Mexico's 'huge step backwards' on energy — and the environment

Mexico's government wants to reverse the privatization of the energy sector that began in 2013, in order to provide stable prices. But critics say taxpayers and the environment will have to pay the price.


Mexico's state-owned energy company Pemex continues to rely mainly on oil and gas

Accompanied by an impressive graph, Mexican energy minister Rocio Nahle presented a new energy reform to the population earlier this week. It depicted the development of energy prices in various countries this year.

"This is the model that has been dominant in our electricity sector," she explained, pointing at Spain's steep curve.

President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that it was a "market dominated by private individuals seeking to enrich themselves."

The partial opening of the electricity market to private suppliers that began in 2013 is not going to be continued. The state-run Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) will continue to dominate the market, with at least a 54% share. It will also regain the regulatory powers it had lost to autonomous bodies in 2013.

There will be more state and less market. And according to some experts, this entails more risks than opportunities — especially for the environment.

Mexico's energy secretary, Rocio Nahle, insists climate goals will be met

'Modernization welcome'

"This is an ambiguous and contradictory reform," said Pablo Ramirez, an energy expert at the environment NGO Greenpeace. But he did see a positive development in the fact that the state was looking at the energy transition, as did the energy expert and lawyer Elvira Macin.

"The planned modernization of state-run electricity plants is welcome," she said. She added that it was a relief that the private suppliers currently producing 46% of Mexico's energy needs would retain their share of the market. However, she said that they would be put at a disadvantage by the new rules.

According to the concept presented by Nahle, preference will no longer be given to renewable energies and the cheapest supplier in the future but to the CFE.

Hydroelectricity and nuclear energy, which are both under the CFE's exclusive control, will be given priority, followed by geothermal energy and fossil fuels, which are produced by state oil monopoly Pemex.

Solar and wind energy, which are in the hands of private suppliers, will be ranked lowest in the hierarchy of priorities.

The parallel private electricity market on which, according to Nahle, Mexico's largest companies employed legal loopholes to secure cheap energy from suppliers of renewables by bypassing the CFE will be abolished.

Till now, private suppliers were only allowed to sell their electricity to the CFE or use it for their own needs.

Many of them had thus sold a small number of shares to large companies so that these could buy the energy directly from them for their supposed "own needs" at a lower cost.

In future, only private households will be able consume solar-powered energy that they produce themselves.

Mexico City is already heavily affected by smog

Will Mexico meet its climate goals?

Nahle has insisted that Mexico will meet the climate change goals put forward in the Paris Agreement. Mexico has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 22% and its CO2 emissions by 51%.

By 2024, renewables are supposed to meet 35% (compared to 31% now) of Mexico's energy needs.

In Sonora, the CFE is currently building the biggest photovoltaic park in the country.

Pablo Ramirez, from Greenpeace, was skeptical: "Mexico's dams are already suffering from climate change, producing an average of 30% less electricity. The lion's share of Pemex and CFE's investments goes to refineries and gas pipelines. All of this will further bias the energy mix toward fossil fuels," he warned.

Macin also predicted that this would be the case.

She explained that Pemex was already producing over 240,000 barrels of heavy fuel oil per day. Comprising the residues from refineries, it contains considerably more sulfur and other pollutants such as heavy metals.

Since a ban was introduced on burning heavy oil fuel in certain international waters, the market has shrunk, which is why it is now being used in CFE thermal power stations and causing air pollution.

'Huge step backwards'

The return to a centralized model was a "huge step backwards" that would encourage opacity and inefficiency, warned Ramirez.

"We are returning to a structure without free competition," agreed Macin.

She added that the state now faced being sued for damages worth billions by private providers.

"Ultimately, it is taxpayers who will foot the bill," she said, even if they will not see this on their electricity bills. She explained that if the CFE subsidized electricity, it would lose money and would have to be compensated by the budget. "This is money that would be better spent on education or health."

The combustion of heavy fuel oils is particularly bad for the environment

In a report issued earlier this year, the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) was similarly critical of the reform, warning that it would have "negative consequences for public finances, the environment, and Mexican customers' welfare by making the electric system's services more expensive and by severely limiting opportunities for cleaner and cheaper electricity generation."

It calculated that a kilowatt-hour of energy generated by the CFE costs three and a half times more than one generated privately.

