competitive and helping to narrow the vast US trade deficit with China. In announcing her trip, the State Department put "financial markets turmoil" as the first item on her Asia agenda on a list that included humanitarian issues, security and climate change but omitted North Korea -- a key issue in Tokyo and Seoul. In recent months, the North has repeatedly warned of war and threatened to destroy the conservative government in Seoul that has ended a decade of free-flowing aid to Pyongyang after taking office a year ago. There are also reports Pyongyang may be preparing to test its longest-range Taepodong-2 missile, designed to hit Alaska. Talks to end North Korea's nuclear arms program have been stalled for months with Pyongyang complaining that aid given in return for crippling its nuclear plant at Yongbyon is not being delivered as promised in a "six-party" deal it struck with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States. The secretive North has balked at a demand by the other powers that it commit to a system to check claims it made about its nuclear program, leaving the talks in limbo. While Clinton has said she is committed to the talks, and is expected to name retired diplomat Stephen Bosworth to lead the U.S. delegation, there remains lingering anxiety in both Seoul and Tokyo that the Obama administration could cut them out should it pursue closer bilateral talks with North Korea. There are also fears the United States could accept a nuclear North Korea, a possibility analysts dismissed. "In Tokyo, she will reassure them of the primacy of the US-Japan alliance ... and in South Korea, she will remind them that Obama's commitment to talk with adversaries doesn't mean that we are going to allow North Korea to play Washington off against Seoul," said a US congressional aide. SUBTLE ON HUMAN RIGHTS Spliced between her stops in Japan and South Korea, Clinton plans to spend a night in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country where Obama lived during part of his childhood. The visit appeared in sync with Obama's desire to forge a better U.S. relationship with the Muslim world, where many of Bush's policies, including the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, were deeply unpopular. Clinton ends her trip in Beijing, which an aide said she last visited when her husband, former President Bill Clinton, was in the White House. As US first lady in 1995, Clinton critiqued Chinese policy at a U.N. conference in Beijing without citing China by name. "Freedom means the right of people to assemble, organize, and debate openly. It means respecting the views of those who may disagree with the views of their governments," she said. "It means not taking citizens away from their loved ones and jailing them, mistreating them, or denying them their freedom or dignity because of the peaceful expression of their ideas and opinions." Human rights groups including Amnesty International, Freedom House and the International Campaign for Tibet urged Clinton to speak out about suspected torture in police custody, censorship and abuses of human rights defenders. But analysts said Clinton could not afford to jeopardize Chinese cooperation on North Korea and other issues. "She is quite capable, in a diplomatic and subtle way, of bringing the issue up so that she has put a marker down without throwing it in their face," said Jack Pritchard of the Korea Economic Institute, a former White House Asia specialist.

Burundi is due to hold a referendum on May 17 to decide whether to amend the constitution to extend presidential terms to seven years from five. Human rights groups say they do not think the vote will take place in a free and fair climate, while there has been sporadic incidents of violence and abductions. Emmanuel Bigirimana, the head of Buganda district, said the incident happened in a village called Ruhagarika at around 10 pm on Friday. "They arrived at the village ... armed with rifles, some with machetes, and started shooting. Some died instantly and others were rushed to the hospital," he told Reuters by phone. "The attackers were around 20 and nearly all of them were in military uniforms." Burundi was plunged into crisis in April 2015 when President Pierre Nkurunziza said he planned to run for a third term, which the opposition said was unconstitutional and violated a peace deal that had ended the country's civil war in 2005. Nkurunziza was re-elected, but some of his opponents took up arms against him. Rights groups say an estimated 400,000 people have sought refuge from the violence in neighbouring countries. Government officials and members of the opposition have been among those killed in tit-for-tat violence by rival sides. The proposed constitutional changes would limit the president to two consecutive terms but would not take into account previous terms, potentially extending Nkurunziza's rule to 2034. Three residents at the village who did not wish to be named said it was likely the attack was to warn against anyone voting in favour of constitutional changes. But Bigirimana downplayed that, saying the attackers were not politically motivated, given they targeted three homesteads and killing only women and children. "A whole family of six people has also been slain. The attack was not politically motivated but was rather a settlement of a score," he said.

The European Union must reach a consensus on climate policy if it wants to play a leading role in UN-led talks on a new pact to cut greenhouse gases, a Polish official said on Tuesday. A package of climate measures proposed by the European Commission -- the EU executive -- aims, among other things, to cut carbon dioxide emissions by a fifth by 2020 compared with 1990 levels. However, it faces opposition from some member states and from the car industry. France, holder of the rotating EU presidency, hopes to forge a compromise among the 27 member states by December when negotiators meet in Poznan, Poland, to discuss a new global deal on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. "For Poland, the current proposal is still more a threat than an opportunity, I think. If the EU wants to set an example in Poznan, it has to work out a consensus within the bloc first," Piotr Serafin, a deputy head of the Office of the Committee for European Integration, told a climate change panel organized by a pro EU think-tank on Tuesday. "Only then will it be able to act as a role model on the world stage. Tension in the global negotiations will be between rich and poor. And you cannot force China or India into a deal. Europe must work out its own consensus in order to exert pressure on the global stage." Poland fears ambitious EU goals for curbing emissions would result in energy price increases of up to 70 percent. With fellow ex-communist states Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania, it has signed a statement calling for more debate on Brussels' plans. Some political analysts have seen the declaration of the five ex-communist countries as an attempt to build up a blocking minority in the EU that would force the Commission to seek a compromise on its plans. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in June Warsaw might try to block the plan if Warsaw's demands were not met. "It would be hard for me to imagine a situation in which the climate package -- with all its long-term consequences -- would be approved by one group outvoting the other," Serafin said. "Anyway, the target date set by the French presidency may turn out to be a bit too ambitious." Poland, which derives about 95 percent of its electricity from coal, wants to delay Commission plans for the start of full auctioning of carbon dioxide emission permits in 2013. At present, companies are granted some emission permits for free but in the future they will have to buy all permits, increasing their costs.

