Tesla could begin producing autos in Mexico next year -Mexican official


Tesla plans a new gigafactory in northern Mexico, in Santa Catarina

Mon, March 6, 2023 

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Tesla Inc could begin producing its first cars in Mexico next year, with the electric vehicle maker close to receiving its final permits allowing factory construction to begin in Nuevo Leon near the U.S.-Mexico border, the state's governor said on Monday.

"They are waiting for the final permits ... once that's done, they can start, hopefully this very month, in March," Nuevo Leon Governor Samuel Garcia said in an interview.

"I think by next year, in 2024, there will be the first autos."

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk announced the investment last week, saying the Austin, Texas-based company had selected Mexico for its next "gigafactory" with plans to produce a "next gen vehicle."

Mexican officials have said the factory will be the world's biggest to produce electric vehicles, with investment worth $5 billion.

Subsequent phases of the plant could involve making components such as chips and batteries, Garcia said.

"That's why they bought a very large plot of land," he added.

The site in Santa Catarina, next to the state capital of Monterrey, spans several thousand acres, the local mayor said last week.

Garcia said the investment would act as an "anchor" attracting Tesla suppliers, and that the green light given to Tesla by Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador - after the latter had expressed concerns over scarcity of water - sent a positive signal to other potential investors.

"It's like a kind of guide, that when they want to come set up here, it's very important they follow the law," he said, noting he had sent Lopez Obrador technical memos about the state's industrial water supply.

"The president, by authorizing and backing Tesla, sent a message to the world that they should come to Mexico."

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon in Mexico City; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

House GOP Prepares to Slash Federal Programs in Coming Budget Showdown

Carl Hulse and Catie Edmondson
Wed, March 8, 2023

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, March 1, 2023. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — Hard-right House Republicans are readying a plan to gut the nation’s foreign aid budget and make deep cuts to health care, food assistance and housing programs for poor Americans in their drive to balance the federal budget, as the party toils to coalesce around a plan that will deliver on their promise to slash spending.

Republicans are ready this week to condemn President Joe Biden’s forthcoming budget as bloated and misguided, and have said they will propose their own next month. But uniting his fractious conference around a list of deep cuts to popular programs will be the biggest test yet for Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who will need to win the support of Republicans in competitive districts and conservative hard-liners to cobble together the 218 votes needed to win the passage of a budget plan.

Privately, even some top party officials have questioned how Republicans will meet their spending objectives while keeping their members in line.

The most conservative lawmakers in his conference — who are emboldened after their four-day standoff with McCarthy, a California Republican, earlier this year during his election as speaker — are pursuing cuts that they concede could cause political pain and blowback among their colleagues.

“There is going to be a gnashing of teeth,” said Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, an arch-conservative member of the House Budget Committee, as the Republican majority works to produce its spending blueprint. “It is not going to be a pretty process. But that’s how it should be.”

The ugliness owes in part to a paradigm shift among GOP lawmakers. After decades of futile efforts to cut the enormous costs of Social Security and Medicare, Republicans have pledged not to touch the biggest entitlement programs, whose spending grows automatically and are on an unsustainable trajectory as more Americans reach retirement age. Coupled with their promise not to raise taxes, that leaves the GOP to consider a slash-and-burn approach to a slew of federal programs and agencies whose budgets are controlled by Congress.

As they meet privately to develop their plan, Republicans say they are relying heavily on a budget outline developed by Russell T. Vought, the former Trump administration budget director who now leads the far-right Center for Renewing America.

In an interview, Vought said it made strategic sense to shift away from politically impregnable Social Security and Medicare and instead target an array of programs that conservatives have criticized for years.

“We’re in a total strategic cul-de-sac on the right, and our fiscal warriors and strategists have totally failed in the sense that, point to any cuts we’ve had success-wise since 1997,” Vought said in an interview. “I actually think that that’s the worst part of the federal spending, because it’s the bureaucracy.

“I’m not saying you can balance on discretionary alone,” he said, referring to the part of the federal budget controlled by Congress. “But a work requirement food stamp program is a lot easier to sell than premium support,” he added, referring to a plan to make Medicare beneficiaries shoulder more of their costs.

The strategy suggested by Vought, who has become something of an intellectual and tactical guru to many of the hard-liners in the House Republican Conference, would enact deep spending cuts to what he called the “woke and weaponized government.”

The outline includes a 45% cut to foreign aid; adding work requirements for food stamp and Medicaid beneficiaries; a 43% cut to housing programs, including phasing out the Section 8 program that pays a portion of monthly rent costs for low-income people; cutting the FBI’s counterintelligence budget by nearly half; and eliminating Obamacare expansions to Medicaid to save tens of billions of dollars.

Nearly 40 states have accepted federal funding for expansion under the Affordable Care Act, providing health care coverage for an estimated 12 million individuals living near or below the poverty line.

