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It was Germany’s biggest foreign policy shift since the Cold War, what Scholz called a “Zeitenwende” — an epochal change — that won applause for his leadership at home and abroad. But six weeks later, the applause has largely ceased. Even as images of atrocities emerge from Ukraine since the invasion by President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Scholz has ruled out an immediate oil and gas embargo, saying it would be too costly. He is dragging his feet on sending 100 armoured vehicles to Ukraine, saying that Germany must not “rush ahead.” There are new debates in the ruling coalition about just how to go forward with the massive task Scholz has laid out, let alone how fast. Already doubts are building as to the German government’s commitment to its own radical plans. “Zeitenwende is real, but the country is the same,” said Thomas Bagger, a senior German diplomat who will be the next ambassador to Poland. “Not everyone likes it.” The changes Scholz announced go far deeper than his commitment to spend 2% of gross domestic product on the military — some 70 billion euros ($76 billion) a year, compared with France’s 41 billion euros ($44 billion). They go to the heart of Germany’s postwar identity as a peaceful exporting nation — and to the heart of a business model that has enriched Germany and made it Europe’s largest and most powerful economy. Now Germans are being asked “to rethink everything — our approach to doing business, to energy policy, to defence and to Russia,” said Claudia Major, a defence expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “We need a mindset change. We need to recognize that this is about us — that power politics are back and Germany must play a role.” But she added, “Once again Germany is not leading. It is being dragged.” Truly reorienting Germans for a new world where security has its real costs — not only in terms potentially of lost lives, but also in lost trade, higher energy prices, slimmer profits and lower economic growth — will be a wrenching endeavour that will take time, even a generation, and more than an afternoon’s policy pronouncement. That realisation is dawning, for Germans and their frustrated European partners. “I don’t understand how anyone in Germany can sleep at night after seeing horrors like this without doing anything about it,” said Andriy Melnyk, Ukraine’s outspoken ambassador in Berlin, referring to the atrocities in Ukraine. “What does it take for Germany to act?” Even Annalena Baerbock, the self-assured Green foreign minister, expressed concerns that Zeitenwende may be more temporary than fundamental. She said she worried that the consensus was fragile, that Germans who favour close ties to Russia were silent now but had not changed their views. “You can feel this,” she said. “They know they have to do it right now with regard to sanctions, energy independence and weapons deliveries, also with regard to how we treat Russia. But actually, they don’t like it.” Since Scholz put forth his Zeitenwende before a special session of the parliament Feb. 27, multiple cracks in Germany’s commitment to change have already begun to appear. German celebrities made headlines with an appeal to the government against rearmament and the “180-degree change in German foreign policy” that has so far been signed by 45,000 people. Green lawmakers have lobbied to spend only part of the 100 billion euro ($108 billion) special fund on the military, citing other needs like “human security” and climate change. Labour unions and industry bosses are warning of catastrophic damage to the economy and an immediate recession if Russian gas stops flowing. As the CEO of German chemicals giant BASF, Michael Heinz, put it last week: “Cheap Russian energy has been the basis of our industry’s competitiveness.” It has in fact been the basis of the German economy. Now that German businesses are facing the possibility of being asked to do without it, resistance is quietly mounting. Government ministers say they are being asked discreetly by business leaders when things will “go back to normal” — that is, when they can return to business as usual. Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification, business as usual has largely meant “change through trade” — the conviction that economic interdependency would alter authoritarian governments like Russia and China for the better and help keep the peace. Prosperity and democracy, the thinking went, go hand in hand. The link to Russia is particularly complicated by a long and complex history of hot and cold war, including guilt over the millions of Russians killed by the Nazis. This reinforced the belief that the security architecture of Europe had to include Russia and take account of Russian interests. It was a model that paid off nicely for Germany, too. “We export to China and import cheap gas from Russia; that’s been the recipe for the German export success,” said Ralph Bollmann, a biographer of Angela Merkel, a former German chancellor who is now seen as having protected Germans from a rivalrous world but not preparing them for it. Few in Germany, including its intelligence services, predicted that Putin would invade a sovereign European country. But the war has set off a cycle of soul-searching, even among prominent politicians like Frank-Walter Steinmeier, a former foreign minister and now federal president. A senior member of Scholz’s Social Democratic Party, he was a prominent supporter of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline, now halted, that bypassed Ukraine and that the United States opposed. “We were clinging to the idea of building bridges to Russia that our partners warned us about,” Steinmeier said, after Melnyk, the Ukrainian ambassador, accused him of enabling Putin. “We failed to build a common Europe,” Steinmeier said. “We failed to incorporate Russia in our security architecture.” He added: “I was wrong.” In the immediate aftermath of Scholz’s Zeitenwende speech, the details of which he had shared with only a handful of people, the resolve to act decisively seemed palpable. The three diverse parties in his coalition swung behind it, and partisan divisions with the conservative opposition were briefly forgotten, too. Public opinion mirrored the shift, rewarding the new chancellor with better popularity ratings. But in a short time, the breadth of the change Scholz announced seems to have intimidated even his own three-party coalition. “The government has made some courageous decisions, but it can seem afraid of its own courage,” said Jana Puglierin, director of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations. There is scepticism that the political establishment is ready to break fundamentally from Moscow, or that German voters will happily pay so much more for energy and food for the foreseeable future. “German pacifism runs very deep,” said John Kornblum, a former US ambassador to Germany who has lived in the country on and off since the 1960s. “German illusions may have shattered, but not its traumas about Russia and the war.” That “neurotic relationship with Russia may be on pause for the moment, but it will return in full force as soon as the shooting stops,” he said. Nils Schmid, foreign policy spokesperson in parliament for the Social Democrats, said that Germany’s soft stance toward Russia “reflects German society, and what will remain is this idea that Russia is there and part of Europe, and we will have to deal with that.” The war has produced “dashed hopes” of a peaceful united Europe, shared by his generation of 1989, he said. But he noted that with this war, “there can be no return to business as usual. No one really wants to go back to the old times of engagement with Russia.” Still, he said, “We shouldn’t overdo it. The balance will shift to more deterrence and less dialogue. But we must keep some dialogue.” Puglierin has little patience for such arguments. “People need to let these old ideas go and adapt to reality as it is, and not as they want it to be,” she said. “Russia has shown that it does not want a stable relationship on this existing security order, which is now an empty shell.” A prominent conservative lawmaker, Norbert Röttgen, argued that Germany must make a complete and immediate break with Russia. “War has come back to Europe, one that will affect the political and security order of the continent,” he said. Germany must also draw on the lessons of its dependency on Russia for its future relationship with the more powerful authoritarian realm of China, on which key sectors of Germany’s export-driven model rely, Röttgen said. “The real Zeitenwende,” Puglierin said, “will come when we remake our model for a future of competition with both Russia and China and realise that every dependency can be used against us.” ©2022 The New York Times Company

Bryant, 64, knows the risks of summer temperatures in California’s Death Valley. He once collapsed under a palm tree from heat exhaustion and had to crawl toward a hose spigot to douse himself with water. Bryant has lived and worked in Death Valley for 30 years, happy to balance the brutal summer heat with the soaring mountain vistas, but even he admits that the high temperatures in recent years were testing his limits. The temperature soared to 130 degrees on both Friday and Saturday and was forecast to hit the same peak Sunday. “The first 20 summers were a breeze,” he said. “The last 10 have been a little bit tougher.” The blistering weekend heat, one of the highest temperatures ever recorded on Earth, matched a similar level from August 2020. Those readings could set records if verified, as an earlier record of 134 degrees in 1913 has been disputed by scientists. Much of the West is facing further record-breaking temperatures over the coming days, with over 31 million people in areas under excessive heat warnings or heat advisories. It is the third heat wave to sweep the region this summer. The extreme temperatures that scorched the Pacific Northwest in late June led to nearly 200 deaths in Oregon and Washington, as people struggled to keep cool in poorly air-conditioned homes, on the street, and in fields and warehouses. The same “heat dome” effect that enveloped the Northwest — in which hot, dry ground traps heat and accelerates rising temperatures — has descended on California and parts of the Southwest this weekend. Sarah Rogowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said daytime highs between 100 and 120 degrees were hitting parts of California. Most dangerously, temperatures will remain high into the night, hovering 15 to 25 degrees above average. “When you start getting those warm temperatures overnight combined with those high temperatures during the day, it really starts to build the effect,” Rogowski said. “People aren’t able to cool off; it’s a lot harder to get relief.” She said forecasters were also monitoring looming thunderstorms that could bring lightning strikes and fire risk. Already on Friday, lightning set off a fast-moving fire north of Lake Tahoe, prompting evacuations in California and Nevada, road closures and the partial closure of the Plumas National Forest. The fire had doubled in size by Saturday as firefighters struggled to contain it. Evacuation orders were also issued in southern Oregon in response to fast-spreading fires there. The record-shattering temperatures in the Pacific Northwest last week would have been all but impossible without climate change, according to a team of climate researchers. Because climate change has raised baseline temperatures nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit on average since 1900, heat waves are likely to be hotter and deadlier than those in past centuries, scientists said. Excessive-heat warnings blanket most of California, along with parts of Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Oregon and Idaho. California is facing the most extreme and widespread high temperatures. The agency that runs the state’s electrical grid, the California Independent System Operator, issued pleas Thursday for consumers to cut back on power use to help prevent blackouts. Gov. Gavin Newsom asked residents to cut their water consumption by 15% as he expanded a regional drought emergency to cover all but eight of the state’s 58 counties. The city of Merced reached 111 degrees Saturday, breaking the record of 108 set in 1961. Records could be broken this weekend in Fresno, Madera, Hanford and Bakersfield. Cities and towns across the state’s Central Valley activated cooling centres and temporary housing Friday. Sacramento opened three cooling centres and provided motel vouchers to families with small children and older people who had no regular housing. Visitors take photos in front of the thermometre at the visitors centre in Furnace Creek at Death Valley National Park in Death Valley, Calif, on July 10, 2021. The New York Times It was the third time this summer that the city had activated cooling centres, said Daniel Bowers, the city’s director of emergency management. Last summer, Sacramento activated cooling centres only three times during the entire season — the third time was not until September. Visitors take photos in front of the thermometre at the visitors centre in Furnace Creek at Death Valley National Park in Death Valley, Calif, on July 10, 2021. The New York Times This year, the city started its heat response early when a heat wave pounded much of Northern California over Memorial Day weekend. “That was kind of an eye-opener of how the summer was going to go,” Bowers said. With its fair share of practice in recent years, he said, the city is well prepared for the weekend temperatures. But the high nighttime temperatures pose particular risks to people who are homeless, he said. Farther down the valley, in Modesto, which had a high of 108 degrees Saturday, the Salvation Army said it had seen an uptick in people seeking shelter. The shelter is “seeing individuals we normally wouldn’t see — normally people that are OK being in their tents, they’re OK sleeping outside,” said Virginia Carney, the shelter's director. Terri Castle, who has been staying at the shelter for the past month, said she had spent previous summers living on the street and worried for people who did not have a place to cool off this weekend. “When you’re homeless, you’re already out in the weather 24/7,” Castle said. “And when the sun hits you, it’s hard to find anywhere for shade. You can’t get enough water.” Over her few weeks at the shelter, she said, she has noticed a surge in people seeking relief from the heat. One man was taken from the shelter by ambulance Thursday after experiencing heat-related illness. A woman who came seeking water and food “just sat down outside and looked so hot, like she had no energy,” Castle said. In Death Valley, the high of 134 degrees recorded in 1913 had been recognised as the hottest temperature ever recorded on the planet. But a 2016 analysis by Christopher Burt, a weather expert, found that the recording was inconsistent with other regional observations, leading him to dispute whether the record was “possible from a meteorological perspective.” In any case, the recent sweltering temperatures have prompted their own form of tourism. As the number creeps toward 130, people begin lining up to take photos next to the digital thermometer outside the Furnace Creek Visitor Centre. Even Saturday, when morning temperatures were hovering close to 110 degrees, park visitors could be found playing golf, swimming and hiking in the early-morning hours. Ashley Dehetre, 22, and Katelyn Price, 21, descended into Badwater Basin around 9 am with cooling towels around their necks and 3 litres of water strapped to each of their backs. Their 33-hour road trip from Detroit and the triple-digit temperatures have done little to dampen their spirits, even after a worried phone call from Price’s mother revealed the temperature back home was 66 degrees. “This view in itself is so awesome, it’s worth it,” Dehetre said. “So much better than Michigan.” Zooming past them on the salt flats was Tyler Lowey, who drove overnight from Los Angeles to celebrate his 25th birthday by running 25 miles at the basin, which is the lowest point in North America. The challenge was part of a yearlong set of adventures he was attempting, including biking across the country from Los Angeles to Miami next month. To prepare, he packed his car with plenty of water, amino acid powders and fresh coconuts, which in his time as a personal chef he has found to be the best at combating heat-related fatigue. Still, after just a mile out and a mile back, he was drenched in sweat and ready to take a break and cool down in his car. “The heat sucks,” he said. “But I kind of want to bang it out, because the longer I wait, the hotter it’s going to be.” High on Zabriskie Point at sunrise, Anshuman Bapna, 42, took in the heat with a bit more reserve. As founder of a climate-change educational platform, he felt compelled to detour his family’s trip — planned from Palo Alto, California, to Zion National Park — through Death Valley in order to experience the extreme conditions. “Heat waves like this are just going to become even more common,” he said. “There’s a bit of a ‘see what you can’ before the world changes.” ©2021 The New York Times Company

Italy is one of the largest trading partners of Bangladesh and more than 200,000 Bangladeshis live in this European country, second largest after the UK.The two sides, however, never hosted any bilateral meeting in more than 40 years of diplomatic ties. The foreign ministry says Vedova will arrive on Wednesday evening to have a bilateral meeting with his counterpart Md Shahriar Alam on Thursday.He will leave on Friday after meeting the Prime Minister, the Speaker, and ministers for expatriate welfare and commerce, among others.“We don’t have any thorny issue. Relation is smooth, growing and expanding. But this is the first time we are holding a bilateral meeting. You can say it’s a new beginning of the relations,” a senior official of the foreign ministry told bdnews24.com.The visit is being seen as Dhaka’s efforts to strengthen its relations with the already friendly countries.Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is going to New Zealand on Mar 11 for the first time in the Bangladesh’s diplomatic history for a bilateral meeting with that country.In another initiative, Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali will visit Portugal this month for a bilateral meeting for the first time.“Most of the time ministers for development affairs of the EU countries come to visit Bangladesh because they give aid. But now we are focused on holding more bilateral talks. And we are getting positive response,” a senior official at the foreign ministry, who chose anonymity, told bdnews24.com.The official said a whole range of bilateral issues would be discussed during the meeting.Bangladesh registered more than $1.3 billion exports to Italy during the last fiscal, 30 percent more than the previous year.Dhaka and Rome share similar views on many international issues including counter terrorism and climate change.Prime Minister joined the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) held in Italy last year in Oct.Her counterpart invited her to visit Italy again during the upcoming ‘Expo Milano’ from May 1 to Oct 31 which would the largest show in the world.“Our PM also invited her Italian counterpart,” the official said.“We can say the relation is on a higher trajectory”.

Climate negotiators gave a standing ovation to the outgoing head of the U.N. climate change secretariat on Wednesday even after he told them they would be at risk of a red card in a soccer match for wasting time. Dutchman Yvo de Boer, who steps down from July 1 after four years in the job, said governments were doing too little to stick to a promise to limit a rise in world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times. In a farewell address at 185-nation climate talks in Bonn, he noted that the world failed to agree a binding treaty at a Copenhagen summit in December. The next major ministerial meeting is in Cancun, Mexico, from Nov. 29-Dec. 10. "To move towards World Cup imagery: we got a yellow card in Copenhagen and the referee's hand will edge towards the red one if we fail to deliver in Cancun and beyond," he said. De Boer raised the profile of negotiations with straight-talking about climate change that is likely to hit the poor hardest. "You gave a voice to the vulnerable countries," Leon Charles of Grenada told him during a ceremony. After a standing ovation for de Boer, his successor, Christiana Figueres of Costa Rica, presented him with a pair of shoes and showed a photograph of how small her feet were in comparison. Greenpeace said: "Figueres...said she has big shoes to fill. Greepeace recommends running shoes."

The first day of the Rome summit - the leaders' first face-to-face gathering since the start of the COVID pandemic - focused mainly on health and the economy, while climate and the environment is front and centre of Sunday's agenda. Climate scientists and activists are likely to be disappointed unless late breakthroughs are made, with drafts of the G20's final communique showing little progress in terms of new commitments to curb pollution. The G20 bloc, which includes Brazil, China, India, Germany and the United States, accounts for an estimated 80% of the global greenhouse gas emissions which scientists say must be steeply reduced to avoid climate catastrophe. For that reason, this weekend's gathering is seen as an important stepping stone to the UN's "COP26" climate summit attended by almost 200 countries, in Glasgow, Scotland, where most of the G20 leaders will fly directly from Rome. "The latest reports are disappointing, with little sense of urgency in the face of an existential emergency," said Oscar Soria of the activist network Avaaz. "There is no more time for vague wish-lists, we need concrete commitments and action." A fifth draft of the G20's final statement seen by Reuters on Saturday did not toughen the language on climate action compared with previous versions, and in some key areas, such as the need to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, it softened it. This mid-century target date is a goal that United Nations experts say is needed to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, seen as the limit to avoid a dramatic acceleration of extreme events such as droughts, storms and floods. UN experts say even if current national plans to curb emissions are fully implemented, the world is headed for global warming of 2.7C. The planet's largest carbon emitter China, is aiming for net zero in 2060, while other major polluters such as India and Russia have also not committed to the mid-century deadline. G20 energy and environment ministers who met in Naples in July failed to reach agreement on setting a date to phase out fossil fuel subsidies and end coal power, asking the leaders to find a resolution at this weekend's summit. Based on the latest draft, they have made little progress, pledging to "do our utmost" to stop building new coal power plants before the end of the 2030s and saying they will phase out fossil fuel subsidies "over the medium term." On the other hand, they do pledge to halt financing of overseas coal-fired power generation by the end of this year. Some developing countries are reluctant to commit to steep emission cuts until rich nations make good on a pledge made 12 years ago to provide $100 billion per year from 2020 to help them tackle the effects of global warming. That promise has still not been kept, contributing to the "mistrust" which UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Friday was blighting progress in climate negotiations. The draft stresses the importance of meeting the goal and doing so in a transparent way.

BEIJING, Sun Apr 19, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The global financial crisis is unlikely to deter growing long-term demand for new nuclear power plants, international atomic agency officials said on Sunday, ahead of a conference to discuss the future of atomic power. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials and national and international energy representatives are gathering in Beijing to discuss prospects for atomic power during a global slowdown, climate change and energy worries, and tensions over the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran. Thierry Dujardin, a deputy director of the OECD's Nuclear Energy Agency, said that although the financial crisis was making it more difficult to fund some proposed nuclear power plants, longer-term worries about energy security and global warming were likely to buffer the impact of the crisis on the sector. "In the short term, it's obvious that it will be more difficult to find the funding for new investments, heavy investment, in energy infrastructure, such as nuclear power plants," Dujardin told a news conference. "There is a chance that nuclear energy as such will not be so strongly impacted by the current economic crisis, because the need for energy will be there." Dong Batong, of the China's atomic energy industry association, said his country was committed to dramatically expanding nuclear power, despite the slowdown in growth. "We've made nuclear power an important measure for stimulating domestic demand," Dong told the news conference, noting that dozens of new nuclear units are being built or planned across the country. Nuclear power provides 14 percent of global electricity supplies, according to the Vienna-based IAEA, and that proportion is set to grow as nations seek to contain fuel bills and the greenhouse gas emissions dangerously warming the planet. Much of the expected expansion is in Asia. As of the end of August 2008, China topped the list of countries with nuclear power plants under construction, with 5,220 megawatts (MW), followed by India at 2,910 MW and South Korea at 2,880 MW, according to the International Energy Agency. But the ambitious plans for nuclear power growth across the developing world also risk straining safety standards and safeguards against weapons proliferation. Yuri Sokolov, deputy director-general of the IAEA, said governments looking to expand nuclear energy had to ensure regulators were backed by effective legislation and properly trained staff. But even North Korea, facing international censure for recently launching a long-range rocket and abandoning nuclear disarmament talks, has the right to nuclear power stations, said Sokolov. "Each country is entitled to have a civilian nuclear program," he said, calling North Korea a "difficult situation." "If it's ready to cooperate with the international community, I think that the international community will be able to provide the support for civil nuclear power development in North Korea." North Korea renounced its membership of the IAEA years ago, and last week expelled IAEA officials who had been invited back to monitor a shuttered nuclear complex that Pyongyang has said it will restart. The director-general of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, will give an opening speech to the nuclear energy meeting on Monday.

EU regulators are planning a stream of laws over the next few years to develop Europe's maritime sector, focusing on areas as diverse as climate change, 3-dimensional ocean mapping and coastal tourism. With some 70,000 kilometres of coastline, Europe's maritime regions are home to 40 percent of its population. Shipbuilding, shipping, ports and fisheries are key activities but offshore energy, as well as tourism, also generate huge revenues. Almost 90 percent of EU's external trade and more than 40 percent of its internal trade goes by sea. Up to now, EU policy regulating maritime-related activities has largely been conducted long sectoral lines, falling under traditional European Commission departments like environment, transport, energy and fisheries. That should now change. "Europe should pay more attention to the seas," Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said. "I am convinced a great part of our future lies in the untapped potential of the oceans." "We need an integrated maritime policy that brings everything together ... (it) will help us realise the full potential of maritime economies," he told a news conference. Starting this month and continuing until at least 2008 or 2009, the Commission would unveil a series of proposals to alter or create EU laws to boost economic growth and employment in the maritime sector, Barroso said. Although some ideas are still in the pipeline since industry and other involved parties have yet to be consulted, there are several more developed proposals. For fisheries, the Commission wants to clamp down on "pirate fishermen", who trawl illegally in EU waters, by demanding more paperwork and threatening to shut ports for landing catches. The phenomenon known as illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) is nothing new, either in EU waters or elsewhere, but in recent years it has come back into the spotlight as depleted fish stocks demand ever stricter control measures. Laws will be tightened laws to prevent so-called destructive fishing practices like bottom-trawling -- where vessels use a cone-shaped net to scoop up fish from the sea floor -- as well as controls to stop dumping of unwanted fish. Later, after due consultation, the Commission is keen to find ways to develop and possibly raise the capacity of Europe's 1,200 ports to cope with increasing shipping and freight demand. On climate change, it will open a debate on how to cut pollution caused by shipping, and for ships at port, ways to reduce emissions by promoting more use of "shore electricity". Other action areas include possible changes to internal customs regulations to create a common European "maritime space" where shipping would face less red tape while moving through EU waters but remaining within the 27-country bloc. There are also projects to carry out 3-D mapping of all EU waters and increase maritime surveillance via long-range ship identification and tracking systems, Commission documents show.

HANOI, Tue May 26, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Asian and European Union foreign ministers will urge Myanmar on Tuesday to release opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other detainees in a strongly worded statement to be released at the end of a meeting in Vietnam. Diplomats said China, which is one of Myanmar's biggest backers, adopted a fresh, more critical tone when the issue was debated at the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) late on Monday, as Suu Kyi's trial for violating the terms of her house arrest entered its second week. Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win was "defensive", some said, and the regime was possibly taken aback by the unity of opposition to the trial of Suu Kyi, who stands accused of violating her house arrest terms after an American man swam uninvited to her lakeside home. China's intervention had been "very constructive on this point, and it was also constructive on the point of the North Korean nuclear test", Finland's Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb said on Tuesday. The ASEM foreign ministers on Tuesday condemned North Korea's second nuclear test, urged Pyongyang to refrain from future tests and called on it to return to the Six-Party Talks process. "We can certainly say that they have not been pushing on the brake. I'm not saying that they're pushing on the accelerator either, but they are not holding things up," Stubb said. "LOUD AND CLEAR" He said Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi "did mention political prisoners and he did talk about the dangers of the nuclear test in North Korea. So the message that we got in the meeting room was loud and clear". Another senior European diplomat, who declined to be identified, said Yang did not mention Suu Kyi by name, "but he de-facto did". "It was a new tone from China on the question of Burma. That, I think, can be said. There's no question about it," the diplomat said. Yang declined to comment specifically on Tuesday, telling Reuters only that the meetings in Hanoi of ASEM's 45 members had so far been very good. Asked about the statements, Yang said "it's a consensus". Last week, after the military junta that rules Myanmar put Suu Kyi on trial, China's foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Myanmar should be left to handle its own affairs. In Beijing on Tuesday he said there had been no change in this position. The call for Myanmar to release the Nobel Peace Prize winning Suu Kyi will be included in a sweeping final statement at the end of the meeting later on Tuesday. The North Korea remarks were made in a separate document. Myanmar's Foreign Minister Nyan Win declined repeatedly to comment to journalists on the sidelines of the Hanoi meeting, but diplomats said that in bilateral meetings and the larger forum he defended the regime's charges and the trial of Suu Kyi. Bill Rammell, Britain's junior foreign minister, did not mention China specifically, but agreed there was a new tone on Myanmar among some at the meeting. "I sensed that there's actually been a shift on this issue," he said, noting that Thailand had already spoken out firmly. "I think other states are engaging on this in a way that wasn't the case in the past... If I'm honest I think the Burmese regime has miscalculated and has been somewhat taken aback by the force of international reaction." The global financial crisis, pandemic flu and climate change were among other issues on the agenda of the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), involving 45 member countries.

A nuclear-powered rover as big as a compact car is set to begin a nine-month journey to Mars this weekend to learn if the planet is or ever was suitable for life. The launch of NASA's $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory aboard an unmanned United Space Alliance Atlas 5 rocket is set for 10:02 a.m. EST Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, located just south of the Kennedy Space Center. The mission is the first since NASA's 1970s-era Viking program to directly tackle the age-old question of whether there is life in the universe beyond Earth. "This is the most complicated mission we have attempted on the surface of Mars," Peter Theisinger, Mars Science Lab project manager with NASA prime contractor Lockheed Martin, told reporters at a pre-launch press conference on Wednesday. The consensus of scientists after experiments by the twin Viking landers was that life did not exist on Mars. Two decades later, NASA embarks on a new strategy to find signs of past water on Mars, realizing the question of life could not be examined without a better understanding of the planet's environment. "Everything we know about life and what makes a livable environment is peculiar to Earth," said astrobiologist Pamela Conrad of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., and a deputy lead scientist for the mission. "What things look like on Mars are a function of not only the initial set of ingredients that Mars had when it was made, but the processes that have affected Mars," she said. NEW MARS ROVER Without a large enough moon to stabilize its tilt, Mars has undergone dramatic climate changes over the eons as its spin axis wobbled closer or farther from the sun. The history of what happened on Mars during those times is chemically locked in its rocks, including whether liquid water and other ingredients believed necessary for life existed on the planet's surface, and if so, for how long. In 2004, the golf cart-sized rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on opposite sides of Mars' equator to tackle the question of water. Their three-month missions grew to seven years, with Spirit succumbing to the harsh winter in the past year and Opportunity beginning a search in a new area filled with water-formed clays. Both rovers found signs that water mingled with rocks during Mars' past. The new rover, nicknamed Curiosity, shifts the hunt to other elements key to life, particularly organics. "One of the ingredients of life is water," said Mary Voytek, director of NASA's astrobiology program. "We're now looking to see if we can find other conditions that are necessary for life by defining habitability or what does it take in the environment to support life." The spacecraft, which is designed to last two years, is outfitted with 10 tools to analyze one particularly alluring site on Mars called Gale Crater. The site is a 96-mile (154-kilometer) wide basin that has a layered mountain of deposits stretching 3 miles above its floor, twice as tall as the layers of rock in the Grand Canyon. Scientists do not know how the mound formed but suspect it is the eroded remains of sediment that once completely filled the crater. SKY CRANE DELIVERY Curiosity's toolkit includes a robotic arm with a drill, onboard chemistry labs to analyze powdered samples and a laser that can pulverize rock and soil samples from a distance of 20 feet away. If all goes as planned, Curiosity will be lowered to the floor of Gale Crater in August 2012 by a new landing system called a sky crane. Previously, NASA used airbags or thruster jets to cushion a probe's touchdown on Mars but the 1,980-pound (900-kilogram) Curiosity needed a beefier system. "There are a lot of people who look at that and say, 'What are you thinking?'" Theisinger said. "We put together a test program that successfully validated that from a design standpoint it will work. If something decides to break at that point in time, we're in trouble but we've done everything we can think of to do." The rover, which is twice as long and about three times heavier than the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, also needed more power for driving at night and operating its science instruments. Instead of solar power, Curiosity is equipped with a plutonium battery that generates electricity from the heat of radioactive decay. Similar systems have been used since the earliest days of the space program, including the Apollo moon missions, the Voyager and Viking probes and more recently in the Cassini spacecraft now circling Saturn and NASA's Pluto-bound New Horizons mission. Radiation monitors have been installed through the area around the Cape Canaveral launch site in case of an accident, though the device has been designed to withstand impacts and explosions, said Randall Scott, director of NASA's radiological control center at the Kennedy Space Center. Meteorologists were predicting good weather for Saturday's launch. Earth and Mars will be favorably aligned for launch until December 18.

Scientific instruments atop the Mauna Loa volcano in Hawaii showed that levels of carbon dioxide in the air averaged 419 parts per million in May, the annual peak, according to two separate analyses from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Those readings are about half a percent higher than the previous high of 417 parts per million, set in May 2020. Carbon dioxide is the most important greenhouse gas driving global warming and researchers have estimated that there hasn’t been this much of it in the atmosphere for millions of years. The stark new milestone comes as leaders from the Group of 7 nations prepare to meet in Cornwall, England, this week to discuss how they might step up efforts to tackle climate change. The data provides yet another warning that countries are still very far from getting their planet-warming greenhouse gases under control. Global emissions temporarily dipped last year as countries locked down amid the pandemic, shuttering businesses and factories. According to the International Energy Agency, the world emitted 5.8% less carbon dioxide in 2020 than it did in 2019, the largest one-year drop ever recorded. But that dip made little difference to the total amount of carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere. On the whole, humanity still emitted more than 31 billion tons of carbon dioxide last year, from sources such as cars that burn gasoline or power plants that burn coal. While about half of that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the world’s trees and oceans, the other half stays in the atmosphere, where it lingers for thousands of years, steadily warming the planet through the greenhouse effect. “As long as we keep emitting carbon dioxide, it’s going to continue to pile up in the atmosphere,” said Ralph Keeling, a geochemist who runs the Scripps Oceanography CO2 program. The project, begun by his father, Charles D Keeling, has been taking readings since 1958 at a NOAA observatory on the Mauna Loa volcano. Keeling noted that last year’s drop in annual emissions was too small to be detected in the atmospheric data, since it can be overshadowed by natural fluctuations in carbon emissions from vegetation and soil in response to seasonal changes in temperature and soil moisture. Scripps scientists have previously estimated that humanity’s emissions would need to drop by 20% to 30% for at least six months to result in a noticeable slowing of the rate of increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. And, scientists have said, there’s only one way to stop the total amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from continuing to grow: nations would need to essentially zero out their net annual emissions, primarily by switching away from fossil fuels to cleaner technologies that do not emit carbon dioxide, such as electric cars fuelled by wind, solar or nuclear power. Last month, the International Energy Agency issued a detailed road map for how all of the world’s nations could reach net zero emissions by 2050. The changes would be drastic, the agency found: Countries would have to stop building new coal plants immediately, ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 and install wind turbines and solar panels at an unprecedented rate. If nations managed to hit that goal, they could limit total global warming to around 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared with preindustrial levels. (The Earth has already warmed more than 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times.) Doing so could help humanity avoid some of the worst impacts of climate change, such as the irreversible collapse of polar ice sheets or widespread crop failures. But so far, the agency warned, the world is not on track to hit that goal. Total annual emissions are currently expected to rise at their second-fastest pace ever this year as countries recover from the pandemic and global coal burning approaches its all-time high, led by a surge of industrial activity in Asia. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere currently varies by about 10 parts per million over the course of a year. It reaches a peak each May, before the seasonal growth of vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere, which has about two-thirds of the Earth’s land mass, removes some of the gas through photosynthesis. The May average first topped 400 parts per million in 2014 — a milestone that attracted worldwide media coverage. Since then, emissions have continued to soar. The latest full-year average, for 2019, was 409.8 parts per million, about 46% higher than the preindustrial average of 280. “The last decade has seen the most rapid growth of any decade in human history,” Keeling said. “So it’s not just that the levels are high, it’s that they’re still rising fast.” The current levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are likely comparable to those seen during the Pliocene era, 4.1 million to 4.5 million years ago, the Scripps scientists said. While that period is not a perfect guide to what would happen today, it can provide some clues. By analysing ice cores and ocean sediments, researchers have determined that temperatures during that time were nearly 4 degrees Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit) higher than in the modern preindustrial era and that sea levels were about 78 feet higher than today. © 2021 The New York Times Company

The worst financial crisis since the 1930s may be a chance to put price tags on nature in a radical economic rethink to protect everything from coral reefs to rainforests, environmental experts say. Farmers know the value of land from the amount of crops they can produce but large parts of the natural world -- such as wetlands that purify water, oceans that produce fish or trees that soak up greenhouse gases -- are usually viewed as "free." "Most of our valuable assets are not on the books," said Robert Costanza, professor of ecological economics at the University of Vermont. "We need to reinvent economics. The financial crisis is an opportunity." Advocates of "eco-nomics" say that valuing "natural capital" could help protect nature from rising human populations, pollution and climate change that do not figure in conventional measures of wealth such as gross domestic product (GDP) or gross national product (GNP). "I believe the 21st century will be dominated by the concept of natural capital, just as the 20th was dominated by financial capital," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program, told Reuters at the International Union for Conservation of Nature congress in Barcelona earlier this month. "We are reaching a point...at which the very system that supports us is threatened," he said. Conventional economists often object it is impossible to value an Andean valley or the Caribbean. "We have struggled with nature-based services: how does a market begin to value them?" Steiner said. Costanza helped get international debate underway a decade ago with a widely quoted estimate that the value of natural services was $33 trillion a year -- almost twice world gross domestic product at the time. INFINITY Some economists dismissed Costanza's $33 trillion as an overestimate. Others pointed out that no one would be alive without nature, so its value to humans is infinite. "There is little that can be usefully be done with a serious underestimate of infinity," economist Michael Toman said at the time. But with the seizure of world money-markets bringing -- for some, at least -- an opportunity to rethink modern capitalism's basic tenet that greed and self-interest can counterbalance each other, more environmental experts hope to revisit nature's role in producing food, water, fuels, fibers or building materials. "The financial crisis is just another nail in the coffin" of a system that seeks economic growth while ignoring wider human wellbeing, said Johan Rockstrom, executive director of the Stockholm Environment Institute. Under standard economics, nations can boost their GDP -- briefly -- by chopping down all their forests and selling the timber, or by dynamiting coral reefs to catch all the fish. A rethink would stress the value of keeping nature intact. Rockstrom said bank bailouts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars might "change the mindset of the public...if we are willing to save investment banks, why not spend a similar amount on saving the planet?" he said. And there are ever more attempts to mix prices and nature. The European Union set up a carbon trading market in 2005 to get industries such as steel makers or oil refineries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, blamed for global warming. Ecuador has asked rich countries to pay it $350 million a year in exchange for not extracting 1 billion barrels of oil in the Amazon rainforest. BHUTAN The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has shifted from traditional gross national product to a goal of "gross national happiness," which includes respect for nature. And in U.N. talks on a new climate treaty, more than 190 nations are considering a plan to pay tropical nations billions of dollars a year to leave forests alone to slow deforestation and combat global warming. "We want to see a shift to valuing ecosystems," Norwegian Environment Minister Erik Solheim said. Oslo has led donor efforts by pledging $500 million a year to tropical nations for abandoning the chainsaw and letting trees stand. Deforestation accounts for about a fifth of all greenhouse gas emissions by mankind. Trees soak up carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, as they grow, and release it when they rot or are burned, usually to clear land for farming. UNEP's Steiner said long-standing objections that it is too hard to value ecosystems were dwindling as economists' ability to assess risks improved. A report sponsored by the European Commission and Germany in May estimated that humanity was causing 50 billion euros ($67.35 billion) in damage to the planet's land areas every year. And a 2006 report by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern said that unchecked global warming could cost 5 to 20 percent of world GDP, damaging the economy on the scale of the world wars or the Great Depression. Steiner said stock market plunges, or a halving of oil prices since peaks of $147 a barrel in July, showed that environmental experts were not the only ones who had trouble valuing assets. A 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Report also said that natural systems were worth more intact than if converted. It said a Canadian wetland was worth $6,000 a year per hectare, and just $2,000 if converted to farmland. A hectare of mangrove in Thailand was worth $1,000 a year -- producing fish or protecting against coastal erosion -- against $200 if uprooted and converted to a shrimp farm. Costanza, in a letter to the journal Science with a colleague earlier this year, said one way to value nature would be to set up a government-backed system to trade all greenhouse gas emissions and channel the revenues, estimated at $0.9-$3.6 trillion a year, into an "Earth Atmospheric Trust." If half the cash were shared out, each person on the planet would get $71-$285 a year, a big step toward ending poverty. The rest could go to renewable energy and clean technology.