Pressures, hopes, aspirations — this was the burden on Harris at the Democratic convention as she sought, in telling the story of her life, to introduce herself to a nation and a party that really barely knows her. But this is also the burden that will be on her for the next four years if she and Biden win in November. Rarely has a vice-presidential candidate served under a presidential nominee who well may not seek a second term. As a result, Harris carries an extraordinary weight of expectations from her party to rise to the demands of leadership. “That’s a lot to put on the shoulders of a person,” said Tim Kaine, the Virginia senator who was the vice-presidential candidate for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In the tumultuous tent that is the ever-changing Democratic Party, he said, there was no one person Biden could have chosen who would appeal to everyone. “There’s no way that you’re going to get, in this broad family, like everybody like, ‘Oh, you were my first pick,’” he said, even as he spoke enthusiastically about Harris. If anything, the first two days of the convention were about the party trying to paper over any kinds of disagreements, aiming to present a united front of moderates and progressives, as well as some Republicans and democratic socialists. With elaborate videos and stage-managed speeches, Democrats showcased diversity — racial, gender, age — while nominating a 77-year-old white grandfather from Delaware as their standard-bearer. Party leaders gave small slots to liberals, although barely gave a platform to their policy goals like “Medicare for All.” For the time being, the party’s desire to beat President Donald Trump overrides all other factors. But if the Democrats succeed, Trump will be gone, and the challenge of satisfying the many constituent parts of the Democratic Party will become only more difficult for Harris, the figure who is supposed to be that bridge for generations and the face of the party’s future. Like every vice-presidential candidate, Harris will be judged in the coming weeks in a multitude of ways: her ability as a campaigner and her skill at drawing in Trump, debating Mike Pence and exciting turnout among voters — particularly younger voters and progressives — who might not be overly enthusiastic about turning out in a pandemic to support Biden. But as a woman of colour seeking an office held only by white men so far, she may also be judged by some in ways that reflect deep-seated biases that remain strong in segments of the country. Harris took this subject on directly for her Democratic audience, and it is probably not the last time she will need to address it in the months ahead. “We must elect a president who will bring something different, something better, and do the important work,” she said, speaking from Wilmington. “A president who will bring all of us together — Black, white, Latino, Asian, Indigenous — to achieve the future we collectively want. We must elect Joe Biden.” She now faces some daunting tests as she steps into the biggest spotlight of her career at a pivotal moment for the nation and her party. Can Harris, a former prosecutor and relatively moderate Democrat, navigate the complex political terrain marked by a rapid transformation in ideology, powered by the rise on the left, and on the verge of a generational handoff? Given Biden’s age, does the first-term Democratic senator from California, whose career in public service began 16 years ago as the San Francisco district attorney, seem prepared to step into the Oval Office should that be necessary? In her speech, Harris spoke about the threat of the pandemic and a president “who turns our tragedies into political weapons.” She talked about grief and “a loss of normalcy” as the nation struggles with COVID-19 and pointed out that Black, Latino and Indigenous people were suffering disproportionately because of “structural racism.” In perhaps her most direct callout to the thousands of Americans who have marched against police abuses in cities for months, she said, “There is no vaccine for racism.” She named victims of police violence like George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. But she spent just as much time on the centrality of family and friendships, and her biography as a prosecutor defending people and victims. “I know a predator when I see one,” she said. She would be the first Black woman and first person of Indian descent to ever serve as vice president, and the power of such a historically symbolic choice was evident in the excitement that greeted her selection and has coursed through this convention (albeit virtually). After a primary that was dominated by two white men and one white woman, all over 70 years old, the nomination of a 55-year-old woman of colour signalled that the Democratic Party’s leadership is catching up with the demographic changes that have swept the country. She has shown herself to be a fierce debater and sharp speaker during her short-lived campaign for president and, even more, as a member of the Judiciary Committee questioning Attorney General William Barr. There is little doubt in Democratic circles that she will live up to the tradition of vice-presidential candidates wielding the sword against the other side. “Donald Trump’s failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods,” she said. “The constant chaos leaves us adrift. The incompetence makes us feel afraid. The callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot.” But even the toughest campaign in California doesn’t approach what it’s like battling on a national stage, particularly in a nation as polarized as this one, and particularly in the age of Trump. She has had competitive contests in California, but her presidential campaign collapsed early, beset by infighting and a lack of clear message from its candidate. Patti Solis Doyle, who served as a campaign manager for Clinton’s 2008 presidential run, pointed to the surge of contributions that followed Harris’ announcement — $48 million in 48 hours — as a sign of the enthusiasm she infused into the presidential race. “Voters, Democrats — are excited at the prospect of the first African American woman, the first American Indian woman on a national ticket,” Solis Doyle said of Harris, who is the daughter of immigrants from India and Jamaica. Kaine said Harris could help the ticket expand its generational appeal, engaging Americans who feel it’s time for a new guard even as some older voters have indicated that they are comfortable with Biden’s centrist views and promises to restore civility and stability to government. “There’s a segment of the Democratic vote, not all of this, but a segment that may be a little bit older that just wants competence and character and kind of old-time virtues to come back into the Oval Office,” he said. “You also want to have some excitement and energy. And Kamala really brings that.” But her bigger challenge — for Harris as a candidate, potential vice president and future party leader — is how she responds to the rising influence of the left-wing of the party. Biden won the Democratic primary on his strengths with Black voters, older voters and white suburbanites, but younger and more liberal voters overall were sceptical of his centre-left instincts and embrace of bipartisanship, of which they were reminded with the awarding of prime speaking spots Monday and Tuesday to Republicans backing Biden. And while Harris, as a product of California, is more fluent in the language of the left than Biden, her selection did not reassure many liberal Democrats, wary of her record on policing issues. “She’s the choice of the party establishment to be the standard-bearer, but she’s not the choice of the party’s base, especially the next generation of Democrats,” said Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for the prominent progressive organization Justice Democrats. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, one of the most prominent leaders of the progressive wing, never mentioned Biden or Harris when she spoke for 90 seconds nominating Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont on Tuesday night. That dissent has been largely submerged during this convention, testimony to the party’s hunger to defeat Trump. But that will change if the Democrats win. Harris will need to finesse this divide or risk a primary from the left should the time come when she is the one running for president. Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led group of climate activists, said Harris’ nomination was a historic moment that excited Democrats across generational and ideological spectrums. “I think Kamala Harris could represent one way in which the future of the Democratic Party is headed,” she said. “But the Democratic Party has far more ideological diversity that goes beyond the Harris ticket.” Harris did not appear to have any such doubts as she spoke of following in the footsteps of President Barack Obama, the nation’s first Black president, and Hillary Clinton, who sought to become the nation’s first female president. She has been elevated by Biden to national stature, embraced by many in the party, and celebrated at a convention. Things will surely get more difficult in the weeks and, should she win, the years ahead. But for now, addressing Democrats with a message about unity and the future in the midst of a pandemic, presenting herself as a new leader of the party to a nation facing an unnerving future, this was Kamala Harris’ moment. c.2020 The New York Times Company

COPENHAGEN, Dec 6, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in an interview published on Sunday that he was optimistic the Dec. 7-18 climate conference in the Danish capital would produce an agreement all member states would sign. Delegates from 190 nations have descended on Copenhagen over the weekend for the UN climate change conference that starts on Monday and aims for a new global deal to replace provisions of the Kyoto Protocol expiring in 2012. "I am very optimistic for Copenhagen," Ban said in an interview in the Danish daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende. "We will get an agreement -- and, I believe, that the agreement will be signed by all UN member states which is historic," Ban said in the interview at his office at UN headquarters in New York. "We have the right political spirit," Ban said. "All heads of state and government have the same goal -- to prevent global warming." How to act to achieve that goal remains to be determined, the South Korean secretary-general said. World leaders coming to Copenhagen will try to reach a political agreement on how to combat climate change. Last month, Denmark upgraded the Copenhagen conference by inviting the heads of state and government of all 192 UN member states, hoping to gain the political clout for a deal. So far 105 world leaders have accepted the invitation, including US President Barack Obama, Chinese leader Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Ban said that Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen had done well to aim for a political agreement in Copenhagen, saying the idea had "given dynamism to the negotiations." "With so many heads of state and government gathered, we will obviously enter an agreement, first a political agreement and immediately after that a legally binding document," Ban said. "I am convinced that we will." Ban also said that UN member nations had recognised the conclusions of the scientists on the UN climate panel. "Climate change is real, and it is happening now at an even faster pace than we believed just a few years ago," Ban said, according to the newspaper. "The meeting in Copenhagen is entirely the right moment to deal with it from the knowledge that we have," Ban said.

