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Ocean scientists urged governments on Sunday to invest billions of dollars by 2015 in a new system to monitor the seas and give alerts of everything from tsunamis to acidification linked to climate change. They said better oversight would have huge economic benefits, helping to understand the impact of over-fishing or shifts in monsoons that can bring extreme weather such as the 2010 floods in Pakistan. A scientific alliance, Oceans United, would present the plea to governments meeting in Beijing on Nov. 3-5 for talks about a goal set at a 2002 U.N. Earth Summit of setting up a new system to monitor the health of the planet. "Most ocean experts believe the future ocean will be saltier, hotter, more acidic and less diverse," said Jesse Ausubel, a founder of the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO), which leads the alliance and represents 38 major oceanographic institutions from 21 nations. "It is past time to get serious about measuring what's happening to the seas around us," Ausubel said in a statement. POGO said global ocean monitoring would cost $10 billion to $15 billion to set up, with $5 billion in annual operating costs. Currently, one estimate is that between $1 and $3 billion are spent on monitoring the seas, said Tony Knap, director of the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and a leader of POGO. Knap said new cash sounded a lot at a time of austerity cuts by many governments, but could help avert bigger losses. JAPAN TSUNAMI Off Japan, officials estimate an existing $100 million system of subsea cables to monitor earthquakes and tsunamis, linked to an early warning system, will avert 7,500-10,000 of a projected 25,000 fatalities in the event of a huge subsea earthquake. "It sounds a lot to install $100 million of cables but in terms of prevention of loss of life it begins to look trivial," Knap said. New cash would help expand many existing projects, such as satellite monitoring of ocean temperatures, tags on dolphins, salmon or whales, or tsunami warning systems off some nations. Ausubel told Reuters: "The Greeks 2,500 years ago realised that building lighthouses would have great benefits for mariners. Over the centuries, governments have invested in buoys and aids for navigation. "This is the 21st century version of that," said Ausubel, who is also a vice-president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in the United States. Among worrying signs, surface waters in the oceans have become 30 percent more acidic since 1800, a shift widely blamed on increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from burning of fossil fuels. That could make it harder for animals such as lobsters, crabs, shellfish, corals or plankton to build protective shells, and would have knock-on effects on other marine life.

Kuala Lumpur,Sep 08 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Malaysia's ruling coalition took 41 of its lawmakers to Taiwan for a study tour on Monday, at a time when opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been trying to entice MPs to defect in his campaign to unseat the government. Top opposition leaders were meeting on Monday to plot their campaign to oust the government by Anwar's self-imposed deadline of September 16. Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has called for a meeting of his Barisan Nasional coalition on Tuesday to try to deter any defections that could spell the end of its 50-year reign. Anwar's attempt to overturn a political order that has persisted since independence from Britain in 1957 has sharply raised Malaysia's political risks and rattled foreign investors. A ballooning fiscal deficit -- partly a result of spending measures to boost the government's popularity after a general election debacle last March -- has also hit the ringgit currency, the stock market and bond prices. Adding to the climate of uncertainty, Anwar is due in court on Wednesday to face a fresh sodomy charge that he says the government has trumped up to foil his political ambitions. The judge is expected to transfer the case to a higher court. "PSY-WAR GAME" Barisan MPs told reporters before flying off to Taiwan for an eight-day "study mission" that their trip had nothing to do with the Anwar plan. "We are going to Taiwan to study about agriculture," Bung Mokhtar Radin, an MP from the eastern state of Sabah, said at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. "There's nothing political about this trip." He and 40 other MPs left on Monday. Another eight will follow on Tuesday. Barisan has 140 MPs against 82 for the opposition. Lim Kit Siang, a veteran opposition leader, said government MPs were forced to flee Malaysia to ensure that they didn't take part in September 16 "political changes". "The birds have flown," he said, adding that the MPs could be subjected to 24-hour surveillance while in Taiwan with their mobile phones confiscated. A political analyst said the Taiwan trip could provide a handy excuse for Anwar, if he failed to meet his September 16 deadline. "Barisan is playing right into Anwar's psy-war game," columnist Suhaini Aznam wrote in the Star newspaper on Monday. Anwar met leaders of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat alliance on Monday to discuss the takeover plan, his aides said. Anwar was due to issue a statement afterward. Anwar, a former deputy prime minister, was sacked in 1998 during the Asian financial crisis and later jailed for six years on sodomy and corruption charges. He won a by-election last month that allowed him to re-enter parliament, putting him in position to become prime minister if the opposition alliance wins power.

India is likely to suffer more than most countries as a result of climate change, with poor agricultural output, more natural disasters and increased deaths due to higher occurance of diseases, the author of an acclaimed report on global warning said on Wednesday. Former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern's report on the economic impact of climate change said unchecked greenhouse gas emissions would see global temperatures rise by 2-3 degrees centrigrade in the next 50 years. Speaking to Indian businessmen, Stern said the annual June-September monsoon rains, which India is heavily dependent on for its crop production, would impact the economy. "There could be more variable starting dates (for the monsoon). There could be periods of much greater intensity and there could be quite extended periods of no rain. But it is likely to be disrupted," he said. "It's clear India will suffer like the rest of the world, perhaps more that the rest of the world." Experts estimate a temperature rise of between 2 and 3.5 degrees centigrade, would cost India a loss of between nine and 25 percent of total agricultural revenue. Agriculture makes up around 22 percent of India's gross domestic product. Stern said temperature rises would also mean vector-borne diseases like malaria and dengue fever spreading to higher altitude regions known for being free of mosquitoes. As a result, there was a likelihood of more deaths that would result in lower productivity, he said. The head of Britain's Economic Service said the melting of Himalayan glaciers would mean neighbouring Bangladesh could experience serious floods as a result of rising sea levels, sparking mass migration across the border into India. He said the flow of water from the glaciers would be curtailed during India's dry season and would have "serious consequences". Experts say melting glaciers will affect one-sixth of the world's population residing mainly in the Indian subcontinent. India's Ganga river receives 70 percent of its summer water flow from the Himalayan glaciers and sustains over 500 million people. Stern said India was making progress in adapting to the challenges faced in curbing emissions and investing in clean development mechanisms. But climate change was an inequitable process in which rich nations had to take the burden of responsibility, he said. "This is a doubly inequitable process as it's the rich countries who are responsible for 75 percent of the greenhouse gases that are up there and it's the poor countries that will be hit earliest and hardest," he said. "All countries must be involved, but equity demands that the rich countries bear the big majority of the cost."

British NGO Oxfam has stressed on speedy results at the UN climate talks that kick off on Monday at Cancún, México. In a pre-talks statement on Sunday, Oxfam pointed out that the hike in the frequency of weather related disasters, record temperatures, flooding and rising sea levels in 2010 are signs for negotiators to reach a resolution. The statement quoted an Oxfam report on the urgency of a resolution to the climate talks said that around 21,000 people died due to weather-related disasters in the first nine months of 2010, which is more than twice the casualties in 2009. "This is likely to get worse as climate change tightens its grip. The human impacts of climate change in 2010 send a powerful reminder why progress in Cancun is more urgent than ever," said the report's author Tim Gore. The statement also said that Oxfam is calling for a fair Climate Fund which will ensure that the neediest parties get the money. The organisation is also highlighting the vital role of women in helping communities to adapt to climate change, and urged prioritising them during fund disbursement. It urged the countries to discover new methods of raising the funds and suggested taxing unregulated international aviation and shipping emissions and agreeing on a tax on financial transactions at banks. The organisation also pointed out that speedier resolution will lower the cost of tackling climate change and said estimates reveal that every dollar spent on adaptation could prevent destruction worth $60. Gore pointed out, "Cancun will not deliver everything that a global response to climate change should be. But it can deliver outcomes that will benefit poor people. One of the most important achievements would be a fair climate fund because this would also help to re-build trust and put the talks back on track."

If Barack Obama were a corporate chief executive, the incoming US president already would be winning high marks for his management style, experts say. The president-elect's steady hand and calm demeanor that have earned him the moniker "No Drama Obama" are traits business leaders could well learn from, according to management experts. "What he's doing is masterful," said Paul Reagan, a management consultant and senior lecturer at Wayne State University in Detroit. "His value system is clear, and he spends a tremendous amount of time reinforcing that he does what he says he will do. "His credibility right now is so high most people already see him as the corporate head," Reagan said. There's one particular aspect of Obama's style that business leaders likely do not share -- an acute awareness of his own strengths and weakness, said Paul Copcutt, a personal brand strategist based in Dundas, Ontario. That awareness is evident in his cabinet selections, in which Obama has chosen veterans to provide the expertise or experience he lacks, he said. "In corporate, we're brought up to look at our weaknesses and how can you improve those and what can you work on," Copcutt said. "Really good leaders should be focusing on what they're good at and either delegating or finding other ways to achieve what they're not good at." From Hillary Clinton, a former campaign rival, to Robert Gates, a holdover from the administration of Republican President George W. Bush, Obama's cabinet choices show an effort to build a coalition with voices that may disagree with his own, Reagan said. Chief executives, on the other hand, often build a "go-to team" of supportive advisors who "don't bring in all of the voices that they really need to lead all of the organization," he said. 'JURY IS STILL OUT' Obama's demonstration of skill is still in its early days, however. All he has done so far is pick some key cabinet members and urge Congress to act swiftly on an economic stimulus plan when it takes office in early January. "The jury is still out," said Nancy Koehn, a business historian and professor at Harvard Business School. The tougher tests come once Obama moves into the White House on January 20. On the downside, a management style that appeals to so many constituencies, such as Obama's, poses the risk of broad disappointment, Reagan said. "He may have oversold change," he said. "If there is a vulnerability, it will be in a lack of clarity or, because it was so general, an inability to make good on what everyone interpreted was something for them." Chief executives could borrow a page from Obama's responses to two hurdles in his path to the U.S. presidency -- his loss in the New Hampshire primary and the maelstrom over his controversial former pastor Jeremiah Wright, said Koehn. In each case, Obama responded with an "emotional competence" that leaders could use, especially in today's troubled financial climate, to cope with currents such as fear of job losses or anxiety over poor performance at their organizations, she said. "Business leaders need to be very conscious of those aspects to their people and their organization that are more than just, 'What are our tangible resources?' 'What's our head count?' 'What's our market?' 'What's our customer?'" she said. CEO coach Deb Dib can tick off a list of traits she sees in Obama -- caring, confident, consistent, commanding, calm and more -- traits she tries to teach business executives. "If you look at any really effective CEO, they almost all share in one way or another almost every one of those attributes," said Dib from her office in Medford, New York. "It transcends politics. You really have to look at him and say, 'Wow, I can learn something from this."

TOKYO, April28 (bdnews24.com/AFP) – Japan and the European Union plan to step up joint efforts to help Afghanistan and combat piracy off Somalia and will start talks to improve their trade ties, their leaders said at a summit Wednesday. EU president Herman Van Rompuy said Asia's biggest economy and the 27-nation bloc needed to cooperate more closely to be "not only global economic actors, but also global political actors." "Japan and the union will work closer to achieve peace (in) crises and post-conflict management," he told a Tokyo press conference also attended by European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso. Japan's centre-left Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said after the annual meeting that "we have agreed to conduct concrete cooperation concerning peace building in Afghanistan and Somalia." He also said both sides will set up a "high-level group" of experts to discuss economic ties for a period of six to 12 months. Tokyo is eager to strike a free-trade pact of the kind the EU forged last year with Japan's high-tech export rival South Korea, but Brussels has complained of non-tariff trade barriers to Japan's market. Van Rompuy earlier also called for closer cooperation on fighting climate change, poverty and terrorism, and promoting global economic stability, nuclear non-proliferation and human rights. "To share the burden and to lead the way, we need to team up with each other," he said. "The EU and Japan, with their combined economic and political strengths, can help make a difference in an increasingly globalised world." He highlighted international network security and the threat of attacks on "the free flow of goods, people and information. The networks are vulnerable, cyber-attacks are no fantasy, they can happen and do harm everyday." "We must enhance our resilience against these. Both Japan and Europe are so deeply in global networks that we must do this together." Van Rompuy also spoke about economic ties at the earlier briefing at the Japan Press Club, saying that "of course, an obvious way to intensify the trade between our two blocs would be a free-trade agreement." But he said that "many of the so-called non-tariff barriers to trade remain in place, which hamper access to the Japanese market and cause hesitance from the EU side to go ahead." "We could perhaps take some more time to first identify the objectives both parties want to reach. We are open to discussions," he said. The EU has demanded Japan first do more to reduce non-tariff barriers, including in product safety and government procurement rules. Toshiro Tanaka -- a professor of European politics at Keio University -- said that "despite the EU's rhetoric that the Japanese market is closed with non-tariff barriers, the EU is reluctant to sign a free-trade deal with Japan, whereas Japan, backed by its business community, craves a deal with the EU." Tanaka said the free-trade deal signed between the EU and South Korea last October sparked Japanese interest in a similar agreement. "Currently, the EU imposes 10 percent tariff duties on imports of vehicles and 14 percent on electronics, but South Korean companies such as Samsung, LG and Hyundai Motor will be eventually exempt from those tariffs. "That's significantly disadvantageous for Japanese manufacturers in selling goods in the European market," Tanaka told AFP. The EU delegation next travels to China for a similar summit in Shanghai, where the World Expo kicks off on Saturday.

Dramatic improvements in air and water quality as coronavirus lockdowns have cut pollution have prompted calls for a low-carbon future, but the need to get millions back to work is clouding the environmental picture. With economies round the world shut down, wildlife has returned to city streets, with wolves, deer and kangaroos spotted on thoroughfares usually teeming with traffic. Fish have been seen in Venice canals no longer polluted by motor boats, while residents of some Indian cities have reported seeing the Himalayas for the first time in decades. Satellite imagery has shown significant air quality improvements across Europe and Asia, including China, where the coronavirus pandemic emerged. But residents in some of China's most smog-prone cities said they feared that blue skies would not last as the world's second biggest economy got back to work. "In the second half of the year, when the epidemic eases, the weather will slowly be worse after factories reopen," said Tang Zhiwei, 27, a resident of Shanghai. "Try your best to enjoy the blue sky now." TOGETHER Thunberg said action to tackle coronavirus did not mean the climate crisis had gone away. "Today is Earth Day and that reminds us that climate and the environmental emergency is still ongoing and we need to tackle both the corona pandemic ... at the same time as we tackle climate and environmental emergency, because we need to tackle two crises at once," she said. UN chief Antonio Guterres urged governments in an Earth Day message to use their economic responses to the pandemic to tackle the "even deeper emergency" of climate change. With global battle lines emerging between investors backing "green stimulus" measures and industry lobbyists aiming to weaken climate regulations, Guterres cautioned governments against bailing out heavily polluting industries. "On this Earth Day, all eyes are on the COVID-19 pandemic," Guterres said. "But there is another, even deeper emergency, the planet's unfolding environmental crisis." Peter Betts, a former lead climate negotiator for Britain and the European Union, said there was now pressure for coronavirus economic stimulus packages to be "low-carbon, climate-smart". "A risk, clearly, is that for some governments around the world there will be a huge premium on getting the economy moving, getting people back into jobs," Betts, now with the Chatham House think-tank in London, told Reuters Television. That is a priority for US President Donald Trump, who wants to get America, and in particular its oil and gas industry, back to work. "We will never let the great US Oil & Gas Industry down," Trump tweeted, calling for "a plan which will make funds available so that these very important companies and jobs will be secured long into the future!" HOTTEST ON RECORD The environmental stakes were rising even before the pandemic's economic shutdown raised hopes in some quarters of a low-carbon future. Last year was the hottest on record in Europe, extending a run of exceptionally warm years driven by unprecedented levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, according to a study released on Earth Day. Of Europe's 12 warmest years on record, 11 have occurred since 2000, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said. "This warming trend is now unequivocal anywhere on the planet. And as a consequence of that, the frequency of these record breaking events is going up," C3S director Carlo Buontempo told Reuters. The coronavirus pandemic is expected to drive carbon dioxide emissions down 6% this year, the head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said, in what would be the biggest yearly drop since World War Two. But that will not stop climate change, the WMO said. "COVID-19 may result in a temporary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, but it is not a substitute for sustained climate action," the WMO said in an Earth Day statement. With millions staying home, air quality has improved in China. Shanghai saw emissions fall by nearly 20% in the first quarter, while in Wuhan, where the pandemic originated, monthly averages dropped more than a third. But experts worry the decline could give China leeway to turn a blind eye to pollution in order to stimulate the economy, which declined for the first time on record in the first quarter.

Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks has been nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian politician behind the proposal said on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for nominations expired. The Norwegian Nobel Committee accepts nominations for what many consider as the world's top accolade until February 1, although the five panel members have until the end of the month to make their own proposals. Norwegian parliamentarian Snorre Valen said WikiLeaks was "one of the most important contributors to freedom of speech and transparency" in the 21st century. "By disclosing information about corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes, WikiLeaks is a natural contender for the Nobel Peace Prize," Valen said. Members of all national parliaments, professors of law or political science and previous winners are among those allowed to make nominations. The committee declined to comment on the WikiLeaks proposal or any other nominations. Washington is furious at WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange for releasing tens of thousands of secret documents and diplomatic cables which it says have harmed US interests abroad, including peace efforts. Assange, An Australian, faces extradition to Sweden from Britain for questioning in a sex case which he and his supporters say is a smear campaign designed to close down WikiLeaks, a non-profit organization funded by the public and rights groups. Awarding WikiLeaks the prize would be likely to provoke criticism of the Nobel Committee, which has courted controversy with its two most recent choices, jailed Chinese pro-democracy activist Liu Xiaobo and President Barack Obama a few months after his election. NOBEL DEFINITION STRETCHED The prize was endowed by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who said in his will it was to be awarded to whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses." In past decades the committee, appointed by the Norwegian parliament, has stretched Nobel's definition to include human rights, climate activism and even micro-financing, which have been a source of criticism from Nobel traditionalists. Nobel watchers say a prize for WikiLeaks would highlight the growing role of specialist Internet sites and broad access social media in bringing about world change. Sites such as Twitter and YouTube have played important roles in mobilizing people in countries with a tight grip on official media, such as Egypt where mass anti-government protests have been taking place. Kristian Berg Harpviken of the PRIO peace think tank in Oslo agreed that innovative use of "new tools for bringing about peace" could be a major theme in this year's Nobel, but he said he expected the prize to go to a woman after a series of male recipients. His strongest tip was the Russian human rights group Memorial and its leader, Svetlana Gannushkina.

Senior EU officials will descend on Turkmenistan this week to promote cooperation with Central Asia -- a vast energy-rich region key to Europe's ambitions to diversify energy supplies and reduce its dependence on Russia. EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and the French and Slovenian foreign ministers will meet their Central Asian counterparts in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat on April 9-10 for talks on issues ranging from fuel to democracy. Home to some of the world's biggest oil and gas reserves, the region is prone to authoritarian rule and most of its states have been criticised in the West over their records on democracy and human rights. The European Union sees it as a new source of untapped energy as it tries to ease dependence on Russia, which supplies the bloc with a quarter of its energy needs. "Implementation (of EU strategy) is well under way and the EU is working with partners in the region on joint priorities papers detailing future action," the EU said in a statement ahead of the talks, likely to be held behind closed doors. Some rights activists and opposition politicians have accused the West of putting energy above democracy in their Central Asia contacts, a charge Western governments have denied. U.S.-based Human Rights Watch urged the EU to make its main objective in regional policy the fulfilment of human rights standards by Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. "Central Asia is home to some of the most repressive states of the former Soviet Union, and the EU should seize the opportunity to achieve improvements," it said. "Setting concrete benchmarks will give the strategy a clear direction." Kazakhstan, the region's biggest economy and with a stable investment climate, is the main focus of Western interest. It has attracted billions of dollars in investment but has never held an election judged free and fair by Western monitors. Reclusive Turkmenistan, slowly opening up after decades of isolation, has also signalled it wants closer ties with the West and more reform. But analysts question its new president's commitment to genuine change. Uzbekistan, dubbed by the United States one the world's "most systematic human rights violators" in 2007, won praise from the West this year after it pardoned six jailed activists and showed more willingness to discuss human rights issues. "Some developments in the region merit recognition and are welcomed," said Human Rights Watch. "But they should not eclipse the overall abysmal state of human rights in individual Central Asian countries and in the region as a whole."

The government has marked ministry focal points in to deal with climate change. Mentioning that establishment of the climate cell was progressing smoothly, finance minister AMA Muhith said in parliament on Sunday, "One focal point has been identified in each ministry." Muhith said the Climate Change Trust Fund and the Climate Change Trust Fund Policy have already been formulated. Moreover, implementation of different programmes was in progress in line with the policy, the finance minister said. The government has allocated Tk 7 billion for the climate change fund.

The former employees, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, said in a statement that Amazon would be required to pay their back wages and “post a notice to all of its tech and warehouse workers nationwide that Amazon can’t fire workers for organising and exercising their rights.” They called the settlement “a win for protecting workers rights.” The pair have said they were fired last year because they publicly pushed the company to reduce its effect on climate change and address concerns about its warehouse workers. Amazon has maintained that the former employees repeatedly broke internal policies. An Amazon spokesperson, Jose Negrete, said Wednesday, “We have reached a mutual agreement that resolves the legal issues in this case and welcome the resolution of this matter.” The settlement was reached at a high-wire moment for Amazon, which has pledged to be “Earth’s best employer” and is looking, in a tight labour market, to hire 40,000 corporate and tech workers and 125,000 warehouse workers in the United States. In 2018, Costa and Cunningham, who worked as designers at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters, were part of a small group of employees who publicly pushed the company to do more to address its climate impact. They turned their efforts into an organisation, Amazon Employees for Climate Justice, and helped get more than 8,700 Amazon colleagues to support its efforts. Over time, Cunningham and Costa broadened their protests. After Amazon told them that they had violated its external-communications policy by speaking publicly about the business, their group organised 400 employees to also speak out, purposely violating the policy to make a point. At the start of the pandemic, they announced an internal event for warehouse workers to speak to tech employees about their workplace safety conditions. Soon after, Amazon fired both women. Sen Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, wrote Amazon expressing concerns over potential retaliation, and Tim Bray, an internet pioneer and a former vice president at Amazon’s cloud computing group, resigned in protest. This spring, lawyers with the National Labour Relations Board said they had found merit in Costa and Cunningham’s accusations that they were fired in retaliation for their organising. The agency’s Seattle office then brought a case against Amazon, saying the company “enforced its facially neutral External Communications and Solicitation policies selectively and disparately in order to restrict employees from engaging in protected, concerted activities.” The hearing was scheduled to start Tuesday morning, but was delayed as the parties worked on a settlement. The case is one of many tangles the company has had with the labour board since the start of the pandemic. Most visibly, in August, a hearing officer of the NLRB recommended that the agency throw out a union election at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama, finding that Amazon’s “conduct interfered with the laboratory conditions necessary to conduct a fair election.” Amazon denies any interference and has vowed to appeal if the regional office of the labour board agrees with the recommendation and formally overturns the election, which rejected the union. © 2021 The New York Times Company

By Simon Shuster MOSCOW June 21 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Russia plans to release 30 percent more greenhouse gases by 2020 under an emissions target scheme announced on Friday by President Dmitry Medvedev. The plan would reduce emissions by 10-15 percent from Russia's emissions in 1990 when it was part of the Soviet Union and its emissions were far higher than they are today. This angered environmentalists, and the target also is likely to fall short of expectations from developing countries. "It's not enough, it's very low," said Alexey Kokorin, the Russia spokesman for environmental protection group WWF. Medvedev's announcement was interpreted as an opening shot in United Nations negotiations meant to seal a new climate treaty in December to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Under those talks, rich nations are meant to propose mid-term emissions targets. Russia is the last major country to do so. Green groups and developing countries want industrialized countries to trim their emissions by 25-40 percent below 1990 levels, referring to a range of cuts suggested by a U.N. panel of climate scientists. "Based on the current situation by 2020 we could cut emissions by about 10-15 percent," Medvedev told Russian state television, according to a copy of his comments supplied by the Kremlin. Arkady Dvorkovich, the Kremlin's chief economic adviser, later clarified to Interfax news agency that the reduction would be from 1990 levels, before the Soviet Union fell and Russia's heavy industry collapsed. Since then, its carbon emissions have returned to an upward curve along with its industrial revival, preserving Russia's place as the world's third largest polluter behind China and the United States. The target laid out on Friday meant cumulative cuts of 30 billion tonnes of greenhouse gases from 1990 to 2020, Medvedev said. This implies Russia will emit about 3 billion tonnes of greenhouse gas in 2020 compared with 2.2 billion tonnes in 2007. "We will not cut off our development potential," Medvedev said. Under Kyoto, Russia has to return its emissions to 1990 levels by 2008-12. Green groups and developing countries were disappointed last week by Japan's proposals for a 2020 target barely stiffer than its Kyoto Protocol goal, and were again downbeat on Friday after Russia's announcement. FIRST STEP IN NEGOTIATIONS Medvedev said Russia would take a responsible approach to greenhouse gas emissions but expected other countries to follow suit. "We expect our partners to take reciprocal steps. That is why I have said many times -- the problem of climate change has to be addressed by everyone or not at all," he said. Dvorkovich later added that Russia must find "the right balance" between addressing climate change and reaching Russia's goals for economic growth, Interfax reported. Experts saw the goal laid out on Friday as a first shot in six months of intense talks meant to culminate in a new climate pact in Copenhagen this year. "It's a good first step ... but I expect other countries will require bigger reductions from Russia and that will promote further negotiations," said Nina Korobova, head of the Russian operations of Global Carbon, a clean energy project developer. "I think Russia can easily go to 20 percent (by 2020) ... even in the most pessimistic situations," she added. During the previous presidency of Vladimir Putin, Russia's top Kyoto officials insisted they would not take on mandatory emissions cuts for fear of hindering the comfort of Russia's middle class and the development of its industries.