Pablo Ramirez takes a more nuanced view: "Energy should not be considered a commodity like any other," he said. "Because it is strategically important for a country's development."

He also welcomed the reform as being a step towards recognizing the right to energy as a human right. "But that doesn't mean it should take precedence over other fundamental rights, such as health or an intact environment," he warned.

What's at stake at COP26?

A UN climate summit in Glasgow will pressure world leaders to stop burning fossil fuels, stabilize global temperatures and share money to adapt to increasingly extreme weather.

Activists and climate scientists have criticized world leaders for failing to cut emissions

World leaders will meet in the UK in early November for the COP26 climate summit in a last-ditch effort to keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) this century.

The yearly summit, convened by the United Nations and delayed last year because of the coronavirus pandemic, is a place for diplomats to negotiate treaties to slow dangerous changes to the climate. In 2015, they signed up to the Paris Agreement — a non-binding target to keep warming well below 2 C above pre-industrial temperatures, and ideally 1.5 C — yet they continue to burn fossil fuels and chop down trees at rates incompatible with that goal.


Rich countries are switching to clean energy too slowly to meet their climate goals

Now, with the effects of climate change visible in rich countries as well as poor ones, they are meeting for what analysts expect to be the most meaningful conference since that pledge. Climate change has shot up the political agenda amid deadly weather extremes and mass public protest, and leaders of several polluting countries have pledged to decarbonize their economies by the middle of the century.

"Over the last two decades, we've gone from facing the climate challenge to living in a state of climate emergency," said Shikha Bhasin, a senior analyst at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a think tank in Dehli. "And that's exactly why the upcoming COP26 is critical."
What's on the agenda?

Under the Paris Agreement, world leaders get to choose how fast their country will cut emissions. They agreed to update their action plans for doing so every five years.

But just weeks before the COP26 summit in Glasgow, big emitters like China, India and Saudi Arabia have failed to submit new plans. A September report by UN Climate Change, the body that organizes international climate negotiations, found that updated plans account for only about half of global greenhouse gas emissions.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson wants to focus on 'coal, cars, cash and trees'

The UK, which is co-hosting the summit with Italy, has pressured countries to submit new plans and is pushing for concrete deals that would help reach those targets. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has called on world leaders to deliver bold commitments on "coal, cars, cash and trees."

The UK is pushing for a treaty that would "consign coal to history" and has proposed a deadline of 2040 to stop selling combustion engine cars. It also wants to put more money into stopping deforestation.
Who will pay?

A question at the top of the agenda will be how much money rich countries, which are most responsible for having polluted the atmosphere, will send to poor ones, which are hit hardest by climate change.

In 2009, the wealthiest nations agreed to send $100 billion a year in climate finance by 2020. But in 2019 they fell short of that goal by some $20 billion after stumping up just $79.6 billion, according to the latest estimates from the OECD. In those 10 years the Earth's average temperature had risen so much to make last decade the hottest on record.

The costs of climate inaction are growing as global temperatures rise

Analysts have said the failure to pay up is important for two reasons. First, because the money is needed, even if it isn't enough to cover the costs of climate change or a transition to renewable energy.

But it's also a diplomatic issue, said Jennifer Tollman, an expert on climate diplomacy at European climate think tank E3G. "Any international negotiations are built on a foundation of trust. The under-delivery on this $100 billion is obviously making that foundation crumble to a certain extent. "
What else matters?

Countries most vulnerable to climate change have called for greater attention — and funding — to be given to adapting to its effects.

Beyond that, there are technical details from the Paris Agreement that still need to be ironed out before it properly comes into effect. This includes rules around a global carbon market — the way countries trade emissions across borders and "offset" them by investing in projects that reduce pollution — and also the way countries should formally report cuts to their emissions.

The main talks, which take place over two weeks from October 31 to November 12, will bring together world leaders, scientists, businesses and civil society groups. Delegates from poorer countries have warned that travel restrictions, a lack of vaccines and accommodation costs will make it harder for them to come. That would make it more difficult to hold rich historical polluters to account.

Climate change has shot up the political agenda amid mass protests in recent years

At the last COP, in the Spanish capital, Madrid, in 2019, talks overran by two days as frustrated negotiators struggled to compromise on raising ambitions and failed to reach an agreement on carbon markets.

