Wednesday, June 22, 2022

After fractious debate, EU Parliament votes to back "biggest ever" carbon market overhaul

European Union flags flutter outside the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium June 17, 2022.

June 22, 2022 -
By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -The European Parliament backed reforms to the EU carbon market on Wednesday, allaying fears of a delay to Europe's climate change policies after lawmakers had rejected the proposals in a first vote this month.

The proposals would cut emissions faster under the European Union's carbon market, the centrepiece of a package of laws to reduce the EU's net greenhouse gas output by 55% by 2030, from 1990 levels.

The compromise was struck after lawmakers rejected the entire carbon market law in a divisive first vote this month, when lawmakers split over how quickly to end free permits against a backdrop of soaring energy costs and inflation.

Ths time, a majority of lawmakers backed a proposal to phase out free CO2 permits for industries by 2032 and replace them with a carbon levy on imported steel, cement and other products, designed to put European and foreign firms on a level footing.

"Finally we got it. We adopted with a huge majority the biggest climate law ever," said Peter Liese, Parliament's lead lawmaker on the carbon market.

Industry had lobbied to keep their free permits, which allow them to emit some CO2 for free - a system critics say has removed the incentive to reduce industrial pollution.

Euope's carbon market, or "emissions trading system" (ETS), forces power plants and factories to buy CO2 permits when they pollute, and caps the number of permits available to buy.

Lawmakers voted for the cap on CO2 permits in the market to fall by 4.4% from 2024, 4.5% from 2026 and 4.6% from 2029, while an extra 70 million permits will be removed in 2024 and 50 million in 2026, to drive faster CO2 cuts.

However, the Parliament scaled back a planned EU carbon market for buildings and transport, which some countries fear could hike fuel bills. They said the new shceme should apply to the commercial sector from 2025 and exclude households, a move Brussels has warned could risk Europe missing its climate goals.

The EU assembly strengthened other parts of the proposal, supporting an expansion the carbon market to cover 100% of emissions from international shipping trips to and from the EU from 2027, versus the 50% Brussels had proposed.

Amendments to restrict financial investors' access to the carbon market also passed, despite warnings from banks that doing so would slash its liquidity.

The vote confirms Parliament's position for negotiations with EU countries on the final laws. EU countries plan to agree their own position next week.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

German sex abuse lawsuit targets former Pope Benedict

WHEN HE WAS CARDINAL RATZINGER HEAD OF THE INQUISITION
Wed, June 22, 2022

FILE PHOTO: General view of St. Peter's Basilica and the Apostolic Palace on the day former Pope Benedict acknowledged that errors occurred in the handling of sexual abuse cases while he was Archbishop of Munich

BERLIN (Reuters) - A lawsuit brought against an alleged paedophile priest in Germany is seeking to establish whether former Pope Benedict and other members of the clergy were culpable in a historical case of child sexual abuse, the plaintiff's lawyer said.

The so-called declaratory action was brought on behalf of a 38-year-old man from the southern state of Bavaria, who says he was abused by a priest as a child, the BR broadcaster reported together with the Correctiv research centre and Die Zeit weekly.

Andreas Schulz, the lawyer who lodged the case with the Traunstein regional court, confirmed the report to Reuters in an email.

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising declined to comment on an ongoing legal case.

The suit targets the priest, identified as Peter H., as well as Benedict, who served as the Archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to 1982, his successor Cardinal Friedrich Wetter, and another church official, documents seen by Reuters show.

The case could set a precedent in Germany's reckoning with institutional clerical abuse if it results in a civil court for the first time weighing in on the alleged guilt of church officials.

The victim, who wants to remain anonymous, was aged between 11 and 12 when the priest allegedly showed him pornography and sexually abused him, the media report said.

A report released in January on abuse in the archdiocese from 1945 to 2019 accused Benedict of failing to take action against clerics in four cases when he was Archbishop of Munich.

Benedict later acknowledged that errors occurred in the handling of cases while he held that position and asked for forgiveness as his lawyers argued that he was not directly to blame.

(Reporting by Rachel More and Madeline Chambers, Editing by William Maclean)

ARGENTINE TRUCK DRIVERS BLOCK ROADS AT HARVEST PEAK, PROTEST LACK OF DIESEL

BUENOS AIRES, June 22 (Reuters) - Angry Argentine truck drivers blocked highways on Wednesday, protesting shortages and rising prices for diesel fuel, just as the country's crucial grains harvest requires transport amid surging inflation.