Hours after the military council sought to calm public anger by promising a new civilian government, Defence Minister Awad Ibn Auf said in a televised speech he was quitting as head of the council. Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan Abdelrahman will be the new head of the council, Ibn Auf said. He also said Chief of Staff Kamal Abdelmarouf al-Mahi was relieved of his position as deputy head of the transitional military council. “In order to ensure the cohesion of the security system, and the armed forces in particular, from cracks and strife, and relying on God, let us begin this path of change,” Ibn Auf said. News of the change sparked joyful celebrations by many thousands in the streets of Khartoum as people chanted, “The second has fallen!” in reference to Bashir, witnesses said. “What happened is a step in the right direction and is a bow to the will of the masses, and we have become closer to victory,” Rashid Saeed, a spokesman for the main protest group, the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), told Reuters. “We are committed to our demands that we submitted to the army,” he said. “We call on the masses to stay on the streets until all the demands are met.” The military council said earlier that it expected a pre-election transition to last two years at most or much less if chaos can be avoided. The head of the military council’s political committee, Omar Zain al-Abideen, said the council would hold a dialogue with political entities. The announcement of a future civilian government appeared aimed at reassuring demonstrators who had pressed for months for Bashir’s departure and quickly resumed protests against army rule after his ouster on Thursday, calling for quicker and more substantial change. In a clear challenge to Ibn Auf’s military council, several thousand protesters remained in front of the defence ministry compound, and in other parts of the capital, as a night time curfew Ibn Auf had announced went into effect. The SPA said the military council was “not capable of creating change.” In a statement, the group restated its demand for power to be handed immediately to “a transitional civilian government.” Bashir, 75, himself seized power in a 1989 military coup. He had faced 16 weeks of demonstrations sparked by rising food costs, high unemployment and increasing repression during his three decades of autocratic rule. Worshippers packed the streets around the Defence Ministry for Friday prayers, heeding a call by the SPA to challenge the military council. The numbers swelled in the afternoon, and a Reuters witness estimated hundreds of thousands of protesters thronged areas around the ministry, which was guarded by soldiers. At least 16 people were killed and 20 injured by stray bullets at protests and sit-ins on Thursday and Friday, a Sudanese police spokesman said in a statement on Saturday. Government buildings and private property were also attacked, spokesman Hashem Ali added. He asked citizens to help ensure safety and public order. “We do not reject a military council in principle, but we reject these people because they are from Bashir’s regime,” said Abdelhamid Ahmed, a 24-year-old doctor. Ibn Auf was Bashir’s vice president and defence minister and is among a handful of Sudanese commanders whom Washington imposed sanctions on over their alleged role during atrocities committed in the Darfur conflict that began in 2003. Announcing Bashir’s ouster on Thursday and the creation of the military council, Ibn Auf also announced a state of emergency, a nationwide ceasefire and the suspension of the constitution, as well as the night time curfew from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Those steps were criticised as heavy-handed by rights groups. Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman was the third most senior general in the Sudanese armed forces and is not known in public life. He was the head of Sudan’s ground forces, a role in which he oversaw Sudanese troops that fought in the Saudi-led Yemen war. INCLUSIVE POLITICAL PROCESS Sudan’s deputy UN ambassador, Yasir Abdalla Abdelsalam Ahmed, told the UN Security Council on Friday that any democratic process in the country required time, and he urged the international community to support a peaceful transition. “No party will be excluded from the political process, including armed groups,” he told the council during a meeting on Abyei, a contested border region claimed by Sudan and South Sudan. The 15-member council convened later on Friday behind closed doors to be briefed on the latest developments in Sudan. “Moreover, the suspension of the constitution could be lifted at any point and the transitional period could be shortened depending on developments on the ground and agreements reached between stakeholders,” the Sudanese envoy said. World powers, including the United States and Britain, said they supported a peaceful and democratic transition sooner than two years. China said it would continue to seek cooperation with Sudan regardless of the political situation. Zain al-Abideen said the military council would not interfere with a civilian government. However, he said the defence and interior ministries would be under its control. Burhan, the new head of the transitional military council, was the inspector general of the Sudanese armed forces and its third most senior general. He is little known in public life. He was the head of Sudan’s ground forces, a role in which he oversaw Sudanese troops who fought in the Saudi-led Yemen war. He has close ties to senior Gulf military officials as he was responsible for coordinating Sudan’s military involvement in the war. “NOT GREEDY FOR POWER” Zain al-Abideen said the military council itself had no solutions to Sudan’s crisis and these would come from the protesters. “We are not greedy for power,” he said. “We will not dictate anything to the people. We want to create an atmosphere to manage a peaceful dialogue”. He said the council was to meet on Friday with political entities to prepare a “climate for dialogue,” but that was later postponed. The council said it did not invite Bashir’s National Congress Party to join the dialogue because “it is responsible for what happened.” It warned protesters that the army would not tolerate unrest. Ibn Auf said on Thursday that Bashir was being detained in a “safe place.” Sudanese sources told Reuters he was at the presidential residence under heavy guard. The council said on Friday it would not extradite Bashir, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Bashir is facing an arrest warrant over accusations of genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region during an insurgency that began in 2003 and led to the death of an estimated 300,000 people. He denies the allegations.

Erdogan has said Turkey would not apologise for downing the jet, which resulted in the death of one of the pilots. Because of this, Russian President Vladimir Putin has refused to contact Erdogan over the incident. But Moscow has retaliated with economic sanctions on Turkey and has retracted visa-free travel between the two countries. "The recent events really saddened us," Erdogan said in a televised speech in the western city of Baliksehir. However, he stopped short of the apology demanded by Russia. Erdogan has said Turkey deserves the apology because its air space was violated by the Russian aircraft. "On Monday in Paris there will be an international climate summit, that can be a chance to repair our relations with Russia. Confrontation will not bring anyone happiness. As much as Russia is important for Turkey, Turkey is important for Russia," Erdogan said. Turkish government spokesman Numan Kurtulmus said Turkey is deliberating which measures to take in light of Russia's retaliatory steps.