TOKYO (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Finance leaders of the world's top industrialized nations put on a show of solidarity on Saturday in the face of an economic slowdown and conceded that things could get even worse because of the crumbling U.S. housing market. In a communique released after meetings in Tokyo, the Group of Seven said prospects for economic growth had worsened since they last met in October, although fundamentals remained solid and the U.S. economy was likely to escape a recession. "There was a climate of much greater pessimism and worry than in October," said Italian Economy Minister Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa. Finance ministers and central bankers from Japan, the United States, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy and France said that growth in their countries was expected to slow by "varying degrees" in the short term. They pointed to serious risks from the U.S. property market slump and subsequent tightening of credit conditions, which has slowed the flow of money to the consumers and companies that drive the world's economy. Debt-laden banks have curbed lending as their losses, tied primarily to souring U.S. home loans, rise above $100 billion. That has raised the specter of a vicious cycle as consumer spending slows, prompting businesses to retrench and cut jobs. Glenn Maguire, Asia Pacific chief economist with Societe Generale in Hong Kong, noted that the G7 offered little in the way of detail on coordination action to support the economy. "This economic shock and the economic downturn is largely driven by domestic problems in the U.S. and it really can't be remedied by a globally coordinated action plan," he said. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said global markets may face a prolonged period of unrest. "The current financial turmoil is serious and persisting," Paulson said in prepared remarks issued after the meeting. "As the financial markets recover from this period of stress, as of course they will, we should expect continued volatility as risk is repriced." ALL TOGETHER NOW The G7 leaders urged banks to fully disclose their losses and shore up their balance sheets to help restore the normal functioning of markets. German finance minister Peer Steinbrueck said writeoffs could reach $400 billion. "Going forward, we will continue to watch developments closely and continue to take appropriate actions, individually and collectively, in order to secure stability and growth in our economies," the communique said. Pledges to work together to restore the financial system to health contrasted with divisions over fiscal and monetary policy ahead of the G7 gathering. Before Saturday's meetings, many in Europe had privately expressed alarm over the U.S. Federal Reserve's aggressive interest rate-cutting stance after it slashed 1.25 percentage points off of the benchmark federal funds rate in less than 10 days in January. The monetary easing, along with a $152 billion U.S. fiscal stimulus package, threatened to open a rift between the United States and its allies over how to prevent the credit crisis from pushing the world into a downturn. But tensions eased after the European Central Bank stressed the risk to euro zone economic growth, alongside its long-held worry about inflation, signaling that the ECB may soon join the Fed, Bank of England and Bank of Canada in cutting rates. French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said she welcomed that change by the ECB, but wanted more: "It's like the overture of a symphony: you are always waiting for what comes next." European leaders were particularly concerned about the strength of the euro which hit a record high against the dollar after the Fed began its cutting rates in September. However, the currency retreated after the ECB's change of heart. CURRENCY ON BACK BURNER With more pressing economic matters to discuss, foreign exchange issues were relegated to the back burner at Saturday's meeting. The communique contained similar wording as in the October statement, with a focus on encouraging China to allow its yuan currency to appreciate more quickly. Many G7 leaders think the weak yuan gives China an unfair trade advantage, and have called on Beijing to step up domestic investment to help rebalance the world economy. The statement also urged oil exporters to step up production after oil prices briefly topped $100 per barrel last month. It has since retreated, though it spiked up 4 percent to $91.77 on Friday -- its biggest gain in nearly two months -- amid supply snags and a looming U.S. cold spell.

She met the new Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen for a courtesy call at his office on Sunday, said the foreign ministry. The UK will continue its support to achieve the goal of Bangladesh to be an Upper Middle Income Country by 2021 and SDGs by 2030, she was quoted as saying. High Commissioner Blake reiterated her government’s willingness to work together towards building stronger ties. Momen urged the UK to continue overall support for Bangladesh if a Brexit deal is passed to separate the UK from the European Union. Both sides agreed to work together on trade and investment, good governance, better economic partnership, the Rohingya crisis, migration and climate change. British investors are “very interested to do business in diverse sectors in Bangladesh, infrastructure in particular,” she said. Blake praised Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government for playing an “amazing role” in the field of women empowerment, poverty reduction as well as in economic and social development. Momen thanked the UK for its support in the Rohingya crisis and urged it to do more so that the people forcible displaced by violence in Rakhine can safety return to their homes in the Myanmar province.  Blake praised Bangladesh for sheltering the largest number of forcibly-displaced Rohingya, historically persecuted in Myanmar, and assured that British government and people will support Bangladesh in resolving the crisis. The new foreign minister recalled for Blake the support provided by the British people and government during Bangladesh’s 1971 Liberation War.

“They don’t want to give anything of what we want. They want to block everything. But we will continue our efforts to make them pledge until the end,” the Bangladeshi scientist said in an interview with bdnews24.com from Glasgow in the final hours of negotiations at the COP26 summit on Friday. Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Dhaka, has attended every one of the 26 COP meetings held since the first in Berlin, in 1995. Emissions cuts promised by the world's biggest climate polluters so far will add up to a dangerous 2.7-degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures -- far above the more ambitious 1.5C goal of the Paris deal, backed by scientists. Wealthy countries that promised to deliver $100 billion a year in funding from 2020 to help poorer, vulnerable nations grow cleanly and adapt to climate threats - an urgent priority this decade - now say they will not meet that goal until 2023. As the talks in Glasgow hurtled toward the closing hours, a new draft agreement released Friday morning called for a doubling of money to help developing countries cope with climate impacts, and called on nations to strengthen their emissions-cutting targets by next year. But much of the text in the draft — intended to push negotiators toward a deal that all nations can agree on — remained contentious for many countries. Disputes remain over money, the speed of emissions cuts and indeed whether an agreement should even mention “fossil fuels” — the principal cause of climate change, but a term that has never before appeared in a global climate agreement. The differences, after nearly two weeks of negotiations, signalled that it would be difficult for negotiators to reach the sort of sweeping agreement that activists and scientists had urged before the start of the United Nations talks. Scientific consensus says that the world must slash greenhouse-gas emissions by nearly half by 2030 in order to stave off the most disastrous effects of global warming. But under countries’ current targets, emissions would continue to rise. Asked about possibilities of reaching an agreement on these issues, Prof Huq said, “We will try until the end. The war has not ended. We won’t give up now.” The United States and China unveiled a deal to ramp up cooperation tackling climate change, including by cutting methane emissions, phasing out coal consumption and protecting forests on Wednesday. A joint China-US declaration on climate change is a political reset to a time when the world's two biggest carbon emitters reached the brief meeting of minds that helped forge the 2015 Paris Agreement. But that still won't be enough to avert a deepening climate crisis, unless Washington and Beijing can match words with more action to curb fossil fuels and prod others at the COP26 talks in Glasgow to do the same. Prof Huq welcomed the latest deal, but said questions remained unanswered. “China and the US are big polluters. It’s good if they agree to work together. But the announcement does not have details. We don’t know what has happened actually.” He said the delegates and negotiators of Bangladeshi, one of the countries that are most vulnerable to climate impacts, presented their views at both private and public levels of the talks.   “The main thing is negotiation – what we can achieve from different governments. It’s not easy to take something as the rich nations do not want to give something easily. This is the war.”      [With details from Reuters and The New York Times]

The consultation was held at Jhalakathi Deputy Commissioner Md Johor Ali’s office on Monday. Additional secretaries to the ministry of environment, forest and climate change Sanjay Kumar Bhowmik and Md Mizanul Haque Chowdhury were also present, according to a statement from the UNDP. In the keynote, Malik Fida A Khan, executive director of the CEGIS, stated the importance of NAP. He said that NAP was a participatory and country-driven process and would address the medium to long-term adaptation needs of Bangladesh and turn her into a climate-resilient country in the long run. He added that NAP would specifically address the climate vulnerability of the coastal regions, address the existing capacity gaps and establish a knowledge management system on climate change adaptation. The consultation discussed major climatic risks in different coastal districts, adaptation strategies of the farmers and determinants of the choice of those strategies. Jhalakathi and other coastal districts are vulnerable to increasing salinity of its groundwater as well as surface water resources, especially along the coast, due to increases in sea level as a direct impact of global warming. Participants agreed that the livelihood of smallholder farmers is affected by climatic risks such as cyclones, increasing soil and water salinity, storm surges and heavy rainfall, that can lead to flooding and waterlogging. They stressed a master plan to address these challenges. “UNDP will provide full support to Bangladesh in combatting climate change,” said AKM Azad Rahman, programme officer for climate change at the UNDP. “We're closely working with the government in designing sustainable projects in coastal regions.” Sanjay Bhowmik said, “NAP will be the guiding policy document for our adaptation efforts and will supplement all the national-level planning. Through the consultation, we're delegating its ownership to you”. “For successful implementation of NAP, we will need a partnership with both at the national and local level,” he maintained. Also the national project director of the NAP Formulation Project, Mizanul said: “NAP will be harmonised with the national planning process and supplement the Annual Development Programme, Five Year Plan, Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100, etc.” He emphasised raising awareness to combat climate change, protect the environment and mainstream adaptation efforts. Johor Ali said rainwater harvesting can be an effective adaptation strategy for the coastal regions. The ministry, Economic Relations Division and the UNDP co-organised the event with support from the Green Climate Fund.

Leaders of 16 Asian countries, including top polluters China and Japan, agreed to a vague pact on climate change on Wednesday, trying to put aside discord over Myanmar's suppression of democracy protests. In the declaration signed in Singapore, leaders of the East Asia Summit (EAS) committed to stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations in the long run. But the pact, which contains no fixed targets on cutting emissions or even limiting their growth by a specific date, would serve as a basis for climate change negotiations at a major UN meeting next month in Bali. The EAS -- 10 Southeast Asian nations plus China, India, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand -- -- also agreed that "all countries should play a role in addressing the common challenge of climate change, based on the principles of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities." Asked why the declaration did not include any numerical targets, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said: "This is a declaration of intent, not a negotiated treaty of what we are going to do to restrict ourselves." Australia said the pact would make it easier to negotiate a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The United Nations hopes the Bali meeting will kick off two years of talks to agree on a new global framework to fight climate change. "There has been a turning of the tide in China and India's position -- they're saying 'yes we need to do something to stabilise emissions'," Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said earlier. China, the world's second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide after the United States, and India have steadfastly refused to agree to fixed targets and want rich nations to take the lead in cutting emissions and pay for cleaner energy technology. "It's not positive but what can we expect? We can't expect countries like China or India to be on the same line as Japan -- these emerging countries are not ready to move first," said Emmanuel Fages, carbon analyst at French bank Societe Generale. "There's nothing homogenous in Asia," he added. The only numerical target in the climate pact was on forest cover. The group agreed to "work to achieve an EAS-wide aspirational goal of increasing cumulative forest area in the region by at least 15 million hectares (37.5 million acres) of all types of forest by 2020". MAD ABOUT MYANMAR While the East Asian leaders tried to focus on climate change and trade, the issue of how to encourage wayward member Myanmar to embrace democracy soured ASEAN's 40th anniversary celebrations at which the grouping adopted a legal charter. The Philippines broke ranks with other Association of South East Asian Nations members and called for the immediate release of detained Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. "We particularly deplore the treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi. She must be released. Now," Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said in a statement. Arroyo said on Monday the Philippine Congress might not ratify the charter if Myanmar did not commit to democracy and release Suu Kyi. The charter -- which gives ASEAN a legal identity and enshrines principles of democracy and human rights -- needs to be ratified within 12 months following the signatures on Tuesday. "All countries have to ratify it to bring it into effect," Singapore's Lee told reporters. He added the sanctions that Western countries had slapped on Myanmar were ineffective because the regime had chosen to isolate itself from the outside world. "You say I don't want to do business in Myanmar but it's water off a duck's back," Lee said.

in 2030 the obesity rate would not exceed 60 percent in any state, in contrast to the 13 in the business-as-usual projection.

The International Monetary Fund's largest-ever distribution of monetary reserves will provide additional liquidity for the global economy, supplementing member countries’ foreign exchange reserves and reducing their reliance on more expensive domestic or external debt, Georgieva said in a statement. "The allocation is a significant shot in the arm for the world and, if used wisely, a unique opportunity to combat this unprecedented crisis," she said. Countries can use the SDR allocation to support their economies and step up their fight against the coronavirus crisis, but should not use the fiscal space to delay needed economic reforms or debt restructuring, the IMF said in separate guidance document. IMF member countries will receive SDRs -- the fund's unit of exchange backed by dollars, euros, yen, sterling and yuan -- in proportion with their existing quota shareholdings in the fund. Georgieva said about $275 billion of the allocation will go to emerging market and developing countries, with some $21 billion to flow to low-income countries. Georgieva said the IMF was encouraging rich countries that receive SDRs to channel them to poorer countries that need them more. One key option is for wealthier countries to contribute SDRs to the IMF's existing Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust for low-income countries, she said. The IMF was also continuing to work on a possible Resilience and Sustainability Trust that could use channeled SDRs to help the most vulnerable countries with structural transformation, including dealing with climate change, she said. Another possibility, she said, could be to channel SDRs to support lending by multilateral development banks. The IMF's last SDR distribution came in 2009 when member countries received $250 billion in SDR reserves to help ease the global financial crisis. To spend their SDRs, countries would first have to exchange them for underlying hard currencies, requiring them to find a willing exchange partner country.

A Malaysian ruling party politician suggests that an electoral reform activist should be hanged. Mock funeral rites are held outside the home of an opposition state leader. Eggs and rocks rain down on a political rally. Malaysia is no stranger to political mud-slinging and scandal. But a ratcheting-up of inflammatory language and violence - much of it directed at the political opposition - has shocked even seasoned observers as the country heads for its most contentious and closest election by next April. "I worry that the election will be the dirtiest. All indications also point to the most violent," said Lim Guan Eng, the ethnic Chinese chief minister of Penang state and a leading figure in Malaysia's opposition. Members of Perkasa, a group that champions ethnic Malay rights and has links to the ruling party, placed a flower garland around a photo of Lim outside his home in May, a funeral ritual that his supporters said was akin to a death threat. The rising political temperature coincides with signs that Malaysia's ruling coalition, in power since independence in 1957, will struggle to improve on its poor electoral performance in 2008. That showing, which deprived the Barisan Nasional coalition of a two-thirds parliamentary majority for the first time, handed five state governments to the opposition and led to the ouster of then prime minister Abdullah Badawi. A source in the dominant United Malays National Organization (UMNO) told Reuters that recent internal polling showed the coalition faced an uphill battle to win back its two-thirds share and was even at risk of losing its simple majority. The polls showed the coalition risked losing more states and faced a closer than expected race in southern Johor state - long an UMNO bastion - due to waning support from ethnic Chinese. "That will be a slap in the face. So this is why there is a delay in the elections," said the senior UMNO source. Polls by the independent Merdeka Centre show that while Prime Minister Najib Razak enjoys strong approval ratings around 65 percent, his coalition is much less popular - polling at around 48 percent. Najib has put off calling the election, which must be held by next April, showing his apparent wavering confidence in improving on 2008's performance. "UMNO knows their hold on power is not a given," said Ooi Kee Beng, deputy director of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. "Perhaps for the first time since 1969, there's a chance change may actually happen so you would expect more desperate moves." The Southeast Asian country was traumatised by race riots in 1969 following strong election gains by ethnic Chinese. The troubles gave birth to its current system of economic privileges for majority ethnic Malays over Chinese and Indian minorities. "RELENTLESS" HATE SPEECH The opposition filed a police report against UMNO lawmaker Mohamad Aziz after he asked in parliament last month whether leading electoral reform campaigner Ambiga Sreenevasan should be hanged for treason. The lawmaker retracted his remark two days, but was not censored by the party leadership. Sreenevasan, a recipient of an International Woman of Courage award from the United States, says she has received death threats. She has hired a bodyguard and installed security cameras around her Kuala Lumpur home. The ethnic Indian has faced calls for her Malaysian citizenship to be revoked and even been labelled the "anti-Christ" by the right-wing Perkasa group. "The hate speech has been relentless," said Sreenevasan. "The leadership could have made a difference but they don't bother. I'm very disappointed." After Sreenevasan led thousands of protesters through Kuala Lumpur in April to demand electoral reforms, dozens of former soldiers and market traders camped outside her house to protest what they said was a loss of earnings from the demonstration. Some performed daily "exercises" that involved pointing their buttocks toward her house as they bent over. Those close to Najib describe him as gentleman who has no taste for gutter politics. But the opposition says his failure to speak out more firmly against incidents of violence and intimidation has encouraged extremists. After the "hanging" comment in parliament, he reminded coalition MPs not to make statements that hurt the feelings of other races or other component parties within the coalition. Asked on Thursday about the allegations of political intimidation, Malaysia's Home Minister, Hishamuddin Hussein, told reporters: "It is very real. This year we are living in a very politically charged climate." The opposition's Lim, who spent 18 months from 1986 detained under the now-repealed Internal Security Act and another year in prison for sedition, said the policy had gone beyond "tacit approval." "The acts are supported and condoned by Barisan Nasional," said Lim, who has complained of several other acts of physical intimidation against him in recent months. Anwar Ibrahim, the opposition's leader who was jailed for six years on sodomy and graft charges he says were trumped-up, blamed UMNO for an incident in February when a group of youths threw stones at his car in Johor state. His daughter, opposition MP Nurul Izzah Anwar, said a rally in her constituency in May was attacked by men throwing rocks, water bottles and eggs, resulting in several injuries. It was one of several opposition rallies that have been disrupted, sometimes violently, in recent months. It is unclear who was behind the attacks, but opposition leaders complain the police have failed to arrest perpetrators or quickly respond to the violence.

Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed Thursday asked people to save energy and stop wasting gas and electricity to narrow the gap between demand and supply. Addressing a workshop and exhibition on "Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy Programmes" at Dhaka Sheraton Hotel, Fakhruddin also stressed using energy-efficient lights, applying energy-saving technology in industry and utilising renewable energy resources such as solar and wind energy. "Promotion of energy conservation and renewable energy technology has become a global trend in recent years due to a phenomenal increase in the prices of petroleum products," he said. Fakhruddin pointed to deepening awareness about the impact of climate change and fast-depleting natural resources across the world. "Bangladesh is no exception to this global trend." The CA said the government was preparing a draft of Energy Conservation Act, including provisions in the building code, to ensure efficient use and conservation of energy in buildings. "These provisions will include shading of building from sunlight and use of energy-efficient air-conditioner/cooler, efficient insulation materials, energy-efficient lights and installation of energy-efficient appliances." The CA said the government had been providing financial and technical assistance for the promotion of solar home systems through implementing agencies. "We have reduced import duty on solar panels from 5 percent to 3 percent." "The government is now focusing on other applications of solar energy, such as water heating, water pumping for irrigation and street lighting," Fakhruddin said. The CA said the government was keen to encourage private investments in the economic sectors and was promoting public-private partnerships in the energy sector. It was also considering adoption of policies for installation of merchant power plants by the private sector, said Fakhruddin. "If the policies are adopted small power plants, captive power plants and merchant power plants will be able to sell power to customers of their choice." Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission will oversee the matter, the CA added. Fakhruddin hoped the workshop would come up with new and innovative ideas for promoting energy conservation and use of renewable energy in the country.

The world's oldest and longest-reigning monarch stayed in hospital overnight on Wednesday but returned to Windsor Castle to the west of London the following day, with officials saying she was in good spirits and back at work. The queen, who cancelled an official trip to Northern Ireland on Wednesday, had been told to rest by her medical staff, the Palace said, but her ailment was not related to COVID-19. "Following medical advice to rest for a few days, the queen attended hospital on Wednesday afternoon for some preliminary investigations, returning to Windsor Castle at lunchtime today, and remains in good spirits," the palace said late on Thursday. Aides gave no details on what had prompted the medical attention, and some royal correspondents said they hoped the official version of events painted the full picture. Prime Minister Boris Johnson sent his best wishes and said the monarch was back at her desk. "I am given to understand that actually Her Majesty is, characteristically, back at her desk at Windsor as we speak," Johnson told reporters. A royal source said the queen had stayed at the King Edward VII hospital in central London for practical reasons and that her medical team had taken a cautious approach. The source said she was now resting and undertaking light official duties. Elizabeth, who is queen of 15 other realms including Australia, Canada and New Zealand, returned to her desk for work on Thursday afternoon and was undertaking some light duties, the source said. Elizabeth, who acceded to the throne as Britain was shedding its imperial power, has symbolised stability for generations of British people, building the popularity of the monarchy despite seismic political, social and cultural changes that threatened to make it an anachronism. A quiet and uncomplaining dedication to duty, even in old age, has earned her widespread respect in Britain and abroad, even from republicans who are eager for the monarchy to be abolished. BILLIONAIRES' DRINKS Elizabeth spent Tuesday night hosting a drinks reception at Windsor for billionaire business leaders including Bill Gates after Prime Minister Boris Johnson convened a green investment conference ahead of the COP26 climate summit. Elizabeth, along with her son and heir Prince Charles, 72, and grandson Prince William, 39, greeted guests including US climate envoy John Kerry without masks. The queen, wearing a teal skirt and jacket with pearls, was photographed beside Johnson, smiling and chatting with guests. The head of state, who next year celebrates 70 years on the throne, is known for her robust health. The last time she is thought to have spent a night in hospital was in 2013 when she was suffering from symptoms of gastroenteritis. She had a successful surgery to treat an eye cataract in 2018 and a knee operation in 2003, but royal officials are loathe to discuss health issues in general. Prince Philip, her husband of more than seven decades, died in April aged 99. That has not stopped her from carrying out her official engagements, although her age has meant she has handed more duties to Charles and other members of the royal family. She was this month seen using a walking stick for support in public for the first time, apart from after her knee operation. Not only has she lost her husband, who she described as her "strength and stay", but her second son Prince Andrew has quit royal duties over his links to US financier Jeffrey Epstein, a registered sex offender who killed himself in a Manhattan jail in 2019. Her grandson Prince Harry and his American wife Meghan have also stepped away from royal duties to move to Los Angeles from where they delivered some barbed attacks on Buckingham Palace. Elizabeth's next major engagement is at the end of the month when she is due to welcome world leaders at the opening of COP26 in Glasgow.

