'Veep-like comedy of errors': Analyst pans Trump's efforts to woo Mormon voters

Matthew Chapman
October 28, 2024 

RAW STORY

Donald Trump (AFP)

Former President Donald Trump's campaign is fighting to prop up its numbers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — but it's been one blunder after another, wrote McKay Coppins for The Atlantic.

Mormons, who have relatively large populations of voters in the key Western battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, have typically been a reliably Republican voting bloc, and they are still expected to back the GOP overall in this election, but Republicans have been bleeding support from them for years, as the LDS church has broken with them on key issues like immigration, and as former President Donald Trump's personal vices have repelled some of the more socially conservative in the faith.

"Almost immediately, Latter-day Saints for Trump devolved into a Veep-like comedy of errors," wrote Coppins. "The official website went live on October 7 with a photo of Russell M. Nelson, the president of the Church and a man considered by its members to be a prophet of God. When a reporter for the Church-owned Deseret Newsasked if the campaign had gotten permission to feature the image, given the Church’s neutrality in partisan politics, the campaign quickly scrubbed the photo from its homepage."

One of the other more high-profile blunders came when the Trump campaign started selling "LDS for Trump" branded coffee mugs and beer koozies — apparently with no thought for the fact that observant Mormons don't drink coffee or liquor.

ALSO READ: 'Abusive and frightening': Trump official earned bad reputation for treatment of children

But all that was just the beginning, Coppins continued: "Mormon-targeted campaign events have been scheduled with an odd indifference to Latter-day Saint religious practice. A canvassing event in Nevada, for example, was held the same weekend as General Conference, a semiannual series of Church broadcasts in which senior leaders deliver sermons and spiritual counsel ... And when Trump held a rally in Prescott, Arizona, with an array of MAGA-Mormon luminaries — including Senator Mike Lee of Utah and the right-wing media personality Glenn Beck — it took place on a Sunday, which Latter-day Saints traditionally set apart for worship, service, and rest, not political events."

To cap all of this, Doug Quezada, who heads up the LDS for Trump initiative, is now "being sued for fraud over an alleged scheme involving a cannabis company," according to the report.

These blunders are probably not going to prevent Trump from winning a majority of Mormon voters, concluded Coppins — but if his margin among them declines, that could be the ballgame in some key swing states.

"For the Harris campaign, holding on to those voters this year could be the difference between losing Arizona and cracking open a celebratory beverage on Election Night," Coppins wrote. "I know a website where they might be able to get some koozies on sale."

‘Utterly unconstrained’: Columnist says Trump's rally a glimpse of ‘occupation to come’

Erik De La Garza
October 28, 2024 

Donald Trump’s rally in New York City featuring MAGA firebrands like Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy served several purposes for the former president's campaign, but a columnist argued the overall message felt like a “promise of an occupation to come.”

“The message the MAGA caravan brought to Madison Square Garden was that their movement will soon be utterly unconstrained,” New York Times opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg wrote Monday.

Throughout the event on Sunday which included racist remarks by guest speakers and has been compared by Trump’s opponents to a 1939 pro-Nazi rally, there was “the sense that Trump’s followers would reject a Harris victory, but Tucker Carlson, in his manic, giddy speech, made it overt,” according to Goldberg.




She continued by writing that while Carlson’s speech was “deeply dishonest,” his talk about Trump liberating his supporters still contained "an essential truth about the nature of Trump’s bond with his base."

ALSO READ: Trump's Civil War comments are as ignorant as letting the states decide

“He’s liberated us in the deepest and truest sense,” Carlson said, according to the opinion piece. “And the liberation he has brought to us is the liberation from the obligation to tell lies. Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us.”

Carlson is right, according to Goldberg, because as she argues, while Trump set the conservative host “free to express the rancid truths of his heart,” he most significantly has given not only Carlson but also “the rest of his followers permission to dismiss the idea that he could lose fairly, given how much love there is for him even in the supposedly hostile territory of Manhattan.”

“Delivered in the center of a city with more immigrants than any other, it felt like the inside-out promise of an occupation to come. Election Day, Trump said, would be ‘liberation day.’ Sunday was a glimpse of what his version of liberation means,” Goldberg wrote.

A monument to Trump's 'very fine people on both sides' comment pops up in D.C.

Sarah K. Burris
October 28, 2024 

"The Donald J. Trump Enduring Flame" monument appeared Monday with a hand holding a tiki torch, mockingly honoring Trump's response after the deadly "Unite the Right" riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, reported Huffington Post reporter Jen Bendery. (Photo credit: Chris Lang)

Another monument has popped up in Washington, D.C. mocking Donald Trump with a faux honor.

"The Donald J. Trump Enduring Flame" monument appeared Monday with a hand holding a tiki torch, mockingly honoring Trump's response after the deadly "Unite the Right" riot in Charlottesville, Virginia, reported Huffington Post reporter Jen Bendery.

The rally was a white supremacist gathering in which men in khakis and white shirts marched through the streets in August 2017. During the rally, a car driven by James Alex Fields Jr. mowed down a crowd of counter-protesters, killing Heather Heyer and injuring 19 others.

Standing behind a podium at Trump Tower, he claimed, that "there were very fine people on both sides" protesting that day.

Read also: How Donald Trump turned America into a seething cauldron of political violence

Two years later, he tried to claim that he answered the question "perfectly" and that he was talking about "people that went because they felt very strongly."

On the front of the monument, which sits not far from the White House, a plaque reads: "This monument pays tribute to President Donald Trump and the 'very fine people' he boldly stood to defend when they marched in Charlottesville, Virginia. While many have called them white supremacists and neo-nazis, President Trump’s voice rang out above the rest to remind all that they were 'treated absolutely unfairly.' This monument stands as an everlasting reminder of that bold proclamation."