A giant Chinese salamander that predates Tyrannosaurus rex and the world's smallest frog are among a group of extremely rare amphibians identified by scientists on Monday as being in need of urgent help to survive. The Olm, a blind salamander that can survive for 10 years without food, and a purple frog that spends most of its life four metres underground are also among the 10 most endangered amphibians drawn up by the Zoological Society of London. "These species are the 'canaries in the coalmine' -- they are highly sensitive to factors such as climate change and pollution, which lead to extinction, and are a stark warning of things to come," said EDGE head Jonathan Baillie. EDGE, which stands for Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered, is a project set up a year ago to identify and start to protect some of nature's most weird and wonderful creatures. "The EDGE amphibians are amongst the most remarkable and unusual species on the planet and yet an alarming 85 percent of the top 100 are receiving little or no conservation attention," said the project's amphibians chief Helen Meredith. While last year's launch focused on at risk mammals, this year the focus shifted to neglected amphibians. "These animals may not be cute and cuddly, but hopefully their weird looks and bizarre behaviours will inspire people to support their conservation," Meredith added. Not only are the target species unique, the project itself is breaking new ground by using the internet at www.zsl.org/edge to highlight threatened creatures and encourage the public to sponsor conservation. Global warming and human depredation of habitat are cited as root causes of the problem facing the creatures from the massive to the minute. The Chinese giant salamander, a distant relative of the newt, can grow up to 1.8 metres in length while the tiny Gardiner's Seychelles frog when full grown is only the size of a drawing pin. Also on this year's list is the limbless Sagalla caecilian, South African ghost frogs, lungless Mexican salamanders, the Malagasy rainbow frog, Chile's Darwin frog and the Betic midwife toad whose male carries fertilised eggs on its hind legs. "Tragically, amphibians tend to be the overlooked members of the animal kingdom, even though one in every three amphibian species is currently threatened with extinction, a far higher proportion than that of bird or mammal species," said EDGE's Baillie.

In an interview with Reuters television, the 17-year-old said governments would only be able to mount a meaningful response once they accepted they needed to transform the whole economic system. "We need to see it as, above all, an existential crisis. And as long as it's not being treated as a crisis, we can have as many of these climate change negotiations and talks, conferences as possible. It won't change a thing," Thunberg said, speaking via video from her home in Stockholm. "Above all, we are demanding that we need to treat this crisis as a crisis, because if we don't do that, then we won't be able to do anything," Thunberg said. Thunberg joined several thousand people, including climate scientists, economists, actors and activists in signing an open letter climateemergencyeu.org urging European leaders to start treating climate change like an "emergency." The letter was made public on Thursday, a day before a European Council summit where countries in the 27-member EU will try to reach a deal on the bloc's next budget and a recovery package to respond to the economic shock of the coronavirus pandemic. Demands in the letter included an immediate halt to all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, in parallel with a rapid ending of fossil fuel subsidies. It also called for binding annual "carbon budgets" to limit how much greenhouse gas countries can emit to maximise the chances of capping the rise in average global temperatures at 1.5C, a goal enshrined in the 2015 Paris climate accord. "We understand and know very well that the world is complicated and that what we are asking for may not be easy. The changes necessary to safeguard humanity may seem very unrealistic," the letter said. "But it is much more unrealistic to believe that our society would be able to survive the global heating we're heading for, as well as other disastrous ecological consequences of today's business as usual." The letter called for climate policies to be designed to protect workers and the most vulnerable and reduce economic, racial and gender inequalities, as well as moves to "safeguard and protect" democracy.

Fri Jan 22, 2010 9:36am IST TAIPEI (Reuters) - A Taiwan military plane carrying aid for quake-hit Haiti will be allowed to land in the United States for the first time, a US official said on Friday, a move which could anger the island's political rival China. The aircraft will refuel in the US on its way to Haiti, said Chris Kavanagh, spokesman for the American Institute in Taiwan, the de facto US embassy on the island. "This is a humanitarian mission. We want to help them get relief to Haiti as soon as possible, so we said OK," Kavanagh said. The move comes at a time of increased friction between China and the United States, at odds over US arms sales to Taiwan, exchange rates, trade quarrels, climate change policy and Google Inc.'s dispute with Beijing over hacking and censorship. China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when Mao Zedong's Communists won the Chinese civil war and Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to the island. Beijing has vowed to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary, and vehemently opposes military contact between Taipei and Washington. The United States switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979 but is obliged by the Taiwan Relations Act to help the island defend itself if attacked. US and Taiwan officials declined to give details of the cargo aircraft's mission, but local media said the plane was an air force C-130 turboprop plane. Haiti, one of Taiwan's only 23 diplomatic allies compared to China's more than 170, has received $5 million in Taiwan government aid for relief after the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed as many as 200,000 people. In another move that could upset China, Taiwan said US officials would let island President Ma Ying-jeou stop in the United States next week on a trip to Latin America. China has made no comment so far.

Scientists in Panama have unearthed hundreds of animal fossils dating back 20 million years, which could shed more light on how and when the American continent became connected. Geologists from the U.S. Smithsonian Institution, which has a permanent base in Panama, say engineers digging to widen the Panama Canal have uncovered more than 500 fossils including teeth and bones of rodents, horses, crocodiles and turtles that lived before a land bridge linked North and South America. "With these discoveries we will be able to get more information about the process by which the continual land bridge was formed," Smithsonian geologist Camilo Montes told Reuters. Since February, the geologists accompanied engineers on excavations to expand the canal, having been invited by the government to make sure nothing of value was destroyed. Scientists believe the South American and Caribbean tectonic plates collided around 15 million years ago, causing volcanic activity that eventually formed a thin strip of land linking the Americas and separating the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The bridge was probably fully formed, in a way that mammals could walk over it, some 3 million years ago. By comparing the Panama discoveries to fossil records from each continent, paleontologists hope to determine where individual species came from. Volcanic debris embedded in the same layer of rock as the fossils will help pinpoint the time when the animal was found on either side of the land bridge. "We will be able to get a much more precise date for when the continents started to close together," said Montes. The forging of the Americas resulted in a mass migration of animals, while the separation of the two oceans transformed the world's climate and prompted the development of new species. Montes said determining exactly when this closure happened could be key to understanding the link between major changes in ocean currents and our climate, providing some insight into the impact of global warming. "The closure could be linked to an ice age which affected North America around the same time, perhaps by altering ocean currents," Montes said. "Some have argued the timing of the ice age is a coincidence. A more accurate timeline for the closure could tell us whether those two things were separate or linked." The excavations are part of an archeological project to explore an area that will soon become part of the $5.25 billion project to expand the overcrowded Panama Canal.

