Octopus in talks to help power Ukraine after Russia smashes grid

Matt Oliver
Sun, 28 January 2024 

Greg Jackson: ‘The UK can learn from Ukraine’s impressive ability to built energy infrastructure so quickly – and under fire’ - Andrew Crowley

British energy supplier Octopus is in talks to help power Ukraine as the country rebuilds its electricity grid following Vladimir Putin’s bombing onslaught.

The company has held exploratory talks with Kyiv-based DTEK, Ukraine’s biggest private energy company, about how the two businesses can work together.

It is understood this could potentially include Octopus licensing its groundbreaking Kraken energy management software to DTEK or even going one step further and forming a joint venture with the company, as Octopus has done with energy providers in other markets such as Japan.

The discussions come amid a long-running Russian bombing campaign to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, with the aim of depriving the public of power or heat during the coldest winter months.

Russia’s efforts have galvanised support in Ukraine for renewable energy, with the more distributed nature of wind turbines and solar panels making them smaller targets than large coal power stations.

Greg Jackson, chief executive of Octopus, held initial discussions with Maxim Timchenko, DTEK’s chief executive, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland earlier this month.

Mr Timchenko met Octopus Energy’s Jackson at Davos - Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg

Both men stressed talks are at an early stage but were enthusiastic about the potential for cooperation.

Mr Timchenko said: “We want to learn from this company [Octopus] and we want to bring this innovation to Ukraine.”

A potential deal between the two would mark yet another foreign expansion for UK household supplier Octopus, which already operates Germany, the US, Japan, Spain, Italy, France and New Zealand as well.

Many of the company’s global agreements have been propelled by demand for its Kraken software, which can manage energy assets such as wind turbines as well as customer service databases.

Kraken is now used by utility companies in 17 countries to serve 54m users.

Mr Jackson said: “Ukraine – and DTEK – has shown the agility, the speed, at which you can both upgrade and build new electricity infrastructure.

“We can learn a lot from them, for example about how they’ve been able to so quickly and so impressively do work – often under fire – that in the UK often takes five to 15 years. And if you take a decentralised system like they’ve been building, I think it’s a good example of the kind of situation where Kraken can be very effective.

“I can’t preempt where it goes. But let’s just say, I’d be delighted if we can find a way to work together in Ukraine, and in the rest of Europe.”

Following its takeover of Shell Energy last year, Octopus is now Britain’s second-biggest energy supplier with about 6.6m customers.

DTEK, meanwhile, is one of Ukraine’s biggest electricity suppliers with about 3.5m customers across the Kyiv, Donetsk and Dnipro regions.

Since the outbreak of war with Russia, the company has been scrambling to bolster its electricity grid with decentralised wind and solar farms.

It won plaudits last year for completing the construction of a wind farm in southern Ukraine, 60 miles from the frontline, in just nine months.

DTEK has also begun building renewable energy projects outside of Ukraine, with schemes online in Romania and others planned in Italy, Poland and Croatia.

Mr Timchenko said DTEK was keen to look at opportunities to deploy Octopus’ Kraken software across the business, as well as the potential for a joint venture between the two companies.

There was potential to test Octopus’ technology “outside of Ukraine as well”, he added.

UK

‘Extraordinary and deeply harmful’: Charities’ rallying cry for Lords to block Rwanda bill


Holly Bancroft
Mon, 29 January 2024 


More than 250 charities, religious organisations and civil society bodies have called on the House of Lords to block the “deeply harmful” Rwanda bill, labelling it an attack on universal human rights and the constitutional role of the judiciary.

In a joint statement ahead of the second reading of the bill in the Lords on Monday, the charities said that the government’s plans to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda would create a “two-tiered system” of human rights where some people had access to the UK courts and others didn’t, concluding: “Either we all have human rights or none of us do.”

The group, which includes political organisations, faith groups, unions and councils, condemned the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill as “constitutionally extraordinary and deeply harmful”, saying it would “threaten the universality of human rights and is likely in breach of international law”.

They also warned that the bill would breach the Good Friday agreement, which commits the UK government to “complete incorporation” of international human rights law in Northern Ireland.

Three peers from the Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Greens, also backed the statement saying the bill must be stopped.

Rishi Sunak’s government agreed on a legally binding treaty with Rwanda in December, arguing that it addressed concerns raised by the Supreme Court about the possibility of asylum seekers deported to Rwanda being transferred back to a country where they could be at risk.

Rishi Sunak has said he is prepared to ignore orders from the European Court of Human Rights (AFP/PA)

Mr Sunak brought forward legislation to declare, contrary to the finding of the UK’s highest court, that Rwanda is in fact a safe country. The bill also severely limits asylum seekers’ ability to challenge their Rwanda deportation in the UK courts, making a showdown with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) more likely.

Peers in the House of Lords delivered an initial blow to Mr Sunak’s plans when they backed, by 214 votes to 171, a motion to delay the treaty until the government can prove that Rwanda is indeed safe.

In a hastily-arranged press conference this month, Mr Sunak warned peers not to "frustrate the will of the people" by opposing his flagship legislation.