The monument comes after a bronze-colored desk appeared last week on the National Mall with Nancy Pelosi's nameplate on it and a pile of excrement shaped like the emoji on it, the Huffington Post reported.

The desk violation sardonically honors the insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A group called "Civic Crafting" filled out the permit with the National Parks Service to erect the monuments.

See the photos of the latest statue below.

'Chosen by God': A new kind of convert is making the pilgrimage to see Trump

Jordan Green, Investigative Reporter
October 28, 2024

RAW STORY

A supporter of Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump stands at the front of a line of voters waiting to cast their ballot on the first day of early in-person voting in one of the mountainous counties badly affected by Hurricane Helene, in Marion, North Carolina, U.S. October 17, 2024. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers.

GREENSBORO, N.C. — They came seeking Donald Trump, the keeper of their American dreams.

They came hoping Trump could do something to help their children. Or that he would hear them and respond in some way. Or maybe they would just come away with a T-shirt to remember him by.

Shannon Ward pulled out her cell phone and began filming as she and her friend entered a labyrinthine maze of bike-racks arranged to funnel attendees to the entrance of the Greensboro Coliseum where Trump would be speaking just a few hours later on Tuesday evening.

“I can’t wait to see him,” said Ward, who lives in nearby Pleasant Garden. “It’s wild seeing the president or someone who might become the president. I’m almost 43 years old, and I’ve never done that.”

She was temporarily taken aback by one of the vendors making a sales pitch with the words Trump mouthed after surviving an assassination attempt three months ago in Butler, Pa.: “Fight, fight, fight.”

“What — no,” Ward protested as she filmed. “Peace, love and equality.”


Ward didn’t vote in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Now, she’s registered, she said, and her vote will be going to Trump.

What she’s seeking in a second Trump presidency is more than just vibes, though.

ALSO READ: Trump's Civil War comments are as ignorant as letting the states decide


She has two special-needs children, and the Medicaid benefits they receive aren’t sufficient to provide for their care.

“It would be great to get them the help they need, and not have to go through the red tape,” Ward said.

She said she hopes Trump will do something to help.


Asked if she’s heard Trump say anything that gives any indication he’s inclined to take action, Ward paused for a moment to think about it.

Then she said recalled Trump say that the government “needs to do a better job on mental health.” It was something along the lines of, “Why wait for a tragedy when you can do something to prevent it?”

Darien Williams, a 23-year-old Black man from Graham, is also a recent convert. Williams came to the rally with his neighbor, 19-year-old Michael Strothman, who is white.


Williams sat out the 2020 election, but his mother voted for Democrat Joe Biden. Williams’ interest in cryptocurrency provided him with an entry point into the Trump movement. (In 2019, Trump said crypto’s “value is highly volatile and based on thin air,” but he reversed himself this year by pledging to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet” and launching his own digital currency project.

“He relates to my values,” Williams said of Trump. “I’m big into the digital banking industry He’s about innovation. That makes a difference to our generation, which is Generation Z.

MAGA TV host: Trump is 'like a prophet' for Christians, Jews and Muslims

David Edwards
October 29, 2024

Donald Trump supporters speak to Nikki Stanzione. (RSBN/screen grab)

RSBN host Nikki Stanzione told her audience that former President Donald Trump was "like a prophet" for people of all faiths, including "Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim."

Before a Tuesday rally in Pennsylvania, Stanzione spoke to a man who said Jesus Christ was a "fighter" like Trump.

"And if God favors us, and if, by God's grace, President Trump is brought back into office, I would say that's a new beginning for us," the man said.

Stanzione said that "friends from all over the world" agreed with the sentiment.

ALSO READ: 'Chosen by God': A new kind of convert is making the pilgrimage to see Trump

"And we have friends of all faiths, you know, Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim," she asserted. "They're all coming together and saying, this man understands that we need him."

"And he's going to be, he's going almost to be like a prophet for people," she added. "And he's going to allow us to bring God back into the conversation every single day, because we can never lose sight of that, right?"

Watch the video below from RSBN.

“Usually, I don’t come out in person to vote, but with Trump I can take that chance,” Williams added.


There is an aspect of attending Trump rallies that is akin to a pilgrimage, Randall Balmer, a religion professor at Dartmouth College, told Raw Story.

“They think he’s going to look out for their interests, although everything I know about Trump suggests otherwise,” Balmer said. “He’s going to look out for himself first. He’s a salesman.”

‘Trump chosen by God’


The warren of metal barricades in the parking lot at the Greensboro Coliseum deposited rallygoers in front of a pen fashioned out of bike racks, where members of the pro-Trump religious group Rod of Iron Ministries hyped the crowd. A banner flanking one side of the pen depicted Trump raising his fist at Butler, accompanied by the text, “Trump strong. Trump chosen by God.”

Two men danced inside the pen to a hip-hop track and occasionally fist-bumped Trump supporters filing past, while a woman wearing a red MAGA hat paced the perimeter, repeating, “Everybody needs to vote. If we don’t vote, we don’t win.”

- YouTubeA contingent of Trump supporters with Rod of Iron Ministries hypes Trump supporters at a rally in Greensboro, N.C. on Oct. 22, 2024.


Rod of Iron Ministries is a sect led by the Rev. Hyung Jin “Sean” Moon that splintered from the Unification Church, led by Sean’s late father Sun Myung Moon. Adherents, known as Moonies, believe that Sun Myung Moon is the messiah.

Under Sean Moon’s leadership, Rod of Iron Ministries incorporated AR-15 assault rifles into their worship and explicitly aligns with Trump. The group recently held a festival in rural northeastern Pennsylvania that featured several former Trump officials, including retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, Tom Homan and Sebastian Gorka.