Just before a new round of climate talks began in Glasgow, the G20 nations pledged on Sunday to end finance for all coal-fired power plants overseas. It followed a similar commitment made by Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United Nations General Assembly in September. According to new research from Boston University's Global Development Policy Center, the G20 pledge means that 99 percent of all development finance institutions are committed to cutting coal investment and raising support for renewables. "If these institutions live up to their commitments, it will be easier for developing countries to find official finance for renewable energy and coal power phase-out than for building new coal-fired power plants," said Rebecca Ray, senior researcher at the GDP Center and one of the study's authors. The study said only three major "holdouts" remain - the Development Bank of Latin America, the Islamic Development Bank and the New Development Bank - though many of the major shareholders in those institutions were part of the G20 pledge. Xi's September announcement that China would no longer be involved in overseas coal projects was the most significant change so far, depriving coal-fired power of its biggest financial backers, including the China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, the study said. The decision appears to have had an immediate effect on the country's financial institutions, with the Bank of China vowing to end new overseas coal mining and power projects starting in October. One expert involved in drawing up guidelines to decarbonise China's Belt and Road investments said Chinese financial institutions were aware of the waning demand for coal-fired power, making it easier for Xi's order to be implemented. "They are quite serious about it," said the expert, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter. "They are not looking for excuses to continue the projects; they are looking for reasons not to continue." With coal already struggling to compete with renewables - and many analysts forecasting that the sector will eventually consist of billions of dollars worth of "stranded assets" - China's decision to pull out represented a rare alignment of political, economic and climate interests, analysts said. "The economics have changed, and their experience with financing coal with the Belt and Road Initiative wasn't good - there are already issues with host countries defaulting on debt," said Matt Gray, analyst with the climate think tank TransitionZero. "I think they now have the political signals (to stop investing) that they have been crying out for all along."

The world's water supply is being strained by climate change and the growing food, energy and sanitary needs of a fast-growing population, according to a United Nations study that calls for a radical rethink of policies to manage competing claims. "Freshwater is not being used sustainably," UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement. "Accurate information remains disparate, and management is fragmented ... the future is increasingly uncertain and risks are set to deepen." It says that demand from agriculture, which already sucks up around 70 percent of freshwater used globally, is likely to rise by at least 19 percent by 2050 as the world's population swells an estimated 2 billion people to 9 billion. Farmers will need to grow 70 percent more food by that time as rising living standards mean individuals demand more food, and meat in particular. The report will be debated at the World Water Forum, which starts in the French city of Marseille on Monday. A "silent revolution" has taken place underground, the report warns, as the amount of water sucked from below the surface has tripled in the past 50 years, removing a buffer against drought. And just as demand increases, supply in many regions is likely to shrink because of changed rainfall patterns, greater droughts, melting glaciers and altered river flows, it says. "Climate change will drastically affect food production in South Asia and Southern Africa between now and 2030," the report says. "By 2070, water stress will also be felt in central and southern Europe." Asia is home to 60 percent of the world's population but only around a third of water resources, it points out. A separate water study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) released last week forecast world water demand would rise by 55 percent by 2050, with more than 40 percent of the global population likely to live in water basins facing water stress. The report says with limited supply, policymakers will have to better manage the competing demands of farmers, energy producers and humans demanding drinking water and sanitation. "The lack of interaction between the diverse communities of users, decision makers and isolated water managers has caused serious degradation of the water resource," it says. The World Health Organisation said last week the U.N. target to raise the proportion of people with access to safe drinking water by 2015 had actually been reached at the end of 2010. However the figure was contested by French charity Solidarites International, which said 1.9 billion people remained without safe drinking water, not the 783 million estimated by the United Nations. The charity is among groups planning to challenge official messages at the Forum, with some associations holding an alternative event in Marseille.

The economic downturn will test the world's resolve to do more to fight global warming at 190-nation talks in Poland next week, but the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president should temper the gloom. The December 1-12 meeting of 8,000 delegates in Poznan, Poland, will review progress in a two-year push to work out a sweeping new U.N. climate treaty by the end of 2009. So far, many countries have promised to fight global warming despite fears of deep recession, but few have come up with deep cuts in emissions that the U.N. Climate Panel says are needed to avoid the worst of heatwaves, droughts and rising seas. "I'd expect the economic crisis to have an effect" on resolve, Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said of the outlook for Poznan. And "lower oil prices will mean less of an incentive to invest in renewables." "The minute the financial crisis struck, industries said 'this makes it difficult to take on expensive targets'," he told Reuters. Among canceled investments, FPL Group, the largest U.S. wind power operator, has slashed planned 2009 spending by 25 percent to $5.3 billion. Shares in China's Suntech Power Holdings, the world's largest solar module maker, fell to an all-time low last week, down more than 90 percent in 2009. For many nations, Obama's election is reason for optimism -- many U.S. allies accuse President George W. Bush of doing too little to diversify away from fossil fuels. China and the United States are the top greenhouse gas emitters. Obama has promised to "engage vigorously" in climate change talks once he is president and plans a costly stimulus package to revive the economy, including green jobs. CUTS "There are positive influences -- Obama has got elected and he has said that the current economic crisis is not going to impair his resolve to tackle the problem of climate change," said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the U.N. Climate Panel. Obama has promised to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020 -- Bush had foreseen a peak only in 2025 -- and by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Pachauri said Obama might be able to come up with even more. The U.N. panel says rich nations need to cut by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 to keep temperatures below what some nations see as a "dangerous" 2 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) rise. "Maybe this is just the beginning of what we expect from him," Pachauri told Reuters. Pachauri's panel said it would cost less than 0.12 percent of global gross domestic product every year until 2030 to avert the worst of climate change. The economic downturn means countries "are going to have all kinds of excuses to avoid making progress. So it (Poznan) will be a test," said Angela Anderson, director of the Pew Environment Group's global warming campaign. The Poznan talks will mainly review progress and discuss new ideas such as new clean technology for developing nations such as China and India, ways to reward tropical nations for slowing deforestation or help poor countries adapt to climate change. Poznan will also discuss an 86-page text of ideas for a new treaty, but hard decisions will wait for 2009. Environment ministers from 100 nations will attend the final two days. The European Union may be distracted by the run-up to a December 11-12 summit at which leaders will try to agree details of a plan to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020. Italy and Poland are among those worried about costs. "The days are gone when the EU can hide behind the United States and still look good," said Jennifer Morgan, of the E3G environmental think-tank.

Asia-Pacific rim leaders pledged to boost free trade and enhance security on Sunday, at the end of their two-day Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. Here are key points in the "Hanoi Declaration" issued by the 21-member group, which represents nearly half of global trade. TRADE * Pledged to spare no efforts to break the deadlock over the Doha round of global trade talks. * Agreed to study a proposed Asia-Pacific free trade area and report the findings to next year's meeting in Australia. * Agreed on six model measures for free trade arrangements that would serve as a reference for APEC, but emphasised the templates would be non-binding and voluntary. * Called on member countries to implement measures to tackle piracy and copyright infringements. SECURITY * Condemned in an oral statement read out behind closed doors North Korea's Oct. 9 nuclear test. * Acknowledged the need to take action to "protect legitimate financial and commercial systems from abuse" -- a veiled reference to the kind of financial crackdown the United States took against North Korea. * Welcomed a study looking at ways of recovering trade in the event of a terrorist attack or a pandemic. * Agreed to continued collaboration on bird flu, especially on developing official responses and business continuity plans in case of a pandemic. * Welcomed initiatives aimed at mitigating a terrorist threat to the APEC food supply. CORRUPTION * Will consider developing measures to deny safe haven to corrupt individuals and prevent them from accessing gains from their illegal activities. ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE * Instructed APEC ministers to report back in 2007 on policies to promote cleaner energy and improve energy efficiency. * Will encourage energy policies that reduce or remove market distortions and enhance energy security.

