CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Malaysia's 1MDB state fund still $7.8 billion in debt: government report

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), the state fund at the centre of a massive corruption scandal, still had an estimated 32.3 billion ringgit ($7.80 billion) in outstanding debt as of September, the government said on Friday.

© Reuters/Olivia Harris A man walks past a 1 Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) billboard at the funds flagship Tun Razak Exchange development in Kuala Lumpur

Set up in 2009 by former prime minister Najib Razak, authorities are investigating how billions of dollars went missing from 1MDB - a disappearance the government says led to the finance ministry having to bail out the fund.

Malaysia said in 2018 the government would have to pay about $13 billion of 1MDB's dues.

Since April 2017, the government has provided 9.4 billion ringgit in loans and advances to help 1MDB meet its financial commitments and debt obligations, according to the 2021 fiscal outlook report, released ahead of the government's budget announcement on Friday.

Malaysia has also recovered a total of 13.4 billion ringgit ($3.24 billion) in assets linked to 1MDB's financial trail as of the end of September, the report said.

The amount includes about 2.6 billion ringgit ($628 million) in cash and assets recovered and returned to Malaysia by the U.S. authorities, as well as $2.5 billion paid by Goldman Sachs to settle a Malaysian probe into the investment bank's role in the 1MDB scandal.

© Reuters/LIM HUEY TENG Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak arrives at Kuala Lumpur High Court in Kuala Lumpur

Goldman Sachs, which had helped 1MDB raise a total of $6.5 billion in bonds, has also guaranteed to help Malaysia recover $1.4 billion more in 1MDB-linked assets.

The United States has said about $4.5 billion was stolen from 1MDB in an elaborate scheme that spanned the globe and implicated high-level officials of the fund, former prime minister Najib, Goldman executives, and others.

Malaysian authorities say billions of dollars remain unaccounted for.

($1 = 4.1390 ringgit)

(Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Ed Davies)

Who won the Christian vote in the 2020 U.S. election? It's complicated

Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump profess to be men of faith, but the Christian vote and how it aligned in the 2020 U.S. presidential election is a complicated matter, to say the least.

© Provided by National Post Christian believers pray during a

Tyler Dawson National Post  NOV 5, 2020

While much of the discussion of American religion happens in the context of right-wing evangelicals, Christians in America are considerably diverse. But according to figures in pre-election and exit polling, they make up significant chunks of the voting public, and possibly enough to change outcomes: Forty-four per cent of all registered voters in the U.S. are white Christians; seven per cent are Black Protestants, and five per cent are Hispanic Catholics.

Biden is a Catholic, and attended Mass early on election day. Trump, despite affiliating with far-right evangelical pastors, grew up in a Presbyterian church, he says, and now considers himself a non-denominational Christian, according to an interview he gave to Religion News Service in late October.

In the lead-up to voting day, various religious and faith-based groups lobbied voters. Evangelical pastors, for example, were openly praying for Donald Trump’s re-election. The group CatholicVote.org warned Catholics that a Biden victory would mean fighting “taxpayer funding of abortions,” according to a report in the National Catholic Register, a conservative Catholic newspaper.

Exit polling done for NBC News (among voters who have completed voting or reached by telephone), showed that among Catholics, 51 per cent voted for Biden, compared to 47 per cent for Trump. Among those who identify as Protestant — this would combine various denominations — 37 per cent voted Biden, compared to 62 per cent for Trump.

The NBC data also breaks down race-based religious data: Among white Protestants, 73 per cent voted for Trump, and 26 per cent voted for Biden.

White Catholics voted similarly, if not as strongly, with 56 per cent voting for Trump, and 42 per cent voting for Biden.

In Pew Research Center polling of voter intentions from October, 78 per cent of white evangelical Protestants intended to vote for Trump.

Fifty-three per cent of white Protestants who were not evangelical intended to vote for Trump and 52 per cent of white Catholics also intended to vote for him. A full 90 per cent of Black Protestant voters supported Biden, according to the Pew polling, while 67 per cent of Hispanic Catholics also supported Biden.