The crass commercialism of the vendors hawking Trump merch blended seamlessly with Rod of Iron Ministries’ religious pageantry. The Rod of Iron Ministries contingent waved a giant flag depicting Trump as Rambo, a staple of the vendor tents. They held a sign reading, “Fight, fight, fight,” echoing the pitch of the vendor working the line.


Another vendor, among a trio of men marketing anti-Kamala misogyny, serenaded the rallygoers to pitch his product.

“You gotta say no to the ho,” he sang in a smooth baritone while displaying his T-shirts. “Because that ho is just as bad as Joe. You gotta say no to the ho. I take cash, card and Venmo.”

Later, one of the foreign visitors in the Rod of Iron Ministries contingent caught the spirit and proclaimed as he strolled through the parking lot: “I say no to the ho!”


Ted O’Grady, a Rod of Iron Ministries member from Boston, had driven the Japanese visitors to Greensboro, and would be transporting them to Georgia for another Trump rally on Wednesday. Sean Moon would join them there.

Wearing a hat displaying the iconic image of Trump in Butler with the word “Fight” and a T-shirt reading, “Jesus is king,” O’Grady shook hands with a rallygoer in the line, saying, “We need revival.”

O’Grady said he does not worship Trump. But when asked why he believes Trump is chosen by God, O’Grady replied, “I think he has a certain providence for America to shift.”

He added that he doesn’t believe that Democrats are evil, notwithstanding some of the rhetoric by both Rod of Iron Ministries and the Trump campaign.

Then, O’Grady turned the tables, arguing that it’s Trump supporters who have been demonized by the left.

He complained that comparisons between Trump’s upcoming rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City and a 1939 Nazi rally are “incendiary,” despite the fact that Trump has used overtly fascist language such as calling his political opponents “vermin” and claiming that immigration is “poisoning the blood of our country.”

“There are good people here,” O’Grady said. “They feel demonized. They feel that Christianity is under attack. By the way, transgender surgery is banned in Russia.

“White people are inherently racist — what do you even do with that?” he continued. “That’s a nullification argument. We should be able to have a discussion.”

Balmer told Raw Story that in addition to appealing to a sense of grievance among evangelical voters, Trump invokes what he called “the false God of American civil religion” that “invests the nation with supernatural characteristics.” These appeals pose a danger, Balmer said, not only to the “integrity of the faith” but also in promoting a kind of blind patriotism that is uncritical.

But even O’Grady said his support for Trump is not unconditional.

“A lot of the patriot side believes Trump — I don’t like to say ‘far-right’ — but they believe Trump has thrown them under the bus,” he said. “I don’t want to say he’s betrayed us; I just hope and pray he’s being guided by God.”

O’Grady expressed support for Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier. Fuentes dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, but shortly after the Republican National Convention picked a fight with the Trump campaign in an as-yet unsuccessful bid to impose ideological purity.

O’Grady mentioned Fuentes in the context of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s unrelenting military assault on Gaza. But rather than focus his criticism on the Israeli government, O’Grady endorsed Fuentes’ anti-Jewish hate.

“I think he’s bringing up a good point about overwhelming Jewish power,” O’Grady said of Fuentes. “It has to be mitigated.” (Sean Moon also has a history of antisemitic statements.)

‘Keep Trump with you’

By 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, the Greensboro Coliseum had reached capacity. About 25 supporters lingered around the venue’s southeast corner, eying a restricted area of the parking lot where they hoped to spot Trump emerging from his motorcade.

“Get your keychain, y’all,” one of the vendors announced. “Keep Trump with you.”

By then, Shannon Ward and her friend had already left.

Ward said they hadn’t been able to see anything inside except the Jumbotron, and if she was going to watch the event on screen she could just as easily do that at home. But she wasn’t disappointed.

“We got souvenirs,” she said, nodding towards a folded T-shirt tucked under her arm.

Vanesa Conde and her husband, Jesus, had arrived too late to get inside, but they waited on the sidewalk, hoping for the opportunity to speak with Trump when he came out.

Vanesa, an immigrant from Colombia, will take the oath of citizenship next week.

“My first vote will be for Trump,” she said.

She said she’s supporting Trump because he “saves America for the future.”

The future that needs saving, she said, includes “the kids, the pets and the economy.” While alluding to Trump’s false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating cats and dogs with her mention of “pets,” Conde said the economy is the top issue for her.

“Four years ago, I pay 99 cents for the eggs; now, I have to pay five dollars,” she said. “It’s no fair. The economy right now is trash.”

Despite widespread complaints among voters about high prices, the United States leads developed countries in economic growth, unemployment remains relatively low, inflation has stabilized, and a long-predicted recession has been averted.

Jesus, a former truck driver wearing a white plastic cowboy hat with the words “Make America Great Again,” lamented that if he had been able to get off work an hour earlier, he would have parked his rig at the coliseum. He had wanted Trump to see a sign he painted that reads: “What would you do for the trucking community?”

Jesus said he never considered voting for Harris, having concluded that Trump was the better candidate from a financial standpoint.

Jesus grew up in the Mexican state of Sonora, just across the border from Yuma, Ariz. He came to the United States with his family at the age of 10 and became a naturalized citizen at the age of 15. He’s lived in Greensboro since 2000.

He said he doesn’t agree with Trump on all of his policies on immigration and the border.

The topic that Jesus kept coming back to was trucking. He repeatedly said during an interview that he wants to ask Trump what he can do to help. He wants any reporter with access to Trump to ask the question.

“If he helps the trucking community, he’s got this election in the bag,” Jesus said.

Jesus drove a truck for six years, including hauling shipments of Mt. Olive Pickles, based in eastern North Carolina, across the country. But then the cost of diesel went up. Freight rates went down. Regulations limiting driving hours made it impossible for him to complete his trips on time. He complained about the county taxing his rig as an asset. Eventually, he had to give up truck-driving because he wasn’t making enough money.