READ MORE: Surge in U.S. renewable diesel supply won't offset loss of petroleum diesel

Truck driver unions said the protests across the major corn and soybeans exporting nation will continue for an unspecified amount of time, aimed at pressuring the government to do more to address the extended motor fuel shortages and rising prices.

Outside the capital Buenos Aires, standstill traffic on a main highway extended some 4 miles (7 km) as a result of one of the protests, called for by commercial transportation unions.

National truck drivers union UNTRA asked the government to assure what it described as proportional diesel prices, according to a statement on Wednesday. Other associations joined in on the highway blockades, blasting the spiking cost of diesel.

Nearly the entire country, or 21 of 23 provinces, suffer fuel shortages, according to the national freight transport federation Fadeeac.

Senior government officials laid the blame for the shortages on growing demand as the economy recovers from a pandemic-led slowdown.

"The lack of diesel is a conflict, a complaint, that really has to do with growth," said presidential spokeswoman Gabriela Cerruti, speaking on local broadcaster Radio Con Vos. She added that the problems are being resolved but did not go into specifics.

This month, the government raised required biodiesel content in diesel blends, hoping that could help alleviate shortages of the industrial motor fuel.

Domestic demand for diesel jumped 14% year-over-year in the first quarter, according to government data.

(Reporting by Lucila Sigal; Writing by David Alire Garcia and David Gregorio)

Microsoft: Russian cyber spying targets 42 Ukraine allies

Wed, June 22, 2022

CLEVELAND (AP) — Coinciding with unrelenting cyberattacks against Ukraine, state-backed Russian hackers have engaged in “strategic espionage” against governments, think tanks, businesses and aid groups in 42 countries supporting Kyiv, Microsoft said in a report Wednesday.

“Since the start of the war, the Russian targeting (of Ukraine's allies) has been successful 29 percent of the time,” Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote, with data stolen in at least one-quarter of the successful network intrusions,

Nearly two-thirds of the cyberespionage targets involved NATO members. The United States was the prime target and Poland, the main conduit for military assistance flowing to Ukraine, was No. 2. In the past two months, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Turkey have seen stepped-up targeting,

A striking exception is Estonia, where Microsoft said it has detected no Russian cyber intrusions since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24. The company credited Estonia's adoption of cloud computing, where it's easier to detect intruders. “Significant collective defensive weaknesses remain” among some other European governments, Microsoft said, without identifying them.

Half of the 128 organizations targeted are government agencies and 12% are nongovernmental agencies, typically think tanks or humanitarian groups, according to the 28-page report. Other targets include telecommunications, energy and defense companies.

Microsoft said Ukraine's cyber defenses “have proven stronger” overall than Russia's capabilities in “waves of destructive cyberattacks against 48 distinct Ukrainian agencies and enterprises.” Moscow's military hackers have been cautious not to unleash destructive data-destroying worms that could spread outside Ukraine, as the NotPetya virus did in 2017, the report noted.

“During the past month, as the Russian military moved to concentrate its attacks in the Donbas region, the number of destructive attacks has fallen,” according to the report, “Defending Ukraine: Early Lessons from the Cyber War.” The Redmond, Washington, company has unique insight in the domain due to the ubiquity of its software and threat detection teams.

Microsoft said Ukraine has also set an example in data safeguarding. Ukraine went from storing its data locally on servers in government buildings a week before the Russian invasion — making them vulnerable to aerial attack — to dispersing that data in the cloud, hosted in data centers across Europe.

The report also assessed Russian disinformation and propaganda aimed at “undermining Western unity and deflecting criticism of Russian military war crimes” and wooing people in nonaligned countries.

Using artificial intelligence tools, Microsoft said, it estimated "Russian cyber influence operations successfully increased the spread of Russian propaganda after the war began by 216 percent in Ukraine and 82 percent in the United States.”

Frank Bajak, The Associated Press

Afghanistan earthquake kills at least

1,000, more trapped in rubble

The death toll from an earthquake in Afghanistan on Wednesday hit 1,000, disaster management officials said, with more than 600 injured and the toll expected to grow as information trickles in from remote mountain villages. FRANCE 24's Shazaib Wallah tells us more.

Heartbreak and shock at Afghan earthquake hospital

Wed, June 22, 2022,

STORY: An earthquake of magnitude 6.1 killed hundreds of people in Afghanistan early on Wednesday (June 22).