In the joint civil society statement, shared exclusively with The Independent, charities called on the Lords “to reject the bill at second reading” on Monday - pointing out: “It was not a government manifesto commitment”.

In the letter, 256 civil society organisations, including Amnesty International, Unison, the Methodist Church, the Muslim Council of Britain and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, said that the bill is “an attack on the constitutional role of the judiciary and the rule of law” because it “legislates something that has been authoritatively found to be false by the Supreme Court”.

Home Secretary James Cleverly and Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs Vincent Biruta shake hands after they signed a new treaty in Kigali, Rwanda. (PA)

The letter, coordinated by human rights organisation Liberty, continued: “If parliament validates legislating legal fictions in this way, it would set a dangerous precedent for future governments”. They also said that the bill would put the UK “on a direct collision course with the European Court of Human Rights”.

The president of the ECHR, Siofra O’Leary, has said that the UK must legally comply with any Rule 39 orders issued by the Strasbourg court. A Rule 39 order grounded the first attempted flight carrying migrants from the UK to Rwanda in June 2022.

Mr Sunak has put a clause in the Rwanda bill saying that it is “for ministers to decide whether to comply” with rulings from the ECHR.

The statement addressed this saying: “Giving a minister legislative validation in ignoring them is a deeply concerning green light to the breaking of international law and erodes the UK’s commitment to the Convention.”

LibDem peer Lord Purvis of Tweed, said that the Rwanda bill was “an unsustainable long-term policy”. He added: “It will cost the taxpayer millions while running roughshod over international law and doing nothing to solve the sky-high asylum backlog.

“Let’s be clear, this bill sets a dangerous precedent for the future and that is why we will be voting against the bill and all that it stands for”.

Labour peer Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, said the bill was “cruel, costly and un-British”, adding: “In dangerous and divided times for our country and the world, it is heartening to see so much of civil society coming together in defence of the best of our values”.

Green party peer, Baroness Jenny Jones, called on her fellow members to “stop this appalling bill”. She said: “It is not a manifesto commitment and convention allows the Lords to reject it. If the prime minister wants to claim the Rwanda bill is the will of the people then please hold a general election”.

A Home Office spokesperson said:"We are determined to get flights off the ground to Rwanda and the UK has a strong and longstanding tradition of standing up for human rights.

"Rwanda is a safe country that cares deeply about supporting refugees. It hosts more than 135,000 asylum seekers and stands ready to relocate people and help them rebuild their lives.”

Cement giant Holcim's shares soar after 

N. America spinoff news 

SPREADING GHG

AFP
Mon, 29 January 2024 

Holcim is currently the largest cement maker in North America, where it counts 850 sites (Fabrice COFFRINI)

Shares in Swiss construction giant Holcim surged on Monday after it announced plans to fully spin off its North America business.

Holcim's share price jumped more than five percent at the open on the Swiss stock exchange before paring back some gains to trade 4.8 percent higher at 67.28 Swiss francs ($78.13) in morning deals.

The hike came a day after the company announced plans to list its North American business in the United States during the first half of 2025 "with full capital market separation".

It said it would communicate about the final structure later this year, but said the move would create a leading pure-play North American building solutions company.

Holcim, one of the world's largest cement makers, also announced Sunday that its board had picked Miljan Gutovic, who currently heads Holcim's European operations, to replace Jan Jenisch as chief executive officer from May 1.

Jensich, who has headed Holcim since 2017, will remain on as chairman of the group and will lead the US listing process, the company said.

Holcim is currently the largest cement maker in North America, where it counts 850 sites.

Jensich told reporters Sunday that once spun off, the new company could be valued at around $30 billion, adding that Holcim was not planning to hold onto a stake.

Jenisch highlighted that North America had been Holcim's best developing business in recent years.

"It's a rock star business," he said, pointing out that it had been growing sales by more than 20 percent each year for the past four years.

"This is simply too successful to be run as a subsidiary."

Holcim said the new US business would aim to nearly double its current sales of around $11 billion to over $20 billion by 2030.

Holcim, which merged in 2015 with French group Lafarge, has significantly increased its footprint in North America in recent years through a string of acquisitions.

The company dished out $3.4 billion in 2021 to buy US roofing manufacturer Firestone Building Products (FSBP).

In 2022 it bought Malarkey Roofing Products for $1.35 billion, and a year later it snapped up Duro-Last for $1.29 billion.

Analysts hailed the spinoff plan, with Mark Diethelm of Swiss investment manager Vontobel describing it as "the next step for growth and value creation".

In a research note, he hailed that the company had not, as some investors had expected, slowed down the pace of its transformation after the "significant M&A activity in the last three years".

"The company's intention to spin-off its North American business demonstrates the company's focus on value creation," he said.

noo/nl/lth

Notorious Japanese fugitive dies after 50 years on the run: media

Katie Forster
Mon, 29 January 2024 

Details are emerging of how Satoshi Kirishima may have been hiding in plain sight for decades (Philip FONG)

Long hair, youthful smile, thick glasses slightly askew: for decades, the black-and-white photo of one of Japan's most wanted fugitives has been a ubiquitous sight at police stations nationwide.