Compare this to the 2016 data, when 64 per cent of white Catholics voted for Trump. That’s an eight-point drop in Trump support.

In 2016, Trump received significant support from Christian voters: 56 per cent of Protestant voters — comprising multiple denominations — voted for Trump, compared to 39 per cent for Hillary Clinton, according to Pew Research Center data. Catholics voted similarly: 52 per cent voted for Donald Trump versus 44 per cent for Hillary Clinton.

These numbers provide a hint of some of the religious drama that’s now being seen.

“I think the white Catholics are really the story today,” said Ryan Burge, a professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University. “I think that really matters in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the three states that look like they’re going to flip from red to blue this time.”

U.S. to sanction leader of Lebanon's Free Patriotic Movement: WSJ

(Reuters) - The United States is planning to sanction prominent Lebanese Christian politician Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic Movement, which was founded by the president and is allied with Hezbollah, the Wall Street Journal reported late on Thursday.

© Reuters/MOHAMED AZAKIR FILE PHOTO:

 Gebran Bassil, head of the Free Patriotic movement, speaks at the presidential palace in Baabda

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration is expected on Friday to impose the sanctions on Bassil for assisting the Lebanese Shi'ite group Hezbollah, the newspaper reported https://on.wsj.com/34ZGJYm, citing sources.

The U.S. Department of Treasury did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular working hours.

Bassil and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The United States deems Iranian-backed Hezbollah to be a terrorist group. It has sanctioned several Hezbollah members.

Bassil, the son-in-law of President Michel Aoun and head of FPM, Lebanon's largest Christian political bloc, is also a former foreign minister.

In September, the United States blacklisted two former Lebanese government ministers it accused of enabling Hezbollah.

It accused a former transport minister, Yusuf Finyanus, and a former finance minister, Ali Hassan Khalil, of engaging in corruption and leveraging their political power for financial gain.

Well-armed Hezbollah has risen to become the overarching power in Lebanon, which is now grappling with a financial meltdown.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut; Editing by Robert Birsel)

AMERICAN TALIBAN

Steve Bannon banned by Twitter for calling for Fauci beheading

Peter Beaumont THE GUARDIAN 

Twitter has banned the account of the former Trump adviser and surrogate Steve Bannon after he called for the beheading of Dr Anthony Fauci and the FBI director, Chris Wray, and the posting of their heads outside the White House as a “warning”.

© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

 Steve Bannon appeared to endorse violence against Anthony Fauci, the US’s most senior infectious diseases expert, and the FBI director, Chris Wray.

Speaking on his podcast, the War Room, which was distributed in video form on a number of social media outlets, the far-right provocateur appeared to endorse violence against Wray and the US’s most senior infectious diseases expert.

“Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci, no I actually want to go a step farther but the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,” Bannon said.

“I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put their heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats, you either get with the programme or you’re gone.”

Twitter banned Bannon’s War Room account permanently, saying it had suspended the podcast account for violating its policy on the glorification of violence.

The same video was on Facebook for about 10 hours before it was also removed.

Bannon’s intervention came amid mounting concern over the risk of violence following this week’s nailbiting US elections, amid highly inflammatory rhetoric from Trump and his allies, who have falsely said Democrats were trying to “steal the election”.

Philadelphia police arrested two men who were allegedly involved in a plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Thursday night. Police were tipped off, possibly from a concerned family member of one of the men, who had driven 300 miles from Virginia.

The moves against Bannon came hours after Facebook also banned “Stop the Steal”, a group involved in organising protests this weekend throughout the US against the presidential vote count.

One post, shared by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, declared: “Neither side is going to concede. Time to clean the guns, time to hit the streets.”

The increasingly heated language around the election has also included interventions from more mainstream figures, including the former Republican House speaker Newt Gingrich, who appeared to call for election workers in Pennsylvania to be arrested.

Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News, Gingrich amplified Trump’s false complaints of election rigging and mused about what he believed was the solution.