While the vaccines remain remarkably protective against COVID-19, especially against serious illness, headlines about breakthrough infections and new recommendations that vaccinated people should sometimes wear masks have left many people confused and worried. While new research shows vaccinated people can become infected and carry high levels of the coronavirus, it’s important to remember that those cases are rare, and it’s primarily the unvaccinated who get infected and spread the virus. “If you’re vaccinated, you’ve done the most important thing for you and your family and friends to keep everyone safe,” Gregg Gonsalves, assistant professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, said. “There’s substantially more freedom for people who are vaccinated, but the idea that everything is the same as the summer of 2019 is not the case.” If I’m vaccinated, why do I need to worry about Delta? No vaccine offers 100 percent protection. Think of vaccine antibodies like a sea wall designed to protect a town from a storm surge, says Erin Bromage, a comparative immunologist and biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. Most of the time, the wall stands up to the pounding waves, but a hurricane might be forceful enough to allow some water to get through. Compared with earlier forms of the virus, Delta is like a viral hurricane; it’s far more infectious and presents a bigger challenge to even a vaccinated immune system. “Vaccinations give you that extra protection you wouldn’t normally have,” Bromage said. “But when you hit a big challenge, like getting near an unvaccinated person who has a high viral load, that wall is not always going to hold.” The good news is the current crop of vaccines available in the United States is doing a remarkable job of protecting people from serious illness, hospitalization and death. More than 97 percent of those hospitalized with COVID-19 are unvaccinated. And new data from Singapore shows that even when vaccinated patients are hospitalized with delta breakthrough infections, they are far less likely to need supplemental oxygen, and they clear the virus faster compared with unvaccinated patients. What’s the real risk of a breakthrough infection after vaccination? Breakthrough infections make headlines, but they remain uncommon. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped tracking all breakthrough cases in May, about half of all states report at least some data on breakthrough events. The Kaiser Family Foundation recently analyzed much of the state-reported data and found that breakthrough cases, hospitalizations and deaths are extremely rare events among those who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. The rate of breakthrough cases reported among those fully vaccinated is “well below 1 percent in all reporting states, ranging from 0.01% in Connecticut to 0.29 percent in Alaska,” according to the Kaiser analysis. But many breakthrough infections are probably never reported because people who are infected don’t have symptoms or have mild symptoms that end before the person even thinks about being tested. “Breakthrough infections are pretty rare, but unless we have a population-based sample we don’t know the level of rarity,” said Dr. Asaf Bitton, executive director of Ariadne Labs at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. “A lot of people with mild scratchy throat for a couple days may have had them, but we don’t know. It’s not a failure of the vaccine that we’re having breakthrough cases. It’s been estimated that we’ve staved off 100,000 to 200,000 deaths since the vaccine campaign started.” What is clear is that the risk of a breakthrough infection increases the more opportunities you give delta to challenge the wall of protection conferred by your vaccine. Big crowded events — like a July 4 celebration in Provincetown, Massachusetts, or the packed Lollapalooza concert in Chicago — pose a much greater risk that a vaccinated person will cross paths with an infected person carrying a high viral load. “The more people you put yourself in contact with, the more risk you have, but it also depends on the local climate of risk,” Gonsalves said. “Soon we’ll probably see a Lollapalooza outbreak. All these people crushed together is an ideal situation for the spread of delta.” When should I wear a mask? The CDC has a color-coded map of COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States. Blue and yellow zones show relatively low levels of infections, while orange and red zones indicate areas where cases in the past week were above 50 cases per 100,000 people. The agency advises people to wear masks if they live in an orange or red zone — which now accounts for about 80 percent of the counties in the United States. Infection numbers remain relatively low in much of the Northeast and Upper Midwest, while delta has caused huge spikes in cases in Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana and Florida. The problem with the map is that case counts are changing rapidly and may surge in your local community before the map has changed colors. Even if you’re certain you’re living in a highly vaccinated community with very low case counts, it makes sense to consider the case counts and vaccination rates in nearby communities as well, because people — and viruses — cross state and county boundaries all the time. Most experts agree that you don’t need to wear a mask outdoors if you’re not in a crowd and have plenty of distance (at least 6 feet) from people whose vaccination status isn’t known. It’s still risky to attend a packed outdoor concert, but if you do, wear a mask. “I would still suggest wearing a mask if you are indoors with people whose vaccination status you don’t know, especially if you will be within a few feet of them for any amount of time, or if you will be in the room for a long period of time with those people,” said J Alex Huffman, an aerosol scientist and associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry at the University of Denver. “I don’t wear a mask indoors in all situations now, because I’m fully vaccinated, but I put my N95 mask on whenever I go into indoor public spaces.” Should I upgrade my mask? You will get the most protection from a high-quality medical mask like an N95 or a KN95, although you want to be sure you have the real thing. A KF94 is a high-quality medical mask made in Korea, where counterfeits are less likely. If you don’t have a medical mask, you still get strong protection from double masking with a simple surgical mask under a cloth mask. A mask with an exhale valve should never be worn, since it allows plumes of viral particles to escape, and counterfeit masks may have faulty valves that let germs in. You may want to pick your mask based on the setting. A cloth mask may be adequate for a quick trip into an empty convenience store in an area with high vaccination rates. But a higher-quality mask makes sense during air travel or in a crowded grocery store, especially in communities where vaccination rates are low and case counts are high. Masks with straps or ties around the back of the head seal more tightly than masks with ear loops. “All the mitigation efforts we used before need to be better to hold off the delta variant, and this includes masks,” Huffman said. “I strongly encourage people to upgrade their mask to something with high filter quality and something that fits tightly to their face. The No. 1 factor, in my opinion, is to make sure the mask is sealed well all around the edges — over the nose bridge, by the cheeks and under the chin. So any mask that fits tightly is better than almost any loosefitting mask.” What’s the risk of hanging out with my vaccinated friends and family? Vaccinated people are at very low risk when they spend time, unmasked, with their vaccinated friends and family members. “I don’t think mask-wearing is critical,” Huffman said. “If you are indoors with a small number of people you know are vaccinated, wearing a mask is low on my list of worries.” But some circumstances might require extra precautions. While it’s unusual for a vaccinated person to spread the virus to another vaccinated person, it’s theoretically possible. A vaccinated friend who is going to crowded bars, packed concerts or traveling to a COVID hot spot is a bigger risk than someone who avoids crowds and spends most of their time with vaccinated people. With the delta variant spreading, Bitton suggests an “outdoor first” strategy, particularly for families with unvaccinated children or family members at high risk. If you can take your event outside to a backyard or patio this summer and minimize your time indoors, you lower your risk. Spending time with smaller groups of vaccinated friends has less risk than attending a big party, even if you believe everyone at the party is vaccinated. If you’re indoors, open the windows to improve ventilation. If someone in the group is at very high risk because of age or because they are immunocompromised, it’s reasonable to ask even vaccinated people to be tested before a visit. A simple rapid home test can even be offered to guests to be sure everyone is COVID-free. Can I still dine at restaurants? The answer depends on local conditions, your tolerance for risk and the personal health of those around you. Risk is lowest in communities with high vaccination rates and very low case counts. A restaurant meal in Vermont, where two-thirds of the population is vaccinated, poses less risk than an indoor meal in Alabama or Mississippi, where just one-third of the residents are vaccinated. Parents of unvaccinated children and people with compromised immune systems, who studies show may get less protection from vaccines, may want to order takeout or dine outdoors as an added precaution. Is it safe to travel? Should I skip the peanuts and water and keep my mask on? Airplanes are typically well ventilated and not a major source of outbreaks, but taking precautions is still a good idea. The potential for exposure to an infected person may be even higher in the terminal, sitting in airport restaurants and bars, or going through the security line. In airplanes, air is refreshed roughly every two to three minutes — a higher rate than in grocery stores and other indoor spaces. While airlines still require passengers to wear masks, people are allowed to remove them to drink water or eat. To prevent air from circulating to everyone throughout the cabin, airplane ventilation systems keep airflow contained to a few rows. As a result, an infected passenger poses the most risk to those sitting in the seats in the immediate area. Most experts say that they use a high-quality medical mask, like an N95 or KF94, when they fly. If you don’t have one, double masking is advised. For a vaccinated person, the risk of removing a mask briefly to eat or drink during a flight is low, but it’s better to keep it on as much as possible. The CDC says it’s best for unvaccinated people, including children, to avoid flying. Bromage said he recently traveled by air and took his mask off briefly to drink a beverage, but kept it on for most of the flight. He said he would be more comfortable removing his mask to eat if he knew the people next to him were vaccinated. He said he would be more concerned if the person next to him didn’t seem to care about COVID precautions or wore the mask under the nose. “If you’ve got a random person next to you, especially a chatty person, I’d keep the mask on,” he said. How safe are buses, subways and trains for vaccinated people? Most buses, trains and subways still require everyone to wear a mask, which lowers risk. While vaccinated people are well protected, the risk of viral exposure increases the longer the ride and the more crowded the train car or bus. For many people, riding public transit is essential for getting to work or school, and wearing a well-fitted medical mask or double mask is recommended. When public transit is optional, the decision about whether to ride should factor in local vaccination rates and whether case counts are rising. Can I hug and visit older relatives? What about unvaccinated children? While it’s generally considered safe for vaccinated people to hug and spend time together unmasked, parents of unvaccinated children have more risks to consider, particularly when visiting older relatives. In communities with low case counts and high vaccination rates, it’s generally considered safe for unvaccinated children from a single household to spend time with vaccinated grandparents. But as the delta variant spreads and children return to school, the risks of close contact also increase for older or immune-compromised people who are more vulnerable to complications from COVID-19, even if they’re vaccinated. When families plan a visit to a high-risk relative, it’s a good idea to minimize other exposures, avoiding restaurant dining or working out at the gym in the week leading up to the visit. Even though the risk of a vaccinated person spreading COVID-19 remains low, vaccinated grandparents should also reduce their personal exposure when they spend time with unvaccinated children. “I have not been masking up indoors with my octogenarian parents at this point, because I am still very careful in the way I wear masks in public settings,” Huffman, the aerosol scientist, said. “But if I had more interactions that increased my overall risk of exposure, I would strongly consider masking up when indoors with vulnerable individuals.” Rapid home tests are an added precaution when visiting grandparents or an immune-compromised family member. Take a test a few days before the visit as well as the day of the visit. Home tests are “a wonderful option for people with a little more anxiety right now in regards to the virus,” Bromage said. “What we’re doing is buying those, and each and everyone tests before they come together — literally right before we’re together. When everyone is clear, you can enjoy that time together.” How do I know if I have the delta variant? If you’re diagnosed in the US with COVID-19, the odds are overwhelming that you have the delta variant. The CDC now estimates that delta accounts for more than 82 percent of cases in the United States. The delta variant has become dominant in other countries as well. In late July the World Health Organization said delta accounted for 75 percent or more of the cases in many countries, including Australia, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Denmark, India, Indonesia, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and the UK. That said, standard COVID tests won’t tell you if your infection was caused by the delta variant or another variant of the virus. While health departments may use genomic sequencing to identify levels of different variants in a community, this information typically isn’t shared with individuals. You still need to isolate and seek medical advice if you have low blood oxygen levels, have trouble breathing or have other worrisome symptoms. © 2021 The New York Times Company

Francis' popularity with most Catholics, and legions of non-Catholics, has given him the image of a grandfatherly parish priest who understands how difficult it sometimes is to follow Church teachings, particularly those on sexual morality. Conservatives worry that behind the gentle facade lies a dangerous reformer who is diluting Catholic teaching on moral issues like homosexuality and divorce while focusing on social problems such as climate change and economic inequality. Interviews with four Vatican officials, including two cardinals and an archbishop, as well as theologians and commentators, highlighted conservative fears that Francis' words and deeds may eventually rupture the 1.2 billion member Church. Chatter on conservative blogs regularly accuses the Argentine pontiff of spreading doctrinal confusion and isolating those who see themselves as guardians of the faith. "Going to bed. Wake me up when this pontificate is over," Damien Thompson, associate editor of the British weekly "The Spectator" and a conservative Catholic commentator tweeted last month. Thompson was among conservatives stung by a freewheeling news conference Francis gave on a flight home from Mexico. In it, he stirred up the US presidential debate by criticizing Republican candidate Donald Trump's immigration stance and made comments that were interpreted as an opening to use contraceptives to stop the spread of the Zika virus. They were the latest in a line of unscripted utterances that have left many conservatives feeling nostalgic for the days of Francis's two predecessors, Benedict and John Paul, who regularly thundered against contraception, homosexuality and abortion. "Every time this happens I wonder if he realizes how much confusion he is causing," said a conservative Rome-based cardinal who took part in the conclave that elected Francis three years ago and spoke on the condition of anonymity. He would not say if he voted for Francis because participants in conclaves are sworn to secrecy. THE POPE AND THE PEWS Another senior official, an archbishop in an important Vatican ministry, said: "These comments alarm not only tradition-minded priests but even liberal priests who have complained to me that people are challenging them on issues that are very straight-forward, saying 'the pope would let me do this' why don't you?" Francis first shocked conservatives just months after his election on March 13, 2013, when he said "Who am I to judge?" about Catholic homosexuals who were at least trying to live by Church rules that they should be chaste. He caused further upset when he changed Church rules to allow women to take part in a male-only Lenten service, ruled out any campaigns to convert Jews and approved a "common prayer" with Lutherans for joint commemorations for next year's 500th anniversary of the start of the Protestant Reformation. An important crossroads in the conservative-progressive showdown is looming and might come as early as mid-March. It could reveal how far this politically astute pontiff wants to transform his Church. Francis is due to issue a document called an Apostolic Exhortation after two years of debate and two major meetings of bishops to discuss the family - the Vatican's way of referring to its policies concerning sex. The exercise, which began with an unprecedented poll of Catholics around the world, boiled down in the end to one hot-button issue - whether divorced Catholics who remarry outside the Church can receive communion at the central rite of Mass. Conservatives say any change would undermine the principle of the indissolubility of marriage that Jesus established. At the end of the synod last year, Francis excoriated immovable Church leaders who he said "bury their heads in the sand" and hide behind rigid doctrine while families suffer. The gathering's final document spoke of a so-called "internal forum" in which a priest or a bishop may work with a Catholic who has divorced and remarried to decide privately and on a case-by-case basis if he or she can be fully re-integrated. That crack in the doctrinal door annoyed many conservatives, who fear Francis' upcoming document may open the flood gates. WHOSE CHURCH IS IT ANYWAY? It is difficult to quantify Catholic conservatives. Liberals say they are a minority and reject conservative assertions that they are the real "base" of the Church. "The overwhelming majority of Catholics understand what the pope wants to do, and that is to reach out to everyone," said another cardinal close to Francis. Regardless of what their actual numbers might be, conservatives have big megaphones in social media. "It really has gotten more shrill and intense since Francis took over because he seems to get only positive feedback from the mainstream media. Therefore in the strange logic of (conservative) groups, he is someone who is immediately suspect if only for that," said the Catholic blogger Arthur Rosman. One of the leading conservative standard bearers, Ross Douthat, the Catholic author and New York Times op-ed columnist, has expressed deep worry about the long-term repercussions of the issue of communion for the divorced and remarried. "It may be that this conflict has only just begun," Douthat said in a lecture to American conservatives in January. "And it may be that as with previous conflicts in Church history, it will eventually be serious enough to end in real schism, a permanent parting of the ways." The last internal rupture in the Church was in 1988 when French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre consecrated bishops without Vatican approval in order to guarantee succession in his ultra-traditionalist group, the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). The SSPX rejects the modernizing reforms of the 1962-1965 Second Vatican Council, including the historic opening to dialogue with other religions. While it remains a small group, its dissent continues to undermine papal authority. The conservative standard bearer in Rome is Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke, a 67-year-old American who in 2014 told an interviewer that the Church under Francis was like "a ship without a rudder". Francis was not pleased. That same year, he removed Burke as head of the Vatican's highest court and demoted him to the largely ceremonial post of chaplain of a charity group. Conservatives are also worried about Francis' drive to devolve decision-making power on several issues from the Vatican to regional, national or diocesan levels, what the pope has called "a healthy decentralization". This is an anathema to conservatives, who say rules should be applied identically around the world. They warn that a devolution of power would leave the Vatican vulnerable to the splits seen in the Anglican and Orthodox Churches. "If you look at these two big Churches, they are not in very good shape," said Massimo Faggioli, a Church historian and associate professor of theology at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. "That's why conservatives are nervous. They think Francis does not understand the danger."

Kasim Reed, the former Atlanta mayor who fell off the political map in 2018 amid a steady drip of scandal in his administration, has returned to the spotlight with an unlikely bid for a third term and is now a leading candidate in a crowded field of lesser-known contenders. The overwhelming focus of Reed’s second act is the troubling increase in violent crime in Atlanta — and a promise that he, alone, can fix it. “I am the only candidate with the experience and track record to address our city’s surge in violent crime,” he recently wrote on Twitter, introducing a new campaign ad in which he called public safety “Job No. 1.” In an echo of moderate Democrats like Eric Adams, the winner of this summer’s Democratic mayoral primary in New York City, Reed is promising to strengthen law enforcement in a way that takes into account grassroots demands for a cultural change in policing. He has promised to add 750 officers to Atlanta’s police force. “But we’re going to train them in a post-George Floyd way,” he said in a recent television ad. Most of Reed’s major opponents in the nonpartisan race identify as Democrats, and most are also offering some version of this message, which is distinctly different from the defund-the-police rhetoric that emerged from progressive activists during the street protests of 2020. Reed’s fate at the polls in November may also hint at how much voters are willing to overlook from politicians so long as they think they might gain a modicum of peace and order. His time in office was defined by a sharp-elbowed style that some described as bullying, and by several scandals involving kickbacks, theft of public funds and weapons violations, among other things. Felicia Moore, the City Council president and one of Reed’s top rivals for mayor, wants voters to think hard about the string of corruption cases involving members of his administration. “The leadership should take responsibility for the actions of their administration,” she said. “He was the leader of that organisation.” But in Atlanta, crime has increasingly taken centre stage. The number of homicides investigated by Atlanta police surged from 99 in 2019 to 157 in 2020, a year when the US experienced its largest one-year increase in homicides on record, and in Atlanta, this year is on track to be worse. Some homicides have particularly horrified residents over the past year: An 8-year-old girl shot and killed in a car she was riding in with her mother last summer. A 27-year-old bartender kidnapped at gunpoint and killed as she was returning home from a shift last month. A 40-year-old woman mutilated and stabbed to death, along with her dog, while she was on a late-night walk near Piedmont Park, the city’s signature open space, in July. “They are more random, and they’re happening all over the city at all times of day,” said Sharon Gay, a mayoral candidate who noted that she was mugged about 18 months ago near her home in the well-heeled neighbourhood of Inman Park. The political ramifications extend beyond the mayor’s office. Georgia Republicans have begun campaigning with dire warnings about the violence in liberal Atlanta — even though cities run by both Democrats and Republicans have seen a rise in violent crime. Gov. Brian Kemp has devoted millions in funding for a new “crime suppression unit” in the city. And the upscale Buckhead neighbourhood is threatening to secede from Atlanta due mostly to concerns about crime, a move that could be disastrous for the city’s tax base. Some critics blame the current mayor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, for failing to adequately tackle the crime problem. This spring, a few days before Bottoms announced she would not run for reelection, Reed asserted that crime had reached “unacceptable levels” that were “fracturing” the city. It was widely interpreted as a turn against Bottoms, his one-time protegee, and a sign that Reed was plotting a comeback. When it came, it was with a heavy dose of glamour. “The fate of the city of Atlanta is at stake,” Reed declared at a star-studded party at the Buckhead manse of Tyrese Gibson, the actor and musician. “Atlanta, tell LA, tell New York, tell Charlotte, tell Dallas, tell Chicago and definitely tell Miami — I’m back!” In a matter of weeks, he had raised roughly $1 million in campaign contributions. Still, the idea that Atlanta would be better off if it could go back to the days of 2010-17, when Reed was in office, is deeply divisive. Reed takes credit for keeping crime low during those years and boasts of recruiting hundreds of police officers. FBI statistics show that violent crime in the city fell beginning in 2012, and continued falling throughout Reed’s tenure, a time when violent crime around the country was on a downward trend that began in the early 1990s. In fact, the total number of violent crimes per year continued to decline in Atlanta through 2020. But the high-profile nature of some of the more recent crimes has put many residents on edge, as have some short-term trends: As of early September, murders, rapes and aggravated assaults were all up compared with the same time last year. Reed, as mayor, could display both conviction and practicality: He dismissed the city fire chief after the chief published a book calling homosexual acts “vile,” and he faced down union protesters in pushing through reforms to address the city’s enormous unfunded pension liability. However, investigations into scandals in Reed’s administration led to guilty pleas from the city’s former chief procurement officer, its former contract compliance officer and Reed’s deputy chief of staff. A former human services director, watershed management head and chief financial officer were also indicted, and are awaiting trial. In June, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, relying on court documents and campaign records, reported that Reed appeared to be under federal investigation for using campaign funds for personal purchases. Reed, in an interview, said the Department of Justice had told his lawyers he was not under investigation. The US Attorney’s Office in Atlanta declined to comment. In the interview, Reed said he accepted responsibility for the problems that occurred on his watch, and noted that after years of scrutiny, no charges have been lodged against him. “I have been through a level of vetting and security that very few people go through and survive, and I have come out with my name clear,” he said. He suggested that racism might have been a reason for all the scrutiny he received. Federal investigations like the ones in Atlanta, he said, are “frequently directed at Black political leaders, certainly in the job of mayor.” In a University of Georgia poll commissioned by The Journal-Constitution and conducted in late August and early September, Reed was narrowly leading the mayoral race, with roughly 24% support. But about 41% of likely voters were undecided, and Reed’s opponents are hoping to convince them that there are better choices. Some voters have had enough of Reed. Bruce Maclachlan, 85, is a landlord who lives in Inman Park close to the place where Gay was mugged. Corruption, he said, seemed to be “circulating around Kasim Reed. It makes you wonder.” Maclachlan said he was voting for Moore, the City Council president who was just behind Reed in the poll with about 20% support. He said she appeared to be honest and free of scandal. Robert Patillo, a criminal defence lawyer, has felt the crime problem intimately. In the past few months, his sister’s car was stolen, his laptop was stolen from his car, and a friend’s house was broken into. “I think everybody’s been touched by it,” he said. Patillo said he, too, was voting for Moore, who he believed would be more trustworthy and better at balancing crime fighting with a civil rights agenda. But he said he understood the appeal of Reed. “When people are scared,” he said, “they turn back to a strongman.” Pinky Cole, the founder of Slutty Vegan, a local restaurant chain with a cult following, had a different view. Cole, one of the city’s better known young African American entrepreneurs, said Reed had helped her with legal problems her business faced. For Cole, the issues of crime and the city’s business climate were intertwined, a common sentiment in Atlanta these days, but one that has hit her particularly hard: In recent months, she said, two of her employees have been shot, one of them fatally. Despite the baggage from the corruption cases, she believed that Reed was a man of integrity. And she saw how he had made the city safe before. “I’m confident,” she said, “that he’ll do it again.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

The country’s space agency will complete a key step toward that goal Wednesday when Tianwen-1, the spacecraft the country launched in July, attempts to orbit the red planet. If the arrival at Mars succeeds, China will try to place a lander and a robotic rover on the planet later this year. It would join what could by then be a trio of NASA spacecraft studying the Martian surface. When will Tianwen-1 arrive at Mars? China has said that the spacecraft will arrive at Mars on Wednesday. But the China National Space Administration and state media have not provided more specific information. China’s space agency has a penchant for secrecy around its missions. It has shown more openness in the past year, providing a live video on state media of its Chang’e-4 mission’s launch to the moon. What will the spacecraft do Wednesday? Tianwen-1 launched from China in July, taking advantage of a period when Mars and Earth were closest to each other during their journeys around the sun. This allows a relatively short transit between the two worlds. To catch up with Mars, the spacecraft has fired its engines on several occasions, correcting its course so it can approach the red planet at the correct angle. The most recent engine firing occurred Feb 5, and the probe sent back pictures of the red planet from a distance of about 1.3 million miles. On Wednesday, the engine will light up again, expending much of the spacecraft’s remaining fuel in a braking manoeuvre. That should slow it considerably, and allow the probe to be captured by Martian gravity. There it will circle at a safe distance, joining the other cast of robotic explorers in Martian orbit and preparing for that later surface landing attempt. Could anything go wrong? The history of spaceflight is littered with failed voyages to Mars, including a Chinese mission in 2011 that never got out of Earth’s orbit after the Russian rocket it was traveling on failed. And a few spacecraft have stumbled during this final step of preparing to enter Martian orbit. For instance, in 1999, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter suffered a navigation error — English units were not converted to metric — and the spacecraft burned in the Martian atmosphere. In 1992, NASA lost contact with its Mars Observer spacecraft days before it was to arrive at Mars, perhaps because of a fuel line rupture. After a Soviet mission in 1974, Mars 4, failed to fire its retro rockets, the spacecraft sailed away from Mars. Still, the challenge of orbiting Mars is nothing compared with landing there. When will China land on Mars? The orbiter carries a lander and a rover which will make the difficult transit to the surface. China says it will attempt to land on Mars in May, but it has not specified a date. Its destination is Utopia Planitia, a large basin in the northern hemisphere that most likely was once impacted by a meteor, and which was visited by NASA’s Viking 2 lander in 1976. One goal of the Tianwen-1 mission is to better understand the distribution of ice in this region, which future human colonists on Mars could use to sustain themselves. Landing on the red planet is perilous. Spacecraft descend at a high speed and the thin atmosphere does little to help slow the trip to the ground. Air friction still generates extreme heat that must be absorbed or dissipated. A number of Soviet, NASA and European missions have crashed. Only NASA has landed intact more than once. The Chinese spacecraft will spend months orbiting Mars to check systems and pick a landing spot that will not be too treacherous. Should it land in one piece, the rover will need a name. After nominations from people in China, a panel of experts selected 10 semifinalists. Among them, according to state media, are Hongyi, from a Chinese word for ambition and persistence; Qilin, a hoofed creature of Chinese legend; and Nezha, a young deity who is considered a patron of rebellious youth. What else has China accomplished in space recently? Since China launched its mission to Mars in July, it has been to the moon and back. The Chang’e-5 mission lifted off in November, collected lunar samples and then brought them back to Earth for scientists to study. It was the first new cache of moon rocks since the Soviet Union’s last lunar mission in 1976. China’s Chang’e-4 mission, the first to land on the moon’s far side, is still in operation and its Yutu-2 rover is still studying the lunar surface more than two years after it launched. What else is arriving at the red planet in 2021? The first robotic probe to arrive at Mars this year was Hope, an orbiter from the United Arab Emirates’ emerging space agency. It arrived Tuesday and will embark on a study of the red planet’s atmosphere, helping planetary scientists understand the weather dynamics of Mars. The third new visitor to Mars will be Perseverance, NASA’s newest rover. It launched a bit later than the other two spacecraft in July, and will skip Martian orbit, heading directly to the planet’s surface on Feb. 18. The robotic explorer would be NASA’s fifth rover on Mars, and it is very similar to Curiosity, which is now exploring the Gale crater. The new rover carries a different set of scientific instruments and will explore the Jezero crater, a dried-out lake that scientists believe could be a good target to seek fossilised evidence of extinct Martian microbial life. The mission will also attempt a new first on the red planet: flying a helicopter in the wispy Martian atmosphere. NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter will be dropped off by the rover not long after landing. Then it will attempt a number of test flights in air as thin as the upper reaches of Earth’s atmosphere, aiming to demonstrate that Mars can be explored through the air as well as on the ground. What other spacecraft are currently studying Mars? It’s getting a bit crowded around the red planet. Six orbiters are studying the planet from space. Three were sent there by NASA: Mars Odyssey, launched in 2001, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, launched in 2005, and MAVEN, which left Earth in 2013. Europe has two spacecraft in orbit. Its Mars Express orbiter was launched in 2003, and the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter lifted off in 2016 and is shared with Russia’s space program. India operates the sixth spacecraft, the Mars Orbiter Mission, also known as Mangalyaan, which launched in 2013. Two American missions are operating on the ground. Curiosity has been roving since 2012. It is joined by InSight, which has been studying marsquakes and other inner properties of the red planet since 2018. A third American mission, the Opportunity rover, expired in 2019 when a dust storm caused it to lose power.   © 2021 The New York Times Company

Her husband worked as a day labourer on fishing boats but earned too little to cover their expenses. Just over a year ago, however, the five-member Akter family was one of 45 households offered land on Hatiya Island under a decade-long free lease by the Bangladesh Forest Department. “I got a pond and a piece of land for 10 years,” said Akter. “Now I am farming fish in the pond and cultivating vegetables on my land - and getting benefits.” She has already sold fish for 10,000 taka ($120), and hopes to increase her earnings to 100,000 taka in the next few months. Riverbank erosion made worse by heavy monsoon rains upstream had displaced the family repeatedly from their home on Hatiya, a 371-sq km (143-sq mile) island located in an estuary where the Meghna River flows into the northern Bay of Bengal. A few years ago, the Akters moved to a coastal embankment in another part of the island, where they built a makeshift house. As more Bangladeshi families are uprooted by climate change pressures, including rising seas and coastal erosion, the Forest Department is distributing fallow land formed from river silt. Poor, landless people can use the plots without paying rent for 10 years, although they cannot live on the land, as much of it is outside protective embankments. The land scheme, launched two years ago by the Bangladesh government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), covers Hatiya and some islands in Bhola district. So far, 9 hectares (22 acres) of fallow land in Hatiya sub-district have been divided up between 45 families who have each received a plot with a pond to farm fish. Fruit and timber tree saplings have also been handed out to plant on the land. The families have been trained to rear ducks and grow vegetables, so that they can earn more money. PROTECTING LAND Demand to participate in the program is rising by the day, said UNDP community development officer Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan. Forest officials said a new effort is underway to distribute another 20 hectares with ponds to 100 families in Hatiya, which has a population of about 500,000 – and the scheme may be expanded further. “There are huge fallow lands (belonging to) the Forest Department in the islands,” said divisional forest officer Islam Towhidul. Such land is at risk of being appropriated for financial gain by powerful people like politicians and landlords, he said. Leasing the land to vulnerable families can protect it from encroachment, while tackling poverty, he added. The Forest Department expects the 10-year leases to be extended, he noted. When the Hatiya homestead and farmland of Mosharraf Hossaion, in his 60s, went under water in 2001 due to erosion by the Meghna River, his life turned into a nightmare. “Once I had a happy family at Vendar village ... but riverbank erosion snatched away our home and all our belongings,” he explained. Leaving everything behind, Mosharraf’s family moved to Aladia village in the same sub-district where they built a house on an embankment right by the sea. Two other villages were also flooded, uprooting more than 1,000 people, said Mosharraf. They are now at the mercy of extreme events like tidal surges and cyclones each year as they live so close to the sea, he added. Nizam Majhi said his family’s lives had become miserable after they lost not only their home and possessions to sea flooding but also their family ties, leaving them facing an uncertain future. SEAS CREEP HIGHER Internal displacement is now common on Hatiya as a large part of the island is being devoured by riverbank erosion accelerated by sea level rise. The phenomenon is particularly fierce during the monsoon rains when large volumes of water flow downstream. According to officials at the Bangladesh Water Development Board, several hundred acres of arable land, as well as many houses, markets, mosques, schools, roads, cyclone shelters and 14 km of embankments on Hatiya Island have been gobbled up by seawater in the last two years. Erosion continues, putting many more islanders at risk of being uprooted. Villager Majhi said that after losing homes and agricultural land, about 100 families are now living in centres intended as cyclone shelters. In its 2016 annual report, development group BRAC warned that about 27 million Bangladeshis were predicted to be at risk of sea level rise by 2050, with two-thirds of the country less than 5 metres above sea level. A 2018 study by the International Food Policy Research Institute and Ohio State University estimated that saltier soils caused by rising seas would push nearly 140,000 coastal residents to move within their districts due to falling income from crops, while about 60,000 would migrate to other districts. Government data shows sea level rise of about 5.7 mm per year at Char Changa station in Hatiya, and 3.4 mm per year at Hiron Point in the Sundarbans. Coastal communities are aware of the threat from climate change, as its impacts hit them on an annual basis. Dewan Hossain, a fisherman in Hatiya, said seawater used to close in on the island’s embankment ahead of cyclones, but these days it reaches the embankment every day, flooding many houses on the seaward side, even during a normal tide. “Seawater was far away from our island in the past, but now I feel the sea is coming nearer to us,” said Abdul Khaleque, 45, a resident of Manpura Island in Bhola. One-third of the island has been swamped by the ocean in the past 20-25 years, he added. Now the sea creeps in as far as the middle of the island through its canal system, affecting a vast area. “Salinity intrusion is damaging our croplands, putting our lives and livelihoods in trouble,” Khaleque said.

Norway's $400 billion oil fund has won praise abroad as setting a "gold standard" for sovereign wealth investors -- but can sometimes preach tougher corporate ethics abroad than the government practises at home. A Reuters survey has shown the fund voted last year for tougher environmental standards at U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil than the Scandinavian nation imposes on its own oil major, StatoilHydro. The United States and European Union have said a key worry about sovereign wealth funds is that they may be used to secure strategic national goals, and the vote at Exxon Mobil shows that even the Norwegian fund, which has only small stakes, can take ethical decisions that favour Norwegian firms. "That certainly can be seen as double standards," said Hans Henrik Ramm, an independent oil analyst and former deputy Norwegian oil minister. The fund, built on cash amassed by the world's number five oil exporter, says it follows stiff ethical guidelines: refusing, for instance, to own shares in makers of nuclear arms, and stressing awareness of climate change. But the central bank staff who manage the fund, which is wholly invested abroad in stocks and bonds, voted last year for Exxon Mobil to cut its greenhouse gas emissions when Norway makes no such demands of state-controlled StatoilHydro. "The fund is a consequence of Norwegian political idealism and correctness. It's a 'do-gooder' thing abroad," Ramm said of the mismatch. "At home policies are more realistic and pragmatic." He said it was easier to preach climate ethics when owning just 0.3 percent of the stock -- as the fund does in Exxon Mobil -- than when controlling 62.5 percent of StatoilHydro, the Norwegian government's stake. The Finance Ministry said it was committed to environmental protection, both at home and abroad, and noted that Norway's strict domestic standards included the world's first carbon dioxide taxes imposed in the early 1990s. "We cannot guarantee that every step we take for the environment is taken simultaneously in all sectors, everywhere and for all companies," Deputy Finance Minister Roger Schjerva told Reuters. "We are sometimes accused of the opposite -- of setting tougher demands at home than abroad, of double standards that way. The accusations cut both ways," he said, adding that Norway's environment rules were among the world's strictest. DOUBLE STANDARDS Records of the fund's votes at companies' annual general meetings show that it voted in May 2007 for a proposal for Exxon Mobil to set goals for "reducing total greenhouse gases from the company's products and operations". The proposal was filed by the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, New Jersey. Exxon Mobil's board urged shareholders to vote against it, saying it was committed to greater efficiency but that rising oil and gas production would push up emissions. The proposal was defeated, by 68 to 32 percent. StatoilHydro has not been told to reduce its carbon emissions, but argues that its emissions per barrel of oil produced off Norway are already among the lowest in the world. The company has several times topped indices for environmental awareness among oil companies. Still, StatoilHydro's carbon dioxide emissions leapt to 14.6 million tonnes in 2007 -- about a quarter of all Norwegian emissions -- from 12.9 million in 2006, and may rise further when planned expansion in Canada takes place in coming years. Some U.S. and EU politicians have expressed concern that sovereign wealth funds, mainly in the Middle East and Asia, lack transparency and may be investing for political rather than financial reasons. Singapore, for one, has rejected such "irrational fears" and welcomed rules on fund transparency. Schjerva denied Norway was trying to give StatoilHydro a competitive advantage, and the country's oil fund is often held up as a model. "The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is exemplary in terms of transparency, governance and accountability," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on a visit to Oslo in February. "It's often seen as the gold standard." Analysts say that a rule restricting the fund's stake in any company to five percent means it has no real power over big corporations. Norway's $1.5 billion holding in Exxon Mobil is the fund's biggest single investment in North America but represents just 0.3 percent of the firm's capital. Hilde Nagell, a fellow of the ethics programme at Oslo University, said it was hard for Norway to set rules abroad consistent in every case with those at home. "However, if these double standards systematically result in less demanding requirements for (domestic) companies and industry, the double standard represents an ethical problem," she said. Anne Kvam, head of corporate governance for the fund at the central bank, said the fund followed guidelines set by the Finance Ministry and clearly told all companies that it would focus on global warming. "Serious climate change could have a significant negative effect on (Norway's) global portfolio," she said. The U.N. Climate Panel says climate change could bring more floods, heatwaves, droughts and rising sea levels. NORWAY BACKS KYOTO Norway is a strong supporter of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol for capping emissions until 2012 -- the United States is the only developed nation outside the accord. Even without accepting Kyoto caps, companies can waste less energy by improving efficiency. Exxon Mobil, often accused by environmentalists of failing to take climate change seriously enough, said it was slowing the rise in its emissions. "Through efficiency actions taken in 2006 and 2007, we reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 5 million tonnes in 2007, equivalent to removing about one million cars from roads in the United States," Exxon spokesman Gantt Walton said. Among past controversies, the Norwegian fund sold its investments in U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin, accusing it of manufacturing cluster bombs -- bomblets that fall over a wide area and often kill civilians. That decision was widely seen as counter to Norway's interests because Norway's Defence Ministry is considering buying new fighter aircraft to replace its Lockheed-made F-16s. Schjerva at the Finance Ministry said the government had many ways of influencing StatoilHydro: "Most of StatoilHydro's activities are on the Norwegian shelf where they face the toughest environmental standards in the world," he said. The left-of-centre government also wants Norway to be "carbon neutral" by 2030, when any emissions will be offset by cuts elsewhere.