Over the past decade, concentrations of the anaesthetics desflurane, isoflurane and sevoflurane have been rising globally and the study has detected the compounds as far a field as Antarctica.Like the well-known climate warmer carbon dioxide, anaesthesia gases allow the atmosphere to store more energy from the Sun, the researchers noted.But unlike carbon dioxide, the medical gases are extra potent in their greenhouse-gas effects."One kilogram of desflurane, for instance, is equivalent to 2,500 kilograms of carbon dioxide in terms of the amount of greenhouse warming potential," said lead researcher Martin Vollmer, atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology in Dubendorf, Switzerland."On a kilogram-per-kilogram basis, it is so much more potent" than carbon dioxide, he said.The researchers reported the 2014 atmospheric concentration of desflurane as 0.30 parts per trillion (ppt).Isoflurane, sevoflurane and halothane came in at 0.097 ppt, 0.13 ppt and 0.0092 ppt, respectively.The team did not include the common anaesthesia nitrous oxide in the study because it has many sources other than anaesthetics.Anaesthesia gas abundance is growing and should not be overlooked, said Yale University School of Medicine anaesthesiologist Jodi Sherman, a reviewer of the study."There is nothing unique about desflurane that we can not do with other drugs," Sherman noted.She argued that it is possible to live without Desflurane.The study appeared online in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