“My hope is that President Trump will lead the millions of Americans who understand exactly what’s going on,” Gingrich said. “The Philadelphia machine is corrupt. The Atlanta machine is corrupt. The machine in Detroit is corrupt. And they are trying to steal the presidency. And we should not allow them to do that.

“First of all, under federal law, we should lock up the people who are breaking the law,” he continued. “You stop somebody from being an observer, you just broke federal law. Do you hide and put up papers so nobody can see what you’re doing? You just broke federal law. You bring in ballots that aren’t real? You just broke federal law.”

Steve Bannon's podcast barred from Twitter after he made beheading comment about Fauci, FBI Director Wray

Dan Mangan  CNBC 

Former top Trump aide Steve Bannon's podcast was permanently suspended by Twitter and had an episode yanked from YouTube.

He implied that FBI Director Christopher Wray and government infectious-diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci should be beheaded and have their heads put on pikes outside the White House.

Those comments came while Bannon is free on bond in a federal criminal case in which he is accused of defrauding donors to a nonprofit group purportedly dedicated to building a wall on the southern border of the United States

.

© Provided by CNBC Former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon exits the Manhattan Federal Court, following his arraignment hearing for conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering, in New York, August 20, 2020.

Former top Trump aide Steve Bannon's podcast was permanently suspended by Twitter and had an episode yanked from YouTube after he implied that FBI Director Christopher Wray and leading government infectious-diseases expert Dr. Anthony Fauci should be beheaded and have their heads put on pikes outside the White House.

Those comments by Bannon on Thursday came while he is free on a $5 million release bond in a federal criminal case in which he is accused of defrauding donors to a nonprofit group purportedly dedicated to building a wall on the southern border of the United States.

A spokeswoman for Bannon said that he was not suggesting that Fauci and Wray actually be beheaded, but was speaking metaphorically by referencing the bloody politics of Tudor-era England. She also said he has "never called for violence of any kind."

A spokesman for prosecutors in the Southern District of New York declined to comment Thursday night when asked whether they will ask a Manhattan federal court judge to either revoke Bannon's bond, or to issue a gag order on him.

Bannon made the remarks about Wray and Fauci on his "War Room: Pandemic" podcast, when he was discussing a hypothetical second term for President Donald Trump.

Bannon ran Trump's 2016 campaign and served as a senior White House advisor until Trump fired him in August 2017.

Bannon during the podcast said, "Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci."

"Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man," Bannon continued.

"I'd actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England, I'd put the heads on pikes, right, I'd put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats. You either get with the program or you're gone – time to stop playing games."

"Blow it all up, put Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI, that'll light them up, right," Bannon said.

Grenell is a hard-core Trump loyalist who served as former acting director of national intelligence and ambassador to Germany.

Bannon's co-host Jack Maxey then said, "You know what, Steve, just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia, these were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia."

"These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors," Maxey said.

Bannon replied, "That's how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it."

"The [American] revolution wasn't some sort of garden party, right?" Bannon said. "It was a civil war. It was a civil war."

Twitter said it suspended Bannon's account because of the remarks on "War Room."

A Twitter spokeperson in a statement said, "The
@WarRoomPandemicaccount has been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules, specifically our policy on the glorification of violence."

YouTube removed the episode, but other War Room episodes remain available.

Alex Joseph, a spokesperson for YouTube, which is owned by Google, said, "We've removed this video for violating our policy against inciting violence. We will continue to be vigilant as we enforce our policies in the post-election period."

YouTube has a three-strikes policy before an account is terminated. While the Bannon show's channel is still available, the strike from this incident temporarily disables uploading for at least a week, according to YouTube.

Bannon's spokeswoman, in an emailed statement, said, "Mr Bannon did not, would not and has never called for violence of any kind."

"Mr. Bannon's commentary was clearly meant metaphorically. He previously played a clip of St. Thomas More's trial and was making an allusion to this historical event in Tudor England for rhetorical purposes," the spokeswoman said.