Climate summits have so far failed to hold countries accountable, but COP26 could be a chance to bridge some trust, said Bhasin from the CEEW. "This is what we have and so we have to find a way of making it work."

Brazil: Bolsonaro's veto on free menstrual products sparks outrage

President Jair Bolsonaro's veto of a bill to distribute free sanitary pads and tampons to disadvantaged girls and women has caused heated debate. Many in the country suffer period poverty.



Brazil has high rates of period poverty

Brazilian women are mobilizing against President Jair Bolsonaro. And this time, they could end up having their way on an issue that the president is anything but comfortable with — menstruation.

On October 6, Bolsonaro vetoed a bill to combat so-called period poverty, which occurs when people cannot afford or access necessary menstrual products. His move sparked an outcry in Brazil. Ever since, the country has seen furious debate over whether sanitary pads and tampons should be provided free of charge to girls in state-run schools.

But the veto could be overturned by Brazil's Congress in early November. The draft bill had been passed by the Brazilian Parliament in August and by a large majority in the Senate in September.

"It's not a matter of if, but of when Congress will overturn the veto," Brazilian federal deputy Tabata Amaral, one of the bill's co-authors, wrote on Twitter.

"We will not allow the inhumanity and machismo of Bolsonaro to determine the reality of 6 million Brazilian women who suffer from a lack of sanitary products and are humiliated because of it."

Menstruation remains taboo

In Brazil, menstruation is a taboo topic. According to a report by the UN children's aid agency, UNICEF, around 4 million girls in the country do not go to school when they get their period. A quarter of them have no money for tampons or pads.

Many schoolgirls in Brazil stay away from school when they get their periods

Period poverty affects not only schoolgirls but also women in prisons, homeless people and other families living in extreme poverty. According to the draft law, the cost of providing menstrual products for these groups would be around 83.3 million reais (€13 million/$15 million) a year.

Brazil's minister for women, family and human rights, Damares Alves, defended Bolsonaro's veto. She said in an interview with the Globo TV network that the government had to prioritize and had no funds to purchase menstrual products.

"We have to decide: vaccination or tampon. The problems of poor women have never interested any government in Brazil, and now Bolsonaro is being denounced as a monster just because he doesn't want to distribute hygiene products this year," Alves said.

Damares Alves: 'Vaccination or tampon' — and not both

Brazilian Congress will have final say

But the president of the Brazilian Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, said he didn't accept the government's argument about a lack of resources.

"In Brazil, so much money is spent on countless things. It cannot be that young women from poor backgrounds with fundamental needs have to go empty-handed," read a statement on the conservative politician's website.

Pacheco could play a crucial role in the row with Bolsonaro. Under Brazil's constitution, he has the right to convene a joint session of the Senate and Parliament 30 days after the presidential veto. An absolute majority is required in both chambers of the Brazilian Congress to reject the veto.

Watch video26:01 Sanitary products: Cheap and sustainable?

"There is a good chance that Congress will overturn the veto," Pacheco's official statement said. "Of course, we cannot overlook the problems with funding, but we must find ways to provide menstrual products to young girls from poor backgrounds."
Sao Paulo leads the way

Many cities, municipalities and even states in Brazil have already found such ways. The draft law that is meant to ensure menstrual products are provided on a national level has, in fact, taken its cue from these local and regional initiatives.

In July this year, a law on free period products was passed in the city parliament of the megacity of Sao Paulo. In Rio de Janeiro, too, city officials have decided to provide menstrual products in state-run schools. And similar projects to provide free sanitary napkins and tampons are underway in several states in South America's largest country.

Worldwide, the number of countries guaranteeing a reliable supply of menstrual products for schoolgirls or in other social areas is still small (see graphic). But the number of initiatives is growing.

Scrapping taxes on menstrual products

Many countries are also trying to make menstrual products cheaper by reducing or eliminating taxes.

In Germany, for example, the value-added tax on sanitary pads and tampons has been reduced from 19% to 7% since 2020.

France, Poland and the United Kingdom have reduced VAT to 5%. And some countries, including Ireland, India, Malaysia and Nigeria have even scrapped the tax altogether, according to Statista, a German company specializing in market and consumer data.
Celebrity throws weight behind bill

For now, the debate over menstruation in Brazil is set to continue, at least until the showdown in Brazil's Congress in early November.