But after nearly 50 years Satoshi Kirishima -- wanted over deadly bombings by leftist extremists in the 1970s -- reportedly died Monday, days after local media said he had finally been caught.

Last week, the 70-year-old revealed his identity after he admitted himself to hospital under a false name for cancer treatment, according to Japanese media.

The reports were a sensation in Japan, where his young face is so widely recognised that it has inspired viral Halloween costumes.

But police were still scrambling to conduct DNA tests when the man believed to be Kirishima passed away on Monday morning.

"Investigators looked into and eliminated past tips, but there is a very high possibility that this individual is actually Kirishima," a police source told the Asahi newspaper.

- Plain sight -

Details are emerging of how Kirishima may have been hiding in plain sight for decades.

Born in Hiroshima in January 1954, Kirishima attended university in Tokyo, where he was attracted by radical far-left politics.

He joined the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front, one of several militant groups active in the era along with the once-feared Japanese Red Army or the Baader–Meinhof Group in West Germany.

The revolutionary Armed Front carried out bombings at Japanese companies, including one at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries that killed eight people.

It operated in three cells, with fanciful names: "Wolf", "Fangs of the Earth" and "Scorpion" -- Kirishima's outfit.

- Under the radar -

Alongside physical descriptors on Kirishima's wanted posters -- 160 cm tall (5 ft 3), full lips, very short-sighted -- is a summary of his crime.

In April 1975, the young radical allegedly helped set up a bomb that blasted away parts of a building in Tokyo's upscale Ginza district. No one was killed.

He has been on the run ever since.

TV Asahi and other outlets said he had lived a double life for years, working at a building contractor in the city of Fujisawa in Kanagawa region, under the alias Hiroshi Uchida.

He was paid in cash and went under the radar with no health insurance or driving licence, the reports said.

At the nondescript office where the man reportedly worked, someone who knew him told TV Asahi that the suspect had "lost a lot of weight" compared to the wanted photo.

The man believed to be Kirishima began to receive treatment for stomach cancer under his own expense, the reports said.

It was at a hospital in the city of Kamakura that he finally confessed that he was 70-year-old Kirishima, they added.

- Walking free -

Nine other members of the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front were arrested, the Asahi newspaper said.

But two 75-year-olds are still on the run after being released in 1977 as part of a deal by the Japanese Red Army, which had hijacked a Japan Airlines plane in Bangladesh.

Fusako Shigenobu, the female founder of the Japanese Red Army, walked free from prison in 2022 after completing a 20-year sentence for a 1974 embassy siege.

Shigenobu's group carried out armed attacks in support of the Palestinian cause during the 1970s and 80s, including a mass shooting at Tel Aviv airport in 1972 that killed 24 people.

Kirishima though escaped justice, or so it seems.

"I want to meet my death with my real name," he told staff at the hospital, according to NHK.

bur-kaf/stu/ser

JAPAN RED ARMY

Hijackers, Bombers, and Bank Robbers: Managerial Style in the Japanese Red Army on JSTOR

Abstract

Smith's argument is supported by Patricia G. Steinhoff, who looks at the inner workings of Sekigunha (Red Army), a Japanese radical student group of the late 1960s, to see if its social organization was as revolutionary as its ideology. She finds that as Sekigunha went underground to avoid the police, it developed a characteristically Japanese managerial style. This case study of a small social movement offers new perspectives on Japanese culture and the process of reproducing culture in any society.

MUTINY!

‘Why should I kill our own?’: Thousands of soldiers surrender as Myanmar junta shaken by rebel advances

Rebecca Ratcliffe and Aung Naing Soe
Mon, 29 January 2024 

Photograph: Aung Naing Soe/The Guardian

One night last August, as the monsoon rains poured, Wunna Kyaw and some fellow soldiers walked away from their military base in Myanmar. It was hours before they were due to be deployed to an area gripped by intense fighting, where the military was struggling to control attacks by armed pro-democracy groups.

“I believed I would die if I did not defect,” says Wunna Kyaw. As the senior officers and commander slept, they crept away from their compound in Kayin, also known as Karen state. It was an act punishable by at least seven years in prison and, potentially, the death penalty.

His decision was driven not only by fear of the battle ahead, but also by his objection to military violence against civilians. “I didn’t want to stay there any more.

It never happened [before] that fighter jets were taken down or tanks seized by enemies

Htet Myat, defector and former army captain

“I feel sorry for the people – people the age of my parents are being killed, and their houses destroyed for no reason. I saw it, I witnessed that,” he says.

Over the months that followed, thousands more military personnel – including entire battalions – are reported to have surrendered. In some cases, soldiers say they defected for moral objections or political reasons. In many others, they surrendered after being overwhelmed by their opponents.

Since seizing power in a coup in February 2021, Myanmar’s military has struggled to subdue opposition to its rule, including from pro-democracy groups that took up arms to fight junta violence and oppression, and armed groups of ethnic minorities that have long fought for independence, and which joined the struggle against the regime.

Pressure on the military increased dramatically on 27 October, when an offensive was launched in northern Shan state by a coalition of armed ethnic-minority groups, the Three Brotherhood Alliance, in coordination with newer anti-coup fighters.