"Mr. Bannon has been openly critical of FBI Director Chris Wray for weeks and has called for his firing for his failure to investigate and address Hunter Biden's hard drive, and that has been in Director Wray's possession since in Dec 2019," she said.

"In addition, Mr. Bannon has supported comments from the White House calling for the immediate firing of Dr. Fauci."

In a 2016 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Bannon compared himself to the famous chief minister to England's King Henry VIII, who had him beheaded.

"I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors," Bannon said in that interview.

Bannon was arrested Aug. 20 off the coast of Connecticut aboard a 150-yacht owned by Chinese billionaire

Bannon and three associates, Timothy Shea, Brian Kolfage and Andrew Badolato, are accused of defrauding donors as they raised more than $25 million to build a wall along the southern border for the We Build the Wall nonprofit group.

Bannon has pleaded not guilty in the case.

He is free on a $5 million bond secured by $1.75 million in cash or property while awaiting his trial, scheduled for next May.

Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, after the men were charged, said in a statement, "The defendants defrauded hundreds of thousands of donors, capitalizing on their interest in funding a border wall to raise millions of dollars, under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction."

"While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle."

Prosecutors say Bannon received $1 million in funds from We Build the Wall, and that to divert that money used a separate nonprofit he had already created, whose ostensible purpose was "promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty."

ALBERTA UNDER UCP
Braid: Shocking COVID-19 case count reveals a system under severe stress

Don Braid, Calgary Herald 

© Provided by Calgary Herald Alberta chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw.

Albertans generally have confidence in our system for dealing with COVID-19.

But on Thursday, for the very first time, you could almost see the whole mammoth structure start to bend under the strain.

Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, revealed the latest daily case count, and it’s a shocker.

Eight hundred new infections emerged on Wednesday alone.

There had been 515 the day before, and an average of 567 for the four days over the weekend.

That seemed to be a plateau — a high plateau, but at least a level one.

Then came 800. And it happened Thursday amid a technical breakdown that prevented Hinshaw from releasing any other numbers, including deaths.

Her video news conference started an hour and 15 minutes late, which added to the tension and uncertainty.

Hinshaw said the delay was due to the tech issues. Some might see calculation in this. Are they hiding something?

I have much more faith in Hinshaw’s integrity than that. But there’s no doubt about the deep concern that spread on Thursday from Alberta Health to AHS and the premier’s office.

Hinshaw said more stringent measures might be coming. It’s clear that the ones imposed last week — limiting gatherings to 15 people in Calgary and Edmonton — are not having much effect.

She also worries about the impact from Halloween, because any surge in cases from Saturday’s parties and trick or treating has not shown up yet.

This could add to escalation now occurring and raise the case count even more quickly.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi might prove to be right in his recent estimate that we could top 1,000 cases a day .

The dawning worry is that the system might be edging toward loss of control. The virus is now spreading, at least in part, beyond the knowledge of those charged with detecting infection.

Hinshaw conceded that AHS no longer has the capacity to call every contact of every case in a timely way.

“Effective today, as an interim measure until more contact tracers can be hired and trained, AHS will be focusing their contact tracing on high priority settings only.”

Those include continuing-care centres, a health-care setting or a school.

If you catch the disease and you’re not classified as high priority, you’ll be asked to do your own notification of contacts.

That’s reasonable in the circumstances. It’s also one sign of a system running short of resources.

Why are infections rising so sharply? Hinshaw gave an explanation.

The culprits are people who keep working and circulating while they’re experiencing symptoms.

In Calgary, 11 per cent of active cases worked while symptomatic. Nine per cent travelled and seven per cent attended a social gathering.

In Edmonton, nine per cent worked while experiencing symptoms. Eight per cent went to a store or service business and a further eight per cent attended a social gathering.

Hinshaw calculates that as many as 500 people circulated freely while symptomatic. This highly infectious disease could explode from those people to thousands upon thousands of others, who will, in turn, spread it to still more people.

That’s what has happened in the U.S. It’s what we have quite successfully prevented — until now.