“I miss truck -driving,” he said. “Truck-driving is freedom. For me, it’s my American dream.”


Jordan Green is a North Carolina-based investigative reporter at Raw Story, covering domestic extremism, efforts to undermine U.S. elections and democracy, hate crimes and terrorism. Prior to joining the staff of Raw Story in March 2021, Green spent 16 years covering housing, policing, nonprofits and music as a reporter and editor at Triad City Beat in North Carolina and Yes Weekly. He can be reached at jordan@rawstory.com. More about Jordan Green.

Lithuania’s centre left starts coalition talks after election win


By AFP
October 28, 2024

Vilija Blinkeviciute's Social Democratic Party came first with 52 seats in the 141-seat parliament - Copyright AFP Petras Malukas

Lithuania’s centre-left party said on Monday it would start forming a new coalition after winning the election, as its leader Vilija Blinkeviciute has cast doubts on whether she would lead the government.

Her Social Democratic Party came first with 52 seats in the 141-seat parliament after a campaign dominated by living costs concerns and fears of security threats from neighbouring Russia.

Blinkeviciute, a centre-left veteran who has spent her entire career in the public sector, said her party would open coalition talks with Democratic Union “In the Name of Lithuania” and Lithuanian Popular Peasants’ Union.

“We will establish negotiating teams that will work together to coordinate party agendas and joint actions,” Blinkeviciute told reporters on Monday.

She refused, however, to confirm if she would take the prime minister role if the coalition is forged.

“The Social Democrats are not a one-man party,” she said, adding it would select its candidate to lead the future government later this week.

The incoming coalition that would replace the conservative party currently in power is expected to spend more on social services and raise pensions.

But it already promised to maintain the nation’s strong support for Ukraine amidst regional security concerns related to neighbouring Russia.

Many of Lithuania’s 2.8 million people fear the Baltic state could be targeted if Moscow succeeds in the war it has waged in Ukraine.

Lithuania is among the top NATO spenders, allocating 3.2 percent of its GDP to defence this year, well above the NATO target of two percent, and the centre left has pledged to raise it up to 3.5 percent.

“This will probably be inevitable… Security and defence will be funded as much as necessary,” Blinkeviciute said, adding that continuity in the foreign policy and defence was “essential”.



– Anti-semitism controversy –



The ruling conservative party finished a distant second with 28 parliamentary seats.

This outcome prompted the chairman and foreign minister Gabrielius Landsbergis to step down and resign from the parliamentary seat he won, stating he would take a break from politics.

“The voters’ signal is quite clear, both for the party and for me personally, and it would be wrong not to hear it,” Landsbergis told reporters.

The election was marked by controversy surrounding a new populist party, Nemunas Dawn, led by former long-time lawmaker Remigijus Zemaitaitis.

The party won 20 seats, according to the results, but was likely to be kept out of the coalition.

Zemaitaitis told reporters on Monday Nemunas Dawn would support proposals which correspond to their election pledges, but “will oppose illogical decisions that do not benefit the country”.

Last year, Zemaitaitis gave up his seat in parliament after facing criticism over alleged anti-Semitic comments.

He is currently on trial for incitement to hatred, although he denied the charges, claiming he only criticised the Israeli government’s policies in Gaza.

Climate change-worsened floods wreak havoc in Africa

Agence France-Presse
October 28, 2024 

In several countries, the start of the school year has been postponed 

(GUY PETERSON/AFP)

Every rainy season for the past 12 years, floods have swept through 67-year-old Idris Egbunu's house in central Nigeria.

It is always the same story -- the Niger River bursts its banks and the waters claim his home for weeks on end, until he can return and take stock of the damage.

The house then needs cleaning, repairs, fumigation and repainting, until the next rainy season.

Flooding is almost inevitable around Lokoja in Nigeria's Kogi state, where Africa's third-longest river meets its main tributary, the Benue.

But across vast areas of Africa, climate change has thrown weather patterns into disarray and made flooding much more severe, especially this year.

Devastating inundations are threatening the survival of millions of residents on the continent. Homes have been wrecked and crops ruined, jeopardizing regional food security.


Torrential rains and severe flooding have affected around 6.9 million people in West and Central Africa so far in 2024, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

- 'Very, very bad' -

Residents and officials around Lokoja said floods first became more severe in Kogi state in 2012 and have battered the area each year since.

In 2022, Nigeria's worst floods in a decade killed more than 500 people and displaced 1.4 million.

Sandra Musa, an emergency agency adviser to the Kogi state governor, believes this year's flooding has not yet reached the level seen in 2022, but warned it was "very, very bad".

"Usually at this time of year the water level drops, but here it's rising again," she told AFP, estimating that the floods have affected around two million people in the state.


Fatima Bilyaminu, a 31-year-old mother and shopkeeper, can only get to her house in the Adankolo district of Lokoja by boat as a result of the waters.

The swollen river rises almost to the windows, while water hyacinths float past the crumbling building.

"I lost everything. My bed, my cushioned chair, my wardrobe, my kitchen equipment," she told AFP.


With no money to rent a house elsewhere, she has little choice but to keep living in the small concrete building and repair it, flood after flood.

- Damage and displacement -

Africa is bearing the brunt of climate change, even though it only contributes around four percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to a recent report by the World Meteorological Organisation.

This year is set to overtake 2023 as the world's hottest on record.

"This year has been unusual in terms of the amount of rainfall, with many extreme events, which is one of the signs of climate change," said Aida Diongue-Niang from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In the Sahel region bordering the Sahara desert, the volume, intensity and duration of rainfall was "unprecedented," according to Amadou Diakite from the Mali Meteo weather service.

In Niger, some regions recorded up to 200 percent more rain than in previous years, the national meteorological service said. The waters put at risk the historic city centre of Agadez, a UNESCO World Heritage site in the desert north.