Biden is first restoring and slightly strengthening auto mileage standards to the levels that existed under President Barack Obama but were weakened during the Trump administration. The new rules, which would apply to vehicles in the model year 2023, would cut about one-third of the carbon dioxide produced annually by the United States and prevent the burning of about 200 billion gallons of gasoline over the lifetime of the cars, according to a White House fact sheet. The administration next plans to draft even more stringent pollution rules for both passenger vehicles and heavy-duty trucks that are designed to compel automakers to ramp up sales of electric vehicles. “There’s a vision of the future that is now beginning to happen, a future of the automobile industry that is electric — battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, fuel cell electric,” said Biden, who announced the plan from the South Lawn of the White House before an array of parked electric vehicles, including the Ford F-150 Lightning, the Chevrolet Bolt EV and a Jeep Wrangler. “The question is whether we’ll lead or fall behind in the future.” Biden’s actions amount to an attempt to overhaul a major American industry in order to better compete with China, which makes about 70% of the world’s electric vehicle batteries. In an effort that blends environmental, economic and foreign policy, Biden wants to retool and expand the domestic supply chain so that the batteries that are essential to electric vehicles are also made in American factories. “This is the first example of how Biden’s administration would do industrial policy in the climate change context,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences and international affairs at Princeton University. Without a radical change to the type of vehicles Americans drive, it will be impossible for Biden to meet his ambitious pledge to cut planet-warming emissions by 50% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade. Gasoline-powered cars and trucks are the largest single source of greenhouse gases produced in the United States, accounting for 28% of the country’s total carbon emissions. He also signed an executive order that calls for the government to try to ensure that half of all vehicles sold in the United States be electric by 2030. In a signal of industry support, the president was joined on the South Lawn by the CEOs of the nation’s three largest automakers, as well as the head of the United Auto Workers. The automakers pledged that 40% to 50% of their new car sales would be electric vehicles by 2030, up from just 2% this year, on the condition that Congress passes a spending bill that includes billions of dollars for a national network of electric vehicle charging stations, as well as tax credits to make it cheaper for companies to build the cars and consumers to buy them. A rapid transition to electric cars and trucks faces several challenges. Experts say it will not be possible for electric vehicles to go from niche to mainstream without making electric charging stations as ubiquitous as corner gas stations. And while labour leaders attended the White House event and referred to Biden as “brother,” they remain concerned about a wholesale shift to electric vehicles, which require fewer workers to assemble. Biden laid out the stakes in stark terms, calling the transition an act “to save the planet.” With the impacts of a warming planet seen in record droughts, deadly heat waves, floods and wildfires around the globe, scientists say that simply restoring Obama-era climate controls will not be enough. “Obama started the work of moving us in the right direction to deal with climate change,” said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Centre for Climate Change Law at the Columbia Law School. “Trump tore all of that apart. Biden is now putting the pieces back together. But we are way behind. The much harder work is yet to come. The wholesale conversion of the transportation system and electric power system are World War II-scale enterprises, and it’s just starting.” The tailpipe emissions regulations enacted by the Obama administration in 2012 required that passenger vehicles sold by automakers achieve an average of roughly 51 mpg by 2025. Donald Trump loosened the standard in 2020 to about 44 mpg by 2026. The new Biden standard would be 52 mpg by 2026. The White House estimates the regulations would cut 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide, about one-third of the total annual carbon dioxide pollution produced by the United States, and prevent the burning of about 200 billion gallons of gasoline. The Biden administration then plans a set of tougher emissions regulations for vehicles produced beyond 2026. It is those rules that Biden hopes will essentially propel automakers to phase out the internal combustion engine. Since that second set of rules could be technically complex and legally ambitious, administration officials decided to first quickly reinstate the Obama regulations to cut some emissions while federal staff members take on the challenge of writing the future rule. “Depending on how they write it, that second rule will either put us on a pathway toward widespread use of EVs by later this decade — or it won’t,” said Jeff Alson, a former Environmental Protection Agency senior engineer and policy adviser who worked on the Obama auto emissions standards. “It will be a challenge because regulatory agencies find it difficult to force major technology change,” Alson said. “It’s pretty rare. If you want to replace an internal combustion engine with a battery pack, and replace the transmission with electric motors — that’s replacing the guts of gasoline-powered cars. Forcing that kind of change will not be easy for federal agencies and politicians to do unless they have the support of the public and the automakers.” In a joint statement, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, the auto company formed this year after the merger of Fiat Chrysler and Peugeot, announced their “shared aspiration” to achieve sales of 40% to 50% electric vehicles by 2030. But they need government support and a “full suite of electrification policies” to translate aspirations into action, they wrote. Specifically, the automakers want Congress to provide incentives for car buyers and pay for a charging network, investments in research and development and incentives to expand the electric vehicle manufacturing and supply chains. Biden has asked Congress for $174 billion to create 500,000 charging stations. An infrastructure bill pending in the Senate includes just $7.5 billion. However, it also provides $73 billion to expand and update the electricity grid, an essential step for carrying power to new auto charging stations. A second bill, which could move through Congress this fall, could include far more spending on electric vehicles, consumer tax incentives and research. Neither proposal is guaranteed to pass in the closely divided Congress. The International Council on Clean Transportation, a research organization, concluded that the nation would need 2.4 million electric vehicle charging stations by 2030 — up from 216,000 in 2020 — if about 36% of new car sales were electric. Some environmental groups expressed scepticism that the auto companies would follow through on their promises. “Voluntary pledges by auto companies make a New Year’s weight-loss resolution look like a legally binding contract,” said Dan Becker, director of the Safe Climate Transport Campaign at the Centre for Biological Diversity. “Global warming is burning forests, roasting the West and worsening storms. Now is not the time to propose weak standards and promise strong ones later.” Some automakers are already retooling for an all-electric future in part because of policy changes elsewhere. The European Union has announced that all new cars sold will be emissions-free by 2035. In the United States, California and Massachusetts have made the same commitment, while Washington state has set an earlier deadline of 2030. General Motors has said it will sell only zero-emission vehicles by 2035. Labour unions, meanwhile, have expressed uneasiness about a transition to electric vehicles, which require about one-third fewer workers to assemble than gasoline-powered cars or trucks. In a statement, Ray Curry, president of the United Auto Workers said: “While the UAW notes that the companies have made voluntary commitments on electric vehicles, the UAW focus is not on hard deadlines or percentages, but on preserving the wages and benefits that have been the heart and soul of the American middle class.” Biden’s effort to shape the auto industry, by combining his climate agenda with his focus on competitiveness with China, is only the latest example of how the administration is concentrating on industrial policy. In June the president pushed through the Senate one of the most ambitious pieces of industrial-policy legislation, committing $52 billion to the semiconductor industry, and an additional $195 billion for research and development over the next decade. Ultimately, however, the success of Biden’s automobile plan will depend on whether Americans put their trust in an entirely new kind of car. “In the world of electrification, you’ve got the regulations, which the executive branch can do, and the need for complementary infrastructure, which is up to a divided Congress,” said David G Victor, co-director of the Deep Decarbonisation Initiative at the University of California, San Diego. “And then you’ve got the need for a change in human behaviour, which is largely uncharted territory.” ©2021 The New York Times Company

Gazing glumly over millions of dollars worth of machinery which used to churn out thousands of police and army boots each day but now sits wreathed in plastic sheeting, Farhad Saffi fears he is seeing the death of an Afghan dream. Saffi's Milli Boot Factory, in Kabul's sprawling industrial hinterland, was a model for Afghanistan, showcasing local manufacturing while giving jobs to hundreds of people who may otherwise have picked up insurgent guns. But a US decision to hand procurement to the Afghan government has left Saffi with something of a developed world problem - local officials opted for cheaper boots made in China and Pakistan, killing off Milli's contracts after a year. "The US government told me when I started I would have contracts for five years, until at least 2014," he told Reuters. "The Afghan government gave me only three months notice of cancellation and now I have $30 million worth of raw material I can't use." When it opened, inside huge white sheds that once held PVC piping machinery but is now home to high-tech German injection molding and boot-making equipment, Afghan and US generals were keen to be photographed alongside a local success story. US Navy Rear Admiral Kathleen Dussault toured in 2010 to present Saffi, just 23, with a quality certificate for the plant to supply fledgling Afghan National Security Forces with top-quality boots under contracts worth up to $40 million a year. Saffi sold his leather boots, which underwent a rigorous quality testing process in the United States, for $62 a pair, while Chinese-made boots with imitation leather cost the Afghan government $22 in a contract for up to 700,000 pairs a year. "The Afghan government is just looking for the lowest price," he said, surveying a room piled high with rolls of leather and raw material bought from Taiwan. "They asked me to sell for $15 a pair, but the leather alone cost me $40. The Chinese boots use fake leather and quickly fall apart, but they are cheap." From 2002 until the end of 2011, $85.5 billion was spent on reconstruction in Afghanistan, according to US government figures, while international aid worth $57 billion has flooded into the country. NATO-led forces, who have mostly handled purchasing for the Afghan security forces in the decade-long war, have since 2010 operated under "Afghan First" rules requiring them to buy where possible from local companies, boosting the economy and employment while underpinning anti-insurgent strategies. Contracts for Afghan businesses included 100 percent of Afghan uniforms and boots, textiles, furniture, tents, software and transformers, according to NATO data. Those contracts spawned 15,000 jobs, while making savings on imports for combat-related spending worth $650 million - still a fraction of the estimated $200 million spent on the war a day. THE $10-A-DAY TALIB The Afghan First Policy backs anti-insurgency efforts by ensuring that people employed locally with better jobs and incomes aren't tempted to join the estimated 25,000 Afghan Taliban fighters in the country, often called the '$10-a-day Talib', referring to the payment offered to would-be fighters. Some of the 700 workers laid off from Saffi's factory are now thinking of doing just that, seeing no other future as Western nations and NGOs look to leave the country with the withdrawal of most NATO combat troops in 2014. "The factory must be reopened. If it doesn't we will have to join the Taliban for a job. What else can we do? We have families to feed," said Ares Khan, 23, as he packed some of the last boots Milli will produce without a government change of heart. Workers at the factory earned between $400 and $900 a month, well over the average wage in a country where up to a third of the 30 million population live under the poverty line. But many businessmen and workers fear security will evaporate with the Western exodus, taking job opportunities and investment dollars with them to safer havens elsewhere, as Afghanistan's moneyed elite have done for decades. Khan's friend, Khair Mohammad, who came to Kabul from Ghazni province where NATO forces are engaged now in one of the last large offensives of the war, also sees no future outside the insurgency if the Afghan government closes off jobs. "There are sixteen people in my family and there is no bread winner except me. When I go back to Ghazni I will have to join the Taliban," Mohammad said. More than $12 billion a year spent on the war has driven up prices in Afghanistan, and wages for an internationalized few. Mohammad said his living costs were already high. AFGHAN ABILITY U.S. military officials say the decision to hand a large slice of procurement to the Afghans was made in March, with responsibility handed over to the Defence and Interior Ministries. "The decision was part of the transition process to Afghan security and control," said US Navy Lieutenant Aaron Kakiel, a logistics officer for the 130,000-strong NATO-led coalition in the country. Afghan companies, Kakiel said, had supplied everything from boots to uniforms and sleeping bags, construction and even IT services for the country's security forces, which will eventually number around 352,000. Milli is not the only company to fall foul of the switch to local procurement, with several uniform and equipment suppliers either nervously eyeing soon-to-expire contracts, or having already lost orders to cross-border competitors. A rival company executive, who asked not to be named because his firm fears retribution from Afghan military buyers, said, like Milli, he had invested millions of dollars into his business, but his supply contracts were now in limbo. "The term of our contracts in some fields has ended. It's not clear if the government will contract with us again, or with some other companies in other countries," the executive said. "My company has imported material from the US for products which get manufactured in Kabul and that will be useless if we don't get contracts back. We will have to sack people." Lieutenant-General Abdul Basir Asafzari, who heads logistics and procurement in the Ministry of Defence, said only 30 percent of supply currently was coming from Afghan companies, and President Hamid Karzai had also ordered the military to choose local firms where possible. The reason Milli had contracts cancelled was because it was importing low-quality boots from China and other countries and relabeling them, he said. "Milli boot company did not fulfill its commitments. There were some complaints from soldiers about the quality," Asafzari said. But Mohammad Akbar Ahmadzai, from the NGO Building Markets, which helps build jobs and investment in developing countries by supporting entrepreneurs, said Milli's boots had been genuine and met US-based quality tests. Other business experts, who would only comment anonymously, said Milli and others may have fallen foul of Afghanistan's labyrinth of bribe and patronage payments, with better-connected competitors maneuvering to kill them off. NATO's Kakiel said Milli and others may also have misunderstood complex contract provisions which stipulated only one year of guaranteed sales. In 2011, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan saw US agencies contract out over $4 billion, out of a total of $17.3 billion, with Afghan companies. More than 90 percent of that was spent on products bought from Afghan sellers (49 percent), construction (28 percent), support services (11 percent) and transportation (6 percent). But an audit by the US government's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, or SIGAR, released in January, said the Afghan First Initiative (AFI) had been marred by inadequate contract solicitation and vetting, while data on claimed employment benefits had been limited. BUSINESS CONFIDENCE Saffi, whose family fled under Taliban rule and returned in 2002 to find everything destroyed, said his experience had shaken his faith in both the US government and the future promised by Karzai. "We tried to do a good job here in this factory, but right now this has happened," he said. "The only judgment we can make is that my company and the country are going the same way." Most people in Kabul's business world, he said, were nervous about the unpredictable investment climate and deteriorating security, a sentiment reinforced by an audacious Taliban attack on the city centre and nearby provinces in mid-April. Saffi said he now had to employ 30 personal bodyguards just to ensure his children can attend school, without insurgent harm or kidnap, while police snipers were based on the roof above his home. "When my company is closing and also going down, the same way you can think of the country. I am president of my company and Karzai is president of the country," he said. "I am managing my company, and now my workers are leaving. The same will be happening to the country. The president must manage his country."

India, China, Nigeria, Indonesia and the United States are set to lead the world's growth in urban populations during the next four decades, sparking challenges in providing jobs, housing, energy and infrastructure, the United Nations said on Thursday. Ahead of a UN sustainability summit in Rio in June, the world body released new forecasts for urban populations in a bid to urge global leaders to come up with concrete plans at the conference in Brazil to produce sustainable cities. Nigeria's cities are expected to add 200 million people by 2050, more than doubling the country's current population; India's cities are to add 497 million, increasing the current total population by more than 40 percent; and Indonesia's cities are set to add 92 million people, about a 38 percent increase in its total population, according to the UN's 2011 Revision of the World Urbanization Prospects. US cities are forecast to add 103 million people, raising the country's total population by a third, while China is due to boost its total population by a quarter, with an increase of 341 million in its cities. Currently half the world's 7 billion people live in cities, the United Nations said. "Cities are where the pressures of migration, globalization, economic development, social inequality, environmental pollution and climate change are most directly felt," the United Nations said in a statement. "Yet, at the same time, they are they engines of the world economy and centers of innovation where many solutions to global problems are being piloted," the world body said. Representatives from around the world will gather in Rio de Janeiro in June to try to hammer out sustainable development goals at the Rio+20 conference, named after a ground-breaking meeting in the Brazilian city 20 years ago.

Asian and European leaders gathered for the second day of a 43-nation summit on Saturday with the Herculean task of propping up the confidence of panic-stricken markets fearful of a worldwide recession. Leaders woke to news that Wall Street had closed at 5- year lows, but the losses in the main indexes of around 3.5 percent were not as bad as expected given that shares in Japan had slumped 9.6 percent and Europe had sunk 5.4 percent. The financial crisis has injected urgency into the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) of 27 EU member states and 16 Asian countries, a biennial talking shop usually shorn of substance. Leaders queued up on Friday to pledge cooperation to tackle the turbulence by taking what a communique called "firm, decisive and effective measures in a responsible and timely manner." "Through such concerted efforts, leaders expressed full confidence that the crisis could be overcome," the statement said. Europe's main goal in Beijing is to rally Asian support for a united front at a financial crisis summit that U.S. President George W. Bush will convene next month in Washington. "Europe would like Asia to support our efforts, and we would like to make sure that on November 15 we can face the world together and say that the causes of this unprecedented crisis will never be allowed to happen again," said President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency. Sarkozy told Chinese President Hu Jintao that he wanted concrete decisions from the Washington talks, but feared the United States would be content with "principles and generalities," according to a French presidential official. The French and Chinese leaders agreed to exchange position papers ahead of the summit, he said, adding China was very interested by the idea of more extensive global regulation of the financial markets. Sarkozy is particularly insistent that the Washington summit make clear that all financial institutions in the future should be subject to strict scrutiny, according to the official, who declined to be identified in keeping with diplomatic convention. The behavior of hedge funds was a "scandal," while rating agencies were "rubbish" in Sarkozy's view, the official added. A striking feature of Friday's communique was a call for a leading role for the International Monetary Fund to stabilize the global financial system. The fund is held in higher esteem in Europe than in most of Asia, where memories of its heavy-handed intervention during the region's 1997/98 financial crisis are still fresh. Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said he saw an important role for the IMF in helping emerging countries and said Tokyo stood ready to provide more money for the IMF as needed. "The financial system crisis in the United States and Europe is now crossing borders and affecting real economies in other countries," Aso said. The ASEM summit ends on Saturday afternoon after sessions devoted to climate change and sustainable development.

At a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica opening the synod, Francis also denounced past and present forms of colonialism and said some of the fires that devastated forests in Brazil in recent months were set by special interest groups. In his sermon, Francis said some Church leaders risked becoming “bureaucrats, not shepherds”, and urged them to have the courage of rekindling what he called the fire of God’s gift by being open to change. “If everything continues as it was, if we spend our days content that ‘this is the way things have always been done’, then the gift vanishes, smothered by the ashes of fear and concern for defending the status quo,” he said. One of the most contentious topics of the synod, whose some 260 participants are mostly bishops from the Amazon, is whether to allow older married “proven men” with families and a strong standing in local communities to be ordained as priests in the Amazon. This solution to the shortage of priests, backed by many South American bishops, would allow Catholics in isolated areas to attend Mass and receive the sacraments regularly. At least 85% of villages in the Amazon, a vast region that spans eight countries and the French territory of Guiana - cannot celebrate Mass every week. Some see a priest only once a year. Conservative opponents fear it would be a doctrinal Trojan horse that would then spread to the entire Church in the West. HERESY AND ERROR They have attacked the synod’s working document as heretical, including what they say is an implicit recognition of forms of paganism and pantheism practiced by indigenous people, such as nature worship. The three-week synod will discuss spreading the faith in the vast region, a greater role for women, environmental protection, climate change, deforestation, indigenous people and their right to keep their land and traditions. Bill Donohue, president of the US-based Catholic League, a conservative group, drew criticism for what was perceived as a condescending attitude toward native cultures when he said this week that a dilemma in the Amazon was “how to respect the culture of indigenous peoples while at the same time acknowledging inherent deficiencies in it.” A number of conservatives have tweeted their disapproval of a three-planting ceremony in the Vatican on Thursday in which people from the Amazon used native symbols and gestures, such as blessing the earth. In his sermon, Francis said indigenous cultures had to be respected.  “When peoples and cultures are devoured without love and without respect, it is not God’s fire but that of the world. Yet how many times has God’s gift been imposed, not offered; how many times has there been colonization rather than evangelization!” he said. The synod is taking place at a time when the Amazon is in the world spotlight because of the devastating fires in Brazil. Francis implied that he believed at least some of the fires were intentionally set. “The fire set by interests that destroy, like the fire that recently devastated Amazonia, is not the fire of the Gospel (which is) fed by sharing, not by profits,” he said. The synod does not make decisions. Participants vote on a final document and the pope will decide which recommendations to integrate into his future rulings.

The prime minister made the call during the virtual inauguration of Global Centre on Adaptation's regional office in Dhaka on Tuesday. The Bangladesh leader pointed out the vulnerability of the South Asian region to climate-induced natural disasters like cyclone, flood, tidal surge, drought, glacial lake outburst flood, landslides and avalanches. "Even a 1.5 degree Celsius rise of temperature will have severe consequences for Bangladesh and the region," she warned. Hasina also stressed the vulnerability of the children, women, elderly people and people with special needs against disasters while underscoring Bangladesh's commitment to implementing the Paris Agreement and adopting all other measures to limit carbon emissions and other environmental degradations. "My government has undertaken various mitigation and adaptation programmes under the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan formulated in 2009 to offset climate change impacts. We have established the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund in 2009 and so far allocated 430 million US dollar from our own resources to implement the action plan," she said. The government has also been spending about 1% of our GDP equivalent to $2 billion per year since 2010 for adaptation purposes. The prime minister also highlighted the Bangladesh Delta Plan-2100 as a long-term initiative to tackle the challenges of climate change and natural disasters. However, Hasina emphasised the need to build greater resilience in South Asia to mitigate the effects of climate-related disasters. "In the past decade alone, nearly 700 million people, half of the region’s population, have been affected by climate-related disasters. Before people can recover from one disaster caused by natural hazards, another one strikes, reversing any progress made. To end this cycle, South Asia needs to build greater resilience." On the GCA's regional office in Bangladesh, Hasina said, "It is heartening to note that the GCA Bangladesh office will facilitate, support and develop on-the-ground action in South Asia to enhance adaptation and climate resilience." "I hope, this regional office will share the best adaptation practices of Bangladesh as well as other countries and exchange practices within the region. It will serve as a Center of Excellence and a solution-broker for adaptation measures in the region." Bangladesh also expects the GCA Dhaka office's support during the country's chairmanship of Climate Vulnerable Forum and Vulnerable-20, two climate-based important international bodies under the UNFCCC process, over the next two years, according to Hasina. She also urged the GCA to explore ways of supporting the Delta Coalition on a long-term basis. While lauding Bangladesh's prowess in fighting natural disasters, the prime minister acknowledged 'a lot of things' need to change to lessen the impact of climate change. "I think, other countries in the region also have similar experiences and some good practices on adaptive measures. I believe, together we can safeguard and build a better future for all of us," she said. "As the climate change is a global affair, I would like to call upon the countries to enhance their Nationally Determined Contributions by December the 31st this year in tackling the menace as well as execute the 2015 Paris Agreement." In light of the fallout from the pandemic, Hasina called on other nations to forge unity to fight the current crisis and others in the future.

As diplomats at the UN climate summit in Glasgow this week preach about the need to curb both greenhouse gas emissions and mass consumption to protect the planet, the reality of today’s throwaway society can be seen just a short way from the conference’s doorstep. Outside the gleaming centre of Scotland’s largest city, dumpsters and trash cans are overflowing. The city’s rat population has surged, with four garbage workers hospitalized because of attacks over the past five months. And litter is strewn across streets. Mitchell, a senior official for the GMB Scotland trade union, which represents the city’s 1,000 garbage collectors among other workers, said they staged an eight-day strike that ended on Monday because they were tired of poor working conditions, lack of respect from management and low wages. It is a cry that has been echoed throughout Britain, the United States and other parts of the world, where essential workers who carried communities through the worst of the pandemic are saying they will no longer stand for being overworked and underpaid. “We kept people safe,” said Mitchell, 45, who started working as a garbage collector when he was 16. “We cared for the most vulnerable. We cared for the elderly.” He appreciated the nightly clap for key workers during the pandemic. But now that coronavirus cases have subsided from peak levels, he feels the government has “abandoned low paid workers who have saved this nation.” In parts of the city, trash is now collected only once every three weeks, down from once every two weeks about a year ago. That means garbage collectors, many of whom make less than 20,000 British pounds ($27,000) a year, have to carry heavier loads up and down steps. On top of the less frequent collections, volumes of trash per household climbed over the past two years, a reflection of increased spending on takeout and online deliveries, according to Mitchell. “The pandemic has created waste upon waste upon waste,” he said. The city of about 635,000 has urged residents to reduce their waste to help protect the environment, but garbage collectors like Jack McGowan, 26, say that reducing collections is not an effective way to achieve that. “The bins are always like that,” he said Wednesday, gesturing to several overflowing dumpsters behind a block of apartments in Scotstoun, an area west of the Glasgow city centre. “We need better pay. Respect as well.” McGowan said he lives with his mother because he cannot afford a mortgage on his salary of 19,000 pounds a year. He said he had already seen four rats jump out of trash cans that morning alone. Glasgow promotes its recycling program and efforts to become more environmentally friendly. But McGowan said he saw examples every day of people putting nonrecyclable trash in recycling bins. Garbage collectors said they were likely to strike again in the run-up to Christmas if they do not get pay rises. In a statement, the Glasgow City Council said that the leader of the council had already had extensive conversations with the union and that the “door remains open to all trade union colleagues.” Fiona Ross, a council spokeswoman, said she could not go into further detail because talks were continuing. Meanwhile, the delegates inside the COP26 summit in Glasgow say they are making some progress toward an agreement to avert catastrophic levels of climate change. On Wednesday, the United States and China issued a joint statement in which they pledged to do more to cut emissions this decade and in which China committed for the first time to address emissions from methane. Separately, the United Nations climate agency released a draft of an accord that urged nations “to accelerate the phasing out” of greenhouse gas emissions. But outside the climate talks, there is a mounting frustration over the disconnect between policymakers and those most affected by climate change. There have been daily protests organized by youth activists, who say that pledges by countries that they will commit to goals that are decades away is not enough. “Nobody really wants to incur the cost of preventing climate change today,” said Sayantan Ghosal, an economics professor at the University of Glasgow’s business school. “They’re willing to do it tomorrow, but they’re not willing to do it today.” There has also been a gap between world leaders and business executives on the one hand, who have talked this week about the urgent need for a transition to clean energy, and the working class people on the other who will be most affected by the rising costs associated with that transition. Many of the lowest paid workers in society, including garbage collectors, are more worried about increasing prices of food, rent and energy than about increasing temperatures. They often do not have the flexibility to spend more on food and clothing that are more sustainable. As the US economy picks up again, after a lull during the pandemic, people are quitting their jobs in record numbers, according to data from the US Department of Labor. There are 5 million fewer people working than before the pandemic began, and employers have struggled to find enough health care workers, waiters, truck drivers and butchers. This has given employees newfound leverage and power. The number of workers on strike in the United States increased in October to more than 25,000, versus an average of about 10,000 in the previous three months, according to data collected by the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. The shortages have disrupted Britain, which has struggled to find workers to make up for the thousands of European workers who left in five years since Britain voted to leave the European Union. Mitchell, the senior union official, said that 20 drivers had left the garbage collection team in recent weeks for other truck driving jobs that are offering better pay. Peter Welsh, a union spokesman, said Scotland needed to invest in the workers who will help deliver a transition to a greener economy. “There are huge, huge challenges that I don’t quite think mainstream politics have begun to grasp and understand,” he said. © 2021 The New York Times Company

The world's 7 billionth person will be born into a population more aware than ever of the challenges of sustaining life on a crowded planet but no closer to a consensus about what to do about it. To some demographers the milestone foreshadows turbulent times ahead: nations grappling with rapid urbanisation, environmental degradation and skyrocketing demand for healthcare, education, resources and jobs. To others, a shrinking population, not overpopulation, could be the longer-term challenge as fertility rates drop and a shrinking workforce is pushed to support social safety for an ageing populace. "There are parts of the world where the population is shrinking and in those parts of the world, they are worried about productivity, about being able to maintain a critical mass of people," Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the UN Population Fund, told Reuters. "Then there are parts of the world where the population is growing rapidly. Many of these countries face challenges in terms of migration, poverty, food security, water management and climate change and we need to call attention to it." The United Nations says the world's seven billionth baby will be born on Oct 31. No-one knows what circumstances the baby will be born into, but India's Uttar Pradesh -- a sugarcane-producing state with a population that combines that of Britain, France and Germany, in a country expected to overtake China as the world's most populous by 2030 -- provides a snapshot of the challenges it could face. Pinky Pawar, 25, is due to give birth in Uttar Pradesh at the end of the month and is hoping her firstborn will not join the estimated 3 billion people living on less than $2 a day, with little hope of an education or a job. "I want my child to be successful in life, so I must do my best to make this possible," she said, her hands over her swollen belly as she sat outside her mud and brick home in Sunhaida village. In Sunhaida, poverty, illiteracy and social prejudice mark a life dominated by the struggle for survival that mirrors millions of others across the world. RESOURCE CRUNCH With the number of people on earth more than doubling over the last half-century, resources are under more strain than ever before. First among the short-term worries is how to provide basic necessities for the additional 2-3 billion people expected to be added in the next 50 years. Water usage is set to increase by 50 percent between 2007 and 2025 in developing nations and 18 percent in developed ones, with much of the increased use in the poorest countries as rising rural populations move to towns and cities. "The problem is that 97.5 percent of it (water) is salty and ... of the 2.5 percent that's fresh, two-thirds of that is frozen," says Rob Renner, executive director of the Colorado-based Water Research Foundation. "So there's not a lot of fresh water to deal with in the world." Nutritious food is in short supply in many parts of the globe. The World Bank says 925 million people are hungry today, partly due to rising food prices since 1995, a succession of economic crises and the lack of access to modern farming techniques and products for poor farmers. To feed the two billion more mouths predicted by 2050, food production will have to increase by 70 percent, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation says. But just as research, development and expansion of agricultural programs are critical, the public dollars pledged to this effort remain a pittance of what is needed, and are in fact in danger of sharp decline, experts say. "We have to raise productivity," Robert Thompson, who serves on the International Food & Agricultural Trade Policy Council and is former director of rural development for the World Bank. "I think we can do it all if we invest enough in research. But at the moment we aren't." Climate change could be the greatest impediment to meeting the food target as rising temperatures and droughts dry out farmlands which are then inundated by intense floods and storms. The way climate change has been handled offers a window on how tricky it is to tackle global, long-term problems, however. While it's clear what needs to be done, UN climate talks have largely stalled. "There is a reason why these negotiations are relatively slow," said Wendel Trio, director of Climate Action Network Europe, referring to the economic downturn and arguments between rich and poor nations over carbon cuts. "But if you compare it to the urgency and the fact that many governments clearly understand the urgency, it is a failure of governments that they can't move forward." CITIES BURSTING AT SEAMS Experts say demographic imbalances will also place serious strains on towns and cities across the world as mostly middle-class blue-collar migrants move from poorer rural areas to richer urban centres. China's capital Beijing -- with its almost 20 million inhabitants -- is now the world's 13th most populous city, its population almost doubling over the last decade, reflecting a trend mirrored worldwide, particularly in developing nations. Cities in Africa, Asia and South America are bursting at the seams from migrants seeking better jobs or as farmers flee droughts, floods and other environmental disasters. In 1950, about 730 million people lived in cities. By 2009, it was nearly 3.5 billion and in four decades it will be 6.3 billion, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs said in a March 2010 report. That explosive growth stretches limited resources and infrastructure and places megacities on a collision course with a predicted increase in extreme flooding, storms and rising sea levels from climate change, UN Habitat says. Experts say the lack of coordinated planning is exacerbating the problem. "Any kind of plan for decentralising the population requires a series of policies that work together," said Wang Jianguo, a senior project officer on urbanisation at the Asian Development Bank's Beijing office. "If you only have a population policy without an employment policy, without an industry development policy, education, medical policy, it won't work." DEMOGRAPHIC ANOMALY One important policy tool to manage a growing population is to give women access to family planning, experts say, adding that 215 million women worldwide want it but do not get it. Access to education is also important as it motivates women to reduce their fertility and improve their children's health. A lack of such education has meant that while the overall populations continue to rise in countries such as China and India, the number of women is falling because of a preference for boys leading to deliberate abortions of female babies. The world is also seeing a demographic anomaly: a declining population in some richer countries has led to an imbalance between the working population and retirees who need expensive social safety nets. The global fertility rate -- the number of children born per couple -- is around 2.5, but in richer countries this number has already nosedived. And while exact predictions vary, most suggest the global population will peak at around 9 billion around 2070 and then start to fall, perhaps very fast. "We thought that overpopulation was going to force humanity to expand outward to the stars," says Jack Goldstone, professor of social science and a leading demographics expert at Washington's George Mason University. "That doesn't look like the problem at all. And the policy framework isn't set up at all to handle these longer-term issues."

"For all these major greenhouse gases the concentrations are reaching once again record levels," WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud told a news conference in Geneva at which he presented the UN climate agency's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. Jarraud said the accelerating trend was driving climate change, making it harder to keep global warming to within 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed at a Copenhagen summit in 2009. "This year is worse than last year, 2011. 2011 was worse than 2010," he said. "Every passing year makes the situation somewhat more difficult to handle, it makes it more challenging to stay under this symbolic 2 degree global average." Greenhouse gas emissions are set to be 8-12 billion tonnes higher in 2020 than the level needed to keep global warming below 2 degrees, the UN Environment Programme said on Tuesday. If the world pursues its "business as usual" trajectory, it will probably hit the 2 degree mark in the middle of the century, Jarraud said, noting that this would also affect the water cycle, sea levels and extreme weather events. "The more we wait for action, the more difficult it will be to stay under this limit and the more the impact will be for many countries, and therefore the more difficult it will be to adapt." He said the climate system was dominated by the ocean rather than the atmosphere, and the time needed to warm the seas meant the full impact of current emissions would only be felt later. "Even if we were able to stop today - we know it's not possible - the ocean would continue to warm and to expand and the sea level would continue to rise for hundreds of years." Delegates from over 190 nations meet in Warsaw next week for a UN conference to work on emission cuts under a new climate pact to be signed by 2015, but to come into force only in 2020. The WMO bulletin said the volume of carbon dioxide, or CO2, the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, grew faster in 2012 than in the previous decade, reaching 393.1 parts per million (ppm), 41 percent above the pre-industrial level. The amount of the gas in the atmosphere grew by 2.2 ppm, higher the average of 2.02 ppm over the past 10 years. Carbon dioxide is very stable and is likely to remain in the atmosphere for a long time, Jarraud said. The concentrations were the highest for more than 800,000 years, he said. "The increase in CO2 is mostly due to human activities," Jarraud said. "The actions we take now or don't take now will have consequences for a very, very long period." The second most important greenhouse gas, methane, continued to grow at a similar rate to the last four years, reaching a global average of 1819 parts per billion (ppb) in 2012, while the other main contributor, nitrous oxide, reached 325.1 ppb.

I’ll admit, handing out awards for good technology in 2019 feels a little like congratulating Godzilla for not destroying all of Tokyo. There was plenty of bad tech news to write about this year: Facebook’s foibles, Amazon’s aggression, SoftBank’s stumbles. But to me, the tech industry’s very public shortfalls make celebrating its quieter successes even more important. The tech industry, after all, is not a monolith, and many engineers and entrepreneurs work on projects that help society. So here, with no further ado, are this year’s winners. — To OpenAQ, for educating us about the air we breathe. Air pollution is a vastly underestimated problem. Polluted air is linked to 1 in 8 deaths worldwide, and studies have shown that bad air quality can cause cognitive impairment in young people and increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in the elderly. But until recently, there was no good source of air quality data that researchers and activists could rely on. Christa Hasenkopf, an atmospheric scientist, decided to fix that. She and a software developer started OpenAQ, an open-source platform that collects air quality data from governments and international organizations in a single place and makes it free and accessible. Want to know how the nitrogen dioxide levels in Hyderabad, India, compare with those in Kampala, Uganda? OpenAQ can tell you. Want to build an app that alerts people in your city when air quality dips below a healthy threshold? You can do that, too. The company says it has processed 188 million air quality measurements this year, making it a powerful weapon for policymakers, environmental groups and concerned citizens trying to clean up the air. — To DynamiCare Health, Biobot Analytics and Pear Therapeutics, for using tech to address the opioid crisis. Few public health problems in the United States have proved as intractable as the opioid epidemic. But in 2019, three Massachusetts startups used technology to chip away at it. DynamiCare Health, based in Boston, has built a mobile app meant to help keep recovering users of opioids and other drugs on the wagon. The app — already in use in eight addiction treatment systems across the country — allows users to test their breath and saliva remotely, check into group meetings and therapy sessions, and earn money on an electronic debit card by meeting their sobriety goals. Biobot, a company started by two graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, analyzes sewage samples to determine the opioid use levels in a given neighbourhood. (Opioid use leaves telltale byproducts called metabolites, which can be chemically detected in urine.) Once this data is collected, public health officials can use it to set priorities for treatment programs, detect spikes in use in a neighbourhood and monitor the effectiveness of prevention programs over time. Pear Therapeutics, another Boston outfit, makes “digital therapeutics” — essentially apps that use cognitive behavioural therapy techniques to help recovering addicts stick with their treatment programs. Its anti-opioid program, Reset-O, was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration late last year and can now be prescribed by doctors in conjunction with other treatments. — To Lemontree, Goodr and Propel, for helping feed the hungry. Lemontree, a nonprofit food-delivery app based in New York, was started by Alex Godin, an entrepreneur who sold a workplace collaboration startup to Meetup several years ago. The company sells Blue Apron-style meal kits to low-income families for $3 apiece. Meal kits are packed by volunteers, and they can be bought with food stamps. Goodr, described by its founder, Jasmine Crowe, as a “food delivery app in reverse,” is a platform based in Atlanta that helps save some of the 72 billion pounds of food wasted in the United States every year and give it to people in need. Restaurants sign up on the site to have their excess food picked up and donated to local nonprofits and homeless shelters. Goodr operates in six cities, including Chicago, Miami and Philadelphia, and says it has diverted 2.1 million pounds of food and provided 1.8 million meals since 2017. Propel, a Brooklyn startup, is the creator of Fresh EBT, a popular app that helps low-income users manage their food stamps and other benefits. After doing battle with a larger government contractor last year, Propel recovered this year and says more than 2 million households use it every month. — To Pinterest, for taking a stand against social media toxicity. When you think of Pinterest, you probably picture mood boards, DIY hacks and mommy-bloggers. But the social network spent much of 2019 doing the kinds of tough, principled work that its bigger rivals often neglected. In August, the company announced that users searching for vaccine-related information would be shown results from authoritative sources like the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rather than being led down rabbit holes filled with misinformation. The company also introduced a “compassionate search” experience, which offers mental health advice and exercises to users whose behaviour indicates they might be feeling anxious or depressed, such as people who search for things like “sad quotes” or who look up terms relating to self-harm. And in December, Pinterest joined other wedding websites in announcing that it would limit the promotion of wedding venues that were once slave plantations. Pinterest hasn’t always operated flawlessly. But while its competitors were giving grandiose speeches and supplicating at the White House, the company’s content-moderation choices stood out as an example of a social network with a moral compass. — To Big Tech’s climate activists, for pressuring executives to walk the walk. In a year when climate change was the subject of mass global demonstrations, Silicon Valley’s silence could have been deafening. Tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google count fossil fuel companies and anti-environmental groups among their customers — a fact that doesn’t sit well with some employees. Those employees made their dissatisfaction known this year, joining climate strikes and walkouts and publicly calling on their own executives to do more to fight climate change. In April, more than 4,200 Amazon employees sent an open letter to Jeff Bezos, the company’s chief executive, urging him to end the company’s contracts with oil and gas companies and commit to ambitious carbon-reduction goals. Amazon later announced a plan to become carbon neutral by 2040. — To Gypsy Guide, for enlightening my summer road trip. If I’m being honest, the best app I used in 2019 wasn’t TikTok or some new AI-powered facial recognition app. It was Gypsy Guide, a simple, understated app that gives guided audio tours of national parks and other tourist destinations. The app uses your phone’s GPS to track your route through a park, and it narrates relevant facts as you drive past them. My wife and I drove through Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons this summer, and Gypsy Guide (which could really use a new name) quickly became our car soundtrack. Gypsy Guide is not the slickest app in the world, and it’s not making anyone a billionaire. But it kept us entertained for hours, and it taught me things I wouldn’t have known. (Did you know that a concave depression in a mountain caused by a glacier’s erosion is called a “cirque”? Me neither.) It was a good reminder that not every tech startup has to address some deep, existential need to be worthwhile. There are simpler pleasures, too. ©2020 The New York Times Company

Asia-Pacific leaders called for a speedy resolution to stalled global trade talks on Sunday, pledging flexibility and ambition to get the outline of a deal by year's end. Australian Prime Minister John Howard said the call was included in the final declaration after a two-day meeting of APEC leaders that included Russia, the United States and China. The leaders issued a statement of "very strong support for the Doha round and an urgent request for all countries involved in the Doha process to renew their efforts to achieve an outcome, emphasising that agriculture and industrial products are the two priority areas", Howard said. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum's 21-member economies account for half of global trade. US President George W. Bush, who left the summit a day earlier to prepare for a key report on Iraq, had pushed for a strong statement of support, calling the troubled Doha round of talks in Geneva a "once-in-a-generation opportunity". In a separate statement, APEC leaders were expected to pledge "the political will, flexibility and ambition to ensure that the Doha round negotiations enter their final phase this year". Trade negotiators may be edging closer to a deal on the most divisive issues in the Doha talks, World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy said on Saturday. "There is a strong sense that it's make-or-break moment. It may take a few weeks, but my sense is that there is a lot of focus and energy," Lamy told CNBC television. Trade diplomats returned to the negotiating table last week in an attempt to wrap up the Doha round, which was launched in the Qatari capital in November 2001 to help poor countries improve their lot through freer trade rules. Lamy has repeatedly urged countries to complete the talks by the end of this year to avoid the negotiations running into the US presidential election year, when Washington is expected to have little flexibility to negotiate. Negotiations have stumbled over reducing farm subsidies in the United States, Europe and Japan, and scaling back industrial tariffs in emerging markets like China, India, Brazil, and South Africa.Many analysts doubt WTO countries can overcome their differences, and see the round slipping into hiatus for years. The APEC leaders also agreed to strengthen regional economic integration and would further explore the possibility of a Free Trade Area for their region, Howard said. CARBON TRADING Pacific Rim leaders, including Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russia's Vladimir Putin adopted a "Sydney Declaration" on climate change on Saturday, calling on members to set voluntary, non-binding targets to cut emissions, while increasing energy efficiency and forest cover. Proponents say the declaration creates consensus on the thorny climate change issue and will carry weight at a series of meetings in Washington, New York and the Indonesian island of Bali about replacing the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012. But some developing countries in APEC were not very happy about the Sydney Declaration. Papua New Guinea Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare told fellow leaders he had reservations about signing the document, according to a statement issued by his office on Sunday. "Despite our efforts at this APEC meeting, no recognition is given to the initiatives pursued by the Coalition for Rainforest Nations on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation," said Somare, whose country is being heavily logged and where some smaller islands are being flooded by rising sea levels. He also said carbon trading mechanisms were not adequately addressed in the declaration. The declaration was seen as a compromise between rich and poor APEC economies, which together account for about 60 percent of the world's economy. Asia-Pacific leaders also agreed to take various steps to ensure the health and safety of the region's population, including counter-terrorism measures, Howard said. The action was not aimed at China, which has been grappling with a series of product recalls in a number of countries, ranging from toys to toothpaste, APEC host Australia said. The declaration was expected to deal with other threats to regional economic growth, including terrorism, natural disasters, food supply contamination and pandemics, such as bird flu. A study in Singapore found the impact on APEC economies from a major terrorist attack would be $137 billion in lost GDP and $159 billion in reduced trade.