The military, already stretched and fighting on multiple fronts, was apparently taken by surprise. The offensive, named Operation 1027 after the date it began, made rapid advances along the border with China and prompted offensives in other regions.

Progress by resistance groups elsewhere has been mixed, and analysts’ caution that initial hopes that the military was on the brink of a wider defeat were premature.

But the losses that have occurred since October in the north alone – aircraft shot down, weapons seized, key towns and supply routes lost – has proved a humiliation for the military, and stirred internal anger towards its leadership.

“When I served in the military it would be very, very rare news if a captain is killed – not even captured,” says Htet Myat, an activist who served as a captain in the military before he defected on political grounds in 2021.

“It never happened that military fighter jets were taken down or tanks seized by the enemy side or missiles taken by the enemy side,” he adds.

By early January, anti-junta fighters captured the key town of Laukkai near the Chinese border. Ye Myo Hein, an analyst at the Wilson Center, a Washington-based thinktank, described it as “the largest surrender in the history of Myanmar’s military”, saying he understood that 2,389 military personnel, including six brigadier generals, had surrendered.

It was reported that some of the six generals had been sentenced to either death or life imprisonment by the junta for surrendering. The junta has since denied this.

The military is like a state within a state, they have their own empire, their own hospital, their own schools

Thinzar Shunlei Yi, activist

Since Operation 1027, more than 4,000 soldiers are estimated to have defected or surrendered, according to Dr Sasa, minister of international cooperation for Myanmar’s national unity government, which was formed to oppose the junta.

This is in addition to 14,000 military personnel who defected since the 2021 coup through programmes set up by activists to persuade soldiers to join the resistance, he says.

Such figures are hard to verify. Ye Myo Hein estimates there have been at least 10,000 defectors, including soldiers and police. “Additionally, there has been a higher rate of deserters, historically a prevalent issue in the Myanmar military,” he says, adding that there was a growing trend of mass surrender, especially since Operation 1027.

“The surrender of entire battalions – and, more recently, entire regional operation commands – is unprecedented in the Myanmar military’s history,” he says.

The military remains experienced, well trained and has superior weaponry, including aircraft supplied by Russia and China. But recent defectors describe dire morale, and reports suggest such unhappiness extends well beyond the lower ranks.

Morgan Michaels, a research fellow for south-east Asian politics at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, says: “The bigger picture is whether or not the morale issue and the embarrassment issue could generate some sort of instability inside the regime.”

To clamp down on defections, which previously surged in 2022, recent defectors said their phones were confiscated and subject to random checks in training camps. Pay was withheld by their commanders, meaning they had no way of paying for transport to escape.

In one case, a sniper said that, while they were undergoing training, they were even escorted to the toilets by guards. For soldiers who had families living in barracks, there is the added fear that, were they to attempt to flee, their wives and children would face repercussions.

The military, which considers itself the protector of the nation, has long been an opaque and siloed institution, with its personnel subjected to propaganda and cut off from society.

“The military is like a state within a state – they have their own empire, they have their own hospital, they have their own schools,” says Thinzar Shunlei Yi, who was born into a military family but became a human rights activist.

Soldiers who left the military said they had wanted to leave for a long time, but had no opportunity to escape. They had eventually done so either out of fear they would die, frustration at conditions – including lack of pay, corruption among senior ranks and additional duties due to the pressure the forces were under – or moral objections to the military’s actions.

Thant Zin Oo, who defected in late August, said he had witnessed the extrajudicial killing of civilians while briefly deployed to Sagaing region, a heartland of the Bamar ethnic majority, from which the military has traditionally recruited but has since become a hotbed of resistance.

Thant Zin Oo said he was brought in to patrol urban areas and witnessed a senior officer of kill five civilians, alleging they were members of the resistance.

“They had no weapons, no ammunition,” says Thant Zin Oo, who says the civilians were forced to dig their own graves, before their hands were tied and they were shot. The incident occurred in late 2022, though he could not remember the exact date. The victims included two women and three men in their early 20s.

It is not possible to verify this allegation. However, such reports involving the military, which is also accused of genocide against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority, are not uncommon.

As a sniper, Thant Zin Oo said he was ordered to go out ahead of his unit to shoot the opposition. “There is no reason why as a sniper I should kill our own people. But we were forced to do that,” he says, adding: “I wish I could change the direction of my bullets.”

Wunna Kyaw said that during clearance operations in villages he was ordered to shoot at anyone, regardless of whether they were civilians, but said he avoided doing so, firing into the air instead. Thant Zin Oo gave a similar account.

The junta has previously denied atrocities against civilians, saying that its actions are in the interests of stability and tackling terrorism.

On the night of their defection, Wunna Kyaw’s group walked to a nearby temple, where they asked a monk for help. They were introduced to the village head the next morning, who contacted the Karen National Union (KNU), one of Myanmar’s oldest and biggest ethnic-minority armed groups, which has played a key role in fighting the junta.