Hinshaw almost begs people to stop all activities if they have symptoms. And do not, whether you’re symptomatic or not, go to house parties.

I’ve mentioned the Ontario comparison before. But it is important to give a sense of how much trouble we’re in.

Ontario’s daily cases now run about 1,000 — just 200 more than our new high. Quebec had just over 1,000 on Wednesday.

Both provinces have millions more people than Alberta.

If the latest level of 800 cases rises to match the Ontario and Quebec numbers, it will be demonstrably true that Alberta’s COVID-19 crisis is the worst in Canada.

Premier Jason Kenney recently said to the thoughtless people who ignore all this: “Knock it off.”

They aren’t listening. Very soon, if this goes on, he’ll have to act.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Calgary Herald.

dbraid@postmedia.com

Twitter: @DonBraid

Facebook: Don Braid Politics

SWINE FLU IN ALBERTA
Infectious disease expert says human case of rare swine flu likely a one-off

EDMONTON — An infectious disease expert at the University of Alberta says it's shocking to hear about Canada's first human case of a rare swine flu variant, but she expects it's likely a one-off.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an associate professor in the department of medicine, wrote on Twitter "what fresh hell is this" when she first heard about the case in central Alberta.

She added, however, that it's not likely to be a major issue.

"Most of the avian and swine influenza strains aren't all that good at spreading between people," Saxinger explained Thursday in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"It's usually a one-off situation where a person has gotten it from a bird or a pig source and that's usually the end of it. But everyone is always worried about it because occasionally those strains can turn out to spread from person to person, so there's always a cautious approach when such a thing happens."

Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, said Wednesday that the variant Influenza A H1N2 case was detected in mid-October after a patient showed up with mild flu-like symptoms in an emergency department.

Hinshaw said it appears to be an isolated case and the only one of influenza so far this flu season.

It's also the first reported case of H1N2v in Canada since 2005 when reporting became mandatory — and one of only 27 cases globally.

Video: 1 case of rare swine flu variant confirmed in central Alberta, first of its kind in Canada (Global News)


Another expert at the University of Calgary said the history of H1N2 virus in humans shows there's no reason to worry.

"We're never 100 per cent sure, of course," said Frank van der Meer, an associate professor in global health and infectious diseases.

He said he would be more concerned about the case if there were evidence of person-to-person spread.

"If you come into contact with pigs and there's influenza circulating in pig farms, you can expect that it will spill over to the human side every so often," said van der Meer.

Officials with the province said they are still investigating the source of the virus and are looking into potential links to pig farms in the area. No other human cases have been found in retrospective testing of COVID-19 samples, they said.

Saxinger said it's comforting to hear that the province's preliminary investigation has been going on for weeks and hasn't found any spread.

"It's likely to be just an oddity that doesn't mean anything," she said. "But the timing of it, coming during a coronavirus pandemic, is just unfortunate because I don't think people want to think about it even.

"I don't think they have to think about it, honestly."

Van der Meer agreed the variant case is not a major issue.

"COVID, yes," he said. "It's my biggest concern at the moment. This one is just a fluke."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 5, 2020.

Colette Derworiz, The Canadian Press

Hundreds march in Haiti after outrage over student's slaying

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hundreds of protesters – many dressed in school uniforms – marched through the streets of Haiti’s capital Thursday to demand answers after the kidnapping and killing of a young woman that has incensed the nation.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

High school senior Evelyne Sincère was found in a trash heap Sunday after relatives said they were unable to pay the large ransom demanded by her captors. Human rights groups contend the incident highlights the nation’s worsening security crisis.

“I am worried,” said Katy Jean-Joseph, 19, who marched while carrying a photo of Sincère. “What happened to Evelyne could have happened to me.”

Haiti has been rocked by street protests demanding President Jovenel Moise’s ouster on allegations that he mismanaged the economy and failed to hold accountable those who siphoned billions in international aid into bank accounts overseas. Now the Caribbean nation is also grappling with growing concern over Moise’s decision to delay legislative elections and instead insist first on a constitutional referendum.