New greenhouse gases emitted in making flat-screen televisions or some refrigerants might be capped under a planned U.N. treaty to combat global warming, delegates at U.N. talks in Ghana said on Friday. Emissions of the recently developed industrial gases, including nitrogen trifluoride and fluorinated ethers, are estimated at just 0.3 percent of emissions of conventional greenhouse gases by rich nations. But the emissions are surging. "I think it's a good idea" to add new gases to a group of six already capped by the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol for slowing global warming, Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told Reuters. "It makes sense to address all gases that lead to climate change," he said on the sidelines of the August 21-27 talks in Ghana meant to help work out details of a new treaty to combat global warming due to be agreed at the end of 2009. "The more gases you cover, the greater flexibility countries have" to work out how best to cut back, he said. He added that it was up to governments to decide. More than 190 nations have agreed to work out a broad new pact to succeed Kyoto as part of a drive to avert rising temperatures likely to bring more heatwaves, floods, desertification and rising seas. De Boer said the European Union had originally, in negotiations more than a decade ago that led to Kyoto, favored limiting the treaty to carbon dioxide, emitted by burning fossil fuels in factories, power plants and cars. LIVESTOCK But the addition of five other gases, such as industrial nitrous oxide or methane, emitted by livestock or rotting vegetation in landfills, had bolstered Kyoto, he said. Carbon dioxide is the main gas, accounting for 80 percent of emissions. Among new gases, nitrogen trifluoride is used in making semiconductors such as in flat-screen televisions. Fluorinated ethers have been used in some refrigerants in recent years as replacements for another group of gases found to damage the earth's protective ozone layer. Other new gases, such as iodotrifluoromethane or methyl chloroform, are used in the electronics industry or occur as by-products of industry. "Very little is known about sources, current and future emissions and atmospheric abundance of these gases," according to a technical report presented to delegates. "Emissions in 1990 are assumed to have been close to zero but are increasing exponentially," it said. It estimated that current annual emissions were below the equivalent of 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide -- or 0.3 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activities in rich nations. For carbon markets, the impact of adding new gases was unknown but would "in principle, increase the demand for tradable units under the Kyoto Protocol," it said. Disadvantages were that it could cost a lot to set up new monitoring and could distract focus from more important gases. "I'm pushing this issue to get more clarity," said Harald Dovland, a Norwegian official who chairs a group in Accra looking into new commitments by backers of Kyoto. Kyoto obliges 37 rich nations to cut emissions by 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. "There are not big amounts of these new gases emitted now. But many parties want to ensure that there are no increases," he said.

South Africa's business confidence dipped marginally in March, hovering just above a four-year low hit in January, the South African Chamber of Commerce and Industry said on Friday. SACCI said its business confidence index (BCI) stood at 93.9 in March, from 94.0 in February. It fell to 93.8 in January, its lowest level since October 2003. The business organisation said a weaker exchange rate and high inflation weighed on industry confidence, while strong share prices and lower real financing costs helped cap the index's fall. "Given the present uneasy global economic climate, uncertainty in the global financial system and lower local and global economic growth prospects, the BCI remains stationary," it said in a statement. But conditions were tough and confidence fragile. The chamber said strong inflation remained a problem, although easier money supply and credit growth figures suggested the central bank's monetary policy tightening may be having the desired effect of taming consumer spending. The Reserve Bank has a tough interest rate decision to make next week after leaving its repo rate unchanged at 11 percent in January following a total of 400 basis points in increases since June 2006. It had halted the rate hike cycle on concerns about economic growth but inflation continues to accelerate, with the targeted CPIX jumping to a five-year high 9.4 percent year-on-year in February. "Monetary policy already faces difficult challenges of balancing risks of accelerating inflation and price instability and constrained economic activity," SACCI said. While lower international oil and food prices in the shorter term could bring some relief, a weaker rand together with South Africa's propensity to import may add to inflationary expectations. "Business confidence is at a stage where it could change for the better or worse and economic policy issues therefore shoudl be approached with caution," it added.

Described as a "pivotal moment" by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, the summit aims to turn the page on four tense years with Biden's predecessor Donald Trump, who shook confidence in the Western alliance by calling it "obsolete". For the 30 allies meeting in Brussels, diplomats say nothing could be further from the truth, looking to the nuclear-armed alliance founded in 1949 to help deal with threats from extreme weather that can worsen conflicts to Russian attempts to undermine Western democracies through covert attacks. "NATO owes it to the billion people we keep safe every day to continually adapt and evolve to meet new challenges and face down emerging threats," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who hosted Biden and other G7 leaders in Cornwall, England, said in prepared remarks on the Brussels' summit eve. Russia's efforts to divide the West are likely to run through discussions, diplomats said, ahead of a meeting between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday in Geneva. Since Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, NATO has modernised its defences but remains vulnerable to cyber attacks and disinformation, although Moscow denies any attempts to destabilise NATO allies. "Cyber threats can emerge at any point during a crisis and trigger misunderstandings and unintended signals ... that could precipitate war," the European Leadership Network (ELN) research group said in a paper released for the summit. But foremost in leaders' minds, diplomats say, is a need to hear Biden recommit the United States to NATO's collective defence after the Trump era. Trump's confrontational rhetoric towards allies from 2017 to 2019 at NATO summits created an impression of crisis, envoys said. China's growing military and economic presence in the Atlantic, including joint military drills with Russia, will prompt a strong response from leaders. A pledge to make NATO militaries carbon-neutral by 2050 is also expected. G7 leaders agreed on Sunday to raise their contributions to meet a spending pledge of $100 billion a year by rich countries to help poorer countries cut carbon emissions and cope with global warming. 

Sony Ericsson on Monday entrusted the head of Ericsson's US technology division with the task of leading the struggling cellphone maker back to profit and reversing a sharp decline in market share. The 50-50 venture said it had named Bert Nordberg as chief executive to replace Dick Komiyama, who retires at the end of the year. Sony Ericsson has reported steep losses in past quarters and seen its market share slip to below 5 percent, sparking market speculation of a possible breakup. "I would go for increased market share and restoring profitability," Nordberg told Reuters when asked where he hoped to see the company in one to two years. He said he would pursue ongoing restructuring and step up efforts to develop "smash-hit" products. Nordberg, 53, currently Executive Vice President at Ericsson and head of the firm's Silicon Valley business, said he was extremely confident in the support from both parent companies and that turning to profit "can't be too far away." The firm also said Sony CEO Howard Stringer would become new board chairman on October 15, replacing Ericsson head Carl-Henric Svanberg, who will become chairman of BP Plc in January. "The management changes seem to signal that Sony and Ericsson are prepared to continue working together. That will be reassuring news for Sony Ericsson's staff and customers," said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics. Of the top five cellphone vendors, Sony Ericsson saw the sharpest drop in sales from the first quarter. The firm has missed such mobile phone trends as full keyboards, Internet browsing and navigation, and research firm Gartner said last week that Sony Ericsson's market share fell to just 4.7 percent globally. "BIG DECISIONS TO MAKE" "Nordberg has some big decisions to make from day one," said Ben Wood, head of research at CCS Insight. "Sony Ericsson needs to streamline its mobile software strategy and further reduce its dependence on mid-tier feature phones while working to restore profitability in the toughest economic climate the mobile phone industry has ever seen." Sony Ericsson is known for its phones focusing on music and imaging, but so far it has lacked a strong offering of smartphones. Nordberg said he would look for a strategic revamp of the firm's product portfolio. "In this industry you need smash-hit products," he said. Nordberg has been with Ericsson since 1996, prior to which he worked with companies including Data General Corp. and Digital Equipment Corp. In July, Sony Ericsson posted a pretax loss of 283 million euros ($400 million), and said the rest of the year would be difficult, with the overall market to shrink at least 10 percent. "I think it is an effect of them needing a bit of a fresh start, some new blood. In addition to the fact that Sony Ericsson has not performed particularly well during the last year and a half," said Greger Johansson from Redeye. Shares in Ericsson were 0.5 percent lower at 66.90 crowns by 1214 GMT (8:14 a.m. EDT), outperforming a DJ Stoxx European technology index down 1.7 percent.

Energy efficiency for power plants, buildings and cars is the easiest way to slow global warming in an investment shift set to cost hundreds of billions of dollars, the United Nations said on Tuesday. A UN report about climate investments, outlined to a meeting in Vienna of 1,000 delegates from 158 nations, also said emissions of greenhouse gases could be curbed more cheaply in developing nations than in rich states. The cash needed to return rising emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, to current levels by 2030 would amount to 0.3 to 0.5 percent of projected gross domestic product (GDP), or 1.1 to 1.7 percent of global investment flows in 2030, it said. "Energy efficiency is the most promising means to reduce greenhouse gases in the short term," said Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, presenting the report to the Aug. 27-31 meeting. The 216-page report was published online last week. He said the study could help guide governments, meeting in Austria to try to work out a longer-term fight against global warming beyond the UN's Kyoto Protocol. The protocol binds 35 rich nations to cap emissions of greenhouse gases by 2008-12. The report estimates that "global additional investment and financial flows of $200 billion-$210 billion will be necessary in 2030 to return greenhouse gas emissions to current levels", including measures for energy supply, forestry and transport. Energy efficiency in power plants would help, along with measures such as greater fuel efficiency for cars or better insulation in buildings. The study foresees a shift to renewable energies such as solar and hydropower, and some nuclear power. The report also estimates that investments in helping nations adapt to the impact of climate change would run to tens of billions of dollars in 2030, such as treating more cases of disease such as malaria or building dykes to protect beaches from rising seas. It said carbon markets would have to be "significantly expanded to address needs for additional investments and financial flows." Companies are now responsible for about 60 percent of global investments. Experts said the report was the first to try to give a snapshot of the needed investments in one year -- in this case 2030. The report fills in some gaps in a wider picture given by previous reports such as one by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern saying it would be cheaper to confront climate change now than wait to combat the consequences. U.N. reports this year have also projected that warming will bring more heat waves, droughts, disease, disrupt farming, and raise global sea levels. De Boer said investments to developing nations should rise. "The bulk of cost effective opportunities are in developing countries," he said, adding that did not mean that rich nations should seek only to make investments abroad rather than at home. "More than half the energy investment needed is in developing countries," he said. China opens new coal-fired power plants at a rate of two per week to feed its growing economy. Investments in cleaner technology, such as filtering out carbon emissions and burying them, would help, he said.

After a century of broken promises, a paved road linking Kenya to Ethiopia is no longer a mirage for a desert region choked by remoteness. Hurling up a cloud of blinding white dust, Chinese road engineers are helping to lay down the first kilometers of tarmac to replace a 530-km (330-mile) forbidding rock track that joins Kenya's farms and port to landlocked Ethiopia. The stretch of road from Isiolo to Moyale on the border is one of the last unpaved sections of the Great North Road, a British colonial dream to connect Cape Town to Cairo. But where Britain and post-independence Kenyan governments failed, China is leading the way: helping to build a major trade route that will open up the northern half of Kenya, a region that has been effectively sealed off for 100 years. In what is a now familiar sight across Africa, China's drive to secure minerals, oil, and a place for its workers and industries to thrive is converging with Kenyan government plans to tap the potential of undeveloped regions. The road could turn promises of oil into reality and increase tourism and trade in a starkly beautiful land where, until now, only banditry, desolation and poverty had flourished. "This progress is going to benefit the whole area for tourism. Once it is finished, we can already see more trade," said Wu Yi Bao, project manager for the state-owned construction company China Wu Yi (Kenya) Co. China Wu Yi is building the road with 4.3 billion Kenya shillings ($63.94 million) from the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Kenyan government. According to AfDB estimates, paving the road between Isiolo, 340 km (211 miles) north of the capital Nairobi, and Moyale could boost trade between Kenya and Ethiopia along that corridor fivefold to $175 million from the present $35 million annually. Trade between China and Kenya last year was worth $959 million, a 48 percent rise over 2006, according to the Chinese embassy in Kenya. 'NOT PART OF KENYA' The tarmac of the Cape-to-Cairo road goes missing at the squared-off edge of pavement at the end of Isiolo. Here one finds all the restless bustle of a quintessential border town because residents say it's the frontier between the "Kenya Mbili" -- Swahili for the two Kenyas. "People in the north feel like they are not part of the country," said Hussein Sasura, assistant minister for Development of Northern Kenya and other Arid Lands. "When someone leaves for Nairobi, people say he has gone to Kenya." Hopes are high that the revamped road will draw more tourists and create more revenue for the people living here. But some people are suspicious of China's motives, mirroring the ambivalence towards the Asian giant's investment push felt by many Africans. Residents of some African nations, like Zambia, complain that China is undertaking a second colonization by focusing on Africa's resources and dumping its cheapest goods here. China denies this, and has a 50-year history of bilateral trade and cooperation with Kenya. The Chinese have an immediate interest in rebuilding the first stretch of the Isiolo-Moyale road, so that it can move heavy equipment into Merti, roughly 80 km (50 miles) east of the end of the 136 km (84.5 miles) it has committed to build. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Sweden's Lundin Petroleum AB are carrying out seismic tests for oil in Merti in preparation for drilling next year. Residents in Isiolo have been suspicious of oil exploration since a 1980s venture yielded nothing amid murky circumstances. There are other signs of simmering resentment. One Chinese engineer was shot and killed near the Merille River by shiftas -- or bandits -- on April 21. Tribal elders say he was targeted because of a feeling that not enough men from the area had been employed by the Chinese. Wu said at least 150 of the nearly 200 people on the project were Kenyans and all the day laborers were locals. After the shooting, the Kenyan government sent its elite paramilitary General Service Unit to the Merille River area to disarm youths and provide a security presence. HIDDEN GEMS There is little doubt the road will offer a lifeline to northern Kenya and could signal an end to years of neglect. Under colonial rule, Isiolo was an outpost at the edge of the closed Northern Frontier District, which spanned the top half of Kenya from Uganda and Sudan in the west, across Ethiopia to Somalia in the east. "In those days, Europeans were not allowed to stay there because it was too dangerous and the climate was too harsh. You had to have a permit," said George Cardovillis, a Kenyan descended from Greek traders who wanted to set up shop at the Ethiopia-Kenya border in 1914. The government ordered them to keep going more than 600 km (373 miles) south to Maralal. North of Isiolo to Ethiopia, not much has changed across desolate stretches of black volcanic stones and reddish sands since Cardovillis' forebears trekked south in a donkey train. The sun still blasts shimmering heat waves down from an enveloping sky. Mountains loom in a gunmetal haze across the plains. Water is scarce. Electricity, telephone lines and most other services barely exist. Amid this desolate beauty are some of Kenya's most unspoiled national parks, rarely visited because of their remoteness. Barely 50 km (31 miles) past Isiolo lie three game reserves that rival the famed Maasai Mara for the volume and variety of animals. This is where "Born Free" author and naturalist Joy Adamson settled to raise leopards until her murder. "We think our occupancies will double when the road is finished," said Jayne Nguatah, manager of the Sarova Shaba lodge in Shaba park. "It will be a Christmas gift to us." The Sarova Shaba is built on the banks of the Ewaso Nyiro river, where crocodiles feed and Samburu and Borana herdsmen water their animals. Baboons and monkeys roam the main lodge, which is built like a treehouse and straddles a natural spring. But infrastructure is not the only problem for those seeking to build a viable tourism industry in northern Kenya. Banditry and tribal clashes are common here, thanks to weapons flowing in from past and present conflicts in Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. And security forces are spread thin. Nomadic herders roam for pasture and water for their sheep, cows, goats and camels, as they have for centuries. But today, some carry AK-47 assault rifles, while others brandish Sterling-Enfield rifles from colonial times. And despite the Chinese engineers' industry near Isiolo, far to the north in Moyale, some people doubt the road will ever reach them. Plans to extend the tarmac beyond the stretch being reworked by the Chinese are still on the drawing board. "For 45 years they have been promising us that road," trader Gumucha Gisiko said, waving his hand dismissively as a frown rose above his red henna beard. "Seeing is believing."

The Christian Social Union (CSU) won 37.3 percent of the vote, preliminary results showed, losing its absolute majority for only the second time since 1962 - an outcome sure to stoke infighting in the conservative party, already a difficult partner for Merkel in Berlin. "Of course today is not an easy day for the CSU. We did not achieve a good result," Bavarian premier Markus Soeder told a gathering of his party. "We accept the result with humility," he said, adding that the CSU nonetheless wanted to form a stable government as soon as possible. The result, which saw the pro-immigration Greens come second and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) enter the state assembly for the first time, means the CSU will need to form a coalition - a humiliation for a party used to ruling alone. The Greens, who more than doubled their share of the vote to 17.8 percent, attracted support from more liberal CSU voters and from those who traditionally vote for the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD), who won just 9.5 percent. "The political earthquake was in Bavaria, but the aftershocks will be felt in Berlin ... Talk will increase ever more about the end of the Merkel era," said Fred Kempe, president of the Washington-based Atlantic Council think-tank. Without naming Merkel, SPD leader Andrea Nahles said the "poor performance" of the federal government in Berlin, where the SPD is in a coalition with the conservatives, was one of the reasons for her party's weak showing in Bavaria. "It's clear that something has to change," she said. THORN IN MERKEL'S SIDE Bavarian State Prime Minister Markus Soeder of the Christian Social Union Party (CSU) reacts after first exit polls in the Bavarian state election in Munich, Germany, Oct 14, 2018. Reuters CSU leader Horst Seehofer has been a thorn in Merkel's side since her 2015 decision to open Germany's borders to more than 1 million migrants, gradually shifting his party to the right in an ultimately futile effort to counter the rise of the AfD. Bavarian State Prime Minister Markus Soeder of the Christian Social Union Party (CSU) reacts after first exit polls in the Bavarian state election in Munich, Germany, Oct 14, 2018. Reuters Michael Weigl, political scientist at the University of Passau, said personal attacks on Merkel by Seehofer - who is the federal interior minister - and his hard-line rhetoric against asylum seekers were to blame for the CSU's weak result. "This created a political climate of polarisation from which the Greens and the AfD benefited the most, with their clear stances on immigration," Weigl said. "For the CSU, this strategy backfired." Asked if he would resign as CSU leader, Seehofer told broadcaster ZDF he was not ruling this out but there were many reasons for the party's weak result which had to be analysed. The AfD won 10.7 percent of the vote, the preliminary results showed. The Free Voters, a protest party that is the CSU's most likely coalition party, won 11.6 percent. The CSU has ruled out an alliance with the AfD. INFIGHTING Divisions between Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and the CSU - conservative sister parties - have widened since an inconclusive national election forced them into a coalition in March with the Social Democrats. The Bavarian election is followed in two weeks by another test for Merkel's conservative alliance, known as the Union: her CDU is likely to remain the largest party but lose votes in an election in the western state of Hesse, home to the financial centre of Frankfurt. The CDU then holds its annual congress in December, when Merkel will seek re-election as party chairwoman - a bid senior conservatives have backed despite the parliamentary party ousting her ally, Volker Kauder, as leader last month. Before the Bavarian vote, Merkel urged her CDU and CSU allies to end their infighting. Her fourth and probably final government has already come close to collapsing twice, in arguments over immigration and a scandal over a former spymaster. Jan Techau at The German Marshall Fund of the United States think-tank described Merkel as "exhausted and weakened". "And yet, her strategy to keep the Union firmly in the middle does not look so silly after this result for the CSU," he said. "Whether this temporary reprieve can hold or not will depend on the result in Hesse."

Dhaka, Mar 9 (bdnews24.com)—An international bankers' group has committed to reach financial products to a billion customers, most of who have been left out of traditional banking services. The Global Alliance for Banking on Values, an independent network of 11 sustainable banks, made the commitment on Tuesday at the end of a three-day conference in Dhaka. "The members of the GABV have committed to touch the lives of one billion people by 2020," Fazle Hasan Abed, founder-chairperson of BRAC and co-founder of the GABV, told a press conference. "This is a major new pledge that could transform lives on a truly global scale, and make a substantial difference in our efforts to combat climate change," he added. Representatives from the banks, from Asia to Latin America, gathered to try building a viable future for the financial industry through the three-day seminar that began on March 6. The GABV, initiated in March 2009, uses finance to deliver sustainable development instruments for the unserved people, communities and the environment. It represents around seven million customers in 20 countries, with a combined capital of over $14 billion. It has already announced a commitment to raise $250 million in new capital over three years to support the expansion of $2 billion in lending to green projects and unserved communities around the world. The money is expected to be raised by investors—including existing individual customers, institutions and new investors. The alliance expects that the serving more customers is possible through expansion of the network's membership and by creation of new such banks, according to the statement. The network's members plan to promote and demonstrate the impact of business models which focus on solutions to the world's most urgent social and environmental problems. Peter Blom, chair and co-founder of the GABV, said, "We need to raise more money and invest in the sustainable bankers of the future so we can use this finance to its full potential. "This commitment is an important line in the sand," he added. Blom is the CEO of a GABV member Triodos Bank, based in the Netherlands. "We believe values-led banking can and should make a positive difference to the lives of one in six people within ten years," Blom said. Extending this capital substantially in future years will help to reach the one billion targets, participants from the member banks observed.

President George W Bush will welcome German Chancellor Angela Merkel to his Texas ranch on Friday where they will seek to show unity on Iran even as Tehran defies the West over its nuclear program. Bush extends invitations to Crawford, Texas, to signal a special relationship and Merkel will spend two days at the 1,600-acre (647.5-hectare) ranch where the leaders may go hiking between talks on world issues. "The Western White House provides a wonderful setting for a social visit, as well as a place to have a wide ranging discussion on many issues," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. Merkel will be the second European ally this week to be treated as a special guest by Bush, coming on the heels of French President Nicolas Sarkozy who on Wednesday was given a tour of Mount Vernon, the Virginia home of George Washington, the first US president. With just over a year left in office, Bush is determined to keep up the pressure on Iran over its nuclear program. Iran has refused to agree to UN demands to halt nuclear work that could have both civilian and military uses. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said Iran's nuclear program is irreversible and that Tehran has 3,000 centrifuges in its underground Natanz plant. As German companies conduct trade with Iran, the United States has taken a stronger stance against Tehran. 'EYE-TO-EYE' "Strategically, we see eye-to-eye. Tactically, there are some slight differences," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council. Earlier this week Merkel said Germany would support a new round of tougher UN sanctions against Iran if Tehran did not address international concerns about its nuclear program. Bush recently escalated his criticism of Iran by raising the specter of World War Three if the Islamic republic acquired a nuclear weapon, which alarmed some European allies. bdnews24.com/lq/1238hrs The Bush administration insists that it is committed to pursuing diplomacy, but also says all options are on the table. Perino said the two leaders would discuss Iran "and the need for our countries to work together on the diplomatic track to get Iran to halt its uranium reprocessing and enrichment." They will also talk about Afghanistan, the Middle East, Iraq, climate change and economic issues such as the Doha trade round, she said. A senior German official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Merkel and Sarkozy had agreed to voice a common position on Iran, the Middle East peace process, and climate change in their conversations with Bush. Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States are expected to meet this month to discuss reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's compliance with international demands. Daniel Benjamin, an analyst at the Brookings Institution, said U.S.-German relations have improved since Merkel took over from Gerhard Schroeder.

Perforated shells discovered in a limestone cave in eastern Morocco are the oldest adornments ever found and show humans used symbols in Africa 40,000 years before Europe, the kingdom's government said. The small oval Nassarius mollusc shells, some dyed with red ochre, were probably pierced to be strung into necklaces or bracelets 82,000 years ago. "This classes the adornments in Pigeon's Cave at Taforalt as older than those discovered previously in Algeria, South Africa and Palestine," the Culture Ministry said in a statement. The find represents "a big step in the understanding of cultural innovations and the role they played in human history." Morocco has yielded important prehistoric finds including one of the oldest known dinosaur skeletons but little is known of the humans that inhabited the region before Berber farmers settled over 2,000 years ago. The shells were found and dated by a team of scientists from Morocco, Britain, France and Germany trying to find out how climate and landscape change affected human behavior between 130,000 and 13,000 years ago. The work is part of a broader study into whether the Strait of Gibraltar dividing Morocco from Spain acted as a corridor or a barrier for early humans trying to move between Africa and Europe.