Over the border in Chad, torrential rains since July have killed at least 576 people and affected 1.9 million, more than 10 percent of the population, according to a report published by the OCHA.

In neighbouring Cameroon, the UN body said torrential rains had destroyed more than 56,000 homes and flooded tens of thousands of hectares of crops.

Floodwaters swept through the capital Conakry in Guinea, while floods in Monrovia reignited debates over building another city to serve as Libera's capital.

Entire districts of Mali's capital Bamako were submerged, leaving waste and liquid from septic tanks seeping across the streets.

In August, downpours caused the roof of the centuries-old Tomb of Askia in the Malian city of Gao to collapse.

Several countries have postponed the start of the school year as a result of the floods.

- 'Keep getting worse' -

"It used to be a decadal cycle of flooding, and we're now into a yearly cycle," said Clair Barnes, a researcher at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.


"This is only going to keep getting worse if we keep burning fossil fuels," she said.

As global temperatures rise, extreme weather events will increase in frequency and intensity, scientists warn.

Experts estimate that by 2030, up to 118 million Africans already living in poverty will be exposed to drought, floods and intense heat.

Building along riverbanks also poses a risk, Youssouf Sane of Senegal's meteorology agency said, urging governments to think about the relationship between climate change and urbanization.

But the IPCC's Diongue-Niang said the only way to tackle extreme weather was to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

"That doesn't fall to the region -- it falls to the whole of humanity," she said.

ECOCIDE

Mowed down by cars, European hedgehog numbers shrinking

By AFP
October 28, 2024

An adult, male hedgehog can weigh as much as 1.5 kilograms 

- Copyright DPA/AFP/File JULIAN STRATENSCHULTE

Mariëtte Le Roux

The Western European hedgehog — the prickly, nocturnal critter people love to encounter in the garden — is in decline, mowed down by cars as its shrinking habitat forces it to move ever closer to humans.

An updated Red List of Threatened Species published Monday at the UN’s COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, downgraded the hedgehog’s status from “least concern” to “near threatened.”

The next level on the list kept by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is “vulnerable,” then “endangered.”

The European hedgehog, expert Sophie Rasmussen told AFP, “is very close to being ‘vulnerable,’ and it will likely go into that category the next time we evaluate it.”

Numbers of the tiny mammal have plunged by more than half its host countries including Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.

The estimated decline was between 35 and 40 percent of populations measured in Britain, Sweden and Norway in the last decade or so, said Rasmussen, a researcher with the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit.

In the Netherlands, it is already considered endangered.

The main killer of hedgehogs is cars — which the animals encounter more and more as they lose their natural habitat to human expansion.

“Humans are the worst enemies of hedgehogs,” said Rasmussen.

– ‘Hedgehog highways’ –

To protect itself from predators such as badgers, foxes and owls at night, the hedgehog uses the strategy of standing completely still as it assesses the threat.

If the menace approaches, it runs as far as its little legs can carry it. But if there is no time, it rolls up into a ball — protected by as many as 8,000 spines, sharp to the touch.

“In front of a car, it is not a really good strategy,” Rasmussen, who calls herself Dr Hedgehog and speaks with great passion about the spiky mammals, told AFP in a video interview from Lejre in Denmark.

Other threats include pesticides used by farmers and gardeners, and a decline in the insects that make up a large part of the hedgehog’s diet.

Hedgehogs generally live for about two years, though some as old as nine or 12 have been documented.

They can start breeding from around 12 months of age, usually giving birth to three or five hoglets at a time.

“This means that many hedgehogs get to breed once, or twice perhaps if they’re lucky, on average before they die,” said Rasmussen — just enough “to keep the population going at some level.”

Soon, this may not be enough.

Rasmussen, whose research went into the Red List update, said the fight to save hedgehogs “is actually going to take place in people’s gardens” as forests and other wild areas are torn down.

She suggested people build “hedgehog highways” — basically a CD-sized hole in the outer fence to allow the animals to get in off the road, with bowls of water and nesting materials such as garden waste placed inside.

“The best thing you can do is to let your garden grow wild to attract… all the natural food items of the hedgehog” such as insects, worms, snails and slugs,” said Rasmussen.

She concedes “it’s not like the world is going to end tomorrow if the hedgehogs are not there.”

However, “for a species so popular and so loved, can we really accept the fact that we are causing their extinction?

“And if we let it get so bad with a species we actually really care about, what about all the species we don’t care about?”

The new, updated Red List has evaluated 166,061 species of plants and animals in all, of which 46,337 — more than a quarter — are threatened with extinction.

One in three tree species at risk of extinction: report

By AFP
October 28, 2024

Ginkgo trees are among the species at risk of extinction, according to a new report - Copyright AFP/File PATRICK HERTZOG

Mariëtte Le Roux

More than one in three species of trees are at risk of extinction worldwide, threatening life as we know it on Earth, according to a report published Monday.

The warning came in the Global Tree Assessment, contained in an update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Issued to coincide with the UN’s COP16 summit on biodiversity, held in the Colombian city of Cali, the report said over 16,000 tree species are at risk of extinction.

More than 47,000 species were assessed for the study, out of an estimated 58,000 species thought to exist in the world.

Trees are felled for logging and to clear land for farming and human expansion. Climate change poses an additional threat through worsening drought and wildfires.

The numbers are not merely symbolic.

People “rely on tree species for food, timber, fuels (and) medicines,” expert Emily Beech told AFP.

They also make the oxygen we breathe, and absorb heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions from the atmosphere.

“Trees are essential to support life on Earth through their vital role in ecosystems, and millions of people depend upon them for their lives and livelihoods,” said IUCN director general Grethel Aguilar.

A 2015 study estimated there are about three trillion individual trees in the world.