At least 950 died and more than 600 were injured, according to disaster management officials.

The toll is expected to grow as information trickles in from remote mountain villages.

Buildings were reduced to rubble and helicopters were deployed in the rescue effort to reach the injured and fly in medical supplies and food.

Wednesday's quake was the deadliest since 2002.

It struck about 27 miles from the southeastern city of Khost, near the border with Pakistan, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

Most of the confirmed deaths were in the eastern province of Paktika.

Haibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the ruling Taliban, offered his condolences in a statement.

Mounting a rescue operation could prove a major test for the Taliban, who took over the country in August and have been cut off from much international assistance because of sanctions

Afghan people queueing to donate blood for earthquake victims being treated at a hospital in the city of Sharan, Afghanistan, on June 22, 2022. PHOTO: AFP

The disaster comes as Afghanistan grapples with a severe economic crisis since the Taliban took over, as U.S.-led international forces withdrew following two decades of war.

Many nations cut billions of dollars worth of development aid, though international agencies, such as the United Nations, still operate.

A foreign ministry spokesperson said Afghanistan would welcome international help.

Heartbreak and shock in Afghanistan after earthquake kills more than 1,000 people

An Afghan quake victim receiving treatment at a hospital on June 22, 2022.

PHOTO: AFP/BAKHTAR NEWS AGENCY

SHARAN, AFGHANISTAN (AFP) - Ms Bibi Hawa's face is distorted by tears as she tries to grasp her predicament from a hospital bed in Sharan, capital of Afghanistan's Paktika province.

At least a dozen members of her family were among over 1,000 people killed by a devastating earthquake that struck the region early Wednesday (June 22), and she fears she has been left all alone.

"Where will I go, where will I go?" the 55-year-old asks repeatedly.

As a nurse tries to calm her down, talking to her gently and caressing her forehead, Ms Bibi sighs: "My heart is weak."

The 5.9-magnitude quake struck hardest in the rugged and impoverished east, where people already led hand-to-mouth lives made worse since the Taliban takeover in August.

Children injured by the earthquake resting inside a hospital in Sharan, Afghanistan, on June 22, 2022. PHOTO: AFP

The disaster poses a huge challenge for the hardline Islamists, who have largely isolated the country as a result of their hardline policies.

The United Nations in an initial estimate said over 2,000 homes were destroyed in the region, where the average family often has up to 20 members.

In the room where Ms Bibi is being treated a dozen other women lie on beds - many asleep, some burrowed beneath blankets, others hooked up to vital fluids.

An Afghan child being treated inside a hospital after getting injured in the earthquake, in Sharan, Afghanistan, on June 22, 2022. PHOTO: AFP

Ms Shahmira is unhurt, but her one-year-old grandson lies in her lap, a large dressing covering his temple.

On the next bed her daughter-in-law is sleeping off her injuries, while a son is being treated in a different ward.

"We were sleeping when we heard a loud noise," she tells AFP of the quake. "I screamed... I thought my family was buried under the rubble and that I was the only one" still alive.

In an adjacent ward, a dozen men are also recovering on beds. One father holds his son on his lap - the boy wearing mustard-coloured pants with little black hearts, one leg in a plaster cast.

Nearby another child lies under a blue blanket. His left arm is also in a cast, while on his forehead a white bandage bears the word "emergency" written in black marker.

An Afghan youth being treated inside a hospital in Paktika, Afghanistan, on June 22, 2022.

PHOTO: AFP/BAKHTAR NEWS AGENCY

"It was a horrible situation," recalls Mr Arup Khan, 22, talking of the moments after the quake. "There were cries everywhere. The children and my family were under the mud."

Dr Mohammad Yahya Wiar, director of Sharan Hospital, says they have been doing their best to treat everyone.

When the injured arrived, they "were crying, and we were crying too", he tells AFP.

"Our country is poor and lacks resources. This is a humanitarian crisis. It is like a tsunami."

But locals are rallying to help. In front of the hospital, a hundred men are waiting patiently.

"They have come to give blood - about 300 have already given it since this morning," explains a Taliban fighter.

Wed, June 22, 2022

US health authorities are expected to order Juul Labs to stop selling e-cigarettes in the world's biggest economy, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday.

The announcement, which could come as early as Wednesday, follows a two-year review of data presented in connection with Juul's application to sell tobacco- and menthol-flavored products in the United States, said the newspaper, which cited anonymous sources.