GENEVA, Sun Sep 28, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The hurricane tearing through financial markets has had a muted impact so far on trade flows. But with inadequate regulation widely blamed for the biggest financial disaster since the 1929 Wall Street Crash, the debacle is reinforcing calls to strengthen the rules of commerce by agreeing a new trade deal. "If we can conclude the negotiation we can send a positive signal to the world economy, to business people, because the Doha round is a round of liberalisation of trade and investment," said China's deputy World Trade Organisation (WTO) ambassador, Xiang Zhang. Conversely, failure to agree a deal now after seven years could lead to a new crisis of confidence in business, said Zhang, who was instrumental in steering China into the WTO. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy still hopes to reach an outline deal on agriculture and industrial goods by the end of the year in the WTO's Doha round, launched in 2001, even though ministers failed to secure a breakthrough in July. Both Lamy and EU trade chief Peter Mandelson warned last week the financial crisis could fan protectionism, which would hurt economic growth, making a new trade deal to secure the benefits of globalisation all the more urgent. The crisis could also monopolise the attention of countries' leaders, distracting them from trade issues and getting a deal. Agreement on a proposed $700 billion bailout for the U.S. financial industry, which could be announced on Sunday, would go some way to easing that concern. DELAYED IMPACT Any trade deal, which would not be finalised until well into 2009 or even 2010 at the earliest, would not have an immediate impact on flows because of implementation periods of 5 years for rich countries and up to 17 years for developing nations. That delayed economic effect would also argue against any immediate financial market impact, as exchange rates or company earnings would respond only later to changing trade flows. A deal would boost business confidence, by showing that barriers to business were coming down, that the world trading system was in good shape, and that the international community was able to cooperate to solve global problems, experts said. In any case, existing WTO deals limit the extent to which countries can raise tariffs, said Fredrik Erixon, head of Brussels trade policy think-tank ECIPE. "I don't think we are going to see a 1930s repetition where a financial crisis is going to lead to tit-for-tat economic nationalism as it did then," he said. The prospects for a new trade deal opening up markets may not seem propitious in a climate where deregulation is blamed for the crisis, and Anglo-Saxon laissez-faire liberalisation has has come under attack from French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck. That atmosphere could hurt one aspect of the talks -- liberalising trade in financial services, diplomats said. But, at a meeting in July where governments signalled a readiness to open up markets to different services, the credit crunch did not seem to force negotiators to hold back on banking. In any case, there is a difference between market access, which is what trade negotiations are about, and financial contagion, which is a matter for regulators, said John Cooke, chairman of the Liberalisation of Trade in Services Committee, which promotes U.K. financial services around the world. "The fact remains that the world will continue to globalise: with more trade and investment there will be more international dependencies between the real economies of different economies. And, as trade and investment develop, they have to be financed." Trade rounds are not just about liberalising commerce but also about drawing up rules for the international trading system that are fair to all countries. For instance in the current Doha round developing countries are seeking the reduction of rich nations' agricultural subsidies, which artificially depress prices, squeezing farmers in poor countries out of the market. Munir Ahmed, secretary-general of the International Textiles and Clothing Bureau, compared such subsidies to short-selling, where investors borrow and sell shares they believe overvalued, hoping to buy them back at a lower price and pocket the difference. The practice has been widely blamed for falls in bank stocks in recent weeks. "The first casualty of a failed Doha round would be the loss of opportunity to set regulations on many areas of international commerce," said Ahmed, a former Pakistani ambassador to the WTO. The financial crisis also adds urgency to a Doha deal by serving as a reminder that good times do not last for ever. With business booming over the past few years, many companies have seen little need to push for a reform to trade rules that would prevent a resurgence of protectionism. So businesses have not lobbied as aggressively for a deal as in previous rounds, and so governments may have felt under less pressure to conclude one. That would mean that unilateral tariff and subsidy cuts they have made could be reversed. "If the financial world goes backwards you can go backwards, and the only bulwark against that is to shrink down the entitlements that people have to go backwards," said New Zealand's WTO ambassador, Crawford Falconer, who chairs agriculture negotiations at the WTO. "I think that's an added reason, not the only reason, it's an added reason which I think has more force than ever before for getting this damned job done now."

Dhaka, Apr 30 (bdnews24.com)— The government and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) signed an agreement Thursday in a first-ever field-level project that directly targets vulnerable people living in communities in coastal areas. The new project is styled "Community-based Adaptation to Climate Change through Coastal Afforestation in Bangladesh". The UND says in a press statement the project intends to enhance the resilience of both coastal communities, and protective ecosystems through community-led adaptation interventions. "Adaptation to climate change has become the new development challenge for Bangladesh. As such, this is the right project to take significant measures towards demonstrating adaptation strategies for vulnerable coastal communities," said UNDP country director Stefan Priesner. The project also aims to enhance the national, sub-national and local capacities of government authorities and sectoral planners to understand climate risk dynamics in coastal areas and implement appropriate risk reduction measures. The five coastal districts in which the project will be operated are Barguna, Patuakhali, Bhola, Noakhali and Chittagong. The project aims to be a show-case for other least developed countries also working on climate change adaptation projects. The results of the project will be presented before the upcoming Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December.

New genetic evidence supports the theory that Christopher Columbus brought syphilis to Europe from the New World, US researchers said on Monday, reviving a centuries-old debate about the origins of the disease. They said a genetic analysis of the syphilis family tree reveals that its closest relative was a South American cousin that causes yaws, an infection caused by a sub-species of the same bacteria. "Some people think it is a really ancient disease that our earliest human ancestors would have had. Other people think it came from the New World," said Kristin Harper, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University in Atlanta. "What we found is that syphilis or a progenitor came from the New World to the Old World and this happened pretty recently in human history," said Harper, whose study appears in journal Public Library of Science Neglected Tropical Diseases. She said the study lends credence to the "Columbian theory," which links the first recorded European syphilis epidemic in 1495 to the return of Columbus and his crew. "When you put together our genetic data with that epidemic in Naples in 1495, that is pretty strong support for the Columbian hypothesis," she said. Syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum, starts out as a sore, but progresses to a rash, fever, and eventually can cause blindness, paralysis and dementia. Most recent evidence of its origins comes from skeletal remains found in both the New World and the Old World. Chronic syphilis can leave telltale lesions on bone. "It has a worm-eaten appearance," Harper said in a telephone interview. SYPHILIS FAMILY TREE Harper used an approach that examines the evolutionary relationships between organisms known as phylogenetics. She looked at 26 strains of Treponema, the family of bacteria that give rise to syphilis and related diseases like bejel and yaws, typically a childhood disease that is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact. The study included two strains of yaws from remote areas of Guyana in South America that had never been sequenced before. "We sequenced 21 different regions trying to find DNA changes between the strains," Harper said. They concluded that while yaws is an ancient infection, venereal syphilis came about fairly recently. Harper suspects a nonvenereal subspecies of the tropical disease quickly evolved into venereal syphilis that could survive in the cooler, European climate. But it is not clear how this took place. "All we can say is the ancestor of syphilis came from the New World, but what exactly it was like, we don't know," she said. In a commentary published in the same journal, Connie Mulligan of the University of Florida and colleagues disagreed with Harper's analysis, suggesting her conclusions relied too heavily on genetic changes from the Guyana samples. Mulligan suggested that better clues would come from DNA extracted from ancient bones or preserved tissues. Harper concedes that more work needs to be done to explain the journey of syphilis to the New World. "This is a grainy photograph," she said.

Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi held a rare meeting with a government minister on Monday, raising the prospect of a thaw in relations between the Nobel Peace laureate and the country's new military-backed leadership. Suu Kyi, who was only informed about the meeting on Sunday, talked for just over an hour with Labour Minister Aung Kyi at a state guesthouse in what was the first known contact between the 66-year-old and a member of the new, nominally civilian government. In a joint statement, both parties said they were positive and satisfied with the meeting, in which they had discussed issues that would be of benefit to Myanmar's people. Suu Kyi, the figurehead of the fight against military dictatorship in Myanmar, already knew Aung Kyi, having met him on nine occasions since 2007 while she was in detention and he was a minister liaising between her and the junta. Aung Kyi dismissed suggestions those meetings were a waste of time and said he hoped for further dialogue with Suu Kyi. "There were some benefits from previous meetings and we expect better results from these talks," Aung Kyi told reporters. With Suu Kyi beside him, Aung Kyi read a joint statement to the media. "Discussions were focussed on possibilities for cooperating in the interests of the people," he said. "This included the rule of law and overcoming disunity, and matters that will benefit the public." A new government took office in April, ending 49 years of direct military rule over the former British colony. Since her release from seven years of house arrest last November, Suu Kyi has made repeated calls for dialogue with the new rulers. SIGNS OF PROGRESS Nyan Win, a spokesman for the National League for Democracy (NLD), Suu Kyi's active but officially disbanded party, said the political climate had changed and the government's invitation to Suu Kyi indicated some progress. Suu Kyi has been careful not to antagonise the government since her release and did not criticise a November 7 election regarded at home and abroad as a sham that ensured the same regime stayed in power behind a veneer of democracy. The government and military appear to have backed off from their tough stance towards Suu Kyi, occasionally criticising her in state-run media but allowing her freedom to travel and meet with diplomats, journalists and supporters. Analysts say the government is aware that any move against Suu Kyi would anger the international community and rule out the possibility of Western sanctions being lifted in the near future. Dialogue with Suu Kyi could be a move by Myanmar's reclusive leaders, many of them former military officers, to show foreign governments they are ready to engage. Christopher Roberts, a Southeast Asia specialist at Australian National University, said the meeting was probably more than a publicity stunt. "It comes as part of a collective pattern of behaviour by the government that has potential for incremental improvements," he said. "Myanmar is trying to build a system and image of a real government and I think it wants to normalise things. Not only have its leaders met US, Australian and UN representatives, they've allowed them to meet Suu Kyi, too. "It will do these things, as long as they don't undermine security or stability," Roberts added.

Australia's reliance on coal-fired power makes it one of the world's largest carbon emitters per capita, but its conservative government has steadfastly backed Australia's new deputy PM casts shadow over 2050 net-zero emissions ambition fossil fuel industries, saying tougher action on emissions would cost jobs. "We fully understand the role that coal and other fossil fuels have played in Australia's economy, even if mining accounts for a small fraction - around 2 percent - of overall jobs," Hart said in a speech at the Australian National University in Canberra. "But it's essential to have a broader, more honest and rational conversation about what is in Australia's interests." The UN has called for phasing out coal by 2030 in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, which include Australia. In July, energy and environment ministers from the Group of 20 big economies failed to deliver a deal to phase out coal by 2025. But some experts said there were chances of progress at UN climate talks in Glasgow in November. Prime Minister Scott Morrison has said Australia is on a path to net-zero carbon emissions but has stopped short of committing to a timeline. He has said that Australia would update its 2030 emissions projections going into the Glasgow talks. Most other developed countries have signed up to a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. Hart said that the Australian government should "seize the moment" and switch to renewables. "If the world does not rapidly phase out coal, climate change will wreak havoc right across the Australian economy: from agriculture to tourism, and right across the services sector," he said.

His full tweet: "The newly created Disinformation Board should review this tweet, or maybe they need to form a new Non Sequitur Board instead. Raising corp taxes is fine to discuss. Taming inflation is critical to discuss. Mushing them together is just misdirection." Still bristling, Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, fired again Sunday, the DealBook newsletter reports. He lauded Joe Manchin, the centrist West Virginia senator who has often declined to vote with other Democrats on economic issues, halting additional stimulus plans. “Manchin saved them from themselves,” Bezos wrote, plunging the company into politics at a fraught time internally, amid an employee unionization push. Externally, many executives recently have been trying to stay out of difficult debates, given the backlash some companies have faced. Wrangling with the government over taxes on Twitter means calling public attention to a touchy topic for Amazon. The company reported nearly $36 billion in US pretax income in 2021 yet said it owed only about $2 billion in federal taxes. That’s a 6 percent tax rate — less than a third of the rates both corporations and workers must pay. When Biden unveiled plans to raise rates and close tax loopholes last year, he singled out Amazon, saying, “I don’t want to punish them, but that’s just wrong.” Amazon did not respond to DealBook’s request for comment. Disney last month lost its special tax status in Florida after opposing a law limiting gender identity discussions in schools. Now, Republican lawmakers at the state and federal levels are drafting similarly retributive legislation for politically minded businesses. But for executives, it’s a balance. Many workers, shareholders and customers are demanding that corporations speak up, and pressure could increase now that abortion rights have become a major midterm election issue. So Amazon’s current chief executive, Andy Jassy, is probably not looking for this fight right now. Bezos, for his part, quietly butters up the government, just like Elon Musk. While both have been publicly critical of the Biden administration, Bezos’ Blue Origin and Musk’s SpaceX spend significant resources lobbying officials to pick up their space exploration tabs and to win NASA contracts. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, has accused the two billionaires of using NASA like an ATM. He tweeted at Bezos on Saturday about Amazon’s labour issues and soaring profits: "No, Mr. Bezos. Disinformation is Amazon spreading anti-union propaganda & forcing workers to attend illegal captive audience meetings. Disinformation is Amazon blaming a 17 percent price increase on 'inflation' while making a record $35 billion in profits & avoiding $5 billion in taxes." © 2022 The New York Times Company

Trump, tapping into the "America First" message he used when he was elected president last year, said the Paris accord would undermine the US economy, cost US jobs, weaken American national sovereignty and put the country at a permanent disadvantage to the other countries of the world. "We're getting out," Trump said at a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden under sunny skies on a warm June day, fulfilling a major election campaign pledge. "We don't want other leaders and other countries laughing at us any more. And they won't be," Trump said. "The same nations asking us to stay in the agreement are the countries that have collectively cost America trillions of dollars through tough trade practices and in many cases lax contributions to our critical military alliance," Trump added. Republican US congressional leaders backed Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell applauded Trump "for dealing yet another significant blow to the Obama administration's assault on domestic energy production and jobs." Supporters of the accord, including some leading US business figures, called Trump's move a blow to international efforts to tackle dangers for the planet posed by global warming. Former Democratic President Barack Obama expressed regret over the pullout from a deal he was instrumental in brokering. "But even in the absence of American leadership; even as this administration joins a small handful of nations that reject the future; I'm confident that our states, cities, and businesses will step up and do even more to lead the way, and help protect for future generations the one planet we've got," Obama added. Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, said his administration would begin negotiations either to re-enter the Paris accord or to have a new agreement "on terms that are fair to the United States, its businesses, its workers, its people, its taxpayers." He complained in particular about China's terms under the agreement. International leaders reacted with disappointment, even anger. "The decision made by US President Trump amounts to turning their backs on the wisdom of humanity. I'm very disappointed... I am angry," Japanese Environment Minister Koichi Yamamoto told a news conference on Friday in an unusually frank tone. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said in a rare joint statement the agreement could not be renegotiated and urged their allies to hasten efforts to combat climate change and adapt. "While the US decision is disheartening, we remain inspired by the growing momentum around the world to combat climate change and transition to clean growth economies," said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. A summit between Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and top European Union officials in Brussels on Friday will end with a joint statement - the first ever issued by China and the EU - committing both sides to full implementation of the Paris accord. Speaking in Berlin a day earlier, Premier Li said China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, would stick to its commitment to fight climate change. "We made the decision to join, and I don't think we will (change) it," Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich was quoted as saying by RIA news agency. In India, one of the world's fastest growing major economies and a growing contributor to pollution, a top advisor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi vouched for intentions to switch to renewable power generation independent of the Paris accord. "The prime minister is very keen on this," Arvind Panagariya said. ISOLATED With Trump's action, the United States will walk away from nearly every other nation in the world on one of the pressing global issues of the 21st century. Syria and Nicaragua are the only other non-participants in the accord, signed by 195 nations in Paris in 2015. Fiji's Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama, who is the incoming head of the UN Climate Change Conferences, which formalized the 2015 pact, said Trump's decision was "deeply disappointing". Fiji, like many other small island nations, is seen as particularly vulnerable to global warming and a possible rise in ocean levels as a result of melting polar ice. US business leaders voiced exasperation with the Trump administration. "Today's decision is a setback for the environment and for the US's leadership position in the world," Goldman Sachs Group Inc Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein wrote on Twitter. Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk and Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger said they would leave White House advisory councils after Trump's move. Under the Paris accord, which took years to reach, rich and poor countries committed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases generated by burning fossil fuels that are blamed by scientists for warming the planet. "I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris," Trump said. Pittsburgh's mayor, Democrat Bill Peduto, shot back on Twitter that his city, long the heart of the US steel industry, actually embraced the Paris accord. The spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the action a "major disappointment." The UN body that handles climate negotiations said the accord could not be renegotiated based on the request of a single nation. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, speaking in Singapore on Friday, also called the US decision "disappointing... but not at all surprising," adding that Australia remained "committed to our Paris commitments." South Korea's foreign ministry said in a statement "it is regrettable that the US withdrawal from the Paris climate accord will undermine international responsibility and efforts to respond to climate change." 'DEVASTATING HARM' Trump said the United States would stop payments to the UN Green Climate Fund, in which rich countries committed billions of dollars to help developing nations deal with floods, droughts and other impacts from climate change. The White House said it would stick to UN rules for withdrawing from the pact. Those rules require a nation to wait three years from the date the pact gained legal force, Nov. 4, 2016, before formally seeking to leave. That country must then wait another year. Apple CEO Tim Cook expressed disappointment and said in an email to employees that he had spoken with Trump on Tuesday to try to persuade him to stay in the Paris accord. "It wasn't enough," he said. Other business leaders warned that the US economy would give away technological leadership. General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt said he was disappointed, adding: "Climate change is real. Industry must now lead and not depend on government." Democrats also blasted Trump. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called the decision "one of the worst policy moves made in the 21st century because of the huge damage to our economy, our environment and our geopolitical standing." The United States had committed to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent from 2005 levels by 2025. The United States accounts for more than 15 percent of total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, second only to China. Leading climate scientists say greenhouse gas emissions trap heat in the atmosphere and have caused a warming planet, sea level rise, droughts and more frequent violent storms. A "Global Trends" report prepared by the US Director of National Intelligence's office, released on Jan. 9, warned that climate change posed security risks because of extreme weather, stress on water and food, and global tensions over how to manage the changes. Last year was the warmest since records began in the 19th Century, as global average temperatures continued a rise dating back decades that scientists attribute to greenhouse gases. Frank Rijsberman, Director-General of Seoul based Global Green Growth Institute expected international funding for investment needed to fight climate change would suffer, noting a $1 billion reduction in U.S. funding the Green Climate Fund in South Korea. Economists said the US withdrawal would potentially cost US jobs. China and the EU both already employ more workers in the renewable energy sector than the United States, according to the data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena). "Winding back the climate agenda means that the US will be left behind in the clean energy transition as other global players, such as in Europe and China, demonstrate greater commitment to deploying low carbon and job-creating solutions to climate change," said Peter Kiernan, of the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Alibaba promised to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 in its own direct emissions - known as "scope 1" - as well as its indirect "scope 2" emissions - derived from the consumption of electricity or heating. It also said it would reduce carbon intensity - the amount of carbon per unit of revenue - from the "scope 3" emissions - produced across its wider value chain in areas such as transportation, purchased goods and services and waste - by 50% by 2030. The company also pledged to cut overall CO2 across all its businesses by 1.5 gigatonnes by 2035. To achieve its goals, Alibaba plans to deploy new energy-saving, high-efficiency technologies, make further use of renewables and also explore "carbon removal initiatives" that could extract climate-warming greenhouse gas from the atmosphere. Daniel Zhang, the company's chief executive, said the company also sought to "mobilise actions and behavioural changes among consumers, merchants and partners in China and around the world". President Xi Jinping announced last year that China would aim to become carbon neutral by around 2060, putting the country's giant corporations under pressure to draw up their own roadmaps to reach "net zero". But China's giant tech firms remain hugely dependent on the country's coal-dominated energy system, with only a small number so far committed to switching to renewable sources of electricity. In a report published earlier this year, environment group Greenpeace ranked Tencent Holdings as the best-performing Chinese cloud service provider in terms of procuring renewable energy and cutting emissions. Huawei Technologies came second, Baidu Inc third and Alibaba fourth.

Europe secured the world's widest agreement to battle climate change on Friday after paying east European states to accept changes that will punish their heavily polluting power sectors and ramp up electricity prices. The historic deal to cut carbon dioxide by a fifth by 2020 was secured despite an economic crisis by allowing a myriad of exemptions for industry, sparking criticism from environmental groups. "This is a flagship EU policy with no captain, a mutinous crew and several gaping holes in it," said Sanjeev Kumar of environment pressure group WWF. But French President Nicolas Sarkozy rejected that view, saying: "This is quite historic." "You will not find another continent in this world that has given itself such binding rules as we have just adopted," he added. The agreement came after a year-long battle dominated by a struggle between eastern and western Europe over the costs. The nine east European nations were seen as the final blockage to agreeing a package of measures aimed at tackling climate change but which will ramp up costs for their highly polluting coal-fired power sectors. Two swathes of funding will be distributed to them taken from around 12 percent of revenues from the EU's flagship emissions trading scheme (ETS), which makes industry buy permits to pollute. The money is partly framed as a reward for the massive drop in emissions they experienced when their industry collapsed in the wake of communism. Their power sectors were also partially exempted from paying for emissions permits from the ETS on a sliding scale starting with paying for 30 percent of emissions in 2013, rising to 100 percent in 2020. BAD GUY Hungary had battled to the end of negotiations for more money, while Italy fought to protect its glass, ceramics, paper and cast iron industries, and eventually dropped a threat to block the deal. "I can't use any veto on the climate question because I can't cast myself in the bad-guy role since the left would use this position to fight me politically," said Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Measures were agreed to reduce the risk that carbon curbs would hurt European industry and reduce its ability to compete with less regulated rivals overseas. The biggest threats are seen for steel, aluminum, cement and chemicals. European industries exposed to international competition will receive free emissions permits if they will see a 5 percent increase in costs, a measure that is viewed as covering over 90 percent of EU industry. Britain came away having secured a boost to funding for innovative technology to capture and bury emissions from power stations underground in depleted North Sea gas fields. "Gordon Brown made clear this was one of his priorities not only because of the environment benefits, but also because it offer Europe the opportunity to lead the pack, securing jobs and growth," said a British diplomat.