World leaders worked through the early hours to try and beat a Friday deadline for a deal on cutting emissions and helping poor countries cope with the costly impact of global warming. After days of stalemate, the United States revived the 193-nation talks on Thursday by backing a $100 billion climate fund to help poor nations adapt their economies and tackle threats such as failing crops and dwindling water supplies. A group of about 25 influential world leaders had constructive talks overnight on how to unblock the climate negotiations, Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen, who hosted the talks, said on Friday. "We had a very fruitful, constructive dialogue," Rasmussen told reporters. Many leaders mentioned risks of failure ahead of the final push, which started with a gala dinner for about 120 world leaders at Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, hosted by Denmark's Queen Margrethe. "Time is against us, let's stop posturing," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy, one of scores of leaders who addressed the talks on Thursday. "A failure in Copenhagen would be a catastrophe for each and every one of us." Police said 28 people were detained in connection with a Greenpeace protest near the palace, including three who evaded security to slip inside. After arriving in a motorcade ahead of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the activists walked straight up the red carpet carrying signs reading: "Politicians talk, leaders Act". U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive on Friday and is expected to face pressure to pledge deeper emissions cuts from the world's number two emitter of greenhouse gases behind China. "I really expect them to announce something more," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told reporters. "President Obama is not coming just to reiterate what is in their draft legislation," he said, referring a climate bill that has yet win U.S. Senate approval. Obama will meet Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on the sidelines of the Dec 7-18 talks, the largest ever climate summit. Officials said the United States was making progress with China on outstanding issues but could not say whether a deal would result after Obama arrived. One U.S. official said there was progress on monitoring, reporting and verification requirements by China and other big developing countries on their emissions curbs. China has resisted such requirements. FUNDING PLEDGE The United States had helped the mood earlier by promising to back a $100 billion a year fund for poor nations from 2020. Such funds would be more than all current aid flows to poor nations, a U.N. official said, and in line with demands put forward for African nations. "That's very encouraging," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of the U.S. pledge. A U.S. official said Obama was unlikely to be more specific about U.S. funding commitments. Accord on finance is one part of a puzzle that also includes a host of other measures, such as saving rainforests, boosting carbon markets and stiffening global carbon emissions curbs. "If each and everyone does a little bit more then we can do this," German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. She said the European Union was willing to do more but would not act alone. But any deal will have to be agreed by unanimity. Some small island states and African nations -- most vulnerable to climate change -- say they will not agree a weak deal. "We are talking about the survival of our nation," Prime Minister Apisai Ielemia of the Pacific island state of Tuvalu said of the talks that began two years ago in Bali, Indonesia. The draft texts of the negotiations include possible goals such as halving world greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or obliging developed nations to cut their emissions by between 25 and 40 percent by 2020. "We are moving out of the valley of death. We are beginning to see the outlines of a compromise, helped by the U.S. offer on finance," said Kim Carstensen, head of the WWF environmental group's global climate initiative. Earlier on Thursday, prospects for a strong U.N. climate pact seemed remote as nations blamed leading emitters China and the United States for deadlock on carbon cuts. But ministers and leaders urged fresh urgency. "Copenhagen is too important to fail," China's climate change ambassador Yu Qingtai said.

But even the city's own thick autumn smog - driven in large part by emissions from polluting vehicles - is becoming a significant threat to health and basic rights, residents and human rights groups warn. “Air pollution ... claims tens of thousands of lives, devastates the health of millions, and denies other rights, like the right to education, when children cannot go to school," said Omar Waraich, South Asia campaigns director for Amnesty International. "This is a human rights crisis," he said. This autumn, Lahore’s worsening air quality has led it to overtaking New Delhi on some days as the most polluted city in the world, according to the community-led Pakistan Air Quality Initiative. “Both Lahore and Delhi now have a similar number of days of very unhealthy or hazardous air pollution” said Abid Omar, a founder of the non-profit initiative. Since October, the city of more than 10 million has been engulfed most days by a smoky, chemical haze that is relieved only briefly when it rains. Warmer air layers above the cooler air at ground level act like a lid that keeps the pollutants close to the ground, according to Pakistan's Meteorological Department. Across the city, many residents now wear disposable anti-pollution masks - but they are a poor fit for the faces of vulnerable young children, residents say. Air quality is so bad that it exceeds even the worst ratings of the World Health Organization, said Attiya Noon, an air quality activist in Lahore and the mother of three young children. Pollution "is now beyond the index" - which means serious consequences for the city's health, said Noon, a member of the Punjab government’s newly set up Smog Committee. The committee was hurriedly established earlier this month when air quality levels became so hazardous in Punjab’s capital that schools had to be shut down three times, and social media channels erupted with outrage. The smog group now aims to find both immediate and longer-term ways to reduce pollution. Mahbina Waheed, a Lahore entrepreneur and another member of the committee, said the creation of the group was one sign the provincial government was taking the problem seriously. “With the last government we felt we were helpless and were spiralling into this abyss with all the focus on building new roads. Now with this new government we can raise our voices and they are heard,” she said. MORE MONITORING One of the quick fixes the activists are proposing is to require students to ride buses to school, rather than arriving in many more individual cars. Countries such as China and Iran have used school closures as a way of curbing smog emergencies, Noon noted. Malik Amin Aslam, an advisor to the country's prime minister on climate change, attended early meetings of the Smog Committee and said Lahore needed "more high-quality air monitoring stations and actionable data." New Delhi, he said, has 37 official air monitoring stations, while Lahore has just four. The World Bank plans to provide 30 new monitors in Pakistan, including 10 in Lahore, with the aim of having them in place within six months, he said. The biggest driver of the city's pollution, Aslam said, is vehicles, which contribute 43% of the smog. Burning of crop stubble, steel manufacturing furnaces and brick kilns are other major sources, he said. Omar, of the Pakistan Air Quality Initiative, said mandating the use of cleaner fuels should be a top priority. “While closing schools or low weekend traffic have a marginal impact, our transportation and industrial sectors never sleep," he said. Aslam said he would take up fuel standards with the country's oil ministry and urge them to import higher quality diesel. He said he also planned to introduce vehicle inspection systems in Punjab province in coming months to keep a check on polluting vehicles. As well, Pakistan's cabinet recently passed a new electric transport policy, which aims to shift 30% of vehicles on the country's roads to electric power by 2030. Aslam said the World Bank also plans to provide $55 million to help Punjab steel and brick plants shift to cleaner technologies, and to help farmers find alternatives to burning crop residues by next year. 'UNLIVEABLE' CITIES? Effectively cutting emissions, however, will also require better city planning, said Mome Saleem, executive director of the new Islamabad-based Institute of Urbanism. The most densely populated and least well-planned cities are the ones with the most serious smog problems, she said - and as people flock to already congested cities Pakistan will see more of air pollution threats. “We need a proper urban policy or else our cities will become unliveable,” she warned. Waraich, of Amnesty International, said governments in too many smog-hit South Asian cities "seem content to ride out of the months of the smog season" rather than "enforce clear limits on pollutants and punish those responsible for poisoning the air". "The failure to take these steps is a human rights violation,” he said. Waheed, the Smog Committee member, said she had installed an air quality monitor in her home, connected to the Air Visual mobile phone app. The app gives residents an indication of air quality around the city - and has helped back the campaign to clean up Lahore's air. “Clean air was something we took for granted and now it has become the most cherished commodity,” she said.

The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, representing 13 major global oil companies, held meetings with around 20 students and young professionals aimed at laying the groundwork for a long-term plan to engage with young people. It took place as top oil company CEOs, including BP Plc's Bob Dudley and Royal Dutch Shell Plc's Ben van Beurden, met to discuss the industry's response to climate change, while Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg angrily condemned world leaders and industry for failing to act quickly enough on the issue. "It's about dialogue and to have dialogue you have to have transparency," said Eldar Sætre, CEO of Norwegian oil company Equinor ASA, who said handling youth anger toward his industry is "tough." Geraldine Satre Buisson, a 28-year-old seeking a Ph.D. in climate change policy and science communication at Imperial College London, said she participated in Friday's global climate strike, in which more than 4 million people walked out of school or work to demand emergency action on climate change. Buisson took part in Monday's dialogue reluctantly but said she felt it was necessary to channel the anger she felt on the streets into action by meeting face-to-face with oil executives. "I felt generally that we had an opportunity to be heard but I am not sure that being heard will translate into action," she said, adding that the executives dodged questions about Thunberg. Faiza Haq, a 24-year-old student at Columbia University in New York studying energy and the environment, said when she went into the room, "I didn’t go with a feeling of trust." While she said the industry is taking positive steps by making some investments in renewable energy and technology to capture and store carbon, she suspects the companies have been pushing Washington to deregulate their industry. "They are doing things that are very positive, but what is the transparency that is happening?" she said. The night before the event around 40 protesters gathered outside a New York hotel hosting a private Oil and Gas Climate Initiative dinner. Some held up "Wanted" signs emblazoned with the faces and names of the CEOs of Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil Corp and Chevron Corp. The protesters chanted: "No gas, no oil - keep the carbon in the soil!" and "They knew, they lied, they need to pay!" "I am here to tell fossil fuel companies that our lives matter and that climate change is not affecting us in 10 years but right now," said Mayana Torres, 19, a student and volunteer with SustainUS, a youth-led movement campaigning to bar fossil fuel companies from influencing climate policy. Christina Figueres - the former executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, who helped finalize the Paris Agreement - told oil executives at a session later on Monday that they have to take bolder action or risk becoming obsolete. "The stigma this industry has acquired does not allow you to attract the best and brightest," she said. "And you need the best and brightest for a transformation."

The United States unveiled its proposal to cut greenhouse gases by 2020 on Wednesday and said President Barack Obama will attend U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen next month -- but before other world leaders show up. Obama will go to the December 7-18 talks in Denmark on December 9, the eve of a ceremony in nearby Oslo, Norway, where he will collect the Nobel Peace Prize, the White House said. He is not scheduled to return, however, for the final days when most of the hard bargaining is likely and dozens of other leaders are slated to attend. The White House said the United States will pledge in Copenhagen to cut its greenhouse gas emissions roughly 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, a drop of about 3 percent below the 1990 benchmark year used in U.N. treaties. That figure is in line with legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives but is less ambitious than a 20 percent reduction sought in a Senate version that has been delayed. U.S. negotiators consulted with lawmakers before arriving at the proposed figure and said it would be flexible based on the outcome of final domestic legislation. Senate support will be required to ratify any treaty that comes out of Copenhagen or follow-up meetings, so U.S. envoys are eager for backing from lawmakers. The United States is the last major industrialized country to offer a target for cutting greenhouse gases in a U.N.-led drive to slow rising world temperatures that could bring more heat-waves, expanding deserts, floods and rising sea levels. The White House said it hoped Obama's attendance would give momentum to the Copenhagen talks. "The president going to Copenhagen will give positive momentum to the negotiations, and we think will enhance the prospects for success," said Michael Froman, a deputy national security adviser to Obama and one of his climate advisers. Activists and other officials agreed. "If he can deliver on his election campaign statements that Copenhagen needs to be a success by coming to Copenhagen himself, that I think will be critical to a good outcome," U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer told reporters in Germany. Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said: "I am pleased the American president will visit Copenhagen. The strong commitment of the American president to the climate change issue is very valuable." 'RIGHT CITY, WRONG DATE' Some green groups were disappointed that he would miss the climax when other leaders arrive. "The right city, the wrong date; it seems that he's just not taking this issue seriously," said Kyle Ash, Greenpeace USA climate policy advisor. More than 75 world leaders have confirmed they will attend the conference, which the Danish hosts hope will clinch a deal laying the foundation for a treaty to be agreed to in 2010. The European Union is pressing for more aggressive cuts and has pledged at least a 20 percent cut in its emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. Though the U.S. figure was constrained by the bills in Congress, some environmentalists said it could have been stronger. "The President needs to do more than just show up; he must ensure that the United States promotes real solutions, including stronger emissions reduction targets and funding for developing countries to deal with climate impacts," said Friends of the Earth President Erich Pica. Looking beyond 2020, the United States will also propose emissions cuts of 18 percent by 2025 and 32 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels, White House officials said. Many governments and analysts have blamed the U.S. failure to propose a carbon cutting target sooner for the delay in agreement on a full climate treaty. "In the last two years, we have wasted a lot of time on marginal issues, technical issues, we haven't focused on the core questions in the negotiations," Yu Qingtai, China's climate change ambassador, said on Wednesday. Yu hinted that China would bow to a milder ambition for the summit in Copenhagen: "We think that the actual content of whatever is achieved is more important than the title of the document that is produced." China had previously said only that it was "studying" the Danish proposal to defer agreement on a full treaty until 2010. The United Nations' de Boer said the world was depending on U.S. leadership. "The world is very much looking to the United States," he said. New Zealand's revised emissions trading plan passed into law on Wednesday, while neighboring Australia moved a step closer to ending a deadlock stalling its carbon-trade legislation ahead of a vote this week.

Reviews last year of a scandal over scientists' leaked emails correctly ruled out data manipulation and showed it was time for climate science to move on, a panel of UK lawmakers said on Tuesday. It is the fourth British review of a scandal dubbed "climategate" which had partly involved the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit, based in eastern England. Leaked emails had appeared to show scientists sniping at climate change sceptics and trying to block publication of certain articles, and drew much media attention in the run-up to a major UN climate summit in Copenhagen in December 2009. Three reviews were published last year, one by the same panel of lawmakers as reported on Tuesday, and two subsequent independent reports. All three exonerated the climate scientists of trying to manipulate data. Tuesday's report referred to the view of Britain's chief scientific adviser, John Beddington, that the overall case for climate change was "pretty unequivocal" and tried to draw a line under the affair. "In our view it is time to make the changes and improvements recommended and with greater openness and transparency move on," it said. Tuesday's review echoed the others in stressing that there was a need for greater transparency when climate scientists replied to requests for information, urging them to provide the data, techniques and computer programmes which would allow others to replicate their findings. "Providing the means for others to question science in this way will help guard against not only scientific fraud but also the spread of misinformation and unsustainable allegations," the report said. The review noted that UEA's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) had since invested in new posts which would make it easier to release data. One of the original, leaked emails had referred to "tricks" to "hide the decline" in temperatures, which the reviews last year accepted were colloquial references to scientific methods and not attempts to mislead people. Tuesday's report expressed most concern over a claim that CRU scientists had deliberately deleted emails, to avoid having to disclose these to members of the public asking questions about their work under freedom of information rules. "On the allegation that e-mails were deleted to frustrate requests for information, a firm conclusion has proved elusive," it said.

The US State Department released on Tuesday its annual assessment of human rights around the world. Below are excerpts on selected countries. IRAQ: Sectarian-driven violence, acts of terrorism and revenge by armed groups in a climate of criminality and impunity undercut government efforts to establish and maintain the rule of law. On one side, predominantly Sunni Arab groups such as al Qaeda in Iraq, irreconcilable remnants of the Baathist regime, and insurgents waging guerrilla warfare violently opposed the government and targeted Shia communities. The other, predominantly Shia militias with some ties to the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF), targeted Sunnis in large-scale death squad and kidnapping activities. PAKISTAN: Despite President (Pervez) Musharraf's stated commitment to democratic transition and 'enlightened moderation,' Pakistan's human rights record continued to be poor. The security forces continued to commit extrajudicial killings. Arbitrary arrest and torture remained common. Corruption was pervasive throughout the government and police forces. RUSSIA: Russia experienced continuing centralisation of power in the executive branch, including amendments to election laws and new legislation for political parties that grants the government broad powers to regulate, investigate, limit, and even close down parties. Taken together with a compliant State Duma, corruption and selectivity in law enforcement, political pressure on the judiciary, and restrictions on the NGOs and the media, these trends resulted in the further erosion of government accountability. AFGHANISTAN: Although Afghanistan made important human rights progress since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, its human rights record remained poor. There were continued reports of cases of arbitrary arrests and detention, extrajudicial killings, torture, and poor prison conditions. NORTH KOREA: In 2006 North Korea remained one of the world's most isolated and repressive regimes. The regime controls almost all aspects of citizens' lives, denying freedom of speech, press, assembly, and association, and restricts freedom of movement and worker rights. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people, including political prisoners, were held in detention camps, and many prisoners died from torture, starvation, disease, and exposure. MYANMAR: The military government in Burma extensively used executions, rape, torture, arbitrary detention, and forced relocation of entire villages, particularly of ethnic minorities, to maintain its grip on power. Prisoners and detainees were subjected to abuse and held in harsh, life-threatening conditions. IRAN: The Iranian government flagrantly violated freedom of speech and assembly, intensifying its crackdown against dissidents, journalists, and reformers -- a crackdown characterised by arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, disappearances, the use of excessive force, and the widespread denial of fair public trials. ZIMBABWE: In Zimbabwe, the Mugabe government continued across-the-board violations of human rights. Official corruption and impunity were widespread. CUBA: In Cuba, the government, temporarily headed by Raul Castro due to Fidel Castro's illness, continued to violate virtually all the rights of its citizens, including the fundamental right to change their government peacefully or criticise the revolution or its leaders. CHINA: The Chinese government's human rights record deteriorated in some areas in 2006. There was an increased number of high-profile cases involving the monitoring, harassment, detention, and imprisonment of political and religious activists, journalists, and writers as well as defence lawyers seeking to exercise their rights under the law.

Areas of the continent like the Antarctic peninsula have increased their mass loss in the last decades, says a new NASA study. The research challenges the conclusion of other studies, including Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2013 report which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice. According to the analysis of satellite data, the Antarctic ice sheet showed a net gain of 112 billion tonnes of ice a year from 1992 to 2001. The net gain slowed to 82 billion tonnes of ice per year between 2003 and 2008. "We are essentially in agreement with other studies that show an increase in ice discharge in the Antarctic peninsula and the Thwaites and Pine Island region of West Antarctica," explained Jay Zwally, glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre in Greenbelt, Maryland. Our main disagreement is for East Antarctica and the interior of West Antarctica. "Here, we see an ice gain that exceeds the losses in the other areas," he added. But it might take a few decades for Antarctica's growth to reverse, according to Zwally. The study analysed changes in the surface height of the Antarctic ice sheet measured by radar altimeters on two European Space Agency satellites and by the laser altimeter on NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat). "At the end of the last Ice Age, the air became warmer and carried more moisture across the continent, doubling the amount of snow dropped on the ice sheet," Zwally noted. The extra snowfall that began 10,000 years ago has been slowly accumulating on the ice sheet and compacting into solid ice over millennia. It is thickening the ice in east Antarctica and the interior of west Antarctica by an average of 0.7 inches per year. This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice. "The good news is that Antarctica is not currently contributing to sea level rise, but is taking 0.23 mm per year away," Zwally said. But this is also bad news. "If the 0.27 mm per year of sea level rise attributed to Antarctica in the IPCC report is not really coming from Antarctica, there must be some other contribution to sea level rise that is not accounted for," he pointed out in the study appeared in the Journal of Glaciology.

Sydney,Sep 17 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Australia's mining boom may be fuelling an alarming rise in HIV infections among cashed-up heterosexual outback miners and businessmen in resource-rich states who holiday in Asia, say researchers. Rates of HIV infections in Australia have increased by almost 50 percent in the past eight years, according to a new national HIV-AIDS report released on Wednesday. In the year to December 2007, Australia had 27,331 cases of HIV infection and 10,230 cases of AIDS, said the report by the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research. "The annual number of new HIV diagnoses in Australia has steadily increased over the past eight years, from 718 cases in 1999 to 1,051 in 2007," it said. Homosexual men still account for most new infections, but a large number of new infections are amongst heterosexual men in the country's mining rich states of Western Australia and Queensland. Many miners work fly-in, fly-out shifts consisting of several weeks straight of work followed by a few weeks off and researchers say some are visiting Asia for their downtime. "A small but significant number (of new infections) are among heterosexual men from the richest resource states, who are clearly taking holidays in Asia and having unprotected sex," said Don Baxter, executive director of the Australian Federation of AIDS. Baxter said Western Australia men most likely visit Southeast Asian countries, with the state capital Perth about five hours flying time from Asia, while those in Queensland visit neighboring Papua New Guinea, which experts say is on the verge of an African-style HIV-AIDS epidemic. "Among heterosexual males in Western Australia there has been a 68 percent increase over the last three years. That's about the same number of heterosexual men as gay men in Western Australia to be infected in 2007," said Baxter. Baxter said the Western Australia state government and AIDS council was working with mining companies to implement safe sex education programs for miners. Health authorities said on Wednesday that a cluster of men in the tropical city of Cairns in Queensland state had contracted HIV after having unprotected sex with women in Papua New Guinea, a short flight north of Queensland. The Cairns Sexual Health Service said six men, all businessmen aged between 47 and 66, tested HIV positive in the past 10 months. "This small cluster could just be the beginning of a very large outbreak," Dr Darren Russell, director of the Cairns Sexual Health Service, told local media. "It indicates the HIV epidemic in PNG is becoming more generalized which puts these men at greater risk, and in that climate the numbers will only rise." Australia's AIDS federation called on the government to increase funding for AIDS prevention programs to stem the rising rate of infections. Australia's most populous state New South Wales, home to Sydney's largest homosexual population, recorded little change in infection rates in the past decade because it had maintained funding for safe sex programs, said Baxter. In contrast, infection rates soared in states that reduced funding, with the southern state of Victoria experiencing a 131 percent increase and Queensland a 55 percent rise. "We have pretty clear evidence that investment in the programs at least stabilizes the rate of HIV infections," said Baxter.

Since leaving the European Union in January, Johnson wants to promote what he calls "global Britain", hoping to boost ties with countries further afield and attracting new foreign investment to a country badly hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic. "I am absolutely delighted to be visiting India next year at the start of an exciting year for Global Britain, and look forward to delivering the quantum leap in our bilateral relationship that Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi and I have pledged to achieve," Johnson said in a statement. "As a key player in the Indo-Pacific region, India is an increasingly indispensable partner for the United Kingdom as we work to boost jobs and growth, confront shared threats to our security and protect our planet." Johnson will attend India's annual Republic Day parade in New Delhi.

Trump, continuing to build his Cabinet as he prepares to take office on Jan. 20, said Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, 48, would be nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency. Pruitt sued the EPA in a bid to undo a key regulation under outgoing President Barack Obama that would curb greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change, mainly from coal-fired power plants. Trump tapped retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, 66, for secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, whose responsibilities include immigration. Kelly, the third retired general named by Trump to a senior administration post, last year told Congress that a lack of security on the U.S.-Mexican border posed a threat to the United States. Trump's transition team said Republican Iowa Governor Terry Branstad, 70, who has boasted of close ties to Beijing's leaders, was picked as US ambassador to China. In addition, transition officials said Linda McMahon, 68, former CEO of professional wrestling company WWE and wife of wrestling kingpin Vince McMahon, was Trump's choice to head the Small Business Administration. Trump has taken part in WWE events in the past and has close ties to the McMahons. He is a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. All four posts require Senate confirmation. Pruitt's selection came despite a softer tone Trump has struck on environmental regulation since his Nov. 8 election. He has stepped back from casting climate change as a hoax, signaled he might be willing to allow the United States to continue participating in the Paris climate change deal aimed at lowering world carbon emissions, and met with former Vice President Al Gore, a leading environmental voice. Pruitt's selection brought a quick rebuke from Democrats. "The head of the EPA cannot be a stenographer for the lobbyists of polluters and Big Oil," House of Representatives Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said of Pruitt. Trump's campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, brushed off the criticism, praising Pruitt's record and telling reporters at Trump Tower: "We're very accustomed to the naysayers and the critics." TOUGH TALK Trump talked tough during the campaign about deporting all of the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States and building a wall along the Mexican border. But since the election he has softened his comments on deportation and referred to some illegal immigrants as "terrific people." Kelly would work in tandem with Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for attorney general, who is a leading advocate of cracking down on illegal immigration. The former four-star general would head a department in charge of securing borders against illegal immigration, protecting the president, responding to natural disasters and coordinating intelligence and counterterrorism. He formerly headed the Southern Command, responsible for U.S. military activities and relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean. He was a proponent of keeping open the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Trump previously picked retired Marine Corps General James Mattis as defense secretary and retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as national security adviser. Branstad has been an eager trading partner with China, helping Iowa sell agricultural goods to the Asian powerhouse. His choice came after Trump rattled the world's second-largest economy with tough talk on trade and a telephone call with the leader of Taiwan. Trump has more key appointments to make in coming days, including the high-profile job of secretary of state. His team said former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, a fierce Trump critic during the campaign, is still under consideration for a diplomatic job. Aside from the personnel announcements, Trump basked in being named Time magazine's "person of the year," telling NBC's "Today" show, "It's a great honor, it means a lot." In an interview with Time, Trump continued to take on corporate America, promising to bring down drug prices and causing shares of US pharmaceutical and biotech companies to fall.

In a new National Intelligence Estimate, the Office of Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) predicts that global warming will increase geopolitical tensions and risks to US national security over the next four decades, a senior intelligence official involved in drafting the report said. Such estimates are broad US intelligence community assessments. Thursday's report identifies as particular "countries of concern" Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Myanmar, Iraq, North Korea, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua and Colombia. Heat, drought, water availability and ineffective government make Afghanistan specifically worrying, the official said. Water disputes are also a key "geopolitical flashpoint" in India and the rest of South Asia. The report identifies two additional regions of concern to US intelligence agencies. Climate change is "likely to increase the risk of instability in countries in Central Africa and small island states in the Pacific, which clustered together form two of the most vulnerable areas in the world." The report notes disparities around global approaches to tackling climate change, saying countries that rely on fossil fuel exports to support their economies "will continue to resist a quick transition to a zero-carbon world because they fear the economic, political, and geopolitical costs of doing so." The report also notes the likelihood of increasing strategic competition over the Arctic. It says that Arctic and non-Arctic states "almost certainly will increase their competitive activities as the region becomes more accessible because of warming temperatures and reduced ice." It predicts international competition in the Arctic "will be largely economic but the risk of miscalculation will increase modestly by 2040 as commercial and military activity grows and opportunities are more contested."

Authorities in Baghdad, including the Education Ministry, declared a day off for local government institutions, with the exception of health services. Hundreds of people across the capital and southern cities went to hospitals with breathing difficulties, medical officials said. Baghdad International Airport said in a statement it was closing its airspace and halting all flights until further notice because of low visibility. At least one sandstorm a week has hit Iraq in the past few weeks in what Iraqis say is the worst such spate in living memory. "It's every three or four days now," said taxi driver Ahmed Zaman, 23. "It's clearly a result of climate change and lack of rain, whenever there's wind it just kicks up dust and sand." In Baghdad and southern Iraqi cities, a red haze of dust and sand reduced visibility to just a few hundred feet. "We've had 75 cases of people with respiratory problems," said Ihsan Mawlood, an accident and emergency doctor in a Baghdad hospital. "We're treating patients with oxygen machines if necessary." Iraq is the fifth most vulnerable country in the world to the climate crisis, according to the United Nations. Drought and extreme temperatures are drying up farmland and making large parts of Iraq barely habitable during the summer months. The country posted record temperatures of at least 52 degrees Celsius in recent years.

Tracts of ice in Greenland and Antarctica melted when temperatures were around or slightly higher than today in ancient thaws in the past three million years, a US-led international team wrote in the journal Science. And the world may be headed for a repeat even if governments cut greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming to a United Nations goal of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times. "Present temperature targets may commit Earth to at least six meters sea level rise," the authors at the Past Global Changes project wrote. Some greenhouse gases can linger for centuries in the atmosphere. Such a thaw would threaten cities from Beijing to London, and swamp low-lying tropical island states. Lead author Andrea Dutton, of the University of Florida, said it could take many centuries for a six-meter rise, despite some ancient evidence that more rapid shifts were possible. "This is a long-term projection. It's not going to happen the day after tomorrow," she told Reuters. The United Nations' panel of climate scientists said in 2013 that global warming could push up world sea levels by 26 to 82 cm (10 to 32 inches) by the late twenty-first century, on top of a 19 cm gain since 1900. Thursday's study, based on studies of everything from ancient ice to fossil corals, said sea levels rose by between 20 and 30 feet (6-9 metres)  in a warm period about 125,000 years ago when temperatures were similar to those of today. Ocean levels gained between 20 and 42 feet (6-13 metres) 400,000 years ago when temperatures were up to about 1C warmer than present. And in a warm period three million years ago, sea levels were also at least 20 feet (6 metres) higher than now. The ancient shifts were probably linked to natural variations in the Earth's orbit around the sun. Last year, some scientific studies indicated that parts of West Antarctica's ice sheet had already passed a "tipping point", and were locked in an unstoppable long-term thaw. "Tipping is not just a theoretical possibility, it is a reality," Ricarda Winkelmann of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research told a science conference in Paris.

That's because it is already "carbon negative", absorbing more climate-changing emissions each year than it produces. The forests of the thinly populated country of less than a million people absorb more than 9 million tonnes of carbon each year, while its economy, designed to reduce fossil fuel use and waste, produces less than 4 tonnes. "We are showing the world what we can do if we have the political will," Sonam Wangdi, secretary of the National Environment Commission, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview at the U.N. climate talks in Glasgow. A tiny but growing club of "carbon negative" forest countries is emerging, with Suriname - a small rainforest country north of Brazil - already a member and Panama expected to be certified later this year. What they have in common is strong protection of their carbon-absorbing forests alongside increasingly tough measures to hold down climate-changing emissions, including efforts to adopt renewable energy, electrify transport and cut waste. At COP26, they formed a formal alliance, signing a declaration calling for international finance, preferential trade, carbon pricing and other measures to support their economies and other "carbon negative" nations yet to emerge. "We are taking the first step. What is the world doing for us? We're looking for support," said Albert Ramdin, Suriname's foreign minister, at the signing. "What these three countries have achieved has been based on national efforts and national sacrifice," he added. Wangdi said Bhutan's "carbon negative" path began in the 1970s, when its then-king rejected plans to grow economically by cutting forests to make way for farms and industry. Instead, the king pushed for an economy built in part on sustainable forest management, with a focus on balancing conservation and development, Wangdi said. That has ultimately helped the tiny, landlocked kingdom protect its environment while cutting its poverty rate from 36 percent in 2007 to 12 percent in 2017, according to the World Bank - though the pandemic has recently pushed the rate up slightly. "We don't extract as much, we reuse, we recycle. It’s an effort not just by government but by everyone," Wangdi said. Bhutan's laws require the government to maintain at least 60% forest cover; currently trees cover 72-73 percent of the land. JOIN THE CLUB Erika Mounes, Panama's foreign minister, said channeling economic benefits to nations that protect their forests is key to expanding the "carbon negative" club and helping drive global efforts to cut climate-changing emissions. "Being carbon negative has a cost. There's surveillance - when you have a protected area you have to make sure it's actually protected," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Educating citizens about protecting nature is also crucial, she said, since "they are the actual forest-keepers". Panama now hopes to share what it has learned on its path to being certified carbon negative by the UN climate secretariat - including lessons from its indigenous forest communities. "If we’re able to do it, then many more can do it."

YOKOHAMA, Wed May 28, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The global food crisis could reverse some of the progress Africa has made in bringing down child mortality, the head of the United Nations' children's agency said on Wednesday. "If more children become undernourished, that could contribute to additional child mortality," Ann Veneman, executive director of UNICEF, said in an interview with Reuters on Wednesday. "This is not a crisis for everyone. It's an impact on those who are the most vulnerable." Protests, strikes and riots have erupted in developing countries around the world in the wake of dramatic rises in the prices of wheat, rice, corn, oils and other essential foods that have made it difficult for poor people to make ends meet. In African nations such as Cameroon, at least 24 people were killed in protests in February while in Somalia, thousands protested earlier this month. Veneman is in Japan to launch UNICEF's State of Africa's Children 2008 report which says that five million children died in Africa before they reached the age of five in 2006. The sub-Saharan African countries accounted for nine of the 10 highest mortality rates for children under five in the world, said the report which was launched on Wednesday at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). The UNICEF report details conditions of child survival in African nations and warns that sub-Saharan nations in Africa, such as Sierra Leone and Angola, lag on meeting child mortality rates and health issues in the U.N. Millennium Development Goals. The development goals are a set of eight globally agreed targets aimed at eradicating extreme poverty. One of the targets is to reduce mortality for children under age five by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015. These goals, along with boosting growth in Africa and dealing with climate change, are key issues being discussed at TICAD, through which Japan is trying to build closer ties with resource-rich African nations and to win support for its long-withstanding bid for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. Some 2,500 participants, representing 52 African nations, delegates from international agencies, and activists such as Irish rock star Bono, have gathered in Japan for the conference. DISPLACED CHILDREN Veneman also said that UNICEF is working to unite displaced children with their families and to find appropriate foster care for those affected by the Myanmar cyclone and the Sichuan quake in China. "Really what you worry about in these situations is that children not be moved out of these areas, so that they are not trafficked," she said about the situation in China. The May 12 earthquake, which struck China's Sichuan province, has killed over 68,000 people. More than 20,000 are missing. The government identified more than 70 orphans as of last week. Cyclone Nargis, which hit Myanmar on May 2, left 134,000 people dead or missing and another 2.4 million destitute. The U.N. said it has established that at least 2,000 children have lost both parents.

The amount of sea ice around Antarctica has grown in recent Septembers in what could be an unusual side-effect of global warming, experts said on Friday. In the southern hemisphere winter, when emperor penguins huddle together against the biting cold, ice on the sea around Antarctica has been increasing since the late 1970s, perhaps because climate change means shifts in winds, sea currents or snowfall. At the other end of the planet, Arctic sea ice is now close to matching a September 2007 record low at the tail end of the northern summer in a threat to the hunting lifestyles of indigenous peoples and creatures such as polar bears. "The Antarctic wintertime ice extent increased...at a rate of 0.6 percent per decade" from 1979-2006, said Donald Cavalieri, a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. At 19 million sq kms (7.34 million sq mile), it is still slightly below records from the early 1970s of 20 million, he said. The average year-round ice extent has risen too. Some climate skeptics point to the differing trends at the poles as a sign that worries about climate change are exaggerated. However, experts say they can explain the development. "What's happening is not unexpected...Climate modelers predicted a long time ago that the Arctic would warm fastest and the Antarctic would be stable for a long time," said Ted Maksym, a sea ice specialist at the British Antarctic Survey. The U.N. Climate Panel says it is at least 90 percent sure that people are stoking global warming -- mainly by burning fossil fuels. But it says each region will react differently. A key difference is that Arctic ice floats on an ocean and is warmed by shifting currents and winds from the south. By contrast, Antarctica is an isolated continent bigger than the United States that creates its own deep freeze. "The air temperature in Antarctica has increased very little compared to the Arctic," said Ola Johannessen, director of the Nansen Environmental and Remote Sensing Center in Norway. "The reason is you have a huge ocean surrounding the land." Cavalieri said some computer models indicate a reduction in the amount of heat coming up from the ocean around Antarctica as one possible explanation for growing ice. Another theory was that warmer air absorbs more moisture and means more snow and rainfall, he said. That could mean more fresh water at the sea surface around Antarctica -- fresh water freezes at a higher temperature than salt water. "There has been a strengthening of the winds that circumnavigate the Antarctic," said Maksym. That might be linked to a thinning of the ozone layer high above the continent, blamed in turn on human use of chemicals used in refrigerants. In some places, stronger winds might blow ice out to sea to areas where ice would not naturally form. Maksym predicted that global warming would eventually warm the southern oceans, and shrink the sea ice around Antarctica. "A lot of the modelers are predicting the turning point to be right about this time," he said.