Bolsonaro, meanwhile, has to contend with the many fans of a prominent proponent of the bill. Juliette, a singer who has 3.9 million followers on Twitter, is pushing for the bill.

"If women don't have access to menstrual items during their periods, they don't have access to health care and education, either" she wrote on her Twitter account. "The presidential veto must be overturned. Menstrual poverty has to be taken seriously in Brazil."

This article has been translated from German

Feminist group sues Miss France over selection criteria

Issued on: 18/10/2021 - 

Miss France contestants must be single, at least 1.7 metres tall and 'representative of beauty'

 LOIC VENANCE AFP/File

Paris (AFP)

A leading feminist organisation in France said Monday it was suing the promoters of the Miss France beauty contest in a labour court, alleging they used discriminatory criteria to select participants.

The "Osez le feminisme" (Dare to be a Feminist) group, along with three failed contestants, said they were targeting the Miss France company as well as Endemol Production, which makes the annual TV programme screened on the TF1 channel.

The plaintiffs argue that the companies are breaking French labour law with discriminatory selection criteria by obliging aspiring beauty queens to be more than 1.70 metres tall, single, and "representative of beauty".

The French labour code forbids companies from discriminating on the basis of "morals, age, family status or physical appearance," Violaine De Filippis-Abate, a lawyer for Osez le feminisme, told AFP.

The case, filed at a labour court in the Paris suburb of Bobigny, will hinge on whether magistrates recognise Miss France contestants as de facto employees of the organisers and TV company.

Contestants do not sign an employment contract, but the plaintiffs point to a supportive judgement in 2013 when a former contestant on Mister France also sued for similar reasons.

The Miss France company declined to comment when contacted by AFP.

The next contest is set to take place in Caen in northern France on December 11.

© 2021 AFP

Sex workers speak out against German prostitution law

It has been five years since the German government enacted the prostitution protection act. Lawmakers say it protects vulnerable people; many sex workers say it is discriminatory, stigmatizing and has increased risks.


During the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns, unregistered sex workers in Germany were unable to claim compensation

Olivia, who has been a sex worker in Berlin for almost a decade, is pragmatic when asked about the regulation of her industry.

"It's not without reason that people say it is the oldest profession in the world," she says, smiling. "People will always find a way to do sex work."

The job was not always her plan. She moved to the German capital from a small city in the east of the country looking for a more exciting life and fell into the work after a friend recommended it. Now in her late 20s, she has undertaken just about every kind of sex work possible in Germany: with a luxury escort service, as an erotic masseuse, in a brothel and self-employed in her own home.

"There are different levels," she explains — with highly different incomes and safety measures attached. Through her work, she has found a community, also with the Black Sex Workers' Collective, a US-founded initiative for people of color. She is also a member of a sex workers' union.

But she is one of hundreds of thousands of unregistered sex workers in Germany who, for the last five years, has risked prosecution to keep working.

Olivia, an unregistered sex worker in Berlin, wants to stay anonymous

Over 90% are unregistered

When she began, sex workers' rights in Germany were relatively well protected. The 2002 Prostitution Act formally regulated sex work and aimed to protect sex workers' access to benefits such as health care and unemployment insurance.

But some lawmakers were concerned that the law was too lax. "There are stricter rules to open up a snack bar than a brothel in this country," former Families Minister Manuela Schwesig, from the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), told German newspaper Die Zeit in 2014. A year later, her coalition government presented the bill of a new law that would require all sex workers to apply to register their work. The law was enacted on October 21, 2016, and came into force on July 1, 2017. 

For sex workers, this means handing over private data like your address, contact details and real name and going through regular compulsory health consultations. People who do not register, some because of privacy concerns and others because they do not have an address or legal residency status in Germany, are breaking the law.

The act also requires condoms to be used during sex work and requires anyone running a sex work business, like a brothel, to have a permit.

The last federal official statistics from 2019 showed that there were around 40,000 sex workers in Germany legally registered under the Prostitution Protection Act, but unofficial estimates say the real number is over 400,000. This means over 90% of sex workers in Germany are unregistered — and technically illegal.

The vast majority of legally registered sex workers work in brothels, suggesting also that most of those who are unregistered work from home or on the streets.