The proposal would also eliminate the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the Pentagon, cut $3.4 billion in State Department migration and refugee assistance, and make Pell grants available only to students whose families cannot contribute any money toward a college education.

Adding work requirements to programs like food stamps is “a given,” according to Norman.

“We’re $32 trillion in debt,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. “We’ve got to get people back to work, get the economy going.”

A proposal with such cuts will draw attacks that Republicans are targeting the truly needy while avoiding touching the other benefit programs that serve many older Americans with other sources of income. But Republicans say the savings have to be found.

If politicians cannot “change the trajectory on discretionary spending, then we’ll never have the courage to tackle the bigger issues,” said Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, a first-term conservative Republican on the Budget Committee. “So we’ve got to have the courage to go after the nondefense discretionary areas that everyone may not agree on.”

Democrats are eager for Republicans to roll out their spending plan, expecting it to provide powerful ammunition to show the GOP intends to slice a range of federal programs relied upon by Americans across all incomes.

“Show Us Your Plan” has become a rallying cry for Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, as he and his fellow Democrats have called on Republicans to make public the budget cuts they want in return for raising the federal debt limit later this year to avoid a federal default.

Biden has made a point of singling out Vought and his budget proposal, stressing his ties to Trump and warning that the plan “could cause nearly 70 million people to lose services,” most of them “seniors, people with disabilities, and children.”

Rep. Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, called Vought’s budget plan “an outright war on middle-class America.”

“If you say that you’re going to eliminate the deficit by the end of the decade, but you say you’re not going to touch Social Security, you’re not going to touch Medicare, you’re not going to touch defense — that means you have to cut 100% of everything that’s left,” Boyle said. “So I welcome this debate. Math is on our side.”

Some Democrats are calling for both parties to find a way to compromise, urging Republicans to drop their threats to use the debt limit to force concessions and Democrats to recognize the need to rein in out-of-control spending.

“We will never solve the problem by having each party running in the opposite direction,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in an extended Senate floor speech last week as he painted a dire federal fiscal picture. “We will only be able to change course by coming together, embracing common sense, and finding common ground.”

Under the current approach, House Republicans hope to merge the competing budget proposals that have in the past emerged from various conservative factions into one plan that can clear the Budget Committee on its way to the House floor. Members of the panel, who recently gathered for a closed-door conference, credit Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the new Budget Committee chair, for being open to their ideas and sharing many of them.

“It is my strong view that it would be reckless and irresponsible to raise the debt limit without common-sense spending controls on Congress,” Arrington wrote recently in The Hill.

With the GOP holding such a narrow House majority, Republicans conceded that securing the 218 votes needed to approve a budget replete with politically charged cuts would be extremely difficult.

“It is daunting,” said Norman, who said committee Republicans nonetheless would make clear what their budget-cutting plans were when the moment came. “We are going to spell it out.”

© 2023 The New York Times Company

Virginia DOC says execution audio tapes should remain secret





- Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, left, stands near a gurney with Greensville Correctional Center Warden Larry Edmonds, right, at the correctional center in Jarratt, Va., prior to signing a bill abolishing the state's death penalty, March 24, 2021. The Virginia Department of Corrections has recorded audio of at least 30 executions over the last three decades, but it has no plans to release the tapes publicly. The department rejected an Associated Press request under the state's public records law to release the recordings after NPR obtained and reported on four of them. They offer a rare glimpse into executions. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

DENISE LAVOIE and SARAH RANKIN
Mon, March 6, 2023 


RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — On a 1989 audio recording crackling with static, an inmate is barely audible as he offers his last words before he is executed in Virginia's electric chair.

“I would like to express that what is about to take place ... is a murder," Alton Waye — who was convicted of raping and murdering a 61-year-old woman — can be heard saying, before a prison employee clumsily tries to repeat what Waye said into a tape recorder.

“And that he forgives the people who's involved in this murder. And that I don’t hate nobody and that I love them," the employee says.

The recording of Waye's execution, which was recently published by NPR, is one of at least 35 audio tapes in the possession of the Virginia Department of Corrections documenting executions between 1987 and 2017, the department recently confirmed.

The Waye recording offers a rare public glimpse into an execution, a government proceeding often shrouded in secrecy and only witnessed by a select few, including prison officials, victims, family members and journalists. Even those who are allowed to witness are often prevented from seeing or hearing the entire execution process.

But the department has no plans to allow more recordings to be released to the public.

The Associated Press sought the Virginia audio tapes under the state's open records law after NPR recently reported on the existence of four execution recordings, including the Waye tape, that had long been in the possession of the Library of Virginia.

But shortly after NPR aired its story, the Department of Corrections asked for the tapes back and the library complied. The department then rejected the AP’s request for copies of all of the execution recordings in its possession, citing exemptions to records law covering security concerns, private health records and personnel information.