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

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

The Constitutional Court annulled the election on Friday and the chairman of the Election Commission said it would be months before a new vote could be held, leaving Yingluck at the head of an enfeebled caretaker government with limited powers. The crisis is the latest chapter in an eight-year battle between Bangkok's middle class and royalist establishment against supporters of Yingluck and Thaksin Shinawatra, her brother, who was ousted as premier by the army in 2006. He lives in Dubai to avoid a jail term for abuse of power. After months of restraint, Thaksin's "red shirts" supporters are making militant noises under hardline new leaders. "On April 5, red brothers and sisters, pack your belongings and be ready for a major assembly. The destination may be Bangkok or other places, it will be announced later," Jatuporn Prompan, chairman of the "red-shirts" United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship, told supporters late on Saturday. Jatuporn helped organize a "red-shirts" uprising against a previous government that ended in a bloody military crackdown in May 2010. More than 90 people were killed during the protests in central Bangkok. Jatuporn still faces terrorism charges related to the violence in 2010. In the latest political crisis, 23 people have died and more than 700 have been wounded since November. Speaking to an estimated 10,000 people in Pattaya southeast of Bangkok, another leader, Nisit Sintuprai, sent a warning to Suthep Thaugsuban, the former opposition politician who has led the protests against Yingluck since November. "One big reason why we are on the move again is to tell Suthep that the majority in this country want democracy, want government through elections. We cannot accept a prime minister nominated by your people," he said. Suthep's People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) wants unspecified electoral changes before any election, aiming to dilute the influence of Thaksin and his massive support among the rural poor in the north and northeast. Parties led by or allied to Thaksin have won every election since 2001 and Yingluck's Puea Thai Party is widely expected to win any election held under current arrangements. IMPEACHMENT LOOMS FOR PM YINGLUCK Suthep's supporters disrupted the election on February 2 and prevented voting in 28 constituencies. The Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that made the ballot illegal because voting is supposed to be held across the country on the same day. The Election Commission will meet on Monday to decide how to proceed, but it had been reluctant to hold the February election because of the political climate and may push for talks between the opposing sides before setting a new polling date. It is far from clear that Yingluck's caretaker government can struggle on much longer. The most immediate threat is her possible impeachment for alleged dereliction of duty over a disastrous rice-buying scheme that has run up huge losses. This scheme bolstered Yingluck's support in a 2011 election but thousands of farmers, normally solid supporters of Thaksin, have demonstrated in Bangkok this year because they have not been paid for their rice. Yingluck has to defend herself before an anti-corruption commission by March 31 and a decision to impeach her could come soon after that. She could then be removed from office by the upper house Senate, which is likely to have an anti-Thaksin majority after an election for half of its members on March 30. Some analysts say it will fall to the Senate to then appoint a "neutral" prime minister, probably the type of establishment figure the anti-government protesters have been demanding. "Independent agencies are being quite obvious that they want to remove her and her entire cabinet to create a power vacuum, claim that elections can't be held and then nominate a prime minister of their choice," said Kan Yuenyong, an analyst at the Siam Intelligence Unit, referring to the courts and the anti-corruption commission. "If they run with this plan, then the government's supporters will fight back and the next half of the year will be much worse than what we saw in the first half," he said. VIOLENCE DAMAGES ECONOMY Encouraged by the dwindling number of protesters and relative calm on the streets, the government lifted a state of emergency on March 19. But three grenades exploded around midnight on Thursday near the home of a Constitutional Court judge ahead of the election ruling and police said a car bomb went off early on Saturday near a PDRC camp in north Bangkok and near a government administrative complex protesters have disrupted for weeks. Explosive devices went off in three incidents late on Friday in Chiang Mai province, a Thaksin stronghold, and one person was seriously injured, police said. One target was Boon Rawd Brewery, which makes Singha beer. A member of the family that owns it has been prominent in PDRC rallies. Consumer confidence is at a 12-year low, prompting the central bank on Friday to cut its economic growth forecast for 2014 to 2.7 percent from 3 percent. In October last year, just before the protests flared up, it had forecast 4.8 percent. The stock market barely moved after Friday's court decision. Some stock analysts have taken the scrapping of the election as a positive move, believing it will spur negotiations between the political opponents. Rating agency Standard and Poor's took a different view. "We believe the Thai court's decision dims prospects for any near-term resolution of Thailand's political split and is in line with our expectations of protracted and possibly increasing political risks," Agost Benard, its associate director of sovereign ratings, said in a statement.

Japan will call for an early solution to a feud with China over disputed gas fields when foreign ministers meet for broad-ranging talks in Beijing this weekend, a Japanese ministry official said. Frosty relations between the Asian neighbours have thawed over the past year -- an improvement symbolised by this week's landmark port call to Tokyo by a Chinese missile destroyer. But the dispute over how to develop natural gas in the East China Sea has shown scant signs of a solution. "I hope the Chinese side will make a political decision on this issue to make a final agreement," the Japanese foreign ministry official told reporters on Thursday. "The Chinese side is very much aware of the importance of reaching an agreement on this issue," he said, adding Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura would raise the issue in talks with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Beijing on Saturday. Those talks will be followed by others on macro-economic policies and Beijing's currency reforms, climate change, and trade and investment. An 11th round of talks on how to develop natural gas in the East China Sea ended earlier this month with no sign of progress, prompting Japan's top government spokesman to say the dispute could affect a planned visit to China by Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda. China quickly denied that that was the case. The Japanese official said that resolving the gas feud was not a precondition for Fukuda's visit, which Tokyo has said could be later this year or early in 2008. But he noted that then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao had agreed in April that the two sides would report to their leaders on a compromise in the autumn. "This is the timing for us to accelerate the efforts," he said. "(It is) not only the economic implications, but Japanese public opinion." Both sides are eager to secure new oil and gas supplies but disagree over where the maritime boundary separating their exclusive economic zones should lie. China's state-controlled CNOOC Ltd said in April that it had begun producing gas from Tianwaitian field and was ready to begin producing from the larger Chunxiao field in the area, raising fears in resource-poor Japan fears that such production could siphon gas from what Tokyo sees as its side of the zone.

President Barack Obama told Turkish and Mexican leaders on Saturday that WikiLeaks' actions were "deplorable" as the US administration kept up damage control efforts over the website's embarrassing release of masses of secret US cables. In Obama's separate calls with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and Mexican President Felipe Calderon, the leaders all agreed that WikiLeaks' campaign would not harm their countries' ties with Washington, the White House said. The leaks touching on US relations in virtually every part of the world have threatened to increase tensions with allies, spurring US officials to seek to prevent foreign friends from reducing engagement on sensitive matters. Documents relating to Turkey showed US diplomats casting doubt on the reliability of their NATO ally and portraying its leadership as divided. In Obama's call to Erdogan on Saturday, the two discussed "the enduring importance of the US-Turkish partnership and affirmed their commitment to work together on a broad range of issues," the White House said. "The president expressed his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks and the two leaders agreed that it will not influence or disrupt the close cooperation between the United States and Turkey," it said. Obama made similar comments to Calderon, which the US leader used to praise his Mexican counterpart for the outcome of an international climate change conference in Cancun. "The presidents also underscored the importance of the US-Mexico partnership across a broad range of issues," the White House said. "The presidents discussed the deplorable actions by WikiLeaks and agreed its irresponsible acts should not distract our two countries from our important cooperation." According to State Department documents made public by WikiLeaks, a top Mexican official said the government was in danger of losing control of parts of the country to powerful drug cartels.

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”.

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

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

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."

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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."

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

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.

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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

The EU has said this nearly €1.1 billion allocation is the highest EU humanitarian budget for life-saving relief in man-made and natural disasters to date. The 28-nation bloc is the first humanitarian assistance partner of Bangladesh, with a number of projects currently on-going in various regions of the country. It provided €0.5 million aid to Bangladesh's flood-affected people this year in August, in addition to its project support. The EU said this new record budget comes as global humanitarian needs are increasing due to the growing number of refugees and displaced persons as a result of armed conflict, the increasing impact of natural disasters, climate change and economic crises. “Next year we'll have a record budget due to tragically high levels of needs,” Christos Stylianides, EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management, said while announcing the budget in Brussels on Wednesday. “The EU will continue to play its role to address the needs of the most vulnerable and can be proud to remain among the leading global donors of humanitarian assistance in 2016”. The 2016 humanitarian budget will, among other things, address the external dimensions of the refugee crisis in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, the Western Balkans and Iraq. The funding will also help vulnerable and displaced people in Colombia, Myanmar and Afghanistan, which otherwise escape the attention of the international community.  As a particular priority, the European Commission is set to increase in 2016 its humanitarian funding for education in emergencies from one percent to four percent of the EU's overall humanitarian budget, meeting the target set by the UN. Other priorities include helping vulnerable communities prepare for and better cope with recurrent natural disasters, such as those of South East Asia, as well as improve aid delivery, the EU said in a statement.

It is an innovative web-based computer model, showing the country's energy demand and supply and how they interact with the country’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction target.Styled ‘Bangladesh 2050 Energy Pathway’s Calculator’ (BD2050), this is the first-of-its-kind online software model that integrates energy generation and usage, and is tied to carbon emissions and the use of land in Bangladesh.It can help policymakers to choose which energy source should be used for less climate impacts.Available to the public, users can try and balance energy sources against energy demand between now and 2050 and see what impact that will have on the country.A team of researchers of Cardiff University led by British-origin Bangladeshi Dr Monjur Mourshed tailored the calculator for Bangladesh.The UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change, and Bangladesh’s Ministry of Power, Energy and Mineral Resources supported the endeavour. This is the 11th calculator the UK department launched and first for any least developed country.“Our calculator is being used in the UK, Japan, China and India,” Dr Mourshed said after the launch at a Dhaka hotel on Thursday.He added, “BD2050 is designed to enable the Bangladesh Government and the public to explore high-level energy, economy and emission pathway options and their impacts on land-use, electricity, energy security and food.”The calculator can be accessed by anyone, giving opportunity to all sectors of society to influence, debate and lobby with energy-informed discussion.“This is the power of this calculator. Governments know the impacts of any energy source choice that a general person may not know. But using this calculator they will be able to know what the government knows,” Dr Mourshed further said.British High Commissioner in Dhaka Robert Gibson launching the calculator explained why Bangladeshis needed to use it.He said access to energy services was a pre-condition for development and Bangladesh, despite its vulnerability to climate change, had been experiencing sustained economic growth for more than a decade. “But now it faces big choices on the kind of energy infrastructure that it should develop.”“And that is a growing challenge,” Gibson noted, adding that this calculator would help the researchers and decision makers today to “make the right energy investment for tomorrow”.Dr Saleemul Huq, Director, International Centre for Climate Change and Development said at the launch “even though Bangladesh’s own emissions of greenhouse gases are presently low, nevertheless as a good global citizen it must find ways to develop on a low Carbon development pathway.“The Carbon Calculator developed with British assistance is an excellent tool to help Bangladesh plan such a low carbon development pathway.”

The UN climate change chief urged governments on Monday to make real steps towards a new treaty to fight global warming or risk throwing negotiations into doubt. Negotiators are meeting in the northern Chinese port city of Tianjin to try reach agreement on what should follow the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the key treaty on climate change, which expires in 2012. The fraught UN talks have been hobbled by lack of trust between rich and poor nations over climate funds, demand for more transparency over emissions cut pledges and anger over the size of cuts offered by rich nations. Delaying agreement would leave less time for the world to figure out how to rein in greenhouse gas emissions and would add to uncertainties weighing on companies unsure where climate policy and carbon markets are headed after 2012. "Now is the time to accelerate the search for common ground," Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, told hundreds of delegates at the opening session of the Tianjin talks, which last until Saturday. The talks are the last major round before the year's main climate meeting in the Mexican resort of Cancun from Nov. 29. Negotiators from nearly 200 governments failed to agree last year on a new legally binding climate pact. A meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009 ended in bitter sniping between rich and developing countries, and produced a non-binding accord that left many key issues unsettled. Governments are struggling to overcome lingering distrust and turn a sprawling draft treaty dotted with caveats into a binding text, possibly by late 2011. "A concrete outcome in Cancun is crucially needed to restore the faith and ability of parties to take the process forward, to prevent multilateralism from being perceived as a never-ending road," she said in an opening speech at the meeting. DROUGHTS AND FLOODS Recent devastating floods in Pakistan and severe drought in Russia are the kind of severe weather that rising temperatures are likely to magnify if countries fail to make dramatic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, said Wendel Trio, the climate policy coordinator for Greenpeace. "Countries need to show a bit more trust in each other, and for that trust we will need developed countries to come up with some clear signs about them wanting to commit to the pledges they have made in Copenhagen," said Trio, who is at the Tianjin talks. Figueres told Reuters in a separate interview that she hoped the Tianjin talks could agree on important specifics of a future pact, including how to manage adaptation funds and green technology to help poorer countries, and a programme to support carbon-absorbing forests in Brazil, Indonesia and elsewhere. "I think there's a pretty good chance that the governments will agree on the creation of the fund," she said of a proposal to create a climate fund to help poorer nations green their economies. But it might take "a longer period" for governments to agree on the sources of the proposed fund, she added. Even if the negotiations make progress, the current pledges of governments to curb greenhouse gas emissions will not be enough to avoid pushing the world into dangerous global warming, roughly defined as a rise of 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above average pre-industrial temperatures, said Figueres. "They're not enough to guarantee even a two-degree rise in temperature, and we know that a two-degree rise does not guarantee survival for the most vulnerable countries," she said in the interview. Governments should nonetheless focus on securing formal pledges of the emissions cuts already proposed, "fully realising it is a first, necessary but insufficient step", she said.

Satellite images show that a large hunk of Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf has started to collapse in a fast-warming region of the continent, scientists said on Tuesday. The area of collapse measured about 160 square miles (415 square km) of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, according to satellite imagery from the University of Colorado's National Snow and Ice Data Center. The Wilkins Ice Shelf is a broad sheet of permanent floating ice that spans about 5,000 square miles (13,000 square km) and is located on the southwest Antarctic Peninsula about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) south of South America. "Block after block of ice is just tumbling and crumbling into the ocean," Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data Center, said in a telephone interview. "The shelf is not just cracking off and a piece goes drifting away, but totally shattering. These kinds of events, we don't see them very often. But we want to understand them better because these are the things that lead to a complete loss of the ice shelf," Scambos added. Scambos said a large part of the ice shelf is now supported by only a thin strip of ice. This last "ice buttress" could collapse and about half the total ice shelf area could be lost in the next few years, Scambos added. British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan said in a statement: "This shelf is hanging by a thread." "One corner of it that's exposed to the ocean is shattering in a pattern that we've seen in a few places over the past 10 or 15 years. In every case, we've eventually concluded that it's a result of climate warming," Scambos added. Satellite images showing the collapse began on Feb. 28, as a large iceberg measuring 25.5 by 1.5 miles (41 km by 2.4 km) fell away from the ice shelf's southwestern front leading to a runaway disintegration of the shelf interior, Scambos said. A plane also was sent over the area to get photographs of the shelf as it was disintegrating, he added. Scambos said this ice shelf has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing a breakup. In the past half century, the Antarctic Peninsula has witnessed a warming as fast as anywhere on the planet, according to scientists. "The warming that's going on in the peninsula is pretty clearly tied to greenhouse gas increases and the change that they have in the atmospheric circulation around the Antarctic," Scambos said. With Antarctica's summer melt season coming to an end, the he said he does not expect the ice shelf to disintegrate further immediately, but come January scientists will be watching to see if it continues to fall apart.

Several women prevented Philip Hammond from speaking for a few minutes by using loudspeakers to shout slogans during an annual banquet in London's landmark Mansion House building on Thursday evening. Footage posted online by broadcaster ITV showed foreign office minister Mark Field grappling with one of the women and holding her by the back of her neck as he marched her out of the room. He subsequently apologised but a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Friday Field had been suspended from his responsibilities whilst an investigation takes place. "The prime minister has seen the footage and she found it very concerning," she added. Field told ITV his response was due to fears over security. "In the current climate, I felt the need to act decisively to close down the threat to the safety of those present," he said in a statement. His office did not respond to a request for comment from Reuters. Watch as Tory MP for Cities of London & Westminster @MarkFieldUK grabs a Greenpeace protester who interrupted a Philip Hammond speech in London tonight https://t.co/wZTzEC8lKF pic.twitter.com/tJuwCZ1P0X— ITV News (@itvnews) June 20, 2019   Watch as Tory MP for Cities of London & Westminster @MarkFieldUK grabs a Greenpeace protester who interrupted a Philip Hammond speech in London tonight https://t.co/wZTzEC8lKF pic.twitter.com/tJuwCZ1P0X The main opposition Labour Party's spokeswoman for women and equalities Dawn Butler said Field should be immediately suspended or sacked. "This is horrific," she wrote on Twitter. Environmental campaign group Greenpeace said it had organised the protest in the heart of the capital's banking district, accusing the finance industry of funding climate change and the finance ministry of trying to water down government action to mitigate it. It criticised Field's response to the demonstrator. "I don't see any justification for the kind of violent behaviour that we saw from him last night. It's an extremely shocking and concerning state of affairs," said Rebecca Newsom, Head of Politics at Greenpeace UK. The City of London Corporation is looking again at its procedures after Thursday night's incident. “We are investigating last night’s breach of security at Mansion House and will be reviewing arrangements for future events," said a spokesman.

But as the push to reopen the country’s economy intensifies, so do feelings of dread at the idea of returning to the office, said Anderson, a self-described introvert and anthropology professor at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York. “Just walking from the parking lot to my office I feel like I could be sick,” he said. “It’s that bad.” In wanting to work alone, Anderson is not alone. People other than introverts view a return to the office with sadness and anxiety, and not just because they still risk getting infected. A Gallup poll found a majority of US adults working from home would prefer to continue doing so “as much as possible” after the pandemic. These fans of online work worry that they — and the country itself — will lose important benefits discovered during this unprecedented experiment in mass remote work. People who have never liked schmoozing with colleagues have found new heights of productivity away from meetings and office chitchat. People worried about climate change are eager to reduce their carbon footprints by avoiding commutes by car. And while many parents are desperate for schools and day care centres to reopen, some working parents are appreciating more time with their children. Before the pandemic, Christine Reilley had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to catch an early bus to Manhattan where she works as senior director of strategy and innovation for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. “I’m better rested. I can devote more time to my work,” she said. “Just saving the time and money of commuting, I really like this personally.” Impossible for Some and ‘Overrated’ for Others It did not take long for naysayers to declare that working from home was “overrated.” And yes, it is an option mostly for white-collar office workers. Telecommuting is rarely possible for people in manufacturing or service jobs, and for the health workers, emergency responders, grocery store clerks and delivery people who have been deemed essential personnel. And the more than 30 million Americans who have lost their jobs since March may be impatient about complaints from people still drawing paychecks. Nor can the other downsides be denied. Trying to meet on Zoom from a kitchen table with bored children and annoyed spouses complaining in the background is hardly good for productivity. Women say that video calls make it harder for them to get in a word during meetings dominated by men. This crisis has also increased the burdens on working mothers. Telecommuting was already a growing trend that left out many low-wage workers and was viewed warily by employers who worried that people were slacking off at home. Researchers warned that problem solving and creativity suffer when workers are isolated from one another. Isolated work can lead to loneliness and boredom. Remote workers have also reported they have had to work even longer hours. OK, So What Are the Benefits? For remote work to be successful, employers need to provide the right equipment and other support, said Laurel Farrer, chief executive of Distribute Consulting, a business consulting firm. And the employees must be able to get work done without supervision. If set up properly, experts and advocates say, remote work has many benefits: — Less time on the road. Commuting by car has been linked to increased stress, more pollution and respiratory problems. The average American who drives to work spends 54 hours per year stuck in traffic, according to an analysis by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. — Greater productivity. One well-known study from 2014 led by Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom examined remote workers at a Chinese travel agency and found that they were 13% more efficient than their office-based peers. — A cleaner environment (maybe). According to estimates from Global Workplace Analytics, a research and consulting firm, if everyone in the United States worked remotely half the time, it could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle travel by more than 51 million metric tons a year. Graphics showing the reduction in air pollution and pictures of clearer skies over cities like Los Angeles have been among the silver linings of the pandemic. Of course, when people return to work, the roads may fill up again, especially if people fear getting the virus on public transit. And even if more people start working remotely, they might use their cars more for errands closer to home, said Bill Eisele, a senior research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Office commuters make up only about 18% of all traffic, he said. — Money saved. Global Workplace Analytics estimated that people could save, on average, $2,000 to $6,500 every year by not spending on things like gasoline and day care. Companies could spend less on real estate. The US Patent and Trademark Office estimated it saved more than $38 million in 2015 by not using as much office space, according to a Harvard Business School working paper from November. — More job satisfaction. A 2005 study found that job satisfaction increased with each additional hour people spent working remotely. But it stopped increasing beyond 15 hours worked remotely. Kate Lister, president of Global Workplace Analytics, predicted that workers will be looking for the “happy medium,” splitting time between remote work and showing up at the office. The hope is that the pandemic will have shown managers that workers can be trusted to do their jobs without constant supervision. “Any kind of flexibility is something that people are really, really ripe for, just some control over where and when they work,” she said. Happy Tales From the Home Office Many people who had never considered this kind of working life have now had a taste of it, and they love it. Jacquie Benetua-Rolens, communications and engagement coordinator at Santa Cruz Community Health Centers in Santa Cruz, California, has a 2-year-old son who has become a daily part of Zoom meetings with colleagues, waving at them in his pajamas. “There is this softened, unfiltered, more honest version of ourselves that I’m enjoying getting to know,” Benetua-Rolens said. “There is room to be forgiving and understanding with each other and ourselves. And it’s because we’ve all had to juggle.” Benetua-Rolens said she often thinks of her small cubicle back at the office, which she decorated with plants and pictures of her two children. “I used to love it,” she said. “But I don’t miss it at all. I don’t want to go back to that even though my house is filthy.” Jessica Keup, a 37-year-old single mother and a computer programmer in Ann Arbor, Michigan, moved to her parents’ home in rural Tennessee with her 3-year-old son in mid-March, after her company told employees to work from home. Since then, she has been coding from the deck while her son plays with the goats, chickens and peacocks that roost on the vast property. Keup said the solitude has made her more focused and more productive. Her work is not interrupted by chatty colleagues who want to say hi or need help fixing a computer glitch. “The people who are in the office who are extroverts stand out and talk a lot and can take the oxygen out of the room,” she said. At least one poll from early in the pandemic suggests a strong preference for remote work. Gallup found that almost 60% of Americans working from home would prefer to work remotely “as much as possible” after restrictions are lifted, with 40% saying they preferred to return to the workplace. The online survey of 2,276 randomly selected adults was conducted from March 14 through April 2. It had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. When the time comes to return to the office, Keup said she plans to ask if she can work two to four weeks a year from Tennessee. “It’s beautiful. It’s resting and restorative,” she said. “And I’ll miss that.” c.2020 The New York Times Company

Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore urged governments on Friday to advance by two years a new treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions instead of waiting until the Kyoto pact expires in 2012. Government ministers are meeting at a UN conference in Bali, Indonesia, to try to launch talks on a successor to the Kyoto pact to be concluded by 2009, which would allow three years for ratification before the existing pact expires. "I hope they will move the effective date of the new treaty forward by two years so that we don't wait until 2012 to have a much tougher treaty in place," former US Vice-President Gore said on arriving in Oslo where he will collect the Nobel prize on Monday. Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were jointly awarded the 2007 peace prize for their work to raise awareness and further the science of climate change. Gore said the need for an early treaty would be part of his message to governments both when he received his prize in Norway and later at the UN climate conference in Bali. The 1997 Kyoto protocol, the main UN climate pact binding 36 nations to cut emissions, was rejected by the United States, which argued that it would be too expensive and wrongly omitted developing nations from the cuts. "The United States should be the natural leader in this challenge, and many of us are working very hard to bring about a change in the policies of the United States of America," Gore said at Oslo airport. He said there were signs of a change in attitude in the United States, with more than 700 cities and many states adopting Kyoto provisions, and a call last week by 150 US business leaders for binding carbon emissions cuts. "So we are making a lot of progress," Gore said before boarding the public rail link to central Oslo with other travellers. He said taking the train would be faster and better than other forms of transport, and represented the kind of choice that people could make for the environment. Gore was lampooned in 2006 for riding in a limousine to a showing at the Cannes film festival of his Oscar-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth", which calls for urgent action to fight climate change.