The 2017 law is unpopular among sex workers: 'No registration of sex workers'

 says this sign

Privacy concerns

The aim of the law was to improve conditions for sex workers and reduce the possibility of human trafficking, exploitation and slavery. But sex workers say it has actually made their position more vulnerable.

"People who have no idea about sex work say: 'It's just a pass, that's not so bad.' But sex work is still a very stigmatized job in Germany. And that means that many people can't really 'out themselves,' or know that their data is being recorded somewhere," Ruby Rebelde, a spokeswoman for the Hydra organization, explained.

The Berlin-based advocacy and counseling service for sex workers was founded over 40 years ago and has opposed the law since it was enacted.

Many sex workers in Germany come from other countries, and the bureaucratic hurdles of the registration process may prevent them from carrying it out. EU members Romania and Bulgaria are the two most common countries of origin for registered non-German sex workers, but Rebelde from Hydra believes that foreign sex workers are less likely to register than Germans.

"And it means people who come to Germany to work as sex workers are additionally 'made illegal' under the prostitution protection act," Rebelde said. Among other things, this meant that all unregistered sex workers could not receive government aid when they were unable to work during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. The number of registered sex workers also significantly decreased during this time.
'Working together is safer'

Under the law, sex workers could not live and work together as a pair or larger group — a common arrangement offering security to sex workers if clients prove violent or attempt blackmail — because technically a shared apartment or house would constitute a brothel.

"If I can only work alone at home, in theory, that puts me in more danger," Olivia said. She has experienced more blackmail and abuse attempts in the years since the law was introduced than before when working alone in her apartment.

"Working together is much safer because you can keep an eye on each other and share experiences," explained Ruby Rebelde.

But supporters of the law say it has made sex work less opaque and in fact increased safety.

"With the registration according to the Prostitution Protection Act, the state has the opportunity to shed light on people's rights in the field of sex work," said Ann-Kathrin Biewener, sex work spokeswoman for the city of Berlin and elected representative for the SPD. She is responsible for overseeing the registration process for the whole city of Berlin.

"With registration, sex work does not take place in secret and thus helps to improve working conditions for sex workers," she added.

A 2019 'Whore Parade' in Berlin aimed to fight stigma against sex workers

The Nordic model?

During the pandemic, when sex work was banned under social distancing rules, lawmakers from the SPD and from Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democrat party took the opportunity to call for an even longer closure to brothels and overhaul of the sex work industry.

The solution touted by them and many others is the so-called Nordic model, under which paying for sex is illegal but selling sex is not.

But Olivia does not believe that such an arrangement could work in Germany and would just send sex work even more underground.

"It would not stop anything. The prices would become more expensive; there would be more criminality and violence, blackmail, more human trafficking," she said. "I cannot see a positive side."

A federal evaluation of the act is planned to be completed by 2025; an interim report covers only the years 2017 and 2018. So far, there is not enough evidence to show whether any of the act's laws, for example in reducing human trafficking, have been successful.

Several states have published their own evaluations in the meantime. The evaluation of the city-state of Bremen from December 2020 describes the smoothing running of the registration process in Bremen but also notes: "Sex workers and professional politicians criticize that the law does not meet the requirements of better protection against trafficking and an improvement in the situation of prostitutes. They fear stigmatization and discrimination as a result of the obligation to register with the authorities and state. They say prostitutes, in particular, remain unprotected because the law is not geared to their needs."

Lawmakers like Ann-Kathrin Biewener in Berlin have worked to collect feedback at a series of "round table" events for sex workers over the years. For Rebelde from Hydra, it is vital that whatever the next steps are, the voices of sex workers are taken into account during the upcoming federal evaluation.

"Talking about sex workers without talking to sex workers — that is not OK," she said.

Germany: Bild newspaper chief editor relieved from his duties

Julian Reichelt has been acused of leading a workplace culture that "mixed sex, journalism and company cash" at Germany's most-read newspaper.


Julian Reichelt is one of the highest-profile journalists in Germany

Germany's publishing giant Axel Springer announced on Monday that the chief editor of Bild, the country's top-selling newspaper, Julian Reichelt would be let go. The decision came a day after an article in the New York Times (NYT) detailed accusations of workplace misconduct under Reichelt's leadership.