Several death penalty experts said the four recordings in Virginia and another 23 Georgia execution tapes released two decades ago are believed to be the only publicly available recordings of executions in the U.S.

Richard Dieter, the acting interim director of the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that tracks and has been highly critical of capital punishment, said he would not be surprised if some other states have secretly recorded executions “just to protect themselves" against lawsuits.

“States are wary of things being done right and being challenged in court, and want to have their evidence,” Dieter said.

“So much is secretive that I don't know that they would want to reveal if they have such tapes," he said.

A 2018 report by the center found that of the 17 states that carried out a total of 246 lethal-injection executions between January 2011 and August 2018, 14 states prevented witnesses from seeing at least part of the execution, while 15 states prevented witnesses from hearing what was happening inside the execution chamber.

Virginia, long one of the country's busiest death penalty states, ended capital punishment in 2021, and lawmakers have since defeated legislative efforts to bring it back for certain crimes. But researchers and transparency advocates said the department's decision to withhold the tapes raised concerns and would limit the ability to scrutinize or research previous executions.

The tapes obtained in NPR's investigation were donated to the library in 2006 by a now-deceased former Department of Corrections employee named R. M. Oliver, the library said in a statement to AP.

NPR reported that how Oliver ended up with the tapes and why he donated them remains a mystery.

Carla Lemons, a spokeswoman for DOC, said the files that ended up at the library were taken “without VDOC’s knowledge or permission.” The department asked for them back “so we could appropriately maintain them with the other execution files in the agency’s possession,” Lemons wrote in an email.

The library said it agreed after consulting with its legal counsel.

Lemons said the DOC generally keeps execution records in its possession until at least 50 years after the execution. She defended the department’s decision to withhold the records.

“Although the department may have discretion to release certain materials contained within the execution files, VDOC gives deference to the privacy interests of current and former VDOC employees, victims, and inmates and, therefore, chooses not to publicly release these sensitive materials,” she wrote.

Dale Brumfield, an author, journalist and death penalty opponent who has written a book about capital punishment and its abolition in Virginia, said he also received the four tapes NPR covered last year from the library after an initial request was rejected years earlier.

Brumfield said he thinks the value of the tapes to the average listener is minimal, though he said they offer insight when compared to other records and news accounts.

NPR cited accounts by three local reporters who watched the 1990 execution of Wilbert Lee Evans — who was convicted of murdering a sheriff's deputy — and said that after the administration of the first jolt of electricity from the electric chair, Evans started to bleed from his eyes, mouth and nose.

But the tape of the execution does not record those details. The DOC employee who narrated the recording did not mention any evidence of blood.

Brumfield said state law has forbidden taking pictures and shooting video during the execution process since the early 20th century.

“It's the only window into a live execution that we’ve ever had," Brumfield said of the tapes.

Megan Rhyne, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, said that the exemptions cited by DOC in its denial of AP's request to release the tapes follow the pattern of many law enforcement, judicial and corrections agencies.

“There’s a tendency or a knee-jerk response to withhold everything," she said.

"It takes everything off the table, and the public and the advocates and lawmakers are all left in the dark trying to figure out what’s the best way to administer our justice system," she said.

Dieter said that following a string of bungled executions in recent years, some states that allow the death penalty have passed new secrecy laws that prevent the public from obtaining information about executions. He said he favors releasing the recordings.

“Executions have been botched ... you just don’t know what’s going on, and it’s a matter of life and death," Dieter said.

LEBANON

Hezbollah says it backs Christian ally to become president





Lebanon HezbollahSupporters of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group raise their fists and cheer as they listen to a speech by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah via a video link, during a rally to mark the "Wounded Resistance Day," in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, Lebanon, Monday, March 6, 2023. The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group said Monday that they back former Cabinet minister and strong ally Sleiman Frangieh to become Lebanon’s next president.

 (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)


BASSEM MROUE
Mon, March 6, 2023 

BEIRUT (AP) — The leader of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah said Monday the group backs a former Cabinet minister and strong ally to become Lebanon’s next president.

It was the first time that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah openly named Sleiman Frangieh as the candidate they support to win the top post in the crisis-hit country. Despite Hezbollah’s support, Frangieh still needs the backing of other blocs — support that could prove hard to get.

Frangieh, a Maronite Christian, does not have the backing of the largest Christian blocs in parliament and many in the Western-backed coalition oppose him because of his alliance with Hezbollah and his close personal friendship with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Frangieh, 57, and army commander Gen. Joseph Aoun, are the top candidates for president. Hezbollah is believed to oppose the army chief's bid for president because he enjoys backing by the U.S..

Lebanon’s deeply divided parliament has failed to elect a president during 11 sessions held since the term of President Michel Aoun, also a Hezbollah ally, ended in late October.

“The natural candidate that we back in the presidential elections and has the specifications that we take into consideration is minister Sleiman Frangieh,” Nasrallah said in a speech during a rally honoring the group's wounded fighters. He reiterated that Hezbollah doesn’t want a candidate who “stabs the resistance (Hezbollah) in the back.”