International leaders including the Trump administration and the Organization of American States are pressuring Moise to set a date for a vote.

Meanwhile, the United Nations and rights groups in Haiti are warning about a rising tide of violence by armed gangs whose crimes are largely going unpunished in a country that has struggled to buoy its weak national police force.

The U.N. envoy for Haiti painted a grim picture to the U.N. Security Council last month, saying that the nation is “once again struggling to avert the precipice of instability.” Helen La Lime added that the Haitian National Police would need at least 10,000 well trained and equipped officers to meet international standards.

“Gangs continue to challenge the authority of the state, especially in the more populous neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince,” she said.

Nearly 2,000 protesters gathered Thursday in a neighbourhood known as a hotspot for kidnappings and marched to the Ministry of Justice. Many carried photographs of Sincère while chanting phrases like, “If we had a government, Evelyne would not have died.”

The protest ended after police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

“I want to be able to succeed in my country, without fear, and have a normal life — not wake up in the morning and hear about a crime like what happened to Evelyne on the news,” said Nerley Charles, 21, a protester. “We need justice and an end to impunity.”

Police have not released details about the crime, but a local justice of the peace told the newspaper Le Nouvelliste that she had been beaten to death. A video showing Sincère’s sister wailing as the corpse was discovered sparked outrage on social media. She said kidnappers demanded $100,000, far more than the family could raise.

“I begged for mercy and said I’d bring the money,” Enette Sincère told reporters.

Several high-profile radio hosts announced they were cancelling their shows to protest the crime, and politicians have joined in the demand for justice. Moise called on police to “put the bandits out of harm’s way.”

“Normally children bury their parents – only in times of war should a parent bury their child,” Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe wrote on Twitter. “But in Haiti we are not at war.”

The crime comes two months after a prominent lawyer, Monferrier Dorval, was shot to death at his home. La Lime said Dorval’s death “epitomizes for many the weak state of rule of law in the country.”

Civil society groups have recorded 162 kidnappings this year, including 21 in October. Fifty-five of the kidnapping victims were reported to be women.

“Women do become more vulnerable as this continues to deteriorate,” said Ellie Happel, director of the Haiti Project at New York University School of Law’s Global Justice Clinic.

Human rights lawyer Mario Joseph called the current situation a “state of terror” in which police do little to hold those responsible for crimes accountable. He pointed to a video circulating online Thursday purporting to show a former policeman wanted on an arrest warrant turning in Sincère’s boyfriend – but facing no apprehension himself.

Joseph said most recent kidnapping victims have been people known to have enough money to pay a ransom – not students from poor families like Sincère. It is unclear whether gangs may have been involved in the crime.

He added that the security crisis is fueling mounting distrust of authorities, some of whom have been implicated in a big corruption scandal involving funds from an oil assistance program. In areas known for gang activity and kidnappings around the capital, police have repeatedly failed to mount an active response, he said.

“There are nearby police stations and there hasn’t been any police intervention,” he said.

Evens Sanon, The Associated Press

Climate activist Thunberg hits back at Trump over anger management taunt

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg hit back at Donald Trump on Twitter late on Thursday saying the U.S. president should "chill" about the election, a riposte to his tweet last year mocking the teenager over what he called her anger management issues.

© Reuters/JOHANNA GERON FILE PHOTO: Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in the rally ''Europe Climate Strike'' in Brussels

Commenting on Trump tweeting "STOP THE COUNT!" on Thursday, as the election race in the United States went to the wire, 17-year-old Thunberg tweeted: "So ridiculous. Donald must work on his Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Donald, Chill!" (https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1324439705522524162)

The tweet has been liked 1.2 million times so far and re-tweeted 266,000 times.

Trump took to Twitter in December last year after Thunberg was named Time's Person of the Year for 2019, mocking the 17-year-old in exactly the same manner for her impassioned pleas to governments to act to stop global warming.