Oil and natural gas prices have soared to multi-year highs recently, sending power prices surging to record levels as widespread energy shortages engulf Asia and Europe. "Record coal and gas prices as well as rolling blackouts are prompting the power sector and energy-intensive industries to turn to oil to keep the lights on and operations humming," the IEA said in its monthly oil report. "Higher energy prices are also adding to inflationary pressures that, along with power outages, could lead to lower industrial activity and a slowdown in the economic recovery." As a result, global oil demand next year is now projected to recover to pre-pandemic levels, the Paris-based agency added. It made upward revisions to its demand forecasts for this year and 2022, increasing them by 170,000 bpd and 210,000 bpd respectively. An upsurge in demand in the past quarter led to the biggest draw on oil products stocks in eight years, it said, while storage levels in OECD countries were at their lowest since early 2015. Meanwhile, the IEA estimated that producer group OPEC+ is set to pump 700,000 bpd below the estimated demand for its crude in the fourth quarter of this year, meaning demand will outpace supply at least until the end of 2021. Spare production capacity from the group is set to shrink rapidly, it warned, from 9 million bpd in the first quarter of this year to only 4 million bpd in the second quarter of 2022. That output capacity is concentrated in a small handful of Middle East states, it said, and its decline underscores the need to increase investment to meet future demand. "A surge in spending on clean energy transitions provides the way forward, but this needs to happen quickly or global energy markets will face a bumpy road ahead," the report said Releasing its flaghsip annual energy outlook ahead of a key climate conference in Britain next month, the IEA on Wednesday said that the economic recovery from the pandemic was "unsustainable" and revolved too much on fossil fuels. Investment in renewable energy needs to triple by the end of the decade if the world hopes to effectively fight climate change, it said on Wednesday.

ANKARA Tue Jul 17, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Turks elect a new parliament on Sunday in what has been billed as one of the most important polls of their recent history following a clash between the ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party and the nation's secular elite. The pro-business, centre-right AK Party is widely predicted to win the election but with a reduced majority and well short of the two thirds of seats required to change the constitution. This scenario has helped propel Turkish financial markets to record highs this month. Investors applaud the AK Party's free market policies, but fear a large majority could reignite tensions with the secularists, including Turkey's powerful army. The European Union, which began membership talks with Turkey in 2005, is also closely watching the election, hoping a new government can revive the country's stalled reform process. Some analysts say investors are complacent about the risks. "These elections cannot solve the institutional deadlock ... Turkey's problems have just been postponed," said Wolfango Piccoli of Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was forced to call the polls months early after the secular elite -- the army, top judges and opposition parties -- derailed his bid to have parliament elect Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul as the country's next president. The new parliament must now elect Turkey's next president. Secularists fear ex-Islamists Erdogan and Gul want to erode Turkey's separation of state and religion, a claim the men deny. A majority of two thirds or more would enable the AK Party to tweak Turkey's secular constitution and also to push through its presidential candidate without heeding opposition concerns. In an attempt to assuage secularist fears and reach out to Turkey's urban middle class, Erdogan has discarded many of the more Islamist-minded members of his parliamentary party and has fielded more women and centrist candidates in this election. Erdogan has also signaled he may be ready to compromise over the presidency, a traditional bastion of the secularists. Opinion polls show the AK Party could win about 40 percent of the vote, up from 34 percent in the 2002 election. But it is likely to end up with fewer seats because more parties are now expected to clear the 10 percent threshold to enter parliament. POLARISATION The main opposition, centre-left Republican People's Party (CHP), the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and a sizeable number of independents, mostly pro-Kurdish candidates, are also tipped to win seats in the 550-member parliament. "It will be a parliament of polarities," said Ayse Ayata, a professor at Ankara's Middle East Technical University. "It would be better in some ways to have a coalition government as that could help reduce the polarization." Some 42.5 million Turks will be able to vote, out of a total population of 74 million. Four million young people will cast their ballots in a national election for the first time. As well as clashes between the AK Party ex-Islamists and the arch-secularists of the CHP, analysts expect fiery exchanges between Kurdish deputies seeking more rights for their community and the MHP ultra-nationalists who view such demands as a direct threat to Turkish national security and identity. "The new parliament will be a real test of whether Turks and Kurds can reach a consensus (on how to resolve the Kurdish issue)," said Mehmet Ali Birand, a veteran TV commentator. Turkish security forces have been battling Kurdish separatist rebels in the impoverished southeast region since 1984 in a conflict that has cost more than 30,000 lives. Tellingly, in the present nationalist climate, the terrorism issue has dominated election rallies. But politicians have barely alluded to Turkey's bid to join the EU, reflecting a growing public disenchantment here with the EU project.

At a meeting in Copenhagen on Jun 8, Myanmar's Social Welfare Minister Win Myat Aye told a group of diplomats, analysts and members of a commission chaired by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan that eight of its recommendations - including one that asks authorities to take steps to amend the 1982 law - were problematic in the current political climate and could not be immediately fulfilled, the people present said. "He made it very clear that citizenship reform was a non-starter," said one of the people at the meeting. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because Myanmar had requested the talks be confidential. Win Myat Aye and government spokesman Zaw Htay did not answer calls seeking comment. Amending the law, which largely restricts citizenship to members of what it terms "national races" - the 135 ethnic groups deemed by the state to be indigenous - was a key recommendation of the Annan commission. Buddhist-majority Myanmar does not recognise the Rohingya as an indigenous ethnic group and refers to them as "Bengalis", a term they reject as it implies they are interlopers from Bangladesh, despite a long history in the country. The Annan commission was created by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 2016 to find long-term solutions to deep-seated ethnic and religious divisions in Rakhine. A day after the panel issued its report in August 2017, Rohingya insurgents launched attacks on security forces, provoking a military crackdown the UN has called a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing". The admission by Win Myat Aye, who is overseeing plans for reconstruction in violence-ravaged Rakhine state, casts further doubt on plans to repatriate the roughly 700,000 Rohingya currently sheltering in crowded refugee camps in Bangladesh. Many Rohingya refugee leaders say they won't return without guarantees of citizenship. However, Myanmar's National Security Adviser Thaung Tun, who was also at the meeting in Denmark, told Reuters authorities were implementing the Annan commission's recommendations "to the fullest extent possible and as expeditiously as we can". "Over 80 recommendations have been carried out in less than 10 months," he said in an email. Referring to the recommendations that had not been implemented, he said they were "also being looked into". Annan's spokesman referred questions to the Myanmar government. Refugees have reported killings, burnings, looting and rape by members of the Myanmar security forces and Buddhist vigilantes in Rakhine. Myanmar has rejected accusations of ethnic cleansing, and dismissed most accounts of atrocities. "PATH TO CITIZENSHIP" In January, Myanmar and Bangladesh signed a deal to repatriate the refugees within two years, but disagreements have held up the implementation of the plan. Many Rohingya refugees say they will not return unless the 1982 law is changed. People who identified themselves as Rohingya were excluded from Myanmar's last nationwide census in 2014 and many had their identity documents taken or nullified, blocking them from voting in a landmark 2015 election. Suu Kyi, who before coming to power said the government should have the "courage" to review the law, is now urging Rohingya to accept the National Verification Card, a residency document that falls short of full citizenship. However, many Rohingya refuse to accept the document, which they say classifies life-long residents as new immigrants and does not allow them to travel freely. The military, with whom Suu Kyi shares power, flatly rejects Rohingya calls for citizenship. In a speech in March, Senior General Min Aung Hlaing said Rohingya "do not have any characteristics or culture in common with the ethnicities of Myanmar" and that the current conflict had been "fuelled because the Bengalis demanded citizenship". DIPLOMATIC DIFFICULTIES At the Copenhagen meeting, diplomats were about to break for lunch when Win Myat Aye said Myanmar had begun implementing only 80 of the 88 recommendations made by the commission, due to political and practical differences with the remaining eight, one of those present said. According to a second person present, Annan responded: "You said you're having difficulties with eight – which are those? Let's get back to this after the break." Win Myat Aye then listed the recommendations he said Myanmar was struggling to implement. They included commitments to create an independent body to review complaints about citizenship verification, empower community leaders and civil society, and establish a mechanism for feedback on government performance. "In diplo-speak when you say that something is difficult it tends to be a rejection," the second source said. "That is how I understood this."

Sánchez lives in Rincón, a seaside town in northwestern Puerto Rico famous for surfing and sunsets that has become a hot spot for wealthy investors looking for tax breaks. The visitors, like so many before them, were interested in buying his one-story home, which is a two-minute walk from the beach. It is not for sale, but that has not stopped the unsolicited offers from coming. “They don’t ask you for a price,” he said. “They just hand you a check and tell you to fill it out with whatever you think the house is worth.” These are boom times for investors flocking to idyllic towns all over Puerto Rico, some of them seeking to take advantage of tax incentives intended to attract new people and outside money to the cash-strapped island, which is working its way out of bankruptcy. The tax breaks’ appeal accelerated after the coronavirus pandemic prompted many companies to shift to remote work, inspiring Americans who live on the mainland to move to more temperate climes. But the influx of the affluent new settlers, who must acquire residency and buy property in Puerto Rico within two years of moving in order to keep the tax breaks, has pushed up home prices and displaced residents who can no longer afford to live in their hometowns. Hurricane Maria, which heavily damaged thousands of homes in 2017, had already prompted many residents to leave the island. The real estate boom, which began in San Juan, the capital, has extended across the island, as investors have started to move away from the metropolitan area and into smaller towns like Rincón. There are new arrivals beyond those seeking tax breaks who are also snapping up properties and driving up rents and home prices. But it is the finance and tech investors who have formally applied for tax-break status who have drawn the most attention. Many of them are cryptocurrency traders, who now hold weekly happy hours at a seaside bar in Rincón. A new barbecue food truck that opened in August accepts Bitcoin, Ethereum, Cardano, Shiba Inu, Solana and Litecoin for its mainland-style chicken. The creeping gentrification troubles many Puerto Ricans, who have become increasingly more forceful in questioning how an economy reliant on tax breaks for the wealthy can work for local residents increasingly unable to afford property. “It feels like Hurricane Maria placed a ‘For Sale’ sign on the island,” said Gloria Cuevas Viera, a Rincón resident who is helping to lead the fight against gentrification. Many investors buy residential properties and then resell them at higher prices or turn them into short-term vacation rentals, turning entire neighborhoods into Airbnb corridors and creating a shortage of inventory for local residents. Forty-three percent of Puerto Ricans live under the federal poverty level. Israel Matos, 45, will have to move out of his Rincón home by March because the property owner sold it last year. Matos had an option to buy the house but it expired. The owner, who is from Hermosa Beach, California, decided to sell to someone else. Matos has lived in the home with his wife and two daughters for two years, and said he cannot find a single listing in Rincón that matches his budget. The beach in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 12, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) “The pressure as a father is incredibly difficult,” said Matos, a sound engineer for a television station. “I never thought I would be in the situation of having a hard time looking for a roof to live under with my daughters. And it’s all because I don’t have $100,000 in the bank.” The beach in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 12, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) Recently, dozens of demonstrators gathered in Old San Juan to protest the tax breaks. They congregated in front of a former children’s museum that Bitcoin billionaire Brock Pierce has turned into a “crypto clubhouse.” Protesters graffitied the building with “Brock Pierce is a colonizer” and “Gringo go home.” The tax breaks fall under a law known as Act 60, a version of which was initially enacted by the Puerto Rico government under another name in 2012, as the island faced a looming economic collapse. The incentive drew more interest after 2017, when Hurricane Maria decimated the island. In 2019, the tax breaks were repackaged to attract finance, tech and other investors. People who move to the island can benefit from a reduction of income taxes on long-term capital gains, dividends, interest and revenues from their services. In Silicon Valley, a billboard advertises Puerto Rico as “a tech hub in sync with your vision.” As of October, Puerto Rico had received 1,349 applications in 2021 — a record — from people looking to become resident investors. Of those, 982 had been approved. In all, more than 4,286 applications have been approved since 2012, with more than 35% of them approved in the past three years. Under the law, an investor can qualify for the tax breaks if he or she has not been a resident of Puerto Rico for at least 10 years prior. The investor must also buy a home to benefit from a 4% corporate tax rate and zero capital gains tax. The more than 3 million Puerto Ricans already living on the island do not qualify for the tax breaks. “This is creating inequality in terms of taxpayer responsibility,” said Heriberto Martínez Otero, the executive director of the Ways and Means Committee in the Puerto Rico House of Representatives. Renters forced out by soaring housing prices along the coast may move to cheaper neighboring towns but may have to spend more on gas and tolls to commute, said Martínez Otero, who also teaches economics at the University of Puerto Rico. Owners who sell their homes, of course, have benefited from a rise in property prices, and Gov. Pedro R. Pierluisi has applauded the fact that many investors are buying luxury homes — a collapse in the luxury real estate market was a key motivation for passing the tax law, he said in January. “What was intended was an influx of people with capital to give life to the real estate market,” he said. Large numbers of people leaving the island had also been a concern for policymakers. Hammered by both the economic crisis and Hurricane Maria, the island’s population declined 11.8% from 2010 to 2020, according to the census. “But the fact that there are people buying residential properties that do not meet the reality of consumption patterns in Puerto Rico joins the rest of the problems on the island that hinders affordable housing,” Martínez Otero said. An oceanside gathering spot in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 13, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) Sánchez, the Rincón homeowner who pretended to be a landscaper, helps coordinate the town’s federal Section 8 program, which provides affordable housing to low-income families. The program offers families monthly $450 vouchers to pay for housing, but he is struggling to find homes at that price. An oceanside gathering spot in Rincón, Puerto Rico, Jan. 13, 2022. Many Puerto Ricans say they can no longer afford to remain in their homes with outside investors buying up properties and driving up prices. (Erika P. Rodriguez/The New York Times) “I’m worried that native Puerto Ricans won’t be able to live or invest here and will end up displaced,” he said. “I thought the prices were only going up in the downtown area, but the properties in the more rural sectors in the mountains are getting expensive.” In Rincón, Ingrid Badillo Carrero, a real estate broker, said home prices have soared in the past four years. In 2017, a two-bedroom condo would list at an average of $290,000. Now, the same unit could be listed at about $420,000. The average annual income in Rincón is about $19,900. “I’ve had locals tell me I’m selling our country,” said Badillo, who regularly deals with investor clients seeking the tax breaks. Many are able to pay in cash, which is more attractive to sellers than selling to Puerto Ricans, who may only have the means to pay through a mortgage. In May, Elizabeth Stevenson moved to Puerto Rico with her husband, Tyler McNatt, from Austin, Texas. They were looking for a way out of going to the office every day and began exploring cryptocurrency investments as a way to generate income. Stevenson, an Act 60 beneficiary, is working as a consultant for a California movie producer now based in Puerto Rico, while also buying and selling cryptocurrency. “It’s really exciting that there’s so much to learn, and there’s so much money to be made,” said Stevenson, who signed a one-year lease for an apartment about a 15-minute walk from the beach. She is part of several crypto groups for ex-mainlanders that regularly host events in Rincón. Daniel Torgerson, a crypto investor who moved to Puerto Rico in June, convenes a weekly happy hour at the Aqua Marina Beach Club in Rincón. In early January, around 20 people met around the bar and pool, speaking under string lights and competing with the sounds of the nocturnal coquí frogs. “How’s everyone feeling in the market this week?” Torgerson asked the crowd. “Any new projects you’re excited about?” “Solar bitcoin mining!” someone responded. The new residents are bringing their children along. Myriam Pérez Cruz, the principal at Manuel González Melo K-8 School in Rincón, said the school has had to add more coursework for students learning Spanish as their second language. In the 2016-17 school year, a student survey identified three native English speakers who needed Spanish-language assistance, Pérez said. For the 2021-22 school year, that number rose to 17 students. Matos, the Rincón resident who must move out of his home by March, recently drove around looking for promising “For Rent” signs. Afterward, he went to the beach, sat cross-legged on the sand, and tried to relax. But soon after parking his car, he felt uneasy. “There were probably 50 people on that beach, and I only saw what looked like five Puerto Ricans there,” Matos said. “Rincón has changed a lot.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

- Finance adviser AB Mirza Azizul Islam has said millennium development goals will not be reached if donor countries fail to keep their ODA pledges. "Millennium development goals will remain mostly unrealised in many countries unless official development

That changed on Tuesday, when Shahana Hanif, a former City Council employee, won her election in a Brooklyn district that covers Park Slope, Kensington and parts of central Brooklyn. Hanif, who is Bangladeshi American, was the first Muslim woman elected to the Council in its history, despite the fact that the city is home to an estimated 769,000 Muslims. She was one of two history-making South Asian candidates to win as well; the other, Shekar Krishnan, won a seat representing Jackson Heights and Elmhurst in Queens. (A third, Felicia Singh, another South Asian candidate, lost to her Republican opponent in a closely watched Queens race.) In a statement on Tuesday night, Hanif said that she was “humbled and proud” to be the first Muslim woman on the Council — and the first woman of any faith to represent District 39. She cited volunteers and endorsements from the community and progressive groups, including the left-leaning Working Families Party. “Together we are building an anti-racist, feminist city,” she said. “We deserve a city that protects its most vulnerable, a city that has equitable education, a city invested in climate solutions that are local and driven by communities, a city where our immigrant neighbours feel at home and heard and safe. This work requires all of us to keep showing up even though the election is over.” The City Council will also have its first out gay Black women serve as members next year: Kristin Richardson Jordan scored an overwhelming victory in a Harlem district, as did Crystal Hudson in a Brooklyn district that encompasses parts of Prospect Heights, Crown Heights, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and Bedford-Stuyvesant. A number of other LGBTQ candidates clinched victories, including Tiffany Cabán in Queens. Chi Ossé in Brooklyn and Erik Bottcher in Manhattan had run in uncontested races. Lynn Schulman was expected to win a seat in Queens. The candidates are part of a larger shift in New York’s City Council, which is poised to be nearly as diverse next year as the city it represents. More than two dozen women are positioned to take a majority of the Council’s seats, for the first time ever.

"Like a regimen of medicine, the dosage can be upped when the effects fall short of what's required," Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Danny Russel told Reuters on Tuesday. Russel made clear he was speaking about the possibility of fresh sanctions by the UN Security Council, by the United States on its own, or by a group of like-minded states from the European Union and Southeast Asia, along with the United States. North Korea conducted a fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range rocket launch the following month, triggering expanded UN sanctions aimed at starving it of funds for its atomic weapons program. Some experts expect North Korea to conduct a fifth nuclear test in the near future, possibly before a ruling party congress in early May, following an embarrassing failure of a test of an intermediate-range missile last week. Estimates of North Korean workers abroad vary widely but a study by the South's state-run Korea Institute for National Unification put the number as high as 150,000, primarily in China and Russia, sending back as much as $900 million annually. North Koreans are known to work abroad in restaurants and on construction sites, and also as doctors. The effectiveness of current, or any new, sanctions depends heavily on them being fully implemented by China, North Korea's neighbor, the closest thing it has to an ally and by far its largest trading partner, US officials and analysts say. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said all sides should refrain from doing or saying anything to worsen tensions, and remain calm and exercise restraint to get the talks process back on track. "I don't want to answer a hypothetical question," she told a news briefing on Wednesday, when asked if China would support new, tougher sanctions in the event of another nuclear test. If the North were to test a fifth nuclear device, the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan could also take unspecified "defense-related measures," Russel said. "As the threat grows, then our defensive capabilities need to adjust as well," he said, stressing that there was also a diplomatic route that the North could take by reviving long-dormant negotiations on curbing its nuclear program. MORE WEIGHT ON SANCTIONS South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Jeong Joon-hee downplayed the prospect that an upcoming visit to New York by North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su Yong to attend a UN climate conference would create an opening for engagement. "At a time when the North is talking of more provocation, I think it's time to put more weight on sanctions rather than dialogue," Jeong told a briefing in Seoul on Wednesday. Russel laid out what he called the possible "universe" of how the US government and others might respond to a fifth test and he acknowledged that sanctions have failed to deter North Korea, which tested its first nuclear device in October 2006. He stressed that no decisions had yet been made and said he could not preview a response to an event that has yet to occur. US General Vincent Brooks, whom President Barack Obama has nominated to lead American forces in South Korea, said on Tuesday that China was frustrated over North Korea's behavior, including its nuclear advances, but was unwilling to apply pressure that could threaten the viability of Kim Jong Un's government. Brooks also said Kim appeared more "risk-tolerant, arrogant and impulsive" than his father, Kim Jong Il. He was more aggressive in ignoring international concerns while advancing the North's nuclear program, the general said. Russel said it would take time to judge how well the latest sanctions were being enforced, but Beijing had "exhausted traditional options of encouraging and cajoling and persuading the North Koreans and they have clearly shifted to the application of pressure." "There is an argument to be made that serious and sustained pressure on North Korea has never before been undertaken," he said. "The degree to which the North Korean economy depends on China and access to China is such that this stated resolve on the part of China, I think, constitutes something of a new ball game." However, Frank Jannuzi, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer for East Asia and the Pacific, voiced skepticism that China had had a change of heart and was now willing to apply much more significant pressure on the North. "The Chinese are the one country that still has economic leverage but they are reluctant to put it to full use because they don’t think it’ll work and they are worried about the costs," he said, citing long-standing Chinese fears that severe sanctions could trigger "conflict, or refugees, or turmoil."

"In response to EU sanctions against our companies, Roskosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners on space launches from Kourou, and is withdrawing its technical staff... from French Guiana," Rogozin said in a post on his Telegram channel. The European Union played down Russia's pullout, saying it would not affect the quality of service of its satellite networks Galileo and Copernicus. Galileo is Europe's global navigation satellite system which provides positioning and timing information used in mobile phones, cars, railways and aviation. Copernicus delivers earth observation data, documenting climate change, for example. "We will take all necessary decisions in time to work on the development of the second generation of these two sovereign spacial infrastructures," EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, responsible for space issues in the bloc's executive Commission, said on Twitter. "We are also prepared to act determinedly together with the member states to protect these critical infrastructures in case of an attack, and to continue the development of Ariane 6 and VegaC to guarantee the strategic autonomy with regard to carrier rockets."

The first Black woman and Asian-American on a major US presidential ticket, Harris summarised her life story as emblematic of the American dream on the third day of the Democratic National Convention. "Donald Trump's failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods," Harris said. Former US President Barack Obama told the convention Trump's failures as his successor had led to 170,000 people dead from the coronavirus, millions of lost jobs and America's reputation badly diminished in the world. The evening featured a crush of women headliners, moderators and speakers, with Harris pressing the case against Trump, speaking directly to millions of women, young Americans and voters of colour, constituencies Democrats need if Biden is to defeat the Republican Trump. “The constant chaos leaves us adrift, the incompetence makes us feel afraid, the callousness makes us feel alone. It’s a lot. And here’s the thing: we can do better and deserve so much more,” she said. "Right now, we have a president who turns our tragedies into political weapons. Joe will be a president who turns our challenges into purpose," she said, speaking from an austere hotel ballroom in Biden's hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. BIDEN AHEAD IN POLLS Biden leads Trump in opinion polls ahead of the Nov 3 election, bolstered by a big lead among women voters. Throughout the convention, Democrats have appealed directly to those women voters, highlighting Biden's co-sponsorship of the landmark Violence Against Woman Act of 1994 and his proposals to bolster childcare and protect family healthcare provisions. Obama, whose vice president was Biden from 2009-2017, said he had hoped that Trump would take the job seriously, come to feel the weight of the office, and discover a reverence for American democracy. "Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t. And the consequences of that failure are severe," Obama said in unusually blunt criticism from an ex-president. "Millions of jobs gone. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before," Obama said. The choice of a running mate has added significance for Biden, 77, who would be the oldest person to become president if he is elected. His age has led to speculation he will serve only one term, making Harris a potential top contender for the nomination in 2024. Biden named Harris, 55, as his running mate last week to face incumbents Trump, 74, and Vice President Mike Pence, 61. Former first lady and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee who lost to Trump, told the convention she constantly hears from voters who regret backing Trump or not voting at all. "This can’t be another woulda coulda shoulda election." Clinton said. "No matter what, vote. Vote like our lives and livelihoods are on the line, because they are.” Clinton, who won the popular vote against Trump but lost in the Electoral College, said Biden needs to win overwhelmingly, warning he could win the popular vote but still lose the White House. "Joe and Kamala can win by 3 million votes and still lose,” Clinton said. “Take it from me. So we need numbers overwhelming so Trump can’t sneak or steal his way to victory." Democrats have been alarmed by Trump's frequent criticism of mail-in voting, and by cost-cutting changes at the US Postal Service instituted by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump supporter, that could delay mail during the election crunch. DeJoy said recently he would delay those changes until after the election. Democrats also broadcast videos highlighting Trump's crackdown on immigration, opposition to gun restrictions and his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord. 'DISRESPECT' FOR FACTS, FOR WOMEN Nancy Pelosi, the first woman Speaker of the US House of Representatives, told the convention she had seen firsthand Trump's "disrespect for facts, for working families, and for women in particular – disrespect written into his policies toward our health and our rights, not just his conduct. But we know what he doesn’t: that when women succeed, America succeeds.” US Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive who ran against Biden in the 2020 primary, spoke to the convention from a childcare centre in Massachusetts and cited Biden's proposal to make childcare more affordable as a vital part of his agenda to help working Americans. "It’s time to recognise that childcare is part of the basic infrastructure of this nation — it’s infrastructure for families," she said. "Joe and Kamala will make high-quality childcare affordable for every family, make preschool universal, and raise the wages for every childcare worker." In her speech later, Harris will have an opportunity to outline her background as a child of immigrants from India and Jamaica who as a district attorney, state attorney general, US senator from California and now vice-presidential candidate shattered gender and racial barriers. She gained prominence in the Senate for her exacting interrogations of Trump nominees, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Attorney General Bill Barr. The Republican National Convention, also largely virtual, takes place next week.