Nasrallah said Hezbollah will not accept that foreign countries impose a president on Lebanon and will also not accept a foreign “veto” against any candidate, an apparent reference to Frangieh.

Nasrallah’s announcement came days after Lebanon’s Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri also said he backs Frangieh for president. Frangieh has not publicly announced he is running for office.

Despite the support of Hezbollah and Berri’s Amal Movement, the two largest Shiite groups in the country, Frangieh will still need the backing of other parliamentary blocs as no coalition has a majority in the 128-seat legislature.

Frangieh said recently that his close alliances with Hezbollah and Assad’s government give him an advantage against other candidates as he can speak with them to make concessions for the good of Lebanon.

According to Lebanon’s power-sharing system, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the parliament speaker a Shiite Muslim. The parliament and Cabinet seats are equally divided between Christians and Muslims.

Frangieh, the leader of the Marada Movement, hails from a well-known political family from northern Lebanon. His grandfather — the man whose name he carries — was a former Lebanese president. When he was 13, his father, Tony Frangieh, was killed along with his mother and sister in an infamous 1978 massacre perpetrated by rival Christian Maronite forces in the mountain resort of Ehden.

In 2018, Frangieh reconciled with Christian leader Samir Geagea who led the raid in Ehden but was seriously wounded and withdrew from the operation.

Geagea, whose Lebanese Forces Party has the largest bloc in parliament, is strongly opposed to Frangieh becoming president and vowed to do all he can to prevent him from obtaining the post.

TRANSGENDER RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
Arkansas Senate OKs bathroom bill that critics call extreme


ANDREW DeMILLO
Tue, March 7, 2023 

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A bill that would criminalize transgender people using restrooms that match their gender identity won initial approval in the Arkansas Legislature on Tuesday, introducing a restriction critics said would be the most extreme in the country.

The bill approved by the majority-Republican Senate on a 19-7 vote would allow someone to be charged with misdemeanor sexual indecency with a child if they use a public restroom or changing room of the opposite sex when a minor is present. The bill now heads to the majority-GOP House.

The legislation goes even further than a North Carolina bathroom law that was enacted in 2016 and later repealed following widespread boycotts and protests. That law did not include any criminal penalties.

"What this is is an attack on the continued existence in public of transgender people, and the criminalization of being transgender in public," said Cathryn Oakley, state legislative director and senior counsel at the Human Rights Campaign.

The bill comes amidst a flood of bills targeting transgender people, and increasingly hostile rhetoric against trans people in statehouses. So far this year, at least 155 bills targeting trans people's rights have been introduced, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

Republican Sen. John Payton, the Arkansas bill's sponsor, called the measure narrowly crafted since it would only apply when minors are present and acknowledged it would be difficult to prosecute someone for violating the restriction.

“I just don’t see this as being the bill that stops people from going into the wrong bathroom,” Payton said before the vote. “Hopefully it just limits it to when children are present.”

But Sen. Joshua Bryant, the only Republican who voted against the bill, said the measure would allow someone to be prosecuted regardless of their intent. He compared it to charging someone with armed robbery if they took a concealed handgun into a building where it's not allowed.

Bryant also noted that the bill would also apply to a transgender person who's undergone complete gender affirming surgery.

"I may not understand why they did it, I may not agree with why they did it but it was their decision as an adult," Bryant said.

The proposal narrowly won approval in the 35-member Senate, with several Republican lawmakers not voting on the measure another GOP senator voting “present” — which has the same effect as voting no.

Despite the backlash over North Carolina's now-repealed bathroom bill, there has been a resurgence of similar restrictions proposed by GOP lawmakers. At least 17 bills related to who can use bathrooms have been introduced in 11 states so far this year.

Another bill pending in the Arkansas Legislature would prevent transgender people at public schools from using bathrooms that match their gender identity. Similar laws have been enacted in Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee. Lawsuits have been filed challenging the Oklahoma and Tennessee restrictions.

There are some exemptions in the bill approved by the Senate on Tuesday, including for parents and guardians accompanying children under the age of 7.

Even with that exemption, the bill would pose a difficult choice for transgender activist Miss Major Griffin-Gracy and her partner Beck Major, who is also transgender. The Little Rock couple have a two-year-old son and would eventually have to decide whether to send him into public restrooms alone rather than accompany him and risk being charged under the law.

“Those are two horrible choices for a parent to make,” Beck Major said. “What choice would you make?"

The legislation also worries Kathy Brown-Nichols, of Arkansas, who describes herself as a butch lesbian and said she’s already regularly harassed and questioned when she uses the women’s restroom in public because of her appearance. Brown-Nichols said she's worried that harassment would only increase if the proposed restriction becomes law.