The study, published in the science journal Nature, estimated that over 15 billion trees are cut down each year, and the global number of trees has fallen by nearly half since the start of human civilization.

Over 5,000 of the species on the IUCN Red List are used for construction timber, and more than 2,000 species for medicines, food and fuels.

Species at risk include the horse chestnut and ginkgo, both used for medical applications, the big leaf mahogany used in furniture making, as well as several ash, magnolia and eucalypt species, said Beech, head of conservation prioritization at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), which contributed to the tree assessment.

– Seed banks essential –

According to the IUCN report, the number of trees at risk is “more than double the number of all threatened birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians combined.”

Tree species are at risk of extinction in 192 countries, but the highest proportion is found on islands due to rapid urban development and expanding agriculture, and the introduction of invasive species, pests and diseases from elsewhere.

In South America, which boasts the greatest diversity of trees in the world, 3,356 out of 13,668 assessed species are at risk of extinction.

Many species on the continent, home to the Amazon jungle, have likely not even been discovered yet.

When they are, they are “more likely than not to be threatened with extinction,” said the report.

It called for forest protection and restoration through tree planting as well as the conservation of species dying out through seed banks and botanic garden collections.

More than 1,000 experts contributed to the assessment.

COP16 chair hails biodiversity attaining ‘equal footing’ with climate crisis


AFP
October 29, 2024

Colombia Environment Minister and COP16 president Susana Mohamad says more money is needed for a biodiversity fund - Copyright AFP Luis ACOSTA

The world’s biggest nature protection conference, under way in Cali, has placed biodiversity loss “on an equal footing” with the climate emergency, the meeting’s Colombian president told AFP in an interview Monday.

“I think we have already achieved a first objective which was to raise the political profile of the… issue of biodiversity, put it on an equal footing with the… climate issue,” Susana Muhamad, who is also Colombia’s environment minister, said of progress made.

The 16th so-called Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, has attracted a record 23,000 registered delegates and some 1,200 journalists to Cali, according to organizers.

Thousands of activists and residents have also flocked to the so-called “green zone” for cultural activities and demonstrations.

On Tuesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres, six heads of state and 115 ministers will join the conference in southwest Colombia.

Themed “Peace with Nature,” COP16 has the urgent task of coming up with monitoring and funding mechanisms to achieve 23 nature protection goals agreed in Canada two years ago.

Muhamad told AFP that the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), created to give effect to those goals, “needs more money.”

To unlock more funds, she said, “it would be very helpful if developed countries could increase the messages that they are going to meet the development financing target” before leaving Cali.

– ‘Words into action’ –

Several developing countries have called for the creation of a different fund that, unlike the GBFF, does not fall under the Global Environment Facility — which they say is difficult to access.

On Sunday, Guterres urged the 196 signatories to the biodiversity convention to “convert words into action” and fatten the GBFF.

So far, countries have made about $250 million in commitments to the fund, according to monitoring agencies.

Under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework finalized in 2022, countries must mobilize at least $200 billion per year by 2030 for biodiversity, including $20 billion per year by 2025 from rich nations to help developing ones.

A key goal of the summit is to agree on a mechanism for sharing the profits of genetic information taken from plants and animals — for medicinal use for instance — with the communities they come from.

With about a million known species worldwide estimated to be at risk of extinction, delegates have their work cut out for them in Cali.

There are only five years left to achieve the 23 UN targets, which include placing 30 percent of land and sea areas under protection by 2030.

Big guns descend on Cali for final push in UN biodiversity talks


By AFP

October 28, 2024

A report issued by nature watchdogs said only 17.6 percent of land and inland waters, and 8.4 percent of the ocean and coastal areas, are within protected and conserved areas - Copyright AFP CHRISTIAN MONTERROSA
Mariëtte Le Roux

Heads of state, ministers and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres arrive in Cali Tuesday hoping to add impetus to grinding talks on ways to save nature from human destruction.

The 16th so-called Conference of Parties (COP16) to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has the urgent task of coming up with monitoring and funding mechanisms to achieve 23 nature protection goals agreed in Canada two years ago.

Themed “Peace with Nature,” the summit has been bogged down in disagreement about modalities of funding, as well as sharing the profits of digitally sequenced plant and animal genetic data — used in medicines and cosmetics — with the communities they come from.

Delegates have no time to waste.

There are only five years left to achieve the 23 UN targets, which include placing 30 percent of land, water and ocean under protection by 2030.

A report issued by nature watchdogs said Monday that only 17.6 percent of land and inland waters, and 8.4 percent of the ocean and coastal areas, are within documented protected and conserved areas.

“This leaves a land area roughly the size of Brazil and Australia combined, and at sea an area larger than the Indian Ocean, to be designated by 2030 in order to meet the global target,” said the Protected Planet Report.

Also on Monday, an update of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of threatened animals and plants found more than one in three species of tree are at risk of extinction worldwide.

These include many that provide humans with timber, medicine, food and fuel.

More than 46,000 plant and animal species out of more than 166,000 assessed for the Red List were found to be threatened with extinction.



– ‘More money’ needed –



The COP16 has attracted a record 23,000 registered delegates and some 1,200 journalists to Cali, according to organizers, making it the biggest yet.

Thousands of activists and residents have flocked to its so-called “green zone” set up for cultural activities, demonstrations and celebrations.

COP president Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s environment minister, told AFP on Monday the summit had placed biodiversity loss “on an equal footing” with the climate change crisis.

But she lamented that a Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF) created to help bring about the targets set out two years ago “needs more money.”

So far, countries have made about $400 million in commitments to the fund set up to give effect to the targets under the so-called Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed in 2022.

This included pledges of $163 million announced Monday by Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom, and the Canadian province of Quebec.

The Kunming-Montreal framework determined that countries must mobilize $20 billion per year by 2025 from rich nations to help developing ones. The GBFF is just part of this funding.