WASHINGTON, Nov 11, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Global institutional investors holding more than $6 trillion in assets pushed policymakers Tuesday to quickly hash out a binding agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean technology. More than 130 big investors, including London Pensions Fund Authority, want countries to agree to reduce the climate- warming emissions by 50 percent to 80 percent by 2050. Those numbers are in line with global warming policy favored by US President-elect Barack Obama, who supports an 80 percent reduction in carbon emissions by mid-century. The investors also want policymakers to set long and medium term emission reduction targets for developed countries and to provide for an expanded and more liquid global carbon market. Already big US investors, such as the California Public Employees' Retirement System, with $185.6 billion of assets under management, have been calling for legislation to promote new and existing clean technologies. They have also called on the US Securities and Exchange Commission to force publicly traded companies to disclose climate-related risks along with other factors that affect their business. "As institutional investors, we are concerned with the risks presented by climate change to the global economy and to our diversified portfolios," said Mike Taylor, chief executive of London Pensions Fund Authority. "We are ... urging world leaders to implement strong and effective policies to support us in allocating capital toward low carbon investments." The group of global investors want countries to sign on to a new binding agreement to succeed the Kyoto Protocol climate pact, which set binding targets for industrialized countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The European Union is aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent by 2020 and increase the share of wind, solar, hydro, wave power and biofuels in their energy mix by the same date. The United States is alone among major industrialized countries in rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, but is participating in discussions to craft a follow-up global agreement. "It is time to put an agreement in place where the United States is involved," said Mindy Lubber, the president of Ceres, a coalition of investors and environmental groups working on climate change issues. The global group of investors is hoping its voice is heard ahead of a December climate change convention in Poland.

Sweden described the Copenhagen climate change summit as a "disaster" and a "great failure" on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting of European Union environment ministers to discuss how to rescue the process. The European Union went to Copenhagen with the hope of achieving a broad commitment to at least a 20-percent cut in carbon emissions below 1990 levels within 10 years, but that and other firm goals failed to emerge in the final accord. "Ministers are going to meet today to discuss, of course, how to proceed after this disaster we really had in Copenhagen," Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren told reporters as he and other ministers gathered for the meeting in Brussels. Carlgren will chair the talks as Sweden currently holds the EU presidency. "I expect us to discuss both how to continue ... but also elaborate on possibilities for alternate ways to work now, because it was a really great failure and we have to learn from that." The two-week, U.N.-led conference ended on Saturday with a non-legally binding agreement to limit global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial times, but did not lay out how to achieve that. Despite months of preparation and strenuous international diplomacy, the talks boiled down to an inability of the world's two largest emitters, the United States and China, to agree on headline fixed targets. The 27 member states of the EU had gone into the talks with a unified position and with a plan for financing emissions cuts in the developing world, with a commitment to spend around 7 billion euros (6.2 billion pounds) over the next three years to aid poorer countries. But those aims were largely sidelined as the talks failed to produce the breakthrough agreement many had hoped for. "Europe never lost its aim, never, never came to splits or different positions, but of course this was mainly about other countries really (being) unwilling, and especially the United States and China," said Carlgren. Britain on Monday blamed China and a handful of other countries of holding the world to ransom by blocking a legally binding treaty at Copenhagen, stepping up a blame game that has gathered momentum since the talks ended. Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the summit as "at best flawed and at worst chaotic" and demanded an urgent reform of the process to try to reach a legal treaty when talks are expected to resume in Germany next June. But Danish Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard, who quit as president of the Copenhagen talks midway through after being criticised by African countries for favouring wealthier nations in negotiations, said it was no time to get depressed about the process of tackling climate change. "What we need to do is to secure the step that we took and turn it into a result," she told reporters as she arrived for the Brussels meeting on Tuesday. Asked whether Copenhagen had been a failure, she replied: "It would have been a failure if we had achieved nothing. But we achieved something. A first step. It was the first time we held a process where all the countries were present, including the big emitters."

Dhaka, Aug 30 (bdnews24.com)—Chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed stressed regional and global cooperation at an international symposium on climate change and food security, which concluded Saturday with the signing of the Dhaka Symposium Declaration. Calling climate change a global issue, the chief adviser called for cooperative measures among neighbouring countries to reduce the impact of natural disasters and help adapt to foreseeable changes. "We must take comprehensive and integrated steps to combat the adverse effects of global warming on food security." Iceland's visiting president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, as guest speaker, also highlighted the global perspective, calling for international dialogue on the security implications of climate change. Dhaka University, Ohio State University, the World Meteorological Organisation, UNESCAP, and the Food and Agriculture Oragnisation jointly organised the six-day 'International Symposium on Climate Change and Food Security in South Asia'. "Bangladesh is particularly vulnerable to climate change given its geography. As a low lying mega-delta with three large river systems accompanied by heavy rainfall, floods have become an annual calamity," said the chief adviser in his closing address at the talks. He urged the world community, particularly high greenhouse gas emitters, to come forward in tackling the effects of climate change so that the worst affected countries could cope with the impact and maintain food security. "The greatest challenge Bangladesh faces is lifting some 50 million people out of poverty with adequate food, shelter, drinking water and health care," he said. Fakhruddin also mentioned the consecutive floods and last year's Cyclone Sidr that threatened the agricultural base of the country's economy and availability of food and nutrition for the people. "This ... challenge is made all the more difficult for Bangladesh because global warming has already started to affect food production, helping to raise food deficits over the last two decades," the chief adviser added. "The melting of the Himalayan glaciers and huge sediments carried by the rivers coupled with restricted drainage further worsen the situation," he said. Iceland's visiting president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson said that every state should be a constructive partner in a global dialogue on the security implications of climate change. He also suggested extensive initiatives beyond South Asia involving the countries that depend on the Himalaya region for their water, as experts predict that glaciers of the region were likely to disappear over the next 40-70 years. Grimsson said his country was also witnessing the alarming effects of climate change as the largest glaciers in Europe were located in Iceland. But, he added, his country could also serve as an inspiration of how to tackle and prevent adverse climate change through a comprehensive transformation of energy systems. "We have transformed the Icelandic economy from being predominantly dependent on fossil fuel into a world leader in the production and consumption of clean energy," he said. Grimsson pointed out: "If four pillars of modern society – scientific communities, governments, business sectors and civic associations can unite and combine their resources we can build the foundations for enormous success." "We therefore need a similar call to action, a visionary collaboration between brilliant minds accompanied by an invitation to all concerned citizens to become involved, to be heard and counted," he said. The key recommendations of the Dhaka Symposium Declaration include: establishing a Climate Change and Food Security Network in South Asia, strengthening existing regional and policy instruments and identifying multi-disciplinary approaches and innovative financial measures to effect adaption options. The closing ceremony, held at the Pan Pacific Sonargaon Hotel on Saturday, was chaired by Dhaka University vice chancellor SMA Faiz. FAO's Asia and the Pacific regional representative Changchui He, FAO country representative Ad Spijkers, commerce adviser Hossain Zillur Rahman, and the chief adviser's special assistant in charge of environment and forests Raja Devashish Roy also spoke on the occasion.

In an election set to focus on wage growth and cost-of-living pressures, opposition leader Anthony Albanese on Monday failed to answer reporters' questions about unemployment numbers and interest rates as the campaign for the May 21 election kicked off. "We've got a massive economic opportunity coming out of this (coronavirus) pandemic. You can't risk it with a Labour Party and a Labour leader that can't manage money and has no economic plan," Morrison told reporters from the marginal Labour-held seat of Parramatta in western Sydney. Polls out on Monday showed Albanese-led, centre-left Labour were ahead of Morrison's conservative Liberal-National Party coalition, even as they showed the prime minister extending his lead as the country's preferred leader. Albanese, in damage control mode after his economic data gaffe, apologised for the errors. Quoting one of pop star Taylor Swift's biggest hits, he said he will "Shake it off" after reporters bombarded him with questions on whether the slip would cost Labor the election. "My approach is, I fessed up, I took responsibility, that is what I will do," Albanese said. "From time to time, if ever I make a mistake, I will own it and I will accept responsibility." Morrison said "despite fires, floods, a pandemic, a global recession, economic coercion from China and now a war in Europe," his government had driven the unemployment rate down to 13-year lows of 4%, from 5.7% when Labour left office in 2013. On Monday, Albanese initially said he thought the current rate was around 5.4%. "We've got the runs on the board," Morrison said in a reference to cricket, one of Australia's most popular sport, "and proven plans to deliver ... Boosting jobs creation to the levels we saw even before the pandemic is key to our plan for a stronger economy." The new jobs would be created "right across the economy," Treasurer Josh Frydenberg told Channel Seven. Australia's unemployment rate looks certain to fall into the 3% range for the first time since the early 1970s, several months ahead of central bank forecasts, with some economists predicting it could dip below the budget forecast of 3.75%. Wage growth was also forecast to accelerate, but not by enough to outpace inflation, leaving real incomes set to shrink this year. To pacify disgruntled voters, the budget in March increased a tax break for 10 million low- and middle-income earners and offered one-off cash payments for pensioners and a temporary cut in fuel taxes.

Koichi Mizushima, a Japan Foreign Ministry spokesman while briefing journalists on Saturday, said the minister’s visit was aimed at ‘renewing cooperation’ with Bangladesh, a country which has been ‘traditionally very friendly towards Japan’.Kishida is the first foreign minister to visit Dhaka after the controversial Jan 5 parliamentary election, which the opposition BNP and its allies boycotted.The spokesman said they found this visit ‘a suitable timing for strengthening bilateral relationship’ as a new government was formed.“It (relationship) should be comprehensive partnership,” he said, quoting his minister who spoke for such cooperation during the bilateral talks he held with AH Mahmood Ali, his Bangladeshi counterpart, in the morning.The minister, who arrived here last night, would also meet Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina before leaving Dhaka for Myanmar around 9pm Saturday.Japan had issued several statements in the run-up to the Jan 5 elections when Bangladesh witnessed widespread violence. Its envoy in Dhaka Shiro Shadoshima was worried as the unrest was causing panic among its investors.But in the press briefing, the spokesperson evaded a direct answer to the question on whether the current political standoff between the two major parties over polls-time administration would stand in the way of strengthening the two countries’ partnership.He said the visiting foreign minister appreciated that BNP was participating in the ongoing local government elections and that he expected ‘democracy will be further promoted in the country’.The spokesperson said the relationship between the two countries would be on all fronts, “not only at the political level”.He mostly stressed on economic relations and people-to-people contact, saying Japanese investment is growing fast in Bangladesh.In the last seven years the number of Japanese companies operating in Bangladesh has nearly tripled --from 61 in 2007 to 176 in 2013.Japan, which established diplomatic ties with Bangladesh in February 1972, is the largest bilateral development partner of the country.Its assistance comes regularly as grant, aid, technical assistance and soft loan. The total grants and aid reached $11 billion last year.Aid packageCurrently the two countries are negotiating on the 35th package of its ‘soft loan’.The spokesperson said Japan had already promised a loan of 120 billion Yen ($1.18 billion) for five projects, mostly in the energy and city development sectors.“But we did not specify the projects yet,” he said.Japan considers Bangladesh ‘a moderate Islamic country that has huge economic potential and is located at a point of strategic importance connecting Southeast Asia, India and the Middle East’, he said.He spoke about maintaining ‘investment friendly’ environment, which he said was improving ‘to some extent’.Replying to a question, the spokesperson said the issue of holding fresh elections that Japan’s ally, the US was calling for, ‘has not come up’ during the bilateral talks.He said his minister also conveyed Prime Minister Sinzo Abe’s invitation to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to visit Japan ‘at a mutually convenient time’. Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s foreign ministry in a media release said Minister Mahmood Ali also invited Japanese Premier to Dhaka which his counterpart ‘agreed to convey and facilitate’.Ali said, “The people of Bangladesh eagerly looking forward to Prime Minister Abe’s visit to Bangladesh.”Bangladesh’s Premier visited Japan in 2010 while the last visit of any Japanese Premier was in 2000.The two foreign ministers exchanged views on a whole range of issues of bilateral, regional and international interest.Bangladesh expressed its interest in concluding an ‘Economic Partnership Agreement’ considering the ‘growing synergies’ between the economies of the two countries.Visa exemptionsThe two ministers agreed to initiate ‘working level consultations’ to reach an understanding on regular Foreign Office Consultations, visa exemption for diplomatic and official passport holders as well as Economic Partnership Agreement. The two sides also exchanged views on possibilities of Japan financing some key mega-infrastructure projects in Bangladesh.Bangladesh side stressed that Japan could ‘effectively contribute in promoting regional connectivity and integration, including BCIM Economic Corridor’.The two Foreign Ministers agreed that both Bangladesh and Japan could work together for mutual benefit under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).The Japanese Foreign Minister commended Bangladesh’s achievements in disaster management, and said that Japan had much to learn from Bangladesh’s experience.He invited Bangladesh to participate at the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction to be held in Sendai in March next year.Japan also ‘positively responded’ to the idea of setting up a ‘Peace-building Centre’ in Bangladesh and offered to initiate bilateral consultations at the working level in this regard, Bangladesh foreign ministry also said.

Late students will not be admitted. Talk to your neighbour during class, and you will be admonished. Do it again, and you will be asked to leave. “I was taken aback at first,” recalled Fadoua El Ouni, who took Kais Saied’s constitutional law course her first year at Carthage University. “Like, are all university courses going to be like this?” They were not. Saied was semilegendary on campus for mesmerising classrooms with his deep, ringing voice, his speech so starched and archaic that when El Ouni first heard him converse in everyday Tunisian dialect, it was, she said, an “out-of-body experience.” Since Saied suspended parliament and fired his own prime minister last month amid mass protests over unchecked poverty, corruption and the coronavirus, Tunisians have puzzled over the contradictions: — How a political novice whose severe bearing and formal style earned him the nickname “RoboCop” became so beloved among the young that Facebook fan pages sprang up crediting him with sage utterances he had never uttered. — How a law professor who preached strict adherence to the constitution and practiced such personal rigor that he almost never missed a day of work stretched the law to justify seizing power. Most of all, they have argued over whether his power grab makes him a populist hero or an dangerous demagogue, whether he will save the last standing democracy to emerge from the Arab Spring or destroy it. Those who know him see evidence of both: an uncompromising ideologue unwilling to listen to others, yet one who lives modestly, shows compassion for the poor and insists that his goal is simply to wrench power from corrupt elites. “His supporters see in him the last, best hope to achieve the goals of the revolution that were never realized,” said Monica Marks, a Middle East politics professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. “But we know clean people who genuinely want to achieve good aims can sometimes turn into people who chop off heads.” By all accounts, Saied, a longtime law professor, is not the type to order up a pet tiger or serve guests frozen yogurt flown in from St. Tropez, as did the family of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia’s former dictator. Saied's personal habits run more toward coffee shops with plastic chairs and the middle-class neighbourhood where he has lived with his wife and three children, even after his election to the presidency in 2019. It is not personal ambition that drives him, he has said, but a sense of responsibility and religious duty to return power to the youth and the poor who ignited Tunisia’s 2011 revolution. In obedience to their will, he has said, he aims to guarantee education, health care and decent lives and to purge Tunisia of corruption. “I am running against my own will,” Saied told an interviewer during his presidential campaign. “God says, ‘Warfare is obligatory for you, though it is hateful to you.’ Responsibility is a hateful thing. It is like a soldier standing on the front. He does not want to kill, but has been ordained to battle.” Saied’s office did not respond to a request for an interview. A devout Muslim, Saied has described his presidency as “ibtilaa,” an Arabic word meaning a test assigned by God that cannot be refused. “He’s saying he’s doing it because he has to do it, because people want him to do it,” said Mohamed-Dhia Hammami, a Syracuse University-based Tunisian political researcher. “The idea in Islam is that everyone goes through some sort of ibtilaa. In his case, it’s being the president.” All of which may sound like grandiloquent cover for demagoguery. But even his critics say his convictions are sincere, rooted in faith and genuine concern for the poor. Saied, born to a family of mixed class in Tunis (his mother had aristocratic connections, his father’s background was modest), entered the national stage in 2011, after the first revolutionary protests had died down and Ben Ali had fled the country. When protesters from marginalized regions mounted mass sit-ins in Tunis to demand more sweeping changes, Saied was one of the few establishment figures to show up in solidarity. Videos of his visits were soon all over Facebook. As a new constitution was drafted, Saied, though serving on an advisory committee, was not granted one of the pens. The exclusion clearly grated. Tunisian television often featured his commentary, which was consistent: The new constitution over-favoured Parliament. Voters would be stuck choosing among electoral lists promoted by political parties who cared only about power. Tunisians would feel more invested in their democracy if they elected representatives they knew personally. His prescription was a ground-up, top-down political system, in which power would flow up from hundreds of directly elected local councils and down from a strong president. If the idea seemed divorced from reality, he was unmoved. One activist who got to know the professor during the democratic transition recalled that although he was modest and generous, arguing with him was useless. (Most people interviewed requested anonymity to speak about the president, given the highly charged political climate.) For many Tunisians, however, he was must-watch TV. It was like “he was dictating the absolute truth about what the constitution should be,” said Amna Guellali, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Like a prophet’s voice. Something that goes beyond human.” Enamoured of his austere authority, a quality that grew only more appealing as corruption scandals dominated the news and the economy worsened, Tunisians soon set up Facebook pages urging him to run for president. Until 2019, he refused. The story of his run is by now famous in Tunisia: the slogan “The people want,” echoing the chants of the 2011 revolution; the campaign volunteers who showed up without his even asking; the campaign financing limited, he insisted, to what he had in his wallet; the aura of incorruptibility, despite scattered reports of foreign funding; the lopsided runoff victory. “Sovereignty belongs to the people,” he told an interviewer at the time. “Everything must start from them.” He later said he changed his mind about the presidency after a poor man approached him in tears, imploring him to run — a moment he compared to a religious vision. It would not be the last such interaction. Videos frequently circulate online of Saied embracing impoverished protesters at the presidential palace or stopping to greet ordinary Tunisians in the street. “That’s what people don’t find in other politicians,” said Imen Neffati, a Tunisia researcher at Oxford University. “He stands out, because the majority of them don’t really care.” Critics dismissed him as just a law professor who, they were quick to point out, never finished his doctorate. Others decried his social views: He supports the death penalty, opposes equal inheritance for men and women, and has criticized open homosexuality. Those who “seek to spread homosexuality,” he has said, are part of a foreign plot. One characteristic all agree on is his firmness. A European ambassador and informal adviser said he insists he will never negotiate with corrupt politicians or parties which, for him, rules out the party that dominates Parliament, Ennahda, as well as most of Tunisia’s business and political elite. Diplomats say every meeting at the presidential palace is a lecture, not a dialogue. Advisers say he listens to few, among them his wife. Since July 25, Saied's security forces have placed dozens of judges, politicians and business owners under travel bans and others under house arrest without due process, raising concern, even among supporters, that he is veering toward autocracy. On Tuesday, his office announced that the 30-day period he had originally set for his “exceptional measures” would be extended — for how long, it did not say. He is widely expected to try to change Tunisia’s electoral system and amend its constitution to enlarge presidential powers. Although he had promised to appoint a new prime minister by Tuesday, Tarek Kahlaoui, a Tunisian political analyst, said he had been told by presidential advisers that Saied envisioned the position as more of a “manager” than a true head of government. In justifying his power grab, Saied cited Article 80 of the constitution, which grants the president broad emergency powers in case of imminent danger to the country. But constitutional experts said his move violated the provision, in part because it requires Parliament to remain in session. For all his legal precision, several people who know him said, Saied often operates on emotion and instinct. “He feels that he’s been chosen by the people,” Kahlaoui said. “People went into the streets, and it was time for him to act.” So he did. ©2021 The New York Times Company

President Nicolas Sarkozy defended Muammar Gaddafi's visit to France on Wednesday, saying the Libyan leader was not considered a dictator in the Arab world. Gaddafi's first visit to France in 34 years has been accompanied by the signing of several business deals, and human rights groups and the opposition Socialists have accused Sarkozy of putting commercial deals before human rights. Sarkozy made a point of inviting Gaddafi after Libya in July released six foreign medics accused of infecting Libyan children with HIV. Paris helped broker the deal. "Gaddafi is not perceived as a dictator in the Arab world," Sarkozy told Le Nouvel Observateur magazine. "He is the longest serving head of state in the region, and in the Arab world, that counts," Sarkozy said. "I share the conviction that France has to talk with everyone while standing firm on the values it holds." Gaddafi took power in 1969 after leading a military coup. Libya's ties with Western states have warmed since it scrapped programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction in 2003 and agreed compensation for families of victims of bombings of U.S. and French airliners. But rights group Amnesty International said Libya's return as an international partner had to bring real cooperation on human rights as well as trade issues. "President Nicolas Sarkozy cannot satisfy himself with the conclusion of commercial agreements without obtaining concrete measures for a real improvement in human rights in Libya at the same time," the group said in a statement. CONTRACTS CONTROVERSY In France, the value of the deals signed this week has also sparked controversy. Sarkozy's office said on Monday the two countries had signed contracts worth some 10 billion euros ($14.7 billion). But several firms and industry sources played have down the scale, saying the deals appeared to be the finalisation of deals already reached or estimates of contracts being negotiated. "This visit is turning into a tragicomic farce," Socialist Arnaud Montebourg told parliament. "It ridicules France, weakens France's voice, tarnishes the universality of its message." Gaddafi told French business leaders on Wednesday improved political ties between Tripoli and Paris would help firms. "Gaddafi said French firms were appreciated in Libya," Yves-Thibault de Silguy, the chairman of French construction group Vinci, quoted Gaddafi as telling business leaders during a meeting in Paris's Ritz Hotel. "He said that in the past, many firms had suffered from political decisions taken by certain countries and that today, the political climate had largely changed. He thought his was of a nature to help the development of French firms in Libya."