“They are putting a big bullseye on people that are different,” she said.

Germany says Nord Stream attacks may be 'false flag' to smear Ukraine


Wed, March 8, 2023 
By Sabine Siebold and Andrew Gray

STOCKHOLM, March 8 (Reuters) - German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius on Wednesday warned against reaching premature conclusions on who was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, suggesting the attack could also have been a "false flag" operation to blame Ukraine.

Pistorius was speaking after a New York Times report, citing intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials, said a pro-Ukrainian group may be behind the blasts that became a flashpoint between the West and Russia after last year's Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The report, while not pointing to any official Ukrainian involvement, comes at a time when Kyiv is urging its Western allies to ramp up supplies of high-end weapons to drive back Russian forces as the war enters its second year.

Investigations are ongoing as to what caused the Nord Stream pipelines, supplying Russian energy to Europe, to rupture and spew bubbles of natural gas into the Baltic Sea last September. Western countries believe the explosions were deliberate but have not concluded who was behind them.

Russia, which has previously blamed the West, seized on the news on Wednesday to demand a transparent investigation in which it also wants to participate.

A separate report by Germany's ARD broadcaster and Zeit newspaper on Tuesday said German authorities were able to identify the boat used for the sabotage operation. It said a group of five men and one woman, using forged passports, rented a yacht from a Poland-based company owned by Ukrainian citizens, but the nationality of the perpetrators was unclear.

"We have to make a clear distinction whether it was a Ukrainian group, whether it may have happened at Ukrainian orders, or a pro-Ukrainian group (acting) without knowledge of the government. But I am warning against jumping to conclusions," Pistorius said on the sidelines of a summit in Stockholm.

Pistorius said earlier the likelihood was "equally high" that it could have been a "false flag operation staged to blame Ukraine".

Citing Germany's federal prosecutor, the ntv broadcaster said German investigators had raided a ship in January suspected of involvement but there was no reliable information on perpetrators or motives.

UKRAINE PLAYS DOWN CONCERNS

The New York Times said there was no evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy or other Ukrainian government officials had played any role in the attacks.

At the same summit in Stockholm, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov said the media reports were a "little bit strange" and had "nothing to do" with the Ukrainian government.

"It's like a compliment for our special forces," he joked. "But this is not our activity."

Reznikov said he was not worried about the prospect of the media reports weakening support for Ukraine. Pistorius batted away a similar question about Western support as "hypothetical".

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested the media reports were a coordinated bid to divert attention and questioned how U.S. officials could assume anything about the attacks without an investigation.

"The very least that the Nord Stream shareholder countries and the United Nations must demand is an urgent, transparent investigation with the participation of everyone who can shed light," Peskov said.

The U.S. intelligence review suggested those who carried out the attacks opposed Russian President Vladimir Putin "but does not specify the members of the group, or who directed or paid for the operation", the New York Times wrote.

"Officials who have reviewed the intelligence said they believed the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two. U.S. officials said no American or British nationals were involved," according to the New York Times report.

Investigators founds traces of explosives on the yacht, which the group took from Rostock, Germany, on Sept. 6, according to ARD and Zeit. They also reported that intelligence indicated that a pro-Ukrainian group could be behind the attack, but German authorities have not yet found any evidence.

Reuters could not independently verify the information.

Russia last month gave the U.N. Security Council a draft resolution which - if adopted - would ask U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish an international, independent investigation into the attack. (Reporting by Sabine Siebold, Andrew Gray, Lidia Kelly, Mark Trevelyan, Riham Alkousaa, Kirsti Knolle; Writing by Matthias Williams; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Myanmar army killed 17 people in 2 villages, residents say




MyanmarMen pull a raft with several bodies onboard while crossing the Mu river between Myinmu and Sagaing townships in the Sagaing region in central Myanmar on Thursday, March 2, 2023. Soldiers in Myanmar rampaged through several villages, raping, beheading and killing at least 17 people, residents said, in the latest of what critics of the ruling military say are a series of war crimes since the army seized power two years ago. (UGC via AP)

GRANT PECK
Mon, March 6, 2023 

BANGKOK (AP) — Soldiers in Myanmar rampaged through several villages, raping, beheading and killing at least 17 people, residents said, in the latest of what critics of the ruling military say are a series of war crimes since the army seized power two years ago.

The bodies of 17 people were recovered last week in the villages of Nyaung Yin and Tar Taing — also called Tatai — in Sagaing region in central Myanmar, according to members of the anti-government resistance and a resident who lost his wife. They said the victims had been detained by the military and in some cases appeared to have been tortured before being killed.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the military’s February 2021 seizure of power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi prompted nationwide peaceful protests that security forces suppressed with deadly force. The violence triggered widespread armed resistance, which has since turned into what some U.N. experts have characterized as a civil war.