Of the $20 billion goal, $15 billion a year was reached for 2022, according to the OECD.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Guterres will join the heads of state of Colombia, Armenia, Bolivia, Guinea Bissau, Haiti and Suriname as well as 115 government ministers and 44 deputies in Cali.

The ministers will hopefully “help us make movement on some of these issues,” said CBD spokesman David Ainsworth.

If an issue is “really tight and intractable, negotiators would normally go back to their capitals but if the minister is there, decisions can be made fairly quickly.”

The COP16 runs until Friday.

Georgia president hints at Russian-aided vote fraud in AFP interview

By AFP
October 28, 2024

Romain COLAS

Georgia’s pro-European president Salome Zurabishvili in an interview with AFP Monday alleged that parliamentary polls — whose results have been rejected by the opposition — were marred by widespread voting fraud bearing the hallmarks of Russia’s influence.

According to near-final results announced by the electoral commission, the ruling party Georgian Dream won 53.92 percent of the vote in Saturday’s election, compared with 37.78 percent won by a union of pro-Western opposition alliances.

The opposition has said the vote was unfair and has refused to concede defeat to a party it accuses of pro-Kremlin authoritarianism.

Moscow has rejected opposition claims of interference in the vote.

But Zurabishvili — who has a figurehead role in Georgian politics — has declared the announced results “illegitimate” and pointed at the Caucasus country’s former Soviet master.

Speaking to AFP, the head of state claimed that “quite sophisticated” fraudulent schemes were used in the weekend vote — with a higher level of planning than the government seemed capable of achieving to stay in power.

This appeared to show “Russian methodology”, which she said was unsurprising “given what the relations are between the party in power and Russia”.

She alleged that Georgian Dream’s “electoral propaganda was totally copied from Russian propaganda” and “they have PR people… who come from Russia”.

“It’s very difficult to accuse a government, and that’s not my role, but the methodology is Russian,” she said.

Georgia's President Salome Zurabishvili told AFPTV that the alleged voting fraud bore all the hallmarks of Russia's influence - Copyright AFP AFPTV

– ‘Stalinist’ ballot counts –

In addition, the vote saw “methods linked to” electronic voting technology, used for the first time in Georgia, she alleged.

Identity cards with the same number were used to register “up to 17, 20 votes in different regions”, she added.

More “classic methods” of electoral fraud were also employed, the president charged, including “the purchase of votes, pressure in particular on public office holders, pressure on the families of prisoners who can be promised release”.

“There was money distributed visibly in minibuses at the exit of the polling stations,” she claimed.

Zurabishvili likewise pointed to seemingly incredible vote tallies for the ruling party in areas with significant ethnic minority populations, such as the Azerbaijani-majority city of Marneuli.

“In some ethnic minority towns and villages, the results were 97 percent” in favour of Georgian Dream, she said.

“I don’t think we’ve seen anything like that since the Stalinist period.”


– ‘Theft of our future’ –

Thousands took to the streets of the capital Tbilisi on Monday evening in response to opposition calls to protest the “stolen election” — a call Zurabishvili urged Georgians to heed.

“People know full well that we should not threaten the country’s stability. But that does not mean that we should be complacent and resigned to this theft,” the president said.

“This is a theft not only of our voice… it’s the theft of our future in Europe,” she added.

Under the Georgian constitution, the country officially aspires to join the EU and the US-led NATO defence alliance.

But in the aftermath of the passing of a Kremlin-copycat “foreign influence” law used to silence dissent, Brussels placed Georgia’s EU accession process on ice while the United States imposed sanctions on several Georgian officials.

Three weeks ahead of the election, the Georgian Dream party also passed legislation severely restricting the rights of LGBTQ people, with hostility to alternative sexualities still strong in the deeply Orthodox Christian country

– A ‘threatening’ Russia –

Zurabishvili said Georgia could only return to the path to EU membership “if there is a change of policy”.

She urged a “clear will on the part of the authorities to recognise a part of the fraud, to accept and immediately promise or implement the cancellation of the laws on foreign agents, on LGBTQ people”.

“There are several laws that are turning this country into a Russian-style regime.”

A former member of the USSR nestled on the shores of the Black Sea, Georgia still bears the scars of a brief war with Russia in 2008.

In the aftermath, Moscow set up military bases in the separatist Georgian Regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and recognised their unilateral declaration of independence.

The ruling party advocates improved relations with Moscow, raising the spectre of the “Ukrainisation” of Georgia and fresh fighting with the Kremlin’s troops.

For Zurabishvili, the government is making a grave mistake — not least given Russia’s role as Ukraine’s “aggressor”.

“As long as Russia does not return to the path of international norms and standards, it is difficult to deal with. It is threatening,” the president warned.

“And I think the population here is perfectly aware of that.”

Georgia launches partial vote recount after opposition protests election results

NEWS WIRES
Tue 29 October 2024

A protester holds a Georgian flag during an opposition protest against the results of the parliamentary election in Tbilisi, Georgia, Monday, October 28, 2024.


Georgia's central election commission said it will recount ballots from five polling stations randomly selected from each election district following the opposition's refusal to recognise the results of the weekend parliamentary election. The commission earlier said the ruling Georgian Dream party had won the election with 53.9 percent of votes.

Georgia's central election commission said it will recount ballots Tuesday at some 14 percent of polling stations after opposition parties denounced the weekend parliamentary election as rigged.

Pro-Western opposition parties have refused to recognise the results of Saturday's vote, which they claim was falsified in favour of the ruling Georgian Dream party. Tens of thousands joined a protest rally in Tbilisi on Monday.


"District Election Commissions (DECs) will conduct recounts of ballots from five polling stations randomly selected in each election district," the commission said in a statement.