President Barack Obama's $3.55 trillion budget, released on Thursday, retains his plan to cut climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions by auctioning off 100 percent of emission permits to industries. That is at odds with some in Congress, including members of Obama's own Democratic Party, who are pushing for 50 percent or more of those emissions to be given away in the early stages of the plan to ease the transition to a lower-carbon economy. Opponents fear that charging companies for the carbon they emit would put unnecessary pressure on an already struggling economy. Selling all the emission permits is projected to bring $646 billion in revenue over the first years of the program, and White House budget director Peter Orszag said that would not change when more details about the administration's budget request are released next week. "We're not going to provide the full details of what will be released on Monday, but I will say that you should anticipate no changes in our climate proposal," Orszag told reporters, when asked if the 100 percent figure would hold. During last year's presidential campaign, Obama said he wanted all emissions permits to be sold, rather than given away, but has signaled there may be flexibility on that point. Under the Obama plan, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions -- which come from coal-fired power plants, oil refineries, cars and other industrial and natural sources -- would be capped. Companies that emit more than the limit would have to buy emissions credits from companies that emit less. Even as Obama's budget request was released on Thursday, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office stressed the whole point of this kind of cap-and-trade system was to push companies to lower emissions. GIVING IT AWAY "Giving away allowances is effectively the same thing as selling them and giving the proceeds from the auction away," the CBO's David Elmendorf told the Senate Finance Committee. Total revenue from auctioning emissions could amount to some $1.2 trillion over 10 years, Elmendorf said. That rise in costs for emitting companies will show up in higher prices. In Obama's budget, some revenues from the cap-and-trade plan are meant to be rebated to consumers to offset this price rise. "The price increase will have to occur somewhere in order to induce the change in behavior," Elmendorf said. "You can move around where it happens, but you can't get away from it altogether." A cap-and-trade bill is moving through Congress, sponsored by Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who chairs the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. Waxman wants the committee to pass the bill by the end of May, but a senior Republican suggested on Thursday that the bill could be set aside for a few months while the same committee works on healthcare reform. A delay could give Democrats more time to build support for the climate change legislation, Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, said in a Reuters interview. Some Democrats on the panel, notably Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania, expect that most of the emission permits that industry would need under a cap-and-trade plan will initially be given away, not auctioned -- and that this would go on for the first 10 or 15 years of the program. Obama has said he would prefer to limit carbon emissions through legislation but also has the option of using regulation to achieve the same thing. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said last month that greenhouse emissions were a danger to human health and therefore can be regulated as a pollutant.

The case against Chen was among the most visible of the China Initiative, an effort started in 2018 under the Trump administration. China has made aggressive efforts to steal American technology through methods including the recruiting of overseas scientists as “nontraditional collectors.” But many of the prosecutions of researchers that resulted, like the case against Chen, did not allege espionage or theft of intellectual property, but something narrower and highly technical: failing to disclose Chinese affiliations in grant proposals to US funding agencies. The prosecutions have come under criticism for singling out scientists based on their ethnicity, and for overreach, blurring the line between disclosure violations and more serious crimes such as espionage. Critics in academia say the prosecutions have instilled a pervasive atmosphere of fear among scientists of Chinese descent. Chen was arrested Jan 14, 2021, during President Donald Trump’s last full week in office, and charged with omitting affiliations with Chinese government institutions in grant applications to the US Department of Energy in 2017. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges. In recent weeks, however, officials at the Department of Energy have told prosecutors that Chen had no obligation to declare the seven affiliations, calling into question the basis of the charges, according to people familiar with the matter. The move for dismissal comes as the Justice Department is reviewing the China Initiative, considering steps such as retiring the name and reclassifying the pending cases. Government officials under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations have warned that China’s push for global power poses significant national security and economic threats to the US. The officials who started the China Initiative were concerned that Beijing could steal research and other intellectual property using nontraditional collectors of intelligence, such as professors groomed to voluntarily share sensitive information in the name of academic cooperation. The program has resulted in numerous pleas and convictions, such as those of a Monsanto employee who was intercepted leaving the country with a proprietary algorithm and a Coca-Cola chemist convicted of stealing a valuable formula. Last month, after less than three hours of deliberation, a jury in Boston found a Harvard chemist, Charles Leiber, guilty of six felonies, including making false statements and failing to declare income earned in China. But other cases against academics have unravelled. The first case to reach the trial stage, against Anming Hu, a professor of engineering at the University of Tennessee, ended in acquittal in September after a judge ruled that the government had not provided sufficient evidence of intentional fraud. The Justice Department has also dismissed seven cases against researchers in recent months. The case against Chen, a naturalised US citizen since 2000, is the most prominent of the cases to be dismissed to date, involving an elite scientist who had robust support from his university. Chen, who has been on paid leave from MIT since his arrest, thanked friends and colleagues Thursday for supporting him through “this terrible year” and offered sharp criticism of the China Initiative. “While I am relieved that my ordeal is over, I am mindful that this terribly misguided China Initiative continues to bring unwarranted fear to the academic community and other scientists still face charges,” he said in a brief statement released by his lawyer. Rachael Rollins, who was sworn in this month as the new US attorney in Boston, said the decision to withdraw the case had been made after prosecutors obtained new information indicating that the Chinese affiliations at the centre of the case were not of material importance to the funding agency. “We understand that our charging decisions deeply impact people’s lives,” Rollins said. “As United States attorney, I will always encourage the prosecutors in our office to engage in this type of rigorous and continued review at every stage of a proceeding. Today’s dismissal is a result of that process and is in the interests of justice.” When Chen was arrested just over a year ago, the tone from the prosecutor’s office was strikingly different. At a news conference that morning, the US attorney at the time, Andrew E Lelling, said that “the allegations of the complaint imply that this was not just about greed, but about loyalty to China.” Joseph R Bonavolonta, the FBI special agent in charge in Boston, said Chen had “knowingly and willingly defrauded at least $19 million in federal grants.” The charges that were filed several days later were more limited in scope. They included two counts of wire fraud, for failing to disclose seven affiliations to the Department of Energy while applying for a $2.7 million grant to study heat conduction in polymer structures and in a subsequent progress report. The affiliations included serving as a “fourth overseas expert consultant” to the Chinese government, a “review expert” for the National Natural Science Foundation of China and an adviser to the Chinese Scholarship Council, among others. He was also charged with failing to declare a Chinese bank account containing more than $10,000 and with making false statements to government officials in his grant disclosures. In recent conversations, officials at the Department of Energy told prosecutors that the affiliations Chen had failed to declare would not have prevented the agency from extending the grant money, according to two people familiar with the matter. In a statement Thursday morning, Chen’s lawyer, Robert Fisher, credited witnesses who “came forward and told the government how badly they misunderstood the details surrounding scientific and academic collaboration,” saying that “without them this case would likely still be ongoing.” Fisher, a partner at Nixon Peabody, said the scientist had “never lied to the government or anyone else.” “Today is a great day,” he said. “The government finally acknowledged what we have said all along: Professor Gang Chen is an innocent man. Our defence was never based on any legal technicalities. Our defence was this: Gang did not commit any of the offenses he was charged with. Full stop.” Biden administration officials are expected to announce changes to the China Initiative in the coming weeks. “Consistent with the attorney general’s direction, the department is reviewing our approach to countering threats posed by the PRC government,” Wyn Hornbuckle, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said, referring to the People’s Republic of China. The name China Initiative may be dropped, and the cases may no longer be packaged as a distinct group but reabsorbed into the caseload of the department’s National Security Division, according to current and former Justice Department officials. After initial discussion of offering amnesty in the pending grant fraud cases, officials are leaning toward resolving the cases individually, the officials said. Among those urging the Justice Department to back away from prosecutions based on grant disclosures is Lelling himself, one of the architects of the initiative, who is now in private practice in Boston. In a post on LinkedIn last month, he wrote that he believed the China Initiative had been intended to combat espionage but had “drifted and, in some significant ways, lost its focus.” “You don’t want people to be scared of collaboration,” he said in an interview. “There’s no question, on the academic side, the China Initiative has created a climate of fear among researchers. That is one reason why DOJ should step back a bit.” He added, however, that prosecutions of academics had done some good, prompting research scientists to be far more transparent about their Chinese funding. “If you were looking for general deterrence, it has been achieved in spades — we have terrified the entire research community,” he said. “What is deterrence? You don’t speed because you’re afraid of getting a ticket. Deterrence is about fear.” MIT President Rafael Reif said he was eager for Chen to return to his duties at the university and that the burden the case had put on him and his family had been “beyond imagining.” “It is difficult to reconcile and accept the pain and anguish that such good people, people we are proud and fortunate to know, have endured over the last two years,” Reif said in a statement. “This case has also caused ongoing distress throughout our community, particularly for Gang’s friends, students and colleagues, and for those across MIT and elsewhere who are of Chinese descent.” © 2022 The New York Times Company

Speaking at a pre-election town hall event on RTL television on Sunday, Merkel called on German carmakers, all of which have been caught using workarounds to cheat nitrogen emissions tests, to work to re-establish public trust in diesel. "We need diesel if we are to achieve our climate protection goals," she said. Diesel cars emit less of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide but emit more of the nitrogen dioxide that can cause breathing problems in high concentrations. She told one car owner that the more modest compensation received by German car owners compared with their US counterparts was the result of very different legal systems in the two countries. Nonetheless, Germany's carmakers needed to compensate owners whose cars were less valuable as a result of the scandal as best as possible, she said, otherwise "the German car industry, which is admired the world over, could suffer substantial harm". The future of the auto sector, Germany's biggest exporter and provider of 800,000 jobs, has become a hot election issue as politicians blame executives and each other for the sector's battered reputation after Volkswagen's admission almost two years ago that it had cheated US emissions tests.

Toyako, Japan,july 08 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - The G8 rich countries want to work with the nearly 200 states involved in UN climate change talks to adopt a goal of at least halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a draft communique showed. The communique, obtained by Reuters ahead of its formal approval by Group of Eight leaders at a summit in northern Japan, also said mid-term goals would be needed to achieve the shared goal for 2050. The statement puts the focus of fighting global warming on UN-led talks to create a new framework for when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, and papers over differences inside the G8 itself. The UN talks are set to conclude in Copenhagen in December 2009. The careful wording of the climate statement -- always the most contentious part of summit negotiations -- was also unlikely to satisfy those seeking much more specific targets. Last year, the G8 club of rich nations -- Japan, Britain, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Russia and the United States -- agreed merely to "seriously consider" a goal of halving global emissions by mid-century. The European Union and Japan have been pressing for this year's summit to go beyond that, and Brussels wanted clear interim targets as well. But US President George W Bush has insisted that Washington cannot agree to binding targets unless big polluters such as China and India rein in their emissions as well. The European Union's executive welcomed the deal on climate change, saying it represented a "new, shared vision" and kept negotiations on track for a global deal in 2009. "This is a strong signal to citizens around the world," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday, adding the EU's benchmark for success at the G8 summit in northern Japan had been achieved. Global warming ties into other big themes such as soaring food and fuel prices being discussed at the three-day meeting at a plush mountain-top hotel on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, where 21,000 police have been mobilized. In another statement released on the second day of the summit, the leaders noted that the world economy faces uncertainty and downside risks, including that posed by a sharp rise in oil prices. The group also made a thinly veiled call for China to let the yuan's tightly controlled exchange rate appreciate to help reduce global financial imbalances. "In some emerging economies with large and growing current account surpluses, it is crucial that their effective exchange rates move so that necessary adjustment will occur," the G8 said in the statement. The leaders also agreed to bring major oil producers and consumers together in a world energy forum to discuss output and prices. The price of food and of oil, which hit a record high of $145.85 a barrel last week, is taking a particularly heavy toll on the world's poor. A World Bank study issued last week said up to 105 million more people could drop below the poverty line due to the leap in food prices, including 30 million in Africa. "How we respond to this double jeopardy of soaring food and oil prices is a test of the global system's commitment to help the most vulnerable," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said on Monday. "It is a test we cannot afford to fail." To help cushion the blow, officials said the G8 would unveil a series of measures to help Africa, especially its farmers, and would affirm its commitment to double aid to give $50 billion extra in aid by 2010, with half to go to the world's poorest continent. The summit wraps up on Wednesday with a Major Economies Meeting comprising the G8 and eight other big greenhouse gas-emitting countries, including India, China and Australia.

“We have decided to repeal all three farm laws, and will begin the procedure at the Parliament session that begins this month,” Modi said in a televised address. “I urge the protesting farmers to return home to their families, and let’s start afresh.” Protest leaders greeted Modi’s turnaround with cautious optimism, with plans to meet in New Delhi to discuss next steps. Many of the protesters come from India’s minority Sikh community, and Modi timed his announcement for Guru Nanak Jayanti, a holiday celebrated by Sikhs all over the world. Ramandeep Singh Mann, a farmer leader and activist, said he was “ecstatic” after hearing the news. “Like you’ve conquered Mount Everest!” he said. What remains unclear, Mann said, is whether the government will agree to the farmers’ other major demand: a separate law guaranteeing a minimum price for crops. For now, he said, farmers would continue their siege outside the borders of New Delhi until Parliament formally repealed the three laws. “Until that day, we will be there,” he said. Modi’s government had stood firmly behind the market-friendly laws it passed last year, even as the farmers refused any compromise short of repealing them. The protesters remained in their tents through last year’s harsh winter, the summer heat and a deadly COVID-19 wave that caused havoc in New Delhi. Modi’s government had argued that the new laws would bring private investment into a sector that more than 60% of India’s population still depends on for their livelihood — but has been lagging in its contribution to India’s economy. But the farmers, already struggling under heavy debt loads and bankruptcies, feared that reduced government regulations would leave them at the mercy of corporate giants. The repeal of the laws comes as Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party revs up its campaign in an upcoming election in the north Indian states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Uttarakhand, where many of the protesting farmers live. After more than a dozen rounds of failed negotiations, farmers changed tactics this fall, shadowing top officials of Modi’s government as they traveled and campaigned across northern India, ensuring their grievances would be hard to ignore. During one such confrontation in October, a BJP convoy rammed into a group of protesting farmers in Uttar Pradesh, killing four protesters along with four other people, including a local journalist. The son of one of Modi’s ministers is among those under investigation for murder in the episode. Jagdeep Singh, whose father, Nakshatra Singh, 54, was among those killed, said the decision to repeal the laws served as homage to those who had died in the difficult conditions of a year of protests — whether from exposure to extreme temperatures, heart attacks, COVID or more. According to one farm leader, some 750 protesters have died. (The government says it does not have data on this.) “This is a win for all those farmers who laid down their lives to save hundreds of thousands of poor farmers of this country from corporate greed,” Singh said. “They must be smiling from wherever they are.”   ©2021 The New York Times Company

JAKARTA, Thu Feb 19, (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urged US leadership on climate change in a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday, as she visited to boost US ties with Southeast Asia and the Muslim world. She was due to travel to South Korea later in the day for talks on the North's military threat. Clinton was greeted by Yudhoyono outside his office in the white colonial-style presidential palace in Jakarta before the two went in for talks. They did not comment after the meeting, but a presidential spokesman said the talks included economic cooperation, Palestine and efforts to reach a new global agreement on climate change. "The president underlined that a global consensus (on climate change) cannot be achieved without US leadership," presidential spokesman Dino Patti Djalal told a news conference. In a pre-recorded TV interview on a local youth music show, Clinton confirmed she would attend a conference on rebuilding Gaza in Cairo on March 2 when asked about the new administration's efforts to improve ties with the Islamic world. "One thing is that immediately upon being inaugurated and my taking office as secretary of state, President Obama and I said the United States will get re-engaged in trying to help in the Middle East," she said. Preliminary estimates put the damage in Hamas-run Gaza after Israel's offensive, which killed 1,300 Palestinians, at nearly $2 billion. Clinton's visit to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, highlights President Barack Obama's desire to forge a better U.S. relationship with the Muslim world, where many of the policies of former president George W. Bush's administration, including the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, were deeply unpopular. Most Indonesians follow a moderate form of Islam, although there is a vocal fringe element of radicals and there have been a number of small protests by hardline Islamic groups and students opposing Clinton's trip. Indonesia is also the site of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations headquarters, and has Southeast Asia's largest economy. FINANCIAL CRISIS Clinton's talks have also covered the financial crisis and Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said on Wednesday Jakarta had discussed the possibility of U.S. assistance in the form of a currency swap agreement and possible contingency funding to support Southeast Asia's top economy. Indonesia already seeks to extend a $6 billion currency swap arrangement with Japan and has similar deals, each worth $3 billion, with China and South Korea. Yudhoyono, seeking a second term this year, is keen to showcase Indonesia's stability since its transformation from an autocracy under former President Suharto -- who was forced to resign in 1998 -- to a vibrant democracy. Clinton, like Bush Administration officials in the past, held up Indonesia as proof modernity and Islam can coexist as she visited the country where Obama spent four years as a boy. During her appearance on the "Dahsyat" ("Awesome") music show, Clinton was greeted with claps when she said along with classical music she liked the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. She was due to visit a USAID sanitation project in Jakarta before flying to South Korea. North Korea has repeatedly threatened in recent weeks to reduce the South to ashes and on Thursday said it was ready for war. Pyongyang is thought to be readying its longest-range missile for launch in what analysts say is a bid to grab the new US administration's attention and pressure Seoul to ease up on its hard line. Clinton has said such a launch would not help relations. After South Korea, Clinton will go to China, the last stop on an Asian tour that also included Japan. The trip is her first outside the United States since taking office.

No one in the room had been informed of Abiy Ahmed's trip, his second since clinching a peace deal last year that ended two decades of hostility between the neighbours. "The foreign office was not in the loop," said a senior official who was present. "We learned of it from the Eritrean media, on Facebook and Twitter." The surprise visit is typical of Abiy, who both fans and critics say often relies on bold personal initiatives and charisma to drive change instead of working through government institutions. Nebiat Getachew, the foreign ministry spokesman, said policy was well co-ordinated. He did not confirm if Abiy had made the July trip without informing the ministry. The deal with Eritrea won Abiy international plaudits. He is the bookmakers' second favourite to win a Nobel Peace Prize on Friday, after climate activist Greta Thunberg. But Abiy's unpredictable style annoys some Ethiopians. It is unclear how much of the fractious ruling coalition - some form of which has been in power since 1991 - backs his reforms, or how durable those reforms would be without his leadership. He has already survived one assassination attempt: a grenade thrown at a rally last year. Lasting change cannot be built through a "cult of personality", said Comfort Ero, Africa programme director at the International Crisis Group think tank. "None of Abiy's promised transformational reforms are going to have any solid foundations unless he works through the institutions," she said. Ethiopia has been among Africa's fastest growing economies for more than a decade. But uncertainty over Abiy's ability to carry out all his reforms worries both citizens and the foreign investors he has been courting to develop the country's antiquated telecoms and banking sectors. PERSONAL STYLE OR CANNY STRATEGY? Some observers say Abiy, a former military officer specialising in cyber intelligence, will sometimes bypass ministries because his reforms must maintain their breakneck momentum or become mired in bureaucracy. Those reforms - including unbanning political parties, releasing imprisoned journalists and prosecuting officials accused of torture - have drawn ecstatic crowds at rallies. "Abiy seems to have relied on his charismatic rule," said Dereje Feyissa, a professor at Addis Ababa University. "The question is whether this is sustainable. Euphoria is subsiding." Other observers say Abiy's rapid changes are a deliberate attempt to wrong-foot opponents from the previous administration, which was dominated by Tigrayans, a small but powerful ethnic group. Abiy, 43, is from the Oromo group, the nation's largest, which spearheaded the protests that forced his predecessor to resign. Since taking office in April 2018, Abiy's government has arrested or fired many senior officials - mainly Tigrayans - for corruption or rights abuses. "In the first six or seven months, he undercut the institutions ... The institutions were either not working or working against his agenda," said Jawar Mohammed, an Oromo activist and informal adviser to the prime minister. "I don't think he could have travelled this far without doing that." FOREIGN POLICY One of Abiy's biggest victories was the peace deal, signed in July last year, which ended a nearly 20-year military stalemate with Eritrea following their 1998-2000 border war. Asle Sveen, a historian who has written several books about the Nobel Peace Prize, told Reuters the deal made Abiy exactly the kind of candidate Alfred Nobel had envisaged for the prize. "The peace deal has ended a long conflict with Eritrea, and he is very popular for having done this, and he is doing democratic reforms internally," Sveen said. But some benefits of the peace were short-lived. Land borders opened in July but closed in December with no official explanation. "Last year's rapprochement appears to have been partly due to the Eritrean president's belief that Abiy's rise marked the eclipse of Tigray's ruling party, which had been his prime antagonist for more than two decades," said Will Davison, an Ethiopia analyst at Crisis Group. "But although it has lost power at the federal level, Tigray's ruling party remains firmly in control of its own region, which includes a long border with Eritrea, partially explaining why relations between the two nations haven't warmed further." Nebiat, the foreign ministry spokesman, said Eritrea and Ethiopia had restored diplomatic relations, air links and phone connections. "Other engagements are well underway to further institutionalise relations," he said. PERSONAL INITIATIVES Abiy's diplomatic forays - like his surprise trip - tend to be bold personal initiatives, analysts and diplomats said. The foreign ministry has been "completely sidelined," said the senior ministry official, adding that "our interests abroad may be jeopardised". He said Abiy had engaged with Eritrea, Somalia and wealthy Gulf states on major policy issues without building consensus within his government. Nebiat disputed that. "There is always a well-coordinated foreign policy and diplomacy implementation within the Ethiopian government," he said. "Any other claims are simply baseless." Some nations are pleased by Abiy's personal touch. After Sudanese police killed more than 100 protesters in June, Abiy flew to Khartoum to convince Sudan's new military rulers and the opposition to restart talks, and persuaded Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to back his mediation. The talks led to a power-sharing accord in August. "Abiy played a key role," said Amjad Farid, a senior representative of the civilian group that led talks with the military. REFORMS AT HOME Abiy has pushed through reforms at home and abroad. His public renunciation of past abuses drew a line between his administration and that of his predecessor. He appointed former dissidents to senior roles. Daniel Bekele, a former political prisoner and Africa director at New York-based Human Rights Watch, now heads the government's human rights commission. Birtukan Mideksa, who founded an opposition party and was jailed after a disputed 2005 election, now heads the electoral commission. But ethnically tinged violence flares frequently, and systemic attempts to address past injustices have been slow. A reconciliation commission set up in December has an unclear mandate, lacks expertise and has only met twice, said Laetitia Bader, an Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The jury is still out on whether the move will be more than mere window dressing," Bader said.

The Harvard graduate is one of 10 "entrepreneurial farmers" selected by Square Roots, an indoor urban farming company, to grow kale, mini-head lettuce and other crops locally in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. For 12 months, farmers each get a 320-square-foot steel shipping container where they control the climate of their own farm. Under pink LED lights, they grow GMO-free greens all year round. Groszyk, who personally makes all the deliveries to his 45 customers, said he chooses certain crops based on customer feedback and grows new crops based on special requests. "Literally the first day we were here, they were lowering these shipping containers with a crane off the back of a truck," said Groszyk. "By the next week, we were already planting seeds." Tobias Peggs launched Square Roots with Kimbal Musk, the brother of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) Chief Executive Elon Musk, in November, producing roughly 500 pounds of greens every week for hundreds of customers. "If we can come up with a solution that works for New York, then as the rest of the world increasingly looks like New York, we'll be ready to scale everywhere," said Peggs. In exchange for providing the farms and the year-long program, which includes support on topics like business development, branding, sales and finance, Square Roots shares 30 percent of the revenue with the farmers. Peggs estimates that farmers take home between $30,000 and $40,000 total by the end of the year. The farmers cover the operating expenses of their container farm, such as water, electricity and seeds and pay rent, costing them roughly $1,500 per month in total, according to Peggs. "An alternative path would be doing an MBA in food management, probably costing them tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars," Peggs said, adding that he hopes farmers start companies of their own after they graduate from the program. Groszyk harvests 15 to 20 pounds of produce each week, having been trained in artificial lighting, water chemistry, nutrient balance, business development and sales. "It's really interesting to find out who's growing your food," said Tieg Zaharia, 25, a software engineer at Kickstarter, while munching on a $5 bag of greens grown and packaged by Groszyk. You're not just buying something that's shipped in from hundreds of miles away." Nabeela Lakhani, 23, said reading "Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal" in high school inspired her to change the food system. Three nights per week, Lakhani assumes the role of resident chef at a market-to-table restaurant in lower Manhattan. "I walk up to the table and say, 'Hi guys! Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to introduce myself. I am Chalk Point Kitchen's new urban farmer,' and they're like, 'What?'" said Lakhani, who specializes in Tuscan kale and rainbow chard. "Then I kind of just go, 'Yeah, you know, we have a shipping container in Brooklyn ... I harvest this stuff and bring it here within 24 hours of you eating it, so it's the freshest salad in New York City.'"