Juul did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FDA also did not respond to a query.

Juul has come under fire over its marketing of fruit and candy flavored e-cigarettes that had drawn in young consumers.

In January 2020, the FDA said sale of e-cigarettes in flavors other than tobacco or menthol would be illegal unless specifically authorized by the government.

The agency has approved some e-cigarette products from other makers such as Reynolds American, while taking a hard line on sweet or flavored products.

Juul has argued that vaping products can provide a solution to the harmful health impacts from conventional cigarettes.

Juul's products "exist only to transition adult smokers away from combustible cigarettes," Chief Executive KC Crosthwaite said on the company's website, adding that the company is "working hard" to rebuild its reputation following an "erosion of trust over the past few years."

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden's administration announced it would develop a new policy requiring cigarette producers to reduce nicotine to non-addictive levels.

The initiative requires the FDA to develop and then publish a rule, which will likely be contested by industry.

jmb/bgs

Advocates cautiously optimistic over report of Juul ban

BY NATHANIEL WEIXEL - 06/22/22

Anti-smoking advocates said they are cautiously optimistic following a report that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is preparing to remove Juul’s vaping products from U.S. shelves.

The move from FDA, as r eported Wednesday by The Wall Street Journal, would bring an end to the two-year review of the company’s request to sell tobacco and menthol flavored e-cigarettes.

If the report is true, “it’s most welcome and long overdue,” said Erika Sward, American Lung Association’s national assistant vice president of advocacy.

“What I’m hoping is that this will be the beginning of a number of situations where FDA rejects the applications for companies that are clearly not interested in being appropriate for the protection of public health,” Sward said.

A decision has not been publicly announced, and an FDA spokeswoman said the agency had no information to share.

The FDA has faced growing pressure to regulate vaping as e-cigarette use has skyrocketed among youth and teenagers, worrying parents and health experts about their ingestion of the nicotine-based product.

In 2020, the FDA required all e-cigarette and vaping companies to submit applications to continue marketing products. The agency has been reviewing applications from manufacturers ever since.

The agency also banned the sale of all vaping flavors aside from tobacco and nicotine, and has not allowed any companies to legally sell flavors.

Juul’s popularity soared in 2018, but the company’s fruity flavors were widely blamed for hooking teenagers and young kids onto vaping.

Tobacco giant Altria, which sells Marlboro, Virginia Slims and Parliament cigarettes in the United States, invested $12.8 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul in 2018. But the move has not paid off. At the end of last year, Altria said its Juul investment was worth less than $2 billion.

Altria’s shares took a tumble following the Journal’s report, closing down more than 9 percent.

“Juul, more than any other product and any other company, has been responsible for creating and fueling the youth e-cigarette epidemic. If these reports are accurate, this would be the most significant action the FDA has taken to date to end the youth e-cigarette epidemic and stop tobacco companies from using these nicotine-loaded products to addict another generation of kids,” said Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.

Juul took its fruit- and mint-flavored nicotine pods off the market in 2019. The FDA’s reasoning for banning Juul will likely be that it has no benefit to public health, and the threat to young nonsmokers is much larger than any possible benefit to adult smokers.

In September, FDA missed a deadline to decide which e-cigarette products can stay on the market.

In the run-up to the deadline, FDA said it made decisions on more than 90 percent of the new tobacco products that were submitted, rejecting applications of more than 300 companies to sell more than 6 million products, mainly due to their potential appeal to underage teens.

But regulators delayed making decisions on most of the major vaping companies, including Vuse and Juul.

Vaping advocates have railed against the FDA’s efforts to regulate the industry, which they argue helps people transition away from traditional, and more harmful, cigarettes.

Removing Juul from the market would be “the latest sorry example of the agency’s campaign of regulatory arson against the nicotine vaping products that millions of Americans rely on as an alternative to cigarettes,” Amanda Wheeler, president of the American Vapor Manufacturers Association, said in a statement.

“This shameful decision is hard proof that no matter how deeply resourced or how meticulous the research in the market application, FDA is hellbent to arbitrarily crush the most widely used vaping products preferred by adult Americans,” Wheeler said.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, the FDA announced plans to severely limit the levels of nicotine that tobacco companies can place in traditional cigarettes in an attempt to make them less addictive.

“Because tobacco-related harms primarily result from addiction to products that repeatedly expose users to toxins, FDA would take this action to reduce addictiveness to certain tobacco products, thus giving addicted users a greater ability to quit,” the FDA said.