Related: ‘I have no idea how I’ll survive’: Myanmar villagers who fled airstrikes face food shortage

Wunna Kyaw believes all of his friends who remain in the military will try to defect. Now living in a safe house near the Thai border, he plans to help the forces he once had to fight against as an activist.

Others intend to return to the battle and join their former adversaries. Thant Zin Oo has registered to fight with the KNU. But he does not want to fight against other ordinary soldiers of his own rank. “I want to kill the leadership of the military,” he says.

Sahara dust cloud headed to UK as Met Office warns cars could be covered by orange dirt


Barney Davis
Sat, 27 January 2024 

The Met Office has warned a huge Saharan dust cloud could be heading towards the United Kingdom.

Last year a similar cloud brought spectacular sunsets but motorists saw their vehicles covered in a fine dust that had travelled nearly 5,000km from the Sahara Desert. It is expected the new plume will be washed down from the atmosphere by rain falling as red dirt on Sunday afternoon.

(PA)

A Met Office spokesperson, posted on X: “This amazing image captures a plume of Saharan dust moving out of Africa and into the Atlantic. Some of this dust will make its way towards us over the coming days...”

A Saharan dust cloud seen from Waterloo Bridge in London. (PA)

Nick Finnis, meteorologist with Netweather, wrote on the service’s blog: “The strengthening southerly wind on Sunday ahead of the cold front moving in from the west will also pull north Sahara dust that’s been spilling out of west Africa out across the Atlantic today.

“The dust load greatest across northern and western areas on Sunday – where southerly wind will be strongest, before the greatest dust load shifts further south and east on Monday.



“Some of this dust will fall onto surfaces on the ground, such as cars, more particularly where rain is expected with an area of low pressure moving northeast... There is some uncertainty over the path of this rain across England and Wales for now.”

A sustained upper wind for a period of days allows uninterrupted travel for the dust in one direction, long enough for the flow of air to reach the UK.

Dust brings spectacular red sunsets because particles in the atmosphere scatter blue light more than red, which is why the sky appears blue during the day.

The sun rises amidst clouds of dust coming from the Sahara in Koge, Denmark, on February 23, 2021 (Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Ima)

When the sun is low in the sky, like at dawn and dusk, the light has farther to travel and so the blue light is scattered too much for us to see it, with the Saharan dust exacerbating this effect and turning the skies a deeper red.

The warning came as yellow wind warning is in place for north-east Scotland, with gusts of 50-60mph with a chance of 70mph in exposed areas.

Met Office meteorologist Craig Snell said: “In southern parts it will be a dryer weekend with sunny spells, but there will be a fair bit of cloud around.

“In the north it will remain changeable.”

Sunday is expected to be very mild, reaching 15C in some places, although it will remain wet and windy in the North West.

In the South East it should stay bright and largely dry, but there is a chance of cloud cover at times.

Mr Snell said: “On Sunday, it will turn quite windy again.

“It will be a short-lived windy spell, with gusts reaching 50-60mph in some places but it will not be anything like the recent storms.”

'The sun didn't sting so much before': fires stun Colombia's Andes

"It is Mother Earth crying for help because we are behaving very badly with her."

Valentín DÌAZ
Sat, 27 January 2024 

View of the aftermath of a forest fire in Nemocon (Luis ACOSTA)

The once bright green Andean forest where Maria Yadira Jimenez worked as a tour guide has been reduced to ashes.

Since Monday, forest fires have been advancing on Nemocon, a rural area with beautiful landscapes about 60 kilometers (37 miles) outside the Colombian capital Bogota.

Though usually cool, the mountains surrounding the town have become a hellscape, with the blazes driving out residents and wildlife.

Distraught, Jimenez joined volunteers who -- along with firefighters, rescuers, police and the military -- are fighting to extinguish one of the 34 fires that the government has detected in Colombia, which has declared a "natural disaster" amid hot, dry conditions due to the El Nino climate phenomenon.

Fires have razed more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) across Colombia since November, when the drought started and temperatures started to rise, authorities say.

With no experience in emergency response or any fireproof clothing, the volunteers follow in the footsteps of firefighters and use jugs of water to cool areas that have been brought under control.

With picks, shovels and machetes, they stir up the smoldering earth to make sure the fires don't spark back up.

"This is a disaster that is going to bring very serious consequences. Birds were burned, native species were lost and everything was affected," the 46-year-old Jimenez tells AFP.

The area's environmental authority rescued a disoriented fox and an owl from the smoke, but other animals were not so lucky, perishing in the flames.

- Sun that stings more -

In Bogota, a thick column of smoke rises from the mountain range that edges the city of eight million inhabitants. The sound of helicopters pouring water on the flames echoes all day in the east.

Faced with the "natural disaster" decreed by the government, President Gustavo Petro has sought help from international partners.

The Environment Ministry says at least 20 fires are still active, affecting forests, farmland and the mountain ecosystems that provide water to lower altitudes.

Locals in Nemocon have accused a power company of causing the fire, which spread unchecked among the area's parched pine trees.

When consulted by AFP, the company said the fire was caused by "climatic conditions generated by the heat wave" and that its officials have shut down supply lines that cross the area.