Like oil in the 20th century, water could well be the essential commodity on which the 21st century will turn. Human beings have depended on access to water since the earliest days of civilization, but with 7 billion people on the planet as of Oct. 31, exponentially expanding urbanization and development are driving demand like never before. Water use has been growing at more than twice the rate of population increase in the last century, said Kirsty Jenkinson of thse World Resources Institute, a Washington think tank. Water use is predicted to increase by 50 percent between 2007 and 2025 in developing countries and 18 percent in developed ones, with much of the increased use in the poorest countries with more and more people moving from rural areas to cities, Jenkinson said in a telephone interview. Factor in the expected impacts of climate change this century -- more severe floods, droughts and shifts from past precipitation patterns -- that are likely to hit the poorest people first and worst "and we have a significant challenge on our hands," Jenkinson said. Will there be enough water for everyone, especially if population continues to rise, as predicted, to 9 billion by mid-century? "There's a lot of water on Earth, so we probably won't run out," said Rob Renner, executive director of the Colorado-based Water Research Foundation. "The problem is that 97.5 percent of it is salty and ... of the 2.5 percent that's fresh, two-thirds of that is frozen. So there's not a lot of fresh water to deal with in the world." WATER RISK HOT SPOTS Over a billion people lack access to clean drinking water, and over 2 billion live without adequate sanitation, leading to the deaths of 5 million people, mostly children, each year from preventable waterborne disease, Renner said. Only 8 percent of the planet's fresh water supply goes to domestic use and about 70 percent is used for irrigation and 22 percent in industry, Jenkinson said. Droughts and insufficient rainfall contribute to what's known as water risk, along with floods and contamination. Hot spots of water risk, as reported in the World Resources Institute's Aqueduct online atlas here , include: -- Australia's Murray-Darling basin; -- the Colorado River basin in the U.S. Southwest; -- the Orange-Senqu basin, covering parts of South Africa, Botswana and Namibia and all of Lesotho; -- and the Yangtze and Yellow river basins in China. What is required, Jenkinson said, is integrated water resource management that takes into account who needs what kind of water, as well as where and how to use it most efficiently. "Water is going to quickly become a limiting factor in our lifetimes," said Ralph Eberts, executive vice president of Black & Veatch, a $2.3 billion engineering business that designs water systems and operates in more than 100 countries. He said he sees a "reprioritization" of resources to address the water challenges posed by changing climate and growing urbanization. Eberts' company is not alone. Water scarcity and water stress -- which occurs when demand for water exceeds supply or when poor quality restricts use -- has already hit water-intensive companies and supply chains in Russia, China and across the southern United States. INVESTORS TAKE NOTE At the same time, extreme floods have had severe economic impacts in Australia, Pakistan and the U.S. Midwest, according to Ceres, a coalition of large investors and environmental groups that targeted water risk as an issue that 21st century businesses will need to address. "The centrality of fresh water to our needs for food, for fuel, for fiber is taking center stage in what has become a crowded, environmentally stressed world," said Ceres President Mindy Lubber. A Ceres database lets institutional investors know which companies are tackling water risk. Nestle and Rio Tinto were seen as leading the way. Water risk is already affecting business at apparel maker The Gap, which cut its profit forecast by 22 percent after drought cut into the cotton crop in Texas. Similarly, independent gas producer Toreador Resources saw its stock price drop 20 percent after France banned shale-gas fracturing, primarily over concerns about water quality. Food giants Kraft Foods Inc Sara Lee Corp and Nestle all announced planned price rises to offset higher commodity prices caused by droughts, flooding and other factors. Water risk is more than a corporate concern. For international aid groups, it poses a risk of disaster for those in the path of increasing drought or rising uncertainty about water supplies. In East Africa, for example, a changing climate could bring changes in temperature and precipitation that would shorten the growing season and cut yields of staple crops like maize and beans, hitting small farmers and herders hardest, according to an Oxfam report. A scientific analysis of 30 countries called the Challenge Program on Water and Food offered hope. It found that major river basins in Africa, Asia and Latin America could double food production in the next few decades if those upstream work with those downstream to efficiently use the water they have.

Toles-Bey, a 62-year-old small-business owner, voted for the former president twice, after never participating in elections in his life. He now follows politics incessantly, an obsession he credits to Obama’s influence. He started a T-shirt company called You Can’t Trump God after Obama left office, because President Donald Trump’s election sent him into a downward emotional spiral that only religion could counteract. But even as Toles-Bey waited outside one of Obama’s recent rallies, he wondered aloud if his political hero’s signature idealism had a place in today’s flame-throwing political climate. “It’s a different world we’re living in,” Toles-Bey said. “And we need something different.” As Obama has crisscrossed the country in support of Democratic candidates, nerves are rattling among some members of the coalition that fuelled his historic rise from backbencher in the Illinois Statehouse to America’s first black president. People watch Barack Obama speak during a rally in Las Vegas, Oct 22, 2018. The New York Times A week of domestic terrorism has shocked the political system ahead of the 2018 elections. And while Obama’s speeches this election cycle have largely stuck with his trademark themes of idealism and hope, some of his supporters wonder if they are witnessing a living time capsule from a bygone era of civil political rhetoric. People watch Barack Obama speak during a rally in Las Vegas, Oct 22, 2018. The New York Times Obama remains the top Democratic surrogate in the country, and he will be lending his star power to some of the most closely watched Democratic candidates during the campaign’s final week, including Andrew Gillum in Florida, Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Joe Donnelly in Indiana. But the election of Trump has tested the former president’s theory of measured change, his advisers acknowledge. It has also jaded some of the legions of voters Obama brought into the Democratic fold, including young people and minorities. Obama’s advisers say the former president sees “resisting" Trump and inspiring voters as a false choice. They point to his speeches this summer that broke with long-held tradition by heavily criticising Trump, even if he rarely mentioned the current president by name. Still, like Toles-Bey, some supporters of Obama have come to want a fist, not a handshake, in an era when the new generation of progressives is hitting back harder at Trump than the former president usually does. “For a long time, older generations have told us, ‘This is how politics is supposed to work,’ but we are pushing back on that,” said Gabriella Lorance, 20, who went to see Obama with her two friends in Milwaukee. She was 10 when he was first elected president. They took a moment to list their favourite politicians: Jason Kander, the former Missouri secretary of state; Beto O’Rourke, the Senate candidate for Texas; and Sharice Davids of Kansas, a former mixed martial arts fighter who could become the first lesbian Native American elected to Congress. Obama did not make the cut. “There has to be a reframing of how we go about making change,” said LaTosha Brown, an organiser and co-founder of Black Voters Matter. She said that although she respected Obama, particularly because he was a former community organiser, she had come to see him as a “constitutionalist” in a political era that requires more radical action. “Enough is enough,” Brown said. “We’re not going to repeat the same cycle of people telling us to wait and vote and prove our allegiance to this country.” President Donald Trump on stage during a campaign rally in Murphysboro, Oct 27, 2018. The New York Times The divide could be a preview of future fights among liberals. In the coming years, as voters search for Obama’s successor as the unifying face of the Democratic Party, questions over what tone is best to oppose Trump will be front and centre, just as critical as issues of policy or ideology. President Donald Trump on stage during a campaign rally in Murphysboro, Oct 27, 2018. The New York Times This year alone, some prospective contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination have raised eyebrows for their willingness to take anti-Trump rhetoric to new levels. Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would “beat the hell” out of Trump in a fight (he later apologised), and Michael Avenatti, a lawyer who has repeatedly clashed with Trump, challenged a member of the president’s family to a physical altercation. Eric Holder, the former attorney general who served under Obama and is eyeing a run for president, caught the ire of Obama’s network when he took a more dark spin on the famous Michelle Obama line, “When they go low, we go high.” “When they go low, we kick them,” Holder said in Georgia this month. “That’s what this new Democratic Party is about.” Obama’s speeches are littered with appeals to conservatives, and in Milwaukee he oscillated between indicting the modern Republican Party and appealing to those he called “compassionate conservatives” interested in building a coalition. But the next generation of Democrats may forgo such wavering in favour of a more uncompromising tone. In the last week, amid an eruption of political violence, two members of that new group of progressive Democrats stood out for their forceful language: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan. “Imagine if it was ISIS that sent bombs to US officials, started shooting in grocery stores, and invading places of worship,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “How do you think this administration would respond?” Tlaib went even further. “Blaming the Pittsburgh shooting on #TreeOfLifeSynagogue members shows your lack leadership & compassion to be POTUS,” she said, in a tweet that included two explicit phrases directed at Trump. “The terrorist had an AR-15 assault rifle (weapon of war)& killed fellow Americans, human beings that deserve better.” Michelle Obama has defended her “going high” mantra, saying that leaders have a responsibility to show a “level of decency” and that “fear is not a proper motivator.” Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser to Obama, said in an interview that he understands the frustration among Democrats during Trump’s administration. Jarrett said that while it might be “harder” for the president to try to “appeal to our better angels” during this political time, it remained necessary. Obama “wouldn’t be who he is if he were to change his message now,” Jarrett said. “The question isn’t just, do you give people what, in a moment, they think they want to hear? You give them the message that you think is important for them to hear. That’s what leadership is about.” Some of Obama’s supporters agreed with Jarrett. Kasey Dean, 28, who waited for Obama before his rally in Nevada last week, said it was the duty of politicians to uplift the country in moments of uncertainty — not to sink to fear. Hallie Sebena, 34, who saw Obama’s rally in Milwaukee, said “there are ways to fight back without being dirty.” “We need conversations that begin from a place of civility,” Sebena said. Other liberal voters said they had been so enraged by Trump’s administration that it changed what they look for in a Democratic messenger. Maybe it should be someone who is more of a “fighter,” said Tom Mooshegian, 64, in Las Vegas. Trump “sets the norm,” Mooshegian said, adding that “the person who runs against him in 2020 is going to have to match that.” Dana Williams, 41, who was waiting for Obama with her husband and daughter in Las Vegas, said she thought Trump had introduced a style of politics that prioritises personal attacks. To combat him, Democrats may need to meet “fire with fire,” she said, borrowing a favourite phrase of Trump’s. “When they go low, we got to go hard,” said Brown, adding that she was not convinced “people in high offices” understood the urgency of the moment. Obama did not publicly respond to Holder’s comments, but repeatedly in his speeches this summer, the former president has made an impassioned plea for his brand of politics: hopeful, civil and driven by incremental progress. “There’s something at stake in this election that goes beyond politics,” Obama said in Milwaukee last week. “What is at stake is a politics that is decent. And honest. And lawful. That tries to do right by people and that’s worthy of this country we love.” Obama, who avoided the political arena for more than a year before returning this summer, has focused his efforts on states where Democrats are facing key races in the Senate. He also tends to hold rallies in urban areas with voters who are historically less likely to vote in midterm elections, including young people and minorities. Jon Favreau, a former speechwriter for Obama who now runs a liberal media company, said the former president’s message has evolved on key issues such as voter suppression and structural racism. The Republican Party has become more overtly tied to white identity politics and immigration reduction, Favreau said, and Obama has become more explicit in his indictments. In doing so, he has laid out a pathway for how Democratic candidates can criticise while not resorting to mudslinging. Favreau said campaigns like Gillum’s in Florida, Abrams’ in Georgia and O’Rourke’s in Texas were “the next generation and the next iteration of that Obama message of hope.” “If you are only fighting Donald Trump, and if you’re only fighting Republicans with whatever sick burn you can figure out, you haven’t done the full job,” he said. “What voters want is people to fight on behalf of issues.”   © 2018 New York Times News Service

After all, as a pioneer and one of the rare women helping to lead a country on the world stage (at a time when one of the most famous, Angela Merkel of Germany, is about to step down), every statement and choice she makes carries with it the symbolism of the trailblazer. Her decisions impact not just herself, but those who come after her and will learn from her example. And yet Kamala Harris’ recent trip to Southeast Asia, which came to an end Thursday, was notable in part because of how much the focus was on what she said and how little extraneous commentary it generated; how little reaction to the theater of the trip (the costumes! the curtain raisers!). Which is, when you think about the formal choreography of such trips, which are a dance between public performance and private policy negotiations, pretty extraordinary. The Daily Mail was so desperate for content that it tried to drum up angst because of … a smile. That may suggest that we’re so inured to the idea of a female leader that we have ceased to focus on it at all, a theory that falls into the too-good-to-be-true category. (Making snap judgments based on appearance is a basic part of human nature.) Or it suggests that Harris consciously and strategically crafted her image to ensure that it could not distract from the duty at hand. Which is not to say she thought about it any less. Consider: From the evening of Aug. 20, when she left Washington to fly to Singapore, through her time in Vietnam, she wore only dark pantsuits in navy, gray and black, with a small flag pin on the lapel, plain white or light blue shells beneath and her signature simple strand of pearls. She wore a dark pantsuit to meet with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore. A dark pantsuit to the orchid naming ceremony. A dark pantsuit to meet with President Nguyen Xuan Phuc of Vietnam to pay homage at John McCain’s memorial in Hanoi on the third anniversary of his death. Against the backdrop of the messy evacuation from Afghanistan and the need to reaffirm America’s commitment to its allies, with the delta variant and other forms of the virus casting a cloud of fear over the world’s efforts to combat the pandemic, her somber wardrobe served to reflect the somber state of the world. Her choices also helped her blend in: not just with her male peers, who were similarly attired (at a news conference with Lee, she wore a light blue shell that, coincidentally, matched his light blue shirt), but with political tradition as it exists in the shared imagination. After all, dark suits are essentially a synonym for generic world leader uniform, which is why people freak out when a president makes the rare appearance in beige. (Beige! Oh my god! Oh my god!) In the end, that was the biggest takeaway from the vice president’s stagecraft. More than the fact that within that framework, Harris also checked the boxes of diplomatic dress, wearing American designers (Prabal Gurung, Altuzarra) and, in line with her mandate to focus on climate change, only clothes she already owned. Given that Harris has pointedly veered away from the bled-into-the-background uniform at past moments in the spotlight — when she wore a suffragist white suit on the evening Joe Biden declared victory in the presidential election; a bright purple coat and dress, melding blue and red, at her swearing-in; a cream pantsuit at the State of the Union — it was clearly a tactical choice. And it was effective from the point of view of a No 2 who doesn’t want to take the spotlight away from her boss. Or distract from the grim issues of the moment (not to mention demonstrate discipline and an ability to stay resolutely on message). Even if, watching the trip play out, it was hard not to wish that a woman did not have to don generic male camouflage to enact her part. Clothing can be used to communicate a variety of messages — unity and hope and allyship and resolution — and that is a tool that is most available to women, for obvious reasons. They should not have to sacrifice it to be taken seriously. No one should. Maybe that will come, legitimizing the opportunity for everyone to use dress (and fashion, let’s say it) to its greatest, most multidimensional extent. For now, Harris has to walk a fine line between representing her administration and making history. It’s possible she can’t serve both masters. But it would be something to see.   © 2021 The New York Times Company

Barack Obama this week makes his first trip to Asia as president, leaving behind a host of domestic problems with a visit that recognizes the region's economic and diplomatic importance to the United States. The trip, which starts on Thursday, will take Obama to an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Singapore. But the critical leg will come in China, where Obama will have to navigate an increasingly complex relationship with the country that is the largest holder of U.S. foreign debt and its second-largest trading partner. "I see China as a vital partner, as well as a competitor," Obama told Reuters in an interview before the trip. "The key is for us to make sure that that competition is friendly, and it's competition for customers and markets, it's within the bounds of well-defined international rules of the road that both China and the United States are party to, but also that together we are encouraging responsible behavior around the world," he said. He will also visit Japan and South Korea. "The overarching theme is that America is a Pacific nation, it understands the importance of Asia in the 21st century, and it's going to be very engaged in a very comprehensive way to make progress on a whole series of issues that are critical for our prosperity and our security," said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser. North Korea, Iran, the global economy and trade, climate change, energy, human rights, Afghanistan and Pakistan are likely to get the most attention. Obama will also use a stop in Tokyo to speak broadly about his view of U.S. engagement with Asia. In China from November 15-18, Obama will visit Shanghai and Beijing, hold bilateral meetings with President Hu Jintao -- their third -- and Premier Wen Jiabao. DEEPLY ENGAGED The trip is intended to make the point that the United States is deeply engaged with Asia, after years of focusing on the threat of Islamic militancy in the region. But the issues dominating U.S. politics -- his fight to reform the healthcare system, joblessness and the pressing question of how many more troops to send to Afghanistan -- are likely to dog Obama on his Asian trip. Those domestic worries could make it more difficult to make progress on climate change and trade, on which he faces stiff opposition from U.S. groups whose support he needs on healthcare and other issues. Many businesses, for example, are wary of new rules on climate change they say could be costly and labor unions worry about free trade agreements they fear could cost jobs, so Obama is unlikely to push hard for deals such as a free trade pact with South Korea. "I think the administration has been sending pretty careful signals that, hey, we're not gone on trade ... we'll be back to the table on trade on some of these regional agreements and some of the bilateral agreements," said Ernie Bower, director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Do Asian leaders believe that? I'm not sure," he said. With Obama enjoying sky-high popularity ratings in the countries he is visiting, concrete results may be beside the point. Noting that Obama has been in office only since January, analysts and administration officials point to this trip as mostly laying the groundwork for future cooperation. "President Obama is enormously popular in all the countries that he's visiting. I haven't seen the latest polls, but the numbers I have seen are staggering," said Jeffrey Bader, senior director for East Asian affairs at the National Security Council. "When we have someone who has that degree of respect and affection and admiration, the message that he is bringing is much more likely to resonate than when you come in with a five percent approval rating," he said.

ATLANTIC, Iowa (bdnews24/Reuters) - Democratic Sen. Barack Obama defended his foreign policy credentials on Thursday, saying Sen. Hillary Clinton and other rivals were trying to pass off entrenched Washington ways as experience. Obama, a first-term US senator from Illinois, has been hit by accusations he is too inexperienced to be the Democratic nominee for the November 2008 election. A new CBS poll shows that while Obama is seen as the candidate offering fresh new ideas, Clinton has a 20-point advantage partly because respondents think she has the right experience to be president. The New York senator has called Obama naive and irresponsible for saying he would talk with leaders of hostile nations, for favoring strikes against al Qaeda targets inside Pakistan and for ruling out nuclear weapons in such attacks. Obama said Clinton and other candidates appeared experienced because they were just saying what is traditionally expected of a candidate. "There is, not just with Senator Clinton, but with a lot of my opponents, a premium on reciting the conventional wisdom in Washington and that's what passes for experience -- how well you do that," Obama told reporters during a five-day tour of Iowa. "My argument in this race is, it's that kind of rote approach to foreign policy that led a lot of people who should have known better to get into Iraq," he said. "It is an approach that we have to change in a much more far-reaching fashion." The Clinton campaign rejected the attack. "Hillary Clinton has fought for change her whole life and she is the candidate with the strength and experience to make change happen starting in 2009," said Clinton spokesman Phil Singer. Obama said a new administration needs to put an end to "conventional thinking" that builds up a climate of fear. "Part of the problem in our foreign policy is that the administration obfuscates, distracts and tries to play on the fears of the American people. The next president has to be able to talk very clearly to the American people," he said. Obama cited his vow not to use nuclear weapons in any attacks on al Qaeda targets in Pakistan. Clinton has said nuclear deterrence is vital to help keep the peace. But Obama said many military experts have told him nuclear weapons would never be used in a potential attack on a terrorist cell in Pakistan. "Then I think it (is) ... fair to say we'd use conventional weapons and not nuclear weapons," Obama said to cheers of several hundred supporters in Council Bluffs. "There's nothing naive about saying that." In Council Bluffs and Atlantic, Obama received standing ovations for his calls for change. Each time, he also noted that he is called inexperienced. "When people say experience, what they're really saying is -- do you have good judgment?" he said. Former Defense Secretary "Donald Rumsfeld and (Vice President) Dick Cheney have a lot of experience, but they didn't have a lot of good judgment when it came to foreign policy. Part of what I offer is good judgment."

None of those words could be used to describe their first clash, in Cleveland. But Trump, chastened by Republicans for his over-aggressive performance last month, arrived in what was, for him, restrained fashion as he tried to reinvigorate his flagging campaign. But his relatively subdued performance seemed unlikely to be enough to shift the trajectory of a race that has been unmoved by far larger world events. Here are six takeaways from the final 2020 presidential debate. They actually debated! After the first debate debacle, the debate commission imposed a mute feature for the opening statements of both candidates for each segment. It helped. But Trump mostly muzzled his own impulse for interruption. He verbally stopped himself short of directly discussing how Biden’s son Hunter exited the military. And he even praised Kristen Welker, the debate moderator from NBC who kept tight control on the proceedings, saying, “So far, I respect very much the way you’re handling this.” The lack of cross-talk allowed viewers to actually discern the differences between the two candidates, on the pandemic, on climate change, on systemic racism, on charting an economic recovery, on federal spending and on health care. For Trump, who advisers believe needs the race to be a clear choice between himself and Biden, the set of contrasts came late — in only the final debate of three on the schedule, after he bulldozed through the first one and his contracting of the coronavirus set in motion the cancellation of the second one. Not only is he behind in the polls now, but more than 48 million Americans have already cast their ballots. Trump still didn’t have a compelling answer on COVID-19. Biden, who walked onstage wearing a mask, delivered his closing argument at the very start. The coronavirus has killed more than 220,000 people in the United States. “Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” Biden said in his first opportunity to speak. It was an echo of the case that Sen. Kamala Harris made in the opening moments of the vice presidential debate, and for which Trump had no more answers than Vice President Mike Pence did. Trump claimed that models had predicted up to 2.2 million deaths (that was if the country did nothing), noting that it is in fact a “worldwide pandemic,” and arguing, accurately, that mortality rates have gone down. “We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away,” Trump claimed. Hospitalisations and cases are actually on the rise. Trump tried to draw upon his own hospitalisation with the virus since the first debate, which set in motion the cancellation of the second debate. “I learned a lot. I learned a lot,” he said. But he spent part of the pre-debate week attacking the nation’s leading infectious disease specialist, Dr Anthony Fauci. Biden made his case on the virus this way: “I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan.” Biden made the ‘Come on, man!’ case. For all the talk leading up to 2020, especially among skittish Democrats, that Trump was a “Teflon Don,” the presidential candidate who has navigated deep into October as the front-runner with enviable approval ratings despite months of attacks and negative ads is, in fact, Biden. For much of the race, his retort to Trump’s wild accusations of being a left-wing extremist has amounted to a “who-me?” shrug. “Do I look like a radical socialist?” Biden asked in one August speech. “I am the party,” he declared at the first debate. On Thursday, Trump repeatedly sought to tar Biden by association, linking him to Harris’ position on health care in the primary, tagging him as being controlled by “AOC plus three,” a reference to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and some of her progressive House colleagues, and seeking to rope him to Sen. Bernie Sanders on health care, too. So Biden deployed his “Come on, man!” strategy again. “He’s very confused guy,” Biden said. “He thinks he’s running against somebody else. He’s running against Joe Biden.” The Democratic nominee also turned directly to the viewers, urging them to rely on their own impressions after eight years as vice president: “You know who I am. You know who he is. You know his character. You know my character.” Just as he did in the primary, Biden has bet on himself, and on the unbelievability of Trump’s attacks on his character and his agenda. And so far, it has worked. Trump landed his ‘all talk, no action’ punch … This was the case so many Republicans have been desperately waiting for the president to make. And over and over on Thursday, Trump returned to it, attacking Biden as a politician who has been in and around Washington for nearly a half-century and whose promised changes should have been enacted decades ago. “You keep talking about all these things you’re going to do,” Trump pressed. “Why didn’t you get it done?” “All talk, no action,” he repeated. Though Trump had also brought up Biden’s 47 years of public service in an attack at the first debate, Biden was uneven in his response Thursday. He even took the rare step of distancing himself from President Barack Obama over their inability to pass an immigration overhaul. “We made a mistake,” he said. “It took too long to get it right. I’ll be president of the United States, not vice president of the United States.” Dave Kochel, a Republican strategist, said that “the ‘why didn’t you do it’ refrain was very strong.” “After the first debate disaster,” he added, “Trump showed he could stand next to Biden and make the case.” Of course, Trump has only prosecuted this case intermittently. And his ability to run as an outsider, which helped lift him through the 2016 primary and the general election, has plainly diminished now that he is, well, a politician and an incumbent with failed promises of his own. Of Biden’s failings, Trump said pointedly, “I ran because of you.” … but he also got lost in a cul-de-sac of obscurity. Trump debated at times as if the tens of millions of Americans tuning in were as intimately familiar with the internet outrages that burn bright across the right-wing media ecosystem as he is. He made references to names and numbers and moments that almost surely zoomed over the heads of viewers, from an indirect swipe at the husband of the governor of Michigan to a jab at the Obama administration for “selling pillows and sheets” to Ukraine to attacks on the Biden family’s business dealings, most of which lacked almost any discernible context. “They took over the submarine port. You remember that very well,” Trump said at one point to Biden. It did not appear Biden did. Trump kept waving around noncontextualised references as if they were smoking guns, especially about Hunter Biden. “Now with what came out today it’s even worse,” Trump said. ”All of the emails. The emails, the horrible emails of the kind of money that you were raking in, you and your family.” But the segment ended with nothing resembling a defining exchange. It was a reminder of how different it is to run against Biden than Hillary Clinton. Four years ago, Trump had the benefit of decades of attacks on Clinton that had sunk in for voters. That is just not true of Biden. “By focusing on these right-wing theories, Trump pandered to a base that doesn’t need persuading,” said Meredith Kelly, a Democratic strategist, “and he whistled right past everyone else.” They had surprisingly substantive disagreements. The two candidates did engage in a substantive back and forth about how much of the nation’s economy and schools should be shuttered to contain the virus. Trump fiercely advocated reopening as much as possible as quickly as possible. Biden said that should happen only when it is actually safe. “We’re learning to live with it,” Trump said, citing his own hospitalisation and recovery. “Learning to live with it?” Biden said incredulously. “Come on. We’re dying with it.” Trump tried to dismiss Biden for mostly campaigning from home this spring and summer (“We can’t lock ourselves up in a basement like Joe does”). He mocked the Plexiglas dividers that have emerged in restaurants in New York and other places to keep people socially distanced, dismissing the idea of diners sitting “in a cubicle wrapped around in plastic.” “We can’t close up our nation,” he said. “Or we won’t have a nation.” Biden argued for prioritising public health, warning Americans of a “dark winter” approaching. “Shut down the virus, not the country,” he said, rattling off one of the evening’s scripted lines. The candidates disagreed, civilly, on health care and the environment. Biden said he would push the nation to “transition from the oil industry” and end federal subsidies. “That is a big statement,” Trump replied. “Will you remember that, Texas? Will you remember that, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?” The Biden declaration won cheers among progressives but quick distancing from Democrats in energy-heavy states, such as Rep. Kendra Horn of Oklahoma and Rep. Xochitl Torres Small of New Mexico. Overall, Colin Reed, a Republican strategist, said the debate was a draw. “Both candidates came prepared not only in tone and tenor, but also substantively,” he said. “For Biden, a push is a win right now. Trump is the one who needed the knockout blow.” © 2020 The New York Times Company

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."

Two-thirds of those affected were in sub-Saharan Africa, deepening disparities in the region's access to electricity, according to an annual global report tracking progress on sustainable energy. Millions struggled to pay for essential electricity services to power lighting, fans, televisions and mobile phones as the COVID-19 crisis hit jobs and incomes in 2020, the report said. This threatens progress in the last decade, which saw more than a billion people gaining access to electricity since 2010, making 90% of the world's population connected in 2019. But the pandemic has now put the UN-backed goal to ensure all have electricity by 2030 "in jeopardy", with the number of people without power in Africa rising in 2020 after falling for the last six years, the report said. "Access to electricity is critical to development, especially in the context of mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 and supporting human and economic recovery," said Demetrios Papathanasiou, global director for energy and extractives at the World Bank. About 759 million people still live without electricity, half of them in fragile and conflict-torn countries, he noted. This could exacerbate broader inequalities, he added, as electrification of health facilities is vital to support vaccine deployment and the pandemic response in developing nations. "Lack of access to reliable energy affects the quality of public health and will require additional efforts to establish the data, communications, logistics and reliable cold chain to administer vaccines," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Under current and planned policies, an estimated 660 million people would still lack access to power in 2030, said the report released by the International Energy Agency, International Renewable Energy Agency, UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Bank and World Health Organization (WHO). CLEAN COOKING About a third of the world's population - or 2.6 billion people - still had no access to clean cooking methods in 2019, despite gains in large parts of Asia, the report showed. The problem was most acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where about 900 million people, or 85% of the region's population, used smoky cooking fuels like kerosene, coal and wood. The largely stagnant progress on clean cooking is responsible for millions of deaths each year from breathing in smoke and toxic emissions, with women and children especially vulnerable to household air pollution, the agencies said. Maria Neira, the WHO's environment, climate change and health director, said scaling up clean energy is key to protecting human health and promoting healthier populations, particularly in rural areas. The groups called for more renewables, which account for about a quarter of global power output, to ramp up electrification efforts in developing countries. Renewable energy has seen huge growth in the last decade, with more than a third of the increase in generation in 2018 coming from East Asia, driven by solar and wind power in China. "Greater efforts to mobilise and scale up investment are essential to ensure that energy access progress continues in developing economies," Fatih Birol, executive director of the Paris-based IEA, said in a statement. "This fairer and cleaner energy future is achievable if governments work together to step up actions."

She was 12 and used her mom’s credit card to order a $29 Kylie Lip Kit in Candy K, a matte pink liquid lipstick and matching lip liner. Kylie Jenner’s debut makeup product sold out in seconds when it went on sale in 2015 (the website crashed, too), catapulting the youngest Kardashian-Jenner sibling to beauty mogul status at age 18. “It was a huge thing,” Dua said. “You needed to have one.” Lip Kits became so popular that they hit the New York City bar and bat mitzvah circuit. Emcees would toss the liquid lip colours and liners into a sea of dancing tweens in bandage dresses. Fast-forward five years. The global beauty market, which last year generated nearly $500 billion in sales, according to Euromonitor, a research firm, is teeming with celebrities, inundating social media feeds with lip gloss, face lotion and, most recently, vibrators (not technically beauty but beauty adjacent), with the promise of plump lips, glowing skin and a better sex life. New lines come out at a dizzying rate. There’s Harry Styles’ Pleasing, nail polish in tiny glass jars that look like old-fashioned perfume bottles, and Machine Gun Kelly’s UN/DN LAQR, nail polish with “paint splatter” shades and brushes for nail art. Ariana Grande has a new makeup line, space-themed, as does Chiara Ferragni, pink and sparkly. Billie Eilish and Addison Rae have released fragrances. There’s Lori Harvey’s (daughter of Steve Harvey) SKN by LH skin care collection, and Demi Lovato’s Demi Wand, an eight-speed vibrator (created with Bellesa, an internet pornography site marketed to women). Hailey Bieber has just confirmed that her Rhode Beauty will go on sale next year. (Rhode is her middle name.) It’s starting to feel like satire. When the Alex Rodriguez concealer for men (a creation with Hims & Hers) landed in May and populated celebrity news accounts like The Shade Room, commenters thought it was a joke. “When I see a celebrity beauty brand, I just don’t buy it,” Dua said. According to Hana Ben-Shabat, founder of Gen Z Planet, a research firm, many of Dua’s peers share the sentiment. Ben-Shabat’s data indicate that 19% of Gen Zers said celebrities influence their purchasing decisions, compared with 66% who cited their friends as the most influential. “Celebrities are saying, ‘This is my skin care, this is what I use,’ and ‘No, I don’t get Botox, it’s just my products,’ ” said Stacey Berke, 34, an addiction counsellor from Rochester, New York. “It makes it hard to believe.” The traditional celebrity endorsement is no longer enough. People need to know there’s expertise or, at the very least, an interest in what’s being sold to them. “It’s more apparent how transactional it is,” said Lucie Greene, a trend forecaster and founder of the Light Years consultancy. “It’s not something you’ve genuinely done because you’re passionate about lip gloss.” Moreover, everyone knows celebrities often undergo procedures, cosmetic and surgical, to look the way they do. There is no serum that can make a 50-year-old look two decades younger, and yes, we know that butt is fake. “The transition from ‘I’ve made cash hawking brands for others’ to ‘Why don’t I try and create something myself?’ is not always the right reason to create something,” said Richard Gersten, an investor and the founder of True Beauty Ventures. The firm has been approached by at least 10 celebrity or influencer brands over the past few months, he said. EVOLUTION OF CELEBRITY BEAUTY BRANDS Once, the only way to gain access to celebrities’ private world was through a spritz of their perfume, said Rachel ten Brink, a general partner of Red Bike Capital and a founder of Scentbird, a fragrance subscription service. Now fans are privy to the food, fashions, opinions and breakdowns, often in real time, of the famous people they follow. Social media redefined how the public connects with celebrities. “You own a piece by following a celebrity on Instagram, Twitter or TikTok,” ten Brink said. “You have access to them in a different way.” After the fragrance heyday of the early aughts, when seemingly everyone — Britney Spears, Justin Bieber, 50 Cent — came out with a personal scent, Kylie Cosmetics ushered in a new kind of celebrity brand: one that sold makeup (or skin care) online. Jenner created a blueprint for how to market and sell a brand, which until that point was usually at a department store counter or at Sephora. An Instagram post was all Jenner needed to sell millions of dollars worth of lipstick. Then, in 2017, came Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, which fundamentally changed how the beauty industry approached inclusivity, shade ranges and conversations about race. In its first full year, the label generated more than half a billion dollars in revenue, according to LVMH, the French luxury group and co-owner of Fenty Beauty. There is also Goop, which over the past decade solidified itself as a so-called lifestyle brand. Its founder, Gwyneth Paltrow, sells skin care, supplements and bath salts alongside athleisure. Everyone rushed to copy these models. Still, some industry insiders are lukewarm on famous founders, including John Demsey, executive group president of the Estée Lauder Cos, owner of Estée Lauder, MAC Cosmetics and Clinique. He has worked with hundreds of celebrities, but there won’t be a brand entirely based on one, he said. On Dec 1, MAC, the OG of A-list collaborations (Mary J Blige, Rihanna, Lady Gaga and Mariah Carey have all worked with the brand), released its new Viva Glam lipstick without a celebrity for the first time in 27 years. “It just seemed right now,” Demsey said of the red, blue and yellow lipsticks that come in tubes printed with Keith Haring designs. “We went back to the essential core essence of ‘What’s the product?’ and ‘What’s the brand?’” A collaboration captures a moment in time; a brand is forever. THE INDUSTRY’S DIRTY LITTLE SECRET The majority of celebrity beauty brands are a flop. Everybody interviewed for this article, from executives at multibillion-dollar companies to high school students, was asked to name one to three successful celebrity beauty brands besides Kylie Cosmetics, Fenty and Goop. None could. “Living by influence alone is not enough,” Demsey said. Nor is having tens of millions of Instagram or TikTok followers. In June, Vanessa Hudgens (43 million followers on Instagram) and Madison Beer (29 million followers on Instagram) introduced Know Beauty, a skin care line that prescribes a regimen based on a cheek swab DNA test. It had a splashy debut but hasn’t been particularly active since, though products are still for sale on its website. Know Beauty declined to comment on the company’s business. Lady Gaga’s Haus Laboratories, introduced to much fanfare two years ago, missed striking a chord with her rabid fan base. Earlier this year, the brand brought in a new executive team to focus on product innovation, ingredients and packaging. Its newest Casa Gaga collection is a departure, aesthetically, from the original black packaging. Lipsticks, highlighters, blush and more now come in white compacts and tubes with gold accents. Haus Laboratories declined to comment on the company’s business. Other high-profile misadventures include YouTuber Tati Westbrook, who announced that she was shutting down Tati Beauty in November, and Rflct, the skin care brand started by gamer Rachell Hofstetter that closed in October after just two weeks because of unsubstantiated anti-blue-light claims. What most people don’t know is that a handful of companies have built many of the celebrity lines we see today. These brand factories, or “incubators,” specialize in creating several labels at once, and fast. They are either developed with a celebrity or designed with the intention of bringing on a celebrity afterward. For example, Beach House Group created Millie Bobby Brown’s Florence by Mills, Kendall Jenner’s Moon oral care line and Tracee Ellis Ross’ Pattern hair care. Forma Brands, owner of Morphe, is behind Jaclyn Cosmetics and Grande’s R E M  Beauty. Maesa built Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty, Kristin Ess Hair, Taraji P Henson’s TPH by Taraji hair care and Jada Pinkett Smith’s Hey Humans, a personal care line. Most lines created by brand factories are not designed to be longstanding businesses, experts say, though Pattern, by Ross, appears to be doing well and may outlive many of its peers. “Incubators are intentionally set up to churn,” said Greg Portell, a partner at the Kearney consulting firm. “They are much more interested in speed and velocity, not building a brand. It just happens to be the mode of the day.” Shaun Neff, a founder of Beach House Group, said his team comes up with concepts for new companies and then finds a celebrity to pair it with them. “Kendall is the biggest supermodel in the world and has a great fan base, and we think she has great aesthetic and taste and good style,” Neff replied when asked how Jenner came to be the co-creator of the Kendall Jenner Teeth Whitening Pen and the face of Moon, the oral care brand that sells Cosmic Gel toothpaste in glittery silver tubes, like an edgier Colgate or Crest. Changing cultural values are also a factor in the decline of celebrity brands. Older customers may be more lured by celebrity, but it’s harder to entice young millennials and Gen Zers who place a premium on authenticity. Dua questioned the skin care know-how of Brown, the 17-year-old star of “Stranger Things,” whose line came out when the actress was 15: “I don’t really trust it because what expertise do they have?” And wearing the makeup of someone else runs counter to self-expression, an important tenet of the younger generations. “They don’t want to be like anyone else, even a celebrity,” ten Brink said. “They don’t want to just look like Addison Rae.” © 2021 The New York Times Company

Fresh water supplies are unlikely to keep up with global demand by 2040, increasing political instability, hobbling economic growth and endangering world food markets, according to a US intelligence assessment released on Thursday. The report by the office of the Director of National Intelligence said that areas including South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa will face major challenges in coping with water problems that could hinder the ability to produce food and generate energy. The report said that a "water war" was unlikely in the next 10 years, but that the risk of conflict would grow with global water demand likely to outstrip current sustainable supplies by 40 percent by 2030. "Beyond 10 years we did see the risk increasing," a senior US intelligence official told reporters. "It depends upon what individual states do and what actions are taken right now to work water management issues between states." The official declined to discuss the risks for specific countries, but in the past water disputes have contributed to tensions between rivals including nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinians, and Syria and Iraq. The report, drafted principally by the Defense Intelligence Agency and based on a classified national intelligence estimate, said that water in shared basins would increasingly be used by states to pressure their neighbors. "The use of water as a weapon or to further terrorist objectives also will become more likely," it said, noting that vulnerable water infrastructure was a tempting target. The US State Department requested the report, which is part of an effort by the Obama administration to assess how long-term issues such as climate change may affect US national security. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is due to hold an event on Thursday to announce a new public-private initiative to grapple with water issues. SOCIAL DISRUPTION The report said that during the next 10 years, the over-pumping of ground water supplies in some agricultural areas will pose a risk to food markets and cause social disruption if mitigating steps such as drip irrigation and improved agricultural technology are not implemented. It also said that through 2040 water shortages and pollution would likely harm the economic performance of important US trading partners by limiting the use and development of hydro power, an important source of electricity for developing countries. The report rated the management of several key water basins, and said the risks were greatest for the Brahmaputra which flows through India and Bangladesh and the Amu Darya in central Asia. It said the chief drivers of increased water demand over the next 10 years would be population growth and economic development, although the impacts of climate change will play a growing role, particularly after 2040. While the intelligence community believes there is no technological "silver bullet" on the horizon to improve water management, the report said the most important step to address the problem would be more efficient use for agriculture, which accounts for 70 percent of global fresh water use. It also said the United States, which has expertise in water management in both the public and private sectors, could help lead in developing policies for improved global water use and international cooperation. "The United States has opportunities for leadership, but we also saw it being a risk that if the United States wasn't engaged in exercising that leadership, other states would step up to do that," the intelligence official said.