According to near-complete results announced by the commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party won 53.9 percent, compared with the 37.7 percent for an opposition coalition.

President Salome Zurabishvili has declared the election results "illegitimate," alleging election interference by a "Russian special operation", a claim that was rejected by the Kremlin.

(AFP)


Protests erupt in Georgia after contested vote as Hungary’s Orban visits
FRANCE 24
Mon 28 October 2024 

Tens of thousands of Georgians massed outside parliament Monday night, demanding the annulment of the weekend parliamentary election that the president denounced as rigged with the help of Russia. Earlier, the Kremlin's closest EU ally, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, arrived in Tbilisi for a two-day visit.

Thousands of Georgians took to the streets Monday to protest against the ruling party's victory in parliamentary polls denounced as "stolen" by the pro-Western opposition, while Georgia's president alleged to AFP that the vote was rigged using "sophisticated" methods she linked to Russia.

The Caucasus country – rocked by mass protests earlier this year – has plunged into political uncertainty since Saturday's vote, with Brussels, Washington, France and Germany condemning "irregularities".

According to near-complete results announced by the electoral commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party won 53.92 percent of the vote, compared with the 37.78 percent garnered by a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances.

Georgian Dream has for months been accused by the opposition of steering Tbilisi away from its goal of joining the EU and back into Russia's orbit.

They also said that they "criticise" Orban's "premature visit to Georgia" in support of the government.


Tens of thousands protest in Georgia over 'stolen' election

Irakli METREVELI with Romain Colas

AFP
Mon 28 October 2024 


Waving Georgian and EU flags, tens of thousands of demonstrators held a peaceful protest outside the main parliament building in central Tbilisi (Vano SHLAMOV) (Vano SHLAMOV/AFP/AFP)


Tens of thousands of Georgians protested in central Tbilisi on Monday after parliamentary polls denounced by the pro-Western opposition as "stolen", while Georgia's president alleged to AFP that the vote was rigged using "sophisticated" methods she linked to Russia.

The Caucasus country -- rocked by mass anti-government protests earlier this year -- has plunged into political uncertainty since Saturday's vote, with Washington and Brussels condemning "irregularities".

According to near-complete results announced by the electoral commission, the ruling Georgian Dream party won 53.92 percent, compared with the 37.78 percent garnered by a union of four pro-Western opposition alliances.

Georgian Dream has for months been accused by the opposition of steering Tbilisi away from its goal of joining the EU and back into Russia's orbit.

Waving Georgian and EU flags, tens of thousands of demonstrators held a peaceful protest outside the main parliament building in central Tbilisi on Monday evening that ended with calls for further rallies, AFP journalists saw.

Pro-Western President Salome Zurabishvili -- at loggerheads with the ruling party -- told the cheering crowd: "Your votes were stolen, but we will not let anyone steal our future."

"I promise to stand with you until the end, on our path towards Europe, where we belong," she said.

Opposition leader Giorgi Vashadze said opposition parties would not enter the new "illegitimate" parliament and voiced their joint demand for "fresh legislative elections" run by an "international election administration".

One of the demonstrators, university student Irine Chkuaseli, 19, said she had initially felt "hopeless" but since then has become "fired up to fight for the truth".

"We will not stop until these fake (election) results are cancelled," she said.

Speaking to AFP, Zurabishvili claimed that "quite sophisticated" fraudulent schemes were used in the weekend's vote.

She earlier declared the election results "illegitimate", alleging election interference by a "Russian special operation", a claim that was swiftly rejected by the Kremlin.

"It's very difficult to accuse a government, and that's not my role, but the methodology is Russian," Zurabishvili told AFP, adding that it was difficult to deal with a "threatening" Russia.

She claimed that the same identity cards were used to vote multiple times in different regions, that money was distributed outside polling stations, and that there were violations using electronic voting technology.

A group of Georgia's leading election monitors on Monday said that they had uncovered evidence of complex, large-scale fraud and demanded the annulment of at least 15 percent of votes cast.

Defying the EU's concerns over the vote, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban -- current holder of the bloc's rotating presidency and the Kremlin's closest EU associate -- arrived on Monday for a two-day visit to Tbilisi.

- 'Irregularities' -

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Monday insisted that EU membership remained a "main priority" for his party and said that he expected a "reset" with Brussels.

The result gave Georgian Dream 89 seats in the 150-member parliament -- enough to govern but short of the supermajority it had sought to pass a constitutional ban on all the main opposition parties.

The polls have prompted widespread international criticism.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken blasted "misuse of public resources, vote buying and voter intimidation", which he said "contributed to an uneven playing field".

An EU parliament mission said the vote was evidence of Tbilisi's "democratic backsliding", adding that it had seen instances of "ballot box stuffing" and the "physical assault" of observers.

A group of EU ministers released a joint statement condemning "the violation of international norms" in the elections, labelling them "incompatible with the standards expected from a candidate" to join the EU.

Germany and France also expressed "concerns" over electoral irregularities.

- Orban arrives -

Orban, who has retained ties to Moscow despite the 2022 Ukraine invasion, tweeted a message of support for the Georgian government on his arrival in Tbilisi.

"Georgia is a conservative, Christian and pro-Europe state. Instead of useless lecturing, they need our support on their European path," Orban wrote on X.

Later, emerging from his Tbilisi hotel, Orban faced jeers and shouts of "Go home!" from protesters, videos posted on social media showed.

He is set to hold a joint press conference with his Georgian counterpart on Tuesday.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell stressed that Orban on this visit "does not represent" the bloc on foreign affairs.

Georgia was rocked in May by huge demonstrations against a law on "foreign influence", that critics said mirrored Russian legislation used to silence Kremlin critics.

The United States imposed sanctions on Georgian officials following the protests, while Brussels put EU-hopeful Tbilisi's accession process on halt.

im-am/bc