The 41-year-old Reichelt had taken over as editor-in-chief of Bild in 2018. He will be replaced by Johannes Boie, the editor-in-chief of Springer's conservative weekly broadsheet Welt am Sonntag.

The NYT article and Reichelt's subsequent sacking come as Axel Springer has sought to expand internationally in recent years, with its latest high-profile purchase of US-based Politico last month.

In a statement, Axel Springer said Reichelt "did not clearly separate his private and work lives and did not tell the board the truth about it," citing information gained "as a result of press investigations in recent days."

But the publisher also announced legal steps against ''third parties" for releasing confidential business information and private communications, with the aim of trying to harm the company and having Reichelt removed.

Axel Springer did not specify which new allegations had prompted it to sack Reichelt, as the NYT report was based on the company's own investigation about how Reichelt had promoted interns with whom he had had affairs and then sidelined or fired them.
Internal investigation had cleared Reichelt

NYT said that evidence it gathered "paint a picture of a workplace culture that mixed sex, journalism and company cash" at Bild, under Reichelt’s leadership.

Reichelt had stepped aside while Axel Springer concluded its internal investigation into his conduct, but he was reinstated once the probe concluded that his actions didn't warrant dismissal.

The 41-year-old also sued German magazine Der Spiegel for an expose on what it described "the Reichelt system," in which he allegedly recruited female trainees and interns, sometimes quickly promoted them, but also quickly dismissed them.

NYT reported that Axel Springer also sought to keep details of the investigation's findings out of the German press.

One of the most powerful German journalists

Founded in 1952, Bild has grown to become Germany's top-selling paper, focusing on a mixture of human-interest stories, sports and celebrity news.

Reichelt was the outspoken face of Bild and arguably one of the most powerful journalists in Germany. Recently, he had been at the helm of Bild's new TV venture.

His fall from grace comes as journalists at rival German Ippen media group had been investigating allegations against Reichelt, but were prevented from publishing their findings, NYT said.

Ippen media group denied having axed the story due to any pressure from Axel Springer executives over the matter, instead saying it's to "avoid the impression we might want to economically harm a competitor."

jcg/sri (Reuters, AP, AFP)

EU says it has exported over 1 billion COVID-19 vaccines

The European Union has exported more than 1 billion coronavirus vaccines, making the bloc the biggest vaccine exporter in the world. Almost 90 million jabs have been delivered to the WHO's COVAX scheme.



The EU has exported COVID-19 vaccines to over 150 countries worldwide


The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Monday that the EU has exported over 1 billion coronavirus vaccines produced in member states since December 2020.

"Very clearly, the European Union is the largest exporter of COVID-19 vaccines," von der Leyen said in a statement.

She also pointed out that the bloc has exported as many vaccines as it has administered to its own citizens.
EU pledges to donate more

While the US restricted the export of its home-produced vaccines, the EU allowed vaccines to leave the bloc with the onset of the vaccine rollout.

However, the biggest vaccine recipients have been wealthier countries such as the UK, Japan and Turkey that had contracts with vaccine producers based in the EU.

Only a small number of the exported or donated doses ended up in poorer nations that are still struggling to increase their vaccine coverage. But the EU has pledged to boost its donations and has said it will send at least 200 million shots to the most vulnerable countries.
Warnings against vaccine inequality continue

At the same time, member states have already started administering booster shots.

The WHO has warned against the hoarding of vaccine supplies by richer countries that has left poorer countries lacking sufficient doses to give even the minimum level of protection to their populations.

The UN health body has repeatedly called on the EU, US and others to hold off on their plans to administer third shots until a certain level of global vaccine equality has been achieved.

The rampant spread of coronavirus among unvaccinated populations could lead to the emergence of strains that render already existing vaccines less effective.

Centre-left wins Rome, main prize in Italy local vote

Gualtieri is seen as a safe pair of hands to run the Italian capital

 Tiziana FABI AFP

Issued on: 18/10/2021 

Rome (AFP)

Romans have elected a centre-left former economy minister as their next mayor, rejecting by a large margin a right-wing contender dogged by accusations of anti-Semitism, near final results showed Monday.

With counting complete in more than 92 percent of polling stations, Roberto Gualtieri was leading with more than 60 percent over Enrico Michetti, a lawyer and local talk radio host with no prior political experience.