But nearly all their diplomatic efforts at a pared-down UN General Assembly were shadowed — and complicated — by the legacy of President Donald J. Trump. Biden soothed strained relations with France in a call with President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday. Blinken met in New York with his French counterpart on Thursday. But French officials openly likened the Biden administration to Trump’s in its failure to warn them of a strategic deal with Britain and Australia that they said muscled them out of a submarine contract. In a fiery address to the global body on Wednesday, President Ebrahim Raisi of Iran suggested that there was little difference between Biden and his predecessor, invoking their respective foreign policy slogans: “The world doesn’t care about ‘America First’ or ‘America is Back.’” And in response to the ambitious targets Biden offered in his address to reduce global carbon emissions, an editorial in Beijing’s hard-line Global Times newspaper raised an all-too-familiar point for Biden officials: “If the next US administration is again a Republican one, the promises Biden made will be very likely rescinded,” the paper wrote — a point the Iranians also made about a potential return to the 2015 nuclear deal that Trump abruptly exited. In a news conference capping the week of diplomacy, Blinken offered a positive assessment. He said US officials had met with counterparts from more than 60 countries and emphasised American leadership on climate and the coronavirus. Asked about several recent criticisms of US foreign policy, such as the Afghanistan withdrawal, stalled nuclear talks with Iran and diplomatic offense in Paris, the secretary of state said he had not heard such complaints directly in New York this week. “What I’ve been hearing the last couple of days in response to the president’s speech, the direction that he’s taking us in, was extremely positive and extremely supportive of the United States,” Blinken said. He spoke before departing a weeklong diplomatic confab that had cautiously returned in-person after the coronavirus pandemic forced a virtual UN event last year. Many foreign leaders skipped this year’s gathering, including the presidents of Russia, China and Iran. Their absences precluded the drama of previous sessions around whether the president of the United States might have an impromptu encounter with a foreign rival. Biden made only a brief appearance, departing a few hours after his address on Tuesday. In that speech, he depicted an America whose withdrawal from Afghanistan had turned a page on 20 years of war after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Now, he said, the United States was embarking on a new era of cooperative diplomacy to solve global challenges, including climate change, the coronavirus and rising authoritarianism. The speech was a grand homage to internationalism and a stark contrast to Trump’s undiplomatic bluster. But it came amid growing complaints that some of Biden’s signature policy moves carried echoes of Trump’s approach. French officials said they were blindsided by the US submarine deal with Australia, a complaint for which Biden officials had no easy answer. “This brutal, unilateral and unpredictable decision reminds me a lot of what Mr. Trump used to do,” Jean-Yves Le Drian, the foreign minister, told a French radio outlet, according to Reuters. “I am angry and bitter. This isn’t done between allies.” That had eased some by Thursday, after Biden’s call with Macron and Blinken’s meeting with Le Drian. But the French diplomat’s statement suggested that the matter was not quite forgotten. “Getting out of the crisis we are experiencing will take time and will require action,” he said. The flare-up with Paris might have been dismissed as an isolated episode but for its echoes of complaints by some NATO allies that Biden had withdrawn from Afghanistan without fully consulting them or alerting them to Washington’s timeline. Trump was notorious for surprising longtime allies with impulsive or unilateral actions. Blinken protested that he visited with NATO officials in the spring to gather their views on Afghanistan, but officials in Germany, Britain and other countries said that their counsel for a slower withdrawal was rejected. Biden allies say they find the comparisons overblown. But some admit that global concerns about whether Trump, or someone like him, might succeed Biden and reverse his efforts are valid. “It’s absurd on its face for allies, partners or anyone to think that there is any continuity between Trump and Biden in terms of how they view allies, negotiate internationally or approach national security,” said Loren DeJonge Schulman, who worked at the National Security Council and the Pentagon during the Obama administration. “It’s a talking point, and it’s a laughable one.” But Schulman added that other nations had valid questions about how, in the shadow of the Trump era, the Biden administration could make sustainable international commitments like a potential nuclear deal with Tehran and build more public support for foreign alliances. “This can’t be a matter of ‘trust us,’” said DeJonge Schulman, who is an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. It is not just irritated allies that have embraced the notion of a Biden-Trump commonality; adversaries have found it to be a useful cudgel against Biden. The Global Times, which often echoes views of the Chinese Communist Party, has said that Biden’s China policies are “virtually identical” to those of Trump. They include Biden’s continuation of Trump-era trade tariffs, which Democrats roundly denounced before Biden took office but his officials quickly came to see as a source of leverage in their dealings with China. Similarly, Iranian officials complain bitterly that Biden has not lifted any of the numerous economic sanctions that Trump imposed after he withdrew from the nuclear deal. Early in Biden’s presidency, some European allies urged the administration to lift some of those restrictions as a way to jump-start nuclear talks, but Biden officials declined to do so. Last month, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, charged that “America’s current administration is no different from the previous one, because what it demands from Iran on the nuclear issue is different in words but the same thing that Trump demanded,” Khamenei’s official website quoted him as saying. Now, after a monthslong pause in negotiations and the election of a new, hard-line government in Tehran, Biden officials are warning Iran that time is running out for a mutual return to the nuclear agreement. Trump was criticised by countless foreign policy veterans of both parties. But critiques of the Biden team’s management are also growing, particularly after the US military’s erroneous drone strike in Kabul last month killed 10 civilians, including seven children and an aid worker. Some Biden officials, without admitting much fault, say the work of diplomacy has been particularly difficult given that scores of experienced Foreign Service officers retired during the Trump administration. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has also blocked dozens of Biden nominees to senior State Department positions and ambassadorships. Biden is also encountering the Trump comparison in other settings, including on immigration. “The question that’s being asked now is: How are you actually different than Trump?” Marisa Franco, the executive director of Mijente, a Latino civil rights organisation, told The New York Times this week. ©2021 The New York Times Company

Research showing an El Nino event in 1918 was far stronger than previously thought is challenging the notion climate change is making El Nino episodes more intense, a US scientist said on Tuesday. El Nino causes global climate chaos such as droughts and floods. The events of 1982/83 and 1997/98 were the strongest of the 20th Century, causing loss of life and economic havoc through lost crops and damage to infrastructure. But Ben Giese of Texas A&M University said complex computer modeling showed the 1918 El Nino event was almost as strong and occurred before there was much global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels or widespread deforestation. The outcome of the research was valuable for several reasons, Giese told Reuters from Perth in Western Australia. "It questions the notion that El Ninos have been getting stronger because of global warming," he said ahead of a presentation of his team's research at a major climate change conference in Perth. The 1918 event also coincided with one of India's worst droughts of the 20th century. "We know that El Ninos and drought in India are often related to each other," he said. El Nino is an abnormal warming of the surface waters in the eastern Pacific off South America that causes the normally rainy weather in the western Pacific to shift further to the east. This causes drought in parts of Australia, Southeast Asia and India as well as flooding in Chile and Peru, colder and wetter winters in the southern United States and fewer Atlantic hurricanes. The droughts in Australia of 1982-83 and 1997-98 rank among the worst in the nation's modern history. Drought also occurred in eastern Australia from 1918-20. Giese said his team ran a complex ocean computer model that, for the first time, used the results of a separate atmospheric model produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The result was a simulation of ocean temperatures, currents and other measures from 1908 to 1958. For 1918, the simulation produced a strong abnormal surface warming in the central Pacific and weaker warming nearer the South American coast. There were very few measurements of the tropical Pacific during 1918, the last year of World War One, and ship-based measurements along the South American coast suggested only a weak El Nino. This, Giese said, reinforced the point that there is limited data about El Ninos prior to the 1950s and that computer models were one way to get a clearer picture of the past. "We cannot rely on what El Nino looks like today to try to understand what El Nino patterns looked like in the past." "It makes it a challenge to talk about El Nino and global warming because we simply don't have a detailed record," he added.

Bangladesh will need about $2 billion in next 10 years to tackle the health risks from global warming, health minister A F M Ruhul Haque has said. The minister, after attending a meeting on climate change on Thursday, told reporters that the exact amount could be confirmed by June next year. "If the sea level rises by one metre as a consequence of the global warming, we will need a total of $2.08 billion between 2010 and 2021 to deal with the effects," Haque added. An eight-charter Dhaka Declaration, which reflects the government concern in this regard, was read out at the meeting. A total of 55 delegates from different countries, including 11 ministers, attended the meeting that discussed various measures to reduce the climate change effects. Moreover, 17 papers were presented at the meeting. Experts predict that part of Bangladesh will go under water after 20 or 30 years. But no one seems to be worried about its effects on health, Haque added. This meeting mainly focuses on this sector.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday blamed America's energy problems on timid Washington politicians and said if elected he would pursue bold proposals to fight global warming. Obama, in excerpts from a speech he was to deliver in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, later in the day, said he would lead an effort to impose Kyoto-style caps on carbon emissions and prompt U.S. automakers to build cars that use less oil if elected in November 2008. "Now, some of these policies are difficult politically," Obama said. "They aren't easy. But being president of the United States isn't about doing what's easy. It's about doing what's hard." Obama, a first-term senator from Illinois, is trying to run as a Washington outsider willing to challenge conventional thinking while accusing the party's front-runner, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, of representing old-style politics. He said, "Our energy program has become an energy crisis," and that past efforts to fix the problem have fallen victim "to the same Washington politics that has only become more divided and dishonest; more timid and calculating, more beholden to the powerful interests that have the biggest stake in the status quo." "There are some in this race who actually make the argument that the more time you spend immersed in the broken politics of Washington, the more likely you are to change it," Obama said without mentioning any of his rivals by name. Some candidates who advocate for change, he said, did not lead when they "had the chance to stand up and require automakers to raise their fuel standards" or reduce U.S. dependent on foreign oil. Obama said he would move faster to address climate change than President George W. Bush, who recently convened a global warming summit to stress the need for new environmental technology and voluntary measures to tackle the issue, instead of mandatory limits on carbon dioxide demanded by environmentalists. Obama would implement an economy-wide "cap-and-trade" program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to what his campaign called the level recommended by top scientists to avoid calamitous impact. Bush has said such a program would lead to job losses and massive economic dislocation. Obama's campaign said he would invest $150 billion over the next decade to develop and deploy climate friendly energy supplies, protect the manufacturing base and create jobs. He would also aim to improve energy efficiency dramatically and reduce dependence on foreign oil and overall oil consumption by at least 35 percent, or 10 million barrels of oil, by 2030. (To read more about the US political campaign, visit Reuters "Tales from the Trail: 2008" online at

Britain's opposition Conservative party is planning a range of taxes on air travel as part of a new initiative to tackle climate change which will set personal "green miles" allowances. Conservative officials said the proposals, to be published in full later on Sunday, were constructed around a "pay as you burn" rather than a "pay as you earn" structure. "Our plans will target dirtier planes and relatively wealthy people who fly often instead of package holidays," Conservative shadow finance minister George Osborne said in a statement. The full consultation document is expected to include suggestions such as putting VAT or fuel duty on flights within the UK, or a per-flight tax on airlines. The Sunday Telegraph, citing a leaked document entitled "Greener Skies", said the party planned to ration individuals to a single short-haul flight each year with further journeys taxed at a progressively higher rate. The document also suggested replacing air passenger duty with a per-flight tax levied on airlines which would penalise the dirtiest engines the hardest. Osborne told the Observer newspaper that the new green taxes would be balanced by tax cuts elsewhere. "It should be a replacement tax, not an additional tax. Any extra revenue raised should be offset by tax reductions elsewhere," he said. Chancellor Gordon Brown is due to give a speech on Monday about climate change ahead of Tuesday's publication of the government's climate change bill, which will set a legal target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 60 percent by 2050. Later in the week, in a further move aimed at stealing the "green" spotlight, the Conservatives will welcome environmental campaigner former US Vice President Al Gore who has agreed to address a meeting of the Conservative shadow cabinet, the Observer newspaper reported.

Consumer electronics company Philips is the worst polluter among India's lighting firms, environmental group Greenpeace said on Monday, blaming its incandescent bulbs for high carbon emission levels. Greenpeace says India must ban old-style incandescent light bulbs in favour of more energy efficient light sources to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 4 percent. India contributes to around 3 percent of global emissions and is already among the world's top five polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Greenpeace released a list of "climate villains" in India's lighting industry and said it hoped naming and shaming the companies would force them into action to reduce avoidable carbon emissions. "This ranking guide is a report card on how the lighting industry fares in its response to climate change," said K Srinivas, Greenpeace's climate expert. "Honestly, the results are dismal." Philips Electronics India Ltd, the country's biggest incandescent light bulb maker with an estimated 25 percent share of the 640 million bulb market, topped the list of polluters, Greenpeace said. Greenpeace activists erected a mock victory podium near the Bombay Stock Exchange, where branded incandescent bulbs from Philips and two other leading Indian lighting firms were presented with a "Climate Criminal" award. Greenpeace suggests replacing incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent lights or CFLs which use much less energy. An official from Philips, the Indian arm of Dutch firm Royal Philips Electronics NV, said the company was shifting to CFLs. "As a company, Philips has a policy to shift to CFLs under its Green Switch Programme which is under way in Europe and the US," L Ramakrishnan, Philips' environmental coordinator for the Asia-Pacific region, told Reuters. "If there is any move to shift to CFL in India we will be the first to endorse it." Approximately 20 percent of electricity generated in India is consumed by lighting, and experts say switching to CFLs would also help address the country's growing power needs. However, there are concerns about the mercury content in CFLs as environmentalists say disposing of them could present serious health risks due to the toxicity of the heavy metal.

Pradeep Singh is at ease as he lounges on a charpai, smoking a hookah in the courtyard of his ancestral house. His male cousins sit beside him while the womenfolk demonstrate the art of milking cows to guests from the city. For many Indians who live in western-styled, air-conditioned houses in urban areas, this pastoral setting in Haryana is an alien lifestyle, one that Singh packages and exhibits as a tourist attraction. "People need a change from regular outings," said the 48-year-old landowner. "And I was always a bit of an entrepreneur." For years, a vacation for middle-class Indians meant a trip to a hill-station or a beach resort. But with rising affluence and evolving taste, there is a growing inclination to explore the "other India" and return to their roots. Their prosperity has not yet trickled down to rural areas. Many villages still do not have access to electricity, sanitation or clean drinking water and this has led to the emergence of starkly different lifestyles. While city dwellers are increasingly westernised, Indian villages still abide by centuries-old agrarian customs. In 2006, Singh converted his farm into an amusement park of sorts. Here, tourists can ride a tractor, plough fields, cook on an earthen stove or make cow dung cakes while interacting with the local community. "People want their children to connect to the rural side of the society," said Singh. "And they want to reconnect with their own roots." Rural or farm tourism is a relatively new concept in India, allowing urban Indians and foreign tourists get a taste of rustic life. They can live with a family or independently, and assist with day-to-day village activities, while learning about agriculture, wildlife, traditional art and culture. The Ministry of Tourism website says it supports over 150 such rural projects in the country. Slideshow : Rural Tourism in India, Click: here "The aim is to not let the rural lifestyle die," said Subhash Verma, president of the Association of Domestic Tour Operators of India. "Also, to showcase and economically support village handicrafts and artists." While Singh, a wealthy landowner, is in this business to make money, his farm in Jhajjar, an area famous for its pottery, is giving many villagers stable employment. "I have been able to send all my children to school," said Kalavati, a widow who cooks millet rotis for guests at the farm. She was earlier a construction labourer with no fixed income. Rural tourism has also helped people like Sukhbir Nath. Men in Nath's family had been snake charmers for generations until the Indian government outlawed ownership of snakes. While many from his community lost their livelihoods and were forced to take up menial jobs, Nath now plays the snake charmer's flute to welcome tourists at Singh's farmhouse. "Tourism is great because it is one of the largest economic multipliers in the world," said Inir Pinheiro, whose company Grassroutes promotes village tourism in Maharashtra. While environmental activist Ashish Kothari is wary of outside operators using the village community as a selling point for their tours, he supports community-managed farm tourism. "Farm tourism is the new buzzword," he said. "If managed by and for the local community, then it will benefit them." VILLAGE LIFE, WITHIN LIMITS Urban Indians are keen to embrace village life, but few such tourists leave the city behind entirely. "Our children are not acquainted with the village life at all, so we thought it would be entertainment, plus we will know of the other India," said Delhi-based advertising professional Rakesh Budhiraja, while watching his son take a mud bath. Special toilets were built on Singh's farm so that guests didn't have to answer nature's call in the open. "(On a village trip) we get hand sanitisers, sunscreens, our own water, biscuits for our kids in case they don't like the food here," said Vandana Shah Irani, a tourist from Gurgaon. The gap between the city dwellers and their hosts has caused friction, and the impact of the flood of tourists is worrying for some. Singh has stopped taking big groups of tourists into the village and avoids organizing home-stays. "In the past, we had school children who were disgusted by the cow dung, made faces at the villagers and laughed at the dialect," he said. It is not just village pride that is threatened by tourists. The business can also jeopardise the ecological climate. While rural tourism is supposed to be eco-friendly, environmental activists such as Kothari believe that most places merely pay lip service to the concept. "Ninety-nine percent of the tourism in India ignores the impact it has on the community," he added. Singh, for his part, now takes only serious study groups to interact with the village community. "We can't take 1,500 children into a village," he said. "If you can contribute to the culture, and take away from the culture, we organise tours." Pinheiro's company also does not allow more that 40 tourists in a village at a time. They are asked to take their waste back to the city. "The community packs the garbage in a plastic bag and hands them to the tourists," he said. "Garbage does not belong to the village; it belongs in the city."

India is the world's third biggest emitter behind the United States and China and is under pressure to commit itself to net zero emissions by 2050, in line with pledges made by several other countries. "India is getting the job done on climate, pushing the curve," Kerry said. "You (India) are indisputably a world leader already in the deployment of renewable energy." Government sources told Reuters that India was unlikely to bind itself to a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 as its energy demand was projected to grow more than that of any other nation over the next two decades. Kerry is leading efforts to get countries to step up commitments ahead of a summit of 40 leaders on April 22-23 called by US President Joe Biden. Later this year, world leaders are due to gather for a UN climate summit to build on the 2015 Paris accord to limit global warming. Kerry said India was setting a "very strong example" for other nations on powering a growing economy with clean energy. "That kind of urgency is exactly what we need to confront global climate change," he said. India points to its target of generating 450 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2030 - five times its current capacity and two and half times its Paris pledge. But officials in India argue against adopting tougher emission goals, noting that its per capita emissions are still only an eighth of those of the United States and less than a third of China's, even as it tries to bridge a development gap. Kerry said it was "absolutely critical" that India, the United States and others scale up investments in areas including energy storage, clean fuels and decarbonising industries. "India, in particular, is a red-hot investment opportunity because of its clean energy transition," he said.

British bus and train operator National Express Plc reported a 13 percent increase in yearly profit and said public concern for the environment would help support it through any economic downturn. It said it was so confident about the future it would commit to increasing its dividend by 10 percent per annum for the next three years. Its shares rose 4.3 percent to 1,171 pence by 0808 GMT, valuing the group at around 1.8 billion pounds. Underlying profit before tax reached 177 million pounds ($351 million) in 2007, compared with 156.1 million in 2006 and slightly ahead of analysts' expectations. Chief Executive Richard Bowker told reporters that despite current economic weakness, there had been no impact on current trading. He said the group would fare better than during the last economic downturn because higher fuel prices and clogged British roads are switching people away from their cars, as is concern about increasing CO2 emissions and climate change. The group's Spanish bus and coach operations grew revenue by 19 percent, with the acquisition of Continental Auto making it Spain's largest private operator. UK coach revenue was 6 percent ahead, while UK bus revenue was up 7 percent and UK train revenue rose 11 percent. The final dividend was 26.4 pence, giving a total dividend for the year of 37.96 pence, up 9 percent.

The United States came under pressure on Monday to follow other rich countries and set a 2020 goal for cutting greenhouse gases to rescue chances for a climate deal due next month in Copenhagen. The prospective Danish hosts ratcheted up pressure on the United States at a final preparatory meeting in Barcelona, saying it could not come "empty-handed" to Copenhagen. Some African countries threatened to walk out of the Barcelona talks, saying rich countries had to deepen their emissions-cutting targets. The head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat said a US number was essential. "We need a clear target from the United States in Copenhagen," Yvo de Boer told a news conference. "That is an essential component of the puzzle." President Barack Obama, speaking at the White House to reporters, held out hope for "an important deal" in Copenhagen. But he tempered that optimism, saying such a deal might not solve "every problem on this issue, but takes an important step forward, and lays the groundwork for further progress in the future." The United States has not yet offered a firm target for reducing emissions by 2020. By contrast, the European Union has promised a cut of at least 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and several other developed nations have set goals. Democrats in the US Senate said they would try to start pushing legislation through a key committee on Tuesday, ignoring a planned boycott by minority Republicans. That legislation calls for a 20 percent reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by industry, from 2005 levels. Even if the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee signs off on the bill in coming weeks, there is no evidence any measure will be approved by the full Senate this year. Delegates at the Barcelona talks that run to Friday said time was fast running out to break a deadlock over how to share curbs on emissions between rich and poor and ways to raise billions of dollars to help developing nations combat climate change. The role of forests threatened to add another complication to the faltering talks. Moscow "will insist that the ability of Russia's forests to absorb carbon dioxide be taken into account," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, speaking after talks in Moscow with Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen. Rasmussen told Reuters he hoped within weeks to have enough on the table to invite world leaders to the December conference. Australia said its emissions fell last year, if the effect of forest fires was excluded. 'EMPTY-HANDED' Both Denmark and the European Union urged Obama to do more to unlock a deal at the Dec. 7-18 talks. Danish Climate and Energy Minister Connie Hedegaard said she found it "very hard to imagine" that Obama could collect the Nobel Peace Prize on Dec. 10 "in Oslo, only a few hundred kilometres (miles) from Copenhagen, and at the same time has sent an empty-handed delegation to Copenhagen." "We have seen a significant, real change in the American position ... but we still expect more," said Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the European Union. Washington said it was committed to a UN deal. "The notion the United States is not making enough effort is not correct," said Jonathan Pershing, head of the US delegation in Barcelona, pointing to a series of measures under Obama to promote clean energy and cut emissions. "Our view is that it is extremely important to be a party to this (Copenhagen) deal," he said. The United States is the second biggest greenhouse gas emitter after China. African nations called for tougher emissions curbs from the developed world, and Gambia, Ethiopia and Algeria spoke in favor of walking out of the UN talks, said Antonio Hill of Oxfam. Outside the conference center, protesters lined up hundreds of ringing alarm clocks to show time was running out to reach a deal meant to slow rising temperatures and floods, heatwaves, wildfires and rising seas.

The first UN special session on climate change focused on the world's rich countries on Tuesday, as policy-makers urged long-standing polluters to shoulder much of the burden for cutting greenhouse gases. British economist Nicholas Stern said poor and developing countries also need to participate in a "global deal" to curb the human-made emissions that swaddle the planet like a blanket. Stern, author of a path-breaking report last year on the economic consequences of climate change, said the global target for reducing greenhouse gases -- notably the carbon dioxide released by coal-fired electric plants and petroleum-powered vehicles -- should be a cut 50 percent by 2050. "Because of reasons of past responsibility and better access to resources, the rich countries should take much bigger objectives than that 50 percent," he said. "They should be looking for around 75 percent cuts." That responsibility could extend to financing cuts in emissions in other countries, said Stern, formerly head of the British government's economic service and now at the London School of Economics. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown sounded a similar note in earlier remarks at the United Nations. "We know that the gains from global prosperity have been disproportionately enjoyed by the people in industrialized countries and that the consequences of climate change will be disproportionately felt by the poorest who are least responsible for it -- making the issue of climate change one of justice as much as economic development," Brown said. "The rich world has to reduce emissions far more drastically than it has done so to date," said Sunita Narain, director of India's Center for Science and Environment. "The political leadership is very high on rhetoric but very low on real action when it comes to delivering the goods on climate change." Global climate change has been blamed for droughts, floods, rising seas and more intense storms, and these cannot be explained by natural climate variability, John Holdren, an environmental scientist at Harvard University, told the gathering. The United States, one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, made no statement at Tuesday's sessions, and has repeatedly rejected firm targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining this would hurt the US economy. Instead, Washington has called for voluntary rather than mandatory emissions cuts. President George W. Bush agreed with other leaders of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations in June to make "substantial" but unspecified reductions in climate-warming emissions and to negotiate a new global climate pact that would extend and broaden the Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012. The two-day climate meeting at the United Nations, which concludes on Wednesday, is the first of its kind in substance and in style. The gathering is carbon-neutral, with all emissions from air travel and the operation of the UN Headquarters building in New York being offset by investment in a biomass fuel project in Kenya.

"Interstellar," out in US theatres on Friday, has taken Nolan into what he described as the furthest exploration of space in film.The movie balances an intimate father-daughter relationship within the backdrop of an intergalactic journey to save mankind.Nolan, 44, talked to Reuters about casting Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey as his leading man, the challenges of constructing "Interstellar" and the effect of "Gravity."Q: What does Matthew McConaughey embody as Cooper?A: He has the right stuff. Cooper, he's a pilot, and the great thing about the American iconic figure of the pilot, the Chuck Yeager, (is that) there's a little of the cowboy about him. And I think Matthew embodies that wonderful, earthy sense of an everyman who has great integrity and is extremely competent, somebody you trust to guide you through this story and take you through this journey.Q: What was your biggest challenge in balancing an intimate family story with an intergalactic journey?A: The biggest challenge in that respect is creating a reality on set so that the actors, who are very much the human element of that - they're the intimate, emotional element of that - so that they can actually connect with the larger scale of the film, they can see it, touch it, taste it.So we tried to build our sets not so much like sets, more like simulators, so the actors could look out of the windows and see the real views of what would be going on there, they could experience the ship shaking and reacting as they flew it.Q: Why did you choose to set 'Interstellar' in a future that bears close resemblance to the present world?A: I want to abandon the idea of futurism in design because ... it requires an enormous amount of energy and design that I felt could be better spent just achieving a recognizable sense of reality. So we abandoned the idea of futurism in the design and we said 'let's make everything comprehensible and recognisable to today's audience.' There are a lot of leaps we're asking the audience to make in terms of engaging with a story which takes them places they haven't been before, so I think rooting the basic design of the film in the things that people know now is helpful.Q: In "Interstellar," Earth faces a severe environmental disaster brought on by the grounds drying up. Did you want to address climate change?A: Not consciously. The honest answer is we live in the same world, my brother and I. We work on the script, we live in the same world as everyone else so we're sort of affected by the same things, worried about the same things, but we try not to be didactic in the writing, we try not to give any particular message or sense of things.Q: What impact did Alfonso Cuaron's "Gravity" make on how sci-fi films are viewed by critics and voters of film awards?A: Obviously any time somebody succeeds in opening people's eyes to the potential of the genre, it really helps the people who follow to be able to capitalise on that. I did admit to Alfonso that I'm one of the only people on the planet who actually hasn't seen "Gravity," because it came out while I was in the middle of making my own science fiction film so I apologised to Alfonso and said 'I'm going to catch up with it when I'm done, but I don't want to be confused by it.'But I think his success with that film, it really helps people working in the science fiction genre, because it just opens people's eyes to its potential.Q: How has this movie impacted your own theological or ideological understandings of the world?A: There's always that last question that people drop of enormous things. I don't know yet, is the simple answer. I'm still in it until it gets out there and becomes what it's going to be.

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India said on Monday its existing energy policy would cut its greenhouse gas emissions by over 25 percent by 2020, but warned pressure to set mandatory targets to curb global warming would hurt economic growth. Currently contributing around three percent of global carbon emissions, India is already among the world's top polluters, along with the United States, China, Russia and Japan. Despite pressure from industrialised nations and environmental groups to cut emissions, India is not required under the Kyoto Protocol to reduce emissions -- said to be rising annually by 2-3 percent -- presently. Prodipto Ghosh, environment secretary, told a news conference that India was an environmentally responsible country which actively enforced programmes on energy efficiency and promotion of renewable energy, which were paying off. "Our modelling approaches show the effect of many of our policies taken together that the year 2020 will result in a more than a 25 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions," said Ghosh. Booming economies India and China are likely to face more pressure at next week's summit of the Group of Eight in Germany to do more to cut emissions. Ghosh said India was spending 2.17 percent of GDP annually on addressing the variability of climate change through projects in agriculture, coastal zones and health and sanitation. Experts say the Indian subcontinent will be one of the most affected regions in the world, with more frequent natural disasters of greater severity, more diseases such as malaria and greater hunger. Ghosh said global warming was the fault of industrialised nations who should set higher cuts in emissions targets for themselves, rather than pressuring developing countries. The world's richest countries, including the United States, contributed about 60 percent of total emissions in 2004 and account for 77 percent of cumulative emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution, a U.S. study reported this month. "Developing countries like India have not historically, are not now and will not in the foreseeable future be a significant contributor to emissions," said Ghosh. "Any legally mandated measures for reducing emissions are likely to have significant adverse impacts on GDP growth and this will have serious implications for poverty alleviation efforts." He urged the West to do more to help developing countries adapt to the impact of climate change. "Climate change impacts will largely affect the poor and their livelihoods and lives will be at risk," he said.

A bloc of the world's fastest growing carbon emitters, seen as key to a global deal on climate change, appears for the first time willing to discuss the future of the Kyoto Protocol to get the United States on board. Kyoto binds about 40 rich nations to cut emissions by 2008-12 and developing countries want a tougher second commitment period. That demand is opposed by many developed nations that want to jettison Kyoto to include emerging markets like India and China. Next week's meeting of the environment ministers of Brazil, South Africa, India and China - the so-called BASIC nations - will look at ways to bridge a trust deficit with rich nations, according to its agenda, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. "How long will the Kyoto Protocol survive? Could we envisage a shorter second commitment period designed solely to secure carbon markets?" said the agenda of the meeting to be held in South Africa on April 25-26. "If no second commitment period, what would replace Kyoto?" was another question listed on the agenda. Unmitigated distrust between rich and poorer nations about who should do how much has stalled negotiations for a global deal to fight climate change. Officials say they are less hopeful of a broader deal in Mexico in November. So a willingness on the part of the BASIC nations to soften their stand on the Kyoto Protocol could help break the negotiations logjam and bring on board the United States which never ratified the protocol. An Indian negotiator said the agenda was "realistic" and aimed at exploring "all options to get a good deal for all". The BASIC meeting agenda also said it would consider how elements of the Copenhagen Accord, a political pact that the bloc helped broker last year along with the United States, could be included in the current negotiating process. The Copenhagen Accord sets a non-binding goal of limiting global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times and a goal of $100 billion in aid from 2020. It also lists steps by dozens of nations, including all the top greenhouse gas emitters, to either cut or curb the growth of their emissions by 2020. The Copenhagen conference was originally meant to agree the outlines of a broader global pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. The South Africa meeting's agenda also will consider whether the BASIC bloc of nations could be expanded and whether smaller groups of powerful nations such as the G20 bloc and the 17-nation Major Economies Forum could be useful platforms for negotiations. Poorer nations want negotiations to continue on two tracks -- one working on a successor to Kyoto from 2013 and the other looking at longer term actions to fight climate change by all nations.

A few weeks ago farmers in parts of Africa's arid Sahel region were fretting that late rains had failed their crops. Now many are struggling to survive after downpours swept away food stocks, destroyed thousands of homes and killed well over 100 people across the Sahel, which stretches from Senegal on the Atlantic seaboard to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. "This country is a paradox. Floods are just one of the natural disasters which hit it regularly, after bush fires and drought," said Hamani Harouna, head of the humanitarian Early Warning System in impoverished Niger, at the heart of the Sahel. Last month, farmers in nearby Ivory Coast were complaining seasonal rains had failed to arrive on time, meaning seeds had not germinated and key crops such as cotton were under threat. Since then there has been a deluge. Scientists have told the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that rising temperatures around the world will contribute to changing weather patterns in the Sahel. "Not only are natural hazards becoming more frequent, but rapid urbanisation and population growth mean more people are now at risk," U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Margareta Wahlstrom said in a recent article. "Disasters triggered by these hazards have affected five times more people than they did only a generation ago," she said, warning of more extreme weather around the world. In Sudan, Africa's biggest country and the worst affected by recent weather, floods have carried away or drowned more than 70 people since rains began, which in Sudan was earlier than usual. "The rains started at the very beginning of July. Normally they start a bit later with this intensity," Maurizio Giuliano, spokesman for U.N. humanitarian coordinator OCHA, told Reuters. At least 365,000 people there have lost food stocks, possessions or part of their home, including 50,000 whose homes were completely destroyed, OCHA said. The agency expects further rainfall and flooding will affect 265,000 more people in the coming weeks, while flood waters have contaminated water sources and spread cholera, bringing the death toll from the water-borne disease to 53 this rainy season, according to the World Health Organisation. "We have to be prepared for the worst possible scenario," Giuliano said. In neighbouring Chad, violent storms last weekend destroyed hundreds of homes and killed thousands of livestock, the main form of wealth for many of the region's farmers and nomads. "It's a disastrous situation. Lots of people have taken refuge in trees or in schools -- those which were not flattened," Bakary Tchaksam, a journalist working a local radio station in southwestern Chad, told Reuters. "This is the first time anything like this has happened here. There's a sense of being powerless," he said. After a late start in western parts of the Sahel, the sheer force of the rain storms took people by surprise. Mud houses, which are cheap and practical during the dry season and generally survive the rains with a few annual repairs, proved no match for this year's violent weather. "Houses flooded and some have collapsed," Gueladio Ba told Reuters by phone from Thies in Senegal, where local media reported 127 mm (5 inches) of rain fell on Sunday night alone. "In some parts of town the water was more than a metre (yard) deep," he said. "The destruction is enormous. We haven't seen rain like this for 30 years."