January 2024 is forecast to be the hottest month in Colombia since records began 30 years ago, according to environmental authority Ideam.

"The sun didn't sting so much before," Jimenez explains worriedly.

Francisco Mendoza, 52, loads a pump with water to stop flames from reaching his property.

"We haven't stopped day and night," he says, on the verge of tears, wearing glasses and a mask to protect from the smoke.

"Everyone's property is my property, so when a neighbor is at risk, we are all at risk. We are trying to support each other in that way," he adds.

In Nemocon and Bogota, Indigenous people have been performing rituals asking for rain, but science is not very optimistic.

Ideam anticipates February will be even hotter, and only in March will rainfall alleviate the situation.

For Mendoza, it's a message from nature.

"It is Mother Earth crying for help because we are behaving very badly with her."

bur/mdl/acb

Knights of Labor  1867

UK
Ed Miliband: profanity-prone Gordon Brown’s office was known as ‘Planet F---’

Gabriella Swerling
Sun, 28 January 2024 

Ed Miliband also spoke of his relationship with his brother David after he beat him in the leadership race in 2010 - OLI SCARFF/AFP

Sir Tony Blair’s team dubbed Gordon Brown’s office “Planet F---” because he swore so much, Ed Miliband has claimed.

The former Labour Party leader from 2010 to 2015, Mr Miliband, 54, has been the shadow secretary of state for energy security and net zero since 2021. In the early 2000s, he worked as a political aide at the Treasury. Recalling his experience in an interview with The Sunday Times Magazine, he said: “I was the go-between between the two sides – Gordon Brown’s office and Sir Tony Blair’s office.

Ed Miliband (back) worked as a political aide to the Treasury under Gordon Brown (front) in the early 2000s - AFP

“But Blair’s office had a rude name for me.” Asked what it was, he said: “Well, Gordon used to swear a lot. So Tony’s team called me the ‘emissary from the Planet F---’.”


Sir Tony was prime minister from 1997 to 2007, succeeded by Mr Brown, who served from 2007 to 2010. After Labour was defeated at the 2010 general election, Mr Brown resigned and Mr Miliband was elected to replace him.

He resigned in 2015 following the party’s defeat in the general election, and was succeeded by Jeremy Corbyn later that year.

Under the so-called Blair-Brown deal, it was widely reported that the pair struck an agreement in 1994 while they were shadow home secretary and shadow chancellor of the exchequer, respectively.

Tony Blair (left) and Gordon Brown (right) were reported to have formed a Blair-Brown deal during their time in the shadow cabinet - JOHNNY EGGITT/AFP

It was reported that they agreed Mr Brown would not stand in the forthcoming Labour leadership election, so as to aid Sir Tony’s chance of victory. In return, Sir Tony would appoint Mr Brown chancellor, and grant him unprecedented domestic powers.

In 2010, Andrew Rawnsley, a journalist at The Observer, published The End of the Party, a book claiming that Mr Brown’s abusive behaviour and bad temper left Downing Street staff so frightened that he received a reprimand from the head of the Civil Service.

Mr Brown denied the accusations at the time and a spokesperson said that the “malicious allegations are totally without foundation”.

Gordon Brown has always denied allegations of abusive behaviour and bad-temper during his time in office - ANDREW PARSONS/PA

Mr Miliband also revealed that his relationship with his brother, David, 58, is not “what it was” after he beat him to become Labour leader in 2010 in a controversial election race.

He said that their relationship was healing. “It was incredibly hard, that will be obvious,” he said. “Our relationship is not precisely what it was before the 2010 Labour leadership election, but it is an incredibly close relationship and we love each other very much.”

He added that he does not regret standing as leader, saying: “I had something to say and we needed a new set of ideas for the Labour party and where it was going. I deeply regret losing in 2015, but I don’t regret running for leader.”

UK

Voters think Labour would be better than Conservatives on housing and house prices

Toby Helm Political Editor

The Guardian
Sat, 27 January 2024

Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA

More than twice as many voters believe a Labour government would be better for housing than the Tories, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.

The survey shows Labour is well ahead of the Conservatives on most issues including the economy, health, education, the environment, immigration and crime, and level pegging on ones it has traditionally lagged way behind on, including defence.

But its lead on housing and house prices will be particularly encouraging to Labour strategists who want it to be seen as the best party for housing provision and a healthy housing market.

At his party’s annual conference last October Keir Starmer pledged to get Britain building again – starting with one and a half million new homes across the country within five years of a Labour government.

Labour has promised to shake up the planning system to allow for more housebuilding, including the creation of a new generation of new towns if it wins the next election, as well as more green investment in onshore windfarms.

When Opinium asked voters which party they thought would be best for “housing/house prices”, 34% chose a Labour government under Starmer, against just 16% who chose the Tories under Rishi Sunak.

On the economy overall, 32% chose Labour, against 26% for the Tories. On immigration 30% chose Labour and 22% the Tories.

On defence, traditionally one of the Tories’ strongest suits and Labour’s weakest, the parties are equal on 26% each. On fighting terrorism the Tories are just one point ahead of Labour on 25%.