HYDROCARBON INC.IS CAPITAL INTENSIVE

Troubled Canada pipeline no longer

profitable: budget watchdog

Wed, June 22, 2022,

The controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project, now under construction in western Canada after being nationalized, is no longer profitable as costs have spiralled, Parliament's budget watchdog said Wednesday.

In a report, the office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer said a review of the project's finances found "that the government's 2018 decision to acquire, expand, operate, and eventually divest of the Trans Mountain assets will result in a net loss for the federal government."

Ottawa purchased the pipeline for Can$4.4 billion (US$3.4 billion) from Kinder Morgan four years ago to salvage the troubled expansion project.

But its current value, the PBO estimated, is only Can$3.9 billion, after construction costs soared to $21.4 billion and its completion was pushed one year to late 2023.

The negative valuation is based on the pipeline's future cash flows over 40 years, minus construction costs.

The project is to replace an aging conduit built in 1953 to deliver 890,000 barrels of oil a day from landlocked Alberta to the Pacific coast for shipping to new markets in Asia and elsewhere.

Prior to the government taking over the project, it had been stalled by legal challenges and protests by Indigenous groups and environmental activists.

amc/st

RIP
French co-discoverer of 'Lucy' dies at 87

Coppens once told AFP, he was particularly proud to have "made an irrefutable link between the emergence of man and climate change"

AFP -

Coppens called himself one of Lucy's 'daddies'

French palaeontologist Yves Coppens, credited with the co-discovery of the famous fossil find known as "Lucy", died on Wednesday aged 87 after a long illness, his publisher said.

"France has lost one of its great men," publisher Odile Jacob tweeted, adding that beyond his science skills, Coppens had also been "a talented writer, storyteller and non-fiction author".

He was, with Maurice Taieb and Donald Johanson, part of the team that found the most complete remnants of an Australopithecus afarensis ever discovered, in 1974 in Hadar, Ethiopia.

The team nicknamed the 3.2- million-year-old female hominid "Lucy" after the Beatles song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" which they listened to while labelling the fossils.

Based on the large part of Lucy they found, 40 percent of her skeleton, the scientists were able to determine her height (one metre, 3.5 feet) and show that she was muscular and able to climb trees as well as walk upright.

Coppens, who was born in Britanny and was the son of a nuclear physicist father, co-signed six hominid discoveries over his career.

"At six or seven years old I already wanted to become an archaeologist," Coppens told AFP in 2016. "All my holiday time was spent at digs," he added.

Coppens was admitted to France's prestigious CNRS scientific centre in 1956 when he was still only 22.

He began travelling to Africa from the 1960s, starting with Algeria and Chad.

His first major discovery came in 1967, a 2.6-million-year-old fossil in the Omo valley in Ethiopia.

Then in 1974 came the international expedition in Ethiopia's Afar triangle that was to make Coppens, his friend and fellow Frenchman Taieb and Donald Johanson, an American, world famous for the discovery of Lucy.

Coppens often referred to himself as one of Lucy's "daddies" ("papas" in French).

For a long time after the find, which comprised 52 bone fragments, scientists believed that she was a direct ancestor of humanity.

But this claim is no longer widely believed, and Coppens as well as other palaeontologists came instead to view Lucy as a distant cousin of mankind.

Later Coppens ran digs in Mauritania, the Philippines, Indonesia, Siberia, China and Mongolia.

Back home, he became director of the Musee de l'Homme (Museum of Mankind) in Paris, was given the palaeontology chair in the prestigious College de France, and joined France's Academy of Science.

He also won several prizes, served as an advisor on environmental questions to the French government, and wrote several books and more than a million scientific articles.

Besides the discovery of Lucy, Coppens once told AFP, he was particularly proud to have "made an irrefutable link between the emergence of man and climate change".

As forests gave place to savannas, man stopped climbing trees, began to walk upright and needed to develop brain power to keep carnivores at bay, he said.

burs-jh/har

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Wednesday, June 22, 2022

ARGENTINE TRUCK DRIVERS BLOCK ROADS AT HARVEST PEAK, PROTEST LACK OF DIESEL

Wed, June 22, 2022

Afghanistan earthquake kills at least

1,000, more trapped in rubble

Wed, June 22, 2022

HYDROCARBON INC.IS CAPITAL INTENSIVE

Troubled Canada pipeline no longer

profitable: budget watchdog

Wed, June 22, 2022,

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