In Virginia, Republican Glenn Youngkin, a former private equity executive, defeated former Governor Terry McAuliffe in Tuesday's vote, with the Democrat conceding on Wednesday morning. Youngkin had distanced himself just enough from former President Donald Trump to win back moderates who had supported Biden only a year ago. In New Jersey, incumbent Democrat Phil Murphy squeaked by Republican challenger Jack Ciattarelli, even though registered Democratic voters outnumber Republicans there by more than 1 million. The result had been in doubt until the Associated Press called the race for Murphy on Wednesday evening, sparing the Democrats a humiliating defeat. Ciattarelli, 59, a former state lawmaker, had trailed by as much as 10 points in some opinion polls but gained ground by criticizing Murphy's unpopular mask requirements for school children. Both Republican candidates saw strong gains in the suburbs from independent voters who had been turned off by Trump's style of politics. The results in states that Biden won easily in 2020 suggest that Democrats' razor-thin majorities in Congress are highly vulnerable in the 2022 elections. If Republicans gain control of both, or even one, chamber of Congress, the party would win the ability to block Biden's legislative agenda in the final two years of his term. The Democratic loss in Virginia gives Trump an opportunity to portray it as a repudiation of Biden as the Republican sets the stage for another possible presidential run in 2024. But Biden, whose approval ratings last week were at the lowest level of his presidency according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos national poll, avoided taking direct responsibility for the disappointment. "People are upset and uncertain about a lot of things, from COVID to school to jobs to a whole range of things and the cost of a gallon of gasoline. And so if I'm able to pass and sign into law my Build Back Better initiative, I’m in a position where you’re going to see a lot of things ameliorated, quickly and swiftly," he said. The top Democrats in Congress vowed to push ahead on Biden's legislative agenda, hoping to pass twin bills worth a combined $2.75 trillion to rebuild roads and bridges as well as bolster the social safety net and fight climate change. They have been held up by months of infighting between progressive and moderate Democrats. REPUBLICAN ROADMAP Youngkin, 54, declared victory after a campaign in which he focused on parents' anger over schools' handling of COVID-19, as well as teaching on race and gender issues. He walked a fine line on Trump, taking care not to alienate the former president's hardcore base and not offering a full-throated endorsement of his false claims about widespread 2020 election fraud. McAuliffe's efforts to paint his rival, a former chief executive of the Carlyle Group Inc, as a Trump acolyte fell flat with voters. "Together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth," Youngkin told a rally in Chantilly, Virginia, early on Wednesday. Republican congressional campaigns may follow Youngkin's model of focusing on culture wars and promising to give parents more control over public schools. Youngkin and other Republicans latched onto concerns from parents that schools are teaching left-wing ideas to combat racism, at the expense of more traditional subjects. He vowed to ban the teaching of "critical race theory," a legal framework that examines how racism shapes U.S. laws and policies and is linked to anti-racism concepts such as "white privilege." Virginia school officials say critical race theory as a subject is not taught in classrooms. TRUMP FACTOR Republicans also appeared to erase the Democrats' 10-seat lead in Virginia's House of Delegates, appearing to gain a 50-50 split or perhaps a one-seat advantage. Virginia Republicans picked Youngkin in an unusual convention format in May, rather than by a statewide primary. That format was designed to pick a more moderate candidate, rather than one more closely allied with Trump. Even so, Trump sought to claim credit, thanking "my BASE" in a statement for putting Youngkin over the top. In New Jersey, Murphy, 64, ran as an unabashed liberal and became the first Democratic governor to win re-election in New Jersey in four decades. He sought to strike a tone of political unity in brief victory remarks before cheering supporters at an Asbury Park convention hall on Wednesday. "I renew my promise to you, whether you voted for me or not, to work every single day of the next four years to keep moving us forward," he said. Besides hammering Murphy over the governor's aggressive pandemic response, Ciattarelli campaigned on cutting taxes and supporting law enforcement. In an unusual position for a Republican, he supports abortion rights, at least for the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The snow begins as motes, which aggregate into dense, flocculent flakes that gradually sink and drift past the mouths (and mouthlike apparatuses) of scavengers farther down. But even marine snow that is devoured will most likely be snowfall once more; a squid’s guts are just a rest stop on this long passage to the deep. Although the term may suggest wintry whites, marine snow is mostly brownish or greyish, comprising mostly dead things. For eons, the debris has contained the same things — flecks from plant and animal carcasses, faeces, mucus, dust, microbes, viruses — and transported the ocean’s carbon to be stored on the seafloor. Increasingly, however, marine snowfall is being infiltrated by microplastics: fibres and fragments of polyamide, polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate. And this fauxfall appears to be altering our planet’s ancient cooling process. Every year, tens of millions of tons of plastic enter Earth’s oceans. Scientists initially assumed that the material was destined to float in garbage patches and gyres, but surface surveys have accounted for only about 1% of the ocean’s estimated plastic. A recent model found that 99.8% of plastic that entered the ocean since 1950 had sunk below the first few hundred feet of the ocean. Scientists have found 10,000 times more microplastics on the seafloor than in contaminated surface waters. Marine snow, one of the primary pathways connecting the surface and the deep, appears to be helping the plastics sink. And scientists have only begun to untangle how these materials interfere with deep-sea food webs and the ocean’s natural carbon cycles. “It’s not just that marine snow transports plastics or aggregates with plastic,” said Luisa Galgani, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University. “It’s that they can help each other get to the deep ocean.” MARINE SNOW-MAKING The sunlit surface of the sea blooms with phytoplankton, zooplankton, algae, bacteria and other minuscule life, all feeding on sunbeams or one another. As these microbes metabolise, some produce polysaccharides that can form a sticky gel that attracts the lifeless bodies of tiny organisms, small shreds of larger carcasses, shells from foraminifera and pteropods, sand and microplastics, which stick together to form larger flakes. “They are the glue that keeps together all the components of marine snow,” Galgani said. Marine snowflakes fall at different rates. Smaller ones have a more languid descent — “as slow as a metre a day,” said Anela Choy, a biological oceanographer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. Bigger particles, such as dense faecal pellets, can sink quicker. “It just skyrockets to the bottom of the ocean,” said Tracy Mincer, a researcher at Florida Atlantic University. Plastic in the ocean is constantly being degraded; even something as big and buoyant as a milk jug will eventually shed and splinter into microplastics. These plastics develop biofilms of distinct microbial communities — the “plastisphere,” said Linda Amaral-Zettler, a scientist at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, who coined the term. “We sort of think about plastic as being inert,” Amaral-Zettler said. “Once it enters the environment, it’s rapidly colonised by microbes.” Microplastics can host so many microbial hitchhikers that they counteract the natural buoyancy of the plastic, causing their raft to sink. But if the biofilms then degrade on the way down, the plastic could float back up, potentially leading to a yo-yoing purgatory of microplastics in the water column. Marine snow is anything but stable; as flakes free-fall into the abyss, they are constantly congealing and falling apart, rent by waves or predators. “It’s not as simple as: Everything’s falling all the time,” said Adam Porter, a marine ecologist at the University of Exeter in England. “It’s a black box in the middle of the ocean, because we can’t stay down there long enough to work out what’s going on.” To explore how marine snow and plastics are distributed in the water column, Mincer has begun to sample deeper waters with a dishwashersize pump full of filters that dangles on a wire from a research boat. The filters are arranged from big mesh to small to filter out fish and plankton. Running these pumps for 10 hours at a stretch has revealed nylon fibres and other microplastics distributed throughout the water column below the South Atlantic subtropical gyre. But even with a research boat and its expensive and unwieldy equipment, an individual piece of marine snow is not easily retrieved from deep water in the actual ocean. The pumps often disturb the snow and scatter faecal pellets. And the flakes alone offer little insight into how fast some snows are sinking, which is vital to understanding how long the plastics linger, yo-yo or sink in the water column before settling on the seafloor. “Is it decades?” Mincer asked. “Is it hundreds of years? Then we can understand what we’re in here for, and what kind of problem this really is.” INSTANT MARINE SNOW To answer these questions, and work within a budget, some scientists have made and manipulated their own marine snow in the lab In Exeter, Porter collected buckets of seawater from a nearby estuary and loaded the water into continuously rolling bottles. He then sprinkled in microplastics, including polyethylene beads and polypropylene fibres. The constant churning, and a squirt of sticky hyaluronic acid, encouraged particles to collide and stick together into snow. “We obviously don’t have 300 metres of a tube to make it sink,” Porter said. “By rolling it, what you’re doing is you’re creating a never-ending water column for the particles to fall through.” After the bottles rolled for three days, he pipetted out the snow and analysed the number of microplastics in each flake. His team found that every type of microplastic they tested aggregated into marine snow, and that microplastics such as polypropylene and polyethylene — normally too buoyant to sink on their own — readily sank once incorporated into marine snow. And all the marine snow contaminated with microplastics sank significantly faster than the natural marine snow. Porter suggested that this potential change of the speed of the snow could have vast implications for how the ocean captures and stores carbon: Faster snowfalls could store more microplastics in the deep ocean, whereas slower snowfalls could make the plastic-laden particles more available to predators, potentially starving food webs deeper down. “The plastics are a diet pill for these animals,” said Karin Kvale, a carbon cycle scientist at GNS Science in New Zealand. In experiments in Crete, with funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research programme, Galgani has tried mimicking marine snow on a larger scale. She dropped six mesocosms — huge bags that each contained nearly 800 gallons of seawater and re-created natural water movement — in a large pool. Under these conditions, marine snow formed. “In the field, you mostly make observations,” Galgani said. “You have so little space and a limited system. In the mesocosm, you are manipulating a natural system.” Galgani mixed microplastics into three mesocosms in an attempt to “re-create a sea and maybe a future ocean where you can have a high concentration of plastic,” she said. The mesocosms laden with microplastics produced not just more marine snow but also more organic carbon, as the plastics offered more surfaces for microbes to colonise. All this could seed the deep ocean with even more carbon and alter the ocean’s biological pump, which helps regulate the climate. “Of course, it’s a very, very big picture,” Galgani said. “But we have some signals that it can have an effect. Of course, it depends on how much plastic there is.” A PLASTIC FEAST To understand how microplastics might travel through deep-sea food webs, some scientists have turned to creatures for clues. Every 24 hours, many species of marine organism embark on a synchronised migration up and down in the water column. “They do the equivalent of a marathon every day and night,” Choy said. Guilherme VB Ferreira, a researcher at the Rural Federal University of Pernambuco in Brazil, wondered: “Is it possible they are transporting the plastics up and down?” Ferreira and Anne Justino, a doctoral student at the same university, collected vampire squids and midwater squids from a patch of the tropical Atlantic. They found a plethora of plastics in both species: mostly fibres, but also fragments and beads. This made sense for midwater squids, which migrate toward the surface at night to feed on fish and copepods that eat microplastics directly. But vampire squids, which live in deeper waters with fewer microplastics, had even higher levels of plastic, as well as foam, in their stomachs. The researchers hypothesise that the vampire squids’ primary diet of marine snow, especially meatier faecal pellets, may be funnelling plastics into their bellies. “It’s very concerning,” Justino said. Ferreira said, “They are one of the most vulnerable species for this anthropogenic influence.” Justino has excavated fibres and beads from the digestive tracts of lanternfish, hatchetfish and other fish that migrate up and down in the mesopelagic, 650 feet to 3,300 feet down. Some microbial communities that settle on microplastics can bioluminesce, drawing in fish like a lure, said Mincer. In the Monterey Bay Canyon, Choy wanted to understand if certain species of filter feeders were ingesting microplastics and transporting them into food webs in deeper water. “Marine snow is one of the major things that connects food webs across the ocean,” she said. Choy zeroed in on the giant larvacean Bathochordaeus stygius. The larvacean resembles a tiny tadpole and lives inside a palatial bubble of mucus that can reach up to 1 metre long. “It’s worse than the grossest booger you’ve ever seen,” Choy said. When their snot-houses become clogged from feeding, the larvaceans move out and the heavy bubbles sink. Choy found that these palaces of mucus are crowded with microplastics, which are funnelled to the deep along with all their carbon. Giant larvaceans are found across the world’s oceans, but Choy emphasised that her work was focused on the Monterey Bay Canyon, which belongs to a network of marine protected areas and is not representative of other, more polluted seas. “It’s one deep bay on one coast of one country,” Choy said. “Scale-up and think about how vast the ocean is, especially the deep water.” Individual flakes of marine snow are small, but they add up. A model created by Kvale estimated that in 2010, the world’s oceans produced 340 quadrillion aggregates of marine snow, which could transport as many as 463,000 tons of microplastics to the seafloor each year. Scientists are still exploring exactly how this plastic snow is sinking, but they do know for sure, Porter said, that “everything eventually sinks in the ocean.” Vampire squids will live and die and eventually become marine snow. But the microplastics that pass through them will remain, eventually settling on the seafloor in a stratigraphic layer that will mark our time on the planet long after humans are gone. © 2022 The New York Times Company