Video: Greta Thunberg Trolled Donald Trump's Post-Election Meltdown With His Own Words 

"So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!" Trump wrote, commenting on a tweet from another person congratulating Thunberg on the Time prize.

Thunberg responded at the time by updating her Twitter biography to include: "A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old-fashioned movie with a friend."

With his re-election chances fading as more votes are counted in a handful of battleground states, U.S. President Donald Trump launched an extraordinary assault on the country's democratic process from the White House on Thursday, falsely claiming the election was being "stolen" from him.

(Reporting by Johannes Hellstrom, Editing by Simon Johnson and Gareth Jones)

IN THE HOOD

Nasty, long-lived storm threatens all-time snow records on the Prairies
YESTERDAY IT WAS RAINING IN EDMONTON 

LIKE IT DOES IN VANCOUVER IN THE WINTER

We're well off from the "official" start of winter, but the Prairies are actually more likely to see their heaviest snows in the leadup and wind-down of that season – and this weekend sees a massive blast of snow, cold and target much of the region. Several cities may see snowfall totals blow past not only November records, but all-time records, along with strong winds making for nightmarish travel conditions. For a closer look at timing and details, see below.

Track the fuse that'll develop the Prairie blizzard, brutal weather ahead

WEATHER HIGHLIGHTS:

Snow moves in Friday night in Alberta, lingers into Monday for parts of Manitoba
30-60+ cm of snow possible in hardest hit areas through Monday morning
Blizzard conditions likely Sunday with winds gusting to 80-90+ km/h at times

FRIDAY NIGHT/SATURDAY: SNOW PUSHES INTO SOUTHERN ALBERTA, SASKATCHEWAN

A convergence of two factors will be behind this wintry mess of a weekend. The first is a shot of Arctic air sinking southward across the Prairies Friday, intensifying as the weekend goes on.

Second: A deepening low-pressure system south of the International Border will start a slow track northward overnight Friday into early Saturday.

The result looks to be prodigious amounts of snowfall, heaviest in southern Alberta and much of southern Saskatchewan, from Friday night through much of the weekend.

© Provided by The Weather Network

By Saturday morning and afternoon, snowfall rates will start to rapidly intensify across southern areas of Alberta and central Saskatchewan. Overnight Saturday, the heaviest snow moves into the rest of Saskatchewan and central Manitoba.

SUNDAY: DANGEROUS BLIZZARD-LIKE CONDITIONS WITH HAZARDOUS TRAVEL

The storm will keep its strength as it tracks into southeastern Saskatchewan and southern Manitoba on Sunday.

The heaviest snow for southern Saskatchewan will fall during the day on Sunday but will weaken and linger into Monday morning.

Windwise, the strongest wind gusts will be during the day on Sunday throughout southern Saskatchewan and southeastern Alberta with sustained winds of 40+ km/h with gusts of 60-90+ km/h. The strong wind gusts will happen at the same time as the heaviest snow; consequently, this will cause blizzard conditions across southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, making travel inadvisable

© Provided by The Weather Network

Even as winds begin dying down, blowing and drifting snow will remain a problem, with travel being difficult for some time after the worst of the snow is over.

JUST HOW MUCH SNOW IS LIKELY TO FALL?

Forecasters are still hammering out the forecast for this snowfall event, but it's looking like parts of Saskatchewan and Alberta may pick up snowfall totals of 30-60+ cm.

That puts several communities in line for their largest daily snowfall on record for the entire month of November, and certainly well above, the average for the month.

Some of those records include 78.7 cm in Pincher Creek, Alberta, set in 1905, 35.6 cm in Calgary, Alberta, set in 1914, 35.6 cm in Estevan, Saskatchewan, set in 1906, and 32.2 cm in Medicine Hat, Alberta, set in 1990.

© Provided by The Weather Network

© Provided by The Weather Network

Depending on how the storm shakes out, there's also a non-zero chance that many of those communities may even see their single largest daily snowfall total since records began.