The army has been conducting major offensives in the countryside, including burning villages and driving hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. It has faced some of its toughest resistance in Sagaing, in Myanmar’s historic heartland.

The soldiers involved in last week’s attacks were in a group of more than 90 who were brought to the area by five helicopters on Feb. 23, said local leaders of the pro-democracy People’s Defense Forces and independent Myanmar media.

They said the bodies of 14 people, including three women, were found Thursday on a small island in a river in Nyaung Yin. Three more male victims were found in Tar Taing, including two members of the local resistance. One of the two was dismembered, with his head cut off, they said.

The neighboring villages are about 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of the major city of Mandalay.

Tar Taing resident Moe Kyaw, 42, survived the attack but said his 39-year-old wife, Pan Thwal, and 18-year-old nephew were among those killed. Contacted by phone, he said Friday they were among 70 villagers detained in the middle of the night last Wednesday by soldiers who shot into the air as they herded their captives from their homes to the local Buddhist monastery.

Moe Kyaw said the soldiers stole beer and other items from his aunt’s small shop, and as they beat her, he fled for his life, escaping two soldiers who shot at him.

He said his wife and other villagers were tortured at the monastery and then taken away from the village, apparently as hostages against any attack. He said his wife and two other women were beaten, raped and shot dead on Thursday by the soldiers, who also took his spouse’s earrings, His two sons, 9 and 11 years old, were released when the soldiers departed, he said.

Moe Kyaw did not explain how he knew the details about his wife's treatment.

Myanmar’s underground National Unity Government — the main organization opposed to military rule that describes itself as the country’s legitimate government — said in an online news conference on Monday that the soldiers were from the 99th Light Infantry Division based in Mandalay Region.

A leader of a Sagaing resistance group called the Demon King Defense Force said his group attacked the better-armed government troops on Wednesday in a failed effort to rescue the detained villagers.

When they went Thursday morning to the small island where the soldiers had taken about 20 villagers they found 14 bodies in three spots, said the resistance leader, who asked not to be identified because of fear of reprisals by the military.

Acknowledging that he had not seen the killings, he said he also believed the women had been raped.

In an earlier incident apparently involving the same army unit, two boys aged 12 and 13 assisting the People’s Defense Force were captured by government troops on Feb. 26 and beheaded after being forced to show the locations of their camps, according to independent Myanmar media. Photos said to be of their bodies, found at Kan Daw village, about 12 kilometers (7 miles) northwest of Tar Taing, were circulated on social media.

A separate group, the Sadaung Lighting People’s Defense Force, has said that two of its older teenage members were also killed and beheaded in fighting at Kan Daw on the same day.

The military government has not responded to the allegations. In the past, it has denied documented abuses and said that casualties occurred in the course of fighting against armed anti-government guerrillas. Online media supportive of the military government have made the same claim about the recent incidents in Sagaing or suggested that they were the result of factional fighting within the resistance.

Myanmar’s military has long been accused of serious human rights violations, most notably in the western state of Rakhine. International courts are considering whether it committed genocide there in a brutal 2017 counterinsurgency campaign that caused more than 700,000 members of the Muslim Rohingya minority to flee to neighboring Bangladesh for safety.

Last week, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk accused the ruling generals of carrying out “a scorched earth policy in an attempt to stamp out opposition.”

His agency said credible sources have verified the deaths of at least 2,940 civilians and 17,572 arrests by the military and its allies since the 2021 takeover.

France reports bird flu in foxes near Paris, WOAH says


Illustration shows person holding test tube labelled "Bird Flu\

Tue, March 7, 2023 

PARIS (Reuters) -France has reported an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu among red foxes northeast of Paris, the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on Tuesday, as the spread of the virus to mammals raised global concerns.

After three foxes were found dead in a nature reserve in Meaux near where gulls had died, one of the foxes was collected and tested, WOAH said in a report, citing French authorities.

The World Health Organization last month described the bird flu situation as "worrying" due to the recent rise in cases in birds and mammals and that it was reviewing its global risk assessment in light of recent developments including cases of human transmission in Cambodia.

Avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, has been spreading around the world in the past year, killing more than 200 million birds, sending egg prices rocketing and raising concern among governments about human transmission.

The virus infected a cat in France in late December.

It has also been detected in minks in Spain, foxes and otters in Britain, sea lions in Peru and grizzly bears in the United States.

(Reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide, editing by Gus Trompiz and Ed Osmond)

CERAWEEK-'Houston, we have a problem'-Energy industry grapples with climate fight

"I think if you're going to go through the greatest transformation that the world has seen in over 100 years, of unplugging from one energy system and creating a whole other one, you can't just do it  without planning it out,"

The CERAWeek 2023 energy conference in Houston

Mon, March 6, 2023 
By Stephanie Kelly and Sabrina Valle

HOUSTON (Reuters) - Top global energy executives and officials on Monday grappled with how to transition the global economy from fossil fuels to renewables quickly enough to prevent climate disaster without disrupting strategic oil and gas supplies.