The 4.3 sq km (1.7 sq mile) site was desert when Dubai was chosen eight years ago to follow the 2015 Expo in Milan, Italy. Now, $6.8 billion later, the emirate more than ever needs the hoped-for economic boost from the global trade showcase, but will have to contend with continued COVID-19 restrictions, and probably reluctance to travel as well. Before the pandemic, the consultancy EY forecast that the Expo would over the course of its six months contribute 1.5 percent of the UAE's gross domestic product. Dubai still officially expects 25 million visitors, more than Milan received and more than twice the population of the United Arab Emirates. All those over 18 will have to be vaccinated against coronavirus or test negative to enter. But diplomats from five different countries said they had revised down their national pavilions' visitor targets. James Swanston, an economist at Capital Economics, said the continuing obstacles to foreign travel meant the economic boost was likely to fall short of projections. A spokesperson said the number of tickets sold was commercially sensitive, but that the Expo was "delighted" with sales so far. Many events will be streamed live online. Dubai says it wants the Expo, an exhibition of culture, technology and architecture under the banner 'Connecting Minds and Creating the Future', to be a demonstration of ingenuity, and a place where issues such as climate change, conflict and economic growth can be addressed together. But its biggest role is still as a forum for trade. "All major trading countries and powers plan to use Expo to refocus and to redefine their position in the world market," said France's Expo commissioner-general, Erik Linquier. The event is not without critics, though. The European Parliament last week urged member states and companies to boycott the Expo in disapproval of the UAE's human rights record, alleging "systematic persecution of human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers and teachers speaking up on political and human rights issues in the UAE" and pervasive "inhumane practices" inflicted on many of the migrant workers that the UAE relies on. The UAE rejected the resolution as "factually incorrect" and said that its laws enshrine fair treatment for all.

"We will never surrender America's sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy," Trump said, in language popular with his political base. "America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism." Trump's 35-minute address was met largely by silence from world leaders still not comfortable with go-it-alone views that have strained US relationships with traditional allies worldwide. His speech, while delivered in a low-key fashion, was nonetheless a thunderous recitation of his "America First" policies. He has disrupted the world order by withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, and threatened to punish NATO nations for not paying more for their common defence. "Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defense," he said. Besides calling out Iran, Trump also criticized China for its trade practices but made no mention of Russia's interference in Syria's war or its suspected meddling in US elections. MACRON'S ALTERNATIVE VIEW Offering an alternative view when it was his turn at the podium, French President Emmanuel Macron told the delegates that the law of the survival of the fittest, protectionism and isolationism would only lead to heightened tensions. Defending multilateralism and collective action, he warned that nationalism would lead to failure and if countries stopped defending basic principles, global wars would return. "I do not accept the erosion of multilateralism and don't accept our history unravelling," Macron told the assembly at times raising his voice. "Our children are watching." Trump aimed much of his remarks squarely at Iran and its "corrupt dictatorship," which the United States accuses of harbouring nuclear ambitions and fomenting instability in the Middle East through its support for militant groups in Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. "Iran's leaders sow chaos, death and destruction," Trump told the gathering in the green-marbled hall. "They do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nations." Macron, citing the example of Iran, which minutes earlier Trump had called on the world to isolate, Macron said that this unilateralism push would lead directly to conflicts. Trump, who begins his political rallies with boasts about his economic record in less than two years in office, used the same rhetoric before the crowd of world leaders and diplomats, telling them he had accomplished more than almost any previous US president. The remark led to some murmuring and laughter in the crowd, taking the president slightly aback. "I didn’t expect that reaction, but that's OK," he said. REJECTS MEETING ROUHANI Trump, who said in a Twitter post on Tuesday morning that he had given up hope for a meeting with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani while both were in New York, said he would keep up economic pressure on Tehran to try to force a change in its behaviour. Rouhani is due to address leaders later on Tuesday. In May, Republican Trump withdrew the United States from the 2015 international deal to put curbs on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for easing sanctions. Foes for decades, Washington and Tehran have been increasingly at odds since May. The accord with OPEC member Iran was negotiated under Democratic US President Barack Obama. "Additional sanctions will resume November 5th and more will follow and we are working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially," Trump said. He said the United States would help create a regional strategic alliance between Gulf nations and Jordan and Egypt, an initiative that the United States sees as a bulwark against Iran. Trump compared US relations with Iran to what he called improved ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who Trump had met in Singapore in June as part of a still-unfulfilled drive to get Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. In his address last year to the UN, Trump insulted Kim as a "rocket man" bent on nuclear destruction. On Tuesday, Trump praised Kim for halting nuclear and missile tests, releasing Americans held prisoner and returning some remains of US soldiers killed in the 1950s Korean War. The two leaders are trying to arrange a second summit and are exchanging private correspondence. Trump has said sanctions on North Korea would remain for now. Delivering a harsh message to OPEC members, Trump called on them to stop raising oil prices and to pay for their own military protection. He threatened to limit US aid only to countries that are friendly to the United States. A Gulf diplomat said in response that "we have been doing our fair share of burden sharing." Crude oil prices shot to a four-year high on Tuesday, catapulted by imminent US sanctions on Iranian crude exports and the apparent reluctance of OPEC and Russia to raise output to offset the potential hit to global supply. Trump's main message was aimed at Iran and attempting to drive a wedge between its leadership and its people, days after an attack in southwestern Iran on a military parade killed 25 people and unsettled the country. In remarks to reporters on his way to his speech, Trump said he would not meet the Iranians until they "change their tune." He held out the possibility of a better relationship in the future. Alireza Miryousefi, spokesman for Iran's UN mission, told Reuters that Iran has not requested a meeting with Trump. Some Iranian insiders have said any talks between Rouhani and Trump would effectively kill the existing nuclear accord, which France, Britain, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union also signed with Iran.