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BEYOND: LINGERING EFFECTS, COLD WEATHER STICKS AROUND FOR A BIT

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Global food production emissions 'would put Paris agreement out of reach'

Study calls for more focus on farming and food waste, behind a third of greenhouse gas production


Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent THE GUARDIAN

Thu 5 Nov 2020 

If emissions from food production are to be cut to safe levels, diets heavy in meat, dairy and eggs in rich countries need to change, says the study’s lead author. Photograph: Jean-François Monier/AFP/Getty Images


Our diets and agricultural production around the world are so carbon-intensive that emissions from the global food system alone would be enough to put the Paris climate goals out of reach, even if all the other major sources of emissions were closed down, research has shown.

Farming and food account for about a third of global greenhouse gas production at present. The world’s food systems produced about 16bn tonnes a year of CO2 from 2012 to 2017.

While emissions from some other carbon-intensive sectors, such as energy generation, have been slowing as clean technology is more widely adopted, farming has received less attention from policymakers. But if emissions from food production continue on current trends, they will rise to a cumulative 1,356 gigatons by the end of the century, according

to a study in the journal Science.

That would be enough in itself to heat the world by more than 1.5C by the 2060s, and probably by about 2C by the end of the century. Under the Paris agreement, nations are bound to hold temperature rises to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspiration to a 1.5C limit.

Michael Clark, researcher at the Oxford Martin school and the lead author of the study, said: “There needs to be more focus and more effort to reduce emissions from the food system. Greenhouse gas emissions from food systems have increased due to a combination of dietary changes – more food in general, with a larger proportion of food coming from animal source foods – population size, and how food is produced.”

Deforestation and the conversion of land from peatlands, wetlands and other natural habitats are major contributors to the climate crisis. Other major sources of emissions from food production are artificial fertilisers; methane from livestock; methane from rice in paddyfields; and livestock manure.

Food waste is also leading to excess greenhouse gas emissions: a halving of food waste would bring emissions within the carbon budget for 2C. More efficient farming, including better practices such as targeted fertiliser use, and agroecological farming that produces higher yields, would also help to reduce overall emissions.

If emissions from food production are to be cut to safe levels, diets in rich countries are also likely to have to change. “These countries are primarily those that are middle or high income where dietary intake and consumption of meat, dairy and eggs is on average well above [health] recommendations,” said Clark, citing the UK, the US, Australia, Europe, Brazil and Argentina, and countries such as China where meat consumption is high and increasing.

Any such changes would benefit people’s health and help to solve the obesity crises stalking many rich societies. “Diets need to shift to contain less food in general, such that caloric intake is in line with healthier quantities, and less meat, dairy and eggs, such that consumption of these foods is in line with dietary recommendations,” said Clark.

People would not have to adopt vegan diets, as some have called for, but reduce their consumption of high-carbon foods that are unhealthy in large quantities, such as meat and dairy.

If that was achieved, poor nations could feed their populations better, and could increase their consumption of animal products without exhausting the global carbon budget. Clark said the study showed clearly that all of the world’s increasing population could be fed a healthy diet while meeting the Paris goals, as long as concerted action was taken to reform the global food production system.

Global food producers 'failing to face up to role' in climate crisis

The paper does not specify the policy remedies likely to be required, but there are increasing calls from campaigners and health professionals for reform. Earlier this week, health professionals in the UK called for a tax on meat to help tackle the climate crisis and improve health.

Clark told the Guardian: “Taxes might be part of the solution, but they will not be the only solution. If food taxes to reduce emissions are implemented, we need to make sure they are not regressive and do not have a large negative impact on the people least able to afford the tax.”

Joeri Rogelj, the director of research at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, who was not involved in the study, said the paper underlined the need for deep reductions in emissions from all sectors of the economy. “No sector is off the hook,” he said. “A steep decline of global CO2 emissions to net zero by mid-century needs to be accompanied by deep reductions in non-CO2 greenhouse gases such as methane and nitrous oxide. We are very close to 1.5C and future emissions of each and every sector will therefore have a strong impact on where we end up in terms of global warming.”