"The result is clear cut. I wish good luck to Roberto Gualtieri," the loser of the second-round run-off vote said in a concession statement.

Gualtieri, 55, is seen as a safe pair of hands.

A trained historian whose only known extravagance is a love for playing Brazilian music on the guitar, he served in government during 2019-2021, and was previously head of the European Parliament's economic affairs committee.

His victory marked another setback for Italy's right-wing bloc, which despite leading in national opinion polls, lost other key mayoral battles in a first round of local elections two weeks ago -- namely in Milan, Naples and Bologna.

A choice of lacklustre candidates and divisions due to the internal rivalry between Matteo Salvini of the nationalist League and Giorgia Meloni of the hard-right Brothers of Italy were offered as explanations for the bloc's poor showing.

"I think we have to recognise that the centre-right has been defeated," Meloni said. "We are all aware of it."

Analysts do not expect the result of the two rounds of local voting to destabilise Prime Minister Mario Draghi's government, which is backed by a left-right coalition including the League but not FDI.

On Monday, the centre-left also won Turin, Italy's automotive capital in the north west. Both Rome and Turin were previously run by the formerly anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which suffered a rout.

Aside from the capital, more than 60 towns and cities held mayoral elections between Sunday and Monday. Turnout was very low at under 44 per cent, and analysts said it was mostly centre-right voters who stayed away.

In the Eternal City, the campaign was dominated by complaints about its state of disrepair, including old buses that catch fire due to lack of maintenance and piles of uncollected rubbish in the streets that attract wild boars and rats.

"Rome cannot resign itself to talking about just rubbish and potholes. Rome is a great European capital," Gualtieri said at his closing rally on Friday.

Michetti's campaign was derailed last week when he was forced to deny accusations of anti-Semitism over an article he wrote last year that was unearthed by a left-wing newspaper.

In it, he said the Holocaust was commemorated more than other massacres because the Jews "control banks and a lobby capable of deciding the fate of the planet".

Michetti, who describes himself as a moderate, had also previously suggested that the stiff-armed Roman salute -- commonly used by fascists -- should be used during the coronavirus pandemic because it was more hygienic.

© 2021 AFP

Drought-hit Iraq's crop farmland to be halved

An aerial view taken on September 24, 2021 shows a dried up river bed

 in the Al-Huwaiza marshes on Iraq's border with Iran

 Asaad NIAZI AFP/File

Issued on: 18/10/2021 

Baghdad (AFP)

Extreme water shortages in Iraq will halve the area of crops being grown next harvest, the authorities said Monday, following UN warnings calling for "urgent" action.

Iraq's government said the area of farmland with crops would this 2021-2022 season cover "50 percent of the cultivated area last year", according to a statement published by the state news agency INA.

Iraq is struggling amid the consequences of dire droughts exacerbated by global warming, compounded by the extraction of water from the Tigris and Euphrates, rivers shared with neighbouring Turkey and Syria.

"The impact of water shortages in Iraq is becoming evident through the lower crop yields for 2021. Urgent action is required to confront climate change," UN agencies said in a joint statement Saturday, including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Programme (WFP).

"Resilient, modern food systems are important for long term food security and the sustainable economic growth of Iraq," it added.

The FAO estimates that "by the end of the season, wheat production will be 70 percent lower and barley production negligible."

Agricultural produce of Iraq usually includes wheat, barley, dates, tomatoes and rice.

Salah El Hajj Hassan, FAO's chief in Iraq, said Monday that the agency was working with government ministries to support farmers to "increase their income, make better use of available resources and cope with drought".

Funds from the European Union are supporting a project to repair irrigation infrastructure in the north, including canals and pumping stations.

In August, 13 aid agencies, including Mercy Corps and the Norwegian Refugee Council, warned seven million people in Iraq risk losing access to water amid rising temperatures and record low levels of rainfall, creating an "unprecedented catastrophe" forcing more from their homes.

© 2021 AFP

US special envoy for Afghanistan steps down in wake of chaotic withdrawal

Issued on: 19/10/2021 

Zalmay Khalilzad spent years as Washington's point man for talks with the Taliban. 

© Alex Wong, Getty Images North America/AFP/File

Text by: NEWS WIRES

The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan is stepping down following the chaotic American withdrawal from the country, the State Department said Monday.