Overall Labour has increased its lead over the Tories by two points over the past two weeks. Labour is on 42% (up 2 points) with the Tories unchanged on 27%.

Adam Drummond, head of political and social research at Opinium, said: “Worrying for the Tories is the lack of indication, as we enter an election year, that they can restore public confidence in their handling of issues. Labour continues to hold a lead on being best placed to handle all of the top five issues the public think the country is facing.”

UK

‘If we win, we have to be ready’: Labour prepares for first 100 days as Tories slide into chaos


Toby Helm and Michael Savage
Sat, 27 January 2024 

Photograph: Parliament TV

When Keir Starmer gathered with a small team of aides, first thing on Wednesday, to discuss lines of attack for prime minister’s questions, the plan fell into place with relative ease. Starmer, his officials say, generally arrives at his office in parliament early and is “incredibly well informed about what has been in all the papers and the media” but on this occasion no one had had to search too far for material.

The best line – from Labour’s point of view – was staring Starmer and his team in the face. Late the previous evening, news had broken on social media that the Tory MP and ex-cabinet minister Simon Clarke had written a piece for Wednesday’s Daily Telegraph calling for Rishi Sunak to be ousted. If he were to lead the Conservatives into a general election, Clarke wrote, “extinction” was “a very real possibility” for his party. So extreme was the language that it read like a Labour critique of the prime minster. “He does not get what Britain needs and he is not listening to what the British people want,” said Clarke.

The possibilities for the opposition leader were endless, and at the meeting broad lines were agreed. Starmer could draw obvious contrasts between divided Tories fighting each other and losing faith in their leader, and a united Labour party focused on getting ready to take over. Unsurprisingly, Starmer landed some decent blows just after midday, the best of which was when he surprised his staff by ad-libbing his own version of Tony Blair’s lethal attack on John Major in 1995 (“I lead my party. He follows his”), telling Sunak: “I have changed my party. He is bullied by his.”


For Labour, though, it was about more than Starmer putting on a good show at the dispatch box and the theatre of one day’s PMQs. The messages fitted well into the broader theme of a Labour party seriously, and painstakingly, getting ready for its chance to govern and change the country, against a divided and exhausted Conservative party which cannot focus on the nation’s needs as it panics and tears itself to pieces over the ever more likely prospect of crushing defeat.

For Clarke, however, the reaction to his piece among fellow Conservatives was not as he had hoped. Even by the standards of many of his friends on the party’s right, his critique seemed wild. It was not the moment, MPs said, ahead of difficult byelections in February and local elections in May. Tory WhatsApp groups erupted with rage and frustration, describing Clarke variously as self-indulgent, delusional or, more straightforwardly, “a tosser”.

Some pointed to the reaction of Priti Patel – a potential rightwing leadership candidate in the event of a Tory election loss – as being the most significant one.

She quickly backed Sunak and said that Clarke – who had been at Stamford Bridge watching his team, Middlesbrough, being thrashed 6-1 by Chelsea in the Carabao Cup when news about his piece first surfaced – was engaging in “facile and divisive self-indulgence”.

Liz Truss, a former ally of Clarke, had been at a private members’ club in London with a group of political friends when she heard of the “one-man coup” and is said to have been as shocked as everyone else.

By Wednesday morning, Tory ministers felt secure enough to be making jokes about the ostracisation of the 6ft 7in Sir Simon. As one put it, Sunak had survived “the knife of the long knight”.

Another minister mocked the attention the “plot” had been given. “Reading some stuff, it’s as if there’s this great cell set somewhere in west London, where they’re working out who’s going to emerge after the byelection or local elections,” the minister said. “I don’t see it. There’s people who hate Rishi because they love Boris and they think that he’s rich. They’re just stupid, like the people who did the same in the run-up to [the election in] 1997. I would have thought the reaction to Simon Clarke would give a lot of pause for thought.”

But the episode had opened still more Tory divisions, and raised some serious questions. Some close to Sunak asked why he was not being more ruthless in dealing with rebels such as Clarke and the Tories who had voted against his Rwanda bill the week before.

“We should just take the whip off them,” said one. “Because that would be the strongest signal that if you do this, you’re out. Labour has done this all the time. Once you start doing that, people will know that they haven’t got a chance to come back. That will be it.”

What was worrying loyal Tories most was that, even if Clarke did misfire and go off on his own, there were indications that some form of coordination was taking place among enemies of the prime minister in the broader sense. Clarke’s broadside had come after a mystery donor had funded a huge opinion poll pointing to a Labour landslide, the results of which had been published in the Daily Telegraph. The poll had been funded through a new group called the Conservative Britain Alliance; Boris Johnson’s ally Lord Frost has since emerged as its frontman. One Tory grandee noted scornfully: “Conservative British Alliance. CBA. Youth slang for Can’t be Arsed. Frost razor sharp!”

On top of all that, there were concerns that the Telegraph, the Tory party’s publication of choice, had been seemingly willing to promote such anti-Sunak material.

Meanwhile, Labour’s shadow ministers, MPs, officials and party workers are being called, in no uncertain terms, into line. While the Tories face their own existential questions and struggle to hang together, team Starmer is imposing a level of discipline and message control to rival that of New Labour in the run-up to 1997.