But everything changed when the larger ocean began flowing faster than the polar ocean could accommodate, weakening the distinction between the layers and transforming Arctic waters into something closer to the Atlantic. This process, called Atlantification, is part of the reason the Arctic is warming faster than any other ocean. “It’s not a new invasion of the Arctic,” said Yueng-Djern Lenn, a physical oceanographer at Bangor University in Wales. “What’s new is that the properties of the Arctic are changing.” Satellites offer some of the clearest measurements of changes in the Arctic Ocean and sea ice. But their records only go back around 40 years, obscuring how the climate of the ocean may have changed in prior decades. “To go back, we need a sort of time machine,” said Tommaso Tesi, a researcher at the Institute of Polar Sciences-CNR, Italy. In a paper published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, Tesi and colleagues were able to turn back time with yardlong sediment cores taken from the seafloor, which archived 800 years of historical changes in Arctic waters. Their analysis found Atlantification started at the beginning of the 20th century — decades before the process had been documented by satellite imagery. The Arctic has warmed by around 2 degrees Celsius since 1900. But this early Atlantification did not appear in existing historical climate models, a discrepancy the authors say may reveal gaps in those estimates. “It’s a bit unsettling because we rely on these models for future climate predictions,” Tesi said. Mohamed Ezat, a researcher at the Tromso campus of the Arctic University of Norway and who was not involved with the research, called the findings “remarkable.” “Information on long-term past changes in Arctic Ocean hydrography are needed, and long overdue,” Ezat wrote in an email. In 2017, the researchers extracted a sediment core from the seafloor of Kongsfjorden, a glacial fjord in the east end of the Fram Strait, a gateway between the Norwegian archipelago Svalbard and Greenland, where Arctic and Atlantic waters mingle. The researchers sliced up the core at regular intervals and dried those layers. Then came the painstaking process of sifting out and identifying the samples’ foraminifera — single-celled organisms that build intricate shells around themselves using minerals in the ocean. When foraminifera die, their shells drift to the seafloor and accumulate in layers of sediment. The creatures are crucial clues in sediment samples; by identifying which foraminifera are present in a sample and analysing the chemistry of their shells, scientists can glean the properties of past oceans. The team’s original idea was to reconstruct the oceanographic conditions of a region that contained both Arctic and Atlantic waters, going back 1,000 to 2,000 years. But, in the slices of the core dating back to the early 20th century, the researchers noticed a sudden, massive increase in the concentration of foraminifera that prefer salty environments — a sign of Atlantification, far earlier than anyone had documented. “It was quite a lot of surprises in one study,” said Francesco Muschitiello, an oceanographer at the University of Cambridge and an author on the paper. The sheer amount of sediment was so high that the researchers could assemble a chronology of past climate down to five- or 10-year increments. Additionally, a molecular biomarker could pinpoint a specific year, 1916, when coal mining began in Kongsfjorden. Since the foraminiferal shift occurred just before this marker, the researchers estimate Atlantification began around 1907, give or take a decade. When the researchers compared the data from their paleoclimate model with others to see if they overlapped, they found existing climate models had no sign of this early Atlantification. The researchers suggest a number of possible reasons behind this absence, such as an underestimation of the role of freshwater mixing in the Arctic or the region’s sensitivity to warming. Lenn, who was not involved with the research, sees a difference between this early Atlantification and the present, rapid Atlantification, which is largely driven by melting Arctic sea ice. “It’s too soon after the start of the Industrial Revolution for us to have accumulated excess heat in the planetary system for it to be anthropogenic at that point,” Lenn said. The authors are not sure of the precise reasons behind the early Atlantification. If human influences are the cause, then “the whole system is much more sensitive to greenhouse gases than we previously thought,” Muschitiello said. In another possibility, earlier natural warming may have made the Arctic Ocean much more sensitive to the accelerated Atlantification of recent decades. “Could it be that we destabilised a system that was already shifting?” Tesi said. This is the maddening mystery of any paleoclimate model. “None of us were there,” Lenn said, laughing. Although this is true of humans, it is not true of corals in the Fram Strait. The long-lived animals record changes in climate and other parameters, making them excellent sentinels of climate history. Tesi hopes to study the strait’s cold-living corals next, to see what insight they may offer into the Atlantic’s usurpation of the Arctic. © 2021 The New York Times Company

The extra money felt like a godsend after the loss of his father's precious farmland over the years to river erosion and an ever-encroaching shoreline. But a month later, a massive fire raged through the six-storey building where Zia worked, killing him along with more than 50 others. Officials said the factory had been built without permission and lacked adequate safety measures, such as emergency fire exits. Zia's charred body was handed over to his family last week, after a DNA test confirmed his identity. "My son went to work because school was closed due to the pandemic and he wanted to support us ... but fate had other plans," said Zia's father Abul Bashar, who lives on an island in Hatia in southeast Bangladesh. "Four years ago we had land where we could grow vegetables and daal (lentils). But we lost that to river erosion and now we are back to zero ... we moved our house away from the river a few years ago but today the river is right next to us once again." Zia was not the only victim of the July 8 tragedy to have been driven out of his rural home by the worsening impacts of the climate crisis to search for work in the capital. Family members of four of the 10 victims of the factory fire who spoke to the Thomson Reuters Foundation said their livelihoods had also been hit by river erosion and floods. NEW HOMES NEEDED As a low-lying country crisscrossed with rivers, Bangladesh has always been susceptible to rising seas. The country of 160 million people is one of the nations most at risk from the impacts of rising global temperatures, with melting glaciers in the Himalayas to the north posing a particular risk to the crops, fields and homes downstream. Migration to escape rising sea waters in Bangladesh's coastal regions is set to accelerate in coming years, and according to the American Geophysical Union, an international scientific group, could affect 1.3 million Bangladeshis by 2050. "Migration takes place because of many reasons and climate change-induced extreme events is one of them," said Atiq Rahman, a climate researcher who heads the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS). "Thousands of people move from rural areas to cities after floods, increase in salinity or when their land goes underwater because that's their main source of earning. But when they go to a new place, they lack the skills to get decent jobs," he added. Dhaka, the capital with the highest number of jobs, is the most popular destination. Yet it is also the fourth least liveable city in the world, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2021 Global Liveability Index. To manage future migration flows will require creating job opportunities away from overcrowded cities like Dhaka and Chattogram, with their poor sanitation and inadequate housing, and equipping other towns to receive climate refugees. "We are working on promoting this ... and have identified about 20 towns that can absorb climate migrants of the future, so that they don't end up in the slums of Dhaka," said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development. Rahman stressed the need for a system to identify climate migrants, track their movements and problems, and form strategies to assist them. "For instance, if an area gets inundated, we need to know where the residents are most likely to go with their family and their cows. Once a system is established we can provide them with food and other support," Rahman said. Currently, migrants mostly end up in slums in cities and receive support informally from their relatives, he said. In January, the Bangladesh government published a strategy to support internally displaced people as part of its National Plan for Disaster Management over the next five years. It includes creating jobs outside urban areas, ensuring the rights of the displaced and working on their integration into local communities. More details on how the plan will be implemented are due to be released later this year, according to an official from Bangladesh's Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief. TRAGIC LOSS OF LIFE In the short-term, more can be done to prevent disasters like the fire which killed Zia. Labour experts say the government must ensure stringent safety standards are met by factories, which draw countless climate migrants from across Bangladesh every year and manpower to properly monitor the factories must be boosted. "When it comes to regulating these industries, the government's strength needs to improve," said Tasnim Siddiqui, who heads the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit. For Hasanuzzaman Sarkar, 65, whose daughter died in the factory fire, the pain is unbearable. He lost almost all his land in the flood-prone region of Gaibandha in northern Bangladesh due to river erosion in the last decade. Despite struggling to provide for his family, he managed to ensure that his daughter finished school. The 20-year-old had joined the factory temporarily in March to support her father. "She was my youngest and I had a lot of hope. She could have done something big," said Sarkar over the phone, bursting into tears. "But God didn't listen to us."

The legislation would be the largest infusion of federal investment into infrastructure projects in more than a decade, touching nearly every facet of the US economy and fortifying the nation’s response to the warming of the planet. It would provide historic levels of funding for the modernization of the nation’s power grid and projects to better manage climate risks, as well as pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the repair and replacement of aging public works projects. The vote, 69-30, was uncommonly bipartisan; the yes votes included Sen Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Senate Republican leader, and 18 other Republicans who shrugged off increasingly shrill efforts by former President Donald Trump to derail it. The measure now faces a potentially rocky and time-consuming path in the House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the nearly 100-member Progressive Caucus have said they will not vote on it unless and until the Senate passes a separate, even more ambitious $3.5 trillion social policy bill this fall. The success of the infrastructure bill, painstakingly negotiated largely by a group of Republican and Democratic senators in consultation with White House officials, is a vindication of Biden’s belief that a bipartisan compromise was possible on a priority that has long been shared by both parties — even at a moment of deep political division. Yet Democrats will immediately take up a second social policy package, over Republican opposition, to fulfill the remainder of their spending priorities. To win the compromise, Democrats and Biden — who had initially proposed a $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan — had to make major concessions. The package includes far less funding than they had wanted for lead pipe replacement, transit and clean energy projects, among others. But the result was passage of a crucial component of the president’s far-reaching, $4 trillion economic agenda. “This is what it looks like when elected leaders take a step toward healing our country’s divisions rather than feeding those very divisions,” Sen Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz, a key negotiator, said before the bill’s passage. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, promised “it will be a lasting bipartisan achievement to help the people we represent — it’s going to improve the lives of all Americans.” The bill would direct $550 billion in new federal spending toward infrastructure projects across the country, and renew and revamp existing programs set to expire at the end of September. It would provide $65 billion to expand high-speed internet access; $110 billion for roads, bridges and other projects; $25 billion for airports; and the most funding for Amtrak since the passenger rail service was founded in 1971. To finance that spending, analysts said the government would most likely have to borrow heavily. On Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would add $256 billion to the deficit over 10 years, contradicting the claims of its authors that their bill would be fully paid for. Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) talks with reporters while walking down steps at the Capitol in Washington on Monday, Aug 9, 2021. Democrats on Monday launched their push for the most significant expansion of the nation’s social safety net since the Great Society, unveiling a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that would boost spending on health care, child and elder care, education and climate change while bypassing a promised Republican filibuster. (TJ Kirkpatrick/The New York Times) That is nearly half of the new spending in the legislation, which includes a patchwork of measures purported to raise revenue to pay for it, including repurposing unspent pandemic relief funds, more tightly regulating cryptocurrency and delaying implementation of a Trump-era rule that would change the way drug companies can offer discounts to health plans for Medicare patients. Sen Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) talks with reporters while walking down steps at the Capitol in Washington on Monday, Aug 9, 2021. Democrats on Monday launched their push for the most significant expansion of the nation’s social safety net since the Great Society, unveiling a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that would boost spending on health care, child and elder care, education and climate change while bypassing a promised Republican filibuster. (TJ Kirkpatrick/The New York Times) Fiscal watchdogs had warned that senators were using budgetary gimmicks to obscure the true cost of their agreement, and the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate appeared to confirm that suspicion, prompting one Republican, Sen. Bill Hagerty of Tennessee, to scuttle a bipartisan attempt to expedite its passage. “There’s absolutely no reason for rushing this process and attempting to eliminate scrutiny of the bill, other than the Democrats’ completely artificial, self-imposed and politically-driven timeline,” Hagerty declared in a speech Saturday. But after days of voting on changes to the bill, which is more than 2,000 pages, senators in both parties shrugged at the deficit figures and came together to push through a package that Republicans and Democrats have long championed. For Democrats, passage of the bill opened the way for consideration of their ambitious, $3.5 trillion budget plan, which is expected to be packed with policies to address climate change, health, education and paid leave. It will also include tax increases — and it is expected to generate unanimous Republican opposition. Sen Chuck Schumer, D-NY, the majority leader, has said he intends to move immediately to take up the budget blueprint, unveiled Monday, that would put Congress on track to pass that larger package unilaterally, using a process known as reconciliation that shields it from a filibuster. The infrastructure legislation faces a tricky path in the House, where Pelosi has repeatedly said she will not take it up until the Senate clears the reconciliation bill. The ultimatum has prompted mixed reactions in the House, as eight moderate Democrats, including Reps. Jared Golden of Maine and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, circulated a letter to Pelosi calling for a swift vote on the bipartisan deal. But leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in a letter to Pelosi, warned that a majority of its 96 members confirmed they would withhold their support for the legislation until the second, far more expansive package cleared the reconciliation process in the Senate. “Whatever you can achieve in a bipartisan way — bravo, we salute it,” Pelosi said on Friday. “But at the same time, we’re not going forward with leaving people behind.” The Senate vote capped a grueling, monthslong negotiation between the Biden administration and senators in both parties over the scope and size of an infrastructure bill. After an abbreviated effort to work with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WVa, on a plan that could win backing from GOP leaders, Biden turned his focus to a group of 10 moderate Republicans and Democrats who had helped strike the compromise that paved the way for a postelection pandemic relief package in December. The senators and top White House officials spent weeks debating how to structure and finance the legislation over late-night meals, virtual meetings and phone calls. Even after the group triumphantly announced an outline in June, it took a month to translate that framework into legislation. Along the way, the effort appeared on the brink of collapse, after it failed a test vote in the Senate and former President Donald Trump sniped at it from the sidelines, trying to persuade Republicans that they would pay a steep political price for supporting it. “When we have more people on both sides of the aisle who want to do things in a partisan way, as opposed to figuring out how we can work together, I don’t think that’s in the best interests of the country,” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-NH, one of the key negotiators, said in an interview. “It was really important for the continued relationships within the Senate that are so important to getting things done.” Negotiators were particularly bedeviled by the question of how to pay for their plan. Republicans declared that they would not support any legislation that raised taxes and rejected a proposal to beef up IRS enforcement against tax cheats, and Democrats ruled out raising user fees for drivers. The Congressional Budget Office’s deficit estimate also gave many Republicans a reason to reject the legislation. Eager to address a multibillion-dollar infrastructure backlog, lawmakers in both parties stuffed the package with myriad priorities and projects, including the reconstruction of an Alaskan highway, a ban on vaping on Amtrak and $1 billion for the restoration of the Great Lakes. The legislation also includes $24 million for restoration of the San Francisco Bay, $106 million for the Long Island Sound and $238 million for the Chesapeake Bay. The bill also carries major policy changes. It amounts to a tacit, bipartisan acknowledgment that the country is ill prepared for a worsening climate. Billions of dollars would be invested in projects to better protect homes from weather calamities, move vulnerable communities out of harm’s way and support new approaches to countering climate change. It also includes $73 billion to update the nation’s electricity grid so it can carry more renewable energy, $7.5 billion to construct electric vehicle charging stations, $17.5 billion for clean buses and ferries and $15 billion for removing lead pipes. The agreement targets critical resources toward underserved communities, although not as much as Biden had requested. It would direct $1 billion over five years — slightly more than half of it in new federal funding — to a program to help reconnect communities divided by highway construction, as well as millions of dollars to help improve access to running water in tribal and Alaska Native communities. It also includes money to restore lakes across the country, $66 billion in new funding for Amtrak and more funding for programs intended to provide safe commutes for pedestrians. It also creates a $350 million pilot program for projects that reduce collisions between vehicles and wildlife. The bill dedicates an increasing amount each year for grants to clean up drinking water by removing lead-contaminated pipes and making other infrastructure upgrades. The legislation reserves at least $25 million per year for “small and disadvantaged communities.” In the days before it passed, senators engaged in a last-ditch attempt to allow some exemptions to strict tax regulations that had been included in the original bill on cryptocurrency brokers, after pushback from senators in both parties. But without agreement on other amendments, negotiators ultimately failed to secure unanimous consent to make those changes. Some lawmakers had pushed for the inclusion of specific district projects, known as earmarks, that senior House lawmakers spent months wrangling into their own separate infrastructure bill. The Senate did not formally accommodate those projects in the legislation.     © 2021 The New York Times Company

Saudi Aramco said it had set the initial share price at 32 riyals, or about $8.53, the high end of the range it forecast last month. It plans to sell 3 billion shares, 1.5% of the company. At that price, the company would be worth $1.7 trillion. The amount raised by the sale would exceed the $25 billion raised by Alibaba, the Chinese online retail company, in its initial offering five years ago on the New York Stock Exchange. And the total could go higher. The company said underwriters could decide to sell an additional quantity of shares that would raise the proceeds to $29.4 billion. The IPO will establish Aramco as one of the world’s most valuable companies, but the $1.7 trillion figure falls short of the Saudi royal family’s hopes of an offering that valued the company at close to $2 trillion. Global investors proved to be skittish over the earlier valuations offered by the Saudi government. While its filings showed Aramco to be immensely profitable — it posted a profit of $68 billion for the first nine months of the year — its earnings have declined, and risks like global warming and geopolitical instability cast a pall over its prospects. Aramco will sell its shares on the Riyadh stock market, the Tadawul. Trading is expected to begin Wednesday. The IPO process has been agonisingly slow since Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, first raised the idea of making the crown jewel of the Saudi economy a public company more than two years ago. After big early promises, the Saudis have taken a more cautious approach, restricting the listing initially to Saudi Arabia in order to avoid the more rigorous disclosures that would be required in New York or London. Despite Aramco’s big profits, oil companies are out of favour with some investors, who worry that concerns about the role of fossil fuels in climate change will eventually curb demand for Aramco’s large reserves of oil and gas. Last month, the International Energy Agency forecast that world oil demand would flatten out in the 2030s because of increasingly efficient car engines and rising use of alternative energy sources. In the shorter term, there are concerns that the combination of growing oil supplies from the United States, Canada, Brazil and other producers and weaker demand due to a slowing world economy may reduce Aramco’s profitability, potentially threatening its ability to pay the large dividends that it is promising investors. The aerial attacks on Aramco facilities in September highlighted to potential investors the geopolitical risks of operating in the Persian Gulf. Iran was blamed for the attacks, which temporarily forced Aramco to cut production by more than half. More broadly, the killing of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents last year has hurt the reputation of Crown Prince Mohammed and may repel some investors. Still, the IPO showcases the kingdom’s enormous oil wealth. A prospectus giving Aramco’s financial results reveals some long-hidden details about the size of Saudi Arabia’s oil fields. Chief among these is a monster called Ghawar, which extends for about 120 miles in the eastern part of the kingdom. The world’s largest oil field, according to the prospectus, Ghawar has accounted for more than half of Saudi Arabia’s production, yet it still has reserves of 48 billion barrels. The oil wealth doesn’t stop there. The kingdom has four more fields that dwarf most others. Aramco produced 13.6 million barrels per day in 2018 on average, more than three times the 3.8 million reported by Exxon Mobil, according to the report. The company, founded by US oil companies (Aramco is short for Arabian American Oil Co.), was nationalised by the Saudi government in the 1970s.   c.2019 The New York Times Company

Unless the world starts taking climate change seriously and cuts greenhouse emissions, the Maldives could become uninhabitable this century, the president of the Indian Ocean archipelago says. Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has been telling the world for 20 years that his cluster of 1,200 islands dotted across 500 miles (800 km) of sea off southern India is imperilled by climate change. With a United Nations climate panel forecasting world sea levels likely to rise by up to 59 cm (2 ft) by 2100 due to global warming, the clock is ticking. "Time is running out for us," Gayoom told Reuters in an interview. "Global warming and sea-level rise pose a clear and present danger for the Maldives and its people." "Three-quarters of our 1,200 islands lie no higher than four feet above mean sea-level. The projected rise in sea-levels by the end of this century could mean that our islands may become uninhabitable at that time." He says the international community can help prevent his nation sinking into a watery grave if it shakes off inaction and self-interest and builds the political will to tackle climate change. "The 1997-1998 El Nino led to the bleaching of our surface corals. The unprecedented tidal surges that were experienced simultaneously on nearly 80 islands earlier this year were a stark reminder that weather patterns were becoming both unpredictable and unsavoury," he said. ECONOMY IN PERIL "All these effects compound our concern as our narrow-based economy is dependent on fisheries and tourism. Both sectors face a real danger of collapse if current trends continue during the coming decades." Tourism is the lynchpin of the Maldives' $700 million economy. The island chain is renowned for its luxury resorts -- accommodation in pavilions on stilts over turquoise lagoons can run to well over $1,000 a night. The playground for Hollywood stars such as Tom Cruise is also famed for its white sand beaches and world-class snorkelling and scuba diving. Only 195 of the Maldives' islands are inhabited, but 93 of those are suffering from erosion. And the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami exposed just how vulnerable all the islands are. While geography helped save the Maldives from the death and destruction that devastated countries such as neighbouring Sri Lanka, authorities had to evacuate 13 islands completely. "If climate change continues unchecked, local mitigation measures will not be sufficient to safeguard my people," Gayoom said. "Our very survival depends on the discussions being held on the global stage." "The science of climate change has advanced in leaps and bounds. Yet, we have so far failed to agree on effective cuts in greenhouse gas emissions," he added. "The problem, in my view, is a lack of commitment." Gayoom says it is unfair to expect the world's industrialised nations, such as the United States, to shoulder the burden of climate change alone, saying developing countries Brazil, India and China are also big greenhouse gas emitters. December's climate change meeting in Bali will be crunch time. "Time is running out to agree upon a post-Kyoto arrangement and Bali could well be our last chance to ensure that the end of the Kyoto Protocol period will not result in a loss of momentum," Gayoom said. "At Bali, the world must agree on more substantial emissions reductions," he added. "It must also serve as an opportunity to bring aboard those currently outside the Kyoto process." Gayoom is organising a climate change summit in the Maldives on Nov. 13-14, and has a simple message. "I call on all my fellow world leaders to take heed of scientific warnings, and show greater commitment in our search for a concrete solution to climate change. "The 300,000 people of the Maldives are putting their faith in your judgment. Their survival is in your hands."

Warnock, a Baptist preacher, defeated Loeffler in one of two runoff elections in Georgia that will decide control of the Senate - and whether Republicans will be able to block President-elect Joe Biden's agenda. The race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican David Perdue was still too close to call. With 98% reporting, Warnock was ahead of Loeffler by a percentage point, roughly 40,000 votes, while Ossoff led Perdue by about 3,560 votes, according to Edison Research. The critical races drew an estimated 4.5 million voters - a record for a runoff - along with nearly half a billion dollars in advertising spending since Nov 3 and visits on Monday by Republican President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden. Most of the votes remaining to be counted were in counties Biden won in November, with roughly 30,000 to go in DeKalb and Newton counties near Atlanta, according to Edison Research estimates. "We were told that we couldn’t win this election. But tonight, we proved that with hope, hard work and the people by our side, anything is possible," Warnock told supporters in a livestream message before the projection. "I am going to the Senate to work for all of Georgia, no matter who you cast your vote for in this election." Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said election officials would take a break overnight but resume counting on Wednesday morning. "Hopefully by noon we'll have a better idea where we are," he said on CNN. Democrats must win both contests to take control of the Senate. A Democratic sweep would create a 50-50 split in the Senate and give Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, as president of the Senate, the tie-breaking vote after she and Biden take office on Jan 20. The party already has a narrow majority in the House of Representatives. If Republicans hold the second seat, they would effectively wield veto power over Biden's political and judicial appointees as well as many of his legislative initiatives in areas such as economic relief, climate change, healthcare and criminal justice. No Democrat has won a US Senate race in Georgia in 20 years. The head-to-head runoff elections, a quirk of state law, became necessary when no candidate in either race exceeded 50% of the vote in November. Warnock will become Georgia's first Black US senator and Ossoff, at 33, would be the Senate's youngest member. Perdue is a former Fortune 500 executive who has served one Senate term. Loeffler, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, was appointed a year ago to fill the seat of a retiring senator.

The EU's unity, solidarity and international standing are at risk from Greece's debt, Russia's role in Ukraine, Britain's attempt to change its relationship with the bloc, and Mediterranean migration. Failure to cope adequately with any one of these would worsen the others, amplifying the perils confronting "Project Europe". Greece's default and the risk, dubbed 'Grexit', that it may crash out of the shared euro currency is the most immediate challenge to the long-standing notion of an "ever closer union" of European states and peoples. "The longer-term consequences of Grexit would affect the European project as a whole. It would set a precedent and it would further undermine the raison d'être of the EU," Fabian Zuleeg and Janis Emmanouilidis wrote in an analysis for the European Policy Centre think-tank. Though Greece accounts for barely 2 percent of the euro zone's economic output and of the EU's population, its state bankruptcy after two bailouts in which euro zone partners lent it nearly 200 billion euros ($220 billion) is a massive blow to EU prestige. Even before the outcome of Sunday's Greek referendum was known, the atmosphere in Brussels was thick with recrimination - Greeks blaming Germans, most others blaming Greeks, Keynesian economists blaming a blinkered obsession with austerity, EU officials emphasising the success of bailouts elsewhere in the bloc. While its fate is still uncertain, Athens has already shown that the euro's founders were deluded when they declared that membership of Europe's single currency was unbreakable. Now its partners may try to slam the stable door behind Greece and take rapid steps to bind the remaining members closer together, perhaps repairing some of the initial design flaws of monetary union, though German opposition is likely to prevent any move towards joint government bond issuance. The next time recession or a spike in sovereign bond yields shakes the euro zone, markets will remember the Greek precedent. Destabilising An economic collapse of Greece, apart from the suffering it would cause and the lost billions for European taxpayers, could aggravate all three of Europe's other crises and destabilise the fragile southern Balkans. With tension already high in the eastern Mediterranean due to civil war in Syria, the eternal Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the unresolved division of Cyprus and disputes over offshore gas fields, a shattered Greece might turn to Russia for help. In exchange, it might veto the next extension of EU sanctions against Moscow, or even offer access to naval facilities once used by the United States. Athens is already struggling with an influx of refugees from the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts who wash up on its Aegean islands, seeking the safest transit route to Europe's prosperous heartland in Germany or Sweden. Cash-starved Greek authorities are more than happy to see them head north in search of asylum elsewhere in the EU. It is not hard to imagine a government cast out of the euro zone using migrants as a means of piling pressure on EU countries. The "boat people" crisis has proved divisive in the EU, with Italy and other frontline states accusing their northern and eastern partners of lacking solidarity by refusing to co-finance or take in quotas of refugees. Britain has refused to take any. Failure to resolve Greece's debt crisis after five years of wrangling makes the EU look weak and divided in the eyes of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and others looking to expand their power. Brussels officials acknowledge that the euro zone crisis has caused a renationalisation of decision-making on some policies and sapped the "soft power" of Europe's model of rules-based supranational governance. It has weakened the EU's hand in world trade and climate change negotiations. Worse may yet be to come. Britain's demand to renegotiate its membership terms and put the result to an uncertain referendum by 2017 raises the risk of the EU losing its second largest economy, main financial centre and joint strongest military power. Despite opinion polls showing British supporters of staying in the EU have roughly a 10 point lead, and some relief that Prime Minister David Cameron did not include any impossible demands in his renegotiation agenda, there is nervousness in Brussels. UK opinion polls got the May general election spectacularly wrong. Since his victory, Cameron has been tripped up several times by Eurosceptic rebels in his Conservative party. A long, agonising Greek economic meltdown, whether inside or outside the euro zone, with social unrest and political havoc, might reinforce those who argue that the UK economy is "shackled to a corpse". Given Russia's lingering Cold War hostility towards Britain, seen in Moscow as the United States' most loyal ally, Putin would likely be delighted by any prospect of the UK leaving the EU. It would weaken those in the EU seeking a robust response to Russian behaviour in Ukraine and Georgia and detach Washington's trusty partner from the continental bloc, although Britain would remain a member of NATO. That could strengthen Putin's hand in dealings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has led European diplomacy seeking to restore Ukraine's control over all its territory. Rem Korteweg of the Centre for European Reform compares the interlocking crises to the four horsemen of the apocalypse in the New Testament Book of Revelation: harbingers of a "day of judgment" representing conquest, war, famine and death. "The EU's leaders will find it hard to tame these four horsemen," the Dutch thinker wrote in an essay. "If a European answer cannot be found, the horsemen will continue to promote chaos, instability and mutual recrimination within the EU."

But it turns out that it is not, as was previously stated in a number of reports, including by The New York Times, Elon Musk’s SpaceX that will be responsible for making a crater on the lunar surface. Instead, the cause is likely to be a piece of a rocket launched by China’s space agency. Last month, Bill Gray, developer of Project Pluto, a suite of astronomical software used to calculate the orbits of asteroids and comets, announced that the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was on a trajectory that would intersect with the path of the moon. The rocket had launched the Deep Space Climate Observatory, or DSCOVR, for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Feb. 11, 2015. Gray had been tracking this rocket part for years, and in early January, it passed within 6,000 miles of the surface of the moon, and the moon’s gravity swung it around on a path that looked like it might crash on a subsequent orbit. Observations by amateur astronomers when the object zipped past Earth again confirmed the impending impact inside Hertzsprung, an old, 315-mile-wide crater. But an email Saturday from Jon Giorgini, an engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, changed the story. Giorgini runs Horizons, an online database that can generate locations and orbits for the almost 1.2 million objects in the solar system, including about 200 spacecraft. A user of Horizons asked Giorgini how certain it was that the object was part of the DSCOVR rocket. “That prompted me to look into the case,” Giorgini said. He found that the orbit was incompatible with the trajectory that DSCOVR took, and contacted Gray. “My initial thought was, I’m pretty sure that I got it right,” Gray said Sunday. But he started digging through his old emails to remind himself about when this object was first spotted in March 2015, about a month after the launch of DSCOVR. Almost every new object spotted in the sky is an asteroid, and that was the assumption for this object too. It was given the designation WE0913A. However, it turned out that WE0913A was orbiting Earth, not the sun, which made it more likely to be something that came from Earth. Gray chimed in that he thought it might be part of the rocket that launched DSCOVR. Further data confirmed that WE0913A went past the moon two days after the launch of DSCOVR, which appeared to confirm the identification. Gray now realises that his mistake was thinking that DSCOVR was launched on a trajectory toward the moon and using its gravity to swing the spacecraft to its final destination about 1 million miles from Earth where the spacecraft provides warning of incoming solar storms. But, as Giorgini pointed out, DSCOVR was actually launched on a direct path that did not go past the moon. “I really wish that I had reviewed that” before putting out his January announcement, Gray said. “But yeah, once Jon Giorgini pointed it out, it became pretty clear that I had really gotten it wrong.” SpaceX, which did not respond to a request for comment, never said WE0913A was not its rocket stage. But it probably has not been tracking it, either. Most of the time, the second stage of a Falcon 9 is pushed back into the atmosphere to burn up. In this case, the rocket needed all of its propellant to deliver DSCOVR to its distant destination. However, the second stage, unpowered and uncontrolled, was in an orbit unlikely to endanger any satellites, and people likely did not keep track of it. “It would be very nice if the folks who are putting these boosters into high orbits would publicly disclose what they put up there and where they were going rather than my having to do all of this detective work,” Gray said. But if this was not the DSCOVR rocket, what was it? Gray sifted through other launches in the preceding months, focusing on those headed toward the moon. “There’s not much in that category,” Gray said. The top candidate was a Long March 3C rocket that launched China’s Chang’e-5 T1 spacecraft on Oct. 23, 2014. That spacecraft swung around the moon and headed back to Earth, dropping off a small return capsule that landed in Mongolia. It was a test leading up to the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020 that successfully scooped up moon rocks and dust and brought them back for study on Earth. Running a computer simulation of the orbit of WE0913A back in time showed that it would have made a close lunar flyby on Oct 28, five days after the Chinese launch. In addition, orbital data from a cubesat that was attached to the third stage of the Long March rocket “are pretty much a dead ringer” to WE0913A, Gray said. “It’s the sort of case you could probably take to a jury and get a conviction.” More observations this month shifted the prediction of when the object will strike the moon by a few seconds and a few miles to the east. “It still looks like the same thing,” said Christophe Demeautis, an amateur astronomer in northeast France. There is still no chance of it missing the moon. The crash will occur at about 7:26 am Eastern time, but because the impact will be on the far side of the moon, it will be out of view of Earth’s telescopes and satellites. As for what happened to that Falcon 9 part, “we’re still trying to figure out where the DSCOVR second stage might be,” Gray said. The best guess is that it ended up in orbit around the sun instead of the Earth, and it could still be out there. That would put it out of view for now. There is precedent for pieces of old rockets coming back: In 2020, a newly discovered mystery object turned out to be part of a rocket launched in 1966 for NASA’s robotic Surveyor missions to the moon.   ©2022 The New York Times Company

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Britain must do more to boost its flood defences after the worst floods in 60 years left 350,000 people without drinking water and power supplies on the brink of mass blackout. "We are looking at 21st century extreme weather conditions," Brown told BBC Television after a tense day monitoring how emergency services coped with the flooding that deluged huge swathes of central and western England. Less than one month into the job as Britain's new premier, he said everything had to be looked at from infrastructure and drainage to where utilities were located to combat extreme weather conditions. Asked if the Labour government had done enough over the past decade in office, Brown said investment in flood defences had already been doubled to 600 million pounds before the current crisis "so we are aware more has got to be done for defences." As the political debate intensified over whether authorities could have done more, a poll from Channel 4 Television showed only eight percent blamed the government. Twenty-five percent believed climate change was the cause while an overwhelming 61 percent called it a freak event. One electricity switching station at Walham, near the western city of Gloucester, came perilously close to flooding with emergency services working frantically overnight to shore it up as the water came within six inches of breaching defences. That would have left up to 500,000 people without power and plunged hospitals, stores, shops and homes into chaos. The flooding turned the historic market town of Tewkesbury into an island where only the 12th century abbey stood unscathed on high ground at its heart. Lifeboats scudded down the main street, boats moored in car parks. Authorities warned 350,000 people they could be without fresh water for up to two weeks. The army was called in to supply million of bottles of water as anxious families queued up for supplies and loaded them onto supermarket trollies. While Britain struggled with floods, central and southeast Europe faced a heatwave. Up to 500 people are estimated to have died in Hungary as temperatures soared, and the heat also killed 12 Romanians. The flood waters were receding in the worst hit areas of England but the environment agency still had six severe flood warnings in force amid fears that renewed rain forecast for later in the week could spell more trouble. Environment Secretary Hilary Benn warned that the crisis was far from over and had "caused considerable human distress." A teenage boy is still missing in Tewkesbury, one man died in a flooded cellar and a woman trapped in the floods lost her premature newborn twins despite being rescued by a Royal Air Force helicopter.

QUOTES "Tonight, I have spoken to the leader of the opposition and the incoming prime minister, Anthony Albanese. And I've congratulated him on his election victory this evening," Morrison said, adding he was stepping down as leader of his party. "I think people have had enough of division, what they want is to come together as a nation and I intend to lead that," Albanese said. "While it's mathematically possible that we win in Kooyong, it's definitely difficult," Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, who was poised to become one of the highest-ranking cabinet ministers ever to be voted out of parliament. THE NEXT PRIME MINISTER * Albanese is a pragmatic leader from a working-class background who has pledged to end divisions in the country. THE PARLIAMENT The House of Representatives has 151 seats, 76 of which are needed for a majority to form the government. With 55% of the vote counted, Labor had 72 seats, the coalition 52 while independents and the Greens held 11, the Australian Broadcasting Corp projected. A further 16 seats remained in doubt. There are 76 senate seats; 12 for each of the six states and two each for two territories. There are 40 seats up for election: six from each state and the four territory seats. ECONOMY * Challenges ahead for the winner include inflation, which is at two-decade highs and picking up pace, interest rates that have just started rising for the first time in more than 11 years, while pandemic spending portends massive budget deficits in the years ahead. But unemployment is its lowest in almost 50 years, and global prices for Australian commodities are sky-high. CLIMATE * The major parties have a tricky path. People say they want action on climate, but are not always keen to pay for it. And in an election in which cost of living has been a central issue, retail power prices are a factor. FOREIGN POLICY* Foreign policy became an unlikely election issue after Morrison sought to trumpet his national security credentials and claim Labor was not up to the job, only to be undercut by the Solomon Islands signing a security pact with China. CHARACTER * Morrison had promised a change in his style of governing, conceding he had been a "bit of a bulldozer", after his personality became an electoral liability. * Albanese has offered an alternative based on his working-class roots and pragmatic style.

The World Bank will start a trust fund to boost agriculture in poor countries with an initial $1.5 billion, its president Robert Zoellick said on Tuesday, warning of the risk of another food price crisis. Crop shortages in India and the Philippines combined with increased speculation in commodity markets by investment funds have increased the risk that food prices could spike, as happened in 2008, Zoellick said. "I'm not forecasting this. I'm just staying we have to anticipate this as a possible risk," he told reporters on the sidelines of a food security event at Brookings Institution. More than 1 billion people are now chronically hungry as food prices have been slow to fall from last year's record highs, and as nations grapple with the global economic downturn, United Nations agencies have said. The world's richest nations pledged to give $20 billion over three years to help small farmers in developing countries grow more food, but diplomats and aid groups have estimated only $3 billion appears to be new spending. Asked whether he thought the $20 billion would be new spending or money diverted from existing aid programs, Zoellick said: "From what I can see so far, it's going to be a mixture, as these things usually are." The World Bank was asked by the Group of 20 nations in September to create a fund to help quickly disburse the pledges. "I'd like (the World Bank) to get more (of the $20 billion promised) but the key thing is that people keep their pledges," Zoellick told reporters, noting that some aid may be delivered bilaterally or through other multilateral agencies. "My key point is, let's get these things up and running," he said. The World Bank fund will pool money from the United States, Canada and Spain, Zoellick said, and the European Commission will also add funds. WORLD FALLING SHORT ON EMERGENCY AID Climate change and the other factors that caused the run-up in food prices last year remain risks, said Josette Sheeran, head of the UN's World Food Program. "I don't think it was a one-off phenomenon," Sheeran said. "I think what it was more of a wake up call that exposed fault lines in access to food from the village level up through the national, regional and global level." The UN's World Food Program, which feeds about 100 million people in 72 countries with government donations, has fallen far short of its emergency needs this year, raising only $3.7 billion against requirements of $6.4 billion, Sheeran said. The WFP appealed last week for $1 billion to feed 20 million people in east Africa over the next six months, and secured pledges of half that amount, including donations from the United States and Spain, she said. "It's a challenging time. Even in the richer countries, the countries are going through a period of financial challenge," she told Reuters.

The World Bank needs to pay more attention to the most pressing water-related problems in developing countries, where the effects of climate change are a growing threat, the Bank's internal watchdog said on Monday, World Water Day. A report by the Independent Evaluation Group said that while water projects funded by the World Bank have had good success rates when measured against their objectives, the institution's tendency has been to focus on problems that are easier to correct. "The Bank and the countries have not yet sufficiently tackled several tough but vital issues, among them sanitation, fighting pollution, restoring degraded aquatic environments, monitoring and data collection, and cost recovery," the IEG report said. It said that almost a third of all World Bank projects approved since 1997 have been water related, with most related to developing water infrastructure for irrigation, dams and hydropower. Governments and development groups warned that drinking water is threatened by climate change and that demand for potable water may cause conflicts. Regions likely to become drier because of climate change include Central Asia and North Africa. Up to 250 million people in Africa could experience extra stress on water supplies by 2020, according to the United Nations. LENDING VERSUS NEED The IEG report said water scarcity had become more of a threat in arid regions, and that about 700 million people in 43 countries were facing stress on water supplies. But, the report said, there was "no apparent correlation between a country's water stress and bank lending for water to that country." The report recommended that the World Bank find ways to support countries facing the greatest water problems, and to find a way to attract other donors to ensure water issues are properly addressed. "The Bank should look for entry points to help countries make water use more sustainable, even if the Bank may not necessarily be able to finance all the work that is needed to resolve the most pressing water issues," the report said. Although 40 percent of the World Bank's water portfolio deals with water quality, the IEG said only a few projects actually measure water quality, and that data on water quality produced by Bank-financed projects are in short supply. It suggested the World Bank use data on water to promote better understanding of ties between water and economic development. In response to the report, the World Bank said it had been responsive to the water priorities of governments in the most water-stressed countries and countries that will face water problems in the future. It said that countries with the most pressing water problems had received more financing than others. The Bank said it was looking at ways to close the water resource gap in countries.

As Wednesday marked the summer solstice - the longest day of the year - forecasters said temperatures in Paris were expected to hit 37 Celsius (100 Fahrenheit), Madrid could see 38C, and London was set for 34C with warnings of thunderstorms. Rounding up the record temperatures set in the past two months, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the Earth was experiencing "another exceptionally warm year" and the heatwaves were unusually early. "Parts of Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the United States of America have seen extremely high May and June temperatures, with a number of records broken," the WMO said late on Tuesday. The trend seen during the past two months has put average monthly global temperatures among the highest ever recorded since data began to be collated in 1880. Even before this month, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data showed Europe, the United States and Northeast Asia - including eastern China, Japan and South Korea - had experienced unusually warm weather between March and May. In China, the world’s top grain producer, hot and dry conditions in the main corn belt have delayed plantings and stunted crop development, especially in the province of Liaoning where soil moisture levels are at their lowest in at least five years. Thomson Reuters Eikon data shows that precipitation in Liaoning for the past month has been between 40 and 60 percent below the seasonal norm. "The drought that hit parts of China’s northeast is the worst for this time of the year in the past decade, in the breadth of areas it has affected and the length of time it has lasted," Ma Wenfeng, analyst at Beijing Orient Agribusiness Consultancy, said. The hot, dry weather is a major factor behind forest fires that have killed dozens of people in Portugal, while the Russian news agency Tass reported scores of forest fires, mostly in Siberia and the far east region of Irkutsk. In the US Southwest, flights were cancelled mostly by regional airlines whose aircraft operate at a lower maximum temperature. And in Britain, regional media in the southeast county of Surrey reported that the intense sun had melted tarmac roads. Solar power generation was expected to surge in Germany on Wednesday, with Eikon data showing a potential of 27,500 megawatt-hour (MWh) could be generated, compared to a seasonal norm of just 20 MWh. The Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine recorded temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere were 0.44C (32.8F) above the norm on Tuesday, compared with a global average of 0.25C above usual. A study published earlier this week found that nearly one in three of the world's people were already exposed to potentially deadly heatwaves and predicted that number would rise to nearly half by the end of the century unless governments take steps to aggressively reduce climate-changing emissions. "People are talking about the future when it comes to climate change, but what we found from this paper is that this is already happening … and this is obviously going to get a lot worse," said Camilo Mora, geography professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and lead author of the study published in the Nature Climate Change journal.