Zalmay Khalilzad will leave the post this week after more than three years on the job under both the Trump and Biden administrations. He had been criticized for not pressing the Taliban hard enough in peace talks begun while Trump was president but Secretary of State Antony Blinken thanked him for his work.

“I extend my gratitude for his decades of service to the American people,” Blinken said of Khalilzad, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and Afghanistan.

Khalilzad had initially planned to leave the job in May after Biden’s announcement that the U.S. withdrawal would be completed before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in September. However, he was asked to stay on and did so.

Khalilzad had served as the special envoy for Afghan reconciliation under both the Trump and Biden administrations since September 2018, when the-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo brought him on board to lead negotiations with the Taliban and the Afghan government.

An Afghan native, Khalilzad was unsuccessful in getting the two sides together to forge a power-sharing deal but he did negotiate a U.S. agreement with the Taliban in February 2020 that ultimately led to the end of America’s longest-running war.

The agreement with the Taliban served as the template for the Biden administration’s withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Afghanistan, which many believe was conducted too hastily and without enough planning. Thousands of Afghan citizens who worked for U.S. forces there over the past two decades were left behind in the rush to leave as were hundred of American citizens and legal residents.

President Joe Biden and his aides frequently said the agreement that Khalilzad negotiated tied their hands when it came to the pullout and led to the sudden takeover of the country by the Taliban, although administration critics noted that Biden had abandoned the “conditions-based” requirements for a complete U.S. withdrawal.

In interviews and in his resignation letter described to The AP, Khalilzad noted that the agreement he negotiated had conditioned the final withdrawal of US forces to the Taliban entering serious peace talks with the Afghan government. He also lamented that those negotiations and consequently the withdrawal had not gone as planned.

Despite the criticism, Khalilzad remained on the job, although he skipped the first high-level post-withdrawal U.S.-Taliban meeting in Doha, Qatar earlier this month, prompting speculation he was on his way out. Khalilzad will be replaced by his deputy Thomas West, who led the U.S. delegation to that last round of talks in Doha.

However, the U.S. will not be sending a representative to a Russia-hosted conference on Afghanistan this week, the State Department said. Speaking before Blinken’s announcement of Khalilzad’s departure, department spokesman Ned Price cited “logistics” as the reason the U.S. would not participate in the Moscow talks.

Khalilzad said in his resignation letter that after leaving government service he would continue to work on behalf of the Afghan people and would offer his thoughts and advice on what went wrong in Afghanistan and the path forward.

(AP)

State Department watchdog launches reviews of Afghanistan withdrawal


United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks during a meeting of the United Nations Security Council on September 23 during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. File Photo by John Minchillo/UPI/Pool | License Photo

Oct. 18 (UPI) -- The State Department's inspector general has opened multiple reviews of the United States' withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to reports Monday.

Diana Shaw, the State Department's acting inspector general, notified top lawmakers that her office is conducting "oversight projects related to the suspension of operations at the U.S. Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan," according to letters obtained by Politico and CNN.

According to the letter, the reviews will focus on the State Department's Special Immigrant Visa program, Afghans processed for refugee admission into the United States, resettlement of refugees and visa recipients and the emergency evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

"Given the elevated interest in this work by Congress and the unique circumstances requiring coordination across the Inspector General community, I wanted to notify our committees of jurisdiction of this important work," Shaw wrote in the letter addressed to leaders of the Senate foreign relations committee, House foreign affairs committee and the intelligence committees of both chambers.

Ryan Holden, a spokesman for the office of the inspector general, confirmed it had notified lawmakers of its plans but said the probe did not meet the watchdog's definition of an "investigation."

"State OIG notified its committees of jurisdiction today of planned projects in the areas you mention," Holden told Politico. "This work will be conducted in coordination with other members of the IG community. However, it is inaccurate to say that these projects are investigations. We indicated to Congress that these projects will be reviews."

The reviews will add to existing scrutiny of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, including a review into a drone strike on Aug. 29 that killed 10 civilians, including seven children in Kabul, which was announced by the Air Force inspector general last month.

Criticism of the withdrawal has largely centered around the special immigrant visa program, as the State Department said there were 17,000 applicants stuck in the program's pipeline before the August evacuation.