"Houston, we have a problem," two top executives told some of the most powerful figures in global energy in the capital of the U.S. oil industry, using the same famous line from an astronaut in the damaged 1970 Apollo 13 spacecraft.

Sultan al-Jaber, chief executive of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and president-designate of the COP28 climate summit, used the line to urge conference participants to do more faster to limit global warming, which the fuel produced by most of energy companies present had accelerated.

Earlier, Petronas CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik used the same phrase in a panel discussion on the challenge of balancing the need for energy security and affordability.

Jaber's call for energy companies to work toward the transition was an unusual moment at an event that has long been a mainstay for fossil fuel producers, who have previously viewed such calls as a threat to their business.

Last year, many climate activists balked at Jaber's appointment as COP28 president, saying Big Oil was hijacking the world's response to global warming. Others welcomed it as a sign the energy industry would get involved in the transition.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine sparked an energy crunch that disrupted fossil fuel supplies to industry and consumers. Rising fuel prices fueled decades-high global inflation in 2022.

Many in the industry viewed the disruptions to Russian supply as a reminder to avoid policies that cut off or drive up prices for fossil fuels. Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth told attendees that maintaining secure and affordable supplies while managing the energy transition to the low-carbon economy was "one of the greatest challenges of all time."

A disorderly energy transition could be "painful and chaotic", Wirth said.

"We have to be very careful about turning system A off prematurely and depending on a system that doesn't yet exist and hasn't been proven," he said.

Disruptions of gas supply to Europe, which has hurt the largest economy on the continent in Germany, have accelerated the transition, said German state secretary in the economy ministry, Patrick Graichen.

"If you are used to cheap Russian gas and you wake up in this world, there are some fundamental questions that need to be answered," he said. Germany needed to fast forward electrification and build a green hydrogen supply, he said.

"If we can speed that up and fit it together - it's not about securing the old world but speeding up the transition to the new world."

Top U.S. oil firm Exxon said each country would take a different path to energy transition, depending on the resources available. In some countries, gas would be a transition fuel, said Liam Mallon, the president upstream oil and gas at Exxon.

Mallon called on policymakers and international and national oil companies to map out the transition together.

"We cannot do this alone," he said. "This takes policymakers regulators, innovators, NOC these IOC is all working together to create the right incentives to progress through this energy transition"

U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein said the hardest part of the energy transition was coordinating the timeline for change.

"I think if you're going to go through the greatest transformation that the world has seen in over 100 years, of unplugging from one energy system and creating a whole other one, you can't just do it without planning it out," Hochstein said.

(Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by David Gregorio)

Oil CEO who will head 2023 climate talks calls for change


Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., speaks at Ceraweek on Monday, March 6, 2023, in Houston. Al-Jaber, who will lead international climate talks later this year, told energy industry power players on Monday that the world must cut emissions 7% each year and eliminate all emissions of the greenhouse gas methane. (Courtesy of Ceraweek)

ISABELLA O'MALLEY
Mon, March 6, 2023 

A top oil company CEO who will lead international climate talks later this year told energy industry power players on Monday that the world must cut emissions 7% each year and eliminate all releases of the greenhouse gas methane — strong comments from an oil executive.

“Let me call on you to decarbonize quicker,” Sultan al-Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., said at the Ceraweek conference, held in Houston.

But al-Jabar did not directly address emissions from transportation, where most crude oil ends up. Emissions from transport are the largest contributor to climate change in many countries, including the United States.

Al-Jaber singled out electricity, cement, steel and aluminum as targets for cleanup, but not trucks, cars, trains and aircraft. He called for far greater investment to speed the transition to cleaner industries.

“According to the IEA, in 2022, the world invested $1.4 trillion in the energy transition,” he said. “We need over three times that amount.”

And that investment. he said, must flow to the developing world.

“Only 15% of clean tech investment reaches developing economies in the global south, and that is where 80% of the population live,” he stressed.

Al-Jaber did not call for the phasing out of oil and gas production and use, something that scientists and advocates have been demanding unsuccessfully over repeated COPs, short for Conference of the Parties, where nations meet to make climate commitments.

According to the International Energy Agency, to avoid the worst climate changes, there must be no new oil and gas infrastructure built out.

The United Arab Emirates leader said his country was first in its region to commit to the Paris climate agreement, and to set a pathway to net zero emissions. But its emissions in 2021 were up 3%, not down, from the year before, according to the Global Carbon Project. They were however 6% below the country’s peak in 2015. According to Climate Action Tracker, UAE has an overall rating of “highly insufficient,” meaning its projected emissions are not in line with limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. pumps approximately 4 million barrels of crude a day and plans on expanding to 5 million barrels daily.

Each year, nations gather at the COP to discuss how Paris Agreement goals to limit global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050, can be achieved through international collaboration.