Starmer’s head of campaigns, Morgan McSweeney, is telling everyone to plan for a general election on 2 May. He seems to think the Tories may still go early, but this is also a way to ensure everyone is ready.

The message is getting through. One senior official said: “We have to prepare for May because we have no choice. And that means everything has to be ready to go from mid-March – the budget, money, candidates, manifesto.”

Team Starmer also points to other factors as evidence that May is in play: for example, the Tories having chosen 4 March as the date of the budget – and their talk of tax cuts – as well as their rising spending on online ads and the speeding-up of Conservative candidate selections.

Everything is cranking into gear. Talks between shadow ministers and civil servants in each government department will begin between now and Easter in preparation for a potential transition. Members of the shadow cabinet have been told to submit their plans for inclusion in Labour’s election manifesto by 8 February, so they can be subjected to intense “stress testing” and be thoroughly “bomb-proofed”.

The process is multilayered. Among the officials at the heart of it all are Rav Athwal, a former Treasury official and economist who is now in charge of drawing up the manifesto (and checking the sums add up), and Sue Gray, the former senior civil servant working as Starmer’s chief of staff – one of whose roles is to tell everyone, from her vast experience of government, what is feasible and deliverable once in power.

The shadow Cabinet Office minister Jonathan Ashworth has been given the key role of assessing the political attacks that other parties might launch on each policy in a campaign, and how to defend them. Recently, Ashworth told the shadow cabinet that in the otherwise hugely successful 1997 campaign Labour lost vital time because it found itself under pressure over a forgotten pledge to privatise air traffic control that had been made at a party conference then never developed afterwards. “It’s that kind of mistake we have to avoid,” said a source.

The shadow leader of the House, Lucy Powell, is chairing a special committee looking at what legislation can be included in a king’s speech that will have to be delivered with a few weeks of any Labour victory. Her counterpart in the Lords, Angela Smith, the shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, and Gray are on this legislation committee, as well as the chief whips in the Commons and Lords. Another source said: “If we win, we have to have bills ready to go within a few weeks of coming in. There will be literally no time to waste. We have to hit the ground running. Lucy is going round saying we can’t leave it till after the election and then say: ‘Oh shit, we haven’t got anything’.”

Before Christmas, the party moved into a new, open-plan headquarters in Southwark. There insiders say they have noticed the formation of a “top table” group who meet regularly and operate on a “hotdesk” basis. They include the likes of Athwal, Gray, shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, McSweeney, and McSweeney’s deputy Marianna McFadden. Katie Martin, chief of staff to shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, is also involved.

Some in senior positions in the Labour party are concerned that the operation is too controlled, meaning people are afraid to speak with confidence about ideas. Others worry that there is a lack of political thinking going on about what Labour’s story will be if and when it wins. “We are going to be an unpopular government. There is a lot of ‘day one’ work going on – on legislation we are getting going. But who is doing the political work? Who is there thinking about what the message will be when we are there? What we are there for? I don’t see that work going on.”

In answer to those who claim they are too cautious and controlling, team Starmer says that in a world where trust in politics and politicians has been eroded, Labour has to reassure to be credible, rather than talk and promise too big.

“We have to tell a story that the Tories have destroyed the country but our offer also has to have reassurance that we will deliver at its heart. The hope we offer has to be based on reassurance,” says one key aide.

Discipline is regularly coupled with cautionary talks from the Labour pollster Deborah Mattinson about the electoral mountain the party has to climb. “We know we need a 12.7% swing, and in 1997 we got a 10.6% swing – so we need a 20% bigger swing than in ’97. No one is getting overexcited. It is not electorally straightforward,” said another senior party figure.

As Labour readies itself – not without its own internal worries, tensions and inevitable paranoia after four consecutive election losses – a low-key war of attrition against Sunak rumbles on. Truss supporters are planning something resembling a relaunch next month with a new grouping they are calling “Popular Conservatism”, or “PopCon” for short.

Some Tory MPs are nervous after the Clarke intervention, even though it fizzled out before it could become a crisis. “Obviously there is a slight concern that we’ll look back and think these were the very first rumblings,” said one loyalist. “But I think in real life, there just aren’t enough months to coalesce around someone else – so let’s just not be silly.”

Many Tories are simply desperate to start testing Starmer – frustrated in the belief that if they can only string together a few weeks of unity, scrutiny will begin to undo the Labour leader’s cautious strategy. “I have not met a single person who has ever said to me, ‘I’m excited to be voting for Keir Starmer’s Labour party,” said one MP. “We should be sitting here saying we can’t believe our luck that he is our opponent.”

With perfect timing, Tory MPs had to gather together on Wednesday evening for a “family photo” to mark the centenary of the 1922 Committee – essentially the trade union of Tory MPs. Clarke was a notable absentee. Yet the latest bout of ill-discipline left one of those lining up shoulder-to-shoulder with colleagues having a grim flash of the future.

“I’m not sure, if we do a version this time next year, that there’ll be quite so many people,” the MP said.