The world cannot afford to allow nature's riches to disappear, the United Nations said on Monday at the start of a major meeting to combat losses in animal and plant species that underpin livelihoods and economies. The United Nations says the world is facing the worst extinction rate since the dinosaurs vanished 65 million years ago, a crisis that needs to be addressed by governments, businesses and communities. The two-week meeting aims to prompt nations and businesses to take sweeping steps to protect and restore ecosystems such as forests, rivers, coral reefs and the oceans that are vital for an ever-growing human population. These provide basic services such as clean air, water, food and medicines that many take for granted, the United Nations says, and need to be properly valued and managed by governments and corporations to reverse the damage caused by economic growth. More resilient ecosystems could also reduce climate change impacts, such more extreme droughts and floods, as well as help fight poverty, the world body says. "This meeting is part of the world's efforts to address a very simple fact -- we are destroying life on earth," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Program, said at the opening of the meeting in Nagoya, central Japan. Delegates from nearly 200 countries are being asked to agree new 2020 targets after governments largely failed to meet a 2010 target of achieving a significant reduction in biological diversity losses. A U.N.-backed study this month said global environmental damage caused by human activity in 2008 totaled $6.6 trillion, equivalent to 11 percent of global gross domestic product. Greens said the meeting needed to agree on an urgent rescue plan for nature. LIFE-SUPPORT "What the world most wants from Nagoya are the agreements that will stop the continuing dramatic loss in the world's living wealth and the continuing erosion of our life-support systems," said Jim Leape, WWF International director-general. WWF and Greenpeace called for nations to set aside large areas of linked land and ocean reserves. "If our planet is to sustain life on earth in the future and be rescued from the brink of environmental destruction, we need action by governments to protect our oceans and forests and to halt biodiversity loss," said Nathalie Rey, Greenpeace International oceans policy adviser. Developing nations say more funding is needed from developed countries to share the effort in saving nature. Much of the world's remaining biological diversity is in developing nations such as Brazil, Indonesia and in central Africa. "Especially for countries with their economies in transition, we need to be sure where the (financial) resources are," Eng. B.T. Baya, director-general of Tanzania's National Environment Management Council, told Reuters. "It's not helping us if you set a lot of strategic targets and there is no ability or resources to implement them." Poorer nations want funding to protect species and ecosystems to be ramped up 100-fold from about $3 billion now. Delegates, to be joined by environment ministers at the end of next week, will also try to set rules on how and when companies and researchers can use genes from plants or animals that originate in countries mainly in the developing world. Developing nations want a fairer deal in sharing the wealth of their ecosystems, such as medicines created by big pharmaceutical firms, and back the draft treaty, or "access and benefit-sharing" (ABS) protocol. For poorer nations, the protocol could unlock billions of dollars but some drug makers are wary of extra costs squeezing investment for research while complicating procedures such as applications for patents. Conservation groups say failure to agree the ABS pact could derail the talks in Nagoya, including agreement on the 2020 target which would also set goals to protect fish stocks and phase out incentives harmful to biodiversity. Japan, chair of the meeting, said agreement on an ambitious and practical 2020 target was key. "We are nearing a tipping point, or the point of no return for biodiversity loss," Japanese Environment Minister Ryu Matsumoto told the meeting. "Unless proactive steps are taken for biodiversity, there is a risk that we will surpass that point in the next 10 years."

The high number of early voters, about 65% of the total turnout in 2016, reflects intense interest in the contest, with three days of campaigning left. Concerns about exposure to the coronavirus at busy Election Day voting places on Tuesday have also pushed up the numbers of people voting by mail or at early in-person polling sites. The Republican president is spending the closing days of his re-election campaign criticising public officials and medical professionals who are trying to combat the coronavirus pandemic even as it surges back across the United States. Opinion polls show Trump trailing former Vice President Biden nationally, but with a closer contest in the most competitive states that will decide the election. Voters say the coronavirus is their top concern. Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count. In a flurry of legal motions, his campaign has sought to restrict absentee balloting. "I don’t care how hard Donald Trump tries. There’s nothing – let me say that again – there’s nothing that he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy,” Biden said at a rally in Flint, Michigan, where he was joined by former President Barack Obama for their first 2020 campaign event together. Trump held four rallies on Saturday in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where the campaigns are seeking to win over undecided voters in areas like the suburbs of Philadelphia and the "Rust Belt" west of the state. “If we win Pennsylvania, it’s over,” Trump told a large rally in Reading before moving to another big gathering in Butler. Officials in several states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, say it could take several days to count all of the mail ballots, possibly leading to days of uncertainty if the outcome hinges on those states. A federal judge in Texas has scheduled an emergency hearing for Monday on whether Houston officials unlawfully allowed drive-through voting and should toss more than 100,000 votes in Democratic-leaning Harris County. In Iowa, a new poll published on Saturday shows Trump has taken over the lead there just days before the election. A Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll shows Trump now leads Biden by seven percentage points, 48 percent to 41 percent. The results, based on a poll of 814 Iowa voters, suggests Biden has lost support among independent voters in the Midwestern state. At a small, in-person rally in Newtown, Pennsylvania, Trump mocked his opponent for his criticism of the administration's record of fighting COVID-19, which has killed more people in the United States than in any other country. "I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday. All he talks about is COVID, COVID. He's got nothing else to say. COVID, COVID," Trump told the crowd, some of whom did not wear masks. He said the United States was "just weeks away" from mass distribution of a safe vaccine against COVID-19, which is pushing hospitals to capacity and killing up to 1,000 people in the United States each day. Trump gave no details to back up his remarks about an imminent vaccine. JOBS AND FRACKING In his closing arguments, Biden has accused Trump of being a bully, criticised his lack of a strategy to control the pandemic, which has killed nearly 229,000 Americans; his efforts to repeal the Obamacare healthcare law; and his disregard for science on climate change. He has offered his own made-in-America economic platform, a contrast with Trump's "America First" approach, saying he will get the wealthy to pay their fair share and make sure earnings are distributed more equitably. In an effort to highlight what he says is Biden's plan to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, to extract fossil fuels, Trump signed an executive order on Saturday that calls on the US Department of Energy to commission a study about the potential harm caused by banning or restricting the practice. The order also reinforces a prior law, directing federal agencies to produce reports about decisions that are detrimental to the fracking industry. Fracking for natural gas is a major source of jobs in western Pennsylvania. Biden denies intending to ban fracking if he wins the White House. Stanford University economists on Saturday released an estimate that Trump rallies held from June to September led to more than 30,000 additional COVID-19 infections and possibly as many as 700 deaths. The study was based on a statistical model and not actual investigations of coronavirus cases. The paper, which did not cite disease experts among its authors, has not been peer-reviewed. Public health officials have repeatedly warned that Trump campaign events could hasten the spread of the virus, particularly those held in places where infection rates were already on the rise. Determining the actual impact of those rallies on infection rates has been difficult due to the lack of robust contact tracing in many US states. Amesh Adalja, an infectious diseases expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, described the report as "suggestive." “I would just say it’s suggestive but hard to completely isolate the specific impact of one event without robust contact trace data from the cases,” Adalja said. Biden’s campaign, which has sharply limited crowd sizes at events or restricted supporters to their cars, quickly seized on the Stanford findings. "Trump doesn't even care about the very lives of his strongest supporters," Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. Trump's campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report. At one Biden rally in Detroit on Saturday, social distancing broke down as supporters crowded toward the stage to hear Obama speak.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick on Sunday won support from bank member countries for his strategy to lead the poverty-fighting institution for the next five years, including plans to give the private sector a bigger role in poor countries. In a communique at the close of a day-long meeting, the bank's steering committee said tackling poverty in poor countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and in countries emerging from conflict, should be a priority. The committee, which helps set World Bank policy on behalf of the member nations, also called for the institution to do more to help developing countries adapt to climate change and improve their access to clean energy sources. "We welcomed the president's commitment to develop and refine the strategic framework in a consultative manner under the guidance of the bank board, and look forward to reviewing progress at our next meeting," the communique said. The committee backed Zoellick's plan to work more closely with the private sector in efforts to pull poor countries out of poverty by generating growth and jobs. "We emphasized the need to sharpen the focus of poverty reduction strategies on stronger, shared, private-sector-led growth," it said. DEFINING A NEW ROLE Zoellick, who took office in July, has won praise for quickly refocusing the bank's attention on combating poverty after an ethics scandal surrounding his predecessor, Paul Wolfowitz, that had rocked the institution and distracted it from its mission. Wolfowitz, the controversial former deputy US defense secretary and Iraq war architect, resigned in June over his handling of a raise and promotion for his companion, a women's rights specialist who worked at the bank. In the lead up to bank's annual meeting this weekend, Zoellick had moved quickly to sketch out a new strategy, which he laid out in front of member nations on Sunday. In addition to giving the private sector a bigger role in development, he said the bank should respond quicker to help countries emerging from conflict. He also said it should improve services for fast-growing emerging economies that no longer need loans, and said it should do more to fight disease and protect the environment. But ensuring the institution is properly financed is one of Zoellick's biggest challenges. The World Bank is more than half way through tough negotiations with its biggest donors to replenish the coffer for lending to 81 of the poorest nations. Zoellick challenged donors to increase their contributions to this fund -- the International Development Association -- noting the bank had already doubled the amount of money it pumps into IDA with funds from a profit-making affiliate. "We need ... developed countries to translate their words from summit declarations into serious numbers too," he said. The Development Committee said a strong IDA replenishment was necessary for the bank to help the poor. "We underlined the need for a strong IDA replenishment to enable IDA to play its crucial platform role in the evolving aid architecture," the communique said. The United States, which is the bank's biggest donor, on Sunday said the bank's limited resources meant it needed to bolster private-sector activity, because that is where jobs and growth are generated. Still, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told the member governments the bank should be more selective in its lending. "World Bank engagement should be limited to programs that clearly meet its core mission of promoting economic growth and poverty reduction." He made no mention of what the United States might be willing to do to top up funds for IDA lending.

Biden made the remarks during a virtual meeting of the Major Economies Forum (MEF), a follow-up to an Earth Day meeting he hosted in April to unveil new US greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and press other countries to do more to curb theirs. The United Kingdom heeded the call, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson pledging to be among the first signatories of the Global Methane Pledge to reduce emissions of the harmful gas. Tackling climate change is one of Biden's top domestic and international priorities, and the UN COP26 climate conference in Glasgow from Oct 31 to Nov 12 is seen as a critical moment for the world to commit to doing more to halt rising temperatures. The United Nations said on Thursday the pace of climate change had not been slowed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the world was losing its battle to cut emissions enough to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Scientists say this is the ceiling to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. Biden asked other nations Friday to join a pact agreed by the United States and the EU to aim to reduce global methane emissions by at least 30 percent below 2020 levels by 2030. "This will not only rapidly reduce the rate of global warming, but ... it will also produce a very valuable side benefit like improving public health and agricultural output," Biden told the leaders. "We believe the collective goal is both ambitious but realistic, and we urge you to join us in announcing this pledge at COP26," Biden said. Globally, methane emissions are responsible for around 30% of warming since the pre-industrial era, according to the United Nations. A recent report by UN climate scientists said that cutting methane emissions is the fastest way to slow down global warming. After pledging the UK's commitment to the goal, Johnson urged other nations to make good use of the lead-up to the next climate summit. "Over the next 1,000 hours between now and everyone coming to COP26, we must do the work that will allow us to come to Glasgow bearing the ambitious NDCs – Nationally Determined Contributions – and rock-solid commitments on coal, cars and trees," Johnson said, pointing to the importance of securing funds to spur compliance by poorer nations. "We must get serious about filling the $100 billion pot that the developing world needs in order to do its bit." Leaders from Argentina, Bangladesh, Indonesia, South Korea, Mexico, Britain, and the European Union took part in the MEF, along with United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, the White House said. The April summit included remarks from China's President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other top world leaders. Biden said he wanted to use the MEF to complement other climate change forums and his team, including climate envoy John Kerry, is working to push countries to set ambitious targets for cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. "Whatever commitments we make at COP26, we must all resolve together in Glasgow to continue strengthening our ambition and our actions ... to keep us ... below 1.5 degrees and keep that within reach," Biden said. Leaders and activists warned of potentially disastrous consequences. "Under current policies, we’ll reach almost 3 degrees of global warming by the end of the century," Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said, according to remarks released by his office. "The consequences of such an increase in global temperatures would be catastrophic." Biden announced in April a new target to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions 50%-52% by 2030 compared with 2005 levels. Biden has been emphasising climate change repeatedly in recent weeks in the wake of damage from devastating floods and wildfires across the United States.

The seemingly tireless 16-year-old climate activist — who has sailed across the Atlantic twice as she has become the most prominent face in the movement to fight global warming, and lectured the world’s leaders that they were not doing enough to address the problem — recently told reporters in Spain: “I will be home for Christmas and then I will take a holiday break because you need to take rest. Otherwise you cannot do this all the time.” The activist, who last week was named by Time magazine as its person of the year, has faced attacks from the far right, as well as from the president of the United States and other adults who find her intense and her message that the world is facing a crisis unsettling. Now others have weighed in, including a German railway company. President Donald Trump, who was Time magazine’s person of the year in 2016, called this year’s choice “ridiculous” on Twitter. He urged Thunberg to “work on her anger management problem” and to “chill.” The Trump campaign also distributed a Photoshopped image of the Time cover with the president’s head superimposed on the teenager’s body. Earlier in the week, Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s far-right president, referred to her as a “brat,” Reuters reported. Thunberg also came under criticism last week when she joined thousands of students in the north Italian city of Turin on Friday to pressure the government to take action on carbon emissions. She had just been in Madrid for a UN climate conference. While addressing the climate protest, Thunberg called on crowds to “put leaders against the wall,” according to the BBC. Critics scolded that she was advocating violence, leading her to apologise and explain that the true meaning of her words had been lost in translation. On Saturday, she said that she was “against any form of violence” and that her remark had been nothing more than an unfortunate translation of an expression meaning “to hold someone accountable” in her native Swedish. Then on Sunday, she posted a photo on Twitter that showed her sitting next to her packed suitcases on the floor of a German train that she described as “overcrowded.” The German railway company appeared to take umbrage, first thanking her on Twitter “for supporting us railroad workers in the fight against climate change!” but adding, “It would have been even nicer if you had also reported how friendly and competent you were looked after by our team at your seat in first class.” In a follow-up tweet, she explained that the train she had taken from Basel, a city in northwestern Switzerland, had been “taken out of traffic.” “So we sat on the floor on 2 different trains,” she said, adding that she got a seat after Göttingen, a German town. “Overcrowded trains is a great sign because it means the demand for train travel is high!” she wrote. Thunberg emerged on the world stage last year when she started skipping school to protest climate change outside the Swedish Parliament in August 2018. Refusing to fly because of the outsize greenhouse gas emissions from aviation, she travelled across the Atlantic on an emissions-free yacht to make a fiery speech at the UN Climate Action Summit in New York in September this year. Then in November she set sail from Hampton, Virginia, to Spain for the 25th UN Climate Change conference. This month, Oscar-nominated director Darren Aronofsky called her “the icon the planet desperately needs” in an op-ed article for The New York Times. After Trump’s mocking tweet this week, Thunberg changed her Twitter bio to identify herself as: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.” Prominent figures also came to her defence. “What kind of president bullies a teenager?” Joe Biden, the former vice president and a Democratic presidential hopeful, wrote on Twitter on Thursday. He added that the president “could learn a few things from Greta on what it means to be a leader.” Michelle Obama, the former first lady, also weighed in, telling Thunberg to not let “anyone dim her light.” “Ignore the doubters and know that millions of people are cheering you on,” she wrote.     © 2019 New York Times News Service

SHANGHAI, Oct 28, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The United States does not expect to reach an agreement on climate change with China during President Barack Obama's visit to Beijing next month, the country's senior climate change envoy said on Wednesday. "I don't think we are getting any agreement per se," said Todd Stern, US Special Envoy for Climate Change. "I think (Obama) is trying to talk to President Hu, to push towards as much common understanding as we possibly can in order to facilitate an agreement in Copenhagen," Stern told reporters. Negotiators gather in the Danish capital in December to draft a new accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol set to expire in 2012. Progress in the talks has remained slow, with the United States reluctant to commit itself to a deal that does not oblige developing countries like China to agree to mandatory CO2 reduction targets. Chinese negotiators have also said the industrialised world should bear the bulk of the burden in cutting carbon emissions. The meeting between Obama and President Hu Jintao, leaders of the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, is seen as a crucial component in the efforts to build a consensus around any new global climate pact. Maria Cantwell, a Democratic Senator from Washington State, said in Beijing last month that China and the United States are likely to sign a bilateral agreement during Obama's visit. But Stern said Washington was not trying to cut a separate deal. The two sides are likely to discuss further cooperation next month on issues like carbon capture and storage, but the differences between the two sides will make it difficult to formulate any substantive agreement, analysts said. "There will be lots of kind words and lots of talk but I don't think it will amount to much, not least because we are moving towards Copenhagen and I don't think they want to show their hand yet," said Paul Harris, professor of global and environmental studies at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. With Copenhagen six weeks away, Stern warned that success was by no means guaranteed. "Copenhagen can be a success," said Stern, "There's a deal to be had, but it doesn't mean we can get it." The Obama administration's attempt to push through its own climate plan before the end of the year is expected to be crucial, analysts suggest. The US Senate Enviroment Committee is holding hearings on a new climate bill this week. The administration has been urging Congress to move forward, and further delays might dent the credibility of the United States during the Copenhagen talks.

A meeting of rich nations next month in Germany will be a "litmus test" of how the United States plans to help the world fight climate change, the head of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Tuesday. The United States, the world's biggest polluter, said this month it would continue to reject targets or plans to cap greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming that it fears could jeopardise economic growth. Germany, which hosts leaders of the G8 industrialised countries next month, wants them to agree to halve carbon emissions by 2050, and UNEP boss Achim Steiner said no one should prejudge Washington's position as the pressure mounts. "There is no option but to move forward, and I think that is the debate now taking place in the US as a whole, but also in the US administration: how to bring U.S. initiatives to the table that can help," Steiner told a news conference. "We are just few days away from a major litmus test of that. That will be a moment we will see how the US administration sees itself playing that constructive and positive role in building an international consensus." Amid growing public concern about climate change and damning scientific reports on its effects, nations remain in gridlock in talks to widen action to brake warming beyond the end of the first period of the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol in 2012. President George W. Bush opposes Kyoto-style emissions caps he says will cost U.S. jobs and wrongly exclude poor nations. Some climate experts believe new talks on any Kyoto successor will have to wait until he leaves office in 2009. But Steiner said domestic pressure was building, with a "remarkable alliance" of major corporations now asking the US government to introduce emissions targets and more than 450 US cities committing voluntarily to reduce emissions. Last week, Democratic congressional leaders also urged Bush to "reverse course" and strengthen the US stance on climate change ahead of the G8 summit.

SYDNEY, Wed Oct 29,(bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Rising sea levels as a result of climate change will erode Sydney's iconic beaches by 2050, with some at risk of disappearing, and threaten beachfront homes and commercial properties, a new climate change study said. Sea levels along Sydney's coast are expected to rise by up to 40 cm above 1990 levels by 2050 and by 90 cm by 2100, with each one centimeter of rise resulting in one meter of erosion on low-lying beaches, said the Sydney climate change impact report. "The Sydney region has a heavy density of residential and commercial beachfront developments that may be threatened by either ocean inundation or sea level rise-induced recession," said the report by the NSW Department of Climate Change. "Rising sea levels may exacerbate flood risk in coastal rivers," said the report received on Wednesday. The report said further study was needed to determine the extent of coastal erosion in particular locations. But low-lying Sydney beaches such as Collaroy and Narrabeen, which have already been severely eroded by storm seas, and Dee Why and Curl Curl, are most at risk. Beaches which have a hard promenade, such as Manly, Bondi and Coogee, will shrink as sand is washed away and may need sand deposits in order to survive in further decades. "In general we expect a recession of the coastline of a sandy beach of about one meter for every centimeter rise in sea level," said Simon Smith, deputy director-general with the department. "The coastline will move inward. What is now currently a vegetated dune may become the beach," Smith said on Wednesday. "It depends on the beach and the coastal area. Some coastal areas have a rocky foreshore and 40 cm does not make much difference. Some beaches are very deep and high so the beachline will retreat, other beaches are very low-lying and they are up against higher landforms behind them, they will become narrower." The Sydney Coastal Councils Group, which represents 15 local authorities and some 1.3 million people, has launched a study of "beach nourishment," which involves building up shorelines and beach dunes with sand to combat future rising sea levels. Being a coastal city, some of Sydney's most important infrastructure is built on its foreshore, and may be affected by rising sea levels. Sydney international airport is built on the edge of Botany Bay, with a runway jutting out into the bay. "Most of the state's infrastructure was built with a provision for half a meter of sea level rise, but the individual asset owners are already looking to see if they need to make a change in their asset to prepare for the future," said Smith.

Remote Pacific island communities turned off the lights on Saturday as they kicked off Earth Hour 2009, a global event to highlight climate change which will see landmarks around the world go dark for an hour. Among the more than 80 countries taking part this year are newcomers like industrial powerhouse China and Asian industrial hub Singapore. In the Vatican, the dome of St Peter's Basilica will go dark, as will Egypt's Great Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower in Paris and New York's Empire State Building. Organisers said the remote Chatham Islands was the first place where supporters turned the lights off for an hour at 8.30 p.m. local time, followed by New Zealand and Fiji. They were soon to be followed by Australia, where the event started two years ago. Lights on Sydney's famous Opera House and Harbour Bridge are to be switched off at 8.30 pm (0930 GMT). Organisers put the number of communities taking part worldwide at 3,931, while 829 landmarks will go dark around the world. "We need massive change -- one hour in terms of change is not that much," Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley told reporters at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Saturday. "The primary reason we do it is because we want people to think, even if it is for an hour, what they can do to lower their carbon footprint, and ideally take that beyond the hour," he said. Australia first held Earth Hour in 2007 and it went global in 2008, attracting the involvement of 50 million people, organisers say. Environmental group WWF, which started the event, is hoping to get one billion people involved this year. Organisers are calling it a 'global election', with switching off the lights a vote for the Earth and failure to do so a vote for global warming. WWF says it will present the results at a conference on climate change in Copenhagen later this year, where governments will try to seal a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. In Australia, the event has attracted support from state and national governments, with large numbers of official buildings expected to go dark. The country's military has also signed up to take part. While it was mostly expected to be good-spirited, in Victoria state, Earth Hour supporters said on Saturday they had occupied a power station as a protest against global warming. Organisers said they did not support such actions and Earth Hour was intended to be purely symbolic.

US prosecutors want Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou to be extradited to face accusations she misled multinational banks about Huawei's control of a company operating in Iran, putting the banks at risk of violating US sanctions which would incur severe penalties, court documents said. Meng, the 46-year-old daughter of Huawei's founder, was arrested on Dec 1 as she was changing planes in Vancouver. In a sworn affidavit, she said she is innocent and will contest the allegations against her at trial if she is surrendered to the United States. The judge in Monday's bail hearing said he rolled the proceedings over to Tuesday at 10 am PST (1 pm EDT/1800 GMT) because he wants to hear more about the issue of surety - who will take responsibility for Meng's actions if she is released. Meng's lawyer David Martin, who told the court high-tech surveillance devices and a 24-hour security detail would ensure his client does not flee and proposed a C$15 million ($11.3 million) bail guarantee, had offered her husband as surety. But the judge and the public prosecutor called into question whether Meng's husband could perform this duty as he is not a resident of British Columbia, where Vancouver is located, and would not suffer if she were to breach her bail conditions. Meng's arrest has roiled markets over fears it would exacerbate tensions between the United States and China, already at a high over tariffs. The two sides have agreed to trade negotiations that must be concluded by March 1. Beijing has demanded Meng's immediate release and threatened "consequences" for Canada. But both Chinese and US officials appear to be avoiding linking her arrest to the trade dispute. Meng's lawyer offered C$14 million in property equity and C$1 million in cash as a guarantee. The public prosecutor said he wanted half in cash and half in property. At one point the judge asked why Meng had avoided travel to the United States since 2017 if not to avoid arrest. Martin cited a "hostile" climate toward Huawei in the United States. "I ask the court to ask itself, what motive could she possibly have to flee?" Martin said, arguing the evidence against her was not overwhelming. "If she were to flee, or breach order in any way... it doesn't overstate things to say she would embarrass China itself." Meng appeared confident in court early on Monday, smiling and taking her lawyer's arm. But by mid-afternoon she appeared more tense, gesturing rapidly as she conferred with members of her legal team. She has argued she needs to be released because she has severe hypertension and fears for her health. Huawei is the world's largest supplier of telecommunications network equipment and second-biggest maker of smartphones, with revenue of about $92 billion last year. Unlike other big Chinese technology firms, it does much of its business overseas. US officials allege Huawei was trying to use the banks to move money out of Iran. Companies are barred from using the US financial system to funnel goods and services to sanctioned entities. Huawei and its lawyers have said the company operates in strict compliance with applicable laws, regulations and sanctions of the United States and other parties. "We will continue to follow the bail hearing tomorrow. We have every confidence that the Canadian and US legal systems will reach a just conclusion," the company said on Monday.

Bangladesh has demanded immediate release of 'quick' funds and agreement on a robust plan for next year's climate summit in Durban, South Africa. Bangladesh's state minister for environment, Hasan Mahmud, told a high-level plenary session at the Cancún climate talks on Wednesday that he wanted to see an ambitious work plan leading to the next summit in Durban. The junior minister suggested that the 16th session of the UN climate convention where about 190 countries were expected to lay down the foundation for an overarching climate deal during the 17th climate session, must take up ambitious plans. Mahmud, however, reminded his audience that although one had to be realistic, "time is of the essence", indicating the dire plight of millions of people suffering from the fall-out of climate change. He stated Bangladesh's preference for an agreement under the UN convention as well as continuation of the Kyoto Protocol, saying, "The two existing tracks must continue in the negotiation process." The Bangladesh junior minister spelled out that a 'Cancun Package' should ensure "preferential treatment" of the poorest countries, island states and African countries — considered to be most threatened by climate change — "in allocation of fast start finance". He ended his speech calling, once again, for a comprehensive and collective emission reduction plan and also suggested that regardless of their exemption in the Kyoto Protocol, emerging and developing countries must also take on obligatory emission reduction commitments because their situation has changed since the protocol was agreed upon. "All countries of the world should play their due role in mitigation, whether voluntarily or on a mandatory basis irrespective of definitions or special status for countries agreed to twenty years earlier because circumstances of many countries have changed dramatically since then," said Hasan Mahmud.

U.S. conservation groups on Thursday hailed the imminent end of "environmental abuse and neglect" by the Bush administration and promised to work with President-elect Barack Obama to reverse this course. "The Bush administration has done a lot of damage to our nation's environmental protections over the last eight years," said Mike Daulton, the National Audubon Society's legislative director. "And nowhere is that more evident than the Bush administration's drilling policies, which have been slanted dramatically toward the oil industry." Daulton noted that President George W. Bush last summer withdrew an executive ban on offshore drilling, which he said eroded protections for U.S. beaches and coastal economies. Obama's election last week "defeated candidates who focused on a drill-everywhere policy and the inauguration will sweep two oilmen from the White House," Daulton said in a telephone briefing with other conservation leaders. "Eight dismal years of environmental abuse and neglect are now coming to an end," said Betsy Loyless, Audubon's senior vice president. IMMEDIATE ACTION Daulton said his environmental group and others would urge Obama and Congress to quickly fashion a clean energy package that cuts costs for consumers, reduces dependence on oil and does not rely on offshore drilling. The conservation leaders also stressed the need for immediate action to deal with the impact that global warming is having on natural resources. Robert Dewey of the Defenders of Wildlife suggested developing a national, cross-agency strategy to make climate change a top priority. It would include increased scientific capability and the dedication of federal funds to conservation measures. This money could come from a portion of revenues that would be generated from a federal program to cap and trade carbon emissions, Dewey said. Obama, who takes office on January 20, has repeatedly said climate change is a key issue. But others in Congress and the environmental community doubt cap-and-trade legislation could be passed before 2010 at the earliest. Another high priority, said John Kostyack of the National Wildlife Federation, is to undo the Bush administration's erosion of protections under the Endangered Species Act. The Bush team has had "overt hostility" to this law, Kostyack said, so a first step for the new administration and Congress should be to restore the legal protections for wildlife under threat. Kostyack also noted a welter of last-minute regulations on the environment meant to extend Bush administration policies after Obama takes office. These should be reversed, he said.

Negotiators from 190 countries meeting in Bali to discuss climate change have "a political and historical responsibility" to reach a deal, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday. Asked about the consequences of not reaching a deal, Ban said "that would be very serious". The UN Secretary General said he felt all countries, including the United States, wanted an agreement. The United States, as well as Japan, Canada and Australia, have been disputing a guideline for rich nations to cut emissions of greenhouse gases by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels. "I think there will be an agreement," he told reporters on board a flight from the Indonesian resort island of Bali, where the summit is taking place, to East Timor's capital Dili. He warned against countries becoming fixated on emission targets. "That will have to be negotiated down the road" he said. Ban said he would be prepared to make an unscheduled return to Bali on Saturday if the talks were still deadlocked. "I think the negotiators and particularly the ministers and the senior leaders have a political and historical responsibility" to conclude the talks successfully, he said. "Climate change, global warming doesn't care where you're from," he said.

Merkel, once dubbed the "climate chancellor", hopes to revitalise her green credentials by getting the G7 industrial nations to agree specific emissions goals ahead of a larger year-end United Nations climate meeting in Paris. Climate change topped the agenda for Monday's sessions, at which the leaders were also set to discuss combating epidemics and other health issues, the fight against terrorism from Boko Haram to Islamic State, and African development. Merkel won support for her climate drive from French President Francois Hollande, who will host a UN summit on fighting climate change at the end of the year. Hollande was also looking for an ambitious G7 commitment to ending their dependence on fossil fuels by mid-century, and sought a financial commitment to help poorer countries transform their energy sectors so they can reduce carbon emissions. "Commitments must be made at this G7. For the moment, the communiqué is going in the right direction," the French president told reporters on the sidelines of the summit at the foot of Germany's highest mountain, the Zugspitze. The Europeans were pressing their G7 partners to sign up to legally binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In a boost for Merkel's push to combat global warming, Japan said on Sunday it would favour the G7 countries setting their own target for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. US President Barack Obama kept his counsel on the climate issue on Sunday, the first day of the summit, when leaders presented a united front in facing Russian over the Ukraine conflict and discussed the global economy. Japan and Canada were regarded before the summit as potential hold-outs on the climate issue, diplomats and environmental campaigners said. It was not clear if Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper would accept a specific G7 goal. "Canada supports an agreement in Paris that includes all GHG (greenhouse gas) emitting countries," Stephen Lecce, spokesman for Harper, told Reuters in an email. The green lobby is hoping that Merkel will push for a pledge to phase out fossil fuels by 2050 ahead of the Paris meeting, which aims to agree on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Security focus A G7 official said France led discussion on climate while Italy took the lead on energy security during Monday morning's talks, before the leaders turned their attention to global threats to international security. The leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States and European Union discussed Islamist militant threats from groups such as Islamic State (or ISIS) and Boko Haram. "All G7 leaders are supporting military and or humanitarian support to counter the spread of ISIS and help stabilise the region," the G7 official said. The G7 leaders met so-called "outreach guests" – the leaders of Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia, Liberia, South Africa, Tunisia and Iraq – and will hold final news conferences later on Monday. On the economy, a topic addressed on Sunday, a senior US official denied a report that Obama had told the summit the strong dollar was a problem. Bloomberg News earlier quoted a French official as saying Obama had made the comment. "The President did not state that the strong dollar was a problem," the US official said. "He made a point that he has made previously, a number of times: that global demand is too weak and that G7 countries need to use all policy instruments, including fiscal policy as well as structural reforms and monetary policy, to promote growth."

Sea levels are rising unevenly in the Indian Ocean, placing millions at risk along low-lying coastlines in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, scientists say in a study. Researchers from the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research say the rising sea levels are caused in part by climate change and are triggered by warming seas and changes to atmospheric circulation patterns. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, US President Barack Obama warned that if the world does nothing to confront climate change, "we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades". The authors of the latest study say higher seas could exacerbate monsoon flooding, placing crops, homes and livelihoods at greater risk. They argue a better understanding of the changes are needed to improve risk assessment planning for the future. Sea levels in general are rising globally by about 3 mm (0.1181 inch) a year. Scientists blame rising temperatures caused by the growing amounts of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, that trap heat in the atmosphere. Oceans are absorbing a large part of this extra heat, causing them to expand and sea levels to rise. Warmer temperatures are also causing glaciers and parts of the ice blanketing Greenland and West Antarctica to melt. The team of researchers in their study used long-term tide gauge data, satellite observations and computer climate models to build a picture of sea level rises in the Indian Ocean since the 1960s. They found that sea-level rise is particularly high along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java and that these areas could suffer rises greater than the global average. But they also found that sea levels are falling in other areas. The study indicated that the Seychelles Islands and Zanzibar off Tanzania's coast show the largest sea-level drop. WARM POOL "Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform," said co-author Gerald Meehl of NCAR in Boulder, Colorado. The study is published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. A key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, a large oval-shaped area spanning the tropical oceans from the east coast of Africa to the International Date Line in the Pacific. The pool has warmed by about 0.5 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) over the past 50 years, primarily because of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions. The warmer water has strengthened two major atmospheric circulation patterns that have a major impact on sea levels. "Our new results show that human-caused atmosphericoceanic circulation changes over the Indian Ocean, which have not been studied previously,contribute to the regional variability of sea-level change," the researchers say in the study. The two main wind patterns in the region are the Hadley and Walker circulations. In the Hadley circulation, air currents rise above strongly heated tropical waters near the equator and flow poleward at upper levels, then sink to the ocean in the subtropics and cause surface air to flow back toward the equator. The Walker circulation causes air to rise and flow westward at upper levels, sink to the surface and then flow eastward back toward the Indo-Pacific warm pool. Strengthening of these two patterns could have far-reaching impacts on AsianAustralian monsoons, Indonesian floods and drought in Africa, the study says.

US President Barack Obama will start reversing former President George W Bush's climate change policies on Monday by taking steps to allow states to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and by ordering 2011 vehicle fuel efficiency standards to be set by March. An administration official said late on Sunday that Obama, who took office last week, would direct the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider a request by California to impose its own strict limits on car emissions. The request was denied under the Bush administration. The official said a final decision by the EPA would likely take several months. Another official familiar with the policy shift said Obama would instruct the EPA to approve the waiver allowing California to impose the rules. California last week asked the new administration to reconsider the state's request. California and other states sued the EPA after Stephen Johnson, the agency's chief under the Bush administration, denied California's request for federal permission to impose new limits on carbon dioxide emissions from cars. In a letter to Obama, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asked the president to "direct the US EPA to act promptly and favorably on California's reconsideration request. The White House official said Obama would also direct the Department of Transportation to move forward with setting 2011 vehicle fuel efficiency standards by March. Obama's memorandum would also instruct the agency to reconsider how such standards are set for later years in a separate process. Obama promised on the campaign trail to take aggressive action to fight global warming and reduce emissions blamed on heating the earth. Shortly after his victory in the November 4 election Obama reiterated his commitment to bringing the United States firmly back into the fold of nations trying to reach a global agreement to limit emissions once the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol runs out at the end of 2012.

Male,Oct 08 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Voting began in the Maldives' first multiparty presidential election on Wednesday, in a poll seen as a referendum on President's Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's 30 year-rule on islands famed for their luxury resorts. Asia's longest-serving leader is seeking a seventh term running the archipelago of 300,000 people, mostly Sunni Muslims, which in the past he has been accused of ruling like a personal sultanate -- a form of government abolished there in 1968. The poll in the sleepy Maldives, best known as a tropical luxury hideaway for Hollywood stars, is the culmination of years of agitation for democratic reforms which Gayoom, 71, finally signed into law in August. A few dozen people were in line at polling stations around the capital Male when voting got under way at 9 a.m. (0400 GMT). There was great enthusiasm, despite heavy rain. "I feel very proud to do this for my country. Today is a new kind of election. I think it will be very fair," Mohamed Mahfouz, a 35-year-old fashion designer, said after casting his ballot. Despite some fears of rigging and minor threats against political figures earlier this week, the archipelago of 1,196 islands located 800 km off the tip of India was calm, with a heavy police and military presence. "This election will be very open, very different and very free. The last couple of years we have been practising for this change. I'll be voting for more changes," taxi driver Ali Majeed, 33, said. Polling was taking place at 396 polling stations spread out across the archipelago's nearly 200 inhabited atolls and on some islands with luxury resorts. The electoral commission says 209,000 people have registered to vote. Voting was due to close at 8 p.m. (1500 GMT) with a preliminary result expected within a few hours, the electoral commission said. The official announcement was due on Thursday at 1130 p.m. (1830 GMT). SMALL ELITE Many Maldivians complain that a small political elite has grown rich from tourism, which is the linchpin of the $850 million economy and accounts for 28 percent of GDP. Diplomats hope the poll will be an example of a peaceful and fair democratic election in a Muslim majority nation, with a non-violent transition should power change hands. Most Maldivians expect a runoff, with Gayoom and his longtime opposition nemesis Mohamed Nasheed tipped as favourites, and are sceptical the poll will proceed without bribery and vote-rigging. A runoff date will be announced if no candidate gets 50 percent of the vote. Gayoom on Tuesday promised to hand over power peacefully if he loses. Nasheed, known as Ani, has been charged dozens of times by Gayoom's government in what human rights watchdogs say are trumped-up cases, the latest of which was dropped just last month after prosecutors admitted a lack of evidence. Gayoom drew international criticism after a heavy-handed crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, which eventually led to his signing into law a new constitution last month that established an independent judiciary and electoral body. It also abolished the old style of voting for president, where a parliament-approved candidate stood in a referendum. Those elections saw Gayoom returned to power six times with what he said was more than 90 percent of the vote. Whoever wins will inherit two major challenges -- sustaining an economy dependent on tourism and fishing, and rising seas. A UN climate change panel is predicting seas are likely to rise up to 59 cm by 2100, and most of the Maldives' islands are no higher than 1.5 m above sea level.