The 28th such conference, COP28, will be held in Dubai, Nov 30 to Dec. 12. The choice of country has drawn criticism given the nation’s high, and growing level of crude production. The choice of al Jaber, CEO of the national oil company, has also drawn scorn. However, U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry has said he backs the UAE leader.

As president of this year's meeting, al-Jaber will have influence over how much pressure is brought to bear on those most reponsible for climate change, countries and companies that produce and burn coal, oil and gas.

Al-Jaber is the UAE minister of industry and advanced technology, and also serves as the chairman of Masdar, a renewable energy company.

Ceraweek attracts high level oil and gas officials each year and is hosted by S&P Global.

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Ellen Knickmeyer contributed from Washington D.C. and Mary Katherine Wildeman from Hartford, Connecticut.

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Canada roiled by leaked intelligence reports of Chinese election ‘meddling’

Leyland Cecco in Toronto

THE GUARDIAN
Tue, March 7, 2023 

Photograph: Mark Blinch/Reuters

A flurry of leaked intelligence reports has reignited allegations that China interfered in Canada’s recent federal elections, kicking off a fierce debate over possible responses to Beijing’s meddling.

But the leaks also run the risk of harming Canada’s reputation among its allies, experts warn, as the country’s spy agency struggles to respond to mounting public concern.

Opposition leaders have pushed the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, for a public inquiry into how China attempted to sway the result of two federal elections in its favour.

Related: Justin Trudeau to appoint special rapporteur to probe foreign interference in elections

On Monday evening, Trudeau announced he would appoint a special rapporteur to investigate foreign interference allegations, as well as the creation of a foreign agent registry.

“We believe deeply in the values of freedom, openness, and dialogue. These values are not universally shared by every government around the world,” Trudeau said. “Indeed, I don’t know if in our lifetime, we’ve seen democracy in a more precarious place. Many state actors and non-state actors want to foster instability here and elsewhere, to advance their own interests.”

Trudeau cited a recent report that found neither China nor any other nation was able to successfully interfere in Canada’s elections.

“We will always stand firm when it comes to defending our national security,” he said.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister. Photograph: Carlos Osorio/Reuters

Members of an independent panel, set up to monitor possible threats to elections, recently told lawmakers that the meddling attempts by China and other nations did not threaten Canada’s ability to have a free and fair election in 2021.

But concerns over China’s actions in Canada have grown in recent months, following reports of illegal “police stations” operating in major cities.

The Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, said the most recent allegations of Chinese attempts to subvert federal elections demanded an outside review, suggesting ahead of the prime minister’ announcement that Trudeau would just try to “sweep this under the rug” and keep the process secretive.

The New Democratic party – which previously pledged to support the governing Liberals on votes of confidence until 2025 – joined the calls, warning it could tie future support for the government to a public inquiry.

The main source of revelations has been leaked documents from CSIS, Canada’s main intelligence agency. Both the Globe and Mail and Global News have cited the documents in their reporting on Chinese attempts to tamper with the federal election.

“I’m astonished by the leaks of CSIS material,” said Jessica Davis, a former intelligence analyst for the Canadian government and head of Insight Threat Intelligence. Davis cautioned that it was unclear if the documents shared with media outlets were part of a finished intelligence assessment or relied on a single source. She also said it was unclear if the leaks were coming from within the spy agency or from a source at another intelligence division.

Davis said that the leaks appeared to have been selective, largely highlighting how the Liberals themselves benefited from Chinese interference.

“This is really sensitive information … and there’s a hubris to people who selectively leak this sort of thing. They often assume they ‘know best’ about what information should be in the public domain and are overly confident they can anticipate the consequence of the leaks.”

The Royal Canadian Mounted police confirmed on Monday it had launched an investigation into the leaks, which officials previously said breached national security laws.

But senior security and intelligence officials’ reluctance to comment on any of the highly sensitive information has done little to tamp down widespread speculation about the extent of the meddling.

A poll released this week by the polling firm Angus Reid Institute found that two-thirds of Canadians believe the Chinese government attempted to interfere in the past two federal elections.

In addition to shaping public opinion, the leaks also run the risk of undermining Canada’s credibility among its allies – a reputation already damaged after a top intelligence official was arrested for stealing covert information.

Related: Canada: arrest of ex-head of intelligence shocks experts and alarms allies

“For our allies, it is completely unacceptable to have sensitive documents shared like this,” said Davis. “These sorts of leaks will have them asking whether or not we can be trusted to protect the super-sensitive information that they’re sharing with us.”

Davis also cautioned that the country’s intelligence agencies appear to have been caught flat-footed by the leaks and have failed to be open and honest with the public about attempts to interfere in Canada’s election.

“Our security agencies need to be doing a much better job of communicating with Canadians. If they don’t, Canadians will begin losing confidence in them – and possibly in our